Supplies lots of laughs in its observances of the everyday.
A life expressed through laughter and punch lines by a self-proclaimed “comedian-at-law.”
In his memoir, Massachusetts-born D’Angelo (born Paul J. Murphy) entertainingly chronicles his adventurous life via a funny collection of anecdotes and satirical commentary. Indecisive through high school, the author initially settled on dentistry as a career, then opted for a law degree. He became a prosecutor with the Essex County District Attorney while also doing stand-up comedy, but the strain of juggling an escalating career as an attorney and hosting a weekly show at a popular Boston comedy club left him “successful, but unhappy,” so he decided to be a full-time funnyman and writer. Much of the book recounts droll observances that, due to time restraints, never made it into his stand-up routine. D’Angelo shares a bounty of tightly written, lighthearted tales, some barely a page in length, others more thoroughly considered. Among the best are musings on his thick Boston accent, how his judgmental mother stunts his love life, his six-year struggle to go pro in “phony” Hollywood, terrifying airplane turbulence, class reunions, and the general highs and lows of navigating the comedy-club circuit. Describing a checkup, he quips: “My doctor was happy to report that the only thing that is sick about me was my mind.” On modern technology, D’Angelo remarks: “If we have now been blessed with so many so-called ‘time-saving devices,’ why is it that no one ever seems to have any free time anymore?” Cohesiveness is not one of the book’s strengths, however, as each of the chapters, while consistently amusing, contains a mass of ideas with no organizing principle. Fans of the comedian and general readers who enjoy a fusion of comedy and memoir will easily overlook these flaws and be content to discover D’Angelo’s wit and comic chops, accompanied by plenty of black-and-white photographs that illustrate the author’s rich, star-studded road to success.
Supplies lots of laughs in its observances of the everyday.Pub Date: Sept. 25, 2014
ISBN: 978-0692294352
Page Count: 298
Publisher: CreateSpace
Review Posted Online: March 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
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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