When I first heard the male name Lionel existed, it was the late 90’s and I was really into The Thundercats. I previously watched it when I was a baby in the 80’s, but about a decade later, Cartoon Network was showing it on their Toonami programming block. It was your typical 80’s action cartoon: badass fighting and piss-poor dialogue. The latter of the two keeps me from watching it as an adult.
But as a middle schooler, Thundercats was my own version of Sunday mass. When I saw Lion-O swinging his Sword of Omens on TV, he was my equivalent of Jesus Christ. Lion-O and Lionel were the same thing to me at the time and now I want to continue that tradition with this latest unemployed character, Lionel Casey.
Oddly enough, I didn’t intend for Lionel to be a Thundercats parody. I had two different roles lined up for him: one as a heavyweight MMA fighter and one as a shooting game character. As the former, his leonine beard and ursine muscles are the sole reason why his opponents should wear diapers to the octagon instead of shorts with “Condom Depot” printed on the ass.
As the latter, he’s comparable to Gorge from the Unreal Championship series. In other words, not only is he a giant among pixies, but he has a fucking rocket launcher. Why does a fee-fie-foe-fum giant need a long range weapon that can blow up a whole building? Don’t his punches and kicks do that enough already? When he’s in MMA, does he really win his matches by knocking his opponents up and over the cage?
Look on the bright side, Mr. Casey: if you don’t get used as a badass warrior, you could always be the model for the MGM movie logo. It’s bad enough moviegoers have to be greeted by a roaring lion who could quite possibly eat them in one or two bites. But what about Lionel Casey? What if his bearded face ended up on that logo? In so many ways, that would be worse.
Having that sociopathic monster give you the death stare might actually be scarier than the Gracie Films logo at the end of every Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode. Maybe that’s why the shush lady likes to scream every October: because Lionel Casey is in the same theater as her. Where in the theater is anybody’s guess. He could be hiding in the trash bin. He could be underneath the lady’s seat waiting to pounce. Or he could be shown on the movie screen as the MGM logo mascot. I can be so sadistic sometimes!
I have a lot of action-packed roles Lionel Casey could be a part of. I’m also currently writing a dark fantasy novel called Fireball Nightmare. You’re probably asking yourself why I’m not using Lionel as part of that novel’s character roster. I’m mainly writing Fireball Nightmare for nostalgic purposes. The characters who have made the cut are ones I’ve used in past pieces of fiction and have had the greatest impact on my audience.
For my friends Kenny Flynn, James Howell, and Robert Hatfield, my barbarian Deus Shadowheart and my sadistic scientist Dr. Scott Cain are household names. For Heather Woody and TJ Johnson, Brutus Warcry is a Dungeons & Dragons character they’re used to hanging around. For my brother James Haines-Temons, Charles Goodhorn was also a Dungeons & Dragons character he’s most familiar with. Lionel Casey is a fresh face and this profile is the only exposure he’s had so far. Guys like Deus, Dr. Cain, and Brutus are the WWE Raw and Smackdown to Lionel Casey’s WWE NXT. Sorry, Lionel. You’ve got a lot to learn before I use you in a story.
***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: Why doesn’t Alberto Del Rio like driving in traffic?
A: He can never get over.
TITLE: Real Time with Bill Maher
GENRE: Political Debate and Comedy
RATING: TV-MA for strong language
GRADE: Depends on the episode
As I write this review for my lovely audience, I don’t want any of you to think this is me putting the boots to Bill Maher. I have a lot of respect for him both as a comedian and as a political commentator. In case you haven’t figured it out from my internet postings over the years, I have very strong liberal beliefs. In 2004, I voted for John Kerry and in 2008 and 2012, I voted for Barack Obama. Naturally, I agree with the things Bill Maher says almost 90% of the time. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about the recent police brutality incidents going on all over the country.
As far as his talk show goes, it’s not Bill Maher himself who makes or breaks each episode. It’s his fucking guests. Some episodes, his guests are polite and have great conversational chemistry together, and that goes for both liberal and conservative guests. Despite being on the opposite side of the political fence as him, I actually think Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign advisor, carries himself in a calm, intelligent, and respectful way and having him on the show is always good to see.
And then there are those episodes where the guests are at each other’s throats like it’s an episode of WWE Smackdown. You know the guests I’m talking about: always interrupting each other, always talking loudly, always saying rude shit, and in some cases always taunting the audience. Does anybody remember the episode where Christopher Hitchens flipped off the audience? How about the ones where Dana Rorabacher created a sonic boom with his dialogue alone.
While it is true there are more rude conservative guests than liberal ones, there are liberal guests who are capable of holding Bill Maher’s show hostage. Gary Schandling answered his fucking cell phone in the middle of a political discussion. Roseanne Barr had more dialogue in one show than most guests have in multiple episodes. The biggest example of a show hostage taker is one I know I’m going to regret saying, mostly because he recently committed suicide. I’m talking about Robin Williams, who on one episode interrupted everybody with random jokes and committed the mortal sin of interrupting Bill Maher’s New Rules segment.
