This Is What You Get

“Is this life in America now?”

In the fall of 1998, I attended a writer’s dinner at a restaurant in Ybor City for a new magazine called City Style.

This was a weird time. The world was still recovering from the hangover of what was Titanic. The news on the television was all about “impeachment” while doing stunning verbal gymnastics to avoid using the word “blowjob”. And there was a general fatigue in general about the 90s - we couldn’t wait to enter the 21st century when we were going to figure everything out and Life Would Be Awesome!

As for this particular day, I can remember a few details: 1) I couldn’t wait to finish work at the pharmacy so I could go home and change into my Writer’s Clothes; 2) once I was home, my roommate, Shannon, said she wanted to set me up on a blind date with a woman that she had met; and 3) in my excitement to get to this meeting on time, I ran a red light and got a ticket.

The dinner was set up by City Style, and the editor-in-chief and the owner were both in attendance. The whole point of the evening was to bring a bunch of young writers together and work out who would be a good fit for the magazine.

I was incredibly nervous. Up until this point, I had been mostly writing journalism for the local newspapers and I saw City Style as an opportunity to write more personality-driven and/or creative pieces. I really wanted to make my mark somehow.

I made an effort to sit close to the editor-in-chief and did my best to stand out. It should also be noted we were told to order whatever we wanted and that the magazine would pick up the bill. As someone who was living off a diet of Vigo Red Beans and Rice and beer, this was music to my ears. There was a lovely Irish waitress working our table and she kept the food and drinks coming throughout the evening.

The editor-in-chief, Derrek, presented the goals of the magazine and what they wanted it to be. City Style was meant to bridge the gap between Tampa’s fashion and alternative scenes. They wanted to directly compete against the dominant local publications like The Weekly Planet but with more bite. They were open to different ideas - all we had to do was pitch them.

I liked Derrek from the first moment that we met. I appreciated how he pitched the magazine to the writers and how he talked to us. He wanted us to find our voices for City Style. He was just a year older than me and up to this point, most of the editors I dealt with were gruff and old school, so his approach was refreshing. By the end of the night, we would be dissecting Stephen King’s work and talking music. So it’s no accident that he became one of my best friends.

After a few hours, half of the writers were gone, and those who remained were terribly drunk. The restaurant/bar had two floors with more tables upstairs. At one point, a small cup of ketchup had fallen from an open space on the floor/ceiling above and landed next to our table. It hit the ground with a pop and ketchup splattered around us - most of it hitting one of the writer’s jackets which was draped behind a chair.

The Irish waitress came over to clean up the mess and she was extremely apologetic.

And because I was young and stupid, because I was drunk, and because I had Hunter S. Thompson’s work on my mind, I immediately sprang into action: “Do you have any idea whose jacket this is? This man is a famous writer!”

“I’m so sorry,” said the waitress.

“I am this man’s attorney! What is the meaning of this? Is this life in America now? Where my client can’t eat in peace without fear of ketchup falling on his head? Is this some kind of joke to you? Does my client now have to worry about mustard? Or Heinz and any one of its 57 varieties?!”

(It cannot be stressed how long this went on.)

The poor waitress was mortified. Eventually, the manager came over and offered to pay for the dry cleaning of the jacket. I continued to act as the man’s attorney and even got a discount on the bill.

We all had a good laugh and continued to drink. And I got my first writing assignment for the magazine (a story in itself for another day).

Normally this would be the story’s ending. The hero wins the day. But this is no ordinary hero. You see, this hero is an asshole. And karma had something to say about the matter.

More after the break…

Remember that blind date?

I went on the blind date a week later. It was on a weeknight at the James Joyce Irish Pub on 7th Avenue in Ybor. Shannon had arranged that I would meet the mystery woman at the bar.

(You probably already know where this is going.)

When we met, I recognized her face but couldn’t figure out where I knew her from. But the way her smile immediately disappeared made it clear that she knew who I was.

Her Irish accent would have given her away, but just to be sure, she said, “You’re no lawyer!”

This was an absolute nightmare. I was horrified. I tried to apologize but she had a LOT to say. It was probably a couple of minutes worth of soul-crushing, self-esteem-destroying verbal lashings, but it felt like an hour. On top of that, I had never received that level of criticism with an Irish accent, so it felt a lot heavier than it had any right to be. And to make it even worse, the bartender was Richard, the owner of the pub and a friend of mine - so he had a front-row seat to one of the worst moments of my life. I can remember him sliding a beer towards me with a huge grin on his face.

When she was finished, she looked out of breath. I apologized profusely and offered to buy her a drink. And though she accepted, there was no coming back from any of that. Between my horrible actions and all the terrible things she said in return, there was no way it was going to work. We had about 15 minutes worth of awkward small talk and then she left.

“Well,” Richard said as he passed me my second beer. “That was certainly unfortunate.”

“Yeah,” I said.

“But good lord was that some fine entertainment!”

How about something less embarrassing?

Thanks to everyone who bought my most recent book, NOTES FROM PARASPACE.

I was delighted to see that it was listed as #1 on Amazon for “New Releases in Comics & Graphic Novels Literary Criticism”.

We good?

I need you to stop being so hard on yourself. I get it, I do. But if you read this whole newsletter, you already know there are far worse people out there in the wild. So it’s OK to just give yourself a break.

Can you do that for me?