Brutus Rager, Pro-Wrestler Turned Dirt Sheet Journalist from "Seven Star Reads"

 

Ridge Holland vs. Triple H

 

Crash Your Car

 VERSE 1

Screaming obscenities from your death machine

You’ve got some testicles the size of jelly beans

You’ve got a backbone like a number two pencil

Proudly write that shit down on a military stencil

It’s the luck of the draw that the two of us meet

Your party can only win if they fucking cheat

You can yell that shit with a bullhorn blaster

Your leash gets tighter in the hands of your master

CHORUS 1

I hope you crash your car and break your neck

I hope you burn to ashes in a fiery wreck

Maybe in the next life you should pump the brakes

Not confirm to the world your birth was a mistake

VERSE 2

I know we’ll never ever see each other again

If you have any left, go hide behind your friends

Go hide behind the privilege you had since a baby

Stop spitting your hatred like a mouthful of rabies

CHORUS 2

I hope you crash your car and break your ass

Unleash some sewage in your seat as well as gas

Maybe in the next life you should make a U-turn

Your vocabulary ain’t got room for sick burns

VERSE 3

The world left your ass behind a long time ago

Your noisy engine is fast, but your mind is slow

Maybe if you floor the pedal, you might catch up

But nobody’s allegiance is yours to snatch up

CHORUS 3

I hope you crash your car and smash your skull

With a fractured jaw, it’s hard to talk some bull

With a splattered brain, you’re not changing much

Maybe in the next life you should pull the clutch

I hope you crash your car and burn forever in hell

You’ll be dancing forever in a pyromantic spell

Maybe if you make your way back to the earth

You can be somebody who isn’t lower than dirt

Crippled

“Where the hell is the goddamn delivery boy?” asked Joe Herzog as she laid in bed with ice on her swollen knee. The ice did a tremendous job of numbing her pain. Getting pissed off over a late breakfast burrito did not, as evidenced by her hissing noise. “Why does the damn tournament have to be a week away? This is horseshit! All that work for nothing!” She pounded her mattress and sent another jolt through her leg. “Damn it!”

Figuring it wasn’t a good idea to wait in bed for the delivery boy, Joe wrapped her knee in a heavy black bandage and hobbled out of the bedroom wearing just a white T-shirt and blue sleeping shorts. Every hop had her mumbling, “Ouch!” in a low, grumpy voice. Anybody who made it to the finals of a martial arts tournament only to go down with an injury would be grumpy as well.

Her tiny gnome body made looking at her hallway of trophies and medals a chore. Twisting her neck backwards just to look at second place accolades made her shake her head in disgust. “This is bullshit…this is fucking bullshit…” She resumed mumbling, “Ouch!” as she hobbled down the hall of shame and into the living room.

Resting across her tree stump table was a blue karate dress, one she wouldn’t be wearing again for a long time. Joe wiped away a singular tear with her finger before hobbling and cursing towards the table. “I should probably just set this damn thing on fire. Besides which, who the hell wears a dress into combat? It ain’t like…” She glanced at herself in the full-length mirror and frowned at what she perceived to be a lack of beauty. Joe sighed and sat down on her eiderdown couch. “I’ll get rid of that damn dress some other time. Goddamn knee injury…”

All Joe wanted to do was close her eyes and relax until her food got here. The throbbing and pulsating of her knee kept her eyes wide open no matter how comfortable she tried to make herself. And then…there was a knock on the door. More like a feverous pounding that got louder every time Joe tried to ignore it. “That better be my food or else I’m jamming this good for nothing leg up someone’s ass.”

