The Christmas Party: How many special people change? How many lives are living strange? Where were you while we were writing blogs?

Still confused by his conversation with his new employer, Brick sleepwalked through the following days of work until it was 12/21/2012, the office Christmas party. Still uncertain about his role in this strange company that had hired him out of the blue a little while ago, Brick was still working hard on some never ending list of promos that were always due sooner than he would want them to be. After a particularly difficult attempt to blend two very different songs into a smooth transition, brick was startled by a friendly hand o his shoulder. It was the lovely young assistant producer, Amethyst.

Dressed within the parameters of her usual purple palette, Amy (as most people called her) was not gifted height wise, but what she lacked in altitude, she more than made up for with her buoyant spirit and rustic good looks.

"Brick?" she asked our weary protagonist.

"Yes, Amy?" he replied as if his lungs were just freed of lethal sea water.

"Aren't you coming?"

"Hmmm?"

"The Christmas party."

"Oh, right..."

"You forgot, didn't you?'

"Yeah, kinda."

"Well, you should come. Celebrate the end of the world that never came."

"I think I should just..."

With a look of determination Amy interrupted Brick: "There is no way I'm letting you work while everyone else goes down to the bar for the party. No more of this loner BS for you, Brick. You're part of this family now. C'mon."

Presented with an offer he couldn't refuse from a woman he couldn't say no to, Brick reluctantly tossed on his ancient winter coat and hopped on the tiny lift down to the main floor and passed through the glass doors towards the icy streets. His head grew light from the rush of cold vapors being blasted in his face as he struggled to get the hood of his coat to stay on top of his now scruffy hair.

The entrance to the bar was not going to win any awards for creativity or design, but it was a functional wood/glass hybrid and it would live out the rest of its inanimate door life as a sturdy, but boring entrance to a run of the mill sports bar. The company Brick worked for had rented the place out for a few hours to reward its loyal employees with free booze and grub. Having already eaten recently and not being a consumer of alcoholic beverages would come back to haunt our already stressed out hero.

Taking a seat at the closest available table, Brick rested his elbows against the thin tablecloth that resembled the paper in an old brown paper bag. In the distance he saw Slate, Tigre and Ombre squabble over what was the best drink/meal combo. One argued that wine goes with everything, another that Jack Daniels was like kissing god...or the other, cloven-hoofed fellow. Such debates held little interest for the eternally sober Brick. His solitude was his strategy for surviving the holiday party unscathed, but alas it was not meant to be. Soon a couple of his fellow editors sat down across from him. They were, of course, more interested in themselves to pay much notice to Brick, save to chastise him once in a while for not partaking in the art of boozery, at least, that's what Brick would have called it...

Mercifully, some women sat down at the table. A couple were in the I'm-old-enough-to-be-your-mom-but-I'll-treat-you-like-an-adult age range. There was also Amethyst, who sat down next to Brick, which made the table seem ten times more tolerable a place to wait out this end of the world Christmas crossover mash-up remix of a party. While the table continued to order a steady supply of food and refreshments of the 21 and older variety, Brick felt himself slip further away from the group. Far away, Slate was making the case for vodka being the ultimate in holiday-improving beverages. Ombre was not having any of this and was ready to argue for the merits of fruit flavored liqueurs.

"Not drinking?" Amy asked Brick as she took a sip of her beer.

"Nope."

"Why not?" asked a creepy former employee who had relocated to a different department of the same company.

"I just don't."

"But you're a creative person, you should drink."

"I just don't want to, okay?"

"Okay..."

"I'm sorry, I just, I don't have any interest in consuming something that's poisonous to my liver just because everyone else is, ok?

"Fine. Just wanted to help."

The evening continued in that awkward tone as Brick kept sneaking glances at Amethyst. This was, however a party, so of course the drunken broadcasters would get up to propose toasts filed with so many private jokes that it rendered the humor nigh-incomprehensible. The speeches got worse and more jumbled as the hours rolled by. When some of the women were getting ready to go back to the office, Brick saw his escape strategy, joined their extraction team and left the drunk to so be up on their own.

The walk back was brisk but invigorating. Brick was happy just to be near Amethyst, even though she was more preoccupied with her plans for the rest of the evening. Upon reaching the glass doors in front of the studio, Amethyst, noticing that Brick wasn't going back inside and reflecting on his general despair earlier that evening, told him that she would miss him during the holidays and reached out to hug him. He of course welcomed her warm embrace and knew that such a gift would not likely repeat in the foreseeable future. Amethyst went inside after saying a few more pleasantries and Brick was left alone to ponder his changing life as the afterglow of her touch eroded in the cold December night air.

They were talking about the space between us all and the people who hide themselves behind a wall of illusion...

Brick felt his focus slipping again as he tried balancing his elbow on the armrest, only to have it shift down, away from him. He felt a sharp surge in his chest, like something was trying to pierce it from the inside out. Gripping his left arm close to the firm muscle tissue below his left shoulder. The color drained from his sight for a moment before pouring back.

"Brick Mann. Brick Mann?"

The voice belonged to the ever vigilant secretary that kept the office running tight. She had her hair tied back tight, so as to keep her locks from tearing the world apart.

