Justin Halpern’s twitter-stream Sh*t My Dad Says has (of course) been turned into a dead-trees book. Luke Jennings, at the Guardian online, is amused but not impressed:
When 28-year-old writer Justin Halpern split up with his girlfriend, he moved back in with his parents in San Diego, California. His father, a specialist in “nuclear medicine”, did his best to be accommodating. “All I ask is that you pick up your shit so you don’t leave your bedroom looking like it was used for a gang bang.”…
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Justin Halpern started posting his father’s sayings online. Then he started a Twitter page, “Sh*t My Dad Says”, and within a short time literary agents were calling, TV producers inviting him on to their shows, and reporters asking him for interviews. A book came out, and earlier this month it hit No 1 on the New York Times bestseller list, edging out Laura Bush’s memoir. When Halpern told his father this, the reaction was phlegmatic. “Trust me,” Halpern Sr said of Bush. “She doesn’t give a fuck. She could have you killed.”
[…] __
From the sparse handful of details vouchsafed us in this glib, self-engrossed account, Halpern Sr comes across as an extraordinary and heroic figure. Born into extreme rural poverty, he qualifies as a doctor, serves in Vietnam and goes on to become a distinguished cancer specialist, whose lectures are attended by oncologists in their hundreds. If his world view is that of a scatalogically inclined Samuel Beckett, he’s earned the right to it, and his pronouncements are anything but shit, or even Sh*t. When he says, of his son’s friends: “I like them. I don’t think they would fuck your girlfriend, if you had one,” you’re hearing the voice of a man who’s seen too much to bother with the niceties.
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By contrast, there’s almost nothing to get to grips with in the son’s story. By his mid-20s he’s worked shifts at Hooters, a catering franchise involving greasy chicken wings and waitresses in high-cut shorts, and decided to “try his hand” at screenwriting. Moving to LA, he finds no takers, a fact that will come as no surprise to readers of this book, though it stokes Halpern’s own neurotically inflated sense of victimhood. Back in San Diego, he tries to move in with his girlfriend and, quelle surprise, she dumps his slacker ass.
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At which point he posts the dog’s asshole quote and the multimedia phenomenon kicks in, with Halpern Sr, possibly suspecting that lightning will not strike twice, refusing to take a cent of the proceeds. Earlier this week I glanced at Halpern’s blog and was amazed to learn that his father, years ago, wrote a book about his time in Vietnam, which he, Halpern, has not yet read. Was this indolence, I wondered, or the apprehension that a real understanding of his father’s past might expose the whole Sh*t My Dad Says exercise for what it is?
Mark
Jennings is in the running for d-bag of the year award himself.
asiangrrlMN
I gotta say, this guy was on Olbermann, and I was not impressed. I’ve read his feed, and I don’t get the appeal. There is also going to be a TV show starring William Shatner as the dad. That might have some comic value.
Mike Kay
atleast it’s not Tim Russert writing some crap about boomers crying over the fathers they hated growing up.
Mike Kay
speaking of which, we’ve gone a year without anyone dying unexpectly, triggering an unbearable media feeding frenzy.
DPirate
Halpern Sr says “Luke Jennings is a dick.”
Mark S.
@asiangrrlMN:
I like Shatner, but he doesn’t seem at all right for the part.
Joey Maloney
I saw the trailer for the show. It looks dire. Just another adult-child-forced-to-live-with-crochety-boundaryless-parent sitcom. But, hey, Shatner gets a check to cash. I’m in favor of that.
As for Jennings: these grapes, they taste so sour!
Common Sense
I think it’s funny. It reminds me of my dad. I don’t know if the show will work without cussing though.
burnspbesq
Fuuuuuuuck. Football is back. ESPN showed CFL highlights. God help us. (intolerant atheists, feel free to ignore that last sentence).
burnspbesq
I’ll bet that even though he is a Scot, Andy Murray wishes England hadn’t crashed and burned at the World Cup. Would take some of the attention off him if the Three Lions were still playing. Can’t be fun being the object of a national obsession.
slightly_peeved
Err… some guy making a big pot of cash by turning a funny twitter feed into a sitcom and book?
I just assumed the guy made all these sayings up himself. They’re funny regardless of who made them up.
Speaking of funny, day-long vuvuzela concert outside BP’s London headquarters.. Two wrongs do make a right, after all.
WereBear
Sounds like basic ‘affluent household reaping” to me.
Dad was born into rural poverty, had to grow up too fast. Son doesn’t have to grow up until considerably later.
And while I can’t see a book based on Tweets as being anything but episodic, let’s say, the kid did show a talent for knowing what’s funny and marketing it to people who like funny. Because the dad is funny, after all.
But any writer is going to look at this chain of events and say, “You know what I did wrong? I didn’t fail enough. I managed to not move back in with my parents, and that was the wrong thing.”
CT
So this kid tries his hand at screenwriting, doesn’t find success taking the conventional route, goes about it a different way, gets a deal, and Luke Jennings calls him a slacker? I don’t get it.
And god forbid someone in their 20s ::gasp:: WAITS TABLES! I do believe I’ve dropped my monocle!
geg6
What an asshole this Jennings guy is. The dude cleverly realizes his dad’s pontifications are comedy gold and finds a way to market them so that he is now more financially successful than dear old dad and somehow that’s a bad thing because he once worked at Hooters? Seriously? What a dick.
WereBear
@geg6: Yep, really. Every has those kinds of jobs in showbiz… yet Jennings is astonished.
