Rah-Rah-Sis-Boom-Bah

Some people are born to stand out. They entertain and shine and bring overall joy to people all around them. Their smile brightens up a day. Everyone flocks to them for the best advice. Sometimes they are even the most attractive person in the room. These folks who stand out, they are the reason that the world goes round and round, because everyone wants to be like them. 

I have never really stood out from the crowd. When I was younger, and in grade school, the only real thing that made me stand out were my big ears. I mean, the kids also used to call me a fag all of the time, so I guess that was something that made me stand out. My best friend in junior high, Andrew, started calling me Crispy after hearing our 7th grade PE coach call out my name in class one day. He yelled "Chris B" and from then on, the name just kind of stuck. It followed me throughout junior high school and eventually faded when I moved to another part of town and started a new high school with different people. The new folks still called me a fag though. Something's never really change.

By the time I was old enough to know what it meant to stand out, or find my place in the world, I was a senior in high school trying to do all of the things that a boy in high school didn't do. I was in the top choir. I modeled for the school fashion show during the spring. I was one of a few boys that actually took dance instead of regular PE, because I hated the guys I went to high school with. I managed to do so many things my senior year of high school, that I managed to get into the yearbook more than three times. At the time, I thought that was a great accomplishment. Even the last page of my senior yearbook has a big picture of someone shaving my head. That was me, trying to stand out.

I guess that trying to be seen has morphed over the years. It has never been a secret that I do not enjoy my roots. Coming from a poor family with no real history and no real story from beginning to end made it a bit difficult for me to articulate the things that I wanted. My Dad couldn't wait until I turned 18 so that he would no longer have to worry about paying child support for me. One of his many quirks was that he couldn't wait to no longer have to pay child support for me and my two sisters, because it was a drain on his back account and his lifestyle. He also couldn't wait to get us off of his insurance, because, again, it was a drain on his finances. Growing up always seemed like a burden, because my parents couldn't wait until I was old enough so they didn't have to worry about me anymore. I mean, they worry in the sense that they want to make sure that I am not dead. When it comes to emotional support or help during troubled times, there is not much support to go around.

Which is why I wanted to distance myself from those environments and those lifestyles that would have me in a constant cycle of hate and shame. I tried to stand out by trying to be a party guy. Drugs were never really my thing as I couldn't commit to them. I tried to be something for everyone while snorting whatever I could up my nose and spending ungodly amounts of time without sleeping. All of that came to a head when I woke up one day to news that a friend of mine had been murdered in downtown Phoenix for drug related issues. I found myself scared of an unknown entity and constantly bombarded by the words "Mexican Mafia" from a man I thought was my friend. Turns out, drug and paranoia go hand in hand, and I had no time for either.

It took me almost a year to clean up my act. I moved to California and started hanging out with a cousin (by way of marriage) and we started to do a little partying. I noticed all the same patterns that I was trying to avoid were repeating and I would end up in sketchy situations that wouldn't allow me to break the cycle of habit. It took a dishonest dealing from my cousin to put a stop to it finally, and I returned back to Phoenix to start back from the bottom. All I was trying to accomplish was to figure myself out. I guess I let the demons have their way with me until I was done being a puppet.

I never wanted to be the center of attention, but I always had a knack for telling a story and keeping people's attention. If not to be sarcastically funny, it was meant to be socially available. I could find commonalities in the world around me and personalize how those things affected me. I still wanted to be seen. I wanted to be praised and adored. I wanted all the things that those who stand out are born with, but I also didn't want to do the work for it. 

I once sent out an audition tape to MTV's The Real World (I think it was Seattle) and I had absolutely no idea what I was doing. I sent a (less than 10 minutes) tape of myself, with blue hair, sitting out in a parking lot behind my work and I expected that somehow having blue hair and being gay would be enough to be picked. After high school, I thought "I will try my hand at modeling" and spent a few uncomfortable months learning how to walk a runway, apply make-up, and pose for professional pictures. During those months, I had to attend modeling class and I was constantly asked by the management staff if I had money to invest into a portfolio so that they could help me "start my career". The main agent I met with said I reminded her of a young Tom Hanks. I knew she was full of shit and all she really wanted was my money. Back then, $500 was not easy to come by. Especially from someone who worked a job that only paid five something an hour. I wasn't going to stand out anywhere.

