The Billy Green saga continues! Billy’s challenging, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always unpredictable journey.
The Billy Green saga continues! Billy’s challenging, sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic, always unpredictable journey. He was more determined than ever to find meaning in life and comfort in love. Billy came to know one thing for sure. Love is real. He could now with the absolute cocksure confidence of pure enlightenment, scoff at the naysayers and spit in the face of the purveyors of romantic nihilism, the cynics who say that love is an illusion. Billy knew the real score. Love is the light that never dims. Love is a wine that flows in our hearts. Love is a wonder that has no beginning or end. Love is a master key that opens the gates of perfection. Love is the language our souls use to speak to one another. Love is the trafficking of fantasies and transcending of mortality. Love is an energy that can neither be created or destroyed. Love is God Allah Yahweh Shiva Qat Aphrodite. Love is touch smell feel taste listen pray. Love is the poetry of the senses. Love is metaphysical gravity. Love is the gift of oneself. Love is sweet tyranny. All you need is love. Descartes. You almost got it right. Je aime, donc je suis. Yes. That’s how it should go. I love, therefore I am. Valentines Day solipcism. But does it ever turn out the way we planned? The way we hoped and dreamed?
Excerpt
Dear Ann Landers
Billy had a quirky professor Spring Term for his PSYCH 2800 - Introduction to Social Psychology class. Her name was Dr. Phyllis Hargus and in spite of the fact that her physical appearance placed her somewhere around 110 years old, she had the enthusiasm and energy of high school cheerleader.
Billy found her classes, if not informative, at least entertaining. For her often risqué lectures, Professor Hargus had a good sense of humor, a sharp tongue — which she routinely turned on herself in hilarious bouts of self-mockery referencing her dwindling sex appeal and 100% failure rate with the opposite sex — plus a seemingly infinite number of personal anecdotes to draw from. It was clear that Professor Hargus thought that the psychology of social interactions 99.9% of the time revolved around sex, but never bothered to identify what that other .1% might be. No one seemed to care.
She also had a nearly pathological obsession with the personal advice columns that typically appeared in daily newspapers and had over the years increasingly become a staple in popular magazines as well, especially men’s and women’s monthlies — such as Playboy and Cosmopolitan — or targeted niche publications — like Seventeen and Ebony.
She had apparently grown up reading the advice columns of Ann Landers and Dear Abby. They were twin sisters who competed fiercely for popularity and syndication in newspapers all across America during the last half of the 20th Century, and made no secret how much they hated one another.
These two legends had spawned a whole industry, so that now there was a vast number of personal help pundits, each with a following and distinctive style. Dr. Hargus had enormous respect for the whole range — Dr. Ruth, Miss Manners, Dr. Tracy, Dr. Joyce Brothers, Carolyn Hax.
But Professor Hargus also enthusiastically embraced the new breed of irreverent, caustic, outrageous columnists who delivered advice and abuse in equal proportions. Whereas Abby and Ann were gentle and genteel, Dan Savage, The Love Doctor, Dog, and a host of new print and web-based counselors were more pop pugilists than pop psychologists.
Of course, Billy thought all advice columns were crap. What little exposure he had to them, browsing through the occasional pop zines and now going online as part of his class assignments for Hargus, only made him wonder what was so special about these editorial psychologists that they were now in a position to be telling others what to do. Plus he had the suspicion that they themselves were probably pretty screwed up, prompting him to conclude that they should deal with their own issues before tackling those of everyone else.
But Dr. Hargus was convinced that advice columns were insightful portholes into the psyches of the public, and if that’s what the professor had decided, Billy would suspend judgment and go through the required motions, buoyed by a blind faith that something valuable might come out of it.
One thing Billy couldn’t deny. Hargus’s classes were a lot of fun and never predictable. The most comical, sometimes heated discussions would arise out of some silly, seemingly innocuous question, and the advice offered by the columnist.
“Okay, class. We have an interesting one today. I’ll hand these out. Please pass them along. We can read this together.” Dr. Hargus took a couple big handfuls of the printed questions and responses and gave them to students in the front row to distribute. “Now do not, I repeat, do not turn these over to look at the columnist’s advice until we come to that. Okay. Everybody’s got it? Let’s go over the question and see what we think.”
