When I first heard the male name Lionel existed, it was the late 90’s and I was really into The Thundercats. I previously watched it when I was a baby in the 80’s, but about a decade later, Cartoon Network was showing it on their Toonami programming block. It was your typical 80’s action cartoon: badass fighting and piss-poor dialogue. The latter of the two keeps me from watching it as an adult.
But as a middle schooler, Thundercats was my own version of Sunday mass. When I saw Lion-O swinging his Sword of Omens on TV, he was my equivalent of Jesus Christ. Lion-O and Lionel were the same thing to me at the time and now I want to continue that tradition with this latest unemployed character, Lionel Casey.
Oddly enough, I didn’t intend for Lionel to be a Thundercats parody. I had two different roles lined up for him: one as a heavyweight MMA fighter and one as a shooting game character. As the former, his leonine beard and ursine muscles are the sole reason why his opponents should wear diapers to the octagon instead of shorts with “Condom Depot” printed on the ass.
As the latter, he’s comparable to Gorge from the Unreal Championship series. In other words, not only is he a giant among pixies, but he has a fucking rocket launcher. Why does a fee-fie-foe-fum giant need a long range weapon that can blow up a whole building? Don’t his punches and kicks do that enough already? When he’s in MMA, does he really win his matches by knocking his opponents up and over the cage?
Look on the bright side, Mr. Casey: if you don’t get used as a badass warrior, you could always be the model for the MGM movie logo. It’s bad enough moviegoers have to be greeted by a roaring lion who could quite possibly eat them in one or two bites. But what about Lionel Casey? What if his bearded face ended up on that logo? In so many ways, that would be worse.
Having that sociopathic monster give you the death stare might actually be scarier than the Gracie Films logo at the end of every Simpsons Treehouse of Horror episode. Maybe that’s why the shush lady likes to scream every October: because Lionel Casey is in the same theater as her. Where in the theater is anybody’s guess. He could be hiding in the trash bin. He could be underneath the lady’s seat waiting to pounce. Or he could be shown on the movie screen as the MGM logo mascot. I can be so sadistic sometimes!
I have a lot of action-packed roles Lionel Casey could be a part of. I’m also currently writing a dark fantasy novel called Fireball Nightmare. You’re probably asking yourself why I’m not using Lionel as part of that novel’s character roster. I’m mainly writing Fireball Nightmare for nostalgic purposes. The characters who have made the cut are ones I’ve used in past pieces of fiction and have had the greatest impact on my audience.
For my friends Kenny Flynn, James Howell, and Robert Hatfield, my barbarian Deus Shadowheart and my sadistic scientist Dr. Scott Cain are household names. For Heather Woody and TJ Johnson, Brutus Warcry is a Dungeons & Dragons character they’re used to hanging around. For my brother James Haines-Temons, Charles Goodhorn was also a Dungeons & Dragons character he’s most familiar with. Lionel Casey is a fresh face and this profile is the only exposure he’s had so far. Guys like Deus, Dr. Cain, and Brutus are the WWE Raw and Smackdown to Lionel Casey’s WWE NXT. Sorry, Lionel. You’ve got a lot to learn before I use you in a story.
***WRESTLING JOKE OF THE DAY***
Q: Why doesn’t Alberto Del Rio like driving in traffic?
A: He can never get over.
TITLE: Real Time with Bill Maher
GENRE: Political Debate and Comedy
RATING: TV-MA for strong language
GRADE: Depends on the episode
As I write this review for my lovely audience, I don’t want any of you to think this is me putting the boots to Bill Maher. I have a lot of respect for him both as a comedian and as a political commentator. In case you haven’t figured it out from my internet postings over the years, I have very strong liberal beliefs. In 2004, I voted for John Kerry and in 2008 and 2012, I voted for Barack Obama. Naturally, I agree with the things Bill Maher says almost 90% of the time. I especially enjoyed what he had to say about the recent police brutality incidents going on all over the country.
As far as his talk show goes, it’s not Bill Maher himself who makes or breaks each episode. It’s his fucking guests. Some episodes, his guests are polite and have great conversational chemistry together, and that goes for both liberal and conservative guests. Despite being on the opposite side of the political fence as him, I actually think Steve Schmidt, John McCain’s campaign advisor, carries himself in a calm, intelligent, and respectful way and having him on the show is always good to see.
And then there are those episodes where the guests are at each other’s throats like it’s an episode of WWE Smackdown. You know the guests I’m talking about: always interrupting each other, always talking loudly, always saying rude shit, and in some cases always taunting the audience. Does anybody remember the episode where Christopher Hitchens flipped off the audience? How about the ones where Dana Rorabacher created a sonic boom with his dialogue alone.
