If You Don't Know Garrison Kelly, You Will Know Smokey Stevens

 

My theme music would be "Nine Lives" by Aerosmith and my finishing moves would be the Spear for pinfalls or The Stump Puller for submissions.

Booker T vs. Triple H

 

The "award-winning announcer" Booker T got buried in 2003 when Triple H not only made a bunch of racist jokes about him, but also beat him decisively at Wrestlemania and got no comeuppance for it. Now it appears the only burying going on is burying the hatchet between the two of them, so that they can join TKO in their quest for milking the fans' wallets for all they're worth with a mediocre product and high ticket prices.

Dave Grohl from Foo Fighters

 

Ghostbusters: Spectral Shenanigans, Vol. 1

BOOK TITLE: Ghostbusters: Spectral Shenanigans, Vol. 1

AUTHOR: Erik Burnham

YEAR: 2018

GENRE: Graphic Novel

SUBGENRE: Paranormal Comedy

GRADE: A

 

Sometimes a piece of literature doesn’t have to be super complex in order to earn an A grade from me. It can just be good simple fun like this one was. That’s really all I want from the books I read: to enjoy them and recommend them to anyone else who might be listening. And really, what’s not to love about the Ghostbusters franchise? If you’ve seen the 1980’s films or the cartoon that came out in the same decade, you know what you’re going to get with this series of comics: witty dialogue, paranormal goodness, slime (lots of slime), and main characters who play off each other’s flaws and strengths perfectly. Yes, Peter Venkmann is a creepy ladies’ man, but he’s a likeable creepy ladies’ man with friends who will keep him in check. He’s also a bit whiny when it comes to hard work, which is actually quite relatable. I can’t find any major flaws in this graphic novel, or maybe I really did want to enjoy it and I got my wish.

 

Even with the simplicity of the various plots, there’s one story that managed to stick out in my mind as kind of a heartbreaker. It’s the one where Egon Spengler tracks down an old college friend who carries death in a little pocket dimension. The friend was killed in a major car wreck, but you wouldn’t know that by the fact that he’s still walking around. The thing is, he doesn’t want to be transported to the other side. He wants to live his life and do all the things he wanted to do before the crash. We as the audience are so used to slimy creatures getting zapped with nuclear lasers that we don’t often see little nuggets of philosophy like this one. Will Egon send his friend to the netherworld like his job entails or will he just let it slide out of sympathy? That’s something you’re going to wrestle with for a while even after that particular story ends.

 

Another story that caught my attention was the final one where one of the Ghostbusters (I don’t remember which one) picks up a strange woman on the side of the road and tries to take her home. The only thing stopping him from doing that, of course, is the truck driver ghost who keeps stalking her. Nobody ever drove on these roads and lived to tell about it. Even if you believe this story has a happy conclusion, you still get chills from how it ended. You want to learn more about what the hell happened. You might want to pick up volume two to figure things out. These stories are too funny to be legitimately frightening, but this ending story comes pretty close once it draws to its conclusion. I won’t spoil the ending, but you’ve been warned.

 

One last note before I go: there’s a series of stories that take place when the Ghostbusters drive around America looking for jobs to do. They go to places like Detroit, New Orleans, Area 51, and a city close to where I live, Seattle. The attention to detail and the accuracies of how these cities are portrayed is one way for the author to flex his research muscles. Seattle actually looked like Seattle, Pike Place Market and all. Area 51 had all the aliens you could ask for, but the Ghostbusters knew that they were really ghosts. I love that even in a supernatural environment, aliens are treated with the same skepticism that they are in the real world. That made me chuckle on the inside. New Orleans was a metaphorical gold mine for ghosts given the city’s history with necromancy and voodoo, which is again accurate. These details go to show how important research is to an author’s success. I’m jealous!

 

As I said at the start of this review, this graphic novel and all the stories within don’t have any flaws that jump out at me. Yes, it’s not the most philosophical or groundbreaking thing I’ve ever read, but then again, it doesn’t have to be. Sometimes I just want to have a good time. Sometimes I just want to escape my reality for a little while. Is that alright with everyone here? This book gets a perfect five out of five. It’s a nice return to reading for me and that’s all I really need.

Dear Aunt Ruth 2023

Dear Aunt Ruth,

 

Thank you so much for the $20 check you sent me for my birthday. A little extra money will always be helpful to me. My kitty girl Piper had to go to the vet and the bill took a lot out of me. But she’s very much worth every penny. I love petting her and listening to her purr while she rubs her head against me. I hope to keep her for a long, long time even though she’s in her elder years now. She’s my little grandma kitty!

 

In a year full of creative burnout and generally low productivity, I did manage to find some silver linings in the first half of 2023. One of them was a rock concert in Seattle put on by Nothing More with Crown the Empire and Thousand Below opening for them. I had no idea who the openers were prior to going, but they delivered when it came to putting on a damn good show. I hope to own their entire discographies someday. Nothing More (yes, that is their band name) brought out the big guns with their energetic performances and emotional brand of rock and roll. They even have a machine made out of auto parts called the Scorpion Tail, which is used to create electronic sounds and basically give the lead singer something to go crazy on. This was my third time seeing Nothing More, with the previous two times being when they opened for Papa Roach in 2018 and opened for Ghost in 2019. Now that they had the stage all to themselves, they proved why they deserved to be headliners for many years to come. The fact that Nothing More has so little exposure just makes them criminally underrated. Anyone who likes heavy rock and roll should give them a listen. They won’t regret it.

 

But of course, not all of my silver linings can be about going out in public and mingling with strangers. Sometimes my introversion takes over and I need a good book to read. One of those good books was a collection of poetry and photography by Rachel Oates called “Reflections on Healing”. If you don’t know who she is, she’s a British Youtuber who make video essays about feminism, left-wing politics, atheism, and sometimes book reviews. She also occasionally shows off pictures of her Staffy dog Kyra, who has these saggy jowls and a permanently happy face. As good as Rachel’s poetry is in her book, the subject matter was incredibly heavy as it dealt with topics like psychological trauma, domestic violence, and growing up poor to name a few. But even with these difficult parts of her past, Rachel Oates has grown up to be a loving and kind human being, forever breaking the cycle of all the evil things that have happened to her. We celebrate cycle-breakers in this family, so her book gets five stars out of five, no question about it. Because the book contains poetry and it’s less than a hundred pages long, the reading experience goes by quickly, but the emotional connection stays with you forever.

