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Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
- A Low Culture Manifesto (Now with a New Middle)
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman
- Length: 5 hrs and 56 mins
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Publisher's summary
Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman, with an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and a seemingly effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter. Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry of the 1980s, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane, usually all at once.
Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about movies, sports, television, music, books, video games, and kittens but, really, it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'"
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Critic reviews
"[Klosterman] is a skilled prose stylist with a witty, twisted brain, a photo-perfect memory for entertainment trivia, and has real chops as a memoirist." (Publishers Weekly)
"Intelligent analysis and thought-provoking insight....there is much here to entertain and illuminate." (Amazon.com)
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Memories
- By Amazon Customer on 05-18-18
By: Frank Deford
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Slayers & Vampires
- The Complete Uncensored, Unauthorized Oral History of Buffy & Angel
- By: Mark A. Altman, Edward Gross
- Narrated by: James Patrick Cronin, Julie McKay
- Length: 18 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Two decades after its groundbreaking debut, millions of fans worldwide remain enthralled with the incredible exploits of Joss Whedon's Buffy Summers as well as Angel. Now, go behind the scenes of these legendary series that ushered in the new Golden Age of Television, with the candid recollections of writers, creators, executives, programmers, critics, and cast members. Together they unveil the oftentimes shocking true story of how a failed motion picture became an acclaimed cult television series.
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Too much Joss schmoozing, too little new info
- By Onalee on 02-05-21
By: Mark A. Altman, and others
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Bare Bones
- I'm Not Lonely If You're Reading This Book
- By: Bobby Bones
- Narrated by: Bobby Bones
- Length: 6 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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Growing up poor in Mountain Pine, Arkansas, with a young, addicted mom, Bobby Estell fell in love with country music. Abandoned by his father at the age of five, Bobby saw the radio as his way out - a dream that came true in college when he went on air at the Henderson State University campus station broadcasting as Bobby Bones while simultaneously starting The Bobby Bones Show at 105.9 KLAZ.
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A look inside the narcissist life of Bobby Bones.
- By Selena on 05-20-16
By: Bobby Bones
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You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried
- The Brat Pack, John Hughes, and Their Impact on a Generation
- By: Susannah Gora
- Narrated by: Kelli Tager
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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The landscape that the Brat Pack memorialized is rich with cultural themes and significance, and has influenced an entire generation who still believe that life always turns out like an '80s movie. You Couldn't Ignore Me If You Tried takes us back to that era, through Susannah Gora's interviews with key players such as Molly Ringwald, Anthony Michael Hall, Judd Nelson, Andrew McCarthy, and John Cusack, and mines all the material from the movies to the music to the way the films were made to show how they helped shape our visions for romance, friendship, society, and success.
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Brings me back to my teenage years! Fantastic Narration! ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️
- By Amazmama on 06-24-22
By: Susannah Gora
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The Partly Cloudy Patriot
- By: Sarah Vowell
- Narrated by: Sarah Vowell, Conan O'Brien, Seth Green, and others
- Length: 5 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Sarah Vowell travels through the American past and investigates the dusty, bumpy roads of her own life. Her essays confront a wide range of subjects, icons, and historical moments: Ike, Teddy Roosevelt, and Bill Clinton; Canadian Mounties and German Filmmakers; Tom Cruise and Buffy the Vampire Slayer; twins and nerds; the Gettysburg Address, the State of the Union, and George W. Bush's inauguration. The result is an engrossing audiobook, capturing Vowell's memorable wit and her keen social commentary.
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One of the best surprises on AUDIBLE.COM!!
- By Doggy Bird on 04-14-04
By: Sarah Vowell
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Best. Movie. Year. Ever.
- How 1999 Blew Up the Big Screen
- By: Brian Raftery
- Narrated by: George Newbern
- Length: 10 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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From a veteran culture writer and modern movie expert, a celebration and analysis of the movies of 1999 - arguably the most groundbreaking year in American cinematic history.
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Like talking about movies with a friend
- By Shawn Inmon on 05-30-19
By: Brian Raftery
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Seinfeldia
- How a Show About Nothing Changed Everything
- By: Jennifer Keishin Armstrong
- Narrated by: Christina Delaine
- Length: 9 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Comedians Larry David and Jerry Seinfeld never thought anyone would watch their silly little sitcom about a New York comedian sitting around talking to his friends. NBC executives didn't think anyone would watch either, but they bought it anyway, hiding it away in the TV dead zone of summer. But against all odds, viewers began to watch, first a few and then many, until nine years later nearly 40 million Americans were tuning in weekly.