The pounding of both Joe’s heart and front door resumed. “Yeah, yeah, I’m coming!” She hobbled over to the rune-covered entrance, where the pounding grated on her ears some more. “I said I’m coming, damn it! This better be good!” Reaching for the doorknob on her tippy-toes, she almost fell over as she swung the door wide open. “It’s about damn time! Uh-oh…”

It wasn’t a delivery boy. The only food this man was carrying was in his wide gut, about three hundred pounds worth. The scaly orange skin, the dragon-like face, the rotund frame, and the jeans held up by suspenders. A cold sweat broke out over Joe’s face as she fell backwards, giving her a better view of “The Chiropractor” Bargon Sevili. The moniker was silly to her until she remembered that amateur wrestling was his strong suit. She swallowed a lump and said, “Bargon…wha…what are you doing here? The finals aren’t until next week.”

Bargon leaned his drooling face down and said in a deep, raspy voice, “Yes, I know!” He slathered his tongue across his already slimy lips. “Sweet gee-nee girl! Lovable midget pie! Love muffin! Come here and let me…”

Joe screamed in terror before he could finish his cutesy-wutesy sentence. She scrambled to get back up on one leg, but kept falling over and sending more shockwaves through her crippled knee. Her clutches and whiny screams didn’t earn enough sympathy from Bargon to get him to wipe his smile off of his face. In fact, his deafening footsteps on the stone floor made Joe’s head throb worse than her knee.

Instead of trying to get up, Joe crawled across her filthy stone floor using just her elbows to drag her little body. Bargon took his sweet time in approaching his opponent, though the thudding of his boots didn’t help in giving Joe any comfort. She crawled so quickly that cuts and bruises formed on her arms. She swung her bedroom door open and crawled some more.

With adrenaline flooding her system like a biblical disaster, she endured even more scrapes as she hurried over to her wooden chest. She nearly popped her arm out of her socket reaching for the latch, but open it she did. Joe stood up on both legs, her sense of urgency allowing her to numb out her knee pain. The faster she dug through her belongings, the louder the footsteps pounded. Her hands shook as she fiddled with a metal object and some tiny shells.

She loaded the shells into her single barrel shotgun as fast as she could, though not without having to pick them up after dropping them repeatedly. “Guess who, sugar britches!” Bargon taunted in his saccharine ogre voice. Joe didn’t give a shit about her knee anymore. She stood terra firma in the center of her room locked and loaded, her bruised arms still trembling with fear.

The minute Bargon kicked the door open and said, “Ta-da!”, Joe pulled the trigger. She needed this easy victory over someone who was supposed to wait until next week to fight her. She needed to be in first place for once in her life. But the shotgun jammed and blew her backwards, sending her crashing through her glass window and into the grass. Shards ripped at her flesh. Her arms were embedded with glass. Her knee pain flared up to infernal levels. Little droplets of blood stained the grass beneath her. She whined and cried like the second place loser she was.

Even on soft grass and dirt, Bargon’s footsteps grew more obnoxious the closer he got to his victim. He had to squeeze his wide ass through the broken window, but he arrived at his destination all the same. He held the shotgun over Joe’s blood-covered face and snapped it over his knee. He discarded the broken pieces and dusted his hands off like it was nothing. Leaning his head down so that he could be eye-level with Joe, he said, “Give me your knee, you sweet piece of pumpkin pie!”

“Oh god…Oh my god…Please, just get it over with. Anywhere but the knee. Literally anywhere else!”

Despite Joe’s pathetic begging, Bargon indeed grabbed her by the injured leg, causing her to cry out in agony. After picking off a few pieces of glass and getting even more ocular juices out of Joe, he asked, “Are you ready, little darling?”

“…As ready as I’ll ever be…” whimpered Joe as she covered her face with her scarred arms.

“Good, because this is going to hurt like a bitch!” Bargon made good on his promise. He yanked on the injured leg and had Joe yelling in a high pitched, demonic tone.

It did hurt like a bitch. It was the most agonizing thing Joe had been through. But the best part about it? It only hurt for a few seconds. And then the pain was gone. Was she in heaven? Was St. Peter already opening the pearly gates for her? No, she was still on planet earth outside her home. She uncovered her face and wiggled her leg. No pain. She knew the injury was still there, but she didn’t feel like dying afterwards. “You…you really are a chiropractor? Um…uh…thanks?”

