No Guts, No Glory

This is a philosophical piece on how freedom and fear are essentially opposing forces in the universe and within ourselves.  The more I contemplate my new life with ALS, the more I am learning about philosophical things like freedom and fear.  I may be a prisoner in my body to an extent I never imagined, but this has motivated me to free my own mind even more and to try and help others by freeing theirs a bit. 

I can honestly say that I’ve had so many experiences for which I’m grateful largely because I haven’t been afraid to take risks, try new things, and meet people all over the various spectra of life.  My default position for most things that aren’t inherently bad/evil is honestly: “Sure, WTF—Why the hell not!”  For those of you who have already read some of my other stories, you might be thinking: “That guy is nuts—I would never be crazy enough (or dumb enough in some cases—Hahaha!) to take psychedelic drugs, smoke weed publicly in a foreign country (or in a US jail cell), go trail running alone in 112-degree heat, or drive around in a snowstorm illegally at age 14 (or hallucinating on LSD!) And you would certainly be right that this stuff would be classified as “risky behavior” by many people.   (And I still have more “risky behavior” stories on the way!)

But the relationship between freedom and fear is more than that because I think many people let fear get in the way of doing things that are certainly physically and legally safe simply because of their own personal insecurities or “hangups” as the hippies used to call them back in the day (even a little before my time!).  A simple example of this might be something I have always loved to do, and that’s dancing by myself in public to live music.  Unlike many guys in particular (it’s certainly more socially acceptable for women in our culture), I’ve never hesitated to shake it by myself even when nobody else is out on the dance floor.  I’ve had friends (though not close friends—they get me) and strangers give me the hairy eyeball as though there were something wrong with dancing if I didn’t have a female dance partner or wait until other people started dancing, etc. 

Of course there were no cameras in the old days, but I always liked the idea of dancing like everybody’s watching! And now everyone’s got a camera, so you’d better be good–Hahaha!

Some thought I might be gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that, but this was long before it was cool!) or that I was just some kind of weirdo who didn’t want to play by “the rules.”  My attitude (often influenced by the 5 beers and other trendy chemical amusement aids) was always that “somebody’s gotta get this party started, and I’m your guy!”  I truly loved the music I went out to hear over 1,000 times in my life.  It made me want to move and I wasn’t about to let some imaginary fear of “everybody looking at me funny” to stop me from having a good time.  And the irony is that a lot of the time, when others saw me out there by myself, they would join in. 

Even better, I ended up dancing with and meeting a lot of fun, beautiful women by having the stones to get out there and be the first guy shaking it!  I actually met Cindy and April, both of my serious girlfriends in my 20s, doing exactly that.  April was someone who would dance alone too, and we would regularly cross paths on the dance floor of our favorite bands like The Effects, Walt Richardson, Small Paul, and others.  We literally became friends for life by meeting on the dance floor repeatedly.  At a different show, Cindy saw me dancing by myself to Big Pete Pearson and the Blues Connection, and it turned out that we both knew Bob Corritore (Big Pete’s harmonica player at the time and now owner of the famous Rhythm Room).  She asked Bob if he knew me, bought me a beer on the break, and we were together for over two years after that.  All because I got myself noticed on the dance floor…   (And there is another story about Cindy and April on the way—Still love you both!)

The lack of fear influenced my career to a huge extent as well.  My friend and former business partner Marc gave me another piece of advice I didn’t mention in my “Film and Photo Production–It Beats a ‘Real Job'” story.  This advice was something along the lines of (I’m paraphrasing a bit here) “If someone on set asks you if you know how to do something you’ve never done before, just say “yes” and figure it out.”  It was probably only my third or fourth job as a flunkie production assistant (PA), and Richard the producer (who quickly became a friend as well) asked me if I would go to Grand Travel and pick up the production motorhome and drive it for the next couple of days on the shoot.  I had never driven one before, but I had seen plenty of geezers riding around town in those giant boats (this one was 34’ long), so I told Richard it was no problem and immediately called Marc to figure out what the hell to do!  I told him I had said yes per his advice and he told me not to worry about a thing.  “If the old geezers can drive those things, so can you!” was his argument, and I couldn’t argue with his logic. 

The Beastly Bounders we used to drive back in the day.

Fortunately, Marc had driven them before, and he gave me a few handy tips and told me the rental place would give me a 90-minute crash course on how everything worked (electrical, plumbing, removing the bed from the bedroom to make room for the wardrobe department, etc.) and that I should take good notes since I was now officially the motorhome PA on the shoot!  I did indeed rise to the challenge and the end result was that this new skill was the impetus for Marc and I buying our own production motorhome and starting a business called Cinemasters together.  We had it for about 8 years, and it was instrumental in me getting a lot of the fashion photo production work I got in the first decade of my career as a producer and location scout.  Simply saying “yes” instead of “no” or “er, ummmm…” literally advanced my career by leaps and bounds and made me a pretty good chunk of change in the years immediately following.  Thanks again for the great advice Marc, and the answer is always “yes!”

