Statistical Success

There’s been lots of discussion of late about the value of completing college.  A Times article last week on the gap between richer and poorer students cited college completion as “the single most important predictor of success in the work force.”   According to Education Secretary Arne Duncan, students with a Bachelor’s Degree are currently expected to earn about a million dollars more over their lifetime than those with just high school degrees.  As a result, there is an enormous amount of energy being put into figuring out how to get more people through college.  There’s even an entire website, boostingcollegecompletion.org, run by the impressive-sounding Education Commission of the States, devoted to helping people graduate.  And this is all important work that’s being done.  But it’s also overlooking a crucial segment of the population: people who have graduated college.

Yes, I’m once again talking about Special People.  (They are after all the focus of this blog.)  These are folks who have often graduated college with flying colors, but now find those colors to be just kind of drifting, or maybe even grounded somewhere near Dubuque.  They may even have graduate degrees, bless their hearts, but have still not graduated from Specialness.  “How,” they may ask, “can I have followed this societally-encouraged, statistically proven, Arne Duncan-blessed track, and still not find myself on the other side of the rainbow?  What did I need to have done differently?”

And of course this is a false construction, because Specialness cannot be averted or cured by higher education.  It can’t be fixed at Oxford, Cambridge, Cal Tech or DeVry University (though this last one would be the best place to start).  Specialness, in fact, has no known cure.  It can only be contained.  So while education experts are understandably focused on helping those who are struggling to complete college, we wanted to take a moment to focus on those who have.

Here are some productive living tips for people with college diplomas:

1) Exercise daily (including walking).  Moving your body is one of the best ways for Special People to stop thinking about not being special.  You probably ran around more in college, and that helped.

2) Focus on completing small, manageable and definable tasks.  Do NOT set out to write “Hamlet.”
(side note: my brother interestingly told me once that through the quirky law of copyright, one could technically transcribe “Hamlet,” list oneself as the author, and publish it as one’s own play, since it’s in the public domain.  This means that you might be able to actually write Hamlet in one day, and even publish it.  And that’s just fine.  So to rethink this rule, Do not set out to complete an entire work or task of earth-shaking proportions. It is OK, though, to literally set out to “write” “Hamlet.”)  

3) Eat walnuts and figs (dried figs, but the kind you can pick out–not prepackaged).  These are soothing foods that make one feel good.

4) Don’t outthink yourself before starting a task.  In general, view each task as its own endeavor.  Don’t think of it as something A) you’re really good at, or B) you really suck at.  Think of it as something you’re C) at.

5) Play “Words with Friends.”  (Losing to an 8th grade student of mine was helpful in dealing with Specialness)

6) Know that there is only a tiny, .01% chance that you have a rare brain disease and that you’re literally dumber than you were at the time you graduated college.

7) Remember that there are millions like you suffering from Specialness.  You are not alone.  And just because you graduated college, and statistically that’s a good thing, and Arne Duncan’s not worried about you, there are still people who have your back.  It won’t come easy, but we’ll slog through it together.

We will not become just another statistic!

First, a note on Class Notes in general.

Here’s something I’m wondering why we don’t ever see.  In between

“Jason Tishburn writes to us from New York.  He heads up Morgan Stanley’s Big, Big Money Private Equity Unit.  He bet against mortgage-backed securities in 2008.  Go Jason!”

and

“Kevin Yancy has a new documentary coming out based on his best-selling memoir: “Being Kevin Yancy, M.D.Ph.D. Beyond the Letters”

how come we never see:

Ted Vettis is trying a new antidepressant his therapist believes may cut down on sexual side effects.  He’s hoping this one shows better results, and soon.

Wouldn’t that be a little bit refreshing?  Is it just Special People who hate reading about how married/dream-fulfilled/child-blessed every classmate of theirs is, even the ones who seemed a total wreck in school?  Or is it everyone?  I think probably everyone.

