The Truth Will Blad You Free
As I wrote on May 13, I was the lucky person who won a “blad” (basic layout & design) pre-release of the Stephen Colbert book that is coming out this October, I Am America (And So Can You!) DB at NoFactZone had gotten I think three of these to give out as promotional materials and I, shockingly, won one on my one entry that I sent in. I’ve been waiting to do a write-up on it because I wanted to balance out my entries between the Fake News guys and some other stuff that is, um, not all about them? But you know how it is, time is going by and if I don’t get something up soon, it will be October and the book will be out and then nobody will care about the blad anymore. And we can’t have that now, can we?
Well. First off, I’d love to be able to post pictures of the actual blad itself but at the present time Hachette Book Group USA (parent company of the publisher, Grand Central Publishing) has not authorized people to do this. But who cares, you might ask, just post them. They’ll never know and besides, what can they get from you, meaning, me? Well, I suppose that’s all true–they probably would never know–except that I am trying to get an advance copy of the book and so of course am not going to do anything stupid enough to jeopardize my relations (which at this point are admittedly almost non-existent) with them. But one never knows. I expect any day–any moment, even!–to hear from them veritably begging me to review the book. Why, I get 30 hits a day here! That translates into … at least … let me count, 30 people … would would read it! And hang on my every word!!! Sometimes I get 100, or MORE, per day, if I write something about Stephen! (Stephen Colbert has the most rabid [read: batshit insane] fans on the planet. They’ll read anything, look at anything, salivate over anything, and spread the word far and wide over anything that contains the merest glimmer of the tiniest mention of the slightest possibility that maybe they can read something new about him.) How could Hachette turn down such marketing giantess???
(Seriously, Hachette, you don’t know who you’re giving that puzzled look to. Let me do a video review too and between that, here, and all the places I’m linked to, I can almost guarantee 10,000 hits in a month or two. My work is very popular.)
Anyhoo, I did find some pictures on Hachette’s own site and will be uploading shortly. (Edit 06/09: they’re added.)
So on to the blad.
It’s artistically really gorgeous. The cover is a really intense-hued matte finish borderless photograph (it doesn’t come out nearly as well in the pictures as it really is). I think, however, after seeing the videotape Stephen did for BookExpo America, that they are going with glossy for the actual book. More’s the pity; matte is nicer-looking and is unusual, which I think would draw casual browsers to it, and it looks more expensive because it is more expensive. This is probably why they ended up going with glossy, I suppose. Blads often change from “blad” to actual print. In fact, if you notice, the cover photograph on the Hachette site is entitled I Am America And So Can You, whereas the blad in my hand is stylized slightly differently: I Am America (And So Can You!) so what’s inside could well change before publication too. The book’s not done yet anyway. I know that Stephen is spending a lot of nights after the show working on the book with a longtime collaborator, who I’m not naming because he’s not been named in any of the publicity as yet. Maybe they’re under the delusion that it’s a secret? Well it’s not, Stephen and “Friend” and you know who you are! I hope you plan to put his name in big letters inside. (N.B. There is no title page in the blad, nor an acknowledgments page, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens.)
The whole book will obviously be written as “Stephen,” not Stephen. (When Stephen’s name is in quotation marks, people are talking about his character, not he himself.) There are 18 chapters, starting with an intro and finishing with “A Note To The Future: Instructions on How to Defrost My Head.” Other chapter titles include:
“Homosexuals: Terror Alert Level: Pink”
“Religion: Accepting Jesus As My Personal Saviour”
“Class War: Welfare Queens Not Real Royalty”
“Sex And Dating: 1001 Abstinence Positions”
“The Gender Wars: Men and Females (Why Not Femens?)”
and the two that I am the most curious about,
“Grooming and Hygiene: Look Like a Million Bucks (Pre-Tax!)”
and
“My Balls: Welcome to Them”
As I said, the book is written by “Stephen,” and he faithfully stays true to form in every rant on every page. The overblown pompousity, the narcissism, the uber-patriotism, the love for himself that he would modestly say can’t be helped because he is, after all, him. This sounds like a very unpleasant person to be around, and would be if it were a real person, but as the character, it somehow works. He’s so far off in the Land of the Ignorant Right as Perceived in the Mind of Stephen T. Colbert, DFA, that it’s hilarious.
Inset:
He draws a fair amount from material he has spoken of or at least alluded to on the show, but I think that even someone with a less-than-encyclopaedic knowledge of The Colbert Report (”check your local listings,” as he points out early on) would not be at sea while reading. The book takes the form of a satirical, often sarcastic rant on all the things that bother “Stephen” about America, puncuated by frequent asides in little red font that are the equivalent of someone standing over your shoulder and whispering explanations while you are trying to read the newspaper. And yet they are funny, not annoying. I don’t think the book would be the same without them: they definitely add to the timbre. Actually, you can almost hear him saying these things, in his “Stephen” theatrical whisper, as you’re reading. Something else I found hilarious was that at the start of each chapter is a photograph of him, and the caption for every single picture is exactly the same. What it is I won’t give away, but it’s the most narcissistic pompous set of captions any group of pictures could ever possess, while at the same time being the epitome of quiet understatement. How is this dichotomy possible? Because it comes from Stephen, that’s why. He has really milked his character’s ignorance so far into the unrealistic that the whole work is reminiscent of Jonathan Swift’s A Modest Propsal, to which I am sure many references will be made once the book is released. And like Swift, there will probably be a contingent (hopefully, please god, let it be small) of people who will read this book and not see the irony and will then take it completely at face value and talk about how that Colbert is just what America needs and why isn’t he on Fox News anyway?
Followers of his former work will notice several references to it, including a taxidermied squirrel (”Exit 57″), which I would bet money belongs to his close friend Amy Sedaris. There’s also a very “Strangers With Candy” Chuck Noblet-esque mustache that appears, fittingly, in the “Homosexuals” chapter. I am looking forward to finding a few more in-jokes in the actual release. Although to be sure, if you don’t “get” them it doesn’t affect one’s understanding of the book at all. It’s just nice to come across them and have your own private laugh.
Inset: 
I don’t want to do a really in-depth study of the blad, because for one it might change for final publication; and two, I’d rather save that for the book. Actually I’d like to to a contrast analysis between the blad and the finished product: I think it would be really fascinating to readers to see what a difference 6 months and final galleys make. But the tone of the tome, as it were, can probably be summed up by something he says early on:
“I deliver my Truth hot and hard. Fast and Furious. So either accept it without hesitaton or get out of my way, because somebody might get hurt and it’s not going to be me.”
And right next to that statement, the little red font in the margin says, “It’s going to be you.”
This is what “Dr. Stephen T. Colbert, DFA” is all about. And that’s what makes him, and this book, so funny.
# # #
For more on “Stephen” and his own promotion of the book, watch the video from Book Expo America 2007, broadcast on C-SPAN2 (”BookTV”) on June 2:
Part 1 (Author intros and Stephen’s own videotaped promo)
I Am America (And So Can You!) set for release October 9.
