I bring you out here at the end of summer every year. You notice that? My father did the same. My father was a weak man, credit wise, but he did what he had to do. I do what I have to do too. I&rsquo;m here to show you how to catch a fish with your bare hands.&nbsp;
I want you to run your hands through the water. Find anything? You were going too slow. Jenson Men have to be quick to survive. Jenson Men have to be quick if they want to eat. These fish are like a Jenson man. They&rsquo;re hunted extensively by the wealthier folks from town.&nbsp;
Clasp down on that one right there with two hands. Woah buddy, that&rsquo;s not a fish. It&rsquo;s a frog. Bite into it. Gross? No such thing as gross, son. Some people think they&rsquo;re better than their prey. A top hunter knows he&rsquo;s the same as his prey, just a little richer is all.&nbsp;&nbsp;
Put your arm in that whirlpool and clench. All around you, fish are moving, playing a game of life and death, just like us Jenson men. Life and death, that&rsquo;s the game everyone plays, isn&rsquo;t it? Okay. Maybe not everyone, son, but people play.
See the way that fish avoided your hands? You need some bait, kiddo! The best hunting bait is a low-to-no credit opportunity. Here&rsquo;s some worm meat.&nbsp;
Enjoy the quiet time you get out here, son. There&rsquo;s nothing like the great outdoors, especially when the Wilkinson Estate begins their summer hunt. Not a Jenson Man in sight for the summer hunt. That&rsquo;s how a Jensen man gets shot and mounted on a Wilkinson Man&rsquo;s wall.&nbsp;
Lick the skin off this one, son. Catfish are bottom-feeders, but now don&rsquo;t let that bother you. We don&rsquo;t get to choose what part of the food chain we&rsquo;re on. If we did, maybe I&rsquo;d choose not to be hunted for sport by my fellow man. Maybe, I said, but maybe not.

I bring you out here at the end of summer every year. You notice that? My father did the same. My fa...

The Woods

It was time for them to head west with just the shirts on their backs and the shirts on their legs. Remember AIDS? Reagan had blown that 1-0 lead. It was their turn now, but they were seeing spiders, man. The barista must have laced the LSD with coffee.&nbsp;
They felt that American wind whip across their bright-light-big-city faces when they turned the AC on. It was time to play a lot of Springsteen, exclusively on cassette, completely unironically.&nbsp; They passed a group of college girls on a yellow school bus. Maybe they were in kindergarten. The zeitgeist was the same.&nbsp;
They passed through the hippie communes of California, and out of the two they liked the Las Vegas one better. They saw four cars and six hundred thousand people in California. Place was a carpooling miracle. The gang pulled the car over at the first sign that read San Francisco, a Spanish phrase meaning &ldquo;pull over here, por favor&rdquo;.&nbsp;
They were tripping hard. By morning they made it to a campground. By noon they opened the car door. Each tent had one righteous babe named after a rock formation. Crystal was easy on the eyes. Grand Canyon had legs so long that each one could hold five hitchhikers and did. Dwayne &ldquo;The Rock&rdquo; Johnson was fucking the third girl.&nbsp;
Late into the night, the guys would ask each other, &ldquo;What does any of this mean?&rdquo; while parsing through a Tex Mex menu. Back then, the system was one big empanada, and the working man was churned into a delicious Latin goo.

It was time for them to head west with just the shirts on their backs and the shirts on their legs. ...