Bargon grabbed Joe by her shirt and leaned in so that they were nose-to-nose. His breath radiated with skunk odors, probably due to him not brushing his fangs in a long time. “I don’t need your thanks, Joey-Bowie. All I need from you is to be one hundred percent in the finals next week. That way, when I beat the living piss out of you, there’ll be no excuses. No knee injuries, no glass shards, no bullshit. If you lose to me and get second place again, you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself. You got it?” He threw her against the grass and said, “See you next week, sugar plum” before blowing her a kiss and walking away.

Any gratitude Joe felt for her opponent twisted in the wind when she noticed a foil-wrapped burrito sticking out of his back pocket. “Hey! That’s my breakfast, you asshole!”

Bargon pulled the burrito out of his pocket, unwrapped it, and took a massive bite out of it. With a full mouth, he said, “It’s my breakfast now! Besides, if you want to beat me in the finals and be a winner for the first time in your mediocre career, you’ve got to eat better than this. You’re getting a little chunky around the belly. See you soon!”

As the demonic ogre walked away, Joe clenched her fists and stood up, her knee staying pain free the entire time. She wasn’t thinking about burning her karate dress anymore. She wasn’t looking at her second place accolades with scorn. After a morning like this one, Joe Herzog had all the motivation she could ever want. She would train as hard as she damn well could. She would pump more iron, run more laps, and beat the training bag like it owed her a breakfast burrito.

With her muscles bulging and the shaky adrenaline morphing into raw anger, Joe shouted out, “You should have killed me when you had the chance, you fat pig! I’m not just going to beat you in the finals! I’m going to destroy your career! You hear me, Bargon Sevili?! You’re a dead motherfucker!” Joe raised her fists to the sky and let out a primal scream to anyone who would listen, letting them know that motivation was not an issue anymore.

Incelbordination, Chapter 12

“It’s over…it’s all over…I’m dead…” Oswald silently mouthed as he sat in his jail cell awaiting whatever hell was coming his way. “Shit, I’m already in hell. I’ve been in hell ever since I was fucking born!” he ranted while attempting to punch the cell bars. He pulled back at the last minute after learning his lesson in the interrogation room. But that was where the learning ended for him. Even if he somehow was found not guilty for these pseudo crimes, he figured he’d get expelled from college in a heartbeat. Then what? Why all the hard work if it was just going to be ripped away from him? “This is bullshit!”

“Oh, please! Stop being such a baby. At least you’ll live another day,” said a familiar feminine voice from within the cell. Oswald hopped down from his bunk and got a better look at the shadows covering this woman’s face. It wasn’t a woman at all. It was the teenager from McDonald’s, complete with a black eye and scratches on her bare legs.

Referring to the “live another day” remark, Oswald asked, “What are you, a fucking fortune teller now?”

“No. I’m just stating the facts,” the girl said while sitting on her own bunker and swinging her aching feet. “It finally happened. I got picked up. At least you have a future of some kind. Me? I’ve lost everything. Can’t you tell how happy I am? Maybe I should try again at getting someone to buy a Hap-Hap-Happy Meal for me!” She swung her arm in mock joy to drive home her point.

“At least you’re not being accused of terrorism,” said Oswald with rolled eyes and folded arms.

“Terrorism, shmerrorism. As long as you didn’t do a damn thing, they can’t hold you forever. I’m the only one between the two of us who actually committed a crime. Meanwhile, my asshole client is probably partying it up somewhere. Nobody will tell me what happened to him.” The girl laid on her back and placed both hands behind her head in a vain attempt to relax, which was nearly impossible to do on these rock-hard beds.

“How do you know what I’m being accused of?”

“Because you wouldn’t shut up about it!” snapped the prostitute.

It finally dawned on Oswald that he had been muttering to himself this whole time while being oblivious to everyone around him. He was so anxious, distracted, and traumatized that he had been arguing with his demons rather than real people. The little guy held his head and whined, “Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some weed.”

