All Dog Punchers Go to Hell

Mary McCray glossed over her roll call sheet one more time and shook her pudgy head at some of the names on her list. At least two or three of them were cops. Four of them were multi-level sex offenders. Others were attending sensitivity classes for the very first time. But one name on this list made her chuckle in disgust: Darren Stars, a rock icon with more privilege than any of his cop classmates. “Who in the hell calls himself Darren Stars?” Mary asked herself.

Steeling her nerves for the worst, she sighed and reached high to twist the doorknob to the classroom. Some of the “students” snickered at their obvious height advantage over Mary. They also had a sizable youth advantage since Miss McCray’s wrinkly skin and wavy gray hair gave away her age. She wore a green dress with a white apron over it, like she was about to bake cookies instead of teach a sensitivity class. In order to meet her students’ gazes, she had to crawl up on the teacher’s desk and sit on the edge, swinging her oversized feet as she did so.

These degenerates smiled with the kind of juvenility one would expect from a high school classroom, which was where this special training session took place. Mary checked the roll call sheet to make sure everyone was accounted for, but used it as an excuse to hide her face from these humiliating stares. Some of these men looked like they just did time in the pokey, all muscled, tattooed, and dressed in T-shirts, jeans, and sometimes tank tops.

It was Darren Stars who caught her eye (and her ire) the most. “Feet off the desk, Mr. Stars,” ordered Mary, to which the long-haired, leather jacket wearing rock star reluctantly complied.

Crossing her arms upon her lap, she was finally ready to greet these students with a stern gaze and a gruff voice. “My name is Mary McCray. I am a sensitivity counselor. You are all hardened criminals, which is why you’re here today. My job is to provide you all with the tools to do better deeds in this world. How you handle those tools is completely up to you. Some of you will succeed, most of you will end up back in prison.”

Mary pulled her thick rimmed glasses off and cleaned the lenses with her apron. “But for a small minority of you, prison was never a clear and present danger. Whether it’s because of your wealth, your celebrity status, or just the fact that you wield any kind of authority at all, your massive privilege has kept you out of trouble. But if you think your money is any good here, you’re sadly mistaken. I’m here to straighten you all out and nobody gets a free pass. Any questions?”

Darren Stars stood up and said, “Yeah, I’ve got one. How come your parents aren’t supervising you?” That earned a collective horse laugh from the rest of the classmates.

“Well, clearly your parents are even more irresponsible if they give you a goofy ass name like Darren Stars!” That earned an “ooohhh” from the crowd and the arrogant rock star sat down slowly in shame. “Actually, I’m glad you made yourself obvious, Mr. Stars, because our lesson for the day has a lot to do with why you’re here specifically. Correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t you get busted at one of your shows for punching a traumatized fan’s guide dog?”

“Guide dog, my ass! That motherfucker was howling his head off while I was trying to sing a song. He was ruining a fun night of music for everyone.”

“Yes, because punching a defenseless animal is the only number one hit you can produce these days,” said Mary with a cross-armed glare. Another collective “ooo” reverberated off the classroom walls, not unlike Darren’s guitar during a show. “Personally, I would have locked you up right then and there. But since you’re such a big celebrity who needs coddling and swaddling, you ended up here instead. Well, I have just the curriculum for you and your socially elite friends.”

Mary leapt off the desk and pulled a TV remote that looked like a magic wand from her apron. With one click, a white projector screen lowered in front of the chalkboard. With another click, the lights went out. “Gentlemen…and Mr. Stars, I want you to have a look at something.”

Another click of the button projected a montage of animal cruelty onto the screen. Elephants in India were being punched repeatedly in order to get them to paint. Monkeys laid in wooden crates with shackles around their necks and ankles. A cat was being thrown into oncoming traffic down below from a highway pass. Teenagers were shooting BB guns at helpless ducks, injuring their wings and snapping their legs in half.

Mary grinned mischievously at her students as most of them shed tears over the graphic footage, but wouldn’t go into a full-on crying spell. “So…a lot of you ARE capable of having empathy for others. That’s a good sign. Channel that sadness into our lesson for the day. But first…here’s a little something for the edgy man-children in the back.”

Another click of her wand and this time footage of pit bull abuse flashed across the screen. Upper snouts were being dislodged with crowbars. Dogs fought each other and spread their guts all over a dirt floor. One precious pup was being strung up on a rope and made to exercise on a treadmill while pulling a ten pound dumbbell. Even more tears poured from the students’ eyes while some of them tried to look away from the footage.

