Comments on: The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of children who don't go to sleep

The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the tyranny of children who don't go to sleep

Kattullus — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:52:46 -0800

Go the F**k to Sleep as read by Samuel L. Jackson (no really). Audible is offering it as a free download (registration required). [Go the F**k to Sleep previously]

By: longbaugh

longbaugh — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 04:59:15 -0800

Frankly this is marketing wizardry. Kudos to whoever mentioned his name in the meeting.

By: stinkycheese

stinkycheese — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:03:19 -0800

I saw a link somewhere the other day *earnestly* asking "is 'Go The Fuck To Sleep' suitable bedtime reading for children?" And, although I myself have small children (whom I read to at bedtime), this was one of those occasions that had me sort of wishing the Earth would crash into the Sun.

By: preferred nomenclature

preferred nomenclature — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:05:58 -0800

was Bill Cosby not available?

By: rmmcclay

rmmcclay — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:08:31 -0800

Too predictable.

By: Kattullus

Kattullus — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:09:21 -0800

The AV Club has a short video from the recording session.

By: Faze

Faze — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:10:10 -0800

America's seemingly insatiable appetite for hearing the word "fuck" in all media simply astonishes me. We are so easy to satisfy. Put the word fuck in a children's book, and you've got a best seller. Take the TV show "Hill Street Blues" and insert the world fuck in every line, and you've got a hit series: "The Wire". I know its going to be tedious, but we may as well get started rewriting all classic media in brand-new "fuck" versions, and so refresh them for a new generation: "Call me fuckin' Ishmael." "I am the shadow of the waxwing slain, by the false azure of the window pane. And I am fucked." "Frankly my dear, I don't give a ... "

By: Ritchie

Ritchie — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:10:35 -0800

craig3010 on reddit got his wish. But I'd prefer Chris Walken.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:10:45 -0800

Nice post title!

By: Deathalicious

Deathalicious — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:12:14 -0800

Love the book, enjoy Samuel L. Jackson's work but the combo did not work for me here (although I loved his "Go the fuck to sleep, daddy?" story). I think to make it sound more realistic they should have kept Samuel L Jackson awake in a cage full of howler monkeys for a day or two before recording.

By: flapjax at midnite

flapjax at midnite — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:12:49 -0800

Take the TV show "Hill Street Blues" and insert the world fuck in every line, and you've got a hit series: "The Wire". If you think that's the only difference between "Hill Street Blues" and "The Wire"... but, you don't really, do you? No way.

By: Deathalicious

Deathalicious — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:13:44 -0800

Ooh! What about Dame Judi Dench? I'd buy that.

By: Slack-a-gogo

Slack-a-gogo — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:15:54 -0800

The next step is for someone to take Jackson's f-bomb "Snakes on a Plane" rant and turn it into a legitimate children's book. The book on tape could be read by Helen Mirren.

By: bwg

bwg — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:16:15 -0800

Walken would kill in this.

By: ShutterBun

ShutterBun — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:25:32 -0800

Well, he did do Goodnight, Moon (yeah, I know it's Jay Mohr, but his is the definitive impersonation)

By: Horace Rumpole

Horace Rumpole — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:26:54 -0800

This post was deleted for the following reason: I want these motherfucking Audible posts off my motherfucking Metafilter--cortex.

By: lampshade

lampshade — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:27:14 -0800

Deleted yesterday

By: Civil_Disobedient

Civil_Disobedient — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:28:58 -0800

Dammit, ShutterBun, I was just going to link to that! Well, here's him doing the Three Little Pigs

By: netdpb

netdpb — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:30:12 -0800

Werner Herzog will read it too! WANT. I believe the common character of the universe is not harmony, but chaos, hostility, and not going the fuck to sleep.

By: jessamyn

jessamyn — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:36:27 -0800

Deleted yesterday Yesterday's link was to a site where only US users could download it. This has the main content also available via YouTube [albeit requiring signing up, but I think available for everyone] and is, thus, different.

