Thursday, July 17, 2014

Book Review: President Me, by Adam Carolla


OK, the book cover is dumb. I know that. It looks silly. My wife has told me this many times. But I have read all of Adam's books, and each one is funnier than the last. President Me is no exception.

The interesting thing about how he 'wrote' the book is that he reportedly did it by calling someone up while he was stuck in traffic in LA every day and by dictating it to them. They would transcribe it and edit it together later. He's basically so productive that he felt like sitting in a car was a waste of productivity that he couldn't tolerate, so he decided to write a book.

And that's mainly the recurring theme of the book - hard work is what leads to success, not government welfare or luck. Much of the book is political, and, despite some salty language in places, it's really funny, particularly because of how non-politically correct he is. Things that wouldn't have been controversial at all 20 years ago are now side-splitters. He's pretty fearless.

If I hadn't have had a library copy, I would have highlighted about half the book. As it is, I took a few pictures of some parts I really liked. Here are two of them:
And let me say this quickly about "community organizers." We sing the praises of "community,' but why is it the more that word appears in your life the worse off you are? If you go to a community clinic, community college, or are represented by a community organizer, you're in tough shape. The only time you want the word "community" to describe part of your lifestyle is when the word "gated" is in front of it.
And also this part:
[About Elizabeth Waren saying that the 'system' is rigged against people] Stop telling people the system is rigged and that the deck is stacked against them. Tell them to forget the deck and focus on themselves. But you won't convey that message because if you tell your constituency to actually do something for themselves, they won't elect you to do it for them. You have to keep preaching how they system is rigged and that they'll never get a fair shot so they'll elect you to unrig it. That's how your party stays in power - a perpetual-motion machine of hopelessness.
There's stuff like this on nearly every page. And after reading the whole book, I'm pretty much ready to go door to door to get signatures to draft Adam into the actual 2016 election.

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