Books You May Not Like -- I am America And So Can You, by Stephen Colbert

I got a call last winter from an old friend. Her friend was going to be competeing in the 13th annual Putnam County Burlesque/Poetry Slam/Musicale/Pancake Eating Constest at the Krazy Kat on old route 9, and my friend wanted me to go with her to help offer moral support.

Her friend's strategy was daring: instead of doing a Burlesque routine first, she was going to start with by reciting a poem about what hell must be like for diabetics (it strangely resembles Willy Wonka's Chocolate Factory), and then do a jazz piano rendition of Josef Hyden's "Austria", capped off by a wicked pole dancing routine that was sure to leave the male judges absoltely speechless. The hope was that by making a good last impression she would carry enough points into the pancakce eating constest, and it would be enough to beat Old Mad Mary McMacintoshovich who was particularly strong in the pancake portion of the competition and thanks to that had won the past 7 years running.

Now I know what you are thinking. That is grotestque and sexist and just plain wrong. How could you even think of going?

Well, for one, it isn't true. But on the other hand, I ask you: if you are a man (or even a woman), how many times in your life will a woman ask you to attend a strip club with her? Especially if you are for the most part a stand-up guy and the people you hang out with are for the most part very mild-mannered and morally conservative? If you have any respect for probablity at all, mathematically you have to do it.

Now, if actually propositioned in such a manner, will moral concerns eventually carry the day? For me, absolutely.

Still...

At any rate, I hopped on a plane (because Putnam County is a damn good bit away) and off I went. But God had other ideas, and he punished me for my wicked ways by unleashing frozen Hell in the form of a massive snow storm, leaving me stranded in Purgatory - I mean, Philadelphia. There was no way out of the airport, so I hunkered down for the night. It's probably just as well. On the list of things you don't want to see naked people do, participating in a pancakce eating contest is way up there (incidentally, the top of the list: sneezing a mighty sneeze).

So there I was. I tried to make friends, and ended up eating supper with a group of Tea Partiers on their way to a Glenn Beck Rally. You would have thought that God might have smiled upon them, but he obviously felt that punishing me vastly outweighed the solid moral bedrock of their cause.

We ate with gusto. Their leader was one Mr. Jack Abram, a large man with a ruddy face who kept asking that we pass around the 2 liter bottle of coke, to encouarge conversation. "Mr. Chalamy, the bottle stands by you, Sir!" he would bellow, and then we would pass around the bottle and fill our glasses until he would call out to a shrewish man who was standing lackadasically against a column "Killich! Killich there! Go down to the Hudson News and open up another bottle of Coke."

"Excuse me, Sir" one of the teenagers in the party finally said. "But Mr. Blakely said you ate dinner with Glenn Beck at the Nile Pizzaria, over in Shephardstown."

Mr. Abram collected himself and said "Indeed I did. I was a young man then, not much older than you are now. And Mr. Pillings...Pillings was still a snivelling middle schooler, still yearning for the peace and quiet of the fourth grade". This cracked a smile on a tall, lanky man with a scar across his face that I could only assume was Mr. Pillings. That must have been some knife fight.

"Did you speak with him sir?" asked the teen. "What's he like?"

"I have had the honor of dining with him twice", Abram said, leaning back in his chair. "He spoke to me on both occaisions. A master speaker and a man of singular vision."

"He always said in a debate," Mr. Pillings offered in a rich baritone, "never mind the rhetorical flourishes. Just go straight at'em."

"Some would say not a great intellectual, but a great leader" said a woman to my right.

"He's America's only hope if Pelosi and Reid pass Obamacare" said yet another.

"Sir, might we press you for an anecdote?"

Abrams looked into his glass of coke, once again full, and he tried to suppress a smile. "The first time he spoke to me, I shall never forget his words. I remember it like it was yesturday. He leaned across the table, he looked me straight in the eye and he said 'Abrams! May I trouble you for the Parmesean Cheese?'".

The entire table crakced up into laugheter, and the one laughing loudest of all was old Abrams, his red face, addled with caffeine, beaming with pleasure.

"I've always tried to say it exactly like he said it, as he did twice." And with that a fresh peal of laughter rang around the table, except for the poor young man who had asked the inital question of Mr. Abrams, whose face flushed red, having been made a fool.

"The second time" said Abrams, composing himself. "The second time he told me a story, about how someone offered him a jacket on a cold night after a huge rally. He said no, he didn't need it, he was quite warm. His zeal for God and Country kept him warm.

"I know it sounds absurd, and were it another man you'd cry out 'Oh what pitiful stuff' and dismiss it as mere enthusiasm. But with Beck...you felt your heart glow."

There was silence, until finally Mr. Pillings raised a glass and said "To Mr. Beck!" and all did the same, repeating his name with great reverence. Someone started singing "I'm Proud to be an American", and even I couldn't help but join in, even though I really don't like that song.

The dinner was over. I needed something to occupy my time for the rest of the night, so I asked Mr. Abrams if he could recommend a book, and he naturally recommended The Overton Window by Mr. Beck, which he assured me was very good.

But when I got down to Hudson News I saw a copy of I am America And So Can You, by Stephen Colbert, and I bought it instead.

Hillarious.

As Sir Francis Bacon would say, this is definetely a book to be tasted, not to be taken too seriously. But you will be laughing all the way. And if you find a rare dull spot, I found this book to be deliciously skimmable.

Enojy.


Acknowledgements: I am indebted to Seinfeld, in which when George gets super smart becuase he is not having sex, but then finds he has an opportunity to have sex with a Portugese waitress, he calculates the odds and decides it must be done. So he does it, even though it means he goes back to being and idiot.

Though, this actually did happen to a friend of mine in college (being asked to go to attend a strip club with a woman...a whole buch of women actually). I told him mathematically he had to do it, and I think to he did.

Secondly, the whole thing about Glenn Beck not needing a coat becuase his love of God and Country keeps him warm (though I have no doubt that that is indeed the case), is a total rip off of Master and Commander. The dialoge is from the movie, but the scene appears in one of the 20 books by Patrick O'Brian that the movie is based on. They are WONDERFUL books and I can't recommend them highly enough. No doubt you will be seeing them on the books you might not like feed as I finish them later on this year.