Bottom line: it’s not just being liberal or conservative that can make a guest annoying. It’s the way that guest presents himself on television to an audience who really just wants to see Bill Maher pop off jokes. The problem with his show is most of the time he invites crazy guests who destroy the whole night for the audience. At that point, I’m not even sure if New Rules can make me laugh since I’m too angry from all the fighting among the guests.
Mr. Maher, I’m not saying this to be mean to you, I’m saying it to you as a fan and hopefully a friend someday. Have a filter for the people you invite on your show. Dana Rorabacher already ruined one show with his shrill screaming, so don’t bother inviting him back on the set. I could also tell you were getting sick of SE Cupp’s ageist jokes when you had PJ O’Rourke as the final guest. You probably invite these lunatics on your show as a way to boost ratings. Trust me, Bill, this is not the way to get high ratings. If you want a pro-wrestling example of bad TV gone even worse, I’ve got three letters for you: WCW.
“And never blame the rainbows for the rain. And learn to forget the memories that caused you pain.” Never mind Justin Hayward or John Lodge for a moment. Imagine if somebody you loved said those words to you. Imagine the person closest to your heart giving you permission to let go of your stress and fall in love with life again.
While I haven’t had anybody say these words to me other than Justin Hayward, I am very grateful to hear them. I’ve used those lyrics as an anthem for recovering from schizophrenia in the early 2000’s. It wasn’t about intrusive voices trying to establish authority over me. It was about the past coming back to haunt me in the form of present day ghosts. Thank you, Justin, for giving me permission to let go.
Lord knows I’ve had plenty of short story and novel characters go through the worst kind of traumatic shit over the course of their lives. Hell, the first story of American Darkness is called “And Now I Speak Hate”. It’s about a male rape victim who tries to listen to reason, but ends up shattering a mirror with his fist instead. The story after that is “Angel Rape”. Would anybody like to take a guess as to what that story is about? Ding, ding, ding! Male rape!
A few stories later, it’s off to Iraq and Afghanistan with “Desert Dragons”, where two female soldiers get relentlessly raped and then desert their squadron because of it. Do you think any of these lead characters need Justin Hayward singing “Never Blame the Rainbows” in their ears? It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Don’t worry about me, I wasn’t raped myself, but I’ve had enough bad shit go on in my life that I felt powerless after all of it.
I’m not saying this song will cure you from whatever mental illness ails you. It will instead comfort you. It will give you the hope and courage you need to move on. Let’s face it: whenever mental illness strikes, hope is in short supply. In fact, the brain will create an illusion to the victim that hope is nonexistent except in fairy tales and Hollywood movies.
The sooner the victim realizes it’s all smoke and mirrors, the faster the road to recovery will be. Sometimes it takes a kindred soul to tell you it’s all smoke and mirrors. It could be your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, or in this case, Justin Hayward, the lead guitarist from The Moody Blues.
The Moody Blues will not judge you. They are all about peace, love, and understanding. They haven’t written a mean lyric in their lives. I dare you to pick a Moody Blues song at random to see if I’m wrong about this. Or better yet, buy a copy of “Keys to the Kingdom” and fast forward to the final track. Or listen to the whole thing, which has a myriad of positive messages for a mentally ill listener.
Put those headphones on, lay down on your bed, and let the warmth of Justin Hayward’s voice wash over you. If nothing else, he’ll ignite your imagination long enough for you to experience what it’s like to have a fully functional mind, even if only for a few minutes. Imagination is very powerful, so much so it could be used in a weapon in the fight against whatever’s killing you inside. Okay, so The Moody Blues aren’t all about war analogies, but you get what I’m saying, right? At least I hope you do.
If it hadn’t been for the “Keys to the Kingdom” album and the song “Never Blame the Rainbows” in particular, I wouldn’t have any way of telling my internet girlfriend at the time Jessica how I was still alive and would be for a long time despite the hardships. There was a time when I wanted to end it all and part of the reason I didn’t is because I borrowed this CD from my dad’s music collection. I’m sure he’d like to have it back someday before he turns 80, but him sharing his taste in music with me is very much appreciated.
Jessica seemed to get the message that everything was indeed going to be okay and that I would eventually become a (sort of) famous author one day. Even when my writing was at its rookie worst, Jessica believed in me anyways. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll always cherish the time we spent talking to each other online. Unfortunately, we’re not together anymore, but the memories are indeed fond ones. Thank you, Moody Blues, for being a part of those memories.
***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Humans do some really interesting things. Besides killing ourselves, we also kill each other. Murder. We’re the only ones who do that, by the way. We’re the only species on earth that deliberately kills members of our own species for personal gain. Or pleasure, sometimes it’s just fun. We’re also the only species on earth that deliberately kills members of another species for personal gain. Or pleasure, that’s what hunters do, they kill for pleasure. That’s us: human beings, interesting folks, murderers.”