Professor Hargus read aloud.
Dear ————— :
My girlfriend acts like a dude. It didn’t bother me when we first started dating but it’s getting to me, more and more, lately.
How can I get my girlfriend to act more feminine?
- Guy Who Wants A Real Lady
“Alright. I see a number of hands already in the air.” Pointing at a hard-looking blond with tattoos and a leather jacket. “Yes? You there. Courtney Love.”
“This guy’s the problem. Who is he to tell her how to act?”
Groans from some of the guys.
“Yes. The guy with the Hard Rock Café shirt.”
“If the guy wanted to date Tom Cruise, he’d be a homo, right? So he wants a girl who acts like a girl. But Lizzy Borden over there might be right. He’s probably a wussie boy who would be better off with some cuddly kewpie doll instead of the dyke he’s with right now.”
That brought a lot of laughs.
“Okay, class. What’s the advice we give him?”
Courtney Love again.
“The guy needs to get a clue. He should cancel his subscription to the Disney Channel and start going to strip clubs.”
“Hard Rock Café?”
“He should sign up to become a pen pal with a bunch of Japanese high school girls.”
A girl a few seats over shouted. “Is that how you got started?”
“Anyone else want to venture advice to our poor femininity-starved boy?”
Billy stood up.
“Masculine and feminine are artificial categories, solely made up by human beings with a lot of time on their hands and too many products to sell. Either the guy finds his current girlfriend attractive or he doesn’t. If he doesn’t, it’s time to move on. Unless she looks like Marlon Brando, some other guy will think she’s a dish and she won’t have to waste the time and energy trying to match up to this guy’s comic book idea of femininity. The guy should have no problem finding someone. He should just start hanging out in the cosmetics and perfume department at Macy’s or Walmart.”
There seem to be unanimous approval from the girls in the class. The guys offered polite nods of assent. There were a lot of why-didn’t-I-think-of-that expressions, probably at having lost a great opportunity to impress the girls, who now thought Billy had it pretty much together.
Dr. Hargus loved it when the boys got slapped in the face by one their own. She always stressed in her lectures that male competitiveness was one of the primal forces driving civilization building, matched only by female competitiveness, both of them trumped by the ongoing age-old battle between the sexes.
“Nice work, young man. That pretty much agrees with the columnist’s reply. Flip over your sheets and check out the response given by the advice professional.”
GWWARL:
How does she act like a dude? Spitting, cursing, scratching her balls in public? And she pees standing up? What? Don’t tell me she’s finally beating you in Guitar Hero and your ego is being bruised?
She is who she is and your asking her to act more feminine around you will result in you playing Guitar Hero on your own.
If the attraction isn’t there anymore … well, then it just isn’t there … She prancing around, following a script (if she went there), would only work for so long.
“Let me ask you this. With a show of hands, please. Is this columnist male or female?”
The class decided almost unanimously it was a male. Only two dissenting votes.
To the raucous laughter of the rest of the class, she pulled two dunce hats out of a large bag she always brought to class with her, then had them passed up to the two students — one male and one female — who had guessed wrong. They had to wear the hats for the rest of the class period.
“Yes, class. He’s pretty gnarly. But he knows the subject matter. It was probably himself he was describing there. Spitting. Scratching his crotch. But I love the guy. He really nails it. Besides, I don’t know any girls who play Guitar Hero. Okay. Hopefully you didn’t peek at the reply to the next one. Let’s go back to the front of the page. This is a broken-heart letter. This young man got dumped. I can’t imagine that happening to any of the handsome, well-mannered, highly intelligent lads in this room.”
The girls got a big hurrah out of that one. Choruses of ‘Oh no, never’ and ‘Not them’ went up all around. The guys were good sports and took it in stride, having often been the butt of Professor Hargus’ taunting.
“Here we go.” She read aloud.
Dear ————— :
In October, my college girlfriend ended our relationship by email within a week of our year anniversary, my longest relationship to date. She said a lot of stuff about us living too far away (30-minute drive) and that she needed time to be alone.
