Concerts in February and March

***CONCERTS IN FEBRUARY AND MARCH***

Do you ever feel like you have stage fright even though you’re part of the audience and not the actual performer? The closer I get to the day of a concert, the more I feel this way myself. Don’t get me wrong, concerts are fun to go to and I’ll always jump at the opportunity to see my favorites. It could be my introverted nature, but when I enter a room full of that many people, I just feel like hiding in a corner. I can quickly calm down once I get settled in, but introverts don’t really like big gatherings, especially party-like atmospheres. Maybe it’s the aggression of my fellow concertgoers. Maybe it’s the drugs and booze they consume. Maybe it’s the crowd noise. Regardless of what it could be, I always try to find the loneliest space in the audience so that my batteries don’t drain too quickly. I don’t talk to anyone unless they talk to me. It was like that in school and it’s like that at a performance.

Despite the social malaise, I keep going back for more shows because I want to cherish these experiences forever. I call them one-day vacations because concerts are just as special to me as traveling to another country for a week or so. I purposefully post concerts I’ve been to as Life Events on Face Book. It seems like an arrogant thing to do, but I don’t care if nobody else does it. You know what else I like to do? Keep a personal ledger of concerts I’ve attended on my computer so that I can remind myself of the magic I experienced. Even the concerts where I’ve had negative experiences with members of the crowd, fuck it, I record those anyways. Drunken asshole at Pain in the Grass 2016? Fuck it, I record it. Femme fatale at a Pop Evil concert? I’ll record that experience too. Concerts and foreign vacations alike are badges of honor for the one who needs experience the most.

That’s why I’m happy to announce that in February and March of this year, I’ll be seeing three different shows, maybe more if they pop up on my radar. In the beginning of February, I’m going to Tacoma with my brother James to see Jason Mewes perform standup comedy. We both have seen him before in late 2017 and it’s actually one of my favorite experiences of all time. He made me laugh so hard that I sounded like a James Bond villain and made everyone else vicariously giggly. Jason Mewes actually stopped his set after I laughed and said, “I fucking love this guy!” We got to meet him after the show and he was a cool dude, every bit as goofy and funny as he is in Kevin Smith’s View Askew movies. Round two? Here we go!

Later in February, I’m going alone to see Soulfly in Seattle. This will be my third time seeing that band in concert, but my fourth time seeing a Max Cavalera-fronted band. I previously saw Soulfly in 2009 and 2018 and I saw Cavalera Conspiracy in 2015. All three times, Max was a heavy metal berserker onstage. He’s got the barbarian look with his bulky body, long dreadlocks, and fuzzy beard. He’s got the barbarian attitude with the way he makes everyone in the building jump the fuck up and mosh like animals. When I saw Soulfly in 2018, I blew my voice out because I was screaming along with their songs all night long. It’d be an honor to abuse my vocal cords again in 2019.

And then there’s the middle of March, where for the first time in my life, I’m going to see Within Temptation perform. The first song I ever heard by them was “Angels” and it was superimposed in a You Tube video celebrating the romance between former Nightwish vocalist Tarja Turunen and her husband Marcelo Cabuli. I didn’t buy my first Within Temptation record until 2014 or 2015 and that was the Hydra album. One kick-ass song begot another and it wasn’t long until I completed my collection of their CD’s. I was even able to convince my late Uncle Brian to become a Within Temptation fan. In his words, “Sharon Den Adel is soooooooo gorgeous!” Unfortunately, Brian died in a car accident after falling asleep at the wheel back in November. He never got to see Within Temptation perform before he passed. I’ll be moshing in his honor.

