‘Chicken Poop’ dumps a load of dim-witted humor
MThe ‘Chicken Soup for the Soul’ parody opus, ‘Chicken
Poop for the Soul,’ could use a little satirical fertilizer
Possibly the best jewel of wis
dom I've ever received was that
“The best laid plans don’t al-.
ways get you laid the way you
Review
Bret
Jacobson
planned.” Sage advice when you
consider that execution is ab
solutely critical to carrying out
good ideas. Such is the case in
books.
Millions have come to love
the “Chicken Soup for the Soul”
book series, which has sought to
inspire and uplift any who
would pore through the tales of
love, warmth and achievement.
And then there’s “Chicken Poop
for the Soul II: More Droppings,”
a parody of the series which of
fers the bold guarantee to enter
tain the cynic in all of us.
Unfortunately, this Pocket.
Books release by author David
Fisher won’t get anybody what
they were seeking because the
humor isjiackneyed, pedestrian
and underachieving. And bad.
Not good.
The book is split up into 50 vi
gnettes theoretically designed to
make the reader laugh due to
sarcasm and today’s brand of
misguided and uneducated
irony.
For instance, the work enti
tled, “My First Date,” is the sto
ry of a 16-year-old girl’s first
date and the overprotective fa
ther who questions the date’s
ability to take proper care of the
girl.'The story, in a pitiable at
tempt to mock the rite of pas
sage, descends into a mangled
mess of father posing such pos
sible circumstances as terrorist
hostage-takers, a fire in a movie
theater with no escape and car
jackers stealing the young
woman.
The far-fetched story is so far
outside the realm of anything a
normal person can relate to it
loses its appeal. But the ill-fat
ed date story was not the only
egg laid by this chicken.
The recipe for the “Ultimate
Fat-Free, Low-Cholesterol,
Low-Sodium Diet,” is so banal
it makes a Louis L’ Amour book
look like “The Hunt for Red
October.” The prescription
“was discovered thousands of
years ago and has been proven
to work through the annals of
recorded history,” including the
ancient Egyptians. Obviously
the book refers to starvation,
which has its own place in com
edy lore, but fails to pull off the
feat because the joke simply is
n’t funny, thought-provoking or
new.
All this disappointed criti
cism is not to say the book does
n’t have its moments. “The Sev
en Secrets of Highly
Rich People,” is some
what amusing. The
simple methods of at
taining riches appar
ently is as follows, in
order. “1) Don’t tell
anybody anything
about anything; 2) Es
pecially don't tell the
IRS anything; 3) Never
respond to writers’
questions for inter
views about how you
earned your money; 4)
If the writers call, have
your secretary tell
them that you’re out of
the country and she
doesn’t know when
you’ll be back; 5) Don’t
let your relatives know
anything about your fi
nancial situation; espe
cially your husband or
wife; 6) If Donald
Trump wants to take
credit for it, let him;
and 7) Remember,
there is no such thing
as a secret if more than
one person knows
about it.
But in the end,
“Chicken Poop for the
Soul,” is a sad attempt at a
promising idea. No series de
serves more mocking, parody or
sarcasm directed at it — except,
maybe Oprah’s book club —
Excerpt from'Chick
en Poop for the Soul’
Have you ever wondered where
•yourtimegoe's? Well, if you’re the
average person, you spend about
15 hours a year, that’s two and a
half minutes per day, brushing
your teeth. But you also spend
slightly more than 106 days fast
asleep. Those are only some of the
surprising statistics contained in a
recently issued reporton time
management issued by the U.S.
Bureau of Waits and Measures.
As it turns out, Americans spend
almost 1,000 hours annually on
sex. That includes 600 hours think
ing about it, 150 hours reading
about it, 150 hours wishing we
could get some, 26 hours making
up phony descri ptions to be used
in answering personal ads like
“Sophia toren look-alike” or
“ ruggedly handsome” when it re
ality it should be “still breathing,"
13 hours lying to friends about get
ting it, 10 hours of phone sex, 41
hours in close personal relation
ships with ourselves, and 15 hours
of real sex.
SOURCf: 'Chicken Poop for the SoulII: More
Droppings’
than the “Chicken Soup for the
Soul” series. But this just does
n’t cut it.
The best laid plans? Perhaps,
but you know the rest.
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