Life on Mars
Jan 21, 2016 8:03:22 GMT -5
Post by Johnny Karma on Jan 21, 2016 8:03:22 GMT -5
28th December 2015, Boston MA
We're backstage at the Matthews Arena shortly after the scuffle between Johnny Karma and Johnny Cannon, and we see Karma carrying a dazed-looking Cherry through the backstage area as he tries to find a trainer or, frankly, anybody who can be of any assistance to him
I need some help here! Anybody???
As Karma begins to get increasingly desperate, with nobody who can help anywhere to be found, Cherry stirs slightly
J-K...? What happened...?
For a moment Karma doesn't answer, almost as if he cannot believe what happened himself - or, just as likely, he is so angry with what happened that he is refusing to say out loud what happened, in case he decides to leave Cherry where she's barely standing to march through the corridors in search of Johnny Cannon so he can give him one hell of a receipt for what he has done. Realising he should probably say something, Karma starts to speak
I'm sorry, I...
...but before Karma can finish what he was about to say, one of the arena's medical staff appears on the scene, having heard Karma shouting from the other end of the hallway
Doctor: What seems to be the problem here?
rather than answer the question directly, Karma just turns his head slightly towards Cherry, giving the doctor enough of a hint that this might be what the problem is
Doctor: May I have a look?
Karma whispers something to Cherry before, reluctantly, letting go of her so the doctor can have a look at her - and it doesn't take long for the doctor to find out exactly what the problem is, as there's a giant welt on the left side of Cherry's face and her eye is already swollen shut, all of which coming from a Johnny Cannon haymaker that may have been meant for Karma, but it certainly did not hit its intended target
Doctor: Come with me.
After helping Cherry steady her balance as she walks, the doctor leads her down the corridor towards the arena's medical centre, while Karma looks on at the scene unfolding before him, standing alone in the corridor and unable to do anything to help
10th January 2016, Queens NYC
A few weeks after what went down in Boston, we join Johnny Karma as he's having a little bit of Me Time at home as he sits on his couch with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones practically consuming his head, a little bit of The Doors on his MP3 player and a partially drunk bottle of Longboard Lager within easy reach of his hand, when all of a sudden his moment of tranquility is interrupted by his phone vibrating, so he opens his eyes and picks the phone off his lap before he slides the headphones off his head and around his neck, and he sees the incoming call is from Cherry
Hey, Cherry, how are...?
Before he can finish asking his question, Cherry says something that makes Karma to freeze for a moment and causes the phone to slip from his grasp and fall onto his lap
...
After a moment in an apparent trance, Karma picks the phone back off his lap and slowly raises it to his ear once more
Yeah, I'm still...listen, can I call you back? I think I need a minute.
Karma listens to whatever it is that Cherry is saying on the other end of the line before hanging up, and once he hangs up the phone he rummages for the TV remote that's gotten wedged between the arm of his couch and one of the cushions until he finds what he;s looking for and switches on the TV, flicking through the channels until he finds the first news program available - and when he finds the program he's confronted with confirmation that what Cherry said is true, David Bowie has died.
Karma stays sat on the couch in a sense of shock, discovering that one of his idols has died, and he seems unable to process the information, so he sits there in a sort of daze as the reality starts to wash over him.
As Karma sits there, taking the news in, his phone vibrates once more...
Now...
We cut to the Karmic TV set – no intro, no enthusiastic yet friendly wave from Cherry, instead we see Johnny Karma sat on his couch leaning forwards, while Cherry is sat on her chair – and while her eye is no longer swollen, she has clearly used quite a bit of makeup on that side of her face to cover some of the bruising that still remains
You’ll probably have noticed what I’ve been saying for the past few weeks about how too many members of the FWA roster are willing to sink to the lowest depths as they try to reach the pinnacle of this company, especially those that are willing to deliberately injure fellow professionals – fellow professionals who can prevent those people climbing to the highest heights if those shlaym grew a pair of what was supposed to give them and dared to set foot in the ring.