I would have to say I took the same approach in terms of personal friendships as well.  It seems that the goal of a lot of people is to find and choose friends who are mirror images of themselves or damned close to it.  While I certainly agree that you need to have something in common for an initial attraction, the rest of your interests, personality traits, philosophical outlooks on life, etc. can be considerably different.  I always enjoyed learning and discovering new interests and new ways of thinking from my friends.  For example, on the political spectrum “Eric the libertarian” is a complete outlier in that probably only 1% of people share my almost anarchist philosophy.  The fact that 99% of my friends disagree with me makes for a lot of really great fun in terms of kicking ideas around, debating, mocking each other in good fun, etc.  And I equally enjoy both the mocking and being mocked!  The only “risk” to being mocked is one’s potentially fragile ego, and you need to get over whiny shit by age 15 at the latest.  As I recently discovered, taking yourself too seriously is a definite waste of the precious little time you really have in life, and you have no idea how much time that is actually going to be!

On the social side of things, I’ve got friends who range from traditional mainstream religious monogamists to atheist polyamorous swingers.  (If you’re lucky, I might decide to tell you more about them–wink!)  I’ve got friends whose main interests revolve around outdoor stuff like camping, fishing, and building stuff with their own two hands to others who can’t change a tire on their car but speak several languages and read as many weird books as I do.  I’ve got friends who are as into musical diversity and esoteric shit in the extreme (love my ZappaHead friends!), while others listen to musical garbage on the radio that would put me to sleep.  But I can assure you that I have other things I love about my musically clueless friends, and we focus on that stuff instead and I occasionally mock their lack of musical knowledge or taste.  It is pretty safe to say that if you don’t have a sense of humor (no matter how weird), then I probably won’t be a good friend for you!  At the end of the day, I urge everyone to take a chance, say “yes” to something new, and remember that you only have one life to live.   The only thing you have to fear is fear itself, so get out and dance, dammit!!!

NO GUTS, NO GLORY!!!

8 thoughts on “No Guts, No Glory”

  1. So well said, my friend! i wasted yrs. being worried that people would judge me when I danced. had a very awkward dance at my wedding- sad. years later- thanks to reggae, I became a dancing fool (thanks Frank) & have no problem being the first on the floor.
    I wish everyone would figure out to get over the whiny shit! even if it takes a little longer than 15 yrs- remember you are exceptional.
    This is Great advice.
    I Love You!

    1. Thanks, Patti! You were always a dancin’ fool just like me! That’s how we met too with me playing in the band and you dancing, sometimes by yourself. I started doing it when I was a kid in Milwaukee. I can remember being 18-19 and dancing by myself to Paul Cebar and the Milwaukeeans, the white soul band. I made it a point to dance in front of that cute chick in the band (sax player?), and I even asked her out one time. She thought it was funny because I was only 18 and she was probably about 27 at the time–Hahahaha!!! She declined my offer of a date…I’m sooooooo shocked! But at least the older women in Phoenix were more open minded. Never give up!

      1. the cute chick- Robin Pluer was the singer, wore fancy hats- she’s close to your age. I think the sax player, Juli Wood is older ( and gay)? that may have been why she declined
        that was such a fun dance band…every once in a while, i listen to my favorite songs from their album-“that unhinged thing”……makes me smile- try it

        Love,
        P

        1. Oh, it was definitely Robin. I just got the impression she was at least 5 years older than me, which is a big deal to a chick when I was only 18 or 19! I just Googled her, and she’s 61 now and I just turned 57, so I was close. Maybe she had a boyfriend at the time. She was both cool and hot!

          1. Robin still lives in Milwaukee. (She teaches voice to my daughter). She still wears interesting hats when she plays out, has a great voice, favors the more French cafe variety of music, and as far as I know, still single.

  2. Well, while you won’t find me dancing on the dancefloor by myself, I do wholeheartedly agree with your premise about fear and freedom. Fear can lock one in place, in an unlit room where the air is stale and stagnant. On the other hand, the ability to say ‘yes’ to taking a chance gives one the freedom to move and grow. It took decades for me to realize the reality of a choice that had been haunting me. While dancing with the devil you know is always the safe option, it also can be toxic to your life. So it was with me. When finally I realized what the choice was, I took the riskier option of saying ‘yes’ to change, and ‘no’ to the toxic relations of my past. Having stepped out of that stale, darkened room, I realized how much color and life there is out here. I wish this decision had come sooner. So, well played Crickey.

    1. Hey Dano–Thanks so much for your kind words, and kudos to you for breaking out of the family trap you told me about while you were here. That’s got to be one of the toughest cages to escape from since you become trapped there as a little kid. I know the Asian culture thing is tough–My ex is still dealing with head games that were played on her as a kid. I’m lucky my parents didn’t do much of that negativity shit while I was young, and by the time I was 14 I totally didn’t give a shit about what anyone thought. Actually, I think I was hard wired that way, and maybe my mental intensity fried my nerves early! Who the hell knows…

      1. Oh, and I just posted the story you reminded me of while you were here. I’m sure I got a few details wrong so feel free to correct me! And I had no idea Robin was your daughter’s voice teacher–That’s awesome! Show her an old photo of me from the blog and ask her if she remembers me hitting on her–Hahahaha! I loved their band, and they inspired me to dance and play soulful shit for decades to come!

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