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Dear Leader
As
a parent, I occasionally wonder where Fin might end up in life. She’s
only two and a half, but I can’t help think about what
kind of job she might gravitate toward. Based on recent trends, I would
say she’s shaping up for a career as “Iron-Fisted Dictator.”
I’ve always been interested in social systems; I just never thought I’d get to see the rise of fascism up close. In the beginning, it seemed like nothing was wrong—sure, our small society was changing, but these were just natural responses to a changing world. Then one day we woke up and realized that every part of our lives had fallen under the sway of an increasingly irrational authoritarian overlord.
We vaguely remembered that life had not always been like this; that there had been a time when we had been free to express opinions such as, “I think it’s time for bed,” without fear of reprisals. In those days, we had been active participants in the decision-making process. We could go about our daily business without being stopped and asked to explain and justify our every action. But those days were over.
Looking back, I missed the early signs. One day, for example, I said, “Finlay, no feet on the table during lunch, please.” She responded by raising her feet approximately one inch above the table surface. “My feet aren’t on the table, Daddy,” she said, in the tone of someone just as amazed as I was. At the time, I was quietly impressed at her burgeoning ability to adhere to the letter of the law while flagrantly violating its spirit—I thought she was just shaping up to be a good lawyer. What I failed to realize was that testing the legal boundaries is classic behavior of the tyrant in training. Sure enough, the next step was the declaration of a state of emergency and the suspension of all civil liberties. And there we were, living under a regime that would make Mugabe blush.
It was because of those Little Princess books. Fin read a few tales of this loud-mouthed, demanding little girl who lives in a castle with a full staff of adults who rush to fulfill her every wish, and she decided that sounded like a blueprint for an ideal society. I tell you, Little Princess is like Mein Kampf for two-year-olds. We got those poisonous tracts out of the house right away, but it was too late: she had a vision.
Since then we’ve made progress. One of the most effective ways to fight tyranny, I found, was to not give the tyrant her pack of Wiggles stickers until she says, “Daddy, could you please give me my Wiggles stickers?” This was a big improvement on previous forms of request (“I WANT WIGGLES STICKERS!”), and proof, I feel, of the effectiveness of economic sanctions.
Now the air rings with, “Daddy, could you please…” She has figured out that I won’t refuse any request that begins that way. I have to wonder: as we shed the shackles of totalitarianism, are we are seeing the rise of special interest pleading?
My Top Video Games
A few nights ago, Jen, Moo (Jen’s brother), and I got to talking about
our all-time top computer games. Naturally, this quickly devolved
into a bitter, insult-strewn debate about whose top-ranked games
were ground-breaking titans of their time (mine), and whose were
mindless, derivative trifles (theirs, except where overlapping with mine).
We did settle on the criterion that we should rank games based on the impact they had on us personally. This still left plenty of room for argument. Initially we were going to pick our top 5, but this got pushed out to 10. I still had too many classics left over, so successfully argued for 15, plus an “Honorable Mention.”
Three days later, we were still debating and re-arranging our lists. Clearly this was an important topic for us. In fact, it was surprising how much we cared. Games aren’t usually considered up there with books or movies, but these ones all meant a lot to us. They left a lasting impression and we wanted to give them their due.
So here is the result. My list:
- Elite (1984, Commodore 64): My mother bought me this for Christmas when I was about 11. I don’t think I did anything else that year. I never made it to “Elite” status, though. At least, not in the game. Ha ha!
- Doom (1993, PC): Ranked this highly for the multiplayer: Jen and I played together. Not competitively. Oh no. Jen lacks that part of the brain that lets you distinguish between reality and a computer game, which means if we play head-to-head, she tries to kill me in real life. We play co-operatively. (Fifteen years of marriage, bud. Fifteen years.)
- Shattered World (1990, MUD): A MUD is an online text-based game, usually swords-and-sorcery based. You type in commands, like, “kill goblin”, and read the responses, like, “The goblin dodges your swing. The goblin cleaves your head from your shoulders. You die.” I wrote tons of content for this game when I should have been studying for my marketing degree.
- Age of Empires II (1999, PC): I wrestled with the ethics of including a sequel when the original was much more, uh, original. But while Jen and I lost countless hours to both, this is the one we really pounded. Our strategy to defeat the computer-controlled hordes was to pour arrows upon the endless tides of units throwing themselves against our walls until our opponents had consumed every single resource in the game, reducing themselves to small groups of peasants standing around with nothing to do. Then we would ride out and butcher them.
- Half-Life (1998, PC): I was roundly ridiculed by Jen and Moo for not fitting HL2 into my list as well, but although it’s an amazing technical achievement, I didn’t really feel it, you know? No, Jen and Moo didn’t buy that, either.