"Yeah?" Brick asked as he tried to feign normalcy.

 "The boss would like to see you in his office."

"Okay," with slow, careful steps, Brick put his never ending list of promos to rest while he marched down to the opposite end of the room. The pain still lingered inside him and yet it was outside of his consciousness as well. It was as if the whole room were a massive migraine.

Turning the knob, Brick entered the small corner office that distinguished the employer from the employee. An empty symbol of power that was nonetheless  statement of hierarchy and status quo.

The boss, a larger than life presence without so much as a whiff of vulnerability, sat waiting with the patience of the Himalayas. His unbreakable posture and titanium eyes were no joke (not that anyone would joke about the boss.)

"Brick," he says in a bass whisper. "Sit down."

Feeling to drained to stand, brick was only happy to oblige. His mind, feeling squeezed like a citrus fruit on a summer day, was pressured to discover the reason for the impromptu meeting.

"Those promos will be ready by the end of the day."

"Oh, well that's good to hear." The boss was pensive and in no mood for filler chitchat. "Brick..."

"Yes, sir?"

"Are you happy?"

"Excuse me?"

"I was under the impression that you were getting accustomed to the language."

"Oh, I am."

"Then let me rephrase. Are you happy working here?"

"I guess so, yes."

"You guess?"

"Happiness is an elusive emotion, at least that's how I see it."

"I see. Let me try to explain myself then. I don't know how it was on the other side (he points at the door next to the entrance  to his office which leads to another space entirely, one that brick is all too familiar with, despite the freshness of his current occupation). "The only way that we can get you to enjoy your stay with this company is for you to stop thinking of yourself as a separate unit in this space, building a wall against this reality, and embrace the fact that nobody can change you, except you.."

"I..."

"Can't you see that you're one of them? Until you accept the group with Slate and the rest, you'll never grasp the truth..."

"I wish that I could but..."

"Those buts are stopping you. Everything you need, you already have. Within and without you. The time will come when you'll see it. I know it shall."

Brick just kept staring outside, but all he saw was another soul being dragged toward a large shining tower in the distance, only to be shattered into infinite shards of light.

"I have been here before, but I wasn't myself."

"You have to ask yourself, what's more important: to gain the world or lose the soul?"

"What a choice..."

"Life will flow on, within you or without you."

 

 

The Long and Winding Road to Adulthood Part 5: Steady Employment and the Long Way Back from Hell.

The screen went white again as the program froze for the umpteenth time that day. Brick sack back in his rigid swivel chair and let out a downbeat yawn. He had been working for weeks now and the damned computer kept freezing whenever he loaded his old sequence.

Despite the occasional headache accompanied with an existential crisis, the last few weeks were rather dull and consistent. Brick was working hard for once.  The hiring process was a bit of a blur to him. He vaguely recalled reading words of wisdom by someone he had once respected, but had trouble putting a name or face to the memory.

The row of cubicles where Brick was stationed was soon greeted by its other usual suspects. John D. Slate, the would-be king of promos led the pack. His hair was nestled back in a blonde tail that was about as pretentious as his high-pitched 60 mph rants. Behind him was Señor Tigre, an affable audio expert with a head as shiny as freshly polished boots. Bringing up the rear was Jacques Ombre, dark and mysterious, mostly because of an unhealthy addiction to dark clothing and spray can tanning.

Brick ignored his throbbing head and focused on getting all the promos done on time. The morning dragged and clicked away into afternoon, with pauses for rendering and freezing alike. The typical parade of characters passed through the room at regular intervals, like figurines on a cuckoo clock: the overworked, underpaid secretary who looked mortified 24/7; the jovial lawyer who was both a badass and a mensch; the voluptuous producer/host with eyes like stolen diamonds who could always spare a moment to break your heart and piece it back together for next time; and the creepy soon-to-be-ex-employee who lingered around with unknown agendas and nothing to lose...

The trivial matters of running a rock band had become nothing but a distant memory for the man who now had a steady paycheck and a comfortable shell of a life to call his own. Sure he barely spoke the same language as his new co-workers. Sure he was missing sleep like a blindfolded piñata swing.  And then there was that growing void inside him that grew with every monotonous keystroke and mouse click.

Perhaps his road to adulthood was sacrificing freedom for stability, passion for consistency, love for malaise. The fire that once roared within him, the passion to reach for the unobtainable had been doused and the ashes of his troubled youth were swept aside for the respectable mediocrity of the forty hour work week.

Hell was a distant memory, but Brick was still a long way from paradise. For now, there was only the job and the nagging suspicion that something around him was not as it seemed.

 

 

 

Whatever Happened to the Brick Man part 3: Where is my blog? Way out in the water, see it swimming...

With a snap came darkness. Total, unwavering oblivion. Was it really just a quick attack between the eyes or was it the force of a beastly storm rampaging the countryside? In that moment, it didn't really matter which was real and which was the illusion. It was cold, loud and nothing made very much sense anymore. Nothing mattered in the moments that followed but finding a way back to a lost reality.

