Suck It Up

VERSE 1

When you drop bombs on your least favorite race

The whole world watches with tears on their face

When you cry Cancel Culture after the fact

It should be you in a coffin lying on your back

You never had to suffer like the ones you’ve killed

Just ask your billionaire daddies to pay all the bills

Sugar baby, crybaby, whatever you are

Take your insults on the chin like a boxing superstar

 

PRE-CHORUS

When we call you out on your disgusting violence

The Wahmbulance gets you, let’s flash the sirens

 

CHORUS

Suck it up! You’re guilty as charged!

Suck it up! Yet you’re still at large!

Suck it up! Answer for your sins!

Suck it up! It’s not a war you will win!

Suck it up!

 

VERSE 2

When you fire your gun at the poor and innocent

You better expect an international incident

A golden badge is not a shield from callouts

A precinct won’t save you from nuclear fallout

Your critics don’t have missiles to level the land

They’ve got two middle fingers, one in either hand

Maybe a brick if they’re feeling kind of froggy

A bloody concussion to make you feel groggy

 

CHORUS

Suck it up! You’re guilty as charged!

Suck it up! Yet you’re still at large!

Suck it up! Answer for your sins!

Suck it up! It’s not a war you will win!

Suck it up!

 

BRIDGE

A bruised ego or a rotting corpse?

Which one’s worse? The latter, of course

You play the victim and reverse criticism

Easy as pie, ‘cause you control the system

 

CHORUS

Suck it up! You’re guilty as charged!

Suck it up! Yet you’re still at large!

Suck it up! Answer for your sins!

Suck it up! It’s not a war you will win!

Suck it up!

Suck it up!

Suck it up!

Do the world a favor and shut the fuck up!

Red Zone

VERSE 1

I’ve got a potion in a vial, but it’s not magic

It’s to keep my blindness from ending up tragic

Tear gas, mace, batons, and glass shields

“To serve and protect”, yeah, we get the spiel

What are you protecting: corporate feelings?

Did we ruin your country club shady-ass dealings?

What are you serving: a glass of chardonnay?

Is this why you shove the crowd out of the way?

PRE-CHORUS

Crimes committed, cops acquitted

Beaten protesters, happy investors

Of all the shit you arrest us for

Put one more crime in your report

CHORUS

I think I’m parked in the red zone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

Cuff my wrists right down the bone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

VERSE 2

It’s not about consistency, but owning the libs

Easy rhetoric flows like shit from your lips

You’re living the dream as you gang up like a team

On an unarmed dude as you beat him into cream

PRE-CHORUS

Crimes committed, cops acquitted

Beaten protesters, happy investors

Of all the shit you arrest us for

Put one more crime in your report

CHORUS

I think I’m parked in the red zone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

Cuff my wrists right down the bone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

BRIDGE

This is your idea of utopia

Your kids’ idea of Nickelodeon

Your voters’ idea of unbiased news

They’ve got one more issue to choose

EXTENDED CHORUS

I think I’m parked in the red zone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

Cuff my wrists right down the bone

I think I’m parked in the red zone

I’m blocking my own ambulance

As you erase your own evidence

Of slamming me on the pavement stones

For being parked in the red zone

Parked in the red zone!

Immune to My Own Edge

 I might be the only person in the universe who feels this way…but when I’m writing a controversial scene in either my prose or poetry…I sometimes forget the weight of my own words. I’ve become immune to my own edge, if you will. A cowboy obliterating his opponent with a gatling gun and splashing his guts like a tidal wave? A leonine samurai decapitating a ninja with his katana before sucking the poor bastard’s insides out with the spine as a drinking straw? A femme fatale seducing a man into bed with her before she bites his penis off and shoves it between his ears? These things may be shocking to my audience, but they’re normal to me. They’re so normal to me that I wasn’t even trying when I wrote those descriptions. Now it’s time to crack my knuckles…

The other day I wrote chapter 21 of my fantasy WIP Beautiful Monster. In this chapter, an imprisoned elf reaches through the bars of his cell and grabs a mercenary by his facial hair. He then proceeds to pull this mercenary’s face into the steel bars as hard as humanly possible, getting more aggressive with each tug. The mercenary’s eyeballs pop out, his teeth shatter and roll on the ground, his nose gets plastered to the back of his skull…to put it as delicately as possible, this mercenary is fucked. Too graphic for you all? Well, that’s funny, because this is just another day at the office for me. This is easily as brutal as it gets in my novel and I didn’t even flinch. I’m immune to my own edge.

How did it get to be this way for me? Too many mental illnesses and pills numbing my mind? Too much brainwashing via the television? Not enough flinching when I watched movies like Saw and Hostel? It’s one thing not to care too much if it happens in a fictional setting, but in a documentary or news story? My god, does that shit hurt. I’m not immune to other people’s edges, just my own. If there’s a news story on TV about police brutality (which has become commonplace in America, unfortunately), I’ll get so pissed off that my jaw will be sore from all the clamping down I’m doing. My mind will do more hundred mile an hour laps than a NASCAR track. But if I write about it in one of my stories? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing.

