Books |
Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man’s Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand
Andrew Gottlieb
By
Published: Aug 11, 2009
Category:
Memoir
Julia Roberts — “America’s Sweetheart” — is in town, filming “Eat Pray Love”, the mega-selling memoir by Elizabeth Gilbert, America’s other sweetheart. The movie should appear in theaters next year, about the same time that Michael Cooper, Gilbert’s ex-husband, publishes his account of the spiritual journey he took after their divorce.
But why wait? The male response — not her husband’s book, but a parody of what her husband’s book might be — to "Eat Pray Lover" is already available. And Drink, Play, F@#k: One Man’s Search for Anything Across Ireland, Las Vegas, and Thailand is exactly what you’d expect from a professional comedy writer — a nasty, funny mirror image to Gilbert’s middle-class escape fantasy. It’s not a 200-page fart joke. News flash: It’s actually funny.
"Bob Sullivan" begins his book with his life plan:
…have some fun while I’m young, work hard after college, meet a couple of ladies, marry one of them, make lots of money, drive an expensive car, have some kids, worry about my receding hairline, watch lots of sports in TV, die.
The plan was going well. Then his wife pulled the plug on their marriage.
In her book, Elizabeth Gilbert never spells out why she bailed on her marriage to a man she never names. Here, Bob wonders what he did wrong:
I never cheated on her. I was nice to her family. I paid for all of her stuff. When you get right down to it — what else is a decent husband supposed to do?
Okay, so he looked at her sister’s ass at Thanksgiving — “only to marvel at the staggering effectiveness of bulimia.” But he stuffed envelopes for Hillary! (“I actually liked the broad. It wasn’t my fault she got hosed.”) As a roster of faults, pretty much nothing.
Well, don’t look back. Elizabeth Gilbert goes to Italy in search of a perfect pizza; Bob goes to Ireland to drink. Gilbert moves on to Asia in search of enlightenment; Bob seeks gambling and golf in Vegas. (And he finds enlightenment: “I realized the real reason I came to Vegas was to play — not necessarily gamble, or hit golf balls — but to play.”) In the final section of her memoir, Gilbert finds True Love. Well, Bob goes to Thailand for sex.
And in Thailand, it comes to pass that, at six in the morning, he is awakened by a stereo blasting Akon’s “Smack That Ass”. He goes out to the patio and sees a boat drifting underneath, with an unconscious party girl wrapped around a boom box. He revives her, talks to her, feeds her, swims with her — and then they move on to leisure activities.
Do not think this man is shallow. He knows the difference between cheap sex and spiritual communion with a woman. He wants the real deal. And it comes to pass. When he re-connects in Thailand with Alicia, the independent filmmaker he met in Ireland, it’s uncanny how well he seems to know her. As she asks him, “Have you been reading my Facebook page?”
Happy ending? Believe it. He even wishes his ex-wife well — though in the final two lines, he offers an opinion so droll I won’t share it here, so as not to spoil your delight.
For some male readers, this book will be almost as satisfying as a wife with a sassy sense of humor and a big sex drive.
For female readers — well, let’s get real. If a woman has this book in her home, it’s because it was a gift from a guy who was sick of her girly crush on Elizabeth Gilbert. That’s not, as it happens, just one or two guys. Many of us — and I’m talking reasonable, feminized men — are sick to death of the Oprahfest that Elizabeth Gilbert has become.
Unsettling thought: This could be the gift book of the year.
To buy “Drink, Play, F@#k” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the Kindle edition of “Drink, Play, F@#k” from Amazon.com, click here.
To buy the Audio CD of “Drink, Play, F@#k” from Amazon.com, click here.
