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Chode Mustard
Tommy had a knack for making me forget why we were friends, and the day after my twenty-fifth birthday he was in rare form. “God dammit, Tommy, I said I didn’t want to be in a hardcore band. What the fuck happened to doom metal?”
“I lied to get you down here, duh,” he said as he grinned his trademark shit-eating grin. “And so we could use your basement. That’s Miguel, by the way.”
The muscly man sitting behind the janky drum kit raised a drumstick in greeting. “Sup.”
“Sup.” I nodded at the staircase. “Get the fuck out.”
“Miguel, stay.” Tommy turned to me and held up a stained Subway napkin covered in indecipherable scrawl. “What do you think of the name Chode Mustard?”
“I think I’m about five seconds from dragging you up the stairs by your boxers.”
“Pfff, like hell. You wanted in a band, you're in a band.” Tommy waved away the threat of expulsion by wedgie and pointed at my Marshall stack. “Now, get set up, my buzz is wearing off.”
I vowed one day to grow a spine as I sighed and plugged in my bass. “Fuck off, Tommy.”
“Fuck off, Jay. Now let’s rock the fuck out!” He turned to address an invisible crowd sitting within the drywall as he donned his shit-ass Gibson. “Good evening, all you lovely fucks! We are Chode Mustard! ONE TWO THREE FOUR!”
By the grace of the universe’s whimsy we had booked a show at the Valor, a run-down dinner theater that moonlighted as a concert venue when the state college was in session. We were opening for an indie punk band named Echo the Moon, who, by reputation, were almost as bad as us.
So of course, while Miguel was doing his soundcheck, Tommy handed me a sheet of paper filled with seemingly random vulgar words.
I looked up at him, confused. “The hell is this?”
He stared back at me, pupils blown. “The set list.”
I looked back at the list. “‘Parched Anus’?”
He blinked. “Oh, right. That one was, uh, ‘On Death’s Wings’, and ‘Sheathed Katana’ got changed to ‘Uncircumcised Wang’.” He paused to run a finger under his nose. “‘Chode Mustard’ is still ‘Chode Mustard’, though.”
I stared at him. “You’re shitting me.”
“Sir, I shit thee not.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, ‘I Want to Taste Your Fluids’ is uh, whatever our fourth song was called.”
Disgusted, I shrugged off his hand. “Fuck off, Tommy.”
That fucking shit-eating grin appeared like clockwork. “Fuck off, Jay. Now get fucking pumped, we’re gonna blow these little shits out of the water!”
Miguel and I stared at the thing in my driveway. He was failing to hold back a smile. I was, somehow, both horrified and not surprised. “Tommy, what in the ever-living fuck.”
Tommy stood next to the thing, arms wide, grin set to maximum shit consumption. “What? Isn’t this the sweetest-ass ride you’ve ever seen?”
My eyelids settled to half-mast. “It’s an El Camino.”
“Fuck yeah, it’s an El Camino. What else was I gonna blow my share of the last gig on?”
“Blow, which you’re obviously overdoing.” I gestured at the car. “Exhibit A.”
There was an uncomfortable beat before he rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Jay, I don’t have a problem.”
“Tommy, you have driven the mullet of cars into my driveway.”
Tommy frowned at me as he folded his arms across his chest. “Christ, you’re a stick in the mud. What’s so bad about an El Camino?”
“The fact that you paid money for it, for starters.”
Miguel rounded the back of the un-car and froze. After a moment of silence, he started laughing so hard he folded himself in half.
Tommy frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Jay,” Miguel gasped, “Jay, c’mere.”
I moved next to him and followed his outstretched finger to the rear window. There, in large white chollo-gothic font, were the words, “Chode Mustard,” almost centered above a poorly-rendered skull and crossed roses.
I could only facepalm. “Tommy, you got robbed, man.”
Miguel fell over, tears running down his face as he howled.
“Man, fuck both you guys.” Tommy patted the hood. “This car is the shit.”
I kicked at the rust under the rear passenger wheel well, and a chunk the size of my hand clattered to the concrete. “I will agree that it is shit.”
Fuming, Tommy stalked towards the front door. “Fuck off, Jay.”
“Fuck off, Tommy,” I called after him with a smirk. I reached down and hauled Miguel, still laughing, back to his feet, and we followed Tommy inside.
The afterparty for our big arena concert was a lively affair at a rented out dive bar on the outskirts of Phoenix. We were riding pretty high, despite the fact that Tommy had forgotten half the words to "Parched Anus" and had resorted to screaming nonsense into the mic. Nobody else seemed to notice or care, though, so whatever. The whole crowd had sung along to the chorus of "I Want to Taste Your Fluids", which had seen airtime on damn near every college radio station in the southwest by that point. It wasn’t everyday that you got to play second billing to the goddesses of hardcore punk, Fermented Flesh Flaps.
After our third round of drinks, Tommy began drooling over their lead guitarist. “Think she’d let me fuck her?”
Miguel and I both choked on our beers. I recovered first. “No. A thousand times no, Tommy, don’t even think about it.”
Miguel cleared his throat, then said, “The way she was fingerblasting that killswitch, man, I don’t think she’s into dudes.”
“What?” Tommy squawked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Before I could think better of it, I turned to Miguel and said through a sideways smile, “In fairness, she was doing all manner of filthy things to that guitar.”
Tommy turned his own lecherous grin back over his shoulder. “She could do whatever she wanted with me.”
I cursed at myself, then said, “Tommy, no, I like being thought well of. They were talking about letting us go on tour with them, for Christ’s sake.”
Tommy drained the last of his whiskey and stood. “O ye of little faith.” We watched him walk away, presumably to set all our hopes and dreams on fire.
Miguel frowned into his beer. “We better finish these.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Moments later, Tommy returned, wearing what appeared to be half a frozen margarita on his face. “As it turns out, she’s bi.”
“Was bi, no doubt,” I said, oscillating between schadenfreude and nihilism.
The bouncer, a seven foot behemoth whom everyone affectionately called “Squatch”, appeared at our table and turned to Tommy. “Sir, you’re gonna have to come with me.”
“What? I didn’t do anything!”
“A lot of witnesses disagree.”
“Man, fuck you, I’m not going anywh-ugh!” A fist the size of my head slammed into Tommy’s solar plexus, quelling further argument.
“May we stay?” I asked.
Squatch hoisted Tommy over his shoulder with frightening ease. “So long as you keep drinking and don’t give me a reason to come back over here, I don’t give a fuck.” He turned to go, momentarily bringing Tommy and I face to face.
“Fuck you, Jay,” he groaned.
“Fuck you, Tommy,” I replied as he was hauled away.
Miguel smirked as he stood to order us another round. “Is that how that usually goes?”
I fidgeted with my empty glass. “Name one thing that’s gone the way it’s supposed to when Tommy’s around.”
