106: Bicycling Through Space and Time Mike Sirota

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gellaho

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.

gellaho
shaqtoberfest jakesy

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

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

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

shaqtoberfest jakesy

Lol this review rules

shaqtoberfest jakesy

If that doesn't scream Bike Guy

Ak's Combustible Gender Fluid

man graphic design really is his passion huh

Ferroday Plays Both Sides
shaqtoberfest jakesy

"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

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

he has a twitter account as well but it appears to just be him posting links to his website's blog

shaqtoberfest jakesy

I understand hiring an artist costs money but there's no way it's not worth a hundred bucks to make it look professional

gellaho

He feels very grateful that you think he has $100

shaqtoberfest jakesy

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

gellaho

Coming up on the hour, it's Bicycling Through Space and Time. Here is your preview

The Badgers in the Discords

"Hi, and welcome to the novel! I'm a huge pussy and I'll be your protagonist for the duration."

Ozzie

That second sentence is 25 syllables to say that nothing was occurring.

FancyShark

Oh good, he's referencing movie quotes in the excerpt. This bodes well

Brendan

I am SO HERE for this book

gellaho

Time to begin the process

FancyShark

Hell yeah. Hi, @Brendan ! Hi, @gellaho !

Brendan

Hi, Shark!

The Badgers in the Discords

Anybody who feels the need to introduce themselves as being "in the hilarious tradition of Douglas Adams" is a damned filthy liar.

gellaho
Brendan

The only exception is Terry Pratchett, and frankly, he did it better.

FancyShark

Red flag 2

Brendan

This is sweet, I can't lie.

FancyShark

Hi, @The Badgers in the Discords !

FancyShark

It's sweet, but he's on thin ice

gellaho
FancyShark

End of chapter

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I think the 'tradition' they're talking about is getting a book published

The Badgers in the Discords

No. Wrong.

Bad.

Go back and try again.

FancyShark

Hi, @MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO !

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Hi FancyShark!

Chapter 2: The Middle Aged Guy

There was this room, this really strange eggshell color room...

gellaho

Who had the KKK in the second paragraph?

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Dang it we should have made bingo cards

FancyShark

Any black curtains?

The Badgers in the Discords

What kind of lunatic lives without blackout curtains

gellaho

Or how about Gaddafi in paragraph five?

The Badgers in the Discords

😵‍💫

FancyShark

"In the tradition of Douglas Adams"

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Oh wait I get it

https://store.steampowered.com/app/467290/Starship_Titanic/

They're talking about this tradition of Douglas Adams

gellaho

Descriptions are hard

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I like it when books make me google things

The Badgers in the Discords

Do these memberberries taste a little tart to anyone else?

FancyShark

Any character played by Wilford Brimley including

gellaho

Dialogue, turns out, also hard

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

'I can tell by the nametag'

FancyShark

This is Ready Player One from the pre-internet age

gellaho

The bicycle which was foretold

FancyShark

"Stolen from a kid who bought it with his own paper route money"

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

How great would it be if there wasn't a bike in this book

gellaho

Truly astonishing coincidence

FancyShark

They're giving him the sales pitch after he already bought the bike

gellaho

Divorced lottery winner, very relatable

The Badgers in the Discords

"… as you know."

FancyShark

Jack has been rehearsing this speech in a mirror

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

"We had trouble with this. Can you please exposition me?"

gellaho

And a writer, really stretching those legs Sirota

FancyShark

Our hero: he's fine letting a homeless man say random garbage, but he doesn't like literary feedback

gellaho

The bicycle gear of destiny

Brendan

I only know Del Mar is San Diego-ey because I wrote about Shake Shack's new test run of sundaes an hour ago.

FancyShark

This plan seems inefficient

Brendan

And let me tell you, "Custard whiter than the KKK doing blow off Eva Green's tits" is a really fucking weird sales slogan.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Calling it right now; this old man is him from the future

gellaho

If you kill half, and then enslave the other half, who is doing the enslaving?

Brendan

BUT YOUR NAME IS VELO

If you don't fuck yourself from the future, I'm not interested in your coward's adventures.

FancyShark

How often do the Kodommo do that? Was this a one time thing or is it seasonal?

Brendan

The most statistically average Kodommite.

gellaho

I think you mean San Dieguito,according to Sirota's genius comedy

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

it's like if you got Dennis Miller to write God's Debris

gellaho

Wakka wakka

Brendan

Maybe it's an equinox. Slaughter half for winter, enslave half in summer.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I feel like I missed a bike reference

FancyShark

Hi, @Ferroday Plays Both Sides !

Brendan

Ferroday! We're going to time-fuck our old man selves!