-George Carlin-
TITLE: WWE NXT
GENRE: Professional Wrestling
RATING: TV-PG for mild violence
GRADE: A+
If you follow the yearly Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards like I do, you would have seen that the award for Best Weekly Television Show in 2013 was WWE NXT. You know why it won that prestigious award? Because when it comes to professional wrestling, there’s only one way to describe WWE NXT: bullshit-free television. That means there are no goofy stunt doubles, no tyrannical authority figures, no cranky divas, and no ridiculous endings to otherwise good matches. You want to know what wrestling is all about? WWE NXT is your answer. It can be all yours if you purchase the WWE Network for only…come on, people, what is it? It’s only $9.99 a month!
NXT is supposed to be the training grounds for wrestlers and divas who want to be featured on WWE Raw and Smackdown, the company’s two flagship shows. Judging from the way these “rookies” wrestle, it looks like they’ve spent their whole lives training. For many of the wrestlers, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.
Sami Zayn is a high-flying technical wizard who wrestled all over the world. Tyson Kidd is the final graduate of the infamous Hart Dungeon and knows how to cripple his opponents inside that ring. Tyler Breeze is arrogant and self-serving, but his own high-flying style justifies his otherwise obnoxious gimmick. Adrian Neville is called “The Man Gravity Forgot” for a reason: because every time he flies around the ring or even does a ground move, it looks like he’s in outer space. Four kick-ass wrestlers who always put on five-star matches whenever they’re in the ring. In fact, they downright steal the show. But these are just the main-eventers of NXT.
Even the wrestlers who haven’t been doing it for quite as long don’t show their inexperience very often. Bull Dempsey’s wrestling career started in 2006 and he fights like a 300-lb. wrecking ball, smashing and bruising everyone in his path. Charlotte’s career started in 2012, but she has so much going for her already: she trained under her father Ric Flair (a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion), she’s over six feet tall and is built like a powerhouse, and she had quite possibly the match of the year in 2014 against Natalya (daughter of Jim Neidhart) to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Anybody else that needs mentioning? How about Baron Corbin, a seven-foot juggernaut who squashed CJ Parker in his first match, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Let me put it this way: when Pinocchio does another Geico commercial where he’s a motivational speaker, his nose won’t grow when he says NXT wrestlers have lots of potential.
Professional wrestling gets a lot of crap these days for being “gay porn” or “a redneck soap opera”. WWE NXT is quickly proving those two slurs to be wrong. The wrestlers are awesome to watch in the ring. The storylines are believable and are therefore easy to sit through. The commentary team isn’t constantly at each other’s throats nor are they trying to make corny jokes all the time. Like I said before, WWE NXT is bullshit-free television. If you want to make a layman into a believer, show them a random episode from this weekly series. Or if you really want to put your best foot forward, show him or her one of the two-hour specials. Bottom line: I can’t picture Triple H or Stephanie McMahon referring to the NXT staff as “B+ players” anytime soon.
OOC: In case you haven’t heard on my Deviant Art account, posts from my blog Garrison’s Library will now be appearing on Deviant Art and Good Reads. These posts include character profiles, song analyses, and positive book reviews. In the past I used to talk about couples and dreams, but those categories have been discontinued due to the redundancy of each post. Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled program.
IC: Have you ever been asked about your employment status and gave the asker an awkward response? You know what I’m talking about. You go to withdraw money from the bank and the teller asks, “Are you just getting off work?” My answer is the same every time: “I’m unemployed.” Doesn’t do much to ease the tension, but it works for me. Now imagine that your name is Special Agent Shawn Philips and Ziva David from the Washington DC version of NCIS asks, “What do you do for a living: write tickets to senior citizens with fake bus passes?” Ziva giggles lightheartedly while Shawn gives off a flat tire noise and says, “Very funny.”
A new season of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles are on the horizon. Not only that, but we’re getting an entirely new show from this franchise called NCIS: New Orleans. There was going to be one called NCIS: Red, but that storyline was aborted. With this new crop of NCIS shows coming on TV soon, it’s natural that I would be reminded of dreams I had where there was an NCIS: Seattle and an NCIS: Chehalis. Shawn Philips, the character in question, is from one of these incarnations. I forget which one.
The thing about NCIS characters is they’re always colorful, bright, and cheery to be around. Despite the hard drama that takes places in these shows, the characters never lose their sense of humor and there’s always room for positivism. So why then would a grumpy sourpuss like Shawn Philips be a part of a spin-off cast? The man couldn’t even take a joke about his job. At least when Leroy Gibbs gets grumpy, he has a sense of charisma about him. Shawn Philips is a middle-aged has-been detective whose only charisma lies within his good looks. I need to do something about this.
