But we’re not here to judge you/We want to be your friends now/And we can make you feel like everything that’s gone wrong… it happened for a reason.
“Nothing is Wrong,” Gomez, Split the Difference (2004)
“What? What’s your problem?”
“My problem? You’ve got the fucking problems!”
“You’re a head case, you know that?”
The shouting came from above, from the bedroom directly overhead.
Fuck. I listened to the shoes on the hardwood, praying they wouldn’t come downstairs. One of them had said something wrong. And I’d no doubt who was the culprit. Jerry wasn’t hearing shit. Brynn could have wished him anal cancer and he’d have sipped his drink and laughed. Men can’t be turned off with an insult. If fucking someone’s on our mind, and we’ve reason to think we’re close, it’s all just dirt off the shoulder. Yeah, yeah, I agree. I’m shit. And you could do a whole lot better. But I promise you, with every bit of sincerity I have, I’m going fix all of that, every last issue… Just as soon as we’re done fucking.
The footsteps came a few minutes later. Two sets down the back stairs, turning in the kitchen, pausing, then stomping down the hall to the front. “Pa sent me money now/I’m gonna make it somehow/I need another chance… You see your baby loves to dance/Yeah…yeah…yeah…” I focused my head on the music. No use guessing what was said. The story’d be on us soon enough.
When he appeared in the room with that grin, the first instinct was rage. I’ll kill you for this, Jerry. Bludgeon you with this scotch glass. Throw the corpse in the Charles. His sole obligation as wingman was to close the fucking deal. With a woman he’d been screwing for years. It was landing in the clearest of weather, as close to a sure thing as exists. But no… Jerry’d found a path to failure, defeat from the jaws of victory. And here he was, facing Bernice in the front room, tucking his shirt in his pants, stifling laughter and pointing a finger in my face. “Can I borrow him for a second?”
This is where you want to stand up, cross your hands and scream “CUT!” Put a replay of the scene on the TV and give it the John Madden treatment. See this, right here, Jerry? Fixing the shirt, smirking? This is killing me. Giving Bernice an image – of a hook-up gone horribly wrong. Of a loaded degenerate mess fondling, finger-fucking her friend… Then disgusting her with some rotten line – some vile, hideous request for a demented, unnatural act. It’s late, everybody’s pasted and now you’ve got my chick thinking, ‘What’s his friend’s ‘Mr. Hyde’ look like? Do I want risk finding out? Isn’t sleep a better idea?’
And worse than any of that, Jerry was dragging me away, leaving Brynn and Bernice to talk. This I was sure was fatal. People talk of “one night stands” like it’s an everyday sort of occurrence. Sex and the City, Maxim, Cosmopolitan, those goofy “pick up artist” books… The media would have you believe screwing strangers is just like buying shoes. Walk in the bar, flash some cash, try on a few styles and leave with the pair you want.
Myth and nothing more, even for the volume dealers, the guys who’ll target anything breathing. Doesn’t matter how she looks, or how attractive or smooth you are. Getting a woman who barely knows you to allow you into her place, her bedroom, her vagina, is never an easy endeavor. You’ve got a million little gate keeping tests, a litany of loaded questions. The way you laugh at her jokes, the references you use… the way you hold a glass. On any given night it’s true, you can find one desperate and horny, aching for any random dick. But the chances of that aren’t in your favor. And to sleep with an attractive chick, a man has to dance through a minefield. The slightest of bad moves can shift her, from Yes to Not Sure to No. To sleep with someone like Bernice, you all but had to throw a perfect game. Be the top of a sliver of men who’d ever stand a fighting chance. And even if you reached that height, the triggers had to align – the hormones, the buzz, and that fickle, judgmental thing… what at our basic chemical levels distinguishes women from men. The capacity to want to fuck, to be attracted to someone intensely and, for reasons I’ll never comprehend, still be able to stop, freeze, and call it off.
And the hotter, the more selective. That’s simple Darwinian fact. I’m alright looking, I know, but it’s not like I’m a George Clooney double. And “Black Irish” hot comes cheap, particularly in places like Boston. If my approach was amiss in the least, if anything dampened her interest, there wouldn’t be a bit of hesitation. Bernice would turn cold on a dime and not think twice on the decision.
“The words?” I ripped the pack of reds from his hand and yanked out a smoke.
“The words?”
“What did you say to her?”
“How do you know it was words?”
How could it not be words? Jerry had a classic Irish Filter – the mouth began before the brain. I’d known the malady well, inheriting one of my own.* A compulsion to kill dead air, start on the reply to a statement before you’d considered what was said. I’d say it was a nervous tick, neuroses manifested in verbiage. But that isn’t it at all. It’s a need to always own the floor, to perform for people more than converse… the fount of the genetic poet at the heart of the breed’s character. And the boorish, loudmouthed drunkard. The problem with Irish in their cups isn’t that they’re vicious or mean. Few of them can fight for shit, and most of their killer instinct’s been gelded with Catholic guilt. No, the problem with the Irish like Jerry was their honesty was too damned clear. They’d say what they saw and they’d mean it. No apology’d take it away.
“It was nothing. We were fucking around and–”
“And?” Never trust any statement made after a double drag on a smoke. The speaker’s buying time to think.
“I asked her if we could have sex.”
“How?”
“Christ, you’re desperate.”
“You’re aware what Bernice looks like?”
“In a bikini. Amazing. I can’t believe you’re fucking it up. You should be in there with her.”
“This is where we fight.”
“Alright, alright. Everything was fine. Usual shit. I’m playing with Brynn’s tits– She has great tits, like big, but–”
“Really?”
“What?”
“I’ve never seen tits before?’**
“Context.”
“Round, fleshy… knobs on the end.”***
“Ladies must melt for you. ‘Yeah, yeah… tits. Now spread you legs and let’s have intercourse.’”
“Who just got the Heisman from a chick he’s fucked a hundred times?”
“Fair enough. So we’re fucking around, then she started in with the ‘What are we doing?’ shit. I told her it was nothing.”
“Exact words.” I hadn’t been practicing long, but I’d already taken enough depositions to have picked up the central rule of cross examination: Never accept a summary. The truth is all in the phrasing.
“We’ll just have sex–” Double drag.
“And?”
“‘It won’t mean anything.’”
“‘It won’t mean anything?’ You said that?”
