The Hitchhiker's Guide To Avenue B

A great many people have read Douglas Adams' The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy; I was not one of them. And then I finally read it.

It's interesting that the franchise started out as a radio drama; knowing that you can read it and hear why that is; in fact, the thing seems more interesting that way.

At least one person in book club was nervous to give it the full book club critique, lest a longtime favorite get cut down to size. I don't know why, because it's good, though it is a little disjointed, obviously owing to the retro-whatever nature of its novel form. I remember reading a version of E.T. for a book report in grade school and it felt like this. Also, Mr. Kiddo's written-word versions of stuff like Dinosaur Train and Paw Patrol — in other words, Jesus Fucking Christ don't even ask.

Perseverating on the notion that the radio play was the original version, I'm interested that no one seems to have resurrected it for the podcast world. I don't really listen to podcasts and only have a vague acquaintance with Hitchhiker's but it seems like a kind of no-brainer. In fact, if I googled it I bet someone's figured this out, but I'm feeling incredibly lazy and unmotivated right now and won't google it myself.

Which leaves me with this: this fellow died at what is now emerging to me as a ridiculously young age: 49.

[By the way, I just took an extended deep dive into GG Allin's final day alive; I wondered how old he was when he died — 37 — and got sucked into figuring out what the establishment at 1:14 was today; he, naked, hides out in a sort of plywood vestibule:

For the record, these days it seems it's been some series of shitty SLA/CB-unfriendly venues, basically like this:

Anyway, weird.]

Back to 49 . . .

For most people, 49 is young. Adams was working out at a gym in California when he had a heart attack, which makes me immediately suspicious of California.

Having not known the provenance of the book — i.e., that it was a radio play (and also that Adams apparently had an issue with writer's block, especially later) — I was intrigued that it was such a short book, perhaps for obvious reasons.