462. In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks
Rating: ☆☆☆
Recommended by:
Author: Adam Carolla
Genre: Non Fiction, Humor, Memoir, Cultural, Politics, Essays
256 pages, published November 2, 2010
Reading Format: e- Book on Overdrive
Summary
In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks is basically a humorous rant by Adam Carolla against many things PC. He rips into an absurd culture that demonizes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, turned the nation’s bathrooms into a free-for-all, and puts its citizens at the mercy of a bunch of minimum wagers with axes to grind.
Quotes
“My feeling is this whole country is founded on the principle of ‘if you are not hurting anyone, and you’re not fucking with someone else’s shit, and you are paying your taxes, you should be able to just do what you want to do.’ It’s the freedom and the independence.”
“Fixing your fucked-up life is not government’s job. Handling the stuff that people can’t do themselves—like war—is.”
“The government is a giant corporation with no competition that is constantly trying to keep you off balance so it can siphon more money from you.”
“I don’t know why I seem to be the only one who understands that when the government provides something for free—whether it’s food, housing, or health care—there is a human cost. The government may be handing you a free block of cheese but they are taking away your motivation to get a job and buy your own f***ing cheese. And what more powerful motivator is there to get up, get work, and get insurance than the fact that not having it could literally kill you?”
“But our leaders can’t tell the truth. We won’t let them. We’ve created a society where the politicians aren’t allowed to criticize the people. There’s no tough love coming out of the White House or Congress. They’ve gone from leaders and legislators to wedding caterers. If they want to keep the gig, they better give us what we want.”
“Humans need challenges to overcome, just like a muscle needs resistance to grow. In a zero-gravity environment, an astronaut’s muscles atrophy because there is no resistance. The government giving you a bunch of handouts and living your life for you is the equivalent of doing push-ups in outer space. Big government is like the void of space—it’s massive, constantly expanding, and if we immerse ourselves in it, we’ll simply wither away.”
“I also remember it was Sunday night because that was the time I felt most depressed and vulnerable. Somehow have a moment to contemplate the miserable, low-paying week that lay ahead was more painful than living it.”
“Until you get the family unit back together, we have no hope and we’ll never dig ourselves out of this hole. No matter how great the school is, how excellent the teachers are, how many computers, field trips, or other window dressing there is, until you have intact families that give a s***, we’re doomed. If you have chalk, pencils, and a roof that doesn’t leak, you’ve got a school. Back in the day people would do stuff by candlelight on the prairie and are a f***load smarter than kids now despite all the iPads and online homework. Why? Because if they didn’t read their assignment, their parents would take the ruler they were supposed to be using for that assignment and smack them with it. We don’t need to keep throwing money at the problem, we need to throw parents at the problem.”
“Everything seems overwhelming when you stand back and look at the totality of it. I build a lot of stuff and it would all seem impossible if I didn’t break it down piece by piece, stage by stage. The best gift you can give yourself is some drive–that thing inside of you that gets you out the door to the gym, job interviews, and dates. The believe-in-yourself adage is grossly overrated.”
“I am not agnostic. I am atheist. I don’t think there is no God; I know there’s no God. I know there’s no God the same way I know many other laws in our universe. I know there’s no God and I know most of the world knows that as well. They just won’t admit it because there’s another thing they know. They know they’re going to die and it freaks them out. So most people don’t have the courage to admit there’s no God and they know it. They feel it. They try to suppress it. And if you bring it up they get angry because it freaks them out.”
“As I’ve often said, this is the biggest problem we have in our society—unwanted kids. If we solve this problem we solve all the other problems. So we have to start judging. As I said before, we judge smokers more harshly than we judge deadbeat dads in our current society. Seriously, how many antismoking PSAs have you seen this week vs. ones saying raise your kids, or don’t have kids if you can’t afford them? And what’s hurting our society more? People need to see that asshole and call him an asshole so maybe other people thinking about being assholes wouldn’t become assholes. We stopped judging people a long time ago because the idiots on the left told us everyone is the same and that we couldn’t do that. We need to bring back judging.”
“This silliness always starts with celebrities and then spreads to the common folk.”
“You should never say to a superior, “I did my best,” when you fuck up, because you are then declaring you are a fuckup. Your best is fucking up. If that’s the case I’d hate to see you on a bad day when you were only putting in 50 percent. The answer is not “I did my best,” it’s “I’ll do better.”
“Alaska seems like the most rough-and-tumble spot in the world. Everyone there seems to be running from something in the Lower 48, whether it’s the law, the tax man, or their ex. Alaska’s where you go to forget your past, especially when you owe your past a shitload in child support. The state motto should be “Love fishing but hate your kids? Alaska.” Forget the Jackass movies. I’d like to do a hidden-camera show where we get a guy with a salt-and-pepper mustache, put him in an ATF windbreaker, have him walk into any Alaska bar or honky-tonk after quitting time, and say, “I have a warrant for . . .” and just watch everyone jump out the window. It’s never “I was born and raised in Alaska, lived here my whole life.” It’s usually something like, “My business partner faked his own death and then tried to kill me, but that was before my wife had her gender reassignment . . .” Basically Alaska is the cold-weather Florida. It’s Florida without the Jews. The state capital should be spelled “Jew? NO!”
“Being a depressed hippie is a lose-lose. It would be like if a rice cake had the caloric content of a MoonPie.”
“My son I worry about. I’m pretty sure he’s gonna be gay. At this point I’m just hoping he’s not a bottom. Sorry to sound closed-minded and uptight, but let’s face it, no dad wants his son to be gay. Not only do you get no grandkids, but I’m sure high school is no picnic for a fifteen-year-old gay boy. On the other hand, maybe I’m just viewing this through the bifocals of an old heterosexual dude. The way things are going, my son will probably get his ass kicked for not being gay. ‘Carolla thinks he’s too good to suck cock. Come on boys, lets get him.”
“You measure a good song the same way you measure architecture, fashion, or any other artistic endeavor. Time. You know when you see a picture of yourself from the eighties with a horrible hairdo and some stone-washed jeans and you think, “How embarrassing—what the fuck was I thinking? Why didn’t somebody stop me?” It’s the same thing Mick Jagger and David Bowie should be thinking every time they hear their cover of “Dancing in the Streets.” The point is, at the time it seemed like a good idea, just like kitchens with burnt-orange Formica and avocado appliances, den walls covered with fake brick paneling, and segregation—all horrible decisions that we now universally recognize as wrong. But somehow when it comes to music, we can’t just admit we made a mistake with “Emotional Rescue.” There’s always some dick who defends the past. “Hey, man, I lost my virginity to ‘Careless Whisper.’ ” I’m sure there was somebody who got laid for the first time on 9/11 but they don’t get a boner when they see the footage of the planes going into the tower.”
My Take
While not quite as good as the classic Not Taco Bell Material, I mostly enjoyed reading In Fifty Years We’ll All Be Chicks, Adam Carolla’s anti-PC rant. A bit repetitive at times, but there are some true nuggets of comedy gold.
