Friday, January 9, 2009
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
Guitar Lesson: Become a Mystic on the Electric Guitar
Become A Mystic on the Electric Guitar
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
(WARNING: This article contains somewhat bizarre or unusual exercises and commentary that some may consider “philosophical” or “spiritual” in nature; it’s basically an “outside-the-box” thinking lesson.)
A mystic can be defined in many ways. Perhaps the definition I would agree with most is, a person who intuitively experiences (or strives for) obscure types of knowledge through the practice of various “religious” methods such as meditation, praying, study of ancient texts, etc. Examples of mystical experiences could be 1) A feeling of “one-ness” with the infinite forces of the universe, 2) Having a sense of timelessness, 3) Seeing beyond normal modes of morality, 4) Witnessing various images of God, etc.
To explain mysticism a bit further using different words, and with the goal of being as objective as possible, we could say that the practice of mysticism consists of certain “religious-oriented” people seeking after divine attributes of God, with some claiming they experience various mystical states while doing so; and hence the people who engage in such activities can be called “mystics.”
Note that some philosophers and logicians (Wittgenstein, for example) have claimed that mysticism is really not so “special” or “extraordinary” after all. Instead, they view mysticism in the following way: certain objects or things exist in this world, yet simultaneously these things cannot be explained, or are inexpressible – i.e. they cannot be talked about in a way that makes sense, which alone constitutes them being “mystical” in relation to other things in the world.
Personally, I believe in mysticism only in this way: I realize man’s five senses are limited, thus there are things we cannot experience in any way as a result. Yet I also realize there are certain “sensitive” individuals in the world who experience things other people cannot because they possess a heightened sense of awareness, or are especially hyper-vigilant, or have other “extrasensory” perception(s); and these hyperaware individuals, if they focus enough of their energy or attention on striving for mystical experiences, may be able to attain something of the “divine” experiences they are seeking.
The skeptic usually denies the mystic’s claims and says that mystical states do not exist. But realize these doubts are only possible since mystical experiences cannot be put into words and because they defy logic, “common sense,” normal modes of reasoning, etc.
So what does mysticism have to do with music? What does it have to do with playing the guitar? Plenty.
Music is obviously an extremely powerful medium. Many people consider music to have certain “spiritual” properties. And almost every individual in the world likes some type of music. Remember also that certain logicians and philosophers have claimed that mysticism concerns itself primarily with what IS and IS NOT expressible. (To reiterare Wittgenstein’s opinion of mysticism: certain “things” in the world show themselves, yet they cannot be put into words, hence these are mystical things.) So what are the common denominators here? Silence and nonsilence (music); plus spirituality – where these themes overlap, we can hopefully extrapolate those qualities to make them more effective.
Because I want to state my overall purpose in this article as clearly as possible, I will write this sentence: By choosing to become a mystic on the electric guitar, you will strive to have “divine” mystical experiences as you perform; and if you achieve any, you will use your guitar to convey these experiences to others through the music you create with your guitar.
As you can probably guess, I cannot list an exact formula, or any specific exercises using guitar tablature, to allow you to convey the mystical experiences you might have (if any). This article is explaining an experimental, outside-the-box, guitar technique in which you’re pretty much on your own. Nevertheless, here is an outline of an algorithm you may want to attempt:
Strap on your guitar. Meditate or concentrate on the power inside yourself and the universe and try to align yourself with those forces – seek to have a mystical experience (ecstasies or visions or knowledge gained) while playing your guitar. Translate those feelings into your music. Share them with your audience. Make them feel the mystical states you experience. That is probably as far as you can go.
Most mystical experiences will be inexpressible. But perhaps music is the proper vehicle for them. Silence. Remember, there is no silence, which John Cage adequately proved.
At the risk of repeating myself, I will list a few more sentences and questions for you to contemplate, since the exact ideas in this chapter may be difficult to understand.
1. The mystical guitarist uses his dedication to esoteric spirituality to inspire himself and transcend the boundaries of what a more “normal” guitarist can achieve.
2. Inspiration to compose and perform music comes from states of the mind (and other areas) that are not fully understood by psychology or any other discipline. Perhaps it is possible for a musician to go into these and other realms of the mind that are inaccessible to others and be able to pull music out of them. Wouldn’t this be considered mystical?
3. The mystical guitarist’s main goal is to make powerful music so they can share their “divine” experiences with others and transport people’s consciousnesses to other planes more beautiful and more extraordinary.
4. Because many people indentify music as being spiritual in some way, and since music IMPACTS people’s emotions in a myriad of ways with no known method of describing exactly how the process works, is music not itself a case of the mystical?
5. The mystical guitarist nurtures every aspect of spirituality within them, continually focusing on it as they are playing and improvising, striving to feed their devotion to becoming one with the “metaphysical realm” since they know it will elevate them to greater levels on their instrument as well as helping to increase their mental health and spirituality.
6. If a mystic strives after union with the forces of the universe, and they are a virtuoso musician, and they do in fact have a genuine mystical experience, can the same religious or mystical qualities they feel be passed on to members of an audience through their playing? I realize the chances of someone being a mystic and a virtuoso musician simultaneously, then experiencing something “divine” as they are performing, are all very slim, but with six billion people in the world, surely someone somewhere at some point in history could do it, couldn’t they? Is it possible to have a divine experience while playing a musical instrument at the same time? Or would it take most of their concentration to simply play the music? Not if they’re a virtuoso.
If you have a mystical experience while playing your guitar and then share those feelings with members of your audience, I believe you will be the first musician to ever accomplish this feat.
One more thing: I believe it’s actually easier to become a “monk” on the electric guitar than a mystic. When I was 16 years old, many people would have probably considered my behavior similar to that of a monk’s living in a monastery. I would do nothing but practice my guitar for most of the day, usually around 9 or 10 hours. I had very few friends at the time, and I would read and study guitar magazines for hours, using them for both entertainment and learning purposes. I abstained from alcohol and tobacco and I lived on a diet of Coke, omelets, and egg rolls. I did not have a girlfriend and rarely attended parties or social gatherings. If I would have been a more spiritual or religious person at that time, I could have definitely been considered a genuine monk. The only thing that mattered to me during that period of my life was practicing my guitar as much as possible.
When I finally got a girlfriend a year or two later, she was jealous of the time I spent with my guitar, and once she stated, “You love your guitar more than me, don’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
After that, nearly all of my girlfriends have claimed that I prefered my guitar over them. Sometimes it was true and other times it was not.
Although I believe it’s easier to become a monk on the guitar, I think it’s much more important to strive to become a true mystic. Good luck with your attempts.
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this article, please contact the author. Also, you would be helping out the author greatly if you purchased one of his books from Amazon.com or another online book store. Thanks again.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
(WARNING: This article contains somewhat bizarre or unusual exercises and commentary that some may consider “philosophical” or “spiritual” in nature; it’s basically an “outside-the-box” thinking lesson.)
A mystic can be defined in many ways. Perhaps the definition I would agree with most is, a person who intuitively experiences (or strives for) obscure types of knowledge through the practice of various “religious” methods such as meditation, praying, study of ancient texts, etc. Examples of mystical experiences could be 1) A feeling of “one-ness” with the infinite forces of the universe, 2) Having a sense of timelessness, 3) Seeing beyond normal modes of morality, 4) Witnessing various images of God, etc.
To explain mysticism a bit further using different words, and with the goal of being as objective as possible, we could say that the practice of mysticism consists of certain “religious-oriented” people seeking after divine attributes of God, with some claiming they experience various mystical states while doing so; and hence the people who engage in such activities can be called “mystics.”
Note that some philosophers and logicians (Wittgenstein, for example) have claimed that mysticism is really not so “special” or “extraordinary” after all. Instead, they view mysticism in the following way: certain objects or things exist in this world, yet simultaneously these things cannot be explained, or are inexpressible – i.e. they cannot be talked about in a way that makes sense, which alone constitutes them being “mystical” in relation to other things in the world.
Personally, I believe in mysticism only in this way: I realize man’s five senses are limited, thus there are things we cannot experience in any way as a result. Yet I also realize there are certain “sensitive” individuals in the world who experience things other people cannot because they possess a heightened sense of awareness, or are especially hyper-vigilant, or have other “extrasensory” perception(s); and these hyperaware individuals, if they focus enough of their energy or attention on striving for mystical experiences, may be able to attain something of the “divine” experiences they are seeking.
The skeptic usually denies the mystic’s claims and says that mystical states do not exist. But realize these doubts are only possible since mystical experiences cannot be put into words and because they defy logic, “common sense,” normal modes of reasoning, etc.