 

Another book I read over the summer was a graphic novel called “Ghostbusters: Spectral Shenanigans, Vol. 1”. If you’ve ever watched a Ghostbusters movie before, then you know what you’re going to get out of this book: smart-ass characters, paranormal goodness, and a nice combination of comedy and drama. What fascinates me a lot about the Ghostbusters franchise as a whole is the names of the lead characters: Peter Venkmann, Ray Stantz, Egon Spengler, and Winston Zeddemore. I don’t know how the creators of the franchise came up with these names, but the style is definitely something you associate with Ghostbusters. Same thing when the 2016 all-female movie came out and had characters named Erin Gilbert, Abby Yates, Jillian Holtzmann, and Patty Tolan. Yep, those sound like Ghostbuster names to me. As an author myself, character names are interesting to me. I sure as hell won’t have any of my fictional characters be named John Smith or Jack Anderson. Boring! Anyways, before I get lost in my tangent, the graphic novel gets an easy five stars out of five. It was good, simple fun that didn’t appear to have any major flaws that I’m aware of. Sometimes that’s all a book has to be: good, simple fun.

 

The progress on my own writing has been slow due to constant burnout, but then again, resting up is just as important as the work itself. That’s something I have to constantly remind myself every time I feel like beating myself up. I’ve often referred to the 2020’s as the Golden Age of Tiredness, because everybody’s feeling exhausted due to one thing or another. We’ll get through this together. We’ll have up days and down days, but the exhaustion isn’t permanent no matter how many times it feels that way. I’ll have my day of victory, even if it’s not today or tomorrow. That $20 check will go a long way in making sure that happens. Thank you, Aunt Ruth. Thank you so much!

 

 

Love,

Garrison

I Left My Spoons in Kitsap County

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 1

I can trim your hedges, wash your dishes

Do your laundry, cook your fishes

But the minute I turn on my computer

I get back in bed to be a snoozer

They call it Spoon Theory, I believe it

My silverware drawer makes me want to sleep in

More forks and knives in my sensitive skin

Than a sewing cushion that’s covered in pins

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 2

Going to war inside my fucked up head

Leaves me wanting the comfort of my bed

Ain’t no peace treaty being signed today

So I take my forks and knives every which way

I went to a rock concert looking like hell

Zoning in and out, but no one could tell

Yet it feels like I’m under a magnifying glass

Eat a bag of popcorn to fatten my ass

CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

VERSE 3

I left the venue feeling like Superman

Alive with zeal just like an uber fan

But the real world smacked me in the balls

It was back to the grind and the faceplant fall

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Every bigot and troll wants to collect my bounty

My own cutlery drawer wants to cut me to pieces

Until the day my heartbeat finally ceases

EXTENDED CHORUS

I left my heart in San Francisco

I left my wallet in El Segundo

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Goddamn, I’m all over the place

I left my money in Seattle

I left my body somewhere in Tacoma

I left my spoons in Kitsap County

Where the fuck did they go?

Nothing More

Last night, I went to Seattle’s Neptune Theater to see Nothing More in concert with Crown the Empire and Thousand Below opening for them. I hadn’t heard the openers prior to that night, but I wouldn’t mind owning every CD they’ve got. They were energetic, they were badass, and they very much deserved to share a stage with Nothing More. Speaking of which, Nothing More put on a kick-ass show just like I expected them to. I blew my vocal cords out screaming along with “Go to War” and “Turn It Up Like”. I’ll always get a kick out of Jonny Hawkins using the Scorpion Tail machine to enhance the sound and just generally go nuts with it. Going nuts is the only way Nothing More does things, especially during the song “This Is the Time” and Jonny’s subsequent drumming afterwards. All in all, I’m glad I went to the concert, sore back and legs be damned. At the same time, I couldn’t wait to get home so that I could chug an entire pitcher of iced tea to soothe my throat. On a side note, I appreciate the fact that the Neptune Theater has an ocean mythology gimmick in its designs, with the tridents on the doors, the merfolk art on the stained glass windows, and so much more. I think concert venues in general should have creative gimmicks more often. I wouldn’t mind going to a place called the Barbarian Amphitheater if somebody built it. That would be the perfect venue for Jonny Hawkins to use the Scorpion Tail! But I’m getting ahead of myself…

Dear Aunt Ruth

Dear Aunt Ruth,

Thank you so much for the $20 check you sent me for Christmas. I haven’t decided what I’ll spend it on yet, but I guarantee it’ll go to a good place. That’s one New Year’s resolution that’s impossible for me to break. I’m well on my way to recovering from the flu I picked up earlier this month, so that means I’ll actually be able to go out and have a good time for a change. Or maybe I can spend it online and enjoy my snuggle time with my kitty daughter Piper. Since you’re always asking about the weather, it’s just rainy enough here in Washington State that I’ll have lots of opportunities to hunker down with one of my creative outlets. Writing you this letter is one of them.

Speaking of creative outlets, the year 2022 was a very slow one for me in terms of productivity. I can’t promise 2023 will be any different, but for the time being, I’ve got plenty to keep me busy on the days when I have even a modicum of energy. I only have two more character sheets to create before I’m ready to rewrite and edit Beautiful Monster for the fourth time. The two characters in question are the Savage twins: Christian and Kody (in case their redneck roots were ever in doubt). They’re both employees of the far-right mercenary group Shadow Asylum and they wouldn’t be out of place at the Crawford County Fare (which is still not progressive enough for my tastes as Cousin Liesl can attest to). They may be minor role characters, but they still deserve to have their back-stories fleshed out so that they won’t come across as cardboard cutouts to whoever’s reading about them. That’s the ultimate goal of my character sheets and world-building: to actually figure out what the hell I’m doing instead of writing from the seat of my pants. Wish me luck!