As it turned out, we hit the end of the line two years to the day after Tommy burned our bridge to fame and fortune. There were maybe thirty people at the Valor that night, which passed for a decent crowd by that point. Judging from the number of top hats I saw, most of them were there for the headliners, a half dozen college kids in full steampunk regalia called Hydrogen Is Flammable. Par for the course, really; it’s hard to keep a fan base when they can tell you’re just going through the motions.
As Miguel did our sound check for us I went to go find Tommy. As usual, I found him sprawled face-down on the gigantic leather couch backstage.
I dropped my heel into his tailbone, which was usually enough to rouse him. “Alright, Chungus, we’re up in five.”
Tommy remained motionless. I planted my foot on his hip and rolled him onto his side. “C’mon, dude, we–”
A trickle of blood linked Tommy’s nose to the small mound of coke it had been buried within. A small syringe rolled out of his hand and fell to the floor.
I froze. “Oh, fuck me.”
The funeral was a modest affair. It said a lot that those who showed up didn’t seem terribly surprised by the whole thing. I don’t think I saw anyone actually shed a tear.
I know I didn’t.
The oppressive dry heat of the Arizona summer sun hustled most of the bereaved away once the casket had been buried. Soon enough it was just Miguel and me standing at the foot of the grave, smoking the last of his cigarettes.
“Those pregnant chicks were pretty cute,” Miguel said as he ashed into the fresh gravedirt.
I made a noncommittal noise of agreement as I did the same.
Miguel grinned. “What d’you wanna bet both those kids were his?”
I snorted. “The blonde chick was his sister.”
“Mm.” Miguel took another drag, then widened his grin. “So, what do you want to bet that both–”
“That’s not fucking funny, man.”
A chuckle, more ashes, a moment of silence. A hot, dry breeze washed over us, sapping precious moisture from everything it touched.
Almost under his breath, Miguel said, “He woulda thought so.”
I stared at my shoes. “Yeah.”
Miguel’s cigarette flared down to the filter. He exhaled a final cloud and said, “But he’s dead now, so, fuck ‘im.” He flicked the butt at the grave, where it landed in a withering bouquet of lilies.
The breeze picked up again, and a dried, crusty petal caught fire, then another. Soon, half the bouquet was a smoldering ruin.
Miguel shook his head. “If that ain’t the most appropriate thing I’ve seen all day.” He crumpled his empty cigarette pack and tossed it at the blackened flowers. It missed, rolling to a stop against the plaque. I dropped the remains of my cig to the dirt and stomped it out.
As we moseyed back towards the parking lot, I said, “I’m quitting the band, by the way.”
Miguel let loose a harsh bark of laughter. “See, that’s what I always hated about you, man. You’re so fucking full of shit, you don’t even realize there’s no band for you to quit anymore.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “It died with that fuckhead in the ground back there.”
That rocked me back on my heels a bit. I hadn’t realized Tommy wasn’t the only one pissing people off. Miguel had a point, though; Tommy was, if nothing else, the heart and soul of the band.
Had been, I corrected myself.
After a dozen silent steps, I changed the subject. “So what’ll you do now?”
Miguel shrugged. “Production, probably. There’s always money in making talentless fucks sound good, and I’ve already got plenty of practice at it.”
“Hey, we weren’t that bad.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Jay, Chungus McDirtnap was gagging on his mic half the time, an’ we coulda gone to the high school an’ found a better bassist than you.”
That really set me on my back foot, and we reached our cars before I finally thought of a response. “If we sucked so bad, why did you stick around?”
He unlocked his car, then paused, staring at the asphalt.
At length, he said, “It was fun.” With that, he climbed into his driver’s seat and shut the door.
I thought that would be the end of it, but he surprised me when he reached over to roll down his window. Without really looking at me, he said, “Welp. Fuck off, Jay.”
Despite everything, I smiled a bit. “Fuck off, Miguel.”
He started his car. “Good luck with life an’ shit.”
I nodded. “You too.”
He nodded back, then drove off, leaving me alone with my thoughts, my car, and the distant susurrus of highway traffic.
I opened the doors to let some of the heat out, then looked over the graveyard. It sure as hell felt like an ending. Honestly, I was almost grateful for it. It wasn’t like I’d had as much fun as Miguel apparently had.
Twenty-nine was as good an age as any to start over. At the very least, I was done burning years of my life for someone else’s dream.
At length, I sighed and said, “Fuck it.” I closed everything up, then peeled the vinyl Chode Mustard bumper sticker off my trunk. When I got back behind the wheel, I wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the shin-deep layer of trash in my back seat.
“I lied to get you down here, duh,” he said as he grinned his trademark shit-eating grin. “And so we could use your basement. That’s Miguel, by the way.”
The muscly man sitting behind the janky drum kit raised a drumstick in greeting. “Sup.”
“Sup.” I nodded at the staircase. “Get the fuck out.”
“Miguel, stay.” Tommy turned to me and held up a stained Subway napkin covered in indecipherable scrawl. “What do you think of the name Chode Mustard?”
“I think I’m about five seconds from dragging you up the stairs by your boxers.”
“Pfff, like hell. You wanted in a band, you're in a band.” Tommy waved away the threat of expulsion by wedgie and pointed at my Marshall stack. “Now, get set up, my buzz is wearing off.”
I vowed one day to grow a spine as I sighed and plugged in my bass. “Fuck off, Tommy.”
“Fuck off, Jay. Now let’s rock the fuck out!” He turned to address an invisible crowd sitting within the drywall as he donned his shit-ass Gibson. “Good evening, all you lovely fucks! We are Chode Mustard! ONE TWO THREE FOUR!”
By the grace of the universe’s whimsy we had booked a show at the Valor, a run-down dinner theater that moonlighted as a concert venue when the state college was in session. We were opening for an indie punk band named Echo the Moon, who, by reputation, were almost as bad as us.
So of course, while Miguel was doing his soundcheck, Tommy handed me a sheet of paper filled with seemingly random vulgar words.
I looked up at him, confused. “The hell is this?”
He stared back at me, pupils blown. “The set list.”
I looked back at the list. “‘Parched Anus’?”
He blinked. “Oh, right. That one was, uh, ‘On Death’s Wings’, and ‘Sheathed Katana’ got changed to ‘Uncircumcised Wang’.” He paused to run a finger under his nose. “‘Chode Mustard’ is still ‘Chode Mustard’, though.”
I stared at him. “You’re shitting me.”
“Sir, I shit thee not.” He clapped a hand on my shoulder. “Oh, ‘I Want to Taste Your Fluids’ is uh, whatever our fourth song was called.”
Disgusted, I shrugged off his hand. “Fuck off, Tommy.”
That fucking shit-eating grin appeared like clockwork. “Fuck off, Jay. Now get fucking pumped, we’re gonna blow these little shits out of the water!”