So what does mysticism have to do with music? What does it have to do with playing the guitar? Plenty.
Music is obviously an extremely powerful medium. Many people consider music to have certain “spiritual” properties. And almost every individual in the world likes some type of music. Remember also that certain logicians and philosophers have claimed that mysticism concerns itself primarily with what IS and IS NOT expressible. (To reiterare Wittgenstein’s opinion of mysticism: certain “things” in the world show themselves, yet they cannot be put into words, hence these are mystical things.) So what are the common denominators here? Silence and nonsilence (music); plus spirituality – where these themes overlap, we can hopefully extrapolate those qualities to make them more effective.
Because I want to state my overall purpose in this article as clearly as possible, I will write this sentence: By choosing to become a mystic on the electric guitar, you will strive to have “divine” mystical experiences as you perform; and if you achieve any, you will use your guitar to convey these experiences to others through the music you create with your guitar.
As you can probably guess, I cannot list an exact formula, or any specific exercises using guitar tablature, to allow you to convey the mystical experiences you might have (if any). This article is explaining an experimental, outside-the-box, guitar technique in which you’re pretty much on your own. Nevertheless, here is an outline of an algorithm you may want to attempt:
Strap on your guitar. Meditate or concentrate on the power inside yourself and the universe and try to align yourself with those forces – seek to have a mystical experience (ecstasies or visions or knowledge gained) while playing your guitar. Translate those feelings into your music. Share them with your audience. Make them feel the mystical states you experience. That is probably as far as you can go.
Most mystical experiences will be inexpressible. But perhaps music is the proper vehicle for them. Silence. Remember, there is no silence, which John Cage adequately proved.
At the risk of repeating myself, I will list a few more sentences and questions for you to contemplate, since the exact ideas in this chapter may be difficult to understand.
1. The mystical guitarist uses his dedication to esoteric spirituality to inspire himself and transcend the boundaries of what a more “normal” guitarist can achieve.
2. Inspiration to compose and perform music comes from states of the mind (and other areas) that are not fully understood by psychology or any other discipline. Perhaps it is possible for a musician to go into these and other realms of the mind that are inaccessible to others and be able to pull music out of them. Wouldn’t this be considered mystical?
3. The mystical guitarist’s main goal is to make powerful music so they can share their “divine” experiences with others and transport people’s consciousnesses to other planes more beautiful and more extraordinary.
4. Because many people indentify music as being spiritual in some way, and since music IMPACTS people’s emotions in a myriad of ways with no known method of describing exactly how the process works, is music not itself a case of the mystical?
5. The mystical guitarist nurtures every aspect of spirituality within them, continually focusing on it as they are playing and improvising, striving to feed their devotion to becoming one with the “metaphysical realm” since they know it will elevate them to greater levels on their instrument as well as helping to increase their mental health and spirituality.
6. If a mystic strives after union with the forces of the universe, and they are a virtuoso musician, and they do in fact have a genuine mystical experience, can the same religious or mystical qualities they feel be passed on to members of an audience through their playing? I realize the chances of someone being a mystic and a virtuoso musician simultaneously, then experiencing something “divine” as they are performing, are all very slim, but with six billion people in the world, surely someone somewhere at some point in history could do it, couldn’t they? Is it possible to have a divine experience while playing a musical instrument at the same time? Or would it take most of their concentration to simply play the music? Not if they’re a virtuoso.
If you have a mystical experience while playing your guitar and then share those feelings with members of your audience, I believe you will be the first musician to ever accomplish this feat.
One more thing: I believe it’s actually easier to become a “monk” on the electric guitar than a mystic. When I was 16 years old, many people would have probably considered my behavior similar to that of a monk’s living in a monastery. I would do nothing but practice my guitar for most of the day, usually around 9 or 10 hours. I had very few friends at the time, and I would read and study guitar magazines for hours, using them for both entertainment and learning purposes. I abstained from alcohol and tobacco and I lived on a diet of Coke, omelets, and egg rolls. I did not have a girlfriend and rarely attended parties or social gatherings. If I would have been a more spiritual or religious person at that time, I could have definitely been considered a genuine monk. The only thing that mattered to me during that period of my life was practicing my guitar as much as possible.
When I finally got a girlfriend a year or two later, she was jealous of the time I spent with my guitar, and once she stated, “You love your guitar more than me, don’t you?”
“No,” I lied.
After that, nearly all of my girlfriends have claimed that I prefered my guitar over them. Sometimes it was true and other times it was not.
Although I believe it’s easier to become a monk on the guitar, I think it’s much more important to strive to become a true mystic. Good luck with your attempts.
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this article, please contact the author. Also, you would be helping out the author greatly if you purchased one of his books from Amazon.com or another online book store. Thanks again.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Monday, December 29, 2008
Saturday, December 27, 2008
Wednesday, December 24, 2008
Scream Like You Mean It
Scream Like You Mean It
By Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
The music studio was dark and baleful; a few dim red lights, a lone yellow bulb in a far corner illuminating the abundance of electronic instrumentation and band equipment setting around the main recording room.
The recording session was over now. The producer, William Noxquist, who had been running the entire session sighed loudly and slammed his fist down on the mixing board in the engineer’s room. He mumbled a curse and cradled his forehead in one hand. It had been a horrible recording day. The lead singer, Roan Lombardy of the band Jet-Set Llama, had a major ego problem (typical L.S.D. – lead singer disease); and William had a naturally sarcastic personality, so of course the two didn’t mesh well which had caused arguments after almost every take. To make matters worse, the lead singer’s girlfriend, Samantha, entered the studio as soon as the session was over and began screaming incessantly and ordering everyone around. The band members all hated her and William did too. Bitchy Samantha, with her large fake boobs and her butt-cheek implants and her extensive facial surgery that gave her that off-putting Michael Jackson look.
“I hope you weren’t too hard on Roan today,” Samantha told William as she walked into the small engineer’s room. “You know how he treats me when he’s had a bad singing day. And you just love putting people through this recording torture chamber for hours, don’t you?”
William scowled and glared at her. “Well, little Missy,” he said sarcastically, “Roan’s out in the hallway waiting for you now. Why not go out there and check his mental status for yourself and not badger me about it. Go ahead and haul his dumb ass outta here because I’ve had more than enough of him for one day. You think you can do that for me, sweetie?”
“Why are you always so damn sarcastic, William?” Samantha said. “Why can’t you be nice for just one freakin’ day? Or act the least bit respectful towards me and the other band members of Jet-Set Llama.”
“Hey S-s-s (he almost said ‘slut’) Samantha, I’m dead tired so don’t start telling me how to behave! You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through today. Even before work I had a terrible day.”
She squinted and bunched up her huge tits with the top portion of her arms, then brushed back her new hairdo with a defiant gesture. Surprisingly, she plopped down in a chair beside William.
“Do you wanna know what happened?” he said. “I swear if you hear it, it’ll ruin your day too.”
“Go ahead. It won’t bother me.”
“All right, here goes... On my early morning jog at around 7 a.m., before coming to the studio, I decided to run by the park. I wanted to take a different route to help stave off the boredom of running and when I got near the basketball courts I noticed two little asshole teenagers pulling trash out of a garbage dumpster and stringing it through the trees and throwing it on the sidewalk. Of course that pissed me off since I work hard volunteering on the weekends to keep this town beautiful, and I knew the kids were nothing but little degenerate pricks since I’d seen them around town before and knew their family. So I ran in their direction to shoo them away. I started jogging faster and my face reddened with anger watching them litter up the park. They didn’t even notice me they were so busy vandalizing. Then I saw one of the punks go over to the concession stand, a small blue building, now closed for the winter, and one of them squatted down beside it. I ran closer and they still didn’t see or hear me and I watched that punk squatting by the little building and gradually realized what he was doing: TAKING A SHIT RIGHT BY THE CONCESSION STAND! RIGHT THERE IN PUBLIC! Finally they both heard me running toward them and the shitting one stood up and pulled on his pants, but not before dragging a white sheet of notebook paper up the crack of his ass to wipe it. I couldn’t believe one of these punks would just take a crap in the park in broad daylight. Taking a dump right by the concession stand where people sell food and other people eat it! Can you fucking believe that! Uncouth little retards! They both ran and the one struggled with his pants and I was so freakin’ pissed off I started shouting and they both got on their bikes and pedalled off as I ran on, out of breath screaming at them. I went over to the small covered area where the kid had crapped and saw numerous long winding brown turds scattered all over the cement. Jesus Christ, a tremendous amount of shit came out of that little scumbag’s ass and it smelled like a backed-up cesspool. I felt like calling the police and reporting the incident but I had to get to work and couldn’t fool with it. So I jogged home and took a shower and came to work. That’s the kind of morning I’ve had. Then I have to come to this depressing-assed recording studio and be forced to endure your boyfriend’s nasty prima donna attitude and your constant bitching. What a day... My life truly sucks...”
