Christina McLeod

The more I think about it, the more I believe there’s a reason Christina McLeod is currently an unemployed character. As you can guess from the last name, she’s related to Mitch McLeod from Brawl Mart (soon to be separated into Occupy Wrestling). What you don’t know is that she’s his older sister. This isn’t exactly a good reason to remain unemployed (unless you ask Keegan Day about it). Christina’s Mary-Sue-like perfection on the other hand is.

When I first came up with Christina McLeod, it was during my teenaged years and a time in the WWE when sexualizing women was the norm. Teenaged boys plus sexy women equals 30 minutes of masturbation. It’s not the new math, it’s the old science. So I kept asking myself how I could make Christina McLeod as sexy as possible. Bisexuality with a preference for women always works. Long black hair? Check. Snow white skin? Got it. Skimpy wrestling clothes that look more like beachwear than sports gear? Hell yes.

And last but not least, an infamous incident in the fantasy world where she competed in a bikini contest with other WWE divas and instead came out wearing nothing but a diaper. No shirt, no bra, not even pasties, just a diaper. You think she won that contest? By a landslide, and I’m not talking about the one going on in her male fans’ pants.

But of course, sexualizing women doesn’t work in today’s wrestling world, or even in a normal society for that matter. WWE programming is rated TV-PG and TNA programming is too sucky to get the girls any real attention. On top of all that (that’s not a sexual innuendo, I swear), I’m also mature and liberal enough to recognize that women don’t owe men anything when it comes to their bodies. If women want to show them off, that’s fine. If they’d rather be remembered for something else, even more power to them. I could take the easy road and say Christina made the choice to show off her body, but coming from a male writer who invented a fictional character, that’s not going to fly, so I just let it go.

And as it turned out, if Christina McLeod would have been published, she might have been remembered for something else as well: being so good at fighting and wrestling that she could not only defeat male opponents, she could do so convincingly. According to her back story, Christina had a stint in the marines and learned martial arts and mental toughness from that institution. The only reason why she’s no longer a marine is because she beat up multiple male soldiers who tried to rape her. That’s okay, because she didn’t want to die for a country that normalized rape anyways. Suck it, Paul Ryan and Todd Aiken.

Okay, so we’ve got this super hot chick who not only looks good naked, but also could kick anybody’s ass on any given Sunday. Hell, she could win the KDW World Title tomorrow if she wanted to. But there’s a problem with these credentials. In all this time I’ve been flapping my gums, I never once gave Christina one character flaw of any kind. That’s not good. Not good at all. Flawed characters are easy to relate to. Connecting with the audience in some way is important for any character. If you’re a villain, you want to be cruel and unusual. If you’re a hero, you want to be an overachieving underdog. What do you do if you’re Christina McLeod? Pardon me, but I haven’t figured that out just yet.

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

KRAMER: Things are going pretty well for me here in Hollywood. I met a girl.

JERRY: Kramer, she was murdered.

KRAMER: Yeah well, I wasn’t looking for a long-term relationship.

