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"Human problems are complex. If something isn't complex it doesn't qualify as problematic. Very simple bad things are not worth troubling ourselves about." —from All the Trouble in the World |
“No time left for pamphleting and leafleting, picketing and petitioning, talking and walking around. Time to TRASH THE STATE!” Abbie Hoffman? Huey Newton? No, it’s P.J. O’Rourke, circa 1970. Now America’s most provocative (and conservative) satirist—the author of the national best-sellers Parliament of Whores, Give War a Chance, and All the Trouble in the World—O’Rourke was at one time a raving pinko, with the scab on his bleeding heart to prove it. Through twenty-five years of his writing, Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut guides us on the journey that has taken O’Rourke from the lighthearted fun of revolutionary barricades to the serious business of the nineteenth hole. How did the O’Rourke of 1970, who summarized the world of “grown-ups” as “materialism, sexual hang-ups, the Republican party, uncomfortable clothes, engagement rings, car accidents, Pat Boone, competition, patriotism, cheating, lying, ranch houses, TV, and suicide,” become the O’Rourke of the ‘90s, who threatens to aim his shotgun at any revival of the ‘60s? How did a self-described “nightmare of the bourgeoisie,” whose greatest desire was to destroy “individualist property, selfish values, hateful concepts,” end up in a suit and tie, behind a lectern, insisting that “Communists worship Satan, Socialists think perdition is a good system run by bad men, and liberals want us all to go to hell because it’s warm there in the winter”? Age and Guile Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut traces the development, from hippie protester to conservative grouch, of America’s premier political humorist. Along the way, we are privy to his strange, twisted days as editor in chief of National Lampoon, his numerous essays on the pleasures and perils of driving (P.J. has been named “designated knee-walker” on many festive road trips), as well as his in-depth looks at appropriate sports for middle-aged Republicans, namely those which can be engaged in with a smuggled Havana between the teeth—fly-fishing, bird hunting, deep-sea fishing, and, of course, golf. For readers unfamiliar with O’Rourke’s humor, here are essays directed against all of his favorite targets, and even some he doesn’t like much; for those who are already fans, this book consists entirely of previously uncollected material. Age and Guilt Beat Youth, Innocence, and a Bad Haircut is crucial reading, whether one’s goal is to bring down the Establishment through protest and political action or merely to undermine it by spending the entire work day locked in your corporate office, taking nips from a flask and practicing your long putts. |
