Justin Achilli

1. I would rather listen to Journey than the Beatles.
2. I would have voted for either Elizabeth Dole or John McCain, despite my hatred for the Republicans, but that retarded guy got on the ballot instead.
3. I say my prayers before every meal (but not meal replacements).
4. I can’t eat food off someone else’s plate.
5. If I don’t see a movie on opening day, I have to wait until it comes out on DVD.
6. Yes, DVD. I refuse to own a VHS.
7. My heroes are Teddy Roosevelt, Mario Batali and F. Scott Fitzgerald. And Kurt Angle.
8. I play Abba and George Michael without any sense of irony.
9. Your mother loves me. Your father hates me.
10. Nature’s coolest animals: goats. Second place goes to bats. Or maybe scorpions. Definitely a bat with a scorpion tail. Or a crawfish with bat wings. Crawbat.

Ladies and Gentlemen, Achilli Management is proud to announce its most recent musical coup. Straight from the monster truck races and beer halls of Dothan, Alabama, and destined for the top of the charts, it’s…

From the left:

Scotty “Chaw” Duke (Drums): Born to a state trooper and a Waffle House waitress, Chaw was born to serve hash browns. When he’s not “slingin’ hash,” as they say in the “hospitalatee industry,” Scotty’s bangin’ the skins. He took those glasses from his dad, and those jowls from his mom.

Jimbo “Beef Doctor” Malone (Bass): He’s a doctor of love… and rhythm guitar. And love. Plus, he likes bacon. Look out, ladies, because when Beef Doctor takes the stage, you’re bound to swoon. He’s such a stud, he even sweats gravy.

Jeff “Pabst Blue Rokkin’” McCoy (Vocals): Are those Bugle Boy jeans you’re wearing, Jeff? I think they are. Gifted from an early age with “a voice like an angel kicking Jim Croce in the ding,” Jeff had no choice in life but to rock, ROCK, ROCK. As the vocalist and songwriter of the group, Jeff can be both tough and tender, showing his range with arena-rock anthems like “Extra Cheese on That Bacon Burger” and power ballads such as “I Thought These Were the Pants Without Holes” and “I Am Wearing a Tie.”

Heinrich “Reform Skool” Badezimmer (Lead Guitar): He’s German (we think). He’s been on speed for three days straight. He’s six-foot-four of ragin’ metal ‘tude and we can’t figure out a damn word he’s saying. Do you want to making fuck? Berzerker!

So, one of the retreat exercises is a “getting to know your goddamn coworkers” thing, okay? Rich and Ben split us into groups, with each group sitting at a table and working toward the common exercise. Each table received a buncha White Wolf Retreat ’02 T-shirts in the team color (we were green). Thereafter, we were given a scenario: We were not actually a group, but an island of shipwrecked fellows. Each island had to come up with its own identity. Immediately, our island set out to the other islands, collecting their T-shirts. In some cases, this was done through guile, as with me obtaining the Orange Island’s shirt by asking if I could compare it with my own. In other cases, thuggery ruled the day, as with me obtaining the Red Island’s T-shirt by throttling Chad until he couldn’t resist my brutal attempt to pull it over his head.

Here are the highlights of the Green Island’s ass-whipping T-shirt collections activity.

This is me delivering a hockey-style hamstringing, by which I pummel the poor yet very deserving Chad until I’m able to pull his jersey over his head. You can’t see it well, but I was using a modified version of signature move, the Executioner, here. See, in the Executioner, you snap a chokehold around your opponent’s neck and simultaneously squeeze the merciful fuck out of him with a crippling leg scissor. Here, I’ve reversed the polarity and crossed the streams, turning the chokehold into a guillotine but still applying the hellafied leg scissor around the trunk.

This one is just me delivering some punches to soften up the victim. Note the Triple H jersey. Note Ben looking on in horror as “employee retreat” turns into “coworker mauling.” Note Rich looking on in boredom. He knows how I behave at these things, and he knows that if he eggs me on, I’ll just do it more.

Yes, I was already drunk. At the culmination of the island exercise, some four hours later, I passed out on the floor and my island-mates drew spiders all over my island shirt. It’s because I’m afraid of spiders. Fuckers.

I don’t remember what I sang at karaoke, but I do know that I “helped” someone sing Pat Benatar’s “Shadows of the Night” and I was somehow roped into doing the Willie Nelson part of “To All the Girls I’ve Loved Before.” Oh, and at one point, I “helped” someone else sing “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” which is sort of funny because I used to work at the Gap with one of the guys in the band that originally sang that song.

I was told that at one point, I was literally wandering down the hall of the lodge, opening every door off the hallway and trying to fight people inside. Sometimes, there were no people inside, yet I still wanted to fight them. It’s becoming increasingly obvious that I have anger-management difficulties. Mike T. talked me into picking a fight with Ethan, but apparently Ethan’s wife persuaded him not to let him be goaded into battle by my drunk ass. Wuss. Your number was up, Skemp. Maybe next time.

Later that night, on two separate occasions, detachments of my fellows burst into my room and beat the crap out of me as I was passed out in bed. Total Full Metal Jacket shit. I suppose I had it coming.

By the way, I learned nothing about my coworkers, except that Stephen had a dog. I think.