But in order to do something about Shawn’s lack of charisma, I have to break down the ingredients of a good NCIS character. It takes more than razor-sharp wit and a stellar job performance to make the cut. Shawn can’t just be a three-dimensional character. He has to have so many layers to him it’ll take a nuclear bomb to mine it all out. Unfortunately, this is where my analysis ends. Truth is, I don’t know how to make likeable or even relatable characters. Whenever I write my short stories, the characters’ likeability is 50/50. They might be awesome to be around, they might not be. When they’re not, I can usually sense it from my audience.
But since I believe dreams are a valuable source of creative fuel, I’m more than willing to roll the dice with Special Agent Shawn Philips. Sure, he can’t be a part of an NCIS story since it’s not public domain, but he came to my subconscious for a reason. Somewhere deep inside my psychological gold mine is the name Shawn Philips. Where it came from I will never know. But if I don’t make good use of this opportunity and put him in a future crime story, then we will never know if what I have in my head is a gold mine or just earwax.
***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
BOOTH: You probably shouldn’t tell your audience you hate children.
TEMPERANCE: I didn’t say I hated children, I said I wasn’t going to have any.
BOOTH: It comes across the same way on camera.
-Bones-
If you’ve been reading this blog for the past few years now, I not only applaud you, but I also want you to notice “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne is a part of my book collection. It has helped me in so many ways, but if I can be honest for a moment, staying positive is hard work. It may seem like easy pickings thinking positive thoughts all the time, but mental illness and general depression can really put a strain on such things.
For these moments, I have “Stay Positive” by The Streets, a British rap song with an uplifting message, but moody lyrics and background music. Somehow, it’s hard to do what the song’s title says when Mike Skinner is saying things like “You were born alone and believe me, you’ll die alone.” And yet, I need this song for all the times I feel down.
This song was published in 2002, but it would be a year later when my brother James introduced me to The Streets. It was around 2003 and 2004 that I started writing Pumping Filter, a movie script about high school woes and a big middle finger to those who abandoned me during that time. That’s what it was supposed to be. Instead, it was Pulp Fiction on steroids, so much so the script was unreadable.
The ending to this story isn’t any happier. Four high school students meet their fates in the most ugly ways possible. Tommy Dragon falls out of a window, Daniel McBride gets killed by a gangster, Dave Ridley goes to prison after committing murder, and Dexter Lee commits suicide by hanging due to complications from mental illness. Is it any coincidence that “Stay Positive” would have been the end credits theme to this movie if it made it to the big screen? It worked for Kidulthood, why not Pumping Filter?
And then we fast forward to the year 2010, particularly in November when I’m writing a cyberpunk novella called Dark City Tales. As the first word in that title suggests, nothing happy ever goes on in this story. Then again, it’s a cyberpunk world, where corporations own everything, governments are powerless to stop them, everybody has explosive guns, the police are corrupt, and the sky is as gray as static on a TV screen…just like in the real world!
With all of this nasty shit going on in urban America, the apocalypse shouldn’t be too far behind. In Dark City Tales, it wasn’t. Two cyborg mercenaries named AJ Rollins and Andre Devilheart destroyed the entire city just by fighting each other with highly explosive weapons. Even after the city was leveled and AJ and Andre was mangled beyond repair, they still wanted more! Do you think this is a good time for “Stay Positive”? Honey, it’s going to take some serious rainbow and unicorn shit to get this world back in order.
Pumping Filter and Dark City Tales have so much in common. They’re both about dystopian hellholes, they’re extremely violent, and most of all, they were so badly written they had to be scrapped. I consider those two pieces of writing to be just another way of sharpening my literary blade.
I see a lot of that in my past pieces of writing: they’re not future Pulitzer-winners, but they are opportunities to improve my writing. I’d like to think I’ve improved dramatically since 2002, so much so that I wouldn’t mind using some of my old characters again. If you thought the old characters were unhappy with being pummeled before, wait until they get put through the ringer again with new and improved stories. And yes, there will be plenty of opportunities to use “Stay Positive” as background music. Go see your mates. When they don’t look happy, play ‘em this tape.
***SOUND FILE OF THE DAY***
Hello and welcome to the Mental Health Hotline.
If you’re obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you’re codependent, ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3-4-5-6.
If you’re paranoid, we know what you are and what you want, stay on the line and we’ll trace your call.
If you’re delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.
If you’re schizophrenic, listen carefully, a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you’re depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press, no one will answer you.
If you’re dyslexic, press 6-9-6-9-6-9-6-9-6-9.
If you have a nervous disorder, fidget with the hash key until the beep. After the beep, please wait for the beep.
If you have short term memory loss, try your call again later.
If you have low self-esteem, hang up, all of our operators are too busy to talk to you.
Baby and Floyd didn’t always have dark roots. In the early to mid 2000’s when I still visited my father in Vaughn on a weekly basis, those were the names of two of the most hyper, yet sweetest puppies to ever play with my dad and step-mother Charlie’s dog Daisy. Granted, I was the only one over in Vaughn who thought Baby and Floyd were darling, Baby being a golden retriever and Floyd being a rottie. Those two neighborhood dogs would drive Charlie nuts, especially after they tore up the yard and pissed on her pants. To this day, whenever I say “Who loves Floyd and Baby?”, Charlie says, “Nobody!” That was all some time ago. I don’t even know of those two dogs are alive today. If they are, they’re getting old.