Samantha slapped the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She ignored William’s story about the kid crapping in the park and focused instead on his degrading statements about Roan and herself: “You know what, William? You’re nothing but an asshole. Don’t ever talk that way about my man! You’re lucky to even be here recording Roan Lombardy’s incredible voice! He knew Axl Rose in Indianna when they were teenagers, they grew up together, and he even inspired Axl to become a singer and also secretly helped him write some of the songs that later showed up on Chinese Democracy. Roan is a major talent while you’re only a C-level producer! You don’t know jack squat about real talent! Yeah, I know he can barely remember the lyrics to the new songs and he sings off key quite a bit, but you’re still lucky to be able to work with him on this record which is going to sell through the roof and make me at least ten million bucks!”
William sneered at her and shook his head, “Fuck you, you stupid shallow bitch. Get outta here before I slap your fake face off. You didn’t listen to one goddamn word I said. Now leave and take Roan Lombardy the prick with you and go fuck yourselves. I’m just wasting my time talking to you. You’re not even supposed to be in this recording studio anyway!”
Samantha laughed and shook her head, then squeezed her lips together tightly. She stood up to leave but wanted to give William Noxquist one last thing to remember before she left the studio. So she raised her left leg high and stomped down on his foot with her pointed high heel, which penetrated William’s boot and entered the top part of his foot.
It took awhile to register, but the pain eventually traveled to his brain and it felt almost unbearable. William screamed, reached down and grabbed his foot, then growled and lunged at Samantha, taking hold of her throat. When he jumped at her, his arm accidentally pushed the record button. He started choking her and she started screaming – deranged squeals and bloodcurdling shrieks issuing from her luscious lips. He squeezed harder and shook her neck a little and Samantha’s shirt ripped in front from her struggling to free herself. Her shirt gradually ripped more and more until finally her large fake breasts were released.
William looked down at her tits. He gasped at the large dark aureolas and the erect half-inch nipples. They were beautiful. His eyes protruded and he felt his genital region pop a boner. But he continued choking her anyway and she kept on screaming maniacally. Then William leaned down and licked one of her gorgeous nipples. He moved a hand down and squeezed one of her fake tits, then sucked on both breasts some more.
High-pitched screams still erupted from Samantha’s throat and William finally stopped sucking, raised up and gritted his teech and choked her harder. The sounds coming from Samantha’s luscious mouth were shrill and disturbing unhinged caterwauls of insane noise and she sounded like she was near death. He listened to her screams and became worried if he would ever release her or if she’d die. He seemed powerless to stop the choke. He stared down at her fake boobs again, now covered with his own saliva. He felt his massive hard-on raging in his pants so much he suspected it might tear right through the fabric.
The recording button on the console was still glowing a brilliant red. William was still recording Samantha’s freakish screams of death without even realizing it. He listened again to the intriguing noises issuing from her mangled throat and was amazed.
Finally the lead singer of Jet-Set Llama, Roan Lombardy, heard the screams in the hall where he’d accidentally fallen asleep waiting for Samantha to pick him up in her BMW. Her loud disturbing screams had forced him to awake and he groggily rose from the couch in the hallway and ran into the recording studio to investigate.
Inside he saw William Noxquist, the producer he despised, with his hands wrapped tightly around his girlfriend’s neck. Her blouse was ripped and her large succulent breasts exposed as they glistened with a slimy coating. Roan saw William with a large tent in the front of his pants and the producer seemed in a deep daze or trance as he continued strangling the woman Roan loved with all his heart and soul. Her outlandish death shrieks continued unabated, and it seemed like Samantha would eventually run out of air, but she never did.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Roan Lombardy yelled.
Roan always kept two weapons handy for emergencies such as this:
1) A pair of homemade “brass” knuckles that he’d made out of lead.
2) A small .22 pistol with pearl handles
Both weapons were tucked away deep inside Roan’s snakeskin boots since last summer he’d been robbed and almost beaten to death by a pimp in an alley and had decided to carry sufficient protection ever since.
He bent down and extracted the brass knuckles from his boot and slipped them on. He went into the engineer’s room, lurched back as far as possible and slammed William in the temple. The dazed producer flew and landed on the mixing console a few feet away. Roan then took off the brass knuckles and brought out the .22 pistol. He aimed right between William’s eyes and let fly with five slugs that shattered the producer’s skull into thousands of tiny fragments as brain tissue and blood flew everywhere. Roan wiped the gore from his face and aimed the pistol at William’s chest and put another slug in his heart just for the hell of it.
Samantha was now passed out on the floor. Roan went over to her. He pulled her shirt back over her fake breasts and tried to button it a little. Samantha was making gurgling noises in her throat and Roan looked at the bright red marks covering her neck. That son-of-a-bitch almost killed her, he thought.
“Wake up, Samantha!” he yelled. After slapping her cheeks lightly, she awoke groaning and drooling and he wiped her face with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here right away.”
Then he looked down and noticed the recording light still glowing red on the console below.
“What the hell is that doing on? Was William recording something in here?”
He went over and rewound the file and pressed the play button.
The horrific sounds of Samantha screaming while William choked her filled the recording studio at maximum volume.
Hot and cold chills traveled up and down Roan’s spine.
William Noxquist had captured every ghoulish shriek and eldritch squeal and freakish gasp that issued from Samantha’s throat as he tried to choke the life out of her and thus caused her body to feel excruciating pain.
Roan’s eyes opened wide with pure musical excitement. He couldn’t believe how awesome the screaming of someone near death sounded. A combination of “almost-lost” existence on a terror-filled planet with the bone-chilling fear of postmodern death lurking deep within her subconscious. “Gruesome,” he said. “I love it. I’ve got to use these sounds on our next album. Her screams sound incredible, I always knew she had a superb voice. Surely Samantha won’t mind if we use them as long as I give her credit on the album.”
Over the next few weeks, Jet-Set Llama worked on hiring a new producer for their next album which they decided to call, “Scream Like You Mean It.” Roam Lombardy was cleared of killing William Noxquist on a self-defense claim for his girlfriend, Samantha. And Roan also placed the sounds of Samantha screaming in the middle of their first single, “Blood On A Dog’s Dick” as special effects during the instrumental section; and he also positioned more of her vocal wailings at the very end of the album, which he thought acted as an eerie outro expressing even more harrowing music to be released from the band in the future. The single became an immediate hit and climbed the musical charts; and later that year, Jet-Set Llama won a Grammy for ‘best rock album’ and ‘most stunningly original use of special effects,’ all thanks to Samantha (and William Noxquist, one of the greatest music producers in the world who was tragically killed at the peak of his abilities.)
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact me.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
By Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Heartless Bastard In Ecstasy
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
The music studio was dark and baleful; a few dim red lights, a lone yellow bulb in a far corner illuminating the abundance of electronic instrumentation and band equipment setting around the main recording room.
The recording session was over now. The producer, William Noxquist, who had been running the entire session sighed loudly and slammed his fist down on the mixing board in the engineer’s room. He mumbled a curse and cradled his forehead in one hand. It had been a horrible recording day. The lead singer, Roan Lombardy of the band Jet-Set Llama, had a major ego problem (typical L.S.D. – lead singer disease); and William had a naturally sarcastic personality, so of course the two didn’t mesh well which had caused arguments after almost every take. To make matters worse, the lead singer’s girlfriend, Samantha, entered the studio as soon as the session was over and began screaming incessantly and ordering everyone around. The band members all hated her and William did too. Bitchy Samantha, with her large fake boobs and her butt-cheek implants and her extensive facial surgery that gave her that off-putting Michael Jackson look.
“I hope you weren’t too hard on Roan today,” Samantha told William as she walked into the small engineer’s room. “You know how he treats me when he’s had a bad singing day. And you just love putting people through this recording torture chamber for hours, don’t you?”
William scowled and glared at her. “Well, little Missy,” he said sarcastically, “Roan’s out in the hallway waiting for you now. Why not go out there and check his mental status for yourself and not badger me about it. Go ahead and haul his dumb ass outta here because I’ve had more than enough of him for one day. You think you can do that for me, sweetie?”
