It could be because I’ve been watching a lot of MSNBC and I’m following Cop Block on Face Book, but it seems to me there are a lot more instances of police brutality than there were before. Some commentators are even calling it the “militarization” of America’s police. Why shouldn’t they call it that? Innocent people are being shot, choked, and beaten to death for minor reasons and the police officers who are committing these heinous crimes are getting paid vacations instead of jail time. The US Department of Justice is truly an oxymoron these days.
With the police getting more brutal these days, is it any surprise in 2002 System of a Down released a song called “Mr. Jack”? You know the one I’m talking about. “Put your hands up, get out of the car! Fuck you, pig!” That’s the one. You can always count on System of a Down to satisfy your musical needs whenever you’re pissed off at those in power. They may be on an indefinite hiatus as of 2005, but their legacies as hardcore liberals aren’t going anywhere.
It’s a good thing that I have “Mr. Jack” on my computer, because police corruption happens to be one of my berserk buttons. In other words, it makes my brain explode with raw anger. My distrust of corrupt cops came at an early stage in my life. Don’t worry, they didn’t beat me or jail me or anything like that. It was the little things that annoyed me the most.
In 2001, a cop called my house wanting to know my father’s phone number or at least some way to get a hold of him. My dad blew some steam off at one of my mom’s friends and was being investigated for it. Of course, I didn’t know my father’s number off the top of my head, so the cop at the other end said, “Not being very helpful, are you?” No, I wasn’t, because I refuse to testify against my own family.
In 2002 on two different occasions, I was walking the streets at night as a way to clear my head of all the drama of living with schizophrenia (though I didn’t know the diagnosis at the time). Both times I got stopped by the police despite never having committed a crime. Apparently, walking the streets at night made me look very suspicious. Oooo!! Street walking! The cops in both scenarios asked me a bunch of questions and patted me down for weapons or drugs, neither of which I had because I’m not a sociopath.
Yes, these are stupid things to be angry at. I’d even dare say they’re small potatoes. But I was a teenager, so blowing things out of proportion wasn’t anything new to me. This is Mr. Anti-Conformist here, I knew everything in those days. Maybe I wasn’t mad at the actions of the cops so much as I was mad at the fact they thought I was a criminal and didn’t trust me. That’s part of why I hate reading news stories about police brutality. It could have happened to me at any time, but it didn’t, and I’m grateful for that.
There are plenty of songs out there that give the middle finger to the police, isn’t that right, NWA? “Mr. Jack” is one that attacks corrupt police instead of the levelheaded ones. Bill Maher said it best: if we had no police, real life would be a lot like “The Purge”. So let’s keep the good ones around and throw the shitty ones in jail. If prisons are supposed to be for-profit these days, then let’s grant the drug users their freedom and replace them with the corrupt cops. Serj Tankian and Daron Malakian are onboard with this. Are you?
What does all of this “Mr. Jack” sentiment mean for my writing? It’s simple: if I want to indulge in a fantasy of getting revenge on the corrupt cops, I have to make it as realistic as possible without sounding psychotic. I’ve made psychotic remarks about the police before and basically made an ass out of myself. My Drama 101 teacher said it best: peaceful intervention is more effectively historically than violent intervention. Isn’t that right, Gandhi? Isn’t that right, Martin Luther King? How about you, John Lennon, do you agree? I definitely have plans to do a revenge against authority novel sometime in the future. In the meantime, I’ve got plenty of short stories in this genre to go in “American Darkness 2: Live In Fear”.
To close off this blog entry, when I say “Put your hands up, get out of the car!”, you say, “Fuck you, pig!”
Put your hands up, get out of the car!
Put your hands up, get out of the car!
Put your hands up, get out of the car!
Put your hands up, get out of the car!
Fuck you, pig!
Fuck you, pig!
Fuck you, pig!
Fuck you, pig!
Put your hands up, get out of the car!
***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Legally drunk. If it’s legal, what’s the fucking problem? Leave my friend alone, Officer, he’s legally drunk!”
-George Carlin-
My older brother James has this habit of introducing me to certain media and then years later losing interest in it himself. He did it with the bands Crossfade, Nightwish, and Limp Bizkit. I still love those bands and James thinks they’re a bunch of big babies. In the late 90’s, he introduced me to Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (second edition). I became addicted to it and he now thinks D&D players have no life. James changes his interests more often than he changes his underwear (not that I would know anything about his underwear habits).
