What does the Internet love more than anything? No, not disturbing, soul-destroying pornography, silly! It’s book reviews obviously! But who has time to read all that book just to write a review of it? If the Internet has taught me anything, it’s that skimming and randomly guessing at the meaning of things before you fully comprehend them is a perfectly acceptable way to learn. With that in mind, I thought I’d apply these same methods to book reviewing by simply browsing the chapter headings and then putting their teachings into immediate, impulsive, poorly thought-out practice. What’s the worst that could happen?
Taking Flight: Inspiration and Techniques to Give Your Creative Spirit Wings (Paperback)
By Kelly Rae Roberts (Author)
Review by Robert Brockway
The Publisher’s description:
“In Taking Flight, you’ll find overflowing inspiration–complete with a kindred spirit in author and mixed-media artist Kelly Rae Roberts. Join her on a fearless journey into the heart of creativity as you test your wings and learn to find the sacred in the ordinary, honor your memories, speak your truth and wrap yourself in the arms of community.”
Oh… well, shit. I picked this book because I thought it was a how-to guide on building and maintaining your own wings, like Icarus. But I guess it’s more of a spiritual guide. That’s probably for the best come to think of it. I could use some spiritual help, after all, seeing as how I was planning on using my DIY wings to rob the elderly and spy on hot young college coeds (which I would then also rob). So let us begin…
Some dreams stay buried for a reason…
By “unearthing my buried dreams,” I assume the author is encouraging me to listen to my inner voice in order to better discover my hidden wants and desires. I’m not going to read any further in order to verify this, so I think it’s best to just listen to my “inner voice” immediately, and do whatever it commands. So here goes:
“You can do this! You can do anything! Let’s get going, man! The world is your oyster! You could paint a picture, or plant a garden. You could finally learn to skateboard. You could have a few drinks to help silence the incessant noise from the screaming masses that prattle ceaselessly to one another yet never seem to say a word. You could become something! You could become something terrible. You could become something terrible and mighty and you could do much in this world… to this world.”
“Birthed of fire I am come, and you may call me…death.”
So, OK! That got creepy fast. But I’m taking this seriously, so I guess I’m going to listen to its advice. Very well, book. But remember, this is on your head.
***
I have just killed a man with a lawnmower. I still feel this may have been ill-advised, but I am, after all, just listening to the book. On the down side, I’m only on the first chapter and it’s advocated murder. But on the upshot, I can already feel the power of Mr. Stevens’s life-force coursing through my veins.
Facing your fears? Well, I’m afraid of spiders and loneliness. How the hell am I supposed to face those? Wait, I should listen to my inner voice, right? Look at me; applying knowledge!
…
The voice tells me that the desert is a place for visions, and an arena for confrontation. The desert is a place of cleansing. If I am to face my fears, I must do it there. But I will need supplies. To this end, I have stolen a lime-green Datsun, and I have loaded the trunk with wild spiders. I leave now for the Southwest, and will continue when I arrive.
Not pictured: Optional T-Top, chrome trim, luggage rack, spider chamber.
I am alone here. I have not seen another human being for a week. I have ceased speaking aloud and wearing the clothes of man. Every morning, as the hazy sketch of the distant horizon gives birth to the flaming sun, I open the trunk of my Datsun, and I climb into the spider bath. My life is fear and insanity. But it is my fear. My insanity. I have learned to own it. On the eve of the seventh day I kill a wolf and leave my ‘little fears’ to feed. As I drive away, back towards civilization, the Datsun feels too light without the reassuring weight of 10 thousand spiders. It feels as though it may float away.
I see now. This makes perfect sense. I have dealt with my fear of the spider. I have dealt with my fear of isolation. Now I must find others and show them the way. Community binds us all together, but ultimately we must function as our own men. Or women. Preferably women. Yes, I will recruit exclusively young women to join my cause (listen: Who says a cult has to be a sausage fest? If somebody’s going to be wearing nothing but drab-ass robes, they can at least shake it a bit, all right? Don’t judge me). And so I go forth, out into the world to find scores of gullible, weak-minded, nubile young women who are as easily outwitted as they are impressionable. This will be a daunting, potentially decades long task.
***
Nevermind. I went to the mall. Task completed.
I have my community. I am their creator.
I have commanded my skank-followers to worship the comedy of Martin Short. This is the most ordinary thing that I can think of, and so it is sacred.
