I had a good weekend. My wife’s friends got married: the ceremony was beautiful, the reception was in an awesome place, and the couple’s unique spin on classic wedding traditions made the whole event really nice. This post is not about the wedding, but what happened after.
Like most weddings, there was a little gathering at the hotel bar. We went downstairs to have a drink with one of my wife’s college friends (we will call her Z-Go) and say hello to the bride when she made it down. We were seated at the bar when one of the other guests goes up to the bartender, who was clearly Hispanic, and says the following:
Douche: Hola Amigo, Musica?
Bartender: (Looks confused and somewhat annoyed)
Douche: Amigo… Musica!?
Bartender: You want me to play music? (Bartender walks over to turn on the music)
Douche: Si, musica!
Douche: Gracias!
The bartender looks at me and rolls his eyes, I immediately say “I am not with that guy” and he laughs.
He did.
I had to ask the obvious question: “Maybe he was Hispanic too?” It was later confirmed by the bride that he was not Hispanic and had a history of “going Spanish” while drunk.
A bit later, we decided to go to bed and we went to say goodbye to the bride who was talking to a group of friends. The Douche was in the group. He began to touch Z-Go’s necklace and said “those are pretty beads”, she gives him a dirty look and walks away. As we get into the elevator Z-Go proceeds to let loose a series of profanities capped off with “If it wasn’t a wedding, I would have punched that guy in the face.” If only she did.
Don’t touch someone’s accessories without accepting the fact that you may get punched in the face. Actually touch away, you deserve to get knocked out by a 95 lb girl.
If you are a fan of 80’s nostalgia, MMRPGs, and straight up nerd culture I have a book for you. My editor at Best SF Books turned me on to “Ready Player One” after I wrote a review of “Reamde”. Both books utilize online role playing games as the back drop for their stories. While Reamde has a more serious tone, “Ready Player One” is a more light-hearted and fun read, it reminded me of a hightech upgrade of Willy Wonka.
The plot is set 50 years in the future where the environment is trashed and there are massive energy shortages. Most people have fallen below the poverty line and live in trailer parks that have been stacked vertically due to lack of space. Wade, the main character, is a teenager struggling to survive living in the trailer park. Author Earnest Cline gives Wade a “Harry Potter” back story: his parent’s are dead and he lives with an Aunt that doesn’t care about him. Wade escapes his horrid existence by logging into OASIS which is a massive online world. Most people live their entire lives inside of the OASIS system, Wade even goes to school there.
The inventor of OASIS died a few years before the start of the story. In his will, he announces a contest in the game system, with the winner getting all of his money (over 200 billion dollars) and control of the company that makes the OASIS game. There is another company called IOI, that has become extremely profitable offering services in OASIS, they want to win the contest and take control of the online world. Wade figures out the first clue putting him on the world’s radar and in IOI’s cross-hairs.
Overall, “Ready Player One” is a charming book that borrows a little from many different areas. The book feels familiar and Cline’s writing style is smooth and easy (I finished the book in 2 days without really trying). The story drags a bit in the middle (typical main character self-loathing which seems to be a requisite for modern books), but Cline moves past it before it becomes a problem. Also, due to the familiar feeling of the book, I never felt like the antagonists have a chance at winning which takes the punch out of the conflict, but honestly, after reading the first page you know Charlie is going to get the chocolate factory, you just want to know how.
“Ready Player One” is a fun book that celebrates 80’s culture and gaming in the package of an adventure. The story is like chocolate cake, I can’t think of anybody that won’t like it.
Frequent readers of this blog know I love zombies and that in my opinion “World War Z” is by far the best zombie fiction written to date (I am just getting that out of the way). That being said, Colson Whitehead’s “Zone One” is an excellent entry into the genre. It is well written, takes a unique perspective, and leaves the reader wanting more.
Whitehead has an interesting writing style. His paragraphs are dense and somewhat circular. This is not a criticism by any means but not something you see often in horror fiction (and certainly not in zombie fiction). There is an almost poetic rhythm that left me with the impression that Whitehead labored over each word. Since I tend to speed read, I found myself going over sentences a few times to make sure I got everything (bravo for making me savor the page).
The story is about recovery after a zombie apocalypse (similar to “World War Z”). Unlike WWZ, humanity is not on solid ground. The zombies are still active and the recovered areas are under siege by the undead. The main character, Mark, is part of a team that is assigned to sweep New York city. The army has already done most of the heavy lifting, but buildings and tunnels still need to be checked and cleared for repopulation. As the team clears out the buildings, they tell each other their survival stories (so readers can learn the history of the plague).
This book has a harder tone than WWZ, but it is still not as bleak as most of the zombie fiction out there. The main theme of survival is played out in a variety of ways: the characters demonstrate a clear will to live, but there is also tremendous survivor’s guilt. Most zombie fiction comes with social criticism, “Zone One” is light but Whitehead hints at an undercurrent of disgust at the reformed government’s attempt at recreating society as it was.
“Zone One” is an well written book that is less horror and more about the personal toll of surviving a disaster. If you enjoyed WWZ, I have no doubt you will like this book.
I finished up my “holiday reading” choice last night around 3:00 AM. I had “11/22/63” by Stephen King sitting on the shelf for a month and decided it was time to knock it out. The story centers around a teacher that finds a time portal to 1958. He quickly decides to stick around in the past for a few years to stop the Kennedy assassination.