-Seinfeld-

Sid Underworld

We don’t have too many working class heroes in today’s society, because in order for that to happen, you have to survive the shitty economy. If there’s one character of mine who’s capable of thriving in the American darkness on less than $100 per wrestling match, it’s someone who will stick around like the “cockroach” he’s been referred to as by the higher ups. He’s a jobber named Sid Underworld. He looks like Sid from the SNES version of Final Fight and fights like him too. He also comes out to the music of “Otherworld” from Final Fantasy X fame and psychs up the audience by doing so. How many times has a wrestling crowd really been fired up for a jobber? Maybe in 2011 when Daniel Bryan was getting shitty storylines, but other than that, it hasn’t been done since the wonderful work of Sid Underworld has been known throughout every corner of my own goddamn imagination. If a really muscular badass like Monzo Bleeder from my book “Brawl Mart” spears him in the ribs, Sid won’t exactly do a 360 degree rotation in the air. He’ll do a 720 instead! If Mitch McLeod from that same book Occu-Punches him, Sid Underworld will wake up on the moon. Even if someone like Debra Winter were to gouge him in the eyes with her long fingernails, Sid would sell that as well. In fact, he’d scream so loud in a throaty and beastly voice that he could be the lead singer for Soulfly or Five Finger Death Punch. With this uncanny ability to sell his opponents’ moves, it shouldn’t come as any surprise that he stayed at the bottom of the barrel for so long in the wrestling industry. It’s also a shame that his corporate masters wouldn’t let him move up the ladder. He is so popular with the fans that the Yes Movement can’t compare. The difference though is that Daniel Bryan’s popularity got him into a Wrestlemania 30 match with the legendary Triple H while Sid Underworld, working for KDW, would probably submit to a Finger Poke of Doom from Keegan Day. Why exactly am I making all of these Brawl Mart references if Sid Underworld never made it on the character roster? Maybe it’s wishful thinking, I don’t know. The more I think about it, though, the more I realize that Sid should have replaced Rosie Rogers in that story. Mitch McLeod had no right to elbow a woman in the jaw like he did to Rosie. At least if he did it to Sid, it’d be more believable. Plus, Debra Winter would be more likely to cheat on Mitch with Sid than she would with Rosie. Maybe I’m speaking too soon. Maybe Brawl Mart can be an instant classic despite Rosie Rogers getting the attention instead of Sid Underworld. I’m not entirely finished with writing pro-wrestling novels. Maybe Sid can make an appearance in one of them. Maybe he can poke his head out of a boiling pool of red liquid and say, “I’ll be back!” Bonus points to anybody who knows what movie that comes from.

　

***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Let me ask you something, Ric Flair: what the hell is a nature boy? Does it mean you like nature? Does it mean you like boys?”

-Stone Cold Steve Austin-

Dennis Michaels

My mind may be a raging ocean all the time, but Dennis Michaels never saw his moment in the sun. He was originally supposed to be a part of a third act in Brawl Mart. That third act never materialized and Brawl Mart only had Occupy Wrestling and Filter Feeder to account for. That would-be third act was supposed to be called Debt of Pain and it centered around a panicky debtor named Lillian Floyd. Lillian got calls every half hour about how worthless she was and how she was going to jail if she didn’t pay what she owed. She tried calling the police on these people, but that went south in a hurry when the two detectives got their asses kicked. Instead of relying on people who waited forever to get approval from a corrupt judge, Lillian called the one man who could deliver beatings and assassinations like he was the UPS of murder. His name was Dennis Michaels and he was at one point an Army Ranger. The original plan was to have Dennis perform his duties and then at the end rip up his paycheck from Lillian before falling in love with her. Somewhere along the way, the storyline got scrambled and I couldn’t justify a lot of the action that was going on in the story. That should have been the end of Debt of Pain, but it wasn’t. I pitched this idea to Good Reads and they helped me make the modifications I needed to start anew. Starting anew meant new characters, something Dennis Michaels was not. You may see Debt of Pain on my Smash Words account someday, but not right away, and not with Dennis Michaels. The mercenary in this new idea is named Bryan Grant. The difference between Dennis and Bryan is that Dennis is a legitimate mercenary who will lay the smack down on any rude collection agent, while Bryan is a scam artist who sits around and collects paychecks from desperate debtors, who think he’s actually going to assassinate somebody rather than work for the agency himself. Bryan Grant will get his due justice somewhere down the road, but somebody else who needs justice is Dennis Michaels. Mr. Michaels had all the promise in the world to be a kick-ass character. He would have been a beefy warrior and a romantic Romeo all rolled into one. He would have used his rifle (which was for fighting) and his gun (which was for fun) over the course of one day. How exactly is he supposed to do that if he doesn’t have a story to be a part of? Ruthless mercenaries and hard lovers aren’t easy to come by. The only example I know of who fits this profile is Cloud Strife from Final Fantasy VII. Then again, Final Fantasy games always have a romantic element in them. Will Dennis Michaels be the next Cloud Strife? Hopefully, yes, but without all the emo bullcrap Mr. Strife displayed in the movie Advent Children.

　

***TELEVISION QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“That badge better be real or else my friend’s going to kick you in the FBI-balls.”