Maybe the literary incarnation of Baby and Floyd are both representative of the sadness that comes with pets growing old and eventually dying. As far as my characters go, Baby and Floyd are not cute puppy-duppies. They are dark. They are deadly. They are cannibalistic. Piss them off and they’ll have you for supper. Think of them as the baldheaded puppets in Final Fantasy IV on steroids. The puppets in that game are creepy enough as it is, but they were so easy to kill. If you start hearing the Calcobrena theme playing while Baby and Floyd are in the same room as you, you’d better have toilet paper handy.
Baby has a pit bull mentality as WWE commentator Michael Cole likes to say about Daniel Bryan. Well, any true animal lover would know pit bulls are only mean if assholes abuse them. But let’s say for a moment that Michael Cole isn’t blowing a whole bunch of smoke. What would that mean for Baby, the little baldheaded cannibal puppet? It means if you leave your leg out, he will attach himself to it and chew until either his belly is full or your blood is drained. Guess which one will happen first.
Floyd is an entirely different animal. Yes, he’s just as cruel and evil as his much smaller counterpart, but he doesn’t normally use his teeth to get the job done. He has a sword for that kind of deal. If you need a reference point to follow, picture the big fucking sword Cloud Strife has in Final Fantasy VII and give it the ability to throw fire bombs upon unsuspecting enemies. Did I also mention Floyd is damned near seven feet tall? Does a guy the size of Frankenstein really need a sword that can cause so much destruction? Of course he does, because there are times when Baby prefers to have his meal of human flesh properly cooked.
This would normally be the part in the blog entry where I try to find employment for the character or characters in question. However, upon further inspection of my notes on Fireball Nightmare Act 3: Peace of Mind, there are two spots conveniently open for villainous characters. Well, now. Who should get those two spots? Which pair is evil enough to align themselves with a vampire wizard named Rhys Black, a child molester named Donald Park, and a brutal luchador named El Comegente? I know! How about John Bush and George Kerry? I’m just teasing you, of course those two spots are going to Floyd and Baby. Have fun, you two, but don’t have too much fun!
***PARODY WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“The following contest is a First Blood match for the WWE Divas Championship!”
-Justin Roberts-
Valley of the Damned is currently being developed as the second act of my dark fantasy novel Fireball Nightmare. I’ve smothered the members of Nightwish with love like an obsessive fan boy. But this is 2014. All of this dark fantasy lust had to come from somewhere. That somewhere was 2002. It was summertime and my schizophrenia was just starting to develop. In order to keep my creative soul alive underneath the rubble caused by head voices, I had two things to keep me company: Valley of the Damned in RPG form and “She Is My Sin”, my very first Nightwish song.
The year 2002 was one where I was still an active patriot at Play By Web dot com, the message board RPG website I spoke of several posts earlier. During those days, I was developing my creativity by inventing new role-playing game systems. They were simple, yet effective. I had a dystopian war RPG called Cutthroat, a fantasy-western game called Lost in a Lost World, and then there was my pride and joy, the apocalyptic dark fantasy RPG known as Valley of the Damned.
The premise of the latter was basic at best: the devil turned the world into a fiery hellhole and instead of working together to beautify the earth, the citizens would rather exploit each other. Ronald Reagan always said it would take an alien invasion for the world to get along. But what about a diabolical invasion?
My older brother James introduced me to Nightwish’s “She Is My Sin” around the time I was developing Valley of the Damned. It was a heavy metal song with an opera chick singing, just like any other Nightwish song. A dark fantasy RPG and a heavy metal opera song: the marriage of these two mystic forces was too obvious to ignore.
I could see it all now: a warrior covered in a black cloak and hood wielding a fiery sword enters the battlefield with “She Is My Sin” playing in the background. Several monsters from vampires to succubae to the ugliest of orcs surround this warrior with the intent to devour him. So what does the mysterious warrior do? With a few spins of his fiery blade, he turns the battlefield into the same hell the devil has created from the entire world. The monsters lay bloody, broken, and bruised while the cloaked warrior continues his quest. He still hears Tarja’s voice singing to him, which probably sounded nicer than my schizophrenic voices sounded to me.
Valley of the Damned and Nightwish: a match made in heaven. But you have to remember that this was 2002 and I was still going to high school, which means there were several threats to my psychological health, all of which derailed my zeal for a Valley of the Damned movie idea. Granted, I wasn’t going to WF West anymore.
Instead I went to Central Kitsap High School, which was a better school, but not a great school. How great could they be if they hire a senior social studies teacher with a mean streak a mile wide? Where’s the greatness in having to deal with a bully who actually knows how to fight? As for the friends I’ve made, what’s so great about being too shy to look them up after graduation, let alone ask one of them to the prom? What about home life? Is there any joy in having a step-father who was verbally abusive and physically imposing?
