#26 You Are So Money Baby
I was reading Hua Hsu's memoir Stay True while seated at the local bar and the woman next to me asked if its any good. I said, "I feel like I'm hanging out with a friend when I read it". She replied, "why don't you just hang out with friends then? You're at a bar anyway". Now, I should have said something along the lines of, "hey lady, you asked, and I didn't say you would like the answer," but she was pretty, so we got to talking about art that feels like you're hanging out with a friend.
I swiveled the chair towards her and asked if she had seen the 1996 Jon Favreau movie Swingers. Now the movie's name makes it necessary that I follow that question up with the premise very quickly. Jon Favreau plays an aspiring comedian who moves to LA after breaking up with his girlfriend of six years. The movie follows him hanging out with his friends while he struggles to get over this girl and move on. I watched it for the first time at the end of a long workday. I did not want to hang out with real people as the woman at the bar would have done. The plot revolves around Jon Favreau's character whining and being miserable about the breakup while his friends tell him, "you're money baby. You just don't realize it." The movie's narrative arc is complete when the title character realizes his friends are right and takes stock of what he has instead of what he has lost.
The characters and the situations they find themselves in Swingers are written sincerely, without a hint of irony. The fact that the friends are assholes sometimes makes it even more endearing and believable. "When the movie was over, I felt energized the same way I would after hanging out with a few good friends," I told my new woman friend at the bar. "They don't make good dude movies like that anymore," I added.
"Oh, how you must have suffered because of the lack of boy movies," she replied without caring to hide the irony in her voice.
There are a lot of movies in which dudes look cool and distant, but most of them look down at the audience. They say, "you wish you were as cool as this guy here, but you're not." Let's take another movie about a guy who doesn't appreciate what he has but is compelled by friends to acknowledge it - Good Will Hunting. Matt Damon's lead character is a genius who does not treat any of his well-wishers well. All the situations are contrived and written to make the lead man look cool. Louis CK has a good bit on the "how do you like em apples" scene where he says “it’s insane it only makes sense because Matt Damon wrote it for himself”. The lead man tells his girlfriend that he does not love her, and then at the end of the movie, he just leaves without telling any of his close friends. I guess if you are a broken genius, then your lifelong friend will knock at your door one day, find that you have moved out, and then break into a smile because he knows you've made it. Good Will Hunting is a wonderful bit of storytelling, but it does the opposite of making me feel like I've just hung out with my friends. It's lonely. I prefer the mediocre and relatable coolness of Swingers
Nobody likes it when I hate on Good Will Hunting, so the woman tells me, "well maybe you should just make your own dude movie then."
I've thought about it.
My 21st-century adaptation of Swingers will be set in Austin in mid-2020. I've just got out of a two and half year relationship. I don't know anyone in the city. Before she leaves, my ex makes a point of telling me that I'm awful at making friends. I spend new years eve watching Tenet and sobbing about not having friends. I start hitting up Twitter mutuals to meet up. For the first couple of months, I'm so bad at making conversation that I've to make notes in Apple notes about things I want to ask them in case of an awkward pause. I try to hold eye contact but apparently if you try too hard, you look like a psychopath. Hilarity ensues.
Fast forward, the third act is set two years in the future on New year's eve. I'm at the local co-op grocery store with a friend I met off Twitter, and a guy comes up to me and says "Sachin right? We've met before". We exchange pleasantries and wish each other a happy new year. I walk back to my friend waiting for me and tell her how I know the guy. She says, "Dude feels like you know everyone in this town." Roll credits. Dev Patel will play me, obviously.
Back at the bar, the woman tells me, "well, it was fun talking to you. I come here every Friday if you want to join sometime". So, I make another friend, and on my walk back, I wonder if I should've told her "you're money baby", but instead, I decided I should end a newsletter with that line.
You're money, baby.