I’ve always said that Martin Kesici is one of the most underrated rockers in the music industry today. You can’t find his music on iTunes, his Wikipedia page has next to nothing on it, and whenever you bring his name up in conversation to one of your buddies, they’ll look at you like you have vipers slithering out of your nose.
But never forget that the definition of being underrated is that the person gets less credit than they deserve. When you hear the song “My Heart Beats Pain” by Martin Kesici for the first time, you’ll begin to question why he’s not a worldwide sensation already. It’s a gorgeous ballad about losing the one you love in the form of death.
I’ve only had two girlfriends my whole life and both of them are still living. So why then would I be able to relate to this beautiful piece of rock and roll music? For one, it’s beautiful, so that will get the artist brownie points with me. And two, because for my two ex-girlfriends and millions of crushes, it feels like they are dead.
I could just as easily bring them back to life by talking to them and letting them know how I feel. In order to do that, I have to have two things: a spinal cord and thick skin. I know I have a spinal cord because I can hear it cracking whenever I bend backwards. I know I have thick skin because all of my recent photographs make me look like I’m 400 lbs (I’m much lighter, by the way).
In the figurative sense, I have neither. It takes all the strength I have just to talk to a beautiful woman and I know it will take strength I never knew I possessed to mend my broken heart after they tell me “no”. I have this certainty within me that every girl I attempt to talk to will push me away because of my social awkwardness, my looks, the way I dress, or simply because they don’t feel like it. These are just excuses I use to stay away from lovely women, but that doesn’t mean they won’t be used against me.
My shyness is costing me relationships. My aggression will cost me relationships too. I need people in my life who accept me for who I am regardless of my faults. In the eyes of a stranger, the faults are my most noticeable features.
So whenever I need “My Heart Beats Pain” as creative fuel for my writing, I remember that shy guy romances are one of my favorite genres to work with. Whether or not the protagonists of these stories get what they want varies from story to story. You can’t win them all and when you lose them, you lose them forever. It’d be nice if the shy guys in my stories had a healthy relationship every now and then, but it doesn’t always turn out that way.
Martin Kesici doesn’t have to worry about these things because he’s a rock star. He’s an underrated rock star, but he’s a rock star nonetheless. He still found it within him to communicate the dark side of romance in this gorgeous piece of music known as “My Heart Beats Pain”.
And if you still can’t figure out how to pronounce his last name, it’s “KIZ-ih-chee”. He has a Turkish father and a German mother. Guess where he gets his last name from.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“My heart beats pain ever since that day life’s taken you away. But one day, I will be with you again.”
-Martin Kesici singing “My Heart Beats Pain”-
I was going to do a blog entry about the almost impossible love between Robotech characters Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes. I’m not going to do that anymore. The first reason is because my memory is extremely fuzzy when it comes to TV shows I’ve watched during my life in the 90’s. I have a Roku and I could very easily watch Robotech on Hulu, but I’m not feeling up to it right now.
The second reason is because I’ve found a different topic to discuss altogether. If you’re going to sign up for an occupation where violence is involved such as the police, the military, the FBI, the WWE, or the UFC (wow, that’s a lot of acronyms), make sure you’re doing it for a reason other than finding a soul mate.
If you think signing up to be a federal agent will get you a smoking hot wife who looks like Ziva David, Eleanor Bishop, or Kensi Blye, you’re sadly mistaken. If you’re going to participate in a season of The Ultimate Fighter where you have to share the house with chicks, you’re not walking away with Shayna Baszler or Raquel Pennington.
Romance in war is a fantasy that’s explored in canons like NCIS, Robotech, and even The Shield. The thing about fantasies is that they’re only that: fantasies. Truth be told, if you signed up for the police and started getting it on with a coworker, the commissioner could fire you.
Authority figures seem to have it in them that relationships among coworkers will breed poor job performance. It can happen, but not all the time. I don’t agree with the idea of not having relationships with coworkers, but then again, just because I don’t agree with something, doesn’t mean there isn’t a rule for it.
This rule is heavily enforced when it comes to combat occupations, because if there’s even one moment where emotions run high, it could cost lives. Then again, combat costs lives whether people decide to fraternize or not. When you step on a landmine, it won’t matter if you’re shacking up with the captain or not, because you will either lose your leg or you’ll flat-out die.
