Jim Cornette's Name Test

***JIM CORNETTE’S NAME TEST***

Another blog entry about wrestling? Well, not entirely, though Jim Cornette is one of wrestling’s most recognizable personalities. This blog has a little bit more of a universal appeal since it’s about character names. Whether the genre is wrestling, fantasy, sci-fi, or even contemporary, you want your characters to have good-sounding names. A guy named Michael Hickenbottom doesn’t stand a chance in the limelight. But Shawn Michaels? Why, that’s Hall of Fame-worthy.

Here’s how the name test works. You have two opponents, the protagonist and the antagonist. When you say their names and stick the word “versus” in between them, you want it to sound like it could be a big deal. Examples from wrestling that could pass the name test include Ric Flair vs. The Undertaker. Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Makes you want to know more about this conflict. Ricky “The Dragon” Steamboat vs. “Macho Man” Randy Savage. That also sounds exciting.

And like I said at the top of the journal, this logic could apply to any two sets of people. Harry Potter vs. Voldemort sounds as magical as its canon suggests. It makes you want to read the books or watch the movies, so you’ll spend top dollar to know how that story ends. Lion-O vs. Mummra also has a mystical aura to it, which makes sense coming from a cartoon called The Thundercats. Goku vs. Freiza has a martial arts feel to it. Mario vs. Bowser sounds like something that would happen in a comically mischievous world.

As much as I don’t want to toot my own horn, I’m going to use examples from my own stories to show that I’m following Jim Cornette’s advice to a fault. I’m currently writing a high school drama called Silent Warrior, so there better be a positive name test result to back up such a hot title. Scott George vs. Tom Simpson? Well, it doesn’t sound like much on the surface, but if you shortened their names to just their family names, it sounds like a Supreme Court case. George vs. Simpson? I’d say that has a Supreme Court ring to it, which is funny because chapter eighteen features a criminal case against Mr. George.

And then you have examples that not only fail the name test, but fail them on an epic scale. The Undertaker sounds like a creepy enough name on its own, but not when his opponent is named Stinky McFarts or Chilly McFreeze. Ever wonder why you never saw a main event WWE match in the 1990’s between Doink the Clown and Bastion Booger? Look at the names of those two individuals and run them through the test. Epic fucking fail!

As much as I hate to admit it, one of my back-burner novel ideas fails the name test as well. Booger the Clown vs. The Orc King. There’s nothing wrong with The Orc King. In fact, it sounds rather intimidating. But when you pair him up with a guy named Booger the Clown, you can see how the story gets dragged down by guffaws of laughter. Then again, Booger is supposed to be an ironic name to begin with considering the character is a depressed, suicidal marine who moonlights as a birthday clown and can only feel happy when he’s listening to violent gangster rap.

If you’re an author penning the next bestseller, take your naming system seriously and make sure the final conflict doesn’t feature Nut Sack McGee vs. Penis Breaker III. Of course, no self respecting author would ever do that to his or her own product, but it’s worth pointing out anyways. You want to know what sounds like a spellbinding feud? Reverend Jesse Custer vs. God. A lot of whacky shit takes place in Preacher, including that same feud I just mentioned. I don’t know much about the TV show, but I’ve read volumes one through four of the graphic novels. It’s every bit as fucked up as the feud sounds.

So that’s all I have for you today. Don’t forget to tip your waitresses and leave online reviews for your favorite indy authors. I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time! But before I leave, now that we’re on a wrestling-related topic, yes, I will do a blog entry about 2017’s Most Disgusting Promotional Tactics as awarded by the Wrestling Observer Newsletter. My love for shocking the shit out of my audience hasn’t waned a bit. And goddamn, we’ve had some good ones this year! Bye!

***LEGAL QUESTION***

For the next chapter of Silent Warrior, I’m planning on having Scott George rushed to the hospital to be treated for anxiety and malnutrition. I’m not sure if court cases actually work like this, but I was thinking about having the trial broadcast to Scott’s room via satellite so that he can at least know what the hell’s going on. Would a court actually do that or do they just wait for the suspect to stand trial? You don’t have to be a member of the bar association to answer this; you just have to know more about it than I do.

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Accept who you are…unless you’re a serial killer.”

-Ellen DeGeneres-

Two-Sentence Horror Stories

Susan’s alarm clock went off at seven in the morning and she was slowly sitting up in her comfy beddy-bye. When her eyes finally adjusted to the glaring sunlight, she saw the Burger King mascot sitting next to her in bed where her ten-year-old daughter normally was.

Little Maria was playing in the sandbox by herself with her lovable stuffed rabbit and her Winnie the Pooh Pillow Pet. The shadow of a perverted old man in a trench coat appeared over her as he whispered the words, “I can’t wait until you turn 18!”

Stephanie McMahon’s relentless slaps across The Big Show’s face were stinging with orange hot pain. Big Show retaliated by clutching Stephanie’s throat, not to give her his patented choke slam, but to shove a date rape drug down her throat.

Mario ran as fast as his chubby body would carry him as he pilfered the golden key from the evilly grinning Phanto. The sinister mask finally caught up to him and with one monstrous chomp bit Mario’s ear off like Mike Tyson.