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

hi, little late, I was practicing Decidueye combos in Pokken and lost track of time

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

As was always the plan

gellaho

Yes, I'm sure the people of San Diego can't deal with the visage of a bicyclist

gellaho

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Velocipede?wprov=sfla1

FancyShark

The National Guard is soon called in to make him change hats

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Oh hell yes

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

dressed like that in SoCal? doubt it

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Our hero dies of heat stroke in chapter 2

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

esp. when this book was written

gellaho

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

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

is the (Joan Collins?) bit an editor's note?

it kind of feels out of place

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

That would imply this book had an editor

FancyShark

There's no better way to explain a concept than to explain the thing you're using for your explanation

gellaho

I feel like there are better places to bike

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I like to explain a concept by introducing five other concepts which will not be explained

FancyShark

There are live explosives tests in the middle of San Diego?

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

please santa, let Jack Miller get shot

gellaho

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

HeyitsTom

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

FancyShark

Hi, @HeyitsTom !

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Hi Tom!

FancyShark

I'm betting this guy said it himself

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

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

FancyShark

It's like he was hoping for product placement money

gellaho

Did you know bicycles have always existed?

gellaho
FancyShark

Translates to Ultimate Bike Path but sounds like "Move Along Alley"

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Quantum Bikes

gellaho

To be fair, old guy, you also don't appear to understand this thing very well either

FancyShark

Old Guy is really determined to sell Jack on dying in space

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I'm increasingly on Old Guy's side about Jack dying in space

gellaho

Giving him three lives

The Badgers in the Discords

Oh good, video game mechanics finally make the jump to the printed page

Ferroday Plays Both Sides

this so far feels like a script for an adventure game that never left alpha stage so he made it a book instead

FancyShark

If this writer had any balls or actual Douglas Adams chops, he'd make Jack immediately get killed twice right after the warning

HeyitsTom

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?

gellaho

Hard to understand something that doesn't make sense

HeyitsTom

But, like, why? Why does it matter if he goes on this journey or not?

FancyShark

Just make sure you keep pedaling and don't stop until you find an actual motivation

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

"Jack it's time we discuss bike mechanics at length, otherwise you'll die in space."

gellaho

Get some Back to the Future in there

gellaho

Engage bike computer for takeoff

The Badgers in the Discords

Q is watching this old man try to explain one gadget and just shaking his head.

FancyShark

"Since I couldn't tell how long or short anything was here, I considered unzipping to see if my ex was still right"

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

"Never having ridden along the bottom of anyone's swimming pool before." HAH, Humor! Eat shit, Douglas Adams

gellaho

Mike Sirota spends a lot of words trying to describe a portal, and fails

HeyitsTom

This is so weird and pointless I don't even know how to make fun of it

FancyShark

Yep, @Ferroday Plays Both Sides called it. This is an adventure game that was never greenlit

The Badgers in the Discords

this is why my creative writing professor told everyone not to turn their D&D campaigns into prose fiction.

for exactly this reason.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

so it's a door with a little

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

on it

gellaho

ULTIMATE BIKE PATH

FancyShark

So far, the stakes are "why not"

gellaho

So wacky

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

HAH

This is what fun looks like, Neil Gaiman

gellaho

What if I wrote half a page to say he screamed? That's funny, right?

gellaho
The Badgers in the Discords

Acres of trees died to convey this vision of whimsy, all in vain

HeyitsTom

Oh just like the humour in my favourite douglas adams book

FancyShark

Ray Bradbury once wrote a humor short story for Playboy where the aliens talked like that. It was about as funny, too

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

No bikes in the Bradbury story though

HeyitsTom

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?

gellaho

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

FancyShark

The translator is the size of a Keurig machine

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Old Guy didn't expect Jack to survive that and now has to come up with an excuse

gellaho

Such high brow comedy

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

HAH farts

Eat shit Jane Austin

FancyShark

To be fair, this is very on brand for an American thinking they can write like Douglas Adams

gellaho

Rub one out if you need help, Jack

HeyitsTom

Specifically an untalented American with a boring idea

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

This Old Guy isn't a time traveller at all! He's just an elaborate pervert!

FancyShark

He wouldn't go through all of this if he could get off normally anymore

HeyitsTom

Did the old guy imply that jack was some sort of hero to their culture for doing this? Am I remembering that right?

HeyitsTom

I'm really trying to figure out the point

gellaho

Anyway, back to the bike path

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Did he just repeat the Conan thing?

FancyShark

This was the bit from the preview

gellaho

Through the gargoyles

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Oh good we've reached the bit that's so good they wanted to show it off

FancyShark

He's wearing gargoyles?

