Dry

“Advertising makes everything seem better than it actually is. And that’s why it’s such a perfect career for me. It’s an industry based on giving people false expectations.”

Right out of the gate, Burroughs zeroes in on the psychological connection between his career and his past. His entire life thus far has been false expectations—expectations that his parents would be responsible caregivers, that a psychiatrist would have his best interests at heart, that a 33-year-old man would understand that raping a 13-year-old boy is unconscionable. When none of these expectations bear out, Burroughs grows up not only with a traumatic past but also with a keen sense of how to manipulate others’ expectations. He feels this is the key to success in advertising.

“There’s a huge old bar to my right, carved by hand a century ago from several ancient oak trees. It’s like this great big middle finger aimed at nature conservationists.”

For Burroughs, the environment of the bar takes precedence over everything else—his health, his job, the planet. While his humor is gleefully malevolent at times, and while it’s doubtful that he doesn’t really care about the environment, his casual brush-off of groups like Greenpeace and the Sierra Club reflects his mindset during his heady drinking days. Nothing must interfere with his drinking—not Greer, not an early meeting at the Metropolitan Museum, and certainly not a couple of old growth oak trees.