Bald as I Wanna Be

Rating:
Summary: Why is this out of print?
Review: It can only be speculated why one of Tony Kornheiser's books is out of print, and another is currently a "special order" item. A sports/humor writer for the Washington Post, he is an underrated gem among humorous writers. I only enjoy Dave Barry more.

In this book (whose cover and title spoof a Dennis Rodman autobio, and whom he roundly flogs on the book's pages) Kornheiser contemplates male pattern baldness and whether the cure is worse than the affliction; Michael Jordan cologne ("if you give the average person a sheet of paper and instructions to list what he thinks of when he thinks of Michael Jordan, 'smells good' would end up No. 97, right after 'rabbinical student'"); dogs; different kinds of cars; foreign money; how to have a nice lawn; exhuming presidents and whether this is a new trend; Jose Lind, who was arrested without pants or underwear; politically correct food; and his crazy family, which includes a sociopath nephew, a newly single brother, an alcoholic uncle, and an eightysomething father who's dating "Tiffany," who doesn't know who "Kennedy" was and tells people about her past lives.

There are a few more somber columns in this collection, such as the one about his aging uncle; there is also the occasional lapse into literal poetry, such as a rhymed eulogy to Dr. Seuss and a poem about Tonya Harding and Nancy Kerrigan (that one is a real hoot!). But overall it has the flavor of a Jewish Dave Barry (who gives Kornheiser a highly entertaining back cover quote).

Fans of Barry will find the same sort of rational insanity in Kornheiser's work, and some of the same observations through a different lens. (Like being hit by the flu) It's a hilarious collection of funny columns by a funny writer. Someone bring it back into print, and fast.

Rating:
Summary: One word...HILARIOUS
Review: Tony Kornheiser tackles everything from politics to his daughter's softball and soccer games in this book, but with a hilarious sense of humor is involved with everything. This book is for everyone, it's for your 85 year old father and your high school junior son, like me. I can asure you that you'll be chuckling within a few of the first pages. Another great book by Kornheiser is Pumping Irony...I HIGHLY recommend both to any reader.

Rating:
Summary: I can't believe I read the whole thing!
Review: Tony Kornheiser, Washington Post columnist, is one funny dude. He is just about the funniest dude I ever read. Burp! Is reading Tony Kornheiser like popping chocolate covered cheery bon-bons or stuffing your face with Lay's potato chips? No. Reading Tony Kornheiser is like eating a substantial tub of almond chocolate brownie fudge ice cream and feeling the better for it. Reading TK is like drinking scotch whiskey all night long and not dying behind the wheel.*

His title is a take off on cross-dressing former NBA basketballer and party animal Dennis Rodman's best-selling memoir "Bad As I Wanna Be." (And you were worried about the quality of the books on the best seller list.) Since Tony and Dennis are the epitome of what the other isn't, this seems fair.

Tony is funnier than his fellow beltway columnist, and my pal, Joel Achenbach, although not as travel ready. The only collections of funny writings that I have read recently that can compare in the sense of pure laugh out loud belly bouncing humor are those by the recusant Joe Queenan (my other pal), whom I'm sure you know is not entirely housebroken. (Joke, dude, JOKE!)

Kornheiser is the leader of a new breed of humor newspaper columnists replacing such old time stalwarts as Art Buchwald and I forget who else. The new style is to slyly lampoon the icons of the culture and to sweetly ridicule the mundane in our lives and to lovingly roast our loved ones and leave the pols and their wily ways to the cartoonists. Here's Tony visiting his dad in Florida:

"Dad, what's the purpose of all this string?"

He said, "You never know..."

You never know what? When a yo-yo tournament is coming to town?...

And coupons! ... My dad had twenty-three coupons for Taster's Choice; there's not enough water in the Everglades to brew that much coffee... The kicker is: My dad drinks Folger's! He kept the Taster's Choice coupons for company. Like who's coming over, Canada? (pp 85-86)

Or, when he's driving his dad to a store:

I'm driving in Florida traffic, which is to say I'm creeping along behind a row of cars driven by people whose heads don't extend over the steering wheels, and they're going five miles an hour. Everything is in slow motion. It's like I'm driving through cream of mushroom soup. (p. 113)

Kornheiser also writes about his kids, his neighbor's kids, his dog, his neighbor's turtle, yard and tomato growing wars--all the shtick of the suburban sun dance. One of my favorite pieces was his take on Michael Jordan cologne:

Michael Jordan is in the business of sweating. Putting him together with cologne is like having Christie Brinkley sell feminine mustache bleach, or Carl Sagan...[endorse] the Psychic Hot Line. (p. 13)**

The columns (all from the Washington Post) are organized under various headings, e.g., "It's a Jungle Out There" (been there); "Fear of Fogeyism" (done that); "Rich, Famous People Who Don't Know I Exist" (never happened to me); and "Capital Comment" (in which Kornheiser finally, but finally gets around to the usual subject matter in our nation's capital, our leaders and their cute and wondrous ways).

Bottom line: don't pick this up in a store and start reading the selections. You won't be able to read just one.

*Recalling (it just popped into my head) the Steely Dan lyric.

**Here I craftily correct Kornheiser's lack of strict parallel sentence structure. (He wrote "endorsing" and his addlebrained editor thought that was okay since it jived with "having" but WE know it needed to jive with "sell." Yes, I am as Mean As I Wanna Be.)