Not three weeks later, I found out she was dating some other guy.
I never contacted her after the first month of being broken up. When I got the email, I called her and told her how much she meant to me, but she insisted that the distance wasn’t working, and that she needed to be alone. A week or two later, I called to just say hello because I was feeling pretty low (I didn’t tell her that) and she got off the phone pretty quick. I never contacted her since, because I knew that would only be bad for me.
I’ve been doing everything to get over it; taking her number out of my phone, getting rid of anything she gave me, all mementos of the relationship.
But yet I’m having a hard time forgetting her. I’ve gotten to a point where I know that if she wanted me back, I’d even say no to her, because I see now that it wasn’t like the relationship was working so great by the time we broke up. So it’s not like I feel like she was the only one for me. But I can’t forget the good times, and I can’t forget the way she just left me like that. I’ve been on a few dates since the breakup, but I didn’t enjoy it.
I’ve done everything to start living my own life and forget about her (I’ve been good enough to not even try to get in contact with her since the break-up), so why am I still dwelling on it? It’s been almost eight months!
I feel like I need some sort of closure; I want so badly to tell her how she hurt me by dumping me so coldly and lying to me. But I feel like it would be a bad idea to call her up just to say that.
- How Can I Get Some Closure?
“Alright. Once you’ve all pulled yourself together and stopped crying, I’d like your thoughts on both the letter and whether any of you have ever had this much trouble getting over a relationship.”
There wasn’t much crying going on but there sure were a lot of strong opinions. The class took on aspects of a bedlam-based TV talk show.
“Why is it some girls get in your head and lodge there like an intestinal parasite?”
“That should only be a problem for guys with their intestines in their heads.”
“Or their heads up their butts.”
“This guy’s a drama queen. He’s wallowing in his self-pity. He’s like twenty years old and he thinks his life is over. Why doesn’t he just go out and get laid?
“God, I hope I never go out with someone like you.”
“You won’t have to worry about that.”
“What is it with you guys? Is it that you don’t have feelings? Or is it that you’re just way too cool to admit you have feelings? Here’s a guy who actually loved a girl and misses her. Tell me. What’s wrong with that? You have to make fun of him for caring.”
“He thinks she was so special because she got out first. If he had been smart enough to dump the bitch first, she’d be writing this pathetic letter.”
“It’s a question of sensitivity. Or I should say, insensitivity. There are too many people in the world. An individual has no worth. So he or she gets no respect. This girl took the coward’s way out. The guy got majorly dumped on. It’s that simple.”
“The guy’s a pussy-whipped idiot. He should have seen it coming.”
“It’s not that simple. You don’t know anything about him.”
“And you don’t know anything about her either. Maybe she’s a slut.”
“Regardless. The truth is that nowadays, for both sexes, it’s all just fast food. There’s no loyalty anymore. No one is in it for the long haul. We change partners like we change our underwear.”
“Maybe that’s why she left. Because he never changed his underwear.”
“The issue is not that she broke up with him. It’s the callous way she handled it. You don’t have to mess the other person up. There’s a right way and a wrong way.”
“Well, as a really sensitive guy, I agree with you there. By the way, what are you doing Saturday night?”
“I’m weightlifting with my three lesbian girlfriends.”
“Anyway. Like I was saying. The email thing was not happening. Very bad form. When I broke up with my last girlfriend, I used a much more delicate touch.”
“And that was?”
“She had this cat that used to attack me every time we were in bed together. I still have the scars on my back if you want to see them. Anyway, I attached a note to the cat after I strangled it with a guitar string from my ex’s Martin D-40. Her guitar playing sucked anyway. Not the cat’s. My ex’s. The girl played guitar like Stephen Hawking plays rugby. Maybe not even that good.”
Professor Hargus couldn’t let this one go by.
“Excuse me. If you’re not making this up, what did the note say?”
“I’m not making it up. The note was direct and to the point. It said, ‘Hey, you know the Paul Simon song, 50 Ways To Leave Your Lover? Well … here’s
number 51 … I ain’t gettin’ hitched, bitch.’
She definitely got the message.”
“Your mom must be proud of you.”
