Текст книги "Daddy, Stop Talking! And Other Things My Kids Want but Won't Be Getting"

Автор книги: Adam Carolla

сообщить о нарушении

Текущая страница: 9 (всего у книги 15 страниц)

This is the same “love the sinner, hate the sin” mind-set that Christian conservatives have about the gays. Something I’m sure my uber-liberal mother would be completely against. Moreover, if on that day in the early nineteen seventies I had asked her to separate Nixon or Henry Kissinger from their actions and see them as people, she would have given me a dozen reasons why the logic she had just spat out didn’t apply in those cases.

So I bring the opposite of this message to my parenting. My kids are their actions. I’m never going to pull that “no matter what you do, I love you” bullshit. If Sonny decides to shoot up his college I’m not going to think, “Well, he’s still my son…” By that logic, we all could have been friends with Hitler. “Adolf, I love you man. But I don’t like what you do. The whole ethnic cleansing holocaust thing I don’t like. But you, as a person and a painter. Terrific.”

Among the other hippie bullshit my mom adhered to was her biorhythm wheel. For those of you who’ve never heard of this (and congratulations on that, you were raised by sane people) it’s supposedly calibrated to your birthday to tell you what your biorhythms are and whether you’re going to have a good day. There’d be something called an “extra critical” day when you were in transition from one phase to another during which it was not a good idea to operate a motor vehicle, leave the house or do anything really. At least, that’s how my mom used it. To her, every day was an extra critical day. Or so it seemed. Any time I needed her to do anything, like give me a ride to Teddy Lewis’s house three miles away in Van Nuys, it seemed to be an extra critical day and she needed to continue vegetating in our Valley shitbox. She actually had a twenty-four-hour-notice policy for getting a ride so she could consult the biorhythm wheel. I kid you not.

This thing that ruled my mom’s life when I was a kid was about as scientific as a mood ring. But it allowed her to validate the lazy, downtrodden, checked out, scared-of-life lifestyle she had come to know and love, and thus make no attempt to change it. It was as if for every decision she consulted a Magic Eight Ball with only one fortune, reading, “Fuck Off.”

So growing up in this depressing soup definitely damaged me. And I won’t do that to my kids. My mom is still living this way. I’ve always said that she has three modes: “has a cold,” “just getting over a cold,” or “feels something coming on.” This is a great way to get out of stuff. Once people learn you’re that person, they stop expecting anything. No matter what, I will be there for my kids. Plus I never get colds because I’m not one of those anti-vaccinating, Purell-soaked cowards.

My mother is incapable of admitting or acknowledging happiness. I once bet my buddy Ray that if he called her and she said she was doing “good,” instead of “okay” or “fine,” I would give him a thousand dollars. There was a risk. Ray doesn’t call my mom often, so if he rang she might put on a brave face and lie. But I felt confident. He called her up and asked how she was doing. Her immediate answer was “not so good.” I never even needed to take my wallet out.

Here’s another move my mom had, and still has, that I will never pull on my kids. Whenever you ask her anything, there is a slow, long exhale before she answers. You could ask her something simple like what time it was and when she was finished deflating herself it would be a full minute later than when you asked. Every question is met with a tired-of-life sigh as if to say, “I wish this breath were my last.”

I would rather have been physically abused than lived with the total zeros that my parents were. My house was as lively as a funeral at a methadone clinic.

4. HAVE A PASSION

On that note, one thing I do opposite from my dad is have passion. If you asked my dad for his favorite team or performer, he’d not be able to provide it. He has zero passion for anything. He likes jazz and, if you really pressed him, he might say he’s a fan of Tony Bennett or Dave Brubeck, but he doesn’t have all their records, or autographs or books about them. This is something I cannot understand, and I vow I will not pass on this level of indifference to my kids.

That sends two incredibly negative messages. First, that life is not to be embraced fully and deeply, that it can be squandered. My father lived his life like he was going to live to be eight thousand years old. He didn’t throw himself into anything, the way that I, an atheist who believes you only get one go ’round and that the clock is ticking, does. Second is about identity. I’m “a car guy” and “a comedian” and “a builder.” I could add another twenty to that list. My dad was “.” He later became “a therapist,” but when I was growing up, he was blank space. It’s very unsettling for any kid to have a parent who, as far as engagement with life, isn’t really there. It’s like being raised by a vending machine. You could get from it the minimum sustenance you needed to survive, but you sure as hell weren’t going to go on a zip line with it over the Brazilian Rainforest canopy.

