Jameson and PBR The Usual Pair of Handcuffs A Book

Review

IF YOU, OR ONE OF YOUR FRIENDS, HAS EVER BEEN CAUGHT PANTS DOWN PISSING ON A COP CAR, OR TRYING TO MELT AS MUCH ICE AS POSSIBLE IN A MEN’S ROOM TROUGH, YOU MIGHT HAVE A KINDRED SPIRIT IN ROBERT DEAN AND HIS BOOK OF ESSAYS, EXISTENTIAL THIRST TRAP. The lowbrow potty shenanigans at the outset might dupe you into thinking that Dean’s musings and meditations are primarily Horatian, set in dive bars and filthy bathrooms. More often than not though, Dean is pointing out his own flaws rather than society’s.

The collection overall is unironically blue-collar Americana in that Carl Sandburg and Studs Terkel vein. Dean is from the south side of Chicago by way of New Orleans. Firmly planted in the elder end of the millennial generation Dean has straddled two worlds: the analog and the digital, playing in the streets and being dominated by social media, the real world and the simulacra we now swim in, homophobia and inclusivity. This is reflected in his 28 essays as only someone who has actually lived through these past four decades can capture. At his most cutting, you’ll find yourself in vulnerable pockets of his psyche as he interprets his hardedged vantage through a Jameson fever dream or a lucidly hazy morning at the keyboard.

“On days when the world gets heavy and a long, hot shower can’t shake the demons away, there’s always the fantasy of giving it up and bum-rushing the void. That might be nicerealizing you weren’t that good, nothing you said was that special, and you are mediocre despite your best efforts. What do you do when you finally accept things like this? Keep pounding, I guess.” he writes in “Plan B”, an affirming inspirational love letter to himself, as he explores this idea of a professional backup plan most have been told to retain in case plan alpha falls by the wayside. Not to spoil the piece, let’s just say Dean is philosophically and intrinsically opposed to such notions. While this frightens him to no end, he is resolute in his chosen path as a writer.

BY EVAN RODRIGUEZ

At his most seemingly earnest Dean still retains a sense of humor. In “Little Bastard” he writes an apology letter to a potentially gay “Kid” he and his friends used to torment in his neighborhood. After a fairly woke reflection regretting the homophobic epithets hurled and the physical harm threatened, Dean writes in the postscript of the essay that he tracked the “Kid” down and he had zero memory of him and his friends’ assaults. “Since the publication, the power of the Internet led me to this guy. I apologized. He didn’t remember me,” he writes.