Tucker Max c/d

Here's one of his 'gems':

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Tucker is mean to a bartender

by Tucker Max

PWJ and I were at a bar having some beers, and I couldn’t help but notice how skinny the bartender was. She was a rail; straight out of an anorexia brochure. The girl could have been a Tracy Gold body double.

My beer was dead, and she's showing not signs of coming over to get me another one, so being a tactful gentleman, I yell:

"Hey Karen Carpenter, get me another beer!"

She comes over with a beer and a confused look on her face, so I ask:

Tucker "Do you even get that reference?”
Bartender "No."
PWJ "Why do birds suddenly appear...every time...you are near...I want to be…close to you…”

Got that, didn’t you bitch?
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seems that his movie bombed

I went on a date with a girl who gushed constantly about how "awesome" Tucker Max was. This was back in like 2003 and I had no idea who he was. Googled him when I got home and that was enough for me to never return the girl's calls.

From his book he seemed like a human version of 4-chan, and as long as he and 4-chan are behaving in loathsome ways to people/institutions even more loathsome than them, I have no problem with them, and might even cheer them on a little, but even this tiny cheer is probably a mistake.

it's gratifying to see the guy's world-trolling (and the incredibly trolly ad campaign that's accompanied this film) met with a vast shrug, but I do almost feel sorry for dude-from-Gilmore Girls for coming anywhere near it

xx-post u didn't swing at an easy pitch, dogg

i bet every pair of guys who sees the Tucker Max movie is going to sit with a one-seat "buffer zone" in between them, lest anyone think they're gay

haha wait, which of the following institutions are you considering "even more loathsome" than Max:

- people who dislike dicks
- people who find childish assholism lame/boring
- women
- the public

the developmentally disabled, totally loathsome

- skinny bartenders

I was thinking more law school and law firms.

who also happen to be mostly composed of the opposite of:
- people who dislike dicks
- people who find childish assholism lame/boring
- women
- the public

so they deserved each other!

(I don't mean all law schools/law firms, just the ones tucker max defiled)

tucker max was saying that even if the movie didn't do as well as he expected and only made $40 million, they'd come out ahead. two weekends in and it's still shy of $1 million.

This tragic failure will only lead him to find God (and hit on him).

He thought it would make $40 million? That is insane.

Somehow the Chicago public transit system allowed Max & Co. to have ads on the sides of public busses saying "Deaf Girls Don't Hear You Coming."

i like the thought that this dude is going to be out millions of dollars

for someone who is just as crass, i hate the fucker. complete douche.

there are ads like that all over NYC, too -- that's what I meant about the campaign being such a lame trolly attempt to offend sensibilities. and the reaction has still been a massive shrug and whatever.

tucker isn't going to be out any money. Someone else financed the film.

Hilarious that he graduated Duke law.

either way it's all hilarious

Is Duke supposed to be good? It sounds terrible if only for the fact that they admitted, then graduated him.

i sometimes try to figure out the psychology of guys like this and i kinda think the single thing 'magnolia' got right was the moment where cruise is getting hardcore interviewed by this female reporter and he snaps and nearly physically attacks her after she manages to zing him with some info. it's like this hard almost playful facade that's like, "hey i'm not really saying, i'm just SAYING" facade that actually really IS saying and masks something a little ill.

that was the greatest scene of Cruise's career, btw.

Tucker Max sounds like regular spoiled amoral rich kid, like the guy who hacked Sarah Palin's yahoo account for kicks. The dude in Magnolia is desperately trying to obliterate his meager upbringing like Tom Cruise.

(I dunno about Cruise's upbringing but he seems to be hellbent on erasing from himself regular human features like self-doubt or worry, which rich people seem less afflicted by, and why should they be?)

Is Duke supposed to be good? It sounds terrible if only for the fact that they admitted, then graduated him.

it was good enough for richard nixon

Movie was supposedly partially financed by a Haas (rich family the Berkeley biz school is named after).

so wishing that read "financed by a Hoos"

it's like this hard almost playful facade that's like, "hey i'm not really saying, i'm just SAYING" facade that actually really IS saying and masks something a little ill.

never seen magnolia, but this certainly resonates -- this is definitely the vibe I get from lots of horrible young smarmy drunk guys. there's an actual speech pattern this seems to describe, this sort of half-laughing way of addressing the world where you're really just fucking with the world, everything you say is just messing with whoever you're addressing, seeing what happens and then laughing at it. it's like some slightly new spin on dickishness where you're awful and offensive to people just for amusement. (I see a ton of this in my neighborhood and nothing makes me want to punch someone in the face more, because the whole thing seems based on some kind of confidence that no one else really exists and nothing bad is going to happen to you in return.)

