November Road Trip Spookaganza Part I: Pasadena to Cambria

When I told my old lady that I was going to take a road trip without a plan she looked at me like I should be in a home. But I don't know how else to do it. Whenever I went on trips with my mom and dad and when I went on trips alone with my dad especially, that's how it appeared. We drove as far as we needed to for that day, then we stopped and stayed at whatever place seemed right. Sometime you got bad ones (like the Blue Gum Motel, which I remember for being particularly crappy and for having the remake of Diabolique on the TV) and sometimes we ended up at the Grand Union. That is how we do.

That's more or less how I'm traveling. And, admittedly, I'm pretty darn bad at it.

There is a shape to it, at least. I'm taking two weeks off of my dead end job. I'm going to see the sights. I'm going to get drunk. I'm going to spend way to much goddamn money. Most importantly, I am going to write. It's been a year and two days since I started my novel. It might be wishful thinking, but it's about time I finished this son of a bitch. A roadtrip up the Pacific coast seemed like the thing to do.

This, by the way, is the most driving that I've ever done. On my last big roadtrip, I don't think I touched the wheel once. A few years before that I went on a trip up to San Francisco with my dad and I maybe drove once or twice. Here, though, it's ridiculous. It's all lower back pain and paying attention and hoping, god forbid, that you don't need help. And that's travelling, too.

I don't know how many years ago, but my dad and I went on a trip and the car broke down on the first day. I think it was somehere outside of Sulvang that something blew out on the car. We had to get towed by about two hundred miles to Pasadena. It was only eleven at night, but that seemed so late to me at the time, especially considering that I was crammed between my dad and a tow truck driver for what felt like a trillion hour.

There will be no such bullshit this time around.

So far it's been real nice. No real traffic. The only thing I could bitch about-- and I won't, because it's great-- is that it was raining.

The only stop I made was in Solvang because it has Split Pea Andersen's, an obligitory stop on a California road trip if there ever was one. I'll tell you, though, that place is a lot less grand in real life than it was in my memory. Not that it was bad, but there was a grandiosity to the place in my head that couldn't be matched by its acutality. The further I get into my real memory that harder it is for me to picture the fake place. But anyways. . .

I stopped for the night in Cambria, a cute little town off of the 101. I was treated with a double-rainbow as soon as I got into Cambria, which, I gotta say, it still pretty fucking impressive. I mean, I can't remember the time I saw a rainbow this strong.

I mean, rainbows are still pretty cool, right? (By the way, you can see it here.)

Also, I just realized that Cambria has nothing to do with pre-historic times, but with Wales. Which means, as I understand it, that the Pre-Cambrian and the Cambrian Era are just named that because some asshole found some cool rocks there once, which basically proves that white people are the worst (that is if you consider the Welsh to be white, which, if you're any sort of racist, you do not).

What was I talking about? Oh yeah, travel. That. It's cool. It's good to be out. Doing stuff. Wasting money. It's relaxing. Knowing that my shit-ass job won't be stepping on my neck for at least the next two weeks. That's. . . That's nice.
 
Now, if you'll excuse me, The Grand Dictator is on TMC right now, which means that I have obligations elsewhere.

OH AND BY THE WAY

My dad, "Waldo" to his friends and "Waldo" to his enemies has a book. It's about pre-Prohibition saloons, bars, and cigar stores. It might not be your thing, but I'm really just trying to work the SOE game right now. If you're into that sort of a thing, check it out. If not, still check it out. You can see it all here.

Mark Watney of Mars

A Review of The Martian (2015)

by James Kislingbury

The past decade or so of Ridley Scott's career has not been the greatest. Since the early 2000's successes of Gladiator and Black Hawk Down, his output has been one long run of questionable films that range from the half-baked, the butchered, the confusing, and the downright awful. During this period, his technical skills only seemed to remind us that he once seemed capable of making good films. And then we remembered that his last unqualified good film came out around ten years ago.

The Martian, thankfully, defies this trend. It's the best movie Ridley Scott has turned out in a decade.  It's fun, it's light, and despite lacking the depth of his best works, it's an eminently watchable film. Considering the amount of calories I've wasted defending Kingdom of Heaven and Prometheus, this is exciting for me.

The Martian is about Dr. Mark Watney, hunk and space botanist, who is stranded on the red planet after a freak storm. From there, it's a series of duct-tape drama, self-surgery, and, back on Earth, an oddly gripping story that revolves around resource allocations (that and conversations about how people should just, like, try harder). It's more Robinson Crusoe than it is Enemy Mine, more Apollo 13 than it is, uh, Robinson Crusoe on Mars.

It's tackles the science fiction genre in a way that I don't think I've ever seen. Namely, it's a movie that is about actual science. Films in this niche have always dabbled with this sort of thing. Interstellar jumps most immediately to mind and 2001: A Space Odyssey jumps most unfairly to mind (as though anything should ever be compared to a Kubrick movie, for good or for bad). Those films only use the science a starting point for the drama. With The Martian, the science is the drama. It is the end all, be all of the film. It's a film without a villain, where doing long division is more important than bravery.

For the most part it works. Seeing a guy, step-by-step figure out how not to die is pretty intriguing. You know, that's cool. The problem comes from the fact that there's no real emotion in the film. It's a long line of problems that need to be solved and smart people doing bloodless math in their heads about how it gets solved. I mentioned it in my podcast, but later on, I thought of United 93 and the thrills Paul Greengrass manages to eek out of bureaucratic procedure and couldn't help but realize that I've seen it done better than it was in The Martian.

