The ##

I suppose it was back in ’03 when I had a gradual epiphany: abandoning platitude is the equivalent of intellectual self-pleasuring.

Now, I don’t mean this in the base carnal way that you’re thinking. Let me explain. It had been a wild night in Cairo, and I woke up to see the second girl leaving the bed. Unfortunately, the third was something dubbed a “lecherous cuddler,” or, in modern vernacular, a “clinger.” (There is some inherent value in letting a swimsuit model rest her head on your chest while you smoke a cigarette — steadily and subtly building a pile of ash on her pillow, of course — but after 10 minutes, it’s gone a bit too far.) I had lost my cell phone in an Anisette drinking race earlier that week, and worse, I had ripped all three of the room’s phones out last night for a daring Wafflecone, so I couldn’t even make a business call to get out of this jam. My mind raced. Would I get out in time for the Schooner Bar cocktail hour? Would she figure out I had been cut out of the will? Would she ask me about myself? Borderline panicked, I searched the room for some escape. I even considered using an old Sherpa trick to bring my heart rate down to fewer than five beats per minute. Still, there was a 5 percent chance that I would put myself into a coma. I continued searching.

In the corner by a busted chandelier, I spied one of my rabbit-eared Hemingway novels. The jumbled machinery of my brain began whirring with remarkable lucidity, and an unusually concise and transparent solution emerged: WWHD?

There is no need for contrived explanations, feigned attention or further gilding of the lily. This person is of no importance to me, and I have no interest in ever seeing her again. The subsequent conversation went something like this:

Model A: Mmm, Jack. Last night was great.

Me: Yes. I suppose it was. (Checking my watch.)

Model A: So, do you want to get some breakfast?

Me: Certainly. (Lights second cigarette.)

Model A: Should we get room service?

Me: You seem to be mistaken in your assumptions. Let me make something incredibly clear: I have about as much interest in you as an individual as I do in the curriculum of a state school. Your personality is even less important to me than whatever your name is. Honestly, this pack of cigarettes is more valuable than you. If you’ll excuse me, I must be headed to the club.

Model A: Ha! Stop it, Jack. You’re so silly.

Me: Unfortunately for you, I’m dead serious. And its Mr. Waffles to you. Only my friends call me Jack. (Exeunt Model A in tears.)

Model B: You’re a jerk, Jack!

Me: Same applies to you tramp. I’m off.

I was liberated — free! Such raw power I had felt only hunting with nothing but a knife at 3 a.m. in the South African bush. (You don’t know power till you’ve strangled a lion with your bare hands.) Throwing platitude, however, into a fiery maw of condescension and brutal honesty is a very, very close second.

So: do what you want today. Swig that bottle of whiskey. Punch the valet in the face. Piss on Democratic headquarters in DC. Flip off a cop. Smoke the entire pack. Dump a drum of oil in the ocean. Tell someone he’s an asshole. Stop pulling punches. Revel in the filthy truth of life. Men do what they must; everyone else is just watching them.