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This bad narration is making me thirsty...
- By Audio Gra Gra on 10-06-16
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So You've Been Publicly Shamed
- By: Jon Ronson
- Narrated by: Jon Ronson
- Length: 7 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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From the Sunday Times top ten bestselling author of The Psychopath Test, a captivating and brilliant exploration of one of our world's most underappreciated forces: shame. 'It's about the terror, isn't it?' 'The terror of what?' I said. 'The terror of being found out.' For the past three years, Jon Ronson has travelled the world meeting recipients of high-profile public shamings. The shamed are people like us - people who, say, made a joke on social media that came out badly, or made a mistake at work.
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You'll never look at public shaming the same way
- By Megan Gunter on 04-02-15
By: Jon Ronson
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The Stephen King Companion
- Four Decades of Fear from the Master of Horror
- By: George Beahm
- Narrated by: Fleet Cooper, Claire Christie
- Length: 24 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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The Stephen King Companion is an authoritative look at horror author King's personal life and professional career, from Carrie to The Bazaar of Bad Dreams. King expert George Beahm, who has published extensively about Maine's main author, is your seasoned guide to the imaginative world of Stephen King, covering his varied and prodigious output: juvenalia, short fiction, limited edition books, best-selling novels, and film adaptations.
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A Kingopedia: Books, Movies, Bio and Art
- By tru britty on 02-28-16
By: George Beahm
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She Made Me Laugh
- My Friend Nora Ephron
- By: Richard Cohen
- Narrated by: Christopher Lane
- Length: 10 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Award-winning journalist Richard Cohen, wrote this about his "third-person memoir": "I call this book a third-person memoir. It is about my closest friend, Nora Ephron, and the lives we lived together and how her life got to be bigger until, finally, she wrote her last work, the play, Lucky Guy, about a newspaper columnist dying of cancer while she herself was dying of cancer. I have interviewed many of her other friends - Mike Nichols, Tom Hanks, Steven Spielberg, Meryl Streep, Arianna Huffington.
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Loved it!
- By Leigh Lerro on 10-27-17
By: Richard Cohen
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Tied Up in Knots
- How Getting What They Wanted Has Made Women Miserable
- By: Andrea Tantaros
- Narrated by: Andrea Tantaros
- Length: 8 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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In this shocking, funny, and bluntly honest tour of today's gender discontents, Andrea Tantaros, one of Fox News' most popular and outspoken stars, exposes how the rightful feminist pursuit of equality went too far, and how the unintended pitfalls of that power trade have made women (and men!) miserable.
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Not What I Thought It Would Be
- By Kevin on 05-06-16
By: Andrea Tantaros
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David Mitchell: Back Story
- By: David Mitchell
- Narrated by: David Mitchell
- Length: 9 hrs and 25 mins
- Unabridged
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David Mitchell, who you may know for his inappropriate anger on every TV panel show except Never Mind the Buzzcocks, his look of permanent discomfort on C4 sex comedy Peep Show, his online commenter-baiting in The Observer or just for wearing a stick-on moustache in That Mitchell and Webb Look, has written a book about his life.
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One of the Funniest, Clever Brits around
- By Delia on 08-30-13
By: David Mitchell
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Robin Williams
- By: Emily Herbert
- Narrated by: Marston York
- Length: 6 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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Through roles in cherished films such as Mrs. Doubtfire, Jumanji, Aladdin and Hook, he became the genial face of family comedy. His childlike enthusiasm was infectious, sweeping viewers away. Allied to his lightning-quick improvisation and ability to riff lewdly off any cue thrown at him, Robin was that rare thing - a true comic genius who appealed to adults and children equally. He could also play it straight, and empathetic depth came to him naturally.
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Good... but too many quotes
- By DDub on 11-09-18
By: Emily Herbert
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Another bad review for the narrator
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Raised in Captivity
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- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
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Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations.
