A BRIEF ASIDE, NOT REALLY CHAPTER 3: WHAT ARE YOU, A PUSSY?


“In 22 seconds, I could break your fucking spine. In 22 seconds, I could pinch your head off like a fucking insect and spin it all over the fucking pavement. In 22 seconds, I could put 22 bullets inside your ridiculous gut. What I seem unable to do in 22 seconds is to keep you from fucking up my film.”

- Eli Cross, The Stuntman


What do you do with your spare time? Are you hitting the gym? Reading your Men’s Health? Do you know what’s exhibiting at the Louvre, the Met? Did you read the last Gore Vidal book? The Dalai Lama’s most recent? That one about the autistic kid and the dead dog? Mitch Albom’s latest transformative best-seller? Do you know what happened in the stock market today? How about today’s Times, Washington Post, BBC news…Al Jazeera? Do you listen to NPR? Do you know what’s on Broadway? Who won the last round of Tonys, Oscars, Palme D’ors? Nobel Prizes? Pulitzers?

Do you know your wines?
Do you know when certain vegetables and fruits are in good season?
Do you know any jazz?

Do you have this month’s most popular argyle pattern? Are you even aware of the specific sets of colors and shades you should be wearing, based upon the time of year? Do you know this, Tim?

We devour the Image. The things we eatup are Branded, Packaged, Advertised. The Cult of Personality.

You are no different, my friend. The way you wrap yourself, the sell that comes out of your mouth, the things you own – they are your fucking foundation. Your bedrock. Like it or not, you are going to have to work for it. You are going to have to pay for it. Accept the fact that you should go to a salon, you should beg for a natty gay man to cut your hair, and you should be happy to fork over no less than $50 for it. Why? Why, you ask???

Because unless he’s a cruel snatch, no self-respecting gay man will give you a bad cut. In fact, he’s nine times out of ten going to know what will look best on you. Count on it. Beyond that – this is your hair we’re talking about, dude. It’s the frame on your grille. It’s like how a spoiler can make a boring car look a little more exciting. Or fucking ridiculous. You’re not a boring car my friend. Make optimal use of everything you’ve got.

That’s what the gym is all about. You know this, of course. You’re a bad man. But if we’re laying down ground rules, I can’t leave this stuff out. You don’t even have to hurt yourself all that bad, to stay this side of paunchy. Just stay on top of it all the time. Make it like brushing your teeth or jerking off. It’s not so much work to have scruples with your eating habits. If you take time to figure it out, there are scores of reasonable dishes to be had. Everywhere, foods that do nothing but good things for you, and actually satisfy both appetite and palate.

Cooking for yourself is hands-down your best bet. Following a recipe is like putting a fucking chair together. Follow the directions, it’s done. That’s it. Just get yourself a book. If you have no creativity in you whatsoever, you never even have to think about cooking. Just do what you’re told. That is granted you have an attention span that will allow you to cook something without burning it. Take your Focusin™ kids, follow the recipe directions, and voilà. The addiction to eating out is squanderous, and dangerous. You rarely know just how much butter, oil, sucralose, salt, MSG, mouse excrement, etc, they allow into their food. Not that you fare a whole lot better at the grocery store, but at least it’s a little better. Look up Lance Armstrong’s diet. That shit’ll get you through the day.

And that’s what it’s also about. Getting you through the day. The month. Through cancer. Through a mugging. A car crash. Through abandonment in extreme temperatures and terrains. It’s all about surviving clowns and cannibals.

Why not know how to keep on truckin’? How to do the best for yourself? I don’t understand the difficulty here that people have with not only being healthy, but actually possessing a legitimate survival instinct. Our enemies aren’t razor-incisored predators anymore. They’re cancer. AIDS. Broken hips. Avian Flu. Alzheimer’s. FAT!

Then there’s pure circumstance. Accidents.
(and of course anyone of Middle Eastern descent as well)

Reading magazines. Purchasing one food over the other. Finding a few hours in one or two days to cook enough food to last you an entire week. Making the effort not to remain stationary for days at a time. Doing yoga. Going to the doctor. Not sleeping with girls in navy towns.

I cannot process how it’s perceived that these things are more difficult than finding out about and suffering a malignant anything. Doing chemo. How is jogging worse than a triple-bypass? How is not watching television from endofwork till timeforbed harder than sacrificing your attention-span, memory, and personality? How grueling is it to do a few word puzzles and actively support stem-cell research?

Those are just the basics, to me.

As far as I’m concerned, really, why not know how to parachute at 20,000 feet? Why not snowmobile, ski, snowboard, wakeboard, waterski, jetski, hydroplane (and control that shit), biplane, aeroplane, helicopter, and so on, and so forth? Why not learn it all, if you can?

True Memory:

The long parking lot off of Sublette Ave. Technically it was on The Hill, but I don’t know if they have the Italian flag fireplugs all the way down that way.

Anyway, snowing, breath fogging the windows in the ’86 Nissan Sentra hatchback, innocuous brown, hardly any pickup, and oldass tires. Remember dude? Remember?

About two football fields long, plenty of room, get a little speed and yank the parking brake, cutting extreme left or right on the wheel, depending on the light poles. Long slides. 360°. Even the 720°, once. James Bond and shit. That, and running off the road with Dave so many times in the old Eagle Talon(Redbandit), taught me a thing or two about the physics of small car slides on pavement.

It saved my life. Heavy rainstorm way out Highway 40 on the way to Mizzou, wind and some bad 18-wheeler slipstream sent me skidding two lanes sideways. But I knew how to yank and finesse the wheel, I knew just how to pump the brakes, and I came through clean and unbroken in the middle of heavy traffic. It was all the proof I ever needed.

I would know how to fire weapons with accuracy.
I would know how long I could survive without food, and water.
I would know how to kill ninjas if they snuck into my bedroom closet. Sneaky fuckers.

I fish. Hunt. Learned to clean and cure (though I have no taste for it) all manner of game.

I know what mushrooms not to eat. I also know which mushrooms to eat – Go Psilocybin!

How to navigate via starlight is important. How to put a condom on correctly is crucial.

I’ve got Kung Fu.

Why am I going on and on and on, you’re wondering no doubt. I imagine you have plenty of these already under your belt.

What I’m talking about here is a commitment to Living. To Life. Any woman will sense this. From the cut of your well-muscled gib, to the rakish angle of your hat, to your jaunty Marathoner’s step, she will know that you are a creature of infinite drive and resources.

Not only is this an irresistible quality, it’s as goddamned spirit-affirming as it gets. You know you’re doing your best. You know you’re feeling your best. And you know you’re looking your best.

That’s what I’m talking about. Willis.