Musings from Brian J. Noggle

If future archeologists unearth a copy of this tome, they will undoubtedly think that the 1970s were a repressed period. I mean, this book collects some jokes that might have been considered dirty circa 1948, but in the 1970s, mildly off color words weren’t shocking enough to cause startled laughter in joke listeners, much less joke readers.

This book was originally published in 1976, but I purchased a special 1979 printing at the YMCA for a buck. Let that be your guide. I bought it at a fundraiser at the Young Man’s Christian Association in 2005. Jeez, I knew better dirty jokes in 1979, and I was in elementary school.

It’s hard to belive that only a couple of years later, local radio personality Frank O. Pinion released the definitive dirty joke book–which I read surrepitiously during my middle school years. The book featured the famous Willy Nelson joke, which I remember and can recite to this day. But the contents of this book–The World’s Best Dirty Jokes, I remind you, gentle reader–I have already forgotten.

I bought this book at the Carondolet YMCA book fair. I spent a $1.00 on it, but I justified it on these factors:

• It’s a stated first edition.
• It’s a signed stated first edition, with the inscription “To Stevie – My favorite stud-puppy–bend over! Love, Judy Tenuta”.
• In the late 1980s, I thought Judy Tenuta was kinda hot.

So I picked this book as my most recent nonfiction reading material. It’s 212 pages, but those pages make judicious use of white space, drawings, and photography that proved that Judy Tenuta was kinda hot in 1991, in a disturbed sort of way. Hey, I was in my late teens. Disturbed but hot would continue to feed my tastes for another half decade yet. She’s also got another luminary of the era, Emo Phillips, in some of the photos. Hey, where did he go? You know, I thought he had a cult following when I was clicking through Hot or Not profiles and saw a lot of chicks born in 1985 continued to appreciate emo. But I digress.

The book, coupled with the last book by a comedienne I thought was hot in 1990 (Rita Rudner, Naked Beneath My Clothes), defines the difference between humor and shtick. Judy Tenuta, with her Love Goddess persona and accordion, represent one, and Rita Rudner, with her musings on life and pointed pauses with lips pursed, represents the other. One translates well to books, and the other doesn’t. One ages well, and one does not–I cannot imagine Judy Tenuta running around with the same observations and act now that she’s about to trip 50; however, Ms. Rudner can continue with her observations and pursed lips without missing a beat.

I also thought Judy Tenuta was kinda amusing ca. 1990, too, but come to think of it, I don’t know I ever saw any extended performance. I think I saw some promos for MTV or VH1 featuring her, but no specials. Otherwise I might have skipped this particular purchase, which depicts how one should worship her and participate in her religion, Judyism. She inserts observations and jokes about commoners and celebrities as they relate to her, but ultimately, it’s only one note played on a variety of instruments and called a symponme.

Not to say that the book was totally meritless, as its value as an artifact of history and my personal life (remember 1991 B.C.–before Clinton?). Still, nothing in the book made me laugh out loud or really chuckle. I didn’t rush to my beautiful wife to tell her what Tenuta said. Nor, probably, will I ever. But she was kinda hot in 1990. For someone almost my mother’s age.

Since I didn’t group it with the Prey novels I inherited from my aunt (Easy Prey, Chosen Prey, and Naked Prey), I overlooked this book until now, and it worked its way to the back of my “to read” bookshelves.

The book centers upon a series character named Kidd who’s a computer hacker. The book is five years old, but it’s weathered fairly well; Sandford keeps the specifics of the technology to a minimum. Ergo, he’s not made laughable mistakes in the world of 2000 which computer people would spot and it prevents early obsolescence of the book. Also, Kidd gets out of the basement and doesn’t spend a whole lot of the book hacking. Instead, he’s social engineering, reconnoitering, and breaking and entering. So it’s more gripping, less dated.