“My mom’s dead.”
“Strangled with a guitar string?”
“Fuck you! I didn’t really kill the cat. It died of natural causes.”
“Like rat poison?”
Before all hell broke loose, Professor Hargus jumped in.
“Okay. Let’s cool it down here a bit. I like a spirited discussion, students. But let’s stay away from personal attacks. Alright. Let’s look at what the professional has to say to this jilted guy, who does not want the girl back, mind you, but says he wants ‘closure’. Does anyone want to tell me what closure is in this context?”
Most students seemed to be slipping lower in their seats. A few looked thoughtful, while two others popped open laptops, presumably to look for the dictionary program. So far there was a conspicuous lack of hands.
“Anyone? Not all at once now. Okay … you young lady. The only one with her hand up.”
“He wants to clear the air of any bad feelings. Just feel like they understand one another and are able to end their relationship with no resentment or bitterness. Maybe come clean as to what exactly happened and be completely honest about it.”
“Excellent. Excellent answer. Okay, let’s see what advice-giver says.”
HCIGSC:
Let me count the ways in which you are better off without this girl …
1. Timing the break-up to an anniversary is just incredible weak. She had ample time to end the relationship. (She is inconsiderate and selfish).
2. A 30-minute drive is not a long-distance relationship. That is almost like being neighbors, in any metropolitan area. (She is lazy and dumb).
3. She told you that she needs “time to be alone” … This in reality, translates to “please don’t bug me; I’m already working on this other guy”. (She is a cheat and a slut).
4. Email break-ups are laughable. (She is cowardly and pathetic).
The fact is: She was already working on that other dude before even breaking up with you … Sooner or later, the other dude will also get to experience her weak-arse excuses and blame games.
You’ll get closure when you have a new and much hotter girlfriend’s legs wrapped around your head and she can’t get through a single day without fucking your brains out.
Give it time. Go out with your friends and meet some new people. You will be hard-pressed to find someone “weaker” than this ex-girlfriend. When you stop moping around the house and start meeting people, you will also start remembering the times when she bugged the hell of you …
Really … your old girlfriend laying naked, sweaty and panting in your bed, was not your whole relationship. It wasn’t … really.
Good luck!
“I feel like I should fire a starting gun. In any case, it’s off to the races.”
“This columnist is the same as for the last letter, right? Only a male would trash a girl like that. What a pig!
He called her a slut.”
“You’re right about that. If the tables were turned and it was the guy who started banging another girl and left his ex stranded, this writer would be whapping the guy on the back, telling him how incredibly cool he was.”
“That’s not fair. You can’t second guess what he’d say.”
“How can he go second guessing the girl? When he says that her saying she needs time alone has to mean that she is already with another guy. How can he claim to know that? Maybe the girl was thinking about it but hadn’t done anything yet. Maybe she wanted a clean break before she got into the new relationship. Meaning time alone.”
“Maybe Mary Magdalene was a virgin.”
“Is that the best you can do? Maybe she was a virgin. That was 2000 years ago. Maybe Monica Lewinski was a virgin. Who cares?”
“Maybe Bill Clinton is a virgin!”
“I love the ending where he says, ‘ your girlfriend laying naked, sweaty and panting in your bed, was not your whole relationship.’ I don’t know. I could go for some of the naked, sweaty and panting.”
“Join a nudist colony and take up jogging.”
“This writer makes some sense. And gives some good advice. The girl was lying. She said the same stupid things everyone says when they want to break it off but don’t have the guts to just say it. And Mr. Feel Sorry does need to just get out there and stop moping.”
“But the way he goes out of his way to demean her. Look at this. She’s inconsiderate and selfish. Lazy and dumb. A cheat and a slut. Cowardly and pathetic.”
“He’s got a problem with women. He is definitely a misogynist.”
“How do you even like know he’s married?”
“What’s that got to do with it?”
“Duh! Misogynist? Someone with like more than one wife.”
“That’s bigamist. B-I-G-A-M-I-S-T.”
“No matter how you dice it, for someone who is in the public eye telling others how to behave and conduct their lives, he may be funny, but he has no sensitivity.”