Why is this happening? Is it because I’m in control of my stories and poems and therefore already know the outcome? But what if the outcome is negative? What if a character is so haunted by their PTSD that they hang themselves from the ceiling fan with a chain whip? Will I be immune to that as well? If I’ve written it, yes, I will be. But only if I’ve written it. If I imagine it in my mind, then I’ll cycle through every harmful emotion I can think of, be it sadness, anger, or depression, which coincidentally spells the acronym SAD. Imagining scenes is much more fun than writing them, even with the harmful emotions.

That’s why I never understood it when people say that jokes can only be funny if you, the comedian, are the first to laugh about it. Sometimes I laugh at my own jokes, but not all the time. And yet, whenever I tell a joke I don’t laugh at myself, my audience laughs at it all the same. Want an example of a really disgusting joke? Okay, here it goes. Where do necromancers go to adopt children? An abortion clinic. You may laugh at that joke, you may not. Did I? Maybe a little bit at first, but I don’t hee-haw at it every single time. I must be immune to my own edge again. Here’s a joke I definitely didn’t laugh at, but other people found fucking hilarious. What do you call a Viking who saves people from drowning? Leif Guard. Not the most offensive joke I’ve ever told, but it’ll probably get more laughs than my necromancer joke, and that’s only if you pronounce Leif like you would “life” instead of “leaf” or “layf”.

Okay, so I’m immune to my own violence and comedy, but what about sadness? I can safely say that I’ve never cried at my own scenes before. I’ve had characters rape each other, attack animals, and die by the hundreds. Not one single tear. Then again, it takes a lot for me to cry these days. Well, it used to, anyways. I used to talk about having a 2007 benchmark for the last time I cried and that was because I blew my chances at signing up for Evergreen College. I can safely say that as of 2020, that record has been shattered. It’s not just the American news or the depression of being cooped up in my own home due to Corona Virus. Those things tax the fuck out of my mental energy, sure. But if you want to know what made me cry alone at night with nobody watching…I repeated the words “I love you” and “I’m sorry” over and over again. Who was I declaring my love for? I don’t know. Who was I apologizing to? I don’t know. It could have been anybody. Hell, it could have been my entire audience because I felt like I let them down in some way. I wasn’t immune to that. But writing about the experience? Not one tear drop.

While I feel nothing when I write my own controversial scenes, my audience feels everything. I’ve had people tell me they cried at my sadder stories. I’ve had people tell me they had chills up and down their spines at my lovey-dovey poems. I’ve had people cringe in pain as they read my more violent poems and stories. I say these things not to brag, but as a warning to anybody reading this piece of nonfiction. You have no idea how powerful your words can be to another person, for better or worse. A simple, “Hi” can be the difference between isolation and a pick-me-up. A tweet can be the difference between connecting with your audience and losing them forever. If a salutation and a tweet can have that much impact on someone’s life, imagine how a whole book can make them feel.

You know…maybe that’s why I was crying and apologizing that one night I broke my 2007 record. Maybe I felt like my books were having a negative impact on people’s lives. I know that’s not true since book sales have been piss-poor since I became a pro. But what if my sales spiked one day and my audience was angered by what I had written? What if Debra Winter’s characterization in Occupy Wrestling was deemed unintentionally misogynistic? What if my poems bored my audience to tears because of how the lyrics resemble corporately-produced rock songs? What if my depictions of rape and assault in Poison Tongue Tales were done in an insensitive way? Can I do anything about these problems now that the books are published? I could, but Amazon is making me jump through hoops just to make cosmetic changes to one of my poetry books. But even if Amazon was 100% cooperative, that would mean redoing six published books and always being behind because I’d be overwhelmed with work. It seems like a lazy copout, but it’s reality. I don’t have the energy to micromanage every single book I’ve published, especially when they’ve been on the market for so long.

But…what if someone didn’t see my writing in an offensive light? What if somebody loved it regardless of all of my negative thoughts? Art is subjective, after all. What’s disgusting to one person could be bliss to another. Yeah, I’m immune to my own edge, but I’m not immune to my own worrying after the fact. Maybe that needs to change. Maybe I should start holding my head high. But in the middle of the cluster-fuck known as 2020? That won’t be easy. But that’s one advantage to having immunity to the most controversial parts of my writing: I can get lost in the process and escape from the world, even if only for a little while. Maybe I can find that nugget of joy among the sea of diarrhea. Isn’t that why we write in the first place? Isn’t that why people say, “Write drunk, edit sober”? Don’t worry about the technicalities now, just barf onto the page and be happy for just a little while. I guess I’m not an uncaring sociopath after all. I’m just looking for joy where I can find it. If that joy includes evoking strong emotions from my readers, then goddamn it, I’ll embrace that shit until the day I die.

Why I Don't Show Vulnerability

***WHY I DON’T SHOW VULNERABILITY***

Earlier today, I had a brief conversation on Face Book with my long time beta reader and confidant Ashley. It started off with a post about how I haven’t had a full-on crying spell since the year 2007. That sentence alone is disturbing enough, but not nearly as disturbing as me using the word “record” to describe that year. I wasn’t thinking about the braggadocios connotations the word “record” has. There’s even something called the Guinness World Book of Records, where every inductee has something to brag about. I never meant to sound proud of not being able to cry, but that’s how it came out and that’s how the conversation got rolling along.

