By Artie Capshaw

The Blats have a manager! Or, to put it more precisely, one of the band’s fans has taken it upon himself to “help them out.” Scott “Spawn” Smith, who loads a truck with bandleader Sonny Blitt (we all need day jobs; ours is sitting at this desk waiting patiently to go out and get drunk in a few hours), has been calling the papers, sending out fliers and has even got the band off their ass and into a studio—OK, a bedroom—to make a demo he can send to labels and clubs. Sounds real professional, huh? Yep, that’s our job, to make nothing-better-to-do-today favors-for-friends sound like something they do in the real world…

Talk Show: Confrontations, Pointed Commentary and Off-Screen Secrets

By Dick Cavett. Times Books, 2010. 304 pages.

I really wanted this to be the antidote to Bill Carter’s The War for Late Night—a discourse on what talk shows were like in the old days, before they were overscrutinized for their moneymaking and youth-mongering potential, when they were just a cheap and relaxing way to wrap up a programming day.

Imagine my disappointment when this turned out to be a collection of Cavett’s online columns for the New York Times website. The book has much less to say about talk show hosting in general than Cavett’s long-ago autobiography and subsequent books did. The title “Talk Show” is more a device to remind us why Dick Cavett is famous. Years ago, I’m not sure he would have taken a title that pigeonholed him thus. Now he uses it for a book which is more freewheeling than that title allows.

In any case, Cavett takes his position as columnist seriously, even stating his trepidation at taking on the assignment in the book’s introduction. He doesn’t behave like a blogger—his style is more composed and formalized, in the manner of magazine columns of yore. As for his penchant for namedropping and for retelling the tales of how J.I. Rodale dropped dead on his show—well, one imagines that’s exactly why he was given this gig, because he had an excess of ready material to spit out into the internet void.

As for Cavett’s rabid devotion to Groucho Marx, I share that particular enthrallment. So even though Talk Show is not the book I needed it to be, it warms me because of its frequent and worshipful references to Groucho.

By Artie Capshaw

Ow! To be outed in the Letters section of the very periodical for which we scribble!

We were given a heads-up, so to speak, about the letter, and could have responded in one of those italicized addenda right after it on the same page. Instead, we choose to address the issue here, for two reasons. One, this is our domain, where you expect us to spout. Two, for us, this is not a sexual issue but a musical one.

It all started when we were slammed as a homophobe for writing mincingly of a local drag diva. You could say it really all started not with the letter but with our article, but we are among those who still don’t know what all the fuss was about. Suffice to say we pissed off someone who couldn’t quite explain why they were pissed off. And that pissed off even more people.

Anyhow, post-slam, a well-meaning soul from the scene rushed to our defense with the revelation that we we knew whereof we minced, that we’d kissed a boy and that he, our righteous defender, should know.

True enough. We won’t elaborate, except to say it’s only half the story. In the great traditions of jazz and fusion and cross-genre experiments and remixes, we are proud to relate that (to use another musical term) we swing both ways.

Here, look at our record collection. There is a nary a club-dance track, extended or otherwise. But check out the stacks and stacks of sequin-studded made-up dudes in platform (and even high) heels stomping and shouting out anthems of individuality and acceptance. Those are anthems to which we doff our hat and pat our heart: “PoMo.” “Dual Attraction.” “Closer to Home.” “Any Other Name.” You’ve probably shouted along to them yourself—though you may well complain that you didn’t understand what these songs were about. Well, we do.

We are as bi as a cycle, as bi as a focal. Plane-ly, we’re bi. And we have our record collection to thank for it.

We’re sure we’re not alone in this. We wager that more people locate their sexual center through their clubhoppings than their bedhoppings. The club scene is less anxiety-prone, less prone in a whole lot of ways. The undercurrent is heavily sexualized, but in a way that formalizes and dramatizes and verbalizes and harmonizes the act. It’s hard to be closeted in a club.