“Fuck sensitivity. I eat sensitivity for breakfast and spit it out on the way to class. It’s Darwin, baby. SOTF. That’s what it’s all about.”
“SOTF? What’s SOTF?”
“Survival of the fittest. If you can’t compete, it’s in the street. Next to the garbage.”
“I envy the lucky girl who marries you.”
“I ain’t ever getting married. But thanks for asking.”
“I’d rather have my tongue pulled out through my ass by a monster truck.”
“What about the whole legal aspect? He should be able to sue the bitch for damages. For all the mental grief. And for lying. That’s fraud. She should have to pay!”
“Then she should be able to sue him for being such a boring wimp-ass and a crybaby. Think of all her mental grief listening to his girly-boy eunuch whining.”
“If the guy’s a eunuch, it’s because she’s a castrating bitch. Look what she did to him. And how he ended up.”
“I love the way everyone can read so much into this. The letter is from the guy. What if she had written the letter? You’d get a whole other story.”
“Men are such pigs. Take away their beer and call them on how inconsiderate they are, and suddenly we’re all running around with axes and machetes. Think about how stupid that is.”
“Besides. Guys don’t need us to castrate them. They do it to themselves. It’s happening all of the time.”
“I don’t think so!”
“No way!”
“Just look at the way you act. Jealousy. Possessiveness. You think if you sleep with a girl, you own it. The thought of another guy putting his willy in there drives you nuts. The big strong stud bull becomes a whiny little mouse. This guy that wrote the letter so much as admits it.”
“That right. It’s been eight months and the guy says he still can’t enjoy going out. What else can you take from that? Snip snip. He’s his own worst enemy.”
A boy speaks out in a very high-pitched voice.
“Alright. Who put the helium in my asthma inhaler?”
And so it went. In every class Dr. Hargus continued acting like a supercharged hybrid of Jerry Springer and Oprah Winfrey. Billy cruised along, never even once tempted to change the channel. It was a hoot!
Spring Term galloped into April. Billy and the rest of the class continued unsuccessfully trying to second guess what the core substance of PSYCH 2800 was — in other words, what the material was they were expected to master and would ultimately be tested on. There seemed to be no formal lesson plan. It was impossible to figure out in terms of coherent subject matter, where they had been, much less divine where the course was ultimately heading.
The question of tests and grading was solved the third Tuesday of the month. Professor Hargus marched into class precisely at 10:00 am and launched into her carefully prepared speech.
“Okay, class. We’ve only got three weeks of regular class to go, and I have a very important announcement. First, the good news. I will not be giving you a final exam in this class.”
Whoops and cheers filled the room. It felt momentarily more like a pep rally than a bonafide psychology class.
As the ovation subsided, one male student yelled out from the back of the room.
“What’s the bad news? Am I going to have to have sex with you?”
Dr. Hargus laughed along with the class.
“You could wish. I’ll say this. If you did, I guarantee you’d never look at your grandmother the same way. No. The bad news is … I’m pregnant and I don’t know which one of you is the father.”
A chorus of groans from the boys competed with tittering and laughter from the girls. One girl then yelled out.
“It would be bad news if any of these guys were the father, that’s for sure.”
Boos and catcalls from the males collided head-on with hisses and catcalls from the girls.
Professor Hargus decided to get down to the business at hand.
“Okay. Okay. Enough fun. Let me explain how you will earn your grade. As I said, no formal exam. So don’t even show up exam week at the designated time. I won’t be here. Neither should you. Now let me explain. This is the first time I’ve tried this. But I think it’s going to really pull everything together. Let’s see.” She picked up the enrollment form listing the members of class. “We started out with forty-two. Six drops. And from what I can tell, three of you have never been to class ever. That leaves thirty-three. What I want each of you to do is write a short letter, just like the ones we have been looking at all term. Address it to Dear Hargee — that’s me. In this letter, you will describe some real or invented problem. ‘Dear Hargee. I caught my new boyfriend trying on my panties the other day. He claims it was an honest mistake. But he was also wearing lipstick at the time. What should I do?’ Okay? That’s just an example. But that’s the idea. Whatever problem you want answered. But listen, class. Part of your grade will be based on the originality of your letter. So don’t just regurgitate the same old predictable stuff. Really think about some problem we haven’t discussed here in class. Or maybe you have some really unique situation in your life. Your originality, that’s part of your grade. The other part comes from advice you give to others. This is how it works. Each letter turned in — there should be thirty-three total — will be given to the other members of this class. They will each write their own advice. You should get thirty-two replies. Since every reply will be signed, I will know what each and every one of you have said and will grade you accordingly. Let me summarize this and make it completely clear how this will work. Your overall grade for this entire class will be based first, on what question you come up with, and second what advice you give to the thirty-two questions you receive from other members of this class.”