“Blunt, I kno–”
“‘Roll over, it’s easier that way,” ‘Fluff me first, I’m drunk’…. That shit’s blunt. ‘It won’t mean anything?’ To an ex? That’s fucking retarded.”
“It’s truth.”
“Exactly why you never fucking say it.” And not just to an ex. Not a fuck buddy, not a one night stand… not anyone, ever.
“It’s implicit. She knew it.”
“But it wasn’t said out loud. That’s all the difference.” It doesn’t take a law degree to grasp that white lies are the grease of society. The more accurate and honest an assessment, the more it needs to stay unsaid.
“Whatever. Like you’ve never just asked for it. Chucked all the bullshit.” I had, many times in the past. A few of them with success, even. But there’s an art to asking for sex. It’s like a Japanese business negotiation. However much she wants to fuck, she’s got the gate-keeping role. She knows there’s nothing between you. She knows it’s just the fucking. She knows as soon as you’re done, you’ll kiss her, thank her and leave. And that’s all fine in her book, but she still needs the Kabuki dance. A recognition, even if clearly contrived, that she’s uniquely desired. That you wouldn’t just as soon fuck another.
Most men learn the lesson early. I picked it up in college, junior year. I’d been sleeping with a freshman girl, standard hook-up stuff. We’d find each other loaded late at night, screw and split before dawn. One Sunday I tried to fuck her sober – just showed up at her dorm and asked.
“But I’ve got to study for a bio exam tomorrow.”
“It’ll be quick.”
“That’s supposed to entice me? Jerk off in the shower.”
“It’s public. And I did that already.”
“Anyway?”
“In my room.”
“Not necessary.”
“Twice.”
“Shhhhh.”
“You asked.”
“Not for an answer.”
“I really want to have sex. I’m seriously wound up here. I was out until six and I’m so hung and I just want to fuck.”****
All I got back was a frown. And in that moment it finally registered. I–I–I–I–I… ‘I’ want this, ‘I’ want that… I’d been leaning on the worst of pronouns, missing that simple axiom every good salesman knows: Nobody closes a deal talking about himself.
“You know what I want? I want to pass Biology.”
“But I can’t stop thinking about fucking you. You’re stuck in my head. The other night was awesome. Come on… You don’t want to try it sober?”
“Yes, I do. But…” She knew I was feeding her lines, but she also wanted to screw. And the reason she’d rejected me before was now removed from the discussion. “…My roommate’s here and–”
“We can go to the cemetery across the street.”
“The cemetary?”
“I’d like to see you naked outside.” True. “You’ll look hot in the moonlight.” Cheesy. “And you need a study break.” An excellent selling point.
Twenty minutes of begging and cajoling later we were screwing on a blanket behind a headstone. Twenty minutes after that I was driving back to my place in the truck, listening to “The Core” and thinking how naïve I’d been, how many fucks I’d lost. Just a simple shift in vowels… Drop the ‘i’ and stick with the ‘u.’ *****
That was Jerry’s mistake. He’d treated Brynn like a transaction, like he’d order a round of Johnny Blues or the whole of a list of entrees. It might have been his Irish filter, or it might have been the liquor talking. Maybe it was both, or more… a side effect of his profession – getting used to requesting things curtly. Dance around the point and find contempt. Say what you you’re there for and get it.
But those were academic musings. The bigger issue then was the cure. Standing out there in the snow, with Brynn confiding in Bernice, my chances of scoring were collapsing. If Jerry wasn’t fucking Brynn, we were headed home that night. Through a snow that had looked like flurries, but grown into a sloppy, wet white-out.
“I got it… I fucked up–”
“Fucked up? You basically called Brynn a crack rag.”******
“How do we fix it?”
“Prayer?” .
“Who’s the patron saint of atheists?”
“I’m agnostic.” I opened the door slowly, half expecting Brynn to think me Jerry, and throw a toaster at my head.
“Jesus knows a hedge.”
“Then Jesus understands.”
Brynn offered no second chances, which wasn’t at all surprising. “She went upstairs to crash, alone. So, I… guess we’re heading back,” Bernice met us in the kitchen.
“That was fast.” Jerry pulled a beer from the refrigerator.
“I think she’s a little drunk.” Bernice tried to smooth over the issue.
“I think she’s got a utility pole up her ass.”
“Could you have said anything worse to her?”
“Et tu?”
“Pardon?”
“I must have misheard you. This thing’s loud.”
“A bottle opener?”
“How else? It’s an Amstel.”
“That’s not… fuck it. I said, ‘Could you have said anything worse to her?’”
“Would you accept ‘yes?’”
“Riiight. Well, we should be leaving.” I cut the two of them off. The progress I’d made in the front room had all but been obliterated, it was obvious in Bernice’s tone. I’d have to rebuild from scratch, through a walk across town in the snow with a reminder of what had turned her off trudging along by our side.
Thankfully, Jerry seemed distracted. He walked a few paces ahead, barking into a cellphone, smoking and finishing his beer. I hung behind and talked with Bernice, looking for an angle back… back to Tonight’s the Night, to where everything clicked before. Try as I might, though, I couldn’t. The context wasn’t there anymore. The music wasn’t playing in the background, the cocktails weren’t in our hands. And now I was overthinking. What’s the strategy? What do I say? How do I bring her back?
Her apartment had a walkway out front. I opened the gate and walked her down. “Tomorrow. Yeah, we’ll watch games. Right. Noon.” Jerry stayed out in the street, barking into his phone.
“Jerry’s… something.” She fished out her keys.
“You should have seen him in college.”
“Pass.”
“Right.” The empty phrases were painful, nobody getting to the point: Let me ask you, Bernice, point blank. Is this thing on or off? You’re spent and so am I. But you’re also brushing snow from my jacket, more than seems to be falling. Is this lamenting what’s not going to happen, or trying to find the rewind button, back to where we were before the shouting?
“Are we supposed to get an ack–” Jerry hacked from the background. “Accumulation?”
The weather? Do you ever know when to shut your fucking mouth?
“Wet snow.” She turned the key to the door. “Your clothes… they get ruined in this stuff.”
“Yeah. I, uh… knew I should have brought other shoes.”
