Last week, I dropped by a book “warming” at the Friars’ Club for “Milt & Marty” - a fake memoir for an unsuccessful comedy writing team. The book was penned by Tom Leopold and Bob Sand, two veteran comedy writers themselves (but far more successful, much to the consternation of Milt and Marty, who took the pair under their diseased racist wing).
At the warming, Milt and Marty made an appearance via video, in this interview was conducted by the funny (but playing it straight here) Frank Santopadre. There’s more than a little joy watching some old pros biting the hand of the generation before them, packing jokes in the rapid clip of that time, sometimes dropping a reference you might have to look up on Wikipedia.
The event was held in the club’s Milton Berle room, jokingly described as appropriately the biggest room at the Friar’s Club (the room is actually a little small, doing no justice to the comic’s legendary shvantz). The Friars seem probably to most like the echo of a bygone era, but there’s still something a little amazing about the place - a private club where comedians could be funny uncensored among each other, doing the stuff they couldn’t on stage. That sense of fraternity doesn’t seem necessary today, but it’s still more than a little attractive. Might need to find myself a membership application.
I was strangely hopeful to discover there a suggestion that Harry Potter’s J.K. Rowling wants to write a novel about a stand-up comedian. I’ve only read a couple of the Potter books… I don’t remember them as especially funny, but they had a good sense of whimsy about them. So I’m not necessarily a fan (or a hater) of Rowling’s work.
However, what I do kind of love about the idea is that there are tons of young fans who are probably hooked on Rowling. If she were to pen a novel focused on a stand-up comic, it could be the first detailed introduction lots of young people have to stand-up outside of the odd Comedy Central special. Sure, they’ve seen stand-up, but had they thought about as an art form? It’s an interesting opportunity.
As Chortle correctly points out, there’s plenty of reason Rowling might be credible at writing a book about stand-up as she lives in Edinburgh, home to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival which brings many of the best international comics working today right to her doorstep. If she’s got a viewpoint on the art form, she’s certainly had the opportunity to see stand-up at its best.
Also, I can’t really think of too many novels where stand-ups are the main characters. The only one that comes to mind immediately is Bill Maher‘s “True Story”, written before Politically Correct and Real Time. I haven’t read it in ages, so I can’t testify to its strengths or weaknesses, but I do remember it being almost a little dismissive of stand-up in a way. The characters are named by what type of jokes they tell - i.e. Dick, Shit, Fat, Chink - which makes for a possibly accurate portrayal of exactly what went wrong with the 80s comedy boom (the book was published in 1994). I don’t think a definitive novel about stand-up has been written yet - but my memory might be spotty. Can anyone else think of other books I’m missing?
Of course, Rowling says she hasn’t written a word yet. So it may never turn up. But I’d read it. Would you?
Tasked with following up the breakout book “Our Dumb Century”, Onion Writers Mike DiCenzo and Dan Guterman headed up a project which would be daunting all by itself. “Our Dumb World.” sets out to satirize not only the big nations of the world but almost every commonwealth, protectorate and island on the globe. I talked with DiCenzo and Guterman about how this book is a departure for the Onion, the missteps along the way in its creation and why it is not a toilet read.
I’ve really enjoyed the book. I can’t say I’ve read all of it because it’s dense. Amazingly dense.
Dan Guterman: Yeah, it took about 14 years to write.
(Laughs) Which means you started this book before “Our Dumb Century.”
DG: We did. We actually took a break from this book, whipped out “Our Dumb Century” in about three weeks and then returned to this book.
You guys weren’t there when the Onion did “Our Dumb Century”, correct?
DG: No we weren’t.
So was this intimidating to mastermind putting together a follow-up?
Mike DiCenzo: Absolutely. It started a couple of years ago when Scott Dikkers [early and current Onion Editor-In-Chief] came back to the Onion and basically just walked into the Onion and said, “We’re doing an Atlas of the world.” Especially for me and Dan, we wanted to work as hard as possible to make it a worthy follow-up to “Our Dumb Century” which both of us loved and worshiped.
DG: We both were practically introduced to the Onion through “Our Dumb Century”. I remember picking up a copy and being completely blown away by its intelligence and density and pure funniness. It was a big deal for us to do the follow-up.
For the past few years, the Onion followed up to its first book “Our Dumb Century” with repackages of headlines that have run already in the print and online editions. While it was great to have those in a more archiveable format, the true successor to that breakthrough book is the Onion’s “Our Dumb World.” Breaking from the newspaper parody format, the book applies the Onion voice to an Atlas targeting almost every country on the planet (with some resentment - a couple of sections are called “The Seriously Who Cares Islands” and “More Fucking Islands.” Death is also wished for the population of the small nation of San Marino). The results create a book with even greater joke density than the mock front pages of its predecessor. With as much as that did make it into the book, it’s hard to imagine what ended up on the cutting room floor.