“Why are you always so damn sarcastic, William?” Samantha said. “Why can’t you be nice for just one freakin’ day? Or act the least bit respectful towards me and the other band members of Jet-Set Llama.”
“Hey S-s-s (he almost said ‘slut’) Samantha, I’m dead tired so don’t start telling me how to behave! You’ve got no idea what I’ve been through today. Even before work I had a terrible day.”
She squinted and bunched up her huge tits with the top portion of her arms, then brushed back her new hairdo with a defiant gesture. Surprisingly, she plopped down in a chair beside William.
“Do you wanna know what happened?” he said. “I swear if you hear it, it’ll ruin your day too.”
“Go ahead. It won’t bother me.”
“All right, here goes... On my early morning jog at around 7 a.m., before coming to the studio, I decided to run by the park. I wanted to take a different route to help stave off the boredom of running and when I got near the basketball courts I noticed two little asshole teenagers pulling trash out of a garbage dumpster and stringing it through the trees and throwing it on the sidewalk. Of course that pissed me off since I work hard volunteering on the weekends to keep this town beautiful, and I knew the kids were nothing but little degenerate pricks since I’d seen them around town before and knew their family. So I ran in their direction to shoo them away. I started jogging faster and my face reddened with anger watching them litter up the park. They didn’t even notice me they were so busy vandalizing. Then I saw one of the punks go over to the concession stand, a small blue building, now closed for the winter, and one of them squatted down beside it. I ran closer and they still didn’t see or hear me and I watched that punk squatting by the little building and gradually realized what he was doing: TAKING A SHIT RIGHT BY THE CONCESSION STAND! RIGHT THERE IN PUBLIC! Finally they both heard me running toward them and the shitting one stood up and pulled on his pants, but not before dragging a white sheet of notebook paper up the crack of his ass to wipe it. I couldn’t believe one of these punks would just take a crap in the park in broad daylight. Taking a dump right by the concession stand where people sell food and other people eat it! Can you fucking believe that! Uncouth little retards! They both ran and the one struggled with his pants and I was so freakin’ pissed off I started shouting and they both got on their bikes and pedalled off as I ran on, out of breath screaming at them. I went over to the small covered area where the kid had crapped and saw numerous long winding brown turds scattered all over the cement. Jesus Christ, a tremendous amount of shit came out of that little scumbag’s ass and it smelled like a backed-up cesspool. I felt like calling the police and reporting the incident but I had to get to work and couldn’t fool with it. So I jogged home and took a shower and came to work. That’s the kind of morning I’ve had. Then I have to come to this depressing-assed recording studio and be forced to endure your boyfriend’s nasty prima donna attitude and your constant bitching. What a day... My life truly sucks...”
Samantha slapped the arms of her chair and pushed herself up. She ignored William’s story about the kid crapping in the park and focused instead on his degrading statements about Roan and herself: “You know what, William? You’re nothing but an asshole. Don’t ever talk that way about my man! You’re lucky to even be here recording Roan Lombardy’s incredible voice! He knew Axl Rose in Indianna when they were teenagers, they grew up together, and he even inspired Axl to become a singer and also secretly helped him write some of the songs that later showed up on Chinese Democracy. Roan is a major talent while you’re only a C-level producer! You don’t know jack squat about real talent! Yeah, I know he can barely remember the lyrics to the new songs and he sings off key quite a bit, but you’re still lucky to be able to work with him on this record which is going to sell through the roof and make me at least ten million bucks!”
William sneered at her and shook his head, “Fuck you, you stupid shallow bitch. Get outta here before I slap your fake face off. You didn’t listen to one goddamn word I said. Now leave and take Roan Lombardy the prick with you and go fuck yourselves. I’m just wasting my time talking to you. You’re not even supposed to be in this recording studio anyway!”
Samantha laughed and shook her head, then squeezed her lips together tightly. She stood up to leave but wanted to give William Noxquist one last thing to remember before she left the studio. So she raised her left leg high and stomped down on his foot with her pointed high heel, which penetrated William’s boot and entered the top part of his foot.
It took awhile to register, but the pain eventually traveled to his brain and it felt almost unbearable. William screamed, reached down and grabbed his foot, then growled and lunged at Samantha, taking hold of her throat. When he jumped at her, his arm accidentally pushed the record button. He started choking her and she started screaming – deranged squeals and bloodcurdling shrieks issuing from her luscious lips. He squeezed harder and shook her neck a little and Samantha’s shirt ripped in front from her struggling to free herself. Her shirt gradually ripped more and more until finally her large fake breasts were released.
William looked down at her tits. He gasped at the large dark aureolas and the erect half-inch nipples. They were beautiful. His eyes protruded and he felt his genital region pop a boner. But he continued choking her anyway and she kept on screaming maniacally. Then William leaned down and licked one of her gorgeous nipples. He moved a hand down and squeezed one of her fake tits, then sucked on both breasts some more.
High-pitched screams still erupted from Samantha’s throat and William finally stopped sucking, raised up and gritted his teech and choked her harder. The sounds coming from Samantha’s luscious mouth were shrill and disturbing unhinged caterwauls of insane noise and she sounded like she was near death. He listened to her screams and became worried if he would ever release her or if she’d die. He seemed powerless to stop the choke. He stared down at her fake boobs again, now covered with his own saliva. He felt his massive hard-on raging in his pants so much he suspected it might tear right through the fabric.
The recording button on the console was still glowing a brilliant red. William was still recording Samantha’s freakish screams of death without even realizing it. He listened again to the intriguing noises issuing from her mangled throat and was amazed.
Finally the lead singer of Jet-Set Llama, Roan Lombardy, heard the screams in the hall where he’d accidentally fallen asleep waiting for Samantha to pick him up in her BMW. Her loud disturbing screams had forced him to awake and he groggily rose from the couch in the hallway and ran into the recording studio to investigate.
Inside he saw William Noxquist, the producer he despised, with his hands wrapped tightly around his girlfriend’s neck. Her blouse was ripped and her large succulent breasts exposed as they glistened with a slimy coating. Roan saw William with a large tent in the front of his pants and the producer seemed in a deep daze or trance as he continued strangling the woman Roan loved with all his heart and soul. Her outlandish death shrieks continued unabated, and it seemed like Samantha would eventually run out of air, but she never did.
“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON IN HERE?” Roan Lombardy yelled.
Roan always kept two weapons handy for emergencies such as this:
1) A pair of homemade “brass” knuckles that he’d made out of lead.
2) A small .22 pistol with pearl handles
Both weapons were tucked away deep inside Roan’s snakeskin boots since last summer he’d been robbed and almost beaten to death by a pimp in an alley and had decided to carry sufficient protection ever since.
He bent down and extracted the brass knuckles from his boot and slipped them on. He went into the engineer’s room, lurched back as far as possible and slammed William in the temple. The dazed producer flew and landed on the mixing console a few feet away. Roan then took off the brass knuckles and brought out the .22 pistol. He aimed right between William’s eyes and let fly with five slugs that shattered the producer’s skull into thousands of tiny fragments as brain tissue and blood flew everywhere. Roan wiped the gore from his face and aimed the pistol at William’s chest and put another slug in his heart just for the hell of it.
Samantha was now passed out on the floor. Roan went over to her. He pulled her shirt back over her fake breasts and tried to button it a little. Samantha was making gurgling noises in her throat and Roan looked at the bright red marks covering her neck. That son-of-a-bitch almost killed her, he thought.
“Wake up, Samantha!” he yelled. After slapping her cheeks lightly, she awoke groaning and drooling and he wiped her face with his thumb. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “I’ll get you out of here right away.”
Then he looked down and noticed the recording light still glowing red on the console below.
“What the hell is that doing on? Was William recording something in here?”
He went over and rewound the file and pressed the play button.
The horrific sounds of Samantha screaming while William choked her filled the recording studio at maximum volume.
Hot and cold chills traveled up and down Roan’s spine.
William Noxquist had captured every ghoulish shriek and eldritch squeal and freakish gasp that issued from Samantha’s throat as he tried to choke the life out of her and thus caused her body to feel excruciating pain.
Roan’s eyes opened wide with pure musical excitement. He couldn’t believe how awesome the screaming of someone near death sounded. A combination of “almost-lost” existence on a terror-filled planet with the bone-chilling fear of postmodern death lurking deep within her subconscious. “Gruesome,” he said. “I love it. I’ve got to use these sounds on our next album. Her screams sound incredible, I always knew she had a superb voice. Surely Samantha won’t mind if we use them as long as I give her credit on the album.”