Doom. It struck me in an instant, almost as the words left my mouth. I saw it in her eyes, her face, her mechanical pivot back toward the door. That’s the best line you’ve got? In hindsight the failure was obvious. Of a million different things I could have said, was anything possibly as bad? As flat, as dull, as absent a hint of charisma? As lacking in balls or brains or even the suggestion of charm? But that’s just how the words came out. Me looking down at the shoes, her thinking all but assuredly, I gave the poor bastard a chance. All I’d needed was a joke. A quip, and not even a great one. Something to at least let her think, Why not? I’ve got a copy of Decade inside. But at the moment where I had to make the push, prove I’d be more than luggage, I’d come up dead flat broke.
“I couldn’t agree more. I should probably get out the snow right now.” “…And I think it’s a long walk back to Jerry’s. I’d destroy them if I tried to go that far.” “Can I use the fucking bathroom…” What I should have said came so easily. After we’d said goodnight. After I was out in the street.
There were endless postmortems to run, after the fact explanations, dissections of one flaw or another. And I guess I could have analyzed it all – pinpointed exactly where I’d failed. Looked for patterns in what had occurred and mapped out solutions to avoid it in the future.
But that’d all be wasted effort, because there wasn’t any pattern to be found. Only to be invented, whipped into a comfortable explanation. There isn’t any foolproof strategy to milk those sudden death moments. No 50th law to be followed. No secret that would have put Bernice in my hand. No hidden path to anything, really. No four hour work week, no twelve steps to inner peace and no tribes to join or create that will absolutely guarantee success. No blinking your way to the top, and no tipping point telling you when you’re there. There’s no simple manifesto for our government, no seven habits that’ll make you CEO and no mystery method for meeting Mrs. Right. No prince to consult on conniving, or dreams of our fathers to be emulated. The power of positive thinking will not make you a skinny bitch. For that you’ll have to put down the Twinkies. There’s no valid polarizing ethos on the political left or right. The rules of the game change radically with every different woman you meet and the art of war is for combat, so you can leave that for the Pentagon crowd. Or Gordon Gekko to quote in Wall Street. And if you’re cocksure talent’s overrated, you’ll soon meet your Peter Principle. We make our own purpose driven lives, awaken our own giants within and ultimately, nobody but us can make us rich. There are no sure paths to follow. No codes to absorb in total. All offered are incomplete, attempts to grasp a fluid truth. Because the only thing that’s ever been certain is nothing will ever be certain. And the only way to take an all knowing mantra is with more salt than a triple margarita.
There isn’t now and never was a narrative. There’s just an endless stream of things occurring, and how we react to them. Some of them we create, but most are beyond our control. We can angle for position, of course, to be where we think luck will strike. But it’ll rarely come on our terms, and never when or how we expect. In the end, the only thing that matters – the only thing that’ll ever matter – is in the instant where it counts, do you spot and exploit the moment? Do you say what needs to be said? Or does the brilliance only come later, when you’re already walking away?
“Give me a fucking cigarette.”
“How’d you fuck that up?” Jerry hung up his phone.
“Came up blank.”
“Blank?”
“Dead fucking blank. Strike three… Caught looking.”
“Idiot.”
“Well, if you hadn’t been such an asshole–”
“Me? This is my fault?”
“If you’d have thought, just for a second–”
“Bullshit.”
“–thought before you said something that stupid.”
“If I hadn’t done this, if I hadn’t done that. If I hadn’t been here… Hadn’t been born, you’d have been able to close the deal.”
“It’s not a fucking Chinese butterfly thing–”
“Chinese butterfly?”
“You know… Butterfly flaps its wings in China, starts a wind that pushes another wind into a front, that front into another front, and another, and one eventually pushes the storm that came in tonight ashore a little faster. My plane gets delayed, we don’t get as drunk, you don’t say that shit and we’re both getting laid. I’m not being absurd like that – like, blaming your parents for having you… But you’ve got to fucking admit, you’re an important link in the chain.”
“You aren’t coming up blank right now.”
“Course not. Now isn’t five minutes ago. It’s always smooth when it doesn’t count.”
Thank God it’s all such a crapshoot, an “any given Sunday” scenario. If I didn’t know one night’s failure is easily the next one’s champion, the walk back would have been unbearable.
_____________________________
* I’ve other blood in me, but culturally, if you’re a point over half Irish, you might as well be wholly so.
** It wasn’t solely because we were on a tight clock. I didn’t need the information. I already knew what her rack looked like. By twenty-one, any man can assess that in under sixty seconds. From the hang of the cleavage, the posture, the indentations in the shoulders from the bra straps and the tautness of skin around the clavicle, a couple quick glances and you can guess near exactly the appearance of any woman’s naked breasts. The only exception is women in push up bras. Utterly deceitful garments.
*** And, no, I didn’t want any context. The last time Jerry’d offered me a detailed riff on his sex life was half a decade before. I was minding my own business in the library, typing out a paper, when he appeared above the carousel.
“Hey. You ever bang a chick and nothing comes out?”
“Nothing?”
“Nothing.”
“How do you know?”
“I didn’t have a condom so I figured I’d pull out. I did. And I came, but nothing happened. Can ephedrine pills do that?”
“How many did you eat?”
“Seven… Eight. I knows it fucks with your prostate, so I was thinking–”
“I’m an English major.”
“Layman’s opinion. What do you think that is?”
“More information than I ever fucking needed?”
**** The only way to blot a hangover completely from your mind, at least for an hour or so.
***** Funny how what seems like manipulation is sometimes just your natural evolution into a complete person.
****** Crack Rag (n.) – Hand towel used for receipt of masturbatory ejaculate, characterized by a hardened, crusted quality of fabric accrued from lack of washing. See also: “Cracking one out.”
“I’m so hung and I really just wanna fuck.”
Freudian slip? Or simple typographical error?
PL: Nice… I can best respond to that this way: I’m thankful not to be entirely Irish. Kept me from getting the Irish Curse of being hung like a mushroom cap.
Great finish. The hyperlinks to all of the books was a nice touch in my opinion.
Never heard the term crack rag before though. Catch rag is the accepted term down here. Along with cranking one out. Cracking one out just sounds painful.
PL: Yeah, it always struck odd as well. Probably a term unique to my school. Haven’t heard it elsewhere.
I hear ya, but there have been several times where in that same situation I went for it, said something forward and totally inappropriate, and got shot down. It works every now and then, but I think in most cases you’re in a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don’t spot.
PL: True, but there’s a dignity in going down swinging.
