Al Franken, �Oh, the Things I Know!�
Average Customer on any given day: �Could you show me where the self-help section is?�
Me: �Yes, but wouldn�t that defeat the purpose?�
Working in a bookstore constantly reminds one of the strange ironies of life. Should a genre really be called self-help if it involves a book telling you how to live your life? By that same analogy, can you actually be a business leader and visionary if you�re taking the ideas from somebody else�s business model? Should one be considered an authority on simplification lifestyles if they have three successive books on the subject? Why does my boss get mad whenever I shelve Rush Limbaugh in the Myth section?
But of all those questions, it�s the first three that perplex me the most. The self-help section is probably the third most popular section of the store, under Mysteries and Science Fiction. These pseudo psychology books come through the store constantly, all featuring warm pastel tones and ordinary looking people smiling beatifically on the cover. There are dozens upon dozens of bald sensitive males donning fuzzy sweaters and frumpy looking middle-aged women grinning toothily while wearing sensible slacks and sporting coiffured hair that probably cost more than my car.
I�ve always been pretty skeptical about the counseling field, probably instigated by the fact that my dad was a marriage counselor until he got divorced. Then it was onto the school counselors that I�ve already railed against, and then finally, upon meeting a friend of my father�s who ran a family counseling practice, he told me that I would enjoy meeting his daughter. He showed me a picture.
�You�re right,� I said, looking at the picture, �I would enjoy meeting her.�
�Yeah, well, I�m afraid we haven�t spoken to each other in three years.�
Those who can�t do, teach, no?
I�ve already begun a secondary plan in case I don�t get accepted into any Graduate program: I�m going to go the self-help guru route. After all, most of these yokels are running off the same theme � be positive, think happy, and keep a beatific smile and fuzzy sweater on at all times. But nobody seems to be willing to try the opposite route.
So I�m willing, at a cost of $22.95 per book (15.95 for the softcover), sell you the secrets of bliss and happiness through a daily regiment of sarcasm, snide observations, and whiskey. Loads and loads of whiskey. Order now and I�ll throw in a supplement book detailing what not to say in order not to look like a total idiot when you walk into a bookstore. And remember, if you find yourself having to defend yourself all the time, you�ll never have time to attack.
Ah, but I�m giving away too many of my ideas too early � after all, I haven�t been rejected yet, and I don�t want some �visionary� to steal my ideas.
Though perhaps I�m stealing Franken�s ideas. After all, he already mocked the self-help gurus with his Stuart Smalley character, though that was taking the touchie-feely aspects to extreme. Now, with this mock self-help book, Franken�s decided to go in the opposite direction, detailing how you can make the most out of bad investments, arrests, and the fact that your spouse now makes your skin crawl.
But this is a lot of rehashing of older jokes, both from his Stuart character and books like Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot. Worse is there�s a lot of filler material here, including three pages of area codes for other countries, just in case you want to call somebody. In the meantime, there are a few chuckles but no actual real laughs, and at $19.95, anybody who actually purchased this book when it first came out can now file it under Franken�s 15th chapter, �Oh, the Bad Investments You�ll Make!�
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School Progress: Received Packet from UC Berkeley.
