by Ross Mathews
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For anyone who’s ever felt different
from everyone else.
Foreword
by Gwyneth Paltrow
I fell in love with Ross Mathews the first time I saw him. I was watching The Tonight Show one night, and he was covering the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City. He made me laugh out loud—not an occurrence that happens to me regularly when I am watching most late-night television shows. His brand of humor was incredible, razor sharp, and yet sweet.
Our paths first crossed later that same year as I was headed into the famous Vanity Fair Oscar party. I can’t remember exactly what happened, the order of things or what transpired, but he called out to me on the red carpet and I saw him, standing there on the press line, microphone in hand.
He looked harmless enough, like an adorable mix between a Cabbage Patch Kid and the Pillsbury Doughboy. Plus, I recognized him from that time I’d seen him on TV, so I decided to chat with him. Nothing has been the same since.
Within mere seconds, he asked if we could be best friends—that I do remember. Coming from anyone else, it might’ve been creepy. But for some reason, without really thinking, I said yes.
I meant it.
He was so nervous during our first lunch date that he didn’t even touch his food. On our second date he ate a bit more (the wine helped). After that dinner, we were off and running.
Throughout the past decade, we have been through a lot together, Ross and I—life’s ups and downs, loves and deaths. I have watched his career take off, he has visited me in London, and each year on my birthday he sends me an erotic lesbian e-card. True story.
What started as a funny “Why Not?” has magically morphed into a legitimate bond. Sometimes in life, for reasons we don’t always understand, we make these little connections. You see someone’s face, they say something that makes you certain you are supposed to know them and you follow your heart. That’s what happened with Rossy Pants and me. We may live oceans apart, but we are cut from the same cloth, to mix a metaphor.
Read this book. Trust me—you’ll want to be his best friend, too.
Prologue
Balloon Day
Hello, dear reader! It’s me, Ross Mathews from television! So now that we’re best friends (oh, by the way, we totally just became best friends), you should know that I am possibly, just maybe a teeny bit way too excited for you to read my book. I’m so excited I just can’t hide it. I’m about to lose control and I think I like it. Why? Because I’ve always dreamed of sharing my deepest, most top-secret thoughts with the world at large and now—OMG—it’s finally happening.
Even as a little kid, I was the MVP of TMI, yearning to connect with people in any way I could. With that in mind, my favorite day of the school year wasn’t Picture Day, Sloppy Joe Day, or even Bring Your Grandparents to School Day—all fine days in their own right. The day I looked forward to most was Balloon Day.
It occurs to me now that you might be confused, dear reader. Perhaps Balloon Day wasn’t a national celebration that children in schools across the USA enjoyed. Who knows? Balloon Day may have been just a quaint, small-town phenomenon that my genius elementary school principal invented for the enjoyment of me and my fellow classmates every few years.
If this is, in fact, the first time you’ve ever heard of Balloon Day, I’m sorry that your childhood was so empty. Perhaps you might want to bring it up in your next therapy session as a possible reason for your fear of commitment. I’m just trying to help.
Balloon Day was awesome—that rare occasion that appealed to naive kindergarteners and jaded sixth graders alike. But as excited as all my classmates were for Balloon Day, my unapologetic gusto put them to shame. This event spoke to me. I loved not only the pageantry of it but the symbolism, as well, and my unbridled enthusiasm for it bordered on straight-up bonkers. But unlike the time I farted on the slide during recess in front of a group of popular fourth graders, none of my peers seemed to judge my boyhood balloon obsession too harshly, for they, too, loved Balloon Day.
Here’s how the big day went down: On small pieces of paper no bigger than Tootsie Pop wrappers, my classmates and I would write our most heartfelt wishes, thoughts, and feelings. Each time my school celebrated Balloon Day, my personalized note was slightly different, but my penmanship was always immaculate. I took the process very seriously, treating it like a sacred communication between myself and the Great Unknown. In addition to my most private and profound thoughts, I’d also take the opportunity to humbly ask for a few actual gifts. Hey, couldn’t hurt, right? You never know.