Secondly, about my friend.  Tom was my best bud in third grade.  We played all sorts of games together.  Some of them were on the normal side, like trading baseball cards and drawing our own make believe ones.  Some were loco–as in Gingrich Moon colony loco.  We developed a society of creatures, the Sheelies, who lived in Seattle, and the Boolies who lived in Boston.  The Sheelies were big green creatures with large snouts who were generally happy and wished ill on no one.  But the Boston Boolies were a constant menace.  The Sheelies and the Boolies were always doing battle, and we’d always root for the Sheelies.  To this day I think of Boston as a dark place.

Being at different middle and high schools, we rarely saw each other.  One time we met up in high school at a college fair.  Tom was snippy with me, seeming to have a chip on his shoulder.  Later I found out that he had hit on some rough times during high school.  He ended up going to a state school, while I went to an elite Ivy.  But now, many years later, here I was, in my boxers, reading about how wonderful my sandbox playmates were doing–above all my Sheelies and Boolies partner–profiled in the Wall Street Journal.

And lo…there surrounding him, rose up a cloud of jealousy.  Like buzzing bees–impossible to ignore, dangerous, unshakable.  I thought about it.  And I shook my head: at my friend who had struggled through high school but now was soaring; at me who had soared through high school and was now struggling; how I wanted to be happy for him, but couldn’t.

It’s in times like these that we must confront Specialness dead on.  It’s perhaps too high an aim to wish to be happy or proud of our friends when we’re in the midst of the jealousy bees.  But we don’t have to sit there letting them eat us to death either.  When we feel this way–the jealousy, the comparisons, the what ifs, the only healthy reaction is to double down on what we’re doing, whether that be fact checking at a magazine, grading papers, writing board-game question cards, copy editing, whatever we happen to be doing at the moment–double down.  Throw ourselves into it.  Be inspired that hard work can be its own reward.

Fight jealousy with action.  Fighting it with thoughts never works!  Oh, and next time, if the bees are around, don’t read the Class Notes.

Readers will also know that we’ve touted Wall Street Bath and Spa as such a place in New York City where one may shvitz (to the point that you might think they are sponsoring Nothing Special, which sadly they are not).  What we loved doing there, in the company of friends, was the pairing of “opposites,” moving quickly from the hot, dry sauna to the icy cold plunge pool, and back again.  The reminder that…oh yes, I’m alive!

Since the fancy spas, however, can also remind us how expensive being alive can be, we’ve taken the habit of going to our local YMCA for the shvitz.  After all, the Y has a sauna and showers, and provides two towels per visit.  Sure you don’t get the special bathrobe, the pickled herring or the sensation of being part of some secret subterranean club, but hey, those are all just dressings!  Since we’re already members of the Y, this shvitz is already paid for.  We therefore call this the Poor Man’s Shvitz.

Swipe in to Y and do some exercise.
Then:
5 minutes in Sauna
1 minute in freezing Shower
5 minutes in Sauna
1 minute in freezing Shower

Today, however, I was at the Y and found myself in a pickle.  I had done my workout and was looking forward to the shvitz, but poor time management (see many other blog entries) meant that I had but 5 minutes for the procedure.  There simply wasn’t time to sit in the sauna, then run down the hall to the cold showers, then go back to the sauna, etc.  I had to improvise, and somehow deal with the fact that I couldn’t do the full Special shvitz.  Should I give up and just chalk it off to a missed opportunity, or was there a way?  And then it hit me.  I stood under one shower and put it on hot.  Then I reached to the shower next to me, and moved its dial just a touch, leaving it at freezing cold.  After a minute of the hot shower, I jumped into the cold plunge, whooped for a moment, then leapt back into the hot, then back to the cold, whooping all the while.  A fellow shower room occupant looked on somewhat startled, as I proceeded to do this for all five minutes that I had.

They say that the greatest inventions are born of necessity.  Today, FOOS (Fellow Occupiers of Specialland), I invented something: the Poor Man’s Poor Man’s Shvitz.  I now put it out there  for all to try.  Or if not the Poor Man’s Poor Man’s Shvitz, something else that might not be perfect, but is still damn-well better than throwing nothing.  As for me, you might catch me one of these days in the Y shower, yelping from the cold, jumping back to the heat, side-stepping into the cold, all-the-while shouting:

Oh yes…I’m cheap, pressed for time, and not all that special … but I’m alive!  I’m aliiiiiiiiiiive!

