Anyone who's read me for a while knows I'm a huge fan of what I like to call toilet books. These are the books that (maybe not) you bring in with you for a pleasant little time away from the world, crapping or peeing to your heart's content while you read a little something something.
Toilet books can't be linear. They need to be something you can simply flip through and select a random page to read. Doesn't matter what page you turn to, you're going to find something interesting. After all, you're only going to be in their for ten or twenty minutes. Now, this is important: It also can't be a book you're reading in a linear fashion, because that interrupts your digestive flow. No, no, no. The perfect bathroom book needs to be something light and tasty, but with a little kick...kind of like an aperitif.
And of course, you need to mix bathroom books up every so often. One does get bored reading the same books time and again, after all. As a result, some get put away for a year or so, and then come back again. Others get retired for good.
So, in no particular order, here are my current picks for classic bathroom books...what I'm reading now. Pick a few up and you can crap like Ted! Let's face it, that's infinitely more entertaining than moving like Jagger. I know, right?
- Get Happy: the Life of Judy Garland by Gerald Clarke. Okay, I lied, this is my number one fave, right now. I have to admit, I am mildly obsessed with this book. But how can you not be fascinated with a book that has a story about Judy Garland giving some random movie star a hummer and then being forced to sing "Over the Rainbow" after she's done finishing him off? Talk about singing for your supper! Or the MGM executive who flashes a teen Shirley Temple, expecting her to service him, but she just ends up in a fit of giggles, so he fires her? I mean, this book is the Good Ship Lollipop, and the some! (My personal favorite pages: the late MGM years, right before she gets fired and tries to commit suicide. I don't like the suicide part, so I always skip over that.)
- Center Square: The Paul Lynde Story by Wilson and Florenski. A quick read about the misadventures of a deeply troubled gay icon: practically every page ends in disaster. Without a doubt, the most offensive Hollywood Squares Paul Lynde joke: "What should you think when you walk into an apartment and all the walls and carpets are brown?" Paul Lynde: "The maid exploded."
- Sing for Your Supper by Ethan Mordden. A look a Broadway musicals in the 1930s. Fascinating rhythm!
- Popeye: The First Fifty Years by Bud Sagendorf. If I had a book on Dick Tracey, that would be on this list. But how can you go wrong with the Sea Hag, Alice the Goon, or Poopdeck Pappy?
- My 1981 High School yearbook. Okay, okay, I know you PROBABLY don't have access to this one, particularly the version I own, which my best friend from high school sent an ENTIRE YEAR defiling and defacing. But if only you could...oh, the hours of pleasure I've derived from this book! It's better than sex. Well, almost. I'm including two of the few items that couldn't possibly offend anyone...the rest just will have to remain secret for some time to come.
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