Birdbrain
By: Jim Yoakum / Narrated By: Owen Daly
Length: 6 hrs and 11 mins
Oy, how exHAUSting…
I did it, and I’ve nobody to blame but m’self…
I read the danged Publisher’s Summary where a crazy-patooted gold heist goes South and Hijinks Ensue. Plus? I loved the title that went along with the cock-eyed summary: Birdbrain where we’d all finally come to the answer of that question we’ve all asked: Goshdang it! WHY did the chicken cross that dadgummed road?!?
I think author Jim Yoakum was going for a sort of screwball comedy literary take on that AWEsome movie: The Usual Suspects whereby our narrator is in a police station, an interrogation room, and as he’s been granted immunity he feels perfectly free to Tell All about a questionable situation… or two… or three that have arisen after a gold heist turned into a mass casualty event.
Yoakum creates a plethora of Adorably Quirky Characters who spout nonstop re: Conspiracies, Little Known Facts, and Colonel Sanders, and he basically has them doing nothing but talking talking talking, even as he throws in MORE Adorably Quirky Characters to shake things up.
This tried faaaarrrrr toooo hard to be delightfully deep, to touch nonsensically on Every. Single. Thing that could be conceived with the mind then twisted all over the place.
The theft of ooooodles of gold coins turns into melting it all down, then spraying a classic car with the gold, then repainting it all, and then readying it to be handed off for a big payout. Before this can come to fruition, the thieving crew are gunned down, leaving only a witness or two who will go on to be involved in great shenanigans.
Owen Daly does an okay job, but he has his hands full with so many characters who just act waaay out of the norm. Plus he has to do the voice and actions of a character who just miiiiight be Bill Murray (Who’s currently in the news for questionable behavior/actions… thereby making his inclusion as a screwball character kinda sorta iffy at the moment. I kept having knee jerk Uh-Oh reactions esPECially with his creepy interactions with women and Zen masters… seriously, weird book and over the top writing…). Still, Daly did NOT fall asleep with the ENDless dialogue dialogue dialogue, the ENDless tangents tangents tangents. So Bravo to him for keeping on his toes. Alas, his enthusiasm wasn’t anywhere neeeear enough to keep me awake, so I DID fall asleep several times each time a rabbit hole was found and gone down.
Ya wanna hear about the origins of the Flintstones vitamins and the rather dubious reasons Betty wasn’t a featured vitamin? Ya wanna hear about Colonel Sanders of KFC fame? Ya wanna listen to “birdbrains” galore as they talk about ANYthing ENDlessly?
Then this, my friend, is for you.
Me? This was supposed to be only over 6-hours, but I b’lieve it took me close to 8 as I kept dozing off and had to rewind to find my place so freaking often.
An occasional wry smile was as good as it got. And that’s never enough…
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