Things that make me most happy: watching my daughter dance, casting on a new knitting project, watching a three year old in my class mix secondary colors, playing ukulele at Niles and most recently, Lego humans of Gloucester.” – Colleen Apostolos-Marsh
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Sweet crap, we’re back with another episode of the show no one really wants to admit isn’t that great, our very own Wicked Tuna. I’m here to recap this show so you don’t have to watch it, unless you’re into that sort of thing.
The first segment this week is pretty much “How Paul Hebert Has Sucked So Far”, including a part where another fisherman totally calls out the fact that Mr. Paul has worked on like seven boats since this show started and hasn’t caught a fish yet this season, and reference “Paul’s drama boats”. They make sure to add that he’s a good fisherman as sort of a half-assed defense. Damn, these bros are harsh, although he deserves it. Probably. I don’t know, I’m barely paying attention.
Oh crap, a brand new fucking boat. Okay, interesting. All of a sudden they drop the harpoon boat Kristiana on me. They introduce the crew, and I’m already bored to tears. Wait, wait! They have footage of a guy so determined to beat Bill “Hollywood” Muniz that he’s been practicing chucking harpoons from the roof of his garage into hay bales.
This is really what reality TV has come to.
Over on Hollywood Bill’s boat, some talk happens. The only thing I know about this guy is that he did a talk at O’Maley about excellence and said he hated school, only wanted to fish, and all his friends from school were dead or in jail. If all the thirteen year old girls I know are snarking on you, bro, that’s not a good sign. Anyway if you didn’t know (like me), harpooning is different and they have like, a pilot scouting for tuna who has to communicate with the boat so the guy can literally climb up on scaffolding and throw a javelin at it. It’s kind of interesting, but also can’t we use drones? No? Just saying. Drones.
The Kristiana doesn’t have a spotter pilot, so they try to explain they just kind of look from the boat. “You just look for the different funny water.” Fascinating. They also mention that one guy acts like “a little kid, you want to puke and sh*t your pants because you want to go tuna fishing.” Classbag, this boat.
Over on the Kelly Ann, the owner howls, “We hired Paul for one reason” and I shout “TO BE ON TV!” but I guess the real answer was “to catch giant tuna fish!” Everyone assures one another they are “in the zone”, and then hook a fish, but end up losing it, and everyone blames Paul, who kind of bumbles around endearingly.
Hollywoodbill and the Lily end up spearing the bejebus out of two fish, which is pretty impressive I guess? I don’t know. I don’t understand fish. I just eat them. The Kristiana
“We Need This Fish” Count: 1
“Reel Reel Reel” Count: 2
Starting with Jules Verne and 10,000 Leagues Under the Sea all the way to the Star Trek franchise, science fiction has generally given us an empowering view of our relationship to technology. Yes, there are problems and hiccups, but mostly it’s men doing amazing things with incredible machines. Journeying to the stars, fighting off alien invasions and getting the girl. The technology is all very impersonal and outward-focused: Submarines, Starships, laser guns and robots. You kind of get it when you remember what was going on in the world at the time: great canals being built, skyscrapers, dams, airplanes and rockets. The last of the unexplored places like the Arctic and Everest being conquered. Easy-to-understand wars being fought and won.
But there was another strain that took hold in the 60’s and 70’s when writers led by people like Philip K. Dick, Paul Linebarger (Cordwaner Smith) and I’d even argue Ursula K. Leguin decided to use the lens offered by this genre to look inward at how the explosion of new technologies was changing us and our perceptions of society and reality. In the 80’s this broke out into a sub genre called “Cyberpunk.” Where most sci-fi took place in space, plots in Cyberpunk revolved around the ultimately mutable concept of virtual reality powered by networked computers. In 1984 cyberpunk author William Gibson coined it “Cyberspace”.
Perhaps you’re familiar?
Cyberpunk is a lot like the Internet, it’s not clean and neat like the work of the old masters like Asimov. Themes weave in and out. The societies depicted are almost nominally functional with huge corporations and insanely advanced tech right alongside massive poverty and the consequences of an increasingly weak central government. You will recognize this world, even thought it was envisioned two decades ago.
I’ll be honest, a lot this genre hard to read. Unless you love computers, code, endless references to Japanese pop culture and dense writing in general (which I do) it’s tough on general audiences.
