[.ca] Red Lobster White Trash & The Blue Lagoon: Joe Qeenan ... (ISBN 0786884088)

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

Queenan goes where no sensible person would - Branson:
I read and re-read this book, it's fall-down laughingly funny. Queenan embarks on an odyssey that begins and ends with performances of "Cats", and what lies between is truly horrifing: Billy Joel's entire oevure. John Tesh and Barry Manilow concerts. David Cassidy in Vegas. and the kicker - Branson, Missouri, where old has-beens and never-wheres go to die. This is one of the best books about our stupendously stupid culture ever produced, and while some may bristle at Mr. Queenan's snobbish attitude, they need to try and find a sense of humor. Fast food, John Grisham, and Broadway "musicals" suffer mightily at the pen of Queenan, and the book is a delight from beginning to end.

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".

From the mediocre to the horrible - one man's journey:
Red Lobster, White Trash and the Blue Lagoon, by Joe Queenan, is yet another hilarious book by him. I've loved the other two books by him that I've read, but this one is different. First, it's a whole book rather than a collection of essays. Secondly, it's short, only 188 pages. This surprised me until I actually read it. But it is still just as funny as I know Queenan can be. In this book, he starts on a pop-culture odyssey and has a hard time coming back from it. Unlike Odysseus' odyssey, though, he doesn't have a family (or a wife) waiting for him back home while he journeys. Instead, he drags them along with him, kicking and screaming. He's always been sort of a snob, sneering at various popular items that he wouldn't be caught dead attending or visiting. Everything that he's always loathed from afar, he decides that he must now experience. He's getting bored with his intellectual life, and he wants to see how "the masses" live. So he dives in to the deep end, starting off with seeing "Cats" on Broadway. He's managed to avoid even thinking about it for 14 years, but now he decides he has to see it. It is an eye-opening experience, and one that's just the gateway to the pop culture Hades. Soon, he's listening to Michael Bolton and Kenny G, going to Red Lobster and Taco Bell, and generally becoming one of us. Internally, he's a bit sickened by the whole thing, but soon he becomes addicted to it. He can't live without getting up at 8:00 in the morning for "Starsky & Hutch." His is a journey between Scylla and Charibdis and around the island of the Sirens. He will find himself in dangerous waters, almost dying (well, his brain, anyway). And what a ride it is. Queenan definitely has a way with words. He's also very abrasive and condescending at times, so he's not for everybody. He insults a lot of popular things in this book. If you're like me, you'll find yourself laughing uproariously even when he's going after something you really like. There will be other times when you'll be nodding your head in complete agreement (most likely when he's talking about Michael Bolton). He can be an acquired taste, though, so you may want to leaf through the book before buying it, just to make sure. Don't worry where you leaf to. Wherever you go, he'll be going after something. However, if you find you don't mind this, his style of writing is incredible. It flows very easily and reads very quickly. I read this book in three sessions and it didn't take more than 45 minutes each time (and for me, that's fast). I found myself unable to put it down. Probably the funniest bit in the whole book is when he has a dream about a world-wide conspiracy of morons taking over the world. He thought originally that it was just random, that morons were all over the place but they weren't organized. But then he's drafted to infiltrate the moron brigade and find out what they're planning. His indoctrination (which he's already started by going on this journey) is intense, and his life hinges on his familiarity with the television show "Touched by and Angel." This sequence lasts for about three pages, and it is truly hilarious. Another bit that stands out are his description of seeing "Victor Victoria" on stage three times in a couple months, with three different stars: Julie Andrews, Liza Minnelli and Raquel Welch. Very hideous, but very outrageous. Even his 13-year-old daughter, who he drags to Minnelli's show, knows that something is wrong here. He outdoes himself when he goes to Vegas, though. One of his main themes once he starts down this road is that a number of the things he sees and places he goes to have a certain "scheissenbedauern," or the feeling that something really stinks, but doesn't stink as much as you secretly hoped it would. He finds himself disappointed by the mediocrity of so much that he experiences, when he wanted it to be truly horrible. Vegas was a good example, and he has some really complimentary things to say about Wayne Newton (and Barry Manilow in an earlier section). Too many things are just bad, rather than being mind-blowingly awful. This does not apply to his visit to Branson, Missouri, and this visit almost cures him of his addiction. This is a hilarious book, and watching Joe sink deeper and deeper into the depths of pop culture, to the point where he can't get himself out of it, is very interesting. However, the book does have a couple of shortcomings. Both of these are actually alleviated by mitigating factors or are easily solvable. The first is that the book is so short. This sort of ruins the entertainment value of the book and makes you wonder about spending that kind of money for a 188 page book. However, after reading it, I completely understand. As good as the book is, I don't think it could have supported much more length. The second problem is that the wisecracks and insults of things that you might happen to enjoy (like "Phantom of the Opera" for me) can get a bit old after awhile if you're reading it all in one sitting. The solution for that, though, is to put it down for a little while and take a break. Easily solved. I really enjoyed this book, and this view of popular culture from an "outside" source. If you're in the mood to laugh and you find that Queenan is to your taste, this is another excellent example of his writing. Give it a try. Just take it in smaller doses then usual. David Roy

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.