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Jeff, One Lonely Guy
In October 2011, Jeff Ragsdale, a down-and-out actor and stand-up comedian, posted a flyer around Lower Manhattan, asking people to call him if they wanted to talk. He thought he’d get a dozen calls; instead, he got hundreds, then thousands once pictures of the flyer went viral on the net. They came from all over the country and from as far away as Spain, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Taiwan, and Australia. Jeff spoke to as many people as he could, answering his phone all day long. Here are the conversations, texts, and voicemails of a particular moment in time—a hilarious, dark, intimate portrait of the way we live now.
146 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 10, 2012
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews
April 6, 2012
If I could give this less than one star, I would.
When I read that Jeff Ragsdale, a down-and-out comedian, posted signs with his phone number around Manhattan in hopes of people calling him, I was enthralled. Haven't we all been there -- feeling like a lonely collection of molecules in a vast void and longing for human connection?
Well, that last sentence is deeper than the rest of the book put together. I expected some narrative theme, some interaction with those who called, some hint of lessons learned, connections made, lives identified and changed. Uh-uh.
Instead, this book is just a collection of the messages people left and the texts they sent, with no overarching commentary and very little method to the madness. The "author" didn't even include his own responses or reactions. As a result, it reads like a bunch of graffiti left on a bus terminal restroom wall.
If I wanted to read a bunch of inane, nonsensical, disconnected drivel, I'd read my Twitter stream. And the suggestion in the intro that this book is on par with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground..." What have you been smoking????
I cannot believe he got a book deal from this.
When I read that Jeff Ragsdale, a down-and-out comedian, posted signs with his phone number around Manhattan in hopes of people calling him, I was enthralled. Haven't we all been there -- feeling like a lonely collection of molecules in a vast void and longing for human connection?
Well, that last sentence is deeper than the rest of the book put together. I expected some narrative theme, some interaction with those who called, some hint of lessons learned, connections made, lives identified and changed. Uh-uh.
Instead, this book is just a collection of the messages people left and the texts they sent, with no overarching commentary and very little method to the madness. The "author" didn't even include his own responses or reactions. As a result, it reads like a bunch of graffiti left on a bus terminal restroom wall.
If I wanted to read a bunch of inane, nonsensical, disconnected drivel, I'd read my Twitter stream. And the suggestion in the intro that this book is on par with Dostoevsky's "Notes from the Underground..." What have you been smoking????
I cannot believe he got a book deal from this.
July 29, 2015
While the concept of the "experiment" is interesting, I had really expected more from it. Some more exposition about each interaction he had would have been nice, as well as some closure. While he gave some indication that he actually met a few of the women that called him and went on dates with them, the book abruptly ends with no sense of closure. Did he finally resolve his issues with the ex-girlfriend? Did he find the love of his life through this exposure? Is he still lonely? The little vignettes did give some small measure of pleasure reading, much like watching a best-of episode of Jerry Springer. I just wish that he had taken a lesson from Mr. Springer and included a Final Thought of his own at the end.
One other point of contention that I had was that, while the book was divided into chapters with titles such as Notes On Childhood and Love Sucks, the interactions that are in those chapters seldom had anything to do with the implied theme of that chapter. Perhaps it would've been better had he just used The First 1000 Calls, The Second 1000 Calls, etc. instead. Made it seem more random and disjointed than it should have been.
One other point of contention that I had was that, while the book was divided into chapters with titles such as Notes On Childhood and Love Sucks, the interactions that are in those chapters seldom had anything to do with the implied theme of that chapter. Perhaps it would've been better had he just used The First 1000 Calls, The Second 1000 Calls, etc. instead. Made it seem more random and disjointed than it should have been.
