A Guide to Western Civilization: Or My Story

by joe-bob-briggs

The author of "Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In" brings his distinctly western irreverent humor to a "100 per cent fact-free autobiography" covering his poor childhood, vision of a drive-in Jesus, and his philosophy of life--and sin

Genres: Humor, Nonfiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published June 1, 1988

Reviews

[Hayley (Gory B Movie)]

A satirical take on American History that, while dated, is still funny. Fans of Joe Bob Brigg's will appreciate this. His trademark rants and humor are all over this. Yes, I should mention that it is full of offensive humor but none of it is mean-spirited. The joke is that our storyteller (Joe Bob) is an idiot who does not know better.

[Andrew]

Unfortunately just not a fan of this, which was a bit of a chore to power through. It's not that it's, like, morally wrong or anything, it's just that the humor doesn't work at all. I imagine this was dated even at the time, but - frankly - there's good reason this has remained out of print. Even if one grants that this is presented as satire and spoofery, it just isn't funny anymore (if it ever was to begin with).

Briggs/Bloom is capable of so much more than this, and this finds him during the particularly grim period of his career that also produced the disappointing "Joe Bob Dead in Concert" special. His reviews remain fascinating and valuable, but the characters he creates are - for now at least - best consigned to their appearances there.

[Ethan Nahté]

The fictional tale of Joe Bob Briggs finds the Texan in search of his lost love, José, who he first hired to dance in his strip club, her show featuring her exploding boobs. During the course of his travels in search of his love, he gets arrested a few times, figures out the real shooter of JFK, and helps to make the Meskins proper illegal citizens.

Joe Bob's humor has its moments, and it's possible that the humor and phonetically spelled words will only be funny to Southerners and those of the redneck persuasion. Not a great book, but not awful.

[Amber Fernie]

My first instinct was to cringe a little at some of the language in this, but I’m a big fan of the author so I stuck with it keeping in mind that Joe Bob is a character and the writing is satire. Ultimately, the joke is on himself here. I thought it was amusing and had some brilliant moments which genuinely made me laugh, but I’ve enjoyed some of his other writing more. Maybe it’s a maturity thing? One of my favorite writers, but not one of my favorite books.

[Mark Dunn]

I usually hate redneck humor but Joe Bob Briggs is an exception to the rule he is all that is politically incorrect. It's a no brained that Joe Bob Briggs is an awful person etc. There I said it. John Bloom on the other hand is a comic writer who makes me laugh out loud.

[Craig Williams]

Joe Bob Briggs takes a break from reviewing drive-in movies to tell the story of his fictitious life, or at least part of it. If you've ever read the Joe Bob Goes to the Drive-In reviews, you're aware that Joe Bob always starts with a short snapshot of what's going on in his life at that time before delving in the movie review. It's an interesting way to review movies, though I've always been more partial to the reviews than the preamble.

So naturally, this book was a bit of a tough read since it's nothing BUT the preamble, with no reviews whatsoever. It was amusing at first, and John Bloom, the mastermind behind the Joe Bob Briggs persona, certainly has an active imagination when it comes to creating a biography for his alter-ego. The book begins with a brief history of Joe Bob's childhood as a mischievous young entrepreneur who ran bets in school. As he grows up, his industrious spirit leads up to open up a "the South's first titty bar", where he ends up falling in love with one of his dancers, eventually leading him on a cross country chase after she abruptly leaves him for another man. During Joe Bob's odyssey to find his lost love, he ends up in a bass fishing tournament, piloting a boat so large and outfitted with weaponry to almost be military grade; he briefly dabbles in escorting illegal aliens from Mexico across the border; and becomes a country music star, among other things.

As I said before, while I was initially amused, my amusement just wasn't sustained and the book began to get a bit tiresome. The appeal of Joe Bob Briggs is his wealth of knowledge about B-movies wrapped up in a shamelessly uncouth redneck character. There's a certain charm to the mixture of a socially crass cowboy, who can also articulately discuss filmmaking on the level of most academics. I just think the character works better on television, where John Bloom's natural charisma shines through, as opposed to in writing, where the character just comes across as obnoxious.