Product Description

"How bad could it be?" With this simple question, Joe Queenan embarks on a nightmare journey through the depths of American pop culture, subjecting himself to Broadway musicals, Red Lobster Captains' Feasts, and John Tesh concerts: "With his shopworn, lounge-lizard stage gestures, eviscerated salsa compositions, and studied reveries, Tesh was a human Cuisinart of every hack musical stunt, effecting a strange synthesis of various mongrel styles where half the songs sounded like generic background music for promotional videos ... and the other half sounded like retreads of Mason Williams's sixties hit Classical Gas."Queenan sets out to find music, movies, books, and TV that transcend awful, and the most remarkable thing about this book is that one never doubts for a moment that he actually subjected himself to all of the horrors he describes (including the literary efforts of Joan Collins). In an era where references to Burt Reynolds movies are used as hipster currency by people who have never endured Cannonball Run II, Queenan mocks nothing without experiencing it first. His odyssey throws up a few surprises--including the discovery that Barry Manilow is actually pretty good, and that most of the junk that clogs the arteries of popular culture never reaches the stratospheric level of badness achieved by someone like Michael Bolton. This leads Queenan to coin the term scheissenbedauern ("shit regret") to describe "the disappointment one feels when exposed to something that is not nearly as bad as one hoped it would be." But generally, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the book is "Really, really bad." Making fun of bad middlebrow entertainment may seem like a no-brainer, but when a writer as sharp as Queenan gets his claws into something like the collected works of Billy Joel, the results are hilarious. Like Jonathan Swift with a remote control, he gleefully shoots every fish in the pop-culture barrel. --Simon Leake

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #851100 in Books
• Published on: 1999-04-14
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 194 pages

From Amazon.com
"How bad could it be?" With this simple question, Joe Queenan embarks on a nightmare journey through the depths of American pop culture, subjecting himself to Broadway musicals, Red Lobster Captains' Feasts, and John Tesh concerts: "With his shopworn, lounge-lizard stage gestures, eviscerated salsa compositions, and studied reveries, Tesh was a human Cuisinart of every hack musical stunt, effecting a strange synthesis of various mongrel styles where half the songs sounded like generic background music for promotional videos ... and the other half sounded like retreads of Mason Williams's sixties hit Classical Gas."

Queenan sets out to find music, movies, books, and TV that transcend awful, and the most remarkable thing about this book is that one never doubts for a moment that he actually subjected himself to all of the horrors he describes (including the literary efforts of Joan Collins). In an era where references to Burt Reynolds movies are used as hipster currency by people who have never endured Cannonball Run II, Queenan mocks nothing without experiencing it first. His odyssey throws up a few surprises--including the discovery that Barry Manilow is actually pretty good, and that most of the junk that clogs the arteries of popular culture never reaches the stratospheric level of badness achieved by someone like Michael Bolton. This leads Queenan to coin the term scheissenbedauern ("shit regret") to describe "the disappointment one feels when exposed to something that is not nearly as bad as one hoped it would be."

But generally, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the book is "Really, really bad." Making fun of bad middlebrow entertainment may seem like a no-brainer, but when a writer as sharp as Queenan gets his claws into something like the collected works of Billy Joel, the results are hilarious. Like Jonathan Swift with a remote control, he gleefully shoots every fish in the pop-culture barrel. --Simon Leake

