It had a stove and a shower, no air conditioner, and a shockingly vulgar green shag carpet. “It was a tiny apartment, even by New York standards. “When I hear people today saying the latest cat meme or Super Bowl commercial gives them ‘the feels,’ I want to vomit and then punch them.” What sets the book apart are the nuggets of truth and empathy that make you stop and think (and, occasionally, laugh): Every unknown woman is named Margaret every bit of navel-gazing is couched in embarrassment. It skips through his punk-rock days and his boozing days and his marriage days. He talks about his childhood in the planned city of Cumbernauld, near Glasgow, one that was full of fights, with Ferguson usually on the losing end. “Riding the Elephant” roams widely through Ferguson’s life. Hats off to you, Peter Capaldi, and please don’t curse at me like my beloved Malcolm Tucker.) (If I believe Wiki, the name was suggested by actor and friend Peter Capaldi, then the lead singer of Ferguson’s band Dreamboys. He also created a manic character named Bing Hitler, a name that always makes me laugh with its absurdity. After all, this is a guy who very publicly talked about his alcoholism on his show whose monologues were genuine monologues – personal storytelling adventures – not a list of strung-together jokes who called himself “TV’s Craig Ferguson,” sending himself up in a phrase who confessed sympathy for various celebrities – seeing them as people – while they were usually the butt of dark jokes everywhere else. I should have known Ferguson was capable of so much more than I expected. Entertaining and jokey, yes – but oftentimes thoughtful, and occasionally transcendent. These books tend to be entertaining and jokey, but rather forgettable, a 250-page substitute for hanging around with your celebrity author. I didn’t expect much from “Riding the Elephant,” a collection of short essays by comedian/former talk show host/ Secretariat pal Craig Ferguson.

Riding the Elephant: A Memoir of Altercations, Humiliations, Hallucinations, and Observations by Craig Ferguson

Riding the Elephant by Craig Ferguson