June 2, 2012
Very interesting. Got it as a gift for my birthday but it's still a pretty cheap book. I'm here like lots of other people because BEE talked about. At times it reads like a Twitter feed. Other times it feels like a therapist's office. I liked the disjointed fragmented nature of it because often times that's how life and memories are. Don't read it as one long story. Read it as a thousands short ones. Tiny glimpses into our lives. Because to me, this book is about us. How strange and weird and horrifying our lives are. I'm not saying we're all cutting ourselves or vomitting up breakfast, but we all have, like one person says (Erica maybe?), hungry souls.
I understand that people want to read this as an autobiographical narrative. But that's not what it is. That's not what it's trying to be. You get what you get from this book: weird, disordered, trafic, funny. This is a story that doesn't bullshit you by trying to tie things up at the end. Some stories don't resolve. There just here to talk about what's hard to talk about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld38aq...
I understand that people want to read this as an autobiographical narrative. But that's not what it is. That's not what it's trying to be. You get what you get from this book: weird, disordered, trafic, funny. This is a story that doesn't bullshit you by trying to tie things up at the end. Some stories don't resolve. There just here to talk about what's hard to talk about.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ld38aq...
September 26, 2017
Why is it that I can think of so many more things to say about the books that I don't like than I can about the ones I do like? I guess it's because when I close a good book I usually feel satisfied on some level. Well, this book certainly didn't leave me feeling that.
The real life premise for the book sounded promising and I thought, "This will interesting." Well, it wasn't *that* either. This book was more like trying to squeeze a satisfying story out of a teenagers Twitter feed. I learned a whole lot of nothing about anyone involved in this social experiment of Jeff's except that amazingly enough it took three people to put this random collection of blather together.
On the upside, if a book like this can still get published, there's room for all of us on the New York Times Best Seller List, kids!
The real life premise for the book sounded promising and I thought, "This will interesting." Well, it wasn't *that* either. This book was more like trying to squeeze a satisfying story out of a teenagers Twitter feed. I learned a whole lot of nothing about anyone involved in this social experiment of Jeff's except that amazingly enough it took three people to put this random collection of blather together.
On the upside, if a book like this can still get published, there's room for all of us on the New York Times Best Seller List, kids!
April 13, 2012
I expected so much from this book--it had a fantastic premise but the actual text fell far short. I was expecting some type of narrative or at least some small sections organized by theme so the reader could pull things together in to some type of overall lesson.
Instead, I feel like I just read the transcript of someone's answering machine. Even most of the responses made by the author are deleted, so there isn't even context for some of the conversations. Its awkward and weird--like eavesdropping on two strangers' conversation.
Instead, I feel like I just read the transcript of someone's answering machine. Even most of the responses made by the author are deleted, so there isn't even context for some of the conversations. Its awkward and weird--like eavesdropping on two strangers' conversation.
April 13, 2012
I was so excited when I read the premise of this book but was so disappointed with how it was written. It was so broken up and random that I had a hard time following the content. I wish he would have really told people stories rather than bits and pieces followed by his own pathetic existence. Anyway, at least it was cheap. I would NOT recommend this book.
August 20, 2019
read for the theme: my lowest rated tbr on Goodreads
This premise intrigued me but I think I was looking for something completely different. I was wanting to hear Jeff's story during this experience but you get very little of that. What you do get is small snippets of texts or conversations from the random people that saw the sign. As interesting as that sounds, it was mostly about sex, suicidal teens, or teens with eating disorders. It did show the sad state of affairs human beings seem to be stuck in. It also made Jeff into a creepy guy in my opinion. I assume to get the information for this book that he was recording all of the people that called. I wonder if they knew this. I would have preferred to see the entire conversation from both sides, not just an ellipse where Jeff is responding. That just made him seem even creepier, especially since there seemed to be lots of sexting.
Overall, I was disappointed but it wasn't horrible. I would probably say skip it unless you have that curious interest. I'm glad it was a very short, fast read.
