I was browsing the new arrivals at the library and ran across a book by Adam Carolla. He is the tv host you may remember from "Loveline" and "The Man Show". I don't remember the title but the cover has a photo of him in a leather jacket and hat riding a kid's bicycle. The jacket summarizes it as Carolla taking on everything wrong in society. A society where men can't be men, people don't know their place and a bunch of other stuff that entitled, middle-aged white men complain about. It's the kind of thing that is inconsequential, old as the world and makes liberals annoyed. I coulnd't help stealing a glance inside.
The particular chapter I ran across was a complaint about minimum wage workers who create unnecessary obstacles in Carolla's way when he is trying to meet important people and do his very important job. They should know their place, dammit, and they are probably paid too much. The lack of any self-awareness is telling. It looks like he is trying to share a complaint that anyone can relate to but I don't think most people have much occasion to go backstage at some big show and run into these low paid gatekeepers. Other than TSA agents I suppose, but even then most people don't fly often enough for it to really irritate them. Resentment is a two way street, buddy.
What bothers me most about this book is that these grumblings that are no more perceptive, no more profound, not even better written than anyone else's, despite Carolla's ostensible role as a funnyman, are given the distribution and endorsement that come with a book deal. Not only is this overpaid oaf peeved but the world has to know about it. I suppose this post is starting to become akin to that book.
To switch gears completely - I recently realised that I cannot read recent (from the last two or three decades) American novels. Of course there are good ones and bad ones in any era but the way the average representative of this set rankles me does not have any peers. I can't really put my finger on it but something about the subject matter, the characters, their concerns and the way they speak (this list hardly leaves anything) marks them as so irrelevant. No one talks like this or thinks like this and it doesn't say anything about my life, I think. I may just have to stick to essays and other non-fiction and possibly short stories.