A month ago, I received a book in the mail from a publicist I like very much. It was Tucker Max's dudes-behaving-deplorably memoir I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL. "Soon to be a major motion picture," bragged the cover. I immediately made plans to never see the fucking thing. Though I have nothing against Max personally, I harbor loads of contempt for the wannabe womanizers he's been inspiring ever since he started blogging about his bacchanalian exploits earlier this decade. Generally, the guys who tell me "You gotta read Tucker Max, yo!" are, well, the kinds of guys who end sentences with "Yo!", and therefore not to be trusted in matters literary. "He's my hero!" "He says what we all think!" "You've got to read the story where he shits his pants in a hotel lobby!" Impressive, sure, but not the kind of praise that gets me to crack the spine of someone's book. Since Max's appeal seems limited to neanderthals, I was kind of shocked when I noticed that his film had been produced by Darko Entertainment's Richard Kelly and Sean McKittrick. What value could the smart fellas behind DONNIE DARKO and SOUTHLAND TALES have possibly found in a self-acknowledged narcissist who boasts about behaving like a "raging dickhead"? I first considered that this might be some kind of Mary Harron-esque subversion of the material, but then I realized the film was written and produced by Max and his buddy Nils Parker. If anything, this was going to be THE BOONDOCK SAINTS for burgeoning date rapists and sexually deprived shut-ins. I didn't care if the film was directed by Bob Gosse, the one-time indie darling who directed NIAGRA, NIAGRA; nothing good could come of this. And then, after a friendly barrage of emails and phone calls from the publicist I like very much, I watched the movie. For a good twenty minutes or so, I resisted it like I'd never resisted a movie before. But then I started laughing. And then I kept laughing. And then I realized this film wasn't advocating Max's behavior, but lampooning it. And then I had an epiphany: no one who'd admit to shitting their pants in a hotel lobby can truly be a bad person. Whatever Max was up to, he obviously wasn't puffing himself up as some kind of ultra-suave ladykiller. So, regardless of how much I despised his fans, I had to admit that, damn it, I kinda liked this Tucker Max. So I agreed to meet with Max and his co-writer/producer Parker at the Four Seasons last Tuesday. Upon arriving, Max suggested that we hit the hotel bar. I did not resist. What ensued was, I think, one of the liveliest interviews I've ever conducted. It's certainly the most candid. Over the course of an hour or so, we discussed Max's horndog childhood (shockingly similar to most kids' horndog childhoods, save for the fact that most of his transpired in Kentucky), the development and writing of the screenplay, the importance of being able to talk trash, fucking, and the possibility of remaking THE TOY. You will be entertained or appalled. I do not apologize.

Mr. Beaks: You remind me a lot of a couple of friends I had in high school. Both of these guys were way ahead of the curve sexually. So I have to ask: when did you lose your virginity?

Tucker Max: Actually, Neil Strauss asked me the exact same question. He was like, "I have this theory that guys who are great with girls lose their virginity early. When did you lose your virginity?" And I said, "Sixteen." And he's like, "Well, guess that didn't work." Sixteen or seventeen is right in the middle of the bell curve, right? For Kentucky?

Beaks: I'd say that's average.

Max: You're from Ohio. That's a lot like Kentucky. In the midwest and the south, I had a lot of friends who fucked before me. A lot. Nils Parker: I feel like there's some bias in that answer. Guys always skew up. They're always like "Oh, sixteen" when it was really eighteen. Max: I was a high school junior.

Beaks: But that's true. Guys always fudge that number.

Parker: In my high school class, there were probably ten or twelve guys who were hooking up. Max: But it's different for everyone. By the time my high school class graduated, I'd be shocked if at least seventy-five percent of the kids weren't fucking. Parker: That's true. Lexington is full of sluts. Max: (To Parker)You were there! Parker: Lexington was a menagerie of whoredom. Max: It was a slut buffet.

Beaks: (Laughs) Yeah, I'm familiar with that part of the country.

Max: Who did I hook up with in Lexington? Parker: (Wearily) Who knows? Max: Oh, it was me and two girls with Charlie. (To Beaks) That's how I remember cities: by who I hooked up with.

Beaks: But once you started fucking, were you immediately who you are today? Were you completely preoccupied with sex?

