So we got the movie poster proofs (not there, but kinda close), and the third draft of the trailer is done (still not there, but much better), and the tour schedule is coming together (we found a way to add the west coast), but I'll wait until Monday to get to all of that. Today, I want to talk about something I find peculiar about the movie press.
Earlier this morning, someone sent me a link to this site, where a movie blog talks about me and the movie. The relevant excerpted part:
"Hey, Paulington!I am a huge, HUGE fan of Tucker Max and his book I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. From what I understand, and gather from your very own site, a movie based on this amazing novel is coming to theaters on September 29th of this year. But you haven't run any coverage on it whatsoever. What gives? I'd expect more from the best movie site on the planet. You suck.
Signed - "Tucker's Bitch""
Dear Bitch. You haven't seen anything on our site about this movie because Freestyle Releasing, the company throwing it into theaters, hasn't offered us any promotional material yet. And we generally don't do advanced reviews. If you want to learn more about the film you can visit Tucker Max's world-renowned website. Apparently, the film is completely finished and is currently being taken on a U.S. tour of college campuses, where it should play in spades throughout August and early September. To find a list of towns, again, check his website. The film was directed by Bob Gosse, who doesn't really have anything substantial under his belt worth mentioning here. Max wrote the screenplay with his buddy Nils Parker, so you can expect something in tone with what you read in the book. The author has a unique and breezy way of writing that doesn't allow you to escape his prose. He's a natural, with a god given talent. Sure. But if you've read I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, you'll know that most of his stories go nowhere, and they have little in the way of a structural arc. If you pick up a copy to see what all the fuss is about, you're sure to put it down, bewildered by its lack of heart. "How the heck did they make a movie out of this?" Well, that's where Nils come in. Together, they've pulled the most obnoxious, laugh-tinged moments from the narrative and strung them into a road trip plot about a bachelor party. Early word of mouth is that while it's pretty darn funny, it could wind up languishing on video store shelves just like Elizabeth Wurtzel's Prozac Nation. If Freestyle is smart, they will certainly try to play off the success of this summer's The Hangover. Some audience members, unfamiliar with Max and his energetic prose, may see it as a less than worthy rip-off. Matt Czuchry, best known for his time on Gilmore Girls and Friday Night Lights plays Max in the film. Why? Because Tucker stated in an interview that he didn't have the talent to pull off the performance himself. In Tucker's lastest blog update, he says that he doesn't like the upcoming trailer, and that it didn't make him want to see the movie. At all. I like that he's being entirely honest, and a book about the production of the film, no matter how good or bad it is, will more than likely be an exceptional read worth any Cinephile's time. I, myself, can't wait to see the finished film. I hope it's entertaining. But if not, oh, well. Sometimes, as evident by this month's I Love You, Beth Cooper, a great comedic novel simply doesn't work well on screen. Words and film. They are two different mediums. Sometimes, they don't jive in context of one another. And its hard to capture a very personal voice on screen. Rest assured, though, we will more than likely be covering I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell the closer we get to a release date. If any college students have seen the film, write in and let me know what you think. I will post your thoughts here in a follow-up.
I wasn't pissed at the dude for all the things he got wrong, just confused. So I sent him this email in response:
From: tuckermax@gmail.com
To: heypaulington@movieweb.com
Date: Fri, Jul 3, 2009 at 12:53 PM
Subject: Dude, just come to the source
I appreciate you writing about the movie, but here is what I don't
understand: You claim you don't have any info on the movie because
Freestyle hasn't sent you any, but then you link my site. If you know
enough to read the blog, why would you not just email me directly and
ask me any question you want? I am nothing if not accessible and
self-promoting, and there is a contact form on the site that goes
directly to me.Let me clear some things up for you:
-I not only wrote this movie with Nils, we produced it. Not "we got a
producer credit" produced it, but we were the only producers--aside
from Sean McKittrick--who have been involved in every single step of
this process. Good or bad, it is our creative vision.-You are absolutely right to question how the book will translate into
a movie, especially because the book doesn't have a coherent
narrative. We realized this early on, and focused intently not only on
the humor--which was easy--but on making a MOVIE, which means having a
great story. I think we pulled it off, but at the very least, know
that we understood this going in.-Please don't say things like "If Freestyle is smart", etc--it makes
the wrong implication. Freestyle is one of the distributors, but not
in the normal sense. With most movies, the distributor owns the movie
and makes the creative decisions about marketing and promotion. Not
really the case here. All the creative decisions--trailer, poster,
marketing, etc--are being made by me, Nils, and the Darko team, with
our distribution partners adding input and helping us execute our
plan. Succeed or fail, it's on us, not the distributor.-When I said the trailer stunk, I was talking about the first draft of
the trailer. First drafts of everything stink. Please do not think
this first draft will EVER been seen by anyone outside us and the
trailer house. We won't release anything until we get a version we all
like and agree on.-The Premiere Tour is not going on now. It starts in late August, and
runs up until the release. We will finalize the schedule by July 10th,
hopefully.-BTW, the release date is September 25th, not September 29th.
-When you haven't seen the movie, speculating about what the movie is
like by relying on nebulous and inaccurate rumors is unproductive,
especially when there is already a review out there by another
professional reviewer that was at an early screening.-Beyond that, I have listed a ton of reviews from other people who
have seen the movie on my site, for example.-But there is no reason to listen to anyone else--you are of course
welcome to come to any screening you want. As soon as we lock the
Premiere Tour schedule down, I will email you and invite you whichever
screening is closest to where you live. I think this movie is awesome,
and all the early feedback has confirmed this, so I am more than eager
to get it in front of as many eyes as possible.
There are a ton of other things I could address, but they are minor,
so whatever. In the future, if you have any question or want any info,
just come directly to the source: tuckermax@gmail.com. I know this is
a novel thing for movies, and no other film companies run their
projects this way, but we are different.
I am not trying to shit on Paulington at Movieweb or single him out at all. He seems like a good guy and at least makes an effort to get shit right, which is better than most movie writers, but he is still doing what everyone else does--making assumptions and speculation instead of actual reporting.
This has been a systematic issue with all movie sites--none of them ever go to the source for any information. It is mind-boggling to me. Virtually site I have seen does little more than post ridiculous speculation, baseless rumors, and random ranting. The only "news" they ever post, they get directly from either Variety or THR or some other MSM source. Aside from Ain't It Cool News, I can't think of a time I've seen any site doing any original reporting or checking of sources.
I mean--my production blog has been up for over a year. I have my email listed on my site. I have responded to tons of questions from fans in the past. Why do NONE of the movie blogs ever think to actually ask me? Or really--why do they not go to the source for any movie? It's not just me, they do this to everyone.
Maybe it's because everyone else in the movie business is so secretive and anti-press and afraid of the internet, I don't know. Maybe no one else in Hollywood has their contact info available. I don't know why, but I just can't understand this mindset of not checking facts and going to the source. Sometimes you can't get your news from the source, ok fine, but If you can, why would you not? If you can do original reporting and add value, why would you not? If you can bring something to the table aside from speculation, why don't you? If you can add value beyond the trades, why aren't you?
You know what is so funny about this? People quote Variety and THR like they are some sort of authoritative sources--people, do you have any idea how disreputable those publications are? They are so in the pocket of the big studios who buy ALL the advertising in them, it is ridiculous. And any entry level PR flack in Hollywood can get almost any story in them about anything at any time. And the stories you read by the Variety reporters--they are taken DIRECTLY from the press releases that the PR flacks, hired by the studios or production companies or agencies write. Almost every story on this movie in Variety or THR has been like 90% written by our publicists. This isn't some secret. The trade papers are shills for the industry. Everyone in Hollywood knows this...apparently except for the independent movie blogs.
There is a HUGE opportunity out there for someone to start a movie blog that, instead of regurgitating the same barely re-written Variety news, that is itself a barely re-written press release, actually does real reporting and uncovers original news and stories. Nikke Finke does it, and because of this fact, not only does EVERYONE in Hollywood read her, she just sold her blog for a reportedly 14 million dollars. ALL SHE DOES IS DO ACTUAL REPORTING AND SHE SOLD HER BLOG FOR 14 MILLION DOLLARS!!!! One woman.
Don't get me wrong--I read her blog, have profited tremendously from it, and she deserves her money. But why is NO ONE ELSE doing anything even remotely similar. All she writes about is the business of Hollywood--deals, firings, that kind of stuff. No one is doing what she's doing in terms of the art of Hollywood (that I know of, at least, though I guess maybe TheWrap--who just started--is trying to do that also).
Well, let me say this for everyone out there who wants to write about this movie:
I am ready and willing to truthfully answer any question you have about any aspect of this movie. My email address: tuckermax@gmail.com. Don't guess, don't speculate, don't make shit up. Just ask me. I'm right here.
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I promised updates, here they are:
-Trailer: I saw the second cut of the trailer yesterday. I didn't watch the first because Sean called me and told me, for my own mental health, to not watch it. He remembers how I reacted to the first time I saw the rough cut--it was not good--so I took his advice and waited for him and Nils to give their notes to the trailer company and watch the second cut.
We all saw the second cut yesterday, and I am glad I took Sean's advice on the first cut. The second cut was...it made me not want to see the movie, which is the worst thing a trailer can do obviously. It needs work.
Actually, that's false. It needs to be scrapped and completely re-conceptualized. The problem is that we tried to make a trailer like every other Hollywood comedy--meaningless cuts, goofy jokes, show the hijinks and get out--and that doesn't work with this movie because that is not at all what this movie is about. Not at all.
This is not a big deal, I know the material is there to make a kickass trailer, but we are going to have to really think about it and work on it, instead of just plugging scenes in the standard Hollywood comedy template. This is not a paint-by-numbers movie, so the standard way of doing things won't work most of the time.
All this means is that we probably won't have the trailer done by the time we were hoping. Sucks, but whatever, welcome to making movies. Nothing is ever on time. But it'll be up soon, I promise.
-Poster: No proofs yet. Will post my thoughts when they come in, then post the poster as soon as we finish it.
-Movie edition of the book: So this is kinda cool--my publisher decided to do a special "Movie Edition" of the book. It'll be the exact same stories, but the front cover will be the movie poster instead of me, and there will be a 16 page insert of color photos from the set. Plus Nils and I wrote like a one page introduction that was kinda funny. It'll be released in early September to coincide with the movie release, and will only have a limited run, like 30,000 copies or something, then in November or so we'll go back to the normal cover and shit.