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Two Favorite Stories: Fluke & Of Course It Is
- By Austin Pierce on 07-30-19
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Killing Yourself to Live
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For 6,557 miles, Chuck Klosterman thought about dying. He drove a rental car from New York to Rhode Island to Georgia to Mississippi to Iowa to Minneapolis to Fargo to Seattle, and he chased death and rock 'n' roll all the way. Within the span of 21 days, Chuck had three relationships end, one by choice, one by chance, and one by exhaustion. He snorted cocaine in a graveyard. He walked a half-mile through a bean field.
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Good, But Not What I Expected
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Chuck Klosterman IV
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Chuck Klosterman IV consists of three parts:
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Profiles and trend stories: Britney Spears, Val Kilmer, McDonalds, '70s rock band nostalgia cruises. With new introductions and asides.
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9.6 out of 10
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It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while another was plausibly decided by Ralph Nader. Landlines fell to cell phones, the internet exploded, and pop culture accelerated without the aid of technology that remembered everything. It was the last era with a real mainstream to either identify with or oppose. The ’90s brought about a revolution in the human condition, and a shift in consciousness, that we’re still struggling to understand.
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A Very White Middle-class Take On The Nineties
- By Umar Lee on 02-10-22
By: Chuck Klosterman
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Eating the Dinosaur
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In Eating the Dinosaur, Klosterman is more entertaining and incisive than ever. Whether he's dissecting the boredom of voyeurism, the reason why music fan's inevitably hate their favorite band's latest album, or why we love watching can't-miss superstars fail spectacularly, Klosterman remains obsessed with the relationship between expectation, reality, and living history. It's amateur anthropology for the present tense, and sometimes it's incredibly funny.
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- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 06-21-13
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Another bad review for the narrator
- By Matty N on 06-13-16
By: Chuck Klosterman
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Raised in Captivity
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- By: Chuck Klosterman
- Narrated by: Chuck Klosterman, Sloane Crosley, Chris Gethard, and others
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Fair warning: Raised in Captivity does not slot into a smooth preexisting groove. If Saul Steinberg and Italo Calvino had adopted a child from a Romanian orphanage and raised him on Gary Larsen and Thomas Bernhard, he would still be nothing like Chuck Klosterman. They might be good company, though. Funny, wise and weird in equal measure, Raised in Captivity bids fair to be one of the most original and exciting story collections in recent memory, a fever graph of our deepest unvoiced hopes, fears and preoccupations.
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- By Austin Pierce on 07-30-19
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9.6 out of 10
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Chuck Klosterman X
- The Audio Companion to a Highly Specific and Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century
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New York Times best-selling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman presents a unique Audio Companion for Chuck Klosterman X, in which he contextualizes and reads from the collection of his best articles and essays, providing both a fascinating tour of the past decade and an ideal introduction to the mind of one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
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Buyer Beware
- By Jim Myers on 05-16-17
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I Wear the Black Hat
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In I Wear the Black Hat, Klosterman questions the very nature of how modern people understand the concept of villainy. What was so Machiavellian about Machiavelli? Why don't we see Batman the same way we see Bernhard Goetz? Who's more worthy of our vitriol - Bill Clinton or Don Henley? What was O.J. Simpson's second-worst decision? Masterfully blending cultural analysis with self-interrogation and limitless imagination, I Wear the Black Hat delivers perceptive observations on the complexity of the anti-hero.
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My Favorite Writer Falls a Little Short...
- By Nils J. Rasmussen on 08-20-13
By: Chuck Klosterman
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Downtown Owl
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- Unabridged
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Somewhere in North Dakota, there is a town called Owl that isn't there. Disco is over, but punk never happened. They don't have cable. They don't really have pop culture, unless you count grain prices and alcoholism. People work hard and then they die. They hate the government and impregnate teenage girls. But that's not nearly as awful as it sounds; in fact, sometimes it's perfect.
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A Great Listen
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By: Chuck Klosterman
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The Visible Man
- A Novel
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- Unabridged
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Therapist Victoria Vick is contacted by a cryptic, unlikable man who insists his situation is unique and unfathomable. Vick becomes convinced that he suffers from a complex set of delusions: Y__, as she refers to him, claims to be a scientist who has stolen cloaking technology from an aborted government project in order to render himself nearly invisible. Unsure of his motives or honesty, Vick becomes obsessed with her patient....
