LAST CALL: Shacking Up
Macomber, Shawn
LAST CALL Shawn Macomber Shacking Up W ERE WE OUTCASTS BY CHOICE o r circumstance? It's difficult to tell even now, really, since one so often feeds offthe other. I've known political...
...Sometimes between movies, as we engineered massive sundaes or filled yet more tortilla shells with faux ground beef summoned from processed soy protein, we would ponder the eternal geek question: "Why don't girls want to hang out with us...
...The one consolation to sacrificing a bit of that us-against-the-world camaraderie is watching my friend embark on a life with a woman who makes him happier than I've ever seen him...
...i Here's the real skinny: All that time in the shack, ~ we worried this dry spell with the ladies might actuallybecome a permanent desert life...
...Imagine my surprise in learning that one loves not only for beauty, ambition, and humor, but also for the fortitude displayed in putting up with the sullen sulkiness of a writer o r - I won't speak for tlyan, but I'm assuming-an artist...
...Evenings were dedicated to recording synth pop songs and cartooning...
...Our best matches were on a collision course with us for years, God save them...
...So, with a heavy heart, Taco Night has been bid a fond adieu...
...long enough for him to have been an integral part of basically every transformative era of my life...
...Aside from venturing out in an abortive effort to win Alan Keyes the Republican presidential nomination in 2000--er...
...Ryan Higgins" cartoon work is archived at www.belowthefold.com...
...It was a true artist's life, defined by work rather than the traditional mix ofblas~ slacking and whining over the lack of National Endowment for the Arts grants...
...Truth is, the guy is so caught up in my everything I can't imagine who I would be if I didn't know him...
...give us a break, AK advocated abolishing the income tax and de rided anyone who "danced" for "massa government"--we spent a lot of time at the shack, where Ryan would regale me with tales of bloody wars against home-invading vermin as we somewhat paradoxically made our sissy vegetarian tacos and watched movies...
...Holy matrimony is, of course, more than a fair trade...
...We didn't realize at the time that perfection cannot be hurried...
...I've known political cartoonist t/yan Higgins since the seventh grade...
...I'd allow perhaps dead vermin and war atrocities lack certain aphrodisiacal qualities, but otherwise the notion that we were fairly cool guys was fairly sacrosanct in my mind...
...Shawn Macomber is a 2006Phillips Foundation Journalism fellow...
...In the late '90s, just as I was giving up factory work, bookselling, and my precious time as a sandwich artist for college, tlyan graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and returned to New Hampshire and did the most useful thing I've yet seen done with a fine arts degree: He built a little home in the woods-lovingly, "The Shack"--from the ground up...
...Few of our days have been as eventful as these, though...
...Ryan preferred science fiction...
...For years we'd saved space on the spectral mantelpieces of our psyches for the Boyfriend of the Year trophies sure to be awarded once the feminine other came to understand our greatness, only to discover that in the end we were the same (lovable) jerks we always were...
...I, documentaries from the "Special Interesff section with rifles like, "War Atrocities...
...82 THE AMERICAN SPECTATOR SEPTE~BER 2(}06...
...Ryan and I have wonderful partners from here to eternity, and our parents can now all stop worrying about a late night call from a Massachusetts or i Vermont courthouse announcing we just got hitched-- ~i not that there's anythingwrongwiththat.Acouple guys ~ spending days on end together in the woods with vegetarian tacos and sundaes can look a bit.., well, peculiar, i especially in the post-Brokeback era, is all...
...How we got to the altar, though, is a bit of a funny story...
...By day he installed wood floors at the family business...
...Ironically enough, when two extraordinarywomen courageous enough to wade into our strange, erratic waters came along, love shattered some of those treasured shack assumptions...
...Two summers ago Ryan stood for me at my wedding, and last June in a picturesque coastal town I was honored to serve as his Best Man...
Vol. 39 • September 2006 • No. 7