I know every time I do a blog entry about concerts I’m attending, I always say that they’ll affect my creative schedule in some way, but they never do. At least with a foreign country vacation, I’m away from the computer for a week at a time. Concerts? They’re only one day long. I’m back on the computer when I get home anyways so that I can record the concert as a Life Event on Face Book. I don’t have the Life Event feature on any other social media platform I use, so these blogs will have to do. Wish me luck on overcoming my social shyness! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain! Wait a minute, I’m not seeing Three Days Grace! What the hell?!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER PROGRESS***

After days of psychological torpor, I finally got around to writing chapter nine of Beautiful Monster. I got all of Windham and Tarja’s talking points out of the way before the two of them were thrust into a battle with Shelly Atwood’s goon squad. Chapter ten will be the actual unfolding of that battle. If you remember in the first draft, the battle ended when Windham whipped the shit out of a bandit for making rape jokes about him. In this new version, the battle will end a little more realistically, but the intense drama of it all will remain the same. How will it end? No spoilers for you! Nee-ner-nee-ner-nee-ner! I know something you don’t know! Nee-ner-nee-ner-nee-ner! I know something you don’t know!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Vanishing point of the blacktop. Shithole venue smells like rot. A thousand nights I left behind. Another tribe, another time. A brotherhood at stage right. A circle pit night after night. A congregation packed full of sinners. Another road, another winter. Broken bottles thrown in a fight. Cannot move, sold out tonight. Stage dive, no fucking glamour. Tonight’s show, it’s all that matters. Many were cursed and many alive. Carry a torch for those who have died. Carve your skin, a mosaic forever. Never say die, never say never. Feedback, feedback, not a fucking regret.”

-Soulfly singing “Feedback!”-

Pop Evil and Starset

***POP EVIL AND STARSET***

Tomorrow night I’m headed over to Seattle to see a Pop Evil concert at El Corazon and the following Wednesday I’m going back to that same venue to see Starset. With only two days of recuperation in between the two shows, I’m glad I got all of my creative work done today and the night before. Chapter fourteen of Silent Warrior is live and in color while my reading commitments are all caught up. I’m definitely ready to rock out in Seattle with two of my favorite rock bands.

The first time I heard Pop Evil’s music was when they opened for Papa Roach in 2013. The second time I saw them was at the Pain in the Grass festival in 2016. If you like explosive hard rock that can occasionally dip into sensitive territory, you’ll like Pop Evil. They have five albums to their name and their most recent self-titled project came out just a week ago. I bought “War of Angels” and “Lipstick On the Mirror” for my niece Reina on her fourteenth birthday back in January and she was grateful to say the least. I’m anticipating an awesome fucking show tomorrow night!

The first time I heard Starset was in 2014 on one of the Music Choice radio stations and it was their single “My Demons”. By the time they unleashed their next single “Carnivore”, I knew I had to have their Transmissions album, which is their first CD as a band. A year ago they came out with their sophomore effort Vessels and they’ve been going strong ever since. Starset has the gimmick of being space explorers warning humanity about the demise of mankind. It’s not meant to be cute or funny; the music and gimmick are actually quite emotional and can draw in a huge crowd on any given night.

I like to jokingly refer to rock concerts as one-day vacations, which is why I list them as life events on my Face Book page. It seems like I’m stroking myself when I do that, but I really do consider these concerts to be that important to me since the bands rarely visit my home state. I don’t do this with movies or books, because I can get that kind of experience at home without making any kind of pilgrimage to a stadium. Concerts? You have to get your ass out in public for those.

But just like with any pilgrimage to the city of rock, I will return safe, sound, and in perfect condition to continue my creative endeavors. I’m not fond of memes that say writers never take vacations. While it is true that not writing for a while makes us feel homesick, getting out and experiencing life is paramount to our creativity. You can’t have one without the other. That’s what makes Silent Warrior so special to me: because some of it (not all of it) is based on true experiences I’ve had as a teenager in high school. I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time!