Over the next few weeks, Jet-Set Llama worked on hiring a new producer for their next album which they decided to call, “Scream Like You Mean It.” Roam Lombardy was cleared of killing William Noxquist on a self-defense claim for his girlfriend, Samantha. And Roan also placed the sounds of Samantha screaming in the middle of their first single, “Blood On A Dog’s Dick” as special effects during the instrumental section; and he also positioned more of her vocal wailings at the very end of the album, which he thought acted as an eerie outro expressing even more harrowing music to be released from the band in the future. The single became an immediate hit and climbed the musical charts; and later that year, Jet-Set Llama won a Grammy for ‘best rock album’ and ‘most stunningly original use of special effects,’ all thanks to Samantha (and William Noxquist, one of the greatest music producers in the world who was tragically killed at the peak of his abilities.)
-end-
(Thanks for reading. If you know of any magazines that would like to publish this story, please contact me.)
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, Red Zen, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Neometropolis, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Spacing Out on Cocaine
I like Obama, I voted for him. Here's a short story in which Obama makes an appearance. I'm not making fun of Obama, I don't know why I added him as a character to this story, it just formed that was as I was writing it. I hope you like it.
Spacing Out on Cocaine
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Red Zen
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
“Where are you going?” Lars’ girlfriend asked.
“Be back in a minute,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit pensive and need to meditate in the bathroom before my last set.”
“But remember, you’ve got Cocaine coming up!” she yelled. “It’s your best song!”
“I know. I’ll be ready...” Lars said, heading toward the bathroom.
Jesus, give me some peace, bitch, he thought pushing open the bathroom door. His girlfriend was always on his back, bitching and moaning, pushing him to advance in his musical career so that he would make enough money to pay for the plastic surgery necessary to turn herself into a supermodel.
But now he was getting ready to play the last set of the night. Only 45 minutes of music left, then the gig would be over and Lars could go home and relax with a few cold beers. Lars was the lead guitarist in the band Diaphanous-Dolphin and one of his most popular cover songs, Cocaine by Eric Clapton, was next on the set list. Lars could solo over Cocaine all night long without ever running out of ideas: the simple E to D chord progression, the E minor pentatonic scale, and Lars’ naturally bluesy vocals were all he needed to set the crowd ablaze.
Lars had a ritual before the last set of every gig. A secret ritual. He liked to go into the bathroom to regroup and energize himself by snorting a couple of lines of cocaine. It helped him get through the nights when he didn’t feel like playing. Just two lines of coke would give him plenty of physical energy and open his mind to considerably expand his guitar phrasing. You see, while tripping out in the pentatonic box, a lot of guitarists have a tendency to repeat themselves; and Lars couldn’t stand playing any of the same phrases twice during the course of a gig. He always strived to unleash fresh stimulating melodies upon the crowd, thinking that he could improvise as well as saxaphone legend, Charlie Parker, even though as a musician Lars would not have even registered as a tiny pubic hair on the late great Charlie Parker’s buttocks.
Lars went into the bathroom stall and pulled a baggie from his front pocket, then he took out his wallet from his back pocket and sat down on the toilet. He noticed a Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor, reached down and grabbed it, placing it on his lap. He opened the baggie and poured out some of the cocaine. Next he took a credit card and a straw from his wallet, formed two lines of coke on the book, then snorted the cocaine up into both nostrils – first the right, then the left – with two powerful blasting inhalations.
Ahhh, whooo, that stuff really has some kick, Lars thought as he shook his head and squeezed the tip of his nose.
He put the drug paraphernalia away and threw the Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor. Then he felt something loosen in his lower stomach, so he leaned up and pulled down his pants and sat back down on the toilet. A good crap before the last set always helped him a lot too.
Lars sat there voiding his bowels, thinking about his present situation in life: Wow, I’m almost 40 years old and I’m still playing in a little rock band at these ridiculously small clubs. I can barely make enough money to even survive. I have no chance of ever recording an album, no chance of touring or getting a decent band manager. I play with guys who aren’t even creative enough to write one fucking original song. Not a damn song of their own, or who will allow me to play one of my own originals. I just perform other musician’s material every freakin’ night – promoting other people’s music, like a chumped-out loser working for free. I’ll never get anywhere with this crap. I’ll never do anything in music that’s worthwhile like the heroes that I grew up listening to: Metallica, Guns ‘N Roses, The Sex Pistols, Rick Springfield, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, AC/DC, Miles Davis, Slayer, Billy Squier, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, Ozzy, Megadeth, Aerosmith, The Swans, Van Halen, Black Flag, John Lee Hooker, Poison, Tone Loc, The Butthole Surfers, R.L. Burnside, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Black Sabbath, The Doors, The Beastie Boys, Junior Kimbrough, Nirvana... I’m just living a stupid wannabe rock star dream. You’d think I would have grown up by now. But no, not me. My day job at the nursing home is fucking horrible. I’m truly screwed, burnt out, wasted, dead, cynical, daunted, defeated, fucked over, jaded, destroyed, and pissed off. But you know what? I don’t care. Because I’m getting ready to go out there and play E.C.’s Cocaine after snorting some cocaine of my own and it’s going to be fantastic. I’ll lose myself in the music. I’ll trip out and fly away. Hell, I’ve played Cocaine a million times by now but I’m going to go out play it the best ever in just a few minutes. I’ll release every ounce of emotion and anger from my body and my mind and my transcendental soul to show everyone in the audience that I’m not a loser. I’m a damn good guitar player, I know that much. I’ll show everyone. Nope, I’m not going to sit here thinking about my shitty life and becoming more and more depressed. I’m going to go out there and kick ass on stage and then I’ll be a real man. No one will ever call me a pussy or a pansy ever again. Fuck it, I’m a man.
Lars grabbed some toilet paper and wiped his ass, then he stood up and pulled on his pants and fastened his belt with the large silver Guns ‘N Roses belt buckle. He went out of the stall and over to a mirror. Although Lars loved blues and classic rock the most, he affected a heavy metal look on stage: Faded jean jacket cut off at the sleeves to reveal his heavily-muscled arms; leather straps with long silver spikes wrapped around both wrists; a large silver chain with small golden guitars hanging around his neck; a big blue battleaxe tattooed across his whole throat; his hairy chest visible below showing his large pectoral muscles; long flowing black hair cut into a perfect mullet shape. “Looking good,” he said, smiling into the mirror.
He went out to the stage and grabbed his black Gretsch Electromatic solid body guitar and put it on. He turned to his drummer and counted off the tune and they started the E to D chord progression of Cocaine and the audience hooted and cheered. Lars took a brief solo at the beginning, bending some notes, adding a wide stinging vibrato ala Albert King. His guitar sound was that of a man mega-pissed off, on the brink of defeat, almost every ounce of life sucked from his haggard body, a person filled with almost homicidal despair and angst, and every person in the crowd could feel it, because each of them felt exactly the same way Lars did. He stepped over to the microphone, grimaced and puckered his lips, then started belting out the lyrics.
If you wanna hang out you’ve gotta take her out - cocaine... If you wanna get down, go down to the ground - cocaine... When your day is done and you wanna run on - cocaine. If you got bad news, you wanna kick them fuckin’ blues - cocaine... She don’t lie, she don’t lie, no baby she dont fuckin’ lie - COCAINE!
Lars sang the lyrics so intensely he started feeling searing pain in his vocal chords, but he kept on going, hoping he could make it to the solo section, where he could relax and forget about everything and trip out on his guitar with complete abandon and ferocity.
The solo section arrived and he began with some slow melodic phrases in the 7th position of the neck, bending and releasing and plucking the strings with his fingers, then he worked his way up to the 12th position and played some fast pentatonic quintuplets and transitioned into quick bursts of finger-tapping and trills. Then, for no reason at all, he moved up to the 22nd fret and bent the highest note on his fret board two full steps while leaning into the microphone and screaming “COCAINE!” in the highest falsetto voice he could manufacture; and as he did so, he felt something snap inside his brain – all of the cocaine he’d snorted earlier kicked in at that precise moment with complete force.
He blacked out for a fraction of a second, then awoke to see President-elect Barack Obama’s disembodied head floating before him in space. Obama’s head was surrounded by golden light coming through dark clouds with a few white feathers floating and descending. The music Lars had been playing earlier could still be heard faintly in the background, with him playing guitar somewhere down below.
“What’s going on?” Lars asked.