"smarmy" is probably not the right word, actually

Movie was supposedly partially financed by a Haas (rich family the Berkeley biz school is named after).

― throwbookatface (skygreenleopard), Monday, October 5, 2009 1:01 PM (5 minutes ago)

link pls? no Haas/Sterns mentioned in credits, producers, production company or distributors...

tucker max blog

In our case, we were offered very small upfront guarantees, and though the P&A commitments were probably good enough, the distributors wanted insanely high distribution fees. This was the worst case scenario–we get little upfront money, but if the movie does really well, they take a huge portion of the profit. WTF?

Another problem was that because so many indie studios and majors even (Fox Atomic and New Line for instance) had folded in the past six months that there were very few buyers, and without a ton of buyers to bid against each other, and with ALL the studios feeling serious problems from the credit crunch, we were stuck trying to pick between crappy deals. And normally, we’d just have to swallow it and take the best smelling piece of shit. But this time there was another option, one that I had advocated very early on, but was dismissed out of hand:

We raise our own P&A, cut out the distributor and their massive fees, and go straight to theaters ourselves. And thank god, the Darko guys eventually decided they liked this idea.

Normally, this is not an option available to an indie, because most indies don’t have any real commercial appeal, so no one wants to invest 35 or 20 or even 5 million dollars because they don’t think they’ll get their money back. But we are different–we have a broad commercial comedy that we could have sold to a studio at any point in the process, and based on the quality and reaction to the movie, Darko was able to independently raise the P&A we needed to distribute the movie ourselves.

This is a very risky strategy–if the movie bombs, the investors lose everything and we get literally no money. With a deal with a major, we at least get some guaranteed money upfront. Doing it this way, there is NO guarantee. Plus, a huge distributor like Warners has 20 movies a year to mitigate risk–Darko and Rudius don’t have that luxury. We have to be right that this thing will do really well or we are in a world of fuck.

But the upside is huge–if the movie is even a mild hit, we make ALL the money. No distributor is sitting above us, taking half the money off the top that comes in (which is after the theaters take their 50% cut). On even a 40 million dollar box office with this movie, we are all swimming in money, whereas with a major distributor, we might have to hit 60 million before we start to see even pennies.

Anytime I can bet on myself, I am down. It was ballsy and brilliant and I fucking loved it. And the best part: Because there was no studio who bought the movie from us, we control the distribution strategy AND MOST IMPORTANTLY, we control the marketing materials. This is why the trailer and the one sheet are exactly what Nils and Sean and I want, instead of being some piece of shit an idiot studio suit picked out.

http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=ihopetheyservebeerinhell.htm

Domestic Total as of Oct. 4, 2009: $863,000 (Estimate)

sounds like they're in a world of fuck

great news

that was the greatest scene of Cruise's career, btw.

having one of those 'whoa I agree w/ morbius about something' moments. tom cruise IRL is this passive-aggressive monster (see: any interview he's done ever) and I can't think of another movie where he's gotten the chance to play someone so passive-aggressive...a shame, cause he's naturally gifted at it.

Domestic Total as of Oct. 4, 2009: $863,000 (Estimate)

*great justice*

you're really just fucking with the world, everything you say is just messing with whoever you're addressing, seeing what happens and then laughing at it. it's like some slightly new spin on dickishness where you're awful and offensive to people just for amusement.

And yet it's funny somehow if it's Borat, because, you know, it's assholeness for people who "deserve" the ridicule.

The smarmy drunk types are repellent; I am equally despondent by the women who find this charming and fuck guys like that. Having a daughter in this world sometimes keeps me up at night.

john phillips used to say the same thing iirc

if that description reminds you of Borat then I suspect I have described it wrong

yeah i think Borat is something totally different--i get what you're saying nabisco

This is why the trailer and the one sheet are exactly what Nils and Sean and I want, instead of being some piece of shit an idiot studio suit picked out.

Having seen the trailer I'm pretty comfortable saying you might have benefited from the presence of a professional there, chief.