“I suppose it’s better for you than what I was eating at McDonald’s.” Oswald gave her a confused stare before she clarified, “I meant the food, you nimrod.”

“Oh…of course…well…” He cleared his throat and also tried in vain to relax on his iron bed. He suddenly remembered that he was injured when the uncomfortable bed aggravated his lower back wounds. He clutched his spine and muttered “Ow!” multiple times.

“So tell me…why did you leave me back there?” the teenager asked. “Were you afraid of getting arrested? But now you’re already in jail, so how’s that working out for you? I could have used your help, you know.”

“Pfft! Help with what? I already gave you an ass load of food.” Oswald got an awkward stare from the teen and clarified, “Ass load is a figure of speech, you fool! I wouldn’t do that to you even if you paid me instead of the other way around.”

That got a giggle from the teenager. “My name is Jessica, by the way.” Extending her arm halfway across the cell, she said, “I’d shake your hand right now, but I don’t feel like moving around. As you can tell, I’m pretty banged up. You don’t look so hot yourself, little guy.”

“My name isn’t little guy. It’s Oswald. I’d shake your hand too, but my knuckles are fucked up from punching a glass door. No terrorist in his right mind would do that for a woman.”

Holding her hands up, Jessica said, “Whoa, whoa, whoa…there’s a woman in your life that I’m not aware of? And you came to McDonald’s looking for a good time?”

Oswald shrugged. “Eh, she’s not really my girlfriend. Then again, I’m not really boyfriend material. Too much baggage and not enough height to carry it all. I believe in certain terrorist circles, my type would be referred to as a manlet.”

“You know, you don’t need to hang around with people like that, Oz-Man.”

“Oz-Man? Never been called that before.”

“Get used to it, especially if you do someday hook up with a nice girl. Truth is, if Disney movies taught me anything, it’s that physical appearance is highly overrated. Sometimes all you have to do to win a woman’s heart is to be your sweet self.”

“Trust me, Jessica, I’m not sweet.”

“That’s because you don’t give yourself the chance to be. I still remember how nervous you were around me. You had all of this fast food to pay me with, which pretty much guarantees you a night of fun sex, and you still couldn’t steady yourself for just a few minutes. I’m not saying you have to be obnoxiously confident, but believing in yourself just a little bit might go a long way.”

Oswald sighed and shook his head. “I don’t know…”

Jessica sat up in her bed. “Oz-Man, look at me. You’re selling yourself shor…I mean…you’re not giving yourself enough credit. I don’t know what it is that’s holding you back, but you’ve got to let that shit go. Do you want to be miserable and angry along with the rest of the incels or do you want a little bit of happiness every now and then?”

Oswald sighed again and wiped a modicum of tears from his eyes. “Obviously, I want to be happy, but…”

“But nothing! Happiness is an inside job, don’t you know that? Believe it or not, there were times in my life when I was happy to be on this earth. I loved going to McDonald’s back when I didn’t have to hump anything that walked just for some chicken nuggets. They had a play place, a friendly clown, and some cool toys. Now…” Jessica wiped tears from her own eyes as well. “But no, go on, keep thinking that you’re miserable. Keep pretending that you’re the one who’s hurting.” The teen rolled over on her belly and sobbed silently into her pillow.

What the fuck am I doing here? Oswald thought. All of this legal trouble, all of this heartache, all of this sadness…for what? Sure, he was clinically depressed and anxious, but he knew in his heart of hearts he didn’t do enough for himself. Maybe there was truth in Valerie Sand giving him a C-. Maybe Nikita Johnson was right to take his pot away. Maybe Antero Magnus wasn’t much of a friend to begin with. And Wacey Judge? Well, he could just go fuck himself.

“Jessica…I’m sorry,” Oswald mouthed before being cut off by the sound of a baton banging against the bars. The sudden shock jolted the two cell mates into attention.

“Oswald Crow? You need to come with me now. It’s time to make a decision,” said the chunky police officer with his face covered in shadows.

