FANFIC: THE BATMAN X BLOODSPORT

                                                    THE BATMAN X BLOODSPORT 

    Frank Dux proved to be as elusive as Agent Helmer had reported back to his superiors. And although the seedier alleys of Hong Kong were abuzz with talk of a French-accented American breaking bricks and breaking records and breaking hearts, the secrecy demanded in the name of protecting the Kumite meant that substantial information was limited. With time reportedly being of the essence, basic detective work was to be seasoned with a pinch of money and a dash of violence. But isn’t that the way in the world of the Kumite? The last test of man that can be equal parts brutality and honor. I like that. Chong Li’s epic defeat at the hands (and feet) of Frank Dux was nothing short of spectacular. While I couldn’t stop thinking about Frank’s legs spread so far apart in those little red shorts, my immediate instinct was to heal the damage that he’d given to his opponent. Chong Li was a cold-blooded killer, but I saw something in him. If Chong Li could be taught to refocus his energy, like myself and Selina had, he could put that energy toward improving the world rather than taking from it. As the Batman, I followed him back to his hotel room and waited for his trainer to leave. I stepped into the doorway and pulled off my cowl. In the Kumite’s world of secrecy, I knew my true identity was safe. I stepped further into the dimly lit room and saw the large killer sitting on the edge of his bed. “Now’s, your chance, American. Finish me if you must.” He had been humiliated. I would build him back up into something greater. I took off my shirt. God, I felt hard all over. I walked over to the bed. Chong Li stood up. I’d seen how big he was at the Kumite, but I still found myself unprepared for his sheer size. Without saying a word, he reached out with his massive hands and gripped my belt buckle. I’d let those hands overwhelm me. He grunted to himself as he pinned me to the mattress. I put up a fight but held back just enough. Sweat from his chest dripped down onto mine and slicked us up. “Don’t. Fight. Back.” he said gruffly. He lifted his body just enough to flip me over. More sweat. Slowly, he pressed himself inside of me. He was so big! He pounded me and filled me. I was left spent on that hotel bed. Wet. Exhausted. Hurt. I shouted, “Matte!” 

    Frank Dux, the new Kumite champion, was also something of a super soldier. His dossier was filled with unbelievable story after unbelievable story. He was young, like me, younger than Chong Li. He was brash. He was cocky. If I could take him, it’d be a win for both of us. Both of us could learn something. Our bodies would teach each other. I approached him at his hotel much like I had Chong Li… as the Batman. I scaled the outside of the building and shimmied down the rope and entered a window in an empty room on his floor. Three feet into the room, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. “Looking for someone?” I spun around quickly and the figure darted back out of my reach and into a shadow. Nobody ever outruns me. “Who are you?!” I shouted. “Frank Dux,” he replied as he stepped out into the light, “and you’re the young billionaire Bruce Wayne.” How did he know? He really was as good as I’d heard. Or at least I hoped that I’d find out he was. I charged him and he dodged, reached out, and ripped off my cowl. He leaped up into the air, higher than I ever could and kicked me in the chest, sending me backwards by at least a yard and nearly into the hallway. I ran back at him and with both hands tossed batarangs to each side of him. He did a splits jump kick like I’d seen him do in the ring to knock them away. I lunged forward, my face going between his thighs. I took my hands under and around and grabbed his firm ass cheeks to pull him towards me. “You may have met your match, Frank,” I grunt-whispered as I slid my face up from his hot groin to his chest. I pushed up against him, and maneuvered my arms to his shoulders. He feigned being captured, but soon I found him crushing my crotch into his with all the strength of his powerful legs. I looked Frank straight in the eyes and he just let go of all pretense. Of all inhibition. I slid off my gloves and ran my hand down his hard chest to his shorts. Those same red shorts from the fight with Chong Li. He let out a soft sigh. I took advantage and forced my tongue deep into his mouth. As my tongue probed, so too did my hands. His shaft hardened and slid out the left leg of his little red shorts. I reached to it with my left hand and repositioned his quivering body with my right. His legs came up and I ripped the shorts from him. I aimed my manhood and pressed it into him. I gripped each ankle and began thrusting. He screamed in pleasure as I spread his legs further and further apart. I was rough, but I knew he could take it. He might’ve been the only man who could take it. His muscles were so tight. All of his muscles were tight. He fought and squeezed, but I would not give him what he wanted until I was ready. Finally, I flipped him around and pulled him up on to his knees. I flung my cape back behind me, slammed myself back in, and start ramming. He tried to hold firm. As I finished, I dug my nails into the sides of his hard tight ass. He was filled up and broken and wobbly. I fell onto him and he collapsed. I pressed my lips onto the back of his steamy wet neck and licked behind one of his ears gently. I breathed into it and he shivered meekly. I left him on the floor ravaged and humbled. 