Upon catching Darren yawning with an uncovered mouth, Mary paused the video, illuminated the room, and asked, “Am I boring you, Mr. Stars? Is this not extreme enough for your tastes?”

“Now that I think about it, Nickelback is more metal than this garbage. Fuck it, I’m out of here.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Stars, but leaving is not an option!” barked Mary as her eyes and the eyes of her glaring students shined bright red. Every fiery eyeball locked upon Darren in an attempt to make the egomaniac feel somewhat smaller.

Instead he smirked and waved it all off. “I’ve had mushroom highs that were trippier than this. You ain’t fooling anybody, old lady.”

“I assure you, Mr. Stars, this is not a drug hallucination. Everything you see before you is as real as it gets. I repeat…everything you see before you!” Mary flashed an evil smile as she clicked her wand and neon-eyed warrior pit bulls leapt from the screen and growled at Darren. “Go ahead. Punch them. I dare you. If you do have the balls to do it, they’ll be quickly ripped from your pencil legs along with your thumb tack penis!”

No matter how violently the dogs barked, Darren wouldn’t budge. He laughed at them and said, “I really should get off the heroin.”

“I couldn’t agree more, Mr. Stars. Get him, my pretties. Have lunch!” bellowed Mary as the pit bulls rushed towards Darren and chewed on his flesh.

What happened to the rock star was not a trippy dream, but a waking nightmare. Mary folded her arms and grinned while the monstrous dogs chewed and clawed pieces of flesh and blood from Darren’s body. He screamed while gagging on his own life juices. He tried to throw punches and kicks to the rabid animals, but they just chewed harder and harder, as if it was their last meal before being starved to death in the dog fighting circuit. “If they send me more losers like this guy, I won’t have to ever go to PetSmart again,” Mary joked while being splashed with blood.

“Hey! What’s going on here?!” snapped an authoritative voice, prompting the magic to come to a grinding halt. The dogs disappeared in a puff of smoke, the brainwashed students had normal eyes again, but Darren was still bleeding from asshole to appetite. The voice belonged to a cop bursting into the room, a cop flanked by his uniformed partner and a chubby music executive in a fancy suit.

While the two cops held Mary at bay with their weapons, the executive rushed up to the bloody and battered Darren and said, “Oh my god…this is…I’m just…this is beautiful!”

“What?!” screeched Darren. “How is this beautiful? I’m bleeding to death because of that fucking bitch and her stupid dogs!”

“Hear me out, hear me out,” said the executive. “Rock music these days is all about blood and guts, right? Well, you’ve got the perfect imagery going on here. We can print promotional material for days, months, maybe even years. You are the quintessential badass of rock and roll with this bloody look. Let’s go back to the studio and get pictures of you. You’ll look like a million bucks on any CD cover!”

“Hold on a goddamn minute!” shouted Mary. “He’s not going anywhere until he finishes sensitivity training! He ain’t anywhere near a passing grade. I told him that celebrity privilege bullshit wasn’t going to fly here! Mr. Stars, sit back down and don’t leave the classroom until I say you can! Officers, back me up here! Tell him he’s no different from the rest!”

“…Yeah…about that…” The lead officer opened fire on the sorceress teacher and put several slugs in her head, bringing her sensitivity class and her life to a brutal end. If anybody asked, the cop could just lie his ass off and delete the contradictions in his story from his file. Mary McCray had all the magic in the world, but none of it could summon the power she needed to take on a corrupt system. Everybody had a price and everything was paid for, including a new tombstone for the dwarven teacher.

My Name In Your Mouth

***MY NAME IN YOUR MOUTH***

Before I begin with the body of this blog entry, I want everybody to know that this isn’t aimed at anybody in particular nor is it meant to be an attack in the first place. This is about something that’s been going on in my mind for quite a while now. I’m sure a lot of my writer friends can relate, or at least I hope they do. But anytime somebody mentions me in association with my writing in real life or in a You Tube video…I panic. I get this anxious sensation in the pit of my tummy and my first instinct is to turn around and run away (or cringe if I don’t have an available exit). These people could be saying the nicest, friendliest things about my work, but I’m still Clockwork Oranged into believing it’s worth being nervous about. Why is that?