Ever since that conversation, I’ve had a lot of time to think about why it is that the “record” still stands. I’ve certainly had my fair share of reasons to cry all throughout the 2010’s. I’ve lost pets to old age, I’ve lost an uncle to a car accident, I’ve lost a grandmother to natural causes, I’ve had bad reviews for my books, there were times when I thought my career was over…and yet, my eyes remained dry through it all. You can’t mistake me for a tough guy, though. You could attribute it all to emotional numbness brought on by mental illnesses and the medications used to treat them. But the truth is, nothing about my dry eyes is that simple. I’ve got my own reasons for why I don’t show vulnerability.

When the day finally comes that I unleash the waterworks, I want it to be done in a place where nobody else is around to check on me. I don’t want to be checked on. I don’t want to be overprotected. It has nothing to do with coldness towards those people. It has everything to do with being too vulnerable in front of people who want to know more about my emotional state of mind. So I tell them what’s wrong…and they want to know more…and I tell them what’s wrong…and they want to know more…and I tell them what’s wrong…and they want to know more. The more they ask, the more triggered I become. The more triggered I become, the harder it is for me to recover. Talking things out has never worked in my favor. In fact, it only makes the triggers worse. It could be a byproduct of schizophrenia. It could be fear of embarrassment. It could be the fear of never moving on again and being stuck with spinning wheels. Who knows?

Now that I think about it, the concept of asking someone about their triggers and being relentless about it is probably the biggest influence on Tarja Rikkinen’s character work in the very first draft of Beautiful Monster. It was coincidentally what she was criticized for the most. I mistakenly thought that asking about triggers and forcing people to talk was a normal part of the therapeutic process. Nope! Turns out my instincts about making triggers worse was right all along. Then again, first draft Tarja was also the same character who believed that giving Windham the best sex of his life would erase the worst sex of his life at the hands of Shelly and Torger. Nope! That too is just tropey ignorance.

So…if feeling naked in front of people will lead to triggering bad memories and emotions…and talking about it all doesn’t help…what is the solution? You know, aside from taking pills and making life slightly more tolerable. Maybe there’s a magic ritual where a witchdoctor will reach inside my head and pull out all of the malignant parts of my mind. With nothing left to agonize over, happiness would take over and 2020 will be a much easier burden to bear. But of course, these magic rituals don’t exist. Otherwise, nobody would be emotionally damaged and witchdoctors would be richer…than they already are, along with psychics and Goop Lab “scientists”. There is no magic solution to it all. There is no conversation that can convince my mind to ease up on me. Crying privately isn’t a permanent solution either. I can listen to reason, but my mind cannot.

But then again, being an emotional time bomb for thirteen years doesn’t seem like much fun either. Maybe it’s why I get angry at little things. Maybe it’s why I get easily burned out and exhausted. Maybe it’s why I’m bored shitless more often than not. Maybe it’s why I get anxious on the rare occasions that women flirt with me. Who knows? All I know is that all of the pent up emotions have to go somewhere. Why not have them go to a place where it’s easy to control the outcome? I’ve already mentioned crying privately, but is that really the answer to it all? Is it possible to have a deep conversation without triggering every negative feeling within me? What exactly does “confronting my emotions” look like?

Heh…You know what I just realized? The title of this blog entry is called “Why I Don’t Show Vulnerability” and I just spent the last few paragraphs doing just that. By reading this, you know more about me than most people ever will. Do you want to know more? And more? And more? And more? Can it, Tarja Rikkinen. You can ask as many questions as you like, but if a topic gets too uncomfortable, you have to allow me the right to refuse to answer. This isn’t Scientology. This is life. This is living through 2020 and coming out of the other side smelling like roses. Of course, the police brutality and Corona Virus pandemic won’t allow that to happen. But I can at least try, right?

What would perpetual happiness look like for me personally? What happened before 2020 that made me feel like I could conquer the world? Well, let’s start with December 2014, where I took a vacation to San Diego, California so that I could visit Lego Land. That vacation made me so happy that I completely reinvented my mind. From that moment on, I always found the energy to do creative work, I was never bored, I actually paid attention to new music that was blasting in my ears, WWE was actually fun to watch (for me, anyways), my relationships with family and friends were cherished to the fullest extent…am I leaving anything out?

And then…February 2018 rolled along and I suddenly had what I like to call “permission to feel bad again”. I hate to keep beating the dead Millennium horse over and over again, but on the night before my Pop Evil concert, I got curious and looked up “A Room with No View” on Wikipedia. I had seen the episode back in the late 90’s when it aired and I originally thought it was about a yandere who wanted a boyfriend so badly that she used violence to keep him under lock and key. Nope! It’s worse! Turns out that yandere was a seductress who used her sexuality to brainwash high school students into becoming mediocre and ordinary versions of themselves. I originally invalidated my feelings because Millennium is a work of fiction and could never happen in the real world. But when you invalidate your own feelings…you become a thirteen-year time bomb waiting for that one day to let the waterworks flow. But hey, at least I got Beautiful Monster out of that disturbing as shit episode, so that’s a plus.