- Paradroid (1985, Commodore 64): Ah, brave little 001 droid. I used to get up at 5am to play this before school.
- Portal (2007, PC): The only game I’ve played through since Fin was born. Portal is wonderful. I especially love how its story evolves from nowhere.
- NetHack (1987, PC): Sadistically difficult game that can strike terror into your heart by revealing a “D”.
- Warcraft II (1995, PC): The reason that for about five years there every single game on the shelves was a Real Time Strategy. Zug zug!
- Diablo (1996, PC): Diablo II was fantastic, too. But this game I knew I wanted the second the demo loaded.
- Unreal Tournament (1999, PC)
- Rygar (1986, Arcade)
- Battlefield 1942 (2002, PC)
- Defender of the Crown (1986, Commodore 64)
- Speedball (1988, Commodore Amiga)
Honorable Mention: Half-Life 2.
Obviously the mid-80s were very good to me. For comparison, here is Jen’s list: (1) Battlefield 1942 (2) Age of Empires II (3) Diablo 2 (4) Doom (5) Age of Empires (6) Warcraft 2 (7) Prince of Persia (8) SimCity (9) Railroad Tycoon (10) Carnival [for Colecovision] (11) Diablo (12) Venture [for Colecovision] (13) World of Warcraft (14) Warcraft 3 (15) Pancake [Vtech]. Honorable Mention: LadyBug [for Colecovision].
And Moo’s list: (1) Counter-Strike: Source (2) Team Fortress 2 (3) Runescape (4) Dynasty Warriors [for PlayStation 2] (5) Unreal Tournament (6) Half-Life 2 (7) Warcraft 3 (8) The Sims (9) Diablo , (10) Portal (11) Freelancer (12) Populous (13) Age of Empires II (14) Driver [for PlayStation] (15) Hitman: Blood Money. Honorable Mention: DragonBall Z [for PlayStation 2].
Moo is a teenager, by the way. You might have guessed that already.
God & Bedford
Bedford, England, is a place to make you believe in God, but only
if He is very angry. Gazing across the panorama of desolate streets,
dead, claw-like trees,
and a sluggish black river that smells of sulphur, you can’t help but think,
“Yep, somehow, sometime, someone here really pissed God off.”
Don’t get me wrong; most of rural England is quite picturesque. Even in mid-winter, there are charming little villages. You can even spot the odd animal frolicking in fields, but as you approach Bedford, they look increasingly frightened. Then you arrive. At first, you might think there’s nothing wrong; any town could look like this, if the garbage collectors went on strike for a while. You have an odd, clenched feeling your gut, but that could be a bad hamburger. Bad hamburgers feel like they’re slowly sucking the marrow out of your bones, right? Sure.
It’s only when you’ve been here a while that the true horror of Bedford reveals itself: it’s unrelenting. You think, “All right, so people here look like extras from Dawn of the Dead, but that’s just because they choose not to care about personal grooming for some reason.” (I developed this theory after spotting a guy who looked like Kevin Spacey, if Kevin was drunk and out of shape and didn’t own a hairbrush.) Then you pass a guy afflicted by a plague of boils, and realize: No. It’s not a choice. It’s biblical.
I wrote about Bedford last time we visited, and since then it has managed to get worse. I didn’t think that was possible. I mean, once the entire town is made up of people either begging for money or actively stealing it, what’s left? Once the wail of emergency vehicle sirens is constant, do you really notice any more of them? But then I ran alongside the river Ouse, past what at first I thought was a rubbish dump but turned out to just be someone’s back yard, and a goose tried to mug me. I think it had a switchblade.
So it’s almost 2008. I’m very much looking forward to ‘08, because, writing-wise, 2007 blew. It started off well. It’s just that it then took a sharp turn into soul-destroying, heart-breaking stultification. I think this must be what happens when you start the year with a blog that says, “Man, I’ve got this writing thing nailed.” So: okay. Lesson learned, ha ha!
Yep, I’m feeling much better about 2008. I won’t have a book published, or a movie released. But I will write.
And, with luck, I will get out of Bedford without being stabbed.
It’s good to have goals.
Thank you for following along my web site, and reading my stuff, and caring, even if only a little. It means an enormous amount to me. Sorry for the hold-up, but give me a little time and I’ll have some books that are worthy of you.
City of Vociferous Angels
I knew I was in Los Angeles when I saw the crazy guy on the sidewalk corner,
screaming abuse at a security guard. I mean, the 14-hour flight was a tip-off.
You don’t go through that and not notice. And US Customs was as cheery
and welcoming as always. (“Your daughter… we want her fingerprints.”) But
nothing says LA like a 50-year-old guy with thinning hair shrieking, “I hope
you feel good about yourself! I hope you feel like you’ve really achieved something
here!”