This premise intrigued me but I think I was looking for something completely different. I was wanting to hear Jeff's story during this experience but you get very little of that. What you do get is small snippets of texts or conversations from the random people that saw the sign. As interesting as that sounds, it was mostly about sex, suicidal teens, or teens with eating disorders. It did show the sad state of affairs human beings seem to be stuck in. It also made Jeff into a creepy guy in my opinion. I assume to get the information for this book that he was recording all of the people that called. I wonder if they knew this. I would have preferred to see the entire conversation from both sides, not just an ellipse where Jeff is responding. That just made him seem even creepier, especially since there seemed to be lots of sexting.
Overall, I was disappointed but it wasn't horrible. I would probably say skip it unless you have that curious interest. I'm glad it was a very short, fast read.
August 14, 2014
When I read the premise behind this story I thought it would be amazing - a down and out actor and stand-up comedian who posted a flyer asking people to call him if they wanted to talk.
I expected some narrative, some interaction with the people who called, connections made, lessons learned, a sense of who these lonely people are and what they are doing now.
The book is actually a collection of texts and messages of all the people that contacted in.
The narrator didn't even include any of his own responses or reactions to the 'messages.' The lack of context throughout the book made it an absolute mind-numbing, pointless and boring read. I would not recommend this.
I expected some narrative, some interaction with the people who called, connections made, lessons learned, a sense of who these lonely people are and what they are doing now.
The book is actually a collection of texts and messages of all the people that contacted in.
The narrator didn't even include any of his own responses or reactions to the 'messages.' The lack of context throughout the book made it an absolute mind-numbing, pointless and boring read. I would not recommend this.
August 4, 2015
One of the worst books I've ever read.
The sad thing is that this book could have been really interesting. He could have made us care about all the people who took the time to text and call and meet up with him. Instead we got disjointed excerpts that made no sense whatsoever...and ridiculous exploits better left untold.
(A book that had bad ratings...AND NO WONDER...I found the book on my TBR list with the lowest numbers and this was it.)
The sad thing is that this book could have been really interesting. He could have made us care about all the people who took the time to text and call and meet up with him. Instead we got disjointed excerpts that made no sense whatsoever...and ridiculous exploits better left untold.
(A book that had bad ratings...AND NO WONDER...I found the book on my TBR list with the lowest numbers and this was it.)
November 16, 2019
This was an interesting concept. You don’t get to see the responses so it’s often a one sided conversation where you fill in the blanks. Quite unnerving at times but an insight into vulnerable minds.
August 30, 2016
The concept seemed interesting but the delivery was awful. Luckily its a very short book, but unfortunately every page is the same. The best part is that I was able to return it for a refund
February 9, 2013
Interesting concept. I got tired of all the sex stuff. It doesn't really wrap up in a satisfying way.
February 9, 2015
Not was I was expecting at all. Could not finish it. that doesn't happen to me very often.
September 4, 2022
Ugh. This book was creepy. Jeff is a lonely guy that has posted his phone number around town. The flyer is picked up by social media and the media. This book is a collection of text messages and conversations that the author had with the people that contacted him via the phone number.
June 22, 2019
Horrible book. I threw it away and as a book lover that is sacrilegious but this is one book that completely wasted my time.
August 16, 2018
Strange, there's something off about this book. Like when a stranger starts talking to you and you are suspicious about their motives.
June 20, 2012
Originally published in Seattle Met magazine, May 2012
JEFF, ONE LONELY GUY (Amazon Publishing), by Jeff Ragsdale, David Shields, and Michael Logan, is a crowd-sourced anthology of American melancholy. In October 2011, Ragsdale, a University of Washington alum and the eponymous lonely guy, posted flyers all around New York City with his phone number. New Yorkers—and later, people from all over the world—proceeded to deluge his phone with calls and texts, treating it like a digital confessional.
Shields and Logan compiled the phone transcripts and texts (along with Ragsdale’s responses) into a sort of voyeuristic experiment. The book lacks narrative, chronology, and many other attributes one typically associates with the word book. But as Shields—a UW prof and author of the novel-assassinating manifesto Reality Hunger—writes in the introduction, “This is the authentic sound of human beings, at ground level, often in economic freefall, trying to connect in whatever way possible…. This is America singing—singing a dirge.”
