The carrots of the successful are lavishly and frequently waxed. A big, shiny carrot is indeed the quotidian symbol of success. Carrot wax, which is the same orangey color as its patron vegetable, is commonly laid on in a thin, shiny layer, which dries almost instantly. Consequent layers will quickly build up to the point at which the poor carrot is buried deep under a heavy, striated caking of wax that disguises and exaggerates its basic shape, making it look much, much larger and more important than it really is. One whose carrot has become this heavily waxed tends to forget what his carrot really looks like, which leads to delusional thinking regarding the relative size and majesty of one’s carrot. If the buildup continues unabated, eventually the poor carrot, isolated from sunlight, air, and the reality of itself, withers, and all that’s left is a thick wax shell that contains at its center the impression of its former tenant. Sad, eh?
Performers, and successful performers in particular– the ones who get to perform regularly in front of wildly appreciative audiences – frequently fall victim to this pernicious carrot wax buildup, and its snickering, reality-starved accomplice, delusion. I personally know performers who are so addicted to their inflated “false” carrots that they would rather have them waxed than get paid. But the road to that gleaming wax job is paved with long waxless stretches, so when the blessed waxing finally begins, if it begins, the last thing a performer thinks is “stop!”
It’s rather tragicomic to watch a performer who is suffering from bad carrot wax buildup. They say silly things like “Do you know who I am?” Dead giveaway right there. But the most obvious symptom is their untethered perception of their position and importance in the musical firmament. I mean, there’s got to be some sort of radical disconnect going on when a performer from a relatively unknown group thinks he’s really in a top-40 band and then demands that the world wax his carrot accordingly. Maybe carrot wax makes one blind and stupid as well as deluded. Of course I’m not speaking about my group.
This wax-induced hallucination can spell dire trouble for a band. Uneven wax buildup within the ensemble means that its members have widely differing images in their minds of how important they and their group are in the overall scheme of things. The ones with the most wax on their carrots tend to suffer under the greatest degree of illusion. The members whose roles in the group garner them less wax than their colleagues tend not to share the absurd distortions created by their bandmates’ skewed perceptions of their own bogus giant carrots. You’d think that carrot wax might serve to obviate some of the resulting friction, but it doesn’t. It is often the cause of lots of internal vying for supremacy based on the ‘my carrot is bigger and shinier than yours’ fallacy. The nadir of this pointless jousting is a band split apart by carrot-envy. Of course this never happened in my group.
During my halcyon days of nonstop performing, it never occurred to me to check my carrot every now and then for signs of potentially damaging wax buildup. A simple “How’s my carrot looking?” every now and then would have saved me a lot of scut work later. My sloppy inattention resulted in an enormous, almost deadly buildup. I didn’t have a clue. My carrot was getting the waxing of its life and growing humongous. I was enormously proud of my enormous carrot. My carrot was rockin’. Of course it was a big carrot to begin with, but it was freakin’ prodigious.
I don’t know if it’s possible to be on TV every day for five years and not have some wax buildup. The daily waxing alone can be overwhelming. Screaming fans produce a jillion times more carrot wax than simple one-on-one wax jobs. The first time we ventured out to concertize after nearly a season of daily network exposure was also the first time that our sound system wasn’t powerful enough to cut through the hysterical screaming of the huge audience. The ninety-minute meet-and-greet that followed merely compounded the damage, so by the time the last hand had been wrung and the last CD signed, I needed a wheelbarrow to drag my wax-laden carrot offstage.
Foreign carrot wax has its own heady properties. The Japanese, for instance, are fiercely expert carrot waxers, having elevated carrot waxing to a social art form. After just one night of being obsequiously fawned over, and having a legion of cute little fans crying and screaming and throwing their panties at the stage, I could barely recognize my carrot, it was so, uh…does the word “Hindenburg” mean anything to you?
As the recently departed Mr. Miyagi said, “Wax on – wax off”. Ah, if it were only that simple to scour away the accretion of those years and years of assiduous waxing. It’s not. Tackling a massive carrot wax buildup feels a lot like trying to scrub down the Washington Monument with a toddler’s toothbrush. Each layer has to be carefully snipped, peeled, and trimmed away. Carelessly bashing at it with a hammer will only damage your carrot, which, if you remember, is now in a weakened state from its protracted isolation.
Removing extremely thick carrot wax is a delicate operation, and should only be carried out by a certified dewaxer, who has all the odd but necessary tools for nearly painless wax removal. Removing the wax is probably the easiest part of a dewaxer’s job, whose real challenge is to help the jonesing waxee through the difficult psycho-emotional withdrawal from carrot wax, and cushioning the awful shock when he finally beholds his poor carrot shorn of its carapace. I’ll tell you – it’s nasty. For one thing, it’s always smaller than you remembered, and not nearly as grand and important as you thought. Just the thought of that terrible moment keeps a lot of performers from getting dewaxed, and their fate is sealed, so to speak.
Now here’s the good news: After much bitter experience, I’ve developed a nifty tactic that prevents carrot wax from building up to an unhealthy thickness. It is a two-part system consisting of:
1. The Daily Loofah Scrub. Hygiene, hygiene, hygiene, my friends, is the best defense against waxy buildup. The more you perform, the more frequently your carrot gets waxed. A few layers, ok. More than that, things start to get weird. You don’t notice at first, so take my word for it. As you scale the greasy, treacherous ladder of success, your post-show routine should always include a good heartfelt scrub. If you left your loofah in some hotel room, you can use a Brillo pad – gently! Skip a couple of shows and you’re on the slippery slope to a limp, lonely carrot. Use the Daily Scrub in conjunction with:
2. The Affirmation. “My carrot does not need wax to be beautiful. My carrot is perfect just the way it is. I love my carrot.” Print the Affirmation on a sheet of paper and keep it with your carrot. Say it aloud several times a day.
If you do the Scrub and the Affirmation every day, you can not only preclude a waxy debacle, but also help to gradually reverse the effects of long-term encrustation. This system is not meant to be a substitute for a certified dewaxer. It is offered in the genuine hope that, if you choose to use it, you will enjoy years of safe, carefree waxing, and never see the inside of a dewaxer’s waiting room. I mean, if getting your carrot waxed didn’t feel good, buildup wouldn’t be an issue, right? At the very least, friends, even if you are too in love with the waxing you’re getting right now to bother with prophylaxis, keep an occasional eye on it. All those thin, shiny orangey coats – they do build up.
The only complete antidote to carrot wax buildup is this: kids. Not other people’s kids. They have to be your own. They’ll knock the wax right off, no matter how thick, but they do it with such an innocent lack of awareness that it isn’t quite the blow one might sustain from an openly hostile attempt at carrot sniping, or snipping, depending on the situation. After all, one’s natural instinct is to protect the big, shiny carrot. With kids, that is impossible.
I arrived home one afternoon from one of those gigs that is luxe de luxe from start to finish: 1st class tix, limos, fancy hotels, and a veritable surfeit of carrot wax. I climbed out of the big black Towncar, grabbed my bags and my gargantuan carrot and lugged them into the house. Sitting on the couch was Maya, who at the time was all of about three years old. She was sick, but having been gone for nearly a week, I didn’t know it. When she saw me, her big green eyes lit up and she squealed, “Daddy!!!” Then she projectile-vomited all over me. I hadn’t even put down my suitcases and I had gone, in a matter of seconds, from being a big, swinging carrot to a puke-covered shlep. Nothing, I found out, melts away carrot wax faster than kid puke.
Click on the wrench in the upper left-hand corner to see what else you can do.