Suppository Story

The story began in my car. I was driving my friend Kevin to the airport at the beginning of May. En route, he related his account of something that happened the previous weekend.

The gym at which we train has a relatively small membership. If you keep going there long enough, you’ll eventually learn everyone’s name, because it’s usually the same twenty people going there every day – or night – at the same exact time. I can tell you what most of the people at this place do for a living, and I can also tell you where most of them live.

So when two of them asked Kevin if he’d like to do some club-hopping in the city that weekend, he thought nothing of it and decided to go. This is a perfect illustration of how you don’t really know someone until you see how they act in every possible situation. I’m friendly with the two guys he’s talking about here, and I definitely didn’t see this coming:

“They picked me up and we decided to drive into the city because Rich (the guy with the car) wasn’t going to drink. Right before we’re about to get on the LIE, he pulls over, parks the car, and the two of them take their shirts off and start rubbing Preparation H all over themselves.

“At this point, I’m like, ‘What the fuck?’, but they explain to me that they put the stuff on because it lifts the water out of their skin and it makes it look like they’re more ripped.”

The first thing I did, right then and there, was what I always do. I wrote down the idea, thinking I’d figure out a way to use it the next time I wrote something on the blog. A few days later, I wrote this post.

Now, what you need to understand about this post is that it’s completely fabricated. “Peter Minichiello” does not exist. I didn’t go to CVS on Hempstead Turnpike and speak to anyone named “Lawrence Weisz,” nor did I interview a nightclub manager named “Mitchell Goldner.” I’m sure there are people in the world with these names, but I haven’t ever spoken with them. I did take the precaution of Googling these names before using them to make sure I wouldn’t embarrass anyone, but the only legwork I did for this “story” involved taking a leak in the middle of making it up.

Everything contained in these “journalistic” posts came directly out of my head. The situations are real – guys really do rub Preparation H on themselves before going into clubs – but the names and quotes are all me. The post was mentioned on Gawker, which is always cool, and I pretty much forgot about it from there because I figured everyone was in on the joke.

Until this week, that is.

First, this story came out. This led to a series of emails from Fox asking me to appear on Mike and Juliet – their morning show here in New York. They sent a limo to pick me up, gave me a room in a luxury hotel in Manhattan, then had me as a guest on the show’s 9:45 segment. Once I was finished looking really uncomfortable on-air, I went right back into a limo and was driven home. Funny shit, but it was actually a good idea to have me as a guest because, sadly enough, I probably know more people who’ve applied Preparation H to themselves for purposes other than hemorrhoid relief than anyone on the planet.

Then, I check my blog stats and see this story, which claims that “Fitzgerald, who writes the blog Clublife, recently conducted his own research on the phenomenon, interviewing a user, a drugstore worker and a nightclub manager.” Of course, as stated earlier, I did nothing of the sort. Figuring everyone would just “get it,” I didn’t think I needed to qualify these posts by issuing a disclaimer. You’d think people would ask before quoting me. In fact, they should probably hire me. I’ll write the story better and check my facts.

This is very funny: “I don’t give a shit what these slapdicks are using it for. I wish they’d stay out of my fucking life. To be perfectly honest with you, I think the shit doesn’t even work, because if it did, these club assholes would all disappear. It’s supposed to get rid of hemorrhoids, isn’t it?”

But who says shit like that? I mean, how can you not know?

In any event, this is yet another example of why starting this blog was both the smartest and stupidest thing I’ve ever done – and yet another reason to disbelieve damned near everything you’ll ever read.

Update: The Fox story has been edited since this post first appeared.