We persevered, though, and even enjoyed.  One passage that struck almost as deep as a Jude the Obscure’s first view of Christminster, was Jon Snow, riding desperately down the Kingsroad away from Castle Black, where he had sworn his life’s service to the Night’s Watch.  His choice had been to stay with the Night’s Watch (loyalty to society) or  join his father and brothers now embroiled in a war (loyalty to family).  He chose family, breaking his oath, but the decision still haunts him.  “Even now, he did not know if he was doing the honorable thing.”  Thinking later about the maester of Castle Black, who decided on three separate times not to leave the Night’s Watch even when his family was threatened, Jon Snow continues to muse:

“Even now, Jon could not decide whether the maester had stayed because he was weak and craven, or because he was strong and true.”

(By the way, “maester” seems to mean old advisor in the George R.R. Martin series –the extra “e” makes it sound vaguely old and Germanic.  I was hoping there might be a Yaeger Maester of Castle Shot)

Jon’s wondering, as he galloped on his frothing horse, got me thinking of all the times when I’ve wondered, what’s the brave choice.  Isn’t this a key, often all-consuming aspect of countless decisions we must make in our lives?  Everyone knows it’s hard to make the brave choice–but what about figuring out which is the brave choice in the first place.  Special people want to constantly push themselves to be the best Special People we can be, so we’re always thinking about this–how can we be braver, more daring, less willing to concede.  Here are a few scenarios.  You decide which is the brave choice, and which the cowardly one.

1.  You have an art show you want to curate.  The problem is, you have no money to lease a gallery, collect the art, publicize, etc.  You have a rich uncle who will give you the money to put up the show, but you’re also a proud person who doesn’t like handouts (perhaps you’ve also been listening to Republicans a lot).  Do you swallow your pride and ask your Uncle for the startup cash, or do you try to get a job at the ground level at a gallery?  Which is the brave choice?

2.  You have a romantic partner.  Your relationship is 80% of everything you’ve always dreamed of.  Do you stay in the relationship, or do you keep seeking?  Is it brave to throw back the fish and jump out into the great unknown, or is it brave to throw down your lot and say, I have arrived!  Which is braver?  How about if it’s 85% of your dreams?  Now which is braver?  To go, even though there’s less of a chance for improvement?  Or to stay, knowing you’re pretty darn close.

3.  You’ve gotten accepted at Harvard.  Congratulations!  But you got a much better feeling when you visited Haverford.  You’re a little afraid of Harvard, as you know how challenging it will be.  Come to think of it, how did you get in in the first place?  You like Haverford because you chose it, it didn’t choose you.  You know Harvard will open more doors, for the same price, and perhaps push you more.  You think Haverford could be the college experience you always wanted–it felt right.  Which is the braver choice of school?

4.  You have a 3-year-old.  You miss your job, but you’re a little scared to get  back into the swing of things.  Assuming money isn’t the issue, do you go back to work and restart that career you were just starting to see if you could make it in?  Or do you stay home with your child whom you love for another year?  Is the child an excuse to cover up the fact that you’re scared to go back to work?  Or is the getting back to work just a cover-up for the fact that you don’t value yourself unless you’re working?  Which is the braver move?

Of course figuring out which is the braver move is only the first step.  The next step, perhaps even more challenging, is to figure out if the braver move is the right move.  Take example two.  What if you decide that it would be braver to cast the line out again, break away from your comfort zone, and strike out to find something more fulfilling?  Then you say to hell with that and stay.  Is that more cowardly, or can choosing the choice you decide is more cowardly, actually be the bravest choice of all?  Are you as confused as I am?

I used to think that if you’re scared to do something–if it really fills you with terror and makes you sick, it’s probably the right move.  Now I’m not so sure.

