Download or read book Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse written by Phyllis Diller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-02-16 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: You think I’m overdressed? This is my slip! No, I’m going to tell you the truth about what I’m wearing. I used to work as a lampshade in a whorehouse. I couldn’t get one of the good jobs. From housewife to humorist, Phyllis Diller made millions laugh for over five decades with her groundbreaking comedy. Boasting unique material, a raucous laugh, wild hair, the trademark cigarette holder, and garish clothes, this pioneer blazed a trail for comediennes during the fifties and sixties, leading them out of small dives into the kinds of top venues that had previously played host only to their male counterparts. While her routine broke new ground and opened doors to subsequent generations of female standups, it also served as a form of self-therapy amid a life steeped in tragedy and turmoil. Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse is Phyllis Diller’s own story about the struggle and the pain behind the comedy and the success: her Depression-era adolescence; her marriage to the chronically unemployed husband who inspired her most famous comic character, Fang; her desperate attempts to stave off poverty as a professional comic while raising five children; the disastrous club engagements that coincided with homelessness and separation from her young family; and the problems that clouded her stage and screen success when a second marriage unraveled because of her new spouse’s alcoholism and inner demons. Over fifty years after Diller’s professional debut as a standup comic, Like a Lampshade in a Whorehouse describes her separate careers as an artist and as a piano soloist with symphony orchestras; her failed attempts to become a Playboy centerfold; and her outspoken attitude toward her extensive plastic surgery that earned her a special award from the American Academy of Cosmetic Surgery. It’s quite a story.
Download or read book The Boy Who Fell Out of the Sky written by Ken Dornstein and published by Vintage. This book was released on 2007-06-12 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The "hugely satisfying" story (The Boston Globe) of one man’s search for the truth about his brother—and himself. David Dornstein was twenty-five years old, with dreams of becoming a great writer, when he boarded Pan Am Flight 103 on December 21, 1988. Thirty-eight minutes after takeoff, a terrorist bomb ripped the plane apart over Lockerbie, Scotland. Almost a decade later, Ken Dornstein set out to solve the riddle of his older brother’s life, using the notebooks and manuscripts that David left behind. In the process, he also began to create a new life of his own.
Download or read book Beyond the Spotlight written by Robin Skone-Palmer and published by Wigeon Publishing. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 286 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: As Robin Skone-Palmer approached the mansion on Rockingham Avenue one hot September afternoon, she didn't know what to expect. "Ask for Phyllis Diller," the employment agent had said. Curious as much as nervous, she studied the beautiful house. Three-and-a-half hours later, she walked away wondering if she'd just stepped into Alice's Wonderland. Plane travel, foreign countries, celebrities, and television studios became part of everyday life-from "This Is Tom Jones" in London to the Glass Festival in Elwood, Indiana. They shared raucous laughter, mind-numbing boredom, and occasionally absolute terror. The work relationship became a friendship that lasted to the day of Phyllis's death at that same Rockingham mansion in Brentwood. Join Robin beyond the spotlight, on the road with Phyllis Diller, as she recalls her days working as a personal secretary for the beloved, ground-breaking comedienne. After leaving Diller's employment, Skone-Palmer became a "Diller Dustbiter," a term Diller coined to affectionately describe her favorite former employees. The comedienne even endorsed the memoir (before she died), writing on one of those sticky notes she had used so often: "Robin Skone-Palmer has written a book-it is FABULOUS " Diller's son Perry also endorsed the book, saying: "I laughed a lot. What a wonderful, insightful, bright observation of a another time and place. You are kind and fair. Thank you for your service to my mother."
Download or read book Wake Up I m Fat written by Camryn Manheim and published by Crown. This book was released on 2000-05-09 with total page 305 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this New York Times-bestselling inspirational memoir, Camryn Manheim, Emmy Award-winning costar of The Practice, chronicles her journey from a self-hating, "overweight" teenager, who desperately wanted to fit in, to a self-loving, fat activist who is proud to be a misfit. Wake Up, I'm Fat! shares her intelligent, candid, poignant, and often hilarious stories of being fat in a society obsessed with being thin. Camryn takes us from her days as a motorcycle-riding hippie in Santa Cruz to her enrollment at New York University's prestigious school of drama--where Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner broke the unspoken theater rules of size by casting her in the role of the ingenue--and finally to Hollywood, where she dispelled the fallacy that large women can't be portrayed as sensual, sophisticated, and confident. Camryn's endearing honesty, sass, and razor-sharp wit will appeal to any reader who has ever felt like an outcast or yearned to make peace with their body.
