MEETING AUTHORS #4: I MET TUCKER MAX!

I hate going to the city, mostly because every time I venture into Chicago, I have extremely bad luck. To give this perspective, the last time I went there, the windshield and rear window of my car were caved in, and my fiancé was nearly dragged out of the passenger seat by a lunatic with a cane, and the time before, I found myself in a situation where I almost committed murder one. [These are stories for another day.]

But Tucker Max was going to be in town, and it had been quite some time since I’d gone to a signing. I was up in the air about whether or not I should go until I was told that I was going to leave work early on Friday (10-8-10). Now that I had the time, why not go?

My friend, Derek, is a huge fan of Tucker Max. In fact, I would go as far as to say that Max is his hero. But he’s a bit off in his fandom. For those of you who saw Max’s movie, I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL, you know that Max gave away his cell phone number in a scene. Derek didn’t believe it was really his number, so one day I called it from work and left a message saying how much I enjoyed Max’s work and hoped to read more in the future. Derek sneered at me for leaving such a polite message and told me that I should have talked a bit of trash with him because that’s clearly what he wants.

Why the fuck would I talk trash to Tucker Max’s voicemail? I don’t know the guy personally. I talk shit to my friends all the time (especially to Derek), but to someone who is essentially a stranger? To me, that sounds like a dick move.

Well, now that Tucker Max was going to be in town, Derek had his chance to talk trash to him face to face. I told him that he was going to go with me and do just that. He said he wouldn’t talk trash to his hero. He’d only tell him how much he liked his book and to keep up the good work. I told him that that’s exactly what he’d given me crap for months ago. He denied it.

Sure. Okay. But I wanted him to go, anyway, mostly because I wanted to see if his legs would get all rubbery in the presence of his hero. He said he’d try (despite the fact that he was asked to leave work earlier than I was), that he’d take the train into the city.

As soon as he left, FNG (Fucking New Guy) said, “He’s not showing up.”

“Yeah. I get the idea the next time I see him will be on Monday.”

When I got home, I picked out my favorite abrasive shirt. It says, “Thousands of my potential children died on your daughter’s face last night.” It’s guaranteed not to get me laid, but it’s also guaranteed to get the most nervous laughs out of a room. Just in case Borders disapproved, I wore a button-down shirt over it, since I didn’t want to get kicked out. I didn’t button it, so the message was clear. This would be something I would regret later, but we’ll get to that.

Next, I got a bottle of Coke and filled it up with whiskey. There was just enough Coke left in there to leave a dark tint, so no one would get suspicious. I knew I was going to write about this night, and ordinarily, when I do something like that, I don’t drink. I want to keep my memory sharp. But this was different; this was Tucker Max.

I downed a few shots to help me remain calm for the inevitable traffic jam, and I hit the road. I made it to the Borders on Michigan about forty minutes late. Gripping his two books and movie in one hand and my booze in the other, I glanced around, wondering where the signing would be. There are three floors and a basement here . . . and there were no signs posted anywhere. If I hadn’t read it on his website, I would have no idea that Tucker Max was there.

NOTE TO BOOKSTORES HOSTING SIGNINGS: Advertise that a writer is going to be there. Put signs up in the windows or on placards by the entrances, where people can easily see them. There is no point to a signing if you don’t tell people about it.

After such a long trip, I had to take a piss, so I went downstairs and unburdened my bladder (while drinking down two airplane bottles I had in my pocket). When I got out of there, I couldn’t find the escalator, so I wandered around before I realized that I was in the children’s section. A little boy, maybe about eight years old, looked up and read my shirt.

“What does that mean?” he asked.

If I had been any more boozed up, I would have told him in no uncertain terms what it meant. For those who don’t believe me, you should see my Wisconsin story elsewhere on this blog. However, I was still in a reasonable state of mind, so I closed the outer shirt around me and said, “Ask your mother someday.”

“My mother doesn’t live with me anymore. Grandma says she’s flying with the angels.”

Jesus. Why are kids drawn to me? “Ask your father, then.”

“Okay. DAAAAAAD!”

Whoops. Time to go. “Good luck, kid.” I made my escape just as the kid’s father, a hulking brute of a man who would have put the Fear into any Marine or linebacker in the NFL, past, present, and future, arrived. Look, there’s the escalator. Isn’t that fortuitous?