Death is the winner in any war. John Lennon always said that it’s legal to show people dying on TV, but people making love is suddenly disgusting. We live in a world where violence rules and love is a second class citizen.
Case in point: don’t join a combative occupation for all the wrong reasons. The romance between Rick Hunter and Lisa Hayes stood the test of time. Your romance will not. The line between fantasy and reality is there for a reason.
***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: How do you know when you’re in a gay relationship with Bo Dallas?
A: When you start giving each other Bo-jobs.
The stability in my family hasn’t always been…well…stable. Like any other family, we’ve had ups and downs and all arounds. One night in 2010 when I fell asleep in my cozy beddy-bye, my family life had changed drastically.
In this dream, I woke up on a Hawaiian beach with gorgeous sunlight, fluffy sand, and cool blue water. What better way is there to start a dream? I smell something cooking in the kitchen and drag my heavy ass out bed to follow the scent like a bloodhound. Yes, there is indeed something cooking on the stove, but the person who normally does the cooking, my step-father Dale, is no longer there.
In a happy and bubbly voice, my mom turns to me and says, “Garrison, meet your new step-father Mickey!” Mickey? Who’s Mickey? Mickey Rooney? Mickey Rourke? Mickey Keegan? No, my friends. The Mickey in question was none other than…Mickey Mouse.
That’s right, ladies and gentleman. My loving and supportive mother divorced Dale without telling me and married a fucking cartoon character. This same cartoon character looked at me with his happy facial expression and said, “Good morning, bucko! Would you like some Mickey Mouse pancakes? You can’t start the morning without a hearty breakfast.”
At this point, I didn’t know whether to face-palm or cry. Maybe I could have done both. Mickey Mouse was going to be my step-father for all eternity (or at least until the dream was over). That meant he was in charge of driving me when I needed transportation (probably in a wind-up car), giving me girl advice (which would probably be “Cheer up, bucko, and smile!”), and just being there for me when I’m sad (which means putting mouse ears on me when I’m not looking).
Mickey Mouse is an adorable character, but he’s not my father, blood or otherwise. He can’t do all the things that Dale does. He can’t even do the things that my blood father can do and my blood father lives out in the middle of nowhere. But wait a minute, why am I complaining about my parents when I’m a full grown adult? Oh yeah, that’s right, because I’m a Generation Y member and being one requires unemployment in a ravaged economy.
Perhaps this is my subconscious telling me that it’s time to put myself out to the world and make my own destiny. I very well could live with a Mickey Mouse-like figure as an authoritative voice in my life. I’m always living by the mantra of “raging against the machine”, so maybe this is my subconscious telling me to put my money where my mouth is.
I would, but money isn’t the taste I need right now. I have all the money I’ll ever need. It’s life in general that I need a savory taste of. I have friends and family that I can go to, but I need more interaction with them than I already have.
If I stay lonely for too long, Mickey Mouse is always there to comfort me with his gloved mousy hand. I’m being forced to choose between the taste of Mickey Mouse pancakes with syrup and the taste of fresh air that being enclosed in my prison cell, I mean, room can’t provide.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“Is all the world jails and churches?”
-Rage Against the Machine rapping “Vietnow”-
Not since William Wallace has anybody been able to shoot lightning bolts out of their ass quite like Leon De Taj. Actually, that sounds like a very painful bowel movement waiting to happen. I hope Leon doesn’t have to do a colon cleanse anytime soon. Maybe it’ll be better if he shoots all of his lightning bolts from his fingertips and perhaps from the back of his throat like a dragon would. We don’t need a dark fantasy version of Ren & Stimpy anytime soon.
All joking aside, if you need somebody to electrocute a savage beast, a fire breathing dragon, or a barbaric orc, Leon De Taj is your man. In the same way that necromancers deal in death and pyromancers deal in fire, Leon, a bona fide electromancer, is an expert in throwing lightning wherever it is needed.
He’s so good at his occupation that he could get a job powering Las Vegas’ neon signs and maybe get paid some serious overtime. He might also find his calling as a Texas-based executioner since they love to kill their prisoners with the electric chair so much. Then again, if he did that, they might accuse him of witchcraft and nail him to a cross. Bad idea, scratch that.