The groans were back. And they weren’t fun groans.
“Now now. I know this sounds like a lot of work. But it’s not. Not really. The problems and the replies should be short and sweet. Direct and to the point. Just like what we’ve been reading all along. The key is common sense. You can be weird and wacky and try too hard or think you want to be clever. But that’s not going to cut it. Because being weird does not reflect the majority of the people out there. People have real problems and the want sensible answers. This is not a class in science fiction or creative writing. This is about the dynamic psychological elements — the unwritten rules of behavior, if you will — which are the sum and substance of our social interactions. Human interactions. So let’s keep it real. Have fun with it but please, keep it on planet Earth, year 2003 C.E. Any questions?”
One mock-whiny voice from off to the side filled the silence.
“Is it too late to drop this class?”
Dr. Hargus looked at him over the top of her glasses.
“Will an F hurt your grade point average?”
Another student replied.
“An F would raise his grade point average.”
Professor Hargus laid out the timetable. Letters were due at the beginning of the next class. She would have them copied for distribution by the end of the 90-minute lecture period. That would give everyone just under three weeks to come up with their replies. All replies were due in her office no later than Monday of Study Period week.
“Go to it, lads and lasses. See you day after tomorrow. Same time. Same station.”
It was a very somber group of students that lumbered out of the lecture hall.
Billy walked out of class and sat down under a tree. He finished his letter less than twenty minutes.
Dear Hargee,
I am deeply in love with a girl I’ve been dating for about a year.
She has a lousy family. She can’t stand them, and has minimum contact with them.
There are only two people in her life, people she is truly close to.
I, of course, am one of them. Her best friend, a girl who she has known from all the way back in elementary school, is the other.
This friend occasionally comes to visit my girlfriend here at Cornell, and I have slowly grown to like her. They are obviously very good for one another and I can see their friendship is a very positive thing.
This friend visited very recently and we all went out to dinner.
We had a great time but then at the end of the evening a very strange thing happened.
My girl’s best friend first told us that she thinks we are a really great couple and believes we should get married. That was cool. Then she said she knew I couldn’t afford to buy an engagement ring right now. So she had gone ahead and bought one for us.
Yes. It’s true. She pulled out a 1½ carat diamond engagement ring, gave it to my girlfriend and said it was hers to keep, so that if we wanted to get engaged, we could make it official.
I have been thinking a lot over the last few months about someday asking my girlfriend to get married. But obviously I assumed it was something I would do sometime well off in the future. The ring really caught me off guard.
I don’t know what to think. Or how I should feel.
On one hand, it was such a kind and generous gesture.
On the other, it seems kind of weird having someone else just take the ball on this and run, without even checking with either of us.
Maybe whatever hangups I have about not buying the ring myself are silly and it’s a gift I should accept. But I am really having trouble convincing myself. Something just doesn’t seem right.
Am I off base here? Is this too weird? What should I do?
Broke and in love,
Billy Green
Billy’s was one of three letters Professor Hargus singled out for uniqueness, relevance and creativity. Having identified it as such, she added as an aside, that we could safely assume this was not a problem actually confronting Mr. Green at this time, making it an even more noteworthy triumph of his imagination.
There was greater agreement in the responses given to Billy than for any of the other letters.