It's nothing really new, so please don't be in a frantic rush to run out and buy it, but if you are into collectors items or shit like that, it would probably be cool to have. I'll post more about it when it's closer to release.
-New site: Carrot Creative is hard at work getting the new site together, we should have it up in a few weeks. Plus they are going to re-do the Facebook fan page, and the Myspace page. Lots of new features, plus it will feature the red-band trailer, so it should be cool.
-So get this: When you get your rating from the MPAA, they actually send you a signed, embossed and sealed form that says, in red print, what your rating is. Seriously, here is ours:
[Pic is redacted, per frantic email from Sean, via Darkos publicists. I wish I was kidding.]
I don't know why, but this certificate made me erupt in laughter.
[BTW--it says distributor "not set" because we submitted the movie for a rating like, four or five months ago.]
-The Premiere Tour: Our guy is hard at work booking all of our stops, and we have a conference call tomorrow to go over everything. It looks like we have a few cities we are going to have to skip because of various problems with finding an appropriate venue, but no big deal, we'll just replace them with other cities close by. As soon as we lock every stop down, we will start selling tickets, and YES, for the fourth time, people on the mailing list, and Facebook fans, and Twitter followers and MySpace fans will get first shot at tickets. So pick your permission asset and sign up now.
And good news: I think we found a way to hit the west coast in the later part of the tour, so it looks like we will be stopping in Tucson, Tempe, San Diego and LA, and maybe San Francisco and Seattle, all in late September. No promises, but we are trying to make it all work.
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There are a ton of updates about the trailer, the poster, a movie-edition of the book, the tour and everything else, but I am going to post those tomorrow. This post isn't really about this movie, so if that's all you care about, that's cool, but stop reading, because today I want to talk about something different, something that probably won't interest you:
With this movie, and even with this blog, there are two different things going on simultaneously. The first and most obvious is that we are making a movie and promoting its release. And with that, the only thing that really matters is the movie itself, and whether or not the movie is enjoyable to the people who watch it. And make no mistake, that issue--making a great movie--is always at the forefront of our minds.
But for me personally, this whole undertaking has never been about one movie. Nothing I did on this movie--from the script, to the financing, to the casting, to the production, to the marketing--was done with one movie in mind. For over five years I have looked at this movie as the first major battle in the grand campaign to change the entertainment business. From day one, I have had a plan in my head about where I wanted to take this and how I wanted to get there.
Look at how Nils and I made this movie, the process we followed. We examined the "normal" Hollywood way of making a movie, found it to be stifling to creativity and utterly evil in how it treats artists, and consciously rejected it. Instead, we took another path:
We wrote a different way--not worrying about what would sell or what we were "supposed" to do, instead focusing on nothing other than what made the best movie.
We financed it the right way--turning down upfront money and guaranteed "success" so we could do the movie with a company who would respect our artistic vision and give us creative control.
We made it the right way--by hiring people who got our vision and wanted to do it the right way, not the "Hollywood" way.
And we are marketing it the right way--by engaging fans in the process, being completely honest with them, and always treating them the way we would want to be treated, instead of shilling and lying to them at every turn.
We may be right and win this battle, and it may launch us towards winning the whole war. We may be wrong, and lose this battle (or worse, we may be right and still lose). I have no idea what the next 88 days will bring, or how this movie's success will end up.
But, in the end, this is just one battle. The war is going on, all over the world, all around us at all times. No matter what I do or what this movie does, it is only one small battle in a much larger conflict. The world is changing all around us in fundamental ways, and for the first time in over a hundred years, the opportunity is there for the artist to free themselves from the tyranny of the 20th century corporate system, and to unleash their creativity, unbounded by anyone or anything else.
Look at these movies, supposedly the ten most profitable movies ever, in terms of ROI ratio. Do you notice the theme? Each one was revolutionary in its time, each one was a whole new take on some aspect of movie-making, each one was original and raw and authentic and each one was done...outside the system.
Or take this article, again from today, about how fucked up the old star system is and how audiences are craving originality and meaning. The curtain has been pulled back, and people aren't accepting mindless corporate bullshit anymore. They want value.
The world of art and entertainment is changing in front of our eyes. The shift in power from the middleman to the creator--in all fields of commerce actually, not just art--has begun, and the 21st century will be defined by this movement. Putting value back in the hands of the creators, after a century of robbing them, that is what the 21st century will be about, and we are witnessing the shift right now.
This may sound kooky to you, and if it does, that's fine. This post wasn't meant for you. It was meant for all those people out there who want to create, who want to do something excellent create value and make something that creates a better world in some way. I am telling you, right now, it can be done. For maybe the first time in history, the creator is free to be who they want to be, to create what they want to create, and to not have to answer to the interests or demands of the powerful, or of anyone but themselves.
Now, make no mistake--everything has a cost. Life is a tradeoff. It is not easy to be an artist or a creator. But look around. It can be done. You can do it, and you don't have to sell your soul or corrupt your self to do it. And every day it gets easier. If this movie succeeds the way I think it will, it will be one more brick off the wall. If not, no big deal, some other movie will come along and take that brick down.
But the wall is falling. One brick at a time, we are moving to a better system and a better world. Understand it, embrace it and reap the rewards...or be like the 20th century studio system, and watch yourself be slowly left behind.
EDIT: As soon as I post this, Umair posts something just like it, but better. He's right.
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As Day 95 until the release dawns, I have an update on all sorts of things:
-We spent all day Friday doing the photo shoot for the movie poster, and then doing some ADR for the trailer. If I wasn't an idiot I would have taken my camera and taken pictures of both things, but whatever. If you've seen one photo shoot, you've seen them all. We should have proofs to look at for both next week, and as soon as we release either of them, the readers of this blog will be the first to know, I promise.
-I would like to thank everyone who sent us suggestions for Premiere Tour theaters in our screening cities (pursuant to the request in this post). We got a fucking crazy amount of email, and in the case of one city, it actually changed the tour.
I can officially announce that--barring some unforeseen problem--was are now adding Blacksburg, home of Virginia Tech University, to the tour.
We are doing this solely because of the crazy amount of response we got. We got at least 100 emails (and counting) just from people in Blacksburg and VaTech people. It was nuts. Penn State people and people from Toronto were #2 and #3 and sent a lot, but Blacksburg was first by a large margin. Don't worry UVa people--we are still keeping your screening, we are just going to find a way to fit Blacksburg in also.
I'll tell you what--if you are in a marginal city or one that we could conceivably hit but isn't on the tour, and you can muster a huge response, we might add your city too. It's not inconceivable, especially if it's a college town.
-I can finally announce this: We officially have our R rating from the MPAA. We actually had it like, two months ago, but I couldn't announce it because, irony of ironies, the cut we submitted to them and got an R rating for was TOO GRAPHIC for us, and we wanted a slightly toned down cut. Every change you make, even if you make the movie less graphic, has to be screened, so I had to wait until we got our final cut approved to announce it. But yeah, it's an R.
-To everyone asking where you can get tickets to one of the Premiere Tour stops--people, we have to finish booking the theaters and get the online ticketing system up. It's be like 2-4 weeks before the tickets go on sale, so just relax. Yes, we expect that they will sell out quickly, but I will give you plenty of notice before they go on sale, and all of you readers will get first crack at them, I promise.
-I know I have written before about how we try to do the right thing by our fans, and most Hollywood studios don't. Well, that is true, with the exception of Pixar. Those guys are awesome at everything.
-If you don't follow movie blogs, one of the best to read is Thompson on Hollywood. Anne Thompson is one of more level-headed and intelligent writers when it comes to giving perspective on the business of Hollywood, and she listed the six things this summers movies have taught us. Check out #1 and #3:
1. Originals sell. The very thing that the majors are most afraid of is what makes Pixar King of the Mountain, every single time: originality. While everyone else looks for easy-sell labels, Pixar relies on a very old-fashioned idea: make it good and they will come. Up scored not via marketing prowess, but through great word-of-mouth. Gross to date: $191 million and going strong. Heck yeah!3. Smart R-rated dumb male comedies sell. Always have, always will. The Hangover is the summer's sleeper hit, grossing more than $110 million in its first two weeks.
Yep. Cannot agree more on both counts, which is one of the reasons I believe this movie is going to do so well--it is not only original in pretty much every important way, it is original within the confines of an established and successful genre: The R-rated male comedy.
I know I have said this like, 100 times before, but trust me: This movie is going to really, really well. It's the right movie at the right place and in the right time.
-This actually leads me to a point some people have asked me about: How similar is IHTSBIH to The Hangover?
I guess I can see why, if you only read the loglines, you might think the movies are similar. The Hangover is about three guys and what happens in the aftermath of a bachelor party in Vegas. IHTSBIH is about three guys who go on a bachelor party, and how that affects their friendships. OK fine, if you stop there, I guess they seem similar. But trust me on this: These two movies are about as different as two movies can be, while still being in the same basic genre (the R-rated male comedy). The Hangover is just like most all other Hollywood comedies, except its funnier. The piece of feedback we get the most consistently across all screenings is this, "I can't really describe this in terms of another movie--it's not like any other movie."
I don't want to get to much into the specifics of how the movies are different, because that will require me to disclose too many spoilers from IHTSBIH. But literally almost everything that can be different, is different. Some examples:
-Style of comedy: The Hangover is physical comedy highlighted by preposterous plot devices. IHTSBIH is dialogue based comedy highlighted by realism at every level.
-Story: The Hangover has a tenuous story that exists only to string a series of unrelated jokes together, and that climaxes in a pretty predicable way, dying at the end (except for the credits, which were awesome). IHTSBIH has a very meaningful and heartfelt story, with the best scene in the movie being the climax, that builds to an amazing finish (seriously Czuchry KILLS it in the last big scene).
-Cinematography: Without getting into technical details, the movies look and feel VERY different. Lighting, shot selection, blocking, even type of film is all different. When you see, you'll understand.
Those are just three examples of many, but the point is that the superficial similarities are really not significant; it's the differences that make the movies. It'd be like saying Ironman and The Dark Knight are the same because they are both superhero movies--that's preposterous. They were very different movies, even though both were the same general genre. Same here.
I know I am going to get this question too, so I might as well answer it: Yes, OF COURSE I think our movie is better than The Hangover. Way better. Of course, I am biased as shit, how could I not think that?