While these things alone didn’t cause my schizophrenia, they made it worse. When my schizophrenia was at its worst, I had so much trouble concentrating I swore I was getting stupider with the passing days. I didn’t want to be stupid anymore. I didn’t sign up for this. I didn’t sign up to be so mentally crippled that I completely forgot about Valley of the Damned and Nightwish. That’s right. It just fucking slipped my mind.
But that was 2002 through 2005. Since then, my former step-dad Art has moved out of the house and a new and improved step-dad named Dale entered my life. Yes, folks, my mom got a HUGE upgrade. Over the years, my mental health has gotten better dramatically. I rediscovered Nightwish in 2006 and fell in love with Tarja Turunen all over again, both musically and romantically (don’t tell her husband I said that).
As for Valley of the Damned, while I don’t role-play much anymore, I do a lot of creative writing in its place. Fireball Nightmare is the new home for Valley of the Damned. So far, so good. It took a long time for everything to click back into place, but it’s all there once again. It’s like a psychological family reunion.
And to think, it all started with “She Is My Sin” from the Wishmaster album. Yes, Tarja, you have been my sin for over a decade now. Anette and Floor, while the two of you haven’t been in my life for nearly as long, you ladies are my sin as well. Nightwish and I will never be separated or divorced ever again. They will continue to excite my imagination and I will continue to recommend them to any of my metal-loving friends.
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“My bath toys were a radio and a toaster.”
-Joan Rivers (rest in peace)-
Although I’m using former WWE superstars The Basham Brothers as a reference picture, I don’t want you to think John Bush and George Kerry are anything like them except for how they look. During their time in the WWE, Doug and Danny Basham were former WWE Tag Team Champions and had various gimmicks. They started out as a generic tag team and over time became bondage slaves for Shaniqua, secret service agents for John Bradshaw Layfield, and armored security guards for Paul Heyman. While the Basham Brothers don’t work for WWE anymore, they did leave something behind for the fans to remember them by.
John Bush and George Kerry are nothing like that. They are the definition of what a generic tag team should be. They come out to the ring wearing underwear-style tights and boots, they never get the chance to use a microphone, and their theme music is “Voices Inside My Head” by The Police (no disrespect to Sting, Andy Summers, and Stewart Copeland). Their wrestling maneuvers include generic things like the scoop slam, the vertical suplex, the hip toss, the running clothesline, and the double axe handle off the top rope. In short, the most creative thing about John Bush and George Kerry is how they got their ring names: by swapping the names of the 2004 Presidential Election contenders John Kerry (Democrat) and George W. Bush (Republican).
You’re asking yourself why I would ever have a use for plain Jane motherfuckers like John Bush and George Kerry. Maybe it’s because they’re a manifestation of what I’m like when in public. On the internet, I have a strong presence. I post short stories, Fireball Nightmare chapters, Garrison’s Library entries, Deviant Art journals, and the occasional thread on a Good Reads group I’m a part of. Even in the real world when I’m talking with my own friends and family, I’m popping off jokes left and right and never miss a beat.
In public life, I’m anything but exciting. I keep to myself except for when I make a purchase, I never smile, I never say “Hi” to anybody, and whenever somebody tries to make conversation with me, I give them the most basic, short answer I can find. For example, when I’m getting a quarter-yearly buzz cut at Hair Masters, my barber will try to make small talk with me. She’ll ask me things like, “What do you do for a living?” and my answer is simple: “I’m unemployed”, an answer that is delivered with a blunt affect. Sometimes she’ll ask, “What are your plans for the evening?” and I’ll say, “I don’t have any.” Personally, I’m never in the mood for small talk with someone who is only friendly to me because I’m a customer and not because they’re actually interested in my boring ass life.
John Bush and George Kerry are a representation of my plain Jane traits. I often fantasize about being a manager in the WWE and having verbal spats with Stephanie McMahon and Triple H (both of which deserve the Wrestling Observer Newsletter award this year for Worst Gimmick). Unfortunately, if I tried to be as talkative in the ring as I am on the internet, I would stutter and my voice power would be minimal. That’s why I hated giving presentations in college and high school: I fumble over my words too easily and the teacher penalizes me for basically being a hardcore introvert. But if John Bush and George Kerry are going to rage against the machine and tell everybody they’re full of shit, they’ll cease to become boring in the eyes of the public. Maybe they’ll get better names and better gimmicks as a result of that. Who knows?
***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
JBL: You’d be in a bad mood if you won the lottery!
MICHAEL COLE: I did win the lottery and I only got two dollars!
My best friend Susan asks me on a frequent basis why I like “foo-foo” media, whether it’s books, songs, movies, or TV shows. In case you don’t know what “foo-foo” means, I’ll have Colin Cassady and Enzo Amore from WWE NXT spell it out for you. If something is “foo-foo”, it means it’s S-A-W-F-T! Saaaaaaaawft!! Wait a minute, that’s not how you spell soft. I certainly hope they don’t spell it that way when they write their celebrity memoirs.