Sonny always sees me get excited about my vintage-car races. I think that’s good. I think as much as you need to participate in whatever your kid is into, they need to see and occasionally participate in what you, the parent, are passionate about. It sends the right message. We’re constantly wringing our hands about tutors and discipline and nutrition. One of the most important things you can show your kids is that you care about something. Show them things that are important are worth the effort: building a business, preparing a car for a race, improving your home, whatever you’re passionate about.

But don’t go overboard. You don’t want your kids to be like those preachers’ kids who get beaten, literally and figuratively, with the Bible. When you make everything a sin, you’re asking for trouble because eventually the kid is going to get a boner, decide that means he’s evil, say “fuck it,” and go get into some disgusting porn. Rebellion is the nature of teens. Well, I rebelled against my parents’ lethargy, so I hopped in a vintage race car and hit the track. If my dad had been into vintage racing maybe I’d be at home doing the crossword puzzle instead. So show them you care about something, about living, but don’t demand that they also get into that particular thing, too. On that note…

5. IT’S NOT ABOUT YOU

The most important lesson I learned from Jim and Kris Carolla, a lesson I choose to ignore, was how to be selfish parents.

I’ll give them credit, they didn’t cram their interests down my throat. But a lot of that has to do with, as mentioned, not having any. My parents were the opposite of those Dance Moms who force their kids into pageants under the guise of “This is her dream; she wants to do it.” Bullshit. It’s clearly about your unfulfilled dreams. I hate those nut jobs talking about their pageant kids saying, “They’ve wanted to do it ever since they were three.” Three-year-olds have no control over their lives. If you don’t want your kids competing in pageants, you hold the power, not them. I sincerely doubt a six-year-old would hitchhike to the banquet room at the Sheraton and compete in the Little Miss Shaker Heights pageant herself if her emotionally damaged Mommy wasn’t pushing her.

But my folks, without fail, make it about themselves. Always have, always will. For example, in 2011, shortly after my first book came out, I was adapting some of the material from the book into a live stand-up show at the El Portal Theater in North Hollywood (interestingly enough, a former movie theater I had been to several times as a kid) and needed some visuals. I called my mom to see if she had some old family photos that I could use to illustrate some stories. She replied with, “There might be a shoebox in the closet.” A few days later, on the day of the show, I called to see if I could swing by and grab them.

Now, I’ve learned over the years not to ask my mom for anything. Or my dad, for that matter. Their M.O. is to be wildly ineffective and difficult, so everyone learns not to bother them. It’s like announcing you have a bad back. No one asks you to help them move when you pull that trick.

I didn’t think this was a big ask. My mom lived in nine hundred square feet, and finding that shoebox full of old pictures shouldn’t have been too much trouble.

When I called that day, I was hoping she had found the energy to help me out. “Can I swing by and grab that box and go through it?” She replied, “Me and your stepfather are making health drinks right now, I don’t really have the time. Could you come by in a few hours, like around two?” This was about eleven in the morning on a Saturday. The show was that night and I was behind. I said, “I have to go to North Hollywood to take a bunch of pictures, then up to La Crescenta to take a picture of that old house, too. The show is tonight. I’m really up against it and swamped. I could be there in the next half hour. Just get it from the closet, I’ll come in and grab it and be out of your way.” She, after a long sigh, said, “I don’t know…” So I threw in a sarcastic, “Forget it. Enjoy your health drink.” With no awareness at all, she then asked for four free tickets to the show that she put zero effort into helping me prepare. Think about the symbolism of that. Message received, Mom, you’re taking care of you. I said a very sarcastic, “Thanks a lot. I appreciate all the help. I’ll get your four tickets,” and hung up.

