TimWoolery.net Documenting the Journey and the Learning Curve

#95 – Die, Tim Allen, Die!

#95 - Die, Tim Allen, Die!

Now that Tim Allen has retired from TV and for all I know is sleeping on a mattress stuffed with dollar bills from all the residuals he earned off of that 8-seasons-too-long show he starred in - he has left a comedy void that America was looking to fill. Depressingly, this didn't give a bunch of forever-ignored comics the chance to finally shine (Bobby Slayton, Gilbert Gottfried and Nick DiPaolo, anyone?) but instead embraced a new breed of humor that I thought had died a merciful death years before.

Hick humor.

I guess every generation has to re-visit this for itself. It wasn't enough when CBS had both "The Beverly Hillbillies" and "Petticoat Junction" back to back in the 60s (along with "Mr. Ed" and 'Green Acres") before pulling it because it thought it was gearing too much of their programming toward yokels. Later on you had shows like "Hee-Haw". Nowadays we have tired of shows that feature a slightly-more sophisticated comedic pallet ("Seinfeld", for example) and run all the way back to the other end of the pendulum with the "Blue Collar Comedy Tour" (I almost said the "White Trash Comedy Tour"). I guess this too, must pass.

Before I spend a bunch of my time and yours attempting to amuse you by pontificating on something that's already glaringly obvious to you, let's leave it like this: you either love that kind of stuff or you hate it. If you love it, there's nothing I can say to convince you. If you hate it, well, we'll both just smile and nod and wait for it to come to an end as all pop culture things surely must.

What I really wanted to talk about was home improvement - this is why I was thinking of Tim Allen. Besides the fact that he's a recovering alcoholic who occasionally falls off the wagon (Mel Gibson is currently playing that role for the world but I keep waiting for Tim Allen to take over as his understudy), the man hopelessly ruined any chance I had at enjoying working on my own house. Maybe the problem with me is that where people simplify processes into idiot one-liners, it makes me instantly repulse. Later on, I come back and find that I do, in fact, enjoy that activity but I have to find my own reasons for it. An ABC sitcom just doesn't encapsulate it for me (much the same way that Jerry Seinfeld doesn't say everything about Superman for me).

Home improvement - working on the house - it's a man's job. I'm sure that sounds misogynistic but stick with me, because I have a point and if I write long enough I'll eventually get to it. There are few things in life that satisfy you more than completing some project to fix up your home. I don't know if women see it the same way but as I haven't completed extensive research on this, I'll have to let that go. Tearing out something old (an old water heater or old nasty carpet) and putting something new in that works and looks better - when you come to the end of the project you have this quiet glow of satisfaction that nothing else gives you. You find yourself coming back out to look at it again and silently say to yourself, Yeah…I did that. But why is that?

I'm not 100% sure, but here is a bit of what I do know. As I discussed before, every man at my age has to define his role for himself. He takes what works for him and that includes some basic societal concepts about the male gender. Now some people can go their whole lives without having to think of stuff like that. Coincidentally, I think these are the same people who love the TV shows and comedy tours I was complaining about above, but let's not get into that. One of the roles that's either genetically encoded on me or imprinted by the way that I grew up is the role of the Fixer. Either way, it's indelibly stuck on me like an engine block that's been dye-stamped. I've talked about this before, just never in the context of home improvement. I have to be the one that works on my house.

I started this line of work at an early age, watching mom and dad work on their house. When they moved into that house around 1982, they started a process of home construction and improvement that didn't really end until after I moved out. In fact, it's probably still going on even though I have taken myself out of that resource pool. When you're a kid, working on your parents house is pretty simple and it lends itself to some memories that are happy only in hindsight.

A lot of the projects had the same tone - wake up on a Saturday morning to mom making breakfast. Her breakfasts on those days are notoriously robust - gives us energy to keep going throughout the day. Dad has some big plans for today (install a laminate floor in the kitchen / redo the bathroom / build the office) and we spend a hurried breakfast talking about it. After breakfast, we go to the hardware story early and I follow dad as he walks authoritatively from aisle to aisle in Home Depot, OSH or Ace to buy whatever it is we need. As we proceed home, I can smell fresh lumber and hear the rattle of different parts in the back of the truck. We get home and Dad is directing the battle like a general; we wield implements of destruction before us to eagerly start tearing things out and get the process started. As the day goes on, we see the progress, the plan is coming together and we should have made some significant accomplishments by the time quitting time arrives. I finish the day dirty, sweaty and aching. Sawdust dusts my forearms, maybe a couple of bandages that I put on cuts or nicks are already caked with dirt and blood. I look gross - but I am tired and I am happy. Shower off, clean up and eat dinner - you put a man's day of work in, boy.

