Ok then.

Meh, they were over years ago after Steven King went to rehab and found Jesus after he ODd on smack in a Barnes and Noble bathroom and was found in a pool of his own vomit

Dwight_Yeast: Hopefully, after their last show, they'll set Dave Barry alight like a viking boat at a funeral.

/that man hasn't been funny since I was in grade school
//and he was only funny then BECAUSE I was in grade school

You. Shut. Your. WHORE. MOUTH!

You can't not like things I like!

I'm finding it hard to find anything sad about this. They were terrible.

Last-second hired to play at a Bar Mitzvah reception because he's your cousin terrible.

It's like Ringo's All Starr Band with 1/1000th the talent.

'Rock Bottom Remainders' would be a great name for a band, and is now eligible for a Florida driver's license.

Quite possibly the worst use of the Sad tag ever.

AdolfOliverPanties: I'm finding it hard to find anything sad about this. They were terrible.

Last-second hired to play at a Bar Mitzvah reception because he's your cousin terrible.

It's like Ringo's All Starr Band with 1/1000th the talent.

Oh cmon, it's not like they ever pretended they were good and they raised a ton of cash for charities while goofing off and just having fun. Is that something you dislike?

I waited tables on Dave Barry once. I was the only person on the staff who knew who he was. He was charming, friendly, appreciative, and left a very good tip. That's all I need to know about a man.

NuttierThanEver: Meh, they were over years ago after Steven King went to rehab and found Jesus after he ODd on smack in a Barnes and Noble bathroom and was found in a pool of his own vomit

Hey, at least when King was busy with the band he less time to try directing movies.

erik316wttn: Dave Barry is awesome, and if you don't like him then I'm sorry you hate fun and funny things and laughing.

Agreed. Dave Barry doesn't aim to be a master of wit; he is just affable and a lot of fun to read. If you hate him, I expect you are a lousy person to be around.

carmody: I agree with Dwight. Could never understand why anybody found Dave Barry that funny. And I honestly tried.

You "tried?" How does someone "try" to enjoy something as accessible as Dave Barry? Did someone have to explain The Cosby Show to you as well?

I never thought I'd see a Dave Barry throw down.

Of course, since Willliams-Sonoma started selling chicken coops anything's possible.

Dwight_Yeast: NuttierThanEver: Meh, they were over years ago after Steven King went to rehab and found Jesus after he ODd on smack in a Barnes and Noble bathroom and was found in a pool of his own vomit

I know you're joking, but King's been very open about the fact that his family and friends actually did pull an intervention on him in the early 90s, and that he got sober after he wrote the Dark Half. More than a few of his fans argue that that was the point at which the quality of his writing took a nosedive.

/he was doing coke
//a LOT of coke
///and drinking
////and pills
//and cough syrup

I will argue that the 2010's King is fully recovered from his miserable decade or so of recovery, Wind in the Keyhole has become my third favorite Dark Tower novel quickly and I'm not even done with his audiobook narration, do ye ken it?

And I appreciate his new Dark Tower incorperates George RR Martin now, like he used Harry Potter, OZ, and Dr. Doom in past installments.

You didn't think he called the sudden onset of winter as a "Starkblast" for any other reason? And Aslan the lion, the Man Jesus, and Siri all pop up as well. The whole point of that series is to smash together all pop culture into one story. He's get his mojo back.

Inaditch: I'm listening to the Under the Dome audiobook right this moment. About halfway through. First King work I've read (or listened to) in years. Do all his books have cartoony good guys vs bad guys with few shades of gray? And he can't write dialog for kids.

I'm still enjoying it.

And Dave Barry is funny. Rarely hilarious, but funny.

That book was a fast 1000 pages but yeah. Maybe that's why I like his Dark Tower fairy tales better. That book was supposed to be turned into an HBO series once I think but it's already aged terribly as a GW Bush diatribe, not sure it will work now. Still, a fun read until the last 100 pages or so, dammit King.

Confabulat: erik316wttn: Dave Barry is awesome, and if you don't like him then I'm sorry you hate fun and funny things and laughing.

Agreed. Dave Barry doesn't aim to be a master of wit; he is just affable and a lot of fun to read. If you hate him, I expect you are a lousy person to be around.

Thirded. I look forward to his "Year In Review" column in the Washington Post magazine every December. Never fails to make me laugh until I sound like a braying burro.

I am not making this up.

Dwight_Yeast: Confabulat: I will argue that the 2010's King is fully recovered from his miserable decade or so of recovery, Wind in the Keyhole has become my third favorite Dark Tower novel quickly and I'm not even done with his audiobook narration, do ye ken it?

