The DAMM Truth

March is the anniversary month of my first gig with my band Vote for Pedro. I remember that first time playing with them very well, but that isn’t what this story is about. No, unfortunately this story is about the manipulation of humiliation. It just so happens to begin with the band.

After a few shows with the band as a substitute drummer, they decided that I cut the mustard, and in one awkward conversation in an alley behind a bar, we asked each other if I could be the drummer in the band. There was an uncomfortable pause and then we both agreed to join and be joined.

There is a catch, however. When you’re the new guy in a band, like many clubs, societies or cults, there is an initiation process. Sometimes the initiation is physical and you have to do something taxing, strange or, better yet, both. Other times, it’s psychological in nature and the initiation takes the form of mental torture. Mine was to be easy. I simply had to answer a specific, extremely embarrassing question and be absolutely honest about it. The answer lies back in the late spring of 1987.

June afternoons before school had let out for the summer were positively lovely. The sun would take its time setting, and the mid-70-degree weather would be most agreeable for outdoor adventures. At 13, one of the best adventures for my buddy Dave and I would be to grab our fishing poles and tackle boxes and pedal our bikes to the local fishing hole, which was about a mile outside of town.

Denmark Pond was a small body of water, about 50 yards across at its widest point. If you were to ask a 3-year-old to draw you a circle, that would be the general shape of the pond. It was ideal for fishing for three reasons: the water was shallow enough to allow for either bottom or bobber fishing, you could walk around the pond in about five minutes to get to just about any spot the sun was striking, and the Department of Fish and Game made sure it had far too many trout for the ecosystem.

Dave and I had a late start getting to the pond on our bicycles that day and had only about an hour of fishing time before we would have to head home for dinner. There was only one other person out at the pond at the time, an older boy that we knew was in high school. We also knew he was a decent fisherman, so Dave and I set up over by him — not too close to disturb his particular fishing rituals or to fish in “his” space, but close enough that we could figure out what he was using for bait.

The three of us were chatting casually as we set up our fishing poles by casting out into the pond, letting the lead weight sink our line to the bottom, allowing between one and two feet of line to float up into the fishes’ swimming area. The hook floats there with the aid of a marshmallow and worm torso, giving the fish a horrible two-thirds portion of a disgusting s’more. However, fish don’t get many sweets down there, so you know if they see a marshmallow, they’re going to bite it. You would, too.

Once the line is in the water, the trick is to pull it tight enough so there is no slack between the end of the pole and the weight at the floor of the pond without scooting the weight closer to shore. This tightness is essential to sensing when the fish bites the hook and starts to tug on the line. If done correctly, the end of the pole starts to twitch and then tug sharply up and down, creating a tell-tale signal that the fish has taken the bait. Boom, you set the hook, reel the poor little creature in and then bash its head against a rock. They don’t show THAT on your fancy fishing programs, do they?

Once the line is tight, there is a certain amount of waiting. Sometimes, the fish have just had a meal and are letting the bugs and larvae settle before taking a chance on a magically hovering piece of puffed sugar. For this waiting period, the fisherman employs a stick with a “Y” formation at the top to prop up their pole on the ground. This is exactly what I had done.

We fished for a while and chatted about all the important 13-year-old junk. The older boy was joining in a bit, too. We were telling jokes back and forth as it got closer to the time when we had to leave for home and dinner. I was crouched next to my fishing pole, tightening my line when it happened.

I don’t remember the joke Dave told. I remember it being a witty comeback line to a joke that had been presented only seconds before. I was overcome by the quickness and cleverness of the words that Dave had just casually thrown back to the original teller, which could have been me or the other boy. It didn’t matter; Dave’s line was unexpectedly funnier. It caught me off-guard, and I expressed my reaction out of both ends.

“HA!” I said with a quick burst.

As Dave later described it to me, he was proud of the joke and of the reaction he had received from me; but as he looked at me a split second after I laughed, he watched all the color drain from my face as if in that moment I had just realized my parents weren’t going to live forever. I went white as a sheet of double-bleached printer paper.
I had pooped my pants.

Now for those of you who have no memory of ever fouling yourself, let me assure you that the act is actually far more disgusting than it sounds. It had taken me COMPLETELY by surprise as I certainly wasn’t hearing a persistent ringing of nature’s call. Although I would later find that the damage was minimal, there was no mistaking that damage had been done. It was a feeling as if I had hit something with my car and found the dent in my fender to be much smaller than I had thought it was. However, big or little, the deductible for the accident is still $500.

“Steve, are you okay?” Dave asked with genuine concern.

I wanted Dave to continue with the concern instead of what was inevitable: close to three consecutive hours of uninterrupted laughter. I considered faking an aneurysm or a heart attack, but instead I just stared back at Dave like I was dying of a slow stab wound to the belly.

This was the fleeting moment of quiet before the storm. Like all people my age or otherwise, we don’t care to be teased. I had a terrible fear of it. Although I dreaded what was about to happen at the time, I reflect back on Dave’s actions as a rather progressive treatment of this unhealthy psychological state of worrying about what others think of you. My exposure therapy for my fear of embarrassment was about to begin immediately.

“Uh, I … uh.” How do you tell another 13-year-old boy that although you’ve been out of diapers for 11 years, it may have been a premature transition?

“Um, I think I crapped my pants.” There was no hiding from the truth. This was an issue I had to take care of, and Dave was going to find out sooner or later. The sooner I told him, the sooner the clock would start on his laughing and the sooner it would be over and he could assist the friend who was incapable of controlling his own colon. Pity me because it was terrible, for I would pity you, too, in a similar situation.

As Dave began to convulse with laughter, I realized I had to do some form of cleanup and set off on the very unpleasant, wide-stance waddle over to the bushes. I will spare you the details, but will let you know that there is still a monogrammed handkerchief buried in the ground at Denmark pond. I believe that, even with limited resources, I was still able to clean myself to a state equal to or better than 95% of the characters in Les Miserables.

When I returned to Dave, who was kind enough to pull it together upon my arrival, it dawned on me that riding a bicycle seat all the way home was out of the question. With this unexpected setback, there would be no way we were going to make it home as expected. With cell phone technology still at the “bag and phone” stage, nobody in Kittitas had one; therefore, calling the house for assistance was impossible.

We waited until we were late enough that one of my parents would drive out to check up on us. Luckily, it was my father with the pickup truck, so we could throw our bikes in the back. Unluckily, it was my father with the pickup truck, and I had to explain why I would be riding home with my knees on the seat, facing the rear of the vehicle.
How do you explain such an embarrassing thing to the man you most want to earn respect from? Do you pass it off as not a big deal? Do you remind him that at least he isn’t bailing you out of jail? Do you try to pass the blame onto him for doing a lousy job potty-training you?

I just owned up to it. After Dad’s initial disbelief and restrained disappointment, we all had an uncomfortable chuckle (actually, Dave’s chuckle was rather comfortable). With my butt in the air and the windows rolled down, we made one of the longer one-mile drives that I can remember through the early dusk light and finally into the parking stall of my parents’ house in town.

I went straight into the house, past the kitchen and into the bathroom without a word to my mother. As I completed a sanitization of my body that rivaled the one in the movie Silkwood, I heard my mother exclaim, “YOU’RE KIDDING!” followed by the long, low tone Mom makes gathering breath when she is about to start a big laugh. Mom’s laugh always makes me feel better.

With fresh, clean clothes on, I took my underpants out to the far corner of the garden, dug a deep hole and buried the evidence of my shame. I felt better after they were buried. It wasn’t closure, but I wouldn’t ever have to look at them again. I just hoped our dog wouldn’t dig them up.

That afternoon, I learned a big lesson about owning an embarrassing moment. I had survived one of the most humiliating things I could think of at the time. That one terrible hour, prepared me for a lifetime of ignoring the horrors of what people thought about me and gave me courage to be honest about myself. It also armed me with the tool of weaponized humility.

So to the band’s incredibly embarrassing question, “Have you ever crapped your pants?” I quickly answered yes with no hesitation and with no reaction on my face. They were surprised that I would answer such a question with such gusto and without the slightest hint of shame. I gave them the abridged version of the story as if I were telling them how I painted the inside of a closet, first with primer, then with paint. You know, it was no big deal.

This reaction relaxed two of the three of them to tell me about their stories of soiling themselves. Of course I used their own attempt to shame me as an initiation to turn the tables and shame them worse.

“So, when I had my accident, it was my body malfunctioning to laughter as a 13-year-old with all kinds of changes going on with my body,” I began as I prepared for the spike. “However, you two just told me that as grown men, you messed yourselves quite recently as a result of poor decision-making skills and not being able to judge distance and time.”
The one band member with a clean record (and apparently underpants) laughed. My initiation was complete and I had proved that I wasn’t to be messed with. I had won.

What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. Also, trying to initiate me by seeing how hard it is to embarrass me is going to disappoint you every time. If you wager that you can humiliate me by pushing me over the line, I will double-raise that bet and call you every time.

I have found that owning the moment and embarrassment with a little humble truth can go a long way in controlling personal anxiety and building confidence. I have found that all the unhealthy guilt and shame we carry around with ourselves matters far less to others than we think it does. That’s kind of why I don’t mind sharing this story. Not only do I think it is funny, but I hope to prove that once you let an embarrassing moment go, you free yourself from the burden of shame, and that’s the Damm Truth.

I have one trophy earned for achievement. For some reason, out of all of my accomplishments and good work I have done throughout my life, I have only acquired one actual, little-person-on-top-of-a-personally-engraved-name-plate trophy. It stands 5 inches tall, has a faux marble base, and on top stands a silver, painted, plastic figurine poised to hit a tiny baseball that will never be thrown. I cherish this little trophy. This is the story of how I got it.

I was nearing the end of my fifth grade year in elementary school and my eleventh on Earth in the small farming town of Kittitas, Washington. Kittitas was a settlement of about seven-hundred people, about 6 miles East of Ellensburg near the center of the great state of Washington. If you have ever driven by this sleepy little hamlet, nestled in the cradle of the Kittitas Valley, you may be familiar with the now-painted-over “Kittitas Bong Squad” message that had been spray painted on numerous structures in the area—the Squad being the unofficial ambassadors of the town for many years. Some considered them a secret society, or the town’s version of the Freemasons.

My childhood was about as magical as a childhood gets, with me having the run of the town on my bicycle and a community of fine folks with fine families of friendly farmers. Other than my asthma, brought on by my allergy to the valley’s main crop of Timothy Hay, I would describe growing up in such a town as ideal. It had safety, a solid school system and little league baseball.

Our town was just big enough to support two little league teams out of the ten in the valley at that particular time. Some of the games were played in Ellensburg and some on our home turf of Kittitas. All of the teams were named after local businesses and the two from Kittitas were no exception. There was the developed team of heavy hitting farm boys on the team of Valley Potato and the scrappy team of misfits from town on the Nu-Flex team. Of course I was on the Nu-Flex team.

Mr. Varnum was our coach. He was the father of Tyler Varnum who was a consistently good left-handed pitcher and utility player on our team. Mr. Varnum was a dedicated little league dad and a good coach. Often arriving straight from work, Coach Varnum was always ready to pitch batting practice, hit fly balls and grounders to us with an old mitt and well-worn cowboy boots. He rewarded us for good play and called us on our crap, but he was there to teach us baseball through the hungry hours of the late spring afternoons.