Miguel and I stared at the thing in my driveway. He was failing to hold back a smile. I was, somehow, both horrified and not surprised. “Tommy, what in the ever-living fuck.”
Tommy stood next to the thing, arms wide, grin set to maximum shit consumption. “What? Isn’t this the sweetest-ass ride you’ve ever seen?”
My eyelids settled to half-mast. “It’s an El Camino.”
“Fuck yeah, it’s an El Camino. What else was I gonna blow my share of the last gig on?”
“Blow, which you’re obviously overdoing.” I gestured at the car. “Exhibit A.”
There was an uncomfortable beat before he rolled his eyes. “Fuck off, Jay, I don’t have a problem.”
“Tommy, you have driven the mullet of cars into my driveway.”
Tommy frowned at me as he folded his arms across his chest. “Christ, you’re a stick in the mud. What’s so bad about an El Camino?”
“The fact that you paid money for it, for starters.”
Miguel rounded the back of the un-car and froze. After a moment of silence, he started laughing so hard he folded himself in half.
Tommy frowned at him. “What’s so funny?”
“Jay,” Miguel gasped, “Jay, c’mere.”
I moved next to him and followed his outstretched finger to the rear window. There, in large white chollo-gothic font, were the words, “Chode Mustard,” almost centered above a poorly-rendered skull and crossed roses.
I could only facepalm. “Tommy, you got robbed, man.”
Miguel fell over, tears running down his face as he howled.
“Man, fuck both you guys.” Tommy patted the hood. “This car is the shit.”
I kicked at the rust under the rear passenger wheel well, and a chunk the size of my hand clattered to the concrete. “I will agree that it is shit.”
Fuming, Tommy stalked towards the front door. “Fuck off, Jay.”
“Fuck off, Tommy,” I called after him with a smirk. I reached down and hauled Miguel, still laughing, back to his feet, and we followed Tommy inside.
The afterparty for our big arena concert was a lively affair at a rented out dive bar on the outskirts of Phoenix. We were riding pretty high, despite the fact that Tommy had forgotten half the words to "Parched Anus" and had resorted to screaming nonsense into the mic. Nobody else seemed to notice or care, though, so whatever. The whole crowd had sung along to the chorus of "I Want to Taste Your Fluids", which had seen airtime on damn near every college radio station in the southwest by that point. It wasn’t everyday that you got to play second billing to the goddesses of hardcore punk, Fermented Flesh Flaps.
After our third round of drinks, Tommy began drooling over their lead guitarist. “Think she’d let me fuck her?”
Miguel and I both choked on our beers. I recovered first. “No. A thousand times no, Tommy, don’t even think about it.”
Miguel cleared his throat, then said, “The way she was fingerblasting that killswitch, man, I don’t think she’s into dudes.”
“What?” Tommy squawked. “What does that have to do with anything?”
Before I could think better of it, I turned to Miguel and said through a sideways smile, “In fairness, she was doing all manner of filthy things to that guitar.”
Tommy turned his own lecherous grin back over his shoulder. “She could do whatever she wanted with me.”
I cursed at myself, then said, “Tommy, no, I like being thought well of. They were talking about letting us go on tour with them, for Christ’s sake.”
Tommy drained the last of his whiskey and stood. “O ye of little faith.” We watched him walk away, presumably to set all our hopes and dreams on fire.
Miguel frowned into his beer. “We better finish these.”
I sighed. “Yeah.”
Moments later, Tommy returned, wearing what appeared to be half a frozen margarita on his face. “As it turns out, she’s bi.”
“Was bi, no doubt,” I said, oscillating between schadenfreude and nihilism.
The bouncer, a seven foot behemoth whom everyone affectionately called “Squatch”, appeared at our table and turned to Tommy. “Sir, you’re gonna have to come with me.”
“What? I didn’t do anything!”
“A lot of witnesses disagree.”
“Man, fuck you, I’m not going anywh-ugh!” A fist the size of my head slammed into Tommy’s solar plexus, quelling further argument.
“May we stay?” I asked.
Squatch hoisted Tommy over his shoulder with frightening ease. “So long as you keep drinking and don’t give me a reason to come back over here, I don’t give a fuck.” He turned to go, momentarily bringing Tommy and I face to face.
“Fuck you, Jay,” he groaned.
“Fuck you, Tommy,” I replied as he was hauled away.
Miguel smirked as he stood to order us another round. “Is that how that usually goes?”
I fidgeted with my empty glass. “Name one thing that’s gone the way it’s supposed to when Tommy’s around.”
As it turned out, we hit the end of the line two years to the day after Tommy burned our bridge to fame and fortune. There were maybe thirty people at the Valor that night, which passed for a decent crowd by that point. Judging from the number of top hats I saw, most of them were there for the headliners, a half dozen college kids in full steampunk regalia called Hydrogen Is Flammable. Par for the course, really; it’s hard to keep a fan base when they can tell you’re just going through the motions.
As Miguel did our sound check for us I went to go find Tommy. As usual, I found him sprawled face-down on the gigantic leather couch backstage.
I dropped my heel into his tailbone, which was usually enough to rouse him. “Alright, Chungus, we’re up in five.”
Tommy remained motionless. I planted my foot on his hip and rolled him onto his side. “C’mon, dude, we–”
A trickle of blood linked Tommy’s nose to the small mound of coke it had been buried within. A small syringe rolled out of his hand and fell to the floor.
I froze. “Oh, fuck me.”
The funeral was a modest affair. It said a lot that those who showed up didn’t seem terribly surprised by the whole thing. I don’t think I saw anyone actually shed a tear.
I know I didn’t.
The oppressive dry heat of the Arizona summer sun hustled most of the bereaved away once the casket had been buried. Soon enough it was just Miguel and me standing at the foot of the grave, smoking the last of his cigarettes.
“Those pregnant chicks were pretty cute,” Miguel said as he ashed into the fresh gravedirt.
I made a noncommittal noise of agreement as I did the same.
Miguel grinned. “What d’you wanna bet both those kids were his?”
I snorted. “The blonde chick was his sister.”
“Mm.” Miguel took another drag, then widened his grin. “So, what do you want to bet that both–”
“That’s not fucking funny, man.”
A chuckle, more ashes, a moment of silence. A hot, dry breeze washed over us, sapping precious moisture from everything it touched.
Almost under his breath, Miguel said, “He woulda thought so.”
I stared at my shoes. “Yeah.”
Miguel’s cigarette flared down to the filter. He exhaled a final cloud and said, “But he’s dead now, so, fuck ‘im.” He flicked the butt at the grave, where it landed in a withering bouquet of lilies.
The breeze picked up again, and a dried, crusty petal caught fire, then another. Soon, half the bouquet was a smoldering ruin.