Decision? What kind of decision? Oswald thought. He couldn’t help but give the guard a weird look on his way out of the cell. Was now the time to decide his plea? Did he have to choose which one of two sentences was the lesser evil? Did he have to choose whether he wanted to be prison raped or beaten to death? These were all unreasonable, yet solid questions, but the one thing Oswald couldn’t help but ask was, “Aren’t you a little out of shape to be a cop?”

Just like that a black hood was placed over his head, causing Oswald to thrash around despite his injuries. Documentaries he watched of water boarding, whipping, and suffocation in Gitmo flashed through his mind while various officers aided in keeping him stabilized. The dwarf was sure he wouldn’t survive such a hellhole. If this was his ticket to the afterlife, he’d rather live in misery despite Jessica’s young wisdom.

And then a familiar voice crept up from behind and asked Oswald a question he’d heard many times before: “Need a light?”

Incelbordination, Chapter 11

“Oswald Roman Crow (ORC?), you’re under arrest for drug possession and conspiracy to commit terrorism. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say or do will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to legal counsel. If you cannot afford your own attorney, the government will provide you with a public defender. Do you understand each of these rights as I’ve read them to you?”

“…It’s eleven o’clock at night. Give me a fucking break.”

“Fair enough. Come on, let’s go.”

Still exhausted from his temper tantrum, Oswald couldn’t even find it in his soul to resist Detective Mia Barry’s arrest. Then again, how could he with all of his injuries? Even the tightness of his handcuffs counted as an injury to him. Things got so painful for him that he had to be given a piggyback ride to the cop car, which wasn’t nearly as humiliating under Nikita’s guidance. “Goddamn Nikita…” Oswald thought.

Mere minutes later, the dwarf found himself with fresh bandages staring across a steel table from Mia, whose arms remained folded and face remained stoic throughout this process. He could barely see over the table, but he felt every inch of his interrogator’s mile long stare. He didn’t have the disadvantage of seeing this horrifying look during their first car ride together. Now the dwarf’s lips were trembling as he tried his hardest not to break. He remembered the “making you sweat” line and tried to steel his nerves.

“…Drug possession…and conspiracy to commit terrorism…wow, Oswald. Wow! It finally gave me a reason to look at your file a little more carefully. I had no idea your middle name was Roman. Your initials are…”

“Save it, Detective, I’ve heard that joke a thousand times and I’m fucking sick of it!” The sudden loudness in his own voice sent a wave of hot pain through his body, bandages and antibiotics be damned.

“Okay, I can live with that,” said Mia, still stoic as ever. “But here’s what I can’t live with: locking up a young man like you over the world’s biggest mistakes. It’s my least favorite part of the job, but it must be done if we’re to get any answers regarding your connections.”

The dwarf gave a flabbergasted smile and shrugged. “Connections? What connections? I told you, I’ve got nothing to do with Incelbordination! We’ve been over this shit many times already! Sure, they gave me a chance, then I turned away as soon as I saw how sick these people really are! Write that in your little file!”

“Don’t worry, Mr. Crow, I plan on doing so. I also plan on writing all about how you refuse to cooperate with us because of your dirty little secret. You know the one. The secret you wouldn’t spill to one Nikita Johnson?”

“That bitch!” Oswald said in a low whisper.

“Excuse me?” said Mia with raised eyebrows.

“Look, I told her the same thing I tell everybody else when they see me smoke that shit: I have a prescription for it. I’m depressed and anxious. You can ask my doctor if you don’t fucking believe me!”

“Well, that’s funny,” said Mia as she gently cleared her throat. “Because when we tried to get in touch with your doctor, he appeared to be on vacation. His receptionist didn’t seem too eager to tell me where. I figured it was somewhere in Jamaica, South America, or maybe even Mexico. Maybe.”

“It’s one hundred percent legal, damn it!” Oswald pounded the desk with his fist and completely forgot it was bandaged up for a reason. The cries of pain suggested he was instantly reminded. “Fucking hell!”