    In the end, the United States government got Frank Dux back, on his terms. Chong Li returned to South Korea a very different man than the champion who brutalized Hong Kong. And I returned to Gotham with new sense of purpose. Three men connected in their need to be the best. Three men connected in their need to fight. The fight to survive.

Behind the Songs of Tiger Helicide

    Its been a little while since we put out Tiger Helicide's debut album, 'Fight for Your Riot'. Name sound familiar? Hopefully ya listened to it (and purchased it at a very reasonable price!). If ya haven't, you can remedy that error by listening to it on this page's music player or on Spotify. Or buy it. Done? Good. Now I present the background and motivation of the lyrics to all 14 songs that form FFYR. I'll eventually write about every aspect of the songs, particularly the music side, but I wanna take the time to really properly explore all avenues. I also wanna cover the perspectives of all the musicians involved. There's a lot more to the story, but for now, here's a taste....

Kung-Fu Double-Noose: 
    David Carradine was a B-list actor most popular for his roles in the Kung Fu television franchise and, more recently, the Kill Bill movies. He was also the son of actor and cult fave, John Carradine. On June 4 2009, after a career spanning decades, 72 year-old David Carradine was found dead in a Bangkok hotel from accidental auto-asphyxiation while performing self-bondage. That's perfect tabloid fodder with any actor, but add to that his history with martial arts, and ya get conspiracy theories and unanswerable questions. Was he killed by an ancient clan angered by his profiting through the exploitation of their techniques? Was it the same clan that cursed Bruce and Brandon Lee? Why did they try to suffocate his dick?

Chinese Heart
    This one's about the Whores of Babylon, a very short-lived punk super-group featuring Dee Dee Ramone, Johnny Thunders, and Stiv Bators. In the 70s, Dee Dee had written a song about heroin called 'Chinese Rocks'. With the Ramones unwilling to perform it, Dee Dee passed the song to Richard Hell, who added a couple of lyrics. Hell had recently been fired from Television and joined the Heartbreakers (NOT the Tom Petty band of the same name) with former New York Dolls Johnny Thunders and Jerry Nolan. When Hell left to form Richard Hell and the Voidoids, Thunders and Nolan added their names to the credits and continued performing the song and recorded it on their classic 1977 album, L.A.M.F. 'Chinese Rocks' became the signature song of Johnny Thunders. The Ramones did eventually record the song in 1979, changing the title to 'Chinese Rock'. It appears on the Phil Spector-produced End of the Century credited solely to the Ramones. The Whores of Babylon came about at the end of the 80s when Dee Dee had left the Ramones (as well as his infamous turn as rapper Dee Dee King) and former Dead Boy Stiv Bators left another punk super-group called Lords of the New Church and the two joined Thunders, who'd had been performing solo or with a reformed Heartbreakers. All three battled lifetimes of drug dependency causing constant turmoil while they lived in Paris together. The band imploded shortly after recording a demo. Not long after, Bators, who still lived in Paris, was hit by a car. Not recognizing the seriousness of his injuries, he later died in his sleep at his apartment. Thunders died soon afterwards from an O.D. in New Orleans. Dee Dee Ramone carried on until 2002, when he too died from an overdose. In his autobiography, Dee Dee Ramone stated his belief that Bators had tried to steal his song, the demo Poison Heart. Indeed, the Whores of Babylon version appears on the posthumous Stiv Bators album, Last Race. The Ramones recorded their version on their first Dee Dee-less album, Mondo Bizarro. That version appears over the end credits of Pet Sematary 2. It also has a terrible video that rips off R.E.M.'s 'Losing My Religion'. Our song, 'Chinese Heart' is written from the perspective of Dee Dee with addiction personified (or monsterified). For the record, I can't help but notice that 'Poison Heart' bears more resemblance to a post-Dead Boys/pre-LotNC era Stiv solo track than most of what Dee Dee had released up to that point, though some of Dee Dee's later material is certainly comparable.

Axe Murderer
    Not much depth to the lyrics of this one. Basically, we needed a B-side for the Romero & Juliet Halloween single. Wanting to stick with the horror theme, Casey made the comment, "I'm sure you've got a song about an ax murderer or something." So twenty minutes later, I came back to him with the lyrics. That pretty much explains the stream-of-consciousness insanity. We had the music down in 15 minutes and we recorded the original version of the track a week later.