By: fungible

fungible — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:49:19 -0800

Needs more "And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who don't go the fuck to sleep"

By: FelliniBlank

FelliniBlank — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:06:05 -0800

America's seemingly insatiable appetite for hearing the word "fuck" in all media simply astonishes me. I can't believe I'm taking the bait, but the humor here is only incidentally about the naughty language. It's really about the desperate, frustrated, thwarted, wit's end, running on fumes state of mind someone with a small, uncooperative child gets into when the only thing you want in the world is just a little time to be off duty and recuperate, but you cannot get your charge to do this one simple thing. I haven't had to put children to bed for 25 years now, thank god, but the book speaks to me because of all the winter nights when I find myself outdoors with a flashlight at 11 pm waiting for the final dog to finish meandering about the entire yard to find the one and only right spot to pee and come in the house so we can get to sleep already. Not everyone expresses that with profanity, but many of us do find ourselves thinking cathartic transgressive thoughts at these moments. The great thing about dogs is that you can actually say those aloud as long as you use a happy voice: "I love you, but right now I'd like to kill you and make it look like an accident."

By: joannemullen

joannemullen — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:16:26 -0800

Hill Street Blues was just as popular, critically acclaimed and ground breaking in its day as The Wire has been now, flapjax at midnite, just as Ralph Waldo Emerson observed "there never was a child so lovely but his mother was glad to get him asleep" a while ago without having to drop the F bomb. That said, his first draft of "The American Scholar" in 1837 was entitled "A Fucking Oration, Delivered before the Phi Beta Kappa Society at Cambridge, the Cunts" before his editor asked him to tone it down a bit for the kiddies.

By: Capt. Renault

Capt. Renault — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:17:08 -0800

A nice gimmick, and now that I've seen and heard it, I don't need to buy the book. The ceeb is doing a bit on this this morning, under the guise of 'are your kids keeping you from sleeping'. Why I keep listening to The Current, other than because it's on when the radio goes off, I have no idea. So much more sensationalist and trendy than how a news show on the ceeb should be...

By: fearfulsymmetry

fearfulsymmetry — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:18:35 -0800

This is a fucking terrible performance

By: hat_eater

hat_eater — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 06:50:57 -0800

YouTube requires me to link the identity to Google account. Audible is no longer available outside ot the US. I'm gonna empathically cry myself to sleep in this cruel world where the cookie can no longer be entirely free.

By: wenat

wenat — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:22:16 -0800

I'm in Canada and got it for free via audible to my itunes account. (Can't get anything else delivered because of the postal lockout but that's a separate whine.)

By: fullerine

fullerine — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:23:12 -0800

That was awful. The performance, not the book.

By: cashman

cashman — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:27:40 -0800

That was awful. The performance, not the book. Yeah, Jackson added nothing. But I only saw the clip so maybe i'm wrong and half way through he gets the high voice and by the end indeed sounds like his pulp fiction character about to go off on somebody.

By: Kitteh

Kitteh — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:30:30 -0800

I've got to hand it to Mr. Jackson; he's made a career of cussing in the strangest of ways. Who else can say the same?

By: kingbenny

kingbenny — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:31:44 -0800

maybe i'm wrong and half way through he gets the high voice and by the end indeed sounds like his pulp fiction character about to go off on somebody Yeah why can't Samuel L Jackson always just sound the way I like for him to sound??

By: orme

orme — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 07:42:43 -0800

America's seemingly insatiable appetite for hearing the word "fuck" in all media simply astonishes me. We are so easy to satisfy. The fuck you say.

By: epersonae

epersonae — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 08:27:03 -0800

I was more entertained by this than I expected to be, honestly. I can't believe I'm taking the bait, but the humor here is only incidentally about the naughty language. It's really about the desperate, frustrated, thwarted, wit's end, running on fumes state of mind someone with a small, uncooperative child gets into when the only thing you want in the world is just a little time to be off duty and recuperate, but you cannot get your charge to do this one simple thing. I don't even have kids, but it definitely caused a flashback to my years of babysitting. The popcorn-sitting-down-to-a-movie bit was inspired. (Of course, as the babysitter, I did give in sometimes and let them stay up to watch cartoons...or with one girl, Kids in the Hall...as long as they were in bed before the parents were home!)