(29) recommended that if he and his girlfriend finalized their engagement, they accept the ring, and moreover make special mention of the friend’s generosity at their wedding. The 29 judged it as an act of extreme unselfishness, demonstrating the value of true friendship. 23 went on to say that for Billy to be threatened by the gift of the ring was just his male ego clinging on to outdated ideas about the rigid roles of men and women. 17 used the phrase “that’s what friends are for”, and 9 said “don’t look a gift horse in the mouth”, or words to that effect.
(1) said in no uncertain terms that the best friend was way out of line and being pushy. She obviously was threatened by Billy and was trying to regain top billing for herself in his girlfriend’s eyes, even if it meant giving her friend up to marriage. This person surmised she would always hold it over them that she was the one who pushed them into it, exerting some sort of weird control over them. They should give the ring back and tell her to mind her own business.
(1) suggested Billy grab the ring for himself, dump his girlfriend, and either pawn the ring or ask the best friend to marry him. The best friend was obviously loaded with bucks and loose with her wallet, two qualities which a discerning man should always look for in a prospective wife.
(1) told Billy to bail immediately, because there was something funny going on. The girls had probably planned the whole thing together. In all likelihood, they are man-haters or lesbians playing a sick joke on a poor unsuspecting male.
Billy got the only A for the class.
Everyone else got B or below.
Two schmucks got an F.
Professional Reviews
A Good Read!
Wow! All I can say is this was some read. I must say I would suggest you read this author's first novel 'The Man Who Loved Too Much [Archipelago #1]' before reading this novel which continues on from book one. I found in 'Book 2: Entrendre' was quite a continuous journey of life as it was for Billy Green. I liked how this author was able to bring it all out with this person being so innocence and naive truly giving us a quite a read of just what all Billy Green had to through. Will Billy come out of all that is presented to him and still be the 'good' Billy Green as his mom sees him as? Will Billy really find the true meaning of just what 'Love Is' as he goes on with his life that seems not to be going the way he would like. But one thing for sure is that Billy was loved by his sweet Mom. Sorry I had to slip that in and at a point in the read he needed some love. I loved how this author was able to bring that relationship out so well to the readers. I will say the reader will be presented with some real interesting characters in this read ...some continues from the 'book one' and then 'book two' which there were some that were likable ones however, there were some not so likable ...and I can name three or four right off the bat.... as you continue to read from the novel. From the story we get quite a interesting well written story that will keep your attention in this read. I don't want to spoil it other than say you must pick up this novel to see what else will go on in Billy Green life as he seeks to find out or should I say will he truly find out what real true love is with the and main question being will he ever get what he really wants in life? It was quite interesting how this author deals with and brings what all is going in the life of Billy Green as he will leave one area and go to another. What is that all about? Will Billy find what he is looking for from this major move? Again, pick up this novel where all of these questions and much more will be answered. So, if you are looking for a 'challenging, humorous, tragic and very unpredictable' story then you have come to the right place for "The Man Who Loved Too Much Book 2: Entendre" will be a good read that I would definitely recommend to you. I will be looking for the next book 3 to get the end of it all of this story about Billy Green.
Billy Green's Plight Continues...
"Entendre" (The Man Who Loved Too Much #2 ) follows Billy Green's humorous, painful and tragic search for a meaningful life and fulfilling love. The story begins with his fiancée Natalie's graduation and move to Newburgh, New York where she's living with her overbearing friend Pam while Billy who suddenly finds himself between roommates at Cornell agrees to share his flat with Julianne. With a guilty conscience he starts a sexual relationship with the beautiful Julianne and finds that he has enough love for both women in his life.
His emotional confusion decreases when Billy follows Natalie to Newburgh after graduation working at Habitat for Humanity and marrying the girl of his dreams. Only as time passes does his suspicions about Natalie's out-of-town excursions and close friendship with Pam grow, although their blissful marriage is still charged with sexual excitement. When he returns home one evening having forgotten a copy of his speech for a charity dinner his world turns upside down and his heart is shattered. Struggling with his pain, sorrow and emptiness Billy decides to take a chance, to find new meaning in his life and search for love again.
With laughter and tears John Rachel juxtaposes Billy Green's turbulent love life against a setting filled with major historical events in a chaotic world. Cleverly in the Prologue with a college assignment that revolves around personal advice columns and social interaction Billy's idealism and suspicions are revealed in his submission that exposes Pam as the purchaser of his engagement ring for Natalie.