I dunno, that whole "backwards locals" recruiting for "Borat Home Village" smacked of overentitled douchebaggery. In a way I think SBC should be held to a higher standard because he seems more thoughtful and doesn't have the excuse that he grew up without a moral compass.

however it could be argued that SBC is attempting to (and actually i would argue that he is, whether or not you think he does it well or in a decent fashion) shed some light on prejudices and play those prejudices for laughs. tucker max isn't doing that, he's just putting women "in their place" for lols. SBC's next character should be a guy who is a female-hating dating guru tbh.

holding ppl to different standards bothers me more than anything SBC did

xp

the more I think about it, actually, there are a few instances where Borat stuff verges on what I'm talking about -- e.g., in the film, when he talked to the feminists, or bothered the guy on the street -- but I think most of the time the dynamic is different, with SBC doing odd things from this non-threatening position that just makes people uncomfortable (they are mostly being messed with in the grander scheme of the filming). the demeanor I'm talking about tends to have the opposite dynamic, where dudes invariably mess with people from a position of superiority or power, casually lording it over people, just straight-up bullying the world in a classic middle-school way.

I mean, there's a huge difference in dynamics between putting on elaborate characters to laugh at how people react and just yelling "hey Karen Carpenter" at the skinny bartender because you think it's funny to be a dick and hurt people's feelings

he's trying to impress people with his fearlessness, like "oh man i can't believe you went there!" which is to say "i can't believe you did what the assholes in every bar in america have done!"

the point of the borat-talking-to-feminists bit isn't 'lol feminists' tho - it's 'lol borat' - he doesn't attempt to actually attack their beliefs, he just puts them in weird situations. in this case, the humor is not far removed a normal hidden camera show.

compare this w/ the frat boys scene, which is def 'lol frat boys' - he's making them come across poorly as human beings

i have a friend who read the book and thought it was great. this is also the friend who read that neil strauss book and spent an awkward and unsuccessful year trying to run game on every girl in sight. he's basically a giant wuss at heart who fronts at being tough and doesn't have it in him to actually be a douchebag like that, but it still bugged me out that he went in that direction for awhile.

xpost whereas vis if you're looking for courage in comedy, the "Throw The Jew Down The Well" and "I can touch?" bits.

And because "most of the time" SBC has higher meaning involved, we give him a pass for the times he's using a hidden camera (in itself absolute power for the editor) to verge on douchebaggery. As in, "hahhaahah the joke's on YOU!" SBC does in fact attack people's belief's and customs, and he picks certain beliefs/customs to attack. I like SBC but the whole reason I'm thinking about this is because my mom said she thought Borat was not only gross but "kind of cruel." I defended SBC to no end that night, but later I think she had a point.

Tucker Max is every part of "The Game" come to life, and again, it never fails to amaze me the women that fall for such bullshit.

well i'm surprised men fall for it too tbh, b/c everytime i hear a guy talking about "the game" i instantly assume--rightly or wrongly--that he's a completely weak dude who can't just go through life talking to women without some rigorous mental checklist of things to do.

I kinda want to get off the Borat topic, but ... in terms of the interactions themselves, leaving out the whole this-is-a-film aspect, the frat boys are happily making themselves come off poorly -- if no film had ever come out, I don't imagine any of them would have felt bad about their interactions with him at all. They liked him! Whereas the feminists bit is one where he's actually saying things and behaving in a way designed to be directly offensive or hurtful to them, which makes it slightly less fun for me. (It helps somewhat that he's a ridiculous enough object to blunt that offense/hurt.)

Agreed that there's definitely an aspect of perceived "bravery" / wild-and-crazy stuff happening in everyday guys who get off on being giant dicks to people while giggling. (After a while of living in a neighborhood where people go out at night and act like fools, I increasingly consider myself an expert on this stuff. I've also started calling people out on it more, which I'm sure will get me socked in the face soon enough.)

the hidden camera stuff tho - I mean, I don't see why SBC gets more shit for this than any given hidden camera TV show

or say, punk'd, which goes a LOTTTT further in its cruelty, justifying it by instituting it as some sort of celebrity rite of passage

http://www.salon.com/ent/feature/2006/11/10/guide_to_borat/index1.html

The Scene: Borat talks to the Veteran Feminists of America
Where: New York

Borat sits down with three members of the Veteran Feminists of America, informs them that women have smaller brains than men do, and inquires about "Baywatch." He also cajoles one to "listen, pussycat, smile a bit," without much luck. (To view some of the scene, go here.)