My friends, Dave, Danny, Joe, Pierre, Kirk, Alex and others were on the team with me. None of us were the best at baseball, but Mr. Varnum had put us in positions that he felt confident we could pull off with our strengths. At eleven, it’s hard for a person to see the importance of teamwork, but as we played we were discovering the advantages of thinking as one unit and not as nine selfish little brats wanting to make the big play.

We became the battle worn Cinderella team, wind-burned and hardened by the cold, gusty, relentless wind of Palmiero Park. We used our focused bitterness to manufacture runs as a well-oiled little league machine that year. What Nu-Flex lacked in power, we made up for with cunning determination. We collected daring stolen bases, exploited attention spans and leveraged our speed in the base paths. We cheered each other on, took calculated risks and earned every win.

We had rough games. There was one evening where Tyler had thrown too many pitches and just needed off the mound. We tried four other pitchers that game, and while Pierre began to warm up for the first time pitching in his life, Mr. Varnum pointed directly at me during the game and said, “You’re next.”

I had never pitched, but I was sure ready to try. I also wasn’t. We were in a situation where we had walked in about three runners and each kid’s trial-by-fire was turning into a shaky shooting gallery for the blind, with only about twenty percent of the new pitcher’s throws finding their way into the large, fluctuating, little league strike-zone.

Would I fare any better? Could I push past the butterflies in my stomach and make my parents proud of an undiscovered talent? Would this be my moment?

No. It turned out that it was Pierre’s moment. I stayed planted in left field waiting for the right-handed batters to pull an early swung hit up and into my outstretched glove. Pierre however, proved to be a natural pitcher. He struck out the next three batters 1-2-3 with his unorthodox, physical-therapist-frowned-upon sidearm release. It was pretty amazing to behold, and we ended up rallying to take the win from Frazzini’s Pizza, and we coasted into second place for the end of season jamboree, right behind our rivals, Valley Potato.

For those of you unfamiliar with youth sports, a jamboree is an event where teams play multiple games against each other through the course of one or two days. They happen because the organizers get halfway through the season’s schedule and realize that if all the teams were to play each other weekly, the season would last into the better part of the following season. They cram the remaining games into the next least convenient weekend with a nearly impossible timetable of scheduled matches or games.

So you see, the term “jamboree” becomes its own antonym. Noisy celebration ≠ jamboree. Jamboree actually translates to something along the lines of: Your Memorial Day Weekend will be spent rising early, rushing from field to field while tired and cranky, eating poorly, sitting on grassy-melting popsicles and hoping the Porta-potty you just used didn’t contain a flesh eating virus. That’s a jamboree.

Now it was June, and the Spring wind had all but disappeared into the beautiful splendor of rejuvenating Eastern Washington sunshine. The first hay cutting wouldn’t be down for at least another week, thus giving me the furlough I needed from allergy related asthma between mildew and pollen seasons. The games on that Saturday would determine who came out on top of the Kittitas Valley Little League heap.

As all of the kids on the Nu-Flex team came together around Coach Varnum, we realized that we were a glove down. There were only eight of us and we needed nine. The end of the school year the week before launched many family vacations and robbed us of several key players.

What was worse, was that Pierre announced that he could play the first game but would have to leave after that for HIS family vacation. Our once rock solid team was falling apart both literally and figuratively. We were losing our people AND there was resentment that our best pitcher was choosing to leave before the season was over. Many of us allowed the jealousy of Pierre’s gifts to overtake us now. That we had all benefitted from his pitching was now overshadowed by the fact that not only was he our best pitcher, but he had also cornered the market on breakdancing talent at our elementary school. Why had God given Pierre two helpings of kid-valued talent and the rest of us only half a scoop?

Coach Varnum was a little freaked out. There was talk of suiting up one of the player’s kid brothers to pass them off as someone that they weren’t, but that was just a desperate idea. Then there was the chance of roping an eligible player off of a team that had already been knocked out. That was better, but if they were knocked out early, wouldn’t that imply the replacement player might stink? It was the last day of the season. If we could stretch a jersey over an eligible CPR dummy and get away with it, we would do it.

We picked up a player from another team, pulled a jersey over him and stuck him in right field. His name was Gene and he did not disappoint us. We couldn’t offer him a Nu-Flex hat, those were long since spoken for, but if we won, he would certainly get a pro-rated portion of our glory.

Pierre pitched us through our first game against Ranch and Home (honestly, I don’t remember the team, but this might have been one of them). Before the “W” was even dry in the scorebook, he was in the backseat of his parent’s AMC Eagle, headed out of the parking lot.

Next up was our closest approximation of a crosstown rival—well rested, fully manned, fed and ready, Valley-Freaking-Potato. Their gold and brown uniforms the psychological opposite of the Nu-Flex red, white and blue. Our stirrup socks sagged around our ankles as we took the field against our enemy, the juggernaut called Valley Potato.

You may chuckle at the name, but many dominating teams have had terrible monikers. Take the Lakers. What is a Laker? Packers? Yankees?

The first innings were rough. Our bats were quiet and we lost a few runs. I had been moved to second base and the other stand-in player (this time it was yet another knocked out player) had been planted in left field.

The turning point came when I took three ground balls in a row that I tossed to my best friend Dave at first base. That excitement gave us the hope that we could run the defense necessary to hold our enemy fast at the line. Our bats came alive and we won the game. Meaning we were officially one win ahead of them, but due to the crazy mess of a scheduling bracket that had been setup around the jamboree, we had to play Valley Potato again, but on a different field a half mile walk away at the high school.

Valley Potato had rallied and pulled out the next win, forcing us to walk back to Palmiero Park and face… Valley Potato. Coach Varnum told us that if we won this game, we would be the champs, but if we lost, we would be tied with Valley Potato and need to play them one more time for the championship. It was our third game and their second. That afternoon, there was baseball and nothing else. I had never been this close to first place…ever.

The breeze kicked up at Palmiero Park. The hot, early afternoon sun had acted together with our hastily eaten lunches to cause fatigue in our already tired bodies. If we could win one more game, we would take the title.

We were in the final inning of the game and Nu-Flex was up by one run. There were two outs with runners on first and second. I was playing second base tight, ready for the pickoff of the tall player from Valley Potato who shall remain nameless. When the ball was hit, I was in motion towards the inside short stop position and dove for the ball, catching it off the first bounce into my bare hand. Landing on my chest from the leaping catch, I kicked up a cloud of dust and ash from the eruption of Mt. St. Helens six years earlier. One more out…we only needed one more out and the championship would be ours and I could go home and have a couple well-earned Otter pops.

The lead base runner was on the move and about to cross my path. I only needed to tag him. As I reached out to his passing legs with the baseball that I held as tightly as I could, I felt it knock against his ankle and foot hard. There was no doubt about it. I had tagged him out and that meant the game would be over. Another runner passed me by rounding third as I looked for the umpire for the decision on the play.

The runner didn’t stop after I tagged him, forfeiting any and all honor and respect he had gained from me that day. He had simply continued around the bases as if nothing had happened. This made the umpire assume he had not been tagged out. With the cloud of dust, and the illusion of an evaded tag, the umpire’s final word came down hard upon my head. SAFE!

We had lost two runs and the lead. My protests fell on the umpire’s deaf ears. I tried to appeal to the boy I had tagged out, and he wouldn’t fess up. I watched him laughing about it with his teammates as I began to lose my mind. I was visibly upset. I made a scene. Emotions ran high as I cried out for justice. After my tirade, play resumed and we ended the game with a loss. But the magic of baseball, of LIFE, had been eradicated from my present and near future sense of being.

When everything hinged on the judgment of a man whose biggest claim to fame at the time was that he once won $1,000 on a lottery scratch ticket, well, then maybe life wasn’t everything it was cracked up to be.

Everyone was tired on the half mile walk back to the high school and my father and mother walked beside me, knowing how upset I had been and seeing the whole ugly scene play out. My mom gave me a hug and told me she knew I had done it, and that in her mind I was a champ. My dad explained to me that the umpire had realized his mistake after he had made the call and explained why he couldn’t go back on it. Dad also told me that the reason I got so upset wasn’t that the game was lost, or that the wrong call was made. I had gotten upset that I had told the truth and I wasn’t believed. I had been given a dose of injustice and that I needed to remember how that felt. Mom and dad used this as a valuable, teachable moment.

They say you grow up when you begin to swap innocence for experience. That one single play tipped the scale decidedly onto the experience side. Lesson learned, the right decision isn’t always arrived upon and when it comes down to it, your truth doesn’t mean Jack squat to an umpire on his sixth game of the day who was possibly nursing a hangover. Also, other kids don’t always play fair and are little bastards.

The next game was for all the marbles. Literally, I mean every player, parent and family member had had enough of that year’s little league season and were losing their marbles. The winners would be heroes, if for anything just vanquishing the final innings of the season.

The final game didn’t have nearly the same type of emotional drama that the game before it did. The kids on Valley Potato were starting to look as sad as we did. Call it Karma, or a weak baseball curse, but the powerhouse of Valley Potato was silenced that game and at the final inning, Nu-Flex held them down and scored the runs necessary to win. I had become a champion.

I remember us rushing off the field to our coach, who looked like he had just been reunited with his family after four years in a jungle prison camp. He looked deliriously tired and was positively goofy as he explained to us again and again that we were number one. He lost control like many coaches do in the first seconds of championship fever. He said he would spring for pizza. We all went and had some, even Gene and what’s-his-name that suited up to fill out the roster were invited.
The team was presented with a big trophy, but each of us got our own tiny first place trophy that was ours. Sure it’s small and my only one, but I will never, ever forget my first taste of bitter injustice and as it happens, the day I knew what it felt like to be a champion. It was the day that Nu-Flex beat Valley Potato, and that’s the Damm truth.

My band and I were about to find out the best part about driving eight hours (nine with the time change) from Seattle to Missoula, Montana was that when you get there, they open up a big can of WOW! As in: WOW, that sunset is spectacular! Wow, that’s amazing potato salad! Wow, that couple sure can dance! Wow, those two people in the bushes might have a baby in nine months! WOW!

The bride and groom, whom we did not know, put their foot down and insisted that the band join the party and have a good time. After we completed the setup, we were to join them for dinner with their guests; eat, drink and be merry until it was time to rock. They paid us up front and provided us with alcohol. Luckily for them, we aren’t hard drinking partiers that the stereotype describes because those are the two things you never do with musicians: pay them up front, provide them with alcohol. There’s a little tip for any of you looking to hire musicians (especially string quartets or church organists).

This is an extremely rare situation, being invited to eat with the wedding guests. As wedding contractors, we understand that we are booked to provide a service and we are NOT there to be part of the festivities until it is time to entertain. Unless of course you’re playing a friend or family member’s wedding, in which case there was one evil wedding planner that made us eat a boxed meal in a storage closet unbeknownst (hopefully unbeknownst) to our friends whose wedding we were playing (different wedding from this story entirely). We felt like Anne Frank’s family waiting for Miep to arrive with the rations and to tell us to stop flushing the toilet during the day.

To put it in terms for you Downton Abbey watchers, the band expects to be treated slightly lower than footmen, but slightly higher than a kitchen maid. We are fine with it, really. But getting asked to sit at the tables with the guests of a bride and groom we didn’t even know beyond one terrific Saturday night in an Irish pub, well that’s just like Lord Grantham insisting Bates give the toast at a holiday meal. (I don’t know if it is sadder that I’m referencing this British period drama, or that most of you understand every single word of it. Well at least we’re watching PBS, right?)