By: jkaczor

jkaczor — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:26:30 -0800

My kids loved it.

By: MtDewd

MtDewd — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:34:15 -0800

YouTube requires me to link the identity to Google account.. hat_eater - did you try the MetaFilter YouTube viewer? Go to My Profile, edit and check YouTube and Vimeo Inline.

By: at by

at by — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:36:10 -0800

BUT DAAAD WON'T TAKE THESE MOTHERFUCKING SNAKES OUT OF MY MOTHERFUCKING BED!

By: cashman

cashman — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 09:36:43 -0800

Yeah why can't Samuel L Jackson always just sound the way I like for him to sound?? When they said Samuel L Jackson was reading it, I know I'm not the only one that imagined him more impassioned. He was going for bedtime reading, but almost sounded bored.

By: FelliniBlank

FelliniBlank — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:01:33 -0800

I wish they could get Julie Andrews to do the audio book -- she'd bring just the right blend of experience with children's stories, lullabies, and cussing like a merchant marine.

By: Surfurrus

Surfurrus — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:06:02 -0800

When they said Samuel L Jackson was reading it, I know I'm not the only one that imagined him more impassioned. Starting the reading with an exasperated tone didn't leave Jackson much leeway - the book's 'plot' is about acceleration of mood (de-celeration?!). When Jackson amped it up even more - getting louder and meaner - it just got scary. The humor of the book is based on the parents' need for super-human restraint and patience ... every night ... over and over ... -- that is where the tension should be. Perhaps a Shakespearean actor could have pulled it off. /dissecting humor (ack!)

By: bayani

bayani — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 10:43:43 -0800

the title of this post = BOSS

By: Eideteker

Eideteker — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:08:04 -0800

I'd rather hear him read a completely straight children's book, like Goodnight Moon, with his trademark menace.

By: chavenet

chavenet — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:33:31 -0800

My kids loved it. posted by jkaczor at 9:26 AM on June 15 But did they fall asleep?

By: antifuse

antifuse — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 11:38:36 -0800

Perhaps a Shakespearean actor could have pulled it off. My first thought for "celebrities who should read this book for us" was Patrick Stewart.

By: howling fantods

howling fantods — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 12:34:50 -0800

Werner Herzog will read it too! WANT. Your wish... [via]

By: RTQP

RTQP — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 14:15:37 -0800

meh. more low-iq internet lulz.

By: Dark Messiah

Dark Messiah — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:15:31 -0800

Faze: your little script could very well have been Deadwood.

By: Dark Messiah

Dark Messiah — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 15:16:16 -0800

"The obvious merits utterance. Character is fucking pertinent."

By: dilettante

dilettante — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:09:07 -0800

Bob Newhart. It needs Bob Newhart.

By: bwg

bwg — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 17:30:13 -0800

Dark Messiah: "Faze: your little script could very well have been Deadwood." Oooh! Oooh! Ian McShane reading it as Al. Please!

By: Sys Rq

Sys Rq — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 19:48:20 -0800

"Call me fuckin' Ishmael." That chapter where he shares a bed with Queequeg just got pretty fucking interesting!

By: bryon

bryon — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 20:45:10 -0800

Dilettante, I'm with you about Newhart. I'd like to hear a Hollywood round-robin read of this. My favorite possibilities: John Hillerman, Adam West, William Shatner.

By: hawthorne

hawthorne — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 08:50:33 -0800

Warren Zevon would have done this convincingly.

By: Dominic. Allen

Dominic. Allen — Thu, 16 Jun 2011 15:47:00 -0800

The way that Samuel L. Jackson narrates this little gem is top notch, and will indeed help the book gather a wider audience that normally wouldn't dabble in such things.

By: dapperkoala

dapperkoala — Fri, 17 Jun 2011 00:01:52 -0800

Best believe I just got the free download.