Happy Endings: The Tales of a Meaty-Breasted Zilch

by Jim Norton

Jim Norton is a pervert

in the truest sense of the word. The physical equivalent of a tall slug, he pays top dollar for massages with happy endings and is fascinated by shitty sitcoms and fat girls. He is also, at times, racially offensive and morally repugnant. He spares no one in his comedy -- least of all himself.

Now, in this outrageous, blisteringly funny collection of essays, Norton tackles the topics that are near and dear to his from public events like the legendary Voyeur Bus incident on the Opie and Anthony Show, which culminated in all involved being taken to jail, or seeking a hug from his childhood idol Gene Simmons, to deeply private moments, including a teenage Jim's embarrassing poetry-writing attempts while in rehab, and his inexpensive sexual experience with an unwashed MILF (a Monolith I'd Like to Forget). His stories are raw, searingly honest in their attention to detail, and most of all, hilarious.

Filled with personal photos and nearly fifty candid and uncompromising essays, Happy Endings is one of a kind...and probably best read on an empty stomach.

Genres: Humor, Comedy, Biography, Nonfiction, Audiobook, Comedian, Memoir

288 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

Filled with searing honesty and an eye for detail, these essays deal with events both public and private. Jim Norton's stories are raw, revealing and most of all, hilarious."

Reviews

[Fabian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ah gosh, I really must love me them/these comedic autobios! Why, otherwise, would I think this as great as it really surely isn't, or cannot possibly be.

It's all a mad repetition of bowel movement tableaux, sexual misadventures, a pathetic almost-marginal existence around the rich and famous & talented. But it is so lewd, so irksomely disgusting, as to almost rival early John Waterstype genius. It may almost be art: it's a concentrated albeit repetitive, misogynistic, RUDE nugget of, well, excrement.

[Scarlett B · Rating 5 out of 5]

If you aren't into potty-humor, why would you read a book that's subtitled "The Tales of Meaty-Breasted Zilch"??
I tried reading this book in public a few times, but it was pretty humiliating to be laughing/crying in front of people. Jimmy rules!

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Funny (as long as you have a very good and very dark sense of humor) but slightly overstays its welcome, even at its relatively short length. It's like sitting through a five hour standup set.

[Don · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Norton is basically a foul-mouthed Uzi, pummeling his audience with an angry, unrelenting barrage of poop jokes and dick jokes. You really have to be in the mood for this kind of humor, but if you are, it's pretty good stuff.

[Lawrence Bricher · Rating 5 out of 5]

This wasn't so much of a book as a semi memoir, semi joke book. But I love lil' Yimmy so I really don't think much would prevent a five star review

[Jim son of Jim (formerly PhotoJim) · Rating 2 out of 5]

I had no idea who Jim Norton was before I picked this up. I don't think I'd like to spend any time with him after reading this. Each chapter is an anecdote where Jim ends up verbally abusing someone, paying someone to have sex with him, or bemoaning how repugnant he is. Sometimes with a combination of these three things. I did laugh a couple of times. Usually because whatever I just read was so patently offensive that I had to step back for a second. Here's a sample paragraph:

"I never quite understood pedophilia; I hate being around kids, I can't comprehend wanting to fuck one of those little monsters. First of all, their hands are always sticky. And even worse than fucking them is that afterward, you have to be nice so they don't rat you out to the whole goddamn neighborhood. "I know, you little shit, I know...ice cream for breakfast again." Sounds like too much work to me. If you like smooth and hairless so much, why not just fuck Asians or cancer patients?"

[Tommy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I gotta give Norton credit for his book. Given the swarm of stand-up books that come out, that are simply re-hashes of old bits the comic has done on stage, Norton has packed his book with stuff written just for the book. Jim's a solid writer, and could make a way in the world if he did only that, I believe.

Not often that I actually laugh out loud when I read something. The book's remarkable for that. But it is especially so because you might have read something two lines earlier that makes me shiver with douche chills--not so much because of what Jimmy says, but because it hits so close to home with something you might have said, felt or done.

