Book Review

Artie Lange takes the ancient tradition of comedy born from tragedy to its extremes in his memoir, Too Fat To Fish. During his eight years with The Howard Stern Show, Lange elicited as many laughs as cringes with his self-destructive behavior. From his brutally honest tales of drug addiction, to an on-air fist fight with his assistant, Lange's highs and lows were on display for millions of listeners.

Fans of The Howard Stern Show may be surprised to learn that there are some stories even Lange finds too difficult to share on-air. These painful events are recounted with Lange's signiture self-deprecating sense of humor in Too Fat To Fish, but the attempts at levity in the more serious sections are rarely enough to produce a smile. Lange opens up about a suicide attempt in, "Wah! I'm Out of Cocaine! Wah".

The chapter opens, "The key to a great radio show and great comedy of any kind is honesty. My goal is for this book to exist as the most honest piece of work I have ever done. The only way to do that is for me to put things on the page that I couldn't share on the air or in any public forum. The story contained here is the most personal revelation I can possibly make and not something that I see much comedy in."

The confessional passages serve as occasion reminders of the consequences of Lange's lifestyle, to avoid glamorizing his wild behavior and heavy drug use. Lighter-hearted stories are also mixed in to make the book a more enjoyable read. A strong affection for his deased father is obvious when Lange writes of their time spent together. The highlight of Lange's memoir is his story of the Yankee's 1977 World Series win. Lange and his father attend game six, where the Yankees have a chance to win it all, and the two manage to sneak to the front row as the ninth inning winds down. When the final out seals the Yankee's World Series victory, Artie Lange Sr. hurls his son over the police line and onto the field.

Even this moment of elation becomes bittersweet when Lange writes, "To this day, I have never been as happy as I was at that moment. I think that deep down, subconsciously, I have been chasing that feeling ever since. I've done heroin over and over again, but it never measured up to a fraction of what I felt that night."

Too Fat To Fish isn't something to pick up for a quick laugh. Lange's battles with substance abuse and depression are often more sad than funny. A recommendation can only be given to readers who are already fans of Lange's dark brand of humor, and are interested in taking a deeper look into his psyche.

Spring Break

My spring break kicked off with a thud. It was the Friday before spring break and I was at work, playing outfield in our usual kickball game. I work in an after school care program and take pride in my dominance over the kids in kickball, especially the fifth grade boys who tend to get a little big for their britches. The de facto leader of the fifth grade boys stepped up to the plate, so I kicked off my sandals to prevent any encumbrance when running for the catch. He kicked a high pop-up into right field behind the swing set and I took off at full tilt in pursuit. By the time I reached the ball it was only a foot off the ground, but I got both hands on it then, bang! I had run full speed into the swing set pole with my right foot sending me face first into the artificial turf. Trying my hardest to be macho I tried to play it off like no big deal, but the entire playground had heard the thwack of my foot against the pole and I was in agony. My toes had bent backwards upon impact so my foot took the majority of the hit. This resulted in a broken metatarsal and swelling so bad my toes couldn't touch the ground for a week. My dad being a doctor saved me from a hospital bill; he got a boot from work for me to hobble around in for the next month. My planned trip to Atlanta was ruined, but I still had a fun spring break nerding it up with Street Fighter all night and day.

Write About Whatever You Want

Assigning me to write about whatever I want will always result in one topic, video games. For the first time this school year, I did not write my weekly video game article for The Daily Beacon. This was due only to a lack of new releases, not desire. It certainly doesn't mean I haven't been playing any this week, they are all just too old to cover. Most of my time has been spent with Nintendo's 2005 Tactical RPG, "Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones". First released on the Game Boy Advance, it was recently given away for free as part of Nintendo's 3DS Ambassador Program. The "Fire Emblem" series is one of Nintendo's lesser known franchises in the US. It debuted in 1990 in Japan, but didn't receive a Western release until 2003. Nintendo is known for games with cute characters and easy accessibility, but the "Fire Emblem" series is their clearest outlier. The games are brutally difficult, and have plots more akin to "Game of Thrones" than "Super Mario Brothers". "The Sacred Stones" is the first entry in the "Fire Emblem" series I have ever played, and I am having a good time with it so far. It provides a good sense of progression with characters becoming more powerful as they earn experience and new weapons. The game does cause occasional frustration when one of the main characters dies to a lucky critical strike from an enemy. Character death is permanent so losing one of the protagonists means you to start over from your last save, which sometimes results in over an hour of lost progress. I plan on playing the game to completion during this traditionally barren post-Christmas video game system since there is little else to play.

My Pet Peeve

My pet peeve is the way many people ignore all rules of spelling and grammar when writing text messages. I try to use proper punctuation and spelling when writing texts, and use google for any word I am unsure of how to spell. While I can forgive someone if they don't use apostrophes or commas in their texts, shortening words by replacing letters with a number is unforgivable. B4 and l8r make me want to gouge my eyes out. Obvious spelling mistakes in text messages are also very bothersome because spell checking a 160 character message only takes a few seconds, yet some people (my girlfriend) seem to care more about the five seconds saved than my sanity. I accepted her 3rd grade level texts for months without grievance, but one particularly egregious text set me over the edge. I stupidly corrected her spelling and grammar and sent the text back to her. This only irritated her and gave her a weapon for future annoyance.

My Most Embarrassing Moment

My most embarrassing moment took place at the outset of a new semester at UT. I was in the first meeting of a lab section taught by a charming local celebrity. Unfortunately my bank account balance sat at $0.41 so I had yet to purchase the course's required textbook. We were asked to do grammar exercises in the textbook so my neighbor and I partnered with a more responsible student with a book to tackle the homophones as a team. We took turns doing the exercises, which meant I wound up only doing a third of them myself. Once everyone had finished up the class took turns reading answers aloud. When it came time for me to give an answer, it was for a question completed by one of my teammates. I didn't really sweat it since my team seemed to be a sharp group of guys, so I casually glanced at the book and read what my partner had written. The instructor looked slightly puzzled at my answer and asked me to repeat what I had said. Stupidly I repeated the answer verbatim. My first hint that I had just sounded like a moron was the fact that this was an exercise in using homophones and I had just pronounced two entirely different words. My second hint was a volley of muffled giggles coming from behind me. I had read the first word without any context or consideration and my brain immediately read the word wreak as wreck. Once I realized my mistake I was absolutely devastated, but at that point there was nothing I could do. I had just been pegged as an idiot by the entire class on the first day, but I put on a brave face as I accepted my fate as social pariah.