Miguel shook his head. “If that ain’t the most appropriate thing I’ve seen all day.” He crumpled his empty cigarette pack and tossed it at the blackened flowers. It missed, rolling to a stop against the plaque. I dropped the remains of my cig to the dirt and stomped it out.
As we moseyed back towards the parking lot, I said, “I’m quitting the band, by the way.”
Miguel let loose a harsh bark of laughter. “See, that’s what I always hated about you, man. You’re so fucking full of shit, you don’t even realize there’s no band for you to quit anymore.” He jerked a thumb back over his shoulder. “It died with that fuckhead in the ground back there.”
That rocked me back on my heels a bit. I hadn’t realized Tommy wasn’t the only one pissing people off. Miguel had a point, though; Tommy was, if nothing else, the heart and soul of the band.
Had been, I corrected myself.
After a dozen silent steps, I changed the subject. “So what’ll you do now?”
Miguel shrugged. “Production, probably. There’s always money in making talentless fucks sound good, and I’ve already got plenty of practice at it.”
“Hey, we weren’t that bad.”
He arched an eyebrow at me. “Jay, Chungus McDirtnap was gagging on his mic half the time, an’ we coulda gone to the high school an’ found a better bassist than you.”
That really set me on my back foot, and we reached our cars before I finally thought of a response. “If we sucked so bad, why did you stick around?”
He unlocked his car, then paused, staring at the asphalt.
At length, he said, “It was fun.” With that, he climbed into his driver’s seat and shut the door.
I thought that would be the end of it, but he surprised me when he reached over to roll down his window. Without really looking at me, he said, “Welp. Fuck off, Jay.”
Despite everything, I smiled a bit. “Fuck off, Miguel.”
He started his car. “Good luck with life an’ shit.”
I nodded. “You too.”
He nodded back, then drove off, leaving me alone with my thoughts, my car, and the distant susurrus of highway traffic.
I opened the doors to let some of the heat out, then looked over the graveyard. It sure as hell felt like an ending. Honestly, I was almost grateful for it. It wasn’t like I’d had as much fun as Miguel apparently had.
Twenty-nine was as good an age as any to start over. At the very least, I was done burning years of my life for someone else’s dream.
At length, I sighed and said, “Fuck it.” I closed everything up, then peeled the vinyl Chode Mustard bumper sticker off my trunk. When I got back behind the wheel, I wadded it into a ball and tossed it into the shin-deep layer of trash in my back seat.
Well I agree with what Cassius said on this Discord. It’s more the sketch of a story than a story. All scenes but the last feel somewhat rushed. Very snappy and lively, but too short, and the gap between them is often too stretched. Pieces of jigsaw are missing. It’s not fragmentary, but transitions are jagged.
By contrast, the last scene seems to drag, lingering on not-so-important details. I know it’s a funeral and maybe it should convey a sense of loss and bereavement, but Id recommend either to cut in the meat and trim it or to beef the other scenes to make the whole fic smoother.
Outside of that, thanks for teaching me a couple of words.
By contrast, the last scene seems to drag, lingering on not-so-important details. I know it’s a funeral and maybe it should convey a sense of loss and bereavement, but Id recommend either to cut in the meat and trim it or to beef the other scenes to make the whole fic smoother.
Outside of that, thanks for teaching me a couple of words.
This was the second story I read, and I thought, well, this was fun, and moved on. Little did I know that this modest entry, being basically every "rise and fall of a band" story ever would end up being my top pick. This is my top slate of the entire competition. At this point I have read every entry, and I am somewhat baffled to say that Chode Mustard is what came out on top, both because of the title itself, and quality of the story.
I want to get some criticism out of the way because I'm going to be singing this story's praises in a big way later, but the flaws of the story itself are rather large and obvious. This is no Cold in Gardez write eight-thousand words piece where every detail is fleshed out and given proper description. This story is mostly dialogue that advances the plot and actions in the narrative that advance the plot. Not a lot of room for description at all. As such, it's more a skeleton of a story than a real story, and the author needs to go back and fill in the meat.
The pacing as a result is breakneck. Everything goes far too fast, with too few details, and an overwhelming sense that we've all seen and heard this story before. The details, like the "foreshadowing" (I'm using this term lightly) of Tommy's eventual death by drug use, stick out like sore thumbs when there is basically nothing in the story that is not advancing the plot in some way. Not to mention that every rock and roll story ends in copious amounts of drug overdoses, so it's the reader is already expecting this conclusion even before the concept of a drug problem is even introduced.
The way in which Tommy dies is boring and unimaginative—a scene I and many others have seen a million times before in other better works. It is so much of a cliche that even in this work I admit is entirely that's taking entire framework from a cliche, it seems tired and boring. Tommy should die in a manner much like his hardcore, gross-ass, and uncompromisingly ugly band that revels in its own unpleasantness.
The prose is not great. It's functional. As I've said before, there's so little of it really there that it becomes difficult to even comment on it. I want to chalk this up to the author rushing to get this story finished, but I also think that inexperience plays into it as well. There's a certain sense I get that the author isn't certain of what details to focus on in a lot of scenes, and thankfully, he doesn't feel the need to bog down the reader with unnecessary details to compensate for this—so he just doesn't include anything that isn't strictly related to the events ongoing in the story.
HYPOTHETICAL WRITEOFF USER: Wow, Cassius, you just spent around five hundred words basically saying that this story fails on two of the most fundamental aspects of story-telling... and this is your top pick?
CASSIUS: Yes.
H.W.U: Wow, I always knew you were a pretentious contrarian dickhead, but this is really a new low even for you. We have such great entries this time around like Djinn, The Eyes Behind Old Southern Comfort, The Last Enemy, and even that story AndrewRogue wrote. And you pick fucking Chode Mustard? Come on.
Now is the time I give my impassioned defense of Chode Mustard.
There are many things I value in a story of various importance, but the two most crucial things to me are:
1. Strong characterization. Characters are the movers and shakers of the plot itself, and they must have an voice to them that makes identifiable from the other characters around them. I am no more bored in a story than reading the interactions between characters that all seem to have an identical voice, choice of verbiage, and perspective on life blandly expositing what they have to do and why they have to do it for the purposes of the plot. Each character needs to have their own internal logic of how they see the world, and sometimes they can be similar, but the differences between characters needs to be strongly established in any given piece. A wise Cold in Gardez once said, "ponies about stories are people about things" or something along those lines, which is to say that your story better have a human component to it, a character with human emotions, and acts like a human would, and isn't simply an artifice to spout exposition and do things because the plot requires it.
2. The story be about something. Now this can be as simple as a story like The Big Lebowski essentially being about going through the motions of life without any ulterior meaning as a way to mock nihilism (in other words, a story that's supposed to be about nothing to prove a point), but what it all comes down to is that the story has to inform you about something in the human condition. The more nuanced the better. If the plot of a story is just things that happen without any underlying commentary, it is a rather boring experience. And I don't mean that a story needs to be a philosophical diatribe on ethics or something stupid like that, but that the situations and composition of the story, the motifs, imagery, and events, should all be in service of addressing some sort of underlying sentiment. A feeling, a statement, a moral... just something .
