Why We Suck

by DR. DENIS LEARY

  I’ve got a friend who’s a terrific hockey player—he basically drank his way out of a career on the ice—but clean and sober and in his thirties he’s good enough that Cam Neely—who’s in the Hockey Hall of Fame—skated a friendly outdoor ice game with him a couple of winters ago and said “that guy’s great with the puck.” And a guy who gets a hefty mixture of respect, admiration and fear from everyone he plays with. He never even got a nickname—that’s how good he was. When guys can’t even think of a nickname for you, it means you are pretty much physically and mentally flawless. This guy is from outside Boston and has a thick Massachusetts accent and sometimes the other guys might bust his balls about it, but that’s about as far as it went.

  Long story short—he recently took a puck to his left eye and temporarily went blind—when I say temporarily I mean he eventually gained his vision back, but for the three or four months during which he couldn’t see out of that eye but kept on skating you know what his nickname on the ice was? Lefty. And when we started calling him that he started answering to it. With a smile. He finally had a nickname and one—considering the circumstances—that was also funny. Lefty. Girls wouldn’t even think of UTTERING that nickname.

  We got a guy named Steve we all call Stavros because he looks like he’s Greek—even though his childhood nickname was Zippo because he used to set everything on fire, and we also call him Sniper because he can put the puck behind the goalie like he’s a Lee Harvey Oswald and the net is John F. Kennedy sitting in a limousine.

  We got three Jeffs and a Geoff—so all four had to become last-name nickname guys but one Jeff’s last name was too long and sounded like a Polish guy who ran an Irish bar so we shortened it from McCluskey to Clucker.

  When his brother joined up a few months later we boiled it all down to Cluck 1 and Cluck 2. We got a guy named Josh who owns a bike shop but was easily confused with another Josh who was friends with another guy named Mike so now we got Bike Josh and Josh Who Knows Mike.

  I play hockey with another guy whose name is Jonny. The first time he played with us, instead of using white hockey tape on his hockey socks, he used postal tape. The kind that comes in a big wide roll that the U.S. Post Office uses to seal up large boxes when they ship them. His nickname that night became Postal. It’s what we have called him ever since, on the ice and off. I don’t even know the guy’s real last name. None of the guys do. He’s Postal. When he calls on the phone he says Hey it’s Postal. When guys run into him at the mall they say Hey I ran into Postal at the mall. If he snapped and shot sixteen people at work and it was on the news, I’d call up a mutual friend and say Postal just went postal—turn on CNN, they got it live.

  If there was a guy on a hockey team whose penis was accidentally sliced off and he continued to play and undress in front of the other guys, his nickname would soon become Dick. Or Ballsack. Or Barbie. And eventually he would answer to that name. Because that’s what men do.

  I find it hard to imagine women calling a friend who had suffered through breast cancer Titless. Or Nipples. Or Lefty.

  When I was growing up—based on the spelling of my name—Denis became Penis which became Penis Man when I went to college. I also got DeeLeerious, D, Learjet, Queerjet, Peen and Pennis. My brother Johnny was called Jumpin’ Jack Flash and Kiwi. Which is what everyone still calls him. Kiwi. The reason why involves a long story about him and his friend Mike who everyone calls Pete. Which is another story. Everyone calls my brother Kiwi, including my wife my kids his wife his kids and both of my sisters and their kids. My sister Ann Marie’s husband Neil went to high school with me—he was a hockey player who was a very flashy skater. His nickname became Blades. My sister—Blades’s wife? No nickname. My sister Betsy? No nickname. My wife? Ann? Leary? No nickname.

  Most women discard the nicknames their boyfriend/fiancé/husbands have in favor of—you know the drill—not even the shortened version of the guy’s real name. A guy the guys all call Steve is called Steven by his chick. Bobby becomes Robert. Max is always Maximillian. Formal. Serious. Unfun.