Download or read book Dream in Color written by Congresswoman Linda Sánchez and published by Grand Central Publishing. This book was released on 2008-09-02 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Often considered Congress's "Odd Couple," these warm and witty stories from Congresswomen Linda and Loretta Sánchez are perfect for all young women looking to create a brighter future for themselves—with a foreword from Nancy Pelosi! By sharing moments from their childhood in Southern California, Linda and Loretta pass on the values and traditions they learned from their parents—immigrants from Mexico who, despite not having graduated high school themselves, made sure all seven of their children went on to graduate from college—that enabled them to conquer challenges and make history in Congress. Speaking frankly about their professional highs and lows, successes, and the scandals that constituted their distinguished careers, the Sánchez sisters are a testament to us all that the key to realizing your dreams is, above all else, always being true to yourself.
Download or read book Sowbelly written by Monte Burke and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2006-02-28 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1932, a farmer named George Washington Perry decided it was too rainy to plow and went fishing. That day, George landed the largest largemouth ever recorded—twenty-two pounds four ounces. The fish has inspired and frustrated hundreds of anglers for decades. They’ve dedicated their lives to the pursuit of “Sowbelly”—a nearly mythical fish, whose swinelike girth holds the key to their dreams. From an L.A. cop who came within ounces of besting the record to an Alabaman who has lost his marriage and his daughter to this pursuit, Burke takes readers along for the ride in this legendary race.
Download or read book Only Child written by Deborah Siegel and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-02-26 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: What is it really like to be an only child? In this insightful and entertaining collection, writers including Judith Thurman, Kathryn Harrison, John Hodgman, and Peter Ho Davies reflect on a lifetime of being an only. They describe what it’s like to be an only child of divorce, an only because of the death of a sibling, an only who reveled in it, or an only who didn’t. As adults searching for partners, they are faced with the unique challenge of trying to turn their family units of three into units of four, and as they watch their parents age, they come face-to-face with the onus of being their families’ sole historians. Whether you’re an only child, the partner or spouse of an only, a parent pondering whether to stop at one, or a curious sibling, Only Child offers a look behind the scenes and into the hearts of twenty-one smart and sensitive writers as they reveal the truth about growing up–and being a grown-up–solo.
Download or read book Dear Dad written by Louie Anderson and published by . This book was released on 1989 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The New York Times bestseller--now with new material. Louie Anderson has appeared many times on "The Tonight Show", and his comedy specials on HBO and Showtime have won him wide acclaim. In this series of emotionally charged letters to his alcoholic father, Anderson reveals the sense of shame and insecurity that fuels his comic routines.
Download or read book Nevada Rose written by Marc McAndrews and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Scattered around the state of Nevada in unassuming little desert towns, prostitution is thriving. Nevada Rose is an extraordinary peephole into this legal, albeit secretive, world of fantasy and theatre, which takes readers inside the 29 'ranches' in and around towns. Readers will meet the managers and the madams, the kitchens and the cooks, laundry rooms and lounges, personal bedrooms and pets.
Download or read book Over Easy written by Mimi Pond and published by Drawn and Quarterly. This book was released on 2014-04-15 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A fast-paced semi-memoir about diners, drugs, and California in the 1970s Over Easy is a brilliant portrayal of a familiar coming-of-age story. After being denied financial aid to cover her last year of art school, Margaret finds salvation from the straightlaced world of college and the earnestness of both hippies and punks in the wisecracking, fast-talking, drug-taking group she encounters at the Imperial Café, where she makes the transformation from Margaret to Madge. At first she mimics these new and exotic grown-up friends, trying on the guise of adulthood with some awkward but funny stumbles. Gradually she realizes that the adults she looks up to are a mess of contradictions, misplaced artistic ambitions, sexual confusion, dependencies, and addictions. Over Easy is equal parts time capsule of late 1970s life in California—with its deadheads, punks, disco rollers, casual sex, and drug use—and bildungsroman of a young woman who grows from a naïve, sexually inexperienced art-school dropout into a self-aware, self-confident artist. Mimi Pond's chatty, slyly observant anecdotes create a compelling portrait of a distinct moment in time. Over Easy is an immediate, limber, and precise semi-memoir narrated with an eye for the humor in every situation.