But to say that is not to try and put The Hangover down. It's a fine movie, probably one of the better comedies of the past ten years, and I even laughed a few times when watching it (I am a tough critic on comedies). And shit did Zach Galifianakis do a great job. Of course I have my issues with it, and I could outline them, but really, who fucking cares--it's a good movie, worth seeing, and I am very happy to see it do well. Check that--I am ecstatic to see that movie do well. It proved my point exactly--I wrote on here many times that a lack of big name stars are not needed to launch a great comedy, and that the market for good R comedy is huge, and The Hangover proved those points very right. It's success bodes extremely well for ours.
-Though, I can't talk about The Hangover without leaving you with this last tidbit:
Geoff Stults, one of the three leads in our movie, was also offered the role of the groom in The Hangover. He had both that offer and our movie's offer at the same time...and he turned down more money for The Hangover to do I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. There was a reason for that.
It's not because The Hangover is a bad movie. Far from it--that movie is solid, and everyone knew it would do really well.
No, it's because ours was something different, something special, and he saw that.
And in 95 days (or less), you'll see for yourself.
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My past three days have been somewhat eventful.
I took a red-eye to NYC on Monday night, to do a screening on Tuesday afternoon for Carrot Creative. They are the elite design/development firm that is helping head up our internet/SMO strategy, and so I screened the movie for the entire firm. Maybe 40 people there, all creative types, it went great.
During the meeting afterwards, I had the weirdest thought--it was the first time I can ever remember being in a real, legit business meeting where I was the oldest person there. Their CEO Mike Germano is only 27 and one of those dudes who has done so much stuff in his life you start counting the years to see where he fit it all in--among other things, he's been a state representative in Connecticut and currently runs one of the best creative firms in the country, and he's fucking 27. I didn't even START writing until I was 27. Fuck overachievers.
Of course, he is Italian, so at least that provided hours of inappropriate and base ethnic humor for me to mine, e.g., "You're Italian? That can't be. You walk upright."
That night we all went out and got completely shit-canned. The two highlights (for me):
1. The model who came out to meet me with a copy of her latest four page photo shoot and accompanying interview (it was in some artsy French magazine). She pointed to a passage, and blushing heavily, asked me to read it. It was her gushing about how much she liked my book.
2. Her friend was even funnier than her. She was a model too, but not just any model. Nope, she was the type of model who goes out to bars in the east village in tight pink hot pants. I am not exaggerating one ounce. You could almost see her cervix through the camel toe they were so tight. She ended up going home with my buddy who is an ESPN writer (not Bill Simmons). I won't name him, he can tell the story himself in his column if he wants, but it was awesome because the week before he had a threesome set up with a porn star and some other girl, had them both IN HIS HOTEL ROOM, and blew it--didn't fuck either one! His confidence was shattered, so of course I called him Leon Lett all week.
But this night I told him, "Dude, just relax. Let your desire go, live in the moment, have fun, and the sex will happen on it's own. Chase it and it runs; let it come to you and you own it." He played it perfectly. It's awesome to see your students grow in front of your eyes.
The next day I opened my eyes at 7am and was immediately startled completely awake--my assistant Ian standing at the foot of my hotel room bed staring at me, "We have to catch a cab to LaGuardia." The kid is weird.
I took a flight to Ft. Bragg, North Carolina to screen the movie for [UNIT REDACTED]. The whole thing came together in such an impromptu way--a month ago I got this random email:
"Tucker,I had an epiphany on my ride home today. I bet you get this all the time nonetheless I thought I would try it. So, I went home, and did what I always do when decision time comes around. I had a few beers to clear the mind and thought 'what the fuck', I guess it's worth a shot:
Would it be possible for soldiers from my [UNIT REDACTED] to enjoy a small screening of your upcoming IHTSBIH before [WE DEPLOY]? We're gonna miss the domestic premiere. I know I would rather watch such a highly anticipated film in a theater... rather than from my computer, in a sandy FOB, through a bootleg I'd purchase from the [LOCATION REDACTED] bazaar in three to four months.
Background: Our [UNIT REDACTED], (stationed in Fort Bragg) has [A BUNCH OF GUYS] that are deploying to [LOCATION REDACTED]. I am speaking for a lot of people that I am not really authorized to speak for, but I am sure there is a significant interest in your book and upcoming film amongst the lower enlisted soldiers as they fall under the target audience. I can only really speak for myself here, but I assume that these soldiers would be absolutely enthralled to enjoy a screening of your film prior to deployment in a packed theater. Though we are preparing to deploy and we are busy, I'd love to give the soldiers an opportunity to kick back and enjoy the film. I wouldn't mind working some logistics to make it happen. Who wouldn't want this epic film to screen at their theater?
My Story (blah blah blah who cares):
I was in the Infantry Officer's Basic Course in Georgia, prior to Ranger School, waiting to complete our final culminating mission when I was introduced to your genre of comedy. We were in a hanger at the airfield and I was bored out of my fucking mind. My friend from UT told me, "Hey dude, while we wait for this Blackhawk ride, why don't you check out this book?" Well, one and a half days later after reading this thing in the prone, on mission, while shooting aimlessly at the fake enemy, I finished I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell. I hadn't read a book so quickly since Goosebumps #28, the Cuckoo Clock of Doom, in 4th Grade. There was just something special about it that caused me to burn through it. As a 22 year old, the post grad time frame truly appealed to me and I related to every story. I was truly captivated by the book and filled with mischievous energy for some reason I couldn't put my finger on.
All stories aside, the book really gave me something in life. I had always been outgoing [INFORMATION REDACTED]. I saw your youtube video speech at OSU, which really tapped on about 25 percent of what I got from your book. I related to that. Following your true dreams is something difficult to do when groomed into a traditionally successful and respected profession. The other 75% that I got from your book is how to transfer a drab situation where traditionally fun activity is not likely into experiences that last a lifetime. In your case, this involved the University of Chicago or Duke Law School. In my case, Fort Bragg and Fort Benning served as barriers to wild social undertakings. Your book taught me that you could take a situation where individuals are supposed to be studious, reserved, respectful and cautioned against rambunctious activity and then tell that generally boring way of life to fuck off because you live only once.
Bottom Line: As Dewey Cox as this sounds, the book inspired me to live hard. Real hard. It inspired me to live as if there was no tomorrow and the dividends have paid off immensely.
This was just a shot in the dark before I deploy to see if I could see if I could yet again expand the narrow corridor of life, treat the soldiers to a fantastic night and add have more tremendous story to talk about in [LOCATION REDACTED] on a bitter cold night. I think I am in a position to pull some legwork behind this. I really think that if any of the dates work out, even weekdays, we could make this happen. If not, best of luck with the movie I can't wait to see it whenever that is. I am sure success will find you."
How the fuck could I say no to that?
I gave him my requirements, the type of projection system, the playback system, the size of the crowd, etc, and then I told him if he did all the legwork, made it essentially a plug and play event for me, I would fly out on my own dime and do it. Well, three days later he had it all set up. True to my word, I booked my ticket and last night we did the screening.
It went great. This was actually the first time we have screened the full cut for a big non-industry audience since the distributor screening, and it fucking rocked. Start to finish the crowd was totally into it, laughing at all the right places, standing ovation afterwards, it was just fucking awesome.
Then, after the screening, they surprised the shit out of me by giving me a gift. And not just any gift, look at this:
It is a silver flask with my name engraved on the front, and on the back is, "Thank you from the deploying paratroopers of [UNIT REDACTED]. [INFORMATION REDACTED]"
It's weird; we worked so hard and so long on the movie, I think sometimes I almost forget why we're doing it--not for the money or the fame or anything like that, but because there is nothing like seeing a crowd of people sit there for 99 minutes laughing their ass off at what you created, and walk away happy and thrilled and quoting the movie to themselves and their friends. To bring that sort of enjoyment to someones life is like no other feeling on earth. That is thanks enough, but then to get such a meaningful gift I mean, I mean, I don't even know what to say. I guess I can start with, "Thanks."
Though, the best part of the trip: I spent most of my time hanging out with [SGT J], one of the senior NCO's in the unit. He was supposed to be my escort while I was in Bragg, but it was leave for him not duty time, so he spent the whole time getting shitfaced, which meant I had to drive HIM around! Kudos to him for being vigilant against getting a DUI, but motherfucker! I'm staying sober and driving you around drunk? WTF??
Let me just say this: I would drink with those guys anywhere, anytime, [LT S, SGT J], and all the other guys who helped with the set-up and got smashed with us at Huske Hardware afterwards. Military guys are always great to hang out with; they are so appreciative of everything, they are respectful and they are fun as fuck. But this crew was even better than normal. A great night all around, the type of night that reminds me why I love my job so much.
Plus, they send the funniest emails. I got this as I was typing this post:
"i am a private in [UNIT REDACTED] and i just wanted to thank you for showing your movie to us, now i dont care if i die in [LOCATION REDACTED] because i have seen your movie, once again thank you and your movie kicked fuckin ass."
EDIT 1: I took video of last night, but like a moron I left my camera at [SGT J's] house. He's going to mail it to me, so I have no idea when I'll get it up.
EDIT 2: I guess I should address this because I know I will get questions about it: This was not necessarily a one time thing. If you are in a unit that is deploying prior to September 25th and you can completely organize the screening and guarantee a big crowd, I will try to find time to fly out to your base myself and screen the movie for you. And I will consider doing other screenings for military prior to the movie release even if the unit isn't deploying, given my ridiculous time constraints, just email me and we'll see what we can do.
EDIT 3: I had to redact some unit names and what not because of OPSEC reasons regarding deployment, etc. You know how the military is about that stuff, but it's fine, it doesn't change the meaning of anything.
EDIT 4: Ahh, isn't Deadspin cute? They try so hard to be cool.
But here's the funniest part, at least to me: They think they are intrepid reporters and have figured this out, and that it was Matthew Berry who was hanging out with me on Tuesday night. They even quoted one of Matt's tweets as proof. Way to get evidence guys! Fuck those people who make fun of you, you're just as good as the real press!
I do know Matthew Berry. We have hung out several times before, and he's has even seen my movie, BUT...it wasn't Matthew Berry I was out with on Tuesday night in NYC.
