Open Entire Issue - WhatzUp

September 20, ’12- ------------------------------------------------------------- www.whatzup.com- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 31
Vanilla Nice Nice Baby
I Suck at Girls by
Justin Halpern, Itbooks, 2012
I have sympathy for Justin On Books
Halpern. That might seem like an
odd thing to say about a writer
EVAN GILLESPIE
who’s published a best-selling
book and had a TV series developed
based on his work. But it has
to be difficult to be Halpern; he
didn’t ask to be where he is, and
now he’s forced to deliver on expectations
that must be baffling to
him. He’s doing his best, I’m sure,
but his latest book, I Suck at Girls,
shows that the path forward for his
writing career might not be clearly
marked.
Halpern became famous because
of his Twitter feed, in
which he broadcast
profanity-laden
quotes from his
father. It was meant
to be a casual thing
that would make his
friends laugh, but it
exploded, eventually
attracting more than a
million followers. Then
came a book deal, followed
by a TV sitcom
starring William Shatner,
all of it based entirely on the fact
that Halpern’s dad had no filter
on his mouth, and the things that
came out of it were often funny.
I don’t think it truly surprised
anyone that the TV series, officially
titled $#*! My Dad Says, was
a flop; there was no reason to believe
that a collection of random,
unrelated tweets could be shaped
into a coherent premise for a show,
especially a sitcom featuring Shatner.
But regardless of the show’s
lack of success, Halpern now had
a platform as a writer, and people
were willing to listen to what he
had to say. He could either keep
collecting quotes from his father,
or he could try to do something
different. I Suck at Girls is his
choice.
The book is a memoir, a series
of vignettes linked together thematically
via Halpern’s romantic
successes and failures (more of
the latter). It begins with the cute
red-haired girl in second grade that
he tormented affectionately, and
it continues until Halpern marries
the girl of his dreams (a breakup
with whom triggered the creation
of the Twitter feed that got this
whole ball rolling). In between are
interludes featuring Hooters waitresses,
European disco girls, porn,
a disastrous prom night and various
other dating misfires.
The stories are amusing and
unfold in Halpern’s gently selfdeprecating
style. He seems like
an extremely nice guy; in fact, he’s
sort of the anti-Tucker Max, whose
internet-fueled sexual escapades (I
Hope They Serve Beer in Hell) set
the standard for the worst of human
behavior. Halpern, on
the other hand, is never anything
less than sweet. No
matter how much booze
he has in him, he never
turns into a Max-like
ape. When he drinks too
much, he doesn’t abuse
anyone; he just gets a
tummy ache.
Halpern’s niceness
works as a foil
for his dad’s lack
of niceness, but his dad
doesn’t feature as prominently in
this book as he did in Halpern’s
first. The result is a book that is almost
unremittingly nice from beginning
to end, and I have mixed
feelings about that. His dad’s
tough-love abrasiveness can be
wearying, but he does add some
spice when he shows up.
The problem isn’t that Halpern
is too nice – I certainly have no desire
to read another frat-boy pukefest
– but that he’s just as nice as
most of the rest of us. His stories
of awkward adolescent romance
are familiar, but they’re unremarkable.
I’m glad that he made the
best of things and found someone
to love, but his challenges and triumphs
were pretty much the same
things that we’ve all experienced;
absent some unique twists, or at
least a particularly engaging way
of looking at the ordinary, the
book reads like your best friend’s
diary – maybe fun, maybe sweet,
but nothing too surprising.
When he started his Twitter
feed, Halpern never claimed that
he had anything extremely interesting
to say, but for the sake of
his career as an author, I hope he
thinks of something soon.
evan.whatzup@gmail.com
SCREENTIME - From Page 30
If you’ve not seen this impressive ensemble piece lately, I recommend
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gregwlocke@gmail.com
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