-Marty Deeks from “NCIS: Los Angeles”-

The McLeod Brothers (Charles and Ivan)

With the way book sales are going these days, not everyone will know the name of Mitch McLeod. If that’s the case, you’ll know even less about his cousins, Charles and Ivan McLeod. When I was still a member of Play By Web in the early 2000’s, Mitch McLeod was the most popular and brutal brawler to ever venture into OTT (Over the Top Wrestling) territory. He did things with weapons that nobody else thought of doing until their brains were swirling into the storm sewer. These days, Mitch McLeod has found employment under the Brawl Mart banner as a rebel within KDW (Keegan Day Wrestling). So where does that leave Charles and Ivan, his cousins? Are they going to follow in Mitch’s footsteps and become great? Do they have it in them to become the greatest tag team ever assembled? Or are these two beefcakes just a couple of dimwits? I’ve considered both routes when deciding what to do with Charles and Ivan. If they were to follow in the successful footsteps of Mitch, they would be a pair of characters that will be admired for generations to come. If on the other hand they started off as moronic slackers, then their transformation into a successful tag team will certainly be more believable. Every main character has to go through some kind of transformation by the time the book’s over, we all know that. That transformation can be anything from learning something new, finding friendship, finding love, or just becoming an overall stronger person. There are even times when the events of a story can make someone bitter and twisted. With that said, maybe the more believable route would be to make Charles and Ivan a pair of dumb-asses who have to learn how to be intelligent businessmen. They certainly will be given the potential to do so no matter what organization they’re a part of. They both weigh 285 lbs., they’re both 6’6”, and their finishing move is a double curb stomp. A single curb stomp is when a wrestler rolls his opponent on his stomach, pulls his arms backwards, places his boot behind the opponent’s head, and stomp him face first into the mat. I first saw Paul Burchill do it in the WWE, so giving this finishing move to a tag team of hulking idiots would seem logical to me. So we have this tag team with million dollar bodies and nickel brains. What kinds of obstacles will they face together? Superior opponents? Corporate oppressiveness? Fan hatred? Road troubles? These are all worthy things to throw in front of Charles and Ivan McLeod. I’ll let you all know what I decide to do with these guys if I ever want to do another Brawl Mart novel or Occupy Wrestling act. Until then, adios, motherfuckers!

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If you knock up Sarah Palin, Australia is a great place to hide, because then she’ll look for you in Austria.”

-Bill Maher-

The Cowboys From Hell (Austin Carlo and Court Jackson)

For the next few blog posts, I’m going to take a character (or multiple characters) of mine and try to find stories for them to be a part of. I’ve been trying to do this for over a decade with a barbarian I have named Deus Shadowheart and it looks like he’s all set. In this blog post, I’m going to focus on two more people who need employment. Otherwise, they’ll just rot in development hell for the rest of their wasted existence. Their names are Austin Carlo and Court Jackson, better known as The Cowboys From Hell. No, I didn’t originally give them that team name, it just stuck with me after listening to Pantera a lot. Like Deus Shadowheart, Austin and Court were once part of a combat sports slash dark fantasy novel called Hardcore Hell (originally called Hardcore Hate until my overly sensitive family shamed me into changing it). Because the novel had too many instances of telling instead of showing as well as hyperbolic descriptions that smothered the reading pace, it eventually had to be dumped and all of the characters had to be locked away in development hell. Austin and Court’s role in the novel was to be the bodyguards of a religious CEO named Hammond Gibbons. Hammond was extremely preachy and could get under anybody’s skin just by the mere mention of a fiery Christmas tree lot known as hell. Austin and Court didn’t necessarily agree with Hammond’s agenda nor did they enjoy being around him. But the money was good and so they took the jobs as hired henchmen. Now for a little characterization. If you think Deus Shadowheart was the biggest baddest motherfucker in the whole story at 6’4” and 285 lbs, try Austin and Court on for size. They were both 7’ tall and weighed anywhere between 325 and 400 lbs at any given moment. They weren’t a couple of lard asses either, they were just big muscular henchmen. Yes, they seem stereotypical and they probably were. So why then would I want to give employment to a couple of washed up minions? Ever since calling them The Cowboys From Hell, I’ve given a new life to all the things they could be. Maybe they’re not just mindless bruisers. Maybe they’re sadistic psychopaths. Maybe they’re deadly gangsters. Maybe, just maybe they’re into heavy metal music. Can you see these two juggernauts forming a band together and touring the world? How about fighting with chainsaws? Or doing what Tyson Hardy did in my latest novel Brawl Mart: carrying magical machineguns. Characters can only be one-dimensional if you give up on them so easily. In fact, as a lesson to all you authors out there, characters can only put out what you put into them. If I want Court Jackson and Austin Carlo to be legitimate badasses instead of mindless drones, I’m going to have to do something a little bit extra with them. Something like, you know, exercise my wild imagination. Court and Austin will find a home someday. I know it. If nothing else, they could be a professional wrestling tag team and the Wrestling Observer Newsletter can name both of them the Most Overrated Wrestlers of the Year. It’s a dubious award, but at least they’re getting noticed!