Until a few weeks ago, though, I was thinking that I could avoid the likes of…well, I’m sure you can work out for yourself who I’m talking about as I’ve dropped their names enough times, because each of them had their own ivory tower that allowed them to sneak down to pounce on their next victim before they scurried back up to hide like the cowards they are. That meant it was possible to compartmentalise them away from what I was doing, and only consider coming into contact with them when I felt it was time to change things.
But a few weeks ago that changed.
Taking a moment to find the words, or maybe weed out a few of the more choice ones, Karma pauses and holds his breath for a second before he starts with a slower, more deliberate tone than we’re used to hearing
So there we were, in our hometown, making plans for after the show when we find ourselves interrupted by Quinn Goodrich realising he hadn’t stuck his nose where it wasn't wanted for at least half an hour so he decided the best thing he could do at that exact moment is interject himself into a conversation that did not involve him – and when the monkey was told where to go, along came the organ grinder to remind me that he’s among the very worst when it comes to injuring fellow professionals in the hope that it will advance his career.
However, that is not the lowest that he would sink.
After having half a dozen home truths dropped on him, such as the fact that no matter how many fellow professionals he has injured he has not been able to rise up the ranks, he did what he always does and tried to take a cheapshot at me when I was distracted. Yet this time he couldn’t even get that right, missing the target and then…and then…
Finding it increasingly difficult to complete his sentence, Karma clenches his fist in a combination of rage and frustration, and this causes Cherry to quickly step out of her seat and cross the studio towards Karma
It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.
Thinking about it for a moment, Karma shakes his head before he turns to Cherry and says something to her, but he says it under his breath so we can’t make it out. Whatever he said, though, it seems to convince Cherry that he’ll be okay, so she places a hand on his shoulder and flashes a warm, reassuring smile in his direction before she returns to her seat
The real problem with so many people trying to be the biggest dybbuk of them all is that it’s starting to trickle down as anyone walking through the door in FWA thinks that is the only way to get ahead, because when so many people are doing the same thing it doesn’t take long before someone else with the personal worth is about the same as that shleper you’ll see bedding down for the night in a doorway decides they too will follow the leader, even though that same leader is walking over a cliff with a long drop below him. And if you don’t believe me when I say that’s what’ll happen, take a good, long look at Aries Reed. He’s been here for a cup of coffee - and I don’t mean taking a handful of gourmet beans before taking your time to make yourself the perfect espresso, I mean pouring a cup of that vile brown liquid that’s been stewing in the coffee machine for longer than anyone can remember even though your sinuses tell you that it smells bad from across the room – yet what is he talking about? Is it the potential he has, the opportunities he is hoping to make, or his hopes and dreams and all that jazz? No, instead he’s making big, bold proclamations that he’s going to hurt his opponents and all that dreck. So good job, Chris Q, Dom Harter, Johnny Cannon and the rest of you, you’ve made it acceptable for people to think the only way to get ahead is to turn the locker room into a makeshift triage unit at the end of every show. Bravo!
For a moment it looks as if Karma is going to give a sarcastic round of applause, but just before his fingers touch he stops and looks up, before letting his hands fall back towards his lap
Of course, we know why Aries Reed wants to talk about hurting his opponents, how he’ll be doing them a favour by defeating them, and all the other blah blah blah, and that’s because he has a couple of lima beans where his brain should be. After all, he keeps saying how he beat up one guy. One. Singular. As low as a number can get because after that there’s only fractions. He seems to think that one match makes a career, just like one win makes him the undisputed anything of the world. That’s simply not true, just like having a nickel-plated lump of wood in your mouth doesn’t make you a silver-tongued devil.
You like to…
Karma uses his hand to mime somebody flapping their gums
…about beating up Christopher Vector, but what I’d rather talk about is you losing to Ricky Valero in your first match.