Here's the problem: That tweet was from June 10th. I was in LA on June 10th, hanging out with Matt. But Tuesday night was June 16th. I was in NYC and he wasn't there. I do have so funny stories about hanging out with Matthew Berry, but none involving models in pink hot pants. You see, Matthew Berry is not the only person who works at ESPN that I know.
In reality, it was John Clayton. That dude can rage.
Shocking I know that a Gawker media property got their facts wrong, and I don't really think it matters either way, but I just didn't want my buddy to not get his credit for tagging a hot model and have Matthew Berry steal his limelight.
EDIT 5: No, it wasn't John Clayton, and no I won't say who it was, it's up to him to say or not. But if it was John Clayton, that would have been the height of awesome.
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OK, remember how I said the tour schedule was still tentative? Well, the thinking around here is that, since our media spend and press coverage will center around the top 30 markets or so, we should center the tour around colleges, which will be underserved by normal marketing push.
If we end up deciding to do it this way, here is what the schedule would look like--notice we hit several of the places I said we wanted to go but couldn't fit, e.g., Pittsburgh, Athens OH, etc, while skipping some big cities, Atlanta, NYC, Chicago, etc.
Potential Tour Schedule:
Aug 18--Auburn, AL (Auburn)
Aug 19--Athens, GA (UGA)
Aug 20--Clemson (Clemson)
Aug 21--Knoxville (UT)
Aug 22--Tuscaloosa (Bama)
Aug 23--Tallahassee (FSU)
Aug 24--Gainesville (UF)
Aug 25--Orlando (UCF)
Aug 26--Travel Day (Orl to RDU, 9 hours)
Aug 27--Raleigh/Durham (UNC/Duke/NC State)
Aug 28--Charlottesville (or Blacksburg)
Aug 29--Washington DC (numerous)
Aug 30--Pittsburgh, PA (Pitt)
Aug 31--State College (PSU)
Sep 1--Philadelphia (numerous)
Sep 2--Piscataway, NJ (Rutgers)
Sep 3--Boston (numerous)
Sept 4,5,6,7--Labor Day Break
Sep 8th--Albany, NY (SUNY Albany), or Syracuse or Buffalo
Sep 9th--Toronto, CA (numerous)
Sep 10th--East Lansing (MSU)
Sep 11th--Ann Arbor, MI (UMich)
Sep 12th--Athens, OH (OhioU)
Sep 13th--Lexington, KY (UK)
Sep 14th--Bloomington (IU)
Sep 15th--Champaign, IL (UI)
Sep 16th--Madison (UWisc)
Sep 17th--Minneapolis (UMinn)
Sep 18th--Iowa City (UIowa)
Sep 19th--Travel Day
Sep 20th--Columbia, MO (Mizzu)
Sep 21st--Lawrence (KU)
Sep 22nd--Norman (OU)
Sep 23rd--Austin (UT)
Sep 24th--College Station (TAMU)
Sep 25--Release
A bunch of people have been asking me if there is any way they can help--there is:
This week and next week we will be booking theaters for the tour. If you live in any of these cities and know of a cool, independent theater that would be a good place for us to have the premiere in that city, email us here, and tell us.
For the Premiere Tour, we generally need to either rent on campus theaters at the universities, or independent theaters. This is so we can stay in the theater and do the Q&A and sign shit after the screening--in a normal theater we would have to be out in 20 minutes because the next screening would start. For example, The Alamo Draft House in Austin is not only an independent theater we can rent out, it serves alcohol.
And YES, we are still going to hit at least a few west coast cities. We are specifically looking right now at San Diego and Seattle, and considering the feasibility of even hitting them on the tour, and will probably find some way to fit Los Angeles in there somewhere, maybe on the 25th.
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True to form, as soon as I posted a tentative schedule for the tour, all sorts of people got all sorts of riled up and sent me all sorts of email, comments, postings etc asking why I wasn't coming to their city.
Look people, I know this is obvious to most of you, but if it's not, let me be clear: Time and money are not infinite. Life is a series of decisions and trade offs, and this tour is no different. We have decided to push ourselves to hit 35 cities, which is a HUGE number, but it is far smaller than the number of cities I'd like to hit. So decisions must be made and certain cities will just have to be left out this time. If you have ever chosen between paying a bill and buying something you want, you understand the basic dilemma.
As a general rule, we want to maximize two things: Hitting major population centers, and hitting concentrations of 18-24 year olds, which means hitting college towns when they are in school. Now, that being said, there are specific cities that fit this profile that we are skipping for specific reasons, cities that one would think we would be hitting, and I will try to explain why below:
-Denver/Boulder: I would LOVE to go to Boulder or Denver, but the fact is, we are doing this as a bus tour and it is just too far away. We need to keep the daily drive below six hours, and Denver is far as fuck from anywhere else we are stopping. Distance matters, and Colorado is just too far.
-Pittsburgh: I hate skipping this city, and we still may decide to hit it, but the problem is it's kinda out of the way from the way we have the tour set up now, and beyond that, we hit a ton of cities relatively close to it (though I know none are that close). Pittsburgh is great, and there is no specific reason we may skip it other than it kinda got lost in the shuffle. But don't give up hope--we may find room.
-Seattle: Schools in the pacific northwest don't start until mid to lat September, plus the distances involved, make getting up to this region almost impossible. I'm sorry, but I don't see us going up this way, unless we do it on the early West Coast swing. But don't be shocked if we skip it.
-Shreveport: What a bunch of fucking whiny babies. We filmed the movie in Shreveport, and so for some reason many people from Shreveport think this entitles them to get something else from us--I guess the millions of dollars we spent in that city weren't enough, so they email Nils and I constantly about how we need to come back and premiere the movie. Like we fucking owe them something! Look people, I don't give a fuck about your city, just like you don't give a fuck about mine, and no one in Shreveport did anything so super for our film that anyone who worked on the production feels any pressing need to show our affection. We showed our affection by cutting you your check. Be happy someone from the civilized world even came to the city once. Not coming back, stop asking. [I hate to be harsh about this, but there is nothing I hate more than people who act entitled to shit that they should be appreciative for. Fuck that.]
-Upstate New York [Albany, Syracuse, Buffalo, Binghamton, Rochester]: Look, I really wanted to hit at least one of these cities, but in the end, the way the tour shook out, we had to go straight from Boston to Toronto. Sucks I know, but what can I say? I wanted to stop someplace here, we just couldn't see how to do it.
-Tempe/Arizona State: I have gotten a TON of requests about this one, and believe me, this is tough because I REALLY want to stop here, but again--Tempe is fucking FAR from anywhere else. The closest place we'll be is LA, which is six hours away, and the stop there is three weeks before school starts. I think I may try to swing it so that I do a screening here and in Tucson the week after the film opens, because I agree that it would be foolish to skip both of these places.
-Tucson/U of Arizona: Almost exact same thing as ASU.
-Morgantown/WVU: Come on--West Virginia? Really? I'm from Kentucky, and West Virginia is one of two states we are allowed to make fun of (the other being Arkansas).
-Athens OH/OU: I really want to stop here, its a great college town, but again, I think this is like Pittsburgh--nothing wrong with it, but it just gets lost in the shuffle. I have been trying to figure out a way to squeeze it in though, because right now we don't even have a single stop in Ohio, which I feel like is a mistake.
-Tampa: We are hitting Tallahassee, Gainesville and Orlando--we couldn't hit four cities in Florida, and because Tampa is further south than Orlando, it got cut. Distance was the factor here.
-Ohio State: This is a tough one, because I promised the people here that I would come back on the movie tour. But that was before I looked at their school schedule and realized that they start on September 23rd! We have to skip this on the tour because to make the tour work we have to be in the midwest by that time, but here is what I will probably do: After the tour, I will fly back to Columbus and do a screening there. Probably not a fancy screening with schwag and all kinds of shit, but I'll make an appearance at least.
-Canada: One good thing is that, until I posted a tour with a Toronto stop, every Canadian was pestering me endlessly about stopping in Canada, but now that they got a stop, they are all apparently happy. Gotta love America's hat.
If you are bumming because your city is left off, remember three things:
1. You can always take a road trip to the closest city: In fact, I think we may give out a prize to the person at each stop who traveled the farthest to get to the premiere. Maybe Bill Dawes will lick your face or something.
2. The exact same movie will out in theaters: It may be a few weeks later, but the movie will be the exact same. Be patient if you can't make it to a premiere.
3. Maybe we hit you next time: If the movie does what I think it'll do, we will do sequels, and I promise we'll take pains to hit new and different places as much as possible with the subsequent premiere tours.
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OK, lemme give you an update on everything I can:
-Trailer still on schedule for an early July release. We may not release it online first though, as originally planned. We may put the greenband trailer in front of one of the comedies coming out in July first, then a week or so later put the redband trailer on the internet. I'll let you know as soon as we decide one way or the other.
-Nils and I have started writing the copy for the ads--holy fuck are some of them funny. We are creating all new material for the ads, for two reasons: 1. We are great writers and can do it, and 2. I HATE it when movie ads give away the jokes from the movie. It kills the experience of seeing the joke fresh on screen. So to avoid this as much as possible, we are doing ads copy that is related to the movie, but not direct quotes, that way the ads will make you laugh, but they won't steal from the movie experience. You may start seeing some of it as early as late July, but if not, definitely in August. And of course, I will post everything we do here.
-Tour planning is coming together nicely. We have picked a tour company, and they are really good, have done a ton of big bands, etc, etc. We will lock down cities and start selling tickets as soon as we can.
-Looks like Bill Dawes is going to come along for the tour. He's going to be be the MC, which means he'll introduce the movie, moderate the Q&A, and just be his normal self. Considering he is a great stand-up comic and is in the movie, it works very well.
-Today we finalized what is going in the schwag bags, and picked the basic merchandise we are going to be selling on the site and on the tour. It's not a ton of stuff, but it is wide range of things and none of it is stupid crap. Everything is something that people will use and like (t-shirts, bottle openers, pint glasses, etc). My personal favorite item is the Beer Pong Kit (we're going to sell it separate from the schwag bag, obviously). Details coming.
-IPhone app should be ready by August 1st, give or take.