Ah, the White Wolf retreat. It begins at 9:30 Monday morning and culminates on Thursday with a viewing of Yoda Wars II: Clone Versus Clone. I’m sure someone will bring a camera, and I’ll filter the best of the best of the pictures back to you, so that you may spit and taunt. I’m sure there’ll be a preliminary boxing match or 50, though these will probably have the distinct aura of sketchiness about them. And we’ll be very, very drunk while it’s happening.

Speaking of drunk, my not-girlfriend thinks I drink too much. It was one of her reservations about cohabitation. The others? Well, they’re not flattering.

Yeah, so I’m moving across the street from my favorite bar. What’s the damn problem? It’s cheaper than my current place, nicer, more secure and mercifully smaller. My current place is too big for one dumb me and his li’l deaf cat.

I’m totally going to karaoke Skid Row’s “I Remember You” at the retreat.

Pauline’s in town. I’m off to dinner.

And I’ll see what I can do about getting a White Wolf Charity Boxing match set up at DragonCon.

Okay, so a while back, I posted some little thing about White Wolf Celebrity Boxing. Assuming all goes well, this is going to happen at GenCon this year. I’m signed on to fight whomever they bring to the ring for me. I figure it’s a crapshoot. I mean, I’m in better condition than 90 percent of the people in this business, but there’s also a disturbingly high ratio of martial arts practitioners, of which I ain’t one. I’ve offered to give up as much as 50 pounds to a competitor (I’ll be 168 at weigh-in; I’m 163 now), but there’s still that potential for having a trained fighter in the opposite corner.

But, see, that’s not really important. I can take a beating like nobody’s business and I’m relying on innate meanness to deal one out, so my technical situation is already dealt with in my mind. What’s critical is the proper choice of entrance theme music.

To that end, I’ve been racking my brain to figure out what’s the best song by which to parade my glorious self down to the ring. I need a little help, here, so take a gander at these five songs and tell me which one you think would work best.

Go dig up samples of these at whatever online music-purchase service you regularly use (They’re all at cdnow, for example, except for the Oakenfold track). Give ‘em a listen. I’m thinking we’ll have between 40 seconds and a full minute for ring intro.

“Chinese Burn” (Lunatic Calm Remix) by Curve
Pros: Sounds like a fistfight already in progress. When I end up making a movie and people in it are kicking the sweet zombie bejeezus out of each other, I’m using this fucking song.
Cons: Rob Hatch has already unofficially claimed the album cut of this song as his pro-wrestling theme music.

“Saviour” by VNV Nation
Pros: Holy shit. A stomping, murderous, Teutonic speed-dirge evoking images of somebody (hopefully me) thundering, piston-like, into the rapidly softening grill of the poor fool in the ring with him.
Cons: Possibly being the poor fool on the receiving end of the pistoning fists.

“Supermoves” by Overseer
Pros: Another song that just sounds like a fucking beatdown. Huge, big-beat mania that gets really overwrought after the breakdown.
Cons: Takes too long to develop. Jesus, it’s not like I can be out there hopping around for the five full minutes this song takes to play through. Might work with a bit of sound editing so I start after the breakdown.

“Ready Steady Go” by Paul Oakenfold
Pros: Very full-bodied song that doesn’t exceed itself with too much tempo, but still has some staccato sounds that make me think of punching the fuck out of people.
Cons: Sounds vaguely like something that didn’t make the Swordfish soundtrack.

“Cowgirl” by Underworld
Pros: I have this song on my .mp3 player that I wear while doing my workout and invariably I imagine hitting people when it comes on. I would very much like to actually hit people while this is on, so I might push for the Bedrock version of this song to play while the actual fight is taking place.
Cons: “Cowgirl” isn’t exactly a daunting title for theme music.

“Medal” (Kurt Angle’s Theme) from WWF Music Vol. 5
Pros: Homage to the greatest wrestler ever to step into the ring.
Cons: Only fellow wrestling geeks would get it.

“…Baby One More Time” by Britney Spears
Pros: Really fucking disturbing, especially as an introduction to an asskicking.
Cons: Possibly a little too disturbing.

“Where’s Your Head At?” by Basement Jaxx
Pros: A good-time banger, uptempo but not overwhelming, that’s goofy enough to be enjoyable but still, fundamentally, rocks.
Cons: Makes me think of Coca-Cola commercials because Basement Jaxx sold “Red Alert” for use as a jingle.

“Smash It Up” by the Damned
Pros: Part II, of course. A good, old-fashioned non-electronic rock & roll song from a band that made songs about skeletons, zombies, mad scientists and murderers into a viable genre.
Cons: The goddamn Offspring covered it for Joel Schumacher’s hideous Batman and Robin Suck Again. And the only thing I hate more than the Offspring is… well, okay, I hate a lot of things worse than the Offspring, but I sure don’t like them one bit.

Woo.

After a long, hard journey through the underbelly of freelance writing, I’ve shamed my once-good name and afterward voluntarily placed myself on the “don’t hire me” list.

Sincere apologies to those affected: It was never my intent to fuck this project in the ear. Collapses of personal life as well as an inability to properly motivate myself caused me to bring others down and for that I’m tremendously repentant.

However, I feel as if the axiomatic great weight has been lifted from my shoulders. I’m moving across town in a few months, so the change of scenery should do me good, too.

I know; I know. Enough of this horseshit. I’ll be returning to screechy form presently, and hopefully with some accounts (read: aftermath) of the forthcoming White Wolf retreat.

Warning to Chad: Brace yourself for the drunkest running powerbomb ever.