While it is true there are more rude conservative guests than liberal ones, there are liberal guests who are capable of holding Bill Maher’s show hostage. Gary Schandling answered his fucking cell phone in the middle of a political discussion. Roseanne Barr had more dialogue in one show than most guests have in multiple episodes. The biggest example of a show hostage taker is one I know I’m going to regret saying, mostly because he recently committed suicide. I’m talking about Robin Williams, who on one episode interrupted everybody with random jokes and committed the mortal sin of interrupting Bill Maher’s New Rules segment.
Bottom line: it’s not just being liberal or conservative that can make a guest annoying. It’s the way that guest presents himself on television to an audience who really just wants to see Bill Maher pop off jokes. The problem with his show is most of the time he invites crazy guests who destroy the whole night for the audience. At that point, I’m not even sure if New Rules can make me laugh since I’m too angry from all the fighting among the guests.
Mr. Maher, I’m not saying this to be mean to you, I’m saying it to you as a fan and hopefully a friend someday. Have a filter for the people you invite on your show. Dana Rorabacher already ruined one show with his shrill screaming, so don’t bother inviting him back on the set. I could also tell you were getting sick of SE Cupp’s ageist jokes when you had PJ O’Rourke as the final guest. You probably invite these lunatics on your show as a way to boost ratings. Trust me, Bill, this is not the way to get high ratings. If you want a pro-wrestling example of bad TV gone even worse, I’ve got three letters for you: WCW.
“And never blame the rainbows for the rain. And learn to forget the memories that caused you pain.” Never mind Justin Hayward or John Lodge for a moment. Imagine if somebody you loved said those words to you. Imagine the person closest to your heart giving you permission to let go of your stress and fall in love with life again.
While I haven’t had anybody say these words to me other than Justin Hayward, I am very grateful to hear them. I’ve used those lyrics as an anthem for recovering from schizophrenia in the early 2000’s. It wasn’t about intrusive voices trying to establish authority over me. It was about the past coming back to haunt me in the form of present day ghosts. Thank you, Justin, for giving me permission to let go.
Lord knows I’ve had plenty of short story and novel characters go through the worst kind of traumatic shit over the course of their lives. Hell, the first story of American Darkness is called “And Now I Speak Hate”. It’s about a male rape victim who tries to listen to reason, but ends up shattering a mirror with his fist instead. The story after that is “Angel Rape”. Would anybody like to take a guess as to what that story is about? Ding, ding, ding! Male rape!
A few stories later, it’s off to Iraq and Afghanistan with “Desert Dragons”, where two female soldiers get relentlessly raped and then desert their squadron because of it. Do you think any of these lead characters need Justin Hayward singing “Never Blame the Rainbows” in their ears? It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Don’t worry about me, I wasn’t raped myself, but I’ve had enough bad shit go on in my life that I felt powerless after all of it.
I’m not saying this song will cure you from whatever mental illness ails you. It will instead comfort you. It will give you the hope and courage you need to move on. Let’s face it: whenever mental illness strikes, hope is in short supply. In fact, the brain will create an illusion to the victim that hope is nonexistent except in fairy tales and Hollywood movies.
The sooner the victim realizes it’s all smoke and mirrors, the faster the road to recovery will be. Sometimes it takes a kindred soul to tell you it’s all smoke and mirrors. It could be your mother, your father, your husband, your wife, or in this case, Justin Hayward, the lead guitarist from The Moody Blues.
The Moody Blues will not judge you. They are all about peace, love, and understanding. They haven’t written a mean lyric in their lives. I dare you to pick a Moody Blues song at random to see if I’m wrong about this. Or better yet, buy a copy of “Keys to the Kingdom” and fast forward to the final track. Or listen to the whole thing, which has a myriad of positive messages for a mentally ill listener.
Put those headphones on, lay down on your bed, and let the warmth of Justin Hayward’s voice wash over you. If nothing else, he’ll ignite your imagination long enough for you to experience what it’s like to have a fully functional mind, even if only for a few minutes. Imagination is very powerful, so much so it could be used in a weapon in the fight against whatever’s killing you inside. Okay, so The Moody Blues aren’t all about war analogies, but you get what I’m saying, right? At least I hope you do.
If it hadn’t been for the “Keys to the Kingdom” album and the song “Never Blame the Rainbows” in particular, I wouldn’t have any way of telling my internet girlfriend at the time Jessica how I was still alive and would be for a long time despite the hardships. There was a time when I wanted to end it all and part of the reason I didn’t is because I borrowed this CD from my dad’s music collection. I’m sure he’d like to have it back someday before he turns 80, but him sharing his taste in music with me is very much appreciated.
