Yvette the Maid Is Here to Bring You Sex Positivity

 

Mr. Green from Clue vs. Toad from Super Mario Brothers 2: The Key to Victory Is...the Key to Victory!

 

Monuments of Cringe

There are certain parts of your past where you should not plant your flagpole. There are certain hills you don’t want to die on. There are certain dumpster fires in your life that will burn you so badly that your ashes will blow away like a fart in the wind. The other day I discovered one of mine that I’m probably going to regret sharing with the world. I signed up for a Letterboxd account so that I could have a place to post my movie reviews. One of those reviews was for the 1985 film adaptation of Clue. I wrote this review when I was thirty years old, so I should have been mature enough to not go through with this horrible shit. But in this review, I…um…I, uh…laughed at Miss Scarlet’s “fruit” joke about Mr. Green (who’s gay) and I…suggested that it’s okay to ogle Yvette the Maid before you realize what she looks like now that she’s older.

That Clue review was what I like to call a Monument of Cringe, of which I have thousands of all over the internet. I read what I wrote and I cringed in disgust. My face was the color of zerg piss. My body shivered like someone dropped a toaster in my bathtub. My insides melted into whale slurry at the thought of someone eventually finding this review and broadcasting it out the world. And then the internet celebrates my past mistake with the hashtag “Garrison Kelly Is Over Party”, although my writing career won’t be derailed because I never went far to begin with. I’m grateful to have a small audience. But what if it grows overnight and they wade through this museum of cringe together? All of my embarrassment broadcast for the world to see. Hell, I probably said some embarrassing shit in this essay right now that I’ll get raked over the coals because of.

So what do you do when you realize that you have Monuments of Cringe all over the internet? What do you do when you realize your own published books are Stonehenges of Cringe? What do you do when you realize you built an entire legacy out of being disgusting and horrible in the way you’ve written? Nothing. You don’t delete your entire social media presence. You don’t pull your books off the shelves. If you must apologize to your audience, do so in a genuine and heartfelt way. Don’t make excuses. Remind your audience that they deserve better behavior from someone they look up to. And when you promise to keep growing, keep that promise and be the best version of yourself that you can be.

Because the truth is, a lot of art from the past doesn’t age well. Remember Ace Ventura: Pet Detective? Remember how the audience hee-hawed when they discovered that Einhorn had a boner in her underwear? Well, if you’ve made any effort to unlearn that behavior, you’ll see that transphobia is more harmful than funny and should therefore stay out of comedy forever. Remember all those jokes you heard from Boomer comedians about how much they hate their wives? Remember when the ultra-fat dinner guest ate the “wafer-thin mint” in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life and then exploded all over the restaurant? Do you know why these things and many other pieces of media are now considered Monuments of Cringe? Because we’re (hopefully) learning more about the world around us. The more we learn, the more we apply it. And the more we apply it and grow into better people, the less likely we are to hold onto piss-poor nostalgia. That’s how life works: it progresses into the future.

I’ve decided after spiraling into disgust at my own past, I’m going to keep my Monuments of Cringe up. Not only do I have so many of them out there that I can’t get rid of them all, but I continue to create them in the present day and there will come a time when they age badly too. Learning to be a better person isn’t something that stops happening when you get to a certain point. It keeps going and going until the day you’re lowered into a wooden box with RIP scrawled across it. You can’t change the past no matter how hard you try. Yes, people will willingly see the ugliest parts of you before they see the best. But for every zergling and goblin that eats you alive, there are even more people who love you. You have to go out of your way to find them, but love is there if you look for it. Hell, there are people who still love J.K. Rowling even though she’s a transphobic bastard. There’s hope for you yet if you have even half the number of Monuments of Cringe that I do.