And that’s the lesson for all you parents reading this. If you’re reading this book while your kid is on the field playing football, put it down and watch them play. Being a parent is about putting your shit on hold. You’d like to buy a recliner; instead, you’re buying car seats. You’d like to drive a two-door convertible; instead you’re driving a minivan. You’d like to take a Hawaiian vacation; instead, you’re saving it for private school. There’s a monetary sacrifice, but there’s also a personal one. You’d like to just plop down in front of the television when you get home exhausted, but your kids want to see you, so you better get down on the floor and build that Lego castle. The more you’re into you, the worse the parent you are. We always think about the parents who are physically violent or alcoholic. You show me someone who is narcissistic and self-absorbed, and I’ll show you a miserable kid. That’s why no one should have kids at seventeen. You don’t give a shit about anybody but yourself at that age. And for the next eighteen years of that kid’s life, you’re going to have to do a lot of shit you don’t want to do. That’s what being a parent is. You’ll want to see No Country for Old Men but instead you’re going to A Dolphin Tale 2. And guess who ends up paying.

But, you know what, it’s worth it. You might be miserable spending time and money on shit you don’t want to do but in the end it buys you something more valuable, a relationship with your kids. When you don’t show an interest in their interests, can’t feel or at least feign joy when you’re around them, when you make life with them seem like a chore, you pretty much guarantee that they’ll resent you. And, if you’re really unlucky, you run the risk of them writing their fourth book containing tales of your half– and, occasionally, quarter-assed parenting. I guess Sonny and Natalia should be grateful their paternal grandparents were such turds. Without them, I’d have a lot less vitriol to power my podcast and thus fill the family coffers. And I wouldn’t have such a clear roadmap of what not to do as a parent. And I pass that roadmap on to you, dear readers. Let my pain be your gain.

CHAPTER 8
To Sonny and Natalia, on Buying Your First House

HERE’S SOME ADVICE for my kids that I think all of you parents can give your own children on the other big purchase of their lives: their first house. If you don’t think that buying a house is the greatest symbol of achieving the American dream, then put down this book and move to Russia.

Dear Sonny and Natalia,

One thing that I have attempted to beat into you, and I hope I was successful, is that you should be owners, not renters. Owning a home is a good investment, there are tax benefits, it will fill you with pride, it will force you to become handy and make you get your financial shit together. And you won’t have to deal with douchebag landlords.

But here’s a fair warning. Owning a house will turn you into an asshole. Your mother says that’s when I became one. Pretty much since the day we met, we have had a constant running dialogue about me being an asshole, but when you were eight we finally nailed down the point of no return, the moment when I made the final conversion to full assholedom. She said it was when I was thirty-four, and I bought my first house.

Nine out of ten asshole-ish behaviors are connected to your home. You have to yell at the gardener for leaving the pool gate open for the thousandth time, you have to yell at your kids for scratching up the hardwood floor and you have to scream at your wife, “I’m asking you to call the carpet guy, not clean the carpet yourself!” I think when you sign the deed to your house, the realtor should present you with the keys, and a brown blazer with a toilet paper roll embroidered on the lapel and say “Congratulations, you’re now officially an asshole.”

When you’re renting, you don’t give a shit about your domicile. It’s temporary. If your friend drops a bowl of salsa on the carpet you’re pissed, but not irate. You know that eventually you’ll just move out and move on to another rental. When it’s your home, that means you own said carpet and can do math on how much you paid for it and how many more hours you’re going to need to work to replace it. So, Sonny and Natalia, get ready to become assholes just like your old man.

But I’d rather you be assholes than losers. The renters reading this are now pissed, but please, take it as motivation and coming from one who knows of the loserdom whence he speaks. My history with home-owning and shitty apartments is well detailed in my second book, so check it out if you haven’t, and you’ll see that I speak purely out of experience and concern. I was pathetic back when I rented. Here’s a great way to tell if you’re a loser who needs to step it up in the life department and get yourself into a home of your own: When you are asked to house-sit for a friend who does have their shit together are you excited? Can you not wait to get out of your squalid shitbox? Do you want to squat in that home and change the locks so that your friend can’t ever get in again? Then you’re a loser, and need to figure it out.

I used to be that guy. I house-sat for a friend once and was far too excited. It was a two-bedroom with no pool in a dumpy part of Los Angeles, Van Nuys to be exact, but it was far superior to the crappy apartment I was renting with a couple of other losers. When that house-sitting run was done, I was deflated to go back to my apartment.