Jessica seemed to get the message that everything was indeed going to be okay and that I would eventually become a (sort of) famous author one day. Even when my writing was at its rookie worst, Jessica believed in me anyways. That’s one of the reasons why I’ll always cherish the time we spent talking to each other online. Unfortunately, we’re not together anymore, but the memories are indeed fond ones. Thank you, Moody Blues, for being a part of those memories.
***POLITICAL QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“Humans do some really interesting things. Besides killing ourselves, we also kill each other. Murder. We’re the only ones who do that, by the way. We’re the only species on earth that deliberately kills members of our own species for personal gain. Or pleasure, sometimes it’s just fun. We’re also the only species on earth that deliberately kills members of another species for personal gain. Or pleasure, that’s what hunters do, they kill for pleasure. That’s us: human beings, interesting folks, murderers.”
-George Carlin-
TITLE: WWE NXT
GENRE: Professional Wrestling
RATING: TV-PG for mild violence
GRADE: A+
If you follow the yearly Wrestling Observer Newsletter awards like I do, you would have seen that the award for Best Weekly Television Show in 2013 was WWE NXT. You know why it won that prestigious award? Because when it comes to professional wrestling, there’s only one way to describe WWE NXT: bullshit-free television. That means there are no goofy stunt doubles, no tyrannical authority figures, no cranky divas, and no ridiculous endings to otherwise good matches. You want to know what wrestling is all about? WWE NXT is your answer. It can be all yours if you purchase the WWE Network for only…come on, people, what is it? It’s only $9.99 a month!
NXT is supposed to be the training grounds for wrestlers and divas who want to be featured on WWE Raw and Smackdown, the company’s two flagship shows. Judging from the way these “rookies” wrestle, it looks like they’ve spent their whole lives training. For many of the wrestlers, this couldn’t be closer to the truth.
Sami Zayn is a high-flying technical wizard who wrestled all over the world. Tyson Kidd is the final graduate of the infamous Hart Dungeon and knows how to cripple his opponents inside that ring. Tyler Breeze is arrogant and self-serving, but his own high-flying style justifies his otherwise obnoxious gimmick. Adrian Neville is called “The Man Gravity Forgot” for a reason: because every time he flies around the ring or even does a ground move, it looks like he’s in outer space. Four kick-ass wrestlers who always put on five-star matches whenever they’re in the ring. In fact, they downright steal the show. But these are just the main-eventers of NXT.
Even the wrestlers who haven’t been doing it for quite as long don’t show their inexperience very often. Bull Dempsey’s wrestling career started in 2006 and he fights like a 300-lb. wrecking ball, smashing and bruising everyone in his path. Charlotte’s career started in 2012, but she has so much going for her already: she trained under her father Ric Flair (a two-time WWE Hall of Famer and 16-time World Champion), she’s over six feet tall and is built like a powerhouse, and she had quite possibly the match of the year in 2014 against Natalya (daughter of Jim Neidhart) to win the NXT Women’s Championship. Anybody else that needs mentioning? How about Baron Corbin, a seven-foot juggernaut who squashed CJ Parker in his first match, which is a difficult feat in and of itself. Let me put it this way: when Pinocchio does another Geico commercial where he’s a motivational speaker, his nose won’t grow when he says NXT wrestlers have lots of potential.
Professional wrestling gets a lot of crap these days for being “gay porn” or “a redneck soap opera”. WWE NXT is quickly proving those two slurs to be wrong. The wrestlers are awesome to watch in the ring. The storylines are believable and are therefore easy to sit through. The commentary team isn’t constantly at each other’s throats nor are they trying to make corny jokes all the time. Like I said before, WWE NXT is bullshit-free television. If you want to make a layman into a believer, show them a random episode from this weekly series. Or if you really want to put your best foot forward, show him or her one of the two-hour specials. Bottom line: I can’t picture Triple H or Stephanie McMahon referring to the NXT staff as “B+ players” anytime soon.
OOC: In case you haven’t heard on my Deviant Art account, posts from my blog Garrison’s Library will now be appearing on Deviant Art and Good Reads. These posts include character profiles, song analyses, and positive book reviews. In the past I used to talk about couples and dreams, but those categories have been discontinued due to the redundancy of each post. Let’s get back to our regularly scheduled program.
