Aggressively Mediocre

Deep down I’m a dreamer. I think if you’ve read this far you recognize this about me, but I don’t think anyone has ever understood to what degree. Since I was a little kid I was lost in a fantasy world inside my own head. The strip of trees between my suburban home and the freeway that ran behind our blue collar neighborhood became the deepest, darkest jungle. A walk through the woods with my dad became a patrol behind enemy lines. I silently narrated the walk between home room and English like the opening of a Scorsese film. I wrote fan fic of my life in real time.

You’d think after thirty years, hundreds of stories, and a hundred million miles I’d have grown out of the tendency. You’d figure after flying nap of the earth in a helicopter in Hawaii, after falling off a mountain in Japan, after dying, after being in a high speed pursuit of a homicide suspect, after amassing all these wild ass stories I’d stop but the truth is I never did. I’m forty-six years old now and I can tell you precisely what my life would be like if we’d picked up instruments and practiced when we lived in that shitty college apartment. I can see myself now, putting down my beer and picking up my vintage Fender Jaquar in sunburst and heading to the stage. I can’t sing a lick. I can’t read music. Hell I can barely rhyme, but when I’m alone in my truck and Shooter Jenning’s “This Ol Wheel” is playing loudly on my stereo I can see the music video my band would’ve made. It opens on a sunrise over a Louisiana marsh.

I know these fantasies are largely bullshit. I know celebrity or wealth wouldn’t make me happy or make my life appreciably better but I still can’t let the fantasy go. One day, I’ll write a short film and it’ll blow up. Never mind that my short films have been, largely awful, one day someone will see one of them on YouTube and I’ll get a shot. Thirty-seven people subscribe to this blog, thirty-three of them aren’t related to me. I appreciate you all, but fuck man, we know this isn’t going anywhere. I’ll never get read in the New York Times. Shit I’ll never get read in the Shreveport Times. Still, every day I sit down and I put words on a blank page and in the back of my mind I think “Man this one will do it. This one will take off.”

Funny thing is I don’t want to be famous, though I’d love to be big enough to have an editor. I wouldn’t mind being rich, but even then the only thing that I would immediately change is the quality of my wrist watches. I don’t know if I could handle being adored. Shit, I’ve got the bare minimum of positive attention from writing this blog and it occasionally freaks me out. Yet I still want to hold a copy of my book in my hand, and hey, I might get there one day. If I do I’d still want to see my stories, the stories that play in my head every day, play out on a movie screen. I’d still want, just once, to wear a custom rhinestone Nudie Suit to an award show red carpet, to be a podcast guest, to be a trivia question, even though I know it’d probably drive me crazy. I can’t help it.

Years ago at a Daiquiri Shop on West Esplanade somewhere near the border between Metairie and Kenner, Louisiana, I met a guy who was trying to launch a career as a stand up comedian. Three drinks and a half dozen of my stories into the evening he tells me he’s working an open mic at Lucy’s Retired Surfer Bar in New Orleans and I should give it a shot. “You’re a funny fucking guy” he told me. “Crowd would love it.” Even drunk, I wasn’t brave enough. Within a year I’d be in a foot pursuit with a wanted felon not a mile from where we sat that night but at the time I was too afraid to stand on a stage and tell my stories to strangers.

Years later, as I try now to gain an audience, as I fumbled my way through marketing my writing, I regret not taking that shot. I’ve always enjoyed stand up comedy. Maybe I could’ve done something. I still sometimes get the urge to try. I don’t know how to write a joke. I don’t know the rule of threes. I don’t think I’ve ever tried a call back, but I’ve occasionally Googled “stand up open mic near me" and that’s as close as I’ve come. I’ve chickened out every time.

But thanks to the fantasy world in my head I can tell you how I’d dress on stage: cowboy boots, Wranglers, my gaudiest pearl snap shirt, and my camo and hunters orange “Y’all means all” ball cap. I even know my opening line. “Uh, my names Jeremy and as y’all can tell I ain’t from around here and this is my first time so y’all go easy on me.” Boston comedy crowds are notoriously rough, so I’m hoping the aw shucks country boy begging for some leeway might get a little laugh.

