I Only Roast The Ones I Love

I Only Roast The Ones I Love by Jeffrey Ross is, as the title suggests, about roasting. Not pigs on a spit of course, but instead the art of insulting (all in good fun) a guest of honor at a banquet in front of an audience of friends/fans. Ross is a stand-up comedian probably most well known for being part of the celebrity roasts on Comedy Central. He’s also the current “Roastmaster General” of the New York Friars’ Club and a popular insult comic. I first heard about this book on one of Bill Simmons’ (ESPN’s Sports Guy) podcasts after Ross was a guest and mentioned a story in his book revolving around Tom Cruise saving his friendship with his friend Sal. It's a long story involving Dancing with the Stars and a Jimmy Kimmel football game watch – seriously. Anyway, the book supposedly contained a picture of Tom Cruise standing between the two as they shook hands and made up. I happened to mention this to Mrs. because it seemed funny and lo and behold she remembered this and bought me the book for Christmas.

The book is filled with stories of how Ross got into comedy, stories of the roasts he’s been involved in, and tips for becoming a roaster yourself, which might be handy if you need to give a best man/maid of honor speech in the near future. If you’ve seen any of the Comedy Central celebrity roasts you know they aren’t always clean and neither are a lot of the jokes in the book. For example at the Pam Anderson roast Jeff Ross ripped (a not exactly with it) Courtney Love by saying “Folks, how is it possible that Courtney Love looks worse than Kurt Cobain?” Ouch! – you know, Kurt having died 11 years before in 1994. The funniest roast moment ever involves Bea Arthur and a joke that Mrs. would never allow me to print on this blog, but it is described in the book. I thought the book was amusing and it actually left me wanting to watch some comedy, but it isn’t going to win any Pulitzer prizes. There were several stories of Ross first starting out in comedy and interacting with other young comedians at the time like Jon Stewart and Dave Chappelle, and I actually would have liked to read more of that. But, as promised, there was a picture (actually two pictures) of Tom Cruise as the mediator in the spat between the two friends. That alone may have been worth the price of the book.

Incidentally, right as I finished this book the celebrity roast of David Hasselhoff premiered on Comedy Central. Mrs. and I caught most of it and you have to like anyone who can make fun of themselves and “The Hoff” sure does his share of self parody. And of course Jeff Ross was there complete with a leather jacket, a black speedo, and well, not much else. That was not in the book.

Next up: On The Road by Jack Kerouac