The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran
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The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran
Download Ebook Online The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran
The most absurd, hilarious, and ridiculous travelogue ever told, by two hit-TV comedy writers who raced each other around the world-for bragging rights and a very expensive bottle of Scotch
It started as a friendly wager: two old friends from The Harvard Lampoon, Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran now hotshot Hollywood scribes, challenged each other to a race around the globe in opposite directions. There was only one rule: no airplanes. The first man to cross every line of longitude and arrive back in L.A. would win Scotch and infamy. But little did one racer know that the other planned to cheat him out of the big prize by way of a ride on a quarter-million-dollar jet pack.
What follows is a pair of hilarious, hazardous, and eye-opening journeys into the farthest corners of the world. From the West Bank to the Aleutian Islands, the slums of Rio to the steppes of Mongolia, traveling by ocean freighter and the Trans-Siberian Railway (pranking each other mercilessly along the way), Vali and Steve plunge eagerly and ill-prepared into global adventure.
The Ridiculous Race is a comic travelogue unlike any other, an outrageous tale of two gentlemen travelers who can't wait to don baggy cardigan sweaters, clench corncob pipes between their teeth, and yell at their sons, "You lazy bums! When we were your age, we raced around the world without airplanes!"
The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran - Amazon Sales Rank: #153070 in eBooks
- Published on: 2015-06-09
- Released on: 2015-06-09
- Format: Kindle eBook
The Ridiculous Race, by Steve Hely, Vali Chandrasekaran From Publishers Weekly Hely and Chandrasekaran are friends, TV comedy writers, and 20-something Los Angelinos who decide to circle the globe and make a race of it, starting in LA and going in opposite directions. The hook: no planes. Told in alternating voices, their story fails to engage, but is funny. Hely, for example, arranges passage on a container ship from Long Beach to Shanghai: "about as exciting as a giant floating Kinkos... Entire days I spent staring at the ocean. I read so much that my eyes broke and I couldn't see words." Chandrasekaran begins his adventure with a days-long drive to Mexico City, where he makes an absurd attempt to purchase a jetpack. Beyond comedy, the experiment yields little. Virtually formless, the narrative becomes a slave to its subject, racing from antic to antic without slowing for reflection or a sense of the world's impact on the travelers. At the finish line, Hely confesses that their conclusion is "impossibly anticlimactic," but given the setup it's more like an inevitability. What's seemingly impossible (and unfortunate) is how quickly this speedy narrative runs out of momentum. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Review No one should set off for a plane ride, a day at the beach, or a lengthy visit to the bathroom without a copy of The Ridiculous Race. I laughed so much I almost died from a lack of oxygen reaching my brain. (Seth MacFarlane, creator of Family Guy and American Dad!)…will make readers laugh and cry, often simultaneously. Hely's Victorian notions of world travel and the glory of bygone eras provide the perfect foil for Chandrasekaran's glib embrace of the comforts of modern life. Their comically inoffensive braggadocio is akin to your older brother's tales of his misspent youth; Chandrasekaran and Hely might be slightly obnoxious, but therein lies their charm. Hilarious travel writing for the chronically snarky. (Kirkus Reviews)Riotous fun. (People Magazine)Hilarious. (Entertainment Weekly)Reads like a 300-page Simpsons episode. (WIRED)Hilarious race around the world. (Publisher's Weekly)This is one of the funniest books I've read in years….The hilarity lasts the whole way. (Anne Stephenson, The Arizona Republic)
About the Author
Steve Hely writes for the Fox animated comedy American Dad! He was twice president of The Harvard Lampoon, and has been a writer and performer on Last Call with Carson Daly and a writer for The Late Show with David Letterman, the latter earning him an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Comedy Show.
Vali Chandrasekaran writes for television's My Name Is Earl. In 2006, his script Jump for Joy was nominated for a Writer's Guild Award. He has been an editor of The Harvard Lampoon and a management consultant for Boston Consulting Group, and he runs the Web site Vali's Views. In a memorable turn on-screen, he played the role of "Vali" on the NBC hit comedy The Office.
