Tucker Max: A Way of Life, and Now a Movie

If you've had access to the internet since 2005, you likely have heard of Tucker Max by now. His stories of alcohol, girls, and outlandish debauchery are legendary—as you can imagine, he's somewhat of an idol of mine. Reading an abundance of his tales during one summer a few years ago even led to a Tuckeresque moment of my own (I'll get to this in a moment). His bestselling book, "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" has finally been turned into a movie, which has been promised for quite some time.



As you can see, Tucker is unapologetically brash, especially when talking to girls. Which leads me to my story…

About three years ago, Dr. Kelly hit me up on a Friday night and convinced me to go out with her to a bar in the South Side. I say “convinced” because, though I’m normally eager to go out drinking with her on a Friday night (I’ve

given small examples in the past of the kind of fun Dr. brings to a party), I knew on this night she would be with her friend, “Sloppy Drunk” (SD). SD and I had a bit of a history; on several occasions we had gotten drunk and done the damn thing. But, all too often, when SD got drunk, it didn’t end well. Either she was starting a fight, getting kicked out of a bar for screaming at a bartender, or being a splash of Grey Goose away from passing out. One morning, after a night of heavy boozing and “god’s work,” I awoke in her bed to the sound of water on wood. I looked around the room; still buzzed, she was sitting in her dresser drawer, urinating. Classy with a capital “K,” this one was.

After that morning, I distanced myself from SD, no longer answering her 2 a.m. texts and phone calls. (I mean, what if the next time she didn’t even bother to get out of the bed? Who wants to wake up and find last night’s jumpoff pissing on them? Well, I’m sure some guys would want that to happen, but I damn sure ain't one of them.) But now Dr. Kelly was insisting that I hang out with the two of them; and, booze hound that I am, I finally relented.

For one reason or another, all three of us drove separately to the South Side. And, being that neither I nor Dr. Kelly had ever been to the particular

bar to which we were all headed, we rendezvoused with SD at a gas station so that we could follow her over. When we arrived at the gas station, SD hopped out of her car and ran over to Dr.’s to talk about something. This gave me an opportunity to preview her apparel for the night: a small blue top, tight and low enough to show off her chest (which was quite large; she was a “blessed” girl), and a white jean skirt so short that you could have mistaken it for a tube top. As SD ran back to her car, I shot off a text to Dr. Kelly: “Did they run out of denim when they were making her skirt?” A few moments later a text came back from Dr.: “I love you!”

Once at the bar, we fell into our standard routines: I threw back beers while calculating the douchebag/ redneck/ cool people ratio; Dr. Kelly drank vodka and reveled in the simple joy of being at a bar instead of at a hospital working her internship; and Sloppy Drunk told superficial stories while taking every opportunity to make sure that either I or other guys nearby noticed her.

It quickly occurred to me that this had all the ingredients necessary for me to act like a Tucker Max type of asshole. I’m typically a nice guy, but I had no real reason to hold my tongue when it came to SD. I’d been there and, literally, done that. There was nothing to lose. A guy who hadn’t slept with her before might have tolerated her stories about pop songs and irritating coworkers, in the hopes of getting some tail when the night was over. I, on the other hand, didn’t care. So, as she prattled on about the cute new underwear she had bought that day at Victoria’s Secret, I simply grinned and said, “So is that why you wore that skirt—to show off your panties?”

Dr. Kelly could barely contain her laughter, but SD wasn’t as tickled. Later, she whined about a guy in the bar not coming over to dance with her. “Well,” I offered, “You probably intimidated him; most guys like a challenge.” Time and time again throughout the night, when she’d say something annoying or downright shallow, I’d cut her down. And I was loving every second of it, flashing a grin with every insult. If you’ve read Tucker’s tales, or just have a keen understanding of female behavior, you can probably guess what happened when it came time for SD to head home: she asked me to walk her to her car, which was soon a’rockin.

When I returned to the bar, I found that Dr. Kelly had left, after being abandoned for so long. Unfortunately, she had my cell phone in her purse, which made tracking her down both vital and damn near impossible. [Note: I cannot say with any real certainty anymore just why she was holding it for me. My only guess is that, since I normally carry my phone in my back pocket, before sitting down I asked her to hold it for me so as to avoid trying to cram it into one of my front pockets.]

Taking an educated guess, and knowing Dr. as well as I did, I headed to a nearby after hours club where she was a member. When I reached the doors, a long line stretched down the sidewalk. Many of the people in line were Black, but both the bouncer and Dr. Kelly were white. I asked the doorman if he’d seen Dr. “Yeah, she walked in like five minutes ago. *waiving me in* Go ahead.” Seeing this, some of the people waiting in line began voicing protest. Before walking in I turned to them and said, “Sorry—it pays to know white folk!”

Later that night, I learned that my audaciousness had worn off on Dr. Kelly. While I was down the street fogging the windows in SD’s car, Dr. struck up a conversation with a random guy at the bar. Apparently, as it was late on a Friday night and everyone was feeling their booze, he felt like swinging for the fences after a few seconds of idle chat. Noting her long blonde hair, the lothario asked, “So, does the carpet match the drapes?”

Without blinking, Dr. Kelly responded, “No! If it did I’d be bald!”

There’s a little Tucker in all of us.