So that’s our story, and —ewww!—we’re sticking to it. Nevertheless, we apologize to that initial letter-writer who took offense at our suggestive language regarding Fairy Fay a few weeks back. We’ll doubtless continue to offend, but we’ll also continue to apologize, because we realize respect must be paid to all eager listeners in this scene. Almost everything we write about is “not for everyone,” yet we do it all in one place. We will take care in future to warn the more tender-eared fans to cover ‘em when we wander in certain suck-centric directions.

But back to our own orientation, and a final point of order. If we were reading such revelations about another writer, we know what we’d be asking—not “What’s he like in bed?” but “How does this horniness impact his reporting?” Namely, in our case: Have we slept with Fairy Fay—or Polly, Wally or Doodle, for that matter? And the answer is no, not even in our dreams. We have not had, or sought, such an honor. In most matters of the scene, we love what enters our ears—the music—better than anything that might enter other orifices.

And we dare you to bi that.

But enough about (sodo)meee! Here’s what’ll be assaulting your earlobes, and shaking your extremities, in days to come:

The Canterville Ghosts at the Bullfinch—national act, yes, but with sterling local openers For Love of the King, Star Child and Vera & the Nihilists. … For one night only, the Model Marvels become the Model Millionaires. It’s for a Casino Nite fundraiser at frisky frontwoman Millie’s alma mater, Windemere High School (on the Windemere Green; band starts playing 7 p.m.) … A daylong dose of gloom Saturday for the first annual Selfish Giant festival in the basement of Urbs Sacra Aeterna Hall, across the street from (and vaguely connected to) the university on the hill. Thirteen bands in twelve hours: Les Ballons, Rome Unvisited, The New Remorse, The Burden of Itys, True Knowledge, The Fisherman & His Soul, Her Voice, London Models, Decay of Lying, Massacre of the Christians, Young King,  Roses & Rue and Pen, Pencil & Poison. It’s a battle of the bands, though truth be told at least half these bands are making their debuts—side projects worked up for the fest. Dress as your favorite yellow book … Devoted Friend, By the Arno and A Vision assail Hamilton’s. The first and last and cover bands; the one in the middle might as well be. … Tell your parents that Fabian de Franchi, famous local Italo-pop warbler who held court in the Gold Room of the Harmony Italia restaurant for decades, has come out of retirement for a concert Saturday at the Pan Center, a charity event for Madonna Mia.

Hmmm… that’s two charities and a French philosophy-inspired high school rock festival. And you doubt our free spirit?

The War for Late Night: When Leno Went Early and Television Went Crazy

By Bill Carter. Viking Adult, 2010. 416 pages.

Theater book, this? Well, it is when you read between the lines. For all its arguing about the natural talents of Leno, O’Brien, Letterman and other celebrities who cajole you to stay up past your bedtime, the real truth I took away from this book is that talk shows are barely about “talk” anymore, and yet to produce anything grander on a daily basis is foolhardy. There’s lots of pontificating about time slots and egos, but Carter doesn’t emphasize enough the fact that the real problems with O’Brien’s Tonight Show and Leno’s prime time show was quality control. Neither host, it seemed—and more crucially, their producers and writers—grasped the amount of effort it would require to both pacify their loyal fans and create whole legions of new ones. Both assumed that prepared filmed comedy routines would do the trick, but producing scripted material on that schedule is calamitous.

Carter’s book is overly concerned with listing every conceivable argument for every decision made, whether corporate or personal. The justifications begin to jostle and openly contradict each other, and the narrative loses focus. But there are some fascinating insights nonetheless. I never suspected, for instance, that in his early days of Late Night, Conan O’Brien actually had a cohesive plan and tone he was trying to implement—”Silliness” as a needed alternative to the increasingly stentorian old-school stances of Leno and Letterman. O’Brien’s the one who really upped the need for prepared comedy sketches in a talk show, since he never really excelled as an interviewer and had made his name mostly as a writer.