[Cagne · Rating 2 out of 5]

The humor is gross but i didn't mind it. Actually scratch that, i had to pause this during several meals. After a while, just because something about scat and golden showers is mentioned it doesn't make automatically laugh but i guess it builds his persona for the rest of the book. How many times can you mention protecting your floors from feces with plastic bags in 5 hours?

I didn't like whenever he reads something from the past, whenever the source of laughs was he bashing his past self.

I had some laughs during the traffic bit.

Found informative the Brazilian whorehouse bit and the other part on how to efficiently get prostitutes to your hotel.

[Patrick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I had never heard of Norton, his stand-up was recommended by a friend, but this is definitely a funny collection of barely-essays. It's extremely offensive; in the author's own words, "If it weren't for prostitutes, shit, and fat girls, this book would be eight pages long." But he works hard to find new ways to say dirty things, and I respect that.

[Robert Andres · Rating 5 out of 5]

Shocking (I hate that word), funny in an If Jeffrey Dahmer Became A Comedian And Wrote A Book way. Not for you if you don't enjoy jokes about farts, bowel movements, mental retardation (this was written in 2007), filthy sex, hookers, race (mainly blacks), homosexuals, and violence. His short fiction is disturbing AF, but then he talks about Alan Alda and Ace Frehley and fawning over them like a child fanboy and you'll realize he has heart. Also good that the final chapters do not become about trying to get pregnant, getting pregnant, and having a baby like other comedians book have done. Though he does mention babies but in a way that will make you cringe.

[Jimmy Janko · Rating 4 out of 5]

How to review this book! All I can say is if you like Little Jimmy then read it. If you don't - or have never heard if him - then its at your own risk! It's basically the diary of a very odd comic. I find him very funny - you may not!

[Heather · Rating 5 out of 5]

My rating scale:
5☆ - I loved this book and it brought out true emotion in me (laughter, anger, a good cry, etc)
4☆ - I loved this book.
3☆ - I liked this book.
2☆ - I didn't really care for this book.
1☆ - I did not like this book at all and probably did not finish it.

[James Bittle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another Friends of the Library find. Worth a quarter...maybe. Haha. Most of you should avoid reading this....it's mostly poop and d**k jokes. That being said, it definitely had a few laugh out moments. Not bad.

[Paul Youle · Rating 5 out of 5]

Norton is hilarious. These stories about his life in stand up, his friends, encounters with various dirty ladies are all laugh out loud funny, for real. This is for anyone who loves and misses the old O and A days and any fan of the Jim and Sam show.

[Simon Sweetman · Rating 1 out of 5]

Nobody hates Jim Norton more than himself, I thought, at least until I finished reading this. It was over quickly, which is the sort of innuendo the angry wee Norton wouldn’t be able to leave alone. Woeful, unfunny, desperate and sad.

[Alison · Rating 2 out of 5]

There wasn’t really any flow to this book. Wouldn’t read it again.

[Patrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hilarious, raunchy and honest.

[Deyth Banger · Rating 5 out of 5]

"May 14, 2019 – Shelved as: not-found
May 14, 2019 –
100.0%
May 14, 2019 – page 33
14.16%
May 14, 2019 – page 33
14.16%
May 14, 2019 – Shelved
May 14, 2019 – Started Reading"

[Davi Kladakis · Rating 3 out of 5]

Caution, audio book should NOT be played around children. ( Obviously) Very funny.

[Caspar Vega · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fawkin' homerun, Norton.

[Paige Johnson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Best comedy book, though my copy had faded pages I couldn't read. Otherwise, absolutely hilarious. Actually light on the sexual stories though. Well written, fits his on-air, raw mindset.

[T.K Andersen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Crude and perfect, Jim Norton at his finest -- both awkward and honest.
Not for the faint of heart.

[W. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is honestly one of the funniest books out there. Little Jimmy Norton (as vulgar and unpolitically correct as he is) is an absurdly funny human being.

[Robert Younglove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Laughed from beginning to end. Yes it is extremely raunchy, but being such a huge fan of Jim Norton and having met him personally, this book felt like him telling a collection of hilarious stories I could not get enough of. And his way with raunchy working is reminiscent of Carlin. Hilarious.

