Bullshit

The Comically Large Seagram’s Bottle

Author: December 9, 2024 0 Comments

I inherited my love of whiskey from my father, who came home from work every evening and walked directly from the front door to our kitchen, where he opened the cabinet over the sink, extracted a bottle of whiskey, and poured himself a drink. It was just like in Mad Men, I swear, except with less sparkling dialog.

In fact, my father worked during the tail-end of that era, an era when it wasn’t unusual for people to have bottles of liquor in their desks and to get pretty soaked at random moments at work, or after work, or before work. So when my father came home from an office party one evening with a comically large (ONE GALLON!) bottle of Seagram’s whisky (with a plastic pump on top that dispensed shots) no one was surprised. This was what passed for normal in the 1970s. Here’s a photo of it to prove these things existed:

(avocado for scale)

I’ve lost the plastic pump, and the bottle is clearly in bad shape, as it has moved with me from place to place for more than 30 years now. For a while I kept pennies in it, and trust me when I say getting the pennies out was not easy.

Why do I have it? I don’t know, really. It’s one of exactly three things of my father’s I’ve kept, the other two being a Playboy shot glass and a signet ring he used to wear (like I said, the 1970s, man). Part of it is that this bottle sat in our kitchen for years, eventually filled with other whiskeys, and it formed the cornerstone of my liquor-siphoning adventures as a teenager. Plus the sheer comical nature of it. ONE GALLON of crap whiskey! What a time to be alive.

I don’t recall the bottle being used at any parties we hosted, but it’s the connective thread in many of my memories because it was always there, always comically large, and always filled to some extent with whisky of questionable quality (the only kind my father drank, sadly). Good times came and went, life changed in ways we neither wanted nor approved of, but the Comically Large Seagram’s Bottle was always there, a Constant. Every now and then I glimpse it in the dark corner of our bedroom and I am comforted by its presence.

The Duchess does not find this bottle amusing, and has tolerated it with the same weary tone she tolerates my stuffed Bill the Cat doll: As evidence that I need adult supervision. But I will never relinquish the Comically Large Seagram’s Bottle. I may be buried with it, honestly.

If you want your own Comically Large Seagram’s Bottle, incredibly, you can buy one.

Bullshit, Whiskey

The Levon Sobieski Domination

Author: December 2, 2024 0 Comments

SO, as you may or may not be aware, I have, for the last ten years or so, been releasing music under the auspices of a nonexistent band called The Levon Sobieski Domination. We have twelve albums. Twelve! Here’s one of their recent songs:

The Levon Sobieski Domination: Cannibalism 101

The Levon Sobieski Domination: Cannibalism 101

Here’s the new album:

This all started because The Duchess, my sainted wife, got tire of my Middle Aged White Man moaning about how I always wanted to learn how to play guitar, so she bought me a guitar and some lessons and told me to do something about it. Which she now regrets, because I often make her listen to my songs and I can always pinpoint the moment when her soul leaves her body.

But I digress: For me the creative process in any medium is all about an audience. If you write a novel and no one reads it, did you write a novel? Or did you spend a few months pretending? I never had any interest in learning classic songs or campfire sing-a-long guitar stuff; I’m not the guy who shows up to our party with his guitar and everyone gathers around expectantly as I launch into Wonderwall. I’m the guy who shows up to your party with a $4 bottle of wine and proceed to drink all of your top-shelf liquor and falls asleep in your bathtub.

So I started composing my own songs. I’ve composed 1,451 of them so far, each 2-4 minute little instrumental rock tunes. And since the whole point is to find an audience, I invented a band and started releasing songs like this one:

The Levon Sobieski Domination: Boomstick

From the forthcoming album “Once.”

I can’t just create this aggressively mediocre songs and not release them, because I compulsively need an audience. There’s just no point to creating something if you can’t at least have the possibility that someone will experience it someday.

All of these songs are 100% written and performed by me (the drums are programmed) and recorded, if we use the term loosely, while sitting at my desk surrounded by cats. If no one ever listens to them (which, so far, seems like a safe bet) at least in theory someone could, and that’s enough to drive me to keep doing this. Just in case you were putting together a committee to beg me to stop, for the good of the country.

