|
THE YEAR OF LIVING
DANGEROUSLY
CHAPTER SIX:
GOOD LUCK BAD LUCK
Written by Rick
Archer
|
 |
Let me ask the Reader a question.
Perhaps you have watched
Dancing with the Stars or a death-defying Cirque de Soleil performance.
Or a trapeze act in the circus. Have you ever
seen someone turn out the lights right in the middle
of a performance?
What if Suzy had been in air
with me ready to catch her?
If I could not see, Suzy
could have broken her neck as she fell to the floor.
Do you understand just how
weird this story is?
What was the DJ thinking? Did
he lose his mind?
And what about
Eric? My job was his for the taking. All he has
to do is be patient. Instead he bursts into Stevens'
office without knocking, puts his feet on the man's desk,
calls Stevens by his first name, then demands to become a
partner in the business. Was Eric totally unaware that
he was dealing with an egotist? How do we explain this?
The obvious answer is drugs or alcohol. I
met with the DJ prior to the Ritz fiasco in order to hand
him our music. The man seemed sober to me. Same
for Eric. Eric
did not strike me as drunk or high.
Due to incidents
such as Eric and the DJ, I have
developed a theory called 'Cosmic Blindness'.
Let's say that Fate really does exist. If that is
true, then how is it carried out? Earlier I spoke of
my belief that certain events are predestined. At
various points
obstacles will be placed in our path. If indeed this
is the case, how does the Universe make these events happen?
Is it possible that our common sense can be temporarily
suspended in service of our Fate?
For example, I
can draw a straight line from my high school acne attack to
my dance career. Due to an overwhelming conviction
that I was hideous, ten years of failure with women led to
the fateful decision to take dance lessons as a possible
solution.
What if I told
you that my mother waited FOUR DAYS to take me to the
doctor? The attack was bizarre. I was healthy at
10 pm on a Sunday night. My mother had just opened
several pimples and cleansed them. Something went
wrong. Due to an infection in my lymph glands, as I
slept my face became covered with several dozen red
pus-filled pimples. When I awoke, my face was so tight
from swelling that I could barely open my jaw. What
does a parent do if awakened in the morning by a
screaming, hysterical boy whose face has turned him into a grotesque
monster during the night? What does a face swollen to
the size of a balloon say ? INFECTION!
What does my fever suggest? INFECTION! Normal
parents would rush their child to the doctor ASAP. Not my
mother.
"Richard,
this will clear up by tomorrow. Go ahead and stay home
from
school today."
|
Oddly enough, two
years earlier I came home from a camping trip with a serious
fever. It was a Saturday afternoon. Seeing that
I could barely stand up, my mother called the
doctor immediately. He made an emergency visit to our home, gave me a
shot, and I slept for 24 hours. Problem solved.
Why would she do the right thing then, but wait four days
now? Was money an issue? No. My father, a
fairly wealthy man at this point, was responsible for all
medical bills.
By the time my mother eventually caved
into my plea to do something, it was too late to control the
problem. The
acne took six horrible months to clear up. Then came the
scars.
Here is my
point. Let us say it is my Destiny to create the
largest dance studio in America. However, just to make
things interesting, let's make this 'ugly duckling turns
swan' story border on the impossible. First we
have to disfigure the boy. How can we accomplish that? Let's
remove his mother's common sense. Then we have to make the poor boy scared to
death of women.
Not a problem. Let's ask Vanessa to help. Then
let's send him the Mistress Book with a dance
suggestion and put Vanessa's name in it just in case Rick
has trouble catching on. For good measure, let's make him so lonely that he thinks
dance lessons are his only solution. Make him so clumsy
that it
takes four years to learn how to dance. Torture him
with the partner dance problem. Scare the kid to death
with Eric. Saddle the boy with an idiot DJ
for good measure. If that doesn't kill him, then bring
on The Year of Living Dangerously.
And how did this
all start? My theory is that Fate blinded my mother to
the seriousness of my infection. Convinced that I was
ugly, I was doomed to a long journey searching for some way to
regain my confidence.
|
SUMMER OF 1978
GOOD LUCK BAD LUCK
|
|
 |
I have spent my life
fascinated by the paradox of how Bad Luck can become Good Luck
and vice versa. Here is a good example. In World War II, my father's
company had just arrived in Belgium. It was 1944 and Christmas just around the
corner.