***SILENT WARRIOR, CHAPTER 15***

I know one audience member in particular has been waiting patiently for a chapter told from the point of view of Mr. Simpson. Ask and you shall receive. In this chapter, the aloof history teacher barges into his daughter’s bedroom and confronts her about having sex with Scott. During this heated exchange, Adrienne (the daughter in question) exposes a secret to the reader that will give some insight into why Mr. Simpson is as insufferable as he is. What’s that secret? You’ll figure it out when the rest of the world does! No spoilers for you!

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“There are a lot of fine-looking women all over the world today. They don’t all bring you lasagna at work. Most of them will just cheat on you.”

-Silent Bob from “Clerks”-

Public Speaking

***PUBLIC SPEAKING***

Even though I did standup comedy and stage acting as a teenager, I can say with one hundred percent certainty that I can’t stand public speaking. Being nervous and forgetting my lines in front of that many people? Forget it, buddy. It wouldn’t be so bad if I could read from a script the entire time, but then I’m sacrificing that all-important eye contact with my audience. Also without a prepared script, I’m left having to fill time with other topics that I haven’t rehearsed. But as much as I can’t stand public speaking, it’s clear to me after watching one of Jenna Moreci’s You Tube videos that I’ll have to do it if I want to be a successful indie author.

Giving interviews, giving lectures, and recording my own online videos are all part of an author’s platform growth. Not only do I have to swallow my pride and do these things, but I have to sound confident too. In the words of Vince Lombardi, confidence is contagious, so is lack of confidence. If I stutter and stammer over my words, it’s going to stick out like a nun at a porn convention. This is especially noticeable at every job interview I’ve ever conducted. I’d speak in a quiet voice and take time to think about my answers. Not good!

So in order to get myself together long enough for an introvert’s worst nightmare, I’ve come up with my own gimmick for these events. Because I have a prescription for Xanax and they’re taken on an as-needed basis, I’m going to bring two pills and a bottle of water with me to every speech and swallow said pills in front of the audience. This is my own special way of telling them, “You did this to me!” without actually going berserk. Once the chill pills wash over me, I’ll probably sound like I just woke up from a nap, but that’s probably better than sounding like I’m terrified.

If the Xanax gimmick sounds a little suspicious to you, it shouldn’t. If something calms you down and makes you perform better in front of a crowd, why question it? I would never drink alcohol myself because of the way it turns otherwise normal people into rowdy assholes. But then you have people who drink before a performance and seem perfectly rational onstage. I don’t know what it is about booze that makes people courageous, but if it works for you and you don’t sound like a total douche, bottoms up. I wouldn’t recommend the hard drugs like cocaine and heroin. I’d be okay with marijuana, but that’s not really considered “hardcore”.

Shit, there are a lot of things people do in order to relax in front of an audience. When Kevin Smith was filming Clerks, the guy who played Randal, Jeff Anderson, would chew gum throughout the movie because it evens him out. Studies have shown that chewing gum is calming because it triggers the same part of the brain as eating. If you need further proof that eating is a calming and joyful experience, look at the size of my belly. If chewing gum helps Jeff Anderson get through his job, more power to him. I’ll even give him a giant wad of Bubbleicious Mondo (if they still sell that).

The easy solution to sounding confident in front of an audience would be to rehearse your lines over and over again. But rehearsing your lines and actually producing them to a crowd are two completely different animals. You could sound like a million bucks in front of a mirror, but with tens of thousands of people judging you with their eyes? Jesus fuck! It’s part of the reason why I wouldn’t want to be a rock star even though I fantasize about singing onstage almost every day. Rock stars tend to be extroverts while authors such as myself are hardcore introverts.

So now that I’ve revealed to the world that I’m calming myself down with Xanax before a big speech, all that’s left is to book some appearances where I’d have to engage the public. Unfortunately, I’m not famous enough to warrant an in-person interview, but that doesn’t mean I can’t make You Tube videos. I have a digital camera, so it’s not like I’m starving for the right technology. What I am starving for is the right topic to discuss. Sure, I could just talk about writing like I am now, but what specifically? These topics have to be carefully chosen and preferably ones where I’m an expert. What am I an expert in? Eh, I’ll figure it out eventually, just not right now.