Reading has also been a slowly, but surely endeavor of mine, so much so that I consider it to be part of my creative work since it’s training me how to write. I’m currently 98 pages into Chicken Soup for the Pet Lover’s Soul, which is every bit as sweet and cuddly as one could expect from a book about animals. There’s a story about transporting an old doggy named Snoopy back to her family in Ohio via the “puppy express”. There’s a story about a three-legged cheetah inspiring a physically disabled former baseball player that there’s more to life than sulking around. There’s a story about giving a homeless man and his doggies some food to make it through another night on the streets. I’m only a quarter of the way through the book and already I’ve got aww’s to last me for a lifetime. But just like with most media published in the 1990’s, there are a few stories that haven’t aged very well, particularly ones about pet stores, selling horses to the circus, and a dog “purposefully” eating rat poison so that Gene Wilder will finally marry the dog’s owner. I still plan on reading through until the end to get my fill of otherwise lovable moments. I need those lovey-dovey moments now more than ever in the 2020’s.

And of course, I can’t stay barricaded in Piper’s Queendom forever, because later in March, I’m going to a Soulfly concert with James. It’ll be my fifth time seeing them and James’s second time. I’ve been listening to them since 2006 and I have all twelve of their albums. If they make a thirteenth, fourteenth, or fifteenth album, I’ll buy those too. Heavy metal has always been my go-to music whenever I need to get hyped up. I’ll have to stay outside the concert’s mosh pit, however, since those are notoriously rough during Soulfly shows. The event will take place at El Corazon, a nightclub in Seattle that has hosted Soulfly before as well as other bands like Hellyeah, Pop Evil, and Starset. Four bands that have very little in common and they’ve all passed through El Corazon’s doors. What will be my next show after this one? I don’t know yet, but hopefully it’ll be just as fun as seeing Soulfly for a fifth time. Rock concerts are therapy for me. I’ve also referred to them as holy pilgrimages, with the venue being the metaphorical temple. Seems accurate.

I’d love to tell you more about my 2023, but one novel is enough. I’ve also got a series of multi-chapter short stories to write, some movies to watch and review, Lego sets to build, characters to draw, I’ve got a lot on my plate and I’m glad that I do. Life would be pretty dull if all I did was work on one thing through it all. The best characters in fiction are the ones that have multiple interests, hobbies, and dreams instead of just one. The same could be said for real life people as well. We are all three-dimensional characters in this life with our own back-stories and original thoughts. Hopefully, this novel will have a happy ending for all of us.

Love,

Garrison

Make It Stop

It seemed like the world’s cruelest April Fools joke to live every day in a place like Meat Grinder City…except April Fools wasn’t just limited to one day of the year. At least the flames around the buildings and streets weren’t as tall as they once were. At least the sausage puppets walked normally down the sidewalks instead of jiggling around like lynched corpses. 

When their cyclopean eyes popping out of their mouths gazed harshly into Joel Upton’s soul, the sensation was only mildly chilling across his already sour stomach. He pulled the hood up on his thick rain jacket and tried not to draw too much attention to himself. Then again, he was already under this unforgiving city’s microscope as someone with no permanent residence outside of a garbage dumpster here and there. The smell wouldn’t come off no matter how hard it rained.

It wasn’t the sausage puppets walking past him that set Joel Upton’s brain on fire. It wasn’t the smaller-by-comparison fires that jolted his brain like a paper clip in a light socket. It was that laugh. That deep, throaty, horny laugh from behind that caused his heart to pump intolerably fast. The only breaths Joel could muster reeked of dumpster residue and rancid ashes. He slowly turned around and his worst tormenter towered over him as though Joel was dog shit underneath somebody’s shoe.

He almost snapped his own neck in half just to gaze upwards into the heartless eyes of Chainsaw Fist, a bulky, piss-stinking ogre with a metal jaw, an apron covered in blood, a necklace pieced together with skulls and intestines, and of course, a chainsaw/drill combination that just had to constantly be on fire in order to solidify the overkill of Meat Grinder City.

“Make it stop,” Joel whimpered. “Somebody please make it stop…”

Chainsaw Fist bellowed so hard that his garbage breath almost bowled his victim over. “Nobody’s going to make it stop, you weak little piss stain! Your writing career was a joke from the start! Nobody loves you, not even your own family! Why don’t you just quit like a little bitch!” He revved his flaming chainsaw. “I will make you tap out one way or another, you slimy sack of whale shit!”

Joel didn’t even have time to react before Chainsaw Fist tackled him to the ground and drilled his weapon into his victim’s gut, releasing a tidal wave of blood and spiritual energy. The sausage puppets drank the vile fluids like dogs lapping up garden hose water. The volcano of blood just wouldn’t stop. It kept exploding and destroying everything in its path. The spirits flying out of that festering wound laughed at Joel the entire time. And then…

“You’re weird,” said a little girl holding onto her father’s hand. The father mildly reprimanded her before the two of them left a writhing and screaming Joel to his devices. And just like that, Meat Grinder City was Seattle. Ordinary, urban Seattle with rainy weather, urban sprawl, and non-sausage puppet citizens wondering what the hell was wrong with Joel.

Having snapped back to reality, Joel rolled over onto his knees and frantically searched his raincoat, pulling a broken needle out of his breast pocket. “No…no, no, no…” he whined to himself. “I need more…where is that goddamn pharmacy?” He searched his coat again, this time for money, but all he could muster up were a few pennies and some broken lug nuts. “Make it stop…just someone please make it stop…”

The rain came down so hard upon Joel’s back that he flinched in pain. And there was his answer: they weren’t rain drops. They were scorpion tails. “Not again.” Scorpion tails continued to pound and stab him before he was thrust right back into Meat Grinder City, the flames around the buildings bursting sky high while the cutest of cute kids jiggled around like the sausage puppets they really were.