What, you didn’t think I noticed?
You know what I did in my first match, Aries? Well, first of all, I did something you didn’t: win. Secondly, I walked into the ring against a guy named Zero, but without the surname McHannon...just in case a game of telephone gets started about me saying I beat him so easily he barely registered a punch, and I took him apart by wrestling him. No dirty tricks, no attempts to hurt my opponent, I just knew exactly what I was doing in that ring and I dismantled him in short order. Yet you know something, Aries? That match isn’t important right now, partly because it took place in April 2013, but mostly because time and again I have shown I can beat anyone just by wrestling. Take a look at the list of some of the heaviest hitters in FWA history. Jimmy Page, Kevin Hardaway – I beat them both, and all it took was having more know-how in my little finger than you could have if five of you were stacked one inside the other like a matryoshka doll, so if you want to assume victory because of reasons, I’m going to ask just how much of that bottle of Canadian Club you’d drunk before you boarded the one-man Aries Reed hype train.
The real question I’m going to ask you, though, is whether you actually put a little thought into that spiel of yours. After all, of all the opponents you want to say you’re going to go out of your way to hurt them, did you really think it was a good idea to say that to me? To somebody who takes issue with the sort of single-celled lifeform that operates like that, especially considering the last time I was at an FWA show I saw a close and dear friend get smacked in the face by a Ben zona who thinks that’s the sort of thing that makes him a real man?
Karma pauses, looking at the camera like another person might look at someone you think has some shrapnel embedded in a place where shrapnel shouldn’t be embedded
I’ve said for a while that I’ve had enough of people looking to get ahead by making sure everyone else gets a head trauma, and after what happened in NYC it is time for me to put my foot down. But what is it I see under my foot? Why, it looks like Aries Reed, lying spread-eagled on the ground, waving his arms and legs, saying I don’t have the beytsim to introduce him to the sole of my size 879 Converse All Stars.
That’s the point you’re missing, Reed. The reason I found myself unable to walk those few steps from the sidewalk to the JFK departure lounge was because I knew that if I saw the organ grinder and his monkey backstage and do what you’d probably call giving the pair of them a couple of receipts, but what I call sinking to their level. That’s not who I am, Reed, but don’t you dare think for a second that makes me a coward or any other word you want to throw around – it means I’m not going to sacrifice what makes me unique and what makes me great just because it might feel good for that split second when my first meets the centre of their face. After all, while that might feel good for a second, putting somebody who has lost half of their FWA matches back in their box will feel just as satisfying – and it won’t take a second, it’ll take as long as it takes, but when it’s done your talk of a big game will just be talk and your threats of hurting me will be as empty as that decorative ornament that rests on top of your shoulders.
Karma wipes one hand against the other
When the match is finished, your nose will be in the same place it was when you entered the ring, your arms and legs won’t be pointing in a different direction, you’ll have the same number of ribs, all of that – however, your ego won’t be so lucky as it’ll be in the back of an ambulance speeding to the emergency room, one paramedic performing CPR while another uses the defibrillator, but they know they’re just delaying the inevitable because your ego is going to discover that when you poke a lion…well, your day is going to get a lot shorter. It won’t be enjoyable, but it’ll be shorter. And all because you had one chance to make a first impression, just one, and you made such a bad impression that it my duty to make an impression on the ring canvas that looks an awful lot like the outline of Aries Reed, but is a lot quieter because his clock won't be going "tick tock" - instead his clock will be cleaned as he lies glassy eyed on the canvas for a lot longer than three seconds, and the first thing he'll remember is Old Man Levee taught him to weep and moan.
However, if you watch it back the following day, you'll see something else: you'll see me walking into my backyard, schooling you in the ring, and the crowd will be eating up every single thing that I do. Because this is the point, Reed: the world's lost a couple of heroes in the last week or so, but if you think that means the likes of you or Chris Q or Johnny Cannon have won you are sorely mistaken, because there's always going to be another hero - and not just for one day.