What you really need to know about Leon De Taj is that he’s more than just a limitless energy source. He’s also a hopeless romantic. When last he was used, it was in a movie script called Tower of Heaven. The premise of this movie was that bloodthirsty monsters called Intimidators took over the earth and the Tower of Heaven was the only place civilians could be safe from these dangerous warriors.
It would take a real backstabber to ruin a safe haven such as that. Leon became that backstabber when his girlfriend was taken away from him by the main character of the story, Terrato Matrix. Leon became so jealous that he removed the magical barrier from around the Tower of Heaven just so he could get back at that one guy who seduced his girl.
You talk about a real sourpuss, that’s it man. This is one case that Clark Gable III and Joey Greco would be both well advised to stay away from. I can picture Bob Magruder’s voiceover right now. “Leon De Taj. Age 25. An electromancer accused of calling down the thunder and reaping the whirlwind on his relationships.”
If this extreme jealousy is going to work in a story that hasn’t been scrapped yet, Leon would have to have been with this girl for a long, long time. Their connection must be deeper than a shallow bikini party or a one-night fling that resulted in a pregnancy. He’s 25 years old as Bob Magruder said, so maybe he knew this girl since middle school. Middle school can bring about a lot of hormone-induced feelings.
No matter what I end up doing with this character, lightning and testosterone will never make for a romantic mix.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“Pain! Without love. Pain! I can’t get enough. Pain! I like it rough, ‘cause I’d rather feel pain than nothing at all.”
-Three Days Grace singing “Pain”-
A lot of people don’t know if they’re unlucky or not, so I came up with a little test to try and help them out. Things like, if you’ve ever been sent to a boy’s detention center called Camp Green Lake for something that wasn’t your fault, you might be unlucky. If your overseers are complete douche bags who would rather watch you die of dehydration than give you an adequate amount of water, you might be unlucky. If your workload at Camp Green Lake consists of digging a five foot hole in all directions during the hottest part of the day, you might be unlucky.
Or you could just be a kid named Stanley Yelnats, who personifies unluckiness to the nth degree. A pair of stolen celebrity shoes literally fell from the sky and landed in his hands. An officer stopped and arrested him before he was eventually sent to Camp Green Lake to do tedious and body-shredding work. If that’s not an odd coincidence, I don’t know what is.
Or it could be that his great grandfather was cursed by a witch for not keeping a promise. It seems petty to blame an entire misunderstanding like Stanley’s story on a witch’s curse. However, the more Stanley digs these holes and finds interesting artifacts, the more he realizes that his family history plays a huge role in this story. Suddenly, this tale of bad luck turns into a conspiracy theory that almost kills Stanley multiple times.
That’s a lot for a small child to take in as he reads “Holes”. Then again, “Holes” is the kind of story that both children and adults can enjoy despite the former being the target audience. It is read in grade school, after all. It just wasn’t read in my grade school, because “Holes” came out in 1998 and I was already a teenager.
I found out about this gem after Disney took it upon themselves to make a movie out of it. I never watched the movie, I just saw portions of it. I didn’t even realize Camp Green Lake was a detention center until I heard about Stanley Yelnats having a lawyer. So when I saw this novel in a bookstore in Asheville, North Carolina, I knew I had to have it.
Yes, most of the book consisted of harsh treatment toward the unfortunate, but since it was geared toward children, it had things that distinguished it from “bully porn” as I like to call it. It has a fast pace, dark humor, and an overall creative story that left no stone unturned in terms of interweaving plot devices.
You don’t have to feel like a toddler for reading this wonderful book. On the contrary, you might actually learn something from this despite having qualified for retirement benefits from social security. Chew on that for a minute.
***PARODY DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
DR. CUSHING: What’s wrong, Crazy K? You don’t like being strapped to a spinning torture table? Well, you should have thought about that before you agreed to behavioral modification.
CRAZY K: Mmmmmmmmmmm!!!
-Tales From the Hood-
When you play “The Room of Ancillary Dreams” by Harold Budd on your MP3 player, stereo, computer, or whatever the case may be, one of two things will happen to you. If you’re in bed trying to relax, not only will you enter the dream world, but you’ll be a gatecrasher for your own subconscious. If you’re trying to write a piece of literature on your computer, you will be free of distractions while having your musical needs satisfied to the fullest extent. I use this ambient piece of music for both purposes.