We completed a lot of projects like that when I was growing up. We redid both bathrooms, painted the inside and outside of the house at least twice, re-planted lawns, dug the water pipe ditch, mowed the lawns hundreds of times, cleaned up dog poop, built the office, built the arbor, built the deck, cleaned the garage, hauled trash to the dump, sledgehammered the concrete patio to make room for the deck, installed laminate flooring. The list was endless…I'm sure that there's probably about a dozen other different types of projects we were involved in. I just can't remember them all.

Not to say that it was all fun and games. The way that we started out - full of hope and optimism at the start of the day slowly waned until we were tired, hungry and mean. Dad's confident direction at the start of the day slowly became snappish orders as the project failed to move as successfully or as quickly as he envisioned. I'll never forget the time that, after having an argument with mom about the arbor, he climbed up to knock out a support beam that wasn't in right. Unfortunately, I was right under it and caught it on the back of my head - goose-egg or concussion, you make the call. Hurt worse than a hangover, but I didn't know that at the time.

Doing these projects on my own, a special kind of stress crawls up from my stomach to clutch at my chest when things don't go the way I planned. Not that I really know why that happens; it's not like I should really know how the project should go - it's the first time I've tried it, for crying out loud. But the panic, the doubt creeps in and soon I'm snapping at Nicole or the poor drive-thru guy at KFC for no reason at all. After I calm down, I go back and apologize but you and I both know that something more needs to be done.

Hence, the reason for all of this writing - I need to take this feeling out, throw it on the examining table and see what it really is. Why do I put so much emotional capital on being able to complete a home improvement project such that it becomes this well of negativity on my soul when things don't go as they should?

Simply put, the ability to work on your house and complete any project that comes up, speaks a lot about your ability to provide for your house. If things are going well (and they should always go well - those home-improvement shows on the Learning Channel have deluded you into thinking that no home improvement project can ever not go well), then you are the man of your house - you are the Fixer. If they aren't, well, that's when things go tragically awry. The panic sets in, you start trying to make up for lost ground (when ground may not have been lost at all) and you begin this ever-increasing spiral of panic/anger/dismay that probably will lead to some big blow-out fight over nothing at all, unless you do something to stop it.

So, yes, there is a lot riding on this project - this project defines how you as a guy take care of your house. How well it goes when in progress (neverending trips to the hardware store? Tools that migrate all over your worksite and are never easily found?) speak volumes about you, The Man of Your House.

So where does all of this come from? Don't ask me, man - I still don't know. The way I see it, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, the whole provider instinct is genetically hard-coded to the DNA of the vast majority of men. It's not learned - nobody sits there and programs the thought If you can't fix a sink, you're a FAILURE into little boys at an impressionable age. We get to a certain age and bingo! It hits us. We can't explain it - we can't rationalize it. All we really know is that God-blessed junction box better be wired by sundown or all the demons of our souls will be loosed to torment us with our failure. The feeling can be likened to seeing your team lose the Super Bowl, being turned down for a date and having your dog die all in the same emotion.

I guess if women had more sympathy for this - took more time to understand it - we'd have more sympathy when they had body-image issues while trying on clothes at the mall. Such is the vast chasm of gender identity differences, I guess.

After watching this happen to my dad and after seeing it happen to me - I decided to take some positive action. I didn't want things to be like this for Titus - not the same way that they were for me. I wanted him to see working on the house for what it is - feel good about making your house better. Enjoy the time you get to spend with each other in those moments where you are waiting for other things to happen. Teach something to someone else - learn something new that you did not know before. When things don't go well on the project (I haven't had one go smoothly yet, but…eh…), learn to accept the disappointments with dignity and give yourself the room to step back, catch your psychic breath and try again tomorrow.

I should probably send this to TLC but since you're here - let's talk about it. I think a great seasonal show on those channels is one that they should occasionally re-run. It will be entitled: "How to Complete Your Home Improvement Project". It will feature some basic project management skills like getting all your materials first and planning for how long each task will take. It'll cover stuff like, "What to do if the project isn't going well" and "Get enough rest the night before…eat regularly". The drive to complete the project can make you work all night and/or refuse to eat the next day. It isn't healthy. Teach your viewers to set reasonable expectations for themselves, I say. Learn how to cut your visits to the hardware store down (which I am convinced accounts for half their income - people who start the project badly, waste materials and then have to buy more to finish the job) and organize your tasks and materials to cut down on wasted effort.

Home improvement - one of the fastest-growing sectors of American business - it can be a friend or a foe. If you're one of the million-or-so guys contemplating working on his house, take a moment to step back and give yourself room to fail…room to learn. If you can do that well, you can handle anything else.

- Tim Woolery, 08/29/2006