David G. Cookson's Blog, page 29
May 16, 2017
Perfect Little World
Perfect Little World by Kevin WilsonMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Infinite Family Group: It’s not a cult. It’s not a prison. It’s not a hospital. It’s a ten year experiment led by Dr. Preston Grind whose purpose is to determine if there isn’t a better way of raising children. By taking ten families and raising their newborn children collectively, without any of the children knowing who their real parents are, he hopes to discover an underlying benefit to society. Funded by the rich Brenda Acklen, matriarch of the Acklen Superstore Empire, he proceeds with this bizarre experiment.
A superstar in the program is Izzy, the lone single mother in the IFG. She is there because her relationship with the father (her art teacher, Hal Jackson) has ended badly and she essentially has nowhere to go. For her, the IFG is her best option for providing for her baby, Cap.
Of course, this “Perfect Little World,” however well meaning, is susceptible to all the petty jealousies and infighting that are all present in the real world. And whether the Family will make it through the whole ten years, given the source of funding is on her last legs and the science behind the project is dubious…well, that’s a matter of some doubt.
This was a very enjoyable read, funny and at times very thoughtful. Izzy is a likable heroine playing opposite the eccentric Dr. Grind, a man whose own peculiar background and personal tragedy have led him to this point. It all works.
I’ll be putting Wilson’s “The Family Fang” on my reading list. If it’s anything like this, I’m sure to love it.
View all my reviews
May 12, 2017
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In the Pain Center Giveaway!!!
May 7, 2017
Pain Center: the Giveaway is on!
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May 1, 2017
This Is Not Over
This Is Not Over by Holly BrownMy rating: 4 of 5 stars
There are stories that take many twist and turns, there are stories that are based on the smallest of details. Neither approach is wrong…Othello turned on a handkerchief and War and Peace…well, I never read it…that’s not the point. This is Not Over is based on the barest of details, and from it a story is woven over the course of 380 pages that was at least engrossing enough for me to eschew the due date on my library book in my desire to see how this one ended.
It all starts with a simple on-line review of a certain Santa Monica house rental: a thorough trashing of the landlord (Miranda) by an angry tenant (Dawn) who has been screwed out of her security deposit because of a mysterious stain left on a sheet that Miranda had to pay to get cleaned (unsuccessfully):
Beware of your "host"
I wouldn’t leave a review on Getaway.com at all, if I didn’t feel it was my civic duty to warn others . . .
Dawn
Which results in an email correspondence back and forth in an epic escalation between two women from different generations (Miranda is 60, Dawn is 30). In the sidelines is Dawn’s perfect husband Rob, and Miranda’s gruff but stable husband, a Doctor.
Neither woman’s reality matches up with what each other thinks. As we dig deeper into both of their situations, it is obviously much more complicated than either realizes. Miranda needs the house rental so she can secretly support her estranged drug addict son, Thad. Dawn has a checkered past that helps to explain her behavior. As the novel builds to its climax, they all tie together in ways both unexpected and surprising ways.
I enjoyed this. It’s not my usual type of book, but it moves quickly and is at times fairly engrossing. And like I said, it was definitely worth holding on to for the few extra days which will wind up costing me, oh, maybe 60 cents.
View all my reviews
April 28, 2017
Pain Center Excerpt #3: Kyle's Accident
On one of my many trips to the bathroom I happened to notice a familiar flyer on the bulletin board, standing out amongst the flyers for the weekly open mic and other Alcoholics Anonymous and support groups who met there, various services locally, trucks for rent, moving services. It was for the Greater Hartsburg Holistic Hartsburg Holistic Hartsburg Holistic Pain Center for Hartsburgers with Holistic Pain. The HHPCHHP. Who one day were nowhere but now they seemed to be everywhere.
“Are you in Pain? Severe, debilitating pain???”
“Maybe we can help!!!”
“Science has come so far, it has brought us to a point where no one ever should experience pain that they cannot endure. Follow the program, and we will make you whole again!”
I was intrigued and was determined to look it up as soon as I could…
I had my laptop and the wi-fi was free.
