Portable Altamont
by Brian Joseph Davis
Coach House, 93 pages
Reviewed by Janine Armin
Do we all battle pop culture? God knows
that’s all I do, and most of my generation it seems. We simultaneously
relish in the satisfyingly unattractive candidates on America’s
Next Top Model, while claiming to have never watched an episode of The
Simple Life. But why do we seek justification? Brian Joseph Davis
proves that there is absolutely no reason. Why resist the banal, when it
can be this funny.
James Joyce’s work is packed with
in-jokes and references only a man of his age who lived within twenty
feet of his house could possibly get. Of course this isn’t the point
of his work. It is the twists and turns of phrase among a million other
things that will make a book outlast its references. Aside from the
riffs on names that will fade into the Etalk archives, Davis’ humour
is as true as it is ball-busting.
In the infamous words of Amy Sedaris on
the sorely underrated sitcom Strangers With Candy, "the
names change but the hassles remain the same." So it will be for
Portable Altamont, when in twenty years we find ourselves
interchanging names like James Spader and Tony Danza with similar stock
celebrities, biting our tongues to stifle snorting sounds.
In this wonderful collection of
mini-chain letters in which celebrities are often the first line, no one
is safe. Davis is the indie representative for In Touch magazine. He is
a philospher our disillusioned generation can count on. Sandwiched
between English degrees rendered meaningless by the retail jobs that
follow and Jessica Simpson’s obesely successful tits, what do we do
with all this conflicting information? If we follow Davis, we should
make asses out of the people who oppress us with their constant
self-exploitation. And jokes about Margaret Atwood ("whose human
beatbox routine is weak") also help. Then we should laugh, and
Davis makes sure we laugh until it hurts.
We laugh at Val Kilmer’s melancholic
inability to move a glass "telekinetically / to his lips." Or
smirk at Keith Richards’ dissent into the same fate as Dorian Gray,
with only Christy Turlington "wringing her hands" and Elle
Macperson "as pale as death" to mourn his loss.
In what could be the next runaway hit
drinking game, certain poems are more indicative of tequila intoxication
than others. The notes are written at that point, when you’ve been
partying now with the same person for four days and can hardly see
through your tears. The sun comes up over the sea of empty bottles just
as you reach the revelation: "Sean Penn doesn’t cry
anymore." Rolling on the floor intoxicated by your own sense of
comic timing, you note in the "errata" that "Sean Penn
still cries." Yes. The fluorescent manuscript is finalised when you
get a book deal, or piss your pants. |