“Well, if what you say is true, then you probably feel confident sharing this secret with Nikita. After all, she says you saved her life in that attack on your school. But it begs the question…why her life and not somebody else’s? There were other kids that needed saving just as much as she did. Why are you so attentive to Nikita?”

With high eye-brows, an offended Oswald asked, “Are you suggesting that I only rescued her because she’s hot? Do you think I’m that desperate for a girlfriend? I punched through a glass door just to get to her! My hands look like shit! They feel like shit too! I didn’t do it because I expected anything from her!”

“Of course you didn’t, Oswald. After all, she hardly notices you in that class. Well, she knows who you are now, but did she really know you at all during those first few weeks of spring quarter? She seemed to think the same thing everybody else thought: that you were just there to fade into the background. I bet that just eats you up inside. I bet that chills you to your involuntarily celibate bones.”

“This is fucking bullshit!” shouted Oswald, sending another tremor through his body. “Goddamn it!”

“You really should take the bass out of your voice, my friend. You should save that lung power for when you take another hit of Mary-Jane. I heard that’s a popular drug in prison.”

“No! You can’t lock me up! You can’t fucking do this!”

Leaning her face closer to Oswald’s, Mia angrily whispered, “I can do whatever I want to you, little man! I could ship you off to Gitmo if that’s what you so deserve. A terrorist is a terrorist no matter what color his or her skin is.” The dwarf took short, nervous breaths at that remark. He eased up a bit when Mia leaned back and talked in her normal voice again. “But I’m not going to do that to you. You already know too much about Incelbordination. You’re too valuable to me. Then again, I could always ask one of the chubsters in ski masks if you’re not willing to cooperate.”

Taking deeper breaths now, Oswald shrugged and said, “I don’t even know what I could help you with! If you actually did your homework on these guys, you’d know that they do their shit online! They don’t use the same chat room twice! That’s the whole point! They thrive on anonymity because they don’t want Dickless Tracys like you sticking their noses in their business! You act like you’ve never done this before, Detective!”

“And you act like you’ve never written an English paper before!” That shut up Oswald in a hurry. “You’re already chest deep in shit, which isn’t unusual for someone as tiny as you, but this time you’ve got to take shit seriously. We’ve seized your computer, just like we always do whenever we book someone. My tech guys are working diligently to see if there’s anything on your hard drive that will connect you to Incelbordination. If you’ve got something to tell me, say it now and make my tech guys’ job a lot easier.”

Oswald folded his arms and said, “Get me my lawyer.”

“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll get plenty of legal counsel in the morning. You’re probably going to need it.”

“What do you mean in the morning?”

“I’m glad you asked.” Mia stood up and knocked on the interrogation room door. “Take the suspect away.”

Oswald thrashed around in his chair as soon as two uniformed police officers entered the room with sadistic frowns on their faces. “No, wait a minute, you can’t do that!”

“I can’t what, Oswald? Get you your obligatory public defender? Are you sure you want to do this right now while you still know everything?” The dwarf said nothing and sunk in his metal chair. “You’re staying in jail for the night, my friend. Normally, you’d be back at your dorm in an hour or so, but you’re hiding something from me and I want to know what the fuck it is. Take him away, boys.”

The two cops grabbed Oswald by the wrists and guided him out of the room while snapping orders like, “Let’s go! Move it!” During his trek to the holding cell, Oswald tried to figure out what it was he was fighting for. He could have just confessed everything and hoped for an easy ending.

But he had dealt with cops before and knew it was all happy horseshit. The cops often took the side of his bullies during those more illegal assaults in high school. Apparently, the feelings of football stars and cheerleader girlfriends were more important than that of an involuntarily celibate midget.

Now his feelings mattered even less in this dark and dank jail cell. Just one puff of Mary Jane was all he was secretly asking for. One cloud of smoke to dry away his forming tears. One taste of sweet cannabis nectar to cleanse his palette and get him ready for the bologna sandwich he was sure to get. It would do wonders for his bodily pain as well as his emotional. Then again, pain was the police’s business and business was booming.

