Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

How to Date a Dead Guy

2007; University of Iowa; Volume: 37; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.17077/0021-065x.6369

2330-0361

Pierre Hauser,

Gothic Literature and Media Analysis

How to Date a Dead Guy Back in San Fran, before my career in movies popped, I used to pal around with a really short guy.His name was Tyler and he stood about five foot one, with legs so stumpy he was occasionally mis taken for a midget.My other buddies wondered why I was joined at the hip to someone who came up to my hip.They said we looked lopsided together (I'm 6'2"), warned he would scare off the ladies, encouraged me to blow him off.But Tyler had other qualities that redeemed him?he was puppy-dog friendly, beyond smart?so he eventually became part of the gang that gathered at O'Shea's on Sundays for 49er games.It was cool having a trusty sidekick, which was basically how Tyler positioned himself.His nickname for me was Stud and I did not discourage him.Tyler and I had grown up in the same working-class part of San Francisco, attended the same Catholic schools, lived in similar bungalows.But we didn't become friends until our mid-twenties, when he started frequenting the video store I managed.Tyler would wander in after work in his suit (he did something involving tenant law), request various episodes of The World at War, and we'd get into discussions of favorite war films.We caught dinner a couple times, but looking at each other over candlelight seemed too girly and date-like, so we developed a routine of hitting the bars.Tyler was great at the research part, tracked the listings for hip new places, always knew where to find parking.For a while we had a decent run.Once he got to talking to a girl, he could surprise you?there was the whole cute factor (think Orlando Bloom, Tobey Maguire).But I had less time for Tyler after the dot-com maelstrom hit.I was signed as writer for an online soap amid a labor shortage in the media biz, then poached by a Hollywood studio seeking to stomp out new forms of competition.My new career was a good fit: I seemed to have a gift for repurpos ing old stories, and my bosses appreciated my "regular guy" per spective (think young Harvey Weinstein).