You know, I used to be a King fan, but I lost interest right around the time he had his accident; I read On Writing and stopped. But for some reason, in the last year, I read From a Buick 8 (which was almost good) and Duma Key (which was pretty great) so I'd say he's definitely working his way back to greatness. I have to actually re-read the Dark Tower books (the first three) so I can finish the series.

He really sucked for awhile back then even before his accident (Dolores Clairborne, Rose Madder, whatever his weird urge to write novels-of-broken-women phase was) and then there was Dreamcatcher which is pretty much WHY we don't want King back on drugs. He wrote that whole thing on a morphine drip and ow, it shows.

Not a fan of From A Buick 8. That seemed like a short story padded out way too long with little payoff even if you HAD read the Dark Tower books, and zero if you had not.

Duma Key was a return to form and an interesting way to exorcise his own demons of being injured and moving to Florida (and as a Tampa Bay guy it was fun to see him reference local stuff cause I don't get to Maine much) but that fell apart at the end too, ha.

Full Dark, No Stars could have been written in 1983, it was perfect King.

Under The Dome was a fun read but as I said again, sheesh, already dated. Making Dick Cheney your villain only works for a few years.

Haven't read 11-23-63 yet, as I have little interest in that stuff but I will one day.

Wind in the Keyhole is a great Dark Tower novel (actually collections of Mid-World novellas, but they all are fun).

I once walked 2 miles to buy the newest King novel in the early 80s. I call myself a fan. When he fails he fails terribly, but he's much more confident in his storytelling these days than he's been in a long time.

RancidSorbet: I'd probably buy that one if he finishes it.

He finished it. Publishing next summer I think. I only wish he met that girl from Firestarter and they got married, that would be a tale.

I've been reading the Dark Tower books since Jan. on the Kindle I got for Christmas. I am almost exactly halfway through the seventh book in the series. I don't know how its gonna wrap up, but I think its pretty damn brave that King unabashedly steals things from others to put in his books...and owns up to it in the same book. I also think it is brave to write about such a life-changing event as the auto crash which obviously had a very big impact on him (sorry, couldn't resist).

If it's never happened to you, its hard to understand, but things like that quickly become the center of your life, and remain there for a very long time. It does not shock me that he needed to explore that in a novel. He likely had no other choice. So far it's good, and I hope it stays that way.

karnal: Madbassist1


I've been reading the Dark Tower books since Jan. on the Kindle I got for Christmas. I am almost exactly halfway through the seventh book in the series. I don't know how its gonna wrap up, but I think its pretty damn brave that King unabashedly steals things from others to put in his books...and owns up to it in the same book. I also think it is brave to write about such a life-changing event as the auto crash which obviously had a very big impact on him (sorry, couldn't resist).

If it's never happened to you, its hard to understand, but things like that quickly become the center of your life, and remain there for a very long time. It does not shock me that he needed to explore that in a novel. He likely had no other choice. So far it's good, and I hope it stays that way.


On the Kindle? Does that mean with no illustrations?


/curious

Its the old type Kindle, I guess. There are illustrations, but they are all black and white line drawings, no color. I will say I've read more in the first six months of this year than I have in the last decade.

This is my favorite Dave Barry piece

SHE DRIVES FOR A RELATIONSHIP - HE'S LOST IN THE TRANSMISSION" By DAVE BARRY
CONTRARY to what many women believe, it's fairly easy to develop a long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship with a guy. Of course this guy has to be a Labrador retriever. With human guys, it's extremely difficult. This is because guys don't really grasp what women mean by the term relationship.

Let's say a guy named Roger is attracted to a woman named Elaine. He asks her out to a movie; she accepts; they have a pretty good time. A few nights later he asks her out to dinner, and again they enjoy themselves. They continue to see each other regularly, and after a while neither one of them is seeing anybody else.

And then, one evening when they're driving home, a thought occurs to Elaine, and, without really thinking, she says it aloud: "Do you realize that, as of tonight, we've been seeing each other for exactly six months?"

And then there is silence in the car. To Elaine, it seems like a very loud silence. She thinks to herself: Geez, I wonder if it bothers him that I said that. Maybe he's been feeling confined by our relationship; maybe he thinks I'm trying to push him into some kind of obligation that he doesn't want, or isn't sure of. And Roger is thinking: Gosh. Six months.

And Elaine is thinking: But, hey, I'm not so sure I want this kind of relationship, either. Sometimes I wish I had a little more space, so I'd have time to think about whether I really want us to keep going the way we are, moving steadily toward ...I mean, where are we going? Are we just going to keep seeing each other at this level of intimacy? Are we heading toward marriage? Toward children? Toward a lifetime together? Am I ready for that
level of commitment? Do I really even know this person?