The Martian is a perfect title, because nobody in the film ever seems to act like a human being. People assemble into rooms, assess a problem, and then all go to their respective corners like no collection of human beings in charge of multi-billion dollar programs would ever do. It's a movie where Jessica Chastain is stoic. I don't know about you, but stoic is not why I show up to a Jessica Chastain picture.

The film seems more interested in maintaining momentum than it does in creating individual moments where characters can be confused or upset or indecisive. Human beings don't fit into alegebra, so the film moves right past them.

As lacking as the film is in emotion or any sort of attachment, it does have its moments here and there. You have Donald Glover taking the set of skills he honed in Community to be the most obvious quirky scientist this side of The Big Bang Theory (which, like JPL, is also in Pasadena). Then there's you have Sean Bean and Jeff Daniels dueling in a series of industrial offices over who can appear the most affably schlubby without tipping over into "I have a puppy in my van" territory. Most importantly, you have a montage set to David Bowie's "Starman," which is important if only because it is only the third most obvious David Bowie song about space and someone deserves credit for that coup. Then, after these moments, the story kind of slides back to its steady, unwavering tale about a dude trying to figure out how he can, oh boy, "science the shit" out of his space car.

Beyond the drama and beyond its technical achievements, The Martian deserves viewing, because it speaks to the importance of space exploration. Between the various disasters that have plagued our space program and the various earthbound horrors we've witnessed over the past decade or so, we've lost our ability to stare at the stars and wonder what could be. We've forgotten what they mean. The Martian steadfastly ignores this sort of cynicism. Like its drama, there's no place for it. Space travel is an incredible achievement. It is something that represents the best of our race. In this film it isn't some asshole's talking point about how we should spend that money feeding people in America instead of sending people to space (as though we have to choose). Going to space is, in a very real way, the best we can do as a species. If this film can put us right on the importance of space exploration, to get us wondering about what could be, then The Martian will have done its job.

Imperfect as it may be, The Martian is one of the smartest blockbusters to come out since, well, Interstellar. It is a film that, despite its failings, manages to strike a balance between hard science fiction and populist entertainment. It's, you know, pretty cool for the most part. As many better films of this sub-genre as there are, there are few that are as well produced as this one and even fewer that are as technically accomplished. The Martian is a respectable, enjoyable film that is also about as overflowing with human feelings as the planet it depicts.

James Kislingbury is a writer, a podcaster, and an Explorion. 

The review after this one is about how I liked Wonder Woman, I swear

I've read some bad sci-fi in my dad. I mean real bad. Horrid stuff. Stuff that probably took years off my life and can probably be blamed for not getting into a real college. This is not as bad as all that. It just isn't very good.

Leviathan Wakes is a fast-paced, straight forward book that sets up a recognizable future. It's unburdened with explaining technology or new religions or scientific breakthroughs or the million other mythological sticking points that these books like to fill their pages with. The solar system of Leviathan Wakes is normal to the point of being mundane. While it resists the urge to focus its attention on a space pirate or a grizzled special forces veteran, it doesn't include anything interesting to take its place. For a lack of a better term, this book is focused on people on the ground level. Normal people. It's just that these characters, at their core, are not very interesting. And neither is their grand adventure. And neither is their world. It would any of these aspects failed, the book would be a problematic read. That all of them have failed is much more troubling.

There just isn't much more than that.Towards the back third it picks up and gets weird, but the journey there is a bit of a slog, rife with uninteresting main characters and dialogue that fell out of the notes a high schooler doodled in his syllabus margins.

There might be plenty of science fiction that is worse than Leviathan Wakes. There is also a lot of stories much better than this one. Go read one of those.

But apparently I'm the crazy person for not liking this book. Oh well. I'm reading The Friends of Eddie Coyle now. So, the joke's on everyone else.

And now, the chaser:

If I bitch about things too much, it's out of the honest belief that they should be better. There was a time when I'd burn a lot of calories being worked up over this sort of thing. Time has gentled my condition. I wish that had happened sooner. I could have used those calories.

Science fiction is a grand, ol' genre and it isn't these rare exceptions or these odd bits of magic that prove that they can be wonderful. You know this. I know this. The American people know this. Edgar Wright should know this, but he's got a really good song that we need to hear, so maybe he'll show up later.

So, here's a brief list of science fiction things that are better worth your time than Leviathan Wakes:
Dune.
Dune: Messiah.
This trailer for the 23rd re-edition of Dune.
The Santaroga Barrier.
Most random Twilight Zone episodes.
Blade Runner.
Alien.
Aliens.
Prometheus.
The Man in the High Castle.
Trillium.
East of West.
Looper. (A movie I didn't like, but everyone else did and, hey, at least it tried.)
Attack the Block (apparently. I haven't seen this. Someone kidnap me and make me watch it, okay?)
Bioshock Infinite.
District 9.
Star Trek no colon Into Darkness (you know, if you like your science fiction to be of the running and jumping variety).
Blade Runner.
Total Recall.
I don't know, a lot of things.

I don't hate things. I don't even hate Leviathan Wakes. I just wish that things that could be good, should be good. Right? We can all agree on that, at least.