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
-Video of the protesters before the speech, after the speech outside the auditorium, and later out on the street
-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.
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 Speech
If 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.