“If I didn’t know one night’s failure is easily the next one’s champion, the walk back would’ve been unbearable”
So many kids at my college fail to understand this concept and act like their world is caving in whenever they get rejected. It’s pretty sad to see but just another part of the learning curve right?
Anyways, excellent piece. You earned your bourbon with this one.
PL: We’ve all had that buddy who just went one chick to the next, using the statistical approach. That guy? He’s the one you want next to you in a foxhole.
We’re all too fidgety about everything in this culture. Makes us a country of overstressed, over-multi-tasking nuts. Kids take fucking up the SAT or not getting into Cornell like someone had just given them a terminal cancer diagnosis.
The sooner you slow down and think long term, the better off you’ll be. I only wish I’d known that a long time ago. Burning the candle at both ends was pretty fucking stupid. I’d have been a lot wiser to have stepped back and taken everything in context of the bigger picture long ago.
An amazing ending to an incredible series. “One night’s faliure is easily the next one’s champion” is the exact piece of advice that a 16-year-old boy who’s scared as fuck to come out of his shell with the opposite sex needs to hear.
I’ve been reading your site for about six months now and just wanted to say that if you can keep a teenage punk like myself coming back for more, you’re doing something right. Your prose is excellent; each entry surpasses the last in terms of imagery and artistry. While I no doubt lack the life experience to fully comprehend the message you’re trying to convey, you definitely make it an enjoyable ride. That probably doesn’t mean much coming from someone my age, but I just thought I’d share my two cents.
PL: Hell, no. That’s a great compliment from any aged reader, and I’m glad to hear it hits your age group. Though, considering the craft of the comment you’ve offered, you seem a bit advanced for your age.
Every guy gets the Heisman more than he’d like to admit in life. This piece was actually originally part of something titled, “The Ones That Got Away.” But when I started writing from that angle, I realized, it’d run for about half a year.
Chuck the shell. You only live once, and 16-30 are the best goddamn years you have.
You do a really good job describing those situations where your inner monologue refuses to shut up.
PL: Rotten demon to exorcise. There’s a great Neil Young quote out there, I think from the Massey Hall concert disc, where he talks about people seeing their lives as movies. I think we all do that, only some of us get screwed with having narrators talking over the scenery. It’s like being in Woody Allen’s “Take the Money and Run.” All of the sudden, there’s that voice:
“With both parents working to make ends meet, Virgil becomes closest to his grandfather.A 60-year-old German immigrant who takes the boy to movies and baseball games.
Then tragedy strikes. At a Washington Senator’s game, Virgil’s grandfather is struck in the head by a foul ball. The blow causes permanent injury to his mind. And he becomes convinced he is Kyzer Willhelm.”
Not the exact voice I’m hearing (that one would be a blessing), but you get the picture. Seeing the scene from a divorced perspective while in it. Shit’ll drive you nuts.
“Never trust any statement made after a double drag on a smoke. The speaker’s buying time to think.”…..that’s beautiful, man. This piece was well worth the wait. Thank you.
PL: You’re welcome, and that’s good advice. I leaned on smokes a lot, and it bothers me that they’re so bad for you. First, because I love them. If they came up with cures for the maladies they cause I’d smoke three packs a day. Second, because nothing’s better when you’re talking to someone who’s boring you to fucking tears than having a smoke handy. Time the drags right and you can slide through an entire conversation doing nothing but nodding and grunting and dragging and saying “Right, exactly.”
As recited by the comments above, this was a great end to another fantastic series. To be human is to come up with the perfect thing to say immediately after the perfect moment to say it has passed. This series really connect with a man finishing his 20s. I really enjoyed you writing about this time in your life – it’s a time of life with a lot of transitions.
PL: Thanks, and amen. I view having the right line at the right time kind of like hitting for average. Ted Williams’ .400 is the gold standard. If you’re shooting for the right quality chick.
If you’re trawling for junk, .600 is realistic. If you’re blind drunk and looking for anything with a willing orifice, people routinely hit .900. But the next morning’s hell.
Please hand me a crack rag, I’m jacking off at the beauty of your prose. Nice Ending dude.
PL: Thanks. People tell me over and over, “It’s not the writing, it’s the story.” Maybe. But I think it’s also the writing.
Use a cotton sock. Most efficient receptacle.
The paragraph starting, “but that’d all be wasted effort, because there wasn’t any pattern to be found,” is wonderful. One of the greatest things you’ve written.
I’m so glad I discovered your writing while I was only eighteen, it’s been a real help.
PL: Took me a little while to get that thing together. No grammar rules covering the use of hyperlinks in that fashion, so I made up my own. Thanks.
The big picture is wise, but it’s a hedge. Smooths the highs along with the lows. If you’re riding a wave…it will crash, or at least you’ll feel like your slumping relative to where you were 3 months ago. You know this when your up, but when you’re 21* it’d be spitting in life’s face not to milk the wave for everything it’s worth.**
So it makes the comedown hurt more. Oh well. “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.” I try to switch to the long run when it helps, and ignore its depressing realities as much as is healthy the rest of the time. “on a long enough timeline everyone’s survival rate drops to zero.” Yes, its true, but when I’m swilling the last of my Bourbon in Paris with a good friend and two gorgeous Italian girls in my room… fuck the big picture.
On another note, manipulation is like breathing. Even “good people” do it constantly, just with subconscious rather than honest intent. And, as you pointed out, they’re usually better at.
*never been older, so I’ll have to figure that our then
**as long as you’re smart enough not to mortgage your future. (luckily?) Lacking a drop of Irish blood, I do have a off switch in my brain that tells me when I’m good, and when the cost of the next drink/goal/”fightin words” will outweigh its benefit… It’s saved my ass many more times than its failed me.
PL: Looking big picture when you fuck up is my recommendation. Dirt off the shoulder… When you’re on a roll, I’m with you. Run with it. At any age.
But see, the thing I’ve found, and this is subjective, is that when I think big picture I’m calmer and more sensible, don’t get caught up in the immediate concerns. And, in that mode, I tend to get a lot more of what I want. Does that make sense? I guess it’s a long way of saying, pull back and don’t stress. What seems the whole world at any given moment probably isn’t a massive concern.
Oh, and yes, consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds. Which is what amuses me about the self help book industry. Some of the books recognize and admit that they’re not necessarily good ideas for a lot of people. But a greater number come from the position of, “This is how it is. One size fits all. Follow me. I’ve found the magical rabbit hole to [insert goal or alleged hidden wisdom here].” Silliness.