I’m no stranger to criticism and I’ve had a lot of it in my career. But I’m also at a place in my life where I’ve come to depend on critiques and notes like the mature adult that I am. Although critiques are necessary to any author’s success, it doesn’t make the nervousness go away. In fact, the longer I have to wait for it, the higher the anxiety builds. Yes, I know I sound like a sensitive snowflake with thin skin and a strong need for a safe space. If I could choose to be more durable, I’d be fucking invincible. It never gets easier for me with age and I can’t understand why.

I’ll always remember a time in late 2010 when I wrote music-themed fan fiction and posted it live on Face Book. One of those stories was called “Awake and Alive” and it was about a young man named Junie Fritz, who wanted to break his own shyness by going to a Skillet concert in Seattle and making friends with a cute girl named Shawn Tucker. My brother’s girlfriend at the time Susan (who doesn’t live with us anymore) caught me in the hallway and said, “So I read your story about Junie!” Without missing a beat I wave goodbye to her and try to retreat into my room. Turns out she liked the story and wanted to praise it (despite the fact that Junie rode a fucking ATV to the arena).

Another example of wanting to cringe and/or retreat was Mother’s Day earlier this year, when I gifted my mom a copy of Poison Tongue Tales. She’s one of my biggest fans and wanted to see a sample of what I’ve published, so I gave her that. She was so happy to have it and immediately jumped into the Two-Sentence Horror Stories section. I cringed hard when she read some of those stories out loud, not because of her, but because I was listening to my own writing and I wanted to get the fuck out of there. It’s like I’ve been conditioned into thinking my own writing sucks by the various haters I’ve had over the years.

Still to this day I have that anxious feeling whenever somebody wants to talk about my writing in real life or on You Tube. Sometimes I feel this way whenever it’s in written form. For a guy who’s trying to market myself to the public so that I can get as many book sales as possible, this is quite the barrier. I should WANT to have my name in people’s mouths. I should WANT the free advertising. I should WANT to have the limelight on me 24/7. But I feel tiny every time my writing comes up in conversation.

Sometimes it’s not even a low self-esteem issue. Sometimes I write a personal story in an email or social media post and there’s a certain part of that story that makes me nervous to talk about it. Just the other day, I wrote an email to my mother detailing why I didn’t want to go on dates when I was in middle school. The biggest reason was because my dad was going through nasty shit with his ex-wives at the time, so I didn’t want to pay alimony or child support to another woman (even though I was fucking thirteen). I told mom that I didn’t want to play second fiddle to a girlfriend who would no doubt prevent me from achieving my college dreams. It didn’t help matters that I watched the Millennium episode “A Room with No View” right around that time and saw Lucy Butler get touchy-feely and kissy-kissy with her hostages. Obviously, things have changed since then and if the opportunity presented itself, I’d definitely go on a date with a nice woman. But still, that was quite the revelation for my mother.

So why all the nervousness? Why all the fuss? Why can’t I just put on my suit of armor and deflect bullets like Superman? Why can’t I just…you know…”toughen up”, like a stereotypical male would say in a Skillset Magazine article? Did my mental illnesses make me this way? Am I just a naturally sensitive person? Do I have too much empathy? Does anybody else feel this sense of panic whenever they hear their own writing? Have I really been Clockwork Oranged into believing I suck? What’s going on here? I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying….well, that would be a good time to retreat to your room and lock the door. No mountain climbing until you calm the fuck down.

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER PROGRESS***

As of today, I’ve written the prologue and first two chapters of this reloaded project. The third chapter will see an argument take place between Torger Manson and Shelly Atwood. Torger wants Shelly to be a businesswoman first and a lover second if she’s going to deny him access to the sex slaves. If you’re not cringing right now, check your pulse. Shelly has already forcibly deflowered Windham, so any conversation she has with Torger about sex will give you the feeling of spiders crawling on your skin. Wish me luck!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Between suicide and all your dirty lies. Are you looking sad for girls? Are you looking bad for sympathy? Between suicide and secrets that you hide. Are you feeling pain like birds? Are you trading pearls for misery? It’s getting hard to say open your eyes. Needles haven’t fixed anything. I guess we’re millions of faces waiting somewhere for somebody else’s place to feel like home. Love is a refuge with fears and doubts. It’s the Jesus on your necklace. Love is a silence to your cry outs. Sleepless hideouts. The cheapest, the fabulous.”

-Your Favorite Enemies singing “Open Your Eyes”-

Garrisonian Tropes

***GARRISONIAN TROPES***

Whenever Ashley Uzzell/Marie Krepps and I get together for a critiquing session, she always jokes about common tropes that end up in my writing and I laugh along with her. She recently wrote an awesome review for American Darkness where she describes my characters as being constantly pissed off about everything. I thought that was funny as hell. Plus, I’m grateful for all three of my stars. Would you guys like to see some of these tropes and how I analyze them? I’m sure you’d love that, so that’s what I’m going to do since I’m all about customer service.