Perfection is a myth. Everybody has something they’re not proud of. Those who work on atoning for their worst behavior will successfully do so. Those who can’t admit it when they’ve fucked up? Well, let’s just say the over party will be complete with a disco ball and a bowl full of cheese dip. I’m telling you all now that if you happen to stumble upon my Monuments of Cringe and you think the worst of me, I apologize with all of my heart. If it’s years after the fact and another person finds them, I’ll apologize again. And if the future continues to roll on and I get called out for it again, I’ll apologize again. And again. And again. And again. While it is true that you can’t please everybody, you should at least try to be a halfway decent person even if perfection is indeed a myth. You may feel like you’re being looked at under a microscope. I do too sometimes. But if you think you feel alone, try being in the shoes of someone you’ve disenfranchised with your worst behavior.

But if you must hold an over party in my name, at least bring refreshments. Bring lots of Diet Coke. Bring enough pizzas to touch the ceiling. Bring enough bags of potato chips to give me the heart attack you’ve always wanted me to have. While I am sorry for every horrible thing I’ve said over my lifetime, I do indeed have a life to live. Will I live it with you? Will we eat potato chips together and dip them in a wading pool full of sour cream? Will we shove giant handfuls of cake in our mouths and talk about the world together (not with our mouths full, of course)? When I’m done atoning for my sins, I want to party with all of you. The Garrison Kelly over party has a conga line that I’ll gladly lead. Let’s party like it’s…a year that hopefully aged better than whatever god awful nonsense the 80’s and 90’s were. But if you ask me, I’ve erected more Monuments of Cringe in the 2000’s than at any point in my career. Remember Deus Shadowheart and Dr. Scott Cain? No? Good, let’s keep it that way.

Chronomancer

CHORUS 1

Chronomancer! Dickless Tracy!

Colonel Mouse Turd! Fucking face me!

I’ve paid for every one of my sins!

Throw your evidence in the garbage bin!

VERSE 1

Time is a weapon deadlier than a gun

Past, present, and future become one

Anxiety, depression, hostile aggression

Every mistake becomes worthy of mention

I’ve said I’m sorry about a million times

You’ve stayed quiet about your own crimes

How convenient since you need an attorney

To guide you through your criminal journey

CHORUS 2

Chronomancer! Sherlock Home Wrecker!

Missus Pee Cock! Go on record!

Tell everyone how horrible I am!

Forget your own sins, your own jam!

VERSE 2

The future looks grim for the atoners

Turning social butterflies into loners

Turning the past into something that lasts

Forever on a radio show on full blast

I’ve been explaining, yet you don’t hear me

Trying to make my own loved ones fear me

Chronomancer, you don’t have the answers

You’re just a loud and obnoxious bastard

BRIDGE

Those who truly need their final closure

Will always believe it’ll never be over

Thanks to you and your holy crusade

The trauma and drama will never fade

CHORUS 3

Chronomancer! TJ Crooked!

Mister Body Bag! I knew you wouldn’t

Have the guts to see this all the way through!

You’re just a disc jockey with a loose screw!

Pornomancer! You’re the cancer!

You’re the keeper of false answers!

Don’t even try to cast your stones!

You can’t even control your own bone!

Clue

***CLUE***

When older people tell you to put away your smart phone and interact with your friends and family, listen to them. Yes, text messages and Face Booking can be tons of fun, but none of it compares to the warmth you feel when you’re having a good time in the real world. It sounds ironic considering I’m typing this on my computer, but I wouldn’t be saying this if I didn’t just have an awesome game night with my niece Reina, my brother James, and his girlfriend Shara. We all got together one night and played the 2013 version of Clue. Shara won the first game, I won the other two, but that’s not the important part of this journal. The important part is, we’re closer than we’ve ever been because of that night.

Playing the 2013 version of Clue is more than just moving Sorry-like pegs around a square board while trying to solve a mystery. You can actually communicate with the other players and joke about how ridiculous the murder suspects look. Imagine that! But seriously, the murder suspects don’t look like devious people. The worst crime they’ve ever committed was wearing goofy hipster clothing, to which the fashion police would immediately administer the death penalty. Colonel Mustard doesn’t look like a real army soldier. He looks like he’s getting ready to record his debut auto-tuned album.

There are new rooms in the latest version of Clue. There’s an office where all of the geeky millennial technology is kept. There’s a “game room” where you can shoot pool and tea-bag your opponents on Halo. There’s also a bathroom in case Mr. Green has to drop a nuclear deuce that’s the same color as his name. Colonel Mustard has been in that bathroom so many times that it became another crime scene; it smells like a slaughterhouse!