JEFF, ONE LONELY GUY (Amazon Publishing), by Jeff Ragsdale, David Shields, and Michael Logan, is a crowd-sourced anthology of American melancholy. In October 2011, Ragsdale, a University of Washington alum and the eponymous lonely guy, posted flyers all around New York City with his phone number. New Yorkers—and later, people from all over the world—proceeded to deluge his phone with calls and texts, treating it like a digital confessional.
Shields and Logan compiled the phone transcripts and texts (along with Ragsdale’s responses) into a sort of voyeuristic experiment. The book lacks narrative, chronology, and many other attributes one typically associates with the word book. But as Shields—a UW prof and author of the novel-assassinating manifesto Reality Hunger—writes in the introduction, “This is the authentic sound of human beings, at ground level, often in economic freefall, trying to connect in whatever way possible…. This is America singing—singing a dirge.”
April 9, 2013
Granted, a flyer taped to lampposts and other public places in NYC that goes viral on the Internet is going to a attract, I would think, a certain type of people, but...gads, there are a lot of people in serious need of mental health out there. The number of (reported) teenage girls in the book who seem so desperate for acceptance and love is quite frightening, but they also have me wondering if that inability to feel accepted and loved by others is some byproduct of the various chemical changes teenage females go through because the condition just seems so, well, common. It's undoubtedly exacerbated by our "way of life"--parents too tied up at work and anxious about their jobs to pay much attention to their kids, parents too caught up in their own stress and emotional conflicts to be present and aware of the their kids' emotional needs, parents and kids too easily distracted by entertainments that aren't terribly entertaining.
Not like I can speak with any authority. Armchair pop psychologist right here, so WTF do I know!
Not like I can speak with any authority. Armchair pop psychologist right here, so WTF do I know!
April 7, 2013
As previously mentioned this book needs to be read as many individual messages and not as one story or book. I enjoyed reading this insight into other people's lives and found myself being able to relate to a few of the comments or rooting for individuals to improve upon their situation. I became familiar with some of the people as they returned with further messages to Jeff and find myself wanting to know how they are now. That said I had felt as though something was missing from this book, although I could not quite put my finger on it. The real negative thing about this book for me is that it abruptly ends, as though in the middle of a chapter. I had turned the page for the next message to find quite literally nothing. A summary or some comments by Jeff at the end would have made a big difference.
June 27, 2012
I actually didn't find this book to be all that bad. I think folks went into this expecting some profound revelation. I went into it thinking "OK, it's going to be a bunch of text messages and transcribed conversations." And that's precisely what it was...and I took from it what I could. This isn't a new-agey soul-searching pseudo-intellectual journey. If you want that, go read Eat Pray Love for the umpteenth time. If you instead just want to see how people react to a random stranger crazy enough to post his number all over NYC (and then the world), this is your book. It's a quick easy read (in my opinion) and you don't even need to read it from the start. Pick up wherever you want. It's not all that linear, and that's cool. Take it for what it is.
March 2, 2014
This book is a 147 paged jigsaw puzzle. The concept of how a guy has the guts to post up a flyer in New York with his number is interesting but the story dose not really have a beginning, middle, end. It feels closer to a history of someones texts rather than a story.
The style of how the pages hold this story is interesting but unfortunately is also the death of this book. To have the format in names and texts from phones is nice cause it makes the read fast and easy but I was personally lost in the comments of the world.
I would not recommend it myself but I think that is opinionated. If someone feels the urge to read this book like I did, I do warn you the content is extremely inappropriate for young kids. the youngest I think should be around 16.
The style of how the pages hold this story is interesting but unfortunately is also the death of this book. To have the format in names and texts from phones is nice cause it makes the read fast and easy but I was personally lost in the comments of the world.
