‘Tasteful Nudes': Fun read from a funnyman

Tasteful Nudes By Dave Hill St. Martin's Press. $24.99. 232 pages

Reviewed by Hillary Rea

It seems that comics of every stripe — from the wildly successful (Joan Rivers, Tina Fey) to the semi-obscure (Sara Benincasa, Chris Gethard) — have published memoirs in the last year. In fact, there are enough comedian autobiographies out there to fill a whole section at Barnes & Noble (move over Paranormal Teen Romance!). It's often hard to separate one story of childhood trauma from another, and difficult to keep track of the stumbles that led these funny people to their various claims to fame; the abundance of published wiseguy (and gal) tell-alls is turning into its very own joke.

Luckily, Tasteful Nudes, by New York musician-turned-comedian Dave Hill, proves that there is a way to stand out as a humorous story-slinger. Written without a chronological through line, Nudes is more a collection of personal essays, a tapas of tales that gives you a sampling of Hill's life without having to indulge in all five courses.

Originally from Cleveland, Hill has served time doing guest spots on the cable-comedy circuit. And while you're more likely to remember a Kardashians-themed TV show taking place in South Beach, Hill had his own short-lived show, King of Miami.

Perhaps best known for his contributions to the NPR storytelling program This American Life, Hill has fleshed out some of the program's most notable stories for his book. With several layers of skepticism, Hill gives an honest account of the night that his mother, Bunny, cons him into attending a church fund-raiser filled with retired nuns and priests and the legendary Maureen McGovern — his mother implying that she had holier motives than just spending the evening with her single, adult son. And there is the time he "felt like the richest man alive" with his first job out of college as a homeless shelter employee. He confesses he had hoped it was more of an "all-you-can-eat environment." Sticking to the theme of odd jobs, Hill pedals us through his short-lived (though resumé-worthy) career as a bicycle-cab driver in Times Square. The three-day stint included an emergency ride to Columbus Circle to help an overweight man avoid crosstown traffic.

Though less sardonic than his fellow This American Life contributor David Sedaris, Hill addresses similar themes with a more innocent wit. With parallels to Sedaris' Naked, Hill takes a nudist cruise around New York City, intending to stay fully clothed. But then he strips down and discovers the true journalist beneath it all. And not too far off from Sedaris' Santaland Diaries, Hill recounts a holiday in Ohio where he traipsed around in a well-worn Santa suit.

What sets Hill's history apart from his peers, though, is his double life as a musician. Hill, who discovered Led Zeppelin and AC/DC as a kid, returns several times in Tasteful Nudes to episodes from his music career. Starting out as the bass player of Sons of Elvis, a mid-'90's rock band on a hip-hop label, Hill gushes about going on tour with Slash and unabashedly eating all of his deli meats backstage. And one essay describes moving into the Chelsea Hotel, just as Leonard Cohen once did.

"Big in Japan," the chapter pulled directly from his long-running one-man show at the Upright Citizens Brigade, boasts of the time Hill and his band traveled to Japan and he finally made it as a rock star, while simultaneously discovering his love for Japanese culture. (Be sure to check out his website, davehillonline.com, for a link to his alternate online shrine to all things Dave Hill, written in Japanese.)

A continuing inspiration are the chapters' footnotes, serving a dual purpose as humorous digression and savvy deconstruction of his punch lines. With the tiny number five next to the city of Nagoya, we scroll down to find that "Nagoya is pretty much the Philadelphia of Japan. You can take that however you want."

Most of the book's 17 essays are lighthearted, poking fun at the far less serious things in life. This is certainly a refreshing escape from other comedians' memoirs, filled with dark secrets and woes. There is an essay that touches on depression, but it's not an invitation to a pity party, just a way to understand Hill a little bit better. Toward the end of this collection, Hill chooses vulnerability over somberness to talk about his mother's recent death — and the difficulty that goes along with accepting the loss. But even in this story, there isn't all that much darkness, which is what makes this memoir more of a fun, and illuminating, read.