I’d urge him to get out more, but perhaps no one wants him there.
stuckinred
They got the house on the corner
With the rug inside
They got the booze they need
All that money can buy
They got the shapely bods
They got the Steely Dan T-shirt
And for the coupe-de-gras
Their outrageous oh honey let me tell you
Show Business kids
Making movies of themselves
You know they don’t give a fuck
About anybody else you know you go to…
Jager
Maybe Jennings old man was boring, I can to relate to Halpern. My old man was always talking shit to me, starting with “you’re as handy as a cub bear with boxing gloves’ when I was a tyke to an 4:30 am confrontation in the kitchen, the old boy in his boxers and t-shirt, me college boy drunk. He laid this classic on me, “you smell like a French whorehouse”. (A bold statement on his part, as he was the only person in the kitchen who had been in a French whorehouse.)
fucen tarmal
who the fuck ever said success was all about pure skill?
is the kid really talented? or does he have about as many good ideas net in his lifetime as say…mark cuban
the kid hit a soft spot in the zeitgeist for an idealized and probably somewhat missing for many people, notion of fatherhood.
Staging a Comeback
I’m not sure why Luke Jennings is so harsh. In the same vein, Julie Powell was hardly Julia Child, either, but nobody seemed quite so malicious about it. When he spews the same stuff about Luke Russert or Jenna Bush, well, then I’ll take him seriously. Otherwise…just seems nasty. The kid is not the father. Who cares?
Shalimar
From local morning reporter on the Barber/Roby primary run-off: “Roby says her time on the city council puts her a step ahead of Bobby Bright.”
How the hell does that make any sense considering that Bright was mayor of the same city before he became a congressman? I understand wanting to paint yourself as an outsider and your opponent as an insider, especially this year, but that is the dumbest argument I have heard. “I was a lesser elected official for a shorter period of time in the same place as my opponent so I have better experience than he does.”
Brien Jackson
@geg6:
What I don’t get is, assuming the father is pretty well off financially, what about working a low-wage job makes you a slacker? Seems more likely to be just the opposite I would think.
Asshole
@Brien Jackson:
Little jobs are for little people. It’s a very aristocratic mindset, that those born to money shouldn’t slum it by rubbing elbows with the proles.
It’s good to read this right before Fourth of July weekend, because it reminds me of why our country broke away from the snobby Brits in the first place.
Kevin Phillips Bong
@stuckinred: Nobody skewers assholes quite like Becker and Fagen.
Paul in KY
Mr. Halpern (the dad) grew up on a farm in Kentucky.
He said he injured his arm in a farming accident when he was young & they thought they might have to amputate. Mr. Halpern’s dad (grandad of the youngest) said to go ahead and let him die, as a ‘one armed farmer ain’t worth shit’. They managed to save his arm & Dad Halpern went on to become a doctor.
stuckinred
Read the “Great Santini”, you’ll think Conroy’s old man was an asshole. Then read “My Losing Season” and you’ll learn that he was even worse.
ricky
It is a shame my dad died before they added a suffix to twit.
ricky
@Mike Kay:
This has made the anniveraries of those unexpected year old deaths all the more rememorable.
JAHILL10
@Staging a Comeback: It’s funny you should bring up the Julia Childs thing, because I see these cases as very similar. (Try watching that film without the Julie part and it is much better) While Jennings may indeed be a dick, making a living off quoting your father seems to set the successful career bar pretty low. Sure, lots of talentless people strike it rich, but it’s not really something to celebrate, is it?
D. Mason
@JAHILL10:
The point I take away from the discussion is that the writer nor the audience knows if the he has talent or not. The guy did one thing, which was creative and successful, and shines brightly compared to the mediocrity of his (brief) previous works – for this he is being put down as a slacker and talentless. Yes, that’s right, the sin for which he is being admonished is having a flash of marketing genius. For shame…
60th Street
Luke Jennings decided to “try his hand” at public speaking. Moving to North London, he finds no takers, in large part because the depth of the stick in his ass prevents him from intelligible dialogue, a fact that will come as no surprise to readers of this reviews, though it stokes Jennings’ own neurotically inflated sense of victimhood…
Projection for Dummies. I smell advance!
Bill Section 147
@JAHILL10: But, it seems, that it is celebrated if your parent was born rich.
This block-quoted bit appears to be saying, “His dad worked hard to get up the ladder – shouldn’t the son have to do the same?”
Juxtapose with Elizabeth II.
An aside. If I were to get rich by winning the Lottery I would certainly celebrate and consider myself no less worthy of the cash than most celebrities. And, just like a bankster, I would have ‘earned’ that cash.
RareSanity
Situation can be summed up in 7 words:
“Don’t hate the playa, hate the game.”
Well, seven words and some punctuation…
muddy
I’m just amazed that someone would not have read a book (only the one!) their parent wrote, an autobiographical account. I would have read it as soon as I were able, if only to get insight into the bizarre parental mind. Or to mine for ammo at least!
Probably as the book predated the younger one’s life, it was of no interest to him. One book by his dad that did not star him, and he couldn’t be bothered. Now that’s a slacker.
Kered (formerly Derek)
@Staging a Comeback:
Actually, I fuckin’ hate Julie Powell.
Kered (formerly Derek)
@muddy:
I was shocked by that. I would hang on every word of a book my dad wrote!
fucen tarmal
@60th Street:
needs a snappier title. how about…
“shit my id says”
southpaw
The link is broken.