Rubber Balls and Liquor

Comedian Gottfried goes for the jugular in his first humor book. As in George Carlin's Brain Droppings, the author loves to goof on language, and he is equally outrageous, as is evident when one deciphers the transsexual pun disguised in the book's title and the suggestive cover image. Gottfried free-associates, riffing in print with an improvisatory flair as wild as his standup routines. Blowjob and masturbation jokes punctuate a mix of memoir, angst-ridden anecdotes, and observational humor. Turning to self-mockery ("I have a face for voice-overs"), he tells how he landed the one-word role as the voice of the animated Aflac duck, and his fans will eagerly skip ahead to a chapter titled "Too Soon" about his now famous Friars Club performance two weeks after 9/11. Gottfried's basic tactic is to deliver a dynamite line and top it with several surprises before reaching the end of each paragraph, building to guffaw-inducing jokes on almost every page. (Apr. 26)