4 Celebrity Books That Will Make You Question Your Sanity
For most of us, going out on a limb and trying new things is a feat worth celebrating. Whether you're an athlete who wants to dabble in art or an artist who wants to try your hand at paying bills, everyone should step out of their comfort zone and not be afraid to fail every now and then ... unless you're famous.
For celebrities, trying new things is fine, as long as you keep your freaky interests private. Whatever you do, don't write a book about your sick, nasty hobbies because the world won't be able to fathom you both as a sexy world-class celebrity AND as a down-to-earth home repairman.
Mr. Furley Wants To Repair Your Cracks
I would like to think that in one of the multiverses that are most definitely out there, Don Knotts was a certified Grade A sex symbol, and Mick Jagger was a buffoon who karate-chopped his way through sitcoms (and hearts). If not for the 20-year age gap, Don Knotts and Mick Jagger were twins. Take away Jagger's cool hair and spandex pants and knighthood and model wives and seven children and sexual exploits with David Bowie and strange but oddly sweet relationship with Keith Richards, and you're left with Don.
The Incredible Mr. Pimpet.
For readers who are unfamiliar with Don, he was a sitcom staple from the 1950s to the '80s, usually playing the part of "bumbling sheriff" or "bumbling landlord" or "bumbling Apple Dumpling Gang leader" when he ventured into movies. None of these roles painted a picture of a man you want to trust with fast-setting concrete. If I listed all the people I wouldn't want touching fast-setting concrete, Don would be sandwiched between "Kristi Harrison" and "babies." In 1986, the good people at Quikrete had a different take on the "should Don Knotts be the guy who promotes our concrete product?" conundrum. If Don could succeed at working with concrete, anyone could! Which was how a beloved Emmy-winning comedian ended up as the ironic spokesman for concrete.
"If a joke of a human like me can figure it out, so can you!"
And you know what's crazy? Besides the part about Barney Fife shilling a book on how to create your own sidewalks and tuck-point mortar joints when required to do so? It's that the book wasn't half bad, according to the eight Amazon reviews it's accumulated over the years.
Celebrity Teen Mom Wrote You Some Erotica (About Herself)
As someone who comes from a long line of teen moms (or as we called them, "moms"), I have no judgment against Farrah Abraham or anyone else who makes another human being before hitting the age of 20. I've never watched Farrah's show 16 And Pregnant or its sequel Teen Mom or its other sequel Poor People, Now Older, Continued, although I was briefly tempted to watch "How Do Taxes Work?" Teen Moms Take A Field Trip To The Accountant because it occurred to me that I don't actually know how taxes work and I could use the tips.
From what I've gathered through some investigative journalism and strict avoidance of MTV, Farrah was a 17-year-old cheerleader who got knocked up and named her child Sophia Laurent, which sounds a lot like "Sophia Loren" but isn't. As if things weren't already rough enough, Farrah named her daughter the equivalent of the fake DVDs your grandma sends you when she can't discern that What's Up? Balloon To The Rescue is NOT the same movie as Disney's Up.
Close enough!
Back to Farrah. At age 17, Farrah had a baby and a hit MTV show. By age 20, she transitioned from having a baby and a show to having a toddler and a porn tape with a professional porn star. Still, not judging. Insurance is expensive, and everyone has the right to hire a professional porn actor to put his ding dong inside your butt while on camera -- if that's the plan you think God's worked out for you. It wasn't until I saw Farrah's trilogy of erotica books that I finally put my judging hat on. It looks like this:
Don't judge my judging hat.
Farrah's muse for her trilogy of dirty stories is -- wait for it -- herself. The main character is named "Fallon Opal," which I imagine came about after a thought process that went like this:
Too on the nose, Farrah.
Finally, Farrah pulled from her real-life exploits in the entertainment world to write about a humble young lady who buckles down and goes to accounting school, so she can provide for her family and live a normal life. Psych! Farrah/Fallon spends three books translating her leaked sex tape into a career in Hollywood. And she used her own picture for the book covers. Hey! Speaking of which ...
Kim Kardashian Is Publishing A Book Of Selfies
God help me, I think Kim Kardashian is a bona fide genius. But that's because, in my mind, genius is when you take what you've got and stretch it as far as you can go. And for a girl who was never on anyone's "smartest" or "semi-talented" list, Kim seems to be doing OK for herself.
Says the girl whose dad defended OJ.
The caveat to the above paragraph is that I've never actually watched Keeping Up With The Kardashians and don't know anything about Kim beyond her butt, her husband, her sex tape, her parents, her E! televised wedding, and her kid. In retrospect, that's actually a lot of information to work with. I probably know more about Kim Kardashian than I know about myself.
Like her sisters, her mom, and her current husband, Kim got herself a book deal. But, instead of pulling a Kanye and publishing 52 pages of word vomit in bold font ...
True page from West's book Thank You And You're Welcome. There is no joke here.
... Kim focused her energy and resources on what she knows and loves best: herself. The book is called Selfish, and it's going to be a published version of her personal archives, aka her Instagram account. Brilliant! Remember, this is a woman who went from Paris Hilton's assistant to owning a $85 million dollar empire. This little stupid book from Kim Kardashian is what it looks like to turn a nothing sandwich into a 50-course meal.
Please be the book cover, public bathroom selfie featuring a man and woman in the same public bathroom.
Like a dying campfire that refuses to fade into the decade-old night, The X-Files is now one of the thousands of '90s era TV shows that is slated for wholly unnecessary revival. Good for them, I say. If fans want to see David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson revisit roles that they began before Justin Bieber was conceived, then, by all means, boredom, poverty, or pride should not keep the two from getting back on the X train. But before Duchovny and Anderson got the call to re-be Mulder and Scully, both ventured into the world of books. It's not until you take a look at the books they wrote that things get a little spooky.
Is it a bad sign when a first-time novelist's name takes up half the book cover?
Gillian Anderson, an actress known for being the lady obsessed with the supernatural, wrote a whole science-fiction book about a lady who's obsessed with the supernatural. Like Kim, she's just writing what she knows at this point. The reviews aren't awesome, but neither was my one attempt at a sci-fi thriller.
I have no idea what sci-fi is!
David Duchovny took a stab at fiction writing by inventing a whole new genre: DAIRY COMEDY. Dairy, as in milk, and comedy, as in- nope, let's just back up and talk about the dairy thing. David's debut book is called Holy Cow: A Modern-Day Dairy Tale, and it's about a cow named Elsie who finds out about industrial meat farms and gets worked up about it. The plot isn't important. What is important is the fact that David uses the phrase "cray cray" not once, but TWICE, in this book. That's because when he's writing as a cow, David uses teen jargon, but teen jargon as interpreted through a very sarcastic alien who has never encountered earthlings before. Which is why the sentence "You go girl. Can I holla? Can I holla?" exists in this book. That's a combination of words that David put together and sent to an editor. And an editor green-lighted. And a printer put on paper. That happened.
That happened.
Kristi is a senior editor and columnist for Cracked. For more from her, check out past articles here and follow her on Twitter or Facebook.
For more from Kristi, check out 4 Reasons The Mars One Fiasco Was Actually Good For Humanity and 4 Signs Harrison Ford Is a Blind Guy Acting Like He Can See .
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