Bullshit

WHY ARE YOU RUNNING AWAY???

My brother Yan and I meet up once a week to have lunch and drink beer, and insult each other savagely:

ME: Still older than me, I see. My goodness, you look like a zombie.

YAN: Still calling me Yan, huh? The creative writer can’t think of a better pseudonym?

Yan and I both like a bit of beer variety; when I was a youth I spent a long time drinking Coors Lite, the Silver Bullet, and I still feel a strong urge to do penance for that. So we usually try to find a bar that offers a decent selection of beers on tap. We also like our bars much like we like our souls: Empty. I’m an old man, so shouting over EDM is undignified, and we both just prefer a bit of space and the ability to actually get a bartender’s attention. Crowded bars are a young man’s game.

Empty bars have there own problems, of course. On the one hand they tend to go out of business, seeing as they’re empty all the time. On the other hand, when you’re the only people sitting at the bar, it leaves you vulnerable to The Intruder.

It Follows

The Intruder is that guy (and it is always a guy) who has nothing better to do but wander into bars on his own (because he is always alone) looking to have a conversation with … anyone.

Yan and I were sitting at the bar in this absolutely empty place, insulting each other, and The Intruder walked in, taking the form of a pudgy middle-aged guy in a bowling shirt. He made a joke about the place being empty when he walked in, and Yan and I made polite responses because we’re not, you know, animals.

The Intruder then tried to make conversation with the bartender, but lady bartenders are well-trained in shutting down eird guys who try to chat them up while they’re working, and she made short work of him. So he sat down right next to Yan and began his attempts to intrude on out conversation. Yes, the bar was empty. And he sat down next to us. As far as I am concerned that makes him a monster of horrific proportions, undeserving of mercy.

I was facing The Intruder, and in my peripheral vision I could see him repeatedly stare at us in a clear posture of wanting to make a comment and insert himself into our conversation. I began drinking faster.

Look, I know what some people might say: He’s lonely. He’s a lonely guy just out looking for some human contact, why couldn’t we include him in our conversation? First of all, fuck you. Second of all, he’s not lonely, he’s a monster. Third of all, in my gentler youth I did in fact sometimes treat Intruders kindly, and all it got me was a lot of conspiracy theories, conservative political diatribes, and, oddly enough, resentment. Plus, experience has taught me that the Intruder will never leave or stop talking. Once he latches onto a host, he will extract all of your garmonbozia, believe me.

So, we speed drank and called for the bill. The Intruder tried to start a conversation literally as we were walking away from him, but we employed the friendly-wave technique and just kept walking. We went to another bar down the street (one of the joys of living in bar-infested Hoboken) and continued our conversation in peace, and the Intruder, I assume, consumed several less savvy people that afternoon, growing large on their souls and offal.

The lesson? My brother and I are unfriendly assholes, certainly. But also that the Rules of Polite Society should be sacred, and one of those rules is: If people are having a private conversation, you should not intrude on it.

Derp.

Note: This is discussing the TV show Game of Thrones specifically, ignoring the books.

Far be it from me to drag on people who are selling millions more books than I ever will, or attracting millions more eyeballs than anything based on my books ever will (unless I finally do my Pantsless Dancing exercise video, in which case: Watch out, world!) but it’s time to talk about how astoundingly dumb Game of Thrones has gotten in its later seasons—specifically the character of Jon Snow—and why it matters from a writing point of view.

We don’t know how close to the books the show is right now; Martin may have a much better handle on the story and the characters, and it’s been discussed to death how Game of Thrones is on an accelerated pace right now in an effort to finish the story before we all get collectively tired of it. I can forgive, therefore, the compressed and nonsensical time frame; after all, no one wants to have six episodes of Jon Snow slowly making his way to meet Daenerys in a damned rowboat, passing the time by chatting with Ser Davos about their unhappy childhoods and fighting sea monsters. Okay, maybe the latter, a little.

Side note: How is it possible there are no sea monsters in Westeros? For serious.

The time thing doesn’t bother me. Sure, it’s shitty storytelling, but there are economic factors pushing them, and I can still enjoy the show despite them. No, what bothers me is that Jon Snow is fucking stupid. And not in a defensible way.

Da King In Da Norf

Jon is a major character in this show (again, the future books may be different [and thus, better]), and might even turn out to be the ultimate hero/survivor in all of this. And the problem isn’t so much that he’s stupid, but that his stupidity would not exist in any slightly realistic universe. IN a realistic universe someone as stupid as Jon Snow would have choked on something as a child and died, or possible fallen down a hole and starved to death, or maybe have accidentally stabbed himself with a dagger. Here’s a few quick rundown of the disastrous decisions Jon Snow’s made in recent episodes, going back to the end of last season:

• Allowed himself to be baited into a solo charge at the Battle of the Bastards, setting his army up for annihilation (prevented only by the fortuitous arrival of Sansa and Littlefinger)
• Abandoned his kingdom to go personally visit Daenerys, bringing just a small honor guard
• Allowed that honor guard to be immediately disarmed, like without even a shrug
• More or less allowed himself to be a prisoner with no reason to believe it would work out aside from having copious amounts of Plot Armor
• Came up with this absolutely shit idea that they needed to have a wight on hand to prove to people that the Night King for reals, yo
• Decided that he had to manage this task personally
• Then brought about a dozen people with him on the raid despite having a fucking army at his disposal, without bothering to tell his sister what he was up to as she sits in Winterfell ruling in his stead (this despite the fact that apparently he can send Ravens like super fast anywhere he wants)

I could go on. Should I go on? No.

