The Monkey King's Used Primate Emporium and Book Reviews

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P.J. O�Rourke, �The CEO of the Sofa�

Started August 28 � Finished August 28, 2002; 270 pages. Posted 09 September 2002

P.J. O�Rourke is kind of an anomaly for me. A former hippie who turned into a conservative republican, he holds the dubious honor of being a member of two factions that I hate. And yet I�ve read every single book this guy has written. Why? Because he�s a great writer, and even though I disagree with nearly everything that he says, he is really very funny. So funny in fact, that I think he�s the only author who has two quotes that I use regularly in the signature lines for my e-mails. The first being:

�I�m a particularly Unimportant journalist. I can barely remember �the four W�s,� or indeed if four is the number of W�s at all. Worcestershire. Whajamagigger? What the fuck? Whoa. It�s something like that.�

I had this printed on T-shirts that we gave out to the staff of my college paper, much to the horror of my liberal-and-proud-of-it advisor. The second quote reads:

�We are in love with members of a troublesome species. Why don�t we fall for dogs? They can have as many as EIGHT tits! Small ones, true, but think of it - eight!�

Unlike some humorists like Art Buchwald or Dave Barry who essentially retread common subjects over and over (Barry has three books on aging), O�Rourke seeks out topics to write about that would seem impossible to make funny. He wrote a book called Parliament of Whores attempting to explain how the entire U.S. Governmental system works, with chapters like, �Our Government: What The Fuck Does It Do All Day, And Why Does It Cost So Goddamned Much Money?� In another book, he deals with the Military Industrial Complex. His last book dealt with economics but unfortunately, I don�t think there is ANY way to make that funny or interesting.

But with this book I wonder if he�s run out of projects. Basically, this is collection of various pieces written for a number of collections loosely tied together with comments involving his new home life complete with wife and kids. He�s still funny though, and he�s at the top of his form when he�s making fun of other people � which is about 90 percent of the time.

For example, when he takes it upon himself to look into the youth culture music world, he comes across the whiney, vegan, human rights advocate superstar Moby, and quotes from Moby�s website which reads, �I define basic rights [...] as the framers of the Constitution put it, the ability to have �life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.�

�That would be the Declaration of Independence, hay-breath,� O�Rourke writes.


Rating: Worth used.

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