And then…2018 continued to descend into darkness. I lost three pets that year (Maggie, Sitka, and Smokey), I quit watching WWE because they put on the worst episode of Monday Night Raw in November, Reina moved out of the house to live with Susan on a boat after an intense argument with our family…and…hmm…what else happened? That’s right! The year 2019 rolled along! I adopted Emilio back in December of 2018 and he died on June of 2019, the same month has my birthday. I stopped watching Real Time with Bill Maher after he exploited Stan Lee’s death and mocked fat people. The year 2020 showed its ugly head and before all of the worldwide trauma started, my big fat cat Oswald died in February. And now…here we are. I was given permission to feel bad, I slowed down creatively, and I honestly don’t think it’s appropriate for me to try to rebuild my happiness with everything going on with George Floyd’s murder and Corona Virus.

I just now noticed that I’m rambling on in this blog entry. I forgot where my original talking points were going. So I’m just going to end it here. Truth is, I never should have referred to the year 2007 as “the record”. There are other words for it, I’m an English major, and I can make it happen. There will be a day when the floodgates open and I drench my cheeks with salty fluids. When will that day be? I don’t know. But when that day comes, I hope nobody’s around to see me at my worst. I’m Garrison Kelly! Until next time, try to enjoy the daylight!


***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“We used to laugh. We used to cry. We used to bow our heads and wonder why. And now you’re gone. I guess I’ll carry on and make the best of what you’ve left to me. And every day, I’d laugh the hours away just knowing you were thinking of me. And then it came that I was put to blame for every story told about me. I need you like the flower needs the rain. You know I need you. Guess I’ll start it all again. I need you like the winter needs the spring. You know I need you. I need you.”

-America singing “I Need You”-

George Floyd the Wall

VERSE 1
Son-shine’s gone up to heaven
Abuse of power was the weapon
A wide shot for the viral streaming
And now a nation is left screaming
And now a nation is left screaming!
All in all, it was just a 9-1-1 call
All in all, it was all just 9-1-1 calls

VERSE 2
We don’t need no execution
We just want a revolution
No guns or tear gas in the streets
We will not cower in defeat
No! We won’t cower in defeat!
All in all, it’s just another 9-1-1 call
All in all, it’s just another 9-1-1 call

VERSE 3
I don’t need your lame excuses
I don’t need human rights abuses
Now that our backs are against the wall
Your racist empire will be the next to fall
Yeah! Your racist empire is the next to fall!
All in all, it was all just 9-1-1 calls
All in all, it was all just 9-1-1 calls

FINAL VERSE
Goodbye, George Floyd
I say in a trembling voice
Goodbye, goodbye, goodbye
Goodbye, Mr. President
There’s no real reason to keep you elected
Goodbye…

Uncomfortable Topics

***UNCOMFORTABLE TOPICS***

Every once and a while during your creative journey, the inspirational well will run dry. It happens to the best of us. You get done with one project or you’re waiting on the results of another. And then boom, you’ve exhausted the creative well. Ever since I finished the new version of Beautiful Monster back in…I want to say June or July, I’ve been writing short stories that are hopefully different from all the rest I’ve written. And then just last week, I declare that I’m getting back into writing fantasy with the short story “3:16”, which I’m convinced has been a complete failure due to its hokey nature, vanilla characters, and silly antics. I’m back to square one as a man without a country, so to speak.

And that got me thinking about a piece of advice that budding authors frequently receive: “Write about things that make you uncomfortable.” It’ll make for some raw material and it’ll get you out of your creative rut. You’ll have new stories and your audience will believe that much more in them. Everybody wins! This whole time I’ve been afraid of making myself cringe by the mature content my stories have. And then I remembered: Beautiful Monster is about rape. Rape is the most uncomfortable topic there is. I’m already halfway there! Now I need a new story with a different uncomfortable topic. I’ve come up with nine different topics that make me squeamish whenever I see news stories about them on TV.

***ANIMAL CRUELTY***

Forget the fact that animals are cute and cuddly. Even if you disagree with that sentiment, animals are still defenseless in the hands of abusive or neglectful owners. Every beating a small kitten receives. Every pit bull who’s chained outside all day long in unbearable weather. Every circus elephant who yearns for freedom after being confined for so long in a cage. This shit hurts me on a deep level. I have animals of my own and if I found out somebody was abusing them, I’d beat the living shit out of said abusers and take my jail sentence gracefully. Animals should be comfortable and cozy, not fearful and traumatized. Two years is the maximum prison sentence for animal abusers. It should be higher. I’d also dare say that like sex offenders, animal abusers should be put on a multi-tiered registry. I love my fur babies. I love everyone else’s fur babies too. I donate to the ASPCA every month and I take care of the fur babies I have.

***CHILD KIDNAPPING***

I may not want children of my own. I may not be overjoyed whenever I have to sit next to a noisy child on an airplane or a bus. Having said that, it still horrifies me whenever I see a news story about a child being kidnapped by a pedophile and held hostage for decades at a time. Jaycee Dugard is a major example of this. She was kidnapped at age eleven and set free at age twenty-nine. Jesus fucking Christ! What about Ariel Castro’s three victims? For ten years he held them hostage and raped them. Ten fucking years! Keep in mind that this trauma is happening during their most developmental years. Even if they were adults when they were kidnapped, that kind of brutality can drive a person insane. There’s a special place in hell for people who kidnap and have sex with children.