The bride and groom wanted us to be ready and strong for the night that was about to happen. They had created an event that was going to push us all tour limits both mentally and physically. The buffet was a necessary step, from the sumptuous meats on down to the potato salad and pot of beans, each food to fuel a particular stage of the evening. The potato salad was for a long energy burn, the meat was for strength and endurance, Jell-O fruit salad for that quick hit of spark to get the party rolling and beans to ensure that the ride home in the crowded cockpit of the Pathfinder would be memorable. The buffet was delicious and we were in the clutches of its sweet, sweet trap.

With bellies full of coal, we were ready to get this VFP Locomotive rollin’ down the track. It started off as a beautiful early evening with the sun beginning to set as the band began playing and the crowd starting to loosen up. It didn’t take long before the party was in full swing. Everyone was having a good time. I mean everyone was taking advantage of the host’s ample bar. Wine, beer, champagne, liquor and who knows what else was being ingested at an alarming rate. I was looking around for possible places people might stumble off to and sleep, you know, in case the crisis I mentioned in PART 1 happened again. (We’re a full service band, and part of what you’re paying for is our experience in the matters of helping to find loved ones led away by giant invisible animals.)

Apart from my own reservations of HOW MUCH FUN people were going to have, the vibe of the wedding was absolutely wonderful. Have you ever been to a wedding where it either feels tense, half-hearted or wrong? Of course you have, if you’ve been to more than three weddings, you’ve encountered this (Write the names of the couple on a piece of paper and burn it to make those feelings go away). This wasn’t one of those weddings and it was because the couple was crazy about each other—everyone could see it—and they cared more about each other and having fun with their family and guests than they did about the one gossamer bow that was peach instead of OFF WHITE! You could tell that this couple understood the wedding was about love and not decoration. However, that didn’t mean that some crazy stuff wasn’t about to go down.

After the ceremonial dances where we had done our best to learn their special songs and they did their best to not cry while they were dancing with each other (Bride/Groom, Bride/Father, Groom/Mother, Parents, etc.), it was the band’s turn to take the bride for a spin.

We’re lucky to have multi-instrumentalists in the band. Everyone plays another instrument…except me. We were able to switch out mid-song and send a representative out to dance with the bride for 30 seconds while another slips into the instrument and plays. The transitions were seamless… as seamless as a baseball, but you get the idea, we pulled it off.

By the time it was my turn to spin her around the dance floor, the bride was getting a bit tired (not entirely her fault, we tend to take Johnny B. Goode at roughly 2.3 times its intended tempo). I told her that it was really turning into a great reception.

The bride looked at me and with a playful/foreboding/happy/mischievous/clairvoyant smile said, “This party hasn’t even begun yet.”

I immediately removed my hands from her and covered my neck. She had delivered that line like every vampire in every vampire movie you’ve ever seen speaks just before their eyes dilate, fangs grow and they dislocate their jaw to sink their teeth into a foolish, foolish victim. I knew it was silly but I didn’t want to be a vampire.

She wasn’t wrong, it was only a few songs later, as the outdoor lighting came on and the sun had gone down that the wedding was crashed by a giant chicken.

At first, being stone cold sober, I was taken aback as I sat behind the drums watching a person in a very convincing chicken suit mingle about the crowd. Most of the crowd let the chicken walk by as if it were common place to have a possibly radioactive chicken just wandering around a formal party. The chicken didn’t just wander in off a street somewhere. We were at a bit of a destination spot. This chicken was here for a reason. Most people were too tipsy to acknowledge the bird, lest they be wrong about its appearance and find themselves in a twelve step program the next week.

The other guys in the band saw the chicken and I was careful to watch Nabil and Jeff, who had been handed one too many beers from the enthusiastic guests. Jeff was skeptical, while Nabil saw the bird and did not want to look at it. It was about time for one of our breaks anyway, so chicken time was as good as any to regroup and plan the next two sets.

Jeff and Nabil immediately switched to water as Martín went to get a closer look at the big bird and probably score two pieces of cake. I saw at least two young women lock-on to Martín as he left the stage like he was the last cookie on the plate and I sensed danger. Happily married, Martín is often unaware that his Argentinian exoticness and clean Spanish accent mark him for death among females like the sickest gazelle in the herd. Yet here he was, taking his chances with the lionesses at the watering hole.

“Where’d the chicken come from?” I asked Nabil and Jeff.

“You see it too?” Jeff joked—half joked.

“I don’t know, but I don’t think the bride and groom know it’s here yet,” Nabil said as he scanned the crowd, “This is an excellent wedding.”

“Agreed. The chicken is definitely next-level. I don’t know if we should charge more or if we should charge less for getting to see it,” I said.

“Fellas, I think we need to pace ourselves,” Jeff began, “I think this is one of those weddings that goes until someone dies, and this group looks very healthy.”

I knew what he meant. We were going to burn all of our songs quickly if we let the excitement get to us and we kept jacking up the tempos.

“Yeah, and we can’t let Martín sing anymore of his songs unless one of you has a chastity belt we can fit him with. I’m afraid he will be overpowered if we aren’t careful,” I said as the others nodded. “Speaking of our South American friend, can either of you see him?” It was now the kind of dark where an unsuspecting cake-eating Argentinian could be taken against his will and never be heard from again.

Martín came back with cake for everyone (and a little on his chin) and was nervously looking over his shoulder.

“That’s right,” said Nabil, “You’re being followed by at least two, possibly six Montana women. You need to be more careful out there. In fact, don’t leave the stage again without one of us with you.”

“I’m not leaving this gazebo again. I had two pieces of cake and I don’t want to risk a third,” he laughed, but it was that nervous, high laugh you make when you’re almost hit by a bus or an axe misses your hand on a chopping block. “And I ran into the chicken.”

“Did he say anything to you? Did he cluck?” Jeff asked.

“Uh, you guys,” Said Martín with an Argentinian sheepish look (more humble embarrassment than typical American sheepishness), “I think the chicken is a girl chicken, not a man chicken.”

“Why is that Martín? What makes you so sure?” Nabil asked.

“Because uh,” He started to blush, “the chicken had, uh,” he held out his hands in front of his chest and then adjusted them down for size.

“Martín, are you saying this chicken doesn’t just have thighs and wings, but also breasts?” Nabil asked.

“Um, yeah. And I didn’t mean to know, I mean, the chicken wanted a hug and so I, you know, gave the chicken a hug. I wasn’t going to say no to the chicken. It came to me with its wings out and I figured, ‘okay, Martín, you’re going to hug a chicken,’ and I felt something in my chest.” Martín said with a nervous giggle.

“Felt something in your chest? Like, you feel like you might be in love with this chicken? You think this chicken might be THE ONE?” I asked him.

“No, NO! I would never marry a chicken.” Martín replied with absolute certainty.

“But you’re saying it is definitely a hen and not a rooster?” Jeff continued the grilling of Martín, which is often VERY fun as he struggled with some of the more subtle usage with his second language.

“Of course it was a hen he felt. Otherwise Martín would have felt a co-“

“WHAT IS THAT?!?!” Nabil interrupted me, pointing into the darkness.

“…completely different species,” I finished as I stared in the direction of Nabil’s pointing.

After stepping out from the lights and letting my eyes adjust, we could see in the distance, the silhouettes of two people either engaged in a romantic act, or someone was trying to resuscitate a person using an untraditional form of CPR.

“Well, when I was trained, that was an automatic fail,” Jeff piped up.

“What’s that?” Nabil asked as we were all spellbound by the site taking place nearly 50 yards away near a tree.

“Everybody knows it is fifteen chest compressions and two breaths. This joker has them mixed up,” clearly Jeff had the same idea I had.

“You could go over there and set things right if we didn’t have to play now,” I said with a grin as I saw the inevitable. “Guys, look at the chicken!”

The bride, flanked by her toughest bridesmaids (which were all of them), approached the chicken directly and with purpose. The chicken flapped a little, staring in the direction of the approaching taffeta clad butt-kicking machine, unable to run away in the awkward costume feet.

Our break was over, but there was no way we were going to miss bride versus chicken for the World Wrestling title belt. We’ve seen many amazing things at weddings, but I don’t think any of us have seen a bride fight a giant chicken on her wedding day.

(What happened next is paraphrased slightly, but I tried to keep it as close as possible.)

“CHICKEN!” said the bride with enunciation as sharp as a poultry butcher’s cleaver, “Chicken, I want to talk to you!”

The bride was nose to beak with the chicken and many of the guests gathered around the two of them like it was 3:05pm after school at the flag pole and/or bike rack. I was tempted to check to see if the chicken was laying a giant egg from the tension. Everyone was ready to see the bride put a hurtin’ on that wedding crasher, because—and I don’t think I’m alone here—every bride has the right to knock out any guest she sees fit at her wedding up to and including the pastor that marries her if that guest threatens the integrity of her wedding day. I can’t think of a wedding where a person in a chicken suit doesn’t qualify for a beat down like that (maybe Gary Busey’s).

“Chicken… I don’t know you. I don’t know why you’re here or who you are,” the bride began, “but you are welcome at my wedding.”

At the part where she was supposed to pluck the chicken, baste it and stuff its cavity full of wedding cake, the bride did one of the classiest things I’ve seen done at a wedding. She just rolled with it, hugged the chicken and invited it to stay for the festivities, but gave it a casual warning to avoid the buffet as there were various forms of chicken foods being served. I thought it was a clever joke.

The party swung on in full force. Sometimes I thought more people had arrived, and others I wondered where everyone had went. But the band played on through a high energy set and then another. It was getting late, but the there was no slowing this group down. Normally it’s three sets and the wedding is over, but seeing as we drove all this way, the couple was really cool and the police hadn’t shown up, we figured we would play a fourth set.

Set four is where things started getting a little shaky. I was getting a bit tired behind the kit, but the songs Nabil was calling out were all quick, busy beats that require lots of drum effort and little guitar effort. The crowd literally kept us going with cheering and crowding our gazebo stage.

I cannot remember what song it was that the crowd went nuts on, but soon the stage was packed with new band members singing, playing the tambourine and cowbell. There were at least two air-guitarists and to my left, two ladies were trying to make a Martín sandwich. In true sandwich form, the meat of Martín kept slipping out from between them as he got more and more squished and soon he was standing directly behind me, avoiding the advances of the ladies off to the side of the stage.

It was about that time, that I witnessed some serious testosterone getting displayed. I don’t know if the ladies that were trying to dance with Martín had boyfriends, but if they did, it was the two guys standing directly in front of my drum kit, howling along with the songs and looking at the ladies. One guy took his shirt off and did push-ups, right there on the stage as we were playing. Not to be outdone, a second gentleman leapt up in the air to catch a horizontal support beam with his hands and started some very impressive pull ups. Those guys were in shape. That was all it took to refocus the ladies’ attention and give Martín some breathing room. But who knew what other dangers lurked in the dark for our Argentinian man candy?

Set five had the band venturing into new music territory. We were getting requests and playing songs we didn’t realize we knew how to play. The crowd just wanted more. That was about the time the United States army showed up.

Several soldiers from the nearby barracks had heard all the commotion and ventured over to see what was going on. Of course the bride and groom invited them to stay. In full fatigues, one of the soldiers wanted to sing a song with us that we didn’t know how to play. However, when a member of the armed forces wants to sing with your band, you make it happen, so we did. He wasn’t that bad either, and it seemed like a fitting way to end the night.

As we collected our gear, the entire park cleared out completely. Nabil came back to the stage after a few too many non-water drinks, holding a very nice bottle of rum.