-Here is a TENTATIVE list of stops for the tour. This will unquestionably change at least a little bit, so please don't think it's final and start freaking out:
Pre-Tour West Coast Swing:
Aug 6--San Diego
Aug 7--Los Angeles
Aug 8--San Francisco
Aug 9--Seattle
Main Tour:
Aug 18--Athens, GA (UGA)
Aug 19--Atlanta (Ga Tech)
Aug 20--Clemson (Clemson) or Charlotte, NC
Aug 21--Knoxville (UT)
Aug 22--Tuscaloosa (Bama)
Aug 23--Tallahassee (FSU)
Aug 24--Gainesville (UF)
Aug 25--Orlando (CFU)
Aug 26--Travel Day (Orl to RDU, 9 hours)
Aug 27--Raleigh/Durham
Aug 28--Charlottesville (or Blacksburg or Harrisburg)
Aug 29--Washington DC
Aug 30--State College (PSU)
Aug 31--Philadelphia
Sep 1--Piscataway, NJ (Rutgers)
Sep 2--NYC
Sep 3--Boston
Sept 4,5,6,7--Labor Day Break
Sep 8--Toronto, CA
Sep 9--Ann Arbor, MI (UMich)
Sep 10--East Lansing (MSU) or Lexington, KY (UK)
Sep 11--Bloomington (IU)
Sep 12--Chicago
Sep 13--Madison (UWisc)
Sep 14--Minneapolis (UMinn)
Sep 15--Iowa City (UIowa)
Sep 16--Champaign (UI)
Sep 17--Columbia, MO (Mizzu)
Sep 18--Lawrence (KU)
Sep 19--Travel Day [break for Ok/Tulsa game]
Sep 20--Norman (OU)
Sep 21--Dallas
Sep 22--Austin (UT)
Sep 23--College Station (TAMU)
Sep 24--Houston or Baton Rouge, LA (LSU)
Sep 25--Release weekend
-Decided on the basic layout of the movie poster today. I won't tell you what it is, but let's just say we aren't going to reinvent the wheel on this one. Staying with what is proven.
-We still haven't decided precisely how many screens we will open on or in what cities. This has become a very interesting discussion: Do we open relatively small the first weekend and open on 500 screens in the key 50 markets only, which will get massive per screen averages and build buzz for an expansion (like Slumdog Millionaire), or do we immediately open wide with 2000 screens in every market (like most studio movies)?
There are so many pros and cons for each approach, and the answer is not obvious right now--a month ago I thought it was, but as usual I am learning on the fly and many things I thought to be true weren't. The demographic research we do over the next week or two will (hopefully) point us in one direction or the other. But in the end, I don't think it'll matter much: This movie is so fucking awesome, I am convinced it's going to be a hit either way, the only question now is (at least to me) what's the best way for us to get it to the audience.
-I am doing a very cool private screening on June 17th for a special group of people. I will post about it, complete with video, the next day. Don't ask if you can come, trust me, you don't want to be part of the group that is being invited to this screening. There is a reason they won't be able to see the movie when it comes out.
-Also doing a private screening in NYC next week, will probably post about that too, with video. Not for a group as special as the ones on June 17th, but still potentially very cool. If you are a hot girl who lives in NYC and want to go to the screening...I don't care, you're not invited.
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I finally made the leap last month and bought an iPhone. This was for many reasons, but the main one is because I wanted to test out various apps in anticipation of the "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" iPhone app we will be launching (details coming soon).
Well, I got a little obsessed, and ended up spending hours in the App Store downloading apps, and one of the ones I downloaded is now looming heavy in my mind: The "Days Until" App. It is in position #1 on my phone, and right now reads "115." [for those not paying attention, thats the number of days until September 25th, the day the movie releases]
That seems crazy to me. That's not even four months until this movie is released. It's so trippy in so many ways I almost can't even process it. Even forgetting all the meta issues surrounding this--me marketing a movie I made about me where another guy plays me, except I am the main draw--here is a short and incomplete list of things we have to get done by then:
Trailer:
-Pick a trailer house
-Negotiate their deal
-Cut and approve the green band trailer
-Cut and approve the red band trailer
-Decide which movies to put the trailers in front of
Tour:
-Pick which stops we are making
-Book the tour bus
-Book the venues
-Book the hotels rooms and catering and everything else
-Figure out what press we are inviting @ each stop
Distribution:
-Determine number of screens we open on
-Determine which markets and which theaters in these markets we are in
-Send out info/screen movie for vendors
-Book the theaters
-I am not even sure what else exactly happens to make distribution possible, but I know that there are at least four people working on just this aspect, and there is a lot more to it
Marketing:
-Pick iphone app programmers, get them specs, and get it released
-Pick developers for advanced features on the website
-Do the website and get it up
-Pick designers for various other marketing things we are doing
-Determine which sites we want to do promotions with, and how we are going to do them
Advertising:
-Write press kit for movie
-Media buys needed for TV, print, magazines, and radio
-Design and approve media for each medium
-Design the movie poster
-Do a photo shoot for the poster
Merchandise:
-Figure out what we are going to sell
-Find fulfillment for all of it
-Figure out logistics for internet sales
-Figure out logistics for schwag bags for tour
This is pretty much just scratching the surface. There are so many details and areas I am leaving out; I got exhausted just typing that list. But on the other hand, I don't want to be overdramatic: a lot of this is already done. Or at least the major strategic decisions that have to be made are already made, so it's not like we are starting from scratch here. But still--goddamn. That is not a small amount of work.
It is said that making a movie is like launching a start-up. It is. But I think in many ways distributing the movie is just as difficult and unnerving, except in different ways. By my count--and this is probably wrong--right now there are 12 people working full time on releasing this movie, and another 10 part time. And I think we will hire another 20-30 more are various times and for various tasks (video on the tour, etc) during this process. And this is almost a completely different set of people than the ones who made the movie. The only real overlap are me, Nils, Sean and Jeff.
A shit load of work is ahead of us, and not a ton of time to do it in. That's the bad news. The good news is that we have an awesome movie that we all believe in and love. I don't know how anyone could do this with a movie they knew sucked. I mean, I am putting everything I have in terms of my emotional investment into this movie, and I can't imagine doing that if you don't believe in the product. I really don't know how you'd even get out of bed in the morning to face a day of marketing "Miss March" or "Ghost of Girlfriends Past." I'd fucking kill myself.
Anyway, we will be moving at a pretty fast pace now, and I will try to keep you guys in the loop as much as possible. The details of the distribution deal I think will be announced by the trades, so when that happens I'll just link it and explain the backstory and context that they will inevitably leave out. Trailer will be posted asap, iphone app coming soon, redesigned webpage, Facebook fanpage, merchandise page, tour announcements and of course lots of cool little surprises that I won't ruin by giving them away are all in the pipeline.
115 days and counting.
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FINALLY!
No one has been waiting for this longer than me:
The movie I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell opens for wide release on September 25th, 2009.
Put it on your calender, write it down in pen, that is our opening date. It's not going to change.
Now to the obvious questions:
-How does this affect The IHTSBIH Premiere Tour?
Since lots of schools start in mid-August, we are going to start the tour in late August and run it all the way up to the release, and maybe even a week or two past the release. We are figuring where we are stopping and when right now, and will post that info ASAP.
-How many theaters/screens?
No idea. We may do a slow roll out, and hit the 50 major markets first before going super wide. We may just go straight wide. This will be figured out in the next few weeks, but if you live near a big city or college town, you should be covered fine from the get go.
-When does the marketing start?
You mean aside from the marketing I've been doing for over a year on this blog and other places? Well, you will see a media push start about a month out, and the big media dump about ten days out from release. Commercials, print ads, billboards, all that shit starts light in August, and gets heavier as we get closer to September 25th.
-When is the trailer coming out?
Start to ask about it again on July 4th--if it's not out by then, we missed our internal deadline to have it done. Hopefully this will be the first deadline we hit on time.
I am so fucking excited. Goddamn I have waited for this moment--locking down a release date is so fucking important in so many ways. I've been like a thoroughbred in the starting gate, chomping at my bit and anxious to go, and the gates just opened.
119 days to the finish line.
Awesome.
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This is already out of the bag in Hollywood, so I might as well talk about it:
OK, so I think I may have kinda lied to you guys, but not on purpose. I have said in the past that we weren't taking this movie to any film festivals to try to get awards or to get distribution, since we can get distribution without it. And that's true--we didn't need to take it to a festival to get distribution. DOMESTIC distribution, which is all I really care about.
But, in order to get foreign distribution, the decision was made by Darko to take the movie to Cannes and screen the movie for buyers. None of us went with the movie to do the Cannes thing, because it wasn't in competition and we'd already secured domestic distribution and this was just a screening for foreign territory buyers, so the only person to go with the movie was our foreign sales rep.
Now, every person who works in movie sales is, well...to put it politely, a salesman. This includes our foreign sales rep. Of course he told us that the movie killed and got tons of laughs and everything is sunshine and kittens, but I stopped listening to sales guys at least two years ago. It's not that I thought he was lying, but it's his job to hype the movie, so I discounted his comments as salesman puffery. Plus, comedy rarely if ever translates between cultures, and this comedy especially is very American, so I had emotionally checked out of the foreign market long ago. If we do well there great, if not, whatever.
Then, last week I got this email from my assistant on the movie, Greg:
"I'm sure you already have heard this, but someone I know from school just told me BIH played super well at Cannes. Apparently, it was the one movie in Cannes that all the assistants wanted to get into. Sold out the market screening and "had a lot of laughs." Just FYI."
Wow. Assistants flooding a movie in Cannes? That doesn't happen. But one report is just that: one report, especially when it comes second hand. Then yesterday I got this email:
"I saw your movie at the Cannes Film Festival. I was an intern working under the American Pavilion there and a bunch of us interns went and saw the first screening. My friends and I were the first ones there because we wanted to make sure we got in after the marketers. Anyways, thought you should know that I am pretty sure it did well due to the fact that all the interns are college students and the majority of us have read your book. In fact, because we liked it so much, one of the marketers actually turned around and asked us if we had been paid to go and watch the movie. Clearly this guy was not in the demographic the movie was trying to reach. Lucky for you, the interns were there to make sure that your movie was received well by everyone in the screening. Thought you would like to know since I am pretty sure you weren't in Cannes (though a few of us were looking for you just in case you were).The movie was great and I will make sure to tell all my friends to go see it."
I have since talked to two other people--the only two people I know who were in Cannes--and both said they had heard similar things, with one even saying his assistant was one of the ones who went to the screening.