I examined every level, looking for any signs of Tucker Max. I didn’t find anything until I reached the third floor, where an effeminate man asked me if I had a wristband for the signing.

“Uh . . . no.”

“You can get them on the first floor.”

ANOTHER NOTE TO BOOKSTORES HOSTING SIGNINGS: If you’re going to have a wristband system, you should notify people of this THE MOMENT THEY ENTER THE BOOKSTORE, YOU FUCKING DIPSHITS! I sweat when I drink, and the fact that I was scouring the entire bookstore for any indication of where the signing would be did not help matters much. By the time I got back downstairs, got the wristband, went back up three floors, and got in line, I was dripping sweat. It was so much that I just sat down and waited to cool down.

That was when I took my first drink from the Coke bottle. Immediately after, I texted Derek: “Where the fuck are you?!” His response: “Won’t be there. Couldnt get a ride. Have fun and give him a nice stink palm on me Haha.”

Did he just ask me to stink palm his hero? He is referring to the time I stink palmed Oliver North, the story of which can be found elsewhere on this blog. I hereby promise not to stink palm anyone ever again. Ollie North needed it, okay? The stink on my own hand was bad enough to discourage me from doing it ever again. Maybe if I ever run into Glenn Beck or Sean Hannity . . . .

Cliff texted me something about his next plan to fuck with Derek, so I texted him back: “You should do this. As predicted, he chickened out. Now I will be far more awesome than he.” [As to Cliff’s plan, I cannot disclose this information at this time, since the plan has yet to be implemented, and Derek will certainly read this before then.] Cliff responded: “Did he at least go with you?” I said, “No. He texted me while I was waiting in line! The fucker!” Cliff: “What a chicken shit.”

And here, I formulated a plan which would be awesome if it had worked: “He will never hear the end of this. If I can, I will get Tucker Max to call him a douchebag over the phone.” I had heard Max was an accommodating guy when it came to his fans, and I thought it would be perfectly reasonable to have him call Derek on my phone and say one simple sentence: “I am Tucker Max, and you’re a douchebag.” And then hang up without giving Derek a chance to talk.

Another one of my friends, Monika, said she’d be in the neighborhood, so she might stop in for the signing. I’d told her the day before that I was going to talk Derek into showing up. She said, “Tell him that meeting Tucker Max will make his penis big.” Even then I kind of suspected he would not show up. When this became a certainty, I texted her to let her know that he’d pussied out, to which she replied, “Hahaha did you go?” I texted back in the affirmative, and that was the last of it for a while.

It was time to watch people. I have been to maybe fifty signings (not including conventions), and I have to say that this crowd was vastly different from the others. I’ve never seen an attractive woman at a signing before, and now I found myself in a room filled with hotties, elbow to asshole, most dressed in their best fuck-me clothing. I don’t think anyone there was over the age of thirty (except for me and Tucker Max, maybe). Oddly, I noticed the presence of fat chicks, and I wondered if they’d actually read his stories. There were a bunch of poseurs, too, but maybe they thought they were good at wearing their masks, good enough to not be noticed. These were the people who were throwing poisoned barbs at each other in their best attempt to imitate their hero.

One guy stood out in particular. He smelled like he bathed in booze, and he harassed just about every good-looking woman who entered his sphere of influence. Blindly, he charged forward, hitting on every one of them with what could only be loosely termed as “game.” They rejected him, one and all, and he called them bitches and sluts as they went away. There was a guy a few people behind him who was wearing a Superman shirt, except under the giant S, was the word “single.”

“Hey, everyone! Superman’s single! If anyone’s interested, Superman’s single!” He repeated that phrase over and over again, like a child who has just discovered adults will laugh at anything he says. Except no one was laughing. Superman tried to joke back with him until he realized that this guy was beyond the point of cognitive discussion.

Some people called out for Drunk Douche to shut up, and he challenged them to a fight. The guy next to me chuckled and said to his girlfriend, “When you think about it, Borders is the perfect place to get into a drunken fight. There aren’t any bouncers here.”