See, he wasn’t actually crazy. In most other parts of the world, somebody completely losing it in public means they have a serious mental illness. But I think this guy was just annoyed. He even looked a bit like Larry David. Yes, I was in LA.
People here are very friendly. Of course, I’m comparing it to the only other American city in which I’ve spent serious time, New York, so I would probably be impressed by anything other than open hostility. And I am in Santa Monica, which is one of the nicer parts of LA. But there is a good feeling. On the road, people give me plenty of room. Maybe this is because I’m not used to driving on the right side and tend to veer over to the left when not concentrating. But I like to think it’s politeness.
I’m here with Jen and Fin because we’re going to England, and it’s on the way. When you’re traveling from Melbourne to London, anywhere is on the way. It’s one of the properties of flying halfway around the world. We’re spending most of the next two months with Jen’s family in Bedford, the mucous membranes of England, and there are some movie things happening (in a possibly-kinda-let’s-see way), so here I am.
The first thing I did upon arrival was pick up a throat infection. Actually, I might have done that on the plane. Either way, it’s been a snotty few days. Now for the big question: Disneyland or Sea World?
P.S. US Customs doesn’t actually fingerprint children upon entry. I just said that because it feels like they might. I asked the Customs guy how old you had to be before they started fingerprinting you, and he said 13. So there you go: the United States is woefully unprepared for attacks from 12-year-olds. I hope you can sleep at night.
Facebooked
I caved in and signed up to Facebook. I never had a problem avoiding
MySpace, because every MySpace I’ve ever seen was clearly designed
by a hyperventilating color-blind monkey. And the monkey had no idea
about HTML standards. But Facebook looked nice, so I went ahead
and created a profile.
I wasn’t sure I should be doing this, since I already have way too much unanswered e-mail. I don’t really need any new avenues for people to get disappointed when I don’t reply to them. But then I saw a Facebook group called “Max Barry is fricken awesome.” That was a big plus for me. There’s just something about a group of people telling me I’m fricken awesome that makes me think, “These guys are all right.”
At first my goal was simple: I would jump on this bandwagon and friend up anyone who asked. Facebook: put up my face, maybe sell some book. Made sense. But then I discovered it’s pretty cool to see what your friends are up to on Facebook. I felt like I was being social, but without any effort. That was nice. Maybe, I thought, I should keep this just for friends and family.
Then I realized my friends and family are boring. Day One, sure, it was crazy: Brit was pregnant, Dan had a new job, and that girl I liked in high school was now an architect. There was a lot to catch up on. But a few days later, Brit was still pregnant, Dan still had the new job, and the girl was still an architect. Where was the progression? The twists and turns? It was like a soap opera where nothing happened, and I received email notifications of every non-event.
The other problem was I had friend requests piling up. It became hard to know where to draw the line: did someone I’d only met once on book tour qualify as a friend? What about someone I’d only emailed? What if I’d never heard of them before, but they listed me in their profile as one of their favorite authors, and they were incredibly hot? Well, obviously that one was an easy decision. But the others: tough. On top of that, I accidentally friended one guy by clicking the wrong button, and another because I thought he was someone else. The walls had been breached.
So I decided to go friend whoring. My new policy would be: I’m anyone’s. I accepted every friend request I had, and searched out new ones. I know: I felt kind of dirty. But then I realized it was pretty nice to have a page of links to people who liked my books. Some of my actual so-called friends have never even bothered to crack the spine on one, and I still turn up to their kids’ birthday parties, the selfish bastards. The parents, I mean. The kids are lovely. What’s that about?
Maybe these people I’d never met were more deserving of social recognition than people I met face-to-face. They had read something of mine that mattered enough to them to affect their lives, or at least their Facebook profile. Wasn’t that something? Wasn’t that a connection—a meeting of minds? Yes, I decided; yes it was.
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Facebooked
Obviously my child is some kind of frickin’ genius
In
the morning, with Fin nestled between us in the bed, Jen
and I discussed plans for the day ahead. “You could go to the
B-E-A-C-H,” I suggested. It’s like with dogs: you don’t
want to get their hopes up.
“Beach?” Fin said.
Probably coincidence. And, I have to admit, the sequence of letters B-E-A-C-H does sound a bit like “beach.”
That night, Fin wanted to read “Farm.” This is a book with pictures of things you find on farms, labeled accordingly. It’s not much in the plot department, and forget about character development, but she likes it.
She pointed at the first letter of the title and said, “Green F.”
She’s just turned two. Sometimes I get frightened at her growing power. Today she can spell. Tomorrow she may shoot lasers from her eyes. The day after that, she may leave me.