As if the directionless void that darkness provided weren't bad enough, there was the cold and the slow river of phlegm that seized the body during the lack of heat. In this cold and miserable state, the dark and dimensionless space seemed like the confines of a ship sinking to the bottom of an ocean. The loud noises coming from outside the wall echoed within the confused and muffled sphere of consciousness.

And then came the sense of loss. Not for oneself but for others, but for the unseen masses that one will never know. And though one might be spared the force of the storm, others would not be as lucky. And it was this growing sense of guilt that began growing inside of Brick. And on top of that guilt of being better off than others when maybe you didn't deserve to be, was a sense of helpless self pity.

Perhaps that was G Mod's revenge. He had shattered Brick's isolated mind and exposed it, like a nerve, to the realities he had been avoiding. He had lost the ability to focus solely on his own mundane preoccupations when he knew that the  tide outside was moving without him.  So while his body was trapped waiting for the storm to pass, Brick's mind was scattered across the water and who knew what would await him when he came back to his senses...  

 

Whatever Happened to the Brick Man Part 2: The Inconvenience of Existence. Dude, we really have to come up with better titles. That was embarrassing... I can't explain, you would not understand. This is not how I am... It's ok. Shhhh... There is no pain, you are receding...

Before Brick had a moment to react to the crowd of angry protesters that had gathered outside his home away from home in the middle of nowhere, they began to tear everything to pieces. Down went his mobile recording studio, as well as his brooding room, er... living room. Brick by brick the protesters tore apart the edifice until nothing was left but a hollow imprint in the ground, an empty cavity serving as the only piece of proof that there once was a Brick that lived there.

As the protesters began to disperse, the ever annoying mastermind G Mod emerged from behind the hemp covered masses. With rage in his heart and vengeance clenched in his tired fists, Brick charged at the record producer with all his might, but he failed to make even a dent. The megalomaniacal G Mod grabbed the frustrated guitarist's fist and used it to send Brick flying face first into the mud beneath his feet.

From beneath the Brick shaped indent in the brown dirt, Brick muttered, "Of course. Nothing's gone right for me thus far, why should I win now?"    

 G Mod, amused by Brick's insistence on self pity merely, laughed as he watched him rise to his feet and shake the grass from his face. "We've wasted enough time with this malarkey already, boy."

"Oh god, now he decides to be topical? Why don't you just leave me alone, old man."

"I can't do that anymore, Brick. You've been alone too long. Your mind is beginning to rot."

"Haha funny. Is this going to be another speech about how I'm sooo ignorant and how you know everything about the entirety of existence?"

"Sarcasm is an ugly shade of human communication; I was never a big fan."

"I'm sure. You never were a fan of anything I ever did."

"Brick, you've been trapped in your own cathedral of ideas for too long..."

"Wait a minute...Slate mentioned that in the very first webisode (Editor's note: *we had to fire our editor due to a Ponzi Scheme they had tried to start but failed miserably*), before everything became goofy and self-caricature."

"For all his bluster and faux rockstar posturing, Slate had a few moments of clarity, and that was one of them."

"What the hell do you mean by a cathedral of ideas?"

"You hide behind your so-called music, your novel... anything but face the rest of the world. You even went into seclusion for christsakes.  You've walled yourself off and no it's time for you to face what you've become. It's about time for you to put aside all of these unnecessary distractions and characters that you've held onto for so long..."

"What did you do?"

"What I had to..."

 "WHAT. DID. YOU. DO?!"

"I merely removed some unnecessary parts of the equation in order to balance things out again."

"Where's Tigerman?" Brick demanded as he tried to grab G Mod's collar but missed."

 "I showed him the error of his ways."

"You bastard!"

"He was a crutch! He made you weak with his own weakness."

"And Shadow?"

"You mean the ape responsible for me being able to keep tabs on you this whole time? He's gone along with the cowardly tiger and the Slate Man to meet Oz the Gweat and Tewwible."

"..."

"You're missing the point."

"Am I? Then what is it?"

"They were the unnecessary parts of you that you didn't need any more. It's time to leave your shelter, grow up and join the rest of the human race. This charade has lasted long enough. Let go of your childish dreams. We're going home "

With a swift flick between the eyes, G Mod disabled Brick and set into motion his end game. Brick fell slowly to the ground. As his body began to lose all feeling, he finally began to feel at peace, even as he knew that something terrible awaited him at the other end of this fall. There was no going back this time.

Whatever Happened to the Brick Man? Part 1: Me and the Devil Blues

As every structure begins with a single brick, so does our story. Well, technically first you have to make sure the ground is stable, build a foundation, and then... Yeah, yeah. Whatever! Mr. Architect over here. Mr. Architect? What is this some bad 90's stand-up comedy bit? What do you know about 90's stand-up comedy...you didn't even exist yet! Touché, sir.   Where was I? I believe you were starting the blog post with a bad metaphor. Oh yes, right.

We began this tale with Brick and we shall end it with Brick. It is, after all, his story, even if it doesn't always seem like that's the case. In case you didn't know, Brick was an aspiring musician with stars in his eyes and that one guitar. Foreigner jokes aside, it was that guitar that stood by him since the beginning... of the story.

