Relax! You Only Live Once

To the creators of butt firming videos and equipment everywhere, Loretta LaRoche asks: "How firm is my butt supposed to be? Is there a butt police?" These are important questions in Our Hectic Age, when health nuts worry over vitamin supplements ("have a lousy tomato, for God's sake"), guilty consumers embrace the simplicity movement ("I don't want to take a bath with a candle...give me Mel Gibson"), and time management gurus obsess over schedules ("my grandmother didn't have an organizer"). Although I've somehow managed to miss LaRoche's earlier titles (The Joy of Stress, Humor Your Stress and How Serious Is This? are now available in a boxed set entitled Lighten Up! With Loretta for $49.95), I thoroughly enjoyed this comic seminar filmed before a devoted and appreciative audience. Whether sharing personal anecdotes (when headed for her plane seat in economy class, LaRoche likes to greet 1st class passengers with the warning "peasant coming through") or railing against "low fat spiritualists," ridiculous magazine cover come-ons (she says that the "6 Words That Will Bring Him Closer" are really "brush your teeth" and "take a shower"), and various other hype-nuts and killjoys, LaRoche knows the difference between Shinola and that other stuff, and makes no bones about telling us so. Brash, funny and even a little wise, Relax! You Only Live Twice is better than St. John's Wort, Prozac or Jack Daniels and costs much less to boot. Highly recommended. Aud: P. (R. Pitman)