And, lo and behold, Chode Mustard does those two things better than just about every other story in the competition. It's only real competition is The Last Enemy, a story I'm still debating eventually putting above Chode Mustard, but my fondness for the characters in Chode Mustard keeps it at the top.
What really sells this story is the characters and how they play off of one another. Jay is a meek, but cynical guy who is railroaded by his boisterous and over-the-top friend Tommy, who brings in Miguel, who is just along for the ride. Their interactions run the gamut of the emotional spectrum between melancholy, angry, humorous, etc., and there's a real sense of begrudging camaraderie between the three, even if Miguel is sort of sidelined the majority of the story. How they talk to one another and how Jay acknowledges other characters in the narrative almost always tells you something about how either those characters think about themselves or their situation, or how Jay perceives the people around him—a element of story crafting it seems the majority of entries this time around forgot almost entirely.
The reason these three characters work in tandem together is because each highlights something about the other.
Jay is someone who doesn't have control over his life, so he hands it over to Tommy. He's committed to being indecisive and not sticking up for himself. This makes him unhappy, as he's essentially not living his own life. He sort of has a stick up his ass, the straight man to Tommy's antics.
Tommy is the opposite, a person who is hyper decisive and confident regardless of the consequences. He enjoys getting a rise out of people, and is impulsive and thrill-seeking—in complete contrast to the more thoughtful and restrained Jay. He is the epitome of self-centered hedonism.
Miguel is the person in-between these two. He's not the off-the-walls person Tommy is and has a modicum of restraint, but as it is revealed in the ending, he's there because he wants to be. Because he had fun. Unlike Jay, he's living life on his own terms, and unlike Tommy, he's not out of control because of it.
AND THAT ALL TIES BACK INTO THE THEME OF THE STORY
HOLY SHIT
THIS STORY IS ABOUT SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That being that our main character, Jay, has been going about things all wrong, and he should have been more like Miguel, and lived his own damn life instead of living it intravenously through Tommy. It took Tommy's death and a conversation with Miguel to realize this, but Jay finally understands that he has to find his own purpose.
When I say this story is a skeleton, I mean it, but it is a complete skeleton. There are no bones missing here, and you can see very clearly what is intended to be. This can be contrasted with other entries I feel that have meat and skin and bone to them, but they are missing important pieces, like important bones and organs. Chode Mustard is a pristine and complete little skeleton that I would happily let spook me.
Thanks for writing.
I want to get some criticism out of the way because I'm going to be singing this story's praises in a big way later, but the flaws of the story itself are rather large and obvious. This is no Cold in Gardez write eight-thousand words piece where every detail is fleshed out and given proper description. This story is mostly dialogue that advances the plot and actions in the narrative that advance the plot. Not a lot of room for description at all. As such, it's more a skeleton of a story than a real story, and the author needs to go back and fill in the meat.
The pacing as a result is breakneck. Everything goes far too fast, with too few details, and an overwhelming sense that we've all seen and heard this story before. The details, like the "foreshadowing" (I'm using this term lightly) of Tommy's eventual death by drug use, stick out like sore thumbs when there is basically nothing in the story that is not advancing the plot in some way. Not to mention that every rock and roll story ends in copious amounts of drug overdoses, so it's the reader is already expecting this conclusion even before the concept of a drug problem is even introduced.
The way in which Tommy dies is boring and unimaginative—a scene I and many others have seen a million times before in other better works. It is so much of a cliche that even in this work I admit is entirely that's taking entire framework from a cliche, it seems tired and boring. Tommy should die in a manner much like his hardcore, gross-ass, and uncompromisingly ugly band that revels in its own unpleasantness.
The prose is not great. It's functional. As I've said before, there's so little of it really there that it becomes difficult to even comment on it. I want to chalk this up to the author rushing to get this story finished, but I also think that inexperience plays into it as well. There's a certain sense I get that the author isn't certain of what details to focus on in a lot of scenes, and thankfully, he doesn't feel the need to bog down the reader with unnecessary details to compensate for this—so he just doesn't include anything that isn't strictly related to the events ongoing in the story.
HYPOTHETICAL WRITEOFF USER: Wow, Cassius, you just spent around five hundred words basically saying that this story fails on two of the most fundamental aspects of story-telling... and this is your top pick?
CASSIUS: Yes.
H.W.U: Wow, I always knew you were a pretentious contrarian dickhead, but this is really a new low even for you. We have such great entries this time around like Djinn, The Eyes Behind Old Southern Comfort, The Last Enemy, and even that story AndrewRogue wrote. And you pick fucking Chode Mustard? Come on.
Now is the time I give my impassioned defense of Chode Mustard.
There are many things I value in a story of various importance, but the two most crucial things to me are:
1. Strong characterization. Characters are the movers and shakers of the plot itself, and they must have an voice to them that makes identifiable from the other characters around them. I am no more bored in a story than reading the interactions between characters that all seem to have an identical voice, choice of verbiage, and perspective on life blandly expositing what they have to do and why they have to do it for the purposes of the plot. Each character needs to have their own internal logic of how they see the world, and sometimes they can be similar, but the differences between characters needs to be strongly established in any given piece. A wise Cold in Gardez once said, "ponies about stories are people about things" or something along those lines, which is to say that your story better have a human component to it, a character with human emotions, and acts like a human would, and isn't simply an artifice to spout exposition and do things because the plot requires it.
2. The story be about something. Now this can be as simple as a story like The Big Lebowski essentially being about going through the motions of life without any ulterior meaning as a way to mock nihilism (in other words, a story that's supposed to be about nothing to prove a point), but what it all comes down to is that the story has to inform you about something in the human condition. The more nuanced the better. If the plot of a story is just things that happen without any underlying commentary, it is a rather boring experience. And I don't mean that a story needs to be a philosophical diatribe on ethics or something stupid like that, but that the situations and composition of the story, the motifs, imagery, and events, should all be in service of addressing some sort of underlying sentiment. A feeling, a statement, a moral... just something .
And, lo and behold, Chode Mustard does those two things better than just about every other story in the competition. It's only real competition is The Last Enemy, a story I'm still debating eventually putting above Chode Mustard, but my fondness for the characters in Chode Mustard keeps it at the top.
What really sells this story is the characters and how they play off of one another. Jay is a meek, but cynical guy who is railroaded by his boisterous and over-the-top friend Tommy, who brings in Miguel, who is just along for the ride. Their interactions run the gamut of the emotional spectrum between melancholy, angry, humorous, etc., and there's a real sense of begrudging camaraderie between the three, even if Miguel is sort of sidelined the majority of the story. How they talk to one another and how Jay acknowledges other characters in the narrative almost always tells you something about how either those characters think about themselves or their situation, or how Jay perceives the people around him—a element of story crafting it seems the majority of entries this time around forgot almost entirely.