Brick was a simple child, too simple. Level 1-1 simple. He was a decent student (when he wasn't challenging his teachers to music showdowns... long story). He spent half of his youth in a daydream and the other half wishing he was in a daydream. He was never a good looking fellow. He was so ugly, but that's okay, cause so are you. He always had problems with authority (which explains why he got kicked out of boot camp.)

It was Brick's avid desire to be creative that served him well throughout his life but it was also his greatest weakness. Oh jeez, we're talking about weaknesses. In fact his overactive imagination had been the source of 99% of Brick's problems. (See what we did there?)  If there were anything that could have saved Brick, it would been the ability to wake up and face what's in front of him, but that was never something he could do.

It was this condition that made Brick very susceptible to G Mod's offer of fame and fortune, despite the fact that G Mod's legendary music studio was just someone's basement in California. If he wasn't so trapped in a waking mix of dream and reality, Brick never would have signed his life away to pursue something as fleeting as fame, as petty as money.

As Brick stood on the porch of the MFUJ retreat, staring into the restless grimaces of the Occupy protesters that had come for him, he was finally facing the aftermath of following the relentlessly evil G Mod down a road of insatiable greed.

Brick had sold his soul and his friends, his delusions, had paid the ultimate price. And soon, soon it would be his turn to face the harsh light of day. For now it was just him, the devil and an angry mob out for his hide.

The Secret of the Tigerman: Well, People are Crazy and Times are Strange... I used to care, but things have changed

"Is this not what you expected to see?" asked the sinister G Mod as Tigerman, the former MFUJ bassist, looked in to the mirror to discover that he was not in fact a six foot tiger creature but just a man in a cheap tiger costume.

"What the...?" pondered the perplexed former feline.

"You didn't really think that a six foot tall anthropomorphic tiger creature could come into existence just like that, did you?"

"I..."

"ugh..." sighed the exhausted record producer as he rubbed the bridge of his nose with his thumb and forefinger. "It's not that complicated. You had a very strong connection to brick... it's no surprise that underneath the mask, you look just like him."

"but..."

"You are him... a part of him at least. You are his optimism, his innocence, his hope. Is it any wonder that you manifested as his favorite animal, something majestic yet ferocious that could hold back the negativity..."  

"Brick split..."

"Into several pieces. I've already taken care of his baser instincts when I banished that loudmouthed attention hog, Slate, to a distant flashback."

"And now you're going to get rid of me?" asked the ex-tiger as he looked at the harsh manipulator extraordinaire.

In a rare twist, G Mod responded by simply stating, "No," before sprinting behind the silent Shadow, the drummer (who we haven't forgotten about.)

"You see, you and Tattoo boy aren't the only fragments of Brick. There's also monkey man here. You see, he's Brick's conscience, the part of him that can tell the difference between right and wrong. When Brick came to me, he was far from whole. He had no moral compass. It had been reborn as this ball of fur. And how this creature has ended up betraying him over and over again without his knowledge... is oh so sweet."

G Mod removed Shadow's hood and gorilla face to reveal yet another brick Doppelganger. G Mod then grabbed the drummer's throat and clenched it. "I've put a lot of work in over the years to get to this point. The fun and games stage is officially over." With a quick action, G Mod crushed Shadow's windpipe before hurling the drummer out the window and towards the mysterious tower outside.

"Shadow..." mumbled the bassist formerly known as Tigerman as he watched his old friend dissolve into the giant metaphor.

"That felt refreshing...." G Mod remarked as if a part of his own soul were cleansed.

"The Id is gone. So is the Super Ego. And now, it's your time to go, Ego."

"I thought that you said that I was innocence..."

"What I meant was that you are a faulty ego. You weren't able to keep Slate and Shadow in balance with one another. They both turned their backs on Brick."

"But you made them do all those things," retorted the frustrated.

G Mod smirked. "The decisions were theirs to make. Slate was allowed to thrust the band in his direction and shadow confined you within my grasp, as you would put it. You failed at your job to keep them tied to... I gave you a job here in order to snap you out of the realm of imagination and back to..."

G Mod pointed at the tower.

"The tower?" asked Tigerman.

"Reality..." said G Mod as he leaped in for the finish. Tigerman was broken and tossed onto the tower with an indifferent expression on his once vividly animated face.

"That just leaves one thing to take care of," G Mod said as he wiped his hands and headed for the exit from the office building (which was slowly fading out of existence).

 

 

 

 

Sometimes the worst betrayal is the one you never saw coming. I put my trust...in the fact that this blog would not be so melodramatic. I'll try to not fade away.

And as former MFUJ front man, Slate Man, wandered around the sloppy coke-fueled masses amongst the CBGB's crowd (Don't fact check us, it's a little late in the game  for that, don't you think?), he noticed something strange happening. the louder and faster that Super Mario and the Koopa Troopas played, the more he felt his very being affected. He looked around the crowd once more and, to his horror, discovered that almost all of the members shared at least one part of his appearance. A tattoo here, a spiky hairdo there. In fact, one terrible certainty was becoming clear. Slate was a composite of everyone at this club on this forsaken night in the past.

Slate struggled to figure out what was going on as the band began playing a new tune, A Means to an End.

