Book Recommendation: My Custom Van

Jul 20, 2009

Book Recommendation: My Custom Van

Categories: Blogs

Written By: Eric Jensen

I read a recommendation of the book My Custom Van and 50 Other Mind-Blowing Essays That Will Blow Your Mind All Over Your Face by Michael Ian Black, and it was persuasive enough to get me to look into the matter further. The book’s title was appealing, but as far as I knew I’d never heard of the author. Then I saw the cover.

Wait a minute, I recognize him! That’s that dude with the posture of a gay man from all those VH1 shows! This realization gave me pause.I wasn’t sure how much I wanted to read a book by a professional maker of wry comments. As nearly as I could tell, the extent of this guy’s routine was just doing the same thing you do when you hang out with your drinking buddies: “Hey, remember that thing from when we were eight years old? Wasn’t that awesome / stupid?”

But the book is more than just VH1-style too-cool-for-school ironic detachment. It actually features, you know, funny stuff.

It’s true that some of the essays don’t live up to the promise of their comical titles, but most of them do. And when the book his a home run—as with “Vampires – Good for the Economy?” and “A Series of Letters to the First Girl I Ever Fingered”—it hits it way out of the park.

So don’t let the fact that VH1’s programming has been painfully unendurable for over a decade fool you. My Custom Van is totally worth a read.

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Mark Says:
July 20th, 2009 at 6:39 pm

I most definitely enjoy Michael Ian Black, whose career is a mixed bag at best — professional smirker for VH1, prolific Cracked Online columnist, Sketch comedy artist for Comedy Central, and vaguely poignant comic relief on the short-lived mid-life-crisis-dramedy “Ed”? Where did he go to college, The School of How to Make Strange and Diverse Career Choices So That Only Insane Bloggers WIth Photographic Memories When It Comes to Pop Culture Will Even Remember Who You Are? That must be the school.

In either case, if you liked this book, which I have never read and therefore have no business making recommendations off of, you should check out his new show on Comedy Central “Michael and Michael Have Issues.” It just premiered last week and it was hilarious.

Thus concludes your “Mark telling people what to watch as if he works for Comedy Central’s Viral Marketing Department when really he doesn’t and makes no money doing anything” message of the day.