When You Are Englufed in Flames by David Sedaris

Yippee ki-yay, motherfucker! This has got to be the most badass book ever written! What could be more kickass than a skeleton smoking a motherfucking blunt? Pretty much nothing, not even Bruce Willis blowing up an airliner with a Zippo and laughing while doing so. Maybe a flaming skeleton pulling a bong hit. No, too contrived. A plain old skeleton smoking a blunt is way cooler. It’s artfully understated, elegant without being totally gay. This is real art for real people, not the kind of museum crap printed on coffee mugs and mouse pads. Monet, Manet, van Gogh (more like van Gay). They’re responsible for the elitist doctrine that art must be stuffy and effeminate, that it can never be funny or badass. I’m guessing that this cover might be a Caravaggio, the Bruce Willis of the Renaissance. While Michelangelo and company were wussing out, pissing their togas over God’s sociopathic omnipotence, Caravaggio was out shagging prostitutes and stabbing dudes to death. Therefore, When You Are Engulfed in Flames is not for the faint of heart or stomach. There is undoubtedly some crazy ass-kicking in this book.

The caption at the top of the cover says that Sedaris is also the author of Dress Your Family in Corduroy and Denim, further proof that this author speaks for the American everyman. Judging from this, my bet is that When You Are Engulfed in Flames is a cowboy revenge saga with old-fashioned grit and gore. The protagonist is probably some sort of amoral, misanthropic gunslinger whose entire family has been raped, slaughtered, and torched. They were the only thing keeping him on the straight and narrow, from regressing to his former days as a bank-robbing, ruthless bastard. Now, with nothing but his soul to lose, he takes a flaming Johnny Weissmuller swan dive into hell, blasting the faces of his enemies the entire way down. After Brokeback Mountain, the Western could use this kind of penile pick-me-up. When You Are Engulfed in Flames is basically John Wayne on Viagra, wielding modernized weaponry.

The book isn’t all blood and brawn. It also has thematic genius. The smoking skull depicted on the cover is a hedonistic reminder to pound as many beers and heads as possible before dying. In the end, life is like Bruce Willis, much shorter than you’ve imagined. 5’9 at best, and that’s in a pair of man clogs (my uncle almost beat him up a few summers ago in Boston for flirting with his wife). Caravaggio’s smoking skull isn’t some Surgeon General’s Warning about the dangers of smoking. It’s about pulling the trigger on evildoers with your middle finger. It’s why Adam Sandler holds a skull during his performance as Hamlet in Billy Madison. All those old-timers kept skulls around so they wouldn’t forget to avenge their enemies before dying. When your uncle kills your dad and starts banging your mom, when a gang of outlaws rapes and kills your entire family, you’ve got to ask yourself the following question: Do I want to be the proverbial zit on the proverbial ass cheek or do I want to burn in hell while gaining revenge?

Well, do ya, punk?

I didn’t think so, but you can rest easy knowing that there are authors out there like David Sedaris, depicting man in a way that the P.C. police might consider patriarchal and/or sexist, but with whom we true-blue, working class Americans would like to have a beer. The kind of man we’d cast a vote for in 2012.

Keep an eye out for When You Are Engulfed in Flames. It’s bound to become an American classic if republicans can string together a few more two-term presidencies. Even better, I've heard rumors that David Sedaris is going to write the next Die Hard script.