All you need in order to reproduce it is a piano and a wah-wah pedal. It’s a slow-paced song, so it’s easy for anybody to play regardless of their skill level. If you’re a piano player and you need to put on a concert for your audience, choose this song. Your audience will be knocked out within the first few seconds and you can get out early to catch a show of your own. Hell, they might even need blankets and pillows just to get through the entire show. The song is that relaxing.
I dare you all to go to You Tube right now and look up “The Room of Ancillary Dreams” right now. If you’re going to do it, make sure there’s a buckwheat pillow resting on your computer desk. Don’t worry about snoring too loudly, because it’s just another part of the restful ambience. There’s a good chance you sound like a cat purring when you snore. If you sound like a helicopter, though, that’s not a problem either.
Why exactly am I going to great lengths to sell you this wonderful piece of music? Because as an avid listener, it’s my obligation to do so. Realistically though, this is a song I always keep on my MP3 player in case I go for a long road trip or airline flight. My mom is on the verge of retiring and when she does, the vacations will come more often.
Riding in the car or on an airplane isn’t the most fun experience you’re going to have. If you’re on a six-hour flight, your ass will get sore and you will get cranky. But if you have a neck pillow and a copy of “The Room of Ancillary Dreams”, your long journey will seem like it went by in only a few seconds.
It used to be that I always requested sleeping pills during long trips. I may not need them in the first place now that I’ve discovered this blissful combination. If you’re going to a writer’s retreat in Tuscany or a reader’s conference in the Bahamas, do you really want to be awake for the entire thing? Absolutely not. Even if there was a terrorist takeover of your flight, being asleep is the best way to survive.
Grab your pillow and get some Z’s, people, because with this song in your headphones, even the UFC can’t rack up that many knockouts.
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What do Nintendo characters use to get high?
A: Donkey Bong.
It’s hard to believe that I graduated from high school way back in 2003. And yet, the past refuses to rest in its shallow grave. Of all the dreams I’ve had in my adult life, going back to school is the most common. According to Dream Moods, going back to high school suggests inadequacy. I’ve graduated from college in 2009, but I haven’t been able to find a career that will make me independent.
So what do I have now? Dreams where I’m trying to figure out what grades I got by logging onto the school website, but I forgot my username and password. I’ve also had dreams where I go to school completely naked. Despite my overweight frame, nobody seems to notice or otherwise care.
And then there are those really interesting dreams where I sign up for a math or science class and I’m in danger of failing, so I drop out with a W for a grade. English literature, on the other hand, I have no problem with. I read the books and complete the assignments in a timely fashion, so my teachers couldn’t be happier with me.
Here’s a weird one for you: going to gym class and forgetting my exercise clothes only to have a fellow student buy them for me at the student store. I’m forever in that kid’s debt.
But sometimes school can’t last forever (bummer). Sometimes I have to ride the bus home…and then a foot ferry…and then a military grade submarine…and then an airplane. Did I leave anything out? How about me going to school in a really tiny building, almost microscopic. And then once I get to class, I try to find a seat, but all the desks and seats have graffiti on them.
There are a lot of different ways for a subconscious to tell a guy how inadequate he really is. Is there something else my brain is trying to tell me? Do I really need a reminder of how I’ve only made a 60 cent profit this entire time of selling my writing? Do I really need the point driven home that I couldn’t even make it as a library scientist (because they wouldn’t hire me in the first place)? Do I need to be told over and over again how all of my work experience has been voluntary?
Not everybody’s life can be rainbows and skittles. Very few people can say they’re part of the 1%. Should they start having high school dreams too? What exactly constitutes success? Money? Fame? Happiness?
I don’t claim to have all of the answers, but if my subconscious is going to keep throwing these high school dreams at me, it should at least have the decency to provide me with honest answers about myself. And if my subconscious doesn’t have all the answers, who does, and is this person within reach? So many questions, not enough answers. It’s the story of my life, even when I was still going to high school.
***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“I’ve been doing some web design.”
-Peter Parker aka Spiderman from “The Amazing Spiderman 2”-
Spencer, Iowa is a small farming community that has endured a lot of heartache over the past century. An economic recession, an economic depression, a raging fire, and the generally hard work of being a farmer have all taken their toll on this town. In spite of everything, Spencer stood tall and endured.
