Former Duke Students Flirt with Fame

Tucker Max, Duke Law '01, has witnessed firsthand the benefits of the dotcom boom. He worked as a lawyer for a major Silicon Valley firm, before being fired after three weeks. On a bet, he posted an application form online where girls could apply to go on dates with him. It has since transformed into a full-fledged website that has received tremendous publicity for posted accounts of his sexual escapades. In the process, he has crafted an online personage that is equal parts comedic virtuoso and present-day cultural icon. In anticipation of the release of his third book, I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell, Tucker talked to recess about his hatred of Duke basketball, breezing through law school and (not) punching Carson Daly. recess: What do you think of Duke? Tucker Max: I'm a born and bred Kentuckian, so I hate being called Duke alumni. Because, as a Kentucky basketball fan, Duke is like Satan to us- Don't even get me started on Duke basketball. Every time Duke has an away game I say a silent prayer that the plane crashes, and Coach K dies. I was there when they won the national title. I was on the quad, where everyone was burning sh--, and I was like, "This is the weakest national title celebration I've ever scene." When UK won the national title, they f---ing had to call the riot police, and Duke kids think they're crazy because they're burning a chair. I'm like, "You guys suck." What do you think of the social scene in Durham? The only good thing about Durham is that it's ten minutes from Chapel Hill. No, seriously, Durham sucks. We'd usually just start at Top of the Hill, and all the sorority girls would meet us, and we'd go wherever they wanted to go. I was hooking up with one of the UNC soccer players at the time, and so- I ended up hooking up with a girl whose brother is a current UNC football player. Anyways, she (the soccer player) asked who I had hooked up with, and I told her the name, and she laughed and said, "Tucker, that girl f---ed like every dude I knew at UNC." I was like, that's great, thank you. I'm pretty happy to hear that. Did you learn anything at Duke? I bought all my textbooks for my first semester for the first year. After that, I think I bought two textbooks for my next five semesters- Literally, if the final exam was "Pick Your Professor Out of A Crowd" I would have failed. Dude, I didn't know where many classes were. We had a bet my second year- that I could never show up to a class and walk in [to the final] cold, without studying, just with an outline someone else wrote, and pass the class. So I bet my buddy Rosenfield, his name is Hate in the stories. I think it was 50 bucks. I let him pick the class. He picked Tax Law, which is like the hardest f---ing class in law school. So I sign up for Tax, I never walk in the class once, didn't buy the textbook, didn't study for a minute, but one of my other buddies, Jeff, who's El Bingeroso in the stories, he gave me his outline from Tax, walked in cold with the outline, got a 2.6 on the exam. Law school's a f---ing joke, don't let anyone tell you otherwise. Dude, my second year Spring semester, when I was enrolled in school, I spent six weeks in Cancun, and worked there for a month and a half. How do you recount your drunken nights so well? First off, when I go out, I take a voice recorder with me, so the next day, if this is a crazy night, I'll have like ten voicemails. It's also pretty funny too because if you listen to the voicemails in succession you can totally tell that the first one is clear and lucid, then by the time you get to the second one I'm kind of slurring my words. And the last two or three I usually can't understand anything I said on it. I'll listen to it fifty times in a row, I'll put it on my computer, slow it down, speed it up. Nothing. Can you give a typical day in your life? I get up around 11 or 12, I go eat breakfast, I check my e-mail, I'll post some sh-- on [my message board], I go work out, come back, play on the computer for two more hours, watch some TV, whatever- I got a f---ing great life dude, I just get drunk, hook up and write stories about it, and I get paid for it? Who's the most famous person you've hooked up with? I can't tell you on record, because I promised her I wouldn't say. I'll tell ya what, when I hooked up with her she was almost famous. Now she's for-real famous. Do regret anything you've done? One of these things I'm going to regret the most, is that I had the chance to hit Carson Daly right in the f---ing mouth! And I didn't- I mean, right when he was at the peak of his douche-baggery- and I didn't take it. I've never ever in my life been more disappointed in myself. It's totally one of those situations where the gods where totally f---ing with me because I was [in] the green room in Kimmel, I was almost the most famous person in the room at the time. And then all of the sudden I look over, and totally out of nowhere, not even two feet from me, Carson Daly is standing there. It was a total moment where the gods were like, "Alright a--hole, you're talking sh-- about punching him in the mouth. Here he is. There's nobody guarding him, no one around. Hit him in the mouth." And I totally totally buckled. I was so mad at myself. Still to this day- I don't know who will replace him. The obvious thing is Ryan Seacrest, but Ryan Seacrest is such a dipsh-- that he's like a parody. I mean, hitting him in the mouth is like, whatever.