Huzzah!

Bullshit, gee-tar, The Levon Sobieski Domination

2025 Novel

Author: November 25, 2024 0 Comments

Yea, verily, the tradition continues: A new novel shall be posted at this wee blog, one chapter a week, until we’re done! (Likely some time in October, as I have few novels with 50+ chapters).

The 2025 Free Somers Novel is …

The Bouncer

Courtesy of https://openclipart.org/artist/liftarn

This is a relatively recent one; first draft was finished in 2020 and a light revision done in 2022. Had some discussion with the late, great agent about it but we never got organized to go out on it, and now I’m not sure it would be the right project to lead with, but I also don’t know if it ever will be, so let’s post it here!

Here’s the basics:

Mads Renick is struggling to get back to Zero — to the starting line. Working as a bouncer at a dive bar in Bergen City whose owner is affiliated with the fading Spillaine organized crime family, he’s just trying to survive along with his best friend, Jill “Pill” Pilowsky. He blames his life’s downturn on his parents, brilliant, evil Mats and brilliant, chaotic Liùsaidh, but they’re both dead.

Or so he thinks until the young son of Abban Spillaine shows up to tell him that his parents aren’t dead, after all — they ripped off every loan shark in town and faked their demise, abandoning their son and buying their way into the retirement village for criminals known as Paradise. While they’re dues-paying members of Paradise society, they can’t be touched — but now it’s on Mads to track them down and make it right, or lose everything he loves, and any chance he has of a normal life.

Same deal as ever: Each week, one chapter will pop up here, starting on Monday, January 6th, 2025. I’ll post eBook files for each chapter as well. When the whole book is finished, I’ll post a complete eBook as well. You’re free to read along each week, or just wait until the complete book drops.

Thanks for reading! I look forward to your comments, insults, and joyous snark when you notice a mistake or plot hole. You bastards.

Bullshit

Meeting the Loaf

Author: November 18, 2024 0 Comments

For most of us, your first concert is a fond memory. It’s a stop along the way to adulthood, an early moment when you expressed taste and made a decision for yourself. And it’s also often (though not universally) a key moment of independence when you head off without supervision. Years later, you can get all wistful and talk about the first show you ever went to and all the crazy adventures you had.

That’s all well and good if your first concert was something cool. My first concert? The first live music show I attended without any parents or adult chaperones? Meatloaf.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with that — Meatloaf had a lot of fans and sold a lot of records, and was undeniably a talented singer (and even actor!). But it does not have the cool factor, does it? Heading into Manhattan in 1989 to see Meatloaf is not exactly like catching The Ramones at CBGB in 1974. I wasn’t even really into Meatloaf, honestly. I was vaguely familiar with the big hits like Bat Out of Hell, sure, but I didn’t sit around listening to Meatloaf tracks in my spare time.

A friend of mine from High School, who wasn’t a serious person, loved Meatloaf, however, and it was his idea to go. I thought, what the heck, let’s have an adventure. I should have asked myself why he couldn’t get anyone else to go with him.

.o0o.

First, I had to get an ID. I was seventeen, and the venue was 16 and older but you had to have ID, or so the official line went. I hadn’t yet gotten my driver’s license, so I had to go to a place downtown and show my birth certificate and sit for a photo and wait for the ID to be made. This was an early sign that I am a Rule Follower, because of course when I got to the show no one gave two shits about an ID — all it meant was that I didn’t get an adult wristband, so I couldn’t order alcohol. Joke was on them, I had three bucks in my pocket so I couldn’t afford alcohol. But I still got the ID, because Jeff is always terrified of being caught not following the rules. It’s a real problem.

The place was half full, and I remember feeling a little sorry for Mr. Loaf, who sweated impressively on stage and seemed on the verge of collapse at all times, but sounded pretty good. My Unserious Friend was ecstatic, and kept grabbing me to shout enthusiasms in my ear, but I was just slightly bored. I knew two songs, there were — at most — two dozen other people there, and I couldn’t even drink recklessly, already one of my favorite hobbies.

.o0o.