Drunken Douche eventually lost patience and left with his friends. By then, I had noticed how creepy the guy to my right was. He kept staring at me with dead eyes. He was one of those quiet sorts that people are always warning you about. He looked like he might have been at home holding a gun and stalking the hallways of Columbine. I kept hitting my bottle of Coke in my attempt to ignore him. At one point, I realized I wasn’t drunk enough, so I poured the remaining airplane bottles into the Coke. He saw me do this, but he didn’t say anything.

On the other side of me was a super skinny guy with a very large girlfriend. They seemed pretty happy, but I don’t think they were Tucker Max fans. I got the impression that as they read Max’s two books, they were reading them for the first time. I didn’t find much of an issue with them until later in the night, when the girl twisted around her boyfriend to sit down. She nearly slapped my head with her ass, which was only half-covered by her skinny jeans. (How is a fat girl wearing skinny jeans? Think about it for a moment, and I’m sure you’ll come to the proper, horrifying conclusion.) As her ass crack flashed by me, I distinctly smelled shit. Either she had crop-dusted me, or she wasn’t very good at wiping.

Don’t get me wrong: 90% of these people were cool. It’s just that 10% that bothered me. Sturgeon’s Law in action.

The line moved along, and Monika got back to me: “Oh wow—that’s kinda late? Did you bring a flask at least?” I texted: “Don’t worry: I’m drunk. Almost out of whiskey. Still in line. Maybe an hour to go before I meet him. I’m going to need more booze . . . .”

Right about then, my fiancé called me. She lives in California now. She called me to ask how I was and by the way, one of her friends out there beat the shit out of her the previous night.

Yeah. Exactly. I asked what had happened, and she said that the guy just lost it and attacked her. Knocked her out. She’s had a rough history, and she’s been hit a lot by a lot of different guys. Mike Tyson would have had to struggle to put her down like that, so the guy must have been a beast.

She told me she filled out a police report, but the guy was still stalking her. It was okay, though; she was with friends who would protect her.

I’m sure the conversation must have been weird for those around me. It didn’t occur to me until later that one of them might also be writing an “I Met Tucker Max” story, and I would probably be in it.

Convinced that she was in good hands, we said the usual lovey-dovey stuff, and we hung up. I finished off the Coke bottle at this point. I was only buzzed, or so I thought. I was sitting down, so it was hard to properly judge my drunkenness.

I sent out a mass text, mentioning the thing about the signings I’ve been to and how many hot chicks were at them, compared to this one. Derek sent this to me: “U serious? the guy is average looking at best Wtf. did u get ur book signed?” Jesus Christ. WTF, indeed? Is this the kind of trash-talking Derek had in mind? Anyway, I appraised him of my situation, and then Monika wrote: “Oh oh—what are you going to do to get more booze?” I wrote, “I am out of booze now. I tried begging and crying, but the Borders staff doesn’t like this. Fuck ‘em. I’m flushing my empty bottle down their toilet.” [Empty bottle, meaning the empty airplane bottles I had in my pocket.] I hadn’t really begged anyone, but I was kind of upset with Borders. They were watching the wristband situation like hawks. Only certain wristband colors were allowed in certain parts of the line, and they were dragging people off left and right, pushing them to the back of the line. I was not one of these people, but I recognize fascism when I see it. By this point, I had enough whiskey in my system to cause a scene, and if they’d fucked with me in any way, I would have made them regret it.

But they left me alone, and the line moved on. Soon, I found myself in the primary line, marked by a bunch of zigzagging tape on the floor. There was a lot of empty space with these tape marks, so we did what any reasonable people would: we just walked across them to the back of the line.

“No!” shouted a Borders employee. “Use the tape marks as a guide! It’s a path, people!”

I couldn’t believe what she’d said, so I chose to ignore it. The others snickered.

“You think I’m joking? Do it!”

By then, I was at the back of the line, as were most others. The rest looked at this low level Borders employee with fear and followed orders.

After a while, I noticed that behind me stood a midget! I hadn’t seen her before, but now that we were lined up in that zigzag fashion, I noticed her in all her glory. Immediately, I sent a text to Monika: “Oh my God! There’s a midget here!” She said, “Hahah its everything you could ask for!!!! Hahahah ask the midget to help you find booze. Midgets are good at that.”