After riding a good several miles down the Kingsroad, Jon Snow is overtaken by his friends and fellow guardsmen, who demand that he return.  Jon probably could have talked them down and explained his need to go fight to the death with his father and brothers.  Instead he rides back to Castle Black with his friends.  Eventually Jon makes the brave choice: he honors his oath to the Night’s Watch and stays to protect the realm from the Others.

Or was he just scared to really leave?

Here’s an excerpt:

A San Francisco cable car holds 60 people. This blog was viewed about 2,100 times in 2011. If it were a cable car, it would take about 35 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

These are the moments in which, whether it be Governor, Kardashian, or small European country,  some entity entered 2011 feeling pretty darn special, and left with the simple thought, “Oops, I stink.”  Because of some change of circumstance, running out of luck, mental lapse, righting of the market, intrinsic character flaw, or other working of destiny, these previously high-flying Special sorts were made to taste the meanness and ordinariness of existence.  Does it feel good to laugh a bit at them?  Of course.  Does it bring about a small feeling of Karmic justice?  How could it not.  But lest Schadenfreude get the better of us, let’s also remember that we at Nothing Special, at one time or another, suffered from the realization of massive failure.  Let’s look at the suffering of these 10 as an opportunity for them, and us, to be liberated from the quest for greatness: of always having to be the best Governor, the most debt-free country, or the perfect congressman who never tweets himself naked.

Let us applaud these people for helping to remind us how freeing it could be to admit that we’re human.  We spent plenty of our childhood years trying to be the best.  2011 was a year to renew our quest to be average.  Not special, not touched, just ourselves: pathetic, forgetful, broke, damaged, huddled naked mole rats.  And that’s on our good days.  Here’s to the 10 most Unspecial people of 2011.  The curtain is down—they now know they are thoroughly mediocre.  Let’s hope the same for ourselves in the coming year!

Happy New Year’s to all of our readers and many UnSpecial tomorrows!

10.  Arnold Szwarzzeneger:  I may not be back.
May 2011

One minute you’re a box office star/governor of the most populous state in the country, the next you’re tossed-out of office as a budget-busting politician, and your home for a Clintonesque affair with the live-in maid.  This reversal of fortune would have been enough by itself to land him a spot on the NTS top ten.  But there’s more.  2011 was also the year this video began to go viral.  It’s a brilliantly compiled montage of Arnold’s comments for the “Total Recall” DVD special features segment.  You’ll notice that rather than add any actual insight to anything we’re seeing, Gubernator, like Beavis, decides to just narrate exactly what’s happening on the screen.

9.  Rick Perry: “Oops”
November 2011

While it would be easy to just have a good guffaw over Rick Perry’s Oops moment, and of course we all did, we at Nothing Special are also fascinated by the psychology of these public “blanks.”  For those who don’t remember, during the CNBC Republican Presidential Debate, Perry, when attempting to list the three Federal agencies he would eliminate as President, named the Department of Commerce, Education, and then completely, utterly blanked on the third.  So much so that, after turning down Romney’s generous suggestion of the EPA, he was left, naked and helpless before us, to form only the one simple word he remembered from childhood: “Oops.”  How could we not feel sorry for him?  And why do we feel sorry for him?  Because as smart as we like to feel by laughing at him, we know that this could be us.  Perform this simple test on yourself.  In the next 15 seconds, name the five other federal agencies.  Go!  Did you do it?  Now try this.  In the next 15 seconds, name 5 presidents from before 1900 who are not on Mt. Rushmore?  Did a vast wasteland of nothingness pop into your mind?  Or maybe racing thoughts of how badly you’re doing?  Now imagine having to answer these in front of an audience of 5 million people.  From Jan Brewer, to Herman Cain, to Governor Perry, we love jumping on these public blanks and pointing out how stupid the blankers are.  But are the panicked lapses really indicators of low intelligence?  Or are they examples of times when the mind says “Don’t screw up, don’t screw up, don’t screw up!” so loudly, that we screw up.  Is this something unique to politicians, or could this happen to any of us at any time?