***MANIC PIXIE DREAM GIRL***

Debra Winter from Occupy Wrestling (published) and Kelly McVeigh from Filter Feeder (first draft) would be the exceptions to this rule, but from Watch You Burn on, every female supporting character I had falls under the Manic Pixie Dream Girl category. Every fucking one of them. In case you don’t know what this pejorative term means, it’s a supporting female character whose sole purpose in the novel is to boost the self-esteem of the brooding male protagonist. Jessica Harley (Watch You Burn), Raven Triscloud (Demon Axe), Adrienne Simpson (Silent Warrior), and Tarja Rikkinen (Beautiful Monster) are all shining examples of the trope. There’s supposed to be some sort of psychoanalysis as to why male authors write these characters, but I don’t quite know what it is. If any of you would like to pick my brain, that’d be wonderful. I swear I’m not writing these characters to be a sexist pig. I didn’t even know this kind of character had a pejorative term until after I started writing Beautiful Monster. I’m so far down the rabbit hole with that novel that I might as well see it through to the twenty-first chapter and fix it all later.

***FAT VILLAINS***

Ashley loves to joke about this one a lot and I can definitely see the humor in it. Most of my fat villains come from American Darkness and Poison Tongue Tales, but Rinehart from Beautiful Monster could fit this trope too. I swear I’m not writing the characters out of self-hatred (because I’m fat too) or because I’m secretly into fat-shaming (I’m not). You won’t even have to pick my brain in order to find out what I’m talking about. If you follow politics, you’ll notice that there are a lot of politicians and pundits out there who are universally hated and also happen to be on the pudgy side. Donald Trump, Newt Gingrich, Alex Jones, Chris Christie, and Rush Limbaugh are all shining examples of this. Villains by their very nature are to be hated, so what better way to hate someone than to compare them to a despicable political figure? I’m sure there are a lot of cartoonists out there who do the exact same thing.

***ANGRY CHARACTERS***

It seems as though every other piece of dialogue in my writing has an exclamation point, a swear word, or an insult attached to it. Plus, it doesn’t help matters that my characters are constantly beating the living shit out of each other. It would be easy to attribute this to my love for WWE since professional wrestlers are constantly cutting angry monologues against each other. Or maybe it’s because I too have a hair trigger temper at the little things in life. I scream like a barbarian whenever the phone rings. I go into swearing fits whenever Maggie shits on the floor or Smokey barfs on my bed. I once spit on my computer screen because my computer was slowing the fuck down and freezing all the time. Maybe there’s something about having schizophrenia that makes me irritable all the time. Maybe I just need a chair massage and a day at the spa.

***SAGGY JOWLED DOGS***

American Darkness and Poison Tongue Tales are where the saggy-jowled dogs live. My step-dad’s dog Maggie has a set of saggy jowls on her, so that’s where I get it from. She’s a mix between a Springer Spaniel and a Bassett Hound. She’s also sixteen years old as of today. She’s older than Herbert’s dog on Family Guy and gets around just as well. Maggie eventually became her own character in a Poison Tongue Tales story called Maggie’s Wisdom, where she played the role of a pilgrim trying to calm down a pissed off monk named Brock Dempsey. Well, what do you know? Another angry character! Wow! Spoiler alert: Brock finds his inner peace by scratching Maggie’s fuzzy belly.

***SENSITIVE CRY BABIES***

It doesn’t matter if the character is a muscle head barbarian or a gentle poet: chances are good they’ve shed a few tears in my stories. Crying actually became part of Windham Xavier’s character development in Beautiful Monster. He’s so afraid of appearing weak in front of his peers that he holds his tears in, forever conforming to male stereotypes that his girlfriend Tarja tries to shatter. But even before that, I’d have macho men crying all the time, most specifically Daniel Mercer from Demon Axe. Then again, Daniel was a heavy metal singer with years of pain behind him and PTSD from watching his band mates die, so he’s excused…I think? Maybe? I don’t know? In case you think this is a self-insert trope, I haven’t had a full-on crying spell since 2007, when I thought my only option for college was going to Evergreen in Olympia, where I would basically be a 24/7 student with no free time to myself. Haven’t cried since then. I did have sore eyes and a little bit of water trickling out whenever I watched old Never Ending Story videos on You Tube, but nothing that resulted in real crying.

