Look At My Striped Shirt - Confessions of People You Love To Hate
by The Phat Phree
$10.36 @ Amazon.com
First off let me admit that this blog - or at least me - is somehow related to The Phat Phree. I'll give you 3 minutes to Google it and figure it out. If you can't, well then it's of no concern to you. But I did get this book sent to me for free with the understanding that I would review it. Such is the duty of a "Blogger" - we are here to spread the word where no one else gives a damn.
Now let me explain a little bit about
The Phat Phree. It's an online humor magazine that is about two hundred times more popular than
Unsought Input. But then again, uhm...we like it that way. The guys from The Phat Phree are those kids who probably beat you up in elementary school, played sports in middle school and by high school they were all of a sudden really in to drama club and the school newspaper because they were slightly too intelligent to stay in football. They weren't in drama to sing and dance (cuz "that's be gay, dude") or on the newspaper to write scandalous op-ed pieces, but because they like when people listen to them talk or read what they write. They're those guys who fill the large gap between the over-smart introverts and the air-headed extroverts. Now they work office jobs but hope to someday make it big in a way that people will pay money to hear what they have to say.
So, nothing wrong with that. Someone's got to fill that gap. They're honing their skills by following the TPP credo: Target. Observe. Ridicule. They're taking "observational comedy" to a different level than we're used to - different than the droning of Jerry Seinfeld's sly jabs at everyday annoyances and not so far as the over-done "people of [my ethnicity] are funny because..." yawn-fest of Carlos Mencia.
Look At My Striped Shirt - Confessions of People You Love To Hate contains 73 essays written from the point of view of all of the quirky lamers you work with, ring up at the cash register, run into at parties and, God forbid, are related to. A
Spoon River Anthology for the modern day, if you will.
The characters in the
LAMSS book are those idiots you know you
know, but really never cared to think about before. The dude who's "really into philosophy." The jackass with the "GONFISHN" license plate. The guy who wanted to be "fuck buddies" but maybe without the "buddies" part. Your "cool" teacher. The lady who collects ladybugs. And of course, that fella sportin' the striped shirt at the bar who knows that he is totally going to get laid tonight.
The Phat Phree writers (all 28 of them) put together an interesting menagerie of characters for this book. They were smart enough to leave out the painfully obvious targets of ridicule - fat people, non-Americans, IT guys, soccer moms, the religious Right - and delve a little bit deeper into the idiocracy that
truly makes up most of the American population.
This gangbang is
so awkward... |
Many of the pieces do fall flat while others are stand out. Like most
Saturday Night Live sketches (and really, a good chunk of
Monty Python as well), some of the essays come out swingin' and die halfway through as if they'd be better minus the last three paragraphs. My favorite part of the book is actually the essay titles and accompanying pictures (yes, I read like a six-year-old, thanks.) "You Can't Plinko For Shit, You Dumb Bitch," "This Gangbang is So Awkward" and "Having a Huge Penis Isn't So Great" are some of my favorites.
Also much like Python, and the Kids in the Hall, it seems that the Phat Phree writers can't write for women. There's only a smattering of essays written from a female point-of-view (two of the contributing writers are women) and they aren't quite as strong as the others. Although "Seriously, Get This Sweater Off Me" written from the point-of-view of a woman's "rat dog" is one of the best pieces. Maybe chicks just aren't that interesting.
Seriously, get this
sweater off me |
Since the boys at TPP are so wildly different (read: popular) than us here at
Unsought, the book gives me a chance to learn a little bit about people that I would know only if I only left the house once in a while. People that go to clubs, go to after parties, drive nice cars, think they're "just like
Sex and the City," etc. I think those sort of people are more ubiquitous than I had previously imagined - although MySpace is changing my perception of the world quite rapidly. Now, thanks to this book, I have some basis for my "who the hell are all these people on MySpace?" snark.
If nothing else, this is the perfect bathroom book. The essays are short enough to get through a few at a time during your morning constitutional. Or, if you're like me and spend more time eating than excreting, it's a nice little lunchtime accompaniment. I guarantee if nothing else you'll be remembering a character or two the next time you run into someone annoying, or emailing your friend about how this essay you just read reminds you of him.
Check out
The Phat Phree Web site which is updated daily with lots of new content. Some of the pieces from the book can be found there, most likely in their "Hall of Fame." Fifty of the essays are brand-new, and can only be found in the book. The
Look At My Striped Shirt Web site has a few excerpts plus pod-casts of performances of the essays and some pretty funny wallpapers (see, even they find the titles and pictures funny!)
Go forth and read, my friends. Don't read too much, though. I will have more television reviews for you shortly.
Finally the question, "Have you found Jesus?", can now be answered yes. 
So, a few years back when Lost first aired, I didn't care. I am not much of a TV watcher and so I don't believe that I even knew it existed until someone else (a friend) told me that it was possibly the "Best Show Ever". Mind you, I am currently using that previous term in the most loosest and quote-like sense possible. I was told this "quote" back right before the second season was due to air and required upon my friendship with said quoter to watch the entire first season so that I could become a member of her "Lost Circle".
What can a girl like me do? I gave into the peer pressure because I want to be socially accepted by my peers and I have no life. In the course of five grueling days, I had watched all 26 forty-one minute long episodes of the first season. Five days. Get that through your head. Five days of nothing but watching Lost. Let's calculate the amount of time i spent on watching Lost in five days:
-the entire watching period covered 1066 minutes
-that means it was 17.76 hours of pure entertainment pleasure
-I watched (on average) 5.2 confusing and beguiling episodes a day
That's a lot of Lost. And, honestly, I loved it. I hate sitcomy shit. I don't like the generic comedy shows. I like me some cartoons and some funny weird stuff and I loved me some Lost. Please note the past-tenseness of the last statement.
I mean, the second season started to slow down a little, but it was still pretty interesting. But now, third season, yes I am talking to you, you are boring and contrived. I just want something to happen in this show, for us to find some other weird factoid out or something but what do you give me? Cancer. You kill my favorite character Mr Eko just when I think you are going to do something interesting. Where the heck are Sun and her Husband? I mean, after she shot that girl, where the crap did they go? How about Michael and his son? Oh, and now Desmond can see the future and you aren't gonna talk about him at all, either?
No, I think it's a great idea to center on the most boring plot points right now. Good move, third season. Like we care if Sawyer and Kate are now in love. Do we really even like either of those characters very much? Not really. We like Hurley. Where did Hurley go? Who knows. How about, what is Lock doing? NOTHING. What is any one else on the island doing? Nothing. They are sipping their mango coconut smoothies on the beach enjoying the overwhelming lack of interesting things happening on this show. And eating stupid Fish Biscuits.
So, in conclusion, I am gonna have to break up with you, Lost. I mean, we had our fun. But in this case, I am not going to sugar coat it. It was you, not me. I mean, things were great when we began. I know we had some rough times and I used to feel that we could make it work, that we could get through together. I just don't think you are living up to your potential and frankly, I already found another TV show, Heroes, to replace you. Please, don't be upset and don't try to change my mind. I really like this TV show and I think it could really work out between us. I know that there are others out there who still love you and will watch you religiously. I just don't know why.