Suburban Adult Age Wasteland Blues

Seeing a lot of my friends on a regular basis has been great, but there's one dude in particular that I've come to realize is awesome-o. Like me, he went off to college and then law school, and then began practicing law in LA while I was in New York. Because of the distance, I hardly saw him, and when I did, he spoke of trendy restaurants in West Hollywood, bars in Santa Monica, late night spots in Downtown, etc. And like me, he seemed to have lost some of the "I don't give a shit about anything" style that growing up in a small beach town provided us.

The transformation has been amazing. He's back in our town, and no longer that dude. Moving from LA back to our hometown has brought out exactly what made him awesome back in the day (yes, I can say "back in the day" because the day I'm referring to is > 10 years ago).

That quality he missed? Not giving a crap about anything.

Two years ago: Brooks Brothers suits, wine bars in LA, brunch at the Viceroy, etc.
Today: Hawaiian shirts, dive bars in our town, and Mexican hole in the wall grub. And of course, the new habit: dipping.

I think dipping (though not for me and quite visceral) is the ultimate form of telling the world that you don't give a shit about anything. Cigarettes kind of convey that, but those are too much effort. What brand to buy, having a lighter on you, etc. All those things take some kind of premeditation.

Dipping, however, does not. Dipping involves shoving some tobacco between your gums and lower lip, and spitting shit into some kind of receptacle. The reason it works so quickly is because the tobacco contains very small pieces of fiberglass, which serve to cut your inner lip so as to deliver the tobacco into the bloodstream more quickly -- and man does it work. Several friends in college dipped, and one of my roommates in law school would dip all the time. (So much so that random bottles of Gatorade half-filled with spit would loiter his room -- maybe they were souvenirs from a particularly good dip sesh?). But unlike those guys, my friend here in LA dips with the right accouterments that convey that he doesn't care, and more importantly, dips openly in public, often at well-lit establishments like the grocery store or while taking his newborn for a walk in her stroller.

He dips while we're playing softball (which, given his old school grey baseball pants and general attitude, makes him gnarly).

He dips while he's running errands around town, picking up diapers for his newborn (radical).

He dips whenever and wherever he pleases, and lets everyone know (by virtue of all the spit on the sidewalk) just what's up.

And last weekend, while at a fancy bar in Santa Monica to celebrate the engagement of some friends (the kind of bar where the dudes behind the bar dress in 1930's era shirts, ties, and vests and call themselves "mixologists" and charge $14 for a rum and a coke [see, e.g., Tailor in Soho, Employees Only in the West Village, and a host of other bars in New York I've never heard of or could never get into.] [see also name-dropping bars in former city you lived in = douchebag; as is using bluebooking format to make side points within a blog]).

While we were all trying to be mature and sip our beverages (by the way, some dude called me a wuss for drinking a Manhattan [b/c of the maraschino cherry in it], so I ordered him one and watched his face cringe as he tried to swallow down the heavy pour of Jim Beam rye that I insisted the TV-extra-wearing-a-shirt-and-tie-come-mixologist put in there -- don't heckle a fat dude with chest hair drinking brown liquor, chances are his drink is legit), my friend decided that this party at an upscale bar was the best time to bring out his tin of Skoal and began crushing Bushmills in one hand, while dipping into the other.

And then it hit me? Is this how he has dealt with becoming a father? I've heard that new dads under 35 often do things to rage against the machine, that is, to remind themselves that they are not completely settling down (although in reality they are). And by "I've heard that new dads under 35...." I mean I just made that up for the convenience of my point.

So, for him, shoving fiberglass and tobacco into his mouth and spitting brown chaw all over the place lets him know that he still is a degenerate at heart. For others, maybe a new car or an alcohol habit. For me, probably a buttload of neon.

In the end, with a baby on the way, men have to find something to release the anxiety of becoming a new parent. Ladies get the camaraderie of other new mothers, the support of their own mothers, mothers in law, and friends, and society's love of a newborn. That is how they cope.

For men, apparently all you get is a tin of Kodiak or Skoal, and if you like, a cup to spit it all into.