The Book Cage: Episode 106 - Bicycling Through Space and Time
The title should really tell you all you need to know. The Year of Pain would be nothing without bad comedy, and boy howdy. The Ultimate Bike Path allows you to visit strange worlds, provided a consul of mysterious old men give you the special gear that allows you to do it. Oh, and Charles Manson shows up, because why not. And unless you want to hurt youself, don't read the quote on the back. Friday, 5pm eastern, as always.
The Ultimate Bike Path lol
I enjoy that the year of pain is bringing us these classics that we never read but saw previously back in the day
oh hey apparently this book's author is actually still alive
and he has his own website
https://mikesirota.com/about-mike/
this book is also apparently the first in a series called A Retro Ride
the reprint cover is haunting btw
https://mikesirota.com/atoris/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Bicycling_Book1_210.jpg
Lol this review rules
If that doesn't scream Bike Guy
man graphic design really is his passion huh
"I'm so sick of all the road bike assholes having all the good stories"
Soroka, but yes
Or maybe there is a Sirota too and I'm the asshole
he has a twitter account as well but it appears to just be him posting links to his website's blog
I understand hiring an artist costs money but there's no way it's not worth a hundred bucks to make it look professional
He feels very grateful that you think he has $100
Raking in that Adjunct Professor scratch
It looks like he's won a few local awards
But also that he's not primarily a comedy writer
Which is a recipe for disaster: someone who's relatively good at one style of writing who thinks it applies to other styles
Coming up on the hour, it's Bicycling Through Space and Time. Here is your preview
"Hi, and welcome to the novel! I'm a huge pussy and I'll be your protagonist for the duration."
That second sentence is 25 syllables to say that nothing was occurring.
Oh good, he's referencing movie quotes in the excerpt. This bodes well
I am SO HERE for this book
Time to begin the process
Hell yeah. Hi, @Brendan ! Hi, @gellaho !
Hi, Shark!
Anybody who feels the need to introduce themselves as being "in the hilarious tradition of Douglas Adams" is a damned filthy liar.
The only exception is Terry Pratchett, and frankly, he did it better.
Red flag 2
This is sweet, I can't lie.
Hi, @The Badgers in the Discords !
It's sweet, but he's on thin ice
End of chapter
I think the 'tradition' they're talking about is getting a book published
No. Wrong.
Bad.
Go back and try again.
Hi, @MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO !
Hi FancyShark!
Chapter 2: The Middle Aged Guy
There was this room, this really strange eggshell color room...
Who had the KKK in the second paragraph?
Dang it we should have made bingo cards
Any black curtains?
What kind of lunatic lives without blackout curtains
Or how about Gaddafi in paragraph five?
😵💫
"In the tradition of Douglas Adams"
Oh wait I get it
https://store.steampowered.com/app/467290/Starship_Titanic/
They're talking about this tradition of Douglas Adams
Descriptions are hard
I like it when books make me google things
Do these memberberries taste a little tart to anyone else?
Any character played by Wilford Brimley including
Dialogue, turns out, also hard
'I can tell by the nametag'
This is Ready Player One from the pre-internet age
The bicycle which was foretold
"Stolen from a kid who bought it with his own paper route money"
How great would it be if there wasn't a bike in this book
Truly astonishing coincidence
They're giving him the sales pitch after he already bought the bike
Divorced lottery winner, very relatable
"… as you know."
Jack has been rehearsing this speech in a mirror
"We had trouble with this. Can you please exposition me?"
And a writer, really stretching those legs Sirota
Our hero: he's fine letting a homeless man say random garbage, but he doesn't like literary feedback
The bicycle gear of destiny
I only know Del Mar is San Diego-ey because I wrote about Shake Shack's new test run of sundaes an hour ago.
This plan seems inefficient
And let me tell you, "Custard whiter than the KKK doing blow off Eva Green's tits" is a really fucking weird sales slogan.
Calling it right now; this old man is him from the future
If you kill half, and then enslave the other half, who is doing the enslaving?
BUT YOUR NAME IS VELO
If you don't fuck yourself from the future, I'm not interested in your coward's adventures.
How often do the Kodommo do that? Was this a one time thing or is it seasonal?
The most statistically average Kodommite.
I think you mean San Dieguito,according to Sirota's genius comedy
it's like if you got Dennis Miller to write God's Debris
Wakka wakka
Maybe it's an equinox. Slaughter half for winter, enslave half in summer.
I feel like I missed a bike reference
Hi, @Ferroday Plays Both Sides !
