I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell

Tucker Max

This book is alternately horrible and hysterical, and it often turns on a dime between the two.  Tucker Max is, straight up, an asshole.  Much of the book serves to illustrate this.  I’m fairly sure that the suggestion to read this book was made sarcastically, since I’m a proud femmenist…yes, I spelled that wrong on purpose, the image of modern feminists is decidedly butch and I am most decidedly femme…and I don’t like douchebags.  (My last zillion boyfriends notwithstanding, I don’t like them.)  The image of Holden Caulfield just popped into my brain, with his entitled jackassery.  (I’m possibly the only English literature snob in existence who can’t stand Catcher in the Rye.  I’ve tried many times, and I can’t get through it.  It’s excruciating to read.)  The girl-power side of me didn’t have much of a problem with this book, which I’ll explain shortly. 

I have nothing against assholes as long as they’re honest about it.  Quite a few of the earlier stories in this collection deal with the consequences of not being honest about your intentions, and he’s self-aware enough to realize that those consequences were predictable outcomes of his behavior.  Telling a girl “I love you” when you just want a fuck buddy is a dickish thing to do, and he openly admits that it contributed to being stalked by girls who bought the line and now love him back. 

I’ll admit that I hate the use of the words “slut” and “whore” and how often they appear.  It’s they way that he describes the girls who act like he does, and the double standard makes me want to spit.  On him.  A lot.

One of my favorite stories is about a girl who comes over and gives him a blowjob before going on a date with another guy, and he realizes he’s probably been the second guy at some point.  He’s completely losing his shit over girls who act like he does, and it makes me happy.  (Another one of my favorite stories is about someone telling him that he’s probably slept with a post-op transsexual at least once.  I like when people get slapped in the face with their own closed-mindedness). 

This passage struck me as absolute truth, albeit in a “he stumbled across it, idiot-savantly” kind of way: “Ladies, let me give you some advice.  You can throw all your stupid fucking chick-lit, self-help, why-doesn’t-he-love-me books out, because this is all you need to know: Men will treat you the way you let them.  There is no such thing as ‘deserving’ respect; you get what you demand from people.”  This is a zillion percent gospel truth, and it was missing from a lot of 2^nd-wave feminist thought.  Having equal capability with men means that we should be held to the same standards as men.  Assuming that women “deserve” some extra measure of anything suggests that we’re frail or delicate or easily broken.  Fuck that.  He says later, “…if you demand respect, he will either respect you or he won’t associate with you.  It really is that simple.”  Also a zillion percent true, and something we all probably needed to hear in high school.  And college.  And last week. 

Quite randomly, there were quotes that convinced me that he and I know the same people:

“If you EVER speak ill of the McGriddle again I will personally force-feed you one while I fuck you in the butt using the wrapper as a condom and then donkey punch you when the infused syrup nuggets explode in your mouth.”  (I know two people who talk like this.  It’s terrifying when the two of them are in the same room.)

I have wanted to say this to people: “It stops talking to its intellectual superior or it gets the hose.”

And finally, I would put this bumper sticker on my car: “The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the vagina is stronger than both.”