A familiar beefy hand pulled back Joel’s hood and slashed his skull open, laughing like a demonic pervert yet again. Once his brain was exposed for the whole world to see, the scorpion tails morphed into little gray kobolds with blade-like fingernails and childish cackles. They laughed and hee-hawed as they jumped into Joel’s head wound and started bouncing around behind his face. The headache was so intense that he covered his eyes out of fear of them popping out. They did anyways, but not without snake tentacles holding them in their mouths.

“Give up your career, you waste of shit and piss!” Chainsaw Fist roared. “This world hates you! Hell doesn’t want you! Heaven is disgusted by you! You’re a fuck-up of the very worst kind! You deserve to die like the pile of diarrhea that you are!”

“STOP IT! LEAVE ME ALONE! MAKE IT STOP!” Joel screeched, holding his aching head while the snakes and kobolds partied in his brain.

“You want to quit, you little bastard! Do you want to quit! Then quit like the little bitch baby you are! Tap out!”

The kobolds, sausage puppets, snakes, and Chainsaw Fist himself formed a circle around Joel and chanted for him to quit. The flames of Meat Grinder City grew to their maximum limit and caused Joel to suffocate on the ashes. Chainsaw Fist continued to slash and murder his lone victim. The kobolds made incoherent jokes about his suffering and laughed like hyenas on crack.

“…I quit…”

“I’m sorry, what was that? What did you say, you little cum guzzler?!”

“I QUIT! I QUIT, I QUIT, I QUIT!”

Joel’s broken body could finally relax even though he ached literally everywhere, even in places outside of his flesh suit.

“Wow…you really are pathetic, Joel. You really are the weakest bastard I’ve ever met. Let’s go, quitter!” Chainsaw Fist wrapped his intestinal necklace around Joel’s throat and dragged his exhaustively bloody body across the ashen cement. He was too destroyed to care. He had lived in Meat Grinder City for far too long. There were several moments during his homelessness where he could have quit. He wanted to believe there was still life left in him. But if there was, he’d put up at least a little bit of a struggle against his worst critic.

“You can’t quit mental illness, Mr. Upton,” said a throaty, yet gentle voice that belonged to a hairy demon with spikes all over his body. The room Joel found himself in was still covered in flames. But these were warm flames that glowed like an outdoor campfire. They hurt like hell. They burned down the last of his brain cells. But even in Meat Grinder City’s loneliest prison cell, Joel knew he could relax.

Then again, he had no choice since he was chained to a wooden table. He also had his head shaved and a metal helmet strapped to his naked scalp. The furry demon used his talon to jot down a few notes in his wizard’s spell book. “You probably don’t believe me right now, but this is the safest place you can be. The streets should be nobody’s home.”

Entering the prison cell were three porcelain mannequins, all of which had snakes growing out of their heads. One of them had muscles etched into his torso, another had the feminine features of a Greek goddess, and the third was a child no taller than an average human’s waist. The woman’s sweet voice struck a familiar chord with Joel. “Everything will be okay, honey. We still love you.”

Tears welled up in Joel’s already bloodshot and battered eyes. “Wendy? Is that you?” The face of the woman he fell in love with all those years ago formed behind her gorgon façade. And then the face of his daughter broke free from porcelain permanence. But who was this strange man who accompanied them?

Wendy held Joel’s hand while the snakes in her hair smiled at him. “You’ve been gone for so long ever since you had your breakdown. We never forgot about you. Yes, I have remarried, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love you anymore. I was so worried about you. Our daughter had nightmares.” The snakes wrapped around Joel for a hug. And then the daughter’s snakes wrapped around his legs. And the new husband’s snakes gave him the warmest grins.

“Wendy…I’m so sorry I didn’t seek help earlier. I didn’t want to quit what I poured my heart into for so long. I was so obsessed that it drove me insane…All I had to do was quit…”

“You don’t have to be strong anymore,” said Wendy with tears in her own eyes. “It’s okay to quit when you’re feeling overwhelmed. Nobody’s ashamed of you.”

“But what about those jerks on the street who laughed at me?” asked Joel through a stuffy nose.

“Fuck ‘em” said the new husband, which earned a round of laughter from everybody in the room.

Wendy and the daughter broke their embraces. The gorgon mother of his child said, “We’ll visit you for as long as we need to. If you need anything, we’re always a skip and a hop away.” She kissed her palm and waved goodbye, the daughter waving as well while the husband gave a thumbs up.

Joel’s tears accumulated as he watched his old family walk away, leaving the hair-covered demon doctor to do his duty. He pulled a snake fang out of his fur and attached it to a miniature spinning chainsaw. “You desperately need a vacation from your mind, Mr. Upton. And when you awaken, we can try some cognitive behavioral therapy. But for now…relax…and enjoy the darkness…”

Joel didn’t even try to fight the injection into his arm despite the fact that the needle resembled Chainsaw Fist’s favorite toy. Fire and poison flowed through his body, but they were just formalities to a much-needed vacation from a schizophrenic mind. He switched between Meat Grinder City and the psychiatric ward of the Seattle hospital while simultaneously drifting off into sleep. The furry monster became a friendly old man before morphing back into his nightmarish form. 

Back…and forth…back…and forth…the transformations resembled the motion of a baby in his mother’s arms…back…and forth…back…and forth…until darkness and snoring were all that remained of Meat Grinder City. Joel’s snoring did sound like a revving chainsaw, but that nasty ogre was nowhere to be found in such a black void of relaxation. No dreams. No hallucinations. Just hours of nothing. Getting lost in the nothing was a better vacation than Hawaiian beaches or Canadian architecture, both of which would have burst into flames anyways.

When Destruction Means Nothing

VERSE 1

You won a debate while sipping caramel coffee

Chugged the whole thing without even coughing

You could have won with duct tape on your mouth

Whether you were in Seattle or in the Deep South

Everyone says you destroyed your opponent

But you’ve forgotten one little minor component

Nobody changed their minds after it was all over

Couldn’t be more pissed off if traffic was slower

CHORUS

Destruction means nothing at all

Still breathing, they didn’t fall

When destruction means nothing

The world just keeps on sucking

VERSE 2

You say the best solution is to meet in the middle

Every time some murderer receives an acquittal

Every time a loved one drops dead from Corona

Every time that ICE deports a Jose or a Paloma

The middle of what? A bloody battleground?