[Ateeb · Rating 5 out of 5]

My friend gave me his copy to read because we both enjoy O & A show (at least when it used to air). This book is hilarious and must read if you are a Jim Norton fan.

[Jeremy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Jim Norton is a funny guy, but he doesn't tend to expound on a wide variety of topics, typically limiting his subject matter to his own worthlessness and paying call girls to defecate on his chest. The fact that all this remains compelling for any length of time is a testament to his uncanny ability to continally devise new and increasingly vile (and generally clever) methods of getting his various messages across. Think of him as George Carlin's undervalued nephew. And under the scatological misogyny, there's a genuine heart, however shriveled and concealed.

His desire to shock lapses into more than a few desperate dirty-for-dirty's-sake moments, and his drawn-out ideas for ungreenlightable sitcoms, while creative, lend themselves well to impatient skimming. But I loved his disgusted critiques of letters he wrote to ex-girlfriends in his teen years, as well as his mortified reactions to a heavyhanded poem he wrote while in a rehab center in his early twenties. More of that kind of thing would have been welcome.

A smart, funny dude often dismissed as a carbon copy shock comic, Norton is someone whose standup you should check out if you like guys like Louis C.K. (and where's HIS book?) or perhaps Doug Stanhope. The book you can probably skip.

[Jack Herbert Christal Gattanella · Rating 4 out of 5]

I should give it three stars cause it's kinda slapdash-like put together. it's mostly little diary entries and even letters saved from the mid 80s that Norton wrote while in rehab as a teenager and one from an ex girlfriend who wanted to get back together following said rehab. If only he had gone a little more into this period, but on the other hand he does mention in passing that he was a dumb suburban kid and that was that (whether he has substance abuse issues... well, he certainly has his addictions still!)

but I bump it up because he is so achingly, ridiculously honest, totally no punches pulled, and he is sometimes hardest on himself, when not berating his fellow comedian friends, dishing on the awful prostitutes he sleeps with seemingly every other night, and he is mostly, usually, funny in that degenerate way that you either get into or you don't. So while it's not a big great book, there was some effort put into making it a real Jim Norton book.

perfect for reading taking massive shits in the bathroom. I have a feeling the author wouldn't be very disapproving. oh, and he has a fun opie and Anthony story regarding his arrest on a teen voyeur bus. ain't life grand?

[Jeff Nichols · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a book of my own coming out around the time of one of Nortons (same publsiher),I am a failed stand up,so,ofcourse, though I love Norton as a comic, it was in my interest that Nortons book sucked. I was hoping it would.It did not. The book is good. Norton is the best at seemlesly passing from subjective(self derpicating humor)to scathing objective humor (celeberties ect). His candid rants are great, but more importantly this book is well written, he might be a better wirer than he is a stand up--and he is, I think, the best stand up in the game....Yes he is filthy, but what I learned from this book is that filthy does not meen sloathful. Norton is obviuosly and incredibly hard worker. He did not phone this in like most loser comics,icluding myslelf, just writing down their acts. Norton is a Titantand can hold his own agaist not only any comic but any humorist.

Jeff Nichols Train Wreck MY Life as an Idoit (now movie American Loser)

[Brian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This guy is just awful - by which I mean hilarious. Aside from his filthiness the thing I love most about Norton is his extremely open honesty. He bares more than you probably care to see in this book. I have to say though, that I would actually suggest the audio version of this book over the actual book format because the weakness of Norton's writing is that he writes completely in his speaking voice, which doesn't always make for the best reading experience. Besides, with the audio format you can catch his devestating delivery.

[Scott · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book was full of filth, debauchery, and love. It gave an inside look into the life and times of one of the funniest comedians out there, Lil' Jimmy Norton. It's not hard to see how he's one of the best comics out there, with his self-hatred, hatred in general, and quick timing. Though he's bashing himself, he gets plenty of great shots in at everyone from airline passengers, flight attendants, and stupid Rich Vos.

If you're not easily offended or want to know what it's like being a comedian-- this is the book to get for a good laugh.