Chapter One
JUST DO IT
Sometimes when you work in advertising you'llget a product that's really garbage and you have to make it seemfantastic, something that is essential to the continued quality oflife. Like once, I had to do an ad for hair conditioner. The strategywas: Adds softness you can feel, body you can see. But the thing is, thiswas a lousy product. It made your hair sticky and in focus groups,women hated it. Also, it reeked. It made your hair smell like acombination of bubble gum and Lysol. But somehow, I had tomake people feel that it was the best hair conditioner ever created.I had to give it an image that was both beautiful and sexy.Approachable and yet aspirational.
Advertising makes everything seem better than it actually is.And that's why it's such a perfect career for me. It's an industrybased on giving people false expectations. Few people know howto do that as well as I do, because I've been applying those basicadvertising principles to my life for years.
When I was thirteen, my crazy mother gave me away to herlunatic psychiatrist, who adopted me. I then lived a life of squalor,pedophiles, no school and free pills. When I finally escaped, I presentedmyself to advertising agencies as a self-educated, slightlyeccentric youth, filled with passion, bursting with ideas. I left outthe fact that I didn't know how to spell or that I had been givingblowjobs since I was thirteen.
Not many people get into advertising when they're nineteen,with no education beyond elementary school and no connections.Not just anybody can walk in off the street and become a copywriterand get to sit around the glossy black table saying thingslike, "Maybe we can get Molly Ringwald to do the voice-over,"and "It'll be really hip and MTV-ish." But when I was nineteen,that's exactly what I wanted. And exactly what I got, which mademe feel that I could control the world with my mind.
I could not believe that I had landed a job as a junior copywriteron the National Potato Board account at the age of nineteen.For seventeen thousand dollars a year, which was anastonishing fortune compared to the nine thousand I had madetwo years before as a waiter at a Ground Round.
That's the great thing about advertising. Ad people don't carewhere you came from, who your parents were. It doesn't matter.You could have a crawl space under your kitchen floor filled withlittle girls' bones and as long as you can dream up a better ChuckWagon commercial, you're in.
And now I'm twenty-four years old, and I try not to thinkabout my past. It seems important to think only of my job andmy future. Especially since advertising dictates that you're only asgood as your last ad. This theme of forward momentum runsthrough many ad campaigns.
A body in motion tends to stay in motion. (Reebok, Chiat/Day.)
Just do it. (Nike, Weiden and Kennedy.)
Damn it, something isn't right. (Me, to my bathroom mirror atfour-thirty in the morning, when I'm really, really plastered.)
* * *
It's Tuesday evening and I'm home. I've been home for twentyminutes and am going through the mail. When I open a bill, itfreaks me out. For some reason, I have trouble writing checks. Ipostpone this act until the last possible moment, usually once myaccount has gone into collection. It's not that I can't afford thebills-I can-it's that I panic when faced with responsibility. I amnot used to rules and structure and so I have a hard time keepingthe phone connected and the electricity turned on. I place all mybills in a box, which I keep next to the stove. Personal letters andcards get slipped into the space between the computer on my deskand the printer.
My phone rings. I let the machine pick up.
"Hey, it's Jim ... just wanted to know if you wanna go out fora quick drink. Gimme a call, but try and get back-"
As I pick up the machine screeches like a strangled cat. "Yes,definitely," I tell him. "My blood alcohol level is dangerously low."
"Cedar Tavern at nine," he says.
Cedar Tavern is on University and Twelfth and I'm on Tenthand Third, just a few blocks away. Jim's over on Twelfth and Second.So it's a fulcrum between us. That's one reason I like it. Theother reason is because their martinis are enormous; great bowlsof vodka soup. "See you there," I say and hang up.
Jim is great. He's an undertaker. Actually, I suppose he's technicallynot an undertaker anymore. He's graduated to coffinsalesman, or as he puts it, "pre-arrangements." The funeral businessis rife with euphemisms. In the funeral business, nobodyactually "dies." They simply "move on," as if traveling to a differenttime zone.
He wears vintage Hawaiian shirts, even in winter. Looking athim, you'd think he was just a normal, blue-collar Italian guy.Like maybe he's a cop or owns a pizza place. But he's an undertaker,through and through. Last year for my birthday, he gave metwo bottles. One was filled with pretty pink lotion, the otherwith an amber fluid. Permaglow and Restorative: embalming fluids.This is the sort of conversation piece you simply can't find atPottery Barn. I'm not so shallow as to pick my friends based onwhat they do for a living, but in this case I have to say it was amajor selling point.