***ASSHOLE PROTAGONISTS***

This one can be blamed on shades of gray logic where characters are supposed to have flaws, so I made one of their flaws asshole behavior. Big mistake. I had to edit Occupy Wrestling multiple times because the main character Mitch McLeod appeared too dickish for the heroic role. And now that I look back on Watch You Burn, the main character from there, Mario Bryan, is also a huge douche canoe, which probably makes readers wonder what Jessica Harley (Manic Pixie Dream Girl) sees in him anyways. There’ve been many debates among authors over what constitutes a good protagonist whether it’s flaws, snappy dialogue, average characterization, or whatnot. Some protagonists out there can be assholes without turning the reader off too much. I haven’t mastered that art yet, so maybe I’ll just stick to having friendly characters…who are pissed off all the time…and have saggy jowled dogs as pets…and are dating Manic Pixie Dream Girls….okay, that’s enough. Hehe!

***CONCLUSION***

It could be that I’ve left a few tropes out, but I’m sure they’ll pop up right after I post this blog entry online. They always do. I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“Some people live their dreams. Some people close their eyes. Some people’s destiny passes by. There are no guarantees. There are no alibis. That’s how our love must be. Don’t ask why. It takes some time. God knows how long. I know that I can forget you as soon as my heart stops breaking, anticipating. As soon as forever is through, I’ll be over you. Remembering times gone by, promises we once made. What are the reasons why nothing stays the same? There were the nights holding you close. Someday I’ll try to forget them as soon as my heart stops breaking, anticipating. As soon as forever is through, I’ll be over you.”

-Toto singing “I’ll Be Over You”-

I Didn't Know It Was Wrong

***I DIDN’T KNOW IT WAS WRONG***

In addition to being a cardboard sign in Seether’s music video for “Fine Again”, you can also say the title of this journal whenever you create a piece of art that was unintentionally offensive. I can’t stress the word unintentionally enough. Sometimes all you want is to create a loving romance between two people and their relationship becomes hypersexual. Sometimes you want to show off the fighting abilities of a barbarian tribe from another culture, but they end up looking like stereotypes. Surely, you weren’t trying to be offensive, but that’s how it came across anyways, through no fault of your own. All together now…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

Yes, this is a reasonable defense against charges of unintentional bigotry, but there will always be that one smart ass who smashes you over the head with a hardcover book and then says…

Sorry, I didn’t know it was wrong!

You’re damn right it’s wrong! That’s assault, you moron! It carries a prison term of at least seven years! How about we save the phrase for people who actually need it? Wes Anderson, the writer and director of Isle of Dogs, could easily use this phrase and get away with it. As a white guy from Texas, his depiction of Japanese culture was frowned upon even though it didn’t deserve to be. There was nothing inherently offensive about it, at least not compared to Dick Tracy cartoons from the 1960’s where Joe Jitsu comes across as ultra-stereotypical (in case his name wasn’t obvious enough). Hey, Wes! Say it with me!

I didn’t know it was wrong!

I wish I knew this phrase when I was writing offensive shit back in the day. It could have helped me when I wrote a pornographic parody of “Stole” by Kelly Rowland. It could have helped me when I was swashbuckling with teenagers after they read “Class of ‘13”. It might have even helped me when I was writing the super-violent Zeromancer for my second multi-genre writing class in college. None of these scenarios would have been a cheap escape if I used that phrase, because I legitimately didn’t know they were offensive reads. I don’t know if I chalk it all up to being young and immature, growing up in Chehalis, watching TV-MA rated shows and not processing them correctly, but say it with me…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

You know what else I didn’t know was wrong? Incorporating a trope called the Manic Pixie Dream Girl. It’s a literary pejorative for any supporting female character whose main role in the story is to boost the self-esteem of the brooding male protagonist. Adrienne Simpson from “Silent Warrior” reeks of this trope, and in some ways, Tarja Rikkinen from my current WIP “Beautiful Monster” qualifies too. It was never my intention to make them this way, but you have to understand…

I didn’t know it was wrong!

