Where’s Ken? Do you see him yet?

Brooklyn Half Marathon. Official Time: 1:49:43

After the race yesterday, a friend suggested a conspiracy theory that I’m inclined to believe: New York Road Runners subcontracted the Brooklyn Half to someone else.

Because just about everything about it was run smoothly. Huge expo/pre-party (with volunteers instructing Manhattanites how to get from the subway to the venue). Incredibly organized corrals (with port-a-johns inside the corral so no massive lines). Hell, I’d asked a question on the Facebook page and got a response within the hour. (Interestingly, Brooklyn Half had its own Facebook page.) Of course, some people will still complain. Hear a lot of people whining that there were not enough mylar blankets. I was also disappointed to see Red Delicious as the apple being handed out after the race. Red Delicious? Really?! (I’m kidding.) Oh, and there weren’t as many people cheering this year. Probably because everyone was IN the damn race.

The most striking difference between this year and last year was the wave start. I wasn’t convinced it was going to help things–especially after registration was reopened and I’d hear numbers as high as 30,000. But night and day compared to last year. I never felt crowded, not even at that miserable cattle chute at Grand Army Plaza. The Scotland 10K a few weekends ago was much harder to negotiate.

The run itself? No complaints. I would have liked to PR for this one, but didn’t. I didn’t train quite as hard as I did last year. I’m also carrying about 10 pounds more than I did last year, which makes a pretty big difference. I probably could have toughed it out — weather was cool, no sun beating down — but I couldn’t get out of my own head. Or, more accurately, I couldn’t be bothered to find the extra gear. I haven’t run with music in over a year and yesterday was the first time where I actually missed it. (And, no, nice hippie chicks playing an acoustic set outside the park, Hotel California is not suitable music to get runners amped up!)

At any rate, it was a good race. First mile was slowest, last mile was fastest and I always like that. (But it was far from a negative split.)

I’ll set my sights on getting a PR at Hamptons this year.

The books follows Billy Lynn and the fellow members of Bravo squad, back in the states on a “Victory Tour” after Fox News broadcast their battle with Al-Qaeda forces in Iraq. Billy Lynn and his fellow infantrymen or on the second-to-last day of the tour. After visiting family, a number of other swing-state cities and becoming minor pseudo-celebrities, they find themselves in Texas Stadium, slated to be part of the halftime show with Destiny’s Child during the annual Dallas Cowboys Thanksgiving game. All this while a Hollywood producer is trying to get them a movie deal. And they’re being shipped back to Iraq in two days.

There’s obviously a lot of symbolic potential in all of this. And a lesser writer would likely have made a heavy-handed hash of it. THINK THIS! CONSIDER THIS! But Fountain just keeps us tightly within the realm of this 19-year-old soldier with an average past, struggling to make sense of the world he inhabits. That’s not to say Fountain doesn’t get his points across. Setting this inside the throne room of the Dallas Cowboys is a strikingly effective way to say a lot about American priorities. It allows something as simple as a tour of the equipment room to sneak up and smack the reader in the back of the head.

Yes, it’s anti-war, but not the sort of anti-war sentiment that’s based in politics. Rather, it’s based in the tradition of Vonnegut and Heller–it’s anti-war in the sense that sending young men to foreign lands to kill and be killed is a horrible thing.

No matter your politics, it’s a hell of a book.

You’ve got a picture in your mind, I’m sure. The writer enters his special writing place and, before settling in front of the computer or typewriter, he fires up the iPod or turntable. Music fills the room—or his ears. A scratchy jazz record. Sweeping classical. Maybe some down-with-the-system rock or fuck-the-police rap. He sits down, closes his eyes for a minute, takes a couple of deep breaths. Then he starts writing.

Three songs later, he sends his manuscript to a publisher, is offered a six-figure contract, multiple subsidiary rights and a seven-figure movie option. He—or she (Hi, Jennifer Weiner!)—goes back to the writing corner, picks another album, rinse, lather, repeat. Life is good!

For me, this is largely a fantasy. And I’m not only talking about the huge book deals or the quaint little writing office.

Read more.

The crowd the last time

Turns out, someone has already written such a guide. Me. A few years back. So, in an effort to protect the environment, allow me to recycle.