A few hours later, I walk into Cedar Tavern and feel immediatelyat ease. There's a huge old bar to my right, carved by hand acentury ago from several ancient oak trees. It's like this great bigmiddle finger aimed at nature conservationists. Behind the bar,the wall is paneled in this same wood, inlaid with tall etchedmirrors. Next to the mirrors are dull brass light fixtures withstained-glass shades. No bulb in the place is above twenty-fivewatts. In the rear, there are nice tall wooden booths and oil paintingsof English bird dogs and anonymous grandfathers posed inburgundy leather wing chairs. They serve a kind of food here:chicken-fried steak, fish and chips, cheeseburgers and a very lamesalad that features iceberg lettuce and croutons from a box. Icould live here. As if I didn't already.
Even though I'm five minutes early, Jim's sitting at the bar andalready halfway through a martini.
"What a fucking lush," I say. "How long have you been here?"
"I was thirsty. About a minute."
He appears to be eyeing a woman who is sitting alone at atable near the jukebox. She wears khaki slacks, a pink-and-whitestriped oxford cloth shirt and white Reeboks. I instantly peg heras an off-duty nurse. "She's not your type," I say.
He gives me this how-the-hell-do-you-know look. "And whynot?"
"Look at what she's drinking. Coffee."
He grimaces, looks away from her and takes another sip of hisdrink.
"Look, I can't stay out late tonight because I have to be at theMet tomorrow morning at nine."
"The Met?" he asks incredulously. "Why the Met?"
I roll my eyes, wag my finger in the air to get the bartender'sattention. "My client Fabergi is creating a new perfume and theywant the ad agency to join them tomorrow morning and see theFabergi egg exhibit as inspiration." I order a Ketel One martini,straight up with an olive. They use the tiny green olives here; Ilike that. I despise the big fat olives. They take up too much spacein the glass.
"So I have to be there in a suit and look at those fucking eggsall morning. Then we're all going to get together the day aftertomorrow at the agency and have a horrific meeting with theirsenior management. Some global vision thing. One of thoseawful meetings you dread for weeks in advance." I take the firstsip of my martini. It feels exactly right, like part of my own physiology."God, I hate my job."
"You should get a real job," Jim tells me. "This advertisingstuff is putrid. You spend your days waltzing around the Metlooking at Fabergi eggs. You make wads of cash and all you do iscomplain. Jesus, and you're not even twenty-five yet." He stickshis thumb and index finger in the glass and pinches the olive,which he then pops in his mouth.
I watch him do this and can't help but think, The places thosefingers have been.
"Why don't you try selling a seventy-eight-year-old widow inthe Bronx her own coffin?"
We've had this conversation before, many times. The undertakerfeels superior to me, and actually is. He is society's Janitor ina Drum. He provides a service. I, on the other hand, try to trickand manipulate people into parting with their money, a disservice.
"Yeah, yeah, order us another round. I gotta take a leak." Iwalk off to the men's room, leaving him at the bar.
We have four more drinks at Cedar Tavern. Maybe five. Justenough so that I feel loose and comfortable in my own skin, likea gymnast. Jim suggests we hit another bar. I check my watch:almost ten-thirty. I should head home now and go to sleep so I'mfresh in the morning. But then I think, Okay, what's the latest I canget to sleep and still be okay? If I have to be there at nine, I should be upby seven-thirty, so that means I should get to bed no later than-I beginto count on my fingers because I cannot do math, let alone in myhead-twelve-thirty. "Where you wanna go?" I ask him.
"I don't know, let's just walk."
I say, "Okay," and we head outside. As soon as I step into thefresh air, something in my brain oxidizes and I feel just the slightestbit tipsy. Not drunk, not even close. Though I certainlywouldn't attempt to operate a cotton gin.
We end up walking down the street for two blocks and headinginto this place on the corner that sometimes plays live jazz. Jim'stelling me that the absolute worst thing you can encounter as anundertaker is "a jumper."
"Two Ketel One martinis, straight up with olives," I tell thebartender and then turn to Jim. "What's so bad about jumpers?What?" I love this man.
"Because when you move their limbs, the bones are all brokenand they slide around loose inside the skin and they make this sortof ..." Our drinks arrive. He takes a sip and continues, "... thissort of rumbling sound."