I think I’ve given you guys enough examples that you’re adequately educated. Luckily, there is help for anybody who needs it. When you’ve finished writing your manuscript, you can send it to somebody called a “sensitivity editor”. This person will comb through your work and make sure nothing sticks out when it comes to potential offensiveness. Because they’re sensitivity editors and get this kind of work all the time, you can bet your ass that they won’t judge you even if your manuscript is glowing like a nuclear rod with offensive material. I didn’t even know these people existed until I started watching Jenna Moreci’s You Tube videos. Perhaps I should hire the services of one when I’m ready to get cracking on editing Silent Warrior. Hell, there’s probably more wrong with it than I thought and that extends beyond Adrienne Simpson being a Manic Pixie Dream Girl.

If you think for some reason I’m just bending to the will of the Social Justice Warriors and ignoring my own individuality, you’re wrong. There used to be a time in my life when being offensive was my bread and butter. I was young, immature, and had the sense of humor of an alt-righter despite being a hard leftist. Well, some things have to change because a bigot is not who I am nor would I be proud of being one. I want to represent the positive side of humanity, not the worst. I want to be on the right side of history and be a good role model for readers who look up to me. If that makes me an SJW, then fine, I’m an SJW. Fuck it, I don’t care. In fact, you can go ahead and call me the Social Justice Barbarian if you want. Barbarians appeal to me more than regular warriors since the former has the ability to rage out of control at a moment’s notice. Plus, I get to eat raw meat, howl at the moon, and swing a bloody battleaxe. How much fun is that?!

Sorry, guys! I didn’t know it was wrong! I’m Garrison Kelly! Even when you feel like dying, keep climbing the mountain!

***BEAUTIFUL MONSTER***

In the interest of bouncing back and forth between the past and present of this novel, chapter four will feature a look into Windham Xavier’s captivity, where he’s strapped naked to a table and felt up by Shelly and Torger. Don’t worry, you won’t have to go all the way to Wattpad to read this, because no sex will take place (yet). Lord knows Deviant Art has enough nudity as it is, so a chapter of Beautiful Monster with a naked male elf won’t hurt the status quo too much. Look forward to it! And before you ask, no, I’m not gay and even if I was it wouldn’t be the reason why I write about naked male elves. Grow up!

***LYRICS OF THE DAY***

“The world is precious, a gift to you and me. I suggest we treat her right, with love and dignity. Everybody’s looking for some peace of mind. If you seek the truth, then you will surely find. Everybody wants to have global peace, whilst the press of a button can shake the world to its knees. Some say might is right. I beg to disagree. I say we all unite and redirect our destiny. Everybody’s looking for a quick solution. Our lungs are choking from breathing in air pollution. I say put down the guns and stop the revolution. I say it’s time to make a restitution. Can you hear what I’m saying? There’s so much starvation, so much untruth, so much prejudice, so much liquidation. Oh, how long? How long?”

-Toto singing “Can You Hear What I’m Saying?”-

Swearison

VERSE 1

I swore at Lego Land and the Great Wolf Lodge

I swore as a teenager under parental watch

I swore when I cleaned dog shit off the floor

I swore until my motherfucking throat was sore

Letting out swear words is a form of therapy

I don’t give a shit if it’s a form of heresy

I don’t give a flying fuck who I offend

I take a deep breath and turn it up to ten

CHORUS

You can call me Swearison

Or you call me a barbarian

I’m sorry for your embarrassment

But you’re hanging out with Swearison

VERSE 2

I scream goddamn it when I bang my elbow

I yell motherfucker when I stub my big toe

I shout Jesus Christ when I bang my head

I bellow like a beast and wake the fucking dead

I should probably sign up for anger management

But it’s too much fun to commit sacrilege

It’s too exciting to shout from the rooftop

Get out of the kitchen if you think it’s too hot

CHORUS

You can call me Swearison

Or you call me a barbarian

I’m sorry for your embarrassment

But you’re hanging out with Swearison

VERSE 3

Cussing in a church or in a courthouse

Using more sex puns than a whorehouse

Cussing in school or a grade below this

Life’s too short for G-rated bullshit

Cussing in a theater with a Disney flick

The Little Mermaid’s tower looks like a dick

Cussing isn’t stupid or even immoral

If you don’t like it, you can give me some oral

EXTENDED CHORUS

You can call me Swearison

Or you call me a barbarian

I’m sorry for your embarrassment

But you’re hanging out with Swearison

My real name is Garrison

I’m a loud and proud heretic

I’m sorry for your sensitivity

I guess you’re really just shitting me

Everything You Touch

CHORUS 1

Everything you touch turns to piss

Your ignorance is far from bliss

Your hate language is a goodbye kiss

Why should we put up with any of this?

