Two Hours That Went Staggeringly Wrong
An evening with Dave Eggers and friends
May 19, 2000

"You sold me queer giraffes. I want my money back." -- that old guy in Gladiator

It was difficult to decide who I was more disappointed with, the crowd or David Eggers. Perhaps Dave's low-key "reading" emboldened the audience to ask him about the mundane and the idiotic. But I am quite certain that I did not get my money's worth. And for that I place blame squarely upon the shoulders of Mr. McSweeney's.

It seems a perverse mockery of literary etiquette to charge $5 to see an author (to his credit, Dave assured us that the money was going to pay for the venue, not him), especially a wealthy author -- if the rumours about his $1 million-plus advance for the paperback version of A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius are to be believed -- and worse still when Dave (and his entourage) failed to entertain. For every moment of unscripted comedy that succeeded, there were three or four that failed, or, at the very least, did nothing to illuminate the psyche of the man we had all come to see.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Allow me to try and describe a nearly indescribable event. The evening began with a non-chalant fellow taking his position behind the microphone and explaining what an honour it was to introduce a person who could only be described as a genius. This "genius" turned out to be a guy in a tuxedo, a supposedly high-profile "introduction" expert, who adjusted his cuffs, unbuttoned his jacket, reached into a pocket for a recipe card, before saying, "Neal Pollack." Intro boy in tux disappeared, and Neal bounded onto the stage.

Neal, you see, has been published in McSweeneys, and an anthology of his work will be printed by the McSweeneys book concern in the near future. Neal's stuff is quite funny, and he's a rather accomplished reader. He read the introduction to his upcoming tome, along with a few of his McSweeney's work. His schtick revolves around the fact that he is too handsome, too successful, too sexy -- in short, he is a literary God among men. His delivery and attitude is difficult to convey, but his bizarre and obviously false claims and fake confidence (Neal informed us that he has written 35 books) were funny and believable. (Sample excerpt from This Albanian Life published in McSweeney's #1: I wake up early this morning and watch the village children play soccer with the bloated carcass of a cat. I've been here so long that this kind of thing doesn't bother me anymore, so I join in. I score three goals and make a game-winning save. The children all gather around me and want to know about my life in the more bohemian sections of Brooklyn. I show them a picture of my girlfriend. "She is very beautiful," says one of them. "Yes," I say, "and very wealthy.")

I could critique Neal by saying that he read one piece too many, but this minor crime would be all-but-forgotten within 40 minutes of Eggers hitting the stage. After Neal departed, the professional introducer explained that David Eggers would be interviewed by his junior high buddy Paul, who, incidentally, was dressed as Wolverine (the X-Men character). As Dave Barry (and the 45 other newspaper columnists who seem to think they're Dave Barry, or at the very least, think they can steal from Mr. Barry with impunity) might say, "I am not making this up."

I tried to push aside the Wolverine costume and focus on the format -- an interview with an old friend would make a lot of sense, given the whole memoir thing and Eggers' tendency toward post-modern devices, literary or otherwise. But the Paul and Dave show soon degenerated into a character-driven Saturday Night Live sketch circa 1992 -- not terrible (like the post-Dennis Miller years) but not quite good enough to be compelling. As best as I can figure out, Eggers and his buddy Paul had agreed upon four or five semi-scripted portions of the evening (Paul pretends not to have had the chance to speak with Dave in a long time, and thus knows Dave is famous, but not why he's famous) the first of which lead (finally) to Dave actually speaking. After hesitating and pausing and repeatedly explaining the set-up, Dave read a few fake amazon.com reviews of Staggering before letting Paul run rampant again. Paul's main schtick (besides being an old friend who was NOT mentioned in Dave's book) was that he lives and works in Hollywood (or Hollyweird, as he said at one point, an obviously unscripted joke that made Dave laugh long and hard, as did a later reference to drum circles) and that he was trying to prove that he, too was a success in his right. At first, one expected (hoped?) Paul would leave the stage after 10 minutes. But he remained on stage, interrupting Dave (as per their script, I assume) for nearly an hour and a half, as Dave sat bemused, his body accounted for but his mind drifting, a passenger not a pilot.