You want to know why I like certain kinds of music, foo-foo or not? It’s because the state will strip me of my social security benefits if I do recreational drugs. That’s what music is to me: a drug. A very powerful drug at that. Heavy metal songs are my stimulants and steroids while emotional foo-foo music is my Restasis, though I haven’t cried since 2007. Such is the case with “Perfect” by My Darkest Days, the ultimate breakup song where Matt Walst says he hasn’t cried since the day she left him, because that would mean that he admits its over. He tells himself that she’s trying to test him. She’d never leave, she still needs him to hold her. He shouldn’t have fallen in love with her. How dare she be so perfect.
Are you crying your eyes out yet? When you wake up tomorrow morning, will you pour milk in your cereal or will you just cry into our bowl and eat it like that? Mmm, that sounds appetizing: a full serving of Golden Grahams and tears! Yum! Even if you’ve never had a girlfriend before, you can appreciate the horror of what a breakup does to a man. I’ve had two girlfriends my entire life: Jessica and Brianna. Losing them hurt. It hurt badly. Having crushes on millions of other girls I know I’ll never have hurts just as badly, if not worse. You’re damn right I appreciate the pain of a breakup. It’s a sophisticated form of psychological torture.
If music is a drug, why would I want to take one that makes me sad? What could I possibly have to gain from being in a foo-foo state of mind? Because for a lot of artists, drugs are a great source of creative fuel. Granted, physical drugs such as acid have ruined Syd Barrett’s career as the front man for Pink Floyd. Alcohol abuse killed George Carlin. Drugs don’t work for everybody, but they work for a lot of artists who need creative fuel. My drug of choice is music and my imagination runs wild whenever I hear “Perfect” by My Darkest Days.
It’s because of songs like “Perfect” I started writing more and more romantic short stories. Just recently at the Weekly Short Story Contest at Good Reads, I wrote two shy guy romance stories, one called “It’s Okay For You To Love Me” and “I Swear I Have a Heart”, both titles being modifications of Five Finger Death Punch lyrics. Even though they both ended up in last place in the popularity polls, they were smash hits with the other members.
And you know what? It doesn’t end there. Fireball Nightmare will have some romantic elements as well. By the end of act one, it’s clear that Deus wants to find Kat and rekindle his love for her. In the very first chapter of act two, Kat expresses disdain for Deus by saying, “I still miss him, but my aim is getting better.” How dare she be so perfect. What did Deus do to deserve this? I’ll tell you what he did, Mr. Walst: he showed more fanatical devotion toward the angry fire god Vahd than he did for his own girlfriend. If I had a girlfriend who was 100% zealot and 0% lover, I’d want to dump her too. It’s going to take a lot of couch time and pillow talk for Deus Shadowheart and Kat Sexton to get along again.
And to think, this was all possible because of one emotionally taxing My Darkest Days song. Then again, most of their songs have to do with relationship woes, which is probably why they’re categorized as “pop” on my Windows Media Player instead of “rock” or “metal”.
***PARODY MIXED-MARTIAL ARTS QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Ladies and gentlemen, the corner of Pat Barry has thrown in the towel at 2:31 of the very first round. Don’t worry, he’s not bleeding, he just needs to wipe the tears out of his eyes.”
-Bruce Buffer-
Can someone explain to me how a Russian cyber-soldier is named Lune Kateras? It might have something to do with me using this character in a Cyberpunk 2020 RPG session in 2004, where being ethnically conscious wasn’t my strong suit. Ever heard of a Chinese warlord named Kasabian? Only in my childlike imagination was that ever possible. And now we have this Russian solo named Lune Kateras. He has the accent, he has the attitude, but he doesn’t have anything else that would determine him to be a Russian. Sometimes I think he was Russian just for the hell of it.
His shining moment within that Cyberpunk role-playing session had nothing to do with his ethnic background. In fact, you could hardly call it a shining moment since he was easily humiliated by his so-called allies. Lune got a job offer and met his new allies at a bar. One of these allies was another solo named Bo Cameo. Right from the get-go, Bo starts questioning Lune’s readiness, abilities, and loyalty. I didn’t know why he would do this. I figured adding Lune to the team was a done deal. Nevertheless, Lune wasn’t very happy with Bo’s distrust. Tempers boiled over and the two solos were sent to the back of the bar to duke it out.
Lune had this one and only chance to shut up his biggest critic, probably because talking with a toothless mouth was damn near impossible. His major fighting style was wrestling (both Olympic and professional) while I can’t remember what Bo’s was. This fight could have gone either way, at least on paper. When it actually played out, Bo dominated the entire thing and Lune couldn’t get a shot in edgewise.