But if it wasn’t for him, two things would have happened. One, I would assume RPG’s are all hack and slash and no role-playing or puzzle solving (like the Final Fantasy franchise). And two, Charles Goodhorn would be an afterthought. I originally wanted to call him Charles Goldhorn (because I had a Lego piece that was a golden trumpet), but James advised me to tweak it to Goodhorn to fit Charles’ paladin class. That ended up being good advice.
As a D&D character in the late 90’s, Charles Goodhorn, a human paladin, reached level eight before he was never used again. Throughout those eight levels of awesome adventures, I learned what it meant to be a true good guy. Paladins have a strict code of behavior they need to conform to lest they lose their magical powers and become fighters without weapon specialization. They have to have a lawful good alignment, they have to donate money to a church or to poor people, they have to help the weak whenever in danger, and they can’t have henchmen who deviate from lawful goodness. I followed this code of behavior to a tee until one day at level eight, he broke the rules by assaulting someone of good alignment (at the time, I thought the guy was evil). While Charles never actually made the transformation into a fighter, he was never used again.
In 2010 when I was still writing movie scripts, Charles was revamped into an orc paladin and became a sheriff in the D&D-style fantasy movie Gangs of Kingston. He was basically one man trying to keep order in a town highly populated with criminals and sociopaths. The streets of Kingston were piled high with dead bodies and blood pools. That’s not an exaggeration, that’s what Kingston looked like.
After a while of being overwhelmed by his duties, Charles became apathetic over time and doesn’t reconsider his disposition until the main character, an elf warrior named Jonah Jeriqee, immerses himself too deeply into the gang system of Kingston and almost gets himself killed. This would have made an awesome movie, but unfortunately, I don’t live in Hollywood, so there’s no way it would have made it onto the big screen. Plus, 2010 was a time in my life where my writing had no literary influences and therefore suffered greatly.
That’s two times in a row where Charles Goodhorn has been overlooked, both as a human D&D character and an orcish movie character. If I ever do recycle him, I’d want him to be done right this time. He’s not going to be an apathetic sheriff nor his he going to get somebody’s alignment wrong and almost kill them. He’s going to be the perfect good guy until the very end. He can have a few flaws, but not so many that it changes him into a sociopath. If ever becomes perfect, he can be a side character. Either that, or he can be the lead character who earns his way to becoming perfect. Sounds like a perfect day for a D&D story. Sounds like an even better start to the third act of Fireball Nightmare (if I have one). My spine is tingling with delight! Either that or I need to see a chiropractor.
***JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: What does a futuristic police officer produce while he’s in the bathroom?
A: Robo Crap.
You know what the worst part is about having a boring life? You can run away from it for a little while. You can kick it in the Caribbean, you can mingle in Mexico, you can have fish and chips in the UK, but once the vacation is over, it’s back home to a boring life. It feels good to be home every time I come back from a sabbatical, but then the loneliness sets in and it’s back to the drawing board again. Although eating at Applebee’s isn’t considered a vacation, it was an escape from the boredom of home. And then when we were in the car, I had “Broken” by Seether and Amy Lee playing on my MP3 player to drive the point home, no pun intended.
This song was obviously recorded during a time in Shaun Morgan and Amy Lee’s lives when they were still a power couple. Two hard rock icons singing about how much they want to steal each other’s pain and how they’re broken when they’re lonesome. In other words, they couldn’t live without each other. And then one day in the mid 2000’s, they broke up in an ugly fashion and wrote hateful songs about each other. I’m not sure if Seether still plays “Broken” during their live sets, but I know it’s on their greatest hits album.
The reason “Broken” is so special to me is because it conveys the feeling of impending doom when it comes to my environment stealing my pain away. I can go to Canada as many times as I want, but in the end, I still have a slow-paced life here in Port Orchard, Washington. Sometimes a slow pace is a good thing, but it really becomes slow when the boredom keeps me from doing what I love the most: write my heart out. That’s when you know you have a boring life: you’re so bored that doing what you love isn’t what you feel like doing at all.
“Broken” also reminds me to find things to steal my pain more often so that I don’t have long gaps of boredom and sadness. That’s why it’s important to me to write Fireball Nightmare chapters as much as possible. And when I have writer’s block or I just plain don’t feel like writing my main prose, then I write an entry for Garrison’s Library or I write a journal for my Deviant Art account (my username is Garrison-Kelly and my avatar is the Jolly Green Giant (look me up)). And then there are times when reading a chapter of my book is enough to steal my pain. I’m currently reading “The Fault In Our Stars” by John Green and Augustus Waters is someone who could sing in the style of “Broken” and have it make sense.
