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  Ambitious Friends

  Introducing an ambitious friend to a famous person is more tricky. It’s not done unless the friend is so ambitious that he might be of use to you someday. Ambitious people are a lot more annoying than worthless people. Strategically, you don’t want to alienate the friend but, tactically, you don’t want to be remembered for foisting that friend on your famous acquaintance. Say, “Mrs. Greedagent, this is my friend Mark. He’s involved in a lot of really interesting cable TV projects.” You’ve used the phrase “cable TV projects”—international code words for “unemployed and on the make”—so the celebrity cannot claim she wasn’t warned. Change “cable TV projects” to “video art” if you think it will be a really long, long time before your friend is famous himself.

  When Two People Are Both Important

  Introducing important people to each other is much more satisfying than introducing them to video artists. One approach is to do everything you can to make them attractive to each other and hope that you will receive a sort of social “finder’s fee” if they hit it off. They won’t. The social habits of famous people are like the sexual practices of porcupines, which urinate on each other to soften the quills. A more interesting thing to do is to make sure the two important people loathe each other right from the start: “Ana Plotless, this is Bret Leadpart. Bret thinks your novels are very good—of their kind … Bret, Ana has told me that she’s heard you’re very famous—in Japan.” This way you’ll become the conduit for all sorts of wonderful maliciousness between these two august souls.

  When One Person Is Important and the Other Person Is “Interesting”

  The most delightful introduction you can make is to introduce an important person to someone he or she is going to find sexually interesting. This introduction is made in two parts. First you prep the sex object: “Kiki, save the drugs for later. I’m going to introduce you to Antonio. Antonio is a famous photographer … Yes, he does lots of fashion—Paris Vogue.” Then you march Kiki over to your well-known friend. “Antonio, you’re going to love this girl. She once made Warren Beatty bleed out the ears.” Kiki’s name is not a necessary part of the transaction.

  Introducing Yourself

  There is only one person you can never introduce to the famous and that is yourself. Therefore it’s good to cultivate the affections of professional sycophants such as publicists, movie agents, and freelance writers for Vanity Fair magazine. These people are understandably short of friends, and, if you are kind to them, they’ll let you get the benefit of celebrity acquaintance while they do the fawning and toadying necessary for such acquaintance to be achieved.

  Making Famous People Comfortable

  Once you’ve met a famous person, say something that will make you remembered: “Cornelia Guest! Oh, my gosh, Miss Guest, I know it’s polite for a gentleman to remove his hat when he meets a lady, but for you, I feel I should do something more, like take off my pants!!!”

  Then shut up. Famous people think they want to be treated like regular people. This is not true. Famous people also think they are special and wonderful. This is even less true. The best course of action is to go ahead and treat them as if they are ordinary (because, boy, are they ever) but now and then throw something into the conversation to show that you share their completely wrongheaded opinion of their own wonderfulness: “Gosh, Cornelia, you make liposuction come alive!”

  When the famous person you’ve met is not in your immediate company, ignore him or her completely. This is the modern use of the “cut direct” mentioned above. Whereas, in former times, the cut direct was used on enemies, it has now evolved into a polite way to show respect for famous friends. It is an article of faith among celebrities that they are constantly pestered by the public. Of course there are so many celebrities, and so few of them are celebrated for anything, that most of the time the public can’t be bothered. But it’s only common courtesy to act as though the famous people you know are so famous that the public is very bothered indeed. You don’t want to be seen as part of that public. Wait for the celebrities to pester you. They will soon enough. If they weren’t infantile self-obsessed hogs for attention, then our kind of society never would have thought they were important in the first place.

  THE BACHELOR HOME COMPANION

  (1987, revised edition 1993)

  “If dirt was trumps, what hands you would hold!

  —Charles Lamb

  We Are All Bachelors Now

  This book is addressed to the true bachelor, an adult male and a gentleman, who has never married and never intends to.