Leaving the comfort zone is hard for a lot of people (myself included), but it’s a necessary step in becoming successful in the writing industry (or any other industry for that matter). The comfort zone is a beautiful place, but nothing ever grows there. I’ve been resisting this truth for far too long. I’ve always figured that sacrificing comfort wasn’t worth it in the end because whatever I did would be a bad decision anyways. Even though I now have a degree and an education, I consider going to WWU a bad decision because of the loneliness and scrutiny I experienced. I left the comfort zone and paid the price. If one of my readers would like to try and convince me to leave my comfort zone and make some You Tube videos, I’d be willing to listen. If not, that’s cool too. We’ve got ears, say cheers!

***AMERICAN DARKNESS 3***

Yesterday was one hell of a productive day for me. Not only did I write “Escape From Kentucky” and entered it into the WSS contest for that week, but I did a bunch of other things as well whether it was drawing Walt Magnus, reading my Kelly Carlin book, or even doing the laundry. Let’s keep the momentum going for a story called “Food Stomp”, which goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1.      Rollin O’Neil, Mentally Disabled Food Stamp User

2.      Mike Wolf, Robber

3.      Rachelle Daley, Robber

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: Mike and Rachelle wait until a Fudd Meyers grocery store closes and break in to rob it. The dark morning ensures they have no human obstacles, or at least they think so. Rollin keeps appearing out of nowhere like a ghost in an attempt to talk Mike and Rachelle out of robbing Fudd Meyers and making the store’s prices go up.

OOC: It’s easy to tell that this synopsis was written a long time ago, judging from how fucking short it is.

***QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“If you want to find out who your friends are, sink the ship. The first ones to jump are not your friends.”

-Marilyn Manson-

Slip Away

***SLIP AWAY***

If you’re single and you’re agonizing about it, stay as far away as possible from “Slip Away” by David Arkenstone and Charlee Brooks. The melodic and gentle piano, the somber bagpipes, and Charlee Brooks’ gorgeous voice will all come together to open those floodgates you call tear ducts. I have to be honest with you guys: Valentine’s Day was depressing this year. I’ve pretty much given up on agonizing over my single status, but I was so depressed that day that I ordered a pizza and ate the whole thing. The next day was much better, but Valentine’s Day was just…bleh! “Slip Away” was one of the songs I made the mistake of listening to on that lonely day. Here are the lyrics:


VERSE 1
The seasons change
And age our temporary souls
Chasing fate
Along it's winding road
Flames burn bright and pass into smoke
But our love
Will dance among the stars
Down the streets of gold

PRE-CHORUS
I am bound to you
By more than what divides us

CHORUS
Slip away, slip away sweet lover
Into an endless stream
Slip away, slip away sweet lover
And you can rescue me
Close your eyes
And drift into a shining memory
I'll see you again where the sky touches the sea

VERSE 2
And with your love
You've painted vivid colors on my heart
Your light will always illuminate my dark

PRE-CHORUS
I am bound to you
By more than what divides us

CHORUS
Slip away, slip away sweet lover
Into an endless stream
Slip away, slip away sweet lover
And you can rescue me
Close your eyes
And drift into a shining memory
I'll see you again where the sky touches the sea

ABRIDGED VERSE 1
The seasons change
And age our temporary souls
Chasing fate
Along it's winding road


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

For this week’s contest, the authors were given a list of quotes to choose from as their prompt. I chose mine and now I have a story to write. I’ve been needing an excuse to write “A Real Woman” for months now, especially after John Oliver did one of his monologues about transgender struggles.