What happened: Linda Stein, Grace Welch and Carole De Saram were told by producers that they would be appearing in a documentary to help women in Third World countries. Stein says she has mixed feelings about the incident. She finagled her way into an advance screening of the film and found some parts of the film funny, but thinks "the joke appeals more to men than women."

Welch, a yoga instructor, found the whole incident funny. "What he does, he does very well, so I don't feel anger," she told the British Observer. "I was inclined very much to laugh at the event." As a result of the encounter she did go see "Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby," thinking it was "Borat." "I had to soldier on to watch that," she said. "I don't usually go to those kinds of pictures."

Cohen's Borat act was thoroughly convincing. Though Stein threw him out of the interview twice, she readily admits that "at no point during the whole event, as angry as I may have gotten, did it ever occur to me this was a comedian acting." The producer was able to sweet-talk the women into speaking with Borat again after the first heave-ho (the second time around, Borat asked the women to take off their tops). "Please," Stein says the producer begged, "he's from a third-world country, help him. He doesn't know any better." The producer then admonished Borat in a stage whisper, "You can't talk to American women this way."

When Stein told Borat that women in America can do anything men can, be president, secretary of state ("Oh, like that chocolate lady?" Borat replied) or even a reporter, Borat argued, "No. I can lift a chair!" At which point he stood up and lifted a chair. Not to be outdone, Stein lifted a chair as well. "I can lift two chairs," Borat countered, lifting two chairs. Stein did the same. And she now takes exception to the omission of this scene from the film. "He didn't choose the segments that really make the point that women are equal and strong. He didn't make the point with sexism that perhaps he did with anti-Semitism and homophobia."

So one of them found it funny, and the other was disappointed SBC didn't go further w/ his point! The difference between this and Tucker Max-esque humor - Tucker Max woulda brought in some 200 pound weight that he could lift and Stein couldn't.

in a weird way, the way the frat boys immediately accepted Borat and commiserated over his Pamela Anderson heartbreak was charming. I guess it's "bros before hos" but there's still something of human warmth demonstrated there, and SBC bringing that out of them has some value. Not so the "Kazakhstan Village" bits, which is just straight-up "look at how backwards they are!"

"holding ppl to different standards bothers me more than anything SBC did"
SBC seemingly has a conscience to appeal to; Tucker Max evidently has none. By what leverage can he be held to any standard of behavior?

xpost - I'm confused by that argument and think I strenuously disagree but whatever, this Borat thing is quite the sidetrack

the big difference between borat and tucker max that i can see that sbc isnt afraid of making himself look stupid--whereas the tucker max "character" (as played by every i-banker dbag in new york) is predicated on this idea that he never, ever looks stupid, or is wrong. its the "position of power" thing; we can sort of forgive borat for being a dick to a lot of people because he dresses in that weird bikini thing (i.e. yes he thinks the world is a joke but he also thinks he himself is a joke, i guess), but its hard to forgive tucker max because he always ends up "the cool guy" (or i guess he thinks the world is a joke, but he himself is NOT)

i dont know tucker max well enough to know if thats true btw, but i know enough assholes for that to sound true to me

By what leverage can he be held to any standard of behavior?

also YES, this is exactly the kind of thing that gets me with the kind of behavior I have in mind. in fact, I think that's some of the behavior's whole purpose -- again, just like grade-school bullying, it seems to take pleasure in the humiliation of someone because they can't "make" you be decent. it's weirdly punishment-proof.

the parallel i guess i was trying to make with 'magnolia' is the instant the cruise character looks weak or has been made the fool, he snaps violently. that's the kind of vibe i get from TM.

like he would never do what SBC does (not that it's a parallel) because he's too worried about looking that way and he'll make sure he never does.

Maybe what I'm trying to say is that smarmy drunk douchebags find both Borat and Tucker Max hilarious because of the cruelty factor, even if they're missing Borat's larger observations.

