Fred's Book Club: OGH, the Early Years.

Here we are yet again at our weekly book club with the stupid name of the Humpback Writers, which falls on Wednesday to help you over the hump, and get you sliding down effortlessly to the camel's tail of Friday. Although I think more of Fred Flintstone Yabba-Dabba-Doing his way off the brontosaurus.

Never mind all that: Today we have a book that's not only a great collection of essays, but also a tribute to newspaperman and blogger extraordinaire, the Great James Lileks.

I will never forget how I discovered Lileks. One day at the office, in walks this spunky kid off the bus from Fargo, with nothing but a sawbuck, a snap-brim fedora, and a pocketful of dreams. I said, "Kid, I like your spunk. And I like your fedora. How much?"

No, that's not right. What happened was, Lileks was writing for the Newhouse News syndicate, doing a nationally syndicated humor column that my local paper ran. I clearly remember reading it in the Laundromat while waiting for my clothes. I thought he was the first really funny new columnist since the eighties brought us Dave Barry and Lew Grizzard, and I wanted to find out if he'd had any compilations as those other men did. At the time I worked near the Strand, the famous Manhattan bookstore at Broadway and 12th ("18 Miles of Books!" they say, and I believe it), and down in the cellar you could find review copies of books for sale -- not the galleys, but first editions that had been sent to the many magazines and newspapers in New York to review. They tended to get sold to the Strand, and it was a great place to buy a new hardcover at a discount in those pre-Amazon days. And that's what I did.

Notes of a Nervous Man was published in 1991, but was not his first book; that distinction belonged to Falling Up the Stairs, a mystery novel. Notes, like its follow-up Fresh Lies, is a collection of columns, looking at the world (nervously) in all its variations. I love the cover of the book, the author as worrywart seen through a peephole, although it does make him look a little like Woody Allen during Allen's long-lost funny period.

Like any good newspaperman, Lileks knows how to grab you in the opener. Here he is on...

AIR FRESHENERS ...

Pardon me if I pass out soon. It's not from ill health, or nerves; rather, I am being suffocated by an air freshener, a little plastic obelisk with a grisly dollop of scented chemicals for innards. A sweet, cloying stench hangs in the room, as though half a dozen Care Bears died in my closet. If I breathe too deeply, I'll probably develop diabetes. 

... and MOVIE VIOLENCE ...

I've seen only two movies this summer, and already I've watched about 15,000 people die. Now, I enjoy a good shoot-'em-up as much as the next glassy-eyed, socially maladjusted drifter, but the level of violence in movies is getting so baroque that I leave each movie feeling like I qualify for the Witness Protection Program. 

... and BUYING A HOUSE.

Thirteen years of apartment-dwelling is enough. I've tired of having people on the other side of the wall, especially the young people in 3A who seem to be picking up extra income by working as megaphone testers. Let's not even talk about the woman upstairs, who, from the sound of the high-velocity rhythms I hear every night, either has a thigh-blistering sex life or spends her night firing Gatling guns into pie plates. I'm getting hitched this summer, and we'll need more room anyway. That's why I went looking for a house. I wanted the peace and quiet that comes with being locked into a usurious interest rate for twenty-nine years.
     Problem is, I am a bad shopper. An impulse buyer. "Comparison shopping" is, by my definition, looking for what I want at several stores, then making the purchase at the one with the coolest shopping bag. 

I won't try to sneak in a whole piece, like I did last week with the great Frank Sullivan; if you want fresh-baked-daily Lileks, by all means join the fun at Lileks.com. There he is known to many commenters as Our Genial Host, or OGH.

In fact, it was this book, and his other books and columns, that made him one of the first writers I looked for when I got regular non-dial-up Internet access. And I've been going to Lileks.com for a loooong time now. I was a daily visitor before he published the epochal Gallery of Regrettable Food, before his daughter was born, before he moved into the current house, before his dad passed away, and before he opened the comments page as a playground for his fans. There's no other site I look forward to reading every single day, for his terrific posts on culture and pop culture of the past, and as you can see from the brief excerpts above, his wonderful way with words.

When Notes of a Nervous Man was published, it got a good review from Publishers Weekly, which said, "The tone is amiable and civilized throughout." I suppose that it did not get the coveted starred review only because the reviewer detected that Lileks did not share a leftist point of view -- even in 1991, conservatism was a killer. P. J. O'Rourke's Parliament of Whores, published the same year, also did not get a star from that august institution, and that book is an acknowledged classic. They wuz robbed.

Anyway: I would recommend James Lileks to anyone who just likes solid, imaginative commentary with a great sense of humor. This book is not really political. Unlike O'Rourke, OGH usually makes it easy to avoid his political writing, if that's your preference. Although Notes has dated a bit, as newspaper writing will. For goodness sake, the book is almost 30 years old. It's amazing it still zings so well.

One last thought: British writer Matt Haig had a best-seller in 2018 with the title Notes on a Nervous Planet. The title seems suspiciously similar to me. You can't copyright a title, but still. How about a little credit for the original there, Matt?