Ferroday! We're going to time-fuck our old man selves!
hi, little late, I was practicing Decidueye combos in Pokken and lost track of time
As was always the plan
Yes, I'm sure the people of San Diego can't deal with the visage of a bicyclist
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede?wprov=sfla1
The National Guard is soon called in to make him change hats
Oh hell yes
dressed like that in SoCal? doubt it
Our hero dies of heat stroke in chapter 2
esp. when this book was written
If you are unfamiliar with one of the most famous episodes of Star Trek, here's Mike Sirota to waste some time explaining it to you
is the (Joan Collins?) bit an editor's note?
it kind of feels out of place
That would imply this book had an editor
There's no better way to explain a concept than to explain the thing you're using for your explanation
I feel like there are better places to bike
I like to explain a concept by introducing five other concepts which will not be explained
There are live explosives tests in the middle of San Diego?
please santa, let Jack Miller get shot
The old guy, who previously transported him to a white void, for some reason has to physically bike here. And dressed like a guy trying to sell you a thirty inch CRT in Circuit City
Ok I was a bit late but I'm caught up now. Who the fuck told this guy he was in the tradition of Douglas Adams
Hi, @HeyitsTom !
Hi Tom!
I'm betting this guy said it himself
all the name-brand clothing doesn't exactly make it easy to picture what these doofs are wearing
I get it's supposed to be pop-culture references but given that this was written in like the 80s or w/e it's kind of lost its relevance
It's like he was hoping for product placement money
Did you know bicycles have always existed?
Translates to Ultimate Bike Path but sounds like "Move Along Alley"
Quantum Bikes
To be fair, old guy, you also don't appear to understand this thing very well either
Old Guy is really determined to sell Jack on dying in space
I'm increasingly on Old Guy's side about Jack dying in space
Giving him three lives
Oh good, video game mechanics finally make the jump to the printed page
this so far feels like a script for an adventure game that never left alpha stage so he made it a book instead
If this writer had any balls or actual Douglas Adams chops, he'd make Jack immediately get killed twice right after the warning
So what we're getting at is that the Old Guy is your Gandalf and Jack Miller or whatever his name was is Frodo, right?
Hard to understand something that doesn't make sense
But, like, why? Why does it matter if he goes on this journey or not?
Just make sure you keep pedaling and don't stop until you find an actual motivation
"Jack it's time we discuss bike mechanics at length, otherwise you'll die in space."
Get some Back to the Future in there
Engage bike computer for takeoff
Q is watching this old man try to explain one gadget and just shaking his head.
"Since I couldn't tell how long or short anything was here, I considered unzipping to see if my ex was still right"
"Never having ridden along the bottom of anyone's swimming pool before." HAH, Humor! Eat shit, Douglas Adams
Mike Sirota spends a lot of words trying to describe a portal, and fails
This is so weird and pointless I don't even know how to make fun of it
Yep, @Ferroday Plays Both Sides called it. This is an adventure game that was never greenlit
this is why my creative writing professor told everyone not to turn their D&D campaigns into prose fiction.
for exactly this reason.
so it's a door with a little
on it
ULTIMATE BIKE PATH
So far, the stakes are "why not"
So wacky
HAH
This is what fun looks like, Neil Gaiman
What if I wrote half a page to say he screamed? That's funny, right?
Acres of trees died to convey this vision of whimsy, all in vain
Oh just like the humour in my favourite douglas adams book
Ray Bradbury once wrote a humor short story for Playboy where the aliens talked like that. It was about as funny, too
No bikes in the Bradbury story though
Here's the weird thing, did the old guy ever say Jack had to go through other portals? Or just ride the gallun von gooseberry for awhile?
He gets back, talks to the old guy. Old guy explains that every world along the bike path is hospitable. Which is convenient
Then he brands him with a translator
The translator is the size of a Keurig machine
Old Guy didn't expect Jack to survive that and now has to come up with an excuse
Such high brow comedy
HAH farts
Eat shit Jane Austin
To be fair, this is very on brand for an American thinking they can write like Douglas Adams
Rub one out if you need help, Jack
Specifically an untalented American with a boring idea
This Old Guy isn't a time traveller at all! He's just an elaborate pervert!
He wouldn't go through all of this if he could get off normally anymore
Did the old guy imply that jack was some sort of hero to their culture for doing this? Am I remembering that right?
I'm really trying to figure out the point
Anyway, back to the bike path
Did he just repeat the Conan thing?
This was the bit from the preview
Through the gargoyles
Oh good we've reached the bit that's so good they wanted to show it off
He's wearing gargoyles?
Yay more branding
Back in the day we called sunglasses gargoyles
I hope this book was sponsored, otherwise this is going to get sad
"Give me five bees for a gargoyle," you'd say
You couldn't get tinted gargoyles though, because of the war
If anything they amplified the sun going into your eyes, but damn if they didn't look cool
He talks to some slugs and leaves, accomplishing very little
But at least we get another unfortunate reference
Finally, one that will age properly
Now, a lot of American culture is pretty close to universal now, but something about this author's choice of references is exclusively American
Like when he was describing the portals and one was the shape of florida
Florita with a cowboy hat, thank you
respect the poetry
Sirota really thinks this Elmer Fudd thing is gold, he's used it about a dozen times
Actually we don't know what kind of hat the Florida Door was wearing, he just said Stetson, and they also make Fedoras
He should maybe describe things
"Oh I'm gonna travel through you sooo hard, oh fuck"
IBM Blue
That's several blues, even for the time this was written
L.A. Dodger blue. Another helpful description for all the peoples of the world
I already had this for other reasons but
All of these are IBM blue
Sirota thinks of Los Angeles as a different state
Falling into that thorn bush eventually completely paralyzes him
Nothing for it. Better cut off your arm with a pocket knife.