Word count: 2727
We're backstage at the Matthews Arena shortly after the scuffle between Johnny Karma and Johnny Cannon, and we see Karma carrying a dazed-looking Cherry through the backstage area as he tries to find a trainer or, frankly, anybody who can be of any assistance to him
I need some help here! Anybody???
As Karma begins to get increasingly desperate, with nobody who can help anywhere to be found, Cherry stirs slightly
J-K...? What happened...?
For a moment Karma doesn't answer, almost as if he cannot believe what happened himself - or, just as likely, he is so angry with what happened that he is refusing to say out loud what happened, in case he decides to leave Cherry where she's barely standing to march through the corridors in search of Johnny Cannon so he can give him one hell of a receipt for what he has done. Realising he should probably say something, Karma starts to speak
I'm sorry, I...
...but before Karma can finish what he was about to say, one of the arena's medical staff appears on the scene, having heard Karma shouting from the other end of the hallway
Doctor: What seems to be the problem here?
rather than answer the question directly, Karma just turns his head slightly towards Cherry, giving the doctor enough of a hint that this might be what the problem is
Doctor: May I have a look?
Karma whispers something to Cherry before, reluctantly, letting go of her so the doctor can have a look at her - and it doesn't take long for the doctor to find out exactly what the problem is, as there's a giant welt on the left side of Cherry's face and her eye is already swollen shut, all of which coming from a Johnny Cannon haymaker that may have been meant for Karma, but it certainly did not hit its intended target
Doctor: Come with me.
After helping Cherry steady her balance as she walks, the doctor leads her down the corridor towards the arena's medical centre, while Karma looks on at the scene unfolding before him, standing alone in the corridor and unable to do anything to help
10th January 2016, Queens NYC
A few weeks after what went down in Boston, we join Johnny Karma as he's having a little bit of Me Time at home as he sits on his couch with a pair of noise-cancelling headphones practically consuming his head, a little bit of The Doors on his MP3 player and a partially drunk bottle of Longboard Lager within easy reach of his hand, when all of a sudden his moment of tranquility is interrupted by his phone vibrating, so he opens his eyes and picks the phone off his lap before he slides the headphones off his head and around his neck, and he sees the incoming call is from Cherry
Hey, Cherry, how are...?
Before he can finish asking his question, Cherry says something that makes Karma to freeze for a moment and causes the phone to slip from his grasp and fall onto his lap
...
After a moment in an apparent trance, Karma picks the phone back off his lap and slowly raises it to his ear once more
Yeah, I'm still...listen, can I call you back? I think I need a minute.
Karma listens to whatever it is that Cherry is saying on the other end of the line before hanging up, and once he hangs up the phone he rummages for the TV remote that's gotten wedged between the arm of his couch and one of the cushions until he finds what he;s looking for and switches on the TV, flicking through the channels until he finds the first news program available - and when he finds the program he's confronted with confirmation that what Cherry said is true, David Bowie has died.
Karma stays sat on the couch in a sense of shock, discovering that one of his idols has died, and he seems unable to process the information, so he sits there in a sort of daze as the reality starts to wash over him.
As Karma sits there, taking the news in, his phone vibrates once more...
Now...
We cut to the Karmic TV set – no intro, no enthusiastic yet friendly wave from Cherry, instead we see Johnny Karma sat on his couch leaning forwards, while Cherry is sat on her chair – and while her eye is no longer swollen, she has clearly used quite a bit of makeup on that side of her face to cover some of the bruising that still remains
You’ll probably have noticed what I’ve been saying for the past few weeks about how too many members of the FWA roster are willing to sink to the lowest depths as they try to reach the pinnacle of this company, especially those that are willing to deliberately injure fellow professionals – fellow professionals who can prevent those people climbing to the highest heights if those shlaym grew a pair of what was supposed to give them and dared to set foot in the ring.
