Live from Middle America: Rants from a Red-State Comedian [Hardcover]

Brad Stine (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 23, 2006

"Of the hundreds of comedians I've seen, Brad Stine is the best . . . side-splittingly funny, smart, and edgy."
-Rick Warren, author of The Purpose-Driven Life

Hilarious and thought-provoking, Brad Stine is a comedian who hails from-of all places-Middle America. So what happens when a conservative who is convinced that America is the greatest country on the planet, except for all the idiocies that have infiltrated it at the callous-free, baby-soft hands of liberals, gets the opportunity to rant on the page? By-products of "liberal lunacy," such as bump signs on our highways, airbags for safety, the decline of tobacco use, the contagion of Starbucks, and garden-variety political correctness, become grist for Stine's comedic mill.

Laugh-out-loud funny and acutely insightful, Live from Middle America will prove irresistible to those who recognize themselves in its pages, and marks the publishing debut of one of conservative America's most original voices.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Stine believes sex is "designed for one man and one woman who have promised it to no one else for the rest of their lives." He says "our kids are weak" because they've grown up in cars with seatbelts and airbags, played on padded playgrounds and used helmets when bike riding. He thinks university professors "are usually too gutless to live among adults in the real world and instead prefer to have their egos stroked by eighteen-year-olds who've been manipulated into thinking they're geniuses." He's also of the mind that "everyone's a bigot" and that there's nothing "inherently negative" about the term. Readers who agree will feel right at home with Stine, a Hillary-heckling, anti-intellectual, America-first conservative. Although Stine bills himself as a comedian, his ideological mission clouds his humor. Maybe if he weren't so nasty—criticizing "stewardesses" (he insists on his right to call them that) for not retiring before they're old and unattractive, haranguing African-Americans for using different terms over the decades to refer to themselves—he might seem harmless enough, but there's something ugly here and it isn't that mature flight attendant. (Apr.)
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Review

Brad Stine is the funniest man I'd introduce to my children. -- Tucker Carlson

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 14 and up
  
• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Hudson Street Press (March 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594630151
• ISBN-13: 978-1594630156
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 5.8 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,045,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny and insightful, May 9, 2006

By 

A Barbarian - UNLEASHED (Joplin, MO USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live from Middle America: Rants from a Red-State Comedian (Hardcover)

I've been a huge fan of Brad Stine since attending a Promise Keeper event in 2003. His CLEAN humor (can't say I've EVER heard CLEAN humor before Brad Stine...it's been somewhat of an oxymoron...like 'running behind'). Brad shines a light on topics that some of us might me more concerned with if we actually thought about them.
In a time when the moral fabric of our nation is shredding, we need someone who will insite a bit of an uprising, if you will, of our moral judgements. I think Brad does just that. His material will not only make you laugh, but it will also make you think. Think for yourself as well. While he expresses his opinions well, he does not force you to feel the same way, as many in this day and age do.
As far as his comments on air bags and seatbelts...ITS SUPPOSED TO BE HUMOROUS!!!! Look, I didn't have airbags in the car as a kid, I turned out fine. I would sit in the middle seat of dad's pickup, which happened to have a metal dash, and I turned out fine, I didn't have anti-bacterial wipes, and I turned out fine. I think in this aspect, Brad is trying to say, with all these new inventions to 'protect' our kids, we are...maybe..babying them, like a severly overprotective mother.
Stewardess and secretary - These job descriptions have been around for YEARS and all of a sudden people are offended when you call them by their job title. Oh my goodness, that's horrible that a job title would offend someone, let's change the job title. I'm sorry flight attendants and administrative assistants, but you will always be a stewardess and a secretary.
Allowing phonetic spelling with grade-school kids- Let's not let them feel inferior because they can't spell a word the way it's been spelled since the inception of our language, let's let them spell it how they think it sounds. Let's not use a red marker to grade a paper, it might hurt their feelings. OH FOR CRYING OUT LOUD...PUT A HELMET ON!!!! I liked having my papers graded with red ink...well, mostly because there wasn't that much of it on my papers, but that's not my point....red ink stands out, it tells you without any doubt what answers you got WRONG. That way, you knew what area to study harder on.
I read a review that indicated the right wing controlled the Supreme Court. I have to disagree. If this were the way it were, then there would not have been a ruling that the display of the 10 commandments is 'unconstitutional because of the seperation of church and state doctrine'. Why, you ask? Because the 'right wing' knows that seperation of church and state was an idea written in a letter by Thomas Jefferson. It's not in the Constitution. The only thing the Constitution says about religion is that we have the right to worship as we please and that Congress can't establish a religion. 'Right Wing' justices wouldn't look to other countries to decide on how to rule on cases. I'm not saying that justices should use their faith based standards to rule on cases, that isn't their job. They are selected to rule cases FIRST based on the Consitution. Oh, yeah...that's OUR Constitution. Then if they need a little help in that area, they look at how they've ruled cases in the past.
This being said in support of Brad Stine, I have to mark on the only thing I've found I disagree with him on. Wal-Mart. Enough said.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who wants some insite and laughs. Also check out "Being a Christian without being an idiot".

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Jim, May 8, 2006

By 

Jim (Pitman, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live from Middle America: Rants from a Red-State Comedian (Hardcover)

Great book from a hysterical comedian. This guy is always high energy and never politically correct (what ever that means). Somehow he captures this energy in print. I have seen him live, own his CD's, DVD, and love this book.

6 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Funny Read, October 4, 2006

By 

JMN "The Nortman" (Northeast Ohio) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Live from Middle America : Rants from a Red-State Comedian (Hardcover)

Brad is a very funny and talented comedian. In this politically fractured time in our country's history, it is no surprise that the reviews mainly fall into either extreme of 5 stars vs 1 or 2 stars. Mr Stine's humor is focused towards the Conservative Christian. He works clean and has a political tone. He is not above criticizing "his side". He is willing to point out the flaws af Christians and conservatives as well as those of liberals.