Max: I was very much like a normal dude: horny as fuck. And this was pre-internet. It's totally different now. Back then, I was stealing Playboys from my uncle. In fact, my uncle had Hustlers and Clubs; that probably explains why I have a huge tit fetish. But I don't recall being an outlier among my friends in any regard. I was friends with all of the athletes, but I was in all of the advanced classes in middle school. None of my friends were ever in my classes. The smart classes always had some hot girls, but they were not fucking. So all my friends got to hang out with the average girls in the average classes, and fucked them first. Parker: And had average babies.

Beaks: But don't tell me you didn't try to fuck the hot smart girls.

Max: Oh believe me, I tried. It didn't work too well.

Beaks: It's interesting that you were in all of the advanced classes. That's so not the norm for a guy like you. Were you already writing at this point?

Max: You have to understand: the idea of me as a writer did not occur until I was twenty-seven years old. I mean, I'm from Kentucky. Like Kentucky Kentucky. My parents were divorced when I was very little. My dad moved to Florida and had a lot of money; my mom, not so much money. So I had this weird childhood were ninety percent of my time was with my poor mom "in the holler" in Kentucky, while ten percent of my time was with my rich dad in Florida. It was like THE TOY. You remember that movie?

Beaks: Oh, yeah. Richard Pryor and Jackie Gleason.

Max: It was kind of like that.

Beaks: A delightfully racist movie?

Max: (Laughs) Well, he didn't have that much money.

Beaks: So your dad never bought you a black man to play with?

Max: (To Parker) Wouldn't it be awesome to remake THE TOY?

Beaks: If you're really serious about embracing this infamy thing, you should do it.

Max: You should read the script we're just about to finish. We we break the infamy thing in half.

Beaks: That's what shocked me about the movie a little bit. While the movie is definitely outrageous and breaks all sorts of taboos, it's also got a heart.

Max: If you go to the movie with an open mind, you'll be shocked - especially if you've read my stuff. But from day one, Nils and I were like... we didn't want to make SUPER TROOPERS. We didn't want to make a movie that had a couple of good scenes with a bunch of shit around it. If we had wanted to do that, we could've done it. But we wanted to make a great movie. And the only way you can do that is if by having a great story. Movie is a story medium first, a visual medium second - I don't care what Michael Bay says. David Zuckerman is the guy who taught us how to write screenplays. He developed FAMILY GUY with Seth McFarlane and also did AMERICAN DAD. And he said, "Look, when I developed FAMILY GUY with Seth, I always begged them to go a different way, but they didn't. Seth wanted to go with great jokes and this tenuous plot line that we put together. That's fine. But there's a reason why THE SIMPSONS will always be a more iconic show: story comes first; the characters come first." Our first iteration of the script was very FAMILY GUY-esque: it was a bunch of funny scenes with a lot of funny dialogue. But it was a dogshit script because it had no real plot. We just didn't know what we were doing. So Zuckerman read the script, and he was like, "Very funny, great characters, it's dogshit." That sucked, because we thought we were done. Parker: We thought it was genius. Max: And he didn't just say "Dogshit." He broke it down systematically. He's an A-list writer for a fucking reason. Man, he's fucking brilliant. I wanted to argue, but he was so right. So I said, "What do we do? Do we swallow our pride and go back to the drawing board, or do we say 'Fuck it' and do it anyway?" We swallowed our pride, developed the story first, then plot, then characters... whatever. Everything we could use from the old script, we worked in. But for probably half of it, we wrote new stuff. We knew we could do funny, but we wanted to do something that had the potential to be iconic. We wanted people to walk out and say, "That's not just funny; that's a good movie."

Beaks: Were there any specific films you were referencing as an example of doing this kind of comedy right? Obviously, you have the great frat boy classics like ANIMAL HOUSE and CADDYSHACK...

Max: ... And PORKY'S.

Beaks: Right. But I'm wondering if you also looked at something like CARNAL KNOWLEDGE.

Max: I'll be honest with you, man. Half of the movies you just mentioned, I've never seen. Obviously, CADDYSHACK is one of my favorites. But I think I saw PORKY'S when I was ten, and I could not tell you anything about it except that there are naked girls running around.

Beaks: You've never seen ANIMAL HOUSE!?!?

Max: Oh, no, I've seen ANIMAL HOUSE. But that other one...

Beaks: CARNAL KNOWLEDGE.

Max: I don't even know what that is.

