All The Spite Moves
Growing up, there were lots of activities I sucked at.
Like drawing, for example. I could never draw worth a damn. At first it wasn’t a big deal, because all kids suck at drawing when they’re really young, but once I got to be about nine or ten years old, my lack of proficiency with a crayon started to rear its ugly head in social situations.
My friend Chad could sit down and effortlessly draw a legitimately bitchin’ Camaro, but when I drew a car, it always ended up looking like a roller skate. The frame of the car wasn’t even attached to the tires, it just kinda magically hovered above them...no one was getting anywhere in this piece of crap, I made certain of that. If Ralph Nader had come to my elementary school to speak, he’d have taken my drawing off the classroom wall and left with it, just to be sure. I justified the shoddy state of the automobile by pretending the stick figure family inside it actually enjoyed taking the bus from time-to-time, to people watch and feel more connected to the city.
I’ll save the rest of the list of things I sucked at for the FU’s “Self Deprecation” issue (Onika promised me the cover). My point is...even at that tender young age I knew I sucked at drawing but since it wasn’t something I was interested in, it didn’t hurt my feelings if the other kids ranked on me for it. And they did. They called me “Ronny Skate Car” until I was thirteen. Okay, that’s not true, but that’s what I was afraid they’d call me.
However, when it came to something I was good at, I wanted to be acknowledged for it. Nay, I demanded it. It only seemed fair. I was willing to take a beating for my sad drawings, so I should get some gold stars for any inspired behavior I happened to exhibit. Right?
The best example of this mentality in action was when the neighborhood playground summer softball league decided to have an all-star game. My buddies and I played for nearby Whitman Elementary, and we were a softball powerhouse. We routinely bludgeoned teams and I have no qualms saying I was our second best player. My buddy Tuchel was a shoe-in for the all-star team, `cause he hit for power. He was our A-Rod, slamming the home runs. I was our Jeter, sans the ability to date every cute girl on the south side of Milwaukee. Clearly, Tuchel and I would both be all-stars.
No sir. I got snubbed.
There were so many teams in the league that only one player per team could make it, and Tuchel was getting the call for Whitman. It makes perfect sense now, it was all politics, but back then I was genuinely pissed about it. I busted my ass out there on that hundred-degree asphalt all summer long, putting up good numbers, playing solid defense – screw your rules, what’s right is right. I deserved to be an all-star!
The day of the game, I was out in my backyard pouting and pretending not to care when our phone rang. Moments later, my father called out to me through the kitchen window.
Hey kid, grab your glove, we’ve gotta get to the park. They need you to play in the all-star game.
I was even more offended by this than when I was left off the team in the first place. I wasn’t good enough to be an all-star before…but what, some lesser 10-year-old softball player than I wakes up with the chicken pox and I’m supposed to just come running and help out? Do they think they can call me whenever they want and I’ll just show up for them, like a pizza, or some kind of softball-playing prostitute?
I don’t think so. Thanks but no thanks. They had their chance to have me on that team, they passed and now it’s too late. Sorry, but I’ve since made plans for this afternoon…I’ve got ants to fry with this magnifying glass and I can’t possibly reschedule.
Dad wasn’t gonna stand for this kind of attitude, obviously. If I was gonna swallow my pride and play in their stupid all-star game (and learn the lesson I was supposed to learn), it was going to be because I found a reason that made sense to me. Something was going to have to inspire me to willfully get into the car and go to that park.
Come on, grab your glove…let’s go show `em how wrong they were.
And there it was. Spite! I could rub it in their faces. I could go there and show them the error of their ways by hitting for the cycle and being named MVP! Oh, the look the softball powers-that-be would have on their smug little softball faces as they handed me the trophy…it’d be priceless. They’d probably apologize to me – maybe even into a microphone in front of everybody – but I wouldn’t have to say a word. My game would do the talking. My father was officially a genius - we were in the car en route to the all-star game within minutes.
Now, it could be argued that my father did the wrong thing. Some might say he should’ve given me a lecture about the importance of good sportsmanship and being a team player, instead of introducing me to the concept of spite, but here’s the thing: he knew I didn’t have a problem with that stuff. Once I got there and started playing with the first ballot all-stars, he knew it would all work out, but at the moment my feelings were hurt and my ego was bruised and he needed to teach me how to pick myself up and brush myself off and get past it.
Well, spite worked. Spite started it all by getting me into that car, spite helped teach me a lesson, and while spite didn’t make me go to the game and play, it definitely made me play like the all-star I felt I deserved to be.
Perhaps most importantly, spite taught me that sometimes it takes a villain to produce a hero - and that sometimes you’ve gotta create that villain yourself.
This wasn’t just an adolescent thing, either. Even now, I find inspiration through spite. Are you kidding? This is the movie business I’m trying to break into – this whole town is built on spite. If you’re looking for someone to say no to you and tell you you’re not good enough, Hollywood is the place to be. No shortage of potential villains here. I’ve gotta believe everyone out here has a short “screw you” list in their head that makes them want to be better, I know I do.
Spite isn’t for everybody, though, and I get that. It’s a little negative, it’s a little immature, it’s probably even a little unhealthy…but if it’s just that little kick you need at the outset of a project that drives you to make the kind of inspired choices which help produce better work…then how is that bad, exactly?
Like anything else, you just have to understand it and know how to control it. The goal is to inspire yourself to be better, not tear someone down to make yourself look better. There’s a big difference.
So next time you’re looking for a way to kick your game up a notch, get a little competitive and give spite a try. Make a villain out of someone. You might be surprised at what it can bring out in you.