  It’s the same avoid-reality-at-all-costs crap you notice in women’s basketball. Listen—in men’s sports the coaches are predominantly guys whose faces reflect the game they played. Football coaches have broken noses and bad knees and the ones who don’t are short or fat or both. Baseball managers are generally speaking bowlegged and beer-bellied. Hockey coaches have scars all over their faces and fake teeth. Basketball coaches are goofy-looking lanky-assed giants who are almost always wearing ill-fitting suits. And when you watch a game on TV many of the male announcers will mention just exactly what the coach looks like or the coach’s nickname or how badly said suit looks. Phil Jackson looks like he failed the audition for a Frankenstein movie because he looked TOO freaky. Bill Belichick looks and dresses like he’s two dollars away from being homeless. And every male announcer—and quite a few female broadcasters—remark upon this during every basketball and football season.

  Ever hear anyone on broadcast TV mention the paucity of attractive female coaches in all of girls basketball?

  Nope.

  Any nicknames or mention of oversized skirts or makeup that seems to have been applied with a six-inch brush?

  Nope.

  Most of the women who coach women’s basketball teams look like dykes. As do many of the players. Don’t like to hear that fact? It’s true. Just ask a man who has no interest in sleeping with you. The LPGA is the other sport chock full of lesbian lookers—it should be called the Lesbian Professional Golf Association. Even the MEN’S golf tour—minus Tiger Woods and maybe seven other guys—is jam-packed with men who look like lesbians. Let’s be honest, Phil Mickelson is ten more pounds and two man-tits away from being mistaken for one.

  Look—I have no problem with lesbians owning any and all collegiate and professional female sports—it just yanks my chain when we all continue this unspoken agreement not to mention it. We carry on this bullshit approach and pretend they are all so feminine and pretty and dainty and guess what—most of them absolutely ain’t. Which is fine. I’ll pay them the ultimate compliment—I play hockey and I’m glad I don’t have to play against most of these girls because I think they would kick my ass. Hey—there’s fighting in hockey.

  I take the same approach to female athletes as I do with guys—and I play with and against some girls on the ice from time to time—everyone is expected to do their job. Otherwise—get off the fucking ice. I would do the same with famous female athletes if I was an announcer. For years I have claimed that the reason Randy Johnson—one of the world’s ugliest human beings and one of baseball’s most dominating pitchers—has had such an overpowering ability to strike out the other side is not necessarily his fastball—it’s his face. I think once he comes out of his wind-up and turns the full frontal toward the plate, batter after batter has to avert his gaze. THAT’S how ugly this guy is. He looks like Big Bird from Sesame Street would if he got hit with a frying pan coated with cooking grease. For years now John Daly has arrived at golf courses around the world looking like a beached whale just back from a four-day bender in the Vodka Tonic Sea. Hair askew, armfat dangling, shirt barely big enough to tuck into the too-tight pants. All I’m asking is the freedom to say the same thing about an aging, overweight lesbian pro golfer without getting dirty looks from girl golf nuts.

  The bottom line is that one day there will be a professional football team which will have a defensive line dominated by four giant gay men—due to genetics, performance-enhancing drugs, workout regimens and the increasing openness of our society, it’s only a matter of time—and once those guys start winning, the moniker The Four Fags will either become a nickname amongst themselves and their teammates or the way opposing coaches respectfully refer to them during pregame war plans or both. It’s the way men are. It’s the way men compete. It would just be nice if women did the same thing. Call a crazy point guard from the UCLA Women’s basketball team The Witch From The West. Nickname the feisty left wing from the
girls USA Olympic Ice Hockey Team a bitch on wheels. Tits Akimbo (can’t tell which direction she’s going), Vadge On Fire (unbelievably fast), Look Away Lindsay (ugly as sin)—these are nicknames just waiting to be applied.

  Flat-chested women go out and get balloon-size fake tits. Guys go to the gym. Fat girls subject themselves to years and years of endless dieting before finally throwing in the towel and getting liposuction. Fat guys go to the gym. Gals with huge noses gaze at themselves in mirrors and shop windows and any other available reflective public surface until finally getting the honker hacked off and replaced by one of a suitable size. Guys just grow a mustache. The chinstrap beard was invented by a husky guy trying to reduce the size of his neckfat. We hate to go to the doctor. We go to the barber instead. Big ears? Leave a little more on the sides. Women often accuse men of not telling the truth or being emotionally dishonest. Meanwhile, the odds are the woman you have just met is not the woman you will see in the bedroom. Once she removes her padded bra and compressive-waisted panty hose and false eyelashes and fake nails, you might be looking at someone other than who you were attracted to. If guys get fat, we just buy bigger pants.

