So there’s this Slow Blogging Movement kinda like the Slow Food Movement only with blogs and people who slow blog who blog slower than fast bloggers whatever that means although I think it refers to people who take their time with their posts not worrying about the frequency with which they throw something out into the blogosphere unlike some blogs that put up as much stuff as they can even stuff that isn’t theirs just to keep feeding the beast that is the “audience” only now the fast bloggers think that blogging isn’t fast enough and have moved to other venues like Twitter where they can crank out little mini 140-character posts because the impatient cow readers can’t stop long enough to read a long blog post anymore but whatever.
Of course, that’s not why I called you here today. Today I want to tell you about a book I read called Is It Me or is Everything Shit? The subject matter of this book has not one annoyed author, not fourteen annoyed authors, but three insanely annoyed authors: Steve Lowe, Alan McArthur and Brendan Hay. The subtitle of this book? Insanely Annoying Modern Things.
This is a book of rants. My God, I thought I ranted, but these guys really bitch and moan. A lot. It made me wonder if you guys get sick of my complaining all the time because I could only take this book in small doses before getting annoyed by all their annoyances. You probably can’t tell by the title, but have I mentioned the foul language?
They wax cynical about everything from politicians to China to tech-gagdetry to Kabbalah to things by which even you and I are annoyed. They hate “lists”, which is funny, because their book is one big long alphabetical one. And I don’t like lists either, especially in book form. It’s a built-in bookmark, where all you can think about is how much you have left to read, rather than becoming really engaged by the text. The only book that pulled that off for me was A.J. Jacobs’ The Know-It-All because there was a bit of self-deprecating humorous narrative throughout that moved the story along and allowed us to like the author. These other guys come across as a pile of snarky superiority complexes.
Okay, so maybe they don’t mean for you to sit down and read this all in one fell swoop. I would keep this one in the bathroom, where it seems to belong. These blog-post-length blurbs might be perfect for that 2-15 minutes of “privacy time”. That’s right, potty-mouth humor for the potty, because this book swears like a sailor.
Is It Me… contains hundreds of short bursts of vitriol and anger and profanity, a minefield littered with F bombs. I would assume this book is more appropriate for the man on the can, meant to be read by the male persuasion during his own bursts of what-have-you. (And if you female types didn’t appreciate that last bit of humor, then this is exactly what I mean).
And by bathroom humor, I don’t mean to say that this is a book full of fart jokes, and redneck humor, far from it, in fact. I’m only suggesting the bathroom because of logistics. You could also read this book, say, while in line at the ATM, but not at the DMV, because now you’re talking about too long of a stretch of time there. It just depends at which acronym you are standing in line.
This version of Is It Me… has been adapted for American readers – it’s original version being published for the UK. Apparently we Yanks wouldn’t appreciate the previous manifestos slamming The Tube or Graham Norton or the hundreds of TV versions of Jane Austen and Charles Dickens novels, or Fish and Chips, or whatever it is those Brits have over there on the other side of the Pond.
While this reader found the book funny at times, it falls short of hysterical. Some of the longer, less profane, entries feel genuinely angry, while others feel like the anger is forced: diatribe for the sake of diatribe. Did you ever see that Dick Van Dyke episode where Buddy, played by Morey Amsterdam, is such a versatile comedian, they throw subjects at him so he can make up a joke about it on the spot? It’s kind of like that. With a curse word thrown in to “make it funny”.
So if you’re looking for a gift for the guy who has everything, who can handle more F-bombs than a season of The Sopranos, who reads above the 9th grade level (the vocabulary and writing style is oddly literate – that must be an “English” thing), and enjoys reading humor in small doses, consider this for Christmas. If you held a gun to my head demanding stars, I’d give it three out of five. It might have gotten four if they had not exposed a lack of confidence in their own humor with all the F**Ks and SH*Ts. I’m no prude but profanity, like exclamation marks, are much more effective when used sparingly.
* * *
For those of you begging for a photo of my Cute Butt award that I mentioned in my previous post, here ya go!
And I stand corrected. It is not a Cute Butt award. It is a Cutest Tush award. I hope you will find it in your butt – oops, I mean – heart to forgive me.
And speaking of awards, here are a few more bestowed upon me in the past few bloggy days:
I would like to thank Blicky Kitty for this rather large honor: The Blogs Worth Stalking Award. Thank you, Blicky Kitty. A hilarious award from a fellow Hilarian.
I would also like to thank Shan over at Last Shreds of Sanity for this Encouraged award. Thank you, Shan, for this encouraging honor!
I would also like to thank Jennifer Susan over at Amongst Other Things for this award. 
Pingback: This blog post is brought you to by the No. 9, No. 9 « an unfinished person (in this unfinished universe)