Alright. Ill play Reveal Roulette too. Thanks to C Paige Brooks for kicking me in the head with a steel-toed gumption boot. #7 THINGS ABOUT D. BYRON PATTERSON. (HONESTY WARNING. No F Bombs, but you may not like what Im gonna say here. All love, believe me, but theres a journey first.) Number One. I am what Mike Meyers calls a site-specific extrovert. Its true -- I am not comfortable in most social situations. They terrify me, and the only way I deal with them is by masking my fear with an outgoing personality, which is a bit unwieldy and very awkward at times. Ive gotten better at managing it as Ive grown older, but pretending isnt all that hard to do anyway. I was an actor once upon a time and not a bad one either. I wasnt a very good one, but I wasnt a bad one. Number Two. My favorite film is The English Patient. My favorite book is The Lord of the Rings. My favorite day of the week is Thursday. My favorite food is pan-seared chicken breast with sautéed spinach. My favorite past time is doing whatever floats my boat for that moment. My favorite animal WAS a kitty, but now I say: POMERANIANS RULE! Number Three. The summer of 1995 was magical for me. Shakespeares Globe Theatre (London, England) invited the Atlanta Shakespeare Company (AKA, The Shakespeare Tavern) to test the Bards official digs still under construction. The owners didnt know the real dimensions of the original Globe stage, only good guesses based on crude drawings and bits of writing. No exact measurements probably meant an exchange like this: Are the sizes of those two columns correct, Archibald? I dare say they do play the part of Colossus giant legs rather well, what? Yes, St. John-Rivers, and Im not entirely certain that they should straddle the proscenium so -- if all the world’s a stage then those two vertical behemoths will upstage India and most of Asia. What say you, Professor Kensington? Do pardon me, old boy, but Im off to have tea and biscuits with my mum at Harrods. Perhaps you two should ask those Americans to come break in the stage. A need for real input about the way the new boards worked, as it were, prompted a worldwide call-to-action and the Tavern was one of the troupes that answered. We were there for a week. We did scenes from Julius Caesar and Henry IV, Part 1, and twice we did a near-full run of Machiavelli’s The Mandrake, soliciting groundlings for on-the-spot advice about the acoustics and staging AS WE WERE PERFORMING. It was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. But wait...theres more. When I got back to Hartsfield International Airport, I literally stepped off the plane and went to a bar. A karaoke contest was running that night. I entered and won it with The Lion Sleeps Tonight. Over the next two weeks, I won LOTS of karaoke contests with the same damn song: City - Atlanta; State - Georgia; and Region - Southeast. Two weeks later, the six regional winners competed in the National Karaoke Smackdown -- 1st Runner-Up National Champion right here, baby. Yep, a post-flight pint of Guinness at a random Marriott Hotel bar plus a stirring rendition of a 1960s doo-wop tune eased my keester on down the road to brief local fame and fabulous prizes, including $1500 cash, a Laser Disc player, a leather Dave & Buster’s bomber jacket, and one round-trip first class flight to Vail, CO with two free nights at the Hilton. Number Four. I know all the lyrics to Copacabana and Turn the Beat Around -- I can sing both in Lambys voice. Number Five. When I was four years old, I decided that all the onion grass in our front yard was spinach. I convinced myself that I would transform into Popeye as long as I hummed the theme song while shoveling handfuls of the onion-grass-spinach into my mouth. Ill never forget it: I dropped to my knees -- me, blown down (yuk, yuk) -- and I grabbed fistfuls of the stuff, humming the Sailor Man tune as I swallowed chunks of those bitter pungent greens. My Popeye transformation was delayed for some reason. Still, that only steeled my resolve to eat more grass twice as fast. The neighbor next door began shouting at me to stop eating the grass so close to his lawn, but I ignored him and dug in for more. That is, until I smelled the distinct aromas of doodie and piddle. I was too busy to notice that Id crawled into the grassy knoll of puppy poop and pee. My gag reflex made me projectile vomit everything Id ingested, but as the neighbor laughed uncontrollably, all I really tasted was shame. To this day I cannot stand to hear Popeye the Sailor Man. Toot, toot. Number Six. I love romantic comedies—seriously, I’m a sucker for them. My favorite RomCom to watch often, of course, is LOVE ACTUALLY. That being said, I believe Bonnie Hunt’s utterly brilliant RETURN TO ME is the hands-down best of them all, which puts her film into a wholly different category with no specific genre clamping it down. It is sublime, sentimental, delicate and life affirming in a way that makes the heart hurt hours after a viewing. And God bless Bonnie Hunt for casting Jim Belushi as her screen husband. Holy crap, the man should’ve been nominated for best supporting something or other. Number Seven. I was diagnosed with Bipolar Disorder in 2001 after a failed first marriage and three suicide attempts. For a year, I bought into that label because the medical community said so. I took every possible medication that treated my particular chemical imbalance, believing my fate was sealed. Statistically speaking, I was doomed to be ‘sick’ for the rest of my life and it would only get worse. I was encouraged to prepare for the rough road ahead. Sadly, I wasnt strong enough to put on my big boy pants and tell those ‘experts’ to go fornicate with a web-footed species of lake bird. I spent the week of Christmas 2002 alone in a psych ward after my fourth and final suicide attempt. By March of 2003, I was living with Mom and Dad to get over myself and start again. No. Big. Deal. By February of 2004, I was living in Tampa, Florida. It took me a while to stand upright, but eventually, my decision NOT to buy into the bipolar label dropped me into a sinkhole not too far from the rock bottom Id seen already. This place was different. It was a place of stark honesty and quiet necessary solitude. I began rescripting my heart and brain with joy and love instead of shame and fear. No, I wasnt going to be the batshit crazy person THEY said Id become. I was going to live meaningfully and unapologetically until I no longer drew breath. That’s when I found Lamby and built his world. Then I found Tina and built a new future upon the foundation of her love. As I slowly grew aware of God’s handiwork, the meaning of my existence became clearer. And here we are, 14 years after a pat ‘statistical’ diagnosis that no longer holds true and 8 years after a vasectomy that I deeply regret now. Not wanting to pass my diseased genes to a child was part of my decision, but not wanting to be a bad father because of how my special brain worked under certain negative conditions was the fearful trump card. I DO have a special brain that demands my total, focused attention just to manage its quirks, but I also have Tina. My wife makes that task easier. My wife gives me courage and hope. SHE is my hero and the sole reason I am getting that vasectomy reversed. January 2, 2014. And so to all those martyrs who constantly bemoan their perpetual misery—I call BULLSHIT (with a smiling face full of love). If there is a time to every purpose under heaven, then there is a time to whine and a time to stop whining and do something to change how the stars shine in YOUR OWN damn sky. We all are capable of insane wonders—we’re powerful when faced with insurmountable odds. There are many people with crippling brain and body injuries—the kinds that inspire doctors to predict doom and gloom. But somehow, those walking dead prove the professionals wrong all the time. And why is that? Because when they tap into the Human Spirit, they see a simple truth: life is precious and brief, so you got to give it everything you got or die, no exceptions. My name is Byron Patterson. I have a very special brain. And I am excited as hell knowing that my ammo will go live again next February. I cant wait to make babies with my wife. And NO ONE can convince me otherwise.
Posted on: Tue, 19 Nov 2013 01:47:28 +0000
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