How and why I feel the way I do about "King Dork" requires some explanation on my part. Let's begin with a definition. "Positive inspiration." This indicates one of two things: 1.) One's Muse is a unicorn, or 2.) One gets ideas from something which that person positively esteems (e.g. likes). I am the opposite of that, meaning either 1.) I am goth, or 2.) conflict and boredom generate all my notions about life. I also, like other negatively-inspired people, pretty much hate all labels and cliches--including ones I apply to myself, which is why typing these first few sentences is causing a small pain in my chest right now. I first discovered this about myself in 1999, during the process of maintaining the minimal-to-nonexistently trafficked movie review website I created my senior year of High School. The site was called "Negatives: Movie reviews for the Critically Impaired"-----a genius title, I thought at the time. I was really into taboo humor. The idea was to stand out from other random Geocities entertainment-oriented pages by reviewing only the movies I considered terrible. Hating everything, and hating it well, would appreciate my praise. So for no apparent reason and with ever-evolving criteria, I took the widely-celebrated films I couldn't stand and wrote searing reviews about said films, the undeserved popularity they garnered relegating them all the more in my mind, until one day I realized why I started the whole thing in the first place and it busted me out a little. It's always painful to admit one's own obviousness. Painful in a good way, though. Like when you chew your nails too short because the book you're reading is awesome.
So yeah, I figured it out. I hadn't started slamming acclaimed films online because I wanted my opinion to count for more, or because I was a cynical indie snob, or because there wasn't much that I liked in the first place, or because I was withered and hateful inside and couldn't create my own film or book to put out there for fear of being criticized by high school losers with websites, or because I didn't want to ruin the films I loved by overhypeing them with sycophantic praise and the garrulous writing style you are currently experiencing. Though all those explanations certainly factor. I started "Negatives" because making fun of stuff that sucks has given me some of my best ideas. Especially when the stuff that sucks is in the realm of things I love and think I could do better, like filmmaking. Stultification was my creativity gateway drug and I didn't even know I was addicted. When it hit me, I began to see how 'criticism as inspiration' is basically how I'd lived my entire life up to that point. Which is pretty sad. Not that I'm any different now. Around the same time I was really big into The Mr. T Experience. They're my favourite punk band of all-time, due partially to their music's rad pop sensibilities and partially to the lyrical genius of Dr. Frank. And I don't have to tell you who that is. So I bought "King Dork" the same way I buy all my MTX albums: as soon as I hear about the release, and without sampling anything. Because Dr. Frank Portman has a slightly ill-known and not completely unexpected way of reading my mind---only more concisely and with a better vocabulary. Why am I practically writing a novel of my own during what's supposed to be a review of somebody else's work, you may not necessarily be asking yourself but I will pretend like you are to expedite my point and still add a question mark on this sentence even though the joke-question has many words ago expired? Because while "King Dork" may be about the coming-of-age issues of a fictitious alienated teenager and whatever, it is certainly not trying to be 'Freaks and Geeks.' It's trying to be a novel about a boy named Chi Mo who hates all the same things I do. A boy who's inspiration for most things is his own self-percieved lameness. Tom-Tom just happens to be at the bottom of the social totem pole, which is where anyone with his disposition would end up. The reviews on the back of the book aren't helpful at all. Frank's style may not be for everybody. I think it absolutely rules, and I think folks predisposed to negative forms of inspiration can appreciate that really well. Frank doesn't lowball his audience, writes conversationally in first person POV (come on, you guys...you know it's everyone's favourite), and assumes the reader's always savvy to Tom's train of thought---which is a welcome reprieve from most contemporary writers. It should go without saying that humor is one of the novel's strongest points. But the best thing about the way Frank wrote Tom is how many simultaneous avenues his thoughts take; it's like having a really great conversation with someone who looks at all sides of things but isn't all dumb and big-headed about it. It really reminds one of scribbling in her own journal. Anybody who is or was a self-aware teenager can also relate to how well Tom understands how he must look or sound as the narrator (and I'm resisting the urge to use 'postmodern' here). One of my favourite examples of this is on p. 215, when Tom realizes that his projecting has put him level with his Mom and LBT, something I had been thinking for quite a few sections and never expected to be be pointed out in the book, much less by the narrator himself: "Maybe there was no real message: kids do bizarre things and construct elaborate games to drive away the boredom. Tit could very well have been playing some nonsensical game with no relation to actual reality, and I was just falling for it decades later, very much like how Little Big Tom misread the Talons of Rage fantasy blades, or how my mom had misread "Thinking of Suicide?" It was weird to think that I was playing the role of the Clueless Adult from the Future, but maybe I kind of was." Tom's observations are both common and unusual---or should I say, specific to his unique character. That's a hard thing to achieve as an author, a truly original character that hasn't been done before who people still like and understand. Well, I find Tom's character particularly compelling. The structure of the book was as seemingly erratic as its syntax and yet totally worked. I followed it easily. And I don't have to tell you that I'm not shy of run-on sentences and disorganized thoughts. I'll leave you with my favourite part of the novel: "...And I also felt bad about the fact that after he left we kind of made fun of the funny way he said Latino, like he was the Frito Bandito or something. I felt bad, but I did it anyway, because I'm only human. I was ashamed of myself and depressed afterward, though, which is human too, I guess. Being human is an excuse for just about everything, but it also kind of sucks in a way." ::sigh!:: Dr. Frank. Rock and rolling the spoken and written word. I can tell you one thing I positively esteem. | 