Between the time you were born and when I’m writing this, we moved. Frankly, I wouldn’t be surprised if, by the time you read this, we will have moved again. Anyway, a few years after you came along, we moved from the hills of Hollywood to La Cañada. Your mother and I decided that, among many other reasons to get outside of Los Angeles proper, we wanted you to have a place to ride bikes and a real backyard to do cartwheels and throw a football around in. That place was great. But, less than ten months after we moved there, into this great house with a tire swing and zip line, Natalia, you announced that you wanted to step it up and live in a place like Uncle Jimmy. So forgive me if I assume by the time you’re reading this letter that we’ve moved one or two more times due to your unreasonable demands.

By the way, moving a lot as a kid is another in my long line of rich man, poor man examples: things the very rich and the very poor have in common that people in the middle class don’t share. When you’re super rich you move a lot, constantly stepping it up or moving when business requires. When you’re super poor you’re constantly on the lam or getting evicted. The middle class just buy a two-bedroom, ranch-style house in the burbs and wait to die in it.

Closely connected to that is living in the same house as your grandparents. (Though credit where it’s due, one of my listeners came up with this one.) The really rich live in the manor that has been in their family since the Civil War, and the really poor are sharing a doublewide with Granny, Mama, Mama’s third boyfriend in as many months and their six brothers and sisters.

So, with all of this in mind, what should you be looking for in your first, and hopefully last, house?

Space: Famous racecar driver/builder Carroll Shelby once said that, when it comes to winning races, there’s no substitute for cubic inches. And not-so-famous driver/builder, me, once said when it comes to relationships there is no substitute for square footage. When you and your spouse are literally up each other’s ass because you don’t have a big enough place, it’s going to cause marital strife. The bright side of this is that when you inevitably get divorced you won’t have much property to fight over.

Trust me. A guy could move into a studio apartment with a Victoria’s Secret model and within two days he’d be ready to shiv her with a sharpened toothbrush.

The bottom line is that you can live in a three bedroom for nine years or a one bedroom for nine months. Also, more square feet usually means more than one television, and separate TiVos. There’s no sense in getting in a fight with your old lady because Top Gear and Top Chef come on at the same time.

A Nice Yard: A house is more than just the four walls you sleep in. You need that yard to throw a baseball, chase the dog around and, this one is directed at you, Sonny, take a piss in.

Yes, Natalia (and all you other ladies reading this), you’ll never quite understand what a power move this is. Taking a piss in your own yard feels so liberating. Being a dude has its cons for sure, like dying several years earlier, but a big pro is that you can literally pee anywhere. Imagine you’ve been driving home with a bladder full of piss. Instead of having to fumble with your keys, unlock the door and race up to the bathroom, you can just step out of your car, unzip and water the bushes. Because those bushes are yours. If you did this in your apartment complex you’d be arrested, and if you did it on someone else’s lawn, they’d shoot you with rock salt. This is the patch of ground that God created and that you worked hard to own, and no one can stop you from putting your urine in it. Go for it. Plus, that stuff has a smell and it might ward off some predators.

And on that note, Sonny, I’m guessing you’ll be about my height, so when you buy that first house, make sure the bathroom sink is at optimal piss height, too.

A Cul-De-Sac: If you can manage it, you want to live on a cul-de-sac. That way you don’t have assholes like me zooming up and down your street plowing into my future grandkids on their hoverboards. And make sure it’s called a cul-de-sac. There is a big difference between a cul-de-sac and a dead end. They’re both streets that have no outlet but at the end of one is a back entrance to a golf course, and at the end of the other is a couch with raccoons fucking on it.

Basement: This might be a tough one to pull off if you stay in Southern California, or the Southwest in general. For some reason there are no basements out here. Basements are great. It’s like adding a second or third story to your house. And it’s always fifteen degrees cooler down there.

I’m thinking about this more for my future grandson. Without a basement, where is he supposed to lose his virginity? Every kid from the East Coast or the Midwest lost their virginity in a basement. Growing up in SoCal, we had to go out and hump in a car. If you had a compact car, it sucked. Getting it on in the back of an ’82 Honda Civic could literally cramp your style.

Plus, there’s just something truly great about going down those creaky wooden stairs to a basement workshop and refinishing an old coffee table, playing a few games of darts or grabbing a Sawzall and dismantling a hooker corpse. Perhaps I’ve said too much.