If I Had Been Vince

(A WWE-themed parody of “Déjà vu” by Roger Waters.)

If I had been Vince

I would have rearranged the veins in my arms to make them more

Resistant to steroids and less prone to injury

If I had been Vince

I would have hired many indie guys and would not have suffered

John Cena to bury even one of them

If I had been McMahon

With my Raw and Smackdown brands

If I had been given the nod

I believe I could have done a better job

If I had been JBL

Patrolling the locker room showers

With an entitled sense of power

And the Twitter feed of a coward

I would be afraid to find Edge alone

I’d have the coldest set of stones

At least until I burn in hell

If I had been JBL

The company’s in ruins

And that’s a damn fact

The cheering fans are gone

The creative well is flat

The matches of dreams with no reason to fight

Because the CEO has to always be right

And it feels like the same old shit

The ratings go down, you’re throwing a fit

Counting the cost of main events lost

Under the mid-card to get slapped by the boss

It’s only $9.99 for the ultimate “April Fools”

Power Bomb

VERSE 1

Power bomb your ass through a flaming table

Put that brutal ass shit on late night cable

Power bomb your ass on a pile of thumb tacks

Bleeding out of everywhere after the attack

Power bomb your ass from seven feet high

Better grow wings, because you’re going to fly

Welcome to the injured reserved list, buddy

That hospital bill is going to cost a lot of money

CHORUS

Power bomb!

Power bomb!

Jack your back!

Realign your spine!

VERSE 2

Welcome to the match called Hell in a Cell

Your ass was dead from the opening bell

Welcome to the match called Elimination Chamber

It’s the perfect place for me to take out my anger

Welcome to the match called Tables, Ladders, and Chairs

Use them all as weapons, see if I fucking care

A power bomb will send you to your grave

So much for having more guts than brains

CHORUS

Power bomb!

Power bomb!

Jack your back!

Realign your spine!

VERSE 3

How many years will you spend at home?

How many years will you spend all alone?

Don’t even think of getting back in the ring

If I see you again, death is what I’ll bring

I’ll crush all of your championship dreams

Power bomb you until you burst at the seams

A bloody mess for the one who’s second best

Off to the hospital for a wonderful stress test

CHORUS X2

Power bomb!

Power bomb!

Jack your back!

Realign your spine!

Dominick Zola

Dominick Zola does not sparkle. He burns. He wraps himself in a fiery cocoon and brings entire cities to their knees with his occult powers. But why would he want to do any of that when he’s the highest ranking mafia boss in the city of Seattle? Does he not have enough machinegun-wielding vampire buddies to do his heavy lifting for him? The conundrum Mr. Zola faces now is whether he wants to burn Seattle to the ground or control its citizens for as long as he feels they’re useful. It’ll be a while before Dominick gets bored with his puppetry. He is a vampire, after all, meaning an average human will be nothing more than a speck of dirt by the time Mr. Zola is on a metal slab. Will they even have medical examiners that far in the future? Will the world still be whole by then?

This violent nut job was slated to be the main villain for a Vampire: the Masquerade RPG session between me and my good friend Heather. If that role-play would have materialized into something, Dominick Zola would be a hard villain to kill. Then again, powerful villains with god complexes shouldn’t be easy prey anyways. Look at the people who are trying to bring him to his knees: a pregnant rape victim (Heather’s character), a man-child vampire, a human detective, and a vampire nurse. This is clearly not a fair fight; Heather’s team needs more people. How many more people? Probably the same amount who conform to Dominick Zola’s beliefs on a regular basis, which is an entire crime syndicate.

Mr. Zola bears an uncanny resemblance to Bob Geldof’s character from Pink Floyd the Wall in terms of the way he influences people. Both are charismatic leaders in their own way: Dominick is a vampire warrior (and who wouldn’t want to follow a cool guy like a vampire warrior) while Pink is a rock star who fantasizes about turning his audience into Nazi skinheads. Both leaders use the crossed hammers symbol to get their message out there and they both like to use the phrase “Trust Us” as a slogan. Well, Pink doesn’t actually say that in the movie, but I have seen the slogan on Roger Waters T-shirts, as well as that same performer’s inflatable pig.

