I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths


Book Description

"Imagine Andy Rooney with a Georgia accent...and a sense of humor." THE HOUSTON POST Lewis Grizzard remembers 1962. But a lot's happened since then, and he's in the mood to discuss it all, in the inimitable style that's made him the most popular social commentator to tickle people AND tick them off. From being PC to watching MTV, from rednecks to black militants, from singing the praises of the South to sounding off on the problems of just about everywhere else, nothing and nobody escapes when Grizzard shoots from the lip...and hits the "nekkid" truth every time.




Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night


Book Description

The author of the phenomenal - and hilarious - best-seller Don't Bend over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes is back with an all-new collection of his funniest, sharpest observations yet. In Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night, Grizzard once again confirms his reputation as the "William Faulkner of just plain folks" using colorful storytelling and his own wonderful brand of humor to tackle such Grizzardian subjects as: International Relations: "If John Wayne were still alive, he'd know what to do to the Japanese investors - take a seven iron and run them and their checkbooks back home before it's too late and Vanna White has to learn eight zillion character signs in the Japanese alphabet to keep her job." Fashion: "Don't wear anything that features a picture of a pelican, a pink flamingo or a beer can." The Future: "I'm predicting the world isn't going to come to an end anytime soon. There's too much unresolved, like whether or not Elvis is still alive, Jimmy Swaggart can stay on television, and if there will be another Rambo sequel." Dating: "Any single white female who has to resort to taking out an ad to find a boyfriend would take a SWM who's into yodeling, Hustler magazine, Ripple and robbing convenience stores." Getting Back to Nature: "Snakes are right up there with the things that I fear most. Lightning is on that list. So is flying in bad weather at night, the dentist, and revenge-minded ex-wives." People Who Cheat in the 12-Items-or-Less Express Lane: "Previously, I have dog-cussed these people and put curses on them, like, 'May your children grow up to be liberal Democrats.' I'm not going to be that mean-spirited anymore. What I'm going to do is go to the vegetable bin, grab a large cucumber, and beat them about the head and shoulders with it." Lewis Grizzard offers his views on everything from politics, religion, sex and golf to the largest condom heist in history, proving he is wittier and more outrageous than ever. Chili Dawgs Always Bark at Night shows why the South's most popular humorist is now America's most popular funny man.




Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself


Book Description

The 1950s were simple times to grow up. For Lewis Grizzard and his buddies, gallivanting meant hanging out at the local store, eating Zagnut candy bars and drinking "Big Orange bellywashers." About the worst thing a kid ever did was smoke rabbit tobacco rolled in paper torn from a brown grocery sack, or maybe slick back his hair into a ducktail and try gyrating his hips like Elvis. But then assassinations, war, civil rights, free love, and drugs rocked the old order. And as they did, Grizzard frequently felt lost and confused. In place of Elvis, the Pied Piper of his generation, Grizzard now found wormy-looking, long-haired English kids who performed either half-naked or dressed like Zasu Pitts. Elvis Is Dead and I Don't Feel So Good Myself is the witty, satiric, nostalgic account of Grizzard's efforts to survive in a changing world. Sex, music, clothes, entertainment, and life itself receive the Grizzard treatment. In this, his sixth book, Grizzard was never funnier or more in tune with his readers. He might not have felt so good himself, but his social commentary and humor can still make the rest of us feel just fine.




It Wasn't Always Easy, But I Sure Had Fun


Book Description

The book Grizzard was working on when he died, and contains what he thought represented the best of the last decade of his writing.




If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground


Book Description

Lewis Grizzard got his first newspaper job when he was ten years old. Thirty-odd years later (thirty-very-odd years) he's still in the newspaper business--and he's still infuriated by it, still tickled by it, and still very much in love with it. If I Ever Get Back to Georgia, I'm Gonna Nail My Feet to the Ground is all about that anger, that great humor and that even greater passion for something that affects every single one of us: the daily newspaper. Grizzard begins with his first writing job (covering a Boy's Church League team in Newman, Georgia), and continues through his college years in Athens, Georgia, where he learned how to do such things as prepare a front-page headline and layout in case Jesus Christ ever returned to earth. (Headline: HE'S BACK!) He examines the great Atlanta years and the cold Chicago winters--as sports editor of the Sun-Times, during which Grizzard lost his second wife, his cool, and very nearly his sanity, but also learned an awful lot about life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. This is Grizzard's funniest--and his best--book yet.




Southern by the Grace of God


Book Description

The incomparable Grizzard shares anecdotes of his beloved homeland. No other contemporary humorist knew the South so well, loved it so passionately, or wrote about it so vividly.




Don't Bend Over in the Garden, Granny, You Know Them Taters Got Eyes


Book Description

This time Lewis Grizzard has gone and done it--written a book about sex, as seen through his bespectacled, ironic squint. He tells us why Junior Leaguers don't do it in groups, why Baptists won't do it standing up, and why Richard Nixon never did it, among other things. "From the Paperback edition.




They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat


Book Description

They Tore Out My Heart and Stomped That Sucker Flat, first published in 1982, has sold more than 100,000 copies. Without skipping a beat, one of America's favorite humorists, the late Lewis Grizzard, tells of the early stirrings of his wayward heart in the backseat of a '57 Chevy and the ominous murmurings that led him at age thirty-five to major surgery and the real answer to his question, "How much is this going to hurt?" In the process he discovers all the ways a heart can break. Young love. Three marriages. His father's death. And why his entire future suddenly depended on a little pig. He tells the truth—the whole truth—the kind that has readers laughing through their tears. United Press International said, "It makes you feel good to know a person can face the tubes, wires, knives and needles of major heart surgery and make you laugh about it—hilarious!"




My Daddy Was a Pistol and I’m a Son of a Gun


Book Description

Lewis Grizzard always makes us laugh. But this time, when he tells us all about his father—a certified war hero and a shameless passer of bad checks . . . a charmer of men and women and a consummate con artist . . . a man of great courage and an alcoholic destined to drink himself to death—he’s going to make us cry, too. And he’s going to give us a hilarious, moving account of that “tender, spooky territory: that country of the heart inhabited by fathers and sons.”




The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture


Book Description

Offering a comprehensive view of the South's literary landscape, past and present, this volume of The New Encyclopedia of Southern Culture celebrates the region's ever-flourishing literary culture and recognizes the ongoing evolution of the southern literary canon. As new writers draw upon and reshape previous traditions, southern literature has broadened and deepened its connections not just to the American literary mainstream but also to world literatures--a development thoughtfully explored in the essays here. Greatly expanding the content of the literature section in the original Encyclopedia, this volume includes 31 thematic essays addressing major genres of literature; theoretical categories, such as regionalism, the southern gothic, and agrarianism; and themes in southern writing, such as food, religion, and sexuality. Most striking is the fivefold increase in the number of biographical entries, which introduce southern novelists, playwrights, poets, and critics. Special attention is given to contemporary writers and other individuals who have not been widely covered in previous scholarship.