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-