It may take an army to bring down Dominick Zola. It may take a mythical god. It may take the entire world population just to restrain him for a few seconds. No matter which way you slice it, you don’t stand a fucking chance against this warlord. There are two ways this campaign would have played out if it was allowed to continue. One way is for Heather’s pregnant character and her three friends to flee the state of Washington toward higher ground (I originally suggested Hawaii, but vampires tend to not do well in a state known for its constant sunshine). The other way would be to give the four characters enough fighting experience and build them up before the apocalyptic fight. The WWE does the same thing when they’re choosing wrestlers to compete in the main event: they give one wrestler a string of victories to make him look believable for when that championship opportunity arises.

Because the latter of the two scenarios is more likely to happen, I’m going to have to establish a new rule with Heather if I ever play with her again. From here on in, her characters are not allowed to get pregnant or get injured constantly. If her character ever does conceive, then she can’t be bummed out when a villain kicks or punches her in the stomach. As a GM, I demand action. There’s no action sitting on the sidelines. All of the action is on the frontlines and my players will find themselves right in the middle of it regardless of their characters’ condition. What’s that? You’ve got two broken legs and a concussion? Suck it up, buddy. If you’re looking for sympathy, look in the dictionary between shit and syphilis. Dominick Zola isn’t going to just commit suicide for your pleasure. Either strap your boots on or burn in his destruction.

　

***WRESTLING DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

JOURNALIST: What kind of action can we expect from you when you return?

BIG SHOW: I’m going to be picking my fucking nose, what do you think I’m going to do?

Artistic Democracy

An artistic democrat is much different from a political democrat. An artistic democrat is someone who cares so much about what his audience thinks of his work that he’s willing to sacrifice his own personal tastes just to please them. In high school, I would commonly refer to such people as “conformist bastards”. While I do realize that the audience will determine an author’s success due to sales, they shouldn’t control him completely. People get into the artistic business for the same reasons as everyone else: to satisfy their own creative urges. I can’t speak for everybody, but I’m pretty sure that Bentley Little doesn’t write horror stories because his audience forms a line outside his door and begs him to do so. In order for that to work, you have to find Bentley Little (he’s a little bit difficult to locate these days, even with a GPS signal). The same could be said about WWE superstars. Sure, they love to say that they do it for the people in their cute little promos (because that’s what heroic characters do: they pander to the crowd), but come on. Really? You don’t get more of a rush out of flying against the ropes and winning championship after championship? Truth is, if the public decided your fate, you wouldn’t be a fucking artist of any kind. You’d most likely be a lawyer, an accountant, a doctor, a data clerk, or any other lame ass job that although drains you dry does satisfy society’s needs. The people who do this kind of work like to brag about “contributing to society” and I just say, “Fuuuuuuuuuck you!” Do you really want to give gifts to the people who don’t give a shit about you? I’m pretty sure that if you’re a police officer who gets injured in the line of duty, going on social security indefinitely is not what society likes. It may be what keeps you from starving everyday, but it’s not what they want. And now I’m going to incorporate my own creative life into this blog like I normally do. I’m happy to write entertaining books about bloody action sequences and raunchy sex for you. If you enjoy my stories, good for you. If not, then that’s okay too, because nobody’s putting a gun to your head and forcing you to be a member of my audience. Unless you’re an editor with a genuine interest in furthering my career, don’t expect me to change my style for you. Either you love me or you leave me. Unlike our current governmental system, my creative life is not a democracy. On the contrary, I’m an autocrat and I rule with an iron fist. It’s the same iron fist my characters use to punch each other’s lights out with. The only way this will ever be a G-rated affair is if I’m playing the guitar and I break a G string while fingering A minor.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Conservatives need to find a channel for their anger and that channel is not Fox News.”

-Bill Maher-