“I don’t know, what’s going on?” Barack Obama’s floating head responded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean ‘nothing.’ You’re Barrack Obama and you’re floating here in front of me. I’m supposed to be playing a gig right now, but I’m somewhere in outer space. Let me go back down to where the music is.”
“I’m not holding you here. You’ve chosen to be talking to me. This is your fault, Lars... Don’t worry though, your gig is still going fine down below with you still playing guitar. You’re just having an out-of-body experience at the moment... By the way, I’m not Barrack Obama.”
Lars looked down at his fingers. He was still holding his guitar, a few white feathers fell on the fretboard, he could hear music faintly in his style of playing, but his fingers were not moving. “You are too Barrack Obama. I may be spaced out on cocaine right now, but I’m not crazy. Of course you’re Barrack, you look exactly like him.”
“Perhaps I do resemble him, but it’s only because our brains have been swapped. I’m really Eric Clapton.”
“What.”
“A doctor swapped our brains. My brain – Eric Clapton’s – was put inside Barack Obama’s skull, which you are seeing now, and Barack’s brain was put into my head. You’re actually talking to Eric Clapton right now, not Obama. Can’t you tell by my British accent?”
“I thought that was a little odd. Still, this is ridiculous. Way too confusing. I can’t talk to Eric Clapton when he looks like Obama. Aren’t you going to be our president soon?”
“I guess so. I’m the President-elect.”
“Do you know anything about politics?”
“Of course not, I’m Eric Clapton. I only know how to play blues guitar.”
“Wow, the United States is really going to be fucked up soon.”
“Yes it is, but I can’t help it... Let’s change the subject. I’m here to give you something.”
“What’s that?” Lars said.
“The essence of all music summed up in one melody.”
“Pardon?”
“I am going to give you a melody that will contain the essence of all music.”
“Yeah, sure. What would I do with that?”
Obama’s face fell into a scowl. “Don’t you realize how powerful that would be? The melody will contain the essence of every musical phrase in the universe, every prior one congealed into it. This melody will be an otherworldly divine phrase so mesmerizing when it’s played audiences will become hypnotized and fall in love with you and become your greatest fans for the rest of your life.”
“Uh huh, right,” Lars said sarcastically. He was now in a slight stupor, but could still hear himself playing electric guitar down below on Earth and he was losing interest in the conversation. He turned around and tried to see through the dark clouds to where the gig was taking place, but only blurry images of the people phasing in and out were visible. “I really need to get back down there. Is this almost over?”
Barrack Obama’s floating head continued, “If you record the melody on an album of your own, realize that it will instantly become the best-selling record of all time. And I mean OF ALL TIME.”
“I could certainly use that. But what happens when other musicians hear it, they’ll have the melody too.”
“No they won’t. I’ll make it so that no other musician will be allowed to play it because they’ll be blocked from fully hearing all the notes – one tone will automatically cancel out in their minds and they won’t be able to receive the full musical phrase.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s weird, but not impossible.”
Lars hung his head in thought for a few seconds. “All right, I believe you, Mr. Clapton. But I just want to get back to my gig now.”
“So you’re ready to receive the melody?” Obama’s head said.
“Yeah.”
The floating head began humming in a soft whisper but Lars couldn’t hear the entire melody before the whole world turned black, then surreal science fiction images appeared in his brain, pictures of quarks melting into gigantic noses, skinny nude supermodel-androids doing back flips on floating tramplines, gluons exploding into ferocious balls of fireworks, and Obama’s face transforming into a geometrical 24-dimensional crystal lattice representation of God – every one of the macabre images freezing inside of Lars’ mind. He looked down at his guitar and saw how quantum chromodynamics drove the inner workings of the electronics and he instantly understood every substance in the universe on a subatomic level; but he also received Clapton’s divine melody in the midst of all this outlandish information, without ever realizing it.
He awoke on stage in his own body, still soloing away on his guitar. He turned around and signaled the band to end the tune, then he hit a final E major chord with the drummer who pounded a loud crash on his cymbals.
But after finishing the song, everything that had happened was still too much for Lars to digest: him soloing too intensely, screaming Cocaine in a ludicrously high falsetto, talking to Eric Clapton’s brain inside of Obama’s skull, seeing the disturbing science fiction images, Lars could not take in all of this material, so he fell back on the stage and blacked out from total shock and exhaustion.
His girlfriend was watching out in the audience. She shrieked when she saw Lars hit the floor and slowly made her way through the crowd, the room was now filled with awkward silences and embarrassed looks, which she tried to ignore. She climbed the stairs and went over to Lars, unplugged his guitar so that he could keep it on, then hoisted him up, throwing his now lifeless body over her shoulder. She carried the poor unconscious bastard off the stage toward the dressing rooms.
Lars awoke while riding on his girlfriend’s back. He glanced around still in a deep daze. “Where is he?”
She didn’t put him down, but walked faster to the dressing room. “Where is who?”
“Obama’s head. Did he give it to me? Do I have it?”
“Have what? What are you talking about?”
“The melody! It’s really important, the greatest melody of all time. An instant best seller if ever recorded on an album.” Lars paused and looked around as he passed a few audience members who were staring at him with their mouths open.
“You’ve gone crazy, Lars,” his girlfriend said, stilling carrying him on her back through the club with her powerful legs. “You’ve been snorting cocaine again in the bathroom, haven’t you? Goddamn it I told you never to do coke before playing Cocaine again. The double whammy effect from it is way too dangerous. You know you can’t handle heavy drugs so you better knock it off. You’re going to fry your brain and never be able to play another song again.”
Lars looked over his girlfriend’s shoulder, he stared down at the ground, bouncing as she carried him back stage. He heard a faint melody begin somewhere deep in his brain. A nice slow phrase, hypnotic and ethereal, which gradually came to full fruition in his mind. It was the divine melody that Eric Clapton had given him from Obama’s head while he was spaced out on cocaine, the greatest melody of all time. It slowly gained in volume and intensity, the phrase picking up in tempo until the entire thing played out entirely in his addled mind. He started humming it a little as he rode on his girlfriend’s back, but he was careful to leave out a few notes so she wouldn’t hear the full thing. He felt now that the musical phrase contained the true secret of the universe and the meaning of life and was more powerful than a hundred nuclear explosions combined.
“THERE IT IS! I GOT IT! HE REALLY GAVE ME THE MELODY! ALL RIGHT! I KNOW IT’S GOING TO GIVE ME A MAJOR WORLD-WIDE HIT SOON! FUCKING A! SHIT YEAH! OH. MY. GOD. I’M GOING TO BE A TRUE ROCK STAR SOON.”
“Shut up and calm down!” his girlfriend said. “You can lie down in a minute.”
But Lars was not sick, he was only excited about the melody, although he knew better than to play it on his guitar that day, or even the next. He was going to save it. For better times and greater things to come. Soon he would be making millions of smackaroos, hypnotizing audiences, making ladies chase him through the streets, wrecking hotel rooms, raising hell on airplanes in mid-flight, receiving insane fan letters, breaking into casinos, swilling hard liquor and doing every drug known to man, yeah, soon Lars would have the whole fucking world by the balls.
His girlfriend set him down in the dressing room, he leaned back and fell onto a cool leather couch setting behind him. He still had his Gretsch Electromatic around his neck. He slid his hand up and down the fret board, trying to get the feel of his guitar again and pull himself out of the lingering cocaine daze. He played a few blues licks and strummed an E9 chord, then fingered an A7. Everything was quiet in the room, his girlfriend had left to get him a glass of cool water.
Lars heard movement outside in the hallway. Footsteps getting louder.
A man walked into his dressing room. It was President-elect, Barack Obama. Wearing a black suit with a red tie. Lars stared at him with his mouth open. Obama came closer, holding out his hand. Obama said, “Hello, Lars, how are you?”
Lars’ mouth fell open even wider and his fingers stopped moving on his guitar.
He noticed Obama was not speaking with an English accent now. But he still didn’t know whether it was Eric Clapton in there, or the President-elect.
“What are you doing here?” Lars said.
“Play me the melody you were given...”
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
Spacing Out on Cocaine
by Jason Earls, author of Cocoon of Terror & Red Zen
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
“Where are you going?” Lars’ girlfriend asked.
“Be back in a minute,” he said. “I’m feeling a bit pensive and need to meditate in the bathroom before my last set.”
“But remember, you’ve got Cocaine coming up!” she yelled. “It’s your best song!”
“I know. I’ll be ready...” Lars said, heading toward the bathroom.