“The groom gave this to us!” Nabil said, as if he were just given comprehensive health insurance for life. “He said we could just have it!” He looked at me with eyes that were having trouble focusing but his face had a look on it like he was five-years-old and he had just met Mickey Mouse. This is uncharacteristic of Nabil. He is not one to over indulge, but the weather was warm, we were working very hard and people were bringing him the wrong beverage all night. So it was more accidental than anything and enjoyed seeing a side of Nabil that is rarely seen. Jeff too had suffered this fate.

Jeff was confused about how to put his stuff away, yet was still packed up before everyone else, and his stuff is pretty complex (keyboard, sax, microphones, bass, amp). He was more confused when out of the night a man about our age stepped up on the stage and asked where everyone went. He was literally the last guest there and had taken a little nap I guess and missed his ride out of there.

The man chatted us up a bit as we packed our gear away asking us about the band and about what we do. He was interested in Martín because he could speak Spanish and wanted Martín to call his wife/girlfriend (unclear, but definitely domestic partner) to come pick the man up in Spanish. He explained that she had always wanted to go to South America and spoke excellent Spanish. The man thought having Martín call her would probably take some of the edge off of him and get his wife excited to speak Spanish with a native speaking Argentinian. He was right.

While we waited for the man’s ride to show up, Nabil asked the man what he did for work in the area.

“I’m an engineer,” said the man.

“I am too!” Nabil said with a burst of excitement, “do you work for a firm around here?”

“Firm?” asked the man.

“Yeah, do you have a group that you work for out here?” asked Nabil with slight clarification. I could see Nabil didn’t quite understand why it was a difficult question.

“BNSF,” said the man.

“Bien Es Eff?” Asked Nabil, this time looking for clarification.

“Burlington Northern Sante Fe,” explained the engineer.

Nabil quickly ran through the rolodex in his slightly clouded mind of every structural engineering firm he had ever heard of…twice.

I looked at Nabil and pulled twice on an invisible steam whistle, “Woo Wooooooo.”

It clicked in Nabil’s head and he looked at the engineer and laughed, “Sorry, I’m the other kind of engineer and thought we might know some of the same people.”

“Gentlemen, this has been one of my favorite verbal exchanges of all time and I will write about it someday,” I declared as I looked at both of them.

Meanwhile a truck had pulled up and a woman was now talking to Martín in rapid Spanish. They continued speaking as we packed up and the engineer headed to the passenger side of his pickup.

“Wish me luck boys,” he said as he tipped his hat to us and we waved good-bye.

It was clear that Martín had this woman under his aloof, spell. To speak with Martín is to love him no matter whom you are. He’s just a likeable guy. His charm is that he doesn’t understand his charm. He’s such an unsuspecting family guy that I think it makes him more attractive. He’s good looking and he speaks a form of Spanish that is much more formal than what we normally hear in the United States. The language sounds elegant coming out of his mouth, and you can’t help but wonder how his mouth makes all those hypnotic sounds.

So understand that although this woman was falling under Martín’s spell, Martín had no idea he was casting it. He could be saying something like, “In Seattle we go to the fish market and then we ride the elevator to the top of the Space Needle,” and it would sound like a Harlequin romance passage. The easiest way to fix this was to throw a bucket of water on this poor lady, but that would be hard to explain to her true love that she was about to drive home. We just made Martín busy carrying stuff so that she would take her man home thus breaking the South American’s spell.

We made it to the hotel we had paid for at around 4am. Checkout time was to be 11 but we had to be on the road by 8 the next morning to start the long drive home on time.

As we all fell roughly onto the two beds (Jeff/Steve, Nabil/Martín FYI), we all reflected on what we had just been through.

“Remember the time in the Pathfinder when we scared the crap out of Steve?” Martín asked as we all laughed.

We will always remember the time they scared the crap out of me on the way to the best wedding we had ever played together, and that’s the Damm truth.

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If you are like me, you dread or have cringed at the holiday many of us celebrate on February the fourteenth. I am not a fan of it. I spent too many by myself feeling extra depressed that nobody would want to be with me. On the other side, when I had someone to share it with, I would inevitably mess it up with either too much or not enough attention put into it. It’s a tightrope many of us walk. It’s a tightrope over a pit of fire breathing gorillas with cobra heads.

Navigating Valentine’s Day is like the opening scene to Raiders of the Lost Ark, where in South America Dr. Henry “Indiana” Jones is seeking a golden Native American Idol. He’s immediately almost shot in the back by one of his guides, or in this metaphor, the friend who gives you bad romantic advice.

Then Indy navigates several very cleverly disguised booby traps, or in this case, “Let’s not give Valentine’s gifts this year.” Now this implies that a trap is set on purpose for you to fail. This isn’t the case. It’s a trap that appears because you mistake the term “gift” for gesture. Too many of us hear the phrase, “let’s not give Valentine’s gifts this year” as “completely ignore that Valentine’s Day exists and that everyone around you and your partner are showering each other in expensive baubles.” Mistaking this phrase is the trap. If you fall prey to it, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Doctor Jones then finds himself in front of the idol he has been after, the prize that is going to make everything worthwhile. However, the idol is on an impossibly well engineered, counter-balanced pressure released trigger switch made of stone. If too much or too little pressure is applied to it, the switch will trigger a cataclysmic destruction, causing you to backpedal through the booby traps, tripping every single one, dodging dangerous chunks of cave roof while being… Well, you remember how February 14^th went last year.

You wanted to capture a peaceful evening free of expectations. You were polite and successfully walked on eggshells all evening, not calling attention to your partner’s short, cold answers too your questions. As you drift off to sleep, you think you have gotten away with it—avoiding blowing a paycheck on flowers, chocolate and sparkly sparkle bling. You even venture a drowsy, “Happy Valentine’s day baby,” before you turn over and realize that the stone pedestal is sinking into the altar. You have the idol, but the roof is about to come down.

“Oh, is it Valentine’s Day? I thought something was different when every single person I work with started getting flowers and packages delivered to them.”

Hearing the sarcasm, you roll back over to address this situation by explaining you thought it was clear that there was not to be a gift exchange. “We decided we weren’t going to give gifts this year” you say, thinking this is the end of the conversation and your partner just needed to be reminded of this fact and you would be free to pass into sweet, sweet sleep. No.

“No, that’s not what we decided. We decided not to spend money. I didn’t GET you anything, but I don’t expect you to understand the difference between expressing your feelings and trying to buy affection with a heart filled with cheap chocolate.”

“Cheap chocolate? Is this a knock on the chocolates I gave you last year? Those were upper-mid tier chocolates. I went to See’s, not Walgreen’s—SEE’S! And I seem to remember that box being nearly empty the next day, so they couldn’t have been THAT bad.”

“That’s because your dog ate them off the table.”

“That’s why Buck died, isn’t it? You poisoned him!”

“Technically, YOU bought the chocolates! You left them on the table! I chose not to eat them because they were terrible. You killed Buck! Those were lower mid-tier at best and really—See’s over Walgreen’s? That’s like arguing Denny’s over McDonald’s. Here’s a hint, when looking for quality, avoid businesses with apostrophe’s in the name.”

At this point, you have just created an argument that is going to keep you awake for at least another two hours and twenty minutes. You probably hear words that include (but not limited to): responsibility, disrespect, inappropriate, the name of your co-worker, ashamed, laundry, unfair, sharing, the name of your ex, profoundly, nauseous, slime, smelly, disrespect (I know I already listed it, but you’re going to hear it a lot), cheap, pig, jerk, toilet, feelings chores and disappointment. If you’re lucky, after the two hours and twenty minutes of back and forth, you MIGHT be allowed to apologize.

(Under no circumstances, no matter how late it is or how tired either of you are, no matter how much you did that day, no matter how early you have to be up the next, no matter how sick you may be feeling, DO NOT FALL ASLEEP WHILE THESE WORDS ARE BEING SPOKEN TOO YOU! The fight clock starts over when your partner figures out you fell asleep. If you fall asleep with one minute to go, the clock starts over with two hours and twenty minutes, plus an extra half hour if they found out by hearing you snore.)

This isn’t your partner being cruel; this is you being all those things listed in the rant from your partner. And seriously, See’s? Come on. See’s isn’t what you give the love of your life. It’s what the marching band sells when they need new uniforms. Be better than See’s.

What your partner was looking for in the above dramatization, not at all drawn from the author’s experiences, was the gesture, not the gift. Your partner may have implied no gifts, meaning little money being spent, but that was probably less about finances and more about trying to get you to express yourself in a new and interesting way.

Your partner probably made your Valentine’s Day card using materials taken from your life and crafted a beautiful, folded-paper literary experience. They created a card defining the furthest reaches of their love for you while carefully matching the color scheme to those of both your eyes (if they are a little hippy-ish, your aura too). They may have written you a poem, where they try to rhyme “indemnity” with “Persephone,” but at least they TRIED!

Does your significant other expect the exact same thing from you? NO. They only expect the tiniest bit of effort.

If you were to play their favorite song and do a choreographed dance to it, you would get credit, because it proved you spent time on in. (You may need to prove that you didn’t make up the dance on the spot, so you’ll have to have video footage of you doing the same dance or extensive parts of the same dance filmed in a different location.)

A Valentine’s Day card is only going to get you partial credit. The words in them are pretty, but they aren’t yours. They don’t tell your story. Off-the-rack cards should be used as an enhancement or as a last resort only. Buy a blank card and fill it with even the clunkiest of affectionate feelings and you’ll be ahead of the game. Otherwise you may be stuck with what some other sap wrote to a generic partner deep in the Hallmark pretty-prose lab.

I’m going to narrow this down to husbands and the types of cards offered for them to give to their sweethearts. These cards are written to make you look terrible. They make you appear emotionally distant and shallow. These cards typically begin with an awkward confession to being a terrible communicator in your relationship. A typical passage from a man to a woman in Valentine’s Day card form reads like this:

I know I don’t always express my feelings toward you in words.

It’s never been easy for me to share my emotions.

But all year long, every minute of every hour,

You are in my thoughts, my dreams and my plans for our future.

So if I don’t say often enough,

Know today and every day that I love you.

This translates to:

The less we talk, the better I like it.

The quiet, dangerously mysterious man you were first attracted to is actually pretty dull.

We’ve been together a year, but I realized today was Valentine’s Day only this morning,

I needed to prove to you that I didn’t forget. Oh, and that getting engaged thing is back on the table.

I don’t say what you want to hear enough,

“I love you,” and please note that I wrote the word “Love” in cursive above where I wrote my name.

Every single one of us can do better than these cards. We can do better than chocolate or flowers. We can take Valentine’s Day back!

First of all, don’t blow a bunch of money on dinner, unless that’s something you both find fun and relaxing. Don’t do it because you think it would be romantic though. If you want to have dinner together, MAKE dinner together; make something you’ve never had before and have fun with it. The key ingredient is TIME (not to be confused with thyme, the herb, although it may too be a key ingredient).

Write a letter to your better half. Include your feelings for them, your hopes for them and remind them of how amazing they are and you are. Don’t include a coupon for sex (not even if you think 10% off is extremely clever).

Find a way to give your partner more time. Give them time to relax, a nap, a night out with a friend or an hour with a good book while you do the task they were going to do. You could be with them or away from them. If they want too much time away from you then…

Find out what charity your significant other is passionate about, especially if you AREN’T passionate about it and commit to volunteering a week of honest work for the charity. This will show your mate that you truly do understand the things that are important to them, and you will demonstrate your love and show them that you support them down to their soul. This works awesome as a last minute idea for when you truly screwed up. If presented correctly even during a two hour fight, you could cut the time down significantly. It works better if you’ve printed something out about the charity so it shows forethought though.