The book is designed to be read a couple of ways. The restless can flip through and get a quick hit here or there, but many of the countries entries have a unified theme, a central joke that much of the entry can hang on: Turkey becomes a country desperate to be moved from the Middle East to the European section of the book, Sudan’s problems were solved by American petitions, slogans and bumperstickers and Antigua becomes a giant wedding reception hall.
Humor books are traditionally just tossed off and churned out, so the attention again to production value here is amazing. The Onion book would be easy to mistake for an actual coffee table Atlas at first glance with full color photographs, detailed maps and charts and lavish design.
For a chance at winning one of three copies of the print and audiobook version of “Our Dumb World”, write me at with your address (U.S. or Canada only) and the subject line “Our Dumb World” by Midnight, November 25.
Here’s a small excerpt from the audio version of the recently released Onion book “Our Dumb World.” The book is a parody of an atlas and this piece covers our neighbor to the north, Canada - its history, its people, its language and its inferiority to America.
I have two (2) copies of the upcoming book “BORAT: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan” to give out to some lucky readers. The book not only captures the voice of the character, but are pretty uncompromising in taste, containing multiple photos of genitalia, both male and female. (Part of the joke are the tiny censor bar covering only a small part of them, bringing rise to a “Why Did They Even Bother?” moment multiple times.)
There’s a little repetition in gags from the movie that may turn off some. But if you followed the Borat publicity blitz last year, you shouldn’t be surprised - Sacha Baron Cohen recycled many lines for Borat’s multiple late night talk show appearances, each time dropping one big thing that was new to keep it fresh. The book is much the same, bringing a bit more depth into the insanity of Borat’s assertions about his country and our own. For a taste, here’s some sample pages from the book I received earlier.
Anyway, to have a chance to win a copy of the book, write me at with your address and the subject line “Borat Book” by Midnight, November 4. Of course, if you want to just buy the book, it hits stores November 6.
I got some sample pages in my inbox the other day for BORAT: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan. It’s been a year since the Borat film and though I think the film holds up for the most part, part of me thinks if there’s a backlash, we’ll see it here. If the repetition by fans didn’t ruin the humor for you, the callbacks from the book will likely ring pretty strong. And even if you can anticipate Borat rhythms, I still laugh when he mixes up things like “martial artist” and “murderer.”
From these pages the Borat book looks like it won’t have the joke density of other works, but the attention of detail still looks to be there in the design. With the askew yellowed pages and distressed type, it certainly looks like a book made in the Borat’s version of Kazakhstan. That can only add to the humor.
It’ll be interesting to see how the second half of the book on Kazakhstan compares with the earlier fake travel guide Molvania, which targeted a fictional slavic country. Most of the sample pages below however are from the U.S of A side of the book. Thumbnails below. Full sizes after the jump.
It looks to be solid bathroom reading - if you can do that without worrying about Borat taking a picture of you “making toilet.”
Reportedly: SuperDeluxe to be folded into AdultSwim. SuperDeluxe did some brilliant stuff - hopefully some level of web content will continue under the AdultSwim brand.
Comix publicist Kambri Crews foils a scammer posing as stand-up Todd Barry. Con man, as Barry, claimed he needed money to get his car out of the impound lot. Barry does not even own a car.
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, written before Politically Correct and Real Time. I haven’t read it in ages, so I can’t testify to its strengths or weaknesses, but I do remember it being almost a little dismissive of stand-up in a way. The characters are named by what type of jokes they tell - i.e. Dick, Shit, Fat, Chink - which makes for a possibly accurate portrayal of exactly what went wrong with the 80s comedy boom (the book was published in 1994). I don’t think a definitive novel about stand-up has been written yet - but my memory might be spotty. Can anyone else think of other books I’m missing?
, Onion Writers Mike DiCenzo and Dan Guterman headed up a project which would be daunting all by itself. 
sets out to satirize not only the big nations of the world but almost every commonwealth, protectorate and island on the globe. I talked with DiCenzo and Guterman about how this book is a departure for the Onion, the missteps along the way in its creation and why it is not a toilet read.
The book is a parody of an atlas and this piece covers our neighbor to the north, Canada - its history, its people, its language and its inferiority to America.
to give out to some lucky readers. The book not only captures the voice of the character, but are pretty uncompromising in taste, containing multiple photos of genitalia, both male and female. (Part of the joke are the tiny censor bar covering only a small part of them, bringing rise to a “Why Did They Even Bother?” moment multiple times.)
, which targeted a fictional slavic country. Most of the sample pages below however are from the U.S of A side of the book. Thumbnails below. Full sizes after the jump.