IC: Have you ever been asked about your employment status and gave the asker an awkward response? You know what I’m talking about. You go to withdraw money from the bank and the teller asks, “Are you just getting off work?” My answer is the same every time: “I’m unemployed.” Doesn’t do much to ease the tension, but it works for me. Now imagine that your name is Special Agent Shawn Philips and Ziva David from the Washington DC version of NCIS asks, “What do you do for a living: write tickets to senior citizens with fake bus passes?” Ziva giggles lightheartedly while Shawn gives off a flat tire noise and says, “Very funny.”
A new season of NCIS and NCIS: Los Angeles are on the horizon. Not only that, but we’re getting an entirely new show from this franchise called NCIS: New Orleans. There was going to be one called NCIS: Red, but that storyline was aborted. With this new crop of NCIS shows coming on TV soon, it’s natural that I would be reminded of dreams I had where there was an NCIS: Seattle and an NCIS: Chehalis. Shawn Philips, the character in question, is from one of these incarnations. I forget which one.
The thing about NCIS characters is they’re always colorful, bright, and cheery to be around. Despite the hard drama that takes places in these shows, the characters never lose their sense of humor and there’s always room for positivism. So why then would a grumpy sourpuss like Shawn Philips be a part of a spin-off cast? The man couldn’t even take a joke about his job. At least when Leroy Gibbs gets grumpy, he has a sense of charisma about him. Shawn Philips is a middle-aged has-been detective whose only charisma lies within his good looks. I need to do something about this.
But in order to do something about Shawn’s lack of charisma, I have to break down the ingredients of a good NCIS character. It takes more than razor-sharp wit and a stellar job performance to make the cut. Shawn can’t just be a three-dimensional character. He has to have so many layers to him it’ll take a nuclear bomb to mine it all out. Unfortunately, this is where my analysis ends. Truth is, I don’t know how to make likeable or even relatable characters. Whenever I write my short stories, the characters’ likeability is 50/50. They might be awesome to be around, they might not be. When they’re not, I can usually sense it from my audience.
But since I believe dreams are a valuable source of creative fuel, I’m more than willing to roll the dice with Special Agent Shawn Philips. Sure, he can’t be a part of an NCIS story since it’s not public domain, but he came to my subconscious for a reason. Somewhere deep inside my psychological gold mine is the name Shawn Philips. Where it came from I will never know. But if I don’t make good use of this opportunity and put him in a future crime story, then we will never know if what I have in my head is a gold mine or just earwax.
***TELEVISION DIALOGUE OF THE DAY***
BOOTH: You probably shouldn’t tell your audience you hate children.
TEMPERANCE: I didn’t say I hated children, I said I wasn’t going to have any.
BOOTH: It comes across the same way on camera.
-Bones-
If you’ve been reading this blog for the past few years now, I not only applaud you, but I also want you to notice “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne is a part of my book collection. It has helped me in so many ways, but if I can be honest for a moment, staying positive is hard work. It may seem like easy pickings thinking positive thoughts all the time, but mental illness and general depression can really put a strain on such things.
For these moments, I have “Stay Positive” by The Streets, a British rap song with an uplifting message, but moody lyrics and background music. Somehow, it’s hard to do what the song’s title says when Mike Skinner is saying things like “You were born alone and believe me, you’ll die alone.” And yet, I need this song for all the times I feel down.
This song was published in 2002, but it would be a year later when my brother James introduced me to The Streets. It was around 2003 and 2004 that I started writing Pumping Filter, a movie script about high school woes and a big middle finger to those who abandoned me during that time. That’s what it was supposed to be. Instead, it was Pulp Fiction on steroids, so much so the script was unreadable.
The ending to this story isn’t any happier. Four high school students meet their fates in the most ugly ways possible. Tommy Dragon falls out of a window, Daniel McBride gets killed by a gangster, Dave Ridley goes to prison after committing murder, and Dexter Lee commits suicide by hanging due to complications from mental illness. Is it any coincidence that “Stay Positive” would have been the end credits theme to this movie if it made it to the big screen? It worked for Kidulthood, why not Pumping Filter?
And then we fast forward to the year 2010, particularly in November when I’m writing a cyberpunk novella called Dark City Tales. As the first word in that title suggests, nothing happy ever goes on in this story. Then again, it’s a cyberpunk world, where corporations own everything, governments are powerless to stop them, everybody has explosive guns, the police are corrupt, and the sky is as gray as static on a TV screen…just like in the real world!
With all of this nasty shit going on in urban America, the apocalypse shouldn’t be too far behind. In Dark City Tales, it wasn’t. Two cyborg mercenaries named AJ Rollins and Andre Devilheart destroyed the entire city just by fighting each other with highly explosive weapons. Even after the city was leveled and AJ and Andre was mangled beyond repair, they still wanted more! Do you think this is a good time for “Stay Positive”? Honey, it’s going to take some serious rainbow and unicorn shit to get this world back in order.