An internet brouhaha with dug up Tweets found?

Can’t shake someone’s hand if they’re holding a gun

Especially if they must insist that their side really won

CHORUS

Destruction means nothing at all

Still breathing, they didn’t fall

When destruction means nothing

The world just keeps on sucking

BRIDGE

People only change if they want to do it

At some point you have to say, “Screw it!”

Some people are just stuck in their ways

Especially if their rhetoric heftily pays

VERSE 3

Murdered by words? They’re still sucking oxygen

It could be because they’re seeing a psychologist

Don’t be so open-minded that your brain falls out

Don’t choke on your tongue when it’s time to shout

CHORUS

Destruction means nothing at all

Still breathing, they didn’t fall

When destruction means nothing

The world just keeps on sucking

FINAL LINE

Destruction doesn’t mean jack shit, little man

My Name Is Starship Cobain

VERSE 1

My name is Starship Cobain and I’m from Washington State

The capitalist kiss of death is something I fucking hate

Lost my job at the Amazon warehouse, tossed out like trash

Now I live check-to-check by slaving away for Door Dash

I can deal with my pain with a roll of medical Mary-Jane

I’d smoke that shit regardless of what the lawmakers say

It’s as legal as whoring yourself out in the city of Las Vegas

Until the feds catch you with your pants down playing Sega

VERSE 2

My name is Starship Cobain and I’m from Port Orchard

They should really think about changing the name to Poor Tortured

Everybody’s got a truck and they all voted for Trump

They got the bumper stickers to prove it and the sense of a tree stump

Everybody’s transmission sounds like a smoker’s cough

If you turned it up to eleven and exploded their heads off

Not much to do here but sit in line at the Burger King

And order a hundred whoppers with a tank of onion rings

VERSE 3

My name is Starship Cobain, let’s all go to Seattle

And pray we don’t get caught up in a gangster gun battle

All I want out of this city is a show with Pop Evil

Fuck around in the mosh pit with some drunk ass people

I miss the days of Nirvana and that whole damn scene

A generation depressed when Kurt blew his head off clean

There were many imitators, but none of them could compare

To the gravelly voice that made your hair stand in the air

VERSE 4

My name is Starship Cobain, what does that even mean?

Hell if I know, it probably came to me in a dream

Or maybe it was chosen by my schizophrenic voices

Because from here on out, they’ll always make my choices

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!”-

Halestorm X In This Moment Concert

***HALESTORM X IN THIS MOMENT CONCERT***

It’s true, folks: I’ve been going to a lot of concerts this year alone. In chronological order, I’ve seen Pop Evil, Starset, Papa Roach, Soulfly, Breaking Benjamin, and Seether as headliners. This coming Friday, I’m going to see Halestorm and In This Moment as co-headliners in Seattle with New Years Day as their opener. It’ll be my first time seeing all three of these bands, so I’m happy for the new experience. I’ve been a fan of In This Moment since 2013 when their lead singer Maria Brink did a duet with Five Finger Death Punch (the song was called “Anywhere But Here”). I’ve been a fan of Halestorm ever since their lead singer Lzzy Hale did a duet with Device called “Close My Eyes Forever”. My CD collection of both bands is complete and I’m ready to see them on Friday. I’ve never heard New Years Day’s music before, so I hope they’re good!

If you’re wondering why I’m going to so many concerts lately, it’s because these shows are opportunities to get out of the house and engage the public. Even hardcore introverts need to socialize every now and then, though I don’t actively seek people in the audience to talk to. I don’t have a car of my own and the only places within walking distance worth going to are Fred Meyer, Quizno’s, Hi-Way Market, and Charlie’s Café. Not only are cars expensive to maintain and buy, but I don’t trust myself behind the wheel because I’m always thinking about having a schizophrenic attack in the middle of traffic. Schizophrenia thrives on stress and there’s nothing more stressful than being stuck in traffic. We don’t need a collision and we don’t need dead bodies. Other people in my family are more than happy to drive me to my respective venues, this Friday’s show being at the WaMu Theater near Century Link Field.

I’m Garrison Kelly and here’s hoping for a fun evening! Even when you feel like…no, wait, Three Days Grace isn’t going to be there. Oh well!

***SAVAGE BEATINGS***

Though I’m not technically allowed to publish Savage Beatings on my social media accounts, I will say that I’ve rewritten the first part out of five to accommodate for Marie Krepps’ suggested changes to Beautiful Monster. This time around, Windham’s emotions will be consistent, he won’t act like an emo teenager, and the world building in this fantasy setting will be as clear as day. I know Patrick in particular loved reading about psychotic Windham bloodying his foes, but in the interest of having a more realistic product, I can’t have Windham’s emotions bounce all over the place like a character from The Room. I also can’t have him eat psychedelic mushrooms and have him transform into Broken Matt Hardy meets Pink Floyd the Wall. My ears are open for the lovely Marie Krepps, because she knows best. Wish me luck!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“She’s only sixteen. She had the dreams of a girl. She thought she’d be in love. She’d thought she’d have the white picket fence. Now she stands on the corner. She sold herself to the streets. When the world gave up on her, she gave up on herself. She said, “Can anybody hear me?” She said, “Does anybody care?” The monster pulls up slowly. He asks her how much she is.”

-In This Moment singing “Out of Hell”-

Seether Concert

***SEETHER CONCERT***

Sometimes I feel like whenever I post a blog announcing my attendance at a concert, all I’m doing is stroking myself. It doesn’t help matters that I pad the text with potential ways in which these concerts could affect my creative life…even though most of the time they don’t. The last time it really did was when I went to the Pain in the Grass festival in 2016 and I wrote a heavy metal song about a drunken fool that sat next to me. Most of the time my concert experiences end up as life events on my Face Book page (now THAT’S what I call stroking myself). To be fair, though, I only post them that way because I don’t have a smart phone to take pictures and I don’t want to bring my digital camera into the mosh pit lest it gets smashed to pieces.

