We chose Allen Drinkwater author of “Victory
” as our first interview and he was a natural fit with the AVRoom’s brand of podcast.
Intelligent and knowledgeable he tells us in no uncertain terms the reasons for writing his novella. Herbie and I have found a kinder spirit in this young man from Boston and will be speaking to him again in the future.
We hope you enjoy our conversation with Allen Drinkwater as much as we did.
-CJ
Do you remember that movie by Steve Martin “The Lonely Guy“? Didn’t think so. It’s a little know Martin vehicle that tells the tale of a suddenly single man struggling to find love and purpose and in his life.
I saw it when I was eighteen, my soon to be ex-girlfriend had left for college I was months away from active duty and I was killing time till then. A bunch of us were kicking it at Herbie’s house ’cause he had cable. We were all big Martin fans and so we started watching “The Lonely Guy“. We were laughing through the first half of the movie ragging on each other that this or that scene was taken from their life. It soon dawned on us that we were the character in the movie and the laughter ended.
It is a good movie but it made us think long and hard about our lives; sometimes I think that this is the reason Herbie Married LEX. We were all single and direction less contemplating college or career. Mine is the only generation I know that had midlife crisis in our twenties. In the go go eighties and nineties if you weren’t making piles of cash or starting a family you were pretty much a dead beat or a slacker.
In a similar vain as “The Lonely Guy“ is an on-line comic strip Garfield minus Garfield. Like many people my age I enjoyed the early years of this comic and proudly placed a stuffed replica of the pasta loving feline in my car window. But alas all good things must come to an end and so did Garfield.
What’s that you say; “But Garfield is still running.”, “I read it every day in my paper.”, “They’re working on a third movie.”. My point is there hasn’t been a good ‘Garfield‘ comic in decades. The strip has become derivative of it’s self, repeating fat jokes and pasta quips repeatedly, a sure sign it’s past it’s prime. The antithesis would be ‘Get Fuzzy‘ with it’s sharp word play and layered secondary characters that give the even deeper leads plenty to play with.
Into this figurative and literal two dimensional world stumbled a genius able to see past the one note name sake and see the story behind the fluff. The site says it best:
“Who would have guessed that when you remove Garfield from the Garfield comic strips, the result is an even better comic about schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, and the empty desperation of modern life? Friends, meet Jon Arbuckle. Let’s laugh and learn with him on a journey deep into the tortured mind of an isolated young everyman as he fights a losing battle against loneliness in a quiet American suburb.”
When you think about it in real terms; only the mentally disturbed or terminally lonely converse with their pets. Anthropomorphizing your cat into a person you talk to and answers you back is not the sign of a healthy mind. In psychobabble terms Jon Arbucle is projecting his need for aformation onto his pets but his subconscious, feeding on his depression, reflects his self loathing off his pets back to himself. So his cat is just a cat and the snide remarks are Jon’s ego manifesting and berating himself for his lack of initiative. Yeah he’s that screwed up.
The absolute brilliance of G-G is the removal of the surrogate i.e., the cat, leaving Jon trapped in his own mind. We see a man stripped of his defenses naked to the world suffering though bouts manic depression, paranoia, worthlessness and some things to disturbing to contemplate. This is the lonely guy taken the nth degree. Yes I do see people I know as well as my self reflected in the eerily existential story within this strip.
Jim Davis would do well to consider branching out into edgier fare. He obviously has a lot of angst buried within himself as the edits on G-G shows. The problem is that the ironic artistry would probably be lost once it passed though marketing.
-CJ
Rabid Star Wars fans from Boston
Once I was so upset with my wife that I said to my friends we should just get away for a while. We started making plans for a road trip to Vegas getting more excited by the moment contemplating what we’d do. But as we got closer to the county line reality came crashing down on us. We all had work the next day and we’d spent the day helping a friend get his house ready for his new born child. So we didn’t take the trip and since one member has past and another has moved away.
Most people have similar stories of risks not taken desires unfulfilled. The novella ‘Victory’ by Allen Drinkwater of grabbing desire by the balls and ridding it over the edge. The narrator, a verbose slacker nerd who over analyzes every situation, convinces his friend Willams, an ego maniacal philosophy professor (what other kind is there) to slip the leash of convention after a night of literally taking life by the balls.
Two more unlikely heroes you’d be hard pressed to find. The narrator mind is obviously set on hyper drive causing him to continuously pprocess the data around him. Williams on the other hand has fits of brilliance that he must keep track of in a journal to organize his convoluted thoughts. Thou seemingly unsympathetic it becomes apparent they are archetypes of the overly intelligent and under stimulated masses the pervade fandom.
As an editor there were times I would have said to cut down the dialog and tighten up the story but When I focus on just reading I can see that this is the narrators personality coming through. He only has the one friend because He uses big words and over analyzes everything just like many fan boys and sudo intellectuals. Williams speaks in a more concise manner because he arrives at conclusions before he speaks and thinks himself in charge of any situation, which is not always the case. Further more their life affirming missions are to embarrass and old flame and get a movie icon to admit hes a money grubbing hack. The third member of this expedition introduced about 2/3rds into the story Jamie, an Afro-American Vietnam Vet. who found salvation in sci-fi, is much more plane spoken and is a enjoyable contras to the more intellectual members of the trio translating much of the other pompous bullshit into layman terms.
This is not the fluffy piece of escapism found on the shelves of your local mega book dealer. This is a story written by a fan about a fan for fans. Breaking with convention each character we meet speaks with his own voice without regard of commercial norms. Though well rooted in fantasy we are always reminded that everything has a consequence though sometimes far fetched are always satisfying.
If your not scared by words you should go to www.victoryisyours.net and enter a fantasy world were if your answer to who’s Nietzsche is “He’s de guy who said God’s Dead” will earn you a well deserved nut shot.
-CJ
The AV-Room Podcast The Av-Room is del.icio.us