Slate tried to figure out what was going on but the more he attempted to think, the more he realized that he was incapable of going anywhere past surface levels emotions. In fact, he couldn't remember the last time he had delved into his own mind for anything, as if he had never had a mind of his own.

The frustration built up inside him as the crowd became more and more frantic in its movements until everything stopped and Slate was staring at a young G Mod eye to eye.

"Having difficulty thinking your way out of this, moron?"asked the pretentious future producer.

"What the hell is going on? I was always loyal to you... why?"

"You've served your purpose."

"But... how is all of this happening? I have no control and... how are you manipulating..."

"You were never meant to have an power of your own. You were always meant to be an extension of my will."

"Your will?"

"You have no thoughts of your own that I have not planted in you."

"What?"

"I knew you wouldn't understand. You're not a person. You're a pastiche, a collage, a joke. You're made up of such disparate impulses and influences that you could never exist as an actual person. Not a sane one. You're pure Id. There is no depth to you. And now, there's no need for you."

"But why here?"

"This is a memory. One that you'll never know."

Slate looked at his normally tattooed arms and noticed his features slowly being absorbed by the cliché punks from hence his existence was spawned. And as G mod smiled, the unenviable Slate Man was wiped clean from existence and faded away to the cavernous void in the mind where bad ideas disappear to.

And so continues the empty filler of the Once Mighty May Day saga. G Mod lectures Tigerman on not believing what he sees is real. Everything might just be a dream within a mind****. Isn't it always? And you? You came from out of nowhere.

G Mod paused, took out a stick of chewing gum from the desk he was sitting in at Tiger International's HQ in *insert city name here*. He was staring down the six foot tall tiger standing across from him. For years, that tiger was someone reluctantly had to accept as a member of the band because, let's face it, in most cases the bassist was expendable. If there was anything G Mod enjoyed more than robbing lead guitarist, Brick, of his future, it was tormenting the bipedal Siberian tiger.

 "So you really thought that life had finally started going your way?" G Mod asked with maximum acerbicity.

"I was starting to..."

"It was a convenient lie to embrace, wasn't it?"

"That people would accept me?"

"And with such open arms. Did it never occur to you that it might all be too good to be true?"

And yes, it did seem too good to be true. That an unaccomplished musician would be given a job interview out of the blue, that always seemed odd to Tigerman, even if he just wanted to blissfully go along for the ride without looking beneath the surface.

"I was hoping..."

"Hoping," the corrupt producer repeated with a churlish grin, "if hopes affected the worl, well, uh, it would be a lot different than the sinkhole it is now."

"You mean...."

"Yes, all the lovely women who seem to flirt with you one minute and then find you odd the next minute, the mentor of yours who is simultaneously proud of and frustrated with you and all that work that you allegedly d everyday... all of t was just a sham."

"But why go through all the trouble? This all seems so elaborate."

"Does it now? I certainly was simple during the planning stages. you know I had a PowerPoint presentation all set up but ol' banana brain over there couldn't plug the l' PC o the projector properly and we've already fired the last competent employee this company had in order to boost my yearly bonus."

"But how? How do you have this much influence in this company?"

"I own it. Won it in a high stakes game of Chutes and Ladders. I bet MFUJ. Good thing the schmuck doesn't listen to rock music or he would have realized the band was broke and awful."

"I still can't believe the last few months were all fake..."

"100% fictional like pro wrestling, justice and the female o..."

"Wrestling is fake?"

"Don't tell me you actually thought that a bunch of misfits got together and decided to settle their petty disagreements like some elaborate Greco-roman soap-opera for dudes?"

"Well, I never watched it, I just thought..."

"Well, you haven't been thinking well this whole time, have you? You actually believed that you were actually a tiger."

"What?!"  Tigerman exclaimed with primal betrayal in his voice.

"Things are about to get really complicated, really fast, tigerboy. You better watch as I show you the truth."

And with one gesture G Mod stripped Tigerman of his feline visage and the truth dawned on Tigerman from out of nowhere...

And as the end approached, there came an image of a wedding...and peroxide in one's hair. Maybe not, but it was a nice day to start again.

As we all know (if one were paying attention to the epic saga that has unfolded recently, that is), Slate had disappeared from the current continuity where G Mod was threatening Tigerman, and Brick was facing certain doom at the hands of an unwieldy group of Occupy protesters. He had instead appeared in NYC during the peak of the punk rock. "Why?" you might ask. Very simple.

It was at the infamous CBGB's club that Slate would make an interesting discovery. Beneath the velvety haze of cigarette smoke and spilled whiskey, there was a young group about to take the stage that would prove a momentous discovery. After a lukewarm introduction from the owner, a balding fifty year old with no business liking this kind of music (we only assume this, don't get on our backs about historical inaccuracies; if that kind of bull matters to you, you're in the wrong place), the young musicians took the stage. Among them were a lead footed drummer with fists of steel and a barrel gut, a slinky bass player whose body was 80% flowing hair and of course the lead guitarist and lead singer, a brash brunette with sunglasses on and a score to settle with the music industry.

"We are Super Mario and the Koopa-troopas!" declared the singer before the drummer began counting them in.