VERSE 1

A frog in one hand, your dick in the other

Pissing all over your human race brothers

You’d sell out your own goddamn mother

To see your face on a memoir book cover

You’d sell your soul for a million dollars

You traded your mind for a tight dog collar

You bought into a world built solely on lies

Now you think you’re Jesus Christ in disguise

CHORUS 2

Everything you touch turns to shit

Every slap in the face is a knockout hit

Every kiss to your loved ones turned to spit

Calling you out will send you into a fit

VERSE 2

Go ahead and try to cut through the human chain

You’re the architect and author of your own pain

Every protest sign you’ve written to yourself

You’re the engineer and CEO of your own hell

For someone who preaches such insensitivity

You sure feel agony until the end of infinity

You say one thing then you do something different

You’re the warden and guard of your own prison

CHORUS 3

Everything you touch turns to vomit

You laugh it off like a standup comic

The only joke I see is your political career

We’re shutting down your campaign of smears

VERSE 3

Enjoy your life as a D+ player

Enjoy your career as a spiteful hater

Enjoy your dreams never coming true

This has never been your red, white, and blue

If you’re so dangerous, put up your dukes

If you’re so inspiring, don’t make us puke

If you’re so noble, put up or shut up

Until then, you’re a troll who’s fucked up

FINAL LINE

Don’t let the door hit you on the ass on the way out!

Hotheadedness

***HOTHEADEDNESS***

I can count the number of travesties going on in this world on one hand…and the other hand…and my toes…and my teeth…and my hair. I may talk briefly about them online, but that’s about it. People always say that taking calculated risks is better than being passive in the shadows. They say if you don’t take risks, you haven’t really lived at all. Is that true? What if you choose to live safely because every one of your risks has ended badly? Am I suddenly supposed to live up to someone else’s standards of bravery by having more shitty results? Is it too much to ask that at least one of my bold risks pays 100% interest? So yes, I’ve lived in my safe place for several years now and I like it just fine.

Basically, what the failure of these risks boil down to is that I’m extremely hotheaded when it comes to confrontation and debate. Every time I’m challenged, my blood goes cold, my stomach feels ill, my mouth goes dry, and my Benedict Arnold of a brain shuts down when I need it the most. Once all is said and done, I dwell on these confrontations for several days, weeks, or even months. As I’ve stated several times, I’m autistic and schizophrenic, so that means a huge increase in sensitivity. The more sensitive you are to negative stimuli, the more you’ll want to avoid them.

If you were a psychologist trying to pick my brain, I guess you could say that the reason I love writing violent stories so much is because I secretly wish I could do those horrible things to my opponents. If I had the muscles and heavy weaponry of my favorite barbarian Deus Shadowheart, there would be a lot of dead bodies lying around. If I had the power of psychomancy like Tony Castle did, I could simply make my opponents feel just as sensitive and nervous as me. Writing violent stories is my own personal way of making gratuitous bloodshed legal.

But writing bloody stories doesn’t really solve anything, does it. Come to think of it, punching a guy in the face doesn’t do much either. Anger begets more anger. Hate begets more hate. While I realize how powerful of a force love can be, when I get into hotheaded mode, I’m not thinking about love. I’m either thinking about getting the hell out of my situation or beating some ass. I think even less about love when my schizophrenic mind shoves the incident in my face over the next few days and interferes with my life.

So there you have it, guys. Until there’s a cure for hotheadedness and oversensitivity, you won’t see me in the picket line or on the battlefield. Taking deep breaths does nothing, because while you’re trying to calm yourself down, your opponent will have already made the next move. And then you’re several moves behind and before you know it you’ve been bested by someone who is clearly in the wrong.

The best I can do for the cause is continue to write my bloody stories, pen heartfelt poetry, and vote my ass off. Sharing memes doesn’t do a whole lot, because let’s face it, nobody ever changed their mind because of a stupid meme. At least when I’m creating art from the shadows (a.k.a. “the safe place”), I’m getting some bang for my buck. What do I get for going to people’s houses and telling them what’s what? A black eye? A bruised ego? A bullet in my chest? Those would be preferable to an overly hot head. I’m not just talking about any hot head, but one that could bake a sheet of chocolate chip cookies.

I am by no means a cowardly person. I’m just a guy with awkward brain chemistry and too many lost chances. Even something as simple as applying for a job at What Culture could be considered a calculated risk. It could either mean a lifetime of writing kick-ass articles and being around funny people, or it could mean stressing myself out and not knowing what the hell I’m doing. Seeing as how I have a limited knowledge of pop culture, I’m guessing the latter of those two would be more likely. Why crash and burn when I don’t have to?