I wish a woman would post on this thread and explain to me the attraction of a douchebag ibanker running "game" on them. I have never figured out what makes guys like Tucker Max attractive, and I've been watching that schtick play out for 25 years now.

i dont think "a woman" like that really posts here. i tend to not feel bad for women who fall for frat boy assholes - they're generally the female equivalent anyway

i have no idea who this dude is, but then again i never heard of dane cook until that epic thread a couple years ago ; )

somewhere jay blanchard is repping for tucker max

i tend to not feel bad for women who fall for frat boy assholes - they're generally the female equivalent anyway

haha thisss is not always true.

q:

is the Tucker Max attitude really a new thing? like, in any sense? I feel like recently we're getting more and more examples of this particular attitude super-isolated...but weren't there guys that acted like this 100 years ago? I guess certain aspects of the attitude must have grown directly in response to female/minority-empowerment over the decades...

there were always those who acted like this, sure, but for some reason recently these people have gotten the money to make feature films and comedy careers

I have intestinal hate for Dane Cook, but does he really fall in the same category?

borderline, he shares a lot of aspects but he's his own thing

the big difference between borat and tucker max that i can see that sbc isnt afraid of making himself look stupid--whereas the tucker max "character" (as played by every i-banker dbag in new york) is predicated on this idea that he never, ever looks stupid, or is wrong.

I'm not going to defend him (he has plenty of other problems, and I haven't seen the film, any of the marketing or the trailer), but in the case of what was on his website about 5 years ago, this is not true. I seem to remember a lot of it involved him making an ass of himself. Certainly the first time he was MTV, he got shot down trying to set up a threesome with a girl who'd emailed him on his site, and the final shot was him throwing up alone in an alley. The joke almost seemed to be that he didn't care and had no respect for himself (which is not poetry, but is slightly less offensive than the character people are talking about on this thread). Maybe I'm misremembering or maybe he's changed.

i can't stand dane cook but he doesn't give me the impression of being a terrible human being.

cook is self-satisfied but at least he appears satisfied e.g. happily un-dangerous. t-max et al (to link him with game-r dudes, roissy etc, if not all of right-wing thought in general lol) are supremely dis-satisfied. it's not the world's stupidity that animates them (as SBC) but that it remains unimpressed with them. nothing like the rage of men who have everything; yeah it's depressing that this shit isn't immediately nauseating to everyone currently living ($863,000 (Estimate) still far too high imo) but that's lyfe

dane cook has a raging drug problem and is a way bigger egomaniac to work with. Allegedly.

what drugs?

fame

pixie stixs

t/s: this Max dick vs. those "game" assholes that one journo exposed/joined a few years ago

do you have a link to that exposé?

"Dating is for tools" -Neil Strauss' "The Game": classic or dud?

Dane loves blow. And women.

Which isn't unusual for comedians.

i thought dane's thing was being straight edge?

A good friend who worked with Dane on a pretty big event says it ain't so.

I think the Tucker Max attitude, from what he's written, and from what I've seen in people I know, is the ability to be cognizant of the fact that you're doing bad things and acting as a horrible human being, but to also have this nihilist streak where you think that it doesn't matter, or that everyone deserves what they get.

Any time Max describes his friends, it's like they're some commando squad of guys who all love to hate life for different reasons and have different fuck-up abilities. If you start picking apart his "adventures" by explaining what's going on in plain language instead of embellishing it with assumptions (people do stupid shit when drunk but it's justifiable/excusable, people will be underhanded in the pursuit of sex and social standing, it's ok to share the dirty laundry of a relationship if it's particularly fucked up) then nothing's really funny or entertaining, just execrable.

man i love college

heyyyyy

I like this guy's style. If I was a dumbass I probably would've heard of him sooner.

Nevermind, I thought his disregard for social norms was like, hard bisexuality and other wild and fun shit. He's basically just social norms exemplified. Boo.

Max himself seals the non-deal in the second sentence.

Go see this movie. At the very least, you will laugh a lot and you will definitely see the most epic shit scene in movie history. And if you are like most people so far, you will love the movie, and want to go back and see it again. I have never lied to or deceived my fans, and I am not about to start now:

You have my word that "I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell" the movie will be worth the price of admission.

I bet it would be worth the price of seeing it on HBO at 3 am if you can't sleep

In 2017, Max ghostwrote Tiffany Haddish's memoir, The Last Black Unicorn, which was released in December 2017 by Simon & Schuster and debuted at number 15 on The New York Times best-seller list.[24][45]

o_O