Cut off everything below your neck, just to be safe
This is just like Hitch-hiker's guide
It's a sci-fi humor book in 1991, you might be overestimating it's potential for distribution
I really see it now
Possibly
1991?!
I assumed this was from like 82 or something
Picture Jonathan Winters, but not looking like Jonathan Winters at all
well that's one of the most haunting images ever
eat shit, stephen king
Tee hee, almost said a naughty word
God damn Space Tom Bombadil
Get this, he has a high voice when he's singing, but a low voice when talking. Could you even imagine?
Space is full of wonders
Ass magic
The Beegees must've blown this author's mind
Then sticks something on Jack's crotch
The infinite possibilites of space and time, the limitless potential of the written world, and this guy really went with "check this out... this guy's a tenor."
This maybe should have stayed wherever you found it, @gellaho
Then sends him into a pile of shit
Eat shit, Jack Miller
Full circle, I like it
Feces. For when you can't think of a joke
Let's just fill up some space with movie references for no reason
One way or another, he's hitting his word count
It was either this or return the advance, and he'd already spent it on bike shorts.
"Three yellow moons rose over the edge of the dung cart."
What's the word for the opposite of art?
He's taken to a healer, who is of course hot
And she points out that he smells like dung, for Comedy
is the healer not the same species as the stretched arms singing ass slapping freakazoid then?
or does she just wear it better?
She heals him, and turns out she's secretly ugly. What a twist!
oh nevermind
And she provides a wealth of shit for the shit apprentice
Remember the Wicked Witch? How she was just a four or a five with a long nose and long chin prosthetic? Well multiply that by ten
a 40 or 50?
Man, all I did was walk the dog for five minutes and now it's an hour later. I hate the Vurdabark leash
So, that adventure was worth it
We still haven't found a narrative, have we
I was just gonna say
as a fun challenge
how would you go from here to a plot
Old Guy, who of course refers to himself as Old Guy because Jack is the main character here and Old Guy is aware of that, is proud of Jack
my suggestion is it turns out Jack's antics are a distraction for the multiverse police so the Old Guy can go and rob banks on slug world
As like a good idea?
Easy
He loses the bike
Multiverse police chase also works
you're right, in a real story that would have to happen
Off to Austria, 1896
Hitchhiker's Guide didn't have a major overarching plot, but Adams made up for it by having the audience learn about things the same way as Arthur Dent: via chaos and hilarious info drops. Dent was still very much trying to get home, even though home was destroyed.
Oh that's a bad time to be in Austria
I don't see how that could be true
What could possibly go wrong
What's a Hitler?
I'm sorry
how did we get here?
Jack is Hitler's dad
the bike trail goes back in time as well?
Seriously, @MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO and @HeyitsTom , you two haven't been to a lot of these readings yet but every hack writer inevitably brings in Hitler
Yes, Beekeeping is among the first things I think about when Hitler comes up
Have you told the bees about Hitler yet?
that's true I'm still a neophyte. 1896 austria was a shock to my system
You know that scene in event horizon where they fold the piece of paper and poke a hole through it?
That, but a book
can't argue with that
He's trying to have a hitler themed philosophical moment
And I respect that
Haven't been able to bring myself to them about his death
Sirota really understands comedy
come on man
Anyway, he play shoots kid Hitler and leaves
You don't murder baby Hitler, you kidnap him and raise him to be an assassin killing other fascists.
So, that was a great use of time
He debated killing Hitler and we still have no plot
And decided calling him a great actor was a good idea
You can go anywhere in time and space and your first thought is I'll stay on earth and strangle a child.
In the tradition of Douglas Adams
Jake tries to blame the old guy for a choice Jake made
Because that's how that works
He's trying so hard to have a
"It was much better to imagine men in some smoky room somewhere, made mad and cynical by privilege and power, plotting over the brandy. You had to cling to this sort of image, because if you didn't then you might have to face the fact that bad things happened because ordinary people, the kind who brushed the dog and told their children bedtime stories, were capable then of going out and doing horrible things to other ordinary people. "
moment
To be fair, he had pointlessly gone to two other worlds first
If Jack had debated murdering Ghandi, this book would at least be more insane
He could have justified it with a Civilization reference
Seems like a real best seller
Sounds like a man magazine story
What if book, but only references?
