I've been thinking about trying out standup comedy, but I don't think I have the physique for it. I'm a firefighter and I look like a firefighter - not the stereotypical Mister October made-for-tv firefighter, but like an actual firefighter. Like a 49-year-old, twenty-years-on-the-job firefighter who's losing his hair and taking supplemental testosterone. I look like I can still deadlift 450 pounds, but I'm just as likely to eat a whole box of thin mints.
I look the way I do partially because of genetics, partially because of the job that I do, and partially because I grew up in the eighties with an older step-brother who wore tight jeans and kept a pistol in his back pocket. He worked as a crane operator before he joined the Marine Corps. He rode a motorcycle and insisted that we not refer to it as anything other than "Mr. Bike".
Eight-year-old me wanted to be just like him, and I guess a small part of me still does. I wanted to dress like him, to feather my hair like him. I wanted to smoke Camels and refer to Charlotte, North Carolina as "North Clit".
He and I don't share any blood. I've never shot a deer, and while I've never owned a Jeep or even a pair of cowboy boots, he's all Jeeps and boots and deer killing. He's been a cop now for longer than I've been a fireman, and despite what a lot of people think, those things are opposites too. For all the ways that I'm nothing like him, and despite the lack of any blood relation, I'm built just like him.
It's not a body for comedy. It's a body for law enforcement and coaching football.
When was the last time someone got funnier AFTER they got muscles? Joe Piscapo? Carrot Top? Ricky Gervais? Joe Rogan? Dave Chappelle? Muscles are the death of comedy. Imagine if Woody Allen looked vaguely threatening - and not just in a sexual predator kind of way.
The space needed for laughter is so ephemeral. Even the faintest whiff of menace can kill the mood. How funny can you be when you look like I do? Nobody wants to dance when the cops are in the club.
In a time when a lot of people are exploring the mismatch between the person they, internally, know themselves to be, and the physical presentation they manifest on the outside, I can fully understand what it’s like to feel that you were born into the wrong body. I’m comfortable in my gender presentation and I'm confident in my sexuality, but there's still something that doesn't fit for me. I'm a straight, white, cis-gendered, middle class, heterosexual, American dad. I'm a fireman, a paramedic, and a small business owner. I'm a pretty good carpenter and a damn good welder. And all those things, taken together, conjure in most people a whole host of other images - most of which I don't feel myself to be at all. I don't drive a pickup. I can’t stand modern country music. I've never owned a boat. Fishing bores me. I’m not interested in being ‘tactical’. I don't own any white shoes or a belt clip for my phone. I'm an artist and a musician. I can recite Emily Dickinson poetry from memory. I play the drums and the banjo, and I don't give a shit about football or even capitalism, really. So, part of me feels like I ended up in the wrong body.
I wanted to be thin and angular, like David Bowie or Marcel Duchamp. I wanted fingers like prayer candles not these Irish, potato, digging-in-the-dirt fingers. I wanted to appear thoughtful. And if that didn't work, maybe I could at least be funny. But you've got to play the hand you are dealt.
Firefighting ruins your sleep schedule, especially over the long haul, and the effects of this become more and more apparent as you age. One of the common manifestations of poor sleep hygiene and constant interruption of our circadian rhythms is obstructive sleep apnea. It’s a bit of a chicken-or-the-egg problem - is the poor sleep causing the sleep apnea, or is the sleep apnea causing the poor sleep? Other causes of sleep apnea can be anatomical. People who carry a lot of weight in their neck and torso can be especially susceptible - people who look like firefighters - big, thick-necked dudes who can deadlift 450 pounds.
One of the secondary effects of continually interrupted sleep cycles (especially that caused by obstructive sleep apnea) is low testosterone levels. Testosterone is released in our bodies during sleep, and interrupted sleep cycles can lead to significantly decreased levels of testosterone. And this is all happening in a population whose testosterone levels are, arguably, higher than average at the start of their careers (I would include women in this assessment as well). I enjoy talking about these issues at the station because it lets the younger firefighters know about some of the potential risks of the job, but it also leads to some interesting conversations with young, testosterone-obsessed firefighters.
