F U, MATTHEW

So, who is Matthew and why am I F U-ing him? Matthew is Matthew Gasteier (Gas-tire? Gas-tee-ear? Gas-tayr? bah) and I am F U-ing him in that sort of kidding, macho way, like some dude punching another dude on the upper arm in fond congratulations:

Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat: (punching arm) Terry! Like, good going! Awesome! That Nobel Peace Prize medal is going to look friggin’ sweet hanging over the door of the leper hospice or wherever the hell you work! Niiiiiice!

Mother Theresa: Anwar, you bitch! You just broke my bony calcium-depleted arm! Ass!

Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat: Aw, my bad. Hey, T, whaddya say you get that fixed up and then come back to my place and we can compare medals? How ‘bout it baby? (slyly) You know, I won the Nobel Peace Prize last year with my homeboy Menachie.

Mother Theresa: Oh, Jesus Christ. (long pause) OK.

Mohamed Anwar Al-Sadat: (claps hands together) Great! 8PM? I’ll get the Champale.

I don’t know if Matthew Gasteiererererererererererer’s arm is bony like Mother T’s or more like the thigh of a lazy filthy rhino, but I’m giving him a damn good punch here and saying like, good going on the publishing of his extremely funny book, F U Penguin (Villard, 2009). I have been a bigfan of his blog, Fuck You, Penguin, for some time now. It was about time that someone took umbrage with the masses of painfully-cute photographs of adorable animals that litter the internet and my email inbox. Matthew tears kittens, fuzzy chicks, newborn wobbly colts, and pandas new ones, and sets the world right again.

My favorite writing is writing I so wish I would have done FIRST, and F U Penguin qualifies as that. It is witty, clever, profane, outrageous, silly, unique, and is a perfect companion to MissSix’s “Barnyard Babies” board book upstairs. I am delighted that Matthew’s blog found its way into permanent print, and it is my hope that it is soon tagged with “wtf” at Amazon.com, because I think that would please him a whole F-ing lot.

Buy it, and don’t forget the Champale.