Professor Plum had been a naughty boy that evening, or at least that was the general consensus among all of us. Maybe it was racial profiling of some kind. Can you really file a prejudice claim if you’re a purple people eater and a detective holds you in custody for more than six hours? Hell, he would have been purple anyways after getting a confession beaten out of him with the lead pipe during an hour of interrogation.

Yes, our three games of Clue felt more like standup comedy than an actual board game. But none of those jokes compared to what Shara did to make James crack up with ridiculous laughter. James was the one to make the accusation. Because Reina was seated to his left, she was the first one who was supposed to show him a piece of evidence. But instead, Shara showed Reina a piece of evidence in a moment she liked to call a “brain fart”. James’ laughter was so infectious that we were all cracking up like animals after that moment. Shara even jokingly threw her pencil at James after making a “monkey face” at him. Hehe!

I don’t care how many experience points you get from playing Diablo III. I don’t care how many likes your videos get on Face Book. I don’t even care how many short stories you’ve written. None of those technological moments can compare to sitting around the living room and laughing like hyenas throughout the whole night while making insensitive police jokes and joking about how the murder suspects look like hipster millennials. That, my friends, is why human interaction is more important than being imprisoned by technology. Yes, we depend on technology to get shit done these days, I’m no different. But no Skype chat or Face Book message can bring you the intimacy of human interaction. That’s why I don’t own a smart phone to begin with. I just have a generic cell phone that I only use when I need to bum a ride somewhere.

It won’t end with just Clue on a random Friday night. There’s going to be Scrabble (where I once got 40 points off of the word “bitch”), Dungeons & Dragons (which I’ve been itching to play for a while now), and maybe some Hero Quest if I can find a set that doesn’t cost 400 bucks on Amazon. I may be an introvert who craves privacy, but even I need my family and friends to be with me from time to time. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***WEEKLY SHORT STORY CONTESTS AND COMPANY***

It’s a new week at the WSS and the theme they’ve got going on is “Sixth Sense”. I’m not sure if this synopsis fits the prompt, but I’m going to try anyways. It’s called “The Aeromancer” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

Ryan Elkins, Patrolling Cop

Elizabeth Wilson, Aeromancer

PROMPT CONFORMITY: Elizabeth’s sixth sense is aeromancy, the ability to control wind.

SYNOPSIS: A powerful windstorm has knocked out the power in all of Dread City. With trees, power lines, and debris being blown in his way, Ryan patrols the city looking for people who need to get off the streets for fear of being injured in this storm. He sees a beautiful witch in the streets dancing and flailing her arms like she’s casting some sort of spell. When Ryan tries to coax her off the streets, it’s revealed that Elizabeth (the witch) is the one causing this windstorm using the ancient magic of aeromancy. When asked why she’s doing this, Elizabeth gives a speech about how technology is ruining lives and short-circuiting the power would bring families back together. A part of Ryan wants to do his job and arrest this woman while another wants to agree with her.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Moments before writing this journal, I drew a picture of Mathias Jorgenson from “Forever Autumn” just like I promised I would. However, I can’t use my scanner right now because I’m currently out of ink. Why I would need ink in order to scan a picture to the computer, I’ll never know, but it is what it is. I promise to upload Mathias’s drawing once I buy new ink cartridges from Staples. Until then, know that the next Dark Fantasy Warrior to come off the production line will be Viktor the Warlord from “Tiger Bullet Kick”. It’s been a long time since I’ve drawn a mummy. I believe the exact amount of time has been nine years. Holy shit!

***POISON TONGUE TALES***

I edited the hell out of the three M stories just like I promised; now the next three to come will spell out the word “NOO!!” with the first letters of their titles. I think it’s appropriate that they do. The stories are “Nail Bomb”, “Oswald the Giant”, and “Ottie-Doo”. Two animal stories and one that could never be accused of cuteness no matter how squeaky the baby doll’s voice is. This is going to be fun.