“Hey Cap, I just had my bloodwork done and my T levels are pretty low. Do you think I should look into getting on testosterone?”
“You should have a sleep study done first. A lot of low T readings are caused by sleep apnea, and it’s possible that if you fix the sleep apnea, the low T will fix itself. You don’t want to start taking testosterone unless you have to. Once you’re on it, you’re probably never coming off, and there are other risks associated with it.”
“Damn. I was kinda looking forward to the extra testosterone.”
“I know. My concept of how I should feel doesn’t really match up with what nature has given me either. I think I have kind of a mild case of gender dysphoria. We’re all a little trans. Sounds like you are too.”
I think I've always felt this way. Even as a fourteen-year-old suburban punk rocker, I always felt like I looked like a cop who used to be a crane operator. Everybody else always had way more flair than me. Their looks ran deep and seemed effortless - like every surface had another surface underneath. And all of it perfectly weathered and fitting together into one cohesive unit that looked like they were just born that way. If I ever did anything to add a little bling to my ensemble, it just highlighted how plain the rest of me was. I know people who can walk around town in a fedora with a giant feather sticking out of it, and nobody will say the first thing to them about it. Not me. Every single person I passed on the street would just smirk and say “nice hat”. And if I decided to push the issue, I’d just be that guy with the hat. My vibe has always been more Village People than Sex Pistols, so I stopped trying to accessorize early on. I told myself that being an incognito weirdo was better anyhow. I learned early on that it's hard to be a criminal in a flashy car. Better to blend into the background. Keep all your weirdo ideas hidden under a thin veneer of normalcy.
These days I joke with my wife that she's the only reason people recognize me at all. There's me with the whole jeans-and-a-t-shirt, medium height, white guy thing going on. No tattoos. No distinctive scars or tics. Not even a piercing, or a birthmark. And then there's her - a Black Trinidadian woman, gorgeous, with dreadlocks to her waist and a slight accent. I've seen it happen a thousand times. I walk into a room ahead of her and there's not even the faintest hint of recognition on anyone's face. They've seen thousands of me. Millions. And I get it. I don't really want to see another one of me either. But then they see her, and their faces light up. And in seeing her, suddenly, they see me. I'm with her.
She doesn’t like it when I point this out, I’m sure because she feels like I’m exoticizing her when what I’m trying to do is show how nobody gives a shit about me. It’s tough. Everyone sees everything from their own frame of reference and her life experience has largely been one of being the one thing that is not like the others, whereas mine has been the opposite. I am all the others. And there is probably as much power to be had in anonymity as there is to be had in recognizability.
I'll take it. The downside is that nobody remembers that I've actually been around here for a long time. I've lived in this same town now for almost fifty years. And I've done a lot of different things here, but there's often not a lot of crossover between them. There are plenty of firefighters I've known for twenty years who don't know that I play the drums or make big crazy sculptures. And there are plenty of musicians and artists who don't know that I'm a twenty-year veteran of the fire department. I’m the perpetual rookie, the younger brother. There’s a lot to be said for that in terms of keeping yourself humble, but the ensuing imposter syndrome can be difficult to overcome when you need to convince yourself or others that you are, in fact, qualified for the job. I’ve largely settled on showing people rather than telling them, but that’s easier in some respects than it is in others. As a fire Captain, my experience and authority is immediately recognizable. I step out of the Captain’s seat on the truck, and I’m the one with the white helmet. It doesn’t get much simpler than that. What’s interesting to me is that whatever small amount of authority comes from me being in uniform changes the way that I interact with people on every level. I’m no longer the rookie or the guy I assume nobody wants to talk to. The uniform is a calling card that says “You’re safe with me”. I find myself entering easily into conversations with strangers on even the most sensitive of subjects. I can be thoughtful and vulnerable and sensitive. But I can also be funny and irreverent and self-deprecating. And the more I enjoy the privileges of the instant familiarity that my uniform brings, the more I wonder if that wasn’t, at least partially, what I was after all along. But it would be weird for me to wear my uniform up on stage for an open mic in a bar.