“I guess he’s not the worst thing in the world, so he is your god now.”
It’s custom in the hip-hop community to pour out one’s alcoholic beverage in honor of their dead, whereas the Vikings would set their deceased afloat on a blazing funeral pyre. These both seem like fitting, touching ways to honor the fallen, so I will do both: I will pour liquor out on my memories, and set them ablaze so that they may become one with the gods.
Well, if you want to get technical about it, I guess I’m really just burning my old middle school down to the ground. The cops would probably call it “arson” and say they will “investigate.” I call it “honoring” and say that “I think I’m going to go honor the shit out of the Dairy Queen right now.” Because they make delicious sundaes, and it is only a fitting tribute that I top them with fire and retribution.
The final voyage of the summer of 1998, when I worked at a Pizza Hut and once made out with a girl underneath the bridge in Jackson’s Park. Rest in peace.
I assume that “speaking our truth” means giving voice to sentiments I would normally not speak aloud. So here goes: Secretly, I do not find that guy from Fargo charming in the least. I just… just FUCK YOU, WILLIAM H. MACY. FUCK YOUR HANGDOG EEYORE POUT FACE. THERE. I FINALLY SAID IT.
God, I feel like a monster.
I am not sure what to make of this one. My inner voice screams to me that I should hunt down Steve Perry and choke him out, but I think that is being too literal.
After a few lengthy discussions, one particularly tense negotiation and several attempted suicides later, my inner voice and I have come to a compromise as to the meaning of this passage. We have decided that my journey is a spiritual as well as physical path. I have obeyed my inner voice and it cost many lives, I have faced my fears in the spider-trunk of a stolen Datsun, I have created my mall-skank cult, we have worshipped Martin Short though he does not deserve it, I have burned my memories and spoken the rough truth: That mopey-faced bastard from Fargo sucks. I have obeyed everything the book has told me.
And now, the book must be telling me that all aspects of my journey should now “embrace,” coming together in perfect harmony. So I gather my nubile, doe-eyed young servants in the main hall and have them disrobe (specifically, I tell them it’s reverse laundry day. It does not make the slightest bit of sense, but they are not the brightest lamps on the street, and so my explanation is accepted with only a light spattering of muttered confusion). I have lit the ring of fire surrounding us so that none may escape, and the Macy effigy burns with it. Somewhere, a Kelly Clarkson ringtone erupts, its garish tones all but silenced by the solemnity of the moment. I slip my Martin Short lifemask on, bang the “get it on” gong and we begin the orgy. The screams of pleasure quickly turn to horror as I release the spiders from their cages in the ceiling.
This moment is purity.
This is what the book demands.
“And I dub this hellish event… Wednesday.”
***
I write my final summation from my cell as I await trial. I am not sure for what, exactly, I am being tried, and neither is anybody else. They say there’s “just too much here to list properly,” and so I must wait. I believe I have completed the journey the book has dictated, and my inner voice is silent now that I take these blue things twice a day with meals, so I figure I actually have time to read the words within my sacred book. I am worthy now. I have done, and been done to–like three times just last night, even if one of them was technically just a fear-induced hallucination of a naked she-spider–and I am ready to Take Flight.
***
Turns out this is an arts and crafts book? WTF?!
Final Score: 7/10
In Summation: There are some very neat paintings in here, just don’t skim through it.
This entry was posted on Thursday, April 23rd, 2009 at 4:00 am and is filed under books. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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October 27th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
oh god, my stomach hurts! this is genius lol good job brockway! I liked the part were you killed the guy with the lawn mower! too funny because I saw that happen in this stupid Mark Wahlberg movie “The Happening” lol
October 10th, 2009 at 12:08 pm
“Turns out this is an arts and crafts book? WTF?!”
Perfect. Just perfect.
September 14th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
GLORIOUS.
I want to die in a spider-orgy now.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:23 pm
I’m getting that line on my tombstone, so that every person who passes will remember my grave, they’ll wonder if anyone is buried yet, or they’re going to be soon.
July 28th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
I’m drowning in humor. The problem is, I keep laughing instead of taking a chance to breathe.
July 14th, 2009 at 6:38 pm
You might be the craziest columnist on Cracked. Not by a lot, but the title itself says something terrible and and at the same time wonderful. This column is proof, and is absolutely magnificent.
June 18th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
i have got to stop reading the comments. they keep changing my opinions.