Please, note, Louisiana people: LAST TIME I HELD A READING AT THIS LOCATION, THE SAINTS BEAT THE VIKINGS IN THE NFC CHAMPIONSHIP THAT WEEKEND AND WENT ON TO WIN THE SUPER BOWL. I’m not saying, I’m good luck, but I AM saying one of you might win the Powerball on April 20.

Believe it or not, a reading and book signing can be as exciting as the Saints winning the Super Bowl (not really) and this may cause you to become confused. So I thought I’d make like Jersey Shore and tell you about the situation.

Basic ground rules.

No shirt, no shoes, no service. (But other than that, no one cares what you wear. It’s Saturday, wear what you want.)

DON’T get together with 14 of your friends and paint the letters necessary to spell out Bacon and Egg Man on your chests.

But DO bring friends.

DO bring friends who haven’t heard of the book or haven’t bought the book. Barnes & Noble would like to sell books.

DO show up early and buy a copy from Barnes & Noble if you don’t already have one.

If you are a teacher at a local university, DO offer extra credit to your students to attend.

DON’T just take a copy off the Barnes & Noble table, have me sign it and then walk out the store. They will gang tackle you and haul you off to jail.

While I’m reading, DO pretend to be extremely fascinated. There won’t be cue cards telling you when to laugh or cry, so you’ll have to figure out the appropriate moments for such behavior.

DON’T boo or hiss.

Sometimes, there is a Q&A session after the reading. DON’T ask me about my personal life, who that one character was really based on, if I know the way to San Jose and what kind of moron came up with the crawfish etouffee recipe in the back of the last book.

DO feel free to ask questions about The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival. (This is assuming that I remember to take questions this time. I was so overwhelmed by the crowd last time — and that, later that day, I was planning on telling my parents I was getting divorced — that I completely forgot!)

DON’T ask a three minute question that isn’t a question but really is just a way to show off how smart you are. I’m there to show off how smart I am, and I don’t need the competition!

While I’m signing, DO feel free to tell me the correct way to spell your name. Even if it’s Bob. You’d be surprised and how bad my spelling can be sometimes.

DON’T cut the line just because you think you know me. Chances are, most people there will know me. And my cousins from Ville Platte WILL beat you like a red-headed stepchild.

DO forward details about the event (or this email) to everyone you know.

Can’t wait to see yall.

DETAILS:
Ken Wheaton reading and signing
Barnes & Noble, Lafayette, La.
Saturday April 20
Noon to 2 p.m.
There will be music after the signing. Feel free to stick around.

I see bacon in your future.

Then this guy comes out with a dystopian novel set in a future New York and gets about six million glowing reviews and awards and the like.

Now I could have gloated that, once again, I’d been right and the brainiacs in the publishing industry had been wrong. Because you know how much money angry gloating puts in the bank. Besides, there was a bigger issue. No one was going to want to publish another dystopian novel set in a future New York. So I read Shteyngart’s damn book and liked it. And not only because it really had no overlap with mine!

Thankfully, Mike Bloomberg decided to over-reach with his idiotic large-soda ban and that drummed up just enough interest to get someone interested in the book. I’m under no delusion that I’ll reach best-seller lists or win any awards for this. But at least I can feel pretty smug about what a visionary I am. After all, the basic idea for Bacon and Egg Man came to me in 1994. And I had the first draft finished well before Bloomberg was mucking around with calorie counts and soda bans.

So, yeah, Ken Wheaton, super prophet. Or so I thought. Then along comes J.D. Tuccille at Reason magazine. He was kind enough to do a write-up of Bacon and Egg Man. But during email correspondence, he asked if I’d ever read a story called Lipidlegging, about a butter and egg dealer in a land where cholesterol has been outlawed.

I had not read such a story. Now I have. Here, you can read it, too. It was written by F. Paul Wilson. IN 1978! The main character sounds quite a bit like “The Old Man” in my novel. Part of that is due to the expository nature of both of them, but there’s still a tonal similarity. The crazier thing is that I’d originally called my book Butter and Egg Man (because of the jazz song, more than anything else).

Wilson, of course, is going to come across as a super-duper visionary when you consider the current legal landscape and the year from which he was writing. And apparently he was. (He’s won numerous awards and it seems Lipidleggin’ was made into a short film.)

But the fact is, America was in the grip of one of its many cyclical food freakouts around that time. I’m currently reading Michael Moss’ Salt Sugar Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us and I’m being reminded how many freakouts we’ve had. Remember when eggs were going to kill us all? Wilson’s story does! (Of course, considering the Federal government’s own part in contributing to our over-consumption of certain foods–like cheese–who the knows who to believe anymore. Though I’m sure Wilson would agree with me in saying this is what happens when your government goes involving itself in shit it was never supposed to get involved in.)