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Hillarious & Disturbing In (almost) Equal Measure
- By Amanda on 11-07-11
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Meet Me in the Bathroom
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In the second half of the 20th century New York was the source of new sounds, including the Greenwich Village folk scene, punk and new wave, and hip-hop. But as the end of the millennium neared, cutting-edge bands began emerging from Seattle, Austin, and London, pushing New York further from the epicenter. The behemoth music industry, too, found itself in free fall, under siege from technology. Then 9/11/2001 plunged the country into a state of uncertainty and war.
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Deeply disappointing.
- By ChicagoRob on 01-18-20
By: Lizzy Goodman
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Sellout
- The Major-Label Feeding Frenzy That Swept Punk, Emo, and Hardcore (1994–2007)
- By: Dan Ozzi
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- Unabridged
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Seasoned music writer Dan Ozzi chronicles this embattled era in punk. Focusing on eleven prominent bands who made the jump from indie to major, Sellout charts the twists and turns of the last “gold rush” of the music industry, where some groups “sold out” and rose to surprise super stardom, while others buckled under mounting pressures. Sellout is both a gripping history of the music industry’s evolution, and a punk rock lover’s guide to the chaotic darlings of the post-grunge era.
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A pedant’s note
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By: Dan Ozzi
What listeners say about Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Matt D
- 07-29-16
Great, as always
Even if you don't agree with 60% of what he says, you still like listening.
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- Arda
- 11-25-12
For like-minded music fans
Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?
Certain CHAPTERS from this book certainly are recommended for those who really dig music.
Would you ever listen to anything by Chuck Klosterman again?
Only if it's strictly about music.
What does Chuck Klosterman bring to the story that you wouldn’t experience if you just read the book?
Chuck shares his thoughts like he’s sitting next to you and talking to himself. The fact that he is narrating his own book makes it more personal - almost like we get to really know him.
Could you see Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs being made into a movie or a TV series? Who should the stars be?
John Cusack..... just kidding.
I cannot see this turn into a movie or TV series unless CHUCK himself is in it.
Any additional comments?
This was the first audible-book I ever tried and it was the RIGHT book to start with: It is narrated by the author himself, who shares his thoughts like he’s sitting next to you and talking to himself.
First, some important clarifications:
1) This book is not for everybody. You’ve got to be American enough and immersed in pop culture enough to get its references. I myself am not American but have been obsessed enough with American music and movies to know what he was talking about throughout the chapters– well, except for the American football chapters. Those were especially uninteresting.
2) Chuck seems to be under the impression that the book targets those born in the mid-to-late seventies, but as someone who was born in the 80s, it still works. “Saved by the Bell” was aired on our TV screens in the 90s, but that may be due to a slight satellite lag in the Middle East!
OK. So. This book had some amusing moments. Examples of those are:
- Mentions of how John Cusack and Nora Ephron have been ‘ruining our relationships’
- Critical analysis of how we listen to music (we often like to think of the “IDEA” of what we’re listening to)
- Mix tapes vs. compilation CDs
- The take on patriotism (would you want to date someone who identifies as “patriotic”, or does that come off as creepy?)
- The fact that TV shows have created one-dimensional personalities, which in turn have made us, the consumers of this pop culture, lose our multi-dimensional aspects. Chuck talks about the singularity of self-awareness in this “real world” culture that is devoid of complexities: “People started becoming personality templates devoid of complication and obsessed with melodrama,” and being interesting has become replaced by being identifiable.
- Chuck also goes through long analysis of the SIMs computer game, sports, religion, and serial killers.
There are other amusing takes here and there, like Chuck’s touring with Paradise City: a Guns N’ Roses tribute band, whose goal is not to be somebody, but to be somebody else. Chuck also lets us know that he’s watching Pamela Anderson’s porn video while he’s writing the book, and goes on to compare Pam’s legacy – of our times – to Marilyn Monroe’s fame in an earlier generation, in terms of what the world valued then (the concept of celebrity, iconic figures and social philosophy) and the plastic greatness that is representative of the decline of American morality.
