The Morning After

Jess turned me on to a new blog the other day by a guy named Neil.  I have been jiving on Neil’s style lately and he had one of those meme type posts going on, and it looked sorta fun, so I thought I’d give it try on a lazy gray Saturday morning.

1)  You are facing an epic journey. You may choose one companion, one tool and one vehicle from any book or film to accompany you. Or just one of the three.  It’s up to you. What do you choose?

My companion is an easy one.  I would pick my buddy Bob for three key reasons.

i) He scored some Canucks tickets for the game against the San Jose Sharks, right behind the Sharks bench!

ii) Bob never complains.  We are an epic journey to chuck the ring in Mordor’s fiery lava pit and then save Princess Zelda… I got no time to hear how his girlfriend troubles.

iii) But that doesn’t mean Bob doesn’t like to talk.  While we travel across endless trackless desert on a horse with no-name, I can count on Bob to keep me thoroughly entertained with stories of sexual conquest, gossips from the characters in his life and hockey trivia.

Tool? Lateralus

Vehicle… well our journey would be a comedy… and nothing gets you into weird space/time continuum predicaments like Doc Brown’s Delorean.

2)  You can escape to the insides of any book. Where do you go, and why?

Part of me thinks it would be cool to live in Trilogy North and South.  I remember reading those books as a kid and the main characters crushed a lot of Civil War era vag.  One of the main characters is this lady named Brett who I always imagined as being very attractive.  Growing up I always thought Brett was a strange name for a man, because in my mind, it belongs to a Southern Belle.

3)  You can bring one literary character into your current life. Who do you choose, and why?

Robert Langdon… we’d travel the globe solving capers.

4)  _________________ is my go-to book. I could read that book fifty-seven times in a row without a break for food or a pee and not be remotely bored. In fact I’ve already done that but it wasn’t fifty-seven times.  It was sixty-four.

I have a hard time reading fiction books multiple times.  Now, my books about medieval history or Canadian War History?  those I can go to anytime.

5)  Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most enviable?

I remember reading Sue Carpenter’s 40 Watts From Nowhere, maybe not when I was a kid, but a young adult, and I was pretty excited by the prospect of starting a pirate radio station.

Sue started a pirate radio station out of her apartment in California and lived this crazy eclectic lifestyle that I always thought I’d like to try.  The internet doesn’t make the need for a pirate radio broadcaster as important as times past, but it would be a fun hobby to run a radio station out of my home, some day.

6)  Of all the literary or film characters that made an impression on you as a kid, who was the most frightening?

Film character?
Fucking Jaws man… that shark scared the shit out of me as a kid.  I remember it was on TV late one hot summer afternoon, and for some r-tarded reason I watched it.  Then my Mom took us all up to Spani Pool for a swim.  I could barely get in the water, and when I did, I was TERRIFIED the whole time.

A shark that eats people? who dream up this shit?

7)  Every time I read _________________, I see something in it that I haven’t seen before.

Like I said, I don’t re-read fiction too often.  So yeah, Neil is smarter than me, read his answer about the book The Decameron.  he made me want to read it.

8)  It is imperative that _________________ be made into a movie. Now. I am already picketing Hollywood for this—but if they cast _________________ as _________________, I will not be happy. I will, however, be appeased if they cast _________________.

I blooged about this before, but the story of John Jewitt NEEDS to be made into a film.

If they cast Robert Pattinson as John Jewitt or the kid that plays a werewolf in New Moon as Maquinna, I’ll barf, however I can be appeased if Jewitt is played by either R Patts Brit Pack buddy from Pirate Radio, Tom Sturridge or… maybe the fugly guy from Notting Hill, Rhys Ifans.

9)  _________________ is a book that should never be made (or should have never been made) into a film.

Fast Food Nation was a powerful book that lost some mustard when it was made into a film.

and any of those movies based on blogs that were made into books.  Texts From Last Night, hilarious, please don’t make it a movie.

10)  After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me the queebs.

Queebs is some sort of cracker slang for what exactly?

11)  After all these years, the _________________ scene in the book/movie _________________ still manages to give me a thrill.

Whenever I watch Glory and matthew Brodrick is like, “The 54th will lead the charge against..” whatever the fort is called.  And you know, all those poor guys are gunna die.

12)  If I could corner the author _________________, here’s what I’d say to them one minute or less about their book, _________________:

It would be George R.R. Martin and I would say,

“Seriously guy, finish your god damned story or give me my money back!

“If life was like school, you would have so failed out by now friendo.  Why are you walking the streets talking to me, get back to work writing YOUR GOD DAMNED BOOK…”

13)  The coolest non-fiction book I’ve ever read is _________________. Every time I flip through it, it makes me want to _________________.

I love non-fiction and re-visit my collection often.  Any time I read my book on Canadian Wolrd War One I want to write a screen lay for a movie that will suck 100 times less than Passchendaele.

Go with yourself.