I once had somebody tell me true happiness isn’t about the big things in life. It’s about finding little things and stringing them together to make a happy life. I’ve tried to follow that advice for so long and whenever I can’t, I turn to the music of Seether for comfort. One of these days, I’ll keep my stream of fun going into infinite. An occupied mind is a happy mind, which is something prisoners learn on their first day of incarceration. In a way, I feel like a prisoner of my own boredom. The pain theft would be the visitation rights that are granted to me by my friends and family. I can do this. I know I can.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“I don’t get hyped! I stay hyped!”
-Mojo Rawley-
When I first heard that Shy Guys from Mario Brothers 2 were hideous monsters underneath their robes, I was skeptical. They’re so darn cute and cuddly! Maybe there’s a teddy bear underneath. Or a Golden Retriever. Or a Russian Blue Hair kitty. Maybe even a domestic rat lives underneath that robe. Those sweet images I’m projecting on Shy Guy are the basis for a fan fiction character who was anything but a villain. Despite his last name, Sunny Demonseed was the definition of a honey bear.
In fact, Sunny was so cute, cuddly, and lovable he never made the cut when King Bowser and King Wart needed ninjas for their squad of assassins to hunt down Mario. Sunny was supposed to teach his attack dog how to rip someone to shreds. Instead, he rolled the puppy-duppy over and rubbed his belly. Bowser and Wart grabbed Sunny by his short little arms and dragged him into a place where he would never know the taste of freedom (unless it was covered in icing). From that moment on, Sunny Demonseed was supposed to be a dessert chef for his masters.
And boy, did he make some tasty treats. He made cakes that touched the ceiling with their pink frosting. He made strudels that were smothered in strawberry sauce (made with real strawberries, by the way). He made donuts that turned Bowser’s arteries into the Alaska Pipeline and Wart’s colon into the Puget Sound. Life was good as a dessert chef. It was even better when Sunny was assigned two new work partners: a grumpy Phanto named Duo Edict and a barbaric Goomba named Cleon Downstroy. Neither of his new acquaintances were ecstatic about working in a dessert kitchen, but if anybody could calm them down and restore happiness to the workplace, it was Sunny.
With lighthearted characters like Sunny, it would be inappropriate to put them in a dark fantasy nightmare like…well…Fireball Nightmare. The Mario franchise in general is cute and cuddly, and Sunny and friends should be as well. I was planning on putting Sunny, Duo, and Cleon in a Mario fan fiction movie script called Mario Thugs. It was chock full of comedic goodness and moments of infinite “aww’s”. But then things spiraled out of control without a real plot to keep the chaos contained. Ultimately, Mario Thugs was an aborted story and Sunny was left without a home. The most exposure he ever got was through a poem I don’t consider to be up to par anymore with my Confessions of a Schizophrenic Savage songs.
Sunny may have a childlike mind and a babyish body, but he’s not too young for employment, especially when it comes to my imagination. I know you all are going to point out my affinity for original fiction over fan fiction due to the former being profitable. The most I ever got in terms of profit was sixty cents. Besides, I’m not in the writing business because it’s lucrative (it’s not). I’m in it because I love the craft. I’m not a mercenary for hire. I have more money than I’ll ever need in my lifetime. If I want to write a fan fiction without worrying about being sued by Nintendo, then goddamn it, I’m going to do it! Someday, but not today. Fireball Nightmare needs further planning and I actually have to write the damn chapters.
***WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“I once worked at an orange juice factory, but I couldn’t concentrate, so I got canned.”
-Jerry “The King” Lawler-
I wouldn’t have my first Beastie Boys album until 2005 and it would be seven years later when Linkin Park would cover “Sabotage” at their Tacoma Dome concert with Incubus. In the summer of 2001, my education into King Adrock, MCA, and Mike-D would begin early with “Sabotage”, which sounds more like heavy metal than hip-hop.
My sophomore year of high school was winding down into vacation mode. Yes, I was still going to WF West in Shit-halis, I mean, Chehalis, but my sophomore year was much better than my freshman year. School still sucked, but things were getting better. My mental health was improving, I was introduced to Starcraft and Diablo II, I was hanging out with my neighbors Winn and Duncan more often, I had romantic crushes on two girls named Shona and Autumn, and finally, the Beastie Boys’ music was entering my life. Can you think of a better way to spend 2001?