We did sell some territories, and are in the process of selling a few more, but I am not allowed to talk about the specific foreign sales results yet. But I don't really care about that aspect of this situation--who in America cares about foreign sales (except the people who have points on the movie, of course)?
What really makes me smile is that, without any press or buzz or promotion, both screenings were packed with American assistants, to the point where the marketers thought we paying people to show up. You can't buy that sort of excitement. You can only get it by making something great.
I keep telling you guys, the evidence is there to see this, you just have to know where to look:
This thing is going to be so much bigger than anyone is predicting right now.
Well...anyone but me.
EDIT 1: And yeah, I guess Charlie Hoehn predicted it too.
EDIT 2: I wasn't going to mention this, but fuck it, I am too arrogant not to:
David Zuckerman was the first one to say the words "oscar" and "screenplay" to Nils and I in the same sentence. I scoffed at him, thinking he was just being nice to me.
Well, I have had someone else say that. Not to me, but to other people. And not just some scrub, but someone who has an idea of what they are talking about. Their exact quote was something to the extent of "sleeper nomination for best adapted screenplay." I wasn't there, I can't confirm this, but...I was told this by someone who has no reason to lie to me.
Look, I expect massive, massive commercial success for this movie. No theatrical gross you could tell me would shock me for this movie. But any sort of awards-type recognition--that will shock me. I would be blown away by an MTV movie awards nomination, much less a real awards show nom. Not because I think the script doesn't deserve it, but because we are such outsiders and because this movie is so different in so many ways, I just don't think it'll happen. I would take any bets against that happening. No fucking way the Academy is going to nominate two random guys who made an indie movie and aren't even in the WGA. No way.
I don't expect any recognition of my work--book, website, movie, whatever--ever from any mainstream organization of any sort. At least not for a long time. But that's OK--as long as fans love it, I am happy.
EDIT 3: Someone sent me this link, which is from the LA Times movie forum. No idea who wrote that.
EDIT 4: I guess Bunny was actually the first to tell me that our script would get Oscar attention. But she is kooky and usually way far ahead of her time, so I never pay attention to her predictions.
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I just realized this: One year ago this week we signed the deal with Darko. Here are the two posts I wrote about it:
Darko to serve Tucker Max's 'Beer' [published in June, but we signed the deal on Memorial Day Weekend]
That's fucking crazy--one year ago this past weekend we signed the deal, and now we have a finished movie that's coming out in September (or October, decision coming Thursday). It seems like five years ago we did that. I have lived a lifetime since I put that post up.
I was going to write this piece about what I've learned in the past year, but that is a book not a blog post. I doubt I could even fit what I've learned in the past month into 10,000 words. It's crazy how much you can learn when you stop thinking you know everything, when you finally abandon whatever pre-conceived notions you have about how the world works, and instead of fitting facts into theories, you start to form theories around facts, constantly challenge them with new facts, and change them as facts change. When you recognize that what you don't know is vastly greater than what you do. When you realize you don't know anything.
I read The Apology my freshman year of college, and I thought I understood it. I thought I got Socrates point that only by admitting fallibility and lack of knowledge can you really understand anything. And of course I read Nassim Taleb's books, Fooled By Randomness and The Black Swan, and I thought I got his points about uncertainty and risk governing our lives.
Well, maybe I got it in an intellectual sense, but definitely NOT in a real, visceral sense. I mean come on--no one on earth was more arrogant than me in my twenties. I thought I had learned that lesson by the time I published my book, but I don't think I really learned the humility that comes with understanding your place in the universe in any true way until this past year. The events of this past year (making a movie, falling in love, starting counseling, etc, etc) burned a lesson into me I will always hold in the front of my mind:
No matter how smart or right you think you are, never forget: What you don't know is infinitely greater than what you do.
And that IS one to grow on, motherfucker.
BTW--Big meeting Thursday, I should have many many more answers for you that night.
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Before I get into this post, a few things:
1. Distribution deal is done, I'll announce it when I am allowed to. The people in charge of this aspect want to hold off for a few days because of various reasons (one of which has to do with Cannes--info on that coming eventually), and I am so tired of this, it's driving me crazy. Point is--deal's done and papered and we're a complete go for a theatrical release. I am now full time on marketing and it's nice to not have to think about this anymore.
2. Next week we sit down and pick the final release date. It's down to two dates, one in late September and one in mid-October. I'll be happy with either one.
3. I put up a thread where I listed some potential cities where we will take the tour, and where people can give feedback. Feel free to chime in if you want.
But this post is about something else. I got this in a PM on the message board for this blog yesterday:
"Tucker,Thank you. Thank you for the idea of the tour bus, multiple screenings
across the country, making the extra effort of hanging out to sign
autographs, party, whatever (even if you don't come to Providence,
Rhode Island, dick).Thank you for not being a money grubbing cocksucker looking to
maximize profit. Thank you for understanding that $20 to $30 a ticket
might be all your college fans or military fans can afford. Thank you
for not trying to assfuck people out of an extra ten dollars so you
can get a Lamborghini.You were right when you said you were going to do things differently:
You made this about the fans.
Seriously dude, think about that for ten seconds: Instead of a movie
about the actors or the characters, you made it about the fans.
Instead of stories about how much money you're making, or the actors
are making, there will be stories about how the fans can benefit.Your stories are entertaining. They are funny. But without fans, they
are just clever anecdotes to tell your buddies at the bar. You've
never lost sight of that, and that is pretty impressive.In the past 15 years or so, movies did that: They became about the
actor, not about the fans. They became about the franchise, not about
the fans. I hope that your movie is a tremendous success, and I hope
it serves as a wakeup call to the rest of Hollywood that without the
fans, the movie is nothing.If you want to anonymously post this, feel free. I'm not going to put
it in your thread, because I don't want it to look like ass-kissing or
nut-swinging like a bunch of others have done all over this board. I
want you to take it as a very personal thank you from me to you,
because you earned it."
I have gotten like four or five emails and a bunch of comments like that since I posted about the tour two days ago, and I want to address this. I appreciate the comments, but don't think we deserve praise for doing it this way.
Nils and I sat down a long time ago and talked about this. Before we became writers and producers, we were just normal fans like anyone else, and nothing pissed us off as fans more than when a company or an athlete or a musician would do something that is total bullshit and clearly geared at ripping the fans off in one way or another. Why would they do that? Why would they treat their fans like crap? Don't they remember what it was like to be a normal fan? Don't they see that by fucking their fans they are ultimately hurting themselves?
We swore that if we achieved our dreams, if we made it, we would adhere to a very simple rule: Treat our fans the way we would want to be treated as fans, because ultimately, we are fans too. We want our favorite writers and filmmakers and athletes and singers to do great things, we want them to love what they do as much as we love it, and we want them to at least act like they respect us. We don't expect to get everything free, but we do expect that they try to give us value. We don't expect them to be perfect in their lives, but we do expect them to care about what they do.
Besides--what other way is there to act? How does it make sense to fuck your fans? Or to disrespect them by producing shitty material? Or to cheat them out of money, or to put price in front of value? How does that make any sense? Just on a fundamental human level, how can you wake up in the morning and look yourself in the mirror knowing that you haven't done everything you can, knowing that you could be treating them better, but instead said 'fuck it' and screwed them anyway? How do you face yourself when you KNOW you've betrayed the people who support you?
This is not about making mistakes. Look, I will make A TON of mistakes over the next week, month, year and decade. I am 100% positive I will do stupid things, I will make awful choices that I'll regret, and I'll do things that I will look back on and wonder, "What was I thinking?" Believe me, I am acutely aware of how painfully flawed I am.
But we will never not care. We will never not try. We will never mail it in. We will always do everything we can to make the best movies/books/TV shows/whatever we possibly can. We will always try to deliver as much value to fans as possible. We will always treat our fans the way we would want to be treated.
I don't even see any of this as remarkable. Shit, this is what all artists SHOULD be doing. The fact that we are among the first to explicitly think like this...I don't know why this is, but I seriously doubt we'll be in the minority for long. Now that artists and fans can connect directly, and remove the conglomerates and corporations run by suits that stand between them and often are to blame for fans getting fucked, I think we are going to see the whole world of books, film, music and all other art change drastically over the next decade, and for the better.
The Age of the Artist is coming, and it is exciting for me to think about, both as an artist and a fan.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong--I want to get really fucking rich. I want serious fuck you money, I want so much money I can wreck my first plane and have a second ready to go. But I also want to do it the right way. What good is all the money in the world if you have to betray yourself to get it?
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OK, for all intents and purposes, the distribution deal is done, and today we picked a tentative date for the release (yes, it's still slated for a fall release). Much to my immense frustration, I am not allowed to talk about either until later this week or early next week, but I can make one announcement that I have been saving, and I am very excited for:
Instead of just doing one boring premiere in LA like every movie does, we are going to do 30+ premieres, in different cities all around the country, one each day leading up to the opening weekend.
I am not kidding at all. Nils and I are getting on a tour bus, we'll start at one end of the country, and finish at the other, stopping at like 30+ cities and schools along the way, giving a special screening each place. And not just some boring screening and that's it--we are going to have cool schwag bags, do a panel Q&A after each show, stick around and sign whatever and get pictures with people, and even have afterparties in some cities--it'll be just like a real premiere, except without the lame ass red carpet.
I know all the questions that will be coming, so let me try to preempt as many as possible:
-Nils and I will be at every stop. Matt, Jesse, Geoff, Keri and Marika will stop by at least some of the premieres, depending on the shooting schedules of their TV shows. We will also have a few other people at various shows--for example, I bet I can get Traci Lords to come to at least a few of the west coast ones.
-We haven't decided what will be in the schwag bags, but the obvious ideas are: t-shirts, movie posters, beer bottle openers, WWTD bracelets, etc, etc. Whatever we do put in the bag will be good quality, I promise. I fucking HATE cheap schwag. Whenever I get shitty schwag I wonder why they didn't just save their fucking money instead of wasting it to insult me. We won't do that, I promise.
-We will stay after the movie and Q&A to sign and take pictures with anyone that is wants either. If we do a screening with 1000 people in the audience, and they are all willing to stand in line to get an autograph and a picture with me, then I will be there for a long time. I leave only after the last fan, at every venue.