I’ve carried unspoken resentment toward my Unserious Friend for decades because of this. This is exacerbated by the fact that my next concert was The Who (followed rapidly by The Rolling Stones), much cooler bands that would have been a decent choice for first concert ever.

Of course, when I saw The Who and The Stones I imagined they were on the cusp of retirement. They were so old, so absolutely ancient, I felt like I was running out of time to see them. Meanwhile 80-year old Mick Jagger is out there making me look bad. So what do I know about cool? Apparently nothing.

Bullshit

Raging for The Dying of the Light

Author: November 11, 2024 1 Comment

Photo by Dzenina Lukac: https://www.pexels.com/photo/turned-on-string-light-on-miniature-house-754186/

HERE in my little burg folks get really into the holiday lights thing. Starting in early October, people begin setting up some pretty lavish displays – inflatables, music and sound effects, and, of course, lights, lights, and more lights. The Duchess adores this part of the year, and always wants to walk around town to see the displays, exclaiming in adorable childlike wonder at every moving tentacle, singing Santa, and elegant arrangement of plastic skeletons. One house, for example, always has about a dozen skeletons dressed in tie-dye shirts, with a sign proclaiming them to be the Grateful Dead. The Duchess loves it!

Me, not so much.

Anyone who is surprised that I’m a bit of a cranky killjoy has obviously never spent a Saturday night with me, but I’m not a complete Grinch – I love the holidays for non-religious reasons (i.e., excuses to drink and eat until I’m half dead) just as much as the next agnostic asshole. What I object to is the length of time we celebrate them, which seems to get longer every year.

I like my holidays tight and concentrated. If you start celebrating Halloween in late September, by the time the day actually comes, I’m exhausted, and much more likely to shut the door, turn off the lights, and sip bourbon in the dark while the kids shout outside, threatening to burn my house down if I don’t toss out some candy immediately (this is New Jersey, after all; my father used to sit outside the house with a baseball bat on Mischief Night). Same thing with Xmas – if I had my way we’d just go about our normal business until about December 23rd, spend a week or so getting jolly, and then spend January nursing hangovers. This 3-month holiday season bullshit is wearying.

This isn’t really about grinchiness, though. It’s about the dilution of experience. We all have a tendency to stretch pleasurable activities out until they’re so thin we can see through them, and trying to keep up the ol’ holiday spirit for three months is a grind. For me, at least. By December 1st I’m usually already sick of holiday songs, and a I definitely have no interest in the lights any more. If we all just waited a few beats it would just be more special, I think.

.o0o.

Here at the house, we do put up some decorations and lights, because we’re living in a society here and no one needs to know just how weirdly bitter I am about existing. We put up precisely the same three pieces of decoration every year, along with some random lights strung up randomly (currently the front of the house is festooned with purple and orange for Halloween and those will remain up through Xmas so purple and orange are now Xmas colors and I will hear no arguments on the matter).

Strangely, this is comforting. Every holiday I put the same three things up – they’re like friends. We have Plastic Target Skeleton, Mangy, Ragged Black Cat, and Partially Torn Open Pumpkin Light. We have Plastic Wreath From Previous Century, Odd Amish Santa Statue, and Bent and Abused Tiny Plastic Tree. Something about the continuity of it is a balm to me. They’re old, substandard, and not that attractive (in fact, they probably depress Halloween attendance and Xmas party invites from neighbors), but they’re constants in a world that lacks them, so I lean in to that.

Plus, if we didn’t at least string some lights and hang a wreath on the door, The Duchess would knee me in the groin.

Happy Holidays, I suppose is what I’m saying here. The Somers Way is to complain about everything but react in horror to any kind of change, so despite my complaints know that if the house caught fire I would walk through the flames to rescue Odd Amish Santa.