My father was on patrol in the snowy Ardennes Forest when a
shot rang out. My father fell to the ground writhing in
excruciating pain.
He had been shot in the hip by a German sniper. Unable to walk, his buddies had to carry
him back to camp.
From
there he was sent to England for recovery. The wound was serious.
The pain was great and it would be a year
before he could walk again without assistance. Was my father bitter?
You better believe it. But then he changed his mind. The
infamous Battle of the Bulge began one week after he was
hospitalized. During
a furious attack made by the Germans, half my father's company was
killed or badly wounded. Lying bed-ridden in a hospital,
Dad was stunned to realize this
painful injury had probably saved
his life. He got a purple heart and a college education. His friends got a grave.
One of the
luckiest breaks of my life was receiving a full scholarship
to college. Although I received an excellent education
at Johns Hopkins, I was miserable practically the entire
time. Why? Hopkins was a men's school.
Finding women to date was like looking for water in the
desert. After getting my heart broken in my Freshman
year, I basically gave up looking for the final three years.
My constant loneliness had a lot to do with my loss of
confidence around women. By the time I graduated, my
Epic Losing Streak had been extended to eight years. I
was getting further and further behind. My college
scholarship was Good Luck, but it was also Bad Luck.
I could not have
been happier when I was accepted into graduate school, again
with a scholarship.
What a wonderful case of Good Luck! As a Psychology
major, I had spent my college years hoping to become a
therapist. Was this was a dream come true? No. Colorado State was the
worst year of my life, a clear case of Good Luck turning
Bad. So much for my fondest dream. However, there was a Silver Lining.
Falling deep into depression due to my inability to deal
with the constant criticism of my professor, I was in so
much pain I began to see a therapist. This man helped
me repair some of the damage caused by my troubled
childhood. Unfortunately the damage was too great to
expect a full cure, but at least the process was started.
Here is what was curious. If Destiny required me to
fall to pieces, what better place to begin the healing
process than a place where I could receive such valuable
assistance?
|
Here is my
point. There was something wrong with me, very wrong.
What I needed was a reset. By breaking me down
completely, I was given the
chance to build back better. It was not pleasant,
but during my year of graduate school I learned what was
wrong with me. Even better, I started work on the
repair. In other words, the place where I had my
breakdown also carried the seeds of my comeback. That
is what I mean by 'Silver Lining'. Ultimately
falling apart at Colorado State was a lucky break (although
it certainly did not feel that way at the time).
My horrible year
at Colorado State paid another dividend as well. A 'Nemesis'
is considered a rival, an archenemy who becomes the
inescapable agent of someone's downfall. Dr. Fujimoto
fit that description to perfection. I had absolutely
no answer for the man. His neverending barrage of
criticism ripped me to shreds. However, he did do me
a favor. When I went into therapy, I brought
with me a checklist of shortcomings previously identified by
Fujimoto. In other words, Fujimoto taught me exactly
what I needed to work on.
Fujimoto did me
another favor as well. Four
years later, it
was incredible Good Luck when an exciting job as a dance instructor
was handed to me. Unfortunately my new job included Lance
Stevens, the Boss from Hell. Very Bad Luck. Not
a day passed when he did not criticize or insult me for
something. However, something curious happened.
It turned out I knew exactly how to handle Stevens'
negativity and frequent
threats to fire me.
I never disagreed with him when he
criticized me. I did not make eye contact. I showed
him infinite respect
even though I hated the man. I never said anything bad
behind his back. With one exception I never challenged
his authority. I hid my resentment by showing
gratitude for being allowed to keep my job. I behaved in an
obsequious manner as a way to deceive him into believing I
could never be a threat. Where do you suppose I
learned this strategy? I had my critical Colorado
State professor to thank. Yes, I failed miserably in my
interactions with Fujimoto and got myself tossed out in
the process. However, by paying attention I learned how to play the game.
In the short run, yes, Colorado State was horrible.
But in the larger scheme of things, Colorado State was the
place where I hit the reset button. I became a better
man due to the hardship I faced that year. Would I
have endured this willingly? Of course not. But
I have to say the lessons I learned that year proved
invaluable during my dance career.
|
 |
Bad Luck does
not necessarily mean the end of the world. Sometimes Bad Luck has its advantages. During my 'Apprenticeship',
i.e. the first six months, I
was forced to scramble like crazy to please Lance Stevens. By designing
four new levels of dance classes, I made the man rich. I made
roughly $1,000 a month. I brought in roughly $10,000 a
month ($50,000 when adjusted for inflation).