-Not sure of the cost. Regular movie tickets are usually like $10, and we will definitely charge more than that for three reasons: 1., You are getting to see the movie before it comes out in theaters, 2. You get to interact afterwards with me and Nils and everyone else there, and 3. You get a bunch of cool stuff. We may vary the cost depending on the size of the venue, the demand, etc, but it won't be exorbitant--probably like $20 to $30 a ticket. [And if that sounds like too much, that's cool, just wait the few weeks until it releases wide and see it for the normal price].
-It will probably take 2-3 months to finalize all the plans, but once we have it all set, we'll start selling tickets immediately online. So yes, you'll be able to reserve spots early. We may or may not announce cities as we book them, or we may wait and announce the tour all at once. Whichever way we go, I will let you know.
-I am not sure what cities we are going to hit right now. Of course we'll hit the obvious ones like Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, etc, but since we are going to focus most of our initial marketing efforts on college and military, don't be surprised if we have a screening somewhere kinda out of the way, like Fayetteville, NC or Athens, GA.
-I don't want to promise this, but we will at least TRY to hit one or two Canadian cities. Toronto and Montreal are the obvious choices, but maybe Vancouver or something will make more sense. But worst case, Canadians, don't sweat it, our movie is coming out in Canada the same time it does in the US.
I am seriously excited about this tour. There are many reasons why, but here's the main one:
This movie was spawned by a book that started outside the mainstream, that touched on a huge aspect of people's lives that no other writing really touched on and did it in a way that respected the reader, and I think the movie has carried that mentality on. I know this may not matter much to some people, but I have always loved most those pieces of art that I not only related to, but that I felt like understood me and respected me as a viewer. I know that was the intent Nils and I had when we made this movie; to make a movie that would not patronize people or talk down to them or pander to them. Instead, one that really got at the essence of what it was like to be young and have fun, a movie that inspired people with its authenticity and originality. And of course, is really fucking funny.
I am really really proud of this movie and what we have all accomplished with it, and I can't wait to share it with fans, see their reactions, and then interact with them about it; answer their questions, hear their feedback, listen to their comments, etc. Movies are interactive in a way that books cannot be, and I am excited to experience real time fan reaction [that's why I wanted to do the surprise screening at Ohio State, for that exact reason].
Ultimately, that's why you make art--to share it with people so they can enjoy it--and the fact that we are sharing our movie on such a personal and immediate level is fucking exciting. To me, at least.
[And yes, drinking and fucking my way across the country will be cool too. But that's obvious.]
EDIT: Some people have expressed astonishment that we would only charge $20-30, and not more like $50. We though about that, but I feel like $40 to $50 is a bit much, especially in this economy. And since so many of the people going to these will be college students and military personnel, they have the least disposable income.
Plus, though I am certain we could charge more, why squeeze every penny out of your fans? I'd rather charge $30 and have you guys leave feeling like you got a bargain, then charge $50 and have you leave feeling like you wish it had cost a little less.
I even thought about having a special section that pays more and gets better seats or more access or something like that, but fuck that--I think its better to reward the fans who will sit in line for days to get the best seats, then reward the people who will pay the most. We are in this for the long haul, not the short play, and focusing on extracting money out of your fans is the short play. I'd rather focus on maximizing the value of the fans experience; I mean after all, I am a fan of lots of other artists, why should I not treat my fans the way I wish they treated me? To have the chance to do the right thing and then not do it would be really fucking hypocritical. Fuck that.
Yeah money is important, but it's not the only thing that matters.
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You are not going to believe this. I can still barely believe it, and I was there.
I did a speech at Ohio State on Monday, and it was bedlam. The auditorium was completely packed with fans--that's normal--but for the first time ever, I had real protesters. And not just a few, like almost 100, and they went fucking nuts. It was AWESOME!
But this was bigger than just having people pissed at me and getting attention. I get that shit on the internet and in the media all the time. This was one of the coolest things that has ever happened to me, because for the first time, I crossed over from cult figure to celebrity. You can tell in the video that I am kinda astonished at the beginning--on stage, watching that insanity play out, it dawned on me that my life had permanently changed. There were so many people there--both fans and protesters--the cops had to escort me out the back because they were afraid a riot would start. That's insane. This is the type of shit that only happens to famous people. Someone else said it best:
"Feminazis holding signs? Angry hipster-emo dudes wearing granny-glasses at an anti-Tucker rally? Police escorts? Max is now an official rockstar. God help us all."
The media:
-Video of the beginning of the speech where the protesters keep interrupting me and I mock them
-If you can watch this video and not bust out laughing the moment you see the woman protesting me, you are a better person than I.
-A news story about the protest complete with awesome picture
-Another piece about the speech, that outlines what I said.
-Some video of the protesters that someone else took
-The video of the content of my actual speech, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and the Q&A part 1 and part 2.
-Scan of the handout given to people coming into the speech
-A longer piece that outlines the background issues in this controversy
What's really fucked up for my fans was that I had cleared it with the OSU administration and I was going to do a secret screening of the movie instead of this speech. I was going to essentially premiere the movie for this audience. But because of the protests and other bullshit, the administration balked and asked me to just do the speech instead.
Man, this movie is going to get so much fucking attention. I am so excited.
[BTW--Today we finally decided on who our distribution partner(s) will be. It's a major, and I think they will be a really good partner for the movie. Before the announcement is made we have to finish the negotiations, but that shouldn't take more than a day or two. I hope--and this is just my hope, not a promise--we'll make the announcement by Friday of this week.]
EDIT: Apparently, some people are having problems hearing the audio for the speech. We added captions in as many places as we could, but a lot of the crowd noise, we just can't hear what the protestors are saying. Here is the full text of my speech, if you just want to read it and not watch the videos:
The Ohio State SpeechIf you're here today, I assume you know who I am and what I do. But for that ONE asshole in the crowd who got dragged along with his friends doesn't know who I am, I'll give a brief intro:
My name is Tucker Max and I wrote a book called I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell. It details a series of short stories I wrote about drinking and fucking and being a typical guy in his mid-twenties. It's sold over 800k copies and spent over 105 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller List (for the Comm majors: that's more than two years). It's #4 this week, actually. The Times also credited me with starting a new literary genre called "Fratire." The followup book was sold for what was then record setting advance. The Washington Post said it was the only book that every college student has read. It has become so popular I was just nominated to Time Magazine's 100 Most Influential People of 2009. I also just finished shooting a movie based on the book which will come out this fall, probably September or October.
That's the story you know, the Tucker Max the public sees. And based off that, if I give a speech, you probably expect me to tell funny stories like the ones in the book, because that's what Tucker Max does, right?
Well, yeah, actually it is. I mean, shit man, I've fucked a midget, and amputee and a set of twins, raise your hand if you've ever done that! There's no question that when I am out drinking with my friends and have fun, that's me, and that's who I am, and those stories are what are in the book.
BUT---That's not what this speech is about.
You can read all about my adventures on your own time. This speech is about the book, but instead of being about the stories, it's about the lesson I think you should take from I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell.
Now, if you just superficially read the book, probably all you focus on is the drinking and fucking and poop jokes, and while those are there, they are only the first level of meaning. There's more to the book than that. Below all of that is my answer to the fundamental question--What are you going to with your life? Ultimately, THAT is what I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell is about:
It's about living the life that you want to live, not the life others push onto you. It's about being the person you want to be, not the person other people want you to be, and it's about enoying the time you have. I convey this message not by preaching it to you, but by showing you how I do it.
I know what you may be thinking, and I actually kinda agree with you: This is not obvious in my reading. All I read was some guy throwing a girls clothes out the window b/c she was so fat he didn't want his friends to see her. And that's true, that's all there, but there's more to the book than that.
So what I'm going to do is give you some back story to my life and explain the path that led me to write this book, because to understand where I came from is to understand the message of the book:
As a kid, I had an early knack for humor and writing. There was one elementary school teacher in particular who identified it and tried to foster it in me. I also had another teacher in high school who kinda helped me see that I had a talent for writing and told me to pursue it, but I grew up in Kentucky. No one growing up in Kentucky writes or does entertainment for a living. Everyone else around me pushed me to a different path.
Growing up, the expectations around me where that I would be a doctor or a lawyer or a businessman or something that is a typical and easy to understand success like that. So I listened to the people around me and went to hardest academic school I could find to best prepare me for a conventional job: The University of Chicago.
But a funny thing happened as I studied to get that conventional job: I kept writing on my own time. Never because I thought it would go anywhere, but because I loved it.
My freshman year, I started a quote list because one day after I said something really funny at the dinner table, I thought "someone should write that down," so I did it. I started to think about things I said, and began to try to deliver the best line I could in any situation, so I could have something funny to put on my list.
I also wrote a column for the schools newspaper, The Maroon. The thing I hated about the school newspaper is that if someone wants to read about serious world affairs, they'll read what the NY Times or the Wall Street Journal says--no one gives a shit about what some idiot 19 year old has to say about world affairs--shut the fuck up.
So instead of being one of those pompous hard-ons, I looked around at the world I lived in and I wrote about that world, calling out specific people and organizations at my school, really not much different than how I write now, just a different subject matter.
Well, the thing blew up. My column became the most read feature the Maroon had produced in as long as anyone could remember. I was a mini-celeb on campus, always causing controversy and getting attention, and even though I graduated top 10% of my class and with highest honors, that column and my quote list are still the things I am most proud of from college.
It came time to figure out what I was going to do after college, for a second I thought about the entertainment business, or something with writing--after all, there was proof I had talent. But this time it took my parents and the other people around me even less time to convince me to not do that, because by then I had really bought into the system, and I let them convince me that to be a writer you had to take writing classes and that being a writer was not an acceptable way to succeed.
So I pushed the thought of writing completely out of my head, and I took their advice and I went to Duke Law School. I even got an academic scholarship to go there.
Well, I hated law school. Not because it was hard, but because it was so easy and boring and pointless. Don't ever let anyone tell you its hard. It's not. The only hard part is getting in. I stopped going to class first semester, stopped buying books second semester, and lived in Cancun for six weeks once during my second year.
But, despite the fact that I couldn't stand the actual school, I really liked my time there because of my friends. I finally had friends who were not only as smart as me, they partied harder than me, and were funnier than me. If you've read my stories, you know them by their nicknames; SlingBlade, PWJ, Jojo, GoldenBoy, Hate, etc.
Amazing friends, no real responsibilities, and lots of alcohol and women around. A lot of the stories from my book are from this time in my life, because I was living a life that l loved--doing things I enjoyed and being with people I liked, and it showed.