Once you accept the time portal as a plot device, the book falls into a steady pace. The first half sets up the main character (Jake) and how he operates in the past. King develops rules about time travel, essentially cosmic forces push back when someone attempts to alter time. For example if you are trying to stop someone from getting shot, the road you are taking may be blocked by an overturned truck. Jake also opts to take on a few smaller side missions, averting tragedies that happened to friends or children he read about. Failure means Jake would have to go back into the time portal which hits the reset button every time (so he has to do each thing over again and it becomes harder).
The book slows down considerably when Jake hits Texas. He establishes a life for himself and bunkers down for the three years while he waits for Oswald to arrive in Dallas. Life in small town Texas and the friendships Jake develops reads well, but when the plot shifts back to stopping Lee Harvey, something doesn’t feel right. The tone of the book never recovers. Without giving too much away, the cosmic forces start to push back and the crazy commences. King does such a good job foreshadowing these threads, they never come off as shocking. Since you know it is coming, it just feels like you are flipping pages until the next thing happens.
Without giving the big plot point away, Jake being in the past for 5 years changes things, which cause some “Back to the Future Part 2” kind of problem at the end of the story. King introduces characters/concepts at the end of the book that feel like they may be part of another King story, but I haven’t read it (King has a cameo featuring “It” characters in the first part of the book). He offers a little more information about the time portal which was nice, but unnecessary.
Even though the “11/22/63” drags in the middle, I liked this book. If for nothing else, King does a great job of painting life in the 1960s. My friends and I often sit around and talk about our zombie survival plans, I feel like people who grew up during the Kennedy era probably had similar conversations about “if you could go back in time, how would you stop the Kennedy assassination”. This is how Stephen King would do it – I can respect that.
Happy New Year friends! 2011 is slipping through our fingers and I find myself trying to conjure words to summarize what that means to me. I am going to be honest with you, I am struggling with this year’s love note. Not due to any dark feelings, in fact, just the opposite. I have been feeling pretty calm this past week, which is good for the blood pressure, but bad for writing clever things.
[Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes]
Even though times are tough and there is a bit of uncertainty regarding the future, it seems like my friends and family made it out of 2011 in one piece. It is easy to turn sour watching your 401k shrink, the value of your house decline, and services you depend on disappear. But all things considered, the Philadelphia area is breeding grounds for plucky people that take all this shit in stride and figure out how to get through it.
It is hard to focus on the negatives when I look around and see all these kids that I mention every year growing up strong and smart. The world is hard, but I am glad to see my people have their priorities straight. As far as my priorities go, I will be in good company with a baby on the way. I am not going to turn this post into “my child is going to change my life…bla bla bla” because anybody with a kid knows that as fact (a fact I have been told a million times along with “get your sleep now.”).
Jangled nerves and worry have subsided and I am looking forward to becoming a parent. Fundamentally, I really hope I don’t suck as a dad (that is not me fishing for kind words btw, just consider that line a karmic message in a bottle). It is a funny thing writing about the baby because I haven’t done it much and thanks to the holidays I am burned out on active baby conversation. I do want to mention that I feel bad about the news getting out late to certain friends. I guess people really do use social media to keep in touch (oops)…
All that being said, the quiet has been a blessing. Babies tend to bring out lots of opinions, all those voices talking at the same time can be overpowering. That brings me into a nice transition…
[Thank You]
If you have been reading these little year ends, you know that I view this section as a loaded gun… time to point and shoot. Here is hoping I don’t get a bullet in the foot:
Thanks to my wife. Outside of making this whole baby thing happen, she gets me. My odd sense of humor, my “in your face” method of dealing with…everything, my musical taste (very important in this house). Compatibility makes life so much better.
Speaking of the babies, when we told our parents, we asked them to keep it quiet for a few weeks until we got solid news from the doctors. My father-in-law was so excited, he had to tell someone… so he told his barber. That little story sort of made it all real to me. Also thank you Mr. D for making me look like I know how to pick out a bottle of wine.
I really don’t know how else to say this… I want to thank my mom for not being up our asses. My mom is at the ready to help Allison and I at a moments notice. But she never second guesses our decisions about anything. She offers her personal perspective or experience and leaves it at that. There is grace in accepting (and enjoying) your children as adults. I can thank her for a million things that she does for us, but this is the thing I appreciate the most.
I need to thank Verizon. They have made it possible for my father and I to communicate at a frequency that I did not think possible two years ago. Here is the best part… I am the bastard. If I haven’t seen or talked to my dad during the week, I get the call. “Sonny Boy, where have you been!?!” For a man that is fairly indifferent to just about everything, it is good to know that he cares.
Thank you to Tony Bombardi, the master detective – I love you, your family and your mini adventures that often lead right back to the starting point. Whenever I do freak out about this kid, I think “what would Tony do” and then you usually end up calling me anyway.
So I just went back and carved out a huge section thanking friends. This is what I am going to say instead: to the people that I talk to regularly – the people who call me to talk about music, house stuff, gear, zombies – you know who you are. I love you guys (and gals). If it were not for you, I would probably lock myself in my house and take all the phones off the hook (fine – take the batteries out of my cell phone – damn you nerds!). There are dozens of people I should mention, but nobody wants to read two pages of thanks (and then probably, rightfully, wondering why you are not on the list).
[Looking Forward]
There are times in my life, and if you know me I am sure you have been caught in this, when I want to hold everyone I know close to me. Then once that exercise becomes (inevitably) futile, I will retreat, ignoring everyone, and rethink my position. I have been in retreat mode the last few months. I have been thinking about what is right for me and my growing family. And right now I think change is good.
Instead of some grand statement of how to make yourself better in 2012, or jumping on some soapbox about the state of the world, I hope you – my friends, family, and readers – find happiness or something that smells like it.
He did. 