June 13th, 2009 at 3:50 pm
You are a riot!
June 2nd, 2009 at 1:40 pm
OMG, very funny and DOB-esque. Laughed several times.
May 18th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Hahaha!
“I have just killed a man with a lawnmower. I still feel this may have been ill-advised, but I am, after all, just listening to the book. On the down side, I’m only on the first chapter and it’s advocated murder. But on the upshot, I can already feel the power of Mr. Stevens’s life-force coursing through my veins.”
My favorite quote…
May 18th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Oh come on..
May 16th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
oh man….robert really has my sides hurting……FUCKING AWESOME ANECDOTES
May 15th, 2009 at 5:21 am
I dunno, maybe my sense of humor is just too great for the average person to have because I didn’t find this nearly as “great” or “EXCELLENT!” or “really funny” as most of the other posters here did. Simpletons.
April 29th, 2009 at 3:21 pm
@Sandman, I have read this twice. Please send $10 to some charitable contribution. Thank you.
April 29th, 2009 at 8:29 am
DUDE….
I just… Dude…
What in all the funk is wrong with you, Brockway???
Anyway, keep it going!
April 27th, 2009 at 9:47 pm
Brockway rocks my face off.
April 27th, 2009 at 3:42 am
Question: Do you think anthropophobe spiders have people baths?
Is that why you always find them in bathtubs? Are they trying to get rid of their fear?
April 25th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
For example, right now this thing on my lap is really my hot girlfriend. What? She’s just a picture of a Japanese cartoon girl? Sorry, can’t hear you, making out with my girlfriend! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!
Reply: Oh, come off it. Everyone knows your “girlfriend” is a bottle of Jergens and a hole cut in the back of your sister’s Build-A-Bear.
April 25th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Brockway, you’re my favorite sociopath/columnist and you made my fear of spiders much worse.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Good one - but the VERY best thing about it: the Steve Perry picture.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:28 am
hahaha this is awesome, loved the spiders! Hopefully the unworthy will now see your majesty.
April 24th, 2009 at 10:14 am
yawn.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:35 am
Nothing sloughs off the last crusty bits of sanity like a nice, relaxing spider bath.
This article is my hero. I need to read more arts & crafts books (on amphetamines).
April 24th, 2009 at 4:30 am
Trippiest post since wolinsky left.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:59 am
That was fantastic on so many levels.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:21 am
Steve Perry is far too powerful and awesome to be felled by Brockway.
That is all.
April 24th, 2009 at 3:03 am
good one Brockway
April 24th, 2009 at 3:00 am
What the hell!? If anybody can read this whole article without passing out i will give them 5 bucks.
April 24th, 2009 at 1:31 am
This was hilarious.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:59 pm
This article saddened me, until I realized that Steve Perry isn’t the same as Steve Walsh.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:43 pm
“And I dub this hellish event… Wednesday.” and “Turns out this is an arts and crafts book? WTF?!” took this from a good post to a great one.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:05 pm
Good article, again! Reminded me of the hilarious Choose-Your-Own-Adventure, which is a good thing. I like the druggy atmosphere that is created.
Keep them coming, Robert!
Great idea, btw.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:50 pm
@echocharlie…i too was afraid that steve perry was dead
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:18 pm
Brockway, I’ve just spent the last ten minutes randomly bursting into laughter in an otherwise silent room, the cat glaring at me for disrupting the peace. And I’m almost sure a neighbor has contacted mental health authorities on my behalf.
This column, on the heels of my adoration for Choose Your Own Adventure (On Drugs), has led me to decide to officially fangirl you from now on. (I apologize in advance.)
Also, what does it say about me that my ringtone (up until about 30 seconds ago) really was a Kelly Clarkson song? Good God, Cracked has changed my life for the better yet again.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:08 pm
Man I thought this was going to be a story announcing the death of Steve Perry….
Phew…
Oh, Sherrie,
our love
Holds on,
holds on…
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:43 pm
waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaste
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:07 pm
I love handburgaz
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:49 pm
The fears one was the best.
Hats off, I say.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:25 pm
That was SO AWESOME. There are no words for this level of awesomeness.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
But its Thursday…
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:01 pm
Steve Perry…he probably wants to kill him because he won’t come back to Journey D:
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:00 pm
[...] did find the world’s greatest book review. I’m still [...]
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Why the hell would you want to kill Steve Perry? He’s awesome! His voice is so sexy!
