Yearbook: Seth Rogen

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I asked lots of people to help me read the book including my mom and wife, and together we talk about grandparents, doing stand-up comedy as a teenager, bar mitzvahs and Jewish summer camp, and tell way more stories about doing drugs than my mother would like. I also talk about some of my adventures in Los Angeles and surely say things about other famous people that will create a wildly awkward conversation for me at a party one day. It speaks to Rogen’s storytelling prowess and eventful adolescence that by the time he gets to his Hollywood experience, one almost forgets that this is, in fact, a celebrity story. At the risk of alienating many a megastar, Rogen promptly gets blunt. A loopy conversation with George Lucas, when the Star Wars mastermind seemed to be sincerely preparing for the apocalypse in 2012, is eye opening. The saga of The Green Hornet’s troubled pre-production features a disastrous dinner with Nicolas Cage, who was up for the villain role but purportedly pitched the character as a white Bahamian, then years later asked if James Franco snatched the idea for Spring Breakers. Dealings with Tom Cruise, Kanye West and Steve Wozniak feel similarly on the nose – so much so that they almost play like too-good-to-be-true satire. The collection ends with a very vivid story about Jewish summer camp, complete with the idea that people might not remember things in the same way.

What’s your feeling on Seth Rogen? Do you think he’s funny? Are you a fan of him and his movies? I think he’s talented and I’ve enjoyed some of his stuff, but my general feelings toward him definitely depend on my mood. (Then again, I feel that way about everyone, lol.)This was fine. If I didn’t enjoy Seth Rogen’s movies and his overall presence, demeanor & humor, this may have proven to be less palatable, but being that I adore him, it was quite easy to get thru. I just imagined it being read in his very distinct voice and accompanied by his even more distinct laugh & that got me through the 1001 stories about being high.

My grandfather worked in the engine room of a battleship in the Royal Navy during World War II, and as a result, was more or less deaf. He loved being in the Navy. He talked about it like most guys talked about their fraternity years. They would hang out, smoke cigars, talk shit, all while floating in thousands of tons of metal around the war-torn Horn of Africa. He arrived at Normandy on D-Day Plus One, but his favorite story was about figuring out that if you broke your rationed rum bottle after drinking it, you could say you broke it before and get a double ration. Anyway, he was deaf.My grandparents were hard to impersonate, so I thought I’d just go with a generic “old Jewish person” voice. It was a safe but ultimately good call.

My grandparents would make me a turkey sandwich on challah bread and pour me a glass of chocolate milk, and then sit with me as they tried their hardest to follow what the f*** was happening on these shows. Beloved and prolific multi-hyphenate Seth Rogen leads a full cast of more than 80 narrators for the audiobook of his debut collection of hilarious and insightful personal essays, YEARBOOK, from Random House Audio, an imprint of the Penguin Random House Audio Publishing Group (published in hardcover and eBook formats by Crown). The 83 total voices that can be heard on YEARBOOK puts this production in the company of PRH Audio’s Beastie Boys Book (44 voices), Four Hundred Souls (87 voices) and Lincoln in the Bardo (166 voices).

This would play out for about two hours straight, and as maddening as spending time with them was, I couldn’t help but think they were entertaining.

Here’s another example of how cool he is. When I tweeted that one of my only problems with the book was the grammatically incorrect use of “Me and X did…” throughout, he replied that he told his editor “not to correct my grammar unless it was confusing,” since he wanted the book to sound “as conversational as possible.” A collection of funny personal essays from one of the writers of Superbad and Pineapple Express and one of the producers of The Disaster Artist, Neighbors, and The Boys. (All of these words have been added to help this book show up in people’s searches using the wonders of algorithmic technology. Thanks for bearing with us!) This is one of those collections of personal essays that are personal but impersonal. I respect it! Boundaries are good but there are places where I would have appreciated more personal insight or getting to know about the man behind the humor. What I’m saying is that there isn’t an essay about pottery and I would have loved to read about how he got into throwing clay. As an aside, I would also love to read an essay or book from him on screenwriting and storytelling. Yearbook, the new book from Seth Rogen, is a funny collection of vignettes/recollections from the comic actor.To preface, I usually go into autobiographical books knowing I am going to have to talk myself into finishing them over a long period of time. I was expecting to do the same thing with this, even though I am a huge fan of Seth Rogen. I liked getting a glimpse into Seth's younger years and some of the behind the scenes stuff from The Interview. I'd have liked to see some more detail and depth to the stories, though. A lot of them just felt like short little anecdotes that you'd see an actor discuss on a talk show or that they'd tell at a party. Most of the stories were told in a pretty emotionally detached way, with the first about his grandparents being the exception. That was really the only one that I felt like we were getting a clear picture of Seth as a person. Another thing I noticed was that my grandmother kind of had a wispy white Afro that, when the light hit it, became see-through, leaving you with a VERY good idea of what my grandmother would look like if she was completely bald. And . . . ​it was horrifying.