So, yeah, my super original bright idea has been done before–as I guess most of them have. Now, I have to go check out this Chew graphic novel series. My friend Jason tells me it’s set in a world where poultry has been outlawed and the FDA must find chicken-smugglers.

~~
My second novel, Bacon and Egg Man, is on sale now. (Nook)
My first novel, The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival is still available. Check it out. (Nook)

Introducing Mrs. Sandman.

Notes:
1. Subject complained of heartburn AND heartbreak from spectacularly shitty barbecue from a Brooklyn restaurant.
2. Despite substantial amount of Bed Poodles, subject seemed unaffected by their presence.
3. Subject also complained of thirst, but too lazy to go get water.
4. Subject ultimately decided to sleep on his stomach like he does every other damn night.

There are some good things about this barbecue joint on Second Ave. and Sixth Street. And if you live or work in the area, it’s probably going to become a favorite of yours. But for folks who “travel” from other parts of the City to get their cue, I’m still going to recommend Hill Country as the go-to-place in the city.

Full disclosure, Texas style barbecue is my favorite, so if you like over-sauced ribs (and by over-sauced, I mean sauced) or pulled pork is your thing, feel free to disagree. But I’m also a certified barbecue judge, so that makes me like a professional barbecue complainer!

Dinosaur is fun but sporadic. Brisket Town’s Delaney makes amazing brisket, but I know nothing of his actual restaurant — and it’s in Williamsburg, which, blech. Fete Sau was okay, but also in Williamsburg. Fort Reno Provisions was solid on my first visit and a greasy pile of sorrow on the second. RUB is always a good bet–especially if you like Kansas style cue. Wild Wood Barbecue is really good for a corporate sort of place that does more than one style. Daisy May’s is decent but it didn’t do enough for me to drag ass all the way to the west side for it. Blue Smoke is too fancy.

Hill Country has it’s issues, but for consistency, service and a damn place to sit down and eat your food, it can’t be beat.

Lack of seating was my first impression of Mighty Quinn’s and I tried not to let that affect my judgment — after all, I’ve eaten Popeyes on the subway and while sitting on the sidewalk. A lot of the other barbecue places might have their lines and waits, but at least there seems to be some sort of system. Mighty Quinn’s, on the other hand, was a shit show. Or a clusterfuck. Or both.

Stand in line, order your food and then have a cashier repeatedly ask you if you want to eat in or take out while you try to figure out if a table is going to open up any time soon and see how you feel. Especially as others are standing around looking lost, or wondering up from the bathrooms downstairs with trays of food because they thought their might be some seating down there.

There’s only so much space in a restaurant. I understand that. Here’s a quick suggestion: Post of list of local bars that allow customers to bring their own food. Problem solved. The few staff people I asked didn’t even seem to know if there were bars in the area (which, East Village, hello).

The line, though, did move pretty smoothly. Like Hill Country, they do offer meat priced by the pound, but they also offer single servings priced between $7 and $9. This was a nice touch that I actually appreciated. Makes ordering easy and prevents the typical miscalculations in which you order 2 pounds of meat and end up paying for it (financially and otherwise).

I ordered pulled pork, brisket and the beans. They were out of spare ribs–highly annoying, but not something you can ding a barbecue place for. The brontosaurus rib looked exactly as you’d expect it to. But I didn’t want to spend $23 on something I wasn’t going to finish.

The food. My brisket was moist and had a great texture. The other guys at the table complained that theirs was on the dry side. I don’t know. I’ve had a lot dryer brisket in this town. They hit it with a sprinkling of salt before serving. The pulled pork was, indeed, pulled rather than the shredded goop a lot of places serve. They hit the pork with a squirt of some sort of sauce before serving — something that made me want to jump the counter and smack the server. Don’t sauce another man’s barbecue! But it was an inoffensive vinegary sauce that added a nice flavor to the meat.

Interestingly — and unfortunately — the one flavor the meat was missing was smoke. There are huge stacks of wood around the restaurant, and I witnessed workers actually using some of it. And about two hours after eating, when the barbecue burps started, I got plenty of smokey flavor burning it’s way back up. But the brisket and pulled pork we had on that particular night didn’t have a very strong smoky flavor. This might be a feature rather than a bug for some people. (One of my friends had the smoked sausage. I gave it a try and wasn’t impressed — but I’m rarely impressed by smoked sausages outside of Texas and Louisiana.)