One received perhaps 25% Eggers and 75% Paul (Neal Pollack was brought back on stage about 50 minutes into the proceedings, wearing only a towel and sporting wet hair to indicate that he had been taking a shower. Those in the first few rows were treated to a rather revealing portrait of Neal, if you understand me). Worse, Eggers read for about 90 seconds from his book, worse still, every question that challenged, or hinted at challenge was dismissed, sometimes glibly, sometimes dismissively, always quickly, so that by the end of evening Dave had said little of value. Those hoping to learn more about the influence of David Foster Wallace, what Dave's brother Toph thought about the proceedings, whether profiting from tragedy was an entirely appropriate decision, the mcsweeneys.com hoax, the irony issue; and why Dave fired his agent (I was impressed at the level of Eggers minutia the crowd possessed) went home disappointed.

In the journalism business, the term is called "balance," and at the behest of my editor, I am grudgingly providing some of it. In Dave's defence, he has made it quite clear that he will not be answering the "tough questions." In a May 14 interview with Stephanie Merritt from The Observer, he allowed said reporter to traipse about with him for the day, on the condition that "I do not quote anything he says during this meeting." The actual interview portion was conducted via email, the agreement thus designed to ensure Dave had time to weigh his answers. (Although there is always the ol' "that was off the record" ass-saving standby). Writes Merritt, "He is still sensitive about publicity, he confides, fearful of being misrepresented, easily upset by unfavourable reviews (though these have been almost non-existent)."

Perhaps Eggers' time at Esquire taught him how interviews and profiles can easily be constructed so as to misconstrue the intent of those being profiled. But all this aside, Dave is also in a position, like Douglas Coupland, where he can demand and receive the kid-glove treatment. His free time is scare, he is a valued commodity, so Dave can ensure that the Eggers "brand" continues to be consistent, reveals only what he wishes, and avoids that which he doesn't feel comfortable with, regardless of whether these blemishes might actually be interesting and valid. In the Jan/Feb 2000 issue of Shift, a profile by Laurie Sandell about Dave begins, "I've heard the stories and they're conflicting: He's brilliant, complicated, idealistic, supercilious, an asshole, a sweetheart, ëas unique an individual as there is.'" Are people allowed to be complicated, to be two things simultaneously? Sure. Will we ever determine for ourselves what Dave is all about if he keeps his finger on the fog machine? Probably not.

Surprisingly, given the domineering presence of Paul and the overall sheen of clumsiness (don't get me wrong -- there were funny moments, but the price paid for these was too great), fewer people than I would have predicted left early. Many, it seemed, were simply waiting for the madness to end so that they could get their book signed. Others seemed genuinely entertained by it all.

Eggers seemed to be pulling the stereotypical Gen-X trope of being unwilling or afraid to passionately defend or stand behind his work and ideas. The sizable crowd treated him like a literary celebrity, something he seems to eschew, but he refused to try and define himself as an anti-celebrity either. He seemed to reveal in the attention, but avoided making his true intentions known regarding the buzz and the success of his book. It seemed like doing a book tour was a necessary evil, a condition of the literary machine, and something he'd prefer avoiding given his shy nature, but the fact remains, he, of his own volition, agreed to tour. If this was his attempt to make the otherwise rote and predictable affair palatable, then he succeeded in amusing himself, and no one else. He of all people should be smart enough to realize he can't have it both ways.

In interviews I've read, Eggers comes across as someone with a plan, someone messy and disorganized, but driven by an incredible passion for words and an incredible gift for arranging and rearranging those words. Perhaps I am making a category mistake: Eggers on paper is not Eggers in person. In Staggering, he wrote in great detail about incredibly personal events, but when asked about them by an audience member, he prefered to avoid and obfuscate, as if to suggest that he couldn't be bothered to think of pat, scripted answers to questions he surely must have anticipated. (Maybe that would be inauthentic. He has, after all, written a book to address these questions. But if the book speaks for itself, prop it open, put a microphone against it, and let us watch that for 90 minutes. Andy Kaufman would be proud). I was given the impression that if he had gone ahead and simply answered these kinds of questions, he might have said something he didn't mean, or didn't expect to say,! and to lose that control, by revealing something in such an off-hand or accidental matter, would have been an act of self-betrayal so devastating that he might never have recovered. If he needs to be insulated thusly, one wonders why he bothered to tour at all. I seem to remember Iggy Pop suggesting that if Kurt Cobain was so uncomfortable with the success of Nirvana, and ashamed that the jocks that beat him up in high school were attending his concerts, he should have intentionally recorded a bad album. This would have given him some much needed breathing room.