The plot: a former associate of Kidd’s has gotten killed after inadvertently poking into some conspiracy among NSA or near-NSA types, and he left a message for Kidd just in case something were to happen to him. That something does happen, and Kidd’s skeptical. However, Kidd finds himself listed as the member of a non-existent hacker group identified as a high priority target for law enforcement, they force Kidd to investigate and retaliate–not so much out of his sense of vengeance, but his instinct for survival.

It’s a serviceable book, better than the Prey series where the main character, Lucas Davenport, field marshals a team as they deal with political pressures and solve high-profile cases. Still, Kidd depends upon a support network, so he doesn’t fit the lone wolf archetype in suspense novels. He’s also a Democrat, like Davenport, whose political asides tend to run to the sniggering at the Republicans. The asides don’t detract from my enjoyment of the book, but I am aware of them.

So it’s worth a buck or two in the used book store, certainly. Perhaps even five on the remainder table, and perhaps I’ll explore the other books in the series once I get through the hundreds of volumes remaining on the “to read” shelves.

I bought this book at the Carondolet YMCA for $4.00, but it’s in almost new condition, and I hadn’t read this book, and Ed McBain died this summer. So again I set aside my normal reluctance to spend that much money on a book.

Hark! is a Deaf Man book. There’s no other way to put it. Normal crime goes out the window in this book, as the Deaf Man again taunts the boys (and girl) of the 87th Precinct with a set of clues about what he plans to do, knowing that they won’t be able to stop him. Or so he thinks.

As always, these books include a lot of details in the lives of the characters. McBain kept up a tight schedule on publishing these novels, particularly in the last couple of years, so we can forgive him for what might have been an increased serialization of the private lives–although the books always had some of that. Something else striking about this book is that it refers to actual contemporary political figures–Bush and Blair–, contemporary musicians–the John Pizarelli trio–, and contemporary events–the war in Iraq. His earlier books used common nouns or made-up details, which has preserved their longevity and readability into the present. For example, a veteran returning from “the war” proved a relatively malleable archetype: it could have been Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, or the current wars depending upon the decade in which the reader encounters the book. By naming specifics, McBain has limited the future reach of these books.

But one can become as morose as Travis McGee lamenting that not only is the concept of reading books becoming meaningless in man’s blithe march into media-mandated illiteracy and technologically-enabled idiocy, but with Ed McBain’s death, the potential number of 87th Precinct novels (or at least those for which Evan Hunter is responsible) has become finite and the actual number of books I have not read will now slowly tick down to zero, much like life itself.

Man, that’s depressing. I think I’ll while some of that time away mindlessly by playing Civilization.

I paid a whole $3.00 for this book at the Carondolet YMCA Book Fair last weekend. It’s a lot for me to pay for a book, I know, but this one is a stated first edition. So I threw it in my box. As you know, gentle reader, John D. MacDonald is one of my favorite authors, and to get one of his first editions for only three dollars, well, I’d make that purchase any day of the week. Because of my love for JDM, I didn’t evaluate the book coldly, rationally, like a true book collector, otherwise I would have noted the pen scribbling–hopefully by a child–inside the front and back cover and perhaps the slight molding on the spine. But since I’m thrilled to have this first edition for my collection and not for investment purposes, it will do.

An old seafaring acquaintance of Travis McGee commissions the salvage expert to find and return his good name. Captain Van Harder was found passed out aboard the ship he was piloting after its owner fell overboard. Although he battled and conquered drinking demons in his youth, no one believes him that he only had one drink on the job, and his license and livelihood are revoked. McGee travels to the gulf coast of Florida with his friend Meyer to investigate the disappearance of the owner. As his business was on the rocks, could the owner have slipped a mickey to his captain and friend to stage a disappearance to Mexico? It certainly looks that way.

I cannot really say anything bad about this novel without trying very hard, so I won’t bother. I paid $3.00 for a book I’d already ready and might already own and I read it the same week I bought it. Let that guide your thinking about my opinion of the book.