I wish Carter would have gone further down this path. He does note how overpreparedness can spoil the spontaneity which late night viewers expect. Letterman apparently tapes his Friday episodes back-to-back with his Monday ones so he can have long weekends—viewers have detected the lack of immediacy on those nights and the Friday ratings are appreciably lower than that of the fresher Thursday shows.

But I do realize that I can advance my own theories only so far before they fall apart. Early late night TV in the 1950s and ’60s was the province of inventive and instinctive comedians such as Groucho Marx, Ernie Kovacs and Steve Allen, who filled 90 minutes a night and rarely went into reruns or vacations.

This is definitely a sensitive equation, mucked up in the modern era by marketing and demographics which have turned what was once a method of keeping the network lights on a couple hours longer and milking a few more advertisers into a much-hyped, intensely scrutinized industry of its own with its own territorial superstars.

Take these entertainers out of their comfort zones and they’re like Howard Cosell when he was picked to become the new Ed Sullivan and host his own weekend variety show. Taking your natural charisma and improvisational skills and adapting them to something more formalized and commercialized takes time, and is fraught with danger. The Late Night debacle wasn’t a war, or a tactical programming error. It was an out-of-town try-out or shakedown writ large, and it couldn’t hit the marks.

The Jung Seeds, Valentine Giant, Pink Wonder and Bella Anna are the first big–name booking at the Quality Value Service Annex. This is problematic for us, since a note sent along seeking publicity for the show intimated that “you can’t ignore us now!” When that wasn’t the issue at all.

Does that sound like us? Overlooking the local bands and waiting for a national act everyone’s heard of to show up?

We’ve been wrestling with our conscience to find the proper way to deal with this venue. Too much of the wrong kind of press, we know from experience, will get them closed down, yet what they’re doing over there is too important for any self-respecting music journalist—and even us—to pass up. There’ve been theme shows, new band revues, side projects galore, open mics and happenings, all within a matter of weeks. So why have many of you faithful reader/scenesters probably not heard about the place?

Because, on a few levels, it’s operating illegally. Not if its shows come under the definition of “private parties,” for which everyone in attendance has been personally invited. But not if they really want to running a club. Which they do.

We’re caught in the middle here. Bands that don’t understand the circumstances are convincing themselves that we are ignoring QVS Annex because we’re willfully ignorant, or petty or something.

“If these shows were at the Bullfinch, you wouldn’t be ignoring them,” one wrote. Well yes, but that’s because the Bullfinch has a back exit, handicap access, a liquor license, an ASCAP license, bouncers and managers who know and care what the capacity of the joint is, and other niceties largely implemented for the audience’s safety and comfort.

“Unfair,” another correspondent shouts about the lack of Annex coverage. What seems unfair to us is how the real clubs in town have to worry about, and shell out serious cash for, all these provisions and cautions while the Annex loox the other way.

We respect the volunteer efforts and magnificent growth this alternative club project has shown. We fear, though, that it will be strangled in its infancy by lack of foresight and common sense. We know that makes us part of “the establishment,” but it’s the branch of the establishment that wants these fine bands to be seen in relative safety, not the kind that wants them shunted off to some creepy warehouse with bad wiring.

Anyway, The Jung Seeds, Valentine Giant, Pink Wonder and Bella Anna are the first big–name booking at the Quality Value Service Annex. Do with that info what you may.

Elsewhere: Cajun Belle Pepper, Moonsong and Opera Supreme at Hamilton’s… The PowWow, Double Wave, Suncatcher and Trailing Petunias at The Bullfinch… “New Blossoms” festival of high school and even junior high school bands at Dollaire’s, with Semi-Dwarf Meteor, Montmorency, Danube, Red Juice and The Lapins….

