Almost Interesting

There are a few different approaches to comedy memoirs. You can go with the actual story of your life (with jokes), a la Amy Poehler: This requires you to a) have an interesting life, and b) be funny. You can try for the structured set approach: You set the book up as a connected strand of narratives, each one with its own theme, and riff as you go. This is the most common approach, at least as practiced successfully: Patton Oswalt's Zombie Spaceship Wasteland, Jim Gaffigan's Dad Is Fat and Tina Fey's Bossypants.

All of this is by way of saying that David Spade could have really used a thoughtful approach here. The book's a bit schizophrenic: The first part is a pretty straightforward narrative of his life coming up in comedy. It's not peppered full of jokes, but memoirs don't need to be — it's about the person's life, and in Spade's case that life is worth reading about.

He of course covers Saturday Night Live, where most people know him from, and it's a worthwhile addition to the numerous full books that have been written about the show from Studio 6H. He also touches a bit on his most-well-known partner, Chris Farley, which I mention only because I've read him in other places talking about the emotional bond between the two. There's plenty of Farley information (with new stories), but Spade doesn't delve as deep into himself and his own feelings as he did in the beginning, so it winds up feeling a little bit like fanservice. Which is understandable — maybe he didn't want to linger too much on Farley (whether because of genuine emotion or not wanting to be eternally Farley's sidekick is immaterial) yet knew there would be an expectation for it — but it's noticeable, nonetheless.

But then it gets weird. We hear a genuinely terrifying about attempted murder, a pretty egregious theft by his housekeeper and ... Spade's thoughts on women? The general reader might not know it, but Spade possess a fairly sizable filmography post-Farley: Joe Dirt, Joe Dirt 2, Grown-Upses, Just Shoot Me, Emperor's New Groove, Benchwarmers, Dickie Roberts ... These get name-checks, at best. I'm not saying a memoir has to include absolutely everything that's ever happened (that's what the sequel's for!), but in this case the latter half of the book is just random stories. Personally, I would have much preferred jettisoning it entirely (except where it made sense in the narrative of his life) and gotten more about his work rather than what sounds like rehashed standup material.

I would have given this book a 3 star if he'd tone down the crassness a little. But this book should be given a 1 star for the complete and utter disrespect he flippantly throws around of not only his fans, his friends, and his family but most especially to women in general. I'm not someone who usually gets bent out of shape about this topic. I notice it but it's not my soapbox. However, David would just. not. let it. go. I GET it! Women are objects who threaten your ego... lay off a little. Jesus. He even mentions that half his followers/fans are female. Not sure he knows what that means when it comes to who will be reading his book. No tact whatsoever. I was a fan of his before this. Not a huge fan, but I liked him. Now... he's just so unsavory to me. He talks about social media being the worst for him because it was so much easier for him to be caught cheating and lying. He plays it off like the fact that he's an unfaithful lowlife is not his problem but the fact that he gets caught doing it that is the real issue. Which is all just such a shame because if it wasn't for his complete lack of personality and kindness there was a lot of interesting parts to his book. I was fascinated by a lot of his struggles and goals, his up and downs, I even laughed a few times. But it's completely undercut by his disregard for the people around him–unless its someone he is intimidated by (which he confuses for respect). Then he's pretty careful to mention how great they are.
Overall, I really wanted to like this but by the end I put the audiobook on 2X the speed desperately ready to put this book, and Dave, forever out of my life.

A surprisingly good book. I liked this comedy autobio more than many other comedy bio books out there. Really solid work.

Spade knows he's not everyone's cup of tea, and it's important to note the difference between the Spade you see on TV and in movies, and the real guy who is nothing like his stage persona. It was nice to hear the stories about Farley and Spade's time on SNL.

He doesn't really touch on much about Sandler, though. Found that a little strange.

Get the audiobook. Worth a listen.