Table Of ContentDUTTON
Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) LLC
375 Hudson Street,
New York, New York 10014, USA
USA | Canada | UK | Ireland | Australia | New Zealand | India | South Africa | China Penguin.com
A Penguin Random House Company Copyright © 2014 by Nick Offerman Penguin supports copyright.
Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture.
Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not
reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting
writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.
Illustrations © 2014 by Mike Mitchell REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-
PUBLICATION DATA Offerman, Nick, 1970—
Paddle your own canoe : one man’s fundamentals for delicious living / Nick Offerman.
p. cm.
ISBN 978-0-69813832-2 (EPUB) 1. Offerman, Nick, 1970-2. Actors—United States—Biography. 3.
Carpenters—United States—Biography. 4. Conduct of life. I. Title.
PN2287.O275A3 2013
791.4502'8092—dc23
[B]
2013023379
While the author has made every effort to provide accurate telephone numbers, Internet addresses, and other
contact information at the time of publication, neither the publisher nor the author assumes any
responsibility for errors or for changes that occur after publication. Further, the publisher does not have any
control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
Penguin is committed to publishing works of quality and integrity.
In that spirit, we are proud to offer this book to our readers;
however, the story, the experiences, and the words
are the author’s alone.
To Megan, my wife, cherry blossom, and legal property, who teaches me life
every day.
And to her mother, Martha, who has taught us both beauty and humor. She
also taught Megan class but got to me too late.
CONTENTS
Foreplay
1 Not-So-Little House on the Prairie
Eat Red Meat
2 Hail Mary, Full of Beans
Horse Sense & The Bible
3 Der Ubermann/Offermensch
How to Be a Man
4 Football Troubador
Don’t Be an Asshole
5 Walking Beans
Work Hard, Work Dirty
6 Carnalisthenics
Leviticus Can Blow Me
7 Enter Dionysus
Don’t Walk Alone
8 Doing Time
Be Smart While Getting Stupid
9 Born Again Again
The Moustache Makes the Magick
10 Wax On, Wax Off
Make a Goddamn Gift
11 Kabuki Farmboy Takes Chicago
Carry a Handkerchief
12 Subaru Leavings
Discern Your Ass from a Hole in the Ground
13 Resurrection
Measure Twice, Cut Once
14 Romantic Love
Love Your Woman (A Paean to Megan)
15 Finding Swanson
Let Your Freak Flag Fly
16 Nowadays
Go Outside
Acknowledgments
A gentleman is someone who can play the accordion, but doesn’t.
—Tom Waits
FOREPLAY
am a jackass living in America and living surprisingly well. Let’s make that
Iour jumping-off point. I come by it honest. I am your average meat, potatoes,
and cornfed human male, with a propensity for smart-assery, who has managed
to make a rewarding vocation out of, essentially, making funny faces and falling
down. I have also exhibited some tool skills and an inclination for eating
delicious meatstuffs, and have then been somehow rewarded quite over-
handsomely for these tendencies. I grew up literally in the middle of a cornfield
in the village of Minooka, Illinois, where I spent a lot of time learning to use
intoxicants, chasing girls, screwing around in the woods (mostly without the
girls), and serving under Father Tony (unmolested) at our local Catholic church,
St. Mary’s. I learned the word nonconformist in fourth grade and immediately
announced that I would grow up to become one.
I have a hell of a great family in Illinois and now some more in Oklahoma via
my wife, Megan. I have spent the vast majority of my adult life working as an
actor and also, to a lesser extent, as a woodworker. I’m going to run on at some
length about the excellent people whom I have called friends, and some others
whom I have had the privilege of calling teachers, and, while those parts are all
well and good, there will also be some dirty parts, and I believe cunnilingus gets
at least two mentions (favorable). On top of all that, and woven all throughout it,
I’ll describe my wife, who is just a goddamn blessing to me in a great many
ways, enriching my life to such an extent that I can go nowhere anymore without
passersby muttering, “There goes that lucky bastard.” I can only make a dimple
and solemnly nod in agreement.
Each story comes with a delicious fundamental—advice about living life that
I hope you’ll find useful. Of course, my fundamentals may not work for
everyone. A beautiful aspect of the human race is our endless variety. Like
maple leaves and snowflakes, there are no two of us alike. Therefore, while my
tactics involving the cultivation of lush facial hair and the consumption of pork
products, as well as those derived from beef, may not be exactly the steps of the
path you might tread on your own way to “delicious living,” perhaps my
techniques will at least inspire you to forge your own discipline, providing you
with the necessary skills to blaze your own trail.
Basically, this book boils down to how an average human dipshit like myself,
