One of the few parts of my “Man Up” essay that ran in the book I can read without breaking out in a cold sweat, is the short section about my father (this comes after the break online, in the second half of the essay):
TJ Miller would never say ["sack up, ho"], but he’s comfortable with the idea. My father comes in at about five foot six and has a habit of reading during Redskins games. He’s a Silver Star, flew for the CIA, sold F-16s, and once got out of a mugging in the grocery store parking lot by hitting one of the muggers with a wine bottle. He’s watched, basically, every Atlanta Braves game played in the last two decades, curses with vigor and finesse, and rotates through about five flannel shirts in the winter. He stands in our driveway smoking and went to Harvard Business School. He tells badass stories about FBI agents and professional baseball players, and all of my brother’s friends are at least a little scared of him.
Separately, as a point of correction to my own personal essay, he will, unfailingly, only tell you a story if it is relevant to the discussion at hand, so he’ll just mention major life events, nonchalantly. He will Forrest Gump you**. Like, in the last 12 months, I found out that my father was in Cairo when Saddat was assassinated (noted on our way back from Chipotle), and he did the majority of his undergrad career at Harvard, where he was in the last ROTC class. (How could we not know this? His answer to, “Where did you go to school?” was always a helpful, “Lots of places.”)
That, of course, is him at right. I was trying to find a good picture from yore of my father and myself, but I had a really great handle on photo-bombing my own photos, and settled on this. The above image, circa 1996, captures his general demeanor.
Anyway, the point of that detour into my family history being: If your dad is at all like mine, you will really enjoy the chapter in Tina Fey’s book about her father.
The first few chapters are an inventory of the cost-free ingredients required for raising an “obedient, achievement-oriented, drug-free adult virgin” — among them, a strong father figure, and fear thereof. Enter Don Fey.
“If you told Don Fey that you never go to Burger King, only McDonald’s because you ‘grew up with the Hamburglar,’ he would look at you like you were a moron.
“When my face was slashed, my dad held me on his lap in the car to the hospital, applying direct pressure with the swift calm of a veteran and an ex-fireman. I looked up and asked him, ‘Am I going to die?’ ‘Don’t speak,’ he said. So, yeah, he’s not the kind of guy who wants to watch people eat bugs on Survivor. It’s so clear to me how those two things are related.”
The whole book’s rife with the normal wit you’d expect, but there’s an underlying warmth she brings to it, particularly talking about her father and Lorne Michaels. The chapter builds towards different reactions men have to meeting her father (they’re impressed — I mean, obviously), and her inability to decipher how it is her father changes their perceptions of her. It’s interesting.
But even if this is useless to you: The entire book is more a collection of one-off shorts of varying length and format into Fey’s life and general governing philosophies than a traditional memoir, and it’s an improvement, frankly. It’s like getting to know somebody; some of the tales work better than others (highlights: Fey’s college years ["charming the disinterested"], the anatomy of a photoshoot ["The stylist's assistant will be a chic twenty-year-old Asian girl named Esther or Agnes or Lot's Wife."], but the voice is so consistent that it’s more the act of implicitly getting to know somebody. You get the sense that Tina Fey’s biggest point of pride is that she employs 200 people — and that is something real, you know? But you also get a lot of PAR EXCELLENCE awkward stories.
Verdict? Highly recommended. Well, except for bros who can’t handle a couple period jokes.
**Past TJ Miller stories that pop up out of nowhere involve: Phil Jackson, Ted Williams, Jim Webb, Jimmy Carter, and Charlie Wilson. And those are actual stories, not like “Oh, when I met Mickey Mantle in an airport bar.” Which also happened. There a lot of other random ones I’m forgetting, and then all the things like “Dad stole that beach towel out of a hotel in Riyadh and that’s why there’s funny writing on it.”