My favourite chapter was the one about Billy Joel. Chuck’s take on Joel is that his music is about loneliness: "Every one of Joel's important songs - including the happy ones - are ultimately about loneliness. It’s not clever lonely, like Morrissey, or interesting lonely, like Radiohead. It’s lonely lonely; like the way it feels when you are being hugged by someone and it somehow makes you sadder.” Chuck goes on to explain how Billy Joel’s “Just the Way You Are” is descriptive of the depression in all of us, because three years after releasing that song, Joel divorced his wife who he had written this song about, and it reminds Chuck of the love letters he had written to his ex-girlfriends; believing he would never get over them, but he got over them. "I hate that those letters still exist. But I don't hate them because what I said was false; I hate them because what I said was completely true. My convictions could not have been stronger when I wrote those words, and - for whatever reason - they still faded into nothingness." In that same chapter, Chuck mentions other musicians too, like Led Zeppelin (inarguably one of the coolest bands), Black Sabbath (one of the most under-estimated bands, yet indisputably cool), Meatloaf (“a goofball who is cool, in spite of himself”), David Bowie (not only a musician but so cool he becomes a pop idea) and Bruce Springsteen (also cool and representative of the working man). These are ideas of what we’re supposed to be experiencing, says Klosterman, and he highlights on coolness vs. greatness. Billy Joel, he insists, is *not* cool. He is faceless, and, in some ways, meaningless: his personal image is not integral to his success; he is not a pop idea. He is just a guy, who represents the depression of all of us. Chuck did such a good job at describing the way he sees Billy Joel that upon finishing this chapter, I went ahead and bought “The Nylon Curtain” album.
But this is probably just as good as this book gets. A little after this chapter, this book stops being so interesting and starts to head to a one-dimensional direction that Klosterman himself had been criticizing against. At some point, he goes as far as promoting the one-sided “you’re either with us or against us” soldier-like mentality that he himself is supposedly against. His sweeping generalizations and sometimes-petty arguments which are presented as “truths” also give no chance for the potentially-insightful momentum he had initially started with to survive. The singularity of his presentations, unfortunately, seems to represent that same one-dimensional reading that Klosterman had described American pop culture to have become.
This book is not really recommended, but I would say certain chapters from this book certainly are recommended for those who really dig music.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Nils J. Rasmussen
- 01-09-13
A Brilliant Manifesto
Any additional comments?
Chuck Klosterman embodies everything that I WISH I could be as a writer. This book is FULL of brilliant observations, hilarious anecdotes, and memorable one-liners. This book is worth every penny.
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11 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 10-14-20
I am glad I listened.
Great essay written and narrated by Chuck Klosterman. It was an easy listening with very interesting topics.
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- Josh
- 03-25-22
Interesting thoughts from an interesting mind
Klosterman is always a good read. The essays were of varying quality, and by that I mean that I found some to be more engaging than others. The Essay on Paradise City was particularly insightful and his 26 questions are extremely interesting in thier implication. Overall it was a good read but not his best work in my opinion.
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- Efren
- 04-29-16
A reflexive book
The essays do a good job at rhetoric without intentionally trying to seem persuasive. It's is a philosophical reflection of societies strange habits, but it's written comically (or at least read to me). I like the authors POV in regarding life's events as we know it. He jumps into the agora of strange roommates, virtual mating, his hatred towards soccer, obsession with serial killers and cereal. It is definitely a book every college student should get their hands on. However, there does not seem to be a classical story - which makes it unique. They seem like a collection of memoirs that critique human existence... Good book - terrible cover.
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- Ryan
- 06-22-06
Well Written/Read but Contrived Conclusions
The author and narrator is very entertaining. Unfortunately, his subjects and conclusions are difficult to relate to and frequently contrived. If you’re looking for an hour’s worth of detailed analysis on the Real World or Saved by the Bell, this is your book. I could have skipped about half of the chapters and been a bit more satisfied. In any case, he does a good job of presenting his topics and with enough comedic sarcasm to keep your attention.
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7 people found this helpful
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- Jamie
- 03-26-10
hit and miss, but all in all entertaining
I enjoyed these essays -- the author writes with great style and verve (although he sounds like Comic Book Guy from The Simpsons when he reads). The big insights into "low" culture did not seem as profound or as funny as the smaller moments, those single caustic lines and shining observations that made me fall over laughing. Definitely sample this book before you buy it!
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5 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 06-12-18
ok
this book is very good. I have read it before, but I think it's better read. also, he narrates I wear the black hat better.
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- k
- 10-03-16
Entertaining
Funny, mostly all nonsense, but enjoyable to listen to. No common thread tying together the various chapters.
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