  Women have some insane system of numbers when it comes to sizing clothes—6, 8, 4, 2 etc. And even then they seem to have no idea what size they really are—size 10s are constantly trying to suck themselves into size 8s and size 4s are always doing insane acrobatics and extreme yoga positions in changing rooms across the country in vain attempts to fit into size 2s.

  Guys know our sizes. We have small, medium, large and extra large. Except of course when it comes to our cocks. Then we are all size large. Which reminds me—why is it whenever plus-size chicks are in denial about their weight, they always claim that their tits got bigger? That’s the equivalent of a fat guy claiming that all the fat from the burgers he’s been scarfing went right into his penis—which would really be a lie because for any guy the first sign you weigh too much is almost always the same: you wake up one morning and cannot see your penis.

  By the way—someone—usually a chick—has to tell a guy he’s fat/ugly/ smelly. Even though his guy friends may have nicknamed him Slim/ Handsome/B.O., he still thinks he’s attractive to SOME chick SOME where. Guys don’t look at any aspect of themselves as a detriment. No arms? Play soccer. No legs? Wheelchair basketball. No sane chick will have sex with me? They got available hookers on Craig’s List. Click on a couple buttons and they come right over. Is this what Al Gore had in mind when he invented the Internet?

  CHAPTER 11

  MATT DILLON IS A GIANT FAG

  Men have an innate ability to cut to the goddam chase. There is no let’s pretend Johnny is good-looking even though he’s got acne scars and one eye facing in the wrong direction. He’s called Fugly (short for fucking ugly) or Wall Eye (Wally for short). We don’t have the time or inclination to bullshit our way around the reality of life—we put the cards right on the table. It’s why guys never know who the good-looking guy in their gang is until they start hanging around with girls and witness which guys the girls go crazy for. It’s the truth—we have no idea if a guy we know is handsome and we don’t care—as long as he is willing to grab a shovel and go to work or play whatever sport it may be as hard and driven as the rest of us he’s an equal member of the team. Once we find out he’s good-looking—there is no jealousy. We just immediately go into “what can we get out of this” mode. In other words—the prettiest chick at the party will probably wanna talk to him which means her slightly less pretty friends will need other guys to talk to—which is where we come in.

  One of my old friends is Matt Dillon and let me tell you—when it’s just the guys hanging around, no one gives a shit what Matt Dillon looks like. He’s gotta carry boxes or cover the wide receiver or pass the ball or do an equal amount of driving as the next guy.

  Women—however—have this built-in desire to tell even their fat ugly friend that she is pretty. Or funny. Or talented. When in fact she is none of the above. Ask any guy and he’ll tell you—when a guy’s wife or girlfriend says oh you just gotta meet my friend blah blah blah she is SOOO funny and soooo great, the first thing we ask is—is she hot? The pause right before they answer is all the information you need. No—the pause is telling you—she is not hot. At all. Listed below are the first four things most chicks say about their available friends, followed by the truth:

  a. She’s really cute, she’s got great eyes and she’s funny. (She’s got cute lips, nice eyes and snorts like a stuck pig when she laughs.)

  b. She looks like Michelle Pfeiffer. (IF Michelle Pfeiffer had just been in a car crash.)

  c. She’s very very pretty. (She’s fat.)

  d. She’s got an amazing body. (But the FACE of Tina Yothers.)

  e. She’s incredibly smart. (She won’t shut up.)

  Likewise, if you hear any woman describe another woman using the terms listed below—almost the exact opposite will be true:

  a. She’s an idiot. (She’s got massive tits.)

  b. She’s anorexic. (She’s got great legs and a flat stomach.)

  c. She’s so self-centered. (Guys love her.)

  d. Her ass is huge. (She’s Jennifer Lopez.)

  e. She’s a bitch. (She’s gorgeous and funny and will fuck your brains out five minutes after she meets you.)