From Publishers Weekly
"I was beginning to suspect that snobs like me were cutting ourselves off from all the sun in this society, that in our obsession with books by Umberto Eco and concerts by the Kronos Quartet, we had deprived ourselves of the boundless joy to be derived from a quiet evening with Yanni." Thus does Queenan explain the impetus for his hilarious venting of spleen here against American mass culture. The TV Guide columnist and author of If You're Talking to Me, Your Career Must Be in Trouble sallies forth to skewer many popular icons. Among them are the musical Cats ("I was not a complete stranger to the fiendishly vapid world of Andrew Lloyd Webber"), Robert James Waller ("No one will ever write a book worse than Border Music. The government wouldn't allow it"), John Tesh ("almost supernaturally vacant"), Joan Collins ("a thrillingly inept writer"), the Olive Garden restaurant chain (colorful wording on the menu transforms a "repellent morass into a truly wondrous zuppa toscana") and the home of aging performers, Branson, Mo. ("a Bayreuth for Bozos"). Cynics in general and fans of Queenan in particular will find many pleasures in this wonderfully comic diatribe. Editor, Jennifer Barth; agent, Joe Vallely. British rights sold to Picador; author tour.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Outspoken cultural critic Queenan (The Unkindest Cut, LJ 1/96) travels through America in search of bad taste and then goes back to 16 cities to promote his book.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

Flags, Fizzles
A cute idea, with several hilarious interludes, but a bit shop worn by the end of the book, which reads more like a patched together series of essays. Just as Queenan notes his disappointment at schlock that isn't really bad enough, I must register my disappointment at passages that don't sizzle enough or tiresome redundancies. He seems funniest with the quick character sketch or the telling detail (Joan Collins and Liza Manelli are pilloried with gusto and great comic timing.) Queenan is less impressive with his much repeated and exaggerated persona--the guy who's gone to the depths of banality as he goes a-swimming in the soup that is bland American pop culture. We get it, Joe, this was a Herculean task, but stick with character barbs. The low-lifes around Atlantic City gaming tables; the various "Kenny's", Rachel Welch. A good book, but long by one-half. For my money, I think "Balsamic Dreams," Queenan's roast of Baby Boombers of a certain counter-culture turn now turned mainstream, is much better.

Funny but overstays its welcome
When I first read Joe Queenan, I thought he was about the funniest writer on the planet. He is still very funny and very talented, but his shtick can get just a bit old, and fast.

This book started as an article, and if you can, I would track that article down and save yourself the money and the time it takes to read this very slim yet somehow plodding hatchet job on anything popular for Middle America.

This subject was stinging and hilarious as an article, running the perfect length and not overstaying its venomous welcome.

But as the book drags on, Queenan is so relentless with his targets that the reader feels a backlash coming. Sometimes it seems like the mere mention of "Tony Orlando" or "Phil Collins" is supposed to be enough to make you laugh and understand how disgruntled Queenan is. And simply the word "suck" is used and used again to describe everything Queenan doesn't like. Okay, Joe, we get it. It's a bit tired to read page after page of insulting "middle American huckleberries", etc. I guess if people are not as fortunate, intelligent, or rich as Queenan, they're more or less despicable cretins to be mocked by the admitted "cultural effete".

Another problem is that many of Queenan's references are either already outdated or beyond obvious. The entertainment industry does the job for him when cheap targets like Steve Guttenberg or Joe Piscopo are chewed up and spit out by the industry itself once it has no use for them. The vast majority of figures like this really do wind up just going away, and why? Because the audiences--the middle Americans Queenan loves ripping to make himself sound smarter--disgard their product. Queenan's biggest problem is with crap that poses as art, and he even admits that certain cheese is not so bad, as long as it's aware that it's cheese (as he discovers that Manilow is a good entertainer, if a cheeseball). However, I did find it a bit nauseating when our intrepid author, who has immersed himself in popular culture and become addicted, needs to take a trip to France to cleanse himself and rediscover real beauty and culture. Can you say vomit?

It's very, very funny at times, and the index is hilarious. I wouldn't pay much for this book again; you may be able to track his rants down online.

Funniest Humor Book I Have Read in Years
Besides pointing out the ridiculousness of American pop culture,what Makes Red Lobster, White Trash, and the Blue Lagoon so funny is that Joe Queenan is a fine writer, witty and creative. How can you not laugh at someone who points out that Garth Brooks songs appear to have been written with "Microsoft's Drugstore Cowboy for Windows 95".

I have loaned this book out to five other people, all of who thought it was excellent - one quote from a friend was "I laughed my ass off".