I keep reading your stuff, I keep rereading your stuff, I can’t be arsed to buy the book (yet, I just haven’t seen it in stores and don’t like to have anything delivered to the crackhouse I live in when school’s in session) but I know some of the stories in it, and I can honestly say this is one of the best things you’ve ever written.
It worked. Maybe it’s because two of the guys that I’m consulting with on some projects are into the whole PUA scene, are always talking about those magic bullets, and I’m forced to sit there and listen, but it worked. Well worth the wait.
Pity about the girl, though.
PL: She was smoking… But like I said, I’ve done alright since. And I did alright before. Just keep plugging away. No other method.
But then, as I’ve also said, I wanted hot and bright and fun. The PUA thing is aimed at picking up hospitality majors from ASU or LA club garbage.
Just buy the book on Amazon. Where you are, it’s going to be hard to find. Which is odd, really, considering I get a lot of email from your part of the world. You’d think they want to stock it near that demand. Eh… Who knows. I’m done guessing the logic of brick and mortar book sellers. If the market has a sideways walk, that industry has an upside down, walking on hands blindfolded approach.
“Jerry had a classic Irish Filter – the mouth began before the brain. I’d known the malady well, inheriting one of my own.* A compulsion to kill dead air, start on the reply to a statement before you’d considered what was said. I’d say it was a nervous tick, neuroses manifested in verbiage. But that isn’t it at all. It’s a need to always own the floor, to perform for people more than converse… the fount of the genetic poet at the heart of the breed’s character. And the boorish, loudmouthed drunkard. The problem with Irish in their cups isn’t that they’re vicious or mean. Few of them can fight for shit, and most of their killer instinct’s been gelded with Catholic guilt. No, the problem with the Irish like Jerry was their honesty was too damned clear. They’d say what they saw and they’d mean it. No apology’d take it away.”
Oh how true and eloquently spoken… I seriously couldn’t have said it any better myself. Absolutely true and so difficult to deal with at times.
PL: I was taken aside and warned a few times by management, at a couple jobs, for allowing that malady to get the better of my tongue. I learned to curb it in later years, but that just caused the commentary to exit my mouth in a snide, low key fashion.
I like to take more of a casino approach to women. Not the straight statistical approach, where you just hit on every chick in a bar or at the party. Anyone paying attention will catch on. But just like at a casino, if one table is cold, you hit another. I live in DC, which means if duPont Circle is cold one night, its time to hit U St. I’ve never understood someone beating their head against a wall, trying to make one bar or scene fit.
PL: Well, you can do that because you’ve the benefit of living in one of the most fun towns in the world. I think I like bar hopping there more than any other place. So much variety in such a tight area.
“True, but there’s a dignity in going down swinging.”
Sigh…good point.
Your point stands that there are no golden formulas – good social science doesn’t claim to be any more than probabilistic. However, if you read PUA stuff without distinguishing between the outlandish techniques and the reasoning behind them, you’re not getting out of it what you should.
On another note, this piece was definitely the best of the series. The lyrics dropped right into a storyline tend to be confusing and I just breeze right over them. Also, some of the longer dialogues are difficult to follow. That moment when you realized your defeat is classic though.
PL: Hard not to write with a good deal of passion. Going down like that sticks in the head.
As to the PUA stuff, I see your point, and it’s well made and correct. The reasoning does have some merit. But my opinion of a genre, or culture, couldn’t be lower. It’s really quite pathetic. I felt like I needed to shower after I was done reading about it. Mystery’s book was actually one of the accidentally funniest things I’ve ever read. It’s just such ridiculous product, and so cynically aimed at impressionable people.
Women aren’t animals to manipulated that easily. They manipulate us back at the same time we think we’re pulling one over on them. And the conceit that some pimply dork can invent game out of thin air by taking advice from nailpolished pirate in a stove top hat is beyond ludicrous. It’s embarrassing, like some extended “heavy metal phase” or “Dungeons and Dragons” fixation.
That was unreal. I pass your book around to anyone who I think might actually understand it. It’s your ability to describe the inner monologue that makes you stand apart. I will be first in line to buy your second book. You really have a way of identifying with the ten percenter’s. I really wish one day I could buy you a drink. Keep writing, it affects people more than you may know.
PL: Thanks. I can’t not do it. It just keeps rolling out of my head.
I may be misinterpreting the climax here, but I thought the way you blasted those heavy-handed, self-congratulatory “strategy guides for life” was brilliant. First, they’re all products – manufactured, marketed, and sold for profit. And more importantly, to live your life referring to someone’s rulebook for the appropriate course of action is to entirely miss the point of this whole experiment. Our brains are not running html code.
PL: You haven’t misinterpreted anything.
And here I sit, on the shitter with a pair of commando-black Dacor Turbofins laying inexplicably on the floor next to me in this tiny bathroom… I guess my point is for the most part, you can’t fuckin’ tell anyone anything… They just have to ride it down the pipe on their own, and even then 80% of them still don’t get it. Rum and chili… A bad combo. Take my word for it. PIZZA! PIZZA!
PL: Are the fins are for wading out? Or has it finally come to treasure hunting? Is that the hidden Northwest Passage out of the florescent jungle? If so, we’ll need spear guns. To deal with the competition, of course.
And you’ll need a lawyer. Might I have a month to bone up on treaties covering the Continental Shelves?
“It’s not the writing, it’s the story?” Dude, this story is age-old. Your writing is what makes it so unique. Puts this issue into an accessible context like I’ve never seen. Awesome work.
PL: The notion content and style of delivery are combative elements, or that one is more important than the other, is just dumb. It would have you believe Apocalypse Now would have been fine done on a digital hand-recorder, or that no essay should ever be written – that we’d be better served for people to simply blurt points at us in their most reductive format. Taken to its most absurd ends, the story over style school questions the need for an expansive vocabulary. Which is, of course, a self-contradicting ethos. The more words you know, the more styles you know, the more you can express in fewer syllables.
Ordered your book today. Amazon marketplace. You don’t get anything for that, do you? Sorry. I’ll push it on everyone with a soul and we’ll all buy your second book. Anyway, that’s the aside. My point is this:
Nobody takes advice, except for those who don’t need it.
PL: On the aside, I get something from Amazon Marketplace. As to the point, agreed. Only I’d add, when advice becomes evangelism, its ability to enlighten falls away and it risks creating group think. Has there ever been a sensible ethos other than the selective pieces of each that together work in our individual situations?