***CLASSISM***

Every once and a while, a viral video will pop up of some asshole republican chewing out a poor customer at a store for using a food stamp or welfare card. You also see classism on dating sites, where profiles demand that their dates have a bazillion dollars and sports cars up to yin-yang. Poor people get labeled as being “lazy” or “leeches”, to which I say is complete and utter bullshit. You don’t know what that welfare recipient is going through. You don’t know what the broke college student will do for love. Classism is just like any other form of prejudice. And no, it’s not something that the individual has control over despite what the bashers will say. This economy was not designed to close wage gaps. It does marginalize the less fortunate.

***FAT SHAMING***

We live in a world where unrealistic beauty standards are squeezing the life out of everyday people who don’t have sculpted bodies or skinny frames. The body positivity movement is not about celebrating unhealthiness. It’s about celebrating absolution. In other words, we don’t have to feel guilty about our bodies just because some muscle head says we should. I’ve said this before: people who fat shame are secretly pissed about having a shortage of people they can jack off to. Yep. That’s your reward for losing weight: more people will jack off to you…unless of course you’re below the poverty line.

***MENTAL HOSPITALS***

If Terminator 2: Judgment Day has taught me anything, it’s that mental hospitals are nothing more than prisons for sad people. They operate like prisons, they make money like prisons, and the guards/orderlies beat their inmates like prisoners. You have no rights once you’re in a mental hospital and you can’t leave whenever you bloody well feel like it. That’s the dictionary definition of a prison. Most of the people in these facilities didn’t even commit crimes. They’re just locked up and treated like animals over something they have no control over: their own mental illnesses. As someone with schizophrenia, this pisses me off to no end.

***MILLENNIAL BASHING***

Bill Maher once said on an episode of Real Time that ageism was the last acceptable prejudice we have…and then during the same rant talked shit about millennials like the hypocrite he is. Bill Maher is a crabby old man, so that’s to be expected. Millennials bashing their own generation is even worse, however. That’s Candace Owens levels of selling out. Why all of this hatred for people born in the 80’s and 90’s? What did we do that was so wrong? Nothing. These stereotypes against us are just that: stereotypes. We all come in different flavors, your mileage may vary. More people need to call out millennial bashers until it’s recognized as the blind bigotry it is.

***POLICE BRUTALITY***

Whenever an ordinary civilian commits a crime, he goes to jail and serves his time. Whenever a police officer does something even worse (“hold my beer”), he gets administrative leave, which is really just a paid vacation. Cops are revered by society as being these superheroes who can do no wrong, and yet they continually get away with murdering, beating, or otherwise harassing minorities. This gross imbalance of power pisses me the fuck off, especially because there’s not a whole lot I can do about it short of spreading awareness on the internet. Even then, these cops continue to murder their own citizens for absolutely no reason.

***STEM SUPREMACY***

Whenever an artist rightfully complains about his stagnant or nonexistent wages, the first thing some asshole tells him is to get a tech job or go to trade school. Blind conformity equals good pay. I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d rather make little money and be able to create whatever art I wanted than get paid a gazillion dollars to be a mediocre husk of my former self. Then again, if I did go to trade school or get a STEM degree, I’d be able to close the wage gap long enough to get a date on classist websites. But then I’d have to lose a bunch of weight or else nobody will jack off to me. Hmm…it’s a catch-22 if I’ve ever seen one.

***TRANSPHOBIA***

Turns out ageism isn’t the last acceptable prejudice after all. It’s transphobia. People are so scared of transgender people using public bathrooms for fear of their children getting molested, yet they’re perfectly okay with a rapist president sitting in the white house and a rapist sitting on the supreme court bench. Transgender people deserve to be treated with respect. So do non-binary people. And gender fluid people. They’re human beings, just like you and me. Why is that so difficult to see? And don’t give me that shit about Fallon Fox having an unfair advantage in MMA when you’re more than willing to condone steroid abusers.

***CONCLUSION***

Yes, these topics are pretty appalling. In fact, I’d say they’re beyond appalling. They’re uncomfortable as hell. So what kinds of stories could I write about these topics? Well, just last night, I came up with a novel synopsis for a story called “Fat Camp”. It’s not officially my next project yet, but if I develop it, it could be.

MAIN CHARACTERS:

1. Adrian Evans, Fat Camp Student
2. Rufus Lynch, Sadistic Camp Counselor
3. Stella Masters, Sadistic Camp Counselor
4. Tiffany Crowder, Fat Camp Student
5. Nameless Students and Counselors

SYNOPSIS: As part of a new initiative to combat teen obesity, students like Adrian and Tiffany are sent to a fat camp with a penchant for tough love and military discipline. Every time the students rebel against their harsh treatment, counselors like Rufus and Stella get violent with their punishments, such as cutting off flesh, breaking limbs, and Rufus’s personal favorite method of torture, twisting faces with pliers. The combination of extreme fat shaming and physical torture would lead the students to believe that none of this is legal, but when they try to contact a lawyer or the police for help, their pleas fall on deaf ears and the beatings intensify. Can Adrian and Tiffany survive this hellhole and graduate with their rights intact? Not without bruises and emotional trauma, they won’t.

