{"product_id":"cosmic-banditos-isbn-9780451203069","title":"Cosmic Banditos","description":"Soon to be a major motion picture starring \u003cb\u003eJohn Cusack\u003c\/b\u003e!\u003cp\u003eMr. Quark is a down-on-his luck pot-smuggler hiding out in the mountains of Colombia with his dog, High Pockets, and a small band of banditos led by the irascible Jose. Only months before, these three and their fearless associates were rolling in millions in cash and high-grade marijuana, eluding prosecution on “ridiculously false” drug and terrorism charges. But times have quickly grown lean, and to liven up their exile, Jose decides to mug a family of American tourists. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAmong the spoils are physics texts, which launch Mr. Quark on a side-splitting, boisterous adventure north to California, where he confronts the owner of the books with his own theories on relativity, the nature of the universe, and looking for the meaning of life in all the wrong places….\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cb\u003eAllan Weisbecker\u003c\/b\u003e is a novelist, screenwriter, award-winning photojournalist, and life-long surfer.  He caught his first wave off Long Island, NY, in 1966, when he was 17 years old.  Roaming the world in pursuit of waves during the heyday of the counterculture led to a career as a marijuana smuggler.  He retired from that trade in 1980 and wrote \u003cb\u003eCosmic Banditos\u003c\/b\u003e (Vintage), a gonzo rendering of his pot-pirate experiences.\u003cp\u003eFrom 1980 to 1995, Weisbecker was a screen writer for film and television programs including \u003cb\u003eMiami Vice\u003c\/b\u003e.  During the 1990, he developed his career as a journalist and photographer, and his work now frequently appears in \u003cb\u003eSmithsonian, Men’s Journal, Popular Photography, American Photo, Sailing\u003c\/b\u003e, and all the major surfing publications.  Weisbecker lives on Long Island.\u003c\/p\u003eForeword\u003cp\u003eAn odd occurrence, even by my standards.1\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003ePicture it this way: You’ve offed your home, a comfy if rustic little villa with a wood stove, and deer standing outside the picture window. You’ve summarily given up a movie and TV writing career that’s been quite good to you over the years, although it currently appears to be going nowhere.2 You’ve sold, chucked or given away everything that might impede swift, economical movement and hit the road -- just your dog and you, with no plans to return. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’ve burned bridges.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour former life seems over, \u003ci\u003ekaput\u003c\/i\u003e. The only apparent meaning to your new life is based on this idea: You’re in search of an old friend and sometime partner in crime who vanished into the wilds of Central America five years before. You have little idea of what you’re going to say to this guy if and when you track him down – although you do have some questions in mind -- or where you might go and what you might do afterward, but that’s the plan. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn some sense, what you’re doing is an attempt at making sense of things, of your life. 3\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eTruth is, you’re about halfway out of your mind. 4\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’re in far southern Mexico now, four months into your bolt. You left in 1996 but it’s now 1997. You’ve pulled over onto the side of a road labeled Mex 200 on the map. You cut your engine. There’s no traffic. It’s very quiet. You’re staring at a sign indicating a turnoff to a town some distance inland. Motozintla. You’re suddenly feeling dizzy and a little disoriented – a little \u003ci\u003emore\u003c\/i\u003e disoriented than usual. You’ve seen this word, this name, before. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhere? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHad a ring to it when you first saw it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou say it aloud. Motozintla. Moe-toe-ZEEN-tlah. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eStill has a ring to it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn your mind you travel back in time to 1982. Your life of crime is over, recently abandoned due to ridiculous, though dangerous, circumstances. You’re staring at the first page of a composition book. You start writing. Your goal is to make sense of things, of your life. 5\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBefore that first session of writing is finished, you find you’ve turned back to the first page and printed at the top the words \u003ci\u003eCosmic Banditos\u003c\/i\u003e. You don’t know where this came from, since you have no real idea of where the story is going. You’re completely winging it. About all you’ve accomplished so far is the description of a dog. You shrug and press on. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBack on the roadside in Mexico in 1997, you dimly recall that at some point in the writing you did in 1982 you needed a town in southern Mexico for some things to happen in. You’d pulled out a world atlas and searched for a name that has a ring to it. Motozintla. The characters in the story you’re writing have an adventure in Motozintla then move on. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e1 The events described in The Forward to the New Edition should be completely viewed as more or less being at least partly true. In other words, as \u003ci\u003enonfiction\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2 You don’t wish to name the movie studio that caused your career to be going nowhere but it’s the one that has cartoon characters on its West Coast corporate headquarters front lawn and that is sometimes referred to as Mousevitz, or Duckenwald, for its Storm Trooper treatment of creative types, especially writers. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3 You will fail miserably, of course. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e4 A related issue: You are currently trying to get the reader used to the excessive footnoting to come. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e5 You will fail miserably, of course, but in this case with a certain panache. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e2. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eSo: You’re staring at a sign indicating the turnoff to a place you’ve written about as if you’d been there but of course had not. You’d made everything up, including your physical description of Motozintla. 6 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eBut that’s not why you’re feeling weird. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’re feeling weird because you’re beset by a creeping epiphany. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe term déjà vu comes to mind, but it isn’t quite accurate. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eHow about \u003ci\u003evuja de\u003c\/i\u003e? An experience you’re sure you’ve never had before but gives you the willies anyway, because you may have \u003ci\u003eimagined\u003c\/i\u003e having it. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou glance at your dog, sitting beside you in the cab of your pickup truck, looking at you in the way dogs do that asks the question, What’s next? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eNormally, the sight of your dog has a calming effect on you, but now the reverse is the case. For the moment, your dog’s presence is no help at all. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYour dog is a big part of your creeping epiphany, your \u003ci\u003evuja de\u003c\/i\u003e experience. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn order to avoid eye contact with your dog, you look out the window, only to find yourself again staring at the Motozintla sign, which sports an arrow pointing off toward the right, to the turnoff. Your sense of dizziness, of increased disorientation, of heightened weirdness, increases further. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhat’s going on here? \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis: The tale you wrote in 1982 in order to make sense of things appears to be actually taking place now, fifteen years later. By the way: Although the tale was inspired by real events in your life, the crux of it was not only made up, but essentially nonsensical. 7 \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYet here you are. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe hero of your fictional tale is in the throes of a crisis. His former life appears to be over, \u003ci\u003ekaput\u003c\/i\u003e, due to ridiculous though dangerous circumstances, and he’s about halfway out of his mind. Spurred to action by rising dementia, he embarks on a quest, with his dog, through Mexico and Central America, in search of an enigmatic figure who presumably has the answers to some important questions. En route, he comes across various banditos, fugitives, corrupt establishmentarians and all-around lunatics and miscreants.You, while on this real-life quest to find your vanished old chum – an enigmatic figure for whom you have some questions -- have encountered various banditos, fugitives, corrupt establishmentarians and all-around lunatics and miscreants. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe hero of your fictional tale has a peculiar obsession, having to do with the physics of matter and energy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou have a peculiar obsession, in practice quite different from that of your fictional hero, but – come to think of it -- with identical theoretical roots: the physics of matter and energy. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOne of the essential themes of your fictional tale is the idea that human beings exist in different \u003ci\u003ebranches of reality\u003c\/i\u003e, an unaccountable number of them, and all of them are real. In other words, \u003ci\u003eanything that can happen, will happen, or may have already happened\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThis realization causes you to swallow with an audible gulp.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e6 In your writing, you have an overall cavalier attitude toward geographical veracity. You’ve given Bolivia a coastline, for example, because you needed a South American country name that starts with a \u003ci\u003eB\u003c\/i\u003e, to alliterate with the words \u003ci\u003ebandito\u003c\/i\u003e and \u003ci\u003eburrito\u003c\/i\u003e, yet has a coastline. Bolivia, of course, is landlocked. .7 The phrase \u003ci\u003ecomplete crock of shit\u003c\/i\u003e comes to mind.. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e3. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou look at your dog, who is brown with asymmetrical white patches here and there. Her ears are out of alignment and she has a large tongue that always hangs out, giving her a clownish appearance.This is the exact description of your fictional8 hero’s canine sidekick. \u003ci\u003eA Clownish appearance\u003c\/i\u003e are in fact the words you used in that first writing session to sum up the fictional dog’s physical attributes. The thought crosses your mind that your real dog9 was born in 1987, five years after you’d described the… \u003ci\u003eother dog\u003c\/i\u003e. Further, this current dog and you teamed up accidently. You did not pick her out of the canine multitudes due to a predilection for brown dogs with asymmetrical white patches here and there, ears out of alignment and large tongues that always hang out. Dogs with \u003ci\u003eclownish appearances\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn fact, none of what’s taking place can be explained by your innate predilections, story telling preferences, or some sort of interconnection between the two. And anyway, remember: The real events are taking place 15 years after the events you made up. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe word \u003ci\u003ecoincidence\u003c\/i\u003e pops into your mind, then pops right back out again. You thumb through your mental thesaurus but don’t come up with anything that accurately defines the situation. 10\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eYou’re still staring at the Motozintla sign. Thinking maybe you should make the turn, follow the arrow11 and pay Motozintla a visit. See who, or what, shows up there – or is \u003ci\u003ealready\u003c\/i\u003e there. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOr maybe not. Maybe you shouldn’t go anywhere near the place. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eOut of the corner of your eye, you dimly perceive that the dog sitting beside you is still looking at you with that expression that asks, What’s next?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e8 Given the implications of the \u003ci\u003edifferent branches of reality\u003c\/i\u003e concept, the usual definition of the word \u003ci\u003efictional\u003c\/i\u003e should henceforth (and, as a matter of fact, retroactively) be viewed as suspect. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e9 Better phrasing might be \u003ci\u003ethe dog sitting beside you in this branch of reality\u003c\/i\u003e. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e10 The phrase \u003ci\u003etwist of fate\u003c\/i\u003e does come close, especially if you add the adjective \u003ci\u003ebizarre\u003c\/i\u003e to the front.11 The phrase \u003ci\u003earrow of time\u003c\/i\u003e occurs to you. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e--Reprinted from Cosmic Banditos by A. C. Weisbecker by permission of New American Library, a member of Penguin Putnam Inc. Copyright © 2001 by A. C. Weisbecker. All rights reserved. This excerpt, or any parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Berkley","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46304004931813,"sku":"NP9780451203069","price":22.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780451203069.jpg?v=1767724146","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/cosmic-banditos-isbn-9780451203069","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}