CHARACTERS:

Jenny Andrews, Transgender Gym Student
Melissa Moore, Transphobic Bully
Jessica Sullivan, Kindred Spirit Gym Teacher
Random Female Gym Students

QUOTE OF CHOICE: "Behind every beautiful thing, there's some kind of pain." -Bob Dylan

SYNOPSIS: In the girls locker room at Richmond High School, a male-to-female transgender student named Jenny shows up to get changed into her workout clothes. She is confronted by Melissa, who believes she’s still a man and encourages other female students to gang up on her. A few cuts and bruises on Jenny’s body later, Miss Sullivan shows up to back everyone away and tend to the injured transsexual.


***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

Faye Blood’s drawing is now up and she is the second Dark Fantasy Warrior to be done with colored pencils. Up next, we’ve got another fierce fighting female: Jill Henderson, the racist mercenary from “Born to Die”. She was a giantess among insects, both in terms of physical stature and intimidating power.


***MOVIE DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***

RANDAL: Oh, what? What’s with you, man? You haven’t said anything for like twenty minutes! What the hell’s your problem?

DANTE: This life.

RANDAL: This life?

DANTE: Why do I have this life?

RANDAL: Have some chips, you’ll feel better.

DANTE: I’m stick in this pit working for less than a slave’s wages, I’m working on my day off, the goddamn steel shutters are closed, I smell like shoe polish, I have to deal with every backward ass fuck on the planet, my ex-girlfriend is catatonic after fucking a dead guy, and my present girlfriend has sucked thirty-six dicks.

RANDAL: Thirty-seven.

DANTE: My life’s in the shitter right now and if you don’t mind I’d like to stew a bit.

-Clerks-


***POST-SCRIPT***

Speaking of Clerks, does anybody here know if Kevin Smith is officially planning to make a third Clerks movie? The last time I heard, it’s going to feature a love triangle between Dante, Becky from the second movie, and Veronica from the first. I could be wrong.

Clerks II

MOVIE TITLE: Clerks II
DIRECTOR: Kevin Smith
YEAR: 2006
GENRE: Comedy
RATING: R for vulgar language and bestiality
GRADE: Pass


Dante Hicks shows up for work at the Quick Stop Convenience Store only to find out it burned to the ground after a coffee pot was negligently left on overnight. Fast forward to the present where he and his best friend Randal Graves now have jobs at a fast food restaurant. Randal still takes pleasure in screwing with the customers while Dante does what he did in the first movie and “over-compensates for having what’s basically a monkey’s job”. That, and Dante has another love triangle to take care of now that Caitlin and Veronica are gone from his life.

A comedy can only be a comedy if it’s funny. When I first saw this movie with my dad when it came out in theaters, I was laughing my ass off throughout the entire thing. It’s been twelve years since the first Clerks movie and Randal Graves still has his silver tongue. He even has an alternative ending to the Lord of the Rings movies since they’re not entertaining enough due to the constant walking scenes. He also has an interesting take on how “porch monkey” shouldn’t be a racial slur, but a normal insult.

And to top the whole thing off, for a going away party for Dante, he buys him a donkey show. If you don’t know what a donkey show is, don’t ask me, because I actually want to maintain my appetite. If it seems like I’m telling instead of showing, it’s because I want you to see these crass, but funny jokes for yourself and find your own laughter. When I was a kid, my dad used to spoil jokes for me by saying what they were before they happened on TV (because I would laugh twice that way). That drove me nuts.

In addition to being a hyena laugh comedy, Clerks II also has some serious philosophical messages that should be noted. Just like in the first movie with Caitlin and Veronica, Dante finds himself in a love triangle, but with two different women. He’s scheduled to marry a woman named Emma and go to Florida with her to get his life on the right track and start a car wash business.

Meanwhile, Dante is actually in love with his boss at the fast food joint Becky, who midway through the movie tells him that she’s pregnant. Right here it seems appropriate to quote a famous Glenn Frey song: “Are you going to stay with the one who loves you or are you going back to the one you love. Someone’s going to cry when they know they’ve lost you and someone’s going to thank their stars above.”

