Not Taco Bell Material

Download or read book Not Taco Bell Material written by Adam Carolla and published by Crown. This book was released on 2013-04-16 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Now in paperback, Adam Carolla takes us back--before Loveline and The Man Show, before the Guinness World Record-breaking podcast and the New York Times bestseller In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks--to reveal all the stories behind how he came to be the angry middle-aged man he is today. Funnyman Adam Carolla is known for two things: hilarious rants about things that drive him crazy and personal stories about everything from his hardscrabble childhood to his slacker friends to the hypocrisy of Hollywood. He tackled rants in his first book, and now he tells his best stories, debuting some never-before-heard tales as well. Organized by the myriad "dumps" Carolla called home as a child to the flophouse apartments he rented in his twenties, up to the homes he personally renovated after achieving success in Hollywood, the anecdotes here follow Adam's journey and the hilarious pitfalls along the way. Adam Carolla started broke and blue collar and has now been on the Hollywood scene for more than fifteen years. Yet he's still connected to the working-class guy he once was and delivers a raw and edgy, fish-out-of-water take on the world he lives in (but mostly disagrees with), telling all the stories, no matter who he offends--family, friends, or the famous.

Download or read book In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks written by Adam Carolla and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-05-17 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A couple years back, I was at the Phoenix airport bar. It was empty except for one heavy-set, gray bearded, grizzled guy who looked like he just rode his donkey into town after a long day of panning for silver in them thar hills. He ordered a Jack Daniels straight up, and that's when I overheard the young guy with the earring behind the bar asking him if he had ID. At first the old sea captain just laughed. But the guy with the twinkle in his ear asked again. At this point it became apparent that he was serious. Dan Haggerty's dad fired back, "You've got to be kidding me, son." The bartender replied, "New policy. Everyone has to show their ID." Then I watched Burl Ives reluctantly reach into his dungarees and pull out his military identification card from World War II. It's a sad and eerie harbinger of our times that the Oprah-watching, crystal-rubbing, Whole Foods-shopping moms and their whipped attorney husbands have taken the ability to reason away from the poor schlub who makes the Bloody Marys. What we used to settle with common sense or a fist, we now settle with hand sanitizer and lawyers. Adam Carolla has had enough of this insanity and he's here to help us get our collective balls back. In Fifty Years We'll All Be Chicks is Adam's comedic gospel of modern America. He rips into the absurdity of the culture that demonized the peanut butter and jelly sandwich, turned the nation's bathrooms into a lawless free-for-all of urine and fecal matter, and put its citizens at the mercy of a bunch of minimum wagers with axes to grind. Peppered between complaints Carolla shares candid anecdotes from his day to day life as well as his past—Sunday football at Jimmy Kimmel's house, his attempts to raise his kids in a society that he mostly disagrees with, his big showbiz break, and much, much more. Brilliantly showcasing Adam's spot-on sense of humor, this book cements his status as a cultural commentator/comedian/complainer extraordinaire.

Download or read book Daddy, Stop Talking! written by Adam Carolla and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2015-05-26 with total page 229 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Last Will & Testament of Adam Carolla I, Adam Carolla, being of beaten-down mind, declare this to be my Last Will and Testament. I revoke all wills and addendums previously made by me. (You guys never did listen, anyway.) Article I I appoint the rest of the world's unappreciated dads as Personal Representatives to administer this Will. I bequeath to them the right to crack a couple cold ones in the garage after working their asses off all week and ask that they be permitted to watch all the porn they like and not have to change diapers and get dragged to every preschool "graduation" and PTA meeting. Article II To my wife, I leave a safe-deposit box, the sole content of which is a note reading "Get a job. I'm dead," and my best wishes on trying to keep up with the unending demands of our houses, cars, dog, and kids. Article III I devise, bequeath, and give my kids this book, Daddy, Stop Talking. Since you guys were the death of me, I leave you these pages of wisdom. But no cash, cars, or property. You've got to earn those. On that note, I further demand that the following message be placed on the marker of my grave: "You're All on Your Own Now. Enjoy."