I’m sure you can come up with more original ideas to put the love and feeling back into Valentine’s Day.

This Valentine’s Day I feel I need to express my love for my wife in a better way. Because we now value time more in our relationship apart, the greatest gifts I can give to her is clear understanding and to make every moment count. I’m going to try to build a better plan for loving my wife through the year using some of these ideas. I’m probably not going to write her a letter though. That’s stupid. We live in the same house sometimes.

You needn’t feel frightened about Valentine’s Day anymore. If you want to know real pressure, my wife’s birthday is the Day before Valentine’s Day. There’s no way I’m going to get two days right in a row, and that’s the Damm truth.

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Disclaimer:  I’m not in trouble with my partner…  that I know of.  This piece was written in honest self-reflection and not at all forced on me to write.  If anything, this post will probably be looked at as a sad attempt to butter up Wendy, my wife.  This isn’t either.  It’s a skull and crossbones warning that some must heed, lest they lose what was once dearest to them.  (That last sentence is fun to read in a pirate voice).

One of the many truths about marriage that isn’t discussed much in the “romantic” period of a relationship is that the marriage bond takes regular maintenance.  Perhaps it isn’t spoken to very often because it isn’t sexy.   Whatever the reason we avoid the issue, the bottom line is always there that if you get married, and wish to stay so happily, you need to show up ready to roll up your sleeves and work.  The skillset needed for this task is huge, and you don’t have it—you don’t.

I shouldn’t say you don’t.  That isn’t fair.  Deep down inside, you have the skillset to make your marriage work…probably.  A better way to state this would be to say that learning how to make your marriage or partnership work is an ongoing experiment, where keeping your eyes and more importantly your ears open can make every difference.

(Full disclosure: I am not an expert at maintaining a happy marriage.  Reading this will not solve your romantic partnership issues.  This piece should be viewed as a novelty only.)

As a husband, I would grade myself as a solid “B+,” which means I’m probably floating somewhere between “C-“ and “C.”  Not terribly impressive but not necessarily below average either, I pride myself on getting a few things very right, but acknowledge that I continuously fail time after time at some aspects.  This wasn’t always the case though.  As a boyfriend to my future wife, I was pretty good…for a while.  So I began to suspect that what I have missing as a husband could be found in our past from when I was just a boyfriend.  Perhaps if I combine the best of the husband/boyfriend roles, I could raise my grade from a shaky “C” to the firm “B+” that I delude myself into believing I already am.

As a boyfriend, I was attentive, interested, a great listener and a supportive partner.  I appreciated every moment I could be with Wendy and worked hard to do things to surprise, impress or nurture whatever idea she was excited about.   Attention to detail and the ability to process and act upon that detail in a positive way to complete the “good boyfriend” circuit was an easier task because the relationship was new and interesting.

The husband of ten years in me has a much harder time completing this important circuit.  Many days I don’t even know where the switch for the circuit is, so I’m definitely not flipping it.  Over time, being a husband has led me to a life of an emotionally lazy partner.  I have traded evenings of hand holding and star gazing for nights of falling asleep in front of a DVD we’ve seen a half dozen times (or six dozen times in the case of Fifth Element).  Not very romantic is it?

What would boyfriend Steve do?  This is my new mantra.  I’m thinking of having “WWBS” bracelets made up as a reminder to me (and others for $3.99, proceeds going to the Better Boyfriend Foundation) that I need to step up my game.  This mantra is helping me face the hard truths about my ability to be a desirable romantic partner.  We start with the honest assessment of who I am as a mate.

I have become what my wife would not marry if she were to have her memory wiped and then was given the choice.  That may be the new standard: Would your partner choose to re-couple with you if they were to have their memory erased?  To be more reasonable, would they choose to be with you again after a memory wipe and two mandatory dates?  Don’t laugh at the idea of amnesia.  It happens all the time on Days of Our Lives and General Hospital, and I’ve seen it turn red-hot lovers into perfect strangers in a single Sweeps Week episode.

This situation is usually MUCH more serious than any of us lousy partners believe.  There are people out there that want, and are prepared to fight for, what you lazily believe is yours forever.  I know this because I was one of them—was.  They’re predators, and they are just doing what predators do, it isn’t THEIR fault if they woo your partner away.  It’s YOUR fault for not being attentive enough.

Still don’t believe me?  You know that conversation about your partner’s work that you were barely listening to?  The predator is taking notes and offering insight.   The book that your partner wants to read with you and discuss?  The predator has read it already.  Your partner keeps asking you to join them at the gym but you would rather golf?  The predator is at the gym ALL DAY LONG.  The predator use to be a trainer.  The predator can balance a dozen eggs in the indentations outlining the predator’s abdominal muscles; a feat you have never accomplished (Unless you’re the guy I work next too.  Wendy isn’t allowed to meet him).

Unfortunately, THAT is the state of affairs in a great many relationships.   Can we do better?  I believe that I can, and that’s the only person I’m in charge of.  I have taken the first step and admitted that I have a problem.  I’m a lazy husband and I take my friendship with my wife for granted.  Apparently knowing is half the battle, but this isn’t a battle.  This is a search and rescue operation: Find the loving and attentive boyfriend, last seen with a fat, balding and disrespectful husband. 

Rescuing the better boyfriend part of you has to start with YOU, as it did with me.  If you aren’t in a healthy place and have made yourself into the person you need to be then make that your first priority.  You can’t take care of your partner’s needs properly until you have taken care of yourself first.  It just isn’t as effective. 

I had to start by turning that fat, balding and disrespectful man into a less-fat, balding and respectful man.  I went to the doctor, I went to counselors, I adjusted my diet and exercise and I re-worked my medication.  The counselors and medication piece was a very large piece of the get-healthy puzzle.  Counselors gave me a new perspective and the tools to communicate more effectively.  But it was fixing my medication and dosages, trying something new and having the patience to make sure it was right that really shifted the balance.  I had been taking the same medication that I believed was helping me as much as I could be helped.  That’s a trap that too many of us with mental issues fall into.  Finding a much more effective balance of medication has given me the will and focus to carry on with my search for the boyfriend my wife deserves. 

With those things in place, I was able to waddle my butt to the gym more confidently, pass on foods that weren’t good for me, and resist other behaviors that my wife finds unpleasant (there’s a few).  I acknowledge that the health thing wasn’t all to impress my wife.  It turns out that I selfishly would like to live to see my fiftieth birthday.  But it was these tools that gave me a chance to focus on something I suspected existed, but didn’t lookout for: Wendy’s needs.

Over the years I have exchanged Wendy’s wants and needs for what I BELIEVED Wendy wanted and needed.  I wasn’t consciously forcing what I wanted her to do onto her, that’s not what I mean.  What I mean is, when Wendy needs something, I respond to her but not the way she needs me to respond.  Instead, I respond the way I THINK she would want me to—or not at all, skipping the all-important communication that could have told me different. 

Scenario:  Wendy is stressed after a long day of difficult meetings and sitting in traffic for an hour.

Husband Steve responds with chocolate.

Boyfriend Steve would have responded by asking Wendy what she needed, which in her case was a few miles of jogging to release the stress and feel good about herself.  Boyfriend Steve would have anticipated that and had her running clothes cleaned and ready to go with a sports bottle full of water and a new iPod mix for Wendy to run to.  While she’s out running, boyfriend Steve has scrubbed the bathtub and drawn a hot bath with scented salts he picked up at the mall earlier in the day.  Boyfriend Steve is prepared to wash Wendy’s hair and rub her feet while she soaks without implying any naughty business or groping around.  Boyfriend Steve has no expectations. 

Husband Steve offers to throw some pasta in a pot and prepare an evening meal of …pasta.

Boyfriend Steve downloaded a new vegetarian enchilada recipe and is rolling the tortillas himself.  Wendy is surprised by all the ingredients boyfriend Steve picked up to make the meal just right.  Boyfriend Steve cleans the kitchen after dinner. 

Husband Steve gets most of the stuff in the dishwasher and leaves the pasta pot in the sink to “soak”.

Boyfriend Steve has run and folded a load of laundry complete with warm, fabric softened pajamas laid out neatly on the bed that boyfriend Steve made that morning. 

Husband Steve figures he has three more days of clean underwear before he has to buy new underwear.

Boyfriend Steve reads one of Wendy’s books to her for half an hour.  Then boyfriend Steve takes Wendy’s glasses off of her face after she falls asleep. 

Husband Steve is in bed before Wendy, has selected a Star Wars movie and is almost asleep by the time Wendy finds her pajamas and makes it to bed.  Wendy asks Steve if she can fall asleep first because husband Steve snores and it keeps her awake.  Husband Steve agrees to stay awake, farts, then falls asleep.

Now, at the risk of being the slightest bit crude, tell me which Steve is the asshole? 

If you said boyfriend Steve, you may have done so because he’s doing the right thing and it makes you feel guilty, look bad or both.  You’re angry at boyfriend Steve because he’s ruining the bell curve.  You have work to do my friend, and you’re beyond my ability to help. As I stated before, I suck at this too. 

If you felt that husband Steve was indeed the asshole, you are correct.  It doesn’t mean that you’re a good partner; it just means that you can recognize right from wrong and understand which side it would be favorable to be on.  There’s hope for you as there is for me, in building a stronger bond through doing nice things for your mate that they would appreciate.

I’m not anywhere near my goal of being a better boyfriend for my wife.  It’s a daily climb back to the top of the desirable boyfriend pile.  The past year or so has been better (not that it was bad), with me shifting focus off of my selfish desires and working on making my wife’s life better.  Life has been pretty great, and my wife has reciprocated by doing the same things for me. 

We’ve had one of the best years of our marriage, not just because I’ve been working on being a better boyfriend, but maybe she is also working on being a better girlfriend, and that’s the Damm truth.

A woman not too far away has trouble disengaging her telephone, providing distraction for a moment as I get comfortable with my interview subject. He sits across from me, casually answering email on his phone until I clear my throat to get his attention. Without looking up, his fingers speed up as they tap the glass of his iPhone 4, “Sorry. Work,” he says as he finished sending, and then jammed his phone in his pocket. A wide smile cuts across his face as he leans into me, giving me his complete attention, “Now then, what do you REALLY want to know about me?”

This is one of the very few interviews I have ever done. I’m vaguely familiar with the style and the rhythm of give and take, but that isn’t what is bothering me. What makes me uncomfortable is that I have accepted an assignment to interview myself and it appears that neither of us knows how to start.

I introduce myself as Steven Damm. He introduces himself as just “Steve.” I awkwardly extend my hand to shake his, but it is extremely awkward because Steve is using his left hand to shake my right and the hand is upside down. His handshake isn’t very firm and if my hand wasn’t so small, it would notice that Steve’s is almost certainly the slightest bit smaller.

Steven: Thank you for coming.

Steve: That’s ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous thing to say. We’re off to a bad start. Start over.

Steven: Okay, I was just trying to be polite, what would you have me ask first?

Steve: Dude, I don’t know. You asked to interview me for some reason. I’m happy to oblige, but don’t make us look stupid by thanking me for being here when we’re the same person and I would be with you anywhere. That was ridiculous.

Steven: Fair enough. I thought it would be a good idea to give people that read your blog a sense of who they are reading; the Damm truth about the Damm truth if you will. How does that sound?