I don’t know what story to tell. Probably “Tigers”. I can get some of that vet bro sympathy and folks seem to like jokes about getting way too high. I’m not quite happy with the way the story came out on the page but I’ve perfected the live version for decades and I figure I can stretch it out for five minutes and get a couple laughs. Don’t know what I’d do from there. Don’t know if I’d enjoy it. I know for a fact that I could never make a career as a road comic due to my family situation. But my little dreamer brain knows exactly what I’d title my Netflix Special.

“Aggressively Mediocre.”

See I was never the smartest or the strongest. I was on the honor roll in Elementary School but just barely. I went to a Magnet school and almost flunked out. I was a soldier, but not a great one. I rode rodeo bulls but never once for eight seconds. I traveled the world but never to the coolest places. I died in the dumbest possible way but I survived. I was a competitive shooter, sometimes at the highest levels, but always in the lower middle of the pack. I met famous people and made an ass out of myself. I was a cop, but once again neither the toughest nor the smartest. I have forever been the first runner up. Now I’m middle aged, tired and sick. I go to the gym and I go to the grocery store and I get the kid off the bus and I supervise homework and I cook supper and my house is a fucking wreck. I’m not even the best at being dad.

I am aggressively mediocre.

Sounds like I’m shitting on myself when I say this. Sounds like I’m being mean, but deep down I’m weirdly proud of it. Did I ever live up to my dreams? Nah. Did I chicken out when I could have taken the stage? Yea. Have I fucked up more than I ever succeeded? Y’all don’t even know. Every step of the way I’ve been aggressively mediocre at everything I’ve tried. But I tried. I went out and did things. I took risks and paid the price and I at least have these wonderful stories, stories so good they are often more interesting than the bullshit fan fic in my head.

There are people in this world, my neighbors, even friends, who’ve never truly tried. There are legions of folks that go through life without an ounce of adventure. They went to school and did okay so they went to college. They got a job. It pays alright. They got a house and a spouse and two point five kids, a mini-van for mom and a Mercedes coupe for dad and not a single good fucking story between them. They look successful. They have money, often more than I do. They have diplomas, often magna cum laude. They have trophies. Yet their lives are drab and their stories boring.

I still dream of sitting in a writers room pitching my little redneck twist on story ideas. I’ve given up on a Grammy but I still pretend I’m the front man of an alt-country band every time a bad ass song comes on my stereo. I know the author photo I want on the back of my debut novel. I know the color of Nudie Suit I’d rent if I was ever invited to an awards show. I still think there’s a chance y’all could hear me on a podcast one day. But I know I’m gonna die like I was born, aggressively mediocre, middle class and anonymous.

And you know what? I’m fine with that. There's legions of wealthy, famous people who can’t fucking touch my stories. Oh you saw Quentin Tarantino do cocaine? Man I got chased by baboons in a Japanese forest. Oh you got premium passes to Coachella? I fought a famous rapper's cousin in the parking lot of an apartment complex until a gun fell out of his pants. I know it's nice to be the kind of wealthy and pampered elite who grace the cover of magazines, whose summer homes get features in the paper. Life would certainly be easier if I could take my private plane from my Cape Cod summer cottage to my winter home in New Orleans, but after a while that kind of comfort and success has got to get dull as hell.

I’m never gonna be a winner. I’m never gonna be a hero. I’m never gonna be rich or famous. Even if I finally finish revisions on this novel and sell the damn thing I’m not gonna be a big name. I’ll probably never fly first class. I’ll damn sure never see the inside of a private jet. I will forever be the first runner up. I will always be mediocre, but I’m gonna be aggressively, spectacularly mediocre because I’d rather be a broke nobody with fun stories than wealthy, famous, and fucking boring.

I guess that’s the dreamer in me.

Kinda dashed this one off in a hurry and I'm not sure I landed it, but I like the premise and the whole point of this blog is to practice so...here's Shooter Jennings...