So In Love... 
    I actually wrote this one in high school. The Mostly Harmless?, my first band, performed it and even recorded a studio version in 1999. My second band, the Brain Drainers also used to play it. The subject of a couple getting sick of each other is pretty easy for most people to relate to. I'm one of the lucky few to have found their soul-mate. For a relationship to work, you have to really enjoy being with that other person. We still talk for hours. We still make fun of other people together. My wife is my best friend. I feel sorry for anyone who settles for less than their equal because that has to be a miserable existence.

Dino-Rider 
    This song is more based on me, my brother, and our friends playin' with the toys when we were kids than the very brief cartoon series it spawned. Man, those toys were AWESOME! We always wanted the bad-guy dinosaurs because they came with the little mind control helmets. I'm a sucker for accessories! 

Amityville Whore 
    The Amityville Horror is a great book. Total bullshit, but a great book. I view it as a 70s Blair Witch Project in book form. There's some obvious Exorcist influence that'll provoke a groan, but the exploitation of real murders and the child's supposed drawings of Jodie the pig make for a creepy read. The movies suck. All of them. To varying degrees. The title is a none-too-clever wordplay that also serves to illustrate the excesses the song describes.

Rock'N'Roll Commando
    'R'n'R Commando' is designed to be an over-the-top, provocative call-to-arms and a statement of stylistic intent. We mixed bad-ass with geek culture and added a spoonful of bad taste. We actually wrote a lot more lyrics. If I ever stop singing mid-verse at a show, its because I accidentally sang one of those 'lost lines' that doesn't have a proper follow-up line. Some of the imagery really is empowering to us, especially the 80s cartoon references. That's not say we were brain-washed by toy marketing as children, but our minds were definitely given a sponge bath.

Romero & Juliet 
    I love the zombie movies of George A. Romero. All of them, even the new ones. Of course, 'Romero & Juliet' is a parody of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet in title, but its mostly an absurd horror story framed as a love story with a bunch of movie references tacked on. Here's a list of said references:
1. The story takes place in Pittsburgh. Most of the Romero 'Dead' films take place and/or were fimed in the general Pittsburgh area.
2. The title character is a combination of George A. Romero and a zombie.
3. The character is mentioned having bags under his eyes. That's how Romero looked in his cameo in 'Night of the Living Dead'.
4. 'Gotta kill the brain / shoot'em in the head' is the most common way to stop a member of the undead.
5. George takes Juliet to the mall. 'Dawn of the Dead' takes place mostly in a shopping mall.
6. Juliet calls George 'Bub'. Bub is the name of the lovable zombie in 'Day of the Dead'.
7. 'No room in Hell, so he walks the earth' is a reference to a line in 'Dawn of the Dead' that was also repeated in much of its promotion.
8. A 'lucky scarf' is referenced. Romero used to wear his lucky scarf when directing many of his early films.
9. The story states that 'Tom Savini did the make-up effects'. Tom Savini is the legendary make-up artist for 'Dawn of the Dead' and 'Day of the Dead'. He portrayed 'Blades' in 'Dawn of the Dead' and returned in a cameo as a zombified version of that character in 'Land of the Dead'. He also directed the official remake of 'Night of the Living Dead' in 1990.

Decepticreeps 
    I love Galvatron. He's a rebuilt version of Megatron that features prominently in the 1986 animated Transformers movie and the third season of the cartoon TV series. He's stronger and he's straight up crazy!
He and Rodimus Prime are highly underrated. Optimus Prime and Megatron are rightfully iconic, but in absence of them, I'll totally take a young leader coming to grips with following a legend and facing off against a powerful madman who's going more and more insane with each passing minute. My favorite Galvatron quote: "Strategy is for cowards!" We open the song with the sound effect from an unrelated Captain Power toy because, well, Captain Power is awesome too!

Destroy Everything 
    The title implies a much bigger explosive perspective like, "RAARRR!!! DESTROY EVERYTHING!!! BLOW UP SHIT!!!! RARRR!!!", which would admittedly fit quite nicely with the rest of the set. Its really a more personal take of someone feeling crowded by those around them and being depressed. Surrounded but feeling alone. Finally, you just lash out and disillusion everyone who cares about you. So I guess its about the release of rage. An image has been lodged in my head for sometime of blood vessels and capillaries just stiffening and pushing through flesh. You'd be covered in tiny spines and no one could touch you.