But it’s true, ladies and gentlemen: it’s that time again. This coming Tuesday, Seether is heading to Seattle’s Showbox SoDo and the bands that will open for them are 10 Years and The Dead Deads. I didn’t start listening to Seether until 2012 when they opened for Nickelback at the Tacoma Dome alongside Bush and My Darkest Days. The first Seether album I bought was their greatest hits collection from 2002 to 2013. My favorite songs back then were “Driven Under”, “Fine Again”, and their cover of Wham’s “Careless Whisper”. I also listened to Seether’s duet with Amy Lee called “Broken” on repeat when I came home from the movie theater after seeing Obselidia. Anyone who’s heard me talk about that movie knows it ripped my heart to shreds, so “Broken” was a more than appropriate song to soothe my feels. Seether has a reputation for soothing sorrowful and angry emotions. My collection of their CD’s is now complete and I’m ready for Tuesday.

I don’t have much else to say except for…I’m Garrison Kelly and I’ll see you next time! My brain decided to be in zombie mode today, so I don’t feel like doing a great deal of writing. On the positive side, I did get some reading done today. It won’t be long before I write a passing grade review of “Fifty Shames of Earl Grey” by Fanny Merkin (real name Andrew Shaffer). One reviewer accurately described this author as the Weird Al Yankovich of erotica. Who am I to disagree with him?

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Whoever said this pain would ever go away didn’t know what it meant to be here without you. Is everything you see reminding you of me? Does it hurt when you breathe too? ‘Cause it does when I do. I hate to feel this way. My days all feel the same. And yesterday was proof that tomorrow will too. No matter what they say, can’t drink it all away, ‘cause all that I do is think about you. When anybody says your name, I want to run away. I keep remembering I can’t forget you. It doesn’t matter what I try, it happens anyways. It’s been forever and I can’t forget you. With every single day, it won’t go away, the way I feel about you. And when it’s said and done, you’re the only one. And I can’t regret you, ‘cause I can’t forget you. Stop haunting my dreams. Please set me free.”

-My Darkest Days singing “Can’t Forget You”-

The Last Ice Man

***THE LAST ICE MAN***

Poor sportsmanship seems to be a common topic among my blog entries lately. I guess my brother James was right: I did take everything personally back in those days. Everything! One small example was when I threw punches at an Everlast in a mall and the clerk told me to stop. Being the sensitive small child I was, I cried my eyes out on the way to the car. But of course, this blog entry is called The Last Ice Man, and unless I was training to be the next Chuck Liddell, that’s not the main focus here. Instead we go back to the early 90’s where my parents, brother, and I went to an ice skating rink in either Seattle or Vancouver (I forget which one).

Skating has never been my favorite thing to do since I always fell on my ass due to a lack of dexterity. I kept secretly wishing for ice skates that were double-bladed and had a wide berth, but alas, The Secret didn’t come out until 2006, so I was SOL. On this particular day, I held onto the railing and grinded my blades against the ice, making a little depression where I was standing. Of course, the female staff didn’t appreciate this, so they told me to stop. That should have been the end of it, but because I was a six year old child with poor sportsmanship, I took it personally yet again.

When the female staff skated by again, I shook my fist at them the same way a ballerina would do to express nonverbal anger. No middle finger, no crossed arms, just a ballet fist shake that I learned about in the first grade while studying that particular form of theater. The female staff skated over and tried to physically remove me from the rink, but I kept holding onto the railing for dear life, even when more staff members came over to help her. They finally relented when my mom explained to them that I was autistic and didn’t know any better….at least I think that was the argument she used. While I didn’t dig my skates into the ice again, I did manage to do a few laps around the ice and fall on my ass some more.

In my blog entries about soccer and swimming respectively, I actually considered making those scenarios into full-length novels. In the case of soccer, I’ve got a synopsis and character cast ready, but no chapter-by-chapter analysis. In the case of swimming, I’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. But how exactly does one make a novel out of this particular scenario? Does the main character get traumatized after being banned from the rink? Does he hate skating anyways? Does he have to learn good sportsmanship the hard way? If nothing else, this is just a cute story that I’m sure some of my readers could relate to as children.

Boy, I really didn’t think this one through, did I? If nothing else, writing a new blog entry will give me the chance to make announcements about my future projects, starting with…

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

In case you couldn’t tell from the kinky action going on in chapter two, there are going to be future chapters of this novel with even more explicit sexual content, particularly chapters six and eleven. One of them will feature female-on-male rape and the other will feature consensual sex. No more spoilers beyond that! No, no, no! Then again, even Stevie Wonder could see this coming from miles away, so it’s not much of a spoiler.

***SHORT STORY***

I know I said months ago that I would discontinue American Darkness 3 because of how similar the stories were sounding. However, I’ve had this one idea that’s been rolling around in my head ever since drinking a shit ton of cold black tea, which is bad for schizophrenics in particular. Now that I think about it, black tea might be responsible for the brooding going on in my blog entry called “Wrestling With My Mind”. Green tea and jasmine tea don’t do that shit. But before I go too far down the rabbit hole, I want to present you all with a short story idea called “Everybody’s Rock”. It goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Clark Hall, Aloof Boyfriend
2. Sidney Farrow, Tearful Girlfriend

PROMPT CONFORMITY: To be announced.

SYNOPSIS: The apartment scene opens with Clark vegging out in front of the TV while Sidney is crying hysterically and trying to get his attention. After a while of prodding, Clark goes on a tirade about how his girlfriend cries about everything while he has his own pain that he’s supposed to keep on the inside, thus being “everybody’s rock”. Clark wants desperately to be able to fall to pieces the same way Sidney is, but being a man hasn’t allowed him to do that due to male stereotypes and the general discomfort of those around him. Sidney pushes her boyfriend some more in an attempt to open his floodgates once and for all, but Clark is stubborn as hell. Sooner or later, everybody cracks no matter how strong of a rock they are.