Living in a stress-free environment is paramount to the recovery of a mentally disabled human being; every psychologist will tell you this. It’s part of the reason why mental disabilities are grounds for gaining social security benefits: because working in, say, a customer service job would unleash the demons inside. While it is true that level-headed people feel stressed out at work too, disabled people feel it a hundred times worse. We can’t in all good conscious leave these people with no income, so that’s where social security comes in. That’s a talking point I’ll defend until the end, hotheaded or not.

Do I have the power to change the world? I don’t know, buddy, do you? Does anybody? Does any group of people have a loud enough voice to bring change to this mad world? Some people get noticed, some people get ignored. If everybody got noticed, we’d have a much happier world, wouldn’t you agree?

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

It’s a new week at the WSS and wouldn’t you know it, the admins used my prompt suggestion “Inner Voice” (I wonder how I thought of that one). My story this week will be called “Madhouse” and it goes like this:

CHARACTERS:

1. Joe Fields, Artillerist Mercenary
2. Random Hallucinations

PROMPT CONFORMITY: One of Joe’s hallucinations is his inner voice.

SYNOPSIS: With bulky steel armor and chain guns mounted on either hand, Joe attempts to hunt down a bounty head in the middle of a bamboo forest. He stumbles upon a Japanese-style temple thinking that this is where the criminal is hiding. When he busts down the doors, he finds that nobody is there and he tries to leave. Instead of a clear escape, Joe begins having hallucinations of ghosts, samurais, ninjas, and other warriors attacking him at random angles. The vulgar mercenary begins to slowly go insane as he fights off these tormenting phantoms. Joe is convinced that there’s a conspiracy against him, but this belief only contributes to the degeneration of his mind.

FUN FACT: I guess Mr. Fields secretly has a hot head.

***DARK FANTASY WARRIORS***

I’ve tried twice to draw Knox from “Emoticon Artist”, but these attempts were met with me throwing both pieces of paper in the garbage. I’ll eventually find a good model for my orc warrior, just not tonight.

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Protesting is a lot like having sex. You can scream and be as wild as you want. You can even do it all night long. But if something starts to burn, then maybe it’s time to go to bed.”

-Trevor Noah-

Getting Better

I recently watched a shoot interview with WWE Hall of Fame commentator Jim Ross in which he said that in order to be successful in the wrestling industry, one of the things you have to do is be willing to improve every day. The same thing applies with every field out there, including writing. Whether you’re just starting out in your mid-teens like I did or you’re well in your elder years, you always have room for improvement. In order to improve, you have to listen to three different sources: your elders, your peers, and the authors you’re currently reading and enjoying. I will say that you don’t necessarily have to agree with everything they say. In fact, every author should have a filter for the things they listen to. For example, if an author is being bombarded with insults and hatred, it’s probably a good idea not to draw inspiration from those people. If on the other hand an author is being sensitively critiqued by someone who genuinely wants him to succeed, then listening to those people is probably a better idea. The key word there is sensitively. You don’t want to be critiqued by someone who takes delight in hurting your feelings. But you also don’t want to misconstrue every piece of critique as hateful and tormenting. A good critique giver will tell you three different things about your work: what you did right, what you did wrong, and how you can correct the things you did wrong. Critique isn’t just a laundry list of complaints. Telling an author what they did right can be as informative as what they did wrong. It lets them know what to continue doing as well as what to stop doing. And when the editor gives the author advice on how to fix the problems in his work, it lets him know that he’s not alone in the struggle to have a presentable manuscript and that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, pardon the cliché. When you surround yourself with people who can balance kindness and honesty, your game will improve dramatically. When you surround yourself with hate mongers, your career will be over before it begins. The journey to authorship should be one of happiness and excitement, not despair and sadness. If it wasn’t for people like Stephen Mertz, Carolyn Walker, Kathie Giorgio, and my army of friends on Good Reads, I would have never known what kind critique was. It’s because of those people that my game has improved dramatically from hyperbolic mediocrity to fast-paced simplicity. I want to give thanks to all the people I’ve mentioned both specifically and generally. I hope they’re reading.

　

***COMEDIC QUOTE OF THE DAY***

“Zesty and tangy are not real words that normal human beings use in everyday conversation. They’re advertising words. Has anyone ever turned to you and said, ‘This is real zesty! And tangy too!’?”

-George Carlin-