Prepare to cringe. Prepare to cringe hard!

***QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Mental illness may be a life sentence for some of us, but it does not have to be a death sentence.”

-Mauro Ranallo a.k.a. The Bipolar Rock n’ Roller-

Punished For Nothing

VERSE 1

The rift between crime and punishment

Is the rift between democracy and government

A slap on the wrist for a child rapist

A lifetime in prison for the drugs taken

Beaten and tortured for freedom of speech

What lessons are we supposed to teach?

That you’re fucked no matter what?

Unless you’ve got over a billion bucks?

CHORUS

Punished for nothing! X4

VERSE 2

Protesting peacefully in a crowded street

Pepper spray burns like hellfire heat

Bones broken by a pair of booted feet

A life sentence for daring to question

The authority that screwed you over

No punishment for the country’s owners

Administrative leave for those who smash

The skulls of innocents who’re treated like trash

CHORUS

Punished for nothing! X4

VERSE 3

White man, black man, what’s the difference?

One is automatically declared innocent

The other is treated like he’s second class

Yet we refuse to acknowledge the racist past

Calling the cops for doing mundane tasks

Sparing those who kiss the authority’s ass

One nation under fraud, justice for none

It’s all just a joke to you, all in good fun

CHORUS

Punished for nothing! X4

FINAL VERSE

They always tell us to not break the law

But even innocents can have a broken jaw

Even a jaywalker can eat a fucking bullet

The American Dream has been stolen

Extremism, Vol. 2

***EXTREMISM, VOL. 2***

You will learn a lot of things under the teaching tree of Marie Krepps, CEO of Hollow Hills. One of those valuable lessons relates to protagonist sympathy. If you want your readers to side with your protagonist, he or she cannot, I repeat, cannot be worse than the story’s villains. This sounds like common sense to a lot of people, but it’s a lesson I’ve spent a lifetime learning. I’m the same guy who once wrote a piece of high school fiction where the lead character gets a D- in history and then confesses to his girlfriend that he now relates to the Columbine kids. Yeah, let that sink in for a minute.

Extremism of this caliber is not uncommon in this wacky world of ours. I tried to express that in a Poison Tongue Tales story called Thunder Zell, where the lead character, Jacob Tate, crashes his cheating girlfriend’s dinner date…by driving a goddamn tank through the walls of a Chinese restaurant. Now, let’s see here…cheating girlfriend…tank-driving boyfriend…cheating girlfriend…tank-driving boyfriend…which one could possibly be more life-threatening? Which one seems less reasonable out of the two? Although there are some jilted lovers out there who would enjoy the idea of driving a tank into their ex’s personal space, that’s probably not something you want to admit in real life.

Speaking of jilted lovers, here comes a wrestling example of extremism! Yay! You know, because I can’t shut up about wrestling since it’s all I think about 24/7? Back in 2009, WWE Hall of Famer Hulk Hogan was going through a rough divorce with his wife and during that time she was dating a 19-year-old friend of their daughter’s. Here’s the exact quote Hulk Hogan gave to the media: “I could have turned everything into a crime scene, like OJ [Simpson], cutting everybody’s throat. You live a half a mile from the 24,000 square-foot home you can’t go to anymore and you see some 19-year-old kid driving through downtown Clearwater [Florida] in your Escalade, and you know that 19-year-old boy is sleeping in your bed with your wife. I totally understand OJ. I get it.”

Now let’s see here…cutting people…dating a 19-year-old…cutting people…dating a 19-year-old….It was obviously a trying time for Hulk Hogan and he was frustrated beyond belief. But then he starts channeling OJ Simpson and…yeah, not good. Not good at all. What other horrible people could be channeled? Let’s say you’re a dude working up the courage to ask a girl on a date. She calmly says no to you, so you go online and say, “I could have turned that whole neighborhood into a crime scene, like ER [Eliot Rodger], shooting everybody in the face.” Yes, rejection hurts, but it shouldn’t hurt badly enough that you feel like shooting people in the face. Besides the fact that women are allowed to say no to whomever they want and that’s how it should be, you’re not going to be the hero of your story if you can’t keep ER’s name out of your mouth.

But I’m just talking about bad judgment when giving media or online statements. What about actions to back those threats up? It still stands to reason that no hero should behave worse than the villains they’re fighting. To use a real world example that hits close to home for a lot of people, police brutality. The police are hailed as these superheroes who can do no wrong no matter how violent they are, yet there are some bad apples in every department who abuse their power and murder their suspects for minimal shit. Whenever a police officer commits murder or assault, he or she is almost always acquitted and praised as a hero by the public at large. While not all officers are like this, enough of them are, so many in fact that the Black Lives Matter movement became a necessity in the first place.