Until a few weeks ago, though, I was thinking that I could avoid the likes of…well, I’m sure you can work out for yourself who I’m talking about as I’ve dropped their names enough times, because each of them had their own ivory tower that allowed them to sneak down to pounce on their next victim before they scurried back up to hide like the cowards they are. That meant it was possible to compartmentalise them away from what I was doing, and only consider coming into contact with them when I felt it was time to change things.
But a few weeks ago that changed.
Taking a moment to find the words, or maybe weed out a few of the more choice ones, Karma pauses and holds his breath for a second before he starts with a slower, more deliberate tone than we’re used to hearing
So there we were, in our hometown, making plans for after the show when we find ourselves interrupted by Quinn Goodrich realising he hadn’t stuck his nose where it wasn't wanted for at least half an hour so he decided the best thing he could do at that exact moment is interject himself into a conversation that did not involve him – and when the monkey was told where to go, along came the organ grinder to remind me that he’s among the very worst when it comes to injuring fellow professionals in the hope that it will advance his career.
However, that is not the lowest that he would sink.
After having half a dozen home truths dropped on him, such as the fact that no matter how many fellow professionals he has injured he has not been able to rise up the ranks, he did what he always does and tried to take a cheapshot at me when I was distracted. Yet this time he couldn’t even get that right, missing the target and then…and then…
Finding it increasingly difficult to complete his sentence, Karma clenches his fist in a combination of rage and frustration, and this causes Cherry to quickly step out of her seat and cross the studio towards Karma
It’s okay, you don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to.
Thinking about it for a moment, Karma shakes his head before he turns to Cherry and says something to her, but he says it under his breath so we can’t make it out. Whatever he said, though, it seems to convince Cherry that he’ll be okay, so she places a hand on his shoulder and flashes a warm, reassuring smile in his direction before she returns to her seat
The real problem with so many people trying to be the biggest dybbuk of them all is that it’s starting to trickle down as anyone walking through the door in FWA thinks that is the only way to get ahead, because when so many people are doing the same thing it doesn’t take long before someone else with the personal worth is about the same as that shleper you’ll see bedding down for the night in a doorway decides they too will follow the leader, even though that same leader is walking over a cliff with a long drop below him. And if you don’t believe me when I say that’s what’ll happen, take a good, long look at Aries Reed. He’s been here for a cup of coffee - and I don’t mean taking a handful of gourmet beans before taking your time to make yourself the perfect espresso, I mean pouring a cup of that vile brown liquid that’s been stewing in the coffee machine for longer than anyone can remember even though your sinuses tell you that it smells bad from across the room – yet what is he talking about? Is it the potential he has, the opportunities he is hoping to make, or his hopes and dreams and all that jazz? No, instead he’s making big, bold proclamations that he’s going to hurt his opponents and all that dreck. So good job, Chris Q, Dom Harter, Johnny Cannon and the rest of you, you’ve made it acceptable for people to think the only way to get ahead is to turn the locker room into a makeshift triage unit at the end of every show. Bravo!
For a moment it looks as if Karma is going to give a sarcastic round of applause, but just before his fingers touch he stops and looks up, before letting his hands fall back towards his lap
Of course, we know why Aries Reed wants to talk about hurting his opponents, how he’ll be doing them a favour by defeating them, and all the other blah blah blah, and that’s because he has a couple of lima beans where his brain should be. After all, he keeps saying how he beat up one guy. One. Singular. As low as a number can get because after that there’s only fractions. He seems to think that one match makes a career, just like one win makes him the undisputed anything of the world. That’s simply not true, just like having a nickel-plated lump of wood in your mouth doesn’t make you a silver-tongued devil.
You like to…
Karma uses his hand to mime somebody flapping their gums
…about beating up Christopher Vector, but what I’d rather talk about is you losing to Ricky Valero in your first match.
What, you didn’t think I noticed?