8.  Kim Kardashian:  “Love can’t be produced like T.V.?”
November 2011

This story has been so overly reported there’s not much we can add, other than to say that at Nothing Special, we don’t believe that this 72-day-marriage was a sham from the beginning.  We believe, rather, it was an example, albeit a spectacular one, of how easy it is to confuse the excitement of “falling in Love” with the work it takes to “be in Love.”  Everything we Special people were raised on, from movies like “Mannequin,” “Can’t Buy Me Love,“ and most notably “The Princess Bride,” to later love competitions like “The Bachelor,” and “The Bachelorette,” taught us that we “fall” in love, helpless to resist its overwhelming powers.  Kim is part of our generation.  We think love enters with a boom and continues to make us want to move mountains daily, rather than work at a relationship that includes burps, farts, warts and, at times—the sheer terror of it—boredom!  It might behoove Kim to look to Erich Fromm for more realistic expectations.  In The Art of Loving, Fromm choses the term “Standing” in love rather than “Falling” in love.

We don’t get to be the Dread Pirate Roberts, fall for a beautiful farm girl, die for her, get brought back by Miracle Max’s pill for her, and finally ride off with her into the sunset while Peter Faulk and Fred Savage gurgle and coo.  Yes it’s fun at the beginning, but we then have to “stand” in love.  Falling in love only lasts for, well, around seventy-two days.

7.  Oh Sh$%#@, the Republicans are coming!
January, 2011

87 Freshman GOP members are sworn in on the Capitol Steps after a rout in the 2010 election midterm election.  If this wasn’t a reminder that just because we got a progressive in the Oval Office, we’re still not that Special, we don’t know what is.  In 2008, a collective sigh went out among progressives around the country.  Every Deaniac, Wellstone-loving, Truman and FDR-quoting one of us at last let ourselves collapse into the post-election easy chair of complacency.  Now the trend is set for decades, we thought.  Now all of the Rovian groundwork that was laid in local elections, redistricting and wedge-issue-referendum launching that had put a cold grip on our hearts for the past eight years was put to rest.  The country was safe.  Obama would bridge the divide.  The nation would heal.  We had, as a friend said to me, “gotten our USA back.”  Then this happened, and we realized, it’s never that easy.  After a year in which simple debates have been turned into threatened shutdowns and an unseen puppeteer has held more power than all of these Representatives put together, one thing is certain for the 2012 election.  Nothing is being taken for granted.  We are not Special.

6.  Chelsea Clinton:  I didn’t hit a home run on my Rock Center debut.
December 2011

If anyone was rooting for Chelsea, it was we at Nothing Special.  Like her, we were raised with large expectations.  We went to a great private school in DC, a wonderful college and had all the world looking at us as the first daughter—a genetic combination of two of the most intelligent people on the planet  (OK, that last part was just Chelsea).  So when we heard that Chelsea was a little tired of her corporate career, and had decided to report on do-gooder people for Brian Williams’ show (http://rockcenter.msnbc.msn.com/), it was almost as if we ourselves were making our debut with her.  And when the media panned Chelsea, calling her slightly underwhelming and not exactly electrifying, it was as if we ourselves got panned.  But all this really means is that Chelsea, like the rest of us, is human, is finding her way, is not her parents, is normal, is unSpecial.  And tis better to be panned than praised—ask anyone here at Nothing Special!  Chelsea will have her ups and downs, just like the rest of us.  And hey, she has good paying job, nu?

5.  NFL 2007 Number One Draft Pick JaMarcus Russell:  Hey, you’re my life coach!
April, 2011

This may have not been the biggest sports headline of 2011—not Derek Jeter’s home-run-sealing entrance into the 3000^th hit club, or Clemens’ perjury mistrial, but it was surely the dearest to our heart at Nothing Special.  Former number one draft pick JaMarcus Russell, still teamless after being dumped spectacularly by the Raiders in 2007 (he’s been accused of being lazy, falling out of shape, and imbibing codeine via “purple drank”) decided to turn things around this year.  So he hired life coach and former NBA player, John Lucas.  Now whether Lucas, whom this editor remembers from the Washington Bullets solely for being “that guy with the drug problem” is the best-suited coach for Russell, is another story.  The main point is that Lucas fired Russell for not having a strong enough work ethic.   To us this is like getting tossed out of cooking class for burning the chicken.  That’s why I was taking the cooking class, man!  Anyways, if being fired by your life coach doesn’t give one that “Not so Special” feeling, then we’re not sure what will.  May 2012 be the year JaMarcus Russell finds a life coach that won’t run out on him!