What went wrong? Well, me being a rookie Cyberpunk player, I didn’t take into account the Combat Sense score that made solos so deadly. Bo’s was way higher than mine and that turned out to be a big deal. How else could he have dominated the fight Lesnar-style? Lune didn’t have to live with the humiliating defeat for too long, because shortly after the battle, I was banned from Play By Web forever.
Fear not, Lunatics (that’s what Lune’s fans will be called from now on). The name Lune Kateras was recycled into a Final Fantasy-style character I intended on using in a novel. There were no cybernetics. There were no unnecessary critics. There was no whining. There was no room for humiliation, because I was the author this time. Author is just a few letters shy of the word authority, so it’s my way or the highway.
This Lune Kateras makeover had him wear a gray hooded sweatshirt, green cargo pants, black combat boots, and his weapons of choice were a semi-automatic machinegun and a katana. In this new novel, aptly called Final Fantasy Hardcore 2, Lune and three other characters broke out of a mental hospital and separated from each other in order to make themselves harder to capture.
Lune escaped to an entirely different planet and made friends in the form of a dark paladin, a queen, and a robot. His friendships wouldn’t last since his escape turned out to be a Deus ex Machina middle finger to the reader. In other words, being an insane asylum patient, he hallucinated the whole thing. When people say that’s what dreams are made of, they’re not kidding.
Final Fantasy Hardcore 2 never made it past Lune’s story and therefore was scrapped. However, he’s not completely unemployed. Due to the diminutive length of Fireball Nightmare, I’ve decided to tack on an extra act after Valley of the Damned. I call this third act Peace of Mind. I don’t know much about it except for the characters who will occupy it. Lune Kateras is one of the heroes and this time he’ll have nothing to “whine” about. If anybody questions his loyalties or his abilities, Lune can easily leave them high and dry at the drop of a hat. He’s here to help. If his help’s not appreciated, lots of luck, fuckers.
***PARODY MIXED-MARTIAL ARTS QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Ladies and gentlemen, after three rounds of action, we go to the judges’ scorecards for a decision. Ray Charles scores the contest 30-22. Stevie Wonder scores the contest 35-15. Helen Keller scores the contest 50-10. Declaring the winner by unanimous decision: the guy who stayed on his back for all three rounds!”
-Bruce Buffer-
Getting my heart torn out of my chest because of a piece of literature isn’t anything new for me. It happened with books like “The Perks of Being a Wallflower” and “Love Letters to the Dead”. The legacy of foo-foo heartache continues with “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green. Any romance story has the potential to be heart-wrenching. We all want love, we all want justice. But what happens when the two lovebirds are teenaged cancer patients? As a reader, you know tragedy is on the horizon. But is there any romantic justice near the end? It’s easy to believe with all the witty humor the book is laced with, but if you want a definitive answer, you’ll have to read the book yourself, which I highly recommend you do.
Within all 314 pages of this young adult novel, there are many themes John Green touches on: positivity, negativity, the afterlife, sympathy, empathy, and as many Christian bloggers will have you believe, religion. The latter of which is debatable to me. While is true the characters of the book openly mention God and heaven as ways to comfort the cancer patients, I think of it not as jamming religion down the reader’s throat, but rather as keeping an open mind to the possibilities of what lies beyond this life. Truth is, Hazel Grace Lancaster and Augustus Waters (the cancer-stricken lovebirds in question) don’t know what awaits them when the cancer eventually kills them. There is, however, an extreme fear of oblivion and not leaving anything behind when he’s gone on Gus’ part.
Which brings me to yet another theme John Green touches on: immortalization. In other words, being remembered after we’re long gone. It’s a theme I have an obsession with myself. Hazel has a negative view of immortalization since she believes despite all of our efforts to remember each other, the sun will eventually explode and wipe everything away. Augustus wants to be remembered despite everything and he agonizes over it near the end of the novel.
Which then brings me to another point the book makes: living a full life and being immortalized doesn’t necessarily mean you have to create and produce things for society on a relentless basis. Sometimes all you have to do is take it all in. It’s nice to give to the world, but we must remember to take as well. Go see those museum artifacts. Go to that rock concert. Watch that movie at the theater. Read that book. Without people who take things in, what’s the point in producing anything? There’s a reason artists like to put their work on the internet: they want appreciation and appreciation can only come from the people who view their work. This is a very poignant argument made by John Green and his novel.
By the book’s end, yes, I was heartbroken. I even said on Good Reads I needed superglue for my heart. There’s somebody on Urban Dictionary who says being hit in the face with the hardcover version of the book doesn’t hurt nearly as badly as reading it. While it is true reading “The Fault In Our Stars” is a beautifully painful experience, it’s also something everybody can learn from. The philosophical arguments and the love between Hazel and Augustus are great teachers when it comes to the education of life. If you take nothing else away from this book, then take this way: love with all your might before it’s too late.
***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Excuse me, sir, I’m afraid I’m going to have to ask you to leave. You’re having way too much fun and it’s making everybody uncomfortable.”
-Owen from “The Way Way Back”-