Excerpts From the Great American Novel

Last Monday they caught me playwriting during detention.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Well well well, what do we have here?&rdquo; the teacher asked, having never seen stage directions before. &ldquo;N-nothing&rdquo; I replied, stuffing the play into my bag and taking out a longer play that was ready for edits. The cool kids teased me for writing plays. The cool kids wrote pilots.&nbsp;
&ldquo;The fuck is up with all this profane-ass bullshit?&rdquo; the teacher said, reading aloud my first line of dialogue. His face turned pale at my offense. A question mark with no question? I was wantonly disregarding the interrogative form.&nbsp;
&ldquo;Don&rsquo;t worry teach, the principal is gonna looove this one&rdquo; someone called out from the back. Everyone knew that Principal Adams was a huge theater geek. His support would mean social suicide.
&ldquo;Hold on guys, it&rsquo;s just a play,&rdquo; I said, reading the role of my lead Rocco, a playwright doing his best work in school classrooms. The crowd nodded sympathetically, even though my stage directions told them to nod ironically. In fairness, the directions were crossed-out, and worse, in a Courier condensed font, which no pilot writer reads.
Soon it was time for my punishment. I sullied up to the chalkboard and wrote &lsquo;I won&rsquo;t obsess over dialogue&rsquo; fifty times, with slightly different wording each time, until I found the one that sounded the most natural, the second, &lsquo;I.. uh&hellip; like, no me obsesionar&eacute; con el di&aacute;logo&rsquo;.&nbsp;
Then I showed the class my novella. It was actually pretty good.&nbsp;&nbsp;

Last Monday they caught me playwriting during detention. 
“Well well well, what do we have here?” t...

Playwriting

Hot Babes. Everywhere. Oyster season baby. Oyster. Fucking. Season. Summer on the &lsquo;Tuck. If you&rsquo;re not here, you&rsquo;re probably on the ferry. Poor.
Grab a quick nibble at the harbor. Babes behind the counter. Babes in your lobster roll. Spike that Don Julio with Nantucket Nectar. You have had sex before.&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Sweater says &ldquo;Martha&rsquo;s Vineyard.&rdquo; Global. Wraparound glasses. They&rsquo;re polarized. Next summer we auction off Cornelius&rsquo;s rare book collection to fuel our burgeoning heroin addiction. This summer we shoot up. Step on a needle. Ow ow ow.&nbsp;
Boys on the beach. Tanning on the beach. Freaking on the beach. Spikeball on the beach. Weirdos in the water. Crabs in the water. Losers in the water. Fat dads in the water. No dude I&rsquo;m not going in the water. Sharks in the water. Fish piss in the water. I&rsquo;m not a pussy for not going in the water. Rich dads on the beach. Dude I know how to swim. Young stepmoms on the beach. Why would I go in the water? Why would I wanna go in the water?&nbsp;
&lsquo;Tucket, baby.&nbsp;

Hot Babes. Everywhere. Oyster season baby. Oyster. Fucking. Season. Summer on the ‘Tuck. If you’re n...

‘Tucket

- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; First time?
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Yeah. Gotta pay rent somehow.&nbsp;
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Rent? (scoffs) Rent? Look around, kiddo. Who do you see?
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Shit, bunch of bullshit, hotshot Ivy League educated lawyers, I guess.
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Wealthy men. Impactful men. What else?
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Everyone six foot or up. Perfect bone structure. Genius level IQ.
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; (Kicks up feet) You think they need this money?
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; I guess not.
- &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; Money I can get anywhere. Find me another place I can ejaculate in the company of this many great men.
&nbsp;
JLN

-       First time?
-       Yeah. Gotta pay rent somehow. 
-       Rent? (scoffs) Rent? Look aroun...

Cryobank Waiting Room

This is the real story of something that occurred to me in 2008.
John Weidman &lsquo;68: I hear we have a talented musician in the crowd?&nbsp;
Lin-Manuel Miranda and 8-year-old-me stand up at the same time.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Oh!&nbsp;
8-Year-Old Me:(chuckling) I&rsquo;m so sorry. (gestures towards piano) Please.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: (laughing) No, little guy, why don&rsquo;t you&hellip;
8-Year-Old Me: I insist.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: (looking at my parents) Oh, okay-
8-Year-Old Me: I&rsquo;ll just go after you. You can go first, Lin-Manuel Miranda.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Okay.&nbsp;
Lin-Manuel sits down at piano.
Lin-Manuel Miranda: Just to preface this, I&rsquo;ve been doing a lot of research into&ndash;
8-Year-Old Me: Alexander Hamilton. Yeah, me too. Just play the song and I&rsquo;ll go next.

This is the real story of something that occurred to me in 2008.
John Weidman ‘68: I hear we have a...

John Nugent.css-1xlpnei{margin:0px -15px 0px 6px;width:11px;vertical-align:-14px;}

John Nugent