Did you have a guy in high school who always seemed to effortlessly attract all the girls you were interested in, and you never could figure out why? I had a guy like that, and I'd just like to take a moment to mention that I recently had a very enjoyable conversation with one of my relatives who still lives in the old country who called to ask if I still remembered that guy, and to let me know that the indictments are expected to be handed down any minute now. Turns out I had it pretty easy next to J. R. Moehringer, who in the current issue of Los Angeles magazine reveals that, in his high school class, that guy was David Spade, the former Saturday Night Live waste of space whose movie career includes the Chris Farley team-up Tommy Boy (which Moehringer, in exchange for lord knows how much money, calls "much loved") and his own star vehicle Joe Dirt, which up to September 10, 2001, was probably the single worst thing to happen in the twenty-first century. "We graduated together in May 1982," he writes, "and even back then, when we were pubescent boys, I knew Spade was the greatest ladies’ man of all time. He was voted Most Artistic, but the entire student body at Saguaro High School knew he was the campus Casanova, a walking stalk of catnip for every cheerleader and homecoming queen. I can still close my eyes and see Spade in a burst of vivid colors—royal blue Ocean Pacific shorts, black-and-white-checked Vans, beige puka shell necklace. I can see him flying across the gray quad on his skateboard, pirouetting around the caramel-legged girls in their short shorts and miniskirts, making them swoon and tee-hee and sigh his name." Moehringer's article is a profile of his own teenage pal, with a special angle: the author's desperate desire to crack the secret of Spade's appeal to women. (He also breaks the news that Spade may be plotting a sequel to Joe Dirt, to be called Joe Dirtier.) Moehringer, who is not afraid to make controversial, near-surreal claims, such as his insistence that Spade does not look "elfin", was at one point moved to turn to no less an authority on what turns on hot women than Courtney Cox Arquette. Well, says Bruce Springsteen's old dance partner, women like men who are funny. Maybe they do, but what's that got to do with David Spade? (At this point, it would probably be a good idea to remember who she's married to.)
"After graduation I continued to watch from afar as Spade cut a fearsome swath through society’s cheerleaders and homecoming queens—i.e., models and actresses. Now and then I would read in a magazine about his latest romantic conquest, and I’d turn to whoever happened to be sitting beside me at whichever bar. See this guy? I’d say, flourishing the magazine. I went to high school with this guy, and this guy is the greatest ladies’ man of all time." According to Moehringer's scoreboard, Spade's appearances in the gossip pages with Heather Locklear, Krista Allen, Julie Bowen, Lara Flynn Boyle, Sara Foster, Teri Hatcher, Gena Lee Nolin, and Kristy Swanson officially trump the record of his nearest competitor, Justin Timberlake, who gets surprisingly little for having not only introduced Britney Spears to the art of love but having apparently driven her mad with grief from their breakup. In the tone of someone who really means it but would appreciate it if you'd assume that he's kidding if he sounds too ridiculous, Moehringer describes his failed attempts to probe Spade for his great secret; the closest Spade actually comes to giving it up comes when he concedes, "The more they don’t know—helps." In the end, it may be best if the great secret dies with him. Moehringer begins to see Spade in Byronic terms as a man, like Casanova in his final days, hounded by his own legend and his inability to persuade these women to back up off him for a minute. "A short time later I read in the gossip magazines that he’d spent the weekend with Jennifer Aniston. Weeks after that I saw a photo of Spade walking on a floury white beach with a stunning Australian actress named Nicky Whelan. He didn’t look happy. He looked tired, as if the white sand were quicksand...A man should be consistent, reliable, take care not to be a flaky show-off asshole. But all that virtue won’t make him a virtuoso unless he also possesses that ineffable something, that intangible quality, which eludes description, which can’t be shared any more than it can be explained. Whatever it is, Spade has it, and it might be getting stronger as he gets older, which is his curse as well as his blessing." The Screengrab is honored to bestow upon this article its coveted Parker Tyler Memorial Award for Weird-Ass Read of the Week.