With a fluid writing style and natural dialogue he brings realism to a parody on life that has confusion and heartbreak swirling around Billy as he faces agonizing decisions that have severe consequences. His sexual romp with Julianne splits his heart between the two women, and he wonders if he's actually in love with Natalie while she gives him carte blanche in a cryptic message to "love the one you're with". Yet he blunders into marriage still loving Natalie although suspicious and anxious about her relationship with Pam. In a roller-coaster ride with twists and turns that eventually find Billy wallowing in his suffering he begins to wonder if love is nothing more than an allusion.
Enriching the drama are characters who are passionate, vibrant and complex like Billy who's very trusting, enthusiastic and congenial. Naive and vulnerable, he wallows in his grief and heartbreak allowing Natalie to take advantage of him as he searches for renewed purpose in his life. Haunted by guilt at neglecting his mother over the years, he doesn't turn to her for support even though she has to be strong-minded living with a Hell's Angel want-a-be and recovering from cancer. Instead he flounders, seeking answers and solace in alcohol, drugs and meaningless sex. Plagued by an abusive childhood Natalie Diamond is the brazen, faithless, domineering wife who relies on her blunt, confident and obsessive friend Pam as an anchor in times of need. Ironically none of the characters really know what love is, equating it to sexual gratification.
"Entendre" (The Man Who Loved Too Much #2 ) is fascinating and stirring as Billy bumbles through life hoping that real love exists and that it's still out there somewhere. The reader can't help but root for him, hoping in the third book he'll find purpose and love again.
“The Man Who Loves To Think Too Much.”
John Rachel’s second book follows his first in a lyrical musical rhythm, with a beat, and the contrapuntal symphony of introspective dancing words. The subtitle Entendre underscores this work; unsubtle with a single meaning. But it is damn clever, close to the bone stream of consciousness writing.
Chockablock with insights into pop-culture and political observations — the work presents a tsunami of depraved, reflective mental torture expressed poetically coursing through the mind of Billy Green. The author’s candidly, beautifully executed mental reflections reminded me of Marcel Proust’s detailed mental pondering in his classic work “Swans Way.”
Outwardly Billy Green spews out a plethora of nonstop wise-ass, zingers, zappers and one line responses in conversations with friends and enemies alike.
Is Billy is expecting too much from his life — a hollow adult — all shiny lacquer gloss — expecting others to fulfill his vacuous soul — and damn lucky in his life so far. Which head is the poor Billy thinking with? His big head or the one located at the tip of his penis? Reading this work I felt compelled to give Billy Green a swift kick in his ass.
Maybe this book could be titled: “The Man Who Loves To Think Too Much.”
Then again, reading this work reminded me of the role of parents in raising their children. For many contemporary parents, family values and moral standards are missing. The parents behave like their kids, smoking pot, shooting up drugs, boozing, and indulging in casual sex. They are role models, so it’s no surprise that their children follow their lead with impunity.
The richest nation on earth is morally bankrupt. On a massively larger scale; examine the current morality of the American totalitarianism government’s subterfuge; trickery, intrigue, deviousness, deceit, deception, dishonesty, cheating, duplicity, guile, cunning, craftiness, chicanery, pretense, fraud, fraudulence, corruption, double dealing, outright lies, spying, and torture. No wonder the citizens of this powerful nation have gone to pot.
Like loving parents, good governments exhibit the distinction between right and wrong or good and bad behavior. The values and principles of conduct: virtue, goodness, good behavior, righteousness, rectitude, uprightness; morals, principles, honesty, integrity, propriety, honor, justice, decency; ethics, standards/principles of behavior, mores, standards. The current American government has set the standards for their citizens (children) to follow.
That’s the overshadowing message I received reading this fascinating and thought provoking book. This is an important read, for sane people in a world that’s rapidly going berserk.
Certainly I’ll be reading more about confused, drugged and drunk Billy Green on a runaway fright train heading into the third and final book in “The Man Who Loved Too Much” Trilogy — chugga choo chugga choo…
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