The Hardest Working Slacker in the World
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1 The hardest Working slacker in the World t wasn’t easy for a seven- year- old boy to procure radioactive material in Bourbon County, Kentucky, during the seven- Ities. So after careful consideration and much research, I de- cided to get struck by lightning. On a muggy summer evening, as heat lightning fried through ominous purple clouds, I eased the screen door shut and started toward the back of our horse farm. Near the rear property line of our fifty- acre farm, a dead tree stood alone on a barren hill, normally a perfect setting for saving imaginary compatriots from an evil overlord’s noose. But that evening, instead of pulling off a daring rescue, I would use what I called the Tree of Sorrow to offer myself up to thunderbolts from the heavens. In preparation for this experiment, I had loaded a Boy Scouts canteen, a cherry Pop- Tart, a tattered spiral notebook with a red cover, my metal orthodontic headgear, and a guitar pick in my backpack. The canteen and snack were a nod to sword- and- sorcery novels, where the hero packed for long quests powercord_i_x_1_308.indd 1 5/30/12 11:36 AM 2 Power Chord accordingly. I didn’t have mutton, mead, or ale, so tap water and foil- wrapped goodies would suffice. The notebook was falling apart from use, the wire spiral distended and unevenly spaced. I had used a ruler and multiple colored pencils to rigorously document scientific examples of origin stories in which ordinary dudes transformed into larger- than- life figures, capable of unimaginable feats. Astronaut Steve Austin crashed to Earth before being made better, faster, stronger. Billy Batson was selected by a race of wise elders who taught him to bellow “Shazam!” when trouble approached. The comic- book villain Juggernaut snatched a magic ruby from a cave while Molten Man spilled synthetic liquid metal all over himself. Even my heroes, the band KISS, who consumed my most every waking moment, were powered by pulsating red talismans, as they explained in the 1979 TV movie Attack of the Phantoms when Peter Criss says, “Without those, we’re just ordinary human beings.” The majority of the transformations in my notebook in- volved exposure to radioactivity. Even casual pop culture ob- servers knew about Peter Parker’s glowing spider or the Hulk’s laboratory gamma rays. But I was an exhaustive researcher, so my ledger also included lesser- known fictional folks like a mis- shapen four- foot- six- inch Soviet evildoer named the Gremlin and a Chinese Communist physicist creatively named Radioac- tive Man. Consoling adults had assured us Central Kentucky school- children that we were a long way away from the Three Mile Island catastrophe, so I deduced it would be challenging to obtain radioactive waste. But electricity seemed equally dangerous and intriguing as radiation. And there were more than just one or two examples powercord_i_x_1_308.indd 2 5/30/12 11:36 AM THE HARDEST WORKING SLACKER IN THE WORLD 3 of lightning- induced transformations in comic- book lore, most notably the green- and- yellow- clad baddie Electro who had been a simple power- company lineman working during a thun- derstorm when a shock provided the ability to shape electricity into lashes, whips, and other forms of weaponry. Even my KISS Alive II eight- track featured an ode to the effects of high voltage, with the Ace Frehley–penned tune “Shock Me,” written after the guitar player was electrocuted onstage in Lakeland, Florida. I had thrown in the headgear because wisecracking adults were always asking if I could pick up radio waves while wear- ing the metal device, so maybe it could help attract a jolt or two. I considered myself lucky that I had the cooler style that wrapped around the back of the neck, as opposed to the far geekier apparatus that rested on the top of your skull like some Erector Set geek’s attempt at designing a yarmulke. The final component of my backpack, a tortoiseshell guitar pick, was the whole reason I had embarked on this adventure. My parents were supportive and they encouraged any of my goals or interests, but even at that young age, I knew I wasn’t truly remarkable. I was a good student, but I didn’t get straight As because my teachers said I needed to apply myself more. And while I was never the last person selected for kickball, I wasn’t the first either. I had friends, but I wasn’t the most popu- lar. On some level, I understood that I was good— very good at some subjects, maybe— but not great. I was looking at a life of mediocre accomplishment, of