  We are a select group, without personal obligation, social encumbrance, or any socks that match. We breathe the cold, pure air of solitude—of Olympus, of Parnassus, and of the basement where all the pipes are frozen because nobody turned up the thermostat. We have no need, unless puzzled by a meat loaf recipe, for dull, cloying familial ties. We are free to drop everything and mount our Rocinante on a moment’s notice. (Although sometimes it takes a little longer than a moment because we can’t remember which laundry the shirts are at.)

  Sherlock Holmes was portrayed as a bachelor. So was Raffles the Gentleman Cracksmith. Sir Isaac Newton and Giacomo Casanova were bachelors, also Saint Paul, President Buchanan, Nietzsche, Oliver Goldsmith, George “Chinese” Gordon, Voltaire, and almost all the popes. King Henry VIII kept trying to be one. The Lone Ranger, Sam Spade, and Jesus Christ will always be bachelors, not to mention Clarabell, Mayor Koch, and Daffy Duck.

  We are our own men, aloof and independent, unchocked wheels in a world of cogs and gears. We do as we damn well please. And we don’t belong to any immune-deficiency high-risk groups either.

  We also don’t exist.

  What’s become of the bachelors of yore? The old salts? The Oxford dons? The misanthropic billionaires wedded solely to greed? Well, some of us turned out to belong to that immune-deficiency high-risk group after all (Daffy Duck for one, I’ll bet). Some of us broke down and got married and are paying a fortune in child support. And the rest of us turned into “singles.”

  We’ve given up cigarettes and are attempting to cut down on saturated fats. We live in condominium apartment complexes with heather-tone wall-to-wall carpeting. We try to meet girls at aerobics classes. And we’re in transactional analysis, dealing with our conflicted feelings about making a commitment.

  Therefore this book is really addressed to assistant district sales managers, Dekes and Phi Delts in off-campus housing, divorced guys, young men who’ve been told to get the hell out of the house by their parents, and any fellow whose girlfriend won’t marry him because her first husband was such a bummer. That is, to every male in a house without pot holders.

  This book is also addressed to husbands whose wives have discovered careers, self-fulfillment, or Visa cards with astronomical credit ceilings. Like the rest of us, these “grass bachelors” must face that Augean stable whose name is kitchen.

  In fact, this book is even addressed to the traditional housewife and mother who, in her heart, would like to put the kids in the dog run and go play golf. Go ahead. Throw a wad of baloney in there and grab your Pings. It doesn’t matter. Home life in our society has already disintegrated. Small children come home to find their parents (which, stepfolks included, can number as many as ten) gone to jobs, love affairs, racket ball courts, or detox centers. Old people are forced by uncaring progeny (and their own incessant complaints about what’s on TV) to live in the confines of goldenage communities. Even newlyweds don’t spend much time together, now that few marriages outlast the appliance warranties.

  Motherly landladies and devoted kitchen help have disappeared, too—off playing seniors tennis and cheating the welfare agencies. We are all discovering anew what any ancient bond servant (or Mom, if we’d been listening) could have told us: keeping house is as unpleasant and filthy as coal mining, and the pay’s a lot worse.

  So when it comes right down to it, this book is addressed to everybody. We are all bachelors now, “strangers in a home we never made.”

  How I Became a Bachelor Housewife

  I always wanted to be a bachelor when I grew up. My friends may have had fantasies about raking the yard, seeing their loved ones in pin curlers, and cleaning the garage on Sundays, but not me. I saw myself at thirty-eight lounging around a penthouse in a brocade smoking jacket. Vivaldi would be playing on the stereo. I’d sip brandy from a snifter the size of a fish tank and leaf through an address book full of R-rated phone numbers.

  It never occurred to me that the penthouse would be littered with dirty socks, damp bath towels, old sports sections, and empty pizza boxes. I’d have to dig through all that stuff to find the brocade smoking jacket, and then it would need treatment with complicated spot removers. Lounging around the penthouse in an undershirt is not the same. Besides, it isn’t a penthouse. Who can afford a penthouse in a job market filled with wildly competitive married guys supporting three ex-families?

