Pop Culture: Politics, Puns, and Poohbutt from a Liberal Stay-at-Home Dad by Bill Campbell
Reviewed by: James Rohl
About the author:
Bill Campbell is the author of two novels, Sunshine Patriots and My Booty Novel. He has also been a music critic and published his own zine, Contraband and a music trade publication, CD Revolutions. Currently, he lives in the DC area (missing his beloved Cleveland Park) with his wife and daughter.
About the book:
Two years ago, Bill Campbell (author of My Booty Novel and Sunshine Patriots) decided to stay home with his newborn daughter and write a new novel. Of course, as every parent can guess, it didn’t quite work out that way. As “Poohbutt” went from crawling to taking her first steps and as presidential politics turned into one historic election, Bill turned the chaos around him into an iconoclastic, incendiary blog, Tome of the Unknown Writer. Pop Culture compiles the best that the blog has to offer into an entertaining, witty collection that will have you laughing out loud and loving the day Poohbutt had her first solid meal.
My take on the book:
After deciding to stay at home with his new daughter, affectionately named Poohbutt, and write a novel Bill Campbell became so worked up over the news coverage of Obama playing the ‘Race Card’ in the 2008 Presidential Election that he created a blog and wrote a response. That response starts this collection of essays. Along with that first post, originally posted on his blog Tome of the Unknown Writer, Campbell goes on to cover a wide range of topics from politics to the zenith of the hip hop in the 80′s, parenting to pop culture and he does it with wit and candor and an unmistaken powerful voice.
The beauty of this book is that you can pick an choose where to start and stop, if you get your fill of the politics you can move into the hilarious stories of Poohbutt, his daughter he is raising as a stay at home dad. After a story or two on parenting you can move right back into an essay like Cold Case: The Hip Hop Saga where he pictures what the CBS show would do with unsolved rap murders. Politics are always close by in these essays and it is where Campbell shines. If you are wary of too much politics in your daddy blog than this is one to stay away from but I found his posts interesting, enlightening, and always entertaining.