Jeff Garlin is a funny guy. Well, he's a comedian. But he's also a serious guy and in August 2008 he decided to set up an impressive goal: Reducing both his physical and carbon footprint. His journey is documented in a new audiobook released today by Simon & Simon Audio: My Footprint: Carrying the Weight of the World.
Garlin is a comedian and actor and is probably best known for his work on the great series 'Curb Your Enthusiasm', where co-stars with "Seinfeld" creator Larry David. Garlin also spent three seasons on NBC's Mad About You in the role of Marvin, and has a variety of television and film appearances to his credit including Dr. Katz, Arrested Development, Everybody Loves Raymond, The Late Show with David Letterman, Tom Goes to the Mayor, The Daily Show, Late Night with Conan O'Brien, Daddy Day Care, and WALL-E. He has also had his own HBO half-hour comedy special.
Garlin's journey is not an easy one. Each of these tasks is challenging in itself, so getting them together looks sometime like mission impossible. But Garlin is doing his best and is sharing every bit of this huge effort in this audiobook. His struggle is sometimes painful, but almost always funny. This is not only because Garlin is a talented comedian, but mainly because he, as he describes himself, 'takes his work seriously, but not himself'.
Garlin hopes that being healthy and green becomes a big part of who he is —if not now, he says, when? He is working at the same on both of these goals, but mainly focused on the physical footprint. I guess it makes sense for him as its an ongoing issue he's dealing with for a long time, and it also became a real threat to his health. Nevertheless, he's also taking the green task seriously, getting advice from Ed Begley Jr., fighting with his wife to change the windows to ones with better isolation and even making an heroic effort to take the bus (we're talking about Los Angeles..).
Now this is the time to say something about the audiobook format. I believe 'My Footprint' is one of the cases where the advantages of hearing a story in this format are so obvious. Garlin is telling the story (he's reading it to Leonard Nimoy by the way) and as a comedian he knows to tell a story. Listening to this audiobook, I found myself laughing again and again, and I had this magical feeling I'm attending one of Garlin's comedy sets at the Comedy Store in West Hollywood. Not to mention the fact I found myself shouting at him 'No, don't touch this bagel', or ' Leave that pizza alone'.
Hear an excerpt from the audiobook:
Disclosure: We received a copy of this audiobook from the publisher (Simon and Simon Audio).
GIVEAWAY ALERT!!
We're giving away a copy of this audiobook, courtesy of the publisher, Simon & Simon audio!
How you can win? Very simple. All you have to do is to retweet this post on twitter with the hashtag #myfootprint at the end of your tweet. We will have a raffle on Friday, February 26, 4:00PM EST between all the readers that will retweet by then. The winner will be announced the following day.And if you're looking for another chance to win a free copy of this audiobook, we invite you to join our mailing list. Next week, we'll have a raffle of four copies of 'My Footprint' that will be exclusive to our mailing list. If you're not a subscriber yet, you're welcome to join our mailing list by adding your email on the 'Join Our Email List' box on the right column of the blog. More details will be sent on our March newsletter next week.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris
Eco-Libris: Promoting sustainable reading!