The reason these three characters work in tandem together is because each highlights something about the other.
Jay is someone who doesn't have control over his life, so he hands it over to Tommy. He's committed to being indecisive and not sticking up for himself. This makes him unhappy, as he's essentially not living his own life. He sort of has a stick up his ass, the straight man to Tommy's antics.
Tommy is the opposite, a person who is hyper decisive and confident regardless of the consequences. He enjoys getting a rise out of people, and is impulsive and thrill-seeking—in complete contrast to the more thoughtful and restrained Jay. He is the epitome of self-centered hedonism.
Miguel is the person in-between these two. He's not the off-the-walls person Tommy is and has a modicum of restraint, but as it is revealed in the ending, he's there because he wants to be. Because he had fun. Unlike Jay, he's living life on his own terms, and unlike Tommy, he's not out of control because of it.
AND THAT ALL TIES BACK INTO THE THEME OF THE STORY
HOLY SHIT
THIS STORY IS ABOUT SOMETHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That being that our main character, Jay, has been going about things all wrong, and he should have been more like Miguel, and lived his own damn life instead of living it intravenously through Tommy. It took Tommy's death and a conversation with Miguel to realize this, but Jay finally understands that he has to find his own purpose.
When I say this story is a skeleton, I mean it, but it is a complete skeleton. There are no bones missing here, and you can see very clearly what is intended to be. This can be contrasted with other entries I feel that have meat and skin and bone to them, but they are missing important pieces, like important bones and organs. Chode Mustard is a pristine and complete little skeleton that I would happily let spook me.
Thanks for writing.
I seriously suspect this to be about something vulgar, and not the biblical/archaic past tense of "chiding." As such, I suspect it should be "Choad" not "Chode.' Now I shall read, and hope sincerely to be proven wrong.
"The Mullet of Cars" is a great line. Right up there with "Kid Rock is the people version of an Above Ground Pool."
At the funeral bit... this is a bit dark, but realistic and boring. I want the twist.
"The drummer is the heart of the band, the drummer is the soul of the band, the drummer is the core of the band, uh huh!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQRtVluGtDI
So, this was a weird one for me. It doesn't twist, it doesn't change, it doesn't double-down on anything. It just... tells a story that feels mostly believable (other than the wrong/alternative spelling of "choad") and life moving on.
I mostly feel warm toward this story, but the individual interactions of the characters kind of leave a bad taste of what male friendship is really like. I"m not saying this couldn't be accurate for some subset, but for most, this feels like a horrible stereotype of how "dudes" interact with each other. As white dude with decent income, I can never call foul on stereotyping, but if I could, this would be it... while still showing something real.
To give this all the benefits of the doubt, this "Chode Mustard" band feels like "The Generals" from the amazing and wonderful "Subnormality" web comic. If you don't understand, I promise you any comparison to Subnormality is the highest form of compliment you'll get. :-)
>>Cassius
In defense of every other story then... :-)
The reason this isn't the top of my slate isn't because it's badly written, it's because it is telling an almost exact copy of a story I've seen too many times before. It doesn't reach for anything new, or any greater depth to character than lesser stories have already done. The funeral bit... My own brain was actually doing the "Press X to pay respects" meme because it was so cliche in the "but he would've liked it" bit.
I'm not saying this is a bad story, or even that cliche elements mean a story IS bad. But one of your main reasons for liking this story what that the characters are well fleshed out and play off one another. But to me... It sounded like just so much "Dude, what's mine say?" "Woah! What's mine say?" frat boy stereotypes from things like "Dude, Where's My Car."
Don't get me wrong, I actually loved that movie. But only because it was so ridiculous. #Zoltan! Not because it made sense. The majority of the dialogue here consist of the words "Fuck You" and the rest are debates about equally vile words/song titles. It reads like an early draft of the Tenacious D movie. Again, another fun movie (in the right mood) but this doesn't bring anything new.
"The Mullet of Cars" is a great line. Right up there with "Kid Rock is the people version of an Above Ground Pool."
At the funeral bit... this is a bit dark, but realistic and boring. I want the twist.
"The drummer is the heart of the band, the drummer is the soul of the band, the drummer is the core of the band, uh huh!" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQRtVluGtDI
So, this was a weird one for me. It doesn't twist, it doesn't change, it doesn't double-down on anything. It just... tells a story that feels mostly believable (other than the wrong/alternative spelling of "choad") and life moving on.
I mostly feel warm toward this story, but the individual interactions of the characters kind of leave a bad taste of what male friendship is really like. I"m not saying this couldn't be accurate for some subset, but for most, this feels like a horrible stereotype of how "dudes" interact with each other. As white dude with decent income, I can never call foul on stereotyping, but if I could, this would be it... while still showing something real.
To give this all the benefits of the doubt, this "Chode Mustard" band feels like "The Generals" from the amazing and wonderful "Subnormality" web comic. If you don't understand, I promise you any comparison to Subnormality is the highest form of compliment you'll get. :-)
>>Cassius
In defense of every other story then... :-)
The reason this isn't the top of my slate isn't because it's badly written, it's because it is telling an almost exact copy of a story I've seen too many times before. It doesn't reach for anything new, or any greater depth to character than lesser stories have already done. The funeral bit... My own brain was actually doing the "Press X to pay respects" meme because it was so cliche in the "but he would've liked it" bit.
I'm not saying this is a bad story, or even that cliche elements mean a story IS bad. But one of your main reasons for liking this story what that the characters are well fleshed out and play off one another. But to me... It sounded like just so much "Dude, what's mine say?" "Woah! What's mine say?" frat boy stereotypes from things like "Dude, Where's My Car."
Don't get me wrong, I actually loved that movie. But only because it was so ridiculous. #Zoltan! Not because it made sense. The majority of the dialogue here consist of the words "Fuck You" and the rest are debates about equally vile words/song titles. It reads like an early draft of the Tenacious D movie. Again, another fun movie (in the right mood) but this doesn't bring anything new.
>>Xepher
This a bit of an exaggeration. They're one note archetypes without much depth to them. They're archetypes, but they're identifiable and distinct from one another, and each one of their dispositions serves a purpose to the overarching story being told, which I think is quite a difficult feat to accomplish in any story, and I can't help but admire it on that front.