Maybe because of this, because I wasn't doing anything besides being the person I'd always wanted to be, writing came back to me with a strength it hadn't in a long time.
During finals second year, SlingBlade and I were punch drunk in the library after being up all night procrastinating instead of studying, and on a whim I made up a website where girls could fill out an application to date me.
Even though it started a joke, I found myself devoting all my time to it. In one month, I put more work into that crappy little site than I did in all my actual studies over all three years of law school.
Here's the real kicker: Because I thought it didn't matter, because I was totally unencumbered by any expectations--because I was free to fail--I let loose on that thing, and my creative energy came forth in way it hadn't since I was a child. It turned out to be truly, genuinely fucking funny.
Yet despite all this work, despite how happy I was working on site, it never occurred to me that this was a sign of something. I was so blind that a few months later, when we went to our summer jobs in cities all across the country, I took the site down and basically forgot about it. The thing that had brought out the best in me, I ignored. I was completely blind to myself.
But I did keep up with my writing by sending hilarious emails to my friends about all the dumb shit I would do when I was out drinking. If you've read my book, you read one of those emails I sent to my friends. It's in the Charity Auction Debacle Story, the one where I talk about the senior female partner who propositioned me and I turned her down--pretty much the only sex I've ever turned down in my life. You know what comes next...
I was fired from the summer associate job.
What was supposed to basically be an extended summer vacation, essentially a no-show job that you can't get fired from...I got fired from.
Three weeks into my legal career, it was over.
Looking back on it now, it was the best thing that ever happened to me. If they hadn't fired me, I don't think I ever would have had the courage to quit being a lawyer, to give up that six figure job and pursue my dreams on my own. But at the time, I was completely devastated. My world was crushed.
Thankfully I did have a back-up plan: I could go work for my father. Since I had trained my whole life for either law or business, if I can't do law, I'll just do business, right? My dad owns a successful restaurant company in South Florida, and I had a great idea for how to expand the concept and take it national, so let's do that.
At first, the challenge of the business and the thrill of something new invigorated me. My dad has a great restaurant concept and we had a fantastic plan to expand it, but there was so much wrong with the way it was run, I had all kinds of problems to solve first.
The biggest were the employees. I wanted to fire most of the people who worked for my dad because they were either incompetent suck-ups or brazen thieves. I thought that because I was right and my name was on the door, my dad would back me. I was still young enough to think that being right was what mattered. You guys are probably still young enough to think that, but you'll learn your lesson. Long story short, the employees were better at office politics than I was, and my dad ended up backing them.
I got fired. By my own father. From the FAMILY BUSINESS.
Seriously, go to Mizner Park in Boca Raton, Florida. There is a restaurant called Max's Grill. My dad is in there 5 nights a week, you can ask him about it. Now that I'm such a success, he may hem and haw and make excuses, but make no mistake about it:
My own father fired me.
So there I was. 26 years old. Alone. Living in shitty Boca Raton, Florida. Fucking girls I couldn't stand, like Miss Vermont. Fired from the entire legal profession. Fired from the family business by my own father. I had failed miserably at the only two things I had trained for in my life. Kicked out of the system I had bought into.
The funny thing is, I was still writing, and not having a job let me read a lot and work on my writing, but I was so brainwashed, it STILL didn't occur to me that I could just be who I wanted to be and write full time.
It was actually in this period that I wrote the Sushi Pants Story--it ends with me drunk, and I drive to my office and type that story to email to my friends. Whats really funny is that the format I use, the time stamp format, people have lauded me as being a genius for inventing that, but thats bullshit. You know why I wrote it like that? Because I was too drunk to write in complete sentences!
Then, with my world as bleak as it had ever been, three things happened right in a row:
First, I read a book called AHBWOSG by Dave Eggers. At the time it was hailed as a comedic masterpiece, and Eggers was seen as the next big thing in literature. I read the book and thought, "What the fuck? I can do better than this." But instead of manning up and attempting to actually write a better book, I did what all envious people who abandon their dreams do when they see someone succeed where they are afriad of trying: I hated on him.
Then, my buddy PWJ called me one day, and had a long talk with me. He told me that the site was amazing, and that my stories are the funniest thing he'd ever read. That I could be a writer.
Hearing this from someone else, especially from a guy who I respected, meant something to me. Tucker Max as writer.
I wanted it, I considered it, but I still couldn't make the leap. I was still having trouble wrapping my head around the idea of taking the path less traveled. I had bought into the system so fully, and abandoned my passion for so long, I no longer believed in it or in myself. It just didn't seem realistic that I could do it.
Then I read Fight Club. If there is any one singular event that I can point to that set me on the course to who and what I am today, it is reading Fight Club. It woke something primal and fundamental in me.
I had seen the movie when I was in college, but until you have gone out into the world and worked a shitty job and thought to yourself, "Is this it? Is this why I went to school? For this?", you can't understand it. But once I read the book after the real world kicked me in the teeth, it clicked. It gave voice to something inside me I had not been able to elucidate before:
I had been sold a lie. Life was not about going to the right schools and getting the right jobs just so I work a job I hate in order to accumulate more crap I don't want or need. That's not how life was meant to be lived. There is another way. I can be the man I want to be, I can do the things I want to do and I can live the life I want to live...I just have to stop believing the lies I have been sold, and stop caring what all those people think who don't matter, and find the courage to go out and do it.
The only thing stopping me...is ultimately me.
One month later, I went to a wedding in Chicago. I stayed with a buddy of mine who had just bought a two bedroom condo, and one of the bedrooms empty. I made a joke about wishing I lived with him, he replied "Sure, you can live here, why not?"
I never went back to Florida. The funniest part is that he was totally not serious about the offer--who the fuck would want to live with me? Disaster--empty beer cans, emotionally broken, funny walking sluts trapsing through the apartment at all hours, strange odors coming from unknown places--who wants to live with that? I don't even want to live with myself.
On the morning of August 4th, 2002, I sat down at a blank computer screen and started working. It wasn't even my computer--I had to get my roommate to let me borrow his. I had no money, nothing of value to my name, and no real plan at all. But I wanted to fucking write, so I just started writing.
A month later, on September 9th, 2002, the site went live. I was 26 years old, and for the first time in my life, I was being the man I wanted to be and living the life I wanted to live. I didn't know how I was going to do it...but, I was going to either find a way, or make one.
The rest is pretty much history. I put up the site, then the book, then the movie, and now I am "Tucker Max."
So--what the fuck does this have to do with the book? Well, the book is about this journey. It is a written record of me living my life the way I want to live it.
Yes, I write about having sex, and about getting drunk, and about busting on people and about being an asshole sometimes, and about all that shit. All of that surface stuff that people focus on so much is all there, but it's not really the soul of the book.
Here's the best way to understand that: Go read all the copycat blogs and books out there. There are so many people who have tried to imitate me, and every single one has failed miserably. Why? Because they think the stories are only about drinking or fucking or acting stupid, and since they think they do the same things I do, they can write about it the same way. But they can't, because the stories are not about all that shit--they're about one man's expression of love for his life.
The specific things I do are just my individual way of expressing myself, but the book is ultimately about having fun, defining your own life, and ultimately, being the person you want to be, and THAT is what you should take from it, because THAT is what I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell is about.
Now look: I am not going to stand here and lie to you and tell you that I was thinking about all of this when I started writing the emails to my friends that became the stories in the book. That's not only fucking ridiculous, it's patently false. The stories in the book started as nothing more than what they are: My attempt to write something that would entertain me and my friends.
But that's the point--I wasn't trying to be anything or do anything aside from the simple things that made me happy, and writing those stories made me happy. I was never trying to invent a new genre or write a massive best seller or create a huge brand or get named one of the most influential people in America.
But guess what? A funny thing happens when you cast off all the bullshit everyone dumps on you, and just live for yourself and follow your dreams: What it takes to get you there shows up in the finished product. When you love what you do, it shows, and people respond.
Now, before I finish, I want to call some of you out. I can tell some of you are getting this, and that's awesome, I hope this does resonate with you and start you on the right path.But I know, I FUCKING KNOW, that some of you are sitting there, all skeptical, thinking to yourself "Whatever, this is just some bullshit inspirational speech he is making because he's getting paid. I am different; this doesn't apply to me."
SHUT THE FUCK UP.
I am not some old fart blathering on about pie in the sky bullshit. You and I are almost the same. Ten years ago, I sat exactly where you are sitting, did the same shit you are doing now, and since that time, I have drank more beer, banged more girls and kicked more ass than all of you chewed bubble gum lackwit pussies put together! So don't fucking try and say this shit doesn't apply to you--that's exactly why you love my writing, because you CAN relate to it.
I started where you are now, and I AM who you could be, if you have to courage.
Shit, I DID HEAR THIS SPEECH at 21 from some dope-smoking peacenik, and I told that fucking hippy minstrel to go back to his weed smoking and hating the World Bank and leave the real work to us. AND I WAS FUCKING WRONG. It took me another five years just to realize I wasn't living the life I wanted.
And don't you fucking dare get up in the Q&A and say some stupid shit like, "Yeah, that's all well and good, but you didn't tell me HOW I am supposed to live my life for myself."
Man, fuck you too. You think I had a map to get to where I am? I had no fucking idea--I was winging it the whole time. Shit, I had to INVENT A NEW LITERARY GENRE!! There are no directions to life; you have to figure most of it out on your own. You want to live a life you love, you can't do it in a paint by numbers style--you make it either because you want to free your soul or you don't.
Make no mistake about it: What you do with your with your life is A CHOICE. You can be who you want to be, you just have to have the courage to go do it.
You don't hear this from your parents or your teachers or your friends, because they never tell you the other option. You know why? It's because they don't know it exists. They tell you that to do what everyone one else is doing, they tell you that you have to get a safe job and be like all of them, BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT THEY DID.
But you don't have to do that. There is another way. You can make the choice to do what I did. You can't be Tucker Max, but you can recognize what you love, then find the courage to commit fully to it.
You can do it, but you have to choose to do it.
I know it can be done, because I did it.
And if I can do it, so can you.
Besides, let me ask you something: What's the alternative? If you don't live the life you want, what life are you living? A life you don't want.
And if you don't want your life, why are you even getting up in the morning?
Thank you guys, you've been great.
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