If this is what Dave meant to do, if he meant to teach us never to believe the hype, never to trust leaders, parking meters or celebrities, he has succeeded admirably. I can say with complete confidence that I will never go an Eggers reading again. I will continue to read his stuff, but I refuse to condone his smirking, assoholic treatment of his fans, a rudeness made even more galling given that his fans are not sheep that deserve to be taunted, a la Jim Morrison, who used to shout insults at his audience to see how far he could push his untouchable status as rock god. His fanbase of similarly dispossessed, smart, young people are the least likely to tolerate something like this. Or perhaps his true fans are so hip and removed that they would never attend something as gauche as a literary reading, surrounded by people who obviously will never appreciate 1/10th of Dave's genius.

And the audience certainly disappointed me as much as the "reading" itself: one annoying woman begged Eggers to save her from the torrential boredom and lameness that was Toronto and let her be a muse in Brooklyn at the office that McSweeney's built. Dave suggested the intern route. (I would suggest that anyone who requires a charismatic leader in order to escape the shackles of their self-imposed failures should go drink the Kool-aid and get it over with). Another woman asked a "potentially" two-part question. The first query was, "Have you ever accepted a date invitation from a total stranger?" When Dave said No, the woman -- to her credit -- decided not to finish off the obvious, saving everyone a little embarrassment in an already embarrassing evening.

I further mock the assembled for tolerating the charade -- after all, we were free to go at any time, although the $5 probably made a few think twice. I place myself in the guilty column on this charge -- it was the classic movie theatre scenario: do I leave early and cut my losses, or wait and see if things improve? -- but at least I make no attempt at justifying or rationalizing the Eggers dog and pony show.

Eggers seemed content to partially orchestrate a bizarre spectacle, to watch bemusedly as the ad-libs derailed and re-railed themselves again and again. Instead of shy confidence, we were treated to a man fiddling nervously with his microphone, adjusting and readjusting it like a tic, or what gamblers call "a tell" suggesting that for all his incredible literary daring and confidence, perhaps Dave has frailties too. But in trying to hide these flaws he ended up exacerbating them. While putting Neal in a towel and his friend in a costume was clearly meant to deflect our attention, the crowd simply attempted to work around the obstacles, rather than challenging them directly. (True, someone did ask early on about why Paul was in a Wolverine costume, but Bob concocted a long story that failed to even remotely explain the lunacy. In an interview for a Monty Python retrospective, John Cleese described how Red Skeleton had imparted a valuable comedic tenant to him: in a scene where! only one actor is doing something weird or outlandish, you must explain and justify that person's presence. This was Cleese's way of deconstructing the classic Ministry of Silly Walks sketch. Eggers should be smart enough to realize that same).

Perhaps I'm overlooking the obvious: this was one big performance art piece, an in-joke, a grand public gesture meant to show that Eggers always gets the last laugh, that he is laughing at you, not with you. It was saddening to watch people pretend to be pleased when he refused to behave as an author should and instead tried to further his mythology of brilliance by implying that a man in a Wolverine costume and a man in a towel were somehow more than they seemed.

For those who've made it this far, the evening ended with Mr. Pollack draped in the maple leaf flag, singing Oh Canada (There were numerous Canadiana references during the night, especially from Neal, who altered a few of his stories to reflect his geographical environs. As well, there was an "about / aboot" joke and Alanis Morisette's take on irony "Rain on your wedding day" was raked over the coals). A bizarre conclusion to a bizarrely frustrating fashion show featuring the emperor and his new ensemble.