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Sunlight bright upon my pillow, lighter than an eiderdown. Will she let the weeping willow wind his branches around? Julia dream. Dreamboat queen. Queen of all my dreams. Every night I turn the light out waiting for my velvet bride. Will the scaly armadillo find me where I’m hiding? Julia dream. Dreamboat queen. Queen of all my dreams. Will the misty master break me? Will the key unlock my mind? Will my following footsteps catch me? Am I really dying? Julia dream. Dreamboat queen. Queen of all my dreams.”

-Pink Floyd singing “Julia Dream”-

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”-

Thank You

CHORUS 1

Thank you for saving my loneliest life

Thank you for standing right by my side

Thank you for all of the creative fuel

Thank you for standing against the cruel

VERSE 1

Whenever the world was something to fear

I’d blast all your lyrics in both of my ears

My soul was on fire, I’d never get tired

Of all the music my bleeding heart required

I could stand up to oppressive forces

Run through them all like knights on horses

Break the walls down with the heaviest sounds

Thank you for being worthy of the crown

CHORUS 2

Thank you for giving me a reason to live

Thank you for all of the blood that you give

Thank you for taking away all of my pain

Thank you for keeping me happy and sane

VERSE 2

Don’t listen to haters, they mean you harm

They could never live up to your badass charm

Don’t listen to stalkers, they don’t know love

They’re no different from the ones who shove

Don’t listen to critics, they’re never happy

If they won the lottery, they’d still feel crappy

Listen to your heart, listen to your friends

Listen to anyone who will stay until the end

CHORUS 3

Thank you for fighting for what you believe

Thank you for never being one to deceive

Thank you for all the melodies and madness

Thank you for curing my ultimate sadness

BRIDGE

I bought your entire CD collection

They feel like an adrenaline injection

Spreading the message like an infection

Being yourself was the only intention

FINAL LINE

Thank you for everything in this world! Goodnight! Be safe!

Upcoming Concerts

***UPCOMING CONCERTS***

Instead of posting four separate blog entries detailing my upcoming concerts, I’m going to kill all four of those birds with one stone. Actually, I shouldn’t do that, because killing birds with stones is fucking cruel (even if they are woodpeckers who pound on my walls at six in the morning). As per usual, these concerts (or mini-vacations as I call them) may or may not affect my ability to compete in WSS and/or engage in other creative activities, depending on my mental energy for those free days. Then again, they’re spaced far enough apart, so it may be a non-issue. Anyways, let’s get started.

This coming Friday night, I’m headed to the Pantaegus (SP?) Theater in Tacoma with my brother James and my dad to see Brian Regan perform standup comedy. James and Dad have been huge fans of his since the late 80’s and early 90’s. I haven’t followed Brian Regan as closely as they have, but this night will be a chance for the three of us to see each other nonetheless. My visits with Dad are few and far between save for Father’s Day, his birthday, and Christmas. This will be good for all of us. I hope Brian Regan is on his A-game Friday night, because I could use a good laugh.

The following Tuesday (August 1^st), I’m headed over to the White River Amphitheater in Auburn to see Green Day in concert, with their opening act being Catfish and the Bottlemen (whoever they are). I’ve seen Green Day twice in my life, once in 2005 at the Tacoma Dome and once in 2009 at the Key Arena in Seattle. Both times they’ve invited members of the audience to come onstage to help play songs. I play the piano myself, but I don’t think Billie Joe is going to call on me to keep up with him during “The Forgotten”. It should be an awesome show like always.

On August 9^th, Metallica is coming to Seattle’s Century Link Field with Avenged Sevenfold and Gojira opening for them. I’ve never seen any of these three bands before, but I know Metallica is going to be something special due to their involvement with bringing thrash metal to life in the 80’s. My first Metallica CD was “Ride the Lightning” and I listened to that one a lot as a small child. I listened to “Load” and the black album quite a bit in my teenaged years. I purchased their other albums and played them on shuffle in preparation for the concert.

And finally, on August 19^th, Incubus is coming to the White River Amphitheater with their opening act being Jimmy Eat World. I’ve seen Incubus two times before, once in 2004 at the Key Arena and once in 2012 at the Tacoma Dome when they opened for Linkin Park (rest in peace, Chester). Incubus recently came out with their eighth album, which is appropriately titled 8, and my favorite songs from that CD are “No Fun”, “Throw Out the Map” and “When I Became a Man” (as weird as that last one is).

The fifth item on this list of shows would have been Linkin Park playing at the Key Arena in Seattle with Snoop Dogg opening for them. But as we all found out this past Thursday, Chester Bennington committed suicide by hanging at the age of 41 and left a huge hole in the hearts of his loved ones, band mates, and fans. The surviving members of Linkin Park decided to cancel the rest of their One More Light tour out of respect for Chester. I can’t stress enough how depressing this news is. Linkin Park has been a huge part of my teenaged and adult life and they’ll always have a special place in my music collection. Maybe these other bands I’m seeing will pay tribute to Chester in some way whether it’s covering a Linkin Park song or a simple shout-out. That would be a touching sentiment. 

Rest in Peace, Chester Bennington

***REST IN PEACE, CHESTER BENNINGTON***

This morning (July 20^th, 2017), the lead singer of Linkin Park, Chester Bennington, committed suicide by hanging. When I first heard the news on Face Book, I thought I was going to bawl my eyes out right then and there. Linkin Park has been a huge part of my life since 2002 when I was experiencing schizophrenia in my senior year of high school. Their hard rock sound and thoughtful lyrics helped me through those tough times. I first heard their Hybrid Theory album when I was in gym class lifting weights. I saved up enough money and purchased that CD in 2003 and it become a huge part of getting me through Olympic College. My favorite songs on that album were Paper Cut, Place For My Head, and the bonus track My December. Ever since then, I’ve been buying Linkin Park albums until I had every last one of them.