And Roger is thinking...so that means it was...let's see...February when we started going out, which was right after I had the car at the dealer's, which means...lemme check the odometer...Whoa! I am way overdue for an oil change here.

And Elaine is thinking: He's upset. I can see it on his face. Maybe I'm reading this completely wrong. Maybe he wants more from our relationship, more intimacy, more commitment; maybe he has sensed it even before I sensed it, that I was feeling some reservations. Yes, I bet that's it. That's why he's so reluctant to say anything about his own feelings. He's afraid of being rejected.

And Roger is thinking: And I'm gonna have them look at the transmission again. I don't care what those morons say, it's still not shifting right. And they better not try to blame it on the cold weather this time. What cold weather? It's 87 degrees out, and this thing is shifting like a goddamn garbage truck, and I paid those incompetent thieves $600.

COMMUNICATIONS GAP

And Elaine is thinking: He's angry. And I don't blame him. I'd be angry, too. God, I feel so guilty, putting him through this, but I can't help the way I feel. I'm just not sure.

And Roger is thinking: They'll probably say it's only a 90-day warranty. That's exactly what they're gonna say, the scumballs.

And Elaine is thinking: Maybe I'm just too idealistic, waiting for a knight to come riding up on his white horse, when I'm sitting right next to a perfectly good person, a person I enjoy being with, a person I truly do care about, a person who seems to truly care about me. A person who is in pain because of my self-centered, schoolgirl romantic fantasy.

And Roger is thinking: Warranty? They want a warranty? I'll give them a goddamn warranty. I'll take their warranty and stick it right up their...

"Roger," Elaine says aloud.

"What?" says Roger, startled.

"Please don't torture yourself like this," she says, her eyes beginning to brim with tears. "Maybe I should never have...Oh God, I feel so..." (She breaks down, sobbing.)

"What?" says Roger.

"I'm such a fool," Elaine sobs. "I mean, I know there's no knight. I really know that. It's silly. There's no knight, and there's no horse."

"There's no horse?" says Roger.

"You think I'm a fool, don't you?" Elaine says.

"No!" says Roger, glad to finally know the correct answer.

"It's just that... It's that I...I need some time," Elaine says.

(There is a 15-second pause while Roger, thinking as fast as he can, tries to come up with a safe response. Finally he comes up with one that he thinks might work.)

"Yes," he says.

A BEFUDDLED BEAU

(Elaine, deeply moved, touches his hand.) "Oh, Roger, do you really feel that way?" she says.

"What way?" says Roger.

"That way about time," says Elaine.

"Oh," says Roger. "Yes."

(Elaine turns to face him and gazes deeply into his eyes, causing him to become very nervous about what she might say next, especially if it involves a horse. At last she speaks.)

"Thank you, Roger," she says.

"Thank you," says Roger.

Then he takes her home, and she lies on her bed, a conflicted,tortured soul, and weeps until dawn, whereas when Roger gets back to his place, he opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he never heard of. A tiny voice in the far recesses of his mind tells him that something major was
going on back there in the car, but he is pretty sure there is no way he would ever understand what, and so he figures it's better if he doesn't think about it. (This is also Roger's policy regarding world hunger. )

IT'S ANALYSIS TIME

The next day Elaine will call her closest friend, or perhaps two of them, and they will talk about this situation for six straight hours. In painstaking detail, they will analyze everything she said and everything he said, going over it time and time again, exploring every word, expression, and gesture for nuances of
meaning, considering every possible ramification. They will continue to discuss this subject, off and on, for weeks, maybe months, never reaching any definite conclusions, but never getting bored with it, either. Meanwhile, Roger, while playing racquetball one day with a mutual friend of his and Elaine's, will pause just before serving, frown, and say: "Norm, did
Elaine ever own a horse?"

karnal: On the Kindle? Does that mean with no illustrations?


/curious

It's bet-ter on a NoOOook...

/color
//illustrations you can enlarge

UNAUTHORIZED FINGER: karnal: On the Kindle? Does that mean with no illustrations?


/curious

It's bet-ter on a NoOOook...

/color
//illustrations you can enlarge

Maybe, but i want a format that's going to be around in a decade.

/snark

Madbassist1: UNAUTHORIZED FINGER: karnal: On the Kindle? Does that mean with no illustrations?


/curious

It's bet-ter on a NoOOook...

/color
//illustrations you can enlarge

Maybe, but i want a format that's going to be around in a decade.

/snark

Wait! Why? What have you heard?!?