You know what I did in my first match, Aries? Well, first of all, I did something you didn’t: win. Secondly, I walked into the ring against a guy named Zero, but without the surname McHannon...just in case a game of telephone gets started about me saying I beat him so easily he barely registered a punch, and I took him apart by wrestling him. No dirty tricks, no attempts to hurt my opponent, I just knew exactly what I was doing in that ring and I dismantled him in short order. Yet you know something, Aries? That match isn’t important right now, partly because it took place in April 2013, but mostly because time and again I have shown I can beat anyone just by wrestling. Take a look at the list of some of the heaviest hitters in FWA history. Jimmy Page, Kevin Hardaway – I beat them both, and all it took was having more know-how in my little finger than you could have if five of you were stacked one inside the other like a matryoshka doll, so if you want to assume victory because of reasons, I’m going to ask just how much of that bottle of Canadian Club you’d drunk before you boarded the one-man Aries Reed hype train.
The real question I’m going to ask you, though, is whether you actually put a little thought into that spiel of yours. After all, of all the opponents you want to say you’re going to go out of your way to hurt them, did you really think it was a good idea to say that to me? To somebody who takes issue with the sort of single-celled lifeform that operates like that, especially considering the last time I was at an FWA show I saw a close and dear friend get smacked in the face by a Ben zona who thinks that’s the sort of thing that makes him a real man?
Karma pauses, looking at the camera like another person might look at someone you think has some shrapnel embedded in a place where shrapnel shouldn’t be embedded
I’ve said for a while that I’ve had enough of people looking to get ahead by making sure everyone else gets a head trauma, and after what happened in NYC it is time for me to put my foot down. But what is it I see under my foot? Why, it looks like Aries Reed, lying spread-eagled on the ground, waving his arms and legs, saying I don’t have the beytsim to introduce him to the sole of my size 879 Converse All Stars.
That’s the point you’re missing, Reed. The reason I found myself unable to walk those few steps from the sidewalk to the JFK departure lounge was because I knew that if I saw the organ grinder and his monkey backstage and do what you’d probably call giving the pair of them a couple of receipts, but what I call sinking to their level. That’s not who I am, Reed, but don’t you dare think for a second that makes me a coward or any other word you want to throw around – it means I’m not going to sacrifice what makes me unique and what makes me great just because it might feel good for that split second when my first meets the centre of their face. After all, while that might feel good for a second, putting somebody who has lost half of their FWA matches back in their box will feel just as satisfying – and it won’t take a second, it’ll take as long as it takes, but when it’s done your talk of a big game will just be talk and your threats of hurting me will be as empty as that decorative ornament that rests on top of your shoulders.
Karma wipes one hand against the other
When the match is finished, your nose will be in the same place it was when you entered the ring, your arms and legs won’t be pointing in a different direction, you’ll have the same number of ribs, all of that – however, your ego won’t be so lucky as it’ll be in the back of an ambulance speeding to the emergency room, one paramedic performing CPR while another uses the defibrillator, but they know they’re just delaying the inevitable because your ego is going to discover that when you poke a lion…well, your day is going to get a lot shorter. It won’t be enjoyable, but it’ll be shorter. And all because you had one chance to make a first impression, just one, and you made such a bad impression that it my duty to make an impression on the ring canvas that looks an awful lot like the outline of Aries Reed, but is a lot quieter because his clock won't be going "tick tock" - instead his clock will be cleaned as he lies glassy eyed on the canvas for a lot longer than three seconds, and the first thing he'll remember is Old Man Levee taught him to weep and moan.
However, if you watch it back the following day, you'll see something else: you'll see me walking into my backyard, schooling you in the ring, and the crowd will be eating up every single thing that I do. Because this is the point, Reed: the world's lost a couple of heroes in the last week or so, but if you think that means the likes of you or Chris Q or Johnny Cannon have won you are sorely mistaken, because there's always going to be another hero - and not just for one day.
Word count: 2727