I would not recommend it myself but I think that is opinionated. If someone feels the urge to read this book like I did, I do warn you the content is extremely inappropriate for young kids. the youngest I think should be around 16.
July 27, 2014
Another intriguing contribution to David Shield's oeuvre, this collection of text and phone messages left as the result of a viral Internet reaction to a picture of a flyer posted by Jeff Ragsdale provides insight into the modern disconnected world that other literature seems to fail to reach. Literature should be a salve for our loneliness, but reality is we need other humans, crave other humans and want to connect with other humans. Seeing other's loneliness in writing resonates and connects us back, so coming full circle, Jeff goes from lonely to conversing to compiling a book that can make us all feel a little less alone, even if as one message stated, "Relationships are best with 'no contact' orders."
June 22, 2012
Para mi gusto personal, el punto de partida de este “experimento” es muy atractivo, y muchas de las respuestas también lo fueron. Sin embargo, creo que el problema con el libro es que se mantuvo la mayoría del tiempo en un lugar más bien oscuro y dramático.
Quizás le faltó una vuelta de tuerca en la redacción para hacerlo equilibrado y acercarse más a la estrategia de promoción que están utilizando para el libro donde el mensaje es más positivo.
Más detalles del libro en la reseña que hice en mi blog
http://www.dayanabarrionuevo.com/rese...
Quizás le faltó una vuelta de tuerca en la redacción para hacerlo equilibrado y acercarse más a la estrategia de promoción que están utilizando para el libro donde el mensaje es más positivo.
Más detalles del libro en la reseña que hice en mi blog
http://www.dayanabarrionuevo.com/rese...
December 27, 2013
This was sometimes funny, a lot of times sad, and sometimes I felt like Jeff was taking advantage of lots of the women who contacted him after he posted his "Jeff, One Lonely Guy" flier and phone number. Then I thought, well, what would I do if I was single and in his situation? I'd probably have taken advantage as well.
This isn't a typical book in that it's a series of phone call notes and SMS transcriptions from Jeff's incredibly popular social experiment. The voyeuristic nature of the format was quite compelling to me.
This isn't a typical book in that it's a series of phone call notes and SMS transcriptions from Jeff's incredibly popular social experiment. The voyeuristic nature of the format was quite compelling to me.
March 26, 2012
I got it for free through Kindle's Lending Library and read on the basis of Bret Easton Ellis' strong recommendation. Breezed through it -- much shorter than it's ~150 pages due to formatting. The concept reminds me of one man's personal version of postsecret.com. It's fun to see what people will reveal when hidden by anonymity, but, then again, that's more or less standard fare with the today's internet. I'm sure I won't read it again, but it was interesting while it lasted.
September 2, 2013
I kind of enjoyed this, but partway through I read an online article about Jeff and his 'social experiment' and really, I just felt that it didn't need to be turned into a book. The article was enough information about the experience, and I don't feel I got much more from reading the book, either in terms of entertainment, information or social commentary. A really interesting concept but I wouldn't recommend the book.
December 23, 2012
Very adult content. But also a rare glimpse into the things we don't usually talk about. Eating disorders, suicide, sexting; these things are real, even if they don't always find there way into our literature. Knocked it a bit due to poor organization. It was hard to follow what was happening, especially the stuff from Jeff himself.
January 8, 2013
My new year's resolution is to read X number of books this year. This is the first I've finished. A cacophony of bare human suffering, with glimmers of hope here and there. Moving, thought provoking, devastating, conceptually interesting, funny, tragic, strange. And very short. Its formatting choices are kind of odd, and it could have been done better, but it's good enough.
May 15, 2012
self serving to some extent. jeff comes off as kind of a tool. but this book does serve the purpose of showing us that everyone has issues and we are all screwed up. good quick read for a tough day.overall it was pretty good
April 14, 2013
Too whiny for me to finish. From the promos, I was expecting some overall narrative about loneliness and the human condition, but there is none, and I ended up feeling more depressed and less hopeful for these people.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 47 reviews