I was all ready to be outraged by this book. As any self-respecting woman would be by a book called In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks (And Other Complaints from an Angry Middle-Aged White Guy).
The title actually sold me, as I’d never heard of the author.
But as I began reading I began giggling (I never do that), reading long passages to anyone who’d listen and nodding in sage agreement with everything in the first five chapters.
To wit, they’re titled: - Kids These Days,- Where Have All The Fellas Gone?;- Motherf**king Nature;- We’ve Built a Minimum-Wage Gilded Cage;- Airport 2010; and- That’s Entertainment?
Also look out for Women Hear Me Roar; God, Religious Tolerance, and Other Shit That Doesn't Exist (hilarious, even though I’m a believer); and Foods I Have a Beef With.
In short, this book is about Americans - those strange creatures with their self-conscious national neuroses - and, as Adam puts it, “the pussification of America”.
If I’m being honest, it’s less of a book and more of a comedic rant against assholiness. Be warned, though: it is un-PC, unapologetic, filled with horrendous swearwords, packed with sexist discourse, and pretty well-written by a functional illiterate. It’s stand up, sitting down.
Who is Adam Carolla? Most Americans will know him from his podcast and multiple radio appearances* (he headlined something called 'The Man Show' for many years, with Jimmy Kimmel), where most of his shtick involves bitching about everything. I’d never heard of him.
But back to the book, in which Adam bitches about everything from schools’ no-nuts policies (at which point, having spent three weeks with two kids who have nut allergies, I laughed until I cried) and weird facial hair, to airport regulations and “mediocre movies that are supposed to be great”, like Fargo, Lost in Translation, and everything by Pixar.
He rants about passion-fruit flavoured teas and both dogs and cats. He whines about gender roles, stripper names, and both left and right wing ideologies. He moans about immigration, public schooling, Jewish food, and racism vs. assholiness.
And then he gets a bit desperate. Because, as several other reviewers have pointed out, the first two-thirds of the book are outstanding. The last third is…filler. Definitely.
I’ll bet that Adam had half a book’s worth of stuff to say. And the publishers said, ‘Sorry buddy. You need more stuff. We can’t sell this skimpy thing. So look around and bitch about whatever you see.’
And that’s what he did. Especially towards the end, when Adam starts giving bite-size advice on stuff in a chapter called Do Yourself a Favour. These include Household Tips (!), Parenting Tips, Hygiene Tips and Life Tips.
By then I was over it. So I re-read Chapter Two: Kids These Days.
Buy it. Not because it’ll change your life, but because you’ll laugh. A lot. Read it on the loo.
* The Adam Carolla Show is the most downloaded podcast on iTunes, with over 2.8 million listeners a month.
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