Tom Morello (Rage Against the Machine) vs. Lacey Sturm (Flyleaf)

 

The Brown Ranger

***THE BROWN RANGER***

When I was a kid growing up in the early 90’s, I watched a lot of Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers. There was something about martial arts-loving high school students in colorful spandex suits and motorcycle helmets that made me believe in delicious violence. My favorite Power Ranger was always Tommy Oliver a.k.a. the Green/White Ranger. I don’t know what it was about him that I liked so much, but he was my favorite as well as my brother’s favorite. Maybe I kept having sympathy for him when Rita Repulsa kept trying to take his powers away. Maybe I wanted him to shack up with Kimberly a.k.a. the Pink Ranger. No matter what appealed to me about the show in general, I never forget my creative roots. Hip-hop music helped shape my poetry and Power Rangers helped shape my love for violent stories.

I’ve tried on two different occasions to bring the Power Rangers back into my life through the power of writing. I had to tread carefully both times because I could potentially be sued if I published these stories as my own (despite acknowledging that the Power Rangers are someone else’s property). The first attempt was a black comedy short story called “Kill the Power Rangers”, where a little fan girl named Wendi Kael was doing badly in school and would only do her homework at her stepfather’s threat of “killing the Power Rangers”. When Wendi tried to call his bluff, she found corpses all over the house dressed up in Power Rangers outfits, most notably the Blue Ranger with a garden hoe up his ass (get it? Because the actor is gay? Hee-hee-ho-ho…ugh). While the synopsis of this story made a lot of people laugh, I eventually had to abandon it due to too many plot holes and a painfully obvious Deus Ex Machina ending.

And then we have the second attempt at a Power Rangers homage with a novel idea called “The Brown Ranger”. Mind you, this never actually became a novel and the synopsis is no longer in my archives, so I’m flying blind here. The premise was that Rita Repulsa’s new monsters were too powerful for the original rainbow-colored rangers, so Zordon has to recruit a Bad Santa-esque loser named Shawn Hamlet to be his Brown Ranger. Shawn, who is an avid beer drinker and pot smoker, believes that Zordon is high on drugs himself if he thinks Shawn would make a good Power Ranger, let alone one whose uniform is the same color as shit. It takes a while for Shawn to accept his responsibility as earth’s guardian, but he eventually makes the most of his brown uniform by yelling, “Eat shit, motherfuckers!” as he charges into battle. I guess this too could be considered black comedy considering the main character’s penchant for swearing and drugs, both behaviors completely opposite of what normal Power Rangers preach.

So the question now is, what should I do with these two ideas? One was scrapped, the other never happened. If I had a chance to do them over again, I would. If I knew of a legal loophole that allowed me to use the Power Rangers name, I would exploit it. You could say that I could just publish these stories as fan fiction, but that’s not enough for me. I want them to be official works of mine and not just stories that are at the mercy of the legal system. I suppose I could use parody names, but where’s the authenticity in that? Author problems, ladies and gentlemen. Author problems.

But wait a minute…does the Brown Ranger actually have to be a Power Ranger? Can he instead be a D&D-style ranger who wears all brown and uses shit-themed insults on his opponents? Imagine littering in the forest and having to deal with Shawn Hamlet sticking a knife in your throat. If Carl Hiaasen wrote fantasy novels, this is how it would play out for sure. Maybe it’ll have more creative methods of violence than a knife threat, but you get the idea.

And now that I think about it, parodies aren’t so bad when applied correctly. If I wanted to keep the theme of Hiaasen-esque environmental terrorism, I could call them The Flower Rangers. They could dress up in hippie-themed spandex and save the world from oil tycoons who want to build pipelines in the most inappropriate places. Maybe the Flower Rangers (or the Brown Ranger in particular) could have been perfect foils to the jerk-offs who tried to build a pipeline through Native American burial grounds in North Dakota. So many ideas. So many goddamn ideas. I can actually feel my brain wake up after such a long time in exhaustive mode. Hehe!

But why should I have all of the fun? The question of the day, to you the audience, is how would you book The Brown Ranger? Yes, I know I just used a wrestling term (book), but you know what I mean…hopefully. How would The Brown Ranger play a pivotal role in whatever novel you were writing? Is he an environmental terrorist? Is he an army ranger? Is he a role model for small children? Is he sewer dwelling warrior? If you’ve got an idea you’d like to throw in the mix, feel free to let us hear it. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

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

The new contest started yesterday and the theme this week will be “Round Table”. Any medieval literature fans out there will know where a lot of authors at the WSS will take this prompt. For me personally? I’m doing something a little more autobiographical. In the style of the Awkward Behavior posts in my Garrison’s Library blog, this story will be called “Weirdo Alert” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Denny Smith, Bodily Functions Gimmick

2.      Louise Bradbury, Barista

PROMPT CONFORMITY: The tables at the coffee bar are round.