After an exhausting day of one click internet research and contradictory results and fake news, I started to doubt the effectiveness of their Program. Or at least I started to reconsider my need for the Program. The headaches had been less frequent as of late. I think the coffee habit had really helped to stem the tide, which I thought made sense scientifically. I was even beginning to think that maybe I could finally get the best of all worlds: to be pain free, to get paid for doing nothing, never having to go to a job, and never experience the unhappiness of work, possibly for the rest of my life. The incident at Harden’s had set my life upon this course, and as uncomfortable as it was for my friends from high school and my distant family on line to see, I didn’t care. For all anyone know, I still got up and went to work at Hardens every day as I had for the past 20 years. In this fake life, I came home, updated my Facebook, took a shower, ate dinner, and did stuff like normal people. I was a success, in that I hadn’t fallen flat on my face, got divorced, lost my job, had a disease, lost anyone special to me, or had any of the horrible things happen that happened to people all the time. It didn’t matter if the place had been shut down right after the promotional plane crash incident. I was lying about myself, but I was reaching low, satisfied with the low hanging fruit of life, even in my public face to the world. No one would envy me because no one wanted my fake, make believe life.
These thoughts traveled around my head while driving in the car, head full of Huxley’s coffee and cheat codes I’d been working on for the new ALTABOX 3000 for one of the sites I sometimes wrote for.
Then it hit me.
For the first time in weeks, my headache came back, like a shot. Harder, faster, more violent than any before.
While. I. Was. Driving.
Brilliant flashes of light blinded me, I screamed in pain and grabbed at my head and lost control of the wheel while my car went skidding off the road and only by the Grace of God did I not hit anything or anyone.
I didn’t even think about how lucky I was to just be stopped there safely and not lying dead in a ditch after killing 20 other people.
I thought I had managed my pain, and that the coffee was helping me. But this episode was worse than any ever before, and it led me to this spot on the side of the road, my car a mess, me crying in pain and not caring how it looked.
I needed help. This was my bottoming out. Time to use my settlement to heal me.
It was time for the Hartsburg Holistic Hartsburg Holistic Pain Center for Hartsburgers with Holistic Pain. The HHPCHHP....
from Pain Center: the novel! by David G. Cookson. Get your copy Now!!!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
“Are you in Pain? Severe, debilitating pain???”
“Maybe we can help!!!”
“Science has come so far, it has brought us to a point where no one ever should experience pain that they cannot endure. Follow the program, and we will make you whole again!”
I was intrigued and was determined to look it up as soon as I could…
I had my laptop and the wi-fi was free.
After an exhausting day of one click internet research and contradictory results and fake news, I started to doubt the effectiveness of their Program. Or at least I started to reconsider my need for the Program. The headaches had been less frequent as of late. I think the coffee habit had really helped to stem the tide, which I thought made sense scientifically. I was even beginning to think that maybe I could finally get the best of all worlds: to be pain free, to get paid for doing nothing, never having to go to a job, and never experience the unhappiness of work, possibly for the rest of my life. The incident at Harden’s had set my life upon this course, and as uncomfortable as it was for my friends from high school and my distant family on line to see, I didn’t care. For all anyone know, I still got up and went to work at Hardens every day as I had for the past 20 years. In this fake life, I came home, updated my Facebook, took a shower, ate dinner, and did stuff like normal people. I was a success, in that I hadn’t fallen flat on my face, got divorced, lost my job, had a disease, lost anyone special to me, or had any of the horrible things happen that happened to people all the time. It didn’t matter if the place had been shut down right after the promotional plane crash incident. I was lying about myself, but I was reaching low, satisfied with the low hanging fruit of life, even in my public face to the world. No one would envy me because no one wanted my fake, make believe life.
These thoughts traveled around my head while driving in the car, head full of Huxley’s coffee and cheat codes I’d been working on for the new ALTABOX 3000 for one of the sites I sometimes wrote for.
Then it hit me.
For the first time in weeks, my headache came back, like a shot. Harder, faster, more violent than any before.
While. I. Was. Driving.
Brilliant flashes of light blinded me, I screamed in pain and grabbed at my head and lost control of the wheel while my car went skidding off the road and only by the Grace of God did I not hit anything or anyone.
