IT happens to everyone. Sooner or later it will happen to you. Now that I'm in high school I can laugh about it, like the way you'd laugh after releasing a sweet S.B.D. into a crowded classroom and you enjoy the wave of reaction as it lives up to its name. It's the sort of laugh that defines a guy; for sure you'll be accepted if you laugh with the masses and proud to have provided some much needed entertainment, yet whether you claim it or let it remain a mystery is an entirely personal choice.
It is my choice, albeit years later, to let you in on my stink.
I'll include an occasional drawing that I did as I was experiencing some things, they helped me work through my thoughts, and yes, they mostly stink too.
Anyway, about eight years ago, just before the U.S. was blindsided by stinking Al Queda, I was facing terrorism from the deepest pit of all, my gut.
Hold on, I better give you a little bit of history to digest first, a sort of menu to my diet that led to my -- well you get it.
There are three things you should know:
1) I have an infallible memory box that I inherited from my dad.
As I grew older, I realized that this ability could be a curse just as much as it can be a gift. There are some things you just don't want to remember. Like wetting the bed in your new NFL sheets, or being wakenedby the name calling fight that will lead to your parents' divorce or accidentally squishing your closest confidant. Those all happening in one night begs for a brain eraser.
After the stinking fight rocked the iron chandelier and made me ball my new NFL sheets over my head, I noticed they stunk like piss and I nearly lost my head.
I did what I always did in times like these; I talked to my fish, Skroink and Doink. Only Doink was nowhere to be seen. I got up to get a closer look. And just when I thought life couldn't possibly get any worse --
I was so grossed out I jumped and nearly was decapitated by the steel blades of death.
If the high dive from his tank didn't kill Doink, my stepping on him certainly did.
The next day, Mom came back, pulled me from my bare bed and we moved out. A few months later, a judge had Dad locked up in the rehab clinic and our lifestyle-of-the-rich-and-famous house had to be sold.
Which leads to the 2nd thing you should know:
My Dad is a famous Hollywood Actor, made even more famous because of his drinking problem. He hasn't made it to Kevin Pollack's online talk show yet, I don't think they make a broadband wide enough for that discussion.
Any hoo - Lots of people think it's exciting being part of a famous family. I tell them to imagine being at a slumber party with all of your closest friends. You've had a great night, even impressed kids enough that you've made new friends. As everyone settles into their sleeping bags for the night, the party's junk food is finally making its way through your body. In a fit of pre-sleep laughter, you fart in your sleeping bag. You think you're safe because you're zipped in and it could be blamed on anyone lying side by side with you on the floor, heck, some guys may even think it was cool. To keep up the mystery, you scrunch down in your bag even more. It's then that you realize it wasn't just stinky air that you let loose, but something gooey. So there you are, lying in a sleeping bag of dung, surrounded by the people you want to impress most, sooner or later someone is going to find out your dirty
secret -- that your bed is not as comfortable as it seems. That, I tell them, is what being the child in a celebrity family is like for me.
Even though Dad had a serious drinking problem, he wasn't what you call a mean drunk. He never hurt anyone or got violent in any way. He just had bad luck that got him caught passed out in his parked car one too many times. Once, he did fall coming out of a really nice restaurant in Beverly Hills -- smashed his Hollywood face up pretty good and had to get stitches, but he was never a threat to anyone but himself.
When my Grampa O'Shea, started his independent movie studio, a gazillion years ago, he named it after Dad: R.J.O. Productions. This little act of honor may as well have turned Dad into an actual ball of gas burning against the blackness of night - because his life of stardom has been just as explosive.
And finally the third thing you should know is; I have been seeing a shrink since I was seven years old. IT all came out at one of those sessions.
Which I'll tell you about next time...
