The author of "The Unkindest Cut", whose popular column appears weekly in "TV Guide", sets off in search of the Holy Grail of Horridness--and encounters some surprisingly non-terrible phenomena--in this riotously funny, razor-sharp indictment of our cultural wasteland. "How bad could it be?" With this simple question, Joe Queenan embarks on a nightmare journey through the depths of American pop culture, subjecting himself to Broadway musicals, Red Lobster Captains' Feasts, and John Tesh concerts: "With his shopworn, lounge-lizard stage gestures, eviscerated salsa compositions, and studied reveries, Tesh was a human Cuisinart of every hack musical stunt, effecting a strange synthesis of various mongrel styles where half the songs sounded like generic background music for promotional videos ... and the other half sounded like retreads of Mason Williams's sixties hit Classical Gas ." Queenan sets out to find music, movies, books, and TV that transcend awful, and the most remarkable thing about this book is that one never doubts for a moment that he actually subjected himself to all of the horrors he describes (including the literary efforts of Joan Collins). In an era where references to Burt Reynolds movies are used as hipster currency by people who have never endured Cannonball Run II , Queenan mocks nothing without experiencing it first. His odyssey throws up a few surprises--including the discovery that Barry Manilow is actually pretty good, and that most of the junk that clogs the arteries of popular culture never reaches the stratospheric level of badness achieved by someone like Michael Bolton. This leads Queenan to coin the term scheissenbedauern ("shit regret") to describe "the disappointment one feels when exposed to something that is not nearly as bad as one hoped it would be." But generally, the answer to the question posed at the beginning of the book is "Really, really bad." Making fun of bad middlebrow entertainment may seem like a no-brainer, but when a writer as sharp as Queenan gets his claws into something like the collected works of Billy Joel, the results are hilarious. Like Jonathan Swift with a remote control, he gleefully shoots every fish in the pop-culture barrel. --Simon Leake Outspoken cultural critic Queenan (The Unkindest Cut, LJ 1/96) travels through America in search of bad taste and then goes back to 16 cities to promote his book. Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. A slim, one-joke stab at pop-cult criticism from journeyman humorist Queenan (The Unkindest Cut, 1995, etc.). For 18 months, beginning with the musical Cats (``the worst thing on the entire planet''), Queenan immersed himself in the dregs of popular culture. He dined at Red Lobster and the Olive Garden, read Robin Cook and Robert James Waller, listened to Kenny G., Yanni, and John Tesh, watched the sequels of sequels of forgettable movies, such Body Chemistry IV and Children of the Corn III, and traveled to those meccas of bad taste, Branson, Mo., and Atlantic City. Its an amusing idea for an article but, at least in Queenans hands, insufficient for a book. Theres more padding here than in a La-Z-Boy recliner, more fluff than in all the touring companies of Cats. Queenans research seems to have rubbed off on his writing: Its remarkably structureless, and the invective is usually playground-witty. While most of his encounters with the bad are predictablehit-and-run ad hominem lambastings of the usual suspectshe does find some semi-precious gems in the rough. Sizzlers is surprisingly tasty: ``an eloquent symbol for all that is best about American cheap food, and lots of it.'' Wayne Newton, Barry Manilow, and Andy Williams are hardworking and entertaining troupers. And Las Vegas could have been a lot worse. One of the best things about the book is its index, including such entries as, ``Aykroyd, Dan,when coupled with `Starring, 2 scariest words in English language,'' or ``Davis, Jr., Sammy, unforgivable crimes of.'' In his travels through the badlands, Queenan frequently experiences what he calls ``scheissenbedauren,'' a feeling of regret ``when things you do expect to suck do suck, but not as much as you would secretly like them to suck.'' Readers familiar with Queenans labored oeuvre will understand this feeling all too well. (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1998, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved. Joe Queenan writes a weekly column for TV Guide and is a contributing writer at GQ.