Beaks: It's got Jack Nicholson and Art Garfunkel. Directed by Mike Nichols. Max: [Nils] is sort of like the film geek. He's like you. He's probably seen like 5,000 or 10,000 movies. I've only seen, like, 500 or 400. I'm not a film dude at all. It's not that I don't love film; it just takes something special to get me to a movie. That's just not how I spend my time. It's like how people who are writers say, "Oh, clearly you've read Hunter S. Thompson and Charles Bukowski!" Haven't read 'em. They didn't even influence me. The only guy who really influenced me film-wise was Mike Judge. The way that Mike Judge makes movies is just so authentic and so real - OFFICE SPACE especially. It's so raw. There's no suspension of disbelief, no hijinks, no slapstick, none of that bullshit. I'm just like, "I've worked in that office." And we wanted to do the same thing. Our sensibility is very authentic and real. We wanted that to translate to film, but Hollywood doesn't make movies like that anymore. Will Ferrell and Adam Sandler hijinks-y movies can be funny, but we didn't want to do that. Judd Apatow is whatever; that can be funny, but we didn't want to do that. And the fact that I didn't know a lot about film ended up helping because I didn't know what I was or wasn't supposed to do - while my cowriter knows everything. But I didn't look to those films. (To Nils) Maybe you did. You're more into Trey Parker and Matt Stone type of humor. Parker: I looked to Mel Brooks, Mike Judge and Trey Parker & Matt Stone, because they were the most steadfast in their comedic sensibilities. Nobody has eclipsed Mel Brooks at being Mel Brooks, and the same goes for the other guys. They knew what they thought was funny; they knew how they wanted to put it together, and they did it. You can't get rape jokes and black jokes into a Mel Brooks film without Mel Brooks knowing exactly what he was doing and not compromising. It was that ethic that I wanted to bring to the way we wrote the script. Because we walk a fine line with a lot of this stuff - the book certainly does. Max: I cross the line in the movie a couple of times, too. There's shit in the book that I don't hold up as right, but it's just what happened. And I admit to it. It's fucked up.

Beaks: You definitely cross the line in the bar scene with the bridal party. He gets insulting. But he is punished for crossing the line.

Max: Right. He goes from being funny, to breaking balls, to being mean. He crosses the line.

Beaks: I like that you said that. It reminds me of that scene in GRAN TORINO where Clint takes the kid to the barber shop. He's teaching him that you've got to be able to "throw it around" a little.

Max: Exactly. And you've got to be able to give it and take it back. It's got to be someone you have a rappaport with. Parker: (Laughs) A "rappaport"?

Beaks: (Laughing) A Michael Rappaport?

Max: I'm tired. But it's like with that waitress just now. If everyone is in on the joke, you can be fucking awful. But if you're not in on the joke, then it's perceived as an attack. We definitely knew where that line was, and a couple of times our characters cross it intentionally. Parker: Which is so rare in movies like this, where they want to have edgy asshole characters. They still win in those movies, and that's just not what happens. Max: When I was the age I am in the movie, like twenty-four or twenty-five, I was an unguided missile of drinking and debauchery. I was a shitstorm. All the time. And I read these stories... some people say I'm writing them to brag about how much ass I get, but if you've actually read them, you'd know they I get turned down way more than I hook up.

Beaks: You've got a good amount of self-deprecation in the movie. I mean, you shit your pants in a hotel lobby.

Max: And that's a metaphor for how his narcissism affects his life. Parker: A lot of people assume that that's like a merit badge. Like "Okay! I shit myself!" Max: When he walks out of the bathroom, he's not laughing about it.

Beaks: But you laughed about it later.

Max: Sure. Drinking beers two months later with your buddies, it's funny. But when that happened in real life, I was mortified. I shit my pants in a hotel lobby! It's not cool when that happens. It's really fucked up, you know? A lot of the shit I write is like that; it's not cool when it happens.

Beaks: One of the main criticisms I've read is that people are mortified by this community that's grown up around you.

Parker: That's very true.

Beaks: We get this at Ain't It Cool with some of our talkbackers. It's the anonymity. When you're some anonymous guy on the internet, you can say things that you would never own up to in public.

Max: People often ask me, "Do people come up to you and say this shit?" And I'm like, "No. No one has ever come up to me and said shit like that." Because if you're so petty and small that you're going to think that sort of shit, you're a coward and you're never going to actually say it. Parker: And that's why they hide behind the internet.

Beaks: And those guys who talk a big game with the ladies, it's pretty obvious how they're doing.

Max: You should see our premieres. Twenty minutes before the movie starts, Nils and I stand in front of the theater and say, "Okay, if you've got a funny or embarrassing story, stand up and here's the mic." Sometimes people tell funny stories, but mostly it's these fucking assholes who are like, "Yeah, I'm the Tucker Max of my group." They try to tell a funny story, but they're tools. And they bomb. And we shit all over them. It's like, "Please stop!" Parker: And we've stopped stories midstream because we knew they were going towards sexual assault. It's like, "Stop telling this story because I know where this is going to end up: with you in jail."