Now, the beans. The burnt end baked beans might be the best barbecue restaurant side dish in all of New York. I had leftovers and ate them cold the next days because I couldn’t wait to heat them up. Plenty of smoky flavor in the beans — and plenty of meat. Hell, I might actually call the dish “Shredded Burnt Ends With Some Beans Thrown In.”

Overall, I’d recommend trying place. If I’m in the East Village and find myself in the mood for barbecue, I’d give it another go. If you’re looking for cue and have the patience to deal with the seating-or-lack-thereof situation or are lucky enough to catch it at a slow time, stop in. And if you work in the area, definitely a solid lunch option.

On one hand, the first five miles are run through beautiful trails, through the woods, over old rail-road bridges, along the Hudson River.

On the other hand: 1,279 feet of elevation.

Not that you’d know that from the race’s website. Bounce around there a bit and you’ll see no elevation chart. I don’t blame them for this. They’d likely lose quite a few entrants if they put this on their website. And I think you’d be doing yourself a disservice if you didn’t run this race. It is beautiful. It is a challenge. And I want you to experience the same sort of misery.

Are you kidding me with this?

The organizers, Rivertown Runners, did drop a few hints. In the email sent out two days before the race, they made it clear you were unlikely to PR, but you’d have fun. Oh, and this was Point No. 1 in their list of reminders:

Don’t go out too fast (I am sure you have never heard that before)! In order to help you with this the course begins uphill.

Hahahaha. What a bunch of cards! But I wasn’t worried. I train on Prospect Park’s North Hill. I ran the Manhattan Half, which forced me around Harlem Hill twice. The Hamptons Half Marathon started out with a slight uphill. No biggie.

So we start. Then, about a half mile in, there’s the first hill. It’s as big as the North Hill. And this was supposed to be a gentle one? Or had I told myself that? After that, we were in the woods, running through the dirt and trees, a few hills here and there, a big down hill, to the river and around and … HOLY SHIT … would you look at what happens just after mile 4? Would you just look at that?

I swear I’ve walked backwards and made faster progress than what I did running up that hill. Is it the biggest elevation gain in the world? No. Are people who live in mountainous states laughing at me right now? Probably. But it was practically like climbing a wall. They should have thrown down rope ladders so we could have pulled ourselves up.

Then, after recovering from that, you get off of the trails onto a nice smooth highway, where you run uphill for, I don’t know, a mile and a half — between 6 and 7.5, basically. That was the one that really killed me. But I knew it was pretty much over after that. There was a long bit of downhill on the way back in. I spotted Cara just at the start of the uphill, looking pretty strong considering our training level (not much) and the week we’d had (let’s just say college-level hangover). From then on, all “rolling hills,” I’d been told.

I was lied to. Right before mile 10, another big one. Keep in mind that by this point, the old legs are getting tired. So the smaller ones after that were getting harder.

And, finally, to top it all off, right there at the finish, between 12.87 and 13, there is a stretch steep enough to launch Saturn rockets. All you want to do is sprint and get this thing over with and it’s all you can do not to start walking–and sobbing a little bit.

But finish, I did. 1:57:04. Without crying. A full 12 minutes slower than my PR, but I haven’t been training nearly as hard as I did when I ran that PR. And, oh yeah, HILLS!

Of course, now I think everyone should run the Sleepy Hollow Half. It’s fun!

But seriously, it was a well-organized race, beautiful course, shiny medal, plenty of clean port-o-lets before the race and free beer after! I’d only make one suggestion. It’s called Sleepy Hollow. You should have a headless horseman on the course somewhere. Perhaps he could be stationed at the start of mile four and chase people up the hill (or carry them).

Well, except for some of those independent book stores. Two things. 1: It’s a business. And if you need to rely on donations and pledge drives to keep your business afloat, then you’re doing something wrong. 2) Barnes & Noble (and then Amazon) might have hurt your business, but don’t pretend that those two companies haven’t delivered more books to more people who couldn’t previously get them. Having lived in one of those parts of the country that doesn’t have many independent bookstores — with the exception of hard-core Christian ones — I’ll argue that Barnes & Noble is a veritable Library of Alexandria for the parts of this country.