Slate watched in utter amazement, completely ignoring the totally cute Sheena standing next to him (she's a punk rocker, don't you know?)

As the crowd was confused by the band's name (the reference wouldn't make sense until a few years later when Shigeru Miyamoto ripped off the band in order to start a video game empire (Don't quote us on this. Seriously, don't), the band began their set by playing a mellow love song that would later be popularized by a British peroxide aficionado. Here is an idea of what that must have sounded like.

Slate was dumbstruck. He recognized the vocals as those of G Mod, though obviously a much younger version. 'How could this be?' he thought as the band was greeted by mild applause tainted by drunken booing. The band proceeded to switch musical directions as both the bassist and drummer succumbed to musical exhaustion (after just one song) leading to G Mod having to perform a solo guitar performance that would shake the club to its roots. Here's an approximation of what that would sound like.

Needless to say, Slate had a lot to figure out and not a lot of time as his tattoos began fading, Marty McFly style. He brushed Sheena aside, who merely mumbled "Call me, psycho killer..." (could we be more obvious with the band references? Perhaps)

And then....you'll just have to stay tuned for the next ish. (Ish? What's an ish? Issue. Issue? I thought we were describing these as episodes. Who do you think you are, 1960's Stan Lee?)

 Now enjoy a cover version of Super Mario and the Koopa-troopa's song White Wedding as performed by some bloke named Billy Idol.

To My Future Second Wife Part 2: Once upon a time, I could have loved you. Once, Once...

And now resident romantic, Tigerman, addresses his second bride-to-be, whoever she might be. Yes, we haven't hung ourselves yet.

Dear love of mine that seems so far away,

In case you still don't know who I am, I used to play bass guitar in a band called MFUJ, I currently work at a large television network (which I recently found out was just a front for a megalomaniacal record producer with a pocketful of deus ex machina, whatever that is) and I'm also your future husband, although I've been having my doubts.

Sure, there's the whole threat of imminent danger that I'm facing from G Mod and that mysterious tower being built. I'm not sure if that plotline will ever be resolved in a meaningful, non-convoluted mind****, but perhaps everyone's mind needs to be ****ed every now and again. My apologies.

I'm starting to lose hope that we will ever meet. Maybe a 6 foot tall tiger creature had no right to expect to find love not just once but twice. Perhaps it was hubris that has led me to this point. I was so blinded by my expectations for the future that I couldn't see that my present was being pulled away from beneath me. Isn't that just like life or fiction. You get swept up in the little everyday things that you miss the slowburn simmering in the background until you're on fire.

What does this have to do with us? Well, Everything seems so wrong. I haven't even met my first wife and already I have an evil plot looming over me with the possibility of ending my feline existence with a few typed paragraphs.

Is that all it takes to wipe away feelings and emotions and thoughts and ideas...?

Woman of unknown origin, I just want you to know that I would have loved you like the ocean loves the earth. If all I am is but a one-note joke that has gotten twisted up in some massive conspiracy that will most likely end in disappointment (Matrix Revolutions-style), then so be it. I've worked hard to get this far and I'm not about to give up now. And If you're not willing to give up either, then, maybe, you really are my future second wife. The one with whom I finally get it right with.

Love,

Tigerman

Your future husband?

Tigerman is a self-taught bass player as well as a six foot tall anthropomorphic tiger creature. He used to spend all of the time he wasn’t playing music talking about his future wives. Now, he spends every second trapped in a convoluted story arc waiting for release of some kind. No, not that kind of release. Perv.

Long Live rock n roll and convoluted plotlines on blogs that few people read. Well, at least the rock n roll part sounded good. Let's have some of that.

A large tower stood outside the window and just intimidated the hell out of Tigerman. How did he not see this monstrosity built using the best medieval construction equipment and methods earlier? We'll just leave that up to Tigerman's extreme laziness when it comes to exploring a neighborhood. You'd think he'd notice a huge stone tower reaching up to the proverbial heavens would catch his attention, but you know Tigerman. That cat is too focused on the pretty faces at the office to notice the conspicuously perpetual storm clouds hovering twenty yards away from his building or the ominous music that's playing non-stop outside by some overworked ethereal orchestra. Some cats are just too into the ladies'... Um, we've just been informed that next sentence was censored because it objectified women in an attempt to demonstrate that the character being described objectified women. We apologize for the near-fatal turn towards the chauvanistic. We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

"And that's all I have to say about my plans and well everything you would want know," said the malevolent record producer as he... Wait a minute. We're missing a huge piece of plot, exposition and nudity. HMMM? No nudity? Ok. I'm bored. Rewind please.

"What is going on, G Mod?" asked Tigerman. "It seems like weeks have gone by and still you haven't told me why you're here."

"Kitty, kitty. You never were observant, were you? We put a few attractive pieces of ass in front of you and you lose all focus." Whoa, whoa, whoa. Now how did that get past the censors? Oh, they were looking at her with the ... and the... Whooo... If only I weren't a disembodied voice composed solely of italicized text.

"I've ended the band. I was never interested in the collective whining and musical cacophony that you produced. I was after something much more precious. The future."

"What?" the confused tiger asked as he tried to escape, only to be slammed back down into his seat by the powerful arm of a conflicted gorilla.

