Great Falls, MT
Fast Times, Post-Punk Weirdos, and a Tale of Coming Home Again
Reggie Watts is weird. But you knew that. Anyone who’s seen his multifaceted, entirely improvised comedy and music shows knows that. Reggie Watts is also from the town of Great Falls, MT.
These two facts are not unrelated.
Watts grew up in Montana in the ‘80s, half French, half American, half white, half Black, speaking a bunch of different languages and slipping between the orchestra geeks and the football jocks until he finally found a squad of fellow misfits with an affinity for trouble. It was a wide-open time and place that invited freedom and exploration—as well as car theft and the not infrequent use of recreational cough syrup. And it helped him become the uniquely strange creative voice he is today.
In Great Falls, MT, Watts takes us through his story, hitting on the culture shock he experienced after moving from Europe to the heart of America, where he was called racial slurs by neighbors but wasn’t Black enough for his father’s extended family. Where he fought with his authoritarian dad, built a new family of antiestablishment, post-punk oddballs—and ultimately knew he had to leave. But after Watts’s career exploded in Seattle and New York, ultimately scoring him a nightly place next to James Corden on The Late Late Show, he found himself drawn back to his hometown after the deaths of his parents. This is his love letter to the town that made him. But like love itself, it’s messy and complicated and dirty and beautiful—and as weird and wonderful as Watts himself.
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Creators
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Publisher
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Release date
October 17, 2023 -
Formats
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Kindle Book
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OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780593472477
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EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780593472477
- File size: 44700 KB
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Languages
- English
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Reviews
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Kirkus
August 15, 2023
A pleasingly offbeat memoir of growing up biracial on the Montana plains. Watts, a comedian and house bandleader for the Late Late Show With James Corden, writes of his boyhood and teenage years in Great Falls, an Air Force town along the Missouri River that helped shape his future life as "a musician, comedian, and consummate weirdo." The author was at first daunted by Montana's trademark big sky, "so huge it felt like it could swallow me up at any moment," but he soon came to be at home in a place that, in its own way, accepted him for who he was, even though he was "one of nine Black kids" in his high school and thus "an unknown quantity." Early on in life, he writes, "I absorbed the reality of my jumbled identity, and I embraced it." Among memories of star-crossed teen romance, the donning of various masks of identity--e.g., "the sensitive James Bond, the funny James Bond, the James Bond who respected women" and Duckie of John Hughes film fame--and occasional forays into behavior that he is sometimes reticent to discuss (not that it stops him from writing candidly), Watts deftly describes the formative 1980s pop cultural landmarks that formed him. Although his hometown had its shortcomings, quickly revealed once he took up residence after high school in Seattle and then Los Angeles, he writes, affectionately, that it allowed him to be whatever he wanted to be--which, in the end, turned out to be "weird, even among other weird people." It all makes for a lively, endlessly entertaining rejoinder to Chuck Klosterman's Fargo Rock City with a dash of Questlove for good measure. Watts captures a once-fresh era now rapidly receding into historical memory. Fans of Watts will revel in this enjoyable stroll into the past, and those new to him could have no better introduction.COPYRIGHT(2023) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Publisher's Weekly
August 21, 2023
Comedian and musician Watts debuts with an animated love letter to Great Falls, Mont., that recounts his tangled coming-of-age there. In 1976, when Watts was four, he moved with his Black American father and white French mother from Madrid to Great Falls after his father was assigned to a nearby Air Force base. In junior high, competitive drama competitions gave Watts his first taste of onstage success, and through high school—even as he took up smoking weed, chugging Robitussin, and participating in acts of vandalism—he never stopped chasing that rush, consistently playing in bands and performing bizarre, Andy Kaufman–style improv and stand-up comedy. After high school, Watts set off for Seattle, where he joined the band Maktub, and then for New York City, where he gigged at comedy clubs until his star rose and he started making nightly appearances on The Late, Late Show. He ties it all together with a third-act return to Great Falls to care for his dying mother, during which he unpacks the influence Montana had on his life and career, and concludes, “there’s no place better.” Watts is a droll, endearing narrator, delivering his account with the rapid-fire patter of a good improv act. Budding performers and comedy fans alike will find much to love.Agent: David Larabell, CAA. -
Booklist
September 1, 2023
Formerly the bandleader for The Late Late Show with James Corden, Watts brings his oddball humor and crackling genius to this freewheeling, unfiltered, and surprisingly sincere memoir. A German-born, European-reared American child of Black and French heritage, Watts recounts his early years bouncing across continents until his family finally settled in Montana. The influence of Watts' multilingual household shows up in playful, totally original turns of phrase, while references to French performers (�dith Piaf and Zizi Jeanmaire) roll off the tongue as easily as pop name-drops, such as when Watts describes his mother as ""a French, redheaded Jennifer Beals in Flashdance welding away at the steel mill."" As he narrates a life defined by counterculture, mind-expanding substances, and wildly experimental music, Watts includes silly asides on topics like shoehorns and waistcoats while also offering QR codes that link to original pieces for piano and imagining a magic typewriter that changes font size and style according to the typist's mood (an effect that manifests throughout the book). Fans of Watts' improvisational comedy and genre-blending music will enjoy the artist's backstory.COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
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Formats
- Kindle Book
- OverDrive Read
- EPUB ebook
Languages
- English
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