Billenkoek

Seven days.

San Diego, Phoenix, and a wild trip through Wyoming, around Denver, and back to Utah.

Seven days.

Five nights.

In Arizona, I was told by a wild-eyed denizen of the Barnes & Noble we were signing at that my epic fantasy book was true–we are ruled by lizard people!

Imagine how shocking it was to learn that. I mean it doesn’t have anything to do with my book, but lizard people? A hollow earth? Is the CIA in on it? I don’t think I’ve recovered yet.

In San Diego, we rode around with Dave Farland in his old four-door sedan. A Lincoln? All I remember is that it was big and floated like a dream. After some narrow misses, Dave asked me to drive. Two big guys up front. One older, rough-looking guy being chauffeured in the back. At one point we walked to a restaurant during the day like some made man and his two goons. The restaurant was empty except for three rough characters sitting around a table on the far side. They looked at us, sized us up, then looked away. We sat at a table on our side.

In Wyoming we drove in high winds that sent streams of snow across the highway like multitudes of slithering snakes. At one point we passed one semi that was on fire, winds howling about. About an hour later, we passed a truck driver out in the median, thigh-deep in snow, a huge knife in his hand. He was trying to saw off the frozen antlers of an elk that had been hit. I looked up at his rig as we passed and did not see anyone behind the wheel. I swear the thing was rolling slowly down the highway, unmanned.

On the way back from Denver, we rode along a wintery, icy highway with trucks and cars littering the sides. Larry white-knuckled the steering wheel, but we made it. Two big guys, one 6’4″ the other 6’2″, in a tiny Ford Focus.

Did the very road fear the Lord of Hate? I cannot tell.

On this trip, Larry, that man of hate, brought a bag of Walmart beef jerky that smelled like, well, a particular kind of flatulence. What kind of person does that to beef? But we ate it. Because you do such things on epic journeys.

Now, here’s the thing. If you spend any amount of time with me, you will eventually tell me your life story.

You will.

Not because I’m a prier. But because I’m simply and sincerely interested. In people. If you work for the sanitation department, I’m going to want to know about garbage trucks. If you bowl, I’m going to want to know about bowling. If you’re some kind of wackadoo, I’m going to want to hear your wackadooness. Sooner or later, you’re going to talk. And, yes, there will be things along the way that I just might put in my zing file. That’s not why I’m talking to you. But sometimes the slices of life are too good not to capture.

So you put Larry Correia, International Lord of Hate, into a car with me, and he’s going to spill his guts.

Let me tell you what I found. Oh yeah, wait until you hear this.

Larry loves Bridget, his wife. No, do not turn away in horror. You must hear the rest of the tale.

He doesn’t like taxes, which is outrageous. Simply beyond the pale.

He’s a strong advocate of the right to bear arms. He figures people are safer with guns than without. And he was loaded. I remember getting to the hotel in Denver and seeing he draw his guns and put them on the table. A Kimber/Bul Poly .45 from his waist and a little Kahr MK9 on the ankle. Frightening. Of course, I never worried about going anywhere with him, but the guns had nothing to do with that.

He doesn’t like the idea of a small group of people in Washington telling folks what they need to do. He’s not anti-government. He just likes a minimal amount of government. This too is outrageous. Government is the source of all good in the world.

He doesn’t like a lot of what Franklin Delano Roosevelt did. One of those things he doesn’t like is the rounding up of Japanese Americans and putting them in war camps. Another was Roosevelt’s attempt to pack the Supreme Court with justices who would rule his way, essentially eliminating that branch’s check on the presidency. Nor does he like Roosevelt for being the first president to explicitly embrace deficit spending. The list with Roosevelt could go on. Of course, we all know that wise people everywhere thought Roosevelt made the right choice on these things.

Larry honors the folks who serve in our military and law enforcement. Big time. Guys and gals who put their lives on the line or support those who do. I roll my eyes.

Larry’s a big believer in pulling yourself up by your boot straps and getting to work. He worked on his father’s dairy farm milking cows early in life. Busted his chops in school. Busted his chops at work. Busted his chops writing novel after novel. And now he lives on Yard Moose Mountain. A supposed example of can-do economic mobility, which all smart people know is a farce.

I mean, work? Come on. Do you see how unreasonable the man is?

He’s an accountant and pretty good with numbers. Ergo he doesn’t like a lot of bureaucratic waste. It stinks to his accountant soul. And he saw a lot of that as a military contractor. I’m really for a lot of waste of taxpayer dollars, but I let him have his say.

Larry was once a bouncer.

He’s a big guy, but got his trash kicked in some early amateur MMA. But he still loved it.

In a friendly wrestling match, he broke his roommate’s toe, and said roommate responded by breaking the International Lord of Hate’s nose. Yes, the nose, Ladies and Gentlemen.

Larry is funny.

Larry has a lot of friends because, shocker, he’s a friendly guy.

He’s also kind of a sheepdog.

Larry is a capitalist. And it appears he’s the dirty greedy kind who uses his capitalistic ties for helping folks down on their luck.

There’s more. But let me tell you what I never heard. I never heard him make a racist remark. Not even when he told me about growing up in California’s Central Valley, or when some idiot kids who had been tasked with beating someone up to to join a Hispanic gang targeted him. Never heard him make a misogynistic remark.

I did hear how he loved to argue with folks on the internets. And then saw that later when I started reading his blog. It’s clear Larry likes a good fight. He’s a barbarian with big boots. But, in truth, he’s a friendly barbarian.

That’s the expose. I know. Shocking, isn’t it.

Now he’s gone and done this Hugo thing and calls people names and uses four-letter words on his blog posts.

I’ve found that Larry in person is not quite the same as Larry online when you disagree with him. In person he’s usually very conversational when you disagree.

Some might say he needs to be more polite online. Use more class.

They might have a point. Sometimes I think he steps over the line. Then again, they might not. He does get people to listen. And some of the things he has to say are insightful and worthwhile. Others are just plain funny.

Whatever your opinion, all I know is that if you’re wanting Abraham Lincoln, you’re going to have to look elsewhere. If you come out swinging, he’s not going to regale you with Kumbaya.

And because he fights the way he does as Internet Larry, his posts seem to push some folks buttons to the point that they actually miss his intent.

For example, when Larry responded to Alex MacFarlane’s call for “an end to the default of binary gender in science fiction stories,” he never once suggested that we should discriminate against the folks MacFarlane wants to read stories about. He never suggested there shouldn’t be any such stories. Nor did he ever suggest folks who are discriminated against never have a case. His point was that the best way to write an entertaining story was to put the entertainment first, not some political agenda. His point was also that he’s sick of folks trying to foist their interests on him and everyone else. If you want to write about certain types of characters, do it. But don’t tell everyone else they must.

That was lost on some people. All they saw was someone who disagreed “rudely,” and they saw red.  I’d be seeing red too if I felt ruded upon. At the same time, they still missed his point. A lot have missed his point about the Hugos as well.

But whatever happens with this latest kerfluffle, I had to tell my tale. Because I spent seven days with Larry Correia, International Lord of Hate. It was nip and tuck the whole time, but I survived his horrible onslaught. And then we enjoyed some ice creams and tropical trail mix, which I can happily report smelled a lot better than the beef jerky.