An Endorsement (but definitely) Not A Review of “Ready Player Two”

(because I’ve got all the feels after reading this book, and the first one… and even Armada)

So, I just finished the book, “Ready Player Two” and, much like the first book, “Ready Player One”… I’m left with a tsunami of memories and a LOT of words that need to come out. Thanks Ernest Cline!

Breathe. When I was a boy, I escaped into books, but… like REALLY escaped into books… like you would not believe, like my very existence depended on it… the longer the book series, the better, and I never really looked back. That’s the joy. That’s the spark. That was definitely the “ticket”… out, or maybe just “away”. (Plus, I like to say the word “like”. Obvi.)

I was a young dreamer. I had wings, I was an astronaut, I was a cowboy and a Tuskegee Airman, I was Racer X, Speed Racer and Gigantor, I was Ultraman and Godzilla taking a stroll around Tokyo, I was Jackie Robinson and Magic Johnson, I was even Larry Bird, I always took the game winning shot or made the last championship tackle, I was Sidney Poitier, Jerry Lewis and Flip Wilson, I was a computer programmer and a video game creator, I was an odd, and nerdy duck — and also a good friend, I had a very respectable appreciation for almost “always“ telling the “truth”… or my version of it, I wrote Academy Award winning screenplays, I was bright (humble brag) and if not exactly street-smart, at least street-aware, I was a fire starter and a firecracker, and at least once, a failed fireman, I was Prince, Michael Jackson and Adam Ant, I was James Baldwin, Langston Hughes and Lawrence Ferlinghetti, and like Charles Bukowski, I was all up in them Los Angeles, Hollywood and Paris streets, without all the booze, and dope, and sex (sigh), I could dance like nobody was watching, because… well, nobody was watching, I left little notes and stories on cafe tables for strangers to find, I wrote short plays about my friends, while we were out at parties, and would slip them into their pockets when they weren’t looking, I wrote poems, for friends, that I would slide across the table over coffee or cocktails, and would rarely mention them again, I was a truth teller and a gosh-damn liar, but I was also invincible and a charming (self proclaimed) renaissance man… and NOBODY could tell my anything different… because, dammit, I must have “read it somewhere”.

I am DEFINITELY 70’s and 80’s and 90’s nostalgia triggered! AND… I’m digging it, folks! (Maybe 60’s too). My insta tag is “depressed_intellectuals” and I’m living that life, y’all! Mostly, on weekends… sometimes.

Advice: Read the books people. Read all of the books.

AND — if anyone still has any of the notes, plays or poems I littered across the country… (and why wouldn’t you?!) send them on over. I’d love to re-meet that kid. Exhale.

#readyplayertwo #readallthebooks #LosAngeles #Hollywood #NewYorkCity #upinthemstreets