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:36 pm
For the record, I didn’t include the link at first because I didn’t think she’d want her book’s comment section mentioning spider-orgies or arson, lest some potential readers get the wrong idea. Apparently she doesn’t mind, though, so if anybody needs me I’ll be googling “spidertits” and “firefag” for material to post there.
Ms. Roberts, you are now linked, ma’am. May god have mercy on your soul.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:17 pm
That had nothing to do with book reviewing! And yet I don’t feel hard done by. I spent several minutes of my life reading this, and I don’t mind that I won’t get those minutes back. Well done.
Also, bonus props to whoever decides the titles for Cracked articles; they could have attempted to shoehorn in an ill-fitting number-based title, but they didn’t. Don’t think I don’t notice these things. Doubly well done.
April 23rd, 2009 at 3:02 pm
Kelly,
I just clicked your name to check out your website and saw from your photo that you’re a cutie. Robert not imbedding a link probably wasn’t as much an oversight, as it was him not wanting you to get cyber-stalked by all the lonely lurking-in-their-mom’s-basement types that haunt this site.
Either that or he saw that you’re a “possibilitarian” and hoped to avoid another one those never ending political debates that break out in the comment sections. You might want to consider changing your affiliation before Cavalier-X reads this.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Amen Brother! I fully intend to use this technique for all my school work from now on.
I must add that we dimwits are not worthy of inhabiting the same intertoobs as you!
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:46 pm
http://www.amazon.com/Taking-Flight-Inspiration-Techniques-Creative/dp/160061082X
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:36 pm
Hahaha. Kelly Rae must’ve been Googling herself… and came across this. Poor thing. Choose laugh, hon’.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:33 pm
Great job Brockway, you may very well be my favorite cracked columnist.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Good god. You made me scare the occupants in the library I am sitting in. Shame on you. But that’s a different story.
Funny article.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:24 pm
I likke the part in the desert but it was all amazing. This might be the craziest article ever
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:01 pm
“I just… just FUCK YOU, WILLIAM H. MACY. FUCK YOUR HANGDOG EEYORE POUT FACE. THERE. I FINALLY SAID IT.”
Mr. Brockway,
I’ve always liked William H. Macy but I now adore you for those lines.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:33 pm
Wow Brockway, you and DOB have an inevitable crazy-fight somewhere on the horizon, and now I’m a lot less sure who would win.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:31 pm
I asked God to give me a singing voice like Steve Perry.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:12 pm
as the author of this book, i don’t know if i should laugh or cry
ps-an actual link to the book would have been a nice touch.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:45 pm
D.O.B. blows them all out of the water
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:44 pm
Please stop channelling the spirit of Kurt Vonnegut on acid, Robert.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:43 pm
I want to make my own cult now! Now, damn it! I am just drooling at the though of Nubile Young Women!…I mean, at everlasting peace and harmony, yeah, that’s it.
Great article. From this day hence, the phrase shall be “ROCK AWAY WITH YOUR BROCKWAY!” Ok, so that does sound kind of lame, but it’s your fault for not changing your last name to Brockout like I suggested years ago. Or was in seconds ago? Time has no meaning to me.
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:30 pm
So is Brockway in a Descent into Madness competition with Swaim or what? I can’t figure out if I like massive spider orgies or pantless ceiling fan hijinks better…
April 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
Bloody awesome!
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:45 am
Funny post robot guy (I assume all cracked staff are either robots, or cyborgs. Correct me if I’m wrong).
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:39 am
Steve Perry.. Steeeeeve Perry.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:17 am
Are nubile young women really that gullible?
If they are sign me up. I don’t mind spiders, but I DO have an irrational fear of Datsuns.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Brockway has been steadily improving, and this one was hilarious, but it was way to similar to the choose your own adventure one.
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:08 am
Brilliant, but now im paranoid about spiders.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:59 am
Swing and a miss.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:58 am
Oh please, go ahead and “hunt down Steve Perry and choke him out”.
I would be so grateful.
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:49 am
I liked the 1st part. Really, it was all down hill from there. Anyone notice that Brockway gets incarcerated a lot?
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:35 am
Fuck Steve Perry and fuck that Dog Eater that Journey now has as a lead singer. What the fuck? White Power!!!