I didn’t even think about how lucky I was to just be stopped there safely and not lying dead in a ditch after killing 20 other people.
I thought I had managed my pain, and that the coffee was helping me. But this episode was worse than any ever before, and it led me to this spot on the side of the road, my car a mess, me crying in pain and not caring how it looked.
I needed help. This was my bottoming out. Time to use my settlement to heal me.
It was time for the Hartsburg Holistic Hartsburg Holistic Pain Center for Hartsburgers with Holistic Pain. The HHPCHHP....
from Pain Center: the novel! by David G. Cookson. Get your copy Now!!!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
April 23, 2017
Pain Center Excerpt #2: The First Three Punches
“After the first three punches, you are a quarter of the way to a free one, though some drinks are worth two punches, if you are at all interested, you can check out the punch system on our website, and it will tell you all about it,” the girl at the register helpfully explained after my third visit of the day. 'Thank you.'
I felt weird coming back so often, but as far as I could tell, everyone in there was doing the same thing, they just had jobs to go to. I used to have a job. Now I just have pay. And time. So much fucking time.
To think I never would have known about this if I hadn’t broken my glass coffee pot. But now this was my whole day. Three cups in and I was already an addict, wanting to drink Huxley’s Coffee and learn all about the phenomenon and the man himself, who had somehow managed to get the fine people of Hartsburg Massachusetts to abandon their Doggin’ Donuts Coffee, which was no small trick. Believe me. This town once loved their Doggin’. 20 years before, when I was still working at Hardens’, Doggin’ was king. Now, it was harder to actually find one that was still open. They’d all moved out when the town became harder to do business with. In the void came the Money People. Who had their own ideas about how to make the place that they came to just like the places where they came from. Which made absolutely no sense to me.
In my research, this is what I learned about Huxley and the missing day….
Huxley was an American expat living in Samoa, who a few years back had to realign its time zones to sync with the Australians and the New Zealand. But to do this they had to cancel one day of the year: December 30, 2011. So that day officially does not exist on your leftover Samoan calendar from 2011. Fun fact: I was sick as hell on December 30, 2011. Like, sicker than I’d ever been in my whole life, before or since. I lay in bed for almost a full 24 hours trying to get over it. I lost the whole day, being sicker than I thought possible. It was like my body was trying to sympathize with the plight of all the people who lost birthdays and anniversaries that year because of a time change that was economically related. I get sad thinking about it, for absolutely no rational reason.
It was all very complicated, but it had something to do with church and trade and how it was initially set up and politics…
Huxley, previously lost in life, found himself troubled by this.
The Coffee Company grew out of Huxley’s desire to share his vision of 12/30/11 with the world.
All this research and I was tired. I think I needed another cup of coffee...
READ PAIN CENTER: THE NOVEL! Available here! http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
I felt weird coming back so often, but as far as I could tell, everyone in there was doing the same thing, they just had jobs to go to. I used to have a job. Now I just have pay. And time. So much fucking time.
To think I never would have known about this if I hadn’t broken my glass coffee pot. But now this was my whole day. Three cups in and I was already an addict, wanting to drink Huxley’s Coffee and learn all about the phenomenon and the man himself, who had somehow managed to get the fine people of Hartsburg Massachusetts to abandon their Doggin’ Donuts Coffee, which was no small trick. Believe me. This town once loved their Doggin’. 20 years before, when I was still working at Hardens’, Doggin’ was king. Now, it was harder to actually find one that was still open. They’d all moved out when the town became harder to do business with. In the void came the Money People. Who had their own ideas about how to make the place that they came to just like the places where they came from. Which made absolutely no sense to me.
In my research, this is what I learned about Huxley and the missing day….
Huxley was an American expat living in Samoa, who a few years back had to realign its time zones to sync with the Australians and the New Zealand. But to do this they had to cancel one day of the year: December 30, 2011. So that day officially does not exist on your leftover Samoan calendar from 2011. Fun fact: I was sick as hell on December 30, 2011. Like, sicker than I’d ever been in my whole life, before or since. I lay in bed for almost a full 24 hours trying to get over it. I lost the whole day, being sicker than I thought possible. It was like my body was trying to sympathize with the plight of all the people who lost birthdays and anniversaries that year because of a time change that was economically related. I get sad thinking about it, for absolutely no rational reason.