Stevens did not
thank me, he did not praise me, he did not reward me. Terrible Bad Luck. But there was also a Silver
Lining. I despised being forced to meet Stevens'
demands to do all this extra work for free, but when it was
all over I learned two things. First I discovered I
had the
ability to design dance levels without any help and no
previous experience. Even more important, I discovered
I was the first dance teacher in Houston to offer group
classes in Disco partner dance. Once I was given this lead, I never surrendered it.
My Apprenticeship was horrible in the short run, but
invaluable in the long run. That is why they tell us
to be patient when things are terrible. Deal with the
situation as best one can and try to learn something.
As Nietzsche said, that which doesn't kill us makes us
stronger.
|
JUNE 1978
THE
TRANSFORMATION
|
|
So what about
Eric? Was he Good Luck or Bad Luck?
Over the first
six months I had busted my ass to succeed against long odds. However, it was
all for naught, or at least I thought so at the time.
At the exact moment I thought the coast was clear, I was in
for a nasty surprise. When Eric appeared in mid-May,
Stevens was very impressed. Not only did he hire Eric on the spot,
he erased my name on the schedule for Wednesdays in June and
penciled Eric in. Unbelievable. After all my
hard work, Stevens was replacing
me with another instructor. Seriously, I wanted to
murder Stevens. Justifiable homicide, no jury would
convict me.
Over the next
month, I could see that Stevens was grooming Eric to take my
place. If I could see it, then Eric should have seen
it too. That is why I was so
stunned when Eric demanded that Stevens make him
his business partner. The sign on the door said 'Stevens
of Hollywood'. That should have been all Eric
needed to know. Lance Stevens wrapped his entire
identity around his studio. Stevens was a self-made
man who had built this studio from scratch in the
mid-Sixties. No sponsor, no patron, no sugar-daddy.
A champion dancer many times over, he was an egotist who
assumed the world revolved around him. If
Eric had politely raised the subject of partnership,
I imagine Stevens would have listened with interest.
After all, Eric was Stevens' kind of guy. But Stevens
would never tolerate having a snot-nosed punk fresh off the
street make such an outrageous
demand. I was stunned. Eric had only been here
one month. Who makes a demand like this after one
month?
Eric's sudden
demise led to a life-changing decision on my part. I
had no idea what the future held. Furthermore, I knew
I stood on shaky ground. Eric had seen to that.
Eric was everything to the World of Dance that I wasn't.
Brimming with confidence, Eric had shown me what a professional dance instructor
was
supposed to look like. And what about me? I apologized for my existence all the time.
I had always known I was an impersonator, but until Eric
came along I had not realized how obvious my lack of ability was.
Are you a fan of irony? I was unsure why Stevens had
called me into his office that day. Considering I had
never been in here before, I assumed Stevens wanted privacy
so he could fire me. At the exact moment I thought it
was over, Eric burst in the room. Goodbye Eric.
Too weird.
|
 |
What was I to
make of this? I do not expect everyone to agree with
me that our lives are guided by Fate. That said, I
hope my Readers can understand that I had several reasons to
explain why Fate seemed relevant to this job. Let's
review the lucky breaks.
1974. The Mistress Book sets
me on a dance path.
1977. Rosalyn
Lively hands me a part-time job out of thin air.
1977. Lance Stevens hands
me a part-time job out of thin air.
1978. With Rick Archer as
the only active Disco teacher in Houston upon the debut of
Saturday Night Fever, Stevens of Hollywood
attracted countless dance students in the first month.
Despite being a complete nobody, this head start turned
a rookie into the city's best-known Disco teacher
overnight.
1978. I assumed I would be
toast once the professional teachers got in the game
starting in February. Fortunately the difficult Partner Dance Crisis
gave me an insurmountable lead over people far more talented
and better trained.
To me, it seemed like God had moved
a mountain to get a socially-awkward man with negligible
dance talent into a position where he
thrived. I had
known all along that my success was a fluke of some sort. But until
Eric arrived, I had no idea just how preposterous my success
had been. 'Realistically' I HAD NO BUSINESS BEING
THIS SUCCESSFUL! Which is why over the past six months
I had secretly thought my success was due largely to Divine
Intervention.