Download or read book Out of The Easy written by Ruta Sepetys and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2013-02-12 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A haunting peek at the life of a teenage girl in 1950s New Orleans.”--Entertainment Weekly It’s 1950, and as the French Quarter of New Orleans simmers with secrets, seventeen-year-old Josie Moraine is silently stirring a pot of her own. Known among locals as the daughter of a brothel prostitute, Josie wants more out of life than the Big Easy has to offer. She devises a plan get out, but a mysterious death in the Quarter leaves Josie tangled in an investigation that will challenge her allegiance to her mother, her conscience, and Willie Woodley, the brusque madam on Conti Street. Josie is caught between the dream of an elite college and a clandestine underworld. New Orleans lures her in her quest for truth, dangling temptation at every turn, and escalating to the ultimate test. With characters as captivating as those in her internationally bestselling novel Between Shades of Gray, Ruta Sepetys skillfully creates a rich story of secrets, lies, and the haunting reminder that decisions can shape our destiny.
Download or read book The Bear s Embrace written by Patricia Van Tighem and published by Greystone Books, Douglas & McIntyre Publishing Group. This book was released on 2000 with total page 296 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Whitehots.
Download or read book Here s where written by Charlie Brennan and published by Missouri History Museum. This book was released on 2006 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A guidebook to sites related to famous people in St. Louis, with anecdotes, interesting facts, and cross-references. Each entry is keyed to one of ten maps of the St. Louis area"--Provided by publisher.
Download or read book Howl written by Bark Editors and published by National Geographic Books. This book was released on 2008-10-07 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A pot roast left unguarded. An open bedroom door. An ill-timed squat. Dogs seem to have impeccable timing. Yet how quickly calamity turns to comedy in the company of a dog, and the wrong moment turns out to be just the right one. In this delightful follow-up to Dog Is My Co-Pilot, which won the Best Book of the Year award from the Dog Writers Association of America, the editors of The Bark bring together more stories, essays, and artwork that highlight the hilarity of dog behavior and the comical interactions between dog people and their four-legged friends. From playful puppies who wreak havoc in the home to dogs with a whole array of comic shticks and tricks, Howl celebrates the verve and the laughs pets offer their people. It includes laugh-out-loud reflections (and confessions), rib-tickling tales, and whimsical vignettes from well-known writers such as: • Dave Barry • Margaret Cho • Al Franken • Kinky Friedman • Pam Houston • Haven Kimmel • Neal Pollack • And many more!
Download or read book The Haunted Smile written by Lawrence J. Epstein and published by PublicAffairs. This book was released on 2008-08-05 with total page 348 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Lawrence Epstein's The Haunted Smile tackles a subject both poignant and delightful: the story of Jewish comedians in America. For the past century and more, American comedy has drawn its strength and soul from the comic genius of Jewish performers and writers. An incomplete listing of names makes the point: The Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Fanny Brice, George Burns, Milton Berle, Jackie Mason, Joan Rivers, Rodney Dangerfield, Mel Brooks, Alan King, Mort Sahl, Buddy Hackett, Woody Allen, Lenny Bruce, Andy Kaufman, Richard Belzer, Jerry Seinfeld. These men and women, among others, form the canon of Jewish-American comedy. In the words of the Detroit Jewish News, The Haunted Smile "offers us a deep and subtle understanding of how Jewish culture and American openness gave birth to a new style of entertainment." Often the best way to illuminate a point is to recount some of these comedians' own brilliant routines, and Epstein uses the comedian's work to great effect, making for a book that is both a thoughtful work of history and a great deal of fun.