Bomb Shelter 
    I want my own bomb shelter, plain and simple. I don't feel safe in my everyday life and no one else should. Gimme a great big underground security blanket! While I agree with the theory that if we let the terrorists affect our everyday lives then they kinda win, I also think that getting blown up feels a lot like losing, too. I think many of us have that survival instinct that makes us wanna build forts and buy weird survival tools. Its what makes us have hour-long conversations with our friends about what we'd do in the event of a zombie outbreak. We wanted to allude to the causes of country-wide paranoia, past and present. Hence the references to both the Red Scare and 9-11. Oh, and we threw in a 'Bill and Ted's Bogus Journey' reference. That's cool, right?

Lockdown
    Crazy shit happens behind bars. Our former singer used to work in a jail and can attest to that. This a worse-case scenario. We tried to make it sound hectic and painful. Solitary confinement doesn't sound so bad.

Burning Blue 
    This song is about burning to death in a car. My dad's friend had a son who apparently had car trouble in the middle of nowhere late at night. This was before everyone had cell phones. He appeared to have decided to sleep the rest of the night in the car and go out for help in the morning. Vandals, thinking the car was empty, set it on fire. I guess the thought of burning while trapped in a car has stuck with me ever since. 

Clouded Moon
    This one was actually two completely different songs (both titled 'Clouded Moon') before it became the tale that it is today. Kolbey 'Koltrane' Leek and I wrote the lyrics from the perspective of a werewolf who is always desperate to find love in his human form. Time after time, he thinks he's found his true love, one that should care enough to accept him in both forms. He feels compelled to reveal his terrible secret. Of course, his lover reacts poorly, to say the least, when the man of her dreams painfully transforms into a vicious howling beast. The werewolf recognizes that he can't let the girl live knowing and telling others. Devastated, he does what he thinks must be done. What he always has to do. Like any tragedy, the events are totally avoidable. The werewolf could easily stop such carnage if he'd just take the time to get to know the girl. He could better judge if she's the right one and even find subtle ways to lead up to it. Instead, he lets infatuation get the better of him and he just springs chaos onto her...like he did the others. Or he could just threaten to eat her if she tells anyone. I'd keep my mouth shut! There is also a pleasure that the werewolf finds in his kills. When he gives up on love, he lets the animal side take over. The humanity in him is dead, he just doesn't admit it.
  

The Bedpost Bends (excerpt)

    Read for a while about the blood of a lovely red scare. I close my eyes and press against a light and burn the lids for a brief orange sight. Who would pay somebody to dance? Feet to carpet. Feet to carpet. Beat me crazy, baby. Deal with hydration. The chair scratched the paint from the wall in the living room. Spin around a vroom a doom a boom. Other information. Inactive ingredients. She reacted too slowly in the shock of the moment. No one knows, so self impeach. Red eyes cold. Warm with the sink. Give up, live a loss. A bedtime of quiet muttered muffled shrieks. Lies of a hall light. Stare at the posters, my very own poseur. Pull up the covers. Live in the shallow shadow. All containers are empty and under feet. Trip over cold, barely dressed in black. Feeling old and without a lease. Grab the leash to that same old crap. Shock in the mirror. I thought it was a mirror. Collapse to the tile and beneath the pipes. Sleep deep and alone in the hole of emptiness. The stars are stains on a ceiling. Jump down! I'm running away from the deadly piranha. Walking on water. Never sinking. Just too damn fast. Making everyone that I outrun mad. And they'll murder me just for my smile. And leave my teeth. They'll punish me for looking better. They'll wear me. Feet to wet carpet. Feet to wet carpet. I'm feeling myself a sympathetic catastrophe. Throw me down the stairs. Rip out my hair. Something I shouldn't have thought. Eternity is the briefest flash. I get sick every hospital day. Multi-colors, colored glass. Sitting quickly. Standing swiftly. What are you looking for? I dunno. Something better or at least after. Something after, more to go. Something, anything, anything at all. And in the vents dust crowd in insistence. Red eyes freeze solid. Graying dirt. Flecks flick the air is sick. Dark, go to every corner in the roof. Fly to the front. Suck to the back. Cave in. Chipped to bits and on the floor. That pulsing device that hurts when I breathe. Scratch out a sigh of disbelief. I am the monster I saw in my dreams. That thing in the haze that would threaten to leave....

FLOWERS, part 1.