Here’s the thing: guess who noticed my text? I was going to say that she’d read it over my shoulder, but, you know . . . .

“I’m not a midget,” she said.

“Are you a little person?” I asked. I hate the term “little person.” I think it’s more insulting than “midget” will ever be. Little people are what the Irish called fairies and leprechauns. I was ready to tear her a new one if she responded in the affirmative.

“No, I’m just not a midget.”

“Well, you’re proportional, so you can’t be a dwarf. Ergo, you’re a midget.”

“I’m five feet tall. I don’t qualify.”

I couldn’t remember if that was tall enough to not be a midget, but I decided to take her word for it. “Okay, so you’re an inch taller than the standard. I apologize.” I was being sardonic, but it went over her head, like most other things. [NOTE: I didn’t notice this until I remembered it later, but no one was pointing and staring at the midget. Since I was the only one, I can only assume my drunken memory of her is incorrect. At any rate, she was really, really short.]

She nodded and let it go. So did I. I later asked Monika (and everyone else, in case you’re wondering) if it was okay to quote their texts, and she asked if the one I wanted was about the midget. I told her that the midget had caught me texting about her. Monika said, “OMG YOU HARASSED THE MIDGET?!?! DIDN’T YOU?!?!?! DIDN’T YOU?!?!?”

Some of my texts are missing (my phone doesn’t save them all, for whatever reason), and my memory at that point wasn’t perfect. Monika and I discussed my fiancé’s call to me, and somehow we got to the point where Monika was asking me if I’d had sex with the midget. I said, “No. I didn’t even try. If I wasn’t engaged, I would have tried.” Honestly, who doesn’t want to have sex with a midget at least once? The younger, unengaged me would have tried.

At some point, FNG replied to my hottie text: “And of course no [Derek].” Kris simply replied: “Giggity.” And for some reason, Fitz sent me a picture of an old Inspector Gadget cartoon.

By now, I was close enough to see Tucker Max. There was a chair and table, where I’m sure Borders expected him to sit, but instead he was standing despite the knee surgery he’d had recently. On the table next to him was beer. I think it might have been Fat Tire, but I’m not entirely sure.

Everyone wanted their picture with him, and he was eager to accommodate them. He was cheerful with everyone and . . . dare I say it? He seemed happy to be there. A lot of the other writers I’ve met were kind of lackluster, going through the motions for their job. No, Max was happy with meeting his fans. Stopping to take a drink between each person, he waved over each new fan and shook their hands, asking them for their names. I paid close attention, and he never had to ask a person twice what their name was. Again, I can’t say how many times other authors have asked me, “What’s your name again?” I’m John, which is one of the easiest male names in the world to remember.

As I came closer to the front of the line, I realized I was sobering up. My mouth was starting to get dry. I was still carting around my empty Coke bottle. I probably didn’t look my best, although most of the sweat had dried. My outer shirt was so wrinkled I don’t think even an iron will fix it.

And then, I reached the front. As the Columbine Creep got his book signed, Max’s assistant, Brittney Cason (who has a great blog you should be reading), approached. I thought she was going to ask if I had a camera, but to my surprise, she was looking at my shirt. Aside from that kid in the basement, she was the only one who noticed it. And lo! and behold! She was giving me the thumbs up. She is one of only a handful of women who have ever liked that shirt. (The others are all friends used to my particular brand of bullshit, so they might not count.)

Max said his goodbyes to the Columbine Creep, took a drink, and waved me over. We shook hands—he has a firm grip—and he asked me my name. I told him, “I’m John. It’s good to meet you.”

At this point, I should mention that Cliff and I recently speculated on what it would be like to see IHTSBIH on Lifetime, so I asked him what it would take to get it played on that channel. He laughed, probably taken aback by the absurdity of the question, but just as advertised, he always has a witty comeback ready: “It would take a lot of editing.”

As he signed my books, I asked him when SlingBlade was going to get his own spin-off. He asked me to clarify, and I said, “Maybe a movie, or something.” He stopped signing and told me that he has begged SlingBlade to write to him every day with his thoughts, because the guy is just so incredibly hilarious. But SlingBlade always refuses.

