With Vonnegut and now Carlin gone, the time has come for truthful lacerations. Words that crackle the delicate hides of prissy and solipsistic dispositions and galvanize the collective funny bone. Sentences that radiate the cancer now coruscating within bright neon corporate hellfire. Paragraphs that crack the knees of those fond of calcified postures and unlived lives. I cannot think of a single American satirist under the age of 50 who is willing to go to jail for his words. Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert are bought by Viacom and look like third-rate Catskills comics next to Chris Morris. Sarah Silverman plays for easily predictable shocks. Howard Stern no longer cares about pissing people off and, with his current Sybian obsession, will end up like Richard Dawson at this rate. Dave Chappelle had it, but abandoned his dais. Amy Sedaris has it, and is braver and more truthful than her brother, but she chooses not to write. Mike Judge has the balls to tell the truth, but his last film, Idiocracy, was dumped by a cowardly studio. Neal Pollack, what happened? This goes on while a cowboy plays his harp at 1600 Penn. If America cannot step up, its cultural salubrity is in serious trouble.
America is In Trouble
– June 23, 2008Posted in: Satire
The Call by Yannick Murphy: The always interesting author of Here They Come and Signed, Mata Hari returns with a novel that whips up a worldview from a rather quirky set of limitations: namely, the call logs that a veterinarian maintains as his son is unexpectedly put into a coma and an unforgiving economy denies him work. What emerges is a surprisingly optimistic, often funny, and very moving account on how one family uses acceptance and forgiveness as a way to atone for hard knocks. (
Birds of Paradise by Diana Abu-Jaber: Forget Franzen and Eugenides. If you're looking for a social novel that counts, Diana Abu-Jaber is the author you're looking for. Building from the free-form exploration of consciousness and identity in Crescent and the gripping procedural structure of Origin, Abu-Jaber's latest novel is her finest, equally fluent with gutterpunk culture and smarmy real estate men. It has been suggested by The Washington Post's Ron Charles that you will likely gain some pounds while reading this novel. This is certainly true. Abu-Jaber's description of food is so precise that it often made me want to do more cooking. But I very much admired the way in which Abu-Jaber presents all her characters as unwitting victims of rough capitalism, which permits them some dignity even as they perform terrible acts.
The Last of the Live Nude Girls by Sheila McClear: This memoir isn't so much about the decline of the Times Square peepshow, as it is about one young woman's efforts to pull herself up by by her bootstraps when presented with few economic options. Filled with self-introspective candor and a quiet dignity, McClear's story is one that might befall any of us in these volatile times. While McClear does get back on her feet, her book leads one contemplating the terrible fates of other young women now moving to New York and falling into deadlier vocations. (
I have a satirical novel, with the U.S. President as protagonist, for sale — if you’re interested…
There’s still Chris Rock … and let’s not underestimate Kanye West, a lyrical satirist who retains the capacity to surprise.
Gee whiz, and the Yankees can’t win a World Series either! What are sports fans supposed to do?