How much better would the world be if we didn’t tribalize into ideologies? I’ve been listening to equal parts NPR and right wing talk radio in the car lately, to get a sense of just how far up our collective ass our head is these days. On one hand you have hosts examining, in regard to almost every subject covered, how it affects the transgendered, or what it’s impact might be on people’s ability to breastfeed publicly, or some other tangential issue perhaps 1/100,000th of listeners would ever give a flying fuck about. On the other hand, you have shrill lunatics screaming about how Obama hates America and wants to undo the Constitution. Granted, talk radio is generally a cesspool, but these are the big outlets – a reflection of what most of this country allegedly wants to hear. And I have to ask… Is this the best we have? Nuts with conspiracy theories and low rent academic wanna-bes fixated on the absurd shit you used to hear your feminist literature teacher talk about Freshman year?
Thank God I can come home, turn on “Access Hollywood” and hear one of the Kardashian piglets admit to bulimia. “And then… and then I… I threw the whole bowl of pudding up into my handbag and hid it in the trunk of my Bentley. And I knew, there, I needed help… and love.” Indeed. And thanks, sweetie. If I didn’t have you, Simon Cowell”s cavalcade of talentless talent shows, Tom Delay salsa dancing with strippers and the joy of knowing somewhere, somehow, Spencer and Heidi were tongue kissing for a camera, I’d lose all faith in the Republic.
Want to know why “True Blood” is such a good show? Why it resonates? Because if you look close, you can see, intentionally or not, Alan Ball is drawing a hysterical cartoon version of Average America, 2009. Welcome to the age of the mouth breather, the Big Dumb. This is the tail of the rant where one applies to a higher power, but from what I’m seeing, if there’s a God, he isn’t blessing this garbage scow of a culture. It’d be the height of bad form to even ask.
Advice? Move.
There’s absolutely nothing wrong with group think as long as the group is following my ideologies (and whims for that matter). Saw Tucker’s book at the airport today and you know something, I too hope they serve beer in hell… PIZZA! PIZZA!
PL: Remember years ago when the crazy older chick I fucked a bit, the one who was afraid of you, said you needed to go into politics? Your first statement is Freudian, and you’ve missed your calling. The fates will punish you for that. Squandering talent’s a mortal sin.
And contrary to the suggestion they serve beer in hell, I’m reminded by the most recent review of Tucker’s book on Amazon that, in fact, they only serve “hell” (taste, texture and head undefined in the review) in hell. I want to believe this is a gag review from a person with a strange sense of humor, but something tells me there’s a good chance it’s from a Holy Roller who actually thinks he’s making a strong point. Which gives me even less faith in our collective national IQ.:
“They serve hell in hell…, October 4, 2009
By Bruce Hammer “Bruce Hammer” (Dallas) – See all my reviews
This review is from: I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (Paperback)
What a dumbass. They serve hell in hell. There is no beer. Again, let’s be clear…they serve hell in hell. That’s why it’s called hell. Dumbass.”
I’ve reserved this statement for a long time, just because it gets thrown around so much on this blog, but I think this piece, the conclusion and the full story, is a definite contender for best thing you’ve ever written. I enjoyed it about as much as I enjoyed your entire book.
I’ve been enjoying shrooms lately, the decision to experiment strongly motivated by your stories. I love it. As my alcoholic friend said as he climbed towards the peak, “I may never buy a case again. Alcohol just numbs you. These open everything up. Usually, I see someone on the street and I just hate them. I have never been this happy in my entire life.”
The story resonates profoundly. At my age, a failed wingman attempt is perceived as an intentional cockblock, and hostility escalates quick in that situation when neither men get as much pussy as they want.
My strongpoint has always been the 1 on 1 dynamic, making college bars my worst enemy. But I think Dawes is onto something here…
http://www.billdawes.net/archives/going_to_the_ma_1.phtml
Because really, as you’ve pointed out so many times before, we’re only on this earth for so long. Who gives a fuck?
PL: If there’s a better high than mushrooms, I’ve yet to find it. And I’ve looked.
A friend who posts here will argue in favor of acid. Pay him no mind. He’s got this crazy belief that what’s chemically synthesized in a lab is more advanced – an anti-naturalist, if you will. I say it’s apples and oranges, and to have that discussion is to argue Stones v. Beatles. (Putting aside, of course, that the man is brilliant in some regards, while in others, deeply unsound… near clinically “ill,” many European psychiatrists would say).
But unquestionably, they bring you to wonderful insights one cannot find via marijuana or alcohol. Ride that wave while you have it. They’re a hard thing to find after college. People seem to get into narrative-reinforcing, rather than challenging, drugs at that point.
1:1 is always preferable, and inevitably, it always comes down to that anyway.
I have been reading for almost 2 years. Very interesting stuff. I’m big into music so the intertwining of music and life is something I really like in your writing. This piece is in my top 3 of what you’ve written. The strength of any person in any field is judged by how much outstanding shit they can produce/create over a long period of time. You, in terms of writing, are well on your way.
I have one simple question: why are you still anonymous?
You aren’t a lawyer anymore. No 5’9″ pseudo-intellectual with an superiority complex to push you around…I don’t get it. I have surmised that you would rather have people focus on your content and draw conclusions as the reason. But, who am I to say?
I’m purchasing and sending your book to a friend. He wants to be a lawyer. Hopefully, you can put an end to that.
Best.
PL: I make fun of people in that book who: (a) have no sense of humor, and; (b) would stoop to anything to suck money out of somebody. Have to be careful about how you handle that. I haven’t done all that work to have a Napoleon who feels jilted get up my ass about some passage he doesn’t like. It was hard enough getting away from that cesspool of miscreants once.
I’ve changed my tune… Nitrous oxide its the greatest substance ever synthesized by man… And frankly, nature has yet to hold its accidental candle to anything we’ve done on purpose… PIZZA!PIZZA!
PL: Madness. You’d have to do something in the lines of 300 to get the length one would from a decent mushroom trip. At 20 cartridges a box, and $12.00 a box, that’s–
Fuck it… You’re drooling, aren’t you. Look right. You’re spilling a beer in the wife’s new throw rug. And don’t let the dog see you this way. Upsets them.*
(I view it like an orgasm. Yeah, it’s the shit, but it’s too fast, and after a certain number, the circuits are busted and you have to wait twelve hours to go again.)