Obviously, some of these examples of extreme behavior are worse than others, but if you’re in the writing business like I am, take notice. As an author, it’s your job to make your protagonist as relatable and sympathetic as possible. That doesn’t mean he or she can’t be a villain at heart. It doesn’t mean that he or she can’t do questionable things every now and then. But if your protagonist is just one big bucket of gore for no rhyme or reason and your antagonist is more relatable by comparison, your readers are going to tune out and you’ve got lots of one and two-star reviews to look forward to. I learned this lesson the hard way many times in my career and hopefully the lesson will stick this time around. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I never cared about the money, never really needed fame. You think it would have changed me, but I’ve always been the same. My label tried to sue me. TMZ tried to screw me. Blabber Mouth can fuck itself ‘cause they never fucking knew me. Everybody seems like they’re waiting for me to die. Talk shit behind my back, can’t look me in the eye. They say I’m overrated, that I should have already faded. Don’t give a shit about it all because I love to be so hated. I barely get to eat and when I finally get to sleep, I get dragged out of bed for another meet-and-greet. I shake the hand of every fan and put on a happy face. I’m spread so fucking thin that I’m all over the place. I hate riding on the bus. I hate flying in the plane. Sedating myself just to kill the pain. I have no life, gave up on hope. The whole thing’s turned into one big joke. I mean no disrespect, but I ain’t picking up the check. Taking selfies on your phone while you’re breathing down my neck. It’s getting pretty fucking old and I’m almost nearly done. I’m glad that you were happier when I was number one. All in all it’s a good life. I got what I want. I can’t complain. I’m living the good life. A toast to you now. It’s all sham pain.”

-Five Finger Death Punch singing “Sham Pain”-

Gyromancer

Are you a spin doctor or a gyromancer?

Both of those options are your final answer

Excusing racism and other forms of bigotry

Excusing homophobia while practicing bigamy

Excusing cop violence as the body count soars

Excusing blood oozing from minorities’ pores

As long as you have an R next to your name

You’re instantly immune to shame and blame

Justice was tailor made for the silver spoon

You’re not fooling anyone anytime soon

You wonder why we march in the streets

When the flag is flying, we take our seats

It’s Freedom of Speech, you fucking leech

It’s something you’re always proud to preach

As long as you’re the only one who uses it

Who’s triggered now? You’re the one who loses it

You call us snowflakes for doing what’s right

You’re triggered too! You’re not too bright

You don’t give a shit about liberty and freedom

You only give a shit about ruling the kingdom

Goosestep your ass back to the 1930’s

Or the 1500’s where it’s diseased and dirty

But at least your old values will be alive and well

Gyromancer, I’ll see you in hell!

Peace and Love

ONLY VERSE

When a riot breaks out, you pass the buck

Like you have a monopoly on peace and love

You’re the one sending kids to die in wars

Selling automatic rifles in convenience stores

Pushing the big red button to drop the bombs

Turning rape victims into first-time moms

Sending the mentally ill to the electric chair

Excusing the cops who drag women by the hair

You invented violence, you encouraged silence

You’re the one taking free speech like a tyrant

Who’s the one taking the low road now?

Who’s the one making bratty baby sounds?

Who’s the one running to his safest space?

In case you have a confused look on your face…

CHORUS

You don’t know shit about peace and love! X3

You’re the one with blood on your boxing gloves!

You don’t know shit about peace and love! X3

Now who’s the one who has to toughen up?!

Thugs

CHORUS

Blue thugs, blue thugs

White thugs, white thugs

Rich thugs, rich thugs

Christ thugs, Christ thugs

VERSE 1

Being a thug isn’t about skin color

It’s about the way we treat each other

Social status doesn’t mean a damn thing

When the fired shots make your ears ring

Wilson, Turner, and even Zimmerman

Miss Anthony full of sugar and cinnamon

Saccharine pleas bring the blind to their knees

While the innocents’ corpses continue to freeze

CHORUS

Blue thugs, blue thugs

White thugs, white thugs

Rich thugs, rich thugs

Christ thugs, Christ thugs

VERSE 2

Every bullet feels exactly the same

Every death brings this country to shame

Every trial adds to the body pile

Just another piece of paper ready to file

The case is closed but our eyes are wide

A river of tears doesn’t take any side

A broken heart knows no kind of race

Armageddon has come to our safe place

EXTENDED CHORUS 1

Blue thugs, blue thugs

White thugs, white thugs

Rich thugs, rich thugs

Christ thugs, Christ thugs

Where are the signs that say free hugs?

Why are there corpses full of maggoty bugs?

Is this really about a lost war on drugs?

Or did we already sweep that under the rug?

BRIDGE

The second amendment or a thug defendant?

Family values or medieval remnants?

When the bodies drop, it all sounds alike

To the motherless children and fatherless tykes

EXTENDED CHORUS 2

Blue thugs, blue thugs

White thugs, white thugs

Rich thugs, rich thugs

Christ thugs, Christ thugs

What are you representing with your slugs?

Why do you turn away with a mere shrug?