In second grade, I begged the Universe for a pony farm. In fourth grade, I yearned for a pony farm and a doughnut factory. And finally, in sixth grade, I insisted on a pony farm, a doughnut factory, and, for reasons I didn’t quite understand yet, TV’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas. Each time, I would include my parents’ home telephone number and end my message with, “If you find this note, please call me!”
Once the notes were written, the next and most important step of all was picking out our balloons. In the early days of kindergarten, I made the rookie mistake of being a gentleman, allowing all the girls in school to choose their balloon colors before I chose mine. It was a chivalrous gesture equivalent to putting my coat over a mud puddle for a darling damsel in distress, but it left me with a pathetically pitiful color palette of balloons from which to choose. An orange balloon? I don’t think so. I’m a Spring, not a Fall, thank you very much.
I should have known better. Elementary school girls are as cutthroat as they are cute. Never again. By first grade, I was a seasoned pro. When it came to grabbing the best balloon of the bunch, it was survival of the fittest. With my kindergarten mistakes behind me, I now knew to shamelessly shove my way through the throng of annoying adolescent li’l ladies in order to reach the basket of uninflated balloons before those bitches could steal all the pink ones—my signature color, then and now.
After we selected our balloons, they were filled with helium and attached to our supersecret messages with a string by our gym teacher, a major hottie who looked like a cross between He-Man and Barbie’s boyfriend Ken. Hubba hubba. Finally, the entire student body would march onto the grassy fields behind the gymnasium, with our balloons bobbing over our heads like multicolored thought bubbles.
“Hold on tight, kids,” the teacher’s aide would remind us. “Don’t let go until we’re all together.”
What a well-meaning idiot. Bless her heart. Of course I was going to hold on to my balloon, dum-dum. Woman, puh-lease. We were all in this together, and if I let go early, I would ruin Balloon Day for everyone. That wasn’t gonna happen, lady. Not on my watch. So I held on to that string with my fat little sausagelike prepubescent fingers with the same protective fervor with which I held my turkey and cheddar Lunchable. I’ll admit, it was tempting to let go and give my message a head start, but I fought the urge.
“Okay, everybody,” my principal shouted, causing my heart to beat even faster. I knew what was coming next, and it was by far, without a doubt, the absolute highlight of my entire year.
“Count it down with me, kids! One! Two! Three!”
In unison, we unclenched our hands, loosened our grips and released our balloons en
masse into the air. It was, at that point in my young life, the most beautiful thing I had ever seen (short of TV’s Jonathon Taylor Thomas). A sea of red, blue, yellow, green, orange, and pink balloons danced gracefully, intermingling and drifting higher and higher into the blue sky, each one carrying the precious cargo of children’s wishes. We watched them, transfixed, until they shrank to the size of Skittles and eventually disappeared beyond the horizon.
In the days that followed, I would fantasize about my balloon’s epic journey far away, into the world at large. Where would it end up? And more important, would whoever found it try to contact me? I would stay awake at night thinking about it, staring at the ceiling from beneath my Jem and the Holograms sheets, excited by the prospect of possibly hearing back from someone fabulous like a Parisian pen pal, or perhaps even a cool California kid whose uncle happened to work at Disneyland. Score!
To this day, I’ve yet to hear from anybody who ever found one of my airborne notes, but my fervent hope remains, and my parents’ home telephone number is still the same. I’m not kidding. So keep your eyes peeled for any notes scribbled in impressive preteen penmanship and attached to decaying, decades-old pink balloons. They’re most likely mine. If you do happen to find one, please feel free to call, especially if you’re TV’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas. I haven’t seen you in years, JTT, but I bet you grew up to be hot. Short, but hot.
