. . . He is one of the foremost comic writers in the Anglophone world, and his mirth derives, as much as anything, from his politics. Over the last several decades Mr. O'Rourke has crowded his C.V. as the scourge of fashionable causes at home and also abroad, serving as foreign correspondent to "the absolute, flat-out, goddamn worst places in the world," as he puts it. His 150-proof journalism is savage, profane, relentlessly irreverent, throwing in various breaches of decorum and moral trespasses for good measure--and usually vertiginously, caustically hilarious. When I meet him, he looks well marinated, cured even, as though he'd be great company for steaks and stiff drinks, with several orders of first- and secondhand smoke on the side. In fact, he is. . . .
Mr. Mayor, can we get a proclamation and a key to the city? |