Read Online I Drink for a Reason by David Cross - Free Book Online
Authors: David Cross
Tags: HUM003000
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shit. I’m not sure it’s even about the pain. I think that the nagging feeling I
have even in the best of times (pizza party!!), the feeling that I don’t think life’s all that great, would take over eventually.
I don’t have kids, so I won’t go through the “I’ve got to do it for the little ones” phase that might imbue me with superhuman
strength. Perhaps in Day 2 of my dilemma, hungrier and weaker in mind and body, I might think about my baseball cards I want
to get back to, or the new Radiohead CD due out next week that I was really looking forward to, but will that really keep
me going? Nope.
I don’t even know the first thing about survival. There are at least a dozen of those bathroom books with subtitles like “Everything
you ever wanted to know about how to get out of every situation ever—and ten you don’t!” that tell you to punch a shark in
the nose or to tell a bear it’s stupid and things like that, but come on—punch a shark in the nose? I guess I’d do it, but
I would have already started the flashback of my life well before I balled up my fist and put on my best shark-punching face—i.e.,
I would already have given up and started saying my goodbyes. If I were lost in the desert by myself, I would just lie there
and cry for two days and then spend the rest of my time alive trying to use my shoes to light a fire or something equally
as inane. I would probably go through a brief phase of hitting rock bottom and then having the epiphany and accompanying surge
in strength where I would stop feeling sorry for myself, rising up and yelling out to the stars, “Get yourself together, dammit!
You’ve got to do something or you’re dead! Now think, motherfucker!” before I got tired and looked around for a relatively
comfortable place to lie down and die. As for kidnapping, well, I’m pretty sure that if I was kidnapped by brutal forces,
dragged around, and beaten regularly but then found myself with a risky but maybe my only chance to try and escape, I’d probably
still be hanging out with the kidnappers asking them if they wanted tea and did they need me to drive.
Now on the other hand, if I was on one of those
Survivor
or
Survivor
-lite reality shows, I think I would do quite well. If I knew that the sound crew who were just out of frame could ultimately
save me or set a broken bone or give me that fucking chocolate bar that every privileged egotistical crybaby with no true
sense of sacrifice seems to miss in a way so histrionic it would make Al Pacino multiplied by Nicolas Cage divided by Tyra
Banks blush, I would be able to get through most any “survival” condition in which I found myself (in the month we were shooting).
Now that I think of it, though, I suppose that if I were in a real, honest-to-goodness true survival situation, I would at
some point become aware of the financial and sexual rewards awaiting me if I were to survive my ordeal. A book, film rights
(and since I am an actor, potential work playing the older version of myself in a fictionalized future scene. The younger
me would of course be played by Orlando Bloom or Jude Law, whichever one is, as of the publishing deadline of this book, “hotter”
in accordance with the scientists at
People
magazine). A separate book about the making of the film and how harsh the conditions were would be in the offering, too.
It would be called
My Story’s Story,
and it would explain in detail how the cast and crew had to make due with very few modern amenities. (No Kiehl’s Green Tea
Infused Eyelid Lotion available, or those towels that I like from that nice hotel in Milan, and also that time when we ran
out of Mandy Patinkin’s * favorite pita chips etc.) Then a documentary film of the book about how difficult it was to make the movie.
My Story’s Story—The Real Story Behind the Story.
Kind of like
Hearts of Darkness
or
Burden of Dreams
but not a straight documentary.
have even in the best of times (pizza party!!), the feeling that I don’t think life’s all that great, would take over eventually.
I don’t have kids, so I won’t go through the “I’ve got to do it for the little ones” phase that might imbue me with superhuman
strength. Perhaps in Day 2 of my dilemma, hungrier and weaker in mind and body, I might think about my baseball cards I want
to get back to, or the new Radiohead CD due out next week that I was really looking forward to, but will that really keep
me going? Nope.
I don’t even know the first thing about survival. There are at least a dozen of those bathroom books with subtitles like “Everything
you ever wanted to know about how to get out of every situation ever—and ten you don’t!” that tell you to punch a shark in
the nose or to tell a bear it’s stupid and things like that, but come on—punch a shark in the nose? I guess I’d do it, but
I would have already started the flashback of my life well before I balled up my fist and put on my best shark-punching face—i.e.,
I would already have given up and started saying my goodbyes. If I were lost in the desert by myself, I would just lie there
and cry for two days and then spend the rest of my time alive trying to use my shoes to light a fire or something equally
as inane. I would probably go through a brief phase of hitting rock bottom and then having the epiphany and accompanying surge
in strength where I would stop feeling sorry for myself, rising up and yelling out to the stars, “Get yourself together, dammit!
You’ve got to do something or you’re dead! Now think, motherfucker!” before I got tired and looked around for a relatively
comfortable place to lie down and die. As for kidnapping, well, I’m pretty sure that if I was kidnapped by brutal forces,
dragged around, and beaten regularly but then found myself with a risky but maybe my only chance to try and escape, I’d probably
still be hanging out with the kidnappers asking them if they wanted tea and did they need me to drive.
Now on the other hand, if I was on one of those
Survivor
or
Survivor
-lite reality shows, I think I would do quite well. If I knew that the sound crew who were just out of frame could ultimately
save me or set a broken bone or give me that fucking chocolate bar that every privileged egotistical crybaby with no true
sense of sacrifice seems to miss in a way so histrionic it would make Al Pacino multiplied by Nicolas Cage divided by Tyra
Banks blush, I would be able to get through most any “survival” condition in which I found myself (in the month we were shooting).
Now that I think of it, though, I suppose that if I were in a real, honest-to-goodness true survival situation, I would at
some point become aware of the financial and sexual rewards awaiting me if I were to survive my ordeal. A book, film rights
(and since I am an actor, potential work playing the older version of myself in a fictionalized future scene. The younger
me would of course be played by Orlando Bloom or Jude Law, whichever one is, as of the publishing deadline of this book, “hotter”
in accordance with the scientists at
People
magazine). A separate book about the making of the film and how harsh the conditions were would be in the offering, too.
It would be called
My Story’s Story,
and it would explain in detail how the cast and crew had to make due with very few modern amenities. (No Kiehl’s Green Tea
Infused Eyelid Lotion available, or those towels that I like from that nice hotel in Milan, and also that time when we ran
out of Mandy Patinkin’s * favorite pita chips etc.) Then a documentary film of the book about how difficult it was to make the movie.
My Story’s Story—The Real Story Behind the Story.
Kind of like
Hearts of Darkness
or
Burden of Dreams
but not a straight documentary.