Go ahead, sleep well at night cozy and snug

Wake up with a smile so arrogant and smug

Hero

VERSE 1

Screaming into a phone doesn’t make you a hero

Saying otherwise means your IQ is a solid zero

Any coward can offend from miles away

Any moron can change his face and name

But in order to have a solid steel spinal cord

You’ve got to be prepared for a fistfight war

You hide behind lawyers and sympathetic judges

And wonder why the public holds violent grudges

CHORUS 1

I see no bravery among you criminals

Your valor is at the very best minimal

Lock your asses up and throw away the key

Even heroes know when it’s time to flee

VERSE 2

Blasting a sound cannon at a crowd of protesters

Ensures your status as the corporate protectors

You represent the evil you’re trying to fight

You make the streets dangerous to walk at night

The irony is killing me like a rubber bullet

We’re buried underneath mountains of bullshit

Karma is a bitch and she’ll smack you like a pimp

Until your Burger King body is broken and limp

CHORUS 1

I see no bravery among you criminals

Your valor is at the very best minimal

Lock your asses up and throw away the key

Even heroes know when it’s time to flee

VERSE 3

It’s the same old shit, but on a different day

The power hungry don’t know when to pay

They don’t know when to shut their mouths

They hide from justice like a frightened mouse

Prison is a bitch and so are you, my friend

You’ll one day know what it’s like to bend

If it takes forever, we’ll fight forever

We’ll bring the thunder and stormy weather

CHORUS 2

I see no bravery among you thieves

I see no end for the ones who greave

You steal life like a home invader

And turn the innocent into gladiators

You want a battle? Here’s a war

Justice and honor are what we fight for

We don’t need machineguns and tanks

To our strongest voices, we give our thanks

The Shield

TV SHOW TITLE: The Shield
CREATOR: Shawn Ryan
YEARS ACTIVE: 2002-2008
GENRE: Crime Drama
RATING: TV-MA for violence, language, and sexual situations
GRADE: Pass


The city of Los Angeles is plagued with crime whether it’s gang-related, corporate, or the work of a sadistic serial killer. With Detective Vic Mackey and his Strike Team on the case, the justice may be worse than the crime itself. Vic is not afraid to break the rules when it comes to catching criminals. He’s not above torturing suspects or even killing and intimidating other cops if it means closing a case or saving his own ass. Even under the hawk-like eyes of Captain David Aceveda and the scrutiny of his peers such as Detective Dutch Wagenbach and Officer Danielle Sofer, Vic Mackey manages to stay one step ahead of everyone else and leaves a trail of blood and broken bones in his wake.

Unlike crime dramas such as Castle, NCIS, Bones, and Rizzoli and Isles, The Shield takes the viewers to a much darker place where the humor is raunchy and the violence is graphic. As I’ve mentioned in the opening paragraph, Vic often tortures his suspects to get a confession or information to a bigger arrest. Over the course of the show, he has whipped a suspect with a chain, burned a suspect’s face on a stovetop, stabbed a cop killer with his badge, and in the first episode shot another cop named Terry Crowley because Terry was a rat within the Strike Team. Vic Mackey and his team are like police brutality on steroids. The more people complained against him and his tactics, the more bruises and scars those people got. It’s an endless stream of graphic beatings and torture until the city is safe again, at least from the original gangsters, but not Mackey.

As vicious as Vic can be, the things he did on the show will never compare to what happened to David Aceveda in the third season of the show. David is investigating the home of a Mexican gangster named Juan Lazano. Juan jumps David from behind, binds his hands with a TV cord, and orally rapes him while Juan’s buddy is filming the whole thing with a smart phone. The sodomy was disturbing enough, but it was the ongoing trauma, family dissention, and blackmail David experienced afterwards that made The Shield hard to watch. When it comes to TV-MA-rated shows, I’m not a wimp by any stretch of the imagination, but even David Aceveda’s oral rape storyline was enough to shake me to my core.

If you strip away all of the torture, forced sex, limb chopping, burnings, and blood, you still have a well-written detective show. Yes, all of that hardcore and disgusting content is good for the Nightmare Fetishists out there, but The Shield isn’t just about violence and brutality; it has substance. It asks the bold question of whether or not the ends justify the means and how far we’re willing to trust the government to protect us when they commit questionable acts. Police brutality is an ongoing problem even in today’s world; just ask the families of Michael Brown and Eric Garner. The Shield does what all forms of media should do: it holds a mirror up to society and shows everyone its ugliest features. The show doesn’t glorify police brutality; it questions it. And by the end of the series, everybody on that show gets what they deserve whether it’s for better or worse.

But sometimes all you want from a detective show is a solid series of cases where the police work is intelligent and the laws and techniques are well-researched. You’ll get all of those things with The Shield. Shawn Ryan wasn’t just putting together a montage of beatings; he was putting together solid cases that real police officers and detectives would have to solve using their sharp investigative skills. Even Vic Mackey and his Strike Team are capable of using smart investigative tactics; otherwise, they wouldn’t be detectives.

All in all, The Shield is the complete package that a detective show is supposed to have. The only things that separate it from other shows is its dark nature, it’s bold statements, and its TV-MA rating. The show was revolutionary in more ways than TV being allowed to use the word “shit”, which is why it deserves a passing grade.

　

***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

VIC MACKEY: Do you want to catch this criminal or not?

DAVID ACEVEDA: Going undercover as dirty cops. You guys think you can pull that off?

VIC MACKEY: We can try.

-The Shield-