One of Spencer’s citizens and the author of this book, Vicki Myron, has also endured a lot in her life. Aside from the farmer’s lifestyle, she had a failed marriage with an alcoholic husband, she depended on welfare to see her through college, and she suffered through her family’s genetic curse of cancer as it took many of her loved ones‘ lives as well as attempted to take hers.
How exactly does any person, let alone a whole town, get through it all? With the help of a little kitty pie named Dewey. The teeny tiny cutie was found shivering, cold, and alone in the drop-off box of the library where Vicki Myron worked.
Wrapping him in a blanket and nursing him back to health was just the start of a beautiful friendship between Dewey and Vicki. In spite of the hardships he suffered in that drop-off box, Dewey was a total extrovert and wanted the love and attention of everybody coming and going through the library. Word of Dewey‘s beautiful aura spread throughout the small town of Spencer and eventually the entire world.
How could a teeny tiny kitty pie like Dewey bring so much attention to the lonely old Spencer, Iowa? Because that‘s what cuddle muffins like him do. He wasn‘t just a library cat. He was a beacon of love for a world full of brokenhearted families. Just putting a hand on his fluffy fur was enough to send waves of joy and happiness through the body and soul of the one petting him.
His legacy of love lasted for a little under two decades. He lived a long and joyful life. But like all good things, his time on earth had come to an end. Even though he was already old and sickly, it still came as a depressing shock to the world that he had to be put down and cremated to ashes. Vicki Myron was so saddened by the loss of her beautiful kitty that she retired from library work.
Whatever magic Dewey was conjuring up, it was enough to make his biography the most inspirational, heartwarming, and heartbreaking bestseller in recent memory. Even if you’re not a cat person, you can still appreciate this tale of fighting through adversity and becoming stronger for the experience.
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“There’s a group in California that wants to make suicide a federal offense punishable by death. That’s like punishing somebody for being on a hunger strike by sending them to bed with no supper.”
-Bill Engvall-
Would you like to see Winnie the Pooh in a suit of spiky metal armor while wielding a barbed wire club? If Magnus Warcry ever becomes a reality, it may happen sooner than you think. Barbarians are already primal beasts with no off switch for their rage. Bears are the same way except with a more powerful body. Put the race and the class together and you’ve got a recipe for destruction.
It’s bad enough that a bear would have dynamite in his paws. What exactly is he doing with a barbed wire club? That’s like Joe Rogan being armed with a rifle. Oh, wait a minute. He’s a Ron Paul guy, which means he’s probably armed with something capable of making a loud boom. If that’s the case, then Magnus Warcry is a lot like Joe Rogan: overkill.
That’s what we need in a story: a main character who’s so good at fighting that he can’t be touched. If somebody manages to touch him, it’ll feel like a little fruit fly landing on his fur. Come on, Mike Tyson, let’s see if one of your heavy haymakers can put a dent in Magnus’ armor. I’ll guarantee Mr. Tyson’s fist will turn to ashes if he tried anything like that.
Why am I overselling Magnus Warcry, anyways? Because when I first introduced him in an action fantasy movie script called Say Goodbye, he was the most underrated character in the whole story. The premise of Say Goodbye was that a group of bounty hunters ventured into a place called The Jungle (I was strapped for a creative name) in search of a pig man warlock named Zod Ragefist.
Actually, it wasn’t A group of bounty hunters, it was two separate factions gunning for the same guy and not wanting to share the profits. Magnus’ side wanted the money because they were greedy bastards and the other side wanted the money to feed their argumentative, but loved families.
The whole movie was supposed to be an allegory for family love despite strains on the relationship. Magnus, being a big ass bear in metal armor, doesn’t have much of a family life. Seriously, what woman would approach him with a bouquet of flowers without running for their lives afterwards?
If Magnus Warcry is going to thrive, it has to be in a purely badass environment with no multi-layered drama of any kind. I could even picture him being in an Expendables movie. We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it, or when Chris Christie decides to decongest the traffic flow. Ouch!
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Paul Heyman was so ugly as a baby, his mother got morning sickness after he was born.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