The simple fact of it is that this is shit writing. Even if we assume for a fun moment that getting a wight to show off to the doubters is necessary, any sane King in the North would delegate the task to a trusted lieutenant (Tormund, we’re looking at you). There is simply no need for Jon Snow to actually be in the north personally. And we’re supposed to believe that Jon is a smart, solid choice to be King of the North. His entire character arc is a guy who was and literally knows nothing to the one woke bastard in all of Westeros who sees the true threat. So he really shouldn’t be this terrible at the job.

There is, however, a plot need for Jon Snow to be in the north. The showrunners want Jon to be the badass, they want him to be the one to put together the puzzle pieces for defeating the Night King, and they wanted to demonstrate the growing and completely icky and nonsensical love affair brewing between secret cousins Daenerys and Jon. So they sent him up there despite the fact that it’s dumb. In short, since Jon’s arguably the main character at this point (or at least the focal character for the moment), he needs to be in on all the major plot developments.

Forget the timeline. Forget the fact that the Night King has been marching his wights for about six months and is still miles away from the Wall. This is the problem: Shit writing. Shortcuts in the service of smart plotting I can forgive, but shit writing that ignores the rules of decent storytelling deserves to be mocked.

Of course, I’m still gonna watch the show, because watching dragons burn the everliving shit out of wights is fun, dude. Bad writing can be entertaining. It’s still bad.

As you were.

I was possibly inspired to run away because they put this sweater on me, but I can’t prove it.

I had one of those annoyingly cheerful childhoods, for the most part. We weren’t particularly poor or rich, and my brother and I were allowed to wallow in our imaginations as much as we liked. We were fed and clothed and had a lot of toys, with efforts at giving us a spiritual background that were just half-assed enough for us to shrug them off. I’m not saying my childhood was perfect—there was, I think, a normal portion of trauma, body horror, and emotional ruination (my people are Catholic, after all). But in general I had a great time building immensely complicated things with Legos, playing Pac Man, and eating elbow macaroni in meat sauce, a dish my Mother called Slumgolian.

So, being generally a very happy child up until the usual age when happiness becomes impossible (around 12), I naturally had to try and manufacture my own drama. Why should all the children of divorce get all the sympathy?

Attempt One: Hiding

Children are as a class of citizen pretty convinced that they are taken for granted. We figure out early on that we were brought into this world (purchased, most likely, probably from a catalog called TINY SERVANTS) solely to perform chores and other grunt work for our lazy parents. What about our needs? Those televisions aren’t going to watch themselves, after all.

So at some point every single child in the universe hatches a simple plan: I will disappear, and when my parents realize I am missing there will be much sadness and tearing of clothing and regret. Or possibly a revelation that they aren’t human at all, but rather disgusting slitherbeasts from another dimension, which would explain a lot.

So, feeling unappreciated one day, I hid.

My master plan was not very masterful. I hid in my parents’ bedroom closet, for one, and they could probably hear my pudgy breathing in there. For two, I brought no provisions or entertainments. This made the hour or so I crouched in there seem much longer than it actually was, which in turn made the lack of reaction from the house more alarming and infuriating. I mean, I was missing. What the fuck were my parents doing?

Of course what they were doing was being completely unaware of my absence. I eventually gave up and sulked back into society, most probably because I needed a snack.

Attempt Two: The Runaway

Some times after the closet debacle, I hit on an improvement to my plan to inspire my parents to, you know, regret treating me like I was some sort of insufferable little prick of a child. I would run away, which had the extra dimension of actual absence I thought would push this plan over the top. I would go on an adventure, and when the police brought me home a few days later my parents would have learned a serious lesson.

Looking back, it’s obvious that lesson would have been send this kid to military school immediately, but at the time I had high hopes for a later bedtime and a higher cookie ration. Yes, my childhood was terrible.

Anyways, I walked out of the house to embark on my bold plan, then realized something I’d failed to take into consideration: I was not allowed to cross the streets alone. In order to officially run away, I would have to actually cross the street. The only time I’d crossed the streets was when playing stickball with the older kids in the neighborhood, who prized me for my speed (hard to believe in my current state of dotage, but true in 1979), and I always dreaded hitting a double and being stuck on second base, in full view of my back door, where Mom could emerge at any time to call me home for some reason.

The difference was, sitting on second waiting to be batted in was a temporary scenario. Running away was a commitment to disobedience I was, ironically, unprepared to make. Which didn’t stop me from running away. It just meant I ran around the block.

I don’t quite remember how long I remained out there, suffering, without food or shelter. Possibly an hour. Possibly and hour and a half. What became clear to me was that if I was going to elicit the dumbfounded sorrow of my parents over their treatment of their youngest son, I was going to have to find a new approach. One that kept me in potato chips, video games, and socks fresh from the dryer.

Looking back, it’s easy to see how my lifelong dislike of things like effort and planning have shaped my entire life. But things are easier today, of course, because if I’d had Facebook back in The Day, I could have simply informed everyone that I’d run away, and achieved everything I wanted without leaving my room. Truly, we are living in the future.

Y’all might remember that last year Great Jones Street, the new short story app aiming to be the “Netflix of Fiction” reprinted my story Ringing the Changes, which appeared in “Best American Mystery Stories 2006.” If that didn’t prompt you to go download the app, go on an do so. I’ll wait.

Well, as an added incentive (?) the good folks at GSJ have added a “live reading” feature where authors upload audio of themselves reading their stories. You can read the story with your eyes like a sucker, or hear me read it to you! Plus, because I have dangerously little to do and a lot of spare time, I went ham on adding sound effects and such to my reading.

You can hear a 1 minute sample of my reading here:

The full reading is about 20 minutes long and is, of course, brilliant. You should totally download the app to hear it.