Oh, how I wish you could experience Balloon Day for yourself, dear reader, but you never will. Ever. Sadly, it’s been outlawed. Why? Because as much as my classmates and I imagined our balloons ending up in a fairyland where wishes come true, they actually ended up in the delicate digestive systems of several endangered species. Major bummer.
Throughout the years, I have never forgotten the exhilaration and sense of connection I felt while sending my thoughts out into the Universe on the wings of an inflated pink balloon. It may sound like a lot of hot air, but in a way, I’d like to think of this book as the most personal message that I’ve ever sent out into the world. Even though I didn’t exactly tie it to a balloon and set it free, I’m so happy that it somehow landed with you.
Pretty warm and fuzzy stuff, huh? Well, before you break into a rousing chorus of “Kumbaya,” let me warn you: shit’s about to get real up in this biznatch.
This book, like my life, will be a bit of a roller coaster—you’ll experience ups and downs, fits of laughter—and who knows, you might even throw up! So keep your arms and legs inside the ride at all times and, for goodness sake, stay seated until we come to a complete stop. And finally, if I’m going to reveal myself warts and all in this book, then I expect you to pay close attention. In order to make sure that you do just that, there is totally going to be a Cosmo-style quiz after the final chapter. For reals. I’m not joking. This is serious stuff. Feel free to take notes and perhaps grab your highlighter for the more important stuff.
Okay? Okay. Now, let’s get started.
Chapter One
Mathews vs. Phobe
My dad taught me how to swear when I was just seven years old. We were driving home from the dump on a bumpy country road in his old Dodge pickup truck, me sitting on his lap steering while he worked the pedals, sipped a cold Schimdt’s beer, and smoked a Marlboro. It was awesome. I couldn’t have had a better swearing coach. My dad was the quintessential man’s man—a mechanic and an avid hunter with a wonderfully naughty and raucous sense of humor.
“Shit,” my dad muttered under his breath after hitting a bump in the dirt road, knocking the ashes from his lit cigarette onto the floor of the truck.
“Shit,” I repeated, emulating him without thinking. I don’t know why I said it. I just kind of repeated it mindlessly the way my grandmother’s creepy parrots did. Immediately, I realized I had just said one of those bad words that I’d heard in the rap songs coming from my brother’s room. I panicked.
Surprisingly, my dad thought it was hilarious. “Well, look at you,” he chuckled. “Don’t worry, it’s okay. Say it again.”
My eyes widened. Was this some sort of trick? But I decided to risk it. My squeaky voice shouted, “Shit!”
He laughed. I continued. “Shit shit shit shit shit shit!”
I was swearing like a grown-up and it felt fantastic. I don’t know if it was just because of my swearing or the slight buzz he must have had after downing a few cold ones, but my dad was in hysterics. “Great! Now try saying ‘fuck’!”
“Fuck!” God, this was fun.
“What other ones do you know, Rocky?” My dad always called me Rocky, I’m guessing because I must have reminded him of Sylvester Stallone.
I thought for a while. “Well, I know ‘shit.’ And ‘fuck.’ And ‘poop.’…”
“Well, there are a bunch of other good ones, kiddo. I’ll teach you. But you have to promise me that you’ll only say them when you’re with me.”
“Forever?”
“Until you’re older. When you become a man, then you can swear whenever the hell you want.”
My dad must have known that a boy like me—sweet as pie and round as a cupcake—would most likely need some form of self-defense to get through life, so on that day he became my Mr. Miyagi of cussing. And to this day, thanks to him, even though I have the eyebrows and poise of a prize-winning beauty queen, I have the mouth of a road-hardened trucker.
He taught me that there is an art to swearing and, much like a chef mixes ingredients to build flavors, one can combine multiple obscenities for optimum effect. From then on, instead of a limp-fisted attempt at throwing down, I’d escape the wrath of bullies long enough to get away with a clever, “Go fuck yourself, you ball-fucking, shit-wiping, ass-cocking shit-fucker!”
You’d be shocked at how well that works. Much like martial arts or a credit card, however, one must use such unsavory language sparingly so as not to go overboard.
