Of course, none of this ended up coming to pass. Turns out neither Bieber nor his team were all that interested in any of our manly ideas. In fact, it's a measure of just how carefully managed Bieber is that all of our ideas, even having a simple beer, were treated as impossibilities, like proposing to build a gay disco in Iran. A second round of gentler ideas (let's race go-karts!) was also rejected, to the point where I was willing to settle for just seeing Bieber in person, to confirm that he actually existed. His people finally blessed a basic, nothing-on-the-agenda meeting on a Monday night, only to cancel it while I was midair on my way to Los Angeles.

On Tuesday, I was told that I could meet him at his recording studio and then we'd hash out whatever manly activity was left for us once we ruled out anything fun. I got there at 8 p.m. and was told by Bieber's PR lady that Justin was in the studio but was about to go to dinner with his mom and I'd have to wait till he got back.

"So he's here now?" I asked.

"Yes," she said.

"Can I see him?"

"No."

"Can I go to dinner with him and his mom? I'll eat light."

"No. He'll be back in an hour."

To keep me occupied, I was escorted into the studio, where Kuk Harrell, Bieber's vocal producer, was working on Believe without him. Harrell is an incredibly nice man who looks like a black version of Johnny Depp's Willy Wonka, so I was happy to sit around and stare at his hair for a while.

After a few minutes, I noticed that someone had drawn a bunch of dicks all over the grease board by the door. So I pointed at them and asked, "Hey, who drew all the dicks?" One of the sound engineers immediately jumped up, ran over, and erased them with his sleeve. This is the new and mature Bieber. We can't have dicks being drawn all over the place. People might get the wrong idea about filthy-rich 18-year-old pop stars.

At eight forty, the PR lady came in to tell me—surprise!—Bieber would not be returning tonight. Finally, after I sat in my hotel room for another day and ran through as many imaginary conversations with the Beeb as any of his 12-year-old fangirls, word came down from the mountaintop: I would meet Bieber at his studio at 6 p.m. that night and we would box. Given all of our suggestions that had been rejected, this made no sense. Well, we can't have Justin openly buying pornography—why don't we just endanger his singing voice and orbital bone structure instead? But only a fool would argue. If someone asks you if you'd like to punch Justin Bieber in the face, the answer is yes.

···

Now I'm back at the studio, ready to fight. Bieber is running late, I am told, because he's procuring the boxing equipment. The PR lady, Melissa, warns me that Bieber bos regularly and that his father, Jeremy, is a former MMA fighter. Now I'm starting to get a little worried. I've been waiting two and a half days, and I was looking forward to teaching this kid a lesson about punctuality. But for the first time, it's dawning on me that Justin Bieber might be able to kick my ass. What if his Horny Teenager Strength can easily overpower my Dad Strength? What if he knocks me out? What if he puts me in the hospital? What if he kills me? Do I still get paid for this?