SYNOPSIS: Louise is working at a coffee bar at the mall when Denny sits down at one of her tables with a gigantic bucket of ice cream. As Denny eats the ice cream and slops it on himself, he also draws attention by blowing his nose loudly, gagging on his snot, and farting horrible stenches. Louise has to do something before all of her customers walk out on her.

OOC: I sure have a lot of American Darkness 2 characters with “Brad” in their last names. Actually, the only other two characters like that are Beth Bradshaw (D&D cleric from Emoticon Artist) and Eric Bradley (schizophrenic millennial from Cold and Scared).

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

In the wake of Marie Krepps creating a new book cover for and advertising the hell out of Occupy Wrestling (to which I give my never-ending thanks), my next Dark Fantasy Warrior will be one of Keegan’s monsters. He’s a scythe-wielding, psychopathic skeleton named Riley Warpthroat. Marie used to jokingly call him “Really Deepthroat”, but make no mistake about it, this monster is one of Mitch McLeod’s toughest opponents, especially during a time in the story where the World Champ is being worn down from all of these battles.

***FACE BOOK POST OF THE DAY***

(I think I just found the perfect intro for a song in Necrograph called “Why Are You Laughing at Me?”)

SMALL BOY: That Lacey Sturm is so pretty! When I grow up, I’m going to marry her!

CROWD: Hahahahahahaha!

SMALL BOY: W…why are you laughing at me?

CROWD: Hahahahahahahaha!

SMALL BOY: (sniff)…(sniff)…Why?

ACTUAL SONG CHORUS: Tell me why! Why are you laughing at me?! / Tell me who! Who should I try to be?! / Tell me what! What the fuck is your deal?! / Tell me how! How should I fucking feel?!

Obselidia

MOVIE TITLE: Obselidia
DIRECTOR: Diane Bell
YEAR: 2010
GENRE: Drama
RATING: PG-13 for language
GRADE: Pass

George is a librarian who moonlights as a cataloguist for obsolete and nostalgic items, all of which he hopes to document for a book he’s putting together. He even goes so far as to believe love is obsolete and therefore leads the lonely life of being single. When he meets a beautiful projectionist named Sophie, she tries to get him to come out of his shell as the two of them venture to Death Valley to interview a climate change scientist for George’s book. The ideas of love and the apocalypse collide in a debate about how we should spend our last minutes on earth if they truly are that. Will George live the rest of his life in isolation or will he believe in the power of love humans can give each other? Does he have anything in his heart for Sophie?

The three major themes of this movie (living life to the fullest, romance, and nostalgia) intertwine perfectly with each other as they try to bring George and Sophie together as a romantic couple. With nostalgia, they bond over how the past used to be a happy and simpler time, when technology wasn’t going berserk and people paid attention to each other. With living life to the fullest, they get hard hitting cynicism from the climate change scientist who believes all happy experiences will be erased because of humankind’s sins against the earth. With romance, it’s the classic tale of a socially awkward guy like George shying away from a flirtatious girl like Sophie. With the scientist feeding him all of this negativity, George has to struggle to believe in the power of love when Sophie tries to get in his social bubble.

Near the end of the movie, we ask ourselves if George’s struggle to suppress his inner negativity is worth it. While he does realize how the power of love can make someone happy, he also realizes how it can break his heart. While I won’t give away any spoilers, I will say that Sophie does break George’s heart in the end and he’s sobbing to himself in the comfort of his own home looking at pictures of their vacation together in Death Valley. That is such a powerful image that the audience watching has no choice but to question their own capacity for romantic love. This may not have been the message the movie was trying to send, but to my way of thinking, in this 50-50 bet between happiness and heartache, I was leaning towards heartache. I was so heartbroken and touched by the movie’s end that I spent the rest of the night listening to Seether’s cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”.

The best part about this movie is that it encourages the audience to ask questions instead of mindlessly conforming to a singular principal. If the world ends tomorrow, how will we spend our last hours on earth? Is romantic love worth all the struggles or does it lead to easy cynicism? Should we all love each other before it truly is indeed too late? Should we have as many experiences as we can despite the huge risk attached to them? Finding the answers to these questions takes a lot of courage and living with the answers is even scarier than that. Some people become so saddened by the answers that they resort to isolation or even worse, suicide. In the end, positivity will save us. It will get us through the hardships whether they’re in a personal relationship or part of a global crisis. If you’re going to attempt to answer these questions, make sure you do it without regret. Otherwise, temporary heartache will feel like permanent torture.

　

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“I love the way that your heart breaks with every injustice and deadly fate.”

-Flyleaf singing “Again”-