Last week we decided to get together at Chicago recluse author Clive Javanski’s new Bucktown apartment and have “a sort of a housewarming” during which we would engage in another go-around of our Asshole Book Club. This time it was myself, Aidan, Clive, Cookie Roy, Depressed Johnny, Spider, and our lone female guest, Kyna – pronounced key + na. In Irish it means love and affection, although she offered neither on this particular night.
The book list this time included Clive’s original essay, Road Pants. I brought an Irish play, The Cripple of Inishman. Spider brought an old copy of the Chicago Reader, Cookie Roy something about the Chicago polka scene, Aidan had with him linear notes from an R.E.M. album, and Kyna brought Clerks/Chasing Amy – Two Screenplays by Kevin Smith.
Depressed Johnny brought weed.
Each of us takes turns in discussing our “book” with the group. It usually leads to other topics.
Aidan: Is Anna Kendrick pretty?
Depressed Johnny: What I like about her is she looks like most Chicago women.
Cookie Roy: Who’s Anna Kendrick?
Spider: She was in that movie Picture Perfect about singing.
Clive: That was Jennifer Aniston.
Cookie Roy: Jennifer Aniston was singing?
I recently saw the fine Chicago-based film Drinking Buddies with Anna Kendrick and Olivia Wilde. I’d share craft beers with either of them. I asked Kyna, a non-lesbian as far as I know, who she favors. She said Anna would be her Tuesday girl and Olivia her Saturday bitch. I left it at that.
Kyna is supposed to produce a local podcast. She wants either Aidan or myself to come on for one of the topics about female and male body hair. It would be called “Do You Shave That Thing?”
If The Asshole Book Club was a UK-based series Kyna would be the strange, but cute, ginger girl of the cast.
More conversation
Clive: I heard Adam Ant played in the city not long ago. I wonder if Marco Pirroni still plays guitar for him.
Kyna: Ooh! I know. He played guitar on Sinead O’Connor’s debut album “The Lion and the Cobra.” I know ’cause I wrote a paper about her.
Aidan: He does have a signature sound, Marco.
Cookie Roy: Who’s Marco Pironni?
Me: Sinead O’Connor’s most recent album kicked your ass and mine. Vastly underrated. Just thinking about it makes me more attracted to you than I already am, Kyna.
Bad Beer Hand
As said before, the Asshole Book Club often turns into the Asshole Poker Club. It was my turn to bring the bad beer for the poker game’s bad beer hand. Loser drinks the bad beer. I was unprepared for this duty and in a last-minute rush found a loose bottle of Leinenkugel’s Summer Shandy. I know its popular with girls at outdoor beer gardens and the board shorts-wearing frat boys at Wrigleyville bars but I don’t like it. And I knew that no one in our group liked it. Kyna’s a dark beer girl. Depressed Johnny said it tasted like spilled ink from a pen mixed with urine. Cookie Roy never heard of it (strictly Old Style for Roy). Aidan is from a dodgy area in Dublin and just mentioning the name “Summer Shandy” would get his ass beat. Clive doesn’t give a shit, he’ll drink anything once. Spider lost the hand and drank the stuff, unfazed.
I prefer Anna Kendrick drinking beer from a pint glass than singing about plastic cups. (Drinking Buddies)
The Asshole Book Club Part 1
The Dodgy 