EDIT: wanted to add an additional comment—this is one of the few stories I can think of in the competition where the main character's overall disposition actually changes in reaction to the events of the story. There's a character arc here. Many other stories have the character start and end the story unchanged, their viewpoints unchallenged, and by the end are basically the same as when they started. The problem is solved by an outside force, a MacGuffin, what have you, and the plot ends. And maybe I'm just a sentiment dick, but I like when characters are able to grow within the story in response to the story's events, and change from the people that they started out as, even if it's a very small amount.
characters are well fleshed out
This a bit of an exaggeration. They're one note archetypes without much depth to them. They're archetypes, but they're identifiable and distinct from one another, and each one of their dispositions serves a purpose to the overarching story being told, which I think is quite a difficult feat to accomplish in any story, and I can't help but admire it on that front.
EDIT: wanted to add an additional comment—this is one of the few stories I can think of in the competition where the main character's overall disposition actually changes in reaction to the events of the story. There's a character arc here. Many other stories have the character start and end the story unchanged, their viewpoints unchallenged, and by the end are basically the same as when they started. The problem is solved by an outside force, a MacGuffin, what have you, and the plot ends. And maybe I'm just a sentiment dick, but I like when characters are able to grow within the story in response to the story's events, and change from the people that they started out as, even if it's a very small amount.
Huh.
This feels like a complete story; it has a real arc, it has some good character moments, it has a strong hook, and it pulls some emotion out of it, although mainly at the end there. It does manage to capture a fairly complex feeling - the one you get when a chapter in your life ends, and another begins, and you can't really pin down whether that's good or bad - fairly well for me, and I did like that.
I'd would like to see more done with the middle, I think; the profile here is basically a low-high-low pattern, and it does that pretty well, but I think the ending would land better if the highs were higher, and the middle was expanded on a bit more. Showing both more of the good times and the bad times, whatever they were, would give both sides of the ending, from Jay and Miguel, more impact, I think.
Overall, this is pretty good work. It's not really the sort of thing I'd chose to read by myself, but I enjoyed it, and it felt like it was worth my time, even if I think it definitely could hit harder. Thanks for writing.
This feels like a complete story; it has a real arc, it has some good character moments, it has a strong hook, and it pulls some emotion out of it, although mainly at the end there. It does manage to capture a fairly complex feeling - the one you get when a chapter in your life ends, and another begins, and you can't really pin down whether that's good or bad - fairly well for me, and I did like that.
I'd would like to see more done with the middle, I think; the profile here is basically a low-high-low pattern, and it does that pretty well, but I think the ending would land better if the highs were higher, and the middle was expanded on a bit more. Showing both more of the good times and the bad times, whatever they were, would give both sides of the ending, from Jay and Miguel, more impact, I think.
Overall, this is pretty good work. It's not really the sort of thing I'd chose to read by myself, but I enjoyed it, and it felt like it was worth my time, even if I think it definitely could hit harder. Thanks for writing.
Honestly, I don't have a lot new here to add that someone like Cass didn't. I will say, contrary to a lot of people here, I actually don't think going back and adding a lot would benefit you. The thin and fast narrative is another part of the appeal and also feeds into the messaging: not only is this a life that was lead in the passenger seat, but it also those years that do kinda go fast in a lifestyle that goes fast.
I will say that the narrative here (and, in a lot of ways, the characters) are fairly rote, which is always a bit of trick when deciding how to deal with it. How much do I reward successful application of old hate ideas versus how much I reward stretching but not necessarily reaching. This is a bit of the challenge of the writeoff after all: tried and true ideas are easier to deliver on in the shortened timeframe because they are less aspirational. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with well executed familiarity. But it helps to not be able to trace EVERYTHING. Still, I think when counterbalancing successful application vs failed reach, I think this story did well. There is something to be said for achieving what the story aims to do.
I will say that the narrative here (and, in a lot of ways, the characters) are fairly rote, which is always a bit of trick when deciding how to deal with it. How much do I reward successful application of old hate ideas versus how much I reward stretching but not necessarily reaching. This is a bit of the challenge of the writeoff after all: tried and true ideas are easier to deliver on in the shortened timeframe because they are less aspirational. And, of course, there is nothing wrong with well executed familiarity. But it helps to not be able to trace EVERYTHING. Still, I think when counterbalancing successful application vs failed reach, I think this story did well. There is something to be said for achieving what the story aims to do.
Chode Mustard - A Retrospective
Congrats to Oroboro on their first OF gold, and congrats to Cold in Gardez for another well-deserved medal!
I would never have guessed that a story this vulgar would be what would get me my first medal, but here we are. ^^ I’m glad that, for all its flaws, this story still resonated with so many of you. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it.
About a week before this competition I went to a local rock concert to see a friend of a friend’s steampunk band. One of the openers was a hardcore band whose name escapes me now. For their sound check the front man belched into the mic and then made fart noises for another ten seconds before giving a thumbs up and saying, “Yeah man, sounds good to me.” Their set was about what you’d expect from a first impression like that, but I was struck by how much fun they were obviously having on stage. I didn’t really enjoy the sound that they created, but it was still an interesting experience. Once I realized that one of the interpretations of the prompt was fleeting success, often attributed to flash-in-the-pan bands, I thought about those fun loving idiots, and then thought, “What if someone who didn’t like hardcore music somehow found themselves in a band like that?” Chode Mustard pretty much wrote itself from there.
The fact that it wrote itself is to its detriment, as many of you pointed out both here and on Discord. This is one of the least ambitious stories this round, in that it treads over well-trodden ground and doesn’t do much to skew things in an interesting way, and I’ll cop to it. I tried to mitigate that through the ending, with Jay’s self reflection and desire to turn over a new leaf, but it doesn’t overcome the obvious and predictable demise of Tommy.
I got some truly excellent feedback this time around, so let me thank each of you in turn.
>>Monokeras
I wholeheartedly agree that there’s too big of a jump between some of these scenes, especially between the El Camino scene and the arena concert afterparty. There was originally a plan to include a scene there where they’re driving along in the El Camino and Miguel gets a text message telling them to turn on the radio, and that’s the first time they hear themselves on the college radio station. I wound up cutting it because I couldn’t make it gel tonally with the rest of the piece, but I think that may have been a mistake in hindsight. And I also agree that each of the shorter scenes could use a bit more bolstering to help even out the flow of the story.
I’m glad I taught you a couple new words. Just don’t teach them to your kids. ^^
>>Cassius
Referring to what you said on Discord, I was, indeed, very happy to have read this. Five hundred words on why the story is deeply flawed, and then a thousand words on why it should win, was a hell of a thing to read so early in the competition. I was pretty uncertain on whether I would even make the finals with this story until your post.
That said, you are absolutely correct on why this story is as skeletal as it is. Tommy’s death is the lowest note, I think. It’s no accident that it’s the shortest scene in the story. I knew while I was writing that his death was in service to the plot and nothing else, but I spent too much time trying to make the other scenes flow better and never got around to revising it. I should have had him drive through the front of a Guitar Center and impale himself on a Variax Shuriken display or something like that. It would have suited his character better, and been at least slightly less cliche than dying face-down in a pile of coke.