"My business is time. I deal with futures. Deal in them... Whatever."

"What does that...?"

"You don't get it? My goal this whole time was to ruin Brick's future."

"Why?"

"It's valuable to me. I had to prevent him from achieving any sort of success or happiness. I sabotaged every move he ever made. I brought back his darker half, Slate, out of captivity by using monkey brain over there. I made sure he got expelled from school, got dishonorably discharged from that military that he tried to join and I ruined his credit score beyond salvation. I gave him no option but to be in the band. The only wild card was you."

"Me?"

"Yeah, you deaf cat. Slate would verbally abuse Brick and give him false hopes of the band meaning something before snatching them away and Shadow would undermine Brick's every attempt to be free of the confines of my grasp, but you? You  were the only positive influence he had in his life. He recruited you personally into the band because you reminded him of a simpler time. Before reality tv and self destruction entered his mind. I tried my best to isolate him from you, but you two were inseparable. until I got you this job where you could ogle the ladies all day long."

"You got me the job!"

"Yes, I know the owner...cause, as of now, I am the owner. You see, the former owner was a big believer in pre-twentieth century customs and when I challenged him to a duel, he accepted and I bested him."

"So that's why I haven't seen him..."

"Oh there's more. Like I told you, my business is time. I stole what time that douche had left and channeled it into the tower. You see that's the secret ingredient to my endgame. I profit at expense of others futures. It's a pretty standard business model and it's working for me."

"This all seem like you copied the plot of an episode of Angel."

"Oh! That's where I got the idea. That casino episode with Gunn... or was it Lorne? I had totally forgotten. Thanks for reminding me. You're not totally worthless after all."

"What are you going to do with me?"

"Nothing. you're future is worthless to me. I just needed to isolate you from him so that I could finally extract his future. It's the key to completing the tower. The final brick, if you will."

"Why him?"

"It always had to be him. He was the key to all of this. But he had to be defeated, literally and spiritually before I could achieve my goal. And now those foolish occuppy protesters will end up sacrificing someone who actually could have been their leader just because I told them to."

"No..." murmured Tigerman as the tower flashed a mighty shade of crimson as another person's future was absorbed into the giant metaphor... I mean tower.

    

     

G Mod: "World's worst solo cover artist releases his take on Dreamer Deceiver. I Issue a challenge to all you bored record companies. Try to make something like this sell. What? You chicken? Or Lazy? Yeah, with a capital L."

Before he was threatening Tigerman with the vaguest of threats while a Ronnie James Dio lyric came to life outside the Tiger International office building, G Mod was dismantling the MFUJ band name, one initial at a time. Well, it lost the J awhile ago. (Remember MFU+?) Things were going pretty badly for the band after they filmed the fourth and quite likely final MFUJSF webisode. While Tigerman had escaped the commotion by spending all his time at his new job, Brick was left with the humiliating task of watching his band publically humiliated by its own manager, who had seized control of the band away and tormented Brick with that fact ever since. You can just imagine what sort of graphic, edgy metaphor we could use to describe what it feels like to watch something you've loved and nurtured suddenly and perversely violated by someone while you watch helplessly... ok, we've just been informed that we're being sued by the makers of Law and Order for encroaching on their turf of socially acceptable deplrable programming.

With the sullen drummer, Shadow, standing behind him as a reluctant bodyguard, G Mod delivered a scathing press conference in which he denounced Brick as a "One-dimensional noise merchant who should have sold his soul in order to produce better music. His 'real' soul, not the metaphorical one that I got when he signed onto my record label."

He then pulled out a newly printed single, a rarely seen commodity in the digital era, which featured Brick's first attempt at a cover of Dreamer Deceiver. "Have you ever heard such rubbish in all your life? It's so bad that I've been reduced to using British slang to describe it. It's bloody awful, blood out of your ears...."

Although the cover was produced by Brick's solo band (literally solo), The Falcons, G Mod still controlled at least 99.9 % of all profits made by the band and all its spin-offs and side projects. "Effective immediately," he declared, "MFUJ is now officially dissolved. Anyone except upper management and the blog staff is prohibited from reproducing MFUJ without the prior consent of G Mod himself. As per the contract that Brick had unwittingly signed and lost all his privileges and rights as both a performer and a musician, what this would lead to, we'll delve into later."

For more of g Mod's thoughts, check us out on twitter. Don't you hate it when people beg you to follow them on twitter as a man would try to woo a woman.

"Go ahead and sell the song. I bet none of you record holders would take a chance by selling the song and not going into the red. pretty difficult. You're all just lazy"  

To Live and Die in Obscurity: The Inevitable downfall of Slate Man. Don't you dare to go under. Don't let'em steal your thunder. Listen to the sound...

Since we've already seen all of the other main characters of the blog facing peril or simply be menacing for totally cryptic reasons, let's see what the final member of MFUJ has been doing during this epic epilogue series called May Day.