I’ve seen Linkin Park in concert twice in my life, once in 2003 (or 2004) at the Tacoma Dome and once in 2012 at the same venue with Incubus opening for them. Both times, Chester was on his A-game with his aggressive vocals when it counted and softer crooning when we needed to be brought back to earth. In 2012, he paid tribute to the Beastie Boys when he screamed the vocals for “Sabotage” in the wake of MCA’s untimely death. The music nerd within me was going nuts during those performances. I was jumping up and down and moshing with the best of them, even during times of poor diets and bad exercise habits.

Their most recent album, One More Light, received a lot of criticism from diehard fans for being too much of a pop record instead of staying true to their roots. While it is true that experimenting with music can sometimes end badly, that’s not the case with this album, at least in my opinion. Yes, it’s different from what we’re used to hearing, but I love it nonetheless. My favorites on that album include Nobody Can Save Me, Heavy, and One More Light. I was looking forward to hearing those songs at my upcoming third time seeing Linkin Park live this October.

Speaking of the concert, the status of Linkin Park as a band is up in the air right now because of Chester’s death. Chances are, the concert date might be moved to a later time or it might be cancelled altogether. Maybe Mike Shinoda, who normally raps for Linkin Park, can take over Chester’s vocals. Maybe they’ll get a temporary stand-in until they can find someone permanent. Then again, there’s always the chance Linkin Park could break up over this. They haven’t released an official statement yet (it’s too early to do so), but I’m anxiously awaiting one in the weeks to come.

In the wake of Chester’s suicide, he left behind a wife and many children as well as his band mates. Having said that, I don’t believe it’s right to cast anger upon him for this or accuse him of being “selfish”. Never forget that the man had a lot of emotional trauma to deal with. He was raped repeatedly as a child by an older friend, he was a hardcore drug addict, he was bullied and beaten in high school, and his only escape from it all was Linkin Park. When you’re dealing with that much pain and agony, selfishness is the last reason in the world that should be applied. Psychological trauma is just as agonizing as any physical ailment, maybe even worse. Chester’s suicide left a huge hole in my heart as well as those of everyone around him. May he rest peacefully and may those who loved him recover from their heartache.

Brit Floyd Concert

***BEFORE I BEGIN: ROGER WATERS CONCERT***

Of all four times I’ve seen Roger Waters in concert, last Saturday night was by far his best performance. He may be north of 70 years old, but he hasn’t missed a step. I especially liked when he played Another Brick in the Wall, Pt. 2 and had those black middle school children come out and sing with him. They wore orange prison suits and then once they were done singing their part they took them off and had “Resist” T-shirts underneath. That was a huge theme throughout the concert: resistance to Trump. Pigs (Three Different Ones) and Money were the most insulting songs to our piggish president. Speaking of pigs, the inflatable pig happened to have Agent Orange’s face on it. All in all, it was a tremendous show and I hope he does another one soon. Pink Floyd in general has always been my biggest musical influence and Roger Waters brought out those feelings within me that night.

***MAIN SUBJECT: BRIT FLOYD CONCERT***

These two subjects couldn’t have segued any better together. This coming Saturday, it’s yet another concert slash one day vacation for me. It seems as though 2017 has been famous for these kinds of getaways. Even as I write this journal, my mom and step-dad are both in Denver, Colorado enjoying Paul Simon’s final performance before he retires. And then when they come home, Mom and I are taking a trip to Seattle to see Brit Floyd, a tribute band to, you guessed it, Captain Obvious, Pink Floyd. Last Saturday featured the real deal and now this Saturday will be an excellent tribute. Two weekends bookended by the music of Pink Floyd. That’s a lot of putty-faced schoolchildren, screaming teachers, colorful prisms, saggy-jowled dogs, and flying pigs. Pink Floyd’s music had a huge impact on me during my younger days and it continues to mean the world to me in today’s life. Whether it’s Roger Waters himself or someone else playing his music, I can still hear that sense of rebellion screaming vulgar lyrics in my ear. As far as WSS stories go, I’ll try to get my story submitted before the day of the concert. Speaking of which (another seamless segue)…

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

TITLE: A Weasel and a Thief

CHARACTERS:

1. Ozzy May, Gnome Rogue
2. Laurel Tate, Human Marine

PROMPT: Slumber

PROMPT CONFORMITY: The rest of Laurel’s platoon are in a state of slumber for the evening.

SYNOPSIS: Laurel is an active duty soldier assigned to stand guard for her platoon at night. Midway through the shift, she realizes her radio is missing and is scrambling to find it. She eventually catches a little thief named Ozzy in the act of stealing weapons and money from her platoon. Laurel chases the little bastard, but he is too quick for her even when she’s opening fire on him. If she doesn’t get the equipment back to her platoon, she will be punished severely by her commanding officer.

FUN FACT: The title of this story is WWE inspired. Back in 2015, Brock Lesnar was giving an interview about his upcoming WWE Championship match against Seth Rollins at the Battleground pay-per-view. Lesnar described Rollins as “a weasel and a thief” because of the way the latter won his championship and basically stole it from Lesnar. The WWE is always such a huge source of creative fuel for me. Why shouldn’t it be? It’s pretty much the only thing I watch on TV these days.

***FACE BOOK STATUS OF THE DAY***

(From mid-June of this year.)

I seem to be having plenty of dreams about going to rock concerts lately. Last night I dreamed I was going to a multi-band festival that took place…in an art museum. I guess anything can qualify for an arena these days. Hell, I once had a dream where Pantera performed “This Love” in an abandoned grocery store. Back to the topic at hand, the first band that performed at this festival was Brit Floyd (a Pink Floyd cover band obviously). They kept having equipment problems and had to move to different stages throughout the art gallery. I got so mad at them that I went online and called them Shit Floyd. Then I woke up and the weirdness was over. Truth is, I do plan on seeing Brit Floyd in Seattle on July 1^st, but I know for a fact my dream was just a dream. I’ve seen them on TV before and they were fucking stellar!