Hi Everyone,
Happy Saturday! I hope everyone is doing well. Here’s today’s blog.
Before I leave my apartment I always double check everything. The other day as I checked my handbag I realized that I didn’t have a book. With one boot on, I hopped over my area rug to the farthest bookcase. It holds some of my unread books. The day started off unusually unpredictable so I thought a light easy read was in order. I decided on a book by a certain comedian. I have other books by comedians waiting to be read but I chose This Comedian. Big mistake!
After reading a few pages I realized that This Comedians’ book was one big rant! Page after page, the rant continued. They ranted about politics, people, and religion. When This Comedian ranted about religion they included the Pope! Now I don’t know about you, but the ranting about the Pope is one thing. Ranting about the Pope and having in the printed word is another. I really began to question what the publishing machine was thinking when they allowed that. Since it was the only book I had available to me I kept reading. It didn’t get much better. I was getting really pissed off. I started to count the number of blank pages. From the 240 pages there are 65 pages that have less than 5 words. Some pages, not included in the 65 pages I mentioned above, have less than 150 words per page. Hmmm.
One of the first things I did when I arrived home was read the dust jacket I took off earlier in the day. On both pages of the dust jacket the author, This Comedian, promised the book was going to be funny. The funny thing is I had yet to crack a smile. Since I bought the book at the Salvation Army for $2, I was happy I didn’t spend more at a bookstore, because I would have really been pissed off. Then I read the inscription and wondered what that reader thought when he read this book, assuming he did of course. The inscription says,
Dec 1997
To ______
This books’ sole function is to make you smile.
Happy Holidays
Love_____
I knew the book was old when I was reading it. I remembered reading 1997 in the inscription when I bought the book. Jokes don’t have expiry dates. They may get a bit stale, but a good joke, especially by a well known comedian can and will stand the test of time. The problem was there wasn’t one joke in this book. I’ve read other books printed in the mid to late 1990’s by other comedians and they had jokes. I smiled. I’ve even laughed out loud. I grew up watching all kinds of comedians. I know everyone’s style. Whether they say a joke or I read a joke, I get them. I get the joke.
With the book almost done, I kept reading. I was determined to find something useful. And I finally did. In fact I found two things I didn’t know. Keep in mind this book was printed in the States. Here they are in order.
Apparently a surgeon general suggested that they teach masturbation in school and got a lot of heat for her suggestion. I never knew that. The other thing I didn’t know was where the word fuck originated from. According to This Comedian, the word, fuck, for anyone who is interested, means,
F or
U nlawful
C arnal
K nowledge
It comes from the Puritan days when adulterers were put in stockades after they were dragged through the streets. Once people were put in the stockades, someone hung a sign stating the crime. One word was placed on top of another and that is one way of how the word fuck came about. This Comedian states there are others ways the word fuck came about but doesn’t give them.
The point of today’s blog is this. Just because someone is famous, has a huge and growing platform and strongly states that their book is going to have you rolling on the floor as you laugh your ass off, doesn’t mean you will. Maybe they simply want to sell books to increase their passive income. Who knows?
One thing I always do when buying a book that costs more than $2 and I am not sure if I want to buy the book is this; I open the book to a random page and read a sentence or two. If I like what I’ve read I’ll keep reading. If don’t the book goes back on the shelf. Another thing I do is check the number of pages the book has, and then look for any blank pages. The reason I do this is to see if the author/publisher is trying to hit a word count and/or a certain number of pages. It’s a publishing trick. The more pages a book has the higher the probability of someone buying it. Blank pages are included in the page count. The publishing process is more involved, but that is the gist of it.
The reason I am telling you this is this is not the first time I’ve purchased a book by a famous person, with a huge and growing platform who has disappointed, pissed me off. One time I was so pissed off, I looked up the book online to read some reviews. I wasn’t the only person who was pissed off. Luckily I paid $1 for that book. The other readers didn’t. They paid full price. They were really pissed off.
So there you go everyone. Just because a book, or anything for that matter, promises something doesn’t mean it will. Check, no! Double check everything! Don’t just buy into what someone is selling! If you do, then it is your own damn fault!
Thank you for reading, A. Rebel’s Rant! ;D
by 
by