Better-than-average fare from a comic-turned-author, but not nearly as cutting and funny as his standup material.
Veteran standup comic and conservative essayist takes a shot at contemporary America.
Miller is an anomaly: a popular comic of the ’80s and ’90s who parlayed that success into a steady run of supporting roles in film (The Princess Diaries, Pretty Woman), and also a diehard conservative who’s extremely funny—with P.J. O'Rourke, that makes two. For the past few years, the bracingly misanthropic Miller has beefed up his résumé by contributing to neo-conservative house magazine the Weekly Standard, which seems to have sharpened his writing abilities enough for his first book to be more than the usual fare: i.e., there’s not too much warmed-over standup material and no sentences written in all caps to fill up space. The 17 pieces here form a mix of the mundane (“My Slacks at Sacks”), the profane (“Debbie Does Dallas II: The Quickening”) and the gaspingly hilarious ( “Five Levels of Drinking”); they hit the mark about two-thirds of the time. The points wander, though interestingly, as in “I’m Dreaming . . . of a White . . . Chris-er, Holidays,” which jumps from standard anti-PC bleating to some fairly sharp notes on subjects like Jews who pretend that Israel is the source of all the world’s problems (“Your soul is so torn you wouldn’t know your own head’s been cut off after the video takes Best Newcomer at the Al Jazeera Emmys”). Miller makes sure to include enough self-deprecating family humor—playing, as most married comics do, the clueless schlub whose spouse and children run rings around him—but he’s obviously not afraid of getting serious, whether in his political material or in one poignantly personal and saddening anecdote about racism.
Better-than-average fare from a comic-turned-author, but not nearly as cutting and funny as his standup material.Pub Date: Oct. 1, 2006
ISBN: 0-06-081908-1
Page Count: 304
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2006
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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
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
© Copyright 2025 Kirkus Media LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Follow
Popular in this Genre
We can’t wait for you to join Kirkus!
It’s free and takes less than 10 seconds!
Already have an account? Log in.
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
Welcome Back!
OR
Sign in with GoogleTrouble signing in? Retrieve credentials.