Bullshit

No Trunk Stories

Author: May 5, 2024 0 Comments

As I prep for my presentation at the 4th Annual Short Story Virtual Conference I’m thinking about the whole short story of it all, naturally enough. I love writing short stories, and I love selling them even more; it’s like conjuring small amount of money from thin air. I’ve sold two short stories so far this year:

Not sure when those will pub, but some time this year, I think. Both of these stories were submitted this year, and both were written in 2020, which makes the time from completion to sale 3-4 years. That got me thinking about how long it sometimes takes to sell a story (or a novel). There’s a term out there: Trunk Story (or Trunk Novel), which refers to a story or novel you wrote long ago and never sold and now keep in your trunk instead of actively submitting it. I have a few Trunk Stories, but not too many, because in my experience it can take a long time to sell a book or short story. Like, a really long time.

My personal record? Sixteen years. I wrote “A Meek and Thankful Heart” in 1997 and sold it to Buzzy Magazine in 2013. Sixteen years1!

I’ve got several stories that took 10-12 years to sell, and my novel Chum famously took my agent (the late, great, and truly hilarious Janet Reid) 12 years to sell after she signed me on the strength of it2,3. On average, it takes about 4-5 years after I finish a story before I sell it, though this number is skewed by the stories I was invited to contribute (which are essentially 0-day sales) and doesn’t consider the many, many stories and novels I have failed to sell, many of which have fallen out of my submission process because I’ve decided they weren’t all that great to begin with (mostly older works, naturally). The oldest story I am still actively trying to sell is about eleven years old at this point, but it doesn’t show up in this particular statistic because it hasn’t sold (yet).

Note: In case it wasn’t obvious, I am not a math kind of guy4.

The point of all this is that after sixteen years (or 5, or 1) a story has garnered a lot of rejections, and it’s natural to wonder if maybe you’ve overestimated the story’s quality or interest level — if maybe you’ve got a trunk story on your hands. But it’s worth reminding yourself that it comes down to connecting with the right person, that editor who sees the same thing you do in the story. All it takes is one decision-maker to think your story is as good as you do to make a sale. And when you sell that story, the years of submissions no longer signify: It’s published.

Trying to sell your fiction can be a hard, soul-chilling business. It’s basically taking an acid bath in rejection 24 hours a day, sometimes (ah, but then there are the days when you sell a story and get a royalty check for 79 cents and you get your second wind). But it’s also a long game, and sometimes the game takes a lot longer than you might expect.

—————————————————————————

  1. Of course, this means I am old enough to have published a story eleven years ago that took sixteen years to sell. <stares into the middle distance and feels old> ↩︎
  2. To be fair, over the course of those 12 years Janet sent me numerous notes, revision ideas, and reviews from colleagues as we tinkered with it. The novel that sold was like a diamond after all the thought and effort put into it. ↩︎
  3. And my second novel, The Electric Church, technically took 12 years to sell, too, if you measure from the first draft, though the re-write that sold in 2005 was essentially a totally new novel, so I usually count the time to sell as 1 year. ↩︎
  4. Although, hilariously, when I was like 10 years old I thought I was. I actually wrote a “math handbook” for my fellow students explaining how I did basic arithmetic so quickly. It was not appreciated. ↩︎

Bullshit

Janet Reid

Author: April 18, 2024 2 Comments

As you may know by now, my literary agent, Janet Reid, passed away in late April. Janet was my agent for 22 years, and her passing was a terrible shock. Over the course of two decades plus, nine published novels, one book on writing, numerous film options, a billion freelance contracts she generously reviewed for me, dozens of boozy nights at Old Town Bar in New York, and one raucous tandem appearance at the 2019 Writer’s Digest Annual Conference, Janet never failed to be hilarious, kind, witty, ruthless, and a cackling, delightful presence.

Janet was incredibly fun to work with. She relished deals, she loved talking shop, she was dedicated to her clients and rabid about defending our interests. For a while me and a few of her clients formed a kind of drinking club with Janet, meeting semi-regularly at Old Town to let Janet buy us drinks while we discussed book deals and industry gossip, and some of those nights almost killed me because we were all laughing so hard. It was almost a movie version of having a literary agent: Her main function was to give me contracts to sign, hand me checks to cash, and buy me drinks.

Janet had a great voice. It was soothing, professional, radio-ready. The phone would ring and I’d answer, and Janet would purr “Is this the genius author Jeff Somers?” Or I’d call her, and she pick up the phone and say “Jeff Somers is Fantastic Fan Club, How Can I Help You?” Knowing I’ll never hear that voice again is so startling I don’t know how to process the knowledge.