Steve: It sounds not terribly clever and your wife is going to hate it.

Steven: No she won’t.

Steve: She’s going to hate it.

Steven: I really don’t think she will.

Steve: Dude…

Steven: She might… she might not think it’s my best, but she won’t hate it.

Steve: Well, this is already terrible, anyone still reading is probably just doing so out of politeness and…

Steven: That will be enough of that.

Both of us adjust in our chairs. I’m determined to get a decent interview out of my subject despite whatever he is trying to do. I see him put his hand back in his phone pocket and I know he is about to disengage unless I do something drastic.

Steven: Have you ever killed someone?

Steve: BOOM! Now we’re talking! That is an incredibly bold and dangerous question.

Steven: A question you dodged. Will you answer it please?

Steve: No, I haven’t killed anyone, not that I know of.

Steven: What do you mean, not that you know of? How could you not know?

Steve: I don’t know, hypnosis maybe? You’re a pretty bad driver, I can imagine a scenario where you drive through a red light, completely clueless and cause some major accident behind you where someone dies. You wouldn’t know because you never check your mirrors.

Steven: I’m a terrible driver? Me? You’re the terrible driver, with your constant fiddling with the music and searching the backseat for a tissue. I use my mirrors all the time. I haven’t caused any accidents.

Steve: That you know of.

Steven: You’re determined to get the last word, aren’t you?

Steve: Well, it is MY interview, isn’t it?

Steven: And so it is. So tell me, now that we’re back on track, what do you like most about blogging?

Steve: Probably the money.

Steven: Um, you don’t make any money blogging.

Steve: People can make tons of money blogging, ever hear of Perez Hilton? That’s all he does and he makes serious dough.

Steven: I understand he does, but YOU don’t, I have the same bank account as you do and I know you’re not making any money off of blogging.

Steve: I don’t use a bank. I bury all the money I get from blogging in an undisclosed location using an airtight canister.

Steven: Now who’s being ridiculous?!?! I’m with you 24/7 and I have never seen you receive a single dollar for blogging and that means there is no money to bury.

Steve: GREAT! I was trying to help you out and make it appear that this is a successful blog that makes money so more people would come check it out. Now nobody is coming, and it’s your fault Steven.

Steven: Don’t call me Steven, it’s weird. And remember that this blog is called the Damm TRUTH, not the Damm Pack Of Lies. By the way, looking at you, your posture is terrible.

Steve: By the way, so is yours.

Steven: Okay, let’s try this again. What do you like most about blogging?

Steve: The chicks.

Steven: What do you like most about blogging?

Steve: The drugs.

Steven: What do you like most about blogging? I can do this all day.

Steve: The Hollywood parties. I too can do this all day. Stop asking lame questions.

Steven: You are kind of a jerk today. Did you take your meds?

Steve: I didn’t. Did you take YOUR meds, smarty pants?

Steven: Yes I did, so focus. What is something new you would like to do with your blog?

Steve: Well, I really only post this one time a week and it would be great if I could only do this and not have to worry about anything else?

Steven: You think you could keep up the pace of doing an all copy and no pictures blog for several days a week? I watched you trying to come up with ideas to write about in the last week and it was pretty sad.

Steve: Yeah, I think I could keep up. My fingers are in shape from all the emails I type for work. I think removing such a big block of time would help me find my inspiration. Would I be like the canary that when let out of the cage, just stands on top of it and does not fly off into the world? No. I would be like the snail in the jar. When the lid comes off, I will cling to the side until my liberator knocks me off the glass with a stick and then I tumble to the grassy ground and slowly move forward.

Steven: That’s a terrible analogy.

Steve: Did you understand it?

Steven: Yes.

Steve: Then it was just fine. Now let me ask YOU a question. Why do YOU get to interview me and I don’t get to interview YOU?

Steven: Because it doesn’t make any difference.

Steve: Well if it doesn’t make any difference, why not let me drive this thing?

Steven: That’s fine by me, I’m not getting anywhere anyway. Oh, and if you’re driving, there are tissues on the front seat and don’t bother with the music.

Steve: Funny. Okay, here’s my first question. Why aren’t you funny?

Steven: You just said I was funny.

Steve: No, I was being facetious. I really want to know why you aren’t funny?

Steven: Many people think I’m funny.

Steve: Your wife and your mom aren’t “many people.” How come you aren’t ever funny when I’m around, which is all the time? You haven’t been funny this entire interview. I’ve had to carry this piece.

Steven: I’m not even going to answer this.

Steve: Because you’re not funny.

Steven: Still not answering.

Steve: Not a question, it was a statement, “Because you are not funny.”

Steven: Okay so do you feel your blog is impacting anyone’s life in a positive way?

Steve: Uh, I’m asking the questions now, it’s my interview.

Steven: …fine.

Steve: Do you feel your blog is impacting anyone’s life in a positive way?

Steven: I used to think so. Now, I’m not so sure.

Steve: It’s not. Are there any posts you would like to remove?

Steven: I don’t think I would, but the Independence Day one seemed to rub people the wrong way. Like, a lot.

Steve: It sure did. You should take it down.

Steven: Well, I’m not going to.

Steve: What do you normally eat when you blog?

Steven: I don’t normally eat when I blog. I drink a bunch of unsweetened sodas, but that’s about it.

Steve: Didn’t you just have a plate of nachos as you began to blog tonight?

Steven: Yes, but it was a small plate and I don’t normally do that.

Steve: Sure you don’t.

Steven: I don’t! Really!

Steve: Did you go to the gym today?

Steven: I don’t understand how this is even relevant.

Steve: WHY didn’t you go to the gym today?

Steven: I still have a bit of a cold, so I didn’t go.

Steve: Hey, you know what I heard is good for a cold?

Steven: What’s that?

Steve: Small plate of nachos.

Steven: uh huh, I think we’re done.

Steve: Ahhh come on, I was just about to ask you about your favorite blog post and what kind of tree you would be.

Steven: We’re definitely done here.

Steve: Now we are.

Steven: Last word?

Steve: Yep.

Not one of the best interviews ever done, but hopefully you have a little more insight into the mind that creates this blog. I feel like I must apologize for the lack of any real information. I think a psychologist may be able to read between the lines and determine if the author needs to go away for a while.

Thank you for reading, and if any of you have a question you would like me to answer, please just leave it in the comments or drop me a line at contact@thedammtruth.com . I’m not sure if that email address works and that’s the Damm truth.

It’s no secret that I enjoy typing words that I hope other people will enjoy or laugh at.  I’m doing it right now, and for some reason, you have felt compelled to read them.  I appreciate that.  It’s a gift from you to me that I cannot repay.  By the way, thank you for giving me this gift of reading my thoughts and sharing back to me.  I don’t know why you give me this honor, but I really do appreciate it.

(Oh dear lord, he’s going to write about writing.  Nobody wants to read this.  Why can’t he just write about his experience in Disneyworld or the time he broke a window at the golf course?) 

I’m sorry, this is what needs out of me today.  I’m going to indulge a bit of writing for therapy and you’re welcome to peek inside my head and judge me.  This is your invitation.  If you believe as I do, that this is going to be a rambling mess of self-obsessed gobbledygook (did you know there’s a right and wrong way to spell gobbledygook?), then feel free to pick through some of the other pieces that I may have written earlier.  Okanogan Part 1 and Hit On are kind of fun, but there’s more for you to look through if they don’t catch your fancy.  The rest of you are welcome to come with me on a short excursion through my complicated confidence and self-esteem issues. 

I am terrified.  Not just about snakes and latex balloons (another time), but about many of the things typing brings with it.  You see, I don’t even like the idea of calling myself a writer for fear that an actual writer will tear me apart.  I’m extremely comfortable calling myself a typist though.  But then, I also worry that there are some hardcore, old-school typing pool people who would point and laugh at my 53 words per minute.

I started writing when I was a kid.  At that time I couldn’t type and my handwriting was barely legible, but that didn’t stop me from spending hours writing my crooked, cursive curlycues on the lined paper with my No. 2 pencil.  My friends and I wrote stories together when we were 10, 11 and 12.  The stories were mostly violent battle fantasies about us saving the world from any number of bad guys.  It would be a study of delusions of grandeur.  

The action was paramount to everything else we wrote.  There wasn’t much character development or substance to the stories being told, but they did have a beginning, middle and ending.  They had themes and recurring characters.  Originality was exchanged for impossible amounts of hubris when it came to what our writing was to accomplish.

AT THAT AGE, we were doing these creative writing projects for ourselves on our own time, as a group; sharing ideas and pushing each other to become better writers.  My mom thought the stories were extremely creative at the time, in the mid 1980s.  If those stories were written and found in school today though, “FULL PSYCH EVAL FOR THESE KIDS! My God, we caught it just in time.”

I’ve always had the writing itch, but it’s an itch that is difficult to scratch when you’re going through school trying to find yourself AND you happen to have undiagnosed ADHD.   I’m not saying that ADHD is an excuse for not wanting to pursue writing, but it sure does make English class hard—and if English class isn’t fun, you’re not going to want to play in that sandbox.

As any of you still reading might ascertain, I’m not in the habit of adhering to the rules of grammar and punctuation.  I know of them, I think it is a great idea to understand them, but as with the rules of the road, I tend to bend some of them from time to time, and in some cases, accidently break the rules without being aware, like with U-turns.  Although sometimes I mess with the grammar rules on purpose to make a point or a joke. 

Most of the stuff you’ll read on this blog is first or second draft.  Just look at the second sentence in the paragraph above!  There are six commas.  SIX!  (,,,,,,)   The sentence above has six commas because I’m too lazy to separate the discourse into simpler, more breathable segments.  How does that happen?  Well, about three quarters of the way through the sentence, I realize I haven’t hit the period key for a while.  Then I read what I have written and determine how much more there is to write before I feel a period is worth my poking.  I tell myself to feel free to finish the sentence the way I want to, because A.A. Milne wrote beautifully long sentences when creating the whimsically jaundiced Winnie the Pooh.  Immediately after completing the sentence, the bad man that whispers mean things in my brain reminds me that I’m no A.A. Milne… but my writing is definitely poo.

I do work on the stories later.  I post them early to make sure I’m hitting the deadline I’m setting for myself each week.  But editing is a discipline step that I need to move up in the process order before releasing my ideas to the world beyond this blog.  Unfortunately if I DO go back and edit this piece, then the last two paragraphs won’t make any sense.  The six comma sentence will have become two or three independent sentences.  Then both the jokes about jaundice and poo will neither be setup correctly or make any sense, and I just won’t kill two mediocre jokes.  The point is, I need to be better at polishing this stuff up.

I wrote for a comedy website for a while and enjoyed that until it came to an end.  I wrote pieces for friends and for a podcast and always enjoyed that too.  Why not try to do something you enjoy?  The first reason that pops into my mind is that I might suck at it and lose everything I have.  However, when enough people tell you “You are funny,” or “you should be a writer,” or “you are funny, you should be a writer,” or “You should be a writer, you are funny,” you start to think you can do it.

Well that happened to me.  I suffer from what some may call an extremely supportive environment.  That means I have amazing friends and family that love me and want me to be happy.  This is normally a very positive thing and I’m fortunate to have it.  however, my main issue is separating the genuine, objective truth about my writing from the polite hyperbole used to maintain a friendly relationship with me. 