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Yay more branding

HeyitsTom

Back in the day we called sunglasses gargoyles

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I hope this book was sponsored, otherwise this is going to get sad

HeyitsTom

"Give me five bees for a gargoyle," you'd say

You couldn't get tinted gargoyles though, because of the war

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

If anything they amplified the sun going into your eyes, but damn if they didn't look cool

gellaho

He talks to some slugs and leaves, accomplishing very little

But at least we get another unfortunate reference

FancyShark

Finally, one that will age properly

HeyitsTom

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

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Florita with a cowboy hat, thank you

respect the poetry

gellaho

Sirota really thinks this Elmer Fudd thing is gold, he's used it about a dozen times

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

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

HeyitsTom

"Oh I'm gonna travel through you sooo hard, oh fuck"

gellaho

IBM Blue

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

That's several blues, even for the time this was written

HeyitsTom

L.A. Dodger blue. Another helpful description for all the peoples of the world

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

I already had this for other reasons but

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

All of these are IBM blue

FancyShark

Sirota thinks of Los Angeles as a different state

gellaho

Falling into that thorn bush eventually completely paralyzes him

FancyShark

Nothing for it. Better cut off your arm with a pocket knife.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Cut off everything below your neck, just to be safe

HeyitsTom

This is just like Hitch-hiker's guide

gellaho

It's a sci-fi humor book in 1991, you might be overestimating it's potential for distribution

HeyitsTom

I really see it now

Possibly

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

1991?!

I assumed this was from like 82 or something

gellaho

Picture Jonathan Winters, but not looking like Jonathan Winters at all

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

well that's one of the most haunting images ever

eat shit, stephen king

gellaho

Tee hee, almost said a naughty word

HeyitsTom
MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

God damn Space Tom Bombadil

gellaho

Get this, he has a high voice when he's singing, but a low voice when talking. Could you even imagine?

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Space is full of wonders

gellaho

Ass magic

FancyShark

The Beegees must've blown this author's mind

gellaho

Then sticks something on Jack's crotch

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

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."

HeyitsTom

This maybe should have stayed wherever you found it, @gellaho

gellaho

Then sends him into a pile of shit

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Eat shit, Jack Miller

HeyitsTom

Full circle, I like it

FancyShark

Feces. For when you can't think of a joke

gellaho

Let's just fill up some space with movie references for no reason

FancyShark

One way or another, he's hitting his word count

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

It was either this or return the advance, and he'd already spent it on bike shorts.

HeyitsTom

"Three yellow moons rose over the edge of the dung cart."

What's the word for the opposite of art?

gellaho

He's taken to a healer, who is of course hot

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

And she points out that he smells like dung, for Comedy

HeyitsTom

is the healer not the same species as the stretched arms singing ass slapping freakazoid then?

or does she just wear it better?

gellaho

She heals him, and turns out she's secretly ugly. What a twist!

HeyitsTom

oh nevermind

gellaho

And she provides a wealth of shit for the shit apprentice

FancyShark

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

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

a 40 or 50?

Brendan

Man, all I did was walk the dog for five minutes and now it's an hour later. I hate the Vurdabark leash

gellaho

So, that adventure was worth it

FancyShark

We still haven't found a narrative, have we

HeyitsTom

I was just gonna say

as a fun challenge

how would you go from here to a plot

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

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

HeyitsTom

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

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

As like a good idea?

Easy

He loses the bike

Multiverse police chase also works

HeyitsTom

you're right, in a real story that would have to happen

gellaho

Off to Austria, 1896

FancyShark

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.

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Oh that's a bad time to be in Austria

gellaho

I don't see how that could be true

What could possibly go wrong

FancyShark

What's a Hitler?

HeyitsTom

I'm sorry

how did we get here?

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

Jack is Hitler's dad

HeyitsTom

the bike trail goes back in time as well?

FancyShark

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

gellaho

Yes, Beekeeping is among the first things I think about when Hitler comes up

gellaho
FancyShark

Have you told the bees about Hitler yet?

HeyitsTom

that's true I'm still a neophyte. 1896 austria was a shock to my system

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

You know that scene in event horizon where they fold the piece of paper and poke a hole through it?

That, but a book

HeyitsTom

can't argue with that

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

He's trying to have a hitler themed philosophical moment

And I respect that

gellaho

Haven't been able to bring myself to them about his death

Sirota really understands comedy

HeyitsTom

come on man

gellaho

Anyway, he play shoots kid Hitler and leaves

Brendan

You don't murder baby Hitler, you kidnap him and raise him to be an assassin killing other fascists.

gellaho

So, that was a great use of time

FancyShark

He debated killing Hitler and we still have no plot

gellaho

And decided calling him a great actor was a good idea

Brendan

You can go anywhere in time and space and your first thought is I'll stay on earth and strangle a child.

FancyShark

In the tradition of Douglas Adams

gellaho

Jake tries to blame the old guy for a choice Jake made

gellaho

Because that's how that works

MUCH MORE PENETRATION VELO

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

gellaho

To be fair, he had pointlessly gone to two other worlds first

FancyShark

If Jack had debated murdering Ghandi, this book would at least be more insane

He could have justified it with a Civilization reference

gellaho

Seems like a real best seller

FancyShark

Sounds like a man magazine story

gellaho

What if book, but only references?