4.  Zynga:  Buying the FarmVille
December, 2011

Hot off the presses, on Dec. 16th, Zynga realized its Unspecialness in a very public fashion—an initially public fashion.  The day it went public, the company, which makes money by selling virtual bartering goods for its Apps (mostly via Facebook, where it does 95% of its business) lost its investors an immediate 5% on their investment, or a total of $50 million.  Ouch.  Investors seem to be worried that Zynga relies too much on the Facebook and gives too much power to its CEO, Marc Pincus.  We’re no experts, and we can proudly say that we utterly loathe reading any Facebook posts that even mention FarmVille or CityVille, but we certainly can spot a Not that Special moment when we see one.  Mr. Pincus, you lost your investors $50 million dollars on a day that was supposed to be your shining hour.  Congratulations!  You flopped!

3.  Nothing Special Editor:  “I have few life skills.  I think I’ll blog.”
September 2011

It’s a brisk fall morning.  This humble editor is on his way to the bank, pockets filled with change that he plans to exchange for bills.  At the bank he receives those brown paper rolls with which he must hand roll the change in order to procure the $23.54 cents to which he, by the law of full faith and credit of the United States, is entitled.  Despite every other alarm bell that should be going off that this is his current plan for raising cash, all he can focus on is how much trouble he’s having adding the change, and whether this indicates a huge falling off of basic math skills that seemed so promising in third grade (where he was taught borrowing in a small group of four select students). Out of this shocking realization, the blog “Nothing Special” is formed—a place where all formerly-great people whose actual paths have been more modest than their predestined ones—could converge and share in one common realization:  We’re not that Special.

2.  Greece: “Hey.  Didn’t we build the Parthenon?”
October 2011 and throughout

A deal is reached whereby European banks will take a 50% hit on the debt they’re owed by Greece.  Barely passing Parliament in Greece, this deal is hardly a cure all.  If successful, it will bring Greek debt down to 120% of GDP by 2020.  Talk about low standards!  Now the problem here is of course not just that Greece did terrible budget keeping and is now broke—it’s the fact that they have to go to France and Germany to bail them out.  Greece was inventing Democracy and the golden ratio centuries before France and Germany were a glimmer in the eye of Caesar!  This is like being broke and unable to hold onto a job, then having to go to your younger brother for rent payments.  For this reason, we give Greece place number two spot on the NTS scale.

And the number one Not that Special moment of 2011…drumroll please!!!

1.  Anthony Weiner:  “Love me!  Love me!  All women I have met.  Love me?”
June 2011

If we ever needed a moment to confirm to ourselves that sometimes highly “successful” people have bottled up all of their failures, fears, the need for love and for sexual praise, and that these needs, like anything trapped too tight in a bottle, must, at some point, blow the top off and make a big mess, it was six-term Congressman Anthony Weiner tearfully confessing to Bill Clinton his sexting improprieties.  We at Nothing Special, admiring Weiner for the progressive battles he fought (for example, his defense here of the public option in healthcare) take no joy in his downfall.  We only hope that he gets the help he needs.  Specifically, this means realizing he won’t find self-esteem by sending nudie photos of himself to every campaign cutie.  In the end, he’s just an aging guy with a lovely wife and that’s OK.  He’s not that Special, and that’s a good thing to embrace.

The Duke Fightmaster Show...where lies madness?