Here’s an example:   My wife is an excellent technical writer and wicked smart.  She has the letters and grades to prove it.  She tells me that she thinks my writing is very good and that she would support me if I wanted to drop my extremely awesome job and just write.  My wife has told me she didn’t like some of the pieces I have written, but for the most part, she gives me all kinds of praise and support around the things that I write.  BUT…She also thinks I’m handsome.  Immediately her opinions become suspect.  From there, my under-stimulated mind starts buzzing around in the area it knows best, self-doubt.  I start looking for reasons why my very educated and well-read wife would be wrong about my writing.  I think to myself things like, “She’s published in peer-reviewed journals, BUT she also bought the soundtrack to Titanic.” 

Enough people told me they enjoyed my writing that I bought a very benign book about humor writing.  The book wasn’t terribly funny, but it outlined some terrific writing exercises.  I’m still doing some of them and they have unlocked my vision around what I thought I could do.  One of the exercises was to start a blog.  I haven’t decided if I’m going to do that or not… that’s what led to this.

Well, you’ve all been so kind in reading the words that fall out of my fingers that I thought, maybe I need to submit some material and see if I can swim with the bigger fish, fish that write well (I used to say “write good,” but that is incorrect apparently).

I bought some big scary books that had tips on how to get your stories published and literary agent’s contact info (although they list all of their contact info, they would prefer you not contact them).  The books go on to say that if you have decided to pursue becoming a published author, it helps if you are already a well published author.  If you are already a well published author then your chances of publishing something as a NEW author… again… are increased from 0% to 3%, you lucky devil.

After explaining all of this, the books say to not get frustrated with rejection and to “keep trying.”  Understand, these books weren’t even written for me, they were written for people that actually know how to write.

Knowing what you do of my confidence, you will soon come to the conclusion that in order for me to make an attempt at semi-pro writing, I’m going to have to seriously delude myself into thinking I’m awesome—while at the same time, learn how to correct some very un-awesome writing habits.

I won’t write about writing again if I can help it.  Next week’s post will be much more fun, but this is what I needed to write about today.  I’m going to make a run at this writing thing and although it is terrifying and I’m not excited about all the rejection I’m about to receive, I’m glad the six of you that made it to the end of this post are with me, and that’s the Damm truth.

Shawna Case-Bekish grew up in the humble but amazing town of Kittitas, Washington, where she lived a peculiarly normal life until her teenage years. When I met her, she was doing her best to blend in with her classmates a few years behind me, but everyone knew she was meant for something more, if she did not.

As with all teenage years there was turmoil of the most evilest of kinds, hormonal. This brings with it unnecessary pain, sorrow, confidence and arrogance (It’s an extremely fickle beast). The extraordinary thing about Shawna is that she was above it. She had control over her emotions like no other high school kid had, yet understood what all of her classmates were going through. A few words from Shawna to the chemically unbalanced and all the problems drained away like bacon grease down a sink. She was like a nurse for the confused and forlorn. The hormonally challenged lived easier lives in high school because of Shawna Case-Bekish.

One would think that this amazing person, with such a talent for empathy would stop after this magnificent contribution to her surroundings, but no. Shawna is a giver. The next opportunity for her to give of herself occurred when she was only 19.

On a date with a lucky young man on a dock in Bremerton Washington, not far from the naval shipyard, something odd attracted Shawna’s attention. A strange appearance in the water reminded her of something she knew from her hobby of military submarines from around the world. Recognizing this as a periscope of a Soviet “B” Class submarine, she wasted no time. Shawna dove into the cold water of Puget Sound and swam quietly out to the nuclear powered behemoth lurking in the shallows. Submerging herself and very nearly drowning while entering the submarine through a torpedo tube, Shawna slipped into the submarine and was immediately apprehended by the crew. Having studied the Russian language by mail via a handsome pen pal she had known since elementary school, Shawna gleaned that the submarine was rogue, meaning it no longer answered to any government. The submarine meant to capture a submarine from the United States and use any nuclear weapons it found to wreak havoc on LA and Hollywood for cancelling the game show Hollywood Squares.

Shawna, understanding the submarine commander’s pain, explained that a new Hollywood Squares game had recently been aired and that it was only a matter of time before black market video tapes of those seasons made their way back to Russia. Shawn then immediately seduced the submarine commander, making him fall hopelessly in love with her. Once satisfied that he could not live without her, Shawna, escaped out the top hatch of the submarine and swam back to the dock.

Heartbroken, the submarine commander piloted the stolen craft out to the Mariana Trench and scuttled the ship to the deepest depths of the Pacific ocean, thwarting any further attempt at cancelled game show retaliation.

In only 20 minutes time, Shawna Case-Bekish was responsible for saving the United States West Coast and television and movies as we know it. A little wet from swimming back to the dock, she resumed her date that unfortunately ended when the young man tried to steal second base. He was picked off.

Through her twenties, Shawna crafted a life of service. Her motto became: “whatever you need.” She gave people literally what they needed. If a person needed their tire changed, she was there with a jack and a socket wrench. If another person had a headache, she would rub their temples until the pain was gone, or sing Guatemalan lullabies (the prettiest kind) until a baby was soothed to sleep. At one point Shawna built a two story, 4 bedroom, 2.75 bath house on land she reclaimed from the sea using dykes she fashioned herself. It took her a year of her life, with the family in need watching from dry land, but it was sturdy and safe (for the most part, nobody could have foreseen the raccoon attack).

As for me, she has been a source of constant inspiration. Whether I’m reading about her constant adventures to Asia, where she relocates wayward pandas, or her work in dyslexia clinics in India, I am energized to be a better person.

She inspired me to write this today. I was happy to do it because it is her birthday… and she asked me to, and that is the Damm truth.

I was at a 6-year-old’s birthday party when I realized something rewarding and wonderful about myself. It happened casually while talking to the adult parents of the children my son went to school with. The parents had gathered awkwardly in a large kitchen with all kinds of excellent foods to snack on. I was being good, avoiding the M&M’s and chips and sticking to the carrots when the host brought in three big boxes of trouble. Hint: the boxes had doughnuts in them.

Yes, I was being good, watching calories and all that health junk, but I’ll tell you this: if you bring in certain doughnuts and lay them out before me, well, you might as well be asking Charlie Sheen to just weigh some of your cocaine. One, or possibly two doughnuts were going to leave that party inside me (it was two).

Me yielding to weakness isn’t the interesting point about this story. It’s what the doughnuts brought out of me that I was surprised with. I opened my mouth and began talking to the people I hardly knew in the kitchen. It started with an offhanded comment about the doughnut shop the donuts came from, Top Pot, which is regionally popular, but in my humble opinion, a few down the list of Seattle area doughnut shops. One of the adults said, “Oh, Top Pot! Those are the BEST doughnuts!” I think is what was said.

Well, I’m sorry, but the fact of the matter is that Top Pot does NOT make the best doughnuts. To say so disgraces those fine artisan doughnut makers that know the meaning of love and respect for the fine art of frying sweet dough into shapes and varieties as numerous as the stars in the sky (there’s nowhere near that many). It’s not a matter of taste. It’s a matter of right and wrong, and YES, when it comes down to it, it IS a matter of taste.

“Top Pot is okay,” I said as I looked over the variety. “All doughnut shops have their strengths and Top Pot’s is that their maple bars are a little longer and have a generous amount of maple on top. They don’t usually overcook the doughnut either, which is good, but they brown them a bit longer than most bakeries and to me, that gives the maple bar specifically more character than their other attempts at creating a good doughnut.” I continued, “Top Pot, like so many other doughnut joints, hasn’t got a handle on their bitter aftertaste, which I suspect is too much baking soda or powder. There’s a balance there that most doughnut shops don’t pay any attention too, but I think a doughnut should have just as good a finish as it has a flavorful introduction to the palate.”

I made to bite into the maple bar I was holding but before I sank my teeth into the stiff stick of fried dough, I paused motionless with it in front of my face and let my eyes move around the kitchen to the various faces that were staring at me. Upon realizing nobody was saying a word yet looking at me as if I had just been beamed down from a spaceship, I finished the motion to take the bite. As I chewed, I carefully looked around the room at the others, “Anybody want a doughnut?”

A smart Alec woman near me was the first to pipe up. “You, uh, you seem to know A LOT about doughnuts,” she said with a wide accusatory smile. Others started shaking their heads and smiling too. I started getting weird questions about doughnuts, strange, specific questions about the making of doughnuts, varieties of doughnuts and my opinions of doughnut shops in the area. The interesting thing was, I was answering all the questions at length and with passion.

Apparently people don’t speak like that about doughnuts and the adults were interested enough in learning about them, or heck maybe they thought it was odd that one sad little man would know so much about a food that is designed for three things: happiness, heart disease and diabetes. But what was clear was that somehow, over thirty some years of living, doughnuts had become important enough in my life for me to learn much more than the average citizen about them. I had become a sommelier equivalent in the frying of sweet dough.

I don’t know when doughnuts became important to me, but I remember impressing my wife with knowing where to get the good ones and at what time in the morning they were the freshest. Wendy was halfway through an important paper at about 3:30 in the morning and needed a second wind. I took her doughnut hunting across town and we found a store that had some just coming out of the back. After feeding her a couple she got just what she needed to finish the paper, a nap. Seriously, she was typing gibberish and I had to do something. She got to wake up a few hours later with a fresh perspective and a French twist in her tummy.

In the summer of 1998 I took a job at a huge music store selling drums. Every week the staff had a mandatory meeting at 8am on Saturday. What made this meeting bearable was the fact that we had doughnuts. The first week I saw what a sad bunch of doughnuts had been selected for us and I quickly volunteered to pick up the doughnuts for the next week’s meeting. Sure I had to rise earlier, but I could pick the doughnuts out at an actual doughnut shop (my favorite at the time) instead of from a place that also sold mousetraps, bedding and paint.

The next staff meeting, I was a hero. I had picked out three dozen assorted doughnuts and a couple big novelty ones that were enjoyed. The staff of 20 people were very excited at the quality and number of doughnuts and I was given great praise for raising the level of the meeting. The workers were motivated to listen and energized by the sugar. It gave them a reason to get out of bed early on a Saturday morning even if they didn’t have to work that day. But it was the NEXT meeting where they went nuts.

I remembered what each person liked, so I tailored the order for as many people as I could remember. I added doughnuts to the order that people had mentioned were missing the last time and made sure each person had their favorite and was accounted for. I displayed them before the meeting in a way that made the doughnuts accessible to where each person liked to sit for the meeting. People started coming to the meetings on time. Even the bass players came early to get their high quality little slice of life/death.

This went on for several weeks until the manager noticed I was spending close to $30 a week on doughnuts. He told me it was too much to spend on doughnuts for the crew. He told me I should just swing by a grocery store and get some day-old, pre-selected boxes of doughnuts. Grocery Store? Day-old? Excuse me? Why don’t I just open a bag of generic cat food and let the sales associates eat that, while you tell us what guitars you’d like us to sell? I mean, the manager had to know we were all musicians and those doughnuts were probably the only decent meal most of us would see that week.

I almost quit right then and there. I informed the manager that I no longer wanted to be in charge of getting the doughnuts if my hands were to be tied in such a manner. I was livid. I had inspired his troops, but I knew that the next week would be a huge mess, and it was. People were upset. What happened to the GOOD doughnuts? Why wasn’t Steve getting them anymore? The entire meeting time was monopolized with the confusion that crappy doughnuts bring. The manager looked like a fool. You cannot feed your people the food of the Gods one week and then skunky old doughnuts the next week. That’s how Napoleon lost.