The baldheaded and bloodthirsty Calcobrena puppets came to life and started dancing like they were performing in the world’s scariest ballet. The urine stain in Cecil’s pants was so damp that he would need a Sham Wow to soak up the stale fluids.

Rosa curled in the corner and shivered as the disgusting and perverted Dr. Lugae slowly approached her. He leaned his disfigured face close to her tear-soaked face and said, “Are you wearing a Milk Duds bra?”

Wanderlei Silva was flipping through the pages of the ultra-sexy Ronda Rousey’s ESPN photo shoot magazine with Matt Brown looking over his shoulder. Wanderlei said, “Ronda sure looks good.” and Matt Brown replied with, “Tastes good too, bro!”

Tarja Turunen received her 501^st letter and it revealed a picture of her naked and butchered husband Marcelo Cabuli bound with chains and ball gagged. Below the picture were the words written in Floydian font: “Leave him for me…or else!”

G-Switch had been stripped naked and sprayed with a cold hose as his prison cell awaited him for what would be a life sentence. When it came time to give him his uniform, he didn’t get an orange jumpsuit, but a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit instead.

The frightened and defenseless Tina huddled in the dark corner while her attacker slowly approached her with a club in his hand. The lights flickered on to reveal the assailant as Drew Carey in a black banana hammock, who went on to say, “Welcome to Who’s Life Is It Anyway, where everything’s made up and the points are as useless as your cries for help!”

Todd knelt and sobbed over the bloody remains of his butchered wife. The torturer put a hand on the poor husband’s shoulder and gave him some good news: “I just saved a bunch of money on car insurance by switching to Geico.”

Gail was called into the massage therapist’s office for what was sure to be a relaxing and joyful experience. That all changed when she found out her massage therapist was Jeffrey Dahmer, who just got off of his “lunch break” and was back on the clock.

Charles had just devoured a delicious Chinese meal of fried sole, egg drop soup, and creamed broccoli. When he opened his fortune cookie, the little strip of paper read, “Thank you for eating at Hannibal Lector’s Golden Grill.”

Dave had just been served a scrumptious plate of Chinese fried rice and pork chow mein by the lovely smiling waitress. When he asked for a fork, however, the waitress pulled one out of her apron and stabbed him in the hand repeatedly until the metal utensil went all the way through.

Staci was tied to the street post with sharp steel chains and gagged with a horse mask. The only people who would come to her rescue were religious protestors who were holding up rainbow-colored signs that said, “God hates gags.”

With a dirty old man in lingerie chasing her across the parking garage, Elizabeth tripped over her high heeled shoes and lost one of them in the process. When the old man got close enough, he went after the shoe instead and took a huge sniff of the fetishized footwear.

Ronald McDonald approached the checkout isle of the grocery store with a basket full of goodies. Among the items purchased in unison were a bottle of lotion, a box of tissues, and a copy of Teen Cosmopolitan magazine.

Terrance approached the speaker box at Wendy’s and placed the following order: “I’d like a bowl of chili with a finger in it, a double bacon cheeseburger with human jerky, and an unsweetened iced tea with a woman’s big toe floating near the top.” Without missing a beat, the clerk on the other end of the speaker said, “If everything on the screen is correct, that’ll be $8.99 at the first window.”

Jerry and Sonya stripped each other of their clothing for a night of intimate romance. To get the lovemaking started, Jerry said in an African accent, “I am the captain now!”

Jeremiah was busy in the barn milking the cow when Uncle Zeb entered with a disgusted look on his face and said, “That’s a bull, son.” Jeremiah smiled at the farm master and said, “I knew that.”

A hefty mall cop entered Victoria’s Secret looking for a man named Victor Timothy. When the sexy brunette clerk shortened the two given names and put them together, it became painfully clear to her what the mall cop was really looking for.

The photo shoot for the No H8 campaign required that the celebrities in question, Daniel Bryan and Brie Bella, put duct tape on their mouths as a form of protest against bullying. When all the needed pictures were taken, the photographer then produced two more “protest props”: a black leather gimp hood and a red rubber ball gag.

William took a bite of cherry pie and thought it was so delicious that he needed to know the ingredients. Jenny leaned her face seductively into his and listed the ingredients as rhubarb, chocolate-covered cherries, cane sugar, orange juice, and finally…the minced remains of William’s mother.

The charismatic spokesman for Metro PCS bounced a purple metal ball around with the message that phone service was only $40, period. After he continually drove home the point of “period power”, he was brutally run over by a semi-truck delivering Kotex products.

Thomas took a swig of chocolate milk and immediately had the urge to vomit himself inside out. When he looked at the milk jug, not only did the expiration date say January 2^nd, 1904, but the brand name was “Honey Bucket”.

Richard was told that a Playboy Bunny was waiting for him at the Motel 6 for a night of “sensual action”. When he opened the door, he got an entirely different kind of bunny: a 300 lb. mountain man in a Bugs Bunny outfit wielding a morning star.