Beaks: Then you should let them tell the story and implicate themselves.

Parker: That's crossed my mind. But it speaks to your point about the people hiding behind the anonymity of the internet. It's the community that's developed outside of what we [intended].

Beaks: Do you ever have remorse that you've attracted that audience?

Parker: I don't know if "remorse" is the right word. Max: No, remorse isn't the right word. Just as there are people who think this movie is misogynist, there are going to be people who think it's all about macking on chicks, getting drunk, and smashing shit - and they're both completely wrong. All you can do is make the best art possible, whether you're writing or doing a movie or whatever. People take out of it what they bring into it. It's not like I made this [random guy] into a douchebag; he was a doucebag before I ever existed. Unfortunately, some of those people people identify with my shit. But what can you do about it? Because if you try to preach about it, the people who already know it don't need to be told, and the people who need to be told won't listen. It's the definition of preaching to the choir.

Beaks: To be fair, I wonder what kind of crowd Hunter S. Thompson would've attracted had he been at the height of his powers during the internet age. Certainly there would've been people who would've gotten the wrong impression and saw him as an inspiration to get fucked up and fire off guns.

Parker: He would've shot them. Can you imagine? Can you imagine if one of those kids would've approached Hunter S. Thompson? There is a one million percent chance he would've Phil Spector-ed one of his fans. Just think of the kind of people he'd attract. Max: I never thought about that. That's a great point. That would be a great blog. Not to write like him, but to try to project forward what would've happened.

Beaks: So you're happy with the film?

Max: Here's the thing: I'm a narcissist, and the book is from my perspective. So clearly I'm going to be the hero and there's going to be a lot more edge to it. That's just how I write. The movie is not supposed to be a documentary. It's supposed to be more of a third-person, omniscient view; you're supposed to understand how the other characters exist, their problems and how they relate to Tucker. So as soon as you make that move out of Tucker's point-of-view, everything changes. We can't have that harsh edge because people in my life aren't like that. It's not like we're a pack of narcissists hunting women like velociraptors. Nils is one of my best friends in the world. He's basically Dan in the movie...

Beaks: "SlingBlade" [Drew in the movie] can be pretty vicious it seems.

Max: He's completely different from me. That dude is a wounded puppy. I'm sure you've got friends like "SlingBlade".

Beaks: Absolutely.

Max: He's a great guy, but he's got one of the strictest, yet most expansive moral codes I've ever seen. One time - and I swear to god on my life that this is a true story - we were driving in San Francisco, and a cop swerves out of the lane, doesn't use his blinker, and just kind of rolls through a red light with no lights or nothing. ["SlingBlade"] flips out. He starts brighting the cop and follows him. I'm like, "Dude, what are you doing!?!?" And he is pissed, dude. He's like, "This is bullshit! I'm going to make a fucking citizen's arrest!" And he's tailing the cop, brighting the cop! That's who he is: cop or not, that cop was wrong. And what happens in the movie... we tried to convey this with the his-and-hers chair. He loved his girlfriend so much, he got her a gaming chair. So he's kind of like a puppy dog. And sometimes when a puppy dog gets wounded, they become the bitterest pit bull. That's what happened in real life. So he's not at all like Tucker. He has a low-level contempt for Tucker's womanizing. "SlingBlade", or the Drew character, respects and adores women. But he's so angry at a certain woman, that he can't see through that anger, and it colors the way he interacts with them. That's what Lara [the trash-talking stripper who verbally jousts with Drew] calls out in him. And how many times does Drew call Tucker out for his womanizing? "We can't all go after the one with the lowest self-esteem." That's not making fun of women; that's making fun of Tucker. That's totally how our relationship works in real life.

Beaks: Drew reminds me of that friend who you fight so hard to get out of the house...

Parker: You should see it. You have to practically dangle a video game controller like a treat.

Beaks: And then sometimes you wonder why you tried so hard, because they're as miserable being out with you as they'd be at home. And yet their misery adds something to the proceedings.

Max: You know what it is? For me and my buddies, it wasn't necessarily about getting girls as it was about having fun and breaking balls and getting silly. I can't tell you how many times I would pass up ass because I was laughing so hard from busting on someone. It's much more about entertaining yourselves. Getting girls is important, but it's a secondary thing.