We joked about Golden Toilets. I don’t recall how it started, but at some point golden toilets became our code word for the immense wealth and success that surely waited just around the corner for me. Janet would send me a note about a reading opportunity or a freelance job, and she’s end with “It ain’t golden toilets, but it’s something!”

Janet was just part of the firmament. I might go weeks without speaking with her, then I’d send her a freelance contract to review and she’d respond with hilarious, snarky revisions. I just always knew she was out there, always happy to help, always happy to joke around and plot world literary domination. Janet Reid was a shark in all the best ways one can be — sharp-witted, fierce, her mind always in motion.

I’ll always treasure those 22 years. I doubt I’ll ever have as much fun as a professional writer again.

Bullshit

We All Survived Another Year

Author: December 25, 2023 0 Comments

Photo by cottonbro studio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-sitting-on-the-floor-3419732/

Man, 2023 certainly was a year, in the sense that as far as I can tell time passed and I grew older. Every December I have the same experience: I am amazed and slightly alarmed to realize that so much time has slipped past. For the most part, I don’t pay much attention to time. I measure my days in terms of finished stories, completed freelance assignments, and the volume of liquor bottles in my recycling, not hours or days. Looking back, 2023 was a pretty good year. I

  • Sold two short stories
  • Published two short stories (I Am the Grass and The Little Birds)
  • Released two Avery Cates novellas and the latest Cates novel
  • Wrote approximately 5,000 freelance articles, which paid for the
  • approximately 5,000 bottles of whiskey I drank
  • Produced 12 podcast episodes
  • Published a slightly tarnished novel here on the wee blog
  • Judged some writing contests
  • Reviewed a bunch of books
  • Did a bunch of house projects that somehow didn’t end with the house on fire or me trapped under something heavy
  • Published 52 issues of Writing Without Rules: Deep Dives (52!)
  • Launched Writing Without Rules: From the Notebook and convinced some of y’all to pay me money for it (thank you)
  • Released not one but two albums of music from The Levon Sobieski Domination that no one asked for or appreciated
  • Continued to champion the footnote as both a literary device and a joke machine
  • Fed and clothed myself for 365 days straight. If you knew me you’d be impressed

I mean, put into bulleted list form that seems impressive. And honestly, any year that ends with the bills paid, the glass full, and the cats purring is a good year, so unless I am jinxing myself and next seven days are gonna be rough, I think we can put 2023 into the books as a perfectly cromulent year. I hope it was for you, too.

So, onto 2024. A couple of bits of business:

  • The Serial Novel. So I guess posting a novel here a chapter at a time is a thing, now, so if you enjoyed reading Collections (and Designated Survivor and Detained before that), know that the 2024 serialized novel will be Black House. I’ve done a podcast about this one, and released a text adventure based on it, so it’s not exactly an unknown quantity. But if you’ve been curious about it, you can read the whole thing next year one chapter a week. Here’s the not final, totally-might-change cover I’m playing with:
  • The No Pants Cocktail Hour Goes Nonfiction. I’ve been producing my self-centered podcast for more than 5 years , which is a lot of short stories and book chapters to read and discuss. In 2024 we’re going to experiment a little and cover 12 essays I’ve published over the course of my career. Some of these were promotional in nature, some were just gigs I got paid for, but I thought this would be an interesting vein to mine for a while. Maybe in 2025 we’ll do freelance work, or go back to fiction. Who knows! Here’s what we do know: I will be making a tipsy ass of myself at least 12 more times in 2024, and you should come along for the ride.

Otherwise, nothing much will change, I don’t think. Hilarious social media posts on various platforms? Check. Jokes about pantslessness in each and every post, article, and patent application I write? Yup. The endless struggle for attention that occasionally inspires drenching existential dread? Sure, why not.

Happy New Year, y’all!

Bullshit, More Shit I Gotta Do

American Wedding Confidential #5: Touch Me I’m Sick

Author: December 18, 2023 0 Comments

Photo by Miriam Salgado: https://www.pexels.com/photo/pouring-drinks-10733402/

Note: This essay originally appear in my zine The Inner Swine as part of a series composed during a period of my life when I was attending weddings as a Plus-One every other week.

Weddings are ridiculous affairs. Putting aside the obvious hilarity of two people in this day and age claiming to not only know themselves well enough to make a reasonable lifetime commitment but also to know a completely different person well enough to bet the ranch on, there’s also the issue of the sheer gluttonous spectacle of it all. The Wedding business is huge, weddings are incredibly expensive…and why? So you can invite a bunch of mean-spirited relatives, greedy ravenous friends you haven’t spoken to in a few years, and all of their anonymous and bottomless girlfriends, boyfriends, domestic partners, wives, husbands, and who knows what else, and then stuff them senseless? I don’t mind getting filled to the brim with watered liquor, rubber chicken and stuffed mushrooms three or four times a year, but ask me if it’s necessary.

And you cant blame us, the lowing stampeding herd of guests you’ve invited. The human race isn’t very complex: put a feed in front of us and most of us are like Boggies, we eat until were swallowed by an unexpected cloud of unconsciousness and rushed to the hospital. You resent the fact that you spend $20,000 just so I can draw a face on my beer gut and dance shirtless on a table while eating clams and chugging champagne (all the while being cheered on by everyone except my sobbing, red-faced date)? Then stop inviting me.

Ahem.

Earlier this year I was once again asked to pull out the old forest green suit and cut a rug at a wedding, this time being a rent-a-date for my friend Laura, who lives in South Carolina now and whom I don’t see nearly often enough, mostly due to my failure to travel south. A childhood friend of hers was getting hitched over in Staten Island and as is often the case with our lost generation, she needed a date. After exhausting her other options, she settled for me.

I’m well known in the wedding business now, and upon learning that I was to attend the reception hall hired three extra security people and restocked the bar. Such is my power.

Laura warned me that there was going to be no expense spared at this soirée, so I broke down and invested in a haircut a week before the festivities, to show my good faith in looking my best for my date. Of course, this was one of Italo the Barber’s (who has been cutting my hair since I was four with a maintenance of style and skill you’ve got to respect) $9 specials, which is to say: invariably a disaster. So I showed up at Laura’s house shined up like a new penny, except for my hair, which seemed to be prepared for a different experience altogether (possibly a rectal exam, possibly a murder attempt – who knows what my hair was thinking?).

Laura didn’t notice, however, as she was recovering from a bout of stomach virus so disastrous she’d been on IV fluids just the day before, which is to say she was still too busy vomiting to notice whether I looked good or not. I suggested that perhaps she was too ill to attend, but as she delicately locked herself into the bathroom she waved me off and insisted that everything was fine. I shrugged and went outside to spread plastic drop cloths over my car’s upholstery, just in case.

The wedding revived Laura somewhat, what with the brisk fresh air and the spirited drive over (I think my driving is spirited because so many people are moved to pray whilst in the car with me) and she greeted old friends enthusiastically, and finally took notice of my disastrous haircut. She politely ignored it, and me, for the rest of the ceremony, which was pretty long and dull as weddings go, and involved an odd spot wherein the bride and groom wandered off somewhere else entirely and left us all standing there in silence, wondering what the hell was going on. I imagine the couple got quite a hoot out of that, the bastards.

The reception, however, was Laura’s undoing, as you might expect: it’s hard to be at a well-catered reception and not eat until you pass out, and Laura continued to help herself to treats despite the mounting evidence that she shouldn’t. I was driving, and so only had one drink, which actually does nothing to improve my surly and combative nature. Upon our arrival we discovered that a nefarious couple had taken two seats at our table, meaning that we wouldn’t be able to sit with Laura’s brother and sister and their respective dates, with whom we had forged a strong bond over stiff drinks and appetizers during the cocktail hour. We wanted the couple to go sit at their own table, but nobody wanted a scene. We men stood around with our hands in our pockets, unsure of what to do, while Laura stalked off and caused a scene anyway. The offending couple were sentenced to a less prominent table and glared at me all night. They could tell I was an instigator, and blamed me. In truth, we men sort of avoided looking at the other couple and hoped to god a fight didn’t break out – I didn’t need the memory of Laura standing over me, defending my honor, while I bled and whined. I have enough of those sorts of memories.