In addition to your feedback here, thank you for all you wrote for the other stories this round. I’ve learned quite a bit from your efforts, and I’ll be keeping it in mind in future rounds.
Oh, and thanks for your addendum on how even one note characters can-
*puts on shades*
-strike a chord.
YEEEEEAAAAAAH
I’ll see myself out.
>>Xepher
I blame Google and Urban Dictionary for “Chode” instead of “Choad” - from the way they describe, the spellings were interchangeable. I didn’t realize chode was an archaic past tense for chide, so thank you for teaching me something. ^^ And also for teaching me that Subnormality is also a webcomic! I really liked those animated shorts that Cracked put out, so I’m looking forward to digging through the archive.
I’m sorry the character interactions left a bad taste in your mouth - I was drawing from the well of my time as a roadie for a friend of mine’s band back in college, and, well, that’s kinda how they acted with one another. You’re right, though, it does come off as stereotypical at times. It doesn’t help that when my friends and I get a little tipsy, we tend to use swear words more like punctuation than anything else. Something to work on, for sure. Thanks for your feedback!
>>Not_A_Hat
You’re absolutely right, the middle needs more to it. As I said earlier, there’s a scene in the middle that was undoubtedly a high point for the band, the first time they hear themselves on the radio. I cut it because I wanted Jay’s later reflection on how he didn’t have that much fun to not ring hollow. Still, I could have added more to the penultimate scene to make it more obvious how far gone the halcyon days are.
I’m glad you liked the story! Thank you for leaving your feedback. ^^
>>AndrewRogue
I’m glad you liked the pacing. If I ever return to it, I probably won’t add much to the scenes themselves, just to keep things moving along at a pretty good clip. I do think adding that scene between El Camino and afterparty would be necessary, though. Speaking from experience, the first time you hear yourself on the radio is something that sticks with you, so it still fits with the highlight reel approach to memory. Thank you for your thoughts!
All in all, I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I’m immensely pleased with winning my first medal on top of it. I’ll see you all next round! ^^
Congrats to Oroboro on their first OF gold, and congrats to Cold in Gardez for another well-deserved medal!
I would never have guessed that a story this vulgar would be what would get me my first medal, but here we are. ^^ I’m glad that, for all its flaws, this story still resonated with so many of you. I had a hell of a lot of fun writing it.
About a week before this competition I went to a local rock concert to see a friend of a friend’s steampunk band. One of the openers was a hardcore band whose name escapes me now. For their sound check the front man belched into the mic and then made fart noises for another ten seconds before giving a thumbs up and saying, “Yeah man, sounds good to me.” Their set was about what you’d expect from a first impression like that, but I was struck by how much fun they were obviously having on stage. I didn’t really enjoy the sound that they created, but it was still an interesting experience. Once I realized that one of the interpretations of the prompt was fleeting success, often attributed to flash-in-the-pan bands, I thought about those fun loving idiots, and then thought, “What if someone who didn’t like hardcore music somehow found themselves in a band like that?” Chode Mustard pretty much wrote itself from there.
The fact that it wrote itself is to its detriment, as many of you pointed out both here and on Discord. This is one of the least ambitious stories this round, in that it treads over well-trodden ground and doesn’t do much to skew things in an interesting way, and I’ll cop to it. I tried to mitigate that through the ending, with Jay’s self reflection and desire to turn over a new leaf, but it doesn’t overcome the obvious and predictable demise of Tommy.
I got some truly excellent feedback this time around, so let me thank each of you in turn.
>>Monokeras
I wholeheartedly agree that there’s too big of a jump between some of these scenes, especially between the El Camino scene and the arena concert afterparty. There was originally a plan to include a scene there where they’re driving along in the El Camino and Miguel gets a text message telling them to turn on the radio, and that’s the first time they hear themselves on the college radio station. I wound up cutting it because I couldn’t make it gel tonally with the rest of the piece, but I think that may have been a mistake in hindsight. And I also agree that each of the shorter scenes could use a bit more bolstering to help even out the flow of the story.
I’m glad I taught you a couple new words. Just don’t teach them to your kids. ^^
>>Cassius
Referring to what you said on Discord, I was, indeed, very happy to have read this. Five hundred words on why the story is deeply flawed, and then a thousand words on why it should win, was a hell of a thing to read so early in the competition. I was pretty uncertain on whether I would even make the finals with this story until your post.
That said, you are absolutely correct on why this story is as skeletal as it is. Tommy’s death is the lowest note, I think. It’s no accident that it’s the shortest scene in the story. I knew while I was writing that his death was in service to the plot and nothing else, but I spent too much time trying to make the other scenes flow better and never got around to revising it. I should have had him drive through the front of a Guitar Center and impale himself on a Variax Shuriken display or something like that. It would have suited his character better, and been at least slightly less cliche than dying face-down in a pile of coke.
In addition to your feedback here, thank you for all you wrote for the other stories this round. I’ve learned quite a bit from your efforts, and I’ll be keeping it in mind in future rounds.
Oh, and thanks for your addendum on how even one note characters can-
*puts on shades*
-strike a chord.
YEEEEEAAAAAAH
I’ll see myself out.
>>Xepher
I blame Google and Urban Dictionary for “Chode” instead of “Choad” - from the way they describe, the spellings were interchangeable. I didn’t realize chode was an archaic past tense for chide, so thank you for teaching me something. ^^ And also for teaching me that Subnormality is also a webcomic! I really liked those animated shorts that Cracked put out, so I’m looking forward to digging through the archive.
I’m sorry the character interactions left a bad taste in your mouth - I was drawing from the well of my time as a roadie for a friend of mine’s band back in college, and, well, that’s kinda how they acted with one another. You’re right, though, it does come off as stereotypical at times. It doesn’t help that when my friends and I get a little tipsy, we tend to use swear words more like punctuation than anything else. Something to work on, for sure. Thanks for your feedback!
>>Not_A_Hat
You’re absolutely right, the middle needs more to it. As I said earlier, there’s a scene in the middle that was undoubtedly a high point for the band, the first time they hear themselves on the radio. I cut it because I wanted Jay’s later reflection on how he didn’t have that much fun to not ring hollow. Still, I could have added more to the penultimate scene to make it more obvious how far gone the halcyon days are.
I’m glad you liked the story! Thank you for leaving your feedback. ^^
>>AndrewRogue
I’m glad you liked the pacing. If I ever return to it, I probably won’t add much to the scenes themselves, just to keep things moving along at a pretty good clip. I do think adding that scene between El Camino and afterparty would be necessary, though. Speaking from experience, the first time you hear yourself on the radio is something that sticks with you, so it still fits with the highlight reel approach to memory. Thank you for your thoughts!
All in all, I had a lot of fun writing this story, and I’m immensely pleased with winning my first medal on top of it. I’ll see you all next round! ^^