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You can save the world in sweatpants

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You Can Save the World in Sweatpants is a novel written between 2006 and 2009 that covers a road trip between Wikipedia:New Jersey and Wikipedia:California written by Wikipedia:Scott Laudati and illustrated by Wikipedia:Drew Alexander Ennis. Selected chapters were first xeroxed and distributed throughout independent bookstores and punk rock (WP) shows around 2009 before being released as a book in mid 2010. [1]

The initial chapters focus on the positive aspects of the American ideals which the two main characters, Ernest and an unnamed narrator, feel need to be restored in order to achieve the Wikipedia:American Dream. The central story regards a movie script the narrator has written which Ernest and he decide can save the world. A script reading is organized in Los Angeles and the two must battle through a series of mishaps to arrive on time. [2]

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Plot summary

The novel opens with a seemingly juvenile scene at a hometown going away party.[3] The two main characters are inebriated attempting to map out a game plan for their trip. Initially they each think romancing woman and taking drugs will be the highlights of their trip. However, once they get on the road Ernest and narrator quickly realize girls and drugs are the opiates of the masses, and the book takes a more mature turn into radical politics. Racial tensions, government regulated drug addiction, Wikipedia:love, the loss of innocence after Wikipedia:9/11, Wikipedia:Bohemian Grove, the Wikipedia:Bilderbergs, Wikipedia:globalization, Wikipedia:poverty, the New Jersey punk scene of the early 2000's, Wikipedia:pop culture, the Wikipedia:New World Order, and the war crimes of the Wikipedia:Bush Administration are all reoccurring issues.

Upon their arrival to the west coast their outlook on America is bleak. They have not only accepted the death of the Wikipedia:American Dream, but realize it has become a corporate commodity, and has been hijacked and sold to an entire nation of citizens. While the book takes a Wikipedia:nihilistic turn the ending message is positive, that Americans can demand their freedom anytime they want to.

The "9/11 Passage"

9/11 is a reoccurring theme throughout You Can Save the World in Sweatpants. Laudati's proximity to New York City and his fathers near death on the day due to his profession as a Wikipedia:firefighter all heavily shape the tone of the novel. [4]


"It took my grandmother withering away in a top-scale nursing home for my father to ask his first favor of me. The place was on the eastern shore of Maryland and no matter what time of day you entered it, your nose would burn with the stench of baby food and old peas. After seeing looney patients screaming about life plans and children that never came to visit, Phil made me take my only vow to him- that he wouldn’t share a similar fate.

If he lives long enough, someday my father’s life will end with a .357 Magnum bullet, with my aging hand on the other end. I will make sure, though, his execution is done at a trout farm 35 miles outside of Albany, New York. He always liked it upstate and before I got too old and cool for things like fishing trips, he’d take me for a weekend. I want to make sure his first free drops of blood are carried with the current of the brook, where the sun’s reflection dances over the pike he always wanted to catch, even if he never did.

But first, he had to live so long.

He survived that day in September near the turn of the century, back when my thoughts were innocent, when the whole world was innocent. But he shouldn’t have. There was no reason for it. He chose to go left and some others chose to go right. All of his lost lottery tickets and failed trips to Atlantic City mattered none then; his luck had been reserving itself since his birth, and he cashed it all in on that morning in early fall.

But he didn’t come out of the smoke storm the man he ran in as. To pull out enough body parts of his friends, so their families could give them proper funerals, he forfeited his lungs. And each night, when he hits an inhaler and coughs and spews for long minutes before he goes to bed, I think about George Bush and Dick Cheney. Men who will never know what my father did, or what he consumed, and never much care. But they will use men like my father to unleash a 9/11 everyday on countries of this earth just as proud, just as loyal, who think this time, at the end of the machine gun fire, the world will finally find peace.

Phil received a payout from the government, as did every other 9/11 survivor who ate dust for weeks. But what did this mean? Did George Bush think that at any price I would be content with losing my father 20 years earlier than he should’ve gone? Will it make my mother cry any less when the retirement she and my father had been killing themselves for is spent alone, every time she cooks breakfast at the stove thinking that she should’ve been cooking for two? Could he not grasp the only reason to make money is to be able to spend it together? Did he not understand that someday my father will be dead, and I’ll be looking for someone to hang for it?

He didn’t understand. But he will."

Title

Several working titles were initially scrapped. You Can Save the World in Sweatpants is a satirical/sarcastic quip at the lazy, consumer driven culture of the early 20-somethings throughout the reign of the Bush Administration. Basically meaning that while sitting on your couch watching TV you can still say "NO".

Reactions

While the novel has been rejected by mainstream publication it has gained a significant online following. You Can Save the World in Sweatpants was first readable for free on Wikipedia:Google Books starting in late summer of 2010. Since November of 2010 it has also been available on the website SlaughterHaus.com where it has received 5,843 hits to date. [5]

Musician Wikipedia:Cisco Adler posted on his twitter in the summer of 2010 that he was reading the book. [6]

Scott Laudati has a blog where he discusses the publication industry and frequently posts his rejection letters. [7]

Influences

The book is highly reminiscent of past American novelists. Primarily Upton Sinclair (WP) for the insight into politics and descriptive language. The novel, at least initially, moves at an incredibly fast pace sytlistically like Hunter S. Thompson (WP). Also, a loss of innocence is obvious in vein of J.D. Salinger (WP).

Audiobook

Wikipedia:Laudati has recorded an audio version of You Can Save the World in Sweatpants which is usually available on bittorrent (WP) websites or upon request. [8]

References

  1. ↑ SlaughterHaus.com. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  2. ↑ Google books, You Can Save the World in Sweatpants page 4. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  3. ↑ Darya's Miscellaneous Blog, My Reading List. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  4. ↑ America Recovers Photos, Independent. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  5. ↑ SlaughterHaus.com/stats. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  6. ↑ twitter.com/Mrciscoadler. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  7. ↑ Scott Laudati's blog. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.
  8. ↑ Scott Laudati's Blog. URL accessed on 2011-18-02.

External links

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