Kick Me: Adventures in Adolescence

Zusatztext It's shocking that one person could have so many humiliating experiences and even more shocking that he chose to remember them. Kick Me is like an unofficial prequel to Freaks and Geeks. If anything! Paul Feig's real stories are actually more harrowing than what his fictional characters went through. Ira Glass! host of This American Life I love Paul Feig's sense of humorin a platonic way. This book is hilarious. I recommend it to people like me. And to people who don't like me. Garry Shandling Paul Feig's Kick Me is an astute study of growing up in the seventies that thinks it's a happy-go-lucky humor book.Joel Hodgson! creator of Mystery Science Theater 3000 Informationen zum Autor Paul Feig, the creator of the cult classic TV series Freaks and Geeks Klappentext The creator of the cult classic TV series! "Freaks and Geeks! " offers a truly hilarious and blisteringly honest look at his real-life high school experiences to which every adult can relate. WE STOOD IN LINE AT ELLIS ISLAND FOR THIS? There is no God. . . I mean, there can't be. Think about it. . . If there were, then things in life would have to be fair. There would be no suffering, there would be no war, there would be no poverty . . . . . . and none of us would be born with last names that could make us the brunt of adolescent jokes for the entirety of our school careers. In a truly just universe, no child's last name would be Cox, Butz, or Seaman. No teenager would come from a family named the Hardins or the Balls. A young Richard Shaft wouldn't have to come home from school crying each day. An underendowed Lisa Titwell wouldn't beg her parents to let her finish her education at an all-girls' school. And an adolescent Paul Feig wouldn't have had to endure hearing the letters e and i constantly taken out of his last name and replaced with the letter a. But, alas, I did. It didn't start out that way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, when I was in grade school, there was a TV commercial for Fig Newton cookies that featured a man dressed up in a giant fig costume who performed a jingle called The Big Fig Newton. He would dance and sing the words Chewy, chewy, rich, and gooey in- side . . . Golden, flaky, tender, cakey outside. At the same time, he performed a goofy, vaguely Egyptian-type dance, and then, after a few more product-endorsing verses, would wrap up his corporate caperings by saying Here comes the tricky part, whereupon he would stand on one leg and grandly sing, The Big . . . Fig . . . New-tonnnnnnn! The commercial was very popular and something every kid in my school district strove to memorize in the hopes that he or she could then perform it in front of his or her peers and obtain big laughs. Because of this, and thanks to the free association of youth, I, Paul Feig, became known as Fig Newton. At first, I hated it. I mean, who among us really is happy when we're assigned a nickname? It's never a situation where we get some cool handle like The Big Hurt or The Yankee Clipper or Stud. It's always some lame, obvious play on our names, turning the once proud crest of our ancestors into something that either has to do with a body part, a reproductive organ, a mental shortcoming, or an insensitive term for a person who practices nontraditional sexual unions. The kids I grew up with could bend the most innocent name into something you wouldn't want to be called, even if it was preceded by the phrase and the Oscar goes to . . . Names as harmless as Smith and Jones could easily be twisted into Smegma and Boner, and so the journey from Feig to Fig Newton was little more than a quick trip to the local humiliation mart. The name spread fast and soon none of my peers could resist it. The greeting Hey, Fig Newton became so prevalent in my life that by the age of ten I didn't even respond to my a...

Autorentext

Paul Feig, the creator of the cult classic TV series Freaks and Geeks

Klappentext

The creator of the cult classic TV series, "Freaks and Geeks, " offers a truly hilarious and blisteringly honest look at his real-life high school experiences to which every adult can relate.

Zusammenfassung
Written in side-splitting and often cringe-inducing detail, Paul Feig takes you in a time machine to a world of bombardment by dodge balls, ill-fated prom dates, hellish school bus rides, and other aspects of public school life that will keep you laughing in recognition and occasionally sighing in relief that you aren’t him. Kick Me is a nostalgic trip for the inner geek in all of us.

Leseprobe
WE STOOD IN LINE AT ELLIS ISLAND FOR THIS?

There is no God. . . I mean, there can’t be. Think about it. . . If there were, then things in life would have to be fair. There would be no suffering, there would be no war, there would be no poverty . . .

. . . and none of us would be born with last names that could make us the brunt of adolescent jokes for the entirety of our school careers.

In a truly just universe, no child’s last name would be Cox, Butz, or Seaman. No teenager would come from a family named the Hardins or the Balls. A young Richard Shaft wouldn’t have to come home from school crying each day. An underendowed Lisa Titwell wouldn’t beg her parents to let her finish her education at an all-girls’ school. And an adolescent Paul Feig wouldn’t have had to endure hearing the letters e and i constantly taken out of his last name and replaced with the letter a.

But, alas, I did.

It didn’t start out that way. Fortunately, or unfortunately, when I was in grade school, there was a TV commercial for Fig Newton cookies that featured a man dressed up in a giant fig costume who performed a jingle called “The Big Fig Newton.” He would dance and sing the words “Chewy, chewy, rich, and gooey in- side . . . Golden, flaky, tender, cakey outside.” At the same time, he performed a goofy, vaguely Egyptian-type dance, and then, after a few more product-endorsing verses, would wrap up his corporate caperings by saying “Here comes the tricky part,” whereupon he would stand on one leg and grandly sing, “The Big . . . Fig . . . New-tonnnnnnn!”

The commercial was very popular and something every kid in my school district strove to memorize in the hopes that he or she could then perform it in front of his or her peers and obtain big laughs. Because of this, and thanks to the free association of youth, I, Paul Feig, became known as “Fig Newton.”

At first, I hated it. I mean, who among us really is happy when we’re assigned a nickname? It’s never a situation where we get some cool handle like “The Big Hurt” or “The Yankee Clipper” or “Stud.” It’s always some lame, obvious play on our names, turning the once proud crest of our ancestors into something that either has to do with a body part, a reproductive organ, a mental shortcoming, or an insensitive term for a person who practices nontraditional sexual unions. The kids I grew up with could bend the most innocent name into something you wouldn’t want to be called, even if it was preceded by the phrase “and the Oscar goes to . . .” Names as harmless as Smith and Jones could easily be twisted into Smegma and Boner, and so the journey from Feig to Fig Newton was little more than a quick trip to the local humiliation mart.

The name spread fast and soon none of my peers could resist it. The greeting “Hey, Fig Newton” became so prevalent in my life that by the age of ten I didn’t even respond to my actual name. Paul Feig was someone from my past, a free spirit who had once played happily in his room, unaware that the world was filled with people who, unlike his mother and grandmother, didn’t think he was “The Boy Who Could Do No Wrong.” I was now Fig Newton, the kid…