restrained success: the honor roll, but not the valedictorian slot. Those limitations were made painfully obvious every time I picked up my cheap acoustic guitar and struggled to get any- thing resembling music out of the instrument. In my small powercord_i_x_1_308.indd 3 5/30/12 11:36 AM 4 Power Chord town, the only place that offered lessons was a Catholic school. Once a week, I had to show a school bus driver a permission slip to let me take a different route. He chewed tobacco and spit into a milk carton lifted from the school cafeteria each day. He dropped me off outside the facility, which was really just a large brick house, and I lugged the cumbersome guitar case up the stairs. At the very first lesson, I was dismayed to learn that the nuns would not instruct us in the fine art and subtlety of KISS tunes. Instead, I got a stack of sheet music for “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands” and “They’ll Know We Are Chris tians.” Somewhere along the line, I missed the detail that every string isn’t involved in every chord. In spite of how it might look when Pete Townshend wildly windmills his arms while playing guitar, you don’t actually strum every string. For example, a D chord only uses four of the six strings, a C chord five. But when I practiced as a child, I hit every stinking one, the musical equivalent of coloring outside the lines. So noth- ing sounded right. And somehow, the concept of practicing for hours on end in order to improve escaped me. As a child I was an avid watcher of the news programs like 20/20, and I saw these six- year- old Asian violin prodigies who performed with the Boston Pops. How much sweat could those kids actually have devoted to their craft if they’d only been out of diapers a few years? I was willing to work, but only to a point. After that, I figured some innate natural talent would take over. Or, I would suffer some catastrophic accident that would give me superpowers. The wind picked up and clouds rolled overhead as I set my backpack down at the base of the Tree of Sorrow. Abandoned green army men were scattered among the roots, casualties of powercord_i_x_1_308.indd 4 5/30/12 11:36 AM THE HARDEST WORKING SLACKER IN THE WORLD 5 attempts to scale some sheer cliff in a forgotten battle between my older brother and me. Lightning illuminated the sky and sent groups of broodmares running with each thunderclap. Generally the sound of pounding hooves in the darkness terri- fied me because of an unhealthy preoccupation with Disney’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow cartoon, something that continues to this day as I have recurring dreams involving the haunted Hessian even as an adult. But on that evening I wasn’t scared. I was excited about the changes I would experience. I assumed there would be some amount of pain involved. The Encyclopedia Britannica, which consumed an entire two- shelf bookcase in our hallway, indicated that possibly a mil- lion volts of electricity could be contained in a single bolt of lightning. I figured my clothes would get ripped and singed, so Mom wouldn’t be happy about that. But I would have powers unimaginable. I would be able to blister up and down the guitar neck and belt out KISS tunes at my next guitar lesson. Soon I would be musically invincible! But it didn’t happen. The anticlimactic truth is that I ate the Pop- Tart, gulped down some metallic- tasting water from the canteen, watched the clouds for a few minutes, and walked home. I could have climbed the tree and gotten higher in an effort to attract a lightning strike. I could have taken metal poles from the barn and fashioned a lightning rod. Or, I could have been at home practicing the guitar. But I did none of those things. I just quit after a few minutes of boredom. As I trudged to the house, I knew that most kids wouldn’t have gone to such lengths as I had that evening. Many of my friends were happy with the most simplistic of imaginary pur- suits. They just played war, while I drew up extensive maps for powercord_i_x_1_308.indd 5 5/30/12 11:36 AM 6 Power Chord my campaigns. They wrapped sheets around their necks and pretended to be superheroes, but I could have told you the color of my fantasy hero’s shoelaces. I was proud of my planning and execution of the audacious adventure to get electrocuted, even if it didn’t bring about the desired results. Some part of me also knew that other children— probably those Asian violin prodigies— would simply have put in a few more hours of prac- ticing instead of concocting elaborate plans that involved elec- trocution.