Download or read book Seriously Funny written by Gerald Nachman and published by Pantheon. This book was released on 2009-08-26 with total page 688 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The comedians of the 1950s and 1960s were a totally different breed of relevant, revolutionary performer from any that came before or after, comics whose humor did much more than pry guffaws out of audiences. Gerald Nachman presents the stories of the groundbreaking comedy stars of those years, each one a cultural harbinger: • Mort Sahl, of a new political cynicism • Lenny Bruce, of the sexual, drug, and language revolution • Dick Gregory, of racial unrest • Bill Cosby and Godfrey Cambridge, of racial harmony • Phyllis Diller, of housewifely complaint • Mike Nichols & Elaine May and Woody Allen, of self-analytical angst and a rearrangement of male-female relations • Stan Freberg and Bob Newhart, of encroaching, pervasive pop media manipulation and, in the case of Bob Elliott & Ray Goulding, of the banalities of broadcasting • Mel Brooks, of the Yiddishization of American comedy • Sid Caesar, of a new awareness of the satirical possibilities of television • Joan Rivers, of the obsessive craving for celebrity gossip and of a latent bitchy sensibility • Tom Lehrer, of the inane, hypocritical, mawkishly sentimental nature of hallowed American folkways and, in the case of the Smothers Brothers, of overly revered folk songs and folklore • Steve Allen, of the late-night talk show as a force in American comedy • David Frye and Vaughn Meader, of the merger of showbiz and politics and, along with Will Jordan, of stretching the boundaries of mimicry • Shelley Berman, of a generation of obsessively self-confessional humor • Jonathan Winters and Jean Shepherd, of the daring new free-form improvisational comedy and of a sardonically updated view of Midwestern archetypes • Ernie Kovacs, of surreal visual effects and the unbounded vistas of video Taken together, they made up the faculty of a new school of vigorous, socially aware satire, a vibrant group of voices that reigned from approximately 1953 to 1965. Nachman shines a flashlight into the corners of these comedians’ chaotic and often troubled lives, illuminating their genius as well as their demons, damaged souls, and desperate drive. His exhaustive research and intimate interviews reveal characters that are intriguing and all too human, full of rich stories, confessions, regrets, and traumas. Seriously Funny is at once a dazzling cultural history and a joyous celebration of an extraordinary era in American comedy.
Download or read book Robicheaux written by James Lee Burke and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-01-02 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: James Lee Burke’s most beloved character, Dave Robicheaux, returns in this New York Times bestselling mystery set in the towns and backwoods of Louisiana: an “enthralling yet grim novel that…will captivate, start to finish” (Publishers Weekly). Dave Robicheaux is a haunted man. From the acts he committed in Vietnam, to his battles with alcoholism, to the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Molly, his thoughts drift from one irreconcilable memory to the next. Images of ghosts pepper his reality. Robicheaux’s only beacon remains serving as a detective in New Iberia, Louisiana. It’s in that capacity that Robicheaux crosses paths with powerful mob boss, Tony Nemo. Tony has a Civil War sword he’d like to give to Levon Broussard, a popular local author whose books have been adapted into major Hollywood films. Then there’s Jimmy Nightengale, the young poster boy of New Orleans wealth and glamour. Jimmy’s fond of Levon’s work, and even fonder of his beautiful, enigmatic wife, Rowena. Tony thinks Jimmy can be a US Senator someday, and has the resources and clout to make it happen. There’s something off about the relationship among these three men, and after a vicious assault, it’s up to Robicheaux to uncover the truth “in the barn-burner of a climax” (Booklist, starred review). Complicating matters is the sudden death of the New Iberian local responsible for Molly’s death; namely that Robicheaux’s colleague thinks Robicheaux had something to do with it. As Robicheaux works to clear his name and make sense of the murder, a harrowing study of America emerges: this nation’s abiding conflict between a sense of past grandeur and a legacy of shame, its easy seduction by demagogues and wealth, and its predilection for violence and revenge. “It has been almost five years since James Lee Burke’s last Dave Robicheaux novel, and it was absolutely worth the wait” (Associated Press).