I looked back at the crowd and realized that we’ve been here for about three hours, going on four, and if I asked him to make that phone call to Derek, they would have probably lynched me. However, I was still holding the Coke bottle, and I have a history of asking authors to sign weird things.

For example, when I met Warren Ellis, I asked him to sign a Zippo. When I met Garth Ennis, I asked him to sign a shot glass. Since I’d been drinking whiskey from this Coke bottle all this time, I figured it would make sense to ask Tucker Max to sign the bottle.

So, I asked him. For the record, every author I’ve asked to sign weird shit for me, they look at me, confused. Ennis had no idea why I wanted a shot glass signed, and Ellis looked at the Zippo and said, “You want me to do something with this?”

Tucker Max didn’t skip a beat. He was not confused in the slightest. If he thought this was an odd request, it didn’t show on his face. Just so I didn’t look like a weirdo, I said, “When I got here, that thing was full of whiskey.”

Understanding dawned on his face, and he laughed. “Just so long as you don’t ask me to drink it. I’m allergic to whiskey.”

Having read his book, I nodded. “I’ve noticed.”

He handed me the bottle, shook my hand again, and sent me on my way.

I can’t stress this enough: it’s hard to reconcile the asshole I’ve read about to the absolute gentleman I met. I don’t doubt the stories. Both of his books and his website are full of pictures and documents and everything that proves he’s done all of these things. But at the same time, he went out of his way to be polite to everyone. He is very personable, he doesn’t talk down to anyone; in other words, he’s a very cool guy. But if Derek actually had shown up and tried talking trash in an effort to seem like one of the guys, I’m pretty sure Max would have torn him to pieces. Politeness is always best when it comes to someone you’re meeting for the first time.

The Borders employee who saw everyone out in the right direction (the same one who made the remark about the tape marks) made a snarky comment about me on the way out in regards to holding up the line to get a Coke bottle signed and reminded me of what a pack of assholes these Borders folks were. I remembered what I’d said to Monika, and I went down to the bathroom in the basement. I took a piss, then threw the airplane bottles into the toilet. Smirking, I hit the flusher, and much to my surprise, the toilet sucked them down with no problem.

Holy shit, I couldn’t even win a battle against a toilet.

Fuck it. It was time to see if I was coherent enough to find where I’d parked. I went upstairs, where I finally saw a sign on a small book shelf advertising that there would be a Tucker Max signing at 7:00. How nice to know. When I went out the door, the buzzer went off. This struck me as odd, since it hadn’t gone off when I’d arrived. I hadn’t touched anything in the Borders except the toilet flusher. What the hell was making me beep?

Speaking as one who is going to be married to a woman with a shoplifting habit (and who has witnessed her do this several times), I knew that no one pays attention to the buzzer. If you keep walking, no one will stop you. If you hesitate, someone will approach you. Safe in the knowledge that I hadn’t stolen anything, I kept going. No one stopped me.

I got to the self park garage and paid up. The price: an astonishing $26. How anyone can get away with this kind of extortion, I have no idea. But once in my car, music blaring (Korpiklaani’s “Vodka,” if you’re interested), I peeled out of the garage. On the way down the spiral, I saw a pack of some of the more vociferous poseurs from the signing. I didn’t even come near them, but I guess the loud music and the fast driving scared them, and they called me an asshole. Don’t these Tucker Max fans know that assholes finish first?

NOTE TO THE CITY OF CHICAGO: Is there any way we can put a stop to these stupid horse carriage rides? It’s not romantic. It’s usually cold out, and the horses smell like shit. What’s romantic about that? All they do is snarl up traffic, and this city is full of enough reckless drivers as it is. This only makes matters worse.

EPILOGUE: I asked all of my friends if it was okay to reproduce their texts. They said it was all cool, but one of them, Kris (who only has one quote in this entire story), said it was fine, but I shouldn’t use his last name. My reply: “As with one night stands, I never use last names.” That seemed to reassure him. I guess he was afraid that the world would find out he’s a FAMILY GUY fan . . . .

ADDENDUM:  I just received an email from Tucker Max in regards to this adventure, in which he gave me some excellent advice on writing.  However, the important part is this:  "And yes, if your friend had tried to talk shit to me, I would have destroyed him."  That's right, Derek.  Doubt me no more.