At the same time, I want to slap people who argue that the book is dead, that e-readers will kill them or that people simply won’t read anymore. So what if e-readers kill the paper book? Paper books as a mass-produced thing haven’t been around <em>that</em> long. (My one concern with e-readers is that Amazon or someone can sneak into your Kindle and disappear things. Or change the words). And people don’t read anymore? The only assholes who believe that are those ADHD tech triumphalists who think reading headlines on Huffington Post passes for research, that TED is deep thinking (as opposed to motivational speaking for the rich set), and their focus group of silicon valley friends is indicative of the rest of the country.

But I’m just a contrarian old coot, so I would say something like this. Well, here’s an essay by Richard Nash in the Virginia Quarterly Review. (Thanks to BoingBoing for bringing this one to the surface.)

Nash gets at a couple of things that people overlook. The first is that books are not victims of technology or capitalism. In fact, books helped drive both.

What is particularly crucial to understand is that books were not dragged kicking and screaming into each new area of capitalism. Books not only are part and parcel of consumer capitalism, they virtually began it. They are part of the fuel that drives it. The growth of the chain model in books offered the twentieth-century public the opportunity to decry the groceryfication of the bookstore, utterly belying the reality, as Striphas outlines in The Late Age of Print—by quoting Rachel Bowlby—that the bookstore is in fact the model for the supermarket.

The second is that you have to pay attention to where all the garment-rending and teeth-gnashing is coming from:

The social thinker Clay Shirky has a rule named after him: “Institutions will try to preserve the problems to which they are a solution.” The past five to ten years have witnessed a great degree of anxiety from the editorial class in book, magazine, and newspaper publishing (relatively less so from literary-journal publishing, it should be noted). Some of the anxiety is economic and well-founded: Editors have been laid off. Some of it, though, has to do with a perceived loss of relevance, a loss of prestige, and the response has been a series of paeans to the valuable qualities of editorial judgment. Look at all the crap out there, says the editor, you need me to fix it, sort it, curate it.

Hey, I’m an editor. I get it. I think editors are necessary. And I think many are getting squeezed out, often leading to a loss of quality in some places. But such is life. The point here is that you should consider the source. Some of these publishing company and book store folks screaming the loudest aren’t much different than record execs. Ultimately a lot of businesses built around books will go under, but others will spring up in their place.

Look, I’m not trying to start a fight with people who love books. Or even people who love bookstores. What I’m saying is quit whining, quit acting like martyrs and adapt. And quit worrying about “the book.”  I’m sure Nash is going to get his ass kicked up and down by the literature community for writing this piece, but he actually ends on an optimistic note.

Book culture is in far less peril than many choose to assume, for the notion of an imperiled book culture assumes that book culture is a beast far more refined, rarified, and fragile than it actually is. By defining books as against technology, we deny our true selves, we deny the power of the book. Let’s restore to publishing its true reputation—not as a hedge against the future, not as a bulwark against radical change, not as a citadel amidst the barbarians, but rather as the future at hand, as the radical agent of change, as the barbarian. The business of literature is blowing shit up.

And, finally, buy my books! Bacon and Egg Man can be purchased in multiple formats here and here. The First Annual Grand Prairie Rabbit Festival can be purchased here and here.

The good news: They are passable. The shrimp are a little small and mushy, but they get the overall thing right. French bread, plenty of fried shrimp, lettuce, tomato, mayo (and pickles). If you’re from Louisiana and might snap and neck-stab someone and it’s months before the next trip home, this might get you through.

They also serve Abita. Also good.

Now, the hushpuppies. Not sure what was going on there. Maybe they use beignet dough? Corn-flour instead of corn-meal? They weren’t sad and awful like those at Brooklyn Fish Camp, but they were … weirdly sweet, almost like a dessert. (If you want hush puppies, go to Van Horn in Brooklyn).

Before the poboys, I ordered a cup of seafood gumbo. How should I put this? It was an abomination before the lord.

Tomato based. Not a hint of roux that I could see. Okra seeds in evidence, but oddly no actual okra? It didn’t taste awful, but it wasn’t gumbo. Further, there seemed to be a general lack of “giving a shit.” The celery had been cut into chunks about the size of my palm. Pro-tip guys: Your chopped vegetables shouldn’t be bigger than the seafood.

Would I go back. Eh. Probably. If I were in the neighborhood and wanted a poboy.