Odd Couples We Love: Neil Oxman And Larry Platt
Sometime last winter, PhillyMag editor Larry Platt’s fledgling congressional campaign, um, fledgelled, or whatever you like to call it. Not because we would have liked to see Larry fail, but rather because it just seemed a waste of his talents, it was kind of a sigh of relief, for a few reasons. One being that we know what Larry does because we do what Larry does, and let us tell you, what Larry does is diiiiiirrrr-ty. And he’d never be able stand up in the glare of the electoral marketplace and go, “Yes. I edit a magazine for old Jewish ladies and I like to get BLUNTED!” Even though he should. He’s just not that kinda guy. But also, as we’ve noted, Larry is an asshole, works for an asshole magazine, but you know what? It’s his asshole. It tastes familiar to him and as a result, he is good at what he does, even if what he does is not, you know, good. Am I making any sense here? To put a fine point on it: Larry, like him or not, is one of us. A tribesman. And to see one of our own get sucked into this vortex where he’d have to defend things (like curse words and drugs and old Jewish ladies) that you and I already know are AWESOME, well, it just doesn’t feel right.
But here is where this story becomes the sweetest buddy movie of the year: When he was getting his toes wet with other Dems last fall, Platt enlisted the help of Neil Oxman, whom you have to thank for such elected politicians as Ed Rendell and Michael Nutter. Oxman is one of these crazy political Jedis, and basically everything Platt does makes Oxman crazy. He calls him a dilettante and a fucking nightmare repeatedly, and, hey, I think even Larry would agree, correctly. And in a longish piece in GQ, Platt shows that this aborted congressional run was a story of… Two People… Who Were Like Oil And Water… But Really Turned Out To Be The Best Friends Of All. After the jump, their two best exchanges, and living proof of the John McCain mantra: You’re not supposed to say that shit out loud.
I could feel the glare through the phone. “You’re going to be a fucking nightmare.” Pause. “What kind of car do you drive?”
“A BMW.”
“Jesus,” Oxman sighed. “Okay, the campaign will have to rent you an American car.”
“Really?”
“Fucking nightmare,” he mumbled. “And you’ve got to get some schlubby-looking suits. You’re a stylish guy—people don’t vote for stylish. They vote for schlubby.”
“You’re serious? Really?”
“STOP SAYING THAT!” he raged. This was just the first of what would become routine Oxman bitch slaps; at least once a day for the next three months, I’d get a full-throated tongue-lashing in which I’d invariably be called a “fucking dilettante” or a “fucking nightmare.” His outbursts were part shtick, part calculated motivation. Sometimes he’d interrupt a particularly vituperative name-calling tirade by screaming, “I SCREAM BECAUSE I LOVE!” And then he’d call me a fucking dilettante again.
IT WAS time to come clean to Oxman.
In 2000, I told him, I’d written in George magazine about smoking some really good weed with comedian Bill Maher. In 1996, I’d written about selling some not-so-good pot brownies at my high school German Club bake sale. Years ago I’d caused, uh, pain in my marriage. In 2004, I gave a videotaped address to the incoming freshman class of my alma mater, telling them they’d “experiment with drugs and drinking and sex while in college—and you should have fun, it’s a rite of passage—but you can take that same hell-bent, radical approach to the life of the mind here…”
Oxman cut me off.
“Who the fuck are you, Timothy Leary? When was the last time you smoked pot?”
“It was a youthful indiscretion,” I replied. Then: “Six months ago.” But how about offering up the truth, I asked. The truth is, I don’t smoke pot anymore (unless, of course, I’m at a party and someone passes me a bowl), because, where it used to make me smarter, it now makes me real, real dumb. Can’t I just say that?
“DON’T SAY THAT!” Oxman roared.