Thought I’d made a sensational find at a thrift shop in Middletown—one of those rare Strawberry Shortcake LPs featuring Flo & Eddie (in a career lull between their Zappa phase and the nostalgic rebirth of The Turtles).

But when I went to play it at home, the actual record inside the sleeve was not Ms. Shortcake but a generic album of “Kindergarten Playtime Songs.” Damn you, unregulated thrift shop record racks!

Which brought into sharper focus the attributes of the albums I bought which actually had the correct disks inside them:

A six-LP “Treasury of the Golden West” from the oft-mocked Longines Symphonette Recording Society, supplemented on this yee-haw! project by Ken Carson and the Cavaliers.

Gene Pitney’s Big Sixteen, which the liner notes call “a collection of a dozen-and-a-third of the lad’s greatest musical triumphs.” My daughters know “Town Without Pity” from the original Hairspray film, which they’ve now seen several times. They also know who Burt Bacharach is. This LP will singlediskedly increase their knowledge of Pitney songs arranged and conducted by Bacharach by three, since besides “Pity” it includes “Liberty Valance,” “Twenty Four Hours from Tulsa,” “Only Love Can Break a Heart” and “True Love Never Runs Smooth.”

Redd Foxx—Laff of the Party, the comic’s debut party record on the Dooto Novelty label. Far from a first edition, since it lists four subsequent volumes of the series on the back of the record cover, plus other intriguing Dooto comedy titles such as “Sloppy’s House Party, Allen Drew’s Stag Party (tracks on that include “High Nuts” and “The Queer Burglar”) and Gene and Freddie’s Party Record Party (with “Superman’s Balls” and “Short Arm Inspection”). Despite the success of these records, though, later editions still came in shabby covers with amateurish artwork that’s so appalling it’s appealing.

Mr. President—original Broadway soundtrack of Irving Berlin’s ill-fated final Broadway musical, starring Robert Ryan, Nanette Fabray and Anita Gillette.

A couple of those well-remembered K-Tel “original hits, original stars” compilations hawked incessantly on UHF TV stations in the 1970s. Block Buster, from 1976, contains “Sky High” by Jigsaw, “Chevy Van” by Sammy Johns, Leon Haywood’s “I Want’a Doi Something Freaky to You,” 5000 Volts’ “I’m On Fire,” the Johnny Rivers rendition of “Help Me Rhonda” and Alice Cooper’s “Only Women Bleed,” which has had its title prudishly condensed to “Only Women” and, as they say, much much more. Music Power, released two years earlier, shows how schizophrenic top-40 radio could be in those days, jumping from novelty songs like Jim Stafford’s Spiders and Sankes and Gordon Sinclair’s recitation “The Americans (A Canadian’s Opinion)” to the hearteningly popular soul-bearing of Dobie Gray’s “Drift Away,” The Chi-Lite’s “Oh Girl” and Gladys Knight & The Pips’ “Where Peaceful Waters Flow” to the variety show theatrics of Tony Orlando & Dawn (“Sweet Gypsy Rose”) and Sonny and Cher (“When You Say Love”) to the mainstream incursion of glam and power pop represented by Brownsville Station (“Smokin’ in the Boy’s Room”), The Sweet (“Little Willy”) and The Raspberries (“Tonight”).

The real prize out of the record stack turns out to be “Selections from Porgy and Bess and Other Standard Hits” performed by the National Concert Dance Orchestra. It’s copyright 1957 on the Halo label, whose motto is “The ‘Colorful’ Line”—is that a euphemism for African-American artists? The recording is, I think, wondrous and warm, low-key and straightforward without sounding cheap. It’s skillfully orchestrated on a budget such that it completely brings out the “folk opera” conceit of the Gershwins’ magnum opus. Interestingly, while there are five “Porgy & Bess selections, as advertised, on Side One, another song from the show (“Bess You Is My Woman Now”) is shunted onto Side Two among a passel of Gershwin songs from other places—“An American in Paris,” “Nice Work If You Can Get It,” “S’Wonderful,” like that. And the rest of Side One consists of non-Gershwin material: Schumann’s “Traumerai,” Dietz’s “Hoops,” Mascagni’s Intermezzo from Cavalleria Rusticana, Bach’s Minuet in G and Arthur Schwartz’s pop composition “Hoops.”