Jesus, give me some peace, bitch, he thought pushing open the bathroom door. His girlfriend was always on his back, bitching and moaning, pushing him to advance in his musical career so that he would make enough money to pay for the plastic surgery necessary to turn herself into a supermodel.
But now he was getting ready to play the last set of the night. Only 45 minutes of music left, then the gig would be over and Lars could go home and relax with a few cold beers. Lars was the lead guitarist in the band Diaphanous-Dolphin and one of his most popular cover songs, Cocaine by Eric Clapton, was next on the set list. Lars could solo over Cocaine all night long without ever running out of ideas: the simple E to D chord progression, the E minor pentatonic scale, and Lars’ naturally bluesy vocals were all he needed to set the crowd ablaze.
Lars had a ritual before the last set of every gig. A secret ritual. He liked to go into the bathroom to regroup and energize himself by snorting a couple of lines of cocaine. It helped him get through the nights when he didn’t feel like playing. Just two lines of coke would give him plenty of physical energy and open his mind to considerably expand his guitar phrasing. You see, while tripping out in the pentatonic box, a lot of guitarists have a tendency to repeat themselves; and Lars couldn’t stand playing any of the same phrases twice during the course of a gig. He always strived to unleash fresh stimulating melodies upon the crowd, thinking that he could improvise as well as saxaphone legend, Charlie Parker, even though as a musician Lars would not have even registered as a tiny pubic hair on the late great Charlie Parker’s buttocks.
Lars went into the bathroom stall and pulled a baggie from his front pocket, then he took out his wallet from his back pocket and sat down on the toilet. He noticed a Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor, reached down and grabbed it, placing it on his lap. He opened the baggie and poured out some of the cocaine. Next he took a credit card and a straw from his wallet, formed two lines of coke on the book, then snorted the cocaine up into both nostrils – first the right, then the left – with two powerful blasting inhalations.
Ahhh, whooo, that stuff really has some kick, Lars thought as he shook his head and squeezed the tip of his nose.
He put the drug paraphernalia away and threw the Hunter S. Thompson book on the floor. Then he felt something loosen in his lower stomach, so he leaned up and pulled down his pants and sat back down on the toilet. A good crap before the last set always helped him a lot too.
Lars sat there voiding his bowels, thinking about his present situation in life: Wow, I’m almost 40 years old and I’m still playing in a little rock band at these ridiculously small clubs. I can barely make enough money to even survive. I have no chance of ever recording an album, no chance of touring or getting a decent band manager. I play with guys who aren’t even creative enough to write one fucking original song. Not a damn song of their own, or who will allow me to play one of my own originals. I just perform other musician’s material every freakin’ night – promoting other people’s music, like a chumped-out loser working for free. I’ll never get anywhere with this crap. I’ll never do anything in music that’s worthwhile like the heroes that I grew up listening to: Metallica, Guns ‘N Roses, The Sex Pistols, Rick Springfield, George Thorogood and the Destroyers, AC/DC, Miles Davis, Slayer, Billy Squier, Cream, Led Zeppelin, Pantera, Ozzy, Megadeth, Aerosmith, The Swans, Van Halen, Black Flag, John Lee Hooker, Poison, Tone Loc, The Butthole Surfers, R.L. Burnside, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Black Sabbath, The Doors, The Beastie Boys, Junior Kimbrough, Nirvana... I’m just living a stupid wannabe rock star dream. You’d think I would have grown up by now. But no, not me. My day job at the nursing home is fucking horrible. I’m truly screwed, burnt out, wasted, dead, cynical, daunted, defeated, fucked over, jaded, destroyed, and pissed off. But you know what? I don’t care. Because I’m getting ready to go out there and play E.C.’s Cocaine after snorting some cocaine of my own and it’s going to be fantastic. I’ll lose myself in the music. I’ll trip out and fly away. Hell, I’ve played Cocaine a million times by now but I’m going to go out play it the best ever in just a few minutes. I’ll release every ounce of emotion and anger from my body and my mind and my transcendental soul to show everyone in the audience that I’m not a loser. I’m a damn good guitar player, I know that much. I’ll show everyone. Nope, I’m not going to sit here thinking about my shitty life and becoming more and more depressed. I’m going to go out there and kick ass on stage and then I’ll be a real man. No one will ever call me a pussy or a pansy ever again. Fuck it, I’m a man.
Lars grabbed some toilet paper and wiped his ass, then he stood up and pulled on his pants and fastened his belt with the large silver Guns ‘N Roses belt buckle. He went out of the stall and over to a mirror. Although Lars loved blues and classic rock the most, he affected a heavy metal look on stage: Faded jean jacket cut off at the sleeves to reveal his heavily-muscled arms; leather straps with long silver spikes wrapped around both wrists; a large silver chain with small golden guitars hanging around his neck; a big blue battleaxe tattooed across his whole throat; his hairy chest visible below showing his large pectoral muscles; long flowing black hair cut into a perfect mullet shape. “Looking good,” he said, smiling into the mirror.
He went out to the stage and grabbed his black Gretsch Electromatic solid body guitar and put it on. He turned to his drummer and counted off the tune and they started the E to D chord progression of Cocaine and the audience hooted and cheered. Lars took a brief solo at the beginning, bending some notes, adding a wide stinging vibrato ala Albert King. His guitar sound was that of a man mega-pissed off, on the brink of defeat, almost every ounce of life sucked from his haggard body, a person filled with almost homicidal despair and angst, and every person in the crowd could feel it, because each of them felt exactly the same way Lars did. He stepped over to the microphone, grimaced and puckered his lips, then started belting out the lyrics.
If you wanna hang out you’ve gotta take her out - cocaine... If you wanna get down, go down to the ground - cocaine... When your day is done and you wanna run on - cocaine. If you got bad news, you wanna kick them fuckin’ blues - cocaine... She don’t lie, she don’t lie, no baby she dont fuckin’ lie - COCAINE!
Lars sang the lyrics so intensely he started feeling searing pain in his vocal chords, but he kept on going, hoping he could make it to the solo section, where he could relax and forget about everything and trip out on his guitar with complete abandon and ferocity.
The solo section arrived and he began with some slow melodic phrases in the 7th position of the neck, bending and releasing and plucking the strings with his fingers, then he worked his way up to the 12th position and played some fast pentatonic quintuplets and transitioned into quick bursts of finger-tapping and trills. Then, for no reason at all, he moved up to the 22nd fret and bent the highest note on his fret board two full steps while leaning into the microphone and screaming “COCAINE!” in the highest falsetto voice he could manufacture; and as he did so, he felt something snap inside his brain – all of the cocaine he’d snorted earlier kicked in at that precise moment with complete force.
He blacked out for a fraction of a second, then awoke to see President-elect Barack Obama’s disembodied head floating before him in space. Obama’s head was surrounded by golden light coming through dark clouds with a few white feathers floating and descending. The music Lars had been playing earlier could still be heard faintly in the background, with him playing guitar somewhere down below.
“What’s going on?” Lars asked.
“I don’t know, what’s going on?” Barack Obama’s floating head responded.
“What are you doing here?”
“Nothing, what are you doing here?”
“What do you mean ‘nothing.’ You’re Barrack Obama and you’re floating here in front of me. I’m supposed to be playing a gig right now, but I’m somewhere in outer space. Let me go back down to where the music is.”
“I’m not holding you here. You’ve chosen to be talking to me. This is your fault, Lars... Don’t worry though, your gig is still going fine down below with you still playing guitar. You’re just having an out-of-body experience at the moment... By the way, I’m not Barrack Obama.”
Lars looked down at his fingers. He was still holding his guitar, a few white feathers fell on the fretboard, he could hear music faintly in his style of playing, but his fingers were not moving. “You are too Barrack Obama. I may be spaced out on cocaine right now, but I’m not crazy. Of course you’re Barrack, you look exactly like him.”
“Perhaps I do resemble him, but it’s only because our brains have been swapped. I’m really Eric Clapton.”
“What.”
“A doctor swapped our brains. My brain – Eric Clapton’s – was put inside Barack Obama’s skull, which you are seeing now, and Barack’s brain was put into my head. You’re actually talking to Eric Clapton right now, not Obama. Can’t you tell by my British accent?”
“I thought that was a little odd. Still, this is ridiculous. Way too confusing. I can’t talk to Eric Clapton when he looks like Obama. Aren’t you going to be our president soon?”
“I guess so. I’m the President-elect.”
“Do you know anything about politics?”
“Of course not, I’m Eric Clapton. I only know how to play blues guitar.”
“Wow, the United States is really going to be fucked up soon.”
“Yes it is, but I can’t help it... Let’s change the subject. I’m here to give you something.”
