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Dangerous love
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[06/17/99]

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Ivory Tower
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[06/15/99]

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234 PAGES

Advice for real men
A writer's guidelines for being a "standup guy" look more like a primer on chickening out.

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By Cary Tennis

June 17, 1999 | "'Standup Guy,'" my wife says. "It's a catchy title. I think I'll have waffles with strawberries. Or do you want to pick up an Egg McMuffin on the way?"

"What I can't figure out, though, is why this Michael Segell guy, the author, put all the key stuff -- about his dad being a mean old son-of-a-bitch alcoholic and then him trying to make up with him -- at the end."

"There's way too many alcoholic dad memoirs out there," she says. "It wouldn't sell."

"But it's the only part of the book that's really good," I say.

"Too bad. There are just too many. Unless he were famous. Or his dad were famous. These Zip-Lock bags smell funny."

"It's the polyethylene. I called the lady at consumer affairs. She's sending us a coupon for a new box. She said that in Wisconsin they hang them out on their clotheslines to air out so the chemical smell goes away."

"It gets in the food."

"Yeah, I know. So it's just like a guy, right, because I know guys. I am one. It's just like a guy to, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, bullshit, let me tell you how my alcoholic father died. The dad was a real sonofabitch. Midwestern Republican judge. Treated Segell like shit after his big brother died of leukemia. They never got along. He was a drinker and mean. Segell waits around to tell you that. Meanwhile, he's got all this bullshit advice about what it takes to be a standup guy. He even talks about how a big jaw is evolutionarily significant."

"I don't like big jaws."

"I have a weak chin."

"No, you don't. Your face has character."

"This book is a jumble. It's got a structure problem."

"The alcoholic father couldn't be the focus. There are too many like that."

"Well, I don't know what to write about it now."

"Why don't you just say what you just said?"

"What did I just say?"

"It's a structure problem. So, his dad died?"

"His dad was 'dependent on alcohol.' And two years before he died he called his son and tried to make amends for all the mean things he had done. That changes everything. You know me. You know how I feel about things like this. But how can I say all that? What does the reader care that his dad was an alcoholic?"

"Whatever. I'm gonna be late. So what are you going to write?"

"I don't know."

"Why don't you say what you just said?"

"You said that."

"What?"

"That I should just say what I said. I ask you: Has a book ever improved relations between the sexes?"

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