Pumping Filter and Dark City Tales have so much in common. They’re both about dystopian hellholes, they’re extremely violent, and most of all, they were so badly written they had to be scrapped. I consider those two pieces of writing to be just another way of sharpening my literary blade.
I see a lot of that in my past pieces of writing: they’re not future Pulitzer-winners, but they are opportunities to improve my writing. I’d like to think I’ve improved dramatically since 2002, so much so that I wouldn’t mind using some of my old characters again. If you thought the old characters were unhappy with being pummeled before, wait until they get put through the ringer again with new and improved stories. And yes, there will be plenty of opportunities to use “Stay Positive” as background music. Go see your mates. When they don’t look happy, play ‘em this tape.
***SOUND FILE OF THE DAY***
Hello and welcome to the Mental Health Hotline.
If you’re obsessive-compulsive, press 1 repeatedly.
If you’re codependent, ask someone to press 2 for you.
If you have multiple personalities, press 3-4-5-6.
If you’re paranoid, we know what you are and what you want, stay on the line and we’ll trace your call.
If you’re delusional, press 7 and your call will be transferred to the mother ship.
If you’re schizophrenic, listen carefully, a small voice will tell you which number to press.
If you’re depressive, it doesn’t matter which number you press, no one will answer you.
If you’re dyslexic, press 6-9-6-9-6-9-6-9-6-9.
If you have a nervous disorder, fidget with the hash key until the beep. After the beep, please wait for the beep.
If you have short term memory loss, try your call again later.
If you have low self-esteem, hang up, all of our operators are too busy to talk to you.
Baby and Floyd didn’t always have dark roots. In the early to mid 2000’s when I still visited my father in Vaughn on a weekly basis, those were the names of two of the most hyper, yet sweetest puppies to ever play with my dad and step-mother Charlie’s dog Daisy. Granted, I was the only one over in Vaughn who thought Baby and Floyd were darling, Baby being a golden retriever and Floyd being a rottie. Those two neighborhood dogs would drive Charlie nuts, especially after they tore up the yard and pissed on her pants. To this day, whenever I say “Who loves Floyd and Baby?”, Charlie says, “Nobody!” That was all some time ago. I don’t even know of those two dogs are alive today. If they are, they’re getting old.
Maybe the literary incarnation of Baby and Floyd are both representative of the sadness that comes with pets growing old and eventually dying. As far as my characters go, Baby and Floyd are not cute puppy-duppies. They are dark. They are deadly. They are cannibalistic. Piss them off and they’ll have you for supper. Think of them as the baldheaded puppets in Final Fantasy IV on steroids. The puppets in that game are creepy enough as it is, but they were so easy to kill. If you start hearing the Calcobrena theme playing while Baby and Floyd are in the same room as you, you’d better have toilet paper handy.
Baby has a pit bull mentality as WWE commentator Michael Cole likes to say about Daniel Bryan. Well, any true animal lover would know pit bulls are only mean if assholes abuse them. But let’s say for a moment that Michael Cole isn’t blowing a whole bunch of smoke. What would that mean for Baby, the little baldheaded cannibal puppet? It means if you leave your leg out, he will attach himself to it and chew until either his belly is full or your blood is drained. Guess which one will happen first.
Floyd is an entirely different animal. Yes, he’s just as cruel and evil as his much smaller counterpart, but he doesn’t normally use his teeth to get the job done. He has a sword for that kind of deal. If you need a reference point to follow, picture the big fucking sword Cloud Strife has in Final Fantasy VII and give it the ability to throw fire bombs upon unsuspecting enemies. Did I also mention Floyd is damned near seven feet tall? Does a guy the size of Frankenstein really need a sword that can cause so much destruction? Of course he does, because there are times when Baby prefers to have his meal of human flesh properly cooked.
This would normally be the part in the blog entry where I try to find employment for the character or characters in question. However, upon further inspection of my notes on Fireball Nightmare Act 3: Peace of Mind, there are two spots conveniently open for villainous characters. Well, now. Who should get those two spots? Which pair is evil enough to align themselves with a vampire wizard named Rhys Black, a child molester named Donald Park, and a brutal luchador named El Comegente? I know! How about John Bush and George Kerry? I’m just teasing you, of course those two spots are going to Floyd and Baby. Have fun, you two, but don’t have too much fun!
***PARODY WRESTLING QUOTE OF THE DAY***
“The following contest is a First Blood match for the WWE Divas Championship!”
-Justin Roberts-
