Category Archives: Reviews

Robert Stark discusses his novel Vaporfornia

 Mark Velard, 1980's, aesthetics, Alicia Silverstone, alienation, Alt Center, Andrew Yang, Architecture, Art, Beverly Hills, Black Mirror, Calexit, California, capitalism, Class, Conservatives, Culture, Dan Baltic, David Lynch, demographics, Despair, Donald Trump, dreams, Economics, Environment, Eugenics, Futurism, Gio Pennacchietti, Greg Johnson, Hollywood, humor, Immigration, Incels, income inequality, Internet, IQ, James O'Meara, journalism, Journey to Vapor Island, Liberalism, Literature, Los Angeles, Malls, Matthew Pegas, Media, Michel Houellebecq, Middle Class, Millennials, Morality, Mount Diablo, Mulholland Drive, Multiculturalism, neo-tribalism, Neoliberalism, Neon, Personality Types, Philosophy, Political Correctness, Politics, Psychology, Race Relations, Radical Center, Reno, Retro Futurism, Reviews, Sam Hyde, San Francisco, Science Fiction, Sexuality, social capital, Social Darwinism, Social Isolation, Social Media, social status, Spree Shootings, Surrealism, SWPL, The Black Pill, Travel, Utopia, Vaporfornia, Vaporwave, Virtual Reality, Walnut Creek CA, William S. Burroughs, Yosemite

Robert Stark is joined with Matt Pegas and Dan Baltic to discuss his new novel, Vaporfornia. Vaporfornia is a surreal dark comedy, a coming of age story set in California, and is the sequel to Robert’s first novel, Journey to Vapor Island. This show is a simulcast with Matt and Dan’s dissident, counter-culture, literary podcast, New Write.  Vaporfornia is available for purchase on Lulu publishing. Also check out Matt’s review of Vaporfornia.

Topics:

Contrasting Vaporfornia with Journey to Vapor Island, and how both novels capture the zeitgeists of their respective eras
The niche genre of the satirical moving adventure story
Literary comparisons to a Confederacy of Dunces, William S. Burroughs’ Naked Lunch, Lucky Jim, Voltaire’s Candide, and Gulliver’s Travels
The situational humor and dramatic irony
Vaporfornia as a satire of the themes in Robert’s Substack that delve into California’s social, political, class, and demographic dynamics
Vaporfornia as a travelogue for California
Allegories and symbolism in the book
Saudade, a longing for what could have been or nostalgia for lost futures
Gio Pennacchietti’s video about how Robert’s literary fiction and visual art complement each other
The protagonist’s personal and political journey
The politics of the “Chad Centrist” presidential candidate Roger Blackstone
Whether Robert Stark will run for California Governor or have a Vaporfornia tour some day

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Checkout Robert Stark’s Facebook page, Twitter, Instagram, Stark Truth TV, novel Vaporfornia, and in production documentary The Gospel of Gibson, and subscribe to his Substack.

James O’meara Reviews The Poet & The Cat

Charles Lincoln, Despair, James O'Meara, Loserdom, Paul Bingham, Quarter-life crisis, Reviews, The Poet & The Cat

The Poet & The Cat 

Directed by Robert Stark

Written by Paul Bingham

Staring: Robert Stark & Charles E. Lincoln II

 

If you’re a fan of losers and serial killers, and enjoy the alt-Right despaircore writings of Andy Nowicki or Paul Bingham, you’ve probably said, “Gee, I wish I could visit them at home, see them writing away on a rickety plywood table under the light in the kitchen, interacting with their cat and drinking a glass of Two Buck Chuck!”

Well, thanks to Robert Stark, and YouTube, now you can!

The Poet & The Cat is stars Robert as the poet undergoing a quarter-life crisis (which is a new one on me, but apparently is a thing), and Charles E. Lincoln II is the cat; that is, the voice of the cat, who sounds distractingly like Judaic radio show crank Mark Levin, especially when he starts ranting in German.  The cat, I mean.

It’s fun to see Robert bring the poetry-scribbling loser to life, and the cat is a hoot as he ventriloquizes Bingham’s bleak worldview.

 

“You’re like a woman, you know.  You come at me shadowboxing, both paws extended; only then do the claws come out, and dig in so deeply.”

 

The “feline Mephistopheles” insistently tries to draw the poet’s thoughts from working his ordinary life problems into art and toward mass murder as the real path to fame, money and women; while constantly becoming distracted by the urge to hunt a mouse or complain about having been fixed.

 

“Just move like a cat. You’re good at that.  All you girlfriends say you can be a creep.”

 

Suffering weltschmerz after reading too many Hopeless Books?  Feeling like a Delta Male after checking out too many man-o-sphere blogs?  Ignore that clickbait at Salon or HuffPo, and go here for a quarter-hour of someone else’s entertaining quarterlife crisis.