I’m a lover, not a fighter.

The reception was pretty typical, and except for an hallucinogenic moment in the middle when the band played hard-rock versions of “Play That Funky Music” and “Devil Went Down to Georgia” back to back (twenty minutes of my life I’d certainly like to have back) the only thing which marked the evening was the fact that Laura’s Brother’s girlfriend kept disappearing for long stretches of time. She would just wander off and leave the poor guy sitting at the table alone, staring into space. In-between daring her stomach virus to attack, Laura and I noticed her talking to various men during the evening, and I wondered if tragedy was rearing its ugly head. The thought brought joy to my heart, and I prepared for drama and angst gladly. Little did I know the only drama and angst I was going to get was courtesy Laura’s wayward gastrointestinal system.

At one point, Laura and I snuck out to have a cadged cigarette or two, standing by the bathrooms in the lobby and gossiping about her brother. It was nice; I don’t see Laura much, and it occurred to me that maybe the ultimate purpose of Weddings in my life is simply to get together with people I don’t normally see. Standing in the lobby with Laura, this seemed likely, and I wondered, privately, if I would ever figure out a way to make money off of my skills as a rent-a-date. I didn’t mention this to Laura, knowing how easily I am misinterpreted these days.

By the time the Venetian room was opened up, I could smell disaster in the air but Laura couldn’t resist, and an hour later we were leaving, a slightly green Laura bravely staying awake for the whole ride to make sure I didn’t wander into the wrong direction entirely, which I almost managed despite her efforts. Driving for me, especially when I’m wearing tight, uncomfortable shoes, is a very Zen experience. I just sort of pick a car and follow it, and hope it knows where it’s going. This works better than you might imagine. As I dropped Laura off at home and sped away, I thought that if nothing else I learned that sometimes you just have to lay off the seafood.

Bullshit

American Wedding Confidential #4: It’s My Scene, Man, and It Freaks Me Out!

Author: December 11, 2023 0 Comments

Photo by Andrea Piacquadio: https://www.pexels.com/photo/woman-in-black-long-sleeve-holding-champagne-glass-3775172/

Note: This essay originally appear in my zine The Inner Swine as part of a series composed during a period of my life when I was attending weddings as a Plus-One every other week.

THE best types of weddings to get invited to, the uninhibited bachelor soon realizes, is one where you’re no longer very close with the person or persons inviting you. Obviously some remnant of affection or intimacy or whatever remains to get you invited in the first place, but if his first response to the invitation is surprise, the enterprising bachelor knows he’s onto something.

When my friend Deidre (not her real name) invited me to her wedding, it was perfect. I was not close enough to be intimately involved with the plans, had met the groom once (and that in a crowded smoky place where I was pretty sure he would never remember me from) and knew only a limited number of her other close friends. The reason this was exciting was simple: weddings are filled with drunken, relaxed women in tight, revealing but uncomfortable clothes who have been whipped up into a mating frenzy by the sheer romance and primal proceative mood of the ceremony. After a few too many glasses of white wine and just the right number of love songs, any man with no perceivable limps or skin diseases starts to look attractive, as long as he seems like marriage-material.

“Marriage Material” is a tricky term which means, basically, that there is no reason the poor slob couldn’t be goaded into exchanging vows should a relationship blossom and the idea of living with him and bearing his children not bring images of prescription drugs dancing into the poor gal’s head. Not all men fall into this category, for a variety of reasons: the limps and skin diseases mentioned above, an existing marriage, baleful personality, halitosis, and an alarmingly long list of character defects that range from a wandering dick to an inability to stand up to her father. The exact prerequisites of “Marriage-Material” vary from girl to girl, and are difficult to pin down, but every lean and hungry bachelor knows that he has to look it to have any chance of being the real Best Man of the reception.

There are two ways to acquire this mysterious veneer.