First of all, thanks for comin' by and lettin' me waste your time. Every Monday, I'm gonna post something new, so please come back every week and keep me in check.

My 5 Favorite Songs This Week Are:
1. Bad Brains - Banned In D.C.
2. The Cure - Disintegration (live version from Entreat, not Entreat Plus which has a terrible mix)
3. Roky Erickson - Starry Eyes
4. Subhumans (U.K.) - Waste Of Breath
5. Bob Vido the One Man Band - Tiger Man

I'm currently writing a book with flowers being the overall theme. Occasionally, I'm gonna post excerpts from it for your reading enjoyment. Lemme know what ya think.

FLOWERS, part 1.

    I remember myself a high school student. Very much the same 'man', very much a different entity. I was flipping through the import section of Camelot Music, the CD store at the mall. The import section at this corporate chain-store was never as exciting as the one ya might find at the proverbial 'mom & pop' store. An indie's import section featured bootlegs that just happened to have been produced, without permission from the rights-holder, in another country. The bootlegs tended to contain poorly recorded live takes of hit songs or demos of hit songs or alternate takes of hit songs or B-sides of hit songs or rare compilation non-hit songs or songs that were never officially released so were never gonna be hit songs. Nowadays, that content is usually found on Disc 2 of digitally remastered officially reissued albums. Or the internet. Exhilarating to a die-hard fan, but confusing/disappointing to a newcomer. The chain-store had 'semi-official' releases, any Dave Goodman-produced Sex Pistols album for example, but certainly not any bootlegs. That said, I was at the mall, so I was thumbing through the inferior import section when I came across something of vague interest: a Nirvana single. Now, hear me out. This wasn't 'Smells Like Teen Spirit' or 'Lithium' or whatever. This was 'Heart-Shaped Box'. At the time, many critics were confused by HSB and the In Utero album in general. Some even theorized that Kurt Cobain and company had purposely recorded an unlistenable set just to piss off the label. Think 'Ringworm'-era Van Morrison. The initiated recognized it at the time for what it was, as does hindsight for Joe 'Radio' Blow. Put very simply, in reaction to the aftermath of Nevermind, Nirvana recorded a harder, noisier album with In Utero. Those critics must not have been very aware of alternative music because even the craziest Nirvana is very mild compared to A LOT of the music the so-called genre has to offer. And, to this day, I'd still argue that In Utero was a catchier record than their indie debut, Bleach. The Cure rip-off, 'About A Girl', not withstanding. But I already owned a copy of In Utero, so what interested me about the single? Not B-side number one, 'Milk It', which was also from the album. No, it was a little ditty called 'Marigold'. Not only was 'Marigold' a non-album previously-unreleased track, it was also the only Nirvana song to feature the drummer on vocals. I remember thinking, 'How often will I get the opportunity to hear Nirvana's drummer sing? That's rare! What's his name again? Dave Grohl? Awesome." So I snatched up that 3-songs-for-$12 bargain. As I walked across the parking lot to my '86 Honda Accord, I gnawed away at the shrink wrap. I sat down in my car and chucked the partially-devoured plastic onto the floorboard and slapped that CD into the boombox resting in the passenger seat. Skipped right over to track 3 and there it was. It was a soft, low-key affair that still somehow featured a solid garage thump of rhythm. The drummer's voice was okay. Nothing to write home about. Didn't embarrass himself (not the way I do, anyway!), but certainly didn't steal any Kurt-thunder. It was a novelty. I'd whip it out and play it once in a while for my friends and we'd all think how cool I was for having such a treasured rarity. Then Kurt Cobain became Kurt Co-BLAM! and eventually Grohl would resurface with his own band, The Foo Fighters. Now Dave Grohl's voice is the soundtrack to my nightmares.

WELCOME

Howdy! I'm Adam Harmless. I sing and play rhythm(ish) guitar for the punk band, Tiger Helicide. We've recently released our full-length debut, Fight for Your Riot, which you'll recognize as the name of this blog. While I consider myself a relatively creative guy, the mind do wander so don't come here expecting a solid theme from post to post, outside of me strokin' my ego sore. Anarchy, in my opinion, is a valid artistic structure, or at the very least, a valid word for the lack of artistic structure. I can say that there will be random pieces of wisdom (risdom?), band stuff, poetry, short fiction, and me just bein' awesome. Thinkin' outside of the box is the first step. The second is to look back at that box and imagine a sphere. I hope a lot of you will stare at that ball with me. Thank you.