This is the kind of record which I would have played until it wore out had I owned it as a child—and which would have warped me for life into thinking that the Minuet in G was part of Porgy & Bess somehow.

We’ve had our music columns turned into liner notes and even song lyrics. But never a deposition, until now. Here’s what we know about the shooting outside the upscale club we regularly refer to as Dollars or Dollaire’s (and which, for the benefit of the court stenographer, we note is actually spelled D’Aulaire’s) last Thursday night.

Thousand Year was playing, and their set went long. How a hardcore thrash band’s set can go long we don’t know, but that’s the court-ordered truth. The Allied were up next and, fearful they’d get bumped, started making a stink. TY ignored them, or perhaps just wasn’t paying attention. But here’s where our testimony comes in—we’re pretty sure we saw Thousand Year vocalist Shitgrubber (not his real name) acknowledge the interruptions and rust into an unexpected counteroffensive encore.
So who threw the first punch? Thousand Year, by any standard, were the greater aggressors, a genuine menace—and we say this knowing that Mr. Shitgrubber is safely behind bars.
Dollaire’s has intimated that they will not be booking hardcore shows in future. The dance parties are punishing enough, it appears—and we’re just talking about those synthetic beats and bad shoes.

All this is preface to particularly brutal line-ups Saturday at both Hamilton’s and the Bullfinch, where bad feelings tend to be handled with more aplomb. The more mainstream Hamilton’s has Steel Wave, Gone for Soldiers and Last Full Measure—not chaos, granted, but pretty darned loud—while the Finch offers the full-scale onslaught of Gods and Generals, To the Last Man and Rise to Rebellion.
Us, we could use a good piano lounge about now. Any tix left for that McArthur comeback tour at the Shaara Ballroom?

An aside in Adam Markovitz’s brief Entertainment Weekly review of the 3D opus Yogi Bearhas eked some umbrage out of me. The offending sentence:

After watching so many cartoon icons turn cynical on screen (yes, you, Chipmunks), it’s a relief to see Yogi Bear land unjaded in this frivolous CG live-action episode.

There’s a point to be made there, but using the hallowed Chipmunks to it shows a shocking cultural ignorance.
Alvin, Simon & Theodore turned cynical? When? As in, when weren’t they?

From his very first recorded Christmas-song utterances, Alvin was questioning the value of everything from the value of pre-arranged lyrics to recording studio decorum in general. He wanted a hula hoop, damn it.

Revolution is incited on many a Chipmunks record. In their subsequent longer-form TV and film incarnations, the boys were inclined to do good deeds for others, but even these acts of kindness were compromised by their impatient guardian David Seville, who, for instance, wouldn’t believe them when they told him that they’d adopted an eagle. That’s from the 1960s TV version; the ‘80s Chuck Jones rendition is notably warmer, fuzzier and more moral, which is probably Markovitz’s blind spot. But those shows still demonstrate a constant disregard for authority, tradition and basic safety.
A certain amount of cynicism—a huge, vast amount—might naturally be afforded rodents with careers in the recording industry. These are not Smurfs or Care Bears, after all, who have communities of like-minded fluffy friends of the same species to fall back on. In every period of their half-century existence the Chipmunks have been essentially on their own, their motives for what they do perversely their own.

Cynicism’s totally the wrong term. Self-preservation’s a whole lot better. And that’s what those recent semi-live action Chipmunk films cover well. Their sensibility comes from screenwriters Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi who brought contemporary TV coming-of-age myths to a high art in their landmark Nickelodeon series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. The Chipmunks and Pete & Pete share more than the sensation of cute siblings as stars (McRobb and Viscardi also wrote for The Naked Brothers Band series, by the way); there’s the same sense of music having extreme importance, of individuality and non-conformity being paramount characteristics of healthy development.

