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Normally I don't do book reviews, seeing how most books worth reading were printed a while back, before the curent crop of wire hanger delivered publishers came to power.
However, with all the hype, I graciously decided to give The Alphabet of Manliness five minutes, seeing how at my current speed of reading that's about how long 200ish pages take. This Book, by one George Ouzuzu or Ouzaza or somesuch, also known as Maddox, is supposed to be the biggest and greatest product of a new comercial paradigm. You see, before there was TV. The people who pick what's shown on TV and the people who pick what's to be printed worked together successfully to ensure shit and nothing other than shit came out of the presses. But now, here's the Internet. People can make their own website, fill it with their own personal shit and watch other idiots come and sniff it. Hint hint. When enough idiots are sniffing around, Wham ! Publish a book. You don't need the TV people anymore, in fact it's them coming to you instead, if they know what's good for them. You barely need the publishing people anymore, so if you know anything about business you're going to have them sign a contract akin to indentured slavery. Therefore, a bit of dispute is going around Mount Olympus, Valhalla, Tomoanchan and every other place gods and divine beings gather around to enjoy a screwdriver and sample a nubile young virgin or vice-versa. Will the Internet ever take over entertainment ? Or will it be stuck forever replaying old TV content, repackaged, much like the TV stations of Shitsville, Brazil run Dallas to this day ? Does it or doesn't it have what it takes to become the main channel of showbiz ? We all thought Maddox's book is going to answer these questions for us, and boy did it. But first let's say Maddox did have the resources. His book made #1 on the Amazon best seller list just on pre-orders. His base of rabid fans, well in the tens of thousands, carried it there. At 10 bucks a pop, that comes to not nearly a million gross, but don't snicker. The book publishing industry is in such shambles, that's actually a huge lot of money. With enough PR stacked up to make his book a #1 seller, all one needs is the book. Maddox included. Actually, as it is right now, Maddox is selling the book equivalent of an empty CD case. With this as a front cover :  Now, it might turn out to be a pretty cool game, or film or whatever, except you don't get the CD. Just the case. Who the fuck wants an empty case, no matter how pretty a cover it has ? Tens of thousands of people, apparently. Obviously, the Internet makes people stupid. It's called hype. All your friends want it so you want it too. But in the group of five people that makes up "all your friends", each single person only wants it because "all their friends want it too". Which is the same five people. Blessfully, this kind of idiots rarely gets their hands on a full ten bucks, but if they do, they will buy it, and the first day in school following this intelligent purchase, we have the funny situation of five dorks all silent and looking down. They read it, it sucks. But how to say such a thing ? So eventually the one with thickest glasses scribbles down the now infamous
That's right. Calculus. Manliness. Doofus. They all smile warmly and hold sweaty hands. Fade to black, wrap and take it to the Academy Awards Jury. There's nothing in there you haven't read before. In fact, after spending an afternoon wrestling with Maddox's particularly poor grasp of English punctuation or grammar, you will not be able to say anything more about what's inside than you just read here. There. Is. Nothing. There. Nothing new, and not even a modicum of effort to re-word the old shit in some at least vaguely appealing form. It's an old house, with the cobwebs and rat feces everywhere, but without the house. Just the dust and shit. On the positive side, it doesn't smell bad, and the drawings are half decent. Some are actually pretty good. I suppose you could use it as a coffee table book, seeing how it is too slim to stop any door. 1 people cancelled their pre-orders and are thankful to me for saving them from wasting money. | ||