More from Modern Men, Eavesdropped:

“See how crazy this shit is? I mean, I can’t believe things work as well as they do. Everybody’s got these... like these trigger like responses, ya know, for whatever reason, these conditioned responses. But then, I don’t know, at least I feel like I wanna be proven wrong, ya know. I mean, nothing makes me happier than finding out I was totally fucking wrong about something.”

“I know. I love it when someone shows me something new, like a totally new way of looking at something. Come on, show me, please. Fucking show me!”

“Haha... It’s fucking crazy, man... Like my father and all his fucking Fox News fucking Tea Party bullshit. I mean, I just feel like I’ve dropped acid or something. I mean, the shit they think, it just makes you feel like anything is possible, like one day you’re gonna wake up and they’re gonna be rounding people up or something. I mean, I’m tellin’ ya, that would not surprise me at all. It’s just so fuckin‘ scary, especially when you have kids. Everything’s so fucking crazy. I mean, sometimes I actually think, holy shit, what if they’re right? I mean, you know, like my father. What if that fucker’s right?

“Haha. Yeah, it’s just like this total mass hysteria of miscommunication. I mean, no one knows what the fuck’s going on but, ya know, you have kids, you got a mortgage, you gotta keep working. There’s just no way out of it. That’s why people are so convinced they’re right. They HAVE to be. You know, they see something, they see what they need to see in it and it just gets programmed right into their brains. I mean, really, it’s like software, it’s like okay, I know that’s that so then that must mean this. Yeah, okay, got it! It’s pretty scary, man.”

“And then, ya know, it even goes further. It’s like one time we talked my father into watching Pulp Fiction and it was like that... What’s the scientific theory or whatever, where, you know, like the observer or whatever affects the subject or some sort of shit like that? You know what I mean?”

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

“I mean, it was so fucked up, it was like his presence actually affected the movie. I mean, seriously, it like altered the fucking film!”

“Haha. Yeah, that’s happened to me. Just over Christmas we watched one of my favorite episodes of Seinfeld with my parents. The one where George double dips. Anyway, it was terrible. Like all of a sudden, there was just nothing funny about it. I mean, I fucking hated it! We had to turn it off.”

“Haha. Fuck, that’s fucking funny, man. But like, seriously, man, you guys really thought Natalie Portman deserved an Oscar for that?”

“Fuck yeah, man! She was amazing!”

“Really?!”

“What, you guys thought Annette Bening should’ve won? For... what was it, The Kids Are Alright?”

“Dude, Annette Bening was fucking INCREDIBLE in that. I can’t believe you didn’t like it! Man, you guys have to go back and watch it. I mean, she’s just like so fucking raw and true and just the way she responds ya know. Man, I just don’t get the Natalie Portman thing. I mean, I liked the movie, it was alright. I don’t know, I just think that director has too big of an ego or something. It just like stinks the whole thing up for me. I don’t know, I get the physical thing with her performance but I just don’t feel like that role was in any way emotionally challenging or anything like that. I mean, all she had to do was get skinny and learn how to dance. I mean, what the hell does that have to do with acting? And ya know, I mean, she had all the incentive in the world to pull it off. I mean, what more could you ask for? I feel like it’s harder for me to cut back on my drinking than for her to do what she did. Yeah, I don’t know. I just don’t get it, man.”

“Yeah, well. I couldn’t disagree more.”

“See!”