“What’s that?” Lars said.
“The essence of all music summed up in one melody.”
“Pardon?”
“I am going to give you a melody that will contain the essence of all music.”
“Yeah, sure. What would I do with that?”
Obama’s face fell into a scowl. “Don’t you realize how powerful that would be? The melody will contain the essence of every musical phrase in the universe, every prior one congealed into it. This melody will be an otherworldly divine phrase so mesmerizing when it’s played audiences will become hypnotized and fall in love with you and become your greatest fans for the rest of your life.”
“Uh huh, right,” Lars said sarcastically. He was now in a slight stupor, but could still hear himself playing electric guitar down below on Earth and he was losing interest in the conversation. He turned around and tried to see through the dark clouds to where the gig was taking place, but only blurry images of the people phasing in and out were visible. “I really need to get back down there. Is this almost over?”
Barrack Obama’s floating head continued, “If you record the melody on an album of your own, realize that it will instantly become the best-selling record of all time. And I mean OF ALL TIME.”
“I could certainly use that. But what happens when other musicians hear it, they’ll have the melody too.”
“No they won’t. I’ll make it so that no other musician will be allowed to play it because they’ll be blocked from fully hearing all the notes – one tone will automatically cancel out in their minds and they won’t be able to receive the full musical phrase.”
“That’s impossible.”
“No. It’s weird, but not impossible.”
Lars hung his head in thought for a few seconds. “All right, I believe you, Mr. Clapton. But I just want to get back to my gig now.”
“So you’re ready to receive the melody?” Obama’s head said.
“Yeah.”
The floating head began humming in a soft whisper but Lars couldn’t hear the entire melody before the whole world turned black, then surreal science fiction images appeared in his brain, pictures of quarks melting into gigantic noses, skinny nude supermodel-androids doing back flips on floating tramplines, gluons exploding into ferocious balls of fireworks, and Obama’s face transforming into a geometrical 24-dimensional crystal lattice representation of God – every one of the macabre images freezing inside of Lars’ mind. He looked down at his guitar and saw how quantum chromodynamics drove the inner workings of the electronics and he instantly understood every substance in the universe on a subatomic level; but he also received Clapton’s divine melody in the midst of all this outlandish information, without ever realizing it.
He awoke on stage in his own body, still soloing away on his guitar. He turned around and signaled the band to end the tune, then he hit a final E major chord with the drummer who pounded a loud crash on his cymbals.
But after finishing the song, everything that had happened was still too much for Lars to digest: him soloing too intensely, screaming Cocaine in a ludicrously high falsetto, talking to Eric Clapton’s brain inside of Obama’s skull, seeing the disturbing science fiction images, Lars could not take in all of this material, so he fell back on the stage and blacked out from total shock and exhaustion.
His girlfriend was watching out in the audience. She shrieked when she saw Lars hit the floor and slowly made her way through the crowd, the room was now filled with awkward silences and embarrassed looks, which she tried to ignore. She climbed the stairs and went over to Lars, unplugged his guitar so that he could keep it on, then hoisted him up, throwing his now lifeless body over her shoulder. She carried the poor unconscious bastard off the stage toward the dressing rooms.
Lars awoke while riding on his girlfriend’s back. He glanced around still in a deep daze. “Where is he?”
She didn’t put him down, but walked faster to the dressing room. “Where is who?”
“Obama’s head. Did he give it to me? Do I have it?”
“Have what? What are you talking about?”
“The melody! It’s really important, the greatest melody of all time. An instant best seller if ever recorded on an album.” Lars paused and looked around as he passed a few audience members who were staring at him with their mouths open.
“You’ve gone crazy, Lars,” his girlfriend said, stilling carrying him on her back through the club with her powerful legs. “You’ve been snorting cocaine again in the bathroom, haven’t you? Goddamn it I told you never to do coke before playing Cocaine again. The double whammy effect from it is way too dangerous. You know you can’t handle heavy drugs so you better knock it off. You’re going to fry your brain and never be able to play another song again.”
Lars looked over his girlfriend’s shoulder, he stared down at the ground, bouncing as she carried him back stage. He heard a faint melody begin somewhere deep in his brain. A nice slow phrase, hypnotic and ethereal, which gradually came to full fruition in his mind. It was the divine melody that Eric Clapton had given him from Obama’s head while he was spaced out on cocaine, the greatest melody of all time. It slowly gained in volume and intensity, the phrase picking up in tempo until the entire thing played out entirely in his addled mind. He started humming it a little as he rode on his girlfriend’s back, but he was careful to leave out a few notes so she wouldn’t hear the full thing. He felt now that the musical phrase contained the true secret of the universe and the meaning of life and was more powerful than a hundred nuclear explosions combined.
“THERE IT IS! I GOT IT! HE REALLY GAVE ME THE MELODY! ALL RIGHT! I KNOW IT’S GOING TO GIVE ME A MAJOR WORLD-WIDE HIT SOON! FUCKING A! SHIT YEAH! OH. MY. GOD. I’M GOING TO BE A TRUE ROCK STAR SOON.”
“Shut up and calm down!” his girlfriend said. “You can lie down in a minute.”
But Lars was not sick, he was only excited about the melody, although he knew better than to play it on his guitar that day, or even the next. He was going to save it. For better times and greater things to come. Soon he would be making millions of smackaroos, hypnotizing audiences, making ladies chase him through the streets, wrecking hotel rooms, raising hell on airplanes in mid-flight, receiving insane fan letters, breaking into casinos, swilling hard liquor and doing every drug known to man, yeah, soon Lars would have the whole fucking world by the balls.
His girlfriend set him down in the dressing room, he leaned back and fell onto a cool leather couch setting behind him. He still had his Gretsch Electromatic around his neck. He slid his hand up and down the fret board, trying to get the feel of his guitar again and pull himself out of the lingering cocaine daze. He played a few blues licks and strummed an E9 chord, then fingered an A7. Everything was quiet in the room, his girlfriend had left to get him a glass of cool water.
Lars heard movement outside in the hallway. Footsteps getting louder.
A man walked into his dressing room. It was President-elect, Barack Obama. Wearing a black suit with a red tie. Lars stared at him with his mouth open. Obama came closer, holding out his hand. Obama said, “Hello, Lars, how are you?”
Lars’ mouth fell open even wider and his fingers stopped moving on his guitar.
He noticed Obama was not speaking with an English accent now. But he still didn’t know whether it was Eric Clapton in there, or the President-elect.
“What are you doing here?” Lars said.
“Play me the melody you were given...”
-end-
http://becomeguitaristfromhell.blogspot.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/zevi35711
Bio: Jason Earls is the author of Cocoon of Terror (Afterbirth Books), Red Zen, How to Become a Guitar Player from Hell, If(Sid_Vicious == TRUE && Alan_Turing == TRUE) {ERROR_Cyberpunk(); }, Heartless Bast*rd In Ecstasy, and 0.136101521283655... all available at Amazon.com and other online book stores. His fiction and mathematical work have been published in Red Scream, Yankee Pot Roast, M-Brane SF, Scientia Magna, three of Clifford Pickover’s books, Neometropolis, Mathworld.com, AlienSkin, Recreational and Educational Computing, Escaping Elsewhere, Thirteen, Dogmatika, Prime Curios, the Online Encyclopedia of Integer Sequences, OG’s Speculative Fiction, Nocturnal Ooze, Bust Down the Door and Eat All the Chickens, and other publications. He currently resides in Oklahoma with his wife, Christine.
New Title for Next Guitar Book
Yesterday I received a comment on one of my guitar videos. I would guess that perhaps 90% of the comments I receive are positive, but this one was negative:
"I lost interest at 1m 26. Does your book cover how to play for the song? How to play the blues with a feel for the blues? Or just the mindless shredding on show here?"
I like technical guitar playing (Shawn Lane is my favorite technical guitarist), but I do appreciate tone, phrasing, and feel in a guitarist moreso than shredding ability. Nevertheless, the person who commented gave me an idea for the title of my next guitar book. I might call it:
How to Shred Mindlessly
Good idea?
"I lost interest at 1m 26. Does your book cover how to play for the song? How to play the blues with a feel for the blues? Or just the mindless shredding on show here?"
I like technical guitar playing (Shawn Lane is my favorite technical guitarist), but I do appreciate tone, phrasing, and feel in a guitarist moreso than shredding ability. Nevertheless, the person who commented gave me an idea for the title of my next guitar book. I might call it:
How to Shred Mindlessly
Good idea?
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