But the arrival
of Eric had me deeply confused. If it was true that
God was helping me defy the long odds against me, why would
He go to all that trouble, then send Eric to replace me?
Once I saw Eric in action, I realized just how utterly mediocre I was.
Talk about a Reality Check! So
much for my fantasies of making a career out of this. I
became ashamed
for believing I actually had enough ability to succeed in the
long run. Lance Stevens had been right all along.
Dance teachers are supposed to be able to dance like Eric.
|
 |
Please forgive
me for saying this, but my Faith was badly shaken. All
this time I had been under the illusion that someone up
there liked me. Now I knew better. Eric had seen
to that. Any thought of being Destiny's Child
disappeared the moment he showed up. I was so upset. I loved
this job so much! I wanted desperately to teach
dance for the rest of my life. I did not dare tell anyone, but
in the privacy of my thoughts I believed God had been helping me.
That is why I had come to believe all these lucky breaks
were meant to be part of my 'Magic
Carpet Ride'. Not any more. Eric
had just crash-landed my Magic Carpet.
But then Eric
self-destructed in a truly bizarre way. Not only that,
it happened right in front of me. That in itself was
strange. If you are asking the boss for a promotion,
do you put him on the spot with your rival watching?
Of course not. If anything, my presence added to
Stevens' fury. Had I not been there, Stevens might
have been able to overlook Eric's umbrage. Indeed, Eric's sudden
change in behavior was so extreme that I thought he had lost
his mind. What would cause him to behave like that?
Unable to make realistic sense of Eric's inexplicable
arrogance, the
word 'Miracle' crossed my mind. I decided that Fate had
stepped in. This was my "fall on your knees"
moment. I believed I had witnessed a demonstration of
God's Will.
Convinced that
Eric had been the victim of Cosmic Blindness, I came to
believe my position at Stevens of Hollywood was meant to be
mine all along. Why me?
What did I ever do to deserve an honor like this? I
had a good heart, but I had never done anything
noble enough to merit this kind of reward. Now that
Eric's bizarre demise had reaffirmed my belief
that God had chosen me for this position, I was overcome
with awe. Deeply
humbled, I thanked God from the bottom of my
heart. Then I made a sacred vow. I promised to
repay the Universe with my best effort for putting its trust
in me.
|
So back to my
question. Was Eric 'Good Luck' or 'Bad Luck'?
Eric was horrible bad luck. I thought he was the end
to all my dreams. But ultimately Eric managed to
change the direction of my life. Mark Twain once said
the two most important days of your life are the day you
were born and the day you found out why. Eric became
the reason I found out 'Why'.
I viewed Eric as
a Divine Messenger.
Messengers are sent to convey a message, then leave abruptly. What
did I conclude from Eric's brief visit? I concluded
that God would do whatever necessary to help me to keep my
job.
|
Before Eric
came along, I was the Accidental Dance Instructor.
Most people who seek a career do specific things to obtain
it. They use their education to prepare. They
fill out application forms when they are ready. They
schedule interviews and try-outs, then grit their teeth for
likely rejections. Even when they finally get the job,
they know there will be a long ladder to climb. All of
this is done with meticulous planning.
Not me. I
never aspired to this, I never trained for this, I never
lifted a finger. All I did was take some goofy line
dance lessons for three years hoping to find a girlfriend.
Ironically, after all those years, I still had yet to find a
girlfriend. What a joke, what a silly waste of time.
Not once did I plan for a career as a dance instructor.
However, thanks to being in the right place at the right time,
a full-time job was handed to me. But that did not
make it a 'Career'. During the first six
months all I did was careen recklessly from one crisis to
another. Barely under control much of the time as I
played 'Fake it Till You Make it', my only goal was
to cling to my job.
Eric changed all
that. Eric brought about a Transformation. Convinced that I had been handed a mission,
I no longer feared for my job. Instead I began to
think about the future. Now that I knew what a
professional dance instructor was supposed to look like,
Eric became my role model. I wanted to dance better, I
wanted to teach better, I wanted to develop the same polish
Eric had when he interacted with his students. Imbued
with the confidence that I was doing what God wanted me to
do, rather than ride the horse backwards and cross my
fingers, from here on out I would seize the reins. It
was time to take control of what I now believed was MY
LIFETIME CAREER.
|
 |
THE YEAR OF LIVING
DANGEROUSLY
Chapter
SEVEN:
JENNY
|
|
|