So what exactly am I sabotaging with this nu metal song? Am I sabotaging the plans of my enemies to destroy my life with a stupid rumor? That must be it, because I’m still here today writing blog entries, novels, short stories, god knows what else. Maybe that song was an anthem for refusing to be a victim. I did watch a lot of WWE and ECW in those days, so maybe that tough guy mentality fused with “Sabotage’s” heavy flow was enough to create some bravery within me.
In the early 2000’s, bravery would mean something entirely different for me. It would be confused with belligerence, which means I absolutely had to insult and punch out everybody who attacked me even in the smallest ways. I took that mentality into battle with me in 2002 when I got into a mass argument on Play By Web over a foolish thing like age limits in adult games.
In 2005, I mellowed out a little bit. Not completely, but enough to be a part of a normal society. I still had my internet arguments here and there, but I’m proud to say I’ve never been to jail over my belligerent actions (not because I didn’t get caught, but because no crime was ever committed in the first place). I mellowed out just in time to be reintroduced to the music of The Beastie Boys. My brother bought three albums: Licensed to Ill, Hello Nasty, and To the 5 Burroughs, the latter of which cemented my status as a hardcore American liberal.
In 2012, tragedy struck the world of music when MCA lost his battle with throat cancer. Normally when a band member departs, a replacement is quickly found. It’s not so easy with The Beastie Boys’ music. They tend to drop their own names in their music, so finding someone to acknowledge themselves as MCA would be damned near impossible. The man was irreplaceable anyways. His lyrics were awesome, his rhythm was even more so, and he was an all-around great human being. He wasn’t an out-of-control jackass like a lot of celebrities today are. MCA was down to earth and he will always be remembered for his wonderful legacy. Rest in peace, Adam Yauch.
When I went to see Linkin Park and Incubus at the Tacoma Dome of that year, Linkin Park did a cover of “Sabotage” as a tribute to MCA (even though the song was technically sung by Adrock). With Chester Bennington screaming with passion into the microphone, it was a heavy and raucous tribute to one of the greatest rap bands of all time.
To think all of this history was made over one nu metal song. It’s like a domino effect: one thing leads to another and before you know it, a legacy is created. Every artist in the world can relate to the domino effect of life. Our life events, the media we take in, the people we associate with, they all come together as a palette for the artwork that is the human race. Everybody has a legacy of some kind and it’s because of that nobody is ever truly forgotten when they pass. Isn’t that right, Mr. Yauch?
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“You’ve been in the game and your career is long, but when you really break it down, you’ve only got two songs.”
-MCA rapping “Hey Fuck You” by The Beastie Boys-
Do any of you have the player’s handbook to Cyberpunk Version 2.0? If you do, you’ll see a quote from a solo named Morgan Blackhand (I always call him Morgan Handjob for kicks). He basically says warriors who walk around with heavy machineguns and big metal armor are stupid because they’re putting huge bull’s eyes on themselves. Apparently, cybernetic mercenaries are supposed to keep their work a secret from everyone else.
I bet Morgan Handout, or Morgan Handjob, isn’t feeling gutsy enough to shill his anti-heaviness philosophy to Kaz Berretta, one of the two main characters in my sci-fi movie script Say Goodbye. He’s a bounty hunter with thick metal armor and a mile long rocket shotgun. In the end, it didn’t matter to him what was in fashion that season, because he always brought the bad guys to justice and collected his pay. Kaz proves wearing heavy armor is only a hindrance if you actually care what people think of you. He couldn’t give two shits what people think of him. If they were scared, it was good for business. If they didn’t trust him, it didn’t matter, because he doesn’t need their help with that big ass shotgun.
But Kaz Berretta wasn’t just a blow-’em-up hitman for hire. He had a family to take care of. The main villain of Say Goodbye, a hog sorcerer named Zod, was supposed to be his highest-priced bounty yet. With that kind of money, poverty wouldn’t even be in the Berretta clan’s vocabulary. In fact, if they wanted to go to a Disneyland-style theme park called Fantasmic Land, goddamn it, they’ll do it and have lots of money remaining for other excursions.