Everyone likes to drop into conversation the story they just heard on “This American Life” that relates to the topic at hand, so why shouldn’t we?  At Nothing Special, we were particularly moved by this story  about Duke Fightmaster, a former credit card debt counselor who decides, on a whim, to try to be the one chosen to replace Conan O’Brien when O’Brien was moved into Jay Leno’s spot (a move which, incidentally, was a big “Not that Special” moment for NBC).  Duke does this by starting, from his bedroom, a talk show using his best friend as sidekick, his wife as guest, 2 neighbors as audience, and another shaky-handed friend as camera crew.

Duke Fightmaster’s tale is part of a “This American Life” segment called “Last Man Standing.”  His story follows one about the lone juror who refused to convict Governor Rod Blagojevich, during his first trial, of trying to sell Obama’s Senate Seat.  (Think “12 Angry Men” with a nice Illinois Grandma in Henry Fonda’s role).  As interesting as that story was, Duke’s was the one that really sizzled.  We loved it because it appears, at first, to be another cautionary tale of obsession–a man throws away everything he seems to have–his job, his good credit, a house in San Francisco, his relationship with his wife and time with his kids–as he sinks further and further into the rabbit hole of his dreams.  When the talk show gains some traction, a youtube following in the thousands and a spot in the papers, this provides the dangling carrot that keeps Duke going.  Even as it drains him of everything, he keeps holding out for that break.  Duke himself compares his passion  to alcoholism–something he would go do each night, then come home and try to kiss his kids goodnight, promising they’d go to Disneyland the next day, and then heading right back the next day, barely remembering his promise from the night before.

But give it a close listen.  Imagine Duke pursuing this dream with a single focus every day: gathering volunteers, constructing the set at the local Veteran’s Hall, employing monologue writers.  Is this a destructive obsession, or the only way someone can ever really pursue a long-shot goal–with blinders on, mono-focused, unflinching.  How close was Duke from the tipping point?  Could one more viewer have gotten him a spot on a local cable show?  Could one promoter have taken his show to the next level?  Is that part of the drug…the insanity,  or just good old-fashioned elbow grease?  What’s fascinating about this story is how we want to shake a finger and say, “Shame on you for jeopardizing everything for vanity, for trying to be Special,” but how, at the same time, we can so easily see ourselves in the same position.  Why shouldn’t we sacrifice everything for something we believe could change the world?  The line between Insanity and Artistic Pursuit, in other words, may be as thin as the layer of foam on Captain Ahab’s lip, or as blurry as the camerawork on the Duke Fightmaster show.

Duke and Damien Riley on the Duke Fightmaster Show

Ouch, what a year!

FOOS, we went live today on Frontier Psychiatrist.  Click over there to check out, or you can wait until the weekend for us to publish in full here.  For now, here’s number 10.  Imagine, there are 9 moments less Special than this one for the Gubernator!

10.  Arnold Szwarzzeneger:  I may not be back.
May 2011

One minute you’re a box office star/governor of the most populous state in the country, the next you’re tossed-out of office as a budget-busting politician, and your home for a Clintonesque affair with the live-in maid.  This reversal of fortune would have been enough by itself to land him a spot on the NTS top ten.  But there’s more.  2011 was also the year this video began to go viral.  It’s a brilliantly compiled montage of Arnold’s comments for the “Total Recall” DVD special features segment.  You’ll notice that rather than add any actual insight to anything we’re seeing, the Gubernator, like Beavis, decides to just narrate exactly what’s happening on the screen.

Here’s a teaser from the list, a moment that literally says “Oops.”  Where do you think it should fall on the scale, with 1 being the top?  We want to hear from you.  Are there any “Not that Special” moments that you demand to see on this list?  As we fine tune it in the days before Thursday, we look to our Unspecial readers to help cull the greatest worst moments of the year,

Don’t be shy to let us know, and stay tuned for Thursday.  Happy Holidays, and remember that it’s never too late to feel less Special!