I have not seen Yogi Bear yet, and have no comment on whether it is important (or credible) for a starving park bear to appear unjaded. But for my entire life I’ve happily embraced the jaded cynical maverick rebellion of The Chipmunks—not to mention their spiritual kin Dennis the Menace, Calvin & Hobbes and Snoopy—and can’t let even a casual clause in a hundred-word Entertainment Weekly review slide.

“ALLLLLLLLVINNNNNNNNNN!”

“Saw Donald play last night.”
“Tux or ducks?”

***

Donald Fowler leads two lives. On Saturday nights, he slicks his hair into a D.A., shines his black-and-white suede shoes (OK, so you can’t really shine suede), and thump-thumps on a stand-up bass to swing and rockabilly covers as a member of The Nephews, house band at the Walter Hotel. There, he rasps and scats and slaps like a sultan.

On Thursdays throughout the indoor concert season—plus the occasional matinee, Pops show or park gig, Fowler is the bassist for an even more retro, even more roaring combo—The Barks Memorial Hall Symphony Orchestra. Here, he’s a more sanguine, more even-tempered, capable of fading into the background, though no less bombastic when needs be.
Sometimes you’ll find both Fowlers in a single night, undoing the bowtie after a classical rave-up to join the Thursday “Gearloose Jam” at Huey’s Diner. Last week he even brought a violinist and a clarinetist with him.

Didn’t know Huey’s even had a jam? It’s largely an after-hours thing, since assistant manager Bruce Spiegel, aka “Beagle” of The Beagle Boys, keeps his keyboards in a kitchen closet there and is always itching to play after the last round of dishwashing. Sometimes, when it’s OK with the customers, they kick in early.

And that’s how a couple dozen patrons last Thursday got treated to a mad mash of rockabilly tinged with Renaissance interludes as a sidedish to their meatloaf:

“The Mummy’s Ring,” interrupted with the second movement of “The Fabulous Philosopher’s Stone.”
A jam which included snippets from the jukebox gem “Christmas for Shacktown” and the song cycle “Christmas on Bear Mountain.”
A “golden” medley of “The Golden Fleecing,” “The Golden Helmet,” “The Golden River” and “Pirate Gold.” (Two are pop tunes, two are symphonic works; you guess which.)

There was barking and wailing and sincere polite appreciation. In other words, a lot of the crowd didn’t know what to think. But a band was born, and a more cohesive concert/gig is planned. Band names already being bandied around: John D. Rockerduck
There’ll be plenty of notice next time, since this is a project that needs a prepared audience to be properly appreciative.
Hey, can we write the illuminating, footnote-laden program notes?

In less rarefied climes this wintry Wednesday, Dollaire’s gets historical with San Diego Inkpots and Hall of Famers Eisner & WR-H (who had a home in our fair state for a time) at Dollaire’s, CBG and Disney Legends at Hamiltons , while the frolicsome Flintheart Glomgold and the Ganders hold down the fort at the fabled Bullfinch…

You Might Be a Zombie—And Other Bad News
From the Editors of Cracked.com. Plume Books (Penguin Group), 2011. 295 pages.

I blew through You Might Be a Zombie’s 41 chapters and umpteen factoids in a single evening, the way I used to ravish the latest edition of The Guiness Book of World Records when I was 12 or 13. This is indeed the hip cynical grown-up’s equivalent of Ripley’s Believe It or Not, an institution for which You Might Be a Zombie—And Other Bad News has nothing but snickering scorn; while debunking the claim that “Einstein Flunked Math” in the section “Five Ridiculous Lies You Were Taught in History Class,” it is noted that:

The idea that Einstein did badly at school is thought to have originated with a 1935 Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! trivia column, which probably should have been called Believe It Or Not! I Get Paid Either Way, Assholes! The famous trivia “expert” never cited his sources, and the various “facts” he presented throughout his career were mostly things he thought he heard, combined with stuff he pulled directly out of his ass.