Beaks: You talk about being a narcissist, but for a narcissist, you drop out of the movie for surprisingly long stretches.

Max: Yeah. I'm like a functioning narcissist. I'm thirty-three now, but there's no question that at twenty-four... I wasn't quite a malignant narcissist, but I had NPD [Narcissistic Personality Disorder]. No question, dude. But I'm much better now. Parker: [Tucker dropping out of the movie] was symptomatic of a couple of creative choices from first-time screenwriters. It was the fact that Drew had the sharpest arc and Dan was the glue of the movie - so we needed to deal with the wedding and going to jail. We could've done that part better between the second and third act had we been more experienced - because his disappearance is tied to another creative decision that didn't pay off. Max: It didn't work quite as well as we thought it would, but the larger issue is still in play: the movie is not really about Tucker; it's about how Tucker's narcissism impacts his friends.

Beaks: What I liked about that decision, though, is that when Tucker bounces back into the film, he's kind of the villain.

Max: But that's real life. Those elements are in the stories. You just need to read through my narcissism to see it. Parker: Tucker coming back as a villain is what would happen if someone else was involved in telling the story. The problem with the book is that it's all from Tucker's perspective, so he has no idea how he affected his friends. In the book, he'll just say, "Oh, they were mad at me, and we didn't talk for a week." But when you bring someone like me into it, who's able to bring a perspective to what a victim of Tucker's narcissism would be feeling, you end up seeing that at certain times he becomes a villain. You have to deal with this person who's making your life more difficult. That's probably the story of his twenties.

Beaks: (To Parker) This is a guy thing to ask, but did you ever take a swing at him?

Parker: No. Max: Nils is the least violent person on earth, even though he's huge. Parker: I've been asked that before, and I know that's the natural instinct when you get that pissed off at someone. But I know Tucker, and I know how his brain works: no matter how mad he gets or how retarded crazy he gets, I know that if I stick with it, I can break through and make sense to him. And he'll change his mind on the spot. It's amazing. It is something that nobody else understands, because they don't have the balls to really do it. But if you engage Tucker on the merits on any issue, and stick behind that point and nail it, you can change him on a dime if he thinks you're right. I've done it so many times. He's just so passionate about stuff that he knows or that he thinks he's right about, it comes out as this sort of manic, narcissistic energy. You just have to crack your way to the facade and get to the larger truth. And once he sees it, he'll admit it. He doesn't want to be on the wrong side of anything. Max: If I'm wrong, I'll reverse course immediately. Parker: And then it's over.

Beaks: (To Tucker) So you just like the argument?

Max: No, it's not that. Parker: It's not that he's argumentative. It's the emotional investment. Max: Some people are argumentative just because they like to argue. Arguing is not my thing. I just want to find the truth, whatever the right thing is. Parker: And he goes off track because he's a narcissist. In a world where you have to collaborate and deal with other people, getting to the truth from a position where you can't engage other people's emotions is probably the most difficult thing you can do. You're never going to get to the right answer if all you rely upon is your own thought process. There are other people with other emotions and other invested interests who change the course of things. So I can engage all of those things. I can't tell you how many times I've said, "Tucker, in the real world..."

Beaks: (To Tucker) So despite all of the criticism leveled against you, you really do have a moral bone in your body?

Max: Of course! If you've read my shit, you have to know that. You can think I'm just some pleasure viking, but if you've actually read my book and have a brain in your head, you get that. You might disagree with the moral code, but c'mon. Who exists in society without morality? Parker: There are stories where he does something that is clearly bad. It's not like the story ends right there. "Tucker: 1, Unsuspecting Teen: Zero." Max: When I've fucked up, I say I've fucked up!

Beaks: (Laughs) When you write Lolita sans the perspective of the unreliable narrator...

Parker: (Laughing) From the position of conquest?

Beaks: I actually want to see that movie.

Parker: "She never saw it coming."

Beaks: You get Larry Clark to direct that, and you are there, my friend.

Max: Who's Larry Clark?

Beaks: He directed KIDS and BULLY.

Max: Oh. (There's a lot of crosstalk, mostly between Beaks and Nils on the idea of an unironically heroic Humbert Humbert.) Max: This is starting to make me uncomfortable.

I made Tucker Max uncomfortable. Top of the world, ma. I HOPE THEY SERVE BEER IN HELL opens in limited release this weekend. It will expand over the next couple of weeks. For more information on when it might reach a theater near you, click here. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks