How many ways are there to celebrate America? Letās see, thereās Nebraska. Scottie Pippen. Masters of the Universe Evil Pit of Gruesome Goo Playset. Pigeons. Actually, let me check my local library. Itās possible someone wrote a book about this and I can save myself a lot of hard work. Oh! Here we go! Perfect:
Gregory J.P. Godek is one things. A romance author, and a romance author. So when I saw he wrote a book about America, I thought āFinally, someone learned how to fuck this great nation.ā This is not that. This is something so much less. Maybe less than anything has ever been. 1001 Ways to Celebrate America is -25% of an idea. Itās something a below average goldfish would think from a can of lead paint.
Instead of clips, I chose to scan entire pages. I really wanted you to see the emptiness of Godekās thoughts on America. I also worried you might not believe it was real. There are twelve more words in this sentence than there are on the opening page of this book. And, sure, the words so far are fine. Theyāre not his, or profound in any way, but they do communicate the bookās real intent: filling space at any cost. To Greg Godek, there is no difference between good and bad writingā only numbers checked off and numbers not checked off. He writes like he just Quantum Leaped into a bridesmaid giving a wedding toast.
What are we in the brainstorming meeting for the book weāre fucking reading? This isnāt how you celebrate America. This is how you publish the unedited notes of a middle school presidentās concession speech. This sounds like a Tesla commercial after a racial scandal.
This goddamn moron, this soulless piece of trash, has only written 20 words so far, 13 if you donāt count repeats, and he is already rearranging them. Itās page three. Greg Godek has run out of ideas on the third page of his America book. Fuck his desperate, coughing, childlike brain. He thinks the completion of the assignment itself is the goal of a writer, that the simple act of saying 1001 vaguely American things is a victory. But is it? Are there readers out there going, āNine hundred ninety-nine, one thousand, one thousand andā¦ by god, he did it! He really did it!ā Iād argue no. Iād argue fuck no. These are dumb answers to a quiz a fool gave himself for no possible audience, and the subtext of each thought seems to be āUm, technically that one counts!!ā
Sure, random quotes from the miscellaneous. Youāre welcome, America. Iāve read Godekās other books, so I knew it was going to eventually be grandpa trying to remember things, but he got there so fast. He skipped right past hula hoops and REO Speedwagon to get to ānoises the TV makes.ā
Have you heard of holidays? Because if you havenāt, buckle the fuck up. They happen every year, and if you think they all have normal-colored eggs, egg again. What are we reading, and who is it for? These sound like memory implants a clone would reject before it thrashed free of its pod. Best-selling author Greg Godek wrote a baby book with no pictures for the elderly.
Say something, anything, about something, Godek. You set out to list famous things and failed to connect them with any thread of context. Thereās nothing to give or take from this. Thereās not even a discussion to be raised. After reading this someone could say, āWhat about the 17th largest pancake?ā and Godek would have to say, āYes! Precisely!ā Or maybe he would say, āNo, no, big foods donāt belong on this list of six paintings, historical events, landmarks, or spaceships.ā It wouldnāt matter either way, because these arenāt ideas. This is fluid dripping from the ears of a basic bitch killed with a hammer.
So after seven pages of almost pornographic emptiness, pages 8 and 9 are hugs. I think Godek is really going through something. Maybe weād better stop to try to figure it out. Did he write this while being strangled? Did he only recently hear about America? I think I could be the man to solve this. Because like anyone could if they had 75 cents and a GoodWill nearby, I own all of Greg Godekās books. Here, look, I took this photo in my home:
See, in 1991, Greg wrote 1001 Ways To Be Romantic. It was a hit! Unfortunately, it was not a good book, he wasnāt a good writer, and he never had another inspiration. So he updated and reissued the book a few times, wrote a āsequel,ā wrote another āsequel,ā wrote a parody, chopped it into parts to make smaller books, and adapted it into coupons several times. By my count, 1001 Ways to Celebrate America was Godekās 22nd book, and it is, without question or exaggeration, only the second thing heās ever written.
In the year 2001, Greg was running out of idea. For a full decade, he had been taking words from his inexplicably successful book and shoving them around, polishing the pizza grease on his obvious and square dating advice. And then a smaller tragedy happened. Someone flew a plane into a building. Because, yes, 1001 Ways to Celebrate America was a shameless attempt to cash in on September 11th.
Greg Godek dedicated this book, this assortment of loose thoughts from a saccharine fuck, to the victims of 9/11. He had only 1,001 things to give them, and one of them was āMake a wish on the wishbone at Thanksgiving.ā Which reminds me of something I recently heard: this is a loose assortment of thoughts from a saccharine fuck. Is that because it was rushed? How soon after the towers fell was this published?
Two thousand and one!? That means that while a nation mourned, Godek pitched, wrote, edited, and printed this book in under 111 days. Thatās fast. Air traffic controllers leapt into action with less urgency than Greg Godek on 9/11. His first through fifth stages of grief were wondering how the situation could make him money, which I guess is pretty American. And maybe Iām being too hard on him. Three and a half months is a decent amount of time. Itās not like he published his 9/11 book inā¦
ā¦ holy fucking shit, OCTOBER OF 2001? How!? Godek had to have already been working on those Easter egg tips (āColor eggs at Easter.ā if you donāt remember) while they were still watching the towers burn. Debris was falling from the sky and he was hunched over the keyboard saying, āHug your Mom. Okay, think, Greg, think. What else, what elseā¦ Hug yourā¦ thatās it! Dad!ā
When he told his wife heād already finished the first 100 pages of his 9/11 book, her response was, āA second plane has hit the tower.ā
Letās keep reading this gift he lovingly, thoughtfully gave to the survivors.
āCaptain Ahab,ā said Greg Godek to the shell-shocked survivors of September 11th. His words came as a comfort, a resource in short supply. āMarilyn Monroe. Mae West,ā he concluded, for some reason. America had lost so much. We were attacked in our home by an enemy wielding terror as a weapon, but this brave romance author refused to give up. He said seven celebrities or politicians or fictional characters, in no particular order. Our wounded nation could not have asked for a more noble savior.
āThe basic idea of cookies,ā said Greg Godek over the course of an entire page of his 9/11 book. āThereās no fucking way thatās true,ā your mind might respond. Yet it is. All of it. He summarized the process of making and enjoying cookies, and enjoying was three of the four steps.
Itās easy to dismiss this book as a senile man jotting down the last of his memories, but look again. Itās not quite even that. Heās asking the reader to do that. To all the victims of the horrific bombings of the World Trade Center, know this: Americans can name George Jetsonās dog, Archie Bunkerās wife, Charlieās Angels. By the way, thereās no answer key. If youāre a 9/11 survivor who doesnāt know the name of George Jetsonās dog, add this page to your suffering.
Whatās frustrating is that I donāt mind nostalgia, or evoking shared memories. There are a lot of ways to say āthink about Batmanā where I will agree with you. But this sucks so hard. Godek is talking like heās on a date with 1971ās dumbest 14-year-old. He didnāt come up with a cute framing device or any kind of trivia game. This is a rat scientist who got confused by his own maze. Greg might as well be begging his reader to remember things for him.
Yeah, like that, Godek. Certainly these moments in our great history deserve a place of honor here, across from the sentence, āA talking horse.ā Itās frustrating because Gregory is almost stumbling into punchlines. Deliriously recalling bloody military battles in the same breath you sort of remember the Brady Bunch is so close to funny. And yet itās also so far past absurd thereās no parody for it. I could say, āRemember the Holocaust, Tiananmenās Square, and laughing along with Gilligan,ā but why? Thatās almost exactly what he already said!
Itās important not to take nuanced work like this out of context so here is Gregory Godekās Way to Celebrate America, Number 180ish, in its entirety: General Robert E. Lee.. āFruit Loops, car tires, breakfast cereal,ā he no doubt considered instead. I think he made the right call.
Whatās this? What good will a list of celebrity couples from the 1960s do me? What am I, the opening comic for a child magician in a hospice?
āProms.
Pom-poms.ā
You canāt improve on perfection. Hate him or hate him, sometimes Godek is right.
Itās crazy this man is a romance author, because this is what youād say if you were a wizard casting a spell to seal all the worldās vaginas. This is a script Dan Aykroyd would call, āExactly what I needed to show off my comedic range.ā Read this out loud. There is no one in your life who loves you enough to not shoot you in the head before you get to āAnd awayyyy we go!ā
Again, thereās never been any published work so close to nothing as this. You canāt say less than the names of 19 baseball players. Like, if you said the names of 18 baseball players Iād call it a tie.
This is a test youād give your students if you taught a course on Not Indulging Every Little Fleeting Thought. Youād ask them āA list of abbreviated organizationsā¦ is that anything?ā and fail everyone who said higher than maybe. A big part of talent comes from knowing when an idea is bad before itās fully executed. Any competent writer would have seen this concept as a dead end. But to not see how fucking worthless it is afterwards, after youāre sitting there looking at a tower of random letters? Thatās what makes Godek special. He was proud of this. Gregory J.P. Godek kept his name on this book. He thought his name helped.
And yet maybe there was a part of Godek that knew what he was doing was wrong. Because this page makes no sense if youāre a grieving 9/11 survivor hoping to learn new ways to celebrate America. But it does make sense if youāre an exploitative piece of shitās subconscious crying out from the space between old sitcom memories.
Heās done. Godek is spent. This is the background noise of a boomer brain when they forget to bring a magazine to the toilet. He has been so utterly and completely defeated by the challenge of āsay 1000 things, dumbshit.ā
Iām in a relatively unique position to understand Godekās struggle since I spent a decade at a website that specialized in generating massive amounts of lists. But I did not know there was a stage of the writing process like this. This is more raw than anything Iāve ever jotted down. For instance, a real line from my notes file is āthat dinosaur cop movie had to sue Whoopi Goldberg to be in it, other movies where similar happened?ā and without touching a word, Iād put the value of that up against any of these lists Godek fully edited and published to honor the 9/11 dead.
I think we can all appreciate the nimble and creative mind of Gregory Godek who somehow thought of the movie Groundhog Day while he was talking about Groundhog Day, but look at his glorious tip for 9/11 survivors celebrating Valentineās Day. He suggests being romantic, great Valentineās Day advice, and then plugs his other book. Which is, oh no, itās another situation with no analogy. Because this is like sneaking in an advertisement while youāre in the middle of exploiting September 11th for profit. I donāt know where to go from there. Iād have to say something beyond ridiculous like, āThatās like telling someone to read Mein Kampf in a Gregory Godek book.ā And I would never. That would be cartoonish nonsense; a hack joke beneath my contempt.
Oh f-fuck.
Sure, hug Mickey Moā no. No. How did that happen? Did I somehow conjure that? I refuse to believe we live in a universe where a bestselling author wrote a book about the 1001 ways to celebrate America and one of them was, word-for-word, āRead Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.ā How did reading Mein Kampf even crack the topā I mean, were there no contenders who could push Hitler into 1002nd place? Like, off the top of my head, sunflower seeds, rustic fencing, read Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler. Huh. I guess it always finds a way in.
Iām almost positive the hardest, most time-consuming part of Gregās creative process was figuring out how to look up āsongs with U.S.A. in their titleā on the 2001 world wide web.
Heās checking his AOL keywords for more America songs? This is a sick mind dry heaving. It might as well say, ā Shapes I saw while being dragged from a motorcycle in the USA: triangle, chickens, blue, Read Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler..
I donāt know how to describe this. Is a list āeclecticā when itās only five things long? Is his brain really out, entirely fucking out, of things? Iām making fun of him, but I honestly donāt know what heās trying for here. I donāt know what links these people or what he left off this list. Maybe Pizza Hut? A lawn dart injury? Why did he stop? I canāt imagine what ideas he would reconsider if he left Hitler in.
Jesus Christ, the ABCs of America? Godek has stopped his list of random things to write a smaller list of random things. Iām going to add the concept of alphabetized lists to the casualties suffered in the terror attacks of September 11th. Letās jump aheaā oh my god. No.
That monster. He did it again 44 pages later. Which would be a lot in a different book, but youāve seen what Godek pages look like. I skipped him naming shirt colors and remembering I Dream of Jeannie. Thatās ten minutes of work, at most. Which means smoke was still rising over the devastated New York City skyline while Godek was polishing the line āEnjoy freedomā in his second āABCs of Americaā list that day. You know what might be fun? Letās see how this creative genius handled the alphabetās tough later letters.
Ha ha for the letter Y he went with āYup!ā which is, of course, short for āYup! We celebrate being American!ā Ha ha ha what a goddamn fucking stupid fuck. Greg Godek is the Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler of books.
Iām about to make it worse.
This is not the first and second time Greg Godek has been writing a big, dumb list only to stop and make a small, dumb list based on the English alphabet. He first did it before back in 1991 in 1001 Ways to Be Romantic:
This one wasnāt so bad. Itās a nice tight list of romantic words like Panties and Pizza. Also, Quebec, Quiche. Restful. All the words you need for romance. And including only Sex for the letter āSā is as close to cute as weāve ever seen Godek be. It shows restraint. It had to have been tough to resist putting in Salad and Signed Copy of Mein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.
You might see where this tangent is going, but Godek did this alphabet shit again in his followup book, 1001 MORE Ways to Be Romantic:
In this book, his āABCā section spanned numbers 1465-1490 because each letter counts as its own entry. A. B.old C.hoice! D.ogshit E.thics, F.ucking G.odek. H.a I.ām J.ust K.idding. L.etās M.ein Kampf, by Adolf Hitler.
His worst version of the idea came in 10,000 Ways to Say I Love You, which is a hilariously impossible number for an author who, after pizza and Hitler, knows less than 400 things.
On number 7966, SEVEN THOUSAND NINE HUNDRED AND SIXTY SIX, Godek took this concept, the kind of poem a tiny child would write, and turned it into a coupon! But not a fully realized coupon! Itās a coupon you, the reader, gets to come up with based on your loverāsā¦ favorite letter? I canāt be reading this right. Oh, good. Hereās a nice normal one from The Portable Romantic:
Again, he makes you do most of the work but he still counts it as 3 entries because he gave you A through C. I donāt know what any of this means in relation to his tribute to 9/11. I donāt know why Iām documenting it. Thereās no need for it. We all understood this man was intellectually and creatively bankrupt. But thereās something fascinating about a man whose eyeballs turn to dollar signs when thereās a terror attack and who shouts āeureka!ā whenever he remembers the alphabet. Anyway, hereās an unrelated clipping from his book, Romantic Essentials.
Sorry, thatās the same one asā no, this is the right clipping. It was Godek who accidentally copied three entire entries of his other book. Oh well, everyone makes mistaKampf, by Adolf Hitler. By this point Godek knows we know heās the ABC guy and heās not embarrassed. For him, being a tired cliche is a time saver. In the next entries, instead of typing out complicated instructions on how to do the alphabet at home, he simply says, āA-to-Z Romantic Gifts: I think you know what to do!ā followed by just the worst goddamn examples of gift ideas:
You get it. Buy her 26 gifts. Aretha Franklin albums, Baileys Irish Creme. . . etc. If she figures out what youāve done, and she wonāt because sheād probably alphabetize those items under āFā and āIā, she wonāt know why you did it! You insufferable maniac!
When Godek was writing his book Romantic Mischief, he had another brilliant idea: the alphabet!
Itās 90% identical to one from the last two books.
I donāt know if āCāCome closer, my honey bun!ā is better than the previous version, āCome closerā never leave me!ā It doesnāt matter because any reasonable woman would C.all the police and C.ut your dick off. Youāre welcome for the C.omedy.
Oh, look. He did it again in the same book. We need to keep this moving, so Iām going to skip to everyoneās favorite, the pizza and sex part.
Okay, this is a little different. Godek has been making changes, tinkering with his love advice. In this revised version, heās removed the pizza and addedā¦ socks. Why? Thatās plainly worse, Godek. You went from fucking on pizza to dry sex in socks.
Now hold on, I know this is a tangent within a tangent, but Iām going to look something up.
This is the index from 1001 Ways to Be Romantic. Godek didnāt include one in 1001 Ways to Celebrate America because when your book is only a list of things, an index is nothing more than the whole book again. But back to my pointā you can see what young Godek thought was important. Pizza(!) appeared on four pages and was categorized with an exclamation point. And youāre reading that correctlyā six of his other romantic tips were Playboy magazine. Thatās more than pizza! This was a horny, hungry man ready to take on the world.
Now letās see what happened when he went back and made his revisions:
Later editions only mention pizza twice. Thatās barely more than section āPlay,ā subsection āit again, Sam.ā I donāt know what Iām trying to prove. That he once stood for something? Definitely not. That he used to have more pizza and masturbation in his life? I guess. I canāt believe this discount Hallmark card of a man created a work so awful Iām sitting before you saying, āHis earlier stuff was better.ā For instance, in 2001ās 1001 Ways to Celebrate America, heās still going with this bullshit:
Yes, America gets mentioned sometimes in music, Greg! I swear this fucker writes like the dumbest team member on a Family Feud episode that never existed.
What? Okay, so Andy Rooney was the old man who told viewers of 60 Minutes that paper clips were better than staples and if you ask him, trains should be horses. Maybe Godek means Mickey Rooney? Either way, if Andy OR Mickey Rooney crack your top ten of all-time comedians, you died of misery-related causes over 85 years ago. What the shit is this book, Gregory?
As a writer, thereās something about ending each of these boomer memory fragments with a period that feels obscene. Itās like Godek is counting āBob Hope.ā not only as one of the 1001 Ways to Celebrate America, but as a complete sentence. This is going to sound racist, but I hate it more than the Confederate generals and Hitlers.
Greg wants us to āLearn about Native American cultures.ā? And then, in a totally separate entry, āHonor them.ā? To Godek, to a mind like his, what could that mean? Respectfully look them up in an Encyclopedia? Reenact an entire Cherokee Corn Mother ceremony? Indigenous artifact museum heist? āHonor them.ā isnāt enough to be helpful. If youāre an Applebeeās waiter with a name tag I will spend 50% more words thanking you for a refill on my water than Greg Godek said about honoring Native American cultures.
Greg, buddy.
Itās fair to joke about this list of things no longer being true because of senility and natural causes, yet I think itās more important to remember this is how Godek honored 9/11. We were all sharing this horrible emotional trauma, and this pizza fucker thought it would help to say, āAmericans . . . can sing the theme song to āThe Brady Bunch.'ā Though I guessā¦ I guess heās right. Yeah. Yeah! Americans can sing the theme song to āThe Brady Bunch!ā Better luck next time, terror!
Oh damn it, I thought it was over. That would have been a good ending. But Godek couldnāt wrap his book up without listing the nine players or coaches of basketball. America salutes you, basketball men Greg remembers!
This is new. Up until now there had been no editorializing, only judgment-free lists. Godek was like, āRemember peanut butter. Enjoy a Qurāan. Give Hitler a shot.ā And now, after 232 pages, heās got opinions? Four of them? And one of them is āTwinkies are a dubious achievement?ā What!? I donāt know, I guess anything is better than watching an old man struggle to remember every last song that name drops the country.
God damn it, Godek.
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21 replies on āUpsetting Day: This Is For You, U.S.A.! šā
He must just be constantly jotting down every synaptic jolt, then desperately trying to organise them into some kind of list. A random idiocy generator.
I guess this is a case of artificial intelligence being no match for natural stupidity. Thatās kind of a bleak example of a triumph of the human spirit, but these days we have to take victories wherever we can.
āHe writes like he just Quantum Leaped into a bridesmaid giving a wedding toast.ā
In all the years youāve been dunking on this dude, this is probably the best summary of his writing style. Jesus.
George and Martha are a great couple? As in, Whoās Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
What? What?
I assumed he meant the childrenās book series about hippos, but I wouldnāt put that past him honestly.
I assume itās about George Washington and his wife, Martha.
I feel like even the most sullen fourth-grader assigned to write one of these thousand ideas lists would put real effort into the first ten, at least in an attempt to fool their teacher, before descending into this kind of laziness. Yet Godekās well runs dry instantly, itās amazing. I think the only time he put actual creative effort into writing is when he invented that sexy female writing assistant for himself on Twitter. Anastasia Realgirl or whoever she was.
āwhen he invented that sexy female writing assistant for himself on Twitterā
(Brain slams on brakes) Hold up, you canāt just leave that hanging there without a link or something.
Damn straight! š
look at the article from May 3, 2024 (āfucking day: captured by loveā) by Mr Seanbaby
Seanbaby, Iāve been a longtime reader of yours, so I know your history with Godekās bibliography. I have to ask, though- at any point, did he ever reach out to you or acknowledge your articles about him?
On top of all the other failures of this book, Gummo Marx never made āusā laugh. He left the act before they made any movies, so almost by definition heās the Marx Brother that made no one laugh, unless you include the other Marx Brothers, which I donāt, because they were Jews.
Damn this sucks.
Can we get a translator over here? I canāt tell whoās being dunked on: Gummo Marx? Every Marx brother BUT Gummo? Jews? Godek?
ALL of the above? NONE of the above?
š¤Øš¤Øš¤Ø
Given the incredible dregs of Godeks remaining brain in this article, Iām somehow the most offended by the cutesy parens on his Marx Brothers entry. It suggests a flicker of thought. Like he was worried someone would be mad if he forgot Gummo and Zeppo, but considered them tertiary to the entry. Which suggests he thought, even slightly, once, at any point while making this god damn book of suburban ghost echoes. I pray this man has not found Fox News.
Like Seanbaby himself, I once toiled in the internet comedy list mines.
His style was a strong inspiration on my own. I wrote for two different sites that are now both defunct š
Anyway, I had a process for pitching list ideas to the editor of the first site I worked for:
Basically I would have one really solid idea for a listā¦an idea I really wanted to do.
So I would suggest that idea to my editor, along with two or three other ideas I honestly just pulled out of my ass.
It worked 9 times out of 10.
My point is this:
ANY of those throwaway, filler list ideas I concocted out of thin air just to give my editor the illusion of choice would make a better book than Godekās pointless collection of dying neurons.
At some point you will have to acknowledge that you are his biggest fan. And I can see that day, āIt starts out as any normal day for Seanbaby, with him checking the wards on accursed library to make sure the books canāt escape. When he hears a knock on the door, who could it be? All of fellow hotdoggers knows not to knock but to fire a shotgun at Seanbabyās door. So he wonāt mistake them for assassins and use his deadly kung-fu on them. Seanbaby goes to the door, ready to release his karate in case of ninjas, only to open to find a strangely familiar delivery man holding a box. āI got a packet for Seanbaby.ā The man says in a oddly alluring tone.
Seanbaby takes the box and fines no clue as to who it is form, and it only written on it āTo My Number One Fanā. Seanbaby opens the box to fine a book, a book title ā1001 Things To Love About Seanbaby By Godekā
āAnd that isnāt the only package I have for you.ā The delivery man says as he takes off fake mustache and girdle to reveal his real identify. And while Seanbaby has never seen his face IRL before he knows every single wrinkle and chin on it as he has spend countless nights looking over his photos, longing to be this close to it.
Godek reaches into one of his many fat folds and puts a still hot pizza box and says in the kind of sensual tone that only one speaking with true love and longing can say,āWill you help me write my next book? The 1002 Best Places To Make Love To Seanbaby.ā
Seanbaby looks to the pizza, then looks to Godek and says the only thing he could ever say,āNumber one has to be on top of the cursed books.ā
āAs should be, as it will be.ā Godek answers as he Seanbaby walks off to their new life together, a life that all will understand it is how it should be
Ya know what, Mr. Baby, Iāve been following your anti-Godek warpath for decades, and Iām sure it warms his heart to know that SOMEONE reads his festering, tripe-reeking assaults on the language.
Seanbaby once stated that it was his lifeās goal to insure that EVERY Google search for Gregory Godek lead to nothing but links to his articles mocking Godekās books.
Judging by the variances in the gray-scale, the pages were intended to be in color. Ditching color copies to save money is truly American.
Hell yes, as soon as I saw that the title had ā1001ā in it, I knew it was going to be Godek.