Rick Perry: “Oops”
November 2011

While it would be easy to just have a good guffaw over Rick Perry’s Oops moment, we at Nothing Special are also fascinated by the psychology of these public “blanks.”  For those who don’t remember, during the CNBC Republican Presidential Debate, Perry, when attempting to list the three Federal agencies he would eliminate as President, named the Department of Commerce, Education, and then completely, utterly blanked on the third.  So much so that, after turning down Romney’s generous suggestion of the EPA, he was left, naked and helpless before us, to form only the one simple word he remembered from childhood: “Oops.”  How could we not feel sorry for him?  And why do we feel sorry for him?  Because as smart as we like to feel by laughing at him, we know that this could be us.  Perform this simple test on yourself.  In the next 15 seconds, name the five other federal agencies.  Go!  Did you do it?  Oh, so you think you’re special?  Try this.  In the next 15 seconds, name 5 presidents from before 1900 who are not on Mt. Rushmore?  Did a vast wasteland of nothingness pop into your mind?  Or maybe racing thoughts of how badly you’re doing?  Now imagine having to answer these in front of an audience of 5 million people.  From Governor Jan Brewer, to Godfather Herman Cain, to Governor Perry, we love jumping on these public blanks and pointing out how stupid the blankers are.  But are the panicked lapses really indicators of low intelligence?  Or are they examples of times when the mind says “Don’t screw up, don’t screw up, don’t screw up!” so loudly, that we screw up.  Is this something unique to politicians, or could this happen to any of us at any time?

Is Tywin having fun?

I was thinking just the other day of what a difficult job having fun can be.  Special people don’t necessarily look to have fun.  They often look to either i) better themselves in relationship to others, particularly while others are out having fun (example: stay home on Friday night and read Shakespeare), ii) generally become more impressive to others (example: sit on subway showing others that you’re reading Shakespeare), or iii) remind themselves of times in their youth when they felt like they were true standouts (sit on subway daydreaming about past glories while showing everyone that we’re reading Shakespeare).  Man, we read a lot of Shakespeare!  But is this really fun?  Well it can be, but not always.  What are some of the ways, I asked myself, that are left for Special people to have fun?

1)  One thought was to read a so-called Shlocky book.  Let’s take “Game of Thrones.”  That could be fun, right?  The twisted tale of court intrigue, treason, bloodlines and blood lust.  HBO made a show out of it–it has to be a little bit juicy, yes?  Well it is juicy.  But it’s also extremely confusing.  This special person has searched the same name, “Tywin,” about fifteen times on his old kindle, trying to figure out who this little medieval son-of-a-gun is, which houses he’s now aligned with, whom he’s trying to kill, and with whom he fought during the great war of the Usurper king.  With this many characters and this much confusion, me thinks, I should be reading Shakespeare!

2)  Second thought:  Sports!  Sports are fun, yes?  They are, they really are.  But Special people get hyper-competitive when they play sports.  And when you’re hyper-competitive while playing kids at the YMCA who are younger, faster, and better than you, this doesn’t lead to fun.  Solution?  Organize a basketball game of people closer to your age and skill level.  Good suggestion.  Only what happens then if you still find that you are getting outshot, outhustled, and outplayed?  Your whole line about everyone being younger, faster, better than you is gone, and you’re left feeling totally unSpecial, which is just not fun for a special person.  Scratch sports.

Now I know where you think this is headed—Special people can’t have fun.  Oh woe is us.  Or perhaps, a desperate plea for fan mail about what is left that is actually, truly, uninhibitedly fun in this world.  And, well, yes, I would love to hear about those things.

However, I do have one such thing!  It goes by the name of Wall Street Bath and Spa.  This is a place of magic, and, well, fun.  There is nothing to fail at, nothing to lose at, nothing to feel like you’re unqualified for, no one to impress and no royal hereditary lines to forget.  After all, everyone can get hot steam blasted on them.  Everyone can walk around in a bathrobe ($5 extra but definitely worth it), listen to people speaking Russian, have some pickled herring, and do the cycle with your buddies: wet heat (like swimming in a liquid Halls), dry heat, cold brace pool, start again with wet heat.  Please note that Nothing Special receives no special consideration from Wall Street Bath and Spa.  We just finally found a place where we could have fun.

But other ideas are still very welcome!