  Chicks will take precious time and carefully chosen words to spend on chubby or homely or big-boned female friends—referring to their bee-stung lips or slow metabolism or zaftig curves. But when they watch Cindy Crawford walk out to greet Jay Leno on The Tonight Show? She’s too hippy. Julia Roberts in an extreme close-up during a big-budget romantic drama? Her mouth’s too horsey. Kate Moss in a magazine? I don’t find her sexy at all. Okay—but then again, you don’t have a cock. I do—and take it from me when I tell you that four out of five men who HAVE cocks? They would jump into bed with either one of those three in half a heartbeat.

  There’s a very good reason why most of the girls who star in American-made romantic comedies are considered “cute,” “cuddly” or the classic “girl next door” type. Because women are the main audience for these chick-friendly flicks. Women are almost guaranteed to drag their boyfriend/husband/sperm donor out to see it on opening weekend. Women will go see the film several times more if they like it. Then rent or buy the DVD a few months later. As long as the star is not a threat or—at the other end of the same spectrum—represents the hope that normal chicks could possibly land an incredibly handsome and devoted and charming and lovable guy.

  That’s why you hear women say how cute or cuddly or classically beautiful women like Renée Zellweger, Reese Witherspoon and Sarah Jessica Parker are when—if you ask a guy—the same three girls would be described as elflike, pointy-chinned and “has a killer bod.” Could one of these girls land a Richard Gere or Chris Noth or Jake Gyllenfacenhaulen in real life? Sure. Reese Witherspoon DID land Gyllenfashionpuken. Who is considered a good-looking guy. I actually find that guy very funny and really talented which is what he probably likes about her—but let’s not pretend she’s Michelle Pfeiffer. ’Cause she ain’t.

  Which is fine. Renée may occasionally resemble a leprechaun from certain angles but as Bridget Jones she was funny and funny goes a long way in my book (the one in my head as well as the one you are reading). Reese Witherspoon in Legally Blonde? Big laughs, big points. And Sarah Jessica—well, how often do you get a girl who looks that hot in hot pants AND can honestly make a man giggle.

  Giggles, guffaws and shrieks of laughter last a whole lot longer than legs and other assorted things men like to look at. So embrace the actual instead of the virtual.

  God knows, men do.

  Real men. If you’re dating a guy who’s more interested in the size of your chest than the length of your laugh—maybe you better start shopping around.

  Men don’t play the let’s pretend about our friends game.

  When it comes to a guy like Matt Dillon, the most you’ll ever hear another guy say about him is this
(followed by what they really mean):

  a. Wow. That Matt Dillon’s a pretty good-lookin’ guy, hah? (Wow. That Matt Dillon’s a pretty good-lookin’ guy, hah?)

  b. Matt Dillon, that guy’s a good actor. (Matt Dillon, that guy’s a good actor.)

  c. My girlfriend’s got a thing for Matt Dillon. (My girlfriend’s got a thing for Matt Dillon.)

  d. Matt Dillon is a giant fag. (My girlfriend’s got a thing for Matt Dillon and she won’t shut up about it.)

  I think it’s fair to say that men’s interests in the female gender are very much up-front and common knowledge between the sexes. Women however can still be supposedly surprised or befuddled or disbelieving about what makes their motors tick. I’ve been co-writing and producing a critically acclaimed hit show about New York City firefighters for several years now—one my writing partner and I have based on our own research and the very real lives of my firefighting friends in the Big Apple. It involves lots of smoke and flames and women. Lots of cute, hot chicks who are very attracted to men who run into burning buildings. Time after time in both the press and real life we have been accosted by women who wonder how much action these guys can actually be getting. The answer is: tons. I have witnessed it firsthand in firehouses, on the streets of Manhattan, in supermarkets, bars, parking lots, elevators, nightclubs—you name it. Smart, sensible women—even sometimes one or two who have just finished saying how ridiculous it seems for women to melt just because a man in bunker pants and suspenders with an FDNY T-shirt appears—have melted and fawned and stuttered and flirted and giggled like a little schoolgirl when one suddenly approaches.