Gullibles Travels - Cash Peters

Peters’ travelogue is by far the oddest I have ever read. Peters is best known for doing short segments on wacky roadside attractions for public radio shows like The Savvy Traveler. Within a few pages, Peters makes clear how much he loathes this lifestyle. Fourteen years of being sent to crazy places on a shoestring budget has made Cash a bitter boy. Days in rented cars with Chamber of Commerce guides named Lisa and nights in seedy motels with wretched restaurants took their toll. Instead of the peppy travelogue I had expected, Peters covers the last 6 months of his career in out-there travel reporting, documenting the hilarious, painful and speedy descent of his travel reporter career. While he does cover some places that sound fun to visit, namely the Museum of Bad Art (reviewed last month) other trips fast dispel the notion that being a travel writer is great fun. Nasty B&B owners, horrible contraptions he feels forced to coo over at a tradeshow, scuffles with people in mascot costumes, being forced to do the Sound of Music tour 5 times (a tour viewing the backs of buildings where bits of the Sound of Music was filmed while trapped in a bus full of people singing Edelweiss) culminating in his last, horrid review of Graceland, where he was marched from the premises. Sarcastic, accurate funny and weird, a good read for anyone considering a career in the travel industry.

Why Do Men Have Nipples? Mark Leyner and Billy Goldberg, M.D.

This strange combo of a TV writer and a ER medical doctor came up with their "ticket to fame" - a book filled with questions "You’d only ask a doctor after your third martini." Goldberg and Leyner answer a slew of questions - from the embarrassing to the bizarre:
Can you take the tetracycline meant for fish tanks?
Do you really need to remove a bullet right away like they do in old westerns?
Does coffee stunt growth?
Can hot tubs make you infertile?
The answers are far from cut and dried. While the questions do get answered, in a way, most of the answers swerve off on random commentary, anecdotes, commentary on movie inaccuracies and mocking commentary on old-wives tales.

Q: Does marijuana help glaucoma?
A: Marijuana does reduce pressure in the eye, but in order to sustain this reduction you would have to smoke about ten to twelve joints a day. Your eye pressure would be lower but you will be too stoned to get anything accomplished except naked guitar playing, gluttonous pork rind consumption, or deriving profound meaning from Rob Schneider films.

Goldberg and Leyner have a great vocabulary, a vast collection of weird knowledge and the thirst to make some money off a book with a good title. A fun, fast read which will increase your medical knowledge but almost .01%.

Dilbert and the Way of the Weasel - Scott Adams

I love this book. It was one of my saving graces while working for The Evil Company. Adams takes the view that most people are weasels. You can either be the victim of weasels, or become a weasel yourself. Illustrated with numerous Dilbert cartoon and real letters sent from Dilbert fans, Adams shows the many ways in which we are jerked around by other weasels. He also offers step-by-step lessons on becoming a weasel yourself. My favorite - don’t apologize directly. Instead, say you are "Sorry you feel that way." Ah yes, I remember first using that phrase on a nasty client. They immediately softened and all was well. Was I sorry about their complaint? Hell no, I was sorry they felt cranky and were taking it out on me. Anyone working in a cube - strike that, anyone working at all -will appreciate this book. Read it. Learn to recognize weasels and beat them at their own game. Remember "Dance like it hurts. Love like you need money. Work when people are watching."

Post Secret - Frank Warren

This new book highlights the postcard collection of PostSecret (http://postsecret.blogspot.com/). Back in 2003, Warren passed out 3000 blank postcards addressed to him. He asked people to decorate them and write a secret on them, then send them to him. Thousands of cards were sent - many more than he gave out. Over 10,000 cards have been sent to date. Warren posts the cards on his site weekly. His favorites have been compiled into this book. Some are silly and light-hearted "When I get angry, I write bad words on my toaster strudel." Most are sadder and some scary. To me, they represent the total human experience - a distillation of being alive. I bet this book would scare a lot of people. Idealists so want humanity to be perfect and divine, but we’re not. Everyone has secrets.

"I don’t eat dinner at your parents because their house is filthy"
"Every time I approach an overpass, I think how easy it would be to simply turn the wheel ever so slightly to the left and find peace, at long last"
"I still haven’t told my father that I have the same disease that killed my mother."
"I gave my vegetarian sister a meal with beef in it."
"I hated my childhood"
"I am a dotcom millionaire but I told my family I missed the bubble"
"I will do anything to get married"

Our Smallest Towns - Big Falls, Blue Eye, Bonanza & Beyond - by Dennis Kitchen, intro by Garrison Keillor

I’m a sucker for photo essays. This is one of my favorites. Kitchen traveled the US, photographing the smallest towns in each state. What a variety of responses he received! Some towns turned out in full force - all 2,4 or 6 of them. Others requested that their town not be photographed because they didn’t want people moving there (one town said they couldn’t afford the taxes if another family moved in and had children who needed schooling). Other towns eagerly encouraged people to move there - even giving away land. The short comments by residents provide a wonderful feeling of the towns. Some talk sadly about the town dwindling. Others like their town small and enjoy knowing all the neighbors. Check out these great small towns- from private gated communities to empty lots, the former home of thousands.

A Collaboration with Nature - Andy Goldsworthy

The artwork of Goldsworthy is about nature and impermanence. Like artist Robert Smithson (Spiral Jetty), Goldsworthy’s works are meant to erode and disappear over time. The only records are photos. Working with whatever is at hand, Goldsworthy sculpts and creates with leaves, rocks, ice and twigs. Short commentary on each photo describes the piece, the weather and its decay and destruction: "Stacked ice - sound of cracking" "Leaves torn between the veins stitched together with pine needles. Hung from a tree. Raining, calm, cold." Check out some of Goldsworthy’s images in Google’s image finder:
http://images.google.com/images?q=andy+goldsworthy&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&sa=X&oi=images&ct=title

Cadillac Beach and Triggerfish Twist - Tim Dorsey

Dorsey is in one of my favorite genre of writers - wacked-out Floridian. Apparently there is something about southern Florida that produces psychotic characters and bizarre plot twists. I’m guessing it if because southern Florida is full of psychotics with bizarre lives. Dorsey’s main character, Serge A. Storms, is a raving lunatic hell-bent on writing the wrongs imposed on his beloved Florida by a myriad enemies - developers, tourists, the government, college students, various mafias and anyone else who crosses his path. With his perpetually stoned sidekick Lenny, Serge careens across Florida in a giant pink Cadillac, checking off tasks on his to-do list of delusions. Like the works of Carl Hiaasen and Dave Barry (yes, that Dave Barry) most Florida residents are weasels (see Scott Adams, above) out to destroy the beloved past of Florida. However, Serge makes Hiaasen’s governor and other characters seem like model citizens and would give Hunter S. Thompson a run for the money in the crazed ramblings (mostly on the history of Florida) and insane delusions department. I wouldn’t say these books are good, per se. The move far too fast to take in much of the scenery, but they are a hell of a ride.