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: You’re married. Is your wife pretty?

LAWYER: She’s beautiful.

VIC MACKEY: How about I take your wife out for a weekend in Vegas, ride her ass hard, and put her away wet.

LAWYER: What?!

VIC MACKEY: Well, that’s about the level of cooperation I can expect from my captain on anything.

-The Shield-

　

***POST-SCRIPT***

I don’t know if I’ve advertised my e-books on here just yet, but if I haven’t, I’m going to do it now. But before I do, I want to let you all know that my original Lulu.com paperback books “Red Blood, White Knuckles, Blue Heart” and “Foe vs. Blade” are no longer available to be purchased. I couldn’t justify selling obscure mixed-genre anthologies for ten or twenty dollars each. So instead, I have an account with Smash Words and I’m selling genre-specific e-books at 99 cents a pop. My penname is still Garrison Kelly and these are my e-book titles:

Brawl Mart (two-act urban fantasy novel): https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/399435

Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage (rock song lyrics collection):
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/369154

Dragon Machinegun (sci-fi, horror, and fantasy short story anthology):
https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/353531

Remember, ladies and gentlemen: they’re 99 cents a piece. What are you waiting for? Happy reading!

National Novel Writing Month

There comes a time in every writer’s life, preferably every November, that he has to ask himself if he’s going to participate in National Novel Writing Month. It’s not an official contest, it’s just a challenge for all authors to pump out a novel before the end of November. You want to know my answer to this riddle? Not only no, but hell no. NaNoWriMo requires its participants to create on the fly. No preparation, no pre-writing, no planning of any kind, just straight up improvisation. I don’t operate that way. If I wanted to improvise so badly, I’d join the cast of Whose Line Is It Anyway? Or Second City, one of those groups. If I was to just drop everything I’m doing right now and write random shit I think of at the top of my head, not only might I get stuck in the middle of it, but my novel will suck. Call me a perfectionist, but I want my first drafts to be at least tolerable so that I don’t have much work to do when it comes time to edit. That’s why whenever I come up with ideas for novels, I have to do it far in advance so that everything’s planned out and nothing sucks. I’m currently writing a three-part novel called Brawl-Mart and it was planned out from beginning to end. I’ve finished parts one and two (Occupy Wrestling and Filter Feeder respectively) and all I have left of part three (Debt of Pain) is eight chapters of action. I would have completed the whole novel a lot sooner than anticipated, but lately I’ve been slowing down my writing schedule due to mental exhaustion and being bogged down by other projects. That’s another reason why I don’t participate in NaNoWriMo, because I can’t energize my mind long enough to get anything done in a timely fashion. It may take the entire month, it may take a whole fucking year. Either way, it may come out forced and therefore, it might suck, which is as I’ve stated before not what I want when writing a first draft. If anything, November will be dedicated to finishing those remaining eight chapters of Brawl Mart Pt. 3: Debt of Pain. And then after that, who knows where I’ll go from there. I have two ideas for novels sitting in my reserve folder as of now: Gangster’s Paradise (memoir of an anti-gang serial killer) and a nonfiction memoir of my life in middle school, high school, and college which I’m still debating the title of. I may develop more ideas beyond these and if I do, you all will be the first ones to know. Until then, I’m going to spend November doing essentially the same thing as everyone else: stuffing my face full of mashed potatoes and turkey. I won’t be watching any football since football is a boring sport with annoyingly loud fans. I’ll just stick to UFC and WWE for my athletic fix.

　

***MIXED-MARTIAL ARTS QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“The judges are giving out 10-8’s like it’s fucking Christmas.”

-Dana White on an episode of “The Ultimate Fighter: Team Nelson vs. Team Carwin”-