April 23rd, 2009 at 10:06 am
this idea didn’t really work out.
do more choose your own adventures instead that was way funnier
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:43 am
“Little fears”
“the Datsun feels too light without the reassuring weight of 10 thousand spiders. It feels as though it may float away.”
lol
April 23rd, 2009 at 9:38 am
I can somewhat understand the similarities people see in DOB and Brockway. But whereas DOB often paints himself as clueless, Brockway reads more as a sociopathic beatnick in the throws of an ether fit. For this, I love him.
(Love DOB too. But this comment is about Brockway, so yeah. Suck it, internet.)
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:57 am
“1949 - Whenever I get around to it”
Undoubtedly, the best line in the whole thing. The Martin Short caption cracked me up, though. Great article, Brockway!
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:47 am
Really? hard to believe.i heard this news times from many friends playing on a tall dating site ___Tallconnect.com___,i did not believe, i think that they are know nothing but dating and love.
i am wrong.
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:33 am
coolio beans XD
April 23rd, 2009 at 8:03 am
Robert,
Hilarious.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:56 am
Wow… That was brilliant.
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:50 am
Words cannot describe how funny that was!
Would “too funny, help I can’t breath” work?
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:56 am
“I have ceased speaking aloud and wearing the clothes of man. Every morning, as the hazy sketch of the distant horizon gives birth to the flaming sun, I open the trunk of my Datsun, and I climb into the spider bath. My life is fear and insanity.”
brilliant.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:41 am
“My inner voice screams to me that I should hunt down Steve Perry and choke him out…”
Not if I get there first, bitch.
April 23rd, 2009 at 6:22 am
“I have obeyed my inner voice and it cost many lives, I have faced my fears in the spider-trunk of a stolen Datsun, I have created my mall-skank cult, we have worshipped Martin Short though he does not deserve it, I have burned my memories and spoken the rough truth: That mopey-faced bastard from Fargo sucks. I have obeyed everything the book has told me.”
It was at this point that I actually died laughing. No, really.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:57 am
very funny stuff, keep them coming.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:53 am
I agree with Daisho and add that this article rocks so hard I think it may have just impregnated my face.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:43 am
That. Was. EXCELLENT!
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:34 am
Good article, I’m off to skim through Mein Kampf now.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:24 am
Good Lord, Brockway… yet another article that I can’t get through because I draw too much attention from loud laughter in a quiet office. I don’t know how you do it, but I’ll read anything you post/publish, that’s for sure. Thanks for making my day!
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:23 am
OMG! Laying in a Datsun trunk full of spiders is now my new ultimate irrational fear.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 am
“After a few lengthy discussions, one particularly tense negotiation, and several attempted suicides later, my inner voice and I have come to a compromise as to the meaning of this passage. We have decided that my journey is a spiritual as well as physical path. I have obeyed my inner voice and it cost many lives, I have faced my fears in the spider-trunk of a stolen Datsun, I have created my mall-skank cult, we have worshipped Martin Short though he does not deserve it, I have burned my memories, and spoken the rough truth: That mopey-faced bastard from Fargo sucks. I have obeyed everything the book has told me.”
I believe this is single-handedly the greatest out-of-context excerpt ever written, anywhere.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:21 am
Can somebody please tell the phrase “spider bath” to leave me alone? It’s creeping me out and won’t stop.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:07 am
“The cops would probably call it ‘arson’ and say they will ‘investigate.’ I call it ‘honoring’ and say that ‘I think I’m going to go honor the shit out of the Dairy Queen right now.’ Because they make delicious sundaes, and it is only a fitting tribute that I top them with fire and retribution.”
That had me cracking up.
Great article Brockway!
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:44 am
I just want you to know that when you said:
“If the internet has taught me anything, it’s that skimming and randomly guessing at the meaning of things before you fully comprehend them is a perfectly acceptable way to learn.”
I found that to be the most inspiring sentence I have ever read. You summed up my life to a tee and I will be quoting you forever. Sometimes I may even give you credit for it, RB.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:33 am
“Cages in the ceiling” would have been funnier as “ceiling cages”.
Thus ends the list of things that weren’t absolutely perfect about this entry.
April 23rd, 2009 at 4:13 am
Good for you! Reading is for SQUARES! It’s always better to make stuff up on the spot and pretend it’s true. For example, right now this thing on my lap is really my hot girlfriend. What? She’s just a picture of a Japanese cartoon girl? Sorry, can’t hear you, making out with my girlfriend! MMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!