* Ever exhale a balloon through a lit cigar or cigarette? Looks like a flare. I shit you not. Dayglow bright white and blue flames come out the end. Learned it from a clown at a children’s birthday party. Kids love it.
It does make sense. It’s the beginning of an explanation of why “pull back and don’t stress” is usually good advice. Stressing too easily becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy.
To say its only the story and not the form is akin to saying its only the lyrics and not the music. Yep, no reason for Eric to have wasted all that time playing Crossroads, Duane Statesboro Blues, Hendrix All Along the Watchtower… There’s some good reasoning behind saying its the story not the form to the degree that its what you convey that matters, and that language is no ends in of itself, but that should be obvious.
Last night I was reminded of the importance of wingmen, and that even a bad one can be better than none. ended up at a table with 9 girls and myself, had a very good shot with at least 3… and naturally went home alone. In that situation all you can hope to do is make a good impression, not piss anyone off, and pray 8 girls decide to leave.
PL: You had to have gotten yourself shitfaced to fuck up those odds. I say blame whiskey for that.
On the rest, excellent analogies. But you’d have to agree with me that the lines in our culture seem to be splitting deeply. We have excellent stuff created in books, TV, cinema and music, but the major profits centers are more than ever before garbage. Be it silly knock off versions of self help or “guru” books promising to make people skinny or claiming to be the next “Long Tail,” reality television,* terrible, over-produced sanitized hip-hop/metal/dance music, or horror movies filled with McActors from The Hills.
We like to think the country loves things like 30 Rock, but 30 Rock hasn’t anything near the ratings of the reality shows. I think we’re heading toward a time where a lot of this country – even more so because a lot more of us will not be able to afford higher education – are going to stay mired in a cultural wasteland. It’s fine to be exposed to high brow and low brow shit at once. You need the Taco Bell binge every now and again amidst the poached salmon and baby greens lunches. You can’t have all of either exclusively or you lose touch. And right now, I see a 30% sector of people decoupling from the rest of the country. I see 70% of people nodding along with the notion that “It’s only the story that counts… Keep it fuckin’ simple, man.” Scary shit. Because the end result of country that doesn’t give a damn about how the guitar’s played, how the words are written, or how the punchline in the sitcom is nuanced into the scene is a place the rest of us will abandon. Except as a pile of dim marks to whom we can sell cheap commercial products. Are we headed into a “predator” and “prey” class in art the same way we have been in finance? Some would say we’ve been been there for a long time already. I’m a little less cynical. I think it’s reversible.
* Many friends of mine claim they like to slum with reality TV as a guilty pleasure. That’s heartening when one considers the size of reality TV audiences. The comfort, however, is short lived, when one considers that those types of viewers are about 5-15% of the reality TV audience. The sad fact is, most people who really love reality TV take it as earnest entertainment.
Nick
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_medium_is_the_message
If we don’t know any of the little incidental things about him that don’t matter to him and shouldn’t matter to us, then his actual message is purer. Why would he want to be famous anyway? So he could talk to Oprah? Letterman? What possible benefit could there be (for anyone) to having his identity known? What if he’s ugly? What if he’s got lousy teeth? What if he has a speech impediment? Does your opinion of him change? Do you think it won’t?
Anyway PL, I live in Ireland so your talk about NPR or whoever totally goes over my head, though I’m not naive enough to believe that you’re talking exclusively to me.
Regarding your suggestion to move: to where?
My country is pretty fucked – don’t be surprised if you hear we’re bankrupt in the next few months – but I have an engineering degree to finish and I don’t know if I’m ready to emigrate yet.
The western world is fucked and don’t let anybody tell you any different.
PL: I’d do well to be seen in public. That’s the hilarity of my life. It’s also been my undoing. As a partner once told me, “You can’t look like that, carry yourself like that and talk that way.” Another woman told me it was shame I’d been gifted the powers of speech. The sick thing of it is, given the decent advantages I was in life, I have no reason to bitch. I had a great childhood and my folks hooked me up with everything they could to give me an easy life. I got the house, the cars, the wife… hell I have a wonderful child. And I appreciate it all. But I can’t help looking at everything and seeing so much comedy worth writing about. And the voice won’t stop. I just need to write.
And I’m not alone in asking, “Is this it?” I can cite a half dozen people I know who look like they’ve got it made in the shade who’d give anything to do something different with their careers.
My teeth are dead straight, and white. Bleaching’s excellent for that.
(As to moving, good point. Maybe we should just move our priorities. Start focusing on enjoying our lives a little more instead of feeding this idiotic perpetual “growth” Ponzi scheme we’ve had going.)
I don’t blame whiskey for this one. There is no more certain cockblock than an unattended friend of the girl you’re talking to. Once the friends realized they had no prospects, they made sure the girls I was talking to would leave the club with them before the metro closed at 1AM. Game Theory (à la john nash, not Mystery) said not to piss off 8 girls by devoting my time to 1 and pushing her to ditch her friends. When your time horizon is longer than one night, there are few worse strategies than pissing off a girls’ roommate or good friend. I had to learn this one the hard way too many times. Whats was your definition of insanity? Doing the same thing and hoping for a different result.
For a while, I’ve been defending watching true blood by saying that it isn’t a show about vampires, its a show about the south and american ignorance. vampires are a thinly veiled metaphor for “the other.”
As for the rest of popular media, I tend to agree. In the spirit of being fair, I try to wonder if I’m becoming a curmudgeon at a young age because of old taste in music. Did punk look as shitty to Charlie Parker fans as overproduced dance music looks to me? Either way, our collective attention span is getting shorter, and I do think the average level of cognition in our country has been on the decline for some time. Those 70% want their entertainment to be the equivalent of a pixie stick. No nutritional value, no subtlety. Just a quick burst of energy and sweetness that can be easily replicated or replaced. Anything that takes time to digest becomes obsolete. Maybe those ancient statesmen who feared democracy because it left too much to the idiocy of crowds had a point. Maybe I’m getting cynical. Maybe when I can’t distinguish between the level of dialogue in reality tv commericials and network news debates about health care, I’d rather turn off the tv, put on exile on main street and inhale a balloon of nitrous oxide while I sip scotch neat.