Which brings me to the main philosophical point the movie makes: live your life the way it makes sense to you and don’t let society’s standards dictate who you should be. Randal already knows what he wants from life: to eat free food, watch movies, insult customers, and hang out with Dante all day long, just like he did when he worked at RST Video. It’s not the most glamorous way to make a living, but it’s what Randal loves and nobody’s going to tell him he’s wrong.

Dante on the other hand is so much of a conformist that he’d rather go to Florida with Emma (who he could care less about) so that he can start a new life and be a “winner” in the eyes of the public. He doesn’t realize until the end of the movie that in making this bold move, he’s abandoning his best friend of many decades Randal and tearing him apart in the process. Dante is basically trading his individuality for a piece of the pie and part of his individuality is his longtime friendship with Randal.

A lot of Kevin Smith fans, my dad included, are firm believers that the first Clerks movie can never be topped. I respectfully disagree. When I saw this movie in 2006, I needed a good laugh due to my mental illness getting the best of me. Clerks II provided constant laughs throughout the entire movie and made me believe in life again. In fact, my horse laugh made everyone else in the movie theater laugh twice. They’d laugh once at the jokes in the movie and laugh again when they heard my own laugh. If you though that was something, wait until Clerks III comes out!

　

***MOVIE QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“I really wish you would have told me this when I first met you, that one day you were going to bail on our friendship. If I would have known you were going to flake on me a couple decades later, I wouldn’t have even bothered with your ass in the first place.”

-Randal to Dante-

Clerks

MOVIE TITLE: Clerks

GENRE: Independent Comedy

RATING: R for graphic language and sexual themes

GRADE: Pass

Convenience store clerk Dante Hicks is called into work on his day off and has to deal with a barrage of moronic customers from anti-smoking zealots to tabloid freaks to egg sorters to even two drug dealers named Jay and Silent Bob. To pass the time, Dante has philosophical pop culture conversations with his best friend Randal Graves, who works at the video store across the street. Dante’s love life is on the line as well as he contemplates keeping his loyal girlfriend Veronica or shacking up with his high school sweetheart Caitlin. All of the nasty things that happen to Dante reiterate his catchphrase “I’m not even supposed to be here today!” again and again.

Because it’s an R-rated movie, Clerks relies heavily upon crude sexual humor, the most prominent examples being the significance of the number 37 (don’t ask), Randal ordering porn movies in front of young customers, and Dante and Randal having a conversation about nudie booth janitors in front of an easily offended customer.

There’s also humor in the antics of the stupid customers who torment Dante and Randal on a frequent basis, the opening example being a Chewley’s Gum salesmen who riles up a crowd of smokers to sell more gum. Others include the “milk maids” (women who look for jugs of milk with the latest expiration date), a girl who asks for an item’s price even though the sign is right behind her, and a perverted old man who takes a porn magazine into the bathroom and dies on the toilet.

If the humor doesn’t get you laughing until your ribs hurt, it should at least make you crack a smile. As funny as this movie is, it also has a serious side to it near the end. The lesson learned from Dante’s love triangle is to choose the girl who loves him the most. It should be obvious to him, but strong crushes and even stronger memories make choosing hard.

The other lesson this film teaches is to take responsibility for your own actions. Dante was offered chances to go to college with Veronica, but instead he stuck around at the convenience store and he has to pay for that with his misery. He also gets in a fight with Randal near the end because he believed everything that went wrong that day was Randal’s fault. In short, if you’re in your 20’s, act like it. You’re not in high school anymore; you’re a man. Reckless zeal will cost you valuable opportunities.

Is it any coincidence Clerks was the breakout film for now famous director Kevin Smith? Is it also any coincidence this movie was a multiple-time award winner? How about the fact this movie earned cult classic status? If your skin is thick enough to withstand the sexual humor, give Clerks a try. I first saw this movie in 1998 when I was 13 years old. I didn’t understand a lot of the humor at first, but looking back now, there’s a reason Clerks was a staple of my youth: because it’s that damn good.