But then along came Neil Stevenson with Snowcrash. Intended as more of a parody of cyberpunk, this book started out as a graphic novel until he and his illustrator realized that doing it in comics form would be an impossible task. It rolls through themes technological, sociological, anthropological, the nature of consciousness itself and has some amazing action scenes including a villain who rides around on a motorcycle of which the sidecar is a stolen Russian nuclear bomb set to explode if he is ever killed.
There is a tone of fan art because Internet
Stevenson is, in general, a blast (pun intended). He’s kind of like Dan Brown on acid. You can imagine that if you were ever stuck next to him on a cross-country bus trip he’d be amazing till about Ohio, then you’d want to kill him from about there till Seattle. This book takes us to Cincinnati.
I have it on good authority from a first-time cyberpunk reader that it’s totally accessible and she recommends readers “Keep at it till page 70 when it all starts to make sense.”
So, on Sunday March 22 at 5pm we’re going to discuss the book and some of the ideas therin at Duckworth’s. It’s 45 bucks, but if you’ve been to one of these things before you should know Ken and Nichole (Ken is a huge Cyberpunk nerd, btw) go to town with the spread. The last one I did I’m pretty sure about 30% of the people there hadn’t read the book and were just down with an exclusive Duckworth’s meal and were like, “Yes, yes, Jim, do go on about how the idea of the ‘Fool’ character in science fiction has migrated into technology like C3PO and…what? Is that more lamb? Bacon-wrapped figs? Yes, please…”
So make a reservation, read the book and come join us.
Additional radom details:
The Hero’s name is Hiro Protagonist
A cool skateboard courier called “YT” short for “Yours Truly”
There is a robot dog
Yesterday at around 11:30AM something glorious happened. Not glorious from a “good thing to do” perspective because the something involved a bank robbery and we at The Clam are opposed to thievery and threats of violence in all forms (no one was hurt).
And it’s not just that this particular (suspected) robber escaped on foot and into a taxicab essentially right in front of the Gloucester Police headquarters, which you have to admit is sort of awesome. Or that he later got out of that cab when he thought the driver was on to him, ran around town for a while like a husky who’d broken his lead and was eventually apprehended at the train station because the police suspected from “their investigation” that their man may be heading toward the commuter rail. “Their investigation” to read, “This dipshit obviously doesn’t even have a fucking car.” Though we do commend suspect Derek Potocki for his ongoing commitment to minimizing his carbon footprint on his heists (he’s also the prime suspect for a similar hit on a bank in Manchester NH where the robber fled on a bike). Also: commuter rail as escape plan. Oh God, one sec. Have to pee again laughing so hard.
Oceans Eleven would have been a very different movie if they took the T
Ok, back. Sorry.
No, in the end it was one detail which put the finishing touch on the operatic beauty of this particular caper. Take it away block quotes from the Gloucester Daily Times (paywall or working knowledge of proxy servers required):
“I saw the fellow walk in, he had on sunglasses,” he [a bank customer] said. “He had a fake beard which was the most identifying feature, which made me curious. I said that to the bank … officer. We both kind of looked and didn’t think anything of it.”
Tell me, dear reader. Do you find it more just freaktastically awesome that this guy who couldn’t even arrange for a friend to give him a ride to knock over a bank happened to have a fake beard with him, or that in our beloved city there is enough general weirdness for a bank customer and employee to see a dude in line wearing sunglasses and a fake beard and just basically shrug and go “This town’s sure got its share, eh?”
But back to my earlier point, did he bring the beard? Does he always carry a fake beard at all times and if so, how great is that? Or, even greater, was it improvised with like yarn or construction paper or something? Or did he go next door to the Walgreens and buy a “fun disguise kit” from the toy aisle or perhaps, even more astoundingly awesome in the “too much to hope for” department, did he purchase a bright read beard as part of a leprechaun costume in preparation for the upcoming St. Patrick’s Day holiday?
Sorry, too much coffee today. Right back. Gotta clean my glasses too, tears.
We at The Clam are trembling with anticipation for the release of the security camera footage. We live for this sort of thing. Honestly (We have no lives).
So, in preparation, let’s have a little poll to see if we can guess the kind of beard the (suspected) Mr. Potocki was wearing (As a suspect. A bearded suspect.). Winners get bragging rights and Clam sticker if you ask when we have one on us.