Bar-Free Windows: Windows with bars are something you want to avoid, and an immediate sign that you should move on with your house search. This may not resonate with people outside of Los Angeles, but almost all the houses here have bars on first-floor windows. That’s how much this town sucks.

Here’s how you know you’re in a horrible neighborhood: There are bars on the windows of the houses, but the bars in the neighborhood have no windows. Heavy.

So You’ve Found Your Dream Home

Make sure you get a home inspection before you close. Just understand that there’s going to be shit to fix. Every home is a fixer-upper. Don’t walk away from a good place because you don’t like the paint job or a few windows are drafty. There’s always something to do, and you should appreciate that. Make the home yours. But here’s a bit of paranoia you can just ignore, and that is mold inspections. I don’t think humans would exist if mold could really kill us. We currently have a very bizarre relationship with mold. We devour blue cheese and penicillin, but will freak out if we find it during a home inspection. This is just white people panicking over nothing. Ironically, you never hear about black mold affecting black people. It’s always the wealthy white folk who also coincidentally have allergies to lactose, gluten and life.

Okay, so you’ve found your dream house; now it’s time to purchase it. Just like your first car, don’t come crawling to me. You’re going to have to earn it just like I did. I didn’t ask your grandfather to take out a second mortgage on his piece of shit in the Valley to help me out. Not that he would have, anyway. So unless you’ve married a rich guy or carved out a nice career in gay porn (that goes for either of you), you’re going to need a loan.

Here’s what you need to know about the mortgage process. There is no such thing as good credit. There’s only bad credit and not bad credit. Every real-estate transaction I’ve ever made required me to sign a Library of Congress’s worth of paper and go through FBI level interrogations. I’ve done several sizeable real-estate deals and every time it’s the same. I’ve never defaulted on a loan; I’ve never been foreclosed on. I should have the kind of credit where I can walk into any person’s home and say, “This is my house now, get out.” But I’m still treated like a guy who operates a forklift and is trying to buy his first one-bedroom town house.

Moving In and Moving On

So you’ve secured your home, signed the deed and changed the locks. Now it’s time to move. Here’s a few things that you should be aware of.

First, don’t do this yourself. That couple of hundred bucks you shell out on movers will be the best money you ever spend. Not only are you saving your back, you’re saving your friendships because without hiring movers you’re going to rope your poor buddies into doing it and they’re going to resent you later. You’re essentially saying, “Here’s a job that I’d pay a stranger five hundred bucks to do, but since we’re so close I’ll give you a six-pack of Heineken.” And you can almost guarantee that it will be a friend who accidentally drops the heirloom china or breaks your framed autographed picture of Mr. T. You’ll never see the mover again, but it’s going to be awkward hanging with your friend who tripped and dumped Nana’s urn on the lawn.

So hire movers, and then lower your expectations. Something is going to get scratched or broken. It’s just part of the process. Don’t be an asshole to the poor bastard who’s wearing the back support just trying to make a few bucks moving your fridge.

In fact, here’s another tip: Tip. Moving is so expensive that people usually just pay the fee, call it a day and then complain when the dresser gets scratched. They never think to add a gratuity for the guys literally doing the heavy lifting. So tip the guys in advance and maybe they’ll take a little extra care. They’re used to getting nothing but attitude at the end of the move when they’re covered in sweat and dreaming of a cold beer and Vicodin. They’ll appreciate the extra cash, trust me.

Make sure you give the tip out when all the movers are together. I’ve noticed in all of my moves that there is always an alpha mover. He’s usually the older of the two guys, the cagey veteran of the moving van. If you tip that guy when he’s alone, you know he’s just stuffing it in his pocket and stiffing the poor college student working at the moving company on weekends. Make sure the wealth gets spread around and gets in their hands in advance, so they’ll put in a little extra hustle and not put an end to your end table.

You might not have room for all your stuff in your new place. Even if you move it on up to a bigger abode, sometimes the furniture you had in one place just doesn’t fit into the new one. Or the new house already has a fridge and you no longer need the old one. And in general it’s good to get rid of stuff before you move, so there’s less to pack and break the movers’ backs. So instead of hanging on to stuff you don’t really need or use, just dump it. Don’t do the storage unit thing. The Carollas are a long line of hoarders (except we didn’t really have anything to hoard). Don’t fall into this trap. You’ll be happier if you just leave that old stuff behind, and replace it if you need to. It makes no sense to go out and get a storage unit just in case you want that bread maker in three years. If you haven’t used it in a year, donate it, have a yard sale or use it for target practice.