I think it has become more important to me now that I’m watching my figure (The Olympics are just four short years away). I can’t just shove doughnut after delicious doughnut down my throat anymore. Calories count, whether I do or not and I have to be careful not to cheat myself out of a healthy lifestyle. I have to selectively choose the ONE doughnut that I’m going to enjoy and then sneak a second one later.

Before we go any further, I want to make one thing perfectly clear, there are pastries and there are doughnuts. Pastries are not doughnuts. Cherry, apple, cream cheese Danish varieties, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, chocolate croissants and the like are not doughnuts. They are light, flakey, frequently delicious, but they are not fried dough. Bagels may also seem like doughnuts because they are round and doughy. Bagels are doughnuts in the same way that decoy hunting ducks are water fowl. They are not, and compared to a doughnut, a bagel tastes just like a duck decoy. (That’s a betrayal not lightly forgotten.)

I have been stung by the doughnut/pastry wasp of misunderstanding. An unnamed family member told me of a bakery in Disneyworld that they swore made the best doughnuts they ever had. I was intrigued, and for months this bakery was talked up to me as all knew my affinity for doughnuts. I had assurances and confirmations that these doughnuts were the real deal, and because it was Disneyworld, I guess I let my dreams get away from me. My first morning there, I rose early to have my pick of the case (all doughnut places have a case where the doughnuts are displayed). There was quite a commotion in the bakery and I tried to get in close to see the selection. They had breads and pastries and big fluffy cinnamon rolls. No doughnut case in sight. I looked around, then up and down the boardwalk for a different bakery. No Bavarian creams? No Jellies? No twists? No glazed raised? “Excuse me, where are your doughnuts?”

“We don’t have doughnuts sir, sorry,” said the incredibly friendly bakery worker.

“BUT!” I exclaimed a bit too loudly before bringing it down to a controlled murmur, “I have assurances that you do.”

“I’m terribly sorry sir, but we don’t and I don’t think we ever have.”

The nice thing about losing your temper over doughnuts is that everyone thinks it is a joke and if you have a short fuse for certain topics, that can give you an out in case you say something you’ll regret. We laugh about it as a family now (my laughter at this story is still fake, I don’t find the situation funny). But thanks to this episode, everyone in the family is damn sure what the differences are between a doughnut and a pastry. If anyone still needs help with this, I’ll make you some flashcards too.

I have a theory of what goes into making a good doughnut and that is the doughnut maker needs to be pure of heart with kindness and love OR have some kind of psychological or emotional damage to make the doughnuts so well.

Doughnuts are one of the only foods you can taste “love” in. At least I have found doughnuts to be the easiest food to detect love in. Other foods may contain it, but the simple flavors of fried dough and various types of sweet toppings and fillings create a solid environment upon which to taste the feeling in between. Sometimes there’s a sensation between the flavors that exists in between bites of the doughnut. It’s a glow, a warmth or a feeling like the last rays of sunset traveling directly into your brain through your eyes. This exists in some doughnuts that are made with love. A person who makes a doughnut this way, has the patience to make sure the doughnut is complete. They are giving and generous (extra custard, jelly, icing, sprinkles etc.). You find these doughnuts at small, independent doughnut shops.

You can also taste the love in a doughnut crafted by a person who is missing part of their soul. These doughnut makers are searching for completeness and have found the ability to bridge that gap temporarily by creating a truly delicious doughnut. Their insomnia and heartache fuels them to watch a doughnut fry just a little longer, encourages generosity with the ingredients and substitutes simple pleasures for their pain (extra custard, jelly, icing, sprinkles etc.). The answers they are looking for and the feeling they so desire also lie between the layers of the doughnut. There’s a gentleness to the doughnut flavor, it’s not harsh or bitter. The doughnuts created by the troubled contain lost childhoods, forgotten happy memories and the last hug they ever received, and it’s always delicious. If you know a confused mind or troubled soul and they are between jobs, encourage them to pour their unhappiness into doughnut making. It won’t help them, but you’ll be doing the rest of us a favor.

This little foray into the world of doughnuts wouldn’t be complete without me giving you some doughnut info from the Pacific Northwest, and beyond. In no particular order, here is some useless doughnut info for you to swallow and digest:

Legendary Doughnuts is out of Auburn, Washington. They have a small store and a fancy case, but don’t let this boutique of doughnuts turn you off. They care about making good doughnuts and are attempting to elevate the conversation around doughnuts, which I think deserves some credit. I believe they are opening a second location in Seattle as well. They do fun birthday doughnuts in the shape of cakes and even layer giant doughnuts on top of each other to look like a huge hamburger and an oversized order of fires (cinnamon sticks). It’s fun AND delicious. Legendary also does an extremely smooth Bavarian crème doughnut that is made with a special filling. Most shops use custard or pudding inside these chocolate covered doughnuts, but Legendary has a unique twist on it and go the extra mile to make an excellent product.

Voodoo Donuts is a doughnut shop out of Portland Oregon. If you’re a doughnut lover go there. Go. There will be a line though, it doesn’t matter if it is day or night, there WILL be a line. Voodoo donuts are doughnuts as art, delicious art. They have created doughnuts out of all sorts of things, cereal, cookies, NyQuil . Yes, they made a doughnut out of Nyquil… and Pepto Bismol (this joke rights itself). But the doughnuts are made with love and punk rock passion. When I went there, it was a Sunday morning. I got two dozen doughnuts for a song. I couldn’t believe how little I was paying for these fun and tasty doughnuts. I let the guy just pick them for me and he did a much better job picking the assortment. When I got the doughnuts back to the hotel, my wife said, “you know it’s just the two of us, right?” I had purchased 26 doughnuts for two people. Of course I took them to the office the next day. They didn’t have a “standout” doughnut. I will say that the plainer varieties weren’t as cared for and were lackluster, but the one covered in Oreo cookies, I would have taken to homecoming (I had a crush on it). Voodoo didn’t disappoint. It was like going to Disneyland and having the person at the gate tell you that admission was only five bucks. Everything may have been cheap because it looked like nobody there has a food handler’s permit. If you go to Portland, just take 20 minutes and find the place.

Top Pot is a doughnut shop that I want to like. I really do, but I don’t. They have excellent marketing and they are extremely popular but the doughnuts are overpriced and missing something. The maple bar is decent and a solid choice if you like maple bars. I would even go so far as to compliment their crullers, but what is a cruller but an air filled piece of fried dough masquerading as a full bodied doughnut? I just erased two mean sentences about Top Pot, so I think it is time I moved on.

Western Co is another of my favorites. It’s a small chain of doughnut shops in the Seattle Metro Area suburbs. They were all erected about the same time 1976 and then abandoned for 8 years. Somehow all of them gradually opened back up and started selling doughnuts under the same name. They all seem to be owned and operated independently and feel incredibly unfriendly. It’s clear that the owners are dead people and this is their purgatory. No smiles are exchanged. In fact, I believe above the sign that says, “NO PUBLIC RESTROOM” is one that says, “CASH ONLY! NO CREDIT/DEBIT!” and above that, the sign says, “NO SMILES!” Holy Cow, do these people hate making and selling doughnuts, but they make some of the best around. Their buttermilk bars are perfect. Their chocolate sprinkled cake doughnuts are moist and inviting. Western Co does soething special to the oil that they fry them in, maybe they’ve never changed it, I don’t care, they do doughnuts right. Their Jellies are particularly good and they don’t skimp on the filling the way some places do. If you ask for an assorted dozen, they will reluctantly get a pink box started for you, but make sure they don’t just jam them all in if you’re choosing bigger doughnuts. Just because they make awesome doughnuts, don’t expect them to know how to pack them properly.

Madison Park Bakery has a small case of doughnuts on display. They are made fresh by one man who starts at 4am. The bakery opens at 7:30, no matter how early you show up. They are closed Mondays, every Monday, even if that’s when you go there. They have the best glazed old-fashioned doughnut I have ever eaten and I frequently buy more of them than I should (I’m a sharer). The reason it is so good is that the baker has found the balance of baking soda, like I said above. There’s a hint of sour cream, but most of all, the donut goes down easy, moist and never dry or stale. Their custard filled doughnuts are about as heavy as a newborn baby and feel that way in your stomach (in a good way). I ate one in the morning and was told I was glowing for most of the day. The doughnut proportions are generous and the freshness lends itself to excellent flavor of all the doughnuts. I was tempted to not write anything about this shop because I didn’t want to ruin a good thing. If you all start going there, you leave one glazed old-fashioned in the case out of respect. Don’t ruin this place for me.

Frost is a doughnut joint up in Mill Creek. I’ve only had a doughnut there once and can say that the experience was pleasing. That’s all you’re getting from me.

Mighty-O Donuts are vegan organic doughnuts. I assume this is to be healthy. I’ve had them. I don’t understand the point. It feels like they are trying to make a doughnut out of something that is very different. It reminds me of those fake cigarettes people smoke that light up and puff something, but it isn’t smoking. It’s strange and odd and I don’t even like the idea of a healthy doughnut. Plus they taste like a failed experiment

Krispy Kreme is our dirty little secret. I’ll eat them, but I won’t tell anyone about it. The glazed raised right off the line are pretty darn good.

Dunkin’ Donuts should just stick to coffee, people seem to like it. Their doughnuts are not worth the calories. Just don’t eat them. Find a decent shop.

Grocery Stores make doughnuts too. They aren’t good but will do in a pinch. No, I’m sorry, these are also a waste of your time. There is neither a loving hand or troubled mind behind these, just the same sad variety day after day. You’re better than these. You have always been.

Munchers Bakery is a new joint I discovered in Lawrence, Kansas and I wanted to mention them for their enthusiasm for making a great doughnut. They have a cream cheese doughnut there that almost knocked me off my feet. I have to trick myself that they aren’t close to me so that I don’t double fist them into my craw every single day. I know they make other doughnuts, but why would I try them when the cream cheese are available? They are open 24 hours and I bet they have one right now, waiting for me… lonely, needing to be eaten… excuse me.

Donuthaus in Anacortes is a destination doughnut shop. It’s about two hours away from Seattle and I think it’s worth making the drive once in a while. I’m planning a trip there soon, like people plan trips to Thailand or to Jerusalem. Their fritters are monstrous with crispy glazed growths coming off the sides that nobody can resist picking at. They are generous with the toppings and glaze. The bear claws are modeled after actual adult grizzly bears and then doubled. They are huge and tended to with care. The chocolate and maple bars are spectacularly large and have enough sugar glaze to kill Wilford Brimley. They are open 24 hours but you must time your arrival right. If you get there between 6 and 7 in the morning, you’re going to have your pick of the best doughnuts they have, which is anything. But try to get ahold of a buttermilk bar and a custard filled. Those will impress you. But if you’re there just after a ferry comes in after 7am, you’re going to have to wait around3 or 4 hours before another batch comes out. Three in the morning is ideal. I wandered in there after a few performances up there and they always had a fine selection.

I hope you have enjoyed my odd little obsession with doughnuts. Hopefully you have. I feel like doughnuts are something we can all appreciate if not love, they span the globe and are eaten on every continent. President Kennedy once said in a famous speech: Ich bin ein Berliner, which I believe was his angle on peace in the world. Everyone understands doughnuts, and I think that’s what Kennedy meant when he told that crowd in Germany: I am a jelly doughnut.

I may not be eating as many as I used to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t think about them from time to time. I’ll still make a doughnut run with any of the uninitiated if you so desire. I’ll ride shotgun to the shop, but I won’t let you eat a bad doughnut and that’s the Damm truth.