Even with my arsenal of swear words, it wasn’t exactly easy growing up as me in Mount Vernon, Washington, a community too big to be considered a small town, but too small to be considered an actual city. Don’t get me wrong: it’s an absolutely lovely place full of kind-hearted people and an idyllic Main Street with brick sidewalks lining shops that sell charming items like windsocks and shotguns. With bragging rights that include exporting more tulips than Holland (put that in your wooden shoe and smoke it), Mount Vernon is also the hometown of some notable celebrities: actor James Caviezel, better known as Jesus from The Passion of the Christ, right-wing political commentator Glenn Beck, and…yours truly. Sing it with me, “One of these things is not like the other…”
Since I moved away in 1998 (about thirty seconds after graduating high school), an Olive Garden and a drive-through Starbucks have been built not far from where my mother still lives in the house where I was raised—a charming three-bedroom, two-bath rambler she and my father bought in 1978, a year before I came sashaying out of her uterus.
My mother worked as a bookkeeper at Mount Vernon High School, the very Mount Vernon High School where I once graced the stage as Henry Higgins in My Fair Lady (the lead role!) and sang in Synergy, the student jazz choir (very Glee, very ahead of its time). My mother is responsible for the delusional self-confidence that has made my career in the entertainment industry possible. Throughout my childhood, she was effusive with her compliments. Without fail, she would be the first to shower me with praise, always cheering, “You are amazing. You did wonderfully! You sing beautifully!”
Although she had the best of intentions, she may have been just a bit biased. Mother, I love you, but I’ve seen the VHS tapes of my performances, and although even Helen Keller could see my energetic passion, I was just okay.
If it’s the job of older siblings to torture the younger ones, then my brother Eric—four years my senior—deserves Employee of the Decade. He was a total a-hole to me back then, only ever paying attention to me long enough to steal the remote or maniacally gloat over his Mario Bros. victory. Even the way he beat me up was evil. He would make a fist and exte
nd the knuckle of his middle finger just a bit so it made a pointy spike, ensuring that the bruise on my arm would be a slightly darker purple in the middle. To this day, I rarely wear purple, which is a terrible shame, since it really makes my eyes sparkle.
I kind of hated him growing up, but we get along very well now. In retrospect, I totally understand why he picked on me. After all, until I showed up on the scene, he was the star of the show. And then, all of a sudden, here came this annoying Judy Garland version of a little brother and he was expected to just go along with it?
My brother’s taunting aside, I was very blessed to be a part of a family that embraced my uniqueness. My parents didn’t bat an eye when I performed my rendition of the entire score to Grease in a backyard Broadway spectacular or when, instead of asking Santa for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle for Christmas, I asked for a Cabbage Patch Kid…three years in a row…until I finally got one. His name was Randy, he had curly brown hair, and he was a Libra (just like me).
I was smart enough to know, though, that asking my parents for a Barbie doll was pushing it. So on my eighth birthday, after unwrapping yet another GI Joe, I improvised, leading to one of my greatest childhood discoveries: Play-Doh makes a fabulous miniwig in a pinch!
Adorned with perfectly sculpted heads of long, luxurious Play-Doh locks, my brigade of Joes was transformed into a bevy of Janes. With the addition of my one-of-a-kind haute couture toilet paper dresses, I single-handedly created Mount Vernon’s tiniest drag revue ever. Not to brag, but my resourcefulness is rivaled only by McGyver (note to self: pitch McGAYver as a show idea to Bravo).
Eventually my makeshift, low-budget Barbies didn’t cut it, so in order to afford the real deal, I had to get a job. I entered the workforce the summer before I turned thirteen and haven’t looked back since. I loved working and felt very Christina Applegate in Don’t Tell Mom the Babysitter’s Dead. Kids, if you haven’t seen this criminally underrated gem, do Uncle Ross a favor and Netflix it ASAP. You’re welcome in advance.
