Zombie Spaceship Wasteland: A Book by Patton Oswalt
Patton Oswalt
Language: English
Pages: 288
ISBN: 1439149097
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Now in paperback, from a “multi-faceted, medium-hopping, culture skewering performer” (SPIN), this is a journey through the world of Patton Oswalt, best known for his roles in film (Big Fan and Ratatouille) and television (The King of Queens and The United States of Tara), but also beloved for his ascerbic, highly eloquent, and wildly funny standup comedy.
Prepare yourself for a journey through the world of Patton Oswalt, one of the most creative, insightful, and hysterical voices on the entertainment scene today. Widely known for his roles in the films Big Fan and Ratatouille, as well as the television hit The King of Queens, Patton Oswalt—a staple of Comedy Central—has been amusing audiences for decades. Now, with Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, he offers a fascinating look into his most unusual, and lovable, mindscape.
Oswalt combines memoir with uproarious humor, from snow forts to Dungeons & Dragons to gifts from Grandma that had to be explained. He remembers his teen summers spent working in a movie Cineplex and his early years doing stand-up. Readers are also treated to several graphic elements, including a vampire tale for the rest of us and some greeting cards with a special touch. Then there’s the book’s centerpiece, which posits that before all young creative minds have anything to write about, they will home in on one of three story lines: zombies, spaceships, or wastelands.
Oswalt chose wastelands, and ever since he has been mining our society’s wasteland for perversion and excess, pop culture and fatty foods, indie rock and single-malt scotch. Zombie Spaceship Wasteland is an inventive account of the evolution of Patton Oswalt’s wildly insightful worldview, sure to indulge his legion of fans and lure many new admirers to his very entertaining “wasteland.”
old lady gets drunk) says, “That sounded worse than the screams of all those people being burned slowly alive while your dad masturbated in the moonlight of that parking lot.” The scene where Paul’s friend bumps up against the wedding cake, and instead of collapsing it gets smooshed to the side and ends up looking like a gigantic penis. I like the Aerosmith “Big Ten Inch Record” music cue, but then Tracey says that weird line, “I wonder if my father’s penis looked like that while he tugged on it
a lusty canine rutting. I don’t care how high my shrink increases my Lexapro dosage—I WANT TO BE A ROBOT THAT HELPS WOLVES HAVE SEX. Otherwise, my parents threw away the money they spent on my college education. So thank you, Mom and Dad. Thank you, League of Lazy Copywriters. Thank you, reader, for buying this book. I apologize ahead of time for not even trying to aim at Point B, or even starting from Point A. Comedy and terror and autobiography and comics and literature— they’re all the same
Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020. First Scribner hardcover edition January 2011 SCRIBNER and design are registered trademarks of The Gale Group, Inc., used under license by Simon & Schuster, Inc., the publisher of this work. The Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau can bring authors to your live event. For more information or to book an event contact the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau at 1-866-248-3049 or visit our website at www.simonspeakers.com. DESIGNED BY ERICH HOBBING
does a whispered, spooky version of the song, and the crowd loves it. An old man spreads his arms to emphasize every note, articulates the words through a gap-toothed smile, and ends his song with a little “Yip!” The crowd loves that, too. The performers have no expectations for the audience, and the audience has no expectations for the performers. I spend an hour watching people sing about chocolate cookies, and all of them get closer to the way I should be performing comedy than I have in the
times. In the rush of trying to find something new for me to read, they’d grab something off the shelf at Waldenbooks after only glancing at the copy on the back. Whoever did a lousy job writing copy for books like Richard Brautigan’s The Hawkline Monster, H. P. Love-craft’s At the Mountains of Madness, Harlan Ellison’s TheBeast That Shouted Love at the Heart of the World, and Anthony Burgess’s A Clockwork Orange (“It’s about a teenager in the future!” said my mom)—thank you. Thank you thank you