Gatekeeper Kamala

Before I was permanently banned from Play By Web for not getting along with the admins, I had an RPG on that site called “Here In My Room”, named after the Incubus song from A Crow Left of the Murder. The premise of the game was that a kid would be in his room and all of the sudden he would get sucked into an imaginary world based on one of the items in said room. For example, if the kid had a Pink Floyd the Wall poster, he would probably find himself in an assembly line full of faceless children. If the kid had an NES cartridge of Super Mario Brothers 2, he’d find himself running away from Phanto masks in the desert. Why exactly these kids were going into these imaginary worlds, I’ll never know. I never figured that part out before I was banned. All I knew was that the one person who would guide these kids into their respective worlds was a Grim Reaper-like skeleton named Gatekeeper Kamala. In case you’re wondering, I didn’t take the name Kamala from the WWE legend of the same name. The two Kamalas couldn’t be any more different if one was a Ugandan homophobe and the other was a lesbian nun. Gatekeeper Kamala may have had the appearance of Death, but he was far from lethal. He may fight for his children, but he would never injure the children themselves. He would be the one who provided the children with their respective outfits and weapons as they enter their dangerous worlds. The player who went into the Pink Floyd world was dressed in rock fan clothing and was armed with a magical guitar. The player who went in the Super Mario world was utilizing a feather and a fire flower at the same time (like either of those things would defend him against Phanto). As I write these things down in my word document, I suddenly realize why Gatekeeper Kamala is bringing these children into these fantastical worlds. The real world is a much darker place to be for a teen due to bullying students, mean teachers, and strict parents. Even if the fantasy worlds are dangerous, they’re also places where the child is free to exercise his imagination and be whoever the hell he wants to be. Gatekeeper Kamala may have a deathly appearance, but he will be the one who unlocks the players’ minds. But as I’ve said earlier in this post, I’m no longer a member of Play By Web and I don’t have a long rolodex of friends I can call to play RPG’s with me. For the time being, Gatekeeper Kamala is unemployed. As long as fan fiction laws are in place, he may remain unemployed for a long time due to me possibly being sued for using copyrighted material in my stories. If Kamala is going to find a job in my imagination, it’ll be strictly for shits and giggles. No profits, unfortunately.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Started at the age of four. My mother went to the grocery store. Went sneaking through her bedroom door to find something in a size four. Sugar and spice and everything nice wasn’t made only for girls. GI Joe in pantyhose is making room for the one and only. King for a day, princess by dawn. King for a day in a leather thong. King for a day, princess by dawn. Just wait ‘til all the guys get a load of me. My daddy threw me in therapy. He thinks I’m not a real man. Who put the drag in drag queen. Don’t knock it until you tried it.”

-Green Day singing “King for a Day”-

The Bathory Brothers (Markus and Karlos)

If it hadn’t been for Five Finger Death Punch, I would have never known that the last name Bathory existed. I didn’t study Hungarian history, so the closest thing I have is the band’s guitarist Zoltan. But what about other Bathory’s in my life? What about the two dark knight brothers Markus and Karlos Bathory? When last we heard of them, they made an appearance in my poetry anthology Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage. I wrote heavy metal lyrics describing how they would stomp in the skulls of a hundred barbarians and peel the skins of a thousand dragons. You know, the stuff Beowulf could only dream of doing while jerking off in the “whale road“. Where did the Bathory brothers come from, anyways? Aside from the obvious answer of the bowels of hell, they actually do have a legitimate origin. They came to me in a dream I had one night about playing an alternative version of Super Mario World for the SNES. In addition to playing as Mario and Luigi, the obvious good guys, I also had the option of playing against the forces of good as the two evil sons of bitches known as Markus and Karlos Bathory, the black and red knight respectively. The dark knight brothers didn’t use pussy items like mushrooms, flowers, and feathers to bowl over their opponents. They had real weapons such as crossbows, magic wands, clubs, and war hammers. They also didn’t ride on a silly green dinosaur called Yoshi. They rode big ass armadillos, dragons, skeletal bulls, and anything else that could destroy their enemies just by walking over their tiny ass bodies. Now that you know both sides of the good and evil spectrums, which group of brothers do you think would win in a fight: a couple of fat-ass plumbers or a duo of brain-bashing, rib-cracking, flesh-ripping metal knights? All I can say to Mario and Luigi at this point is that they better have an unlimited supply of invincibility stars handy. The only way to defeat Markus and Karlos Bathory is by cheating. Even then, your chances are so slim it’s next to fucking impossible. So what shall I do with the two metal knights? Should they be part of a dark fantasy novel? Seems to be the most logical thing to do with them. They’re not getting enough attention in that poetry book, that’s for sure. Or maybe I could write a Mario Brothers fan fiction and somehow sneak the two knight siblings in the midst of the action. But once I figure out what to do with Markus and Karlos, then comes the question of whether they’re going to be antagonists or protagonists. We know they’re going to be villains, it’s just a matter of whether or not people choose to sympathize with them. If I can somehow make my audience sympathize with a couple of demonic warriors, I’ve got it made. I could retire early, you never know.

　

***CONCERT QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Are you guys fucking stupid or what?! You just kicked a chick in the face on purpose!”

-Ivan Moody, lead singer of Five Finger Death Punch-