Book Review 1 of 52: Why We Suck by Denis Leary

I decided to give myself a reason to read more books this year I'd read 52 books and write 52 reviews. I was going to do it as a once a week thing but obviously I missed that boat so I'm just going to do 52 between now and New Years.

So the first book of 2009 that I got through was Why We Suck by Denis Leary. I should probably start off by saying that I love Denis Leary. I've loved him ever since I saw No Cure For Cancer many, many years ago. I loved him in The Ref, I loved him in The Job, and Rescue Me is probably my all time favorite show ever.

So the book is half Denis Leary trying to say why Americans as a whole suck and half talking about his childhood which ends up having pretty much nothing to do with why we suck. Also did you know Denis Leary was Irish? If not he's going to let you know, a lot. He's going to talk a lot about his Irish parents, his Irish brothers, his Irish relatives, his flat, white Irish ass.

I mean I'm Irish from an Irish family (even though I'm third generation and he's second so he's more Irish or whatever) and have wacky Irish stories. I even thought I talked a lot about being Irish except Denis Leary takes the cake. He talks about it during his stand-up, he makes sure his character on Rescue Me reminds everyone around him that he's Irish, and his book drives the point home that much more. Just brace yourself.

Then he goes into the standard stupid American things. Yes Anna Nicole Smith was a talentless drugged up whore. Yes Britney Spears is a big joke. He also tossed a K-Fed joke in there, I guess to stay topical. We're fat, Nascar is stupid, My Super Sweet Sixteen and anything on VH1 should be considered cruel and unusual torture.

At this point I thought Denis was going soft and just playing it safe. I mean if you've seen any comedy routine by anyone in the past 5 years you've heard all of these jokes before. If you've ever had a pop culture infused conversation with anyone at all you've told these jokes before.

Then the book starts to pick up. He starts talking about bad children and even worse parents. He goes on about the big autism and ADD boom that's been going on for years. This is where Denis hits his stride and personally I agree with him on every point. Just because your kid is a little socially awkward, or has a hard time concentrating and is more infatuated with boggers than homework doesn't mean they're retarded or special, it just means they're a kid.

Me and my cousin were diagnosed with ADD at around the same time. My parents chose to treat me like any other kid, no special pills, no special classes, no special helmets, mostly because they thought the diagnosis was wrong. My cousin was always hopped up on ritalin, always treated like some sort of special needs kid and one of us ended up a heroin addict in prison. Think about which one of us that was.

So anytime I hear someone say "I can't do two thing at once, I have ADD, I just can't concentrate," I want to throw them off a building. You know what, Denis you grab the arms, I'll grab the legs and we'll throw on three.

Also Denis keeps going on and on about how beautiful his wife is, how perfect she is all in a really clichè manner. Actually he sounds like a guy who got caught cheating on his wife and wrote this book just so he could put pictures of her in there and talk about how great her ass looks when she gets changed just so he could have a 240 page public apology. The book might as well have come with flowers and a mix-tape to bring it all together.

His chaper on racism is one of the best in the book, and he doesn't skirt around any racist terms. Actually he organizes them from the least to the worst to see which race has it the worst. He does stay in safe territory though and keeps his focus on Jews and (surprise, surprise) the Irish.

So the book starts off with a clear purpose, to explain why we suck. But then the book doesn't tell us why we suck. It starts off down that path but then goes into childhood anecdotes and why Denis did theater in college. It probably would have been better just to have had no purpose and just have been a book by Denis Leary than to give us a defined goal of where the book wanted to go and not follow up on the promise.

If you're a fan of Denis Leary, get it, even though there are going to be parts of the book you'll read and think, "Haven't I heard this before?" Then again the book reads like a transcript of his stand-up act, and there's nothing wrong with that.