Piltdownlad #2: Women Got Me Drinking

By Kelly Dessaint
www.facebook.com/piltdownlad

There's a website I spend too much time on called Reddit. It acts as a place where people post links about various topics, and comment on them. It is filled both with people embracing and rejecting the myth of the nice guy. You know, the one where if you're best friends with a girl, and never express your romantic interest in her, she'll eventually reveal that she loves you and wants to sleep with you without you ever having to be proactive. (You can probably already tell I think this is stupid.)

Now it's clearly unfair to equate Women Got Me Drinking to this idea entirely. The main character isn't pining after a girl he's known since he was a kid who he thinks he loves. No, instead he's pining after a girl who sits opposite where he works, that he's never talked to, and yet he's completely convinced will be his "inspiration to write".

Which leads us to another cliche, the main character as struggling writer. What does it say about writers that one of their favourite characters to write about is a writer? Are they just using the idea of "write what you know", or are they being incredibly egotistical? Part of me thinks that you can't become a good (or at least well known/published) writer without being at least a bit incredibly egotistical. You have be able to convince others that you can write things for them, and it's unlikely that you'll be able to do that if you're not confident in your own writing skills.

None of this actually tells you _anything_ about this zine in question.

This zine is a (fictional?) account of living in New Orleans at some point after Hurricaine Katrina. The descriptions of poverty, living in shitty parts of town, the people that live there, and how the lower class manage to survive were all interesting, and I'd have much rather read a zine about those things then a story about one person's search for the 100% perfect girl.

Though it says on the cover it's a love story, so I should have known what I was in for from the beginning.