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Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful. Funny Travelogue For Those Who Appreciate Silly Humor By Derek J. Archambault I haven't laughed while reading a book as much as I did reading this one in a while. It is exactly what you would expect from a couple of television comedy writers (My Name is Earl and Family Guy!) who decide to race around the world without using airplanes. If you're not a fan of those shows/that type of humor, then you may want to stay away.While their comedic talents really shine through in the book, the book is also fascinating from a travel and cultural perspective. For example, this is personally the most I've ever read about Mongolia. Of course, based on the descriptions in the book, it may also be the most I WILL EVER read about Mongolia, but it made for several very funny stories.The book is a light, easy read, with no real chapters, but instead with short sections, alternating between the two authors. Easy to get through, very funny, very entertaining and very recommended for anyone who likes a little bit of humor thrown in with their travelogues.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful. well-written, tongue-in-cheek, smart-ass, laugh-out-loud travel narrative disguised in the form of a race around the world By Jennifer Book OverviewIn 2007, two friends -- Steve Hely and Vali Chandrasekaran -- embarked on a race around the world without using airplanes. Steve traveled West, and Vali traveled East. The first guy who circled the planet and make it back to Los Angeles would be declared the winner. The prize? A bottle of the finest Scotch they could find.Not being just ordinary guys (both are writers for television comedy shows), they were able to get a book advance to bankroll their trip. The result was this book, which chronicles each man's journey.Steve -- the more serious of the two and the one committed to racing by following the rules -- starts his trip on board the container ship Hanjin Athens. As such, he is able to definitively answer the question: Is fourteen days on the Pacific a grand, romantic adventure or crushingly boring? To quote Steve: The short answer is "crushingly boring." By the time we left port, it was clear that the greatest danger facing me wasn't pirates or storms. Or sharks. Or giant squid, Or flesh-eating jellyfish. Or being raped and stabbed by sailors. Or string rays. It was keeping my idle mind from destroying itself.After this journey, Steve takes a road trip through China (including a gut-wrenching but hilarious night at the Peking Opera) and ends up on a train that takes him through Mongolia (with a brief stop at Ulaanbaatar , which he affectionately dubs "A City for People Who Hate Cities.") Along the away, he becomes obsessed with drinking fermented mare's milk. (Wonder what fermented mare's milk tastes like? Here is Steve's description: "Get some half-and-half and a can of warm Sprite. Mix the two in a glass. Let sit for a few days on top of your radiator.") He then boards the Trans-Siberian Railroad and meets Vali at the "halfway" point in Moscow.Meanwhile, Vali starts his trip driving to Mexico with a attractive woman he has hired to help him navigate and translate the country. (Did I mention they have a side bet on who can do the most awesome things during the trip -- The Awesomeness Contest? With "awesome" being defined as "meeting and romancing the most beautiful girls possible.") Vali's goal is to visit the world's premier designer of jet-packs, which Vali intends to purchase and use to fly across the oceans. However, jet-packs cost $250,000 and can hold only 30 seconds worth of fuel, so he is forced to scuttle this plan. After driving north back to the United States, Vali breaks the no airplane rule and flies to Brazil, where he joins a Brazilian graffiti gang. (In Rio, he begins having his trip-long problems with travel visas and document.) From there he jets to Europe and visits London, Paris ("Beneath my awestruck face my blood boiled. I was furious Paris was not overrated."), Berlin and Warsaw -- before meeting Steve in Moscow.In Moscow, the two meet for a "truce day," in which hijinks, practical jokes and obscene amounts of drinking set the tone. They then depart and go their separate ways.Steve hits St. Petersburg and Finland before visiting Sweden, where he spends some awesomeness time with a lovely Swedish lass named Ingrid. He then takes a week-long jaunt around Western Europe before boarding the Queen Mary 2 (or "How I Crossed the Atlantic, or, Six Days Trapped on the World's Most Luxurious Floating Nursing Home!"). (This part of the travel narrative includes a guide to "Paris for Weirdos.") Once he reaches New York, the final part of his journey is accomplished via Amtrak and riding with a long-haul trucker.Meanwhile, Vali hits his stride and travels to Cairo, Amman, Palestine and Dubai -- wrapping things up with an eye-opening stay in Cambodia. (His description of the temples of Angkor made me want to add it to the list of places I must go someday.) He then jets home to Los Angeles.Who makes it to LA first and wins the race? Who cares? It is the journey that matters.My ThoughtsThis is not your standard travel narrative. This is a travel narrative written by two very funny, sarcastic men who will remind you of every immature doofus you've ever known. Thank Goodness!This book was such a fun read -- I was pretty much laughing throughout. Although there are moments of seriousness and you'll learn a bit about the countries they visit, the goal of this book is not to educate -- it is to entertain. And the authors are wildly successful. (The book flip-flops between Steve and Vali's accounts of their trip so you get a roughly approximate feel for what they were doing at about the same time during the race.)I just loved this book. I don't think there is anything more to say about it -- I tried to include a taste for the spirit of the book in the book overview so you'll have a taste of what you are in for so if what you read was appealing, get the book today. OK ... here is one last excerpt just to whet your appetite. It is from Steve and describes "The Cultural Wonders of Ulaanbaatar." I picked this part (though I pretty much could have opened the book anywhere and started typing) because I think it perfectly captures the tone of the book and the mocking relationship between Steve and Vali. There are only three things in Ulaanbaatar worth seeing. One is the Winter Palace of the Bogd Khan, which, according to my guidebook, has "an extraordinary array of stuffed animals." I did not visit it. I can see stuffed animals in Vali's bedroom. Second is the Museum of Natural History. The dry air of the Gobi Desert is good for preserving fossils, so this museum has its pick of dinosaur skeletons. It's totally awesome. Probably. I can't say for sure, because it was closed when I went. I tried the old "but I'm a famous paleontologist from the prestigious United States Institute of Dinosaurs who has traveled all the way here to see the dinosaur skeletons but am only here for one day!" routine, but the guard understood me just enough not the believe me. The third thing to see in UB is the Gandantegchilin (or you can just get away with "Gandan") monastery. This is the only one to which I can give my wholehearted personal endorsement.My Final RecommendationA hilariously funny read. I loved it and recommend it wholeheartedly. If you are seeking a straightforward travel narrative, this is not for you. However, if a well-written, tongue-in-cheek, smart-ass, laugh-out-loud travel narrative disguised in the form of a race around the world is your cup of tea, this book is a no-brainer. Buy it now. You'll love it!
9 of 12 people found the following review helpful. Great premise, wish they'd written a better book By Patrick J. Escarcega This book started off with a bang. It follows the story of two young men, Vali and Steve as they first make a wager to travel the world without airplanes, and then commence their journey.But as the book labors on, I got the feeling not only did Vali give up on the integrity of the race, but also gave up trying to write a book. Which is a shame, as he is the more gifted of the two writers.This book had some very funny moments, some that made me laugh out loud, but honestly it felt like homework reading this book at times.
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