Those storage-unit commercials paint a much sunnier picture of themselves than is accurate. The roller door slides up to reveal the storage-unit renters and they’re delighted. It’s always happy families going to their clean storage unit to get out the water skis.

Bullshit. Everyone is miserable at those places. It means your abode is smaller than you like, and you can’t even find nine-by-nine to keep a bunch of stuff you don’t need but are too pathetic to part with. Or your old lady kicked you out, you’re crashing on a buddy’s couch and you put all of your shit in storage until you get your own pad. In L.A., those places are all under freeway overpasses, the sun hasn’t shined on them in decades and the only people who are more miserable than the people who go there are the people who work there. If you have to put “do not attempt” on car commercials where the SUV is doing some off-roading, these storage-unit company ads should have a disclaimer, too. “Warning: Professional Actors Portraying Gross Exaggeration of Happiness.”

The last one I saw featured a mother showing her daughter her wedding dress. Mom is taking her dress out of the box and the girl is over the moon. Awesome. She gets to wear Mama’s mothbally, was-white-but-is-now-yellow wedding dress covered in a Rorschach test of semen stains. In storage-unit history, has there ever been a mother presenting her daughter with her thirty-five-year-old wedding dress to her delight? Has that ever happened? I say nay. Could you imagine saying to your twenty-two-year-old daughter, “We’re going out wedding dress shopping.” “Where, Beverly Hills?” “No, we’re heading to the storage unit under the 110 Freeway.” She’d beat her mom with the table lamp she also kept in the storage unit.

Home Alone?

One of the things you’ll find out quickly when you own your home is that even if you’re single, you’re not there alone. There are ants, spiders, cockroaches, rats, bats, snakes and various other creatures taking up residence in your residence. Sorry, Sonny, but this is one gender role that is still intact. You, as a male, will be the exterminator in your home, unless you end up gay, and then you two can flip for it. Either way, here are a few tales and tips.

Spiders: These little bitches seem to be out of control. Every house has spiders, but the ones we have in our house as I’m writing this seem to be some turbo-charged, over-caffeinated breed. They’ll get a web up while you blink and it’s not cute, symmetrical Charlotte’s Web stuff, it’s like something MC Escher would shoot out of his ass. It looks like Johnny Depp took his multiple scarves off and threw them in a ball on the chair.

I walked into my bathroom at four in the morning, and there was a giant spider on the wall. I felt like the stepparent who came home early and found the teen banging away at his girlfriend on the couch. I was thinking, is this what goes on all the time when I’m asleep? The spider noticed me and froze. He was probably like, “What are you doing up at this hour, old man? Time to get that prostate checked.” Then, he scurried behind a mirror. It was a stalemate. I couldn’t go back to bed knowing it was there, but the mirror was too heavy to move. I ended up blowing into the crack behind the mirror to try and coax the thing out the other side so that I could smash it. I endured an hour-long retarded Mexican stand-off with an arachnid, instead of catching the zzzzs I need to be able to work and thus afford to house that spider. And my kids.

They always make their appearance at the worst time. Once, about two years ago, I was all set to crash after a long day. I had done a couple of gigs that afternoon, came home, had a couple of Mangrias and headed off to bed. When I flipped on the light, there was a spider hanging out on the ceiling. I was a little wobbly from the day and the Mangria, and standing on a pillow-top mattress, so it was tough to get that little fucker with the toilet paper. You also have to be sure to pick the right amount of toilet paper. Too little, and you can feel the thing crunch, which you don’t want. It’s just gross and its guts will leak through the TP and onto your hand. But, if you use too much, it will create a soft nest for the thing, and it will just scurry away to fight another day. This particular day I didn’t have my TP ratio right, because I ended up with two spider legs in the paper, and the now wounded and angry spider was nowhere to be found. It landed somewhere in the bed and I just knew it was biding time until my head hit the pillow to come back and take up residence in my ear hair.