  I think I’ll skip the brandy. You shouldn’t drink on an empty stomach. I looked in the refrigerator—nothing in there except half a bottle of flat tonic water, two withered limes, and one more empty pizza box. (The brandy snifter got broken in the dishwasher anyway.)

  Of course, bachelors can just go hang out in fancy restaurants all night. And I would if I weren’t broke from buying new clothes. You know how it is with us fashion-conscious bachelors, always trying to keep up with the latest sartorial trends. Well, sort of. Actually, I have to buy new clothes because I destroy all my chinos and boxer shorts every time I go to the laundromat.

  I used to do this with bleach and fabric softener. These made enormous piebald blotches and great big holes in my clothes. Being a suave bachelor and all, I felt it beneath my dignity to stand in a laundromat reading the instructions on the bottles. Not to mention the instructions on the machines. I might as well try to land a DC-10. What on earth is a “prewash cycle”? Prewash means “before washing.” Before washing is when the clothes are scattered all over the floor. Why would I want to put money and bleach in a washing machine then? If anyone ever designs washing machines for bachelors, there will be one big dial with two settings: DIRTY and DON’T BREATHE.

  Now, I just use lots of detergent. If some is good, more must be better, and a whole box should be great. (Another thing about washing machine instructions, they’re printed on the inside of the washing machine lid. This is not where you want the instructions when the machine is spewing foam all over the laundromat and you can’t even get near it, let alone open the top.) The clothes do get clean. True, they’re stiff, have chunks of solidified laundry soap in the pockets, and smell like eau de Fab. But that doesn’t matter because I’m going to ruin them in the dryer.

  The way dryers work is you put wet clothes in, run the dryer for an hour, and take wet clothes out. Leave these mildewing in a laundry bag for a couple of days, and they’ll smell every bit as bad as they did before you washed them. What I recommend is insert a hundred quarters in the coin slot and go watch football games. When you come back the clothes will be dry and just the right size—if you own a doll collection. Like most bachelors, I don’t.

  So I go out and buy new chinos and new boxer shorts and try to save money by cooking at home. However, it’s hard to make even a simple omelet with flat tonic water, withered limes, and empty pizza boxes.

  The problem with grocery shopping is it lacks an element of surprise. Wait until you’re very hungry before going to the store. This way you’ll make lots of surprising impulse purchases. It’s like Christmas when I get the grocery bags home. I don’t know what might be in there—a ten-pound bag of pistachio nuts, jars of pickled squid, tinned guava jelly, goat pâté. However, it’s hard to make a simple omelet with pistachio nuts, pickled squid, guava jelly, and goat pâté, too. This means another trip to the store.

  Why does everything come in Giant Size, King Size, and Holy Roman Empire Size boxes? A package of macaroni as big as a Japanese car is not what I need. And I don’t understand unit pricing. There’s the price, the unit price, the sale price, but what does the damn thing cost? And I can’t find stuff. Whatever I want is always thirty brands of sugar-frosted cereal away from where I am. Supermarkets should arrange it so important purchases like peanut butter, roach spray, and cigarettes are in one place, while everything else is off in a married-couple annex with the fabric softeners and breakfast foods. (Do people really feed their children purple cornflakes shaped like movie monsters? Are they mad at the kids, or what?)

  I go to delicatessens because they’ll bring me what I ask for. “Give me a six-pack of eggs,” I say.

  Bachelor cooking is a matter of attitude. If you think of it as setting fire to things and making a mess, it’s fun. It’s not so much fun if you think of it as dinner. Fortunately, baloney, cheeseburgers, beer, and potato-chip dip provide all the daily nutrients bachelors are known to require. I mean, I hope they do.

  I have several specialties. Instant coffee is one. Simple omelets are another. My recipe: add contents of refrigerator to two eggs and cook until everything stops wiggling. A bachelor friend of mine has an interesting variation. Mix last night’s Chinese takeout food with your scrambled eggs. (Remove fortunes from fortune cookies first.) He calls it Egg Foo Breakfast.