Download or read book President Me written by Adam Carolla and published by Harper Collins. This book was released on 2014-05-13 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: My fellow Americans, President John F. Kennedy once famously said, "Hey, is that blond intern eighteen yet?" He also said, "Ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country." We've changed a lot since JFK asked us all to pitch in. We've become a nation of narcissistic, yoga-mat-toting, service-dog-having, absentee dads and gluten-free, hand-wringing, hypochondriac moms of overcaffeinated (yet somehow still lazy) twerking tweens. And our government is an inept bureaucracy incapable of doing anything except getting in our wallets and in our way. We've got to get it together, America. That is why I, Adam Carolla, hereby declare myself Candidate Carolla. The tome you hold in your hands is a statement of my intent to whip our country back into fighting shape, to eliminate the "what are you going to do for me?" mentality that has invaded our country. President Me is my manifesto, my vision for a better place . . . free of Big Government, barefoot fliers, lazy hipsters who'd rather "Occupy" than work, and the other things that are bringing our country down. With my cabinet appointees, my list of worthy and necessary presidential ManDates, and tons of great ideas for fixing our health care, education, energy, and even national parks systems . . . behold an America we can be proud of. The America I see in my head. You're welcome in advance. Your future leader, Adam

Download or read book Lead Us Into Temptation written by James B. Twitchell and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 1999-05-06 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Coke adds life. Just do it. Yo quiero Taco Bell. We live in a commercial age, awash in a sea of brand names, logos, and advertising jingles—not to mention commodities themselves. Are shoppers merely the unwitting stooges of the greedy producers who will stop at nothing to sell their wares? Are the producers' powers of persuasion so great that resistance is futile? James Twitchell counters this assumption of the used and abused consumer with a witty and unflinching look at commercial culture, starting from the simple observation that "we are powerfully attracted to the world of goods (after all, we don't call them 'bads')." He contends that far from being forced upon us against our better judgment, "consumerism is our better judgment." Why? Because increasingly, store-bought objects are what hold us together as a society, doing the work of "birth, patina, pews, coats of arms, house, and social rank"—previously done by religion and bloodline. We immediately understand the connotations of status and identity exemplified by the Nike swoosh, the Polo pony, the Guess? label, the DKNY logo. The commodity alone is not what we are after; rather, we actively and creatively want that logo and its signification—the social identity it bestows upon us. As Twitchell summarizes, "Tell me what you buy, and I will tell what you are and who you want to be." Using elements as disparate as the film The Jerk, French theorists, popular bumper stickers, and Money magazine to explore the nature and importance of advertising lingo, packaging, fashion, and "The Meaning of Self," Twitchell overturns one stodgy social myth after another. In the process he reveals the purchase and possession of things to be the self-identifying acts of modern life. Not only does the car you drive tell others who you are, it lets you know as well. The consumption of goods, according to Twitchell, provides us with tangible everyday comforts and with crucial inner security in a seemingly faithless age. That we may find our sense of self through buying material objects is among the chief indictments of contemporary culture. Twitchell, however, sees the significance of shopping. "There are no false needs." We buy more than objects, we buy meaning. For many of us, especially in our youth, Things R Us.

Download or read book I Totally Meant to Do That written by Jane Borden and published by Crown. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Jane Borden is a hybrid too horrifying to exist: a hipster-debutante. She was reared in a propert Southern home in Greensboro, North Carolina, sent to boarding school in Virginia, and then went on to join a sorority in Chapel Hill. She next moved to New York and discovered that none of this grooming meant a lick to anyone. In fact, she hid her upbringing for many years--it was easier than explaining what a debutante "does" (the short answer: not much). Anyone who has moved away from home or lived in (or dreamed of living in) New York will appreciate the hilarity of Jane's musings on the intersections of and altercations between Southern hospitality and Gotham cool.

Download or read book You Are Now Less Dumb written by David McRaney and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-07-30 with total page 227 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of the bestselling You Are Not So Smart shares more discoveries about self-delusion and irrational thinking, and gives readers a fighting chance at outsmarting their not-so-smart brains David McRaney’s first book, You Are Not So Smart, evolved from his wildly popular blog of the same name. A mix of popular psychology and trivia, McRaney’s insights have struck a chord with thousands, and his blog--and now podcasts and videos--have become an Internet phenomenon. Like You Are Not So Smart, You Are Now Less Dumb is grounded in the idea that we all believe ourselves to be objective observers of reality--except we’re not. But that’s okay, because our delusions keep us sane. Expanding on this premise, McRaney provides eye-opening analyses of fifteen more ways we fool ourselves every day, including: The Misattribution of Arousal (Environmental factors have a greater affect on our emotional arousal than the person right in front of us) Sunk Cost Fallacy (We will engage in something we don’t enjoy just to make the time or money already invested “worth it”) Deindividuation (Despite our best intentions, we practically disappear when subsumed by a mob mentality) McRaney also reveals the true price of happiness, why Benjamin Franklin was such a badass, and how to avoid falling for our own lies. This smart and highly entertaining book will be wowing readers for years to come.