After I was outed in 1994, I had a brief moment of strutting my stuff. I have always been tall for my age and I used what looks I had to get into bars and clubs before I turned 21. Nightclubs were the thing of sin that I desired so badly. I think that I had seen the movie Basic Instinct a million times, and paired the useless knowledge of prowling and skulking in a dark nightclub with a ton of sass and attitude. The constant throb and pulse of dance music has always been a drug to me. Even now, when I hear an intense dance track in my car, my body wants to be on a dancefloor, gyrating and leg humping on cute muscle boys. The scene is intoxicating. So is the alcohol. Most of the time I knew when I had had enough, I had to stop, but there were times when I had to play it so straight so as not to cause myself or others harm. I found myself involved in sexual situations that could have turned into SA scenarios that would have damaged me forever. And I still never got the attention from the one man that I always wanted but could never have. At some point I thought that I was cool. I knew each and every club that I wanted to attend and what kind of look that I wanted to achieve. In the long run, all I really ever accomplished was having a ton of chuckle worthy stories and memories from a time period that was so far fringed that todays queer boys and girls would lose their shit.

The roads that I travelled led me to another high that seemed to go nowhere when I was introduced to karaoke. Like most people, I thought the idea of getting up in front of a bunch of drunken strangers was super awkward. I wanted no part of it. Until I had a few shots of whatever alcohol that I could consume and I sang along with some girl who wanted to sing Summer Lovin. I was hooked after that. It is amazing what happens when you sing a song, and sing it well, and people cheer and applaud you. That high is one that I cannot ever replace. I would go from bar to bar to sing whatever I could, just to hear the sound of others approval. It gave my ego such a boost that I almost thought "what if this is my calling" and I would think of ways that I could impress the world around me by recording songs that I liked to sing along to. However, in order to have time to do those things, I would have had to had this burning passion in order to accomplish the things that I wanted. I always assumed that it was an accident how musicians became musicians, because they somehow just ran into one another and suddenly they formed a band and started making music. I never had the drive or the interest to apply myself to a strict adherence to perfect that craft. Year and years of loving music, performing music, being influenced by music, learning music, and I couldn't muster up the discipline to make it my passion. As I have gotten older, that is the one thing that has pissed me off the most. I have always wanted to be a singer and a song writer, I just never applied myself. 

For a brief time, I stood out. If only in my little world of "what the fuck" surrounded by background people and whatnot, I stood out and I felt myself being a part of something. It felt good. Which I suppose is the way it is supposed to feel, but it also felt expensive. It was fake and immature and exhausting and all of those things that make being young and enthusiastic fun and memorable. So when I wanted to stand out again, this time as a chef, I was certain I had once again figured out another key to life. I went to culinary school, I learned how to put together plates that looked like restaurant quality dishes. I performed with some of the elite students in my class to show that I had just the right amount of stuff needed in order to become something of a kitchen master chef. Then one day, my head chef took me aside and said "I don't see you doing this as your career." He said "you're great at what you do, but I just don't see the passion there" and that really stuck me through the heart. I spent two years going through this advanced education program to get an Associates Degree in Culinary Art only to be told by one of their leading instructors that he didn't see a spark in me. I crumbled.

Relationship after failed relationship occurred. The death of my beloved happened. And it seemed like all at once, the world around me died. For years I have thought that some alternate universe version of me stole what I had, because he was tired of living like shit in his world. Many times I have woken up and thought "which world am I in today", because time changes things constantly. My head won't let me be and the world around me moved from "your generation is the future of our country" to "Gen X? Never heard of'em". It's weird to grow older and wonder what happened in the years from a to z. If it weren't for the things that I write down, I may never really remember what occurred. Which, in hindsight, is the one thing that I am most passionate about.  I love to tell a good story. I love to write down the thoughts in my head so that others might try to understand just exactly who I am. Even with some embellishments sprinkled in here and there, at least what I have documented in my life was something real. These paragraphs have always been something that I can look back on and remember all the things that I wanted out of life and all the things I never tried to do. 

I may not have been born to stand out, but I was never intended to be born obsolete. And where ever the next roads want to take me, I am sure that I am going to fight tooth and nail to accomplish some other form of me that wants to be seen. I'm just tired.

And I wonder how much more work it is going to cost me?