  I also make a stew. I put meat, beef bouillon, potatoes, celery, carrots, onions, and a splash of red wine into a large pot. When it begins to simmer I go watch football games until all the ingredients boil down to a tarry mass. Then I phone out for pizza or Chinese.

  Nomenclature is an important part of bachelor cooking. If you call it “Italian cheese toast,” it’s not disgusting to have warmed-over pizza for breakfast.

  Pizza for breakfast is one of the great examples of bachelor freedom. And, as a bachelor, I’m free to eat pizza anywhere I want—in front of the TV or on the bed or in the bathtub. I also eat, at least to judge by where I find leftovers, in the hall closet and under the couch.

  I find a lot of things under the couch whenever I clean up, giant dust bunnies mostly, but mysterious things, too—rubber beach toys, copies of Livestock Breeding Quarterly, “Souvenir of the Seattle World’s Fair” pen and pencil sets.

  Maybe there are other people who live in my house and I don’t know about it. I certainly don’t remember putting a cigar out in the soap dish or using that new Vivaldi CD as a drink coaster or hiding my cuff links behind the thesaurus. What are my dress shoes doing in the toilet tank? Why has somebody been scaling fish on the bedroom rug?

  A lot of bachelor time that married people believe is spent paging through address books is really spent using T-shirts as dust cloths and getting vacuum-cleaner cords tangled in footstools. Or thinking up reasons not to. I think, “Dirt is superficial, a matter of appearances.” I think, “If you can’t see dirt, it doesn’t really exist.” No fair looking behind the stereo speakers.

  I keep the light low. Not hard when your windows need washing as badly as mine do. Also I’d be risking my neck to wash windows in my fifth-floor apartment. What if I dropped something? A paper towel soaked in Windex might kill from that height. No use washing the dishes either. The automatic dishwasher breaks everything. I tried using paper plates, but the dishwasher made a mess of those, too.

  Being a bachelor has turned me into a housewife, a lousy housewife. And now I have a different perspective on the traditional woman’s role in society. A housewife has to be a chemist, engineer, mechanic, economist, philosopher, and workaholic. That’s just to pick up after herself. I shudder at what it must be like when there are kids, pets, and somebody like me in the home. Therefore it is with profound respect that I ask for advice from my women friends.

  “What should I do about that green fungus in the bread box?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” they tell me. “You’ll have to talk to my husband. He does the cooking at our house. I’m pretty busy with my career.”

  Bachelor Entertaining

  One of the best things about bachelorhood is that no one expects hospitality from us. We’re obviously selfish people or we’d be married and holding up our end of the car pool. Furthermore, society is a free market and we are a scarce commodity. Every hostess in America is wracking her Rolodex for unattached dinner guests.

  As long as our looks don’t actually gag a cat, we’re invited everywhere. In return, all we have to do is keep our fingers out of wedding rings. Ours is the life of the happy drone. The whole hive of civilization is busy feeding us and keeping us amused.

  Nevertheless, there are moments when bachelors are expected to act the host. Sometimes lovers or parents corner us, sometimes we give in to misplaced whims of congeniality, and sometimes twenty old SDS buddies show up on the porch, drugged and armed.

  There are three types of entertainment a bachelor is traditionally called on to provide:

  1. Love trysts

  2. Dinner parties

  3. Enormous drunken blowouts

  Money is your best weapon. Take all your guests to a restaurant and let the restaurant people clean up the mess. If you get someone stupid on the MasterCard 800 number, maybe you can convince him that your telephone number is your credit limit. If this fails, try postponing the event in hope of atomic war. Atomic war is much overrated as tragedy, compared to what an enormous drunken blowout can do to your house. If atomic war fails, follow the directions below.

  The Love Tryst

  The proper love tryst has three elements:

  1. Drinks

  2. Cozy meal

  3. Interesting excuse

  The interesting excuse is not actually interesting. It just gives your date an excuse for not saying good-bye when she ought to. Usually it’s a videotape of something highbrow like a Truffaut remake of Francis Joins the Navy. With any luck you won’t see the end of it.