Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage.

Who's it for?: Comedy fans who appreciate @robdelaney, fans of Catastrophe on TV
Who made it?: Rob Delaney
Where is it?: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/081299308X/ref=x_gr_w_glide_bb?ie=UTF8&tag=x_gr_w_glide_bb-20&linkCode=as2&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=081299308X&SubscriptionId=1MGPYB6YW3HWK55XCGG2
Length: 208 pages

I've been following Rob Delaney on Twitter since maybe 2010 and I saw some of the tweets in this book when they dropped or got retweeted, so there's a great "I was THERE, man!" feeling and also some great motivation to write my own book and find a way to fit some of my own tweets in. They are the best microblog time capsules that show how the author thinks and reacts to subjects both topical and timeless. For reference, these tweets were written during the Obama presidency.

Mr. Delaney's book is so much more than just these intercalary tweet sections between the topical parts, however. There are twenty great comedic essays about his childhood, travels, recovery from addiction, and transformation into a loving and responsible father who still loves to write jokes. Despite a near self-destruction, he retains an epic jois de vivre to be envied by people who would have an easier time stopping themselves from bungee jumping off a bridge.

Though surviving wild oat sowing is not sufficient proof to try any of these stunts at home, Mr. Delaney has been living a vivid life and responsibly explains what was at stake and could have gone worse in the adventures without consequences, and he is bluntly honest about the ones that hurt the most. He's very lucky to be alive and we as an audience are lucky to get a percentage of his experiences in the reading to shake ourselves out of mundane existential ennui and depression.

He also spent some time in France studying art and French and theater. Though some of these stories read like fraternity pranks, Mr. Delaney is sharply intelligent and an emotive illustrator of moments both ephemeral and life-changing. I think to appreciate his comedy you have to detach yourself from a need to apply the same social rules to everyone. Also it helps to know that comedians have a tone of voice they use to look at negative subjects at a safer distance than the one in which they have experiences. The tone one uses to tell a joke is not the one used to apologize to parents and teachers or address cops at traffic stops. We have free speech just so we can indulge in theatrical interpretation of important matters and keep our self-worth separate from the theatrics enough to control our own emotions and make the outcomes better for those listening to us.

My favorite part of this book is Mr. Delaney's literary voice which is similar to his Twitter feed in its brazen balance between bluntness, devil-may-care optimism, and mock outrage and condemnation toward violations of his actually quite sound ethics system. In my own comedy writing I sometimes get bogged down in the emotional weight of the subject I want to cover and am so overwhelmed and verklempt I have trouble getting back to the light riffing attitude that comedy needs in order to connect with an audience. Or I imagine I'm going to be attacked by socially defined people for being too careless with the feelings of sensitive people who aren't even being targeted by the jokes (why do they lurk my head without showing themselves? nobody ever @s me on Twitter to say I'm an insensitive monster but I still have a brutal inner critic that never seems to manifest).

Mr. Delaney's book probably shouldn't be my writing warmup, but if I'm trapped under a heavy mood or sensing a condemning socially defined lady ghost trying to control me with her pre-emptive psychological constructs, just a few minutes of Rob Delaney: Mother. Wife. Sister. Human. Warrior. Falcon. Yardstick. Turban. Cabbage. will leave said ghost gobsmacked and incapable of torturing me any further, since this kind of malevolent spirit is generally too afraid to learn life-saving information about STDs and fecal incontinence and rehab. It's really the loss of that ghost and her sycophants that they aren't able to use comedy to make these subjects approachable enough to take action on when life happens. Anyway, I feel indebited to Rob Delaney, his book, and also his fun television show Catastrophe for giving me a mix of fun and hard experiences to envision and be prepared for if I ever find myself in closer proximity to them in my life or with friends.

This book is staying on my Kindle for as long as Kindle exists and if that's not my whole life I might buy it again.

Saturday

If At Birth You Don't Succeed (don't give up on leaving your parents' house and making a living)

If At Birth You Don't Succeed Who's it for?: Bitter disabled people who need to laugh more, ableists who didn't know they were being ableist
Who made it?: Zach Anner
Where is it?: your local library, hopefully, or http://ifatbirthyoudontsucceed.com/ and Amazon:
Length: 352 pages

Zach Anner is one of the most prominent disabled celebrities who is changing the public image of what being disabled is like. His autobiography If At Birth You Don’t Succeed jumps around in the first thirty years of his life to present the most interesting moments in the optimistic tone of his comedy. Having had his own TV show on OWN and a few hit web series, Mr. Anner has always connected warmly to everyone he meets while acknowledging his disability but never in a way that garners pity or sadness. He’s happy and having fun, and why shouldn’t everyone else have fun with him? Cerebral palsy and a wandering eye may be the first thing some people notice about him, but there are so many more interesting facts to know. This book shares the best public success, then the worst gastrointestinal challenge while in pursuit of that public success, then all the times he found a challenge but just kept rolling along anyway. The very first thing everyone should know about Zach is that he finds something to be happy about no matter what circumstances he finds himself in, and he can take jokes as well as he makes them.

Zach has made his life’s work about traveling and recording his experiences as a disabled traveler. Reading his book, it seems like it never occurred to him there was any reason not to travel or that his disability should ever keep him at home. From an early childhood story of running away from home with intent to meet his celebrity crush Cindy Crawford to his Riding Shotgun webisode about exploring tree villages in Canada, once Zach sets his mind to a travel destination he always finds a way to have a decent adventure. His brother or friends help him along the way to leave his chair and climb up to the tree village even after a larger public bridge forbids him to cross it. In another story he road trips to NASA to pilot the Mars rover training simulation.

As a female reader, I did find some of the early chapters tried my patience with Zach’s attitude toward pursuing romance. His sense of humor with regard to dating comes on very strong, appearance focused, and a bit objectifying to portray girls as potential lays. (This is true for most of his dating stories though not for his appraisal of the female chef who was the other person in the final round of the OWN network reality show competition.) But he also comes across as sincere and a gentleman who actually does value the feelings of any lady he spends time with. Once he meets his wife Gillian Grassie, a harpist and singer-songwriter whose music is beautiful and also worth checking out on YouTube, they travel together for a bit before getting married. Accessibility barriers don’t stop Zach from attending Gillian’s concert in Germany or visiting her family home, and then she visits Zach in California and they go to Disneyland.

In the end, I left this book with a feeling that no excuse is good enough for not pursuing your dreams on some level, yet you also have to forgive yourself for imperfections and just roll with whatever punches life throws at you.