It’s a question that really needs to be answered.
“Why do we suck?”
The question could be put a little more eloquently—as could much of the writing in Denis Leary’s recent book, Why We Suck: A Feel Good Guide to Staying Fat, Loud, Lazy and Stupid—but there is beauty in its bluntness.
In just over 200 pages, comedian Leary, known equally as well as the creator and star of the FX drama Rescue Me as he is for his humorous tirades against the stupidity and contradictions in modern American life, gives us advice (and a hefty amount of badgering) on how to live our lives.
Credited as “Dr. Denis Leary” (a slight joke, but also the truth—he was given a doctorate by his alma mater Emerson College), he plows through such topics as slutty celebrities, the boy-loving Catholic church, over-obsessive parents and annoying cat owners with such speed and jumpiness that it feels like listening to a hilarious rant by a friend sitting next to you at a bar.
All the way back to his classic 1993 stand-up special No Cure for Cancer, Leary has said (or is it threatened?) to write a self-help book that isn’t afraid to tell people off, or “shut the fuck up.” And now he’s done it and the world may just be a little better off because of it.
It’s not that Leary goes deep into any subject that we haven’t thought about before. But like Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, he deftly conveys his ideas in a way that makes it all seem fresh.
Many of us are at least familiar with the notion that there may be no God (pesky as that assertion may be), just like all of us are aware that Paris Hilton “accidentally” flashes her shaved privates to get attention, but hearing these bits of information in a concise and entertaining way really hammers it home.
In between his rants, Leary writes about his Irish-American upbringing and shares humorous anecdotes about how he became the asshole he is today.
Some of these stories fit well in their respective chapters, such as the time lil’ Leary kicked a bully in the balls, teaching him and us that sometimes it’s OK to fight back, while others tend to stick out and make you want to flip a few pages to get back to the funny.
Why We Suck ignited a small amount of controversy recently because of a section in the book where Leary blames a rise in the number of autistic children on parents who falsely diagnose them to explain the child’s oddness.
Some kids are just dumb, the product of inattentive parents, he argues, and telling these kids they are autistic instead of examining the root of the problem won’t help anyone.
“I don’t [care] what these crackerjack whack jobs tell you—your kid is not autistic. He’s just stupid. Or lazy. Or both.”
Leary has apologized for how this section was perceived, but he shouldn’t have. Like other controversial material in the book, he is attacking the problem-makers not the afflicted.
The writing in Why We Suck lacks any real flourish and can only be described as simple. That’s not a bad thing, but readers looking for clever turns of phrases or challenging ideas may want to look elsewhere. Still, part of the charm of this book is its clarity in writing and ideas.
You may be a dumb-fuck, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breather, but you can change. Just listen to the doctor’s advice.