Slate was never what we would call a good guy. Or a smart guy. Or a likable guy. He was essentially a tattooed man with a big bushy beard and spiky hair that made viewers feel uncomfortable. He was the edgy band member who was responsible for all the unnecessary swearing, controversy and partial nudity (and not the good kind). Yes, he has really been a burden. He went after the Lunch Lady Mafia (and lost in a devastating food fight), he took pictures of his Amazon package and got in trouble (shameful display of cardboard) and he acted like a pretentious douche in webisode 1, an attention-starved idiot in webisode 2, a bluesy vagabond in webisode 3 and an idiot savant battleship player in webisode 4. Talk about inconsistant.

So what has happened to the least popular member of MFUJ, the world's most self-imploding, semi-fictional rock band?

Picture a light drizzle of late spring urban rain falling on a desolate alleyway. Inside that alleyway is a rusty old dumpster. Inside that dumspter is...the rest of this blog. Oh, I sure walked right into that one. Slate was now destitute, penniless and alone. And wet. The rain, remember? After being G Mod's obedient lackey within the band for years, Slate was cast out of the megalomaniacal (yes, we use that adjective a lot, so sue us. On second thought, don't. We have no money and all of our stuff is worth less than nothing; it'll actually cause you to lose money just by owning it) producer's good graces. Without any warning or even two weeks' notice (same thing?), Slate was thrown in the back of a van and dropped off at a random street corner.  

Without a name to call his own (and his tattoos washing away), Slate stumbled past the streetwalkers and dealers (mostly black jack and occasionally Texas hold-em). There were bright lights and dark hearts everywhere. Yes, you guessed it. Slate was exiled to the late 70's / early 80's.  Is a time travel concept the sign of a writer reaching the limits of his creativity? I won't argue with that. But c'mon. Slate stuck in an era of decadence and lawlessness? That's gold, Jerry. Gold.

But what's so great about being in this time? Well, it just so happens that a young band that is only a few years away from renaming itself to Super Mario and the Koopa Troopas was about to get on stage at CBGB's. We'll let you ponder the possible plotholes that might entail as we leave you for now.

   

My thoughts on imperfect music. Just as soon as your back is turned, they'll be tryin' to cut you down. But just bear this in mind, a true friend is hard to find.

Before the events of the May Day Saga were set into motion, a very distraught Brick went on to write an open letter to fans, critics and people who "accidentally" reached this blog and "accidentally" decided to read a bunch of entries because, well, it's on the internet and that's a public space and open to everyone.

To whom it may concern, 
  
You may know me as Brick but really I'm just a man with a guitar. I'm not special. I never set out to be special. Let the special people be special. I just know that I'm not one of them. And I'm fine with that.

I've been playing music on and off for half a decade at this point. Sure, in the early days I was only playing scattered notes and bar chords but my goal was to make music and I went ahead and did it, regardless of the outcome. I just wanted to play and I've been fortunate to get some support over the years for some of my work and I'm grateful to everyone who gave my music and honest chance and didn't just dismiss it outright.



For the record, I know that I'm a terrible musician. I never tune my guitar, I forget lyrics most of the time and I don't always hit the right notes. But none of that's important, at least not to me. I'm flawed, my music is flawed, simple as that. Some people only want perfection. Perfect = boring.


A computer can make anyone sound great and the rhythm will be the same throughout the song. Where's the fun in that? I'm more interested in the struggle of getting through a song. Finding new ways to expand or simplify it. It's not going to be pretty but it's what makes it interesting for me. Sadly some people only care about following strict rules and not about being in the moment or seeing music as a gradual process of discovery and improvement.


Suddenly it's a crime to document that process of musical discovery? If you don't want to watch, you don't have to watch. It's simple.


Music is such an open-ended form of expression. It can mean Opera. It can mean Experimental jazz. It can mean Noise rock. Hell, even a metronome is musical. It's got a beat, right? Sure some music gains wider favor amongst people. Of course people tend to gravitate towards highly polished, well trained musicians or highly processed but good-looking pop stars. Not many are interested in the ramblings of a third-rate punk rocker and his thoughts on music. I understand that.


I'm lucky to have the freedom to share my music with people using the web. Sure, sometimes I post songs that aren't of the highest quality, but it's me playing, me singing and it's my channel so I can use it as I see fit. Sure I could strive to achieve more polish to my sound but then it wouldn't be my sound. Even if I tune my guitar, and practice till the cows come home from work, I'll never sing beautifully, my playing will always be full of mistakes due to my own limitations. That doesn't mean I'll stop playing. Some of the old blues musicians played cheap out-of-tune guitars and sang out of key but I still find them much more compelling than today's auto-tuned stars.



Struggle is beautiful, it's inspiring. I don't want to sound pretentious. My music has always been about struggle. Me struggling to overcome obstacles whether they were in my life or within the song itself. Sometimes I succeed and sometimes I fall flat on my face, but it's my right to share that struggle and not be suppressed because it isn't perfect.








If you want to hear someone play a perfect cover of some classic rock song, you're in the wrong place. I'm not going to give you perfection. My music is honest in its raw, unadorned ugliness and that's the way I like it.




If you support me in my effort to get better, thank you. If you're only interested in being fashionable or fellating the egos of the perfect mannequins posing as music's biggest stars, then don't let me keep you from it.  

Peace.

Sincerely,

A man and his guitar