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Never walk out of a movie theater with your girl and say, “That Sigourney Weaver is a sexy woman!” Because later that night, you’re going to be sitting at home eating meatloaf going, “Hon, this meatloaf is a little dry.” She’ll say, “Well, why don’t you have Sigourney Weaver make you a meatloaf then!””

-Jeff Foxworthy-

Rachel Phoenix

NAME: Rachel Phoenix
AGE: 30
OCCUPATION: Elf Assassin
CANON: Tree Party Nation


With the way the 2010 D&D movie script Tree Party Nation was written, alignments were in multiple shades of gray instead of complete black and white. There were no good guys and bad guys and if there were, it would be hard to tell them apart. On one side of the battle, you have a group of environmentally conscious warriors called the Tree Party Nation, who have noble intentions of preserving their forest home, but go about it in a violent and sadistic way. The other side of the battle is Myles Blood’s Goliath Kingdom, where chopping down trees might seem cruel and unusual, but it does give his citizens good-paying jobs and develops his city. Two ambiguous forces of violence colliding and Rachel Phoenix happens to be on Myles Blood’s side.

But if you think this badass chick is a one-dimensional ass-kicker, think again. She also at one point had the capacity for love. In fact, she was the ex-fiance of the Tree Party Nation’s leader, half-elf ranger Barrett Croft. Rachel thought Barrett was too radical for her tastes, so she aligned herself with, in her mind, the voice of reason in Myles Blood, human cleric. However, just because she broke up with Barrett, it didn’t mean that she didn’t have any feelings for him remaining whatsoever. A very small part of Rachel wanted to be with him again.

By the movie’s end, she gets her wish. Barrett Croft broke out of a Goliath prison and held everyone hostage with a nail bomb detonator (yes, they have those in D&D somewhere). Barrett even had the device wrapped around Myles Blood’s chest to show the audience how serious he was. Brute force wasn’t going to put an end to such terrorism. Rachel’s love would. Both the Tree Party Nation and Goliath’s Army had lost a significant number of soldiers in this war.

Now Rachel must convince Barrett that it’s time to make love instead. She made him an offer he would never refuse: put down the bomb and run away to a faraway environmental paradise with her. They would never return to Goliath or have to deal with Myles Blood again. It’s just two love birds solidifying their romance. And it wasn’t an assassin’s prank either. This was true love. Barrett found it within his heart to put down the detonator and walk away in Rachel’s arms. That’s how the story ended.

Even as I write this plot down on a blank document, part of me is wondering why Tree Party Nation would be a dud of a creative project. There are three-dimensional characters everywhere, there’s plenty of fantasy violence to go around, and the ending is something everybody can be happy with whether you’re a diehard geek or a sucker for lovey-dovey ooey-gooey romance stories. I’d actually have to go back into my archives and reread Tree Party Nation to see why it would be a dud.

But then again, a part of me already knows why. First of all, it was written in the style of a movie script. Movie scripts matter…if you live in California. As I write this character profile, I currently live in Port Orchard, Washington, where the only things that matter are knitting, war stories, and loud vehicles. Secondly, the story was written in 2010, a time in my life where my writing was mediocre at best. In fact, I feel that way about anything I’ve written before mid-2013 when I joined the Weekly Short Story Contest and Company group on Good Reads.

It might be a prejudiced way of thinking, but that prejudice has oftentimes been completely justified. Canned dialogue, scattered story structure, undisruptive writing, these things make me afraid to reread Tree Party Nation. So if Rachel Phoenix is going to be used again, she will take part in yet another fantasy story whether it’s a novel I write or a D&D campaign I run. Where else would you find a woman named Rachel Phoenix who openly admits to being an elf assassin? There isn’t a whole lot of need for ninja stars and jagged daggers in a modern setting. Yeah, she’s definitely a fantasy kind of girl, in more ways than just the literary genre. Hehe!

　

***LITERARY QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If Clue was played with Dungeons & Dragons rules, you could beat a confession out of Colonel Mustard with the lead pipe and have sex with Miss Scarlet on the table of the conservatory.”

-David M. Ewalt, author of “Of Dice and Men”-