It was all very complicated, but it had something to do with church and trade and how it was initially set up and politics…
Huxley, previously lost in life, found himself troubled by this.
The Coffee Company grew out of Huxley’s desire to share his vision of 12/30/11 with the world.
All this research and I was tired. I think I needed another cup of coffee...
READ PAIN CENTER: THE NOVEL! Available here! http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
April 22, 2017
The Animators
The Animators by Kayla Rae WhitakerMy rating: 5 of 5 stars
Sharon Kisses and Mel Vaught are two women who meet in college and begin an artistic collaboration, making an animated feature about Mel's life called Nashville Combat. It is a cult classic, an underground success that puts them on the map. 10 years later, they are still hanging out and working together, and while much of their fans and the world around them believes them to be a couple, they are not. Initially this is a study of the artistic process in collaboration, about the doubts Sharon has about her own talent. Mel is much more impulsive and self-destructive, yet she has a genuine talent. Sharon spends much of her time keeping themselves in check, keeping them together and working on the next project, while also worrying that she is being overshadowed by Mel.
Then a few hiccups come their way, and a man from Sharon's past comes back into her life, carrying a dark secret which threatens their new project and their partnership...
So many turns in this one. After the first one, I thought maybe the book wouldn't handle it. But then by the third or fourth turn, there was no more worry. The book is sharp, insightful, a great examination of the creative process. I give gushing praise because I enjoyed it so much and don't know how to thank Kayla Rae Whitaker but to say, hell yeah, keep 'em coming.
View all my reviews
April 21, 2017
Pain Center Excerpt #1: Kyle Discovers Huxley's Coffee
The coffee shop which opened fairly suddenly just appeared in my path this one day when I found myself desperate for that first cup…if only to stave off this caffeine headache, not to be confused with the debilitating headaches that kept me from working an out of the house real job, at least according to the lawyer and the doctor on my case… Huxley’s Coffee Company. It would have to do.
I entered, saw a line that snaked back to the door. I headed to the counter where the obligatory hand drawn chalkboards announced the specials. Quite a crowd for this place. Must be something I didn’t know about. I took my place behind a younger woman wrapped up in a scarf and wearing a hat.
“Hi there,” I said.
“Hi.”
“Is this place…new?”
“Oh, it’s been open a few months.”
“I haven’t been out much.”
“I see.”
“Is the coffee any good?”
“Oh…it’s the best!”
“The best? Really?”
“It’s AWESOME. Better than Starbucks.”
“Better than Starbucks? Awesome? Really? What makes it awesome and better than Starbucks?”
She leaned in and stage whispered, conspiratorially. “You know that feeling you get from drinking that first cup of coffee of the day?”
I returned the faux subterfuge by also keeping my voice at a stage whisper. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”
Liar. I didn’t just guess. I knew that feeling. I lived that feeling. I was all about that feeling. That need to feel that feeling was what had brought me out of the house today.
“Huxley’s Coffee Company has worked with SCIENTISTS to come up with a special brew so that every cup tastes like the first cup of the day.”
“Wow. Scientists. How did they do that?”
The woman smiled. “Nobody knows. It’s a company secret.” The line had moved up while we’d been talking, and now she was next.
“Standard Brew, Hot double strong.”
“Coming right up!” the fellow behind the counter whirled around and poured a coffee into a cup while a team of specialists worked on fancy coffee drinks…
The look on her face as she sipped the hot coffee could only be likened to one of pure joy that could only come from getting exactly what you wanted exactly when you wanted it. How I wanted to share in this feeling, this Harold and Kumar at White Castle moment as it was playing out at my first trip to Huxley’s Coffee Company…
Several minutes and three bucks later, I had my coffee, in a to-go cup, and I stepped outside to take a sip of this coffee that I had at this point been told no less than three times that was better than Starbucks and potentially life-changing…
And I don’t know if it was just the uniqueness of the experience or the cognitive dissonance or maybe that’s not the right word but I paid so much for this one cup and man let me tell you: This was good. Really good. It hit me like a giant ball of life-affirming goodness, sparking my brain instantly and suddenly I wondered where this coffee had been all my life. Suddenly I felt ideas flowing through me that I wanted to get out.
