A slim, one-joke stab at pop-cult criticism from journeyman humorist Queenan (The Unkindest Cut, 1995, etc.). For 18 months, beginning with the musical Cats (“the worst thing on the entire planet”), Queenan immersed himself in the dregs of popular culture. He dined at Red Lobster and the Olive Garden, read Robin Cook and Robert James Waller, listened to Kenny G., Yanni, and John Tesh, watched the sequels of sequels of forgettable movies, such Body Chemistry IV and Children of the Corn III, and traveled to those meccas of bad taste, Branson, Mo., and Atlantic City. It’s an amusing idea for an article but, at least in Queenan’s hands, insufficient for a book. There’s more padding here than in a La-Z-Boy recliner, more fluff than in all the touring companies of Cats. Queenan’s research seems to have rubbed off on his writing: It’s remarkably structureless, and the invective is usually playground-witty. While most of his encounters with the bad are predictable—hit-and-run ad hominem lambastings of the usual suspects—he does find some semi-precious gems in the rough. Sizzlers is surprisingly tasty: “an eloquent symbol for all that is best about American cheap food, and lots of it.” Wayne Newton, Barry Manilow, and Andy Williams are hardworking and entertaining troupers. And Las Vegas could have been a lot worse. One of the best things about the book is its index, including such entries as, “Aykroyd, Dan,when coupled with ‘Starring,— 2 scariest words in English language,” or “Davis, Jr., Sammy, unforgivable crimes of.” In his travels through the badlands, Queenan frequently experiences what he calls “scheissenbedauren,” a feeling of regret “when things you do expect to suck do suck, but not as much as you would secretly like them to suck.” Readers familiar with Queenan’s labored oeuvre will understand this feeling all too well. (Author tour)
Pub Date: July 4, 1998
ISBN: 0-7868-6332-3
Page Count: 208
Publisher: Hyperion
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 1998
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
IN THE NEWS
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis...
Privately published by Strunk of Cornell in 1918 and revised by his student E. B. White in 1959, that "little book" is back again with more White updatings.
Stricter than, say, Bergen Evans or W3 ("disinterested" means impartial — period), Strunk is in the last analysis (whoops — "A bankrupt expression") a unique guide (which means "without like or equal").Pub Date: May 15, 1972
ISBN: 0205632645
Page Count: 105
Publisher: Macmillan
Review Posted Online: Oct. 28, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 1972
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