Kaz would have been the father of the year if it hadn’t been for one small detail near the end of Say Goodbye. You see, he had a partner in crime named Ethan Stryker, who was a trench coat-wielding machete fighter. Ethan also had a family to provide for, a pregnant wife and an autistic child. Ethan didn’t always get along with his wife, so his wife turned to Kaz for comfort…and kisses…and hugs…and sweet monkey sex while Ethan’s son was secretly filming the whole thing on his smart phone.
And then when the Strykers and the Berrettas finally went on a vacation trip to Fantasmic Land and had a good time, Ethan saw the video of his wife having sex with Kaz. If you watch the show Cheaters every Saturday night like I do, you can imagine what kind of violence came about after the footage was seen. Unlike Cheaters, there was no shoving and faux UFC action. Ethan still had a machete and he went on a slashing rampage that took Kaz to hell with him…and other members of the Berretta and Stryker families that didn’t live long enough to be traumatized by the end of Say Goodbye. The bad guys lose, but then again, so do the good guys. It’s a bittersweet ending to say the least.
As a warrior, Kaz Berretta is a badass tank who loves to blow shit up. As a human being, he’s deeply flawed. These are apparently the two ingredients needed to make a likeable character. That means Kaz is more than qualified to be part of a future novel or short story with equal parts violence and drama. If I do use Kaz again someday, I might have to consider putting Ethan right next to him since they go together like burgers and fries. Their fighting styles and choice of combat clothing is different, but their tough mindsets are the same.
***LYRICS OF THE DAY***
“I haven’t cried since the day she left me, ‘cause that would mean that I admit it’s over.”
-My Darkest Days singing “Perfect”-
I would have never known this song existed if it hadn’t been for Wham’s original version from the 1980’s. But exist it does. There indeed is a hard rock version of “Careless Whisper” and it’s done by Seether. No, Shaun Morgan doesn’t scream his head off like most of the singers in my Windows Media Player do. In fact, Shaun Morgan sounds very pleasant. He reminds me of somebody I used to know from the early 1990’s who put out the albums Never Mind and In Utero. What’s that guy’s name again? It’s on the tip of my tongue. Hint, hint, wink, wink.
So why exactly would I pay tribute to Seether for doing a cover version of a song originated by a pop duo named Wham? Because Seether’s version is not only more energetic and depressing, but it was there for me when I walked out of the Grand Cinema in Tacoma after watching the movie “Obsoledia“. When I got in the car with my mom and step-dad Dale, it was the first song I listened to on my MP3 player. George will never dance with Sophie again, not like they did when they were out in Death Valley speculating the fate of the earth post-climate change.
“Careless Whisper” and “Obsoledia” are both mediums that will rip your heart to pieces. By the end of both of them, the beautiful relationships are over. It’s true that “Careless Whisper” wasn’t sung by Shaun Morgan with Amy Lee from Evanescence in mind. The two of them used to date and they don’t anymore. Judging from the fact the two of them wrote breakup songs about each other, the separation was pretty fucking brutal.
There was nothing ugly about the way “Obsoledia” ended. George was a lonely librarian who didn’t believe in love until he spent a weekend with Sophie. Just when this poor introvert was starting to believe in the power or romance, it was used to break his heart when it turned out Sophie already had a boyfriend. Obsoledia is about things that are obsolete in this world, so maybe Seether’s new and fresh version of “Careless Whisper” wouldn’t have fit with the movie’s theme. If it were any other canon, though, it would have worked to perfection.
Shaun Morgan and George were both people with broken hearts. I made this connection the night I saw Obsoledia and subsequently listened to “Careless Whisper” by Seether. In my short stories and novels, the power of love is a deity in and of itself. It’s worshiped to the fullest extent and executed with beauty. Characters fall in love with each other all the time, sometimes in the most inopportune times. “Not Gonna Die” and “If I Offer You My Soul”, anyone?
I can get away with that in literature, because a good story is better than a cold reality. In the real world, people get divorced and broken up all the time. When those breakups and divorces happen, they often involve a power struggle that may or may not involve violence or monetary possessiveness. We all want to believe in the power of love. But is it really there? Can it last a lifetime? Can it endure so many hardships that it becomes indestructible? The answers vary from person to person. But as long as Seether is singing “Careless Whisper” on my MP3 player, the jury will always be out on this one.
***FACE BOOK MEME OF THE DAY***
“If Katniss and Peeta from The Hunger Games were Hollywood celebrities, their super couple nickname would either be Kat-Pee or Pee-Niss.”