"That's so fucking horrifying," I say, delighted. "What else?"
He takes another sip, creases his forehead in thought. "Okay, Iknow-you'll love this. If it's a guy, we tie a string around the endof his dick so that it won't leak piss."
"Jesus," I say. We both take a sip from our drinks. I notice thatmy sip is more of a gulp and I will need another drink soon. Themartinis here are shamefully meager. "Okay, give me more horrible,"I tell him.
He tells me how once he had a female body with a decapitatedhead and the family insisted on an open casket service. "Can youimagine?" So he broke a broomstick in half and jammed it downthrough the neck and into the meat of the torso. Then he stuckthe head on the other end of the stick and kind of pushed.
"Wow," I say. He's done things that only people on death rowhave done.
He smiles with what I think might be pride. "I put her in awhite cashmere turtleneck and she actually ended up lookingpretty good." He winks at me and plucks the olive from mydrink. I do not take another sip from this particular glass.
We have maybe five more drinks before I check my watchagain. Now it's a quarter of one. And I really need to go, I'llalready be a mess as it is. But that's not what happens. What happensis, Jim orders us a nightcap.
"Just one shot of Cuervo ... for luck."
The very last thing I remember is standing on a stage at akaraoke bar somewhere in the West Village. The spotlights areshining in my face and I'm trying to read the video monitor infront of me, which is scrolling the words to the theme from TheBrady Bunch. I see double unless I close one eye, but when I dothis I lose my balance and stagger. Jim's laughing like a madmanin the front row, pounding the table with his hands.
The floor trips me and I fall. The bartender walks from behindthe bar and escorts me offstage. His arm feels good around myshoulders and I want to give him a friendly nuzzle or perhaps akiss on the mouth. Fortunately, I don't do this.
Outside the bar, I look at my watch and slur, "This can't beright." I lean against Jim's shoulder so I don't fall over on thetricky sidewalk.
"What?" he says, grinning. He has a thin plastic drink strawbehind each ear. The straws are red, the ends chewed.
I raise my arm up so my watch is almost pressed against hisnose. "Look," I say.
He pushes my arm back so he can read the dial. "Yikes!How'd that happen? You sure it's right?"
The watch reads 4:15 A.M. Impossible. I wonder aloud why itis displaying the time in Europe instead of Manhattan.
Chapter Two
THOSE FUCKING EGGS
I arrive at the Metropolitan Museum of Art at aquarter before nine. Fifteen minutes early. I'm wearing a charcoalgray Armani suit and oxblood red Gucci loafers. My head throbsdully behind my eyes, but this has actually become normal. Itusually wears off by the end of the day and is completely goneafter the first drink of the evening.
I didn't technically sleep last night, I napped. Even in mydrunken stupor of last night, I realized I couldn't show up herethis morning looking like a total disaster, so I managed to call1-800-4-WAKE-UP (You snooze, you lose!) before I laid down on mybed, fully dressed.
I was awake by six A.M. and still felt drunk. I was making wisecracksto myself in the bathroom, pulling faces. This is when Iknew I was still drunk. I just had way too much energy for sixA.M. Too much motivation. It was like the drunk side of my brainwas trying to act distracting and entertaining, so the business sidewouldn't realize it was being held hostage by a drunk.
I showered, shaved and slicked my hair back with Bumble andbumble Hair Grooming Creme. Then I ran the blowdryer overmy head. Afterward, I arranged my hair in such a way that itappeared casual and carefree. A wisp of hair falling across myforehead, which I froze in place with AquaNet. After having goneon more fashion shoots than I care to count, I've learned that terminallyunhip AquaNet is the best. The result was hair thatlooked windblown and casual-unless you happened to touch it.If you touched it, it would probably make a solid knockingsound, like wood.
I sprayed Donna Karan for Men around my neck and on mytongue to oppose any alcohol breath I might have. Then I walkedto the twenty-four-hour restaurant on the corner of Seventeenthand Third for a breakfast of scrambled eggs, bacon and coffee.The fat, I figured, would absorb any toxins.
As a backup safety measure, I swallowed a handful of BreathAssure capsules and wore a distracting, loud tie.
Continues...
Excerpted from Dryby Augusten Burroughs Copyright © 2004 by Augusten Burroughs. Excerpted by permission.
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