I took another sip. Oh yeah. So smooth. So good.
I was in love. For only like the third time in my life. And one of the other times was with a pet dog.
Definitely better than Starbucks.
I entered, saw a line that snaked back to the door. I headed to the counter where the obligatory hand drawn chalkboards announced the specials. Quite a crowd for this place. Must be something I didn’t know about. I took my place behind a younger woman wrapped up in a scarf and wearing a hat.
“Hi there,” I said.
“Hi.”
“Is this place…new?”
“Oh, it’s been open a few months.”
“I haven’t been out much.”
“I see.”
“Is the coffee any good?”
“Oh…it’s the best!”
“The best? Really?”
“It’s AWESOME. Better than Starbucks.”
“Better than Starbucks? Awesome? Really? What makes it awesome and better than Starbucks?”
She leaned in and stage whispered, conspiratorially. “You know that feeling you get from drinking that first cup of coffee of the day?”
I returned the faux subterfuge by also keeping my voice at a stage whisper. “Yeah, sure, I guess.”
Liar. I didn’t just guess. I knew that feeling. I lived that feeling. I was all about that feeling. That need to feel that feeling was what had brought me out of the house today.
“Huxley’s Coffee Company has worked with SCIENTISTS to come up with a special brew so that every cup tastes like the first cup of the day.”
“Wow. Scientists. How did they do that?”
The woman smiled. “Nobody knows. It’s a company secret.” The line had moved up while we’d been talking, and now she was next.
“Standard Brew, Hot double strong.”
“Coming right up!” the fellow behind the counter whirled around and poured a coffee into a cup while a team of specialists worked on fancy coffee drinks…
The look on her face as she sipped the hot coffee could only be likened to one of pure joy that could only come from getting exactly what you wanted exactly when you wanted it. How I wanted to share in this feeling, this Harold and Kumar at White Castle moment as it was playing out at my first trip to Huxley’s Coffee Company…
Several minutes and three bucks later, I had my coffee, in a to-go cup, and I stepped outside to take a sip of this coffee that I had at this point been told no less than three times that was better than Starbucks and potentially life-changing…
And I don’t know if it was just the uniqueness of the experience or the cognitive dissonance or maybe that’s not the right word but I paid so much for this one cup and man let me tell you: This was good. Really good. It hit me like a giant ball of life-affirming goodness, sparking my brain instantly and suddenly I wondered where this coffee had been all my life. Suddenly I felt ideas flowing through me that I wanted to get out.
I took another sip. Oh yeah. So smooth. So good.
I was in love. For only like the third time in my life. And one of the other times was with a pet dog.
Definitely better than Starbucks.
April 15, 2017
Thanks to All of You!
I just wanted to thank everyone who has expressed interest in my first ever GoodReads giveaway! I had people from all over the place requesting my book and the winners are spread far and wide across the U.S! Winners will be getting their copies very soon!
It is so great to be able to share my work with new people. All my hopes (and some of my fears) for Pain Center: the Novel! are now in the hands of the early readers. Either way, it’s very exciting for me.
Thanks to everyone who participated. I may do another one of these soon, but for now, Pain Center: the Novel! is available through my web page!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Thanks again!
David G. Cookson
It is so great to be able to share my work with new people. All my hopes (and some of my fears) for Pain Center: the Novel! are now in the hands of the early readers. Either way, it’s very exciting for me.
Thanks to everyone who participated. I may do another one of these soon, but for now, Pain Center: the Novel! is available through my web page!
http://davecookson.tripod.com/PainCen...
Thanks again!
David G. Cookson
April 7, 2017
Get in on the Pain Center Giveaway!
Goodreads Book Giveaway
Pain Center
by David G. Cookson
Giveaway ends April 14, 2017.
See the href="https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/sh... details
at Goodreads.
Enter Giveaway