The first is to do whatever is necessary to appear honestly distressed at your single status, to achieve a delicate balance of machismo and sensitivity, to try and project the sort of manly sadness stemming from your loneliness that will set women’s hearts a-pounding and knees a-melting and make you look like the third-rate Chris O’Donnel sensitive hunk you know you could be.

The other, more attractive to the lazy amongst us bachelors, is simply to show up with a good Trophy Date and not tell anyone she’s your platonic friend or your best friend’s sister or your cousin Ruth. Because the one true law of “Marriage Material” is that if some other woman is willing to appear in public as your girlfriend, you must be it.

I asked my gorgeous friend and confidant Simone [REDACTED] to be my trophy date for this one, for a variety of reasons: she can drink like a sailor, she’s a good choice of people to talk to for hours and hours, and she’s good-looking enough to blind when the mood takes her to wear skintight black evening dresses. Also, since Simone regards my own libido as an amusing if unimportant detail of my existence, there was no chance of me losing sight of my real objectives and getting distracted. She was perfect for Trophy Date status.

I was ready. With the lovely Ms. [REDACTED] on my arm and my own dashing lack of any discernible deformities, I knew I had Marriage-Material stamped on my forehead.

And then, we got lost.

And I mean, lost. We got lost on the way to the ceremony, although not too badly, and managed to sneak in with only a deafening-amount of squeaking hinges and muffled giggles. Then we got lost on the way to the reception, in a big way. Well, in all honesty I should say that I got lost. Simone just sort of sat in the front seat staring out the window in a saintly display of tolerance. But then Simone’s known me for years now and if she hasn’t come to terms with my general incompetence by now then she never will.

Being lost in New Jersey, however, means never being too far away from a major highway, and we did make it to the last half hour of the cocktail hour after being on the road for almost four hours. We were starving, and all the food had been gnawed down to the bones by the other guests, who resembled army-ants or piranhas in their greasy-lipped frenzy. I settled for a stiff cocktail and some sushi, while Simone trembled and wept because all the good foods had been devoured. I held her gently in my arms as she cried, forlorn at the lost hors devours.

At the actual reception, we were both so burned from the ride down that it took many glasses of liquor before we felt relaxed enough to enjoy ourselves, and by then I suppose I had lost my appetite for meaningless romantic entanglements with booze-flushed floozies in the coat room. Besides, my pickings were slim: the women at our table (the official “old friends we don’t know what to do with” table) were vague little sorority moppets more interested in discussing the details of every wedding they’d ever seen, heard of, or imagined in their narrow lives, and none of the other women were drinking enough. So I settled in, talked to Simone, snuck out with her to watch Game 4 of the World Series on the Hotel Lounge TV, and eventually got shit-faced enough to dance.

And there my careful veneer of Marriage-Material vanished, like ice on a July afternoon.

Dancing is not a male activity. Men who dance well are not men (although men who avoid dancing are cowards) and so most of us flail about with an unseemly awkward motion, endangering our friends and dates and ruining our cool exteriors. In self-defense, most sensible men have adopted a sedate white-man’s overbite type of dancing that is neither exciting nor embarrassing, it is simply dull. Not me. In my self-defense, I get as goofy as I can, dancing as if I were in a Bill Murray movie. I make my dancing into a big joke. This is fine if you’re dancing in front of good friends who already don’t respect you, but in front of strangers…sometimes it is a mistake. I am the Elaine Bennis of Male Pattern Dancing.

It didn’t matter, really; we had a good time and made it up to our room after several hours of dancing had sweated all the alcohol out of my body. Luckily, I was too tired to be humiliated and hit the sheets immediately upon entering the room. Simone unfortunately changed into frumpy sweatpants and a T-shirt, and the next day I happily drank coffee, clogged the tub drain, and ate a complimentary breakfast of greasy sausages and buttery eggs…

…and promptly got lost on the way home. Simone, tired of all this bullshit finally took charge and directed me home. As I dropped her off I considered the whole night to have been a rousing success, even if I had wasted a great Trophy Date opportunity. Oh well, one thing I know in this crazy life: there is always another wedding waiting for me.

Bullshit, The Inner Swine