PL: Vampires, in my opinion, are relativists following a simple secular code of being decent to maintain general peac. Everybody else is caught up in ideologies, beliefs, flogging “values” they don’t follow. It’s a neat little riff on the duality of so many Americans. And it works at almost every level. Everything in our culture has a surface projection divorced from what’s underneath. Consider why “Mad Men” has been so successful. The show goes absolutely nowhere, but it draws us as we are, and the hero is the one guy who’s grounded enough to realize that when you’re stuck in a carnival of fraud and spin, being amoral is wiser, and more respectable, than being immoral. Don Draper, the vampire of the series, was just named the No. 1 most respected male figure in America by GQ (look it up). Above Barack Obama, Roger Federer and the Dalai Lama. Why? Because he knows what we are and gets to the point. He doesn’t need the posturing. Doesn’t care if you like him or not. Gave that up long ago.
Millions of Americans apparently live vicariously through him every week. And I guess they figure it’s a fantasy, to be able to be so direct. Kind of odd, as he’s one of the few characters one could legitimately, realistically emulate. All you’d have to do is chuck the facade and say what you’re actually thinking.
But then, that’s wishful thinking. Better to stay fat, happy and clueless on a diet of Mountain Dew and whiskeys, triple helpings of chicken wings, fundamentalism, soap opera talk and mysticism at Sam’s Bar in “True Blood.”
Hell Cocktail
9 December, 2008 (08:00) | Savoy Cocktail Book
(6 People)
Shake (or stir, what does it matter?) 3 glasses of Cognac (1 1/2 oz Cerbois VSOP Armangnac) and 3 glasses of Green Crème de Menthe (1/2 oz Brizard White Creme de Menthe). Serve with a pinch of red pepper (Cayenne Pepper) on each glass.
Glasses are, of course, 2 ounces. 12 ounces, total, for 6 people, makes it 2 oz per serving.
A half an ounce of Creme de Menthe seemed like plenty to me so I upped the Brandy.
I put it in a liqueur glass, because, frankly, this is a shooter.
Seems like it would be a bit sweet and sugary for how hot it is anticipated to be down there, but hey that’s why it’s hell right?
Again I’ll draw a line in the sand on two critical things. The Beatles stink and Zombies are way better than vampires. PIZZA! PIZZA!
PL: The White Curtain
(1 Person)
2 oz. Everclear Grain Alcohol
2 oz. Stolichnaya Vanilla Vodka
2 oz. Vanilla Cream soda
1 “Five Hour Energy” Drink
Blend with crushed ice and serve in 12 oz. straight beer glass.
Rinse and repeat as necessary.
…And we bid you goodnight. Good night. Goodnight.
White Curtain’s sounding tasty. Sounds very similar to a drink that was part of my initiation when I joined the AOA, called “White Room with Black Curtains”. The only real difference is that you substitue all your listed ingredients (other than the grain alcohol) with PCP and mescaline. Anyone for Tennis?
PIZZA! PIZZA!
PL: Ahhhh… They smoked the PCP at my alma mater. Dope soaked in the stuff. Called it the “Greens.” Nasty stuff, but I imagine the grain would cut that burnt plastic taste nicely. Say what you will of its propensity to cause blindness, kidney failure, temporary paralysis and cardiac arrest, nothing freshens the palate like Everclear. One could wash the residue of a heaping bowl of dogshit from his mouth with nothing more than a nice, cold tumbler of EC. Not that you would, but…
Where was I going with this? Oh, right. Try to be more like a vampire.
Are you really surprised GQ chose Don Draper?
A while back you were talking about Vodkas, and you said one of them was actually shitty vodka with a great marketing gimmick. Between Skol, Stoli, and Burnett’s, I gotta go with Burnett’s.
PL: Absolut. It’s junk sold in an iconic bottle. I have a bottle in the cabinet right now. Somebody gave it to me as a gift. I can get past the insult of having someone think I’d drink that turpentine (person probably thought it was good stuff), but I assure you of this: That bottle will grow a foot of dust before I’ll crack its seal. I wouldn’t serve it to the lowest grade of guest.
Grey Goose is also high priced yuppie garbage, but it’s four times distilled, and if you can get past the metallic chemical nose of the stuff, it’s drinkable. Miles more drinkable than Absolut.
Haven’t had Burnett’s or Skol. I can still drink Stoli, but that’s probably out of affection or brand devotion more than anything else these days. The brand triggers a lot of good memories.
You know, Russians use vodka to get rid of foot fungus and other unwanted parasites. You ever get athlete’s foot, jock itch, or scabies and that bottle of Absolut might just come in handy.
I never understood why anyone would drink Grey Goose, Absolut, or Skyy when you can buy ??????? ???????? (Russian Standard) for the same price. They’re all horribly overpriced premium brands, and yet people pick the worst of them every fucking time.
With that said, if you ever make it to Bulgaria, try this vodka called “Vodka from Targovishte”. The entire town’s economy centers around one vodka plant, a holdout from the salad days of Communism (relatively speaking, of course.) Plain black&white paper label, unobtrusive bottle, only about $7/litre…but it’s the best vodka you will ever have, period. Supremely smooth, almost completely devoid of any taste, with a buzz that will make you nearly as charming as scotch. Personally I like Nemiroff black label – a Ukrainian vodka (well, Ukrainians call it ???????, pronounced horilka/gorilka depending on where you’re from) that has a bit more bite. Problem is, if you aren’t a sex tourist or dumping toxic waste, there are unfortunately very few good reasons to go to Ukraine, and I haven’t seen it anywhere else.
Oh, and the conclusion to this piece was great. Bravo.
PL: Thanks. I figured you’d dig that paragraph on the self-help books.
Thanks for the recommendations, as well. I have relative who gets vodka from that general part of the world now and again. I’ll ask her to see if she can’t round up one of those brands.
excellent. but for me, its always been not talking at all. at a bar, nearing last call, 3 or 4 females were sitting at a table. one of these females (an attractive blonde if i remember), tells her friends that she is “putting out tonight” and high fives her friends. she then precedes to attempt to strike up a conversation with me. the only problem with this is that i was told this happened by my friend the next day. i have no memory of this female talking to me. i do have a memory of stumbling home alone. seems to be my major problem with using whiskey as a time machine, is that sometimes it works. havent got any in two years or so, and a woman walks up to ME trying to get strange. damnit.
PL: I’ve tried not to talk. Then I’d get drunk…
I hope that “two years” thing refers to whiskey.