That sort of cogent analysis (and I’m not being entirely facetious here) represents the dominant attitude of this book: Trust nobody, and roast them unmercifully for their self-inflating sins.

Inventors steal their ideas (especially from women: one whole section’s devoted to “Four Great Women Buried by Their Boobs”). Historians not only lie, they underplay the best parts of the legends they’re burnishing (“The Four Most Badass Presidents of All Time,” “Five Beloved U.S. Presidents the Modern Media Would Never Let Into the White House”). Storytellers varnish the truth (“Five Movies Based on True Stories [That Are Complete Bullshit]”; “Five Fight Moves That Only Work in Movies”; “Five Hollywood Adaptations That Totally Missed the Point”). And speaking of varnish, the red food coloring on the candy and yogurt you ate today (this book exists excitedly in the “Eek! Right in front of you!” present tense) is a shellac make of yucky bugs “Five Horrifying Food Additives You’ve Probably Eaten Today”). To the collective of Cracked.com humor writers who cranked this book out, grossing you out is as crucial a mission as screwing up your sense of the universe. For every “Five Ways Your Brain is Messing With Your Head” or “Five Psychological Experiments That Prove Humanity is Doomed,” there’s “Six Terrifying Things They Don’t Tell You About Childbirth” or “Six Most Terrifying Foods in the World.”

At times, You Might Be a Zombie makes too much of simple ironies, like that Barry Manilow didn’t write the song “I Write the Songs” and other deceits that are formed only in the minds of the ignorant. Plus there’s always that awkwardness of a book openly embracing harsh language and bad taste yet appearing to be shocked and dismayed by examples of harsh language and bad taste elsewhere (“The Gruesome Origins of Five Popular Fairy Tales”). But even these lapses into literary overkill help set a tone where conspiracy theories (including five that “Nearly Brought Down the U.S. Government,” not to mention :”Five Wacky Misunderstandings That Almost Caused a Nuclear Holocaust”) can be told from fresh perspectives

What You Might Be a Zombie fails to acknowledge—because for marketing reasons it chooses to be a humor book and not a scholarly textbook—is that this ain’t such a bad teaching method. There’s such a consistent tone and fluid writing style to this widespread selection of cultural conundrums that one of the book’s biggest shocks is the number of separate writers who apparently contributed to it. This is the biggest tribute to unified-voice humor writing since the early years of Spy Magazine.
You Might Be a Zombie’s superior and snide attitude is compelling and convincing. The jokes are funny and hold your attention regarding disagreeable subject matter. The disrespect for authority, the snippiness about the reliability of recorded history, the complete distrust of common wisdom, the glee of unlocking key truths which unsettle mountains of accumulated “knowledge”…
It all adds up to a comedy compendium profoundly more consciousness-molding than all those humor books which merely satirize history with line-by-line parodies and puns, like (the nonetheless brilliant) Onion’s “Our Dumb Century” and The Daily Show’s “America: The Book.” What You Might Be a Zombie lacks in graphic-art expertise (though some of the illustrations are very funny), it makes up for with an obsessive need to not just make you laugh, but make you laugh at yourself and at the world around you so hard that the “shocking but utterly true FACTS!” advertised on its cover may shock you into shaking things up a bit.
Such activism will either lead to the reclassification of Cracked.com as a university or think tank, or provide fodder for You Might Be a Zombie’s sequel, depending on how badly you screw up or show your worst attributes.
Either way, score. I felt distinctly unZombie-like after plowing through You Might Be a Zombie and Other Bad News. Oh, I wanted brains. But the book taught me the difference between having them in your head or having them up your ass.