The world has gone insane and you are the only one who realizes it. At least, that’s how it always seems, doesn’t it?
Especially for Johnny Desperation, who still can’t quite figure out the new people he goes to school with. Maybe he really is crazy, but he just doesn’t understand why anyone would pay $150 for a slice of pizza, or willingly eat caviar. The new drugs he’s taking aren’t even numbing his awareness, either, but enhancing it.
There is something sticking in Johnny’s eye, and it is decay.
When I look ’round, I only see outta one eye
As the smoke surrounds my head, the sauna
I hear the voices, but I can’t make out their words
Saying things, saying things that
I got something sticking in my eye
Got something sticking in my eye
Got something sticking in my eye
I feel unusual from thinking
About the underground decay, God help me
Kill beneath the camera, watch the world begin to cry
It’s not from pity, it comes from
What’s been sticking in my eye
Got something sticking in my eye
“Burnin’ For You” is a song about traveling and yearning. Maddox Kane knows a bit about both of these. He has been traveling for ten years. Physically traveling in the same place–a decade long stint of stagnation–but traveling mentally throughout all of time and space. He’s spent ten years missing his family. He knows his chances of getting back together with his ex-wife are ruined, but maybe, just maybe there’s still time to reconcile things with his now teenaged daughter.
Little does he realize the fight to make amends has only just begun.
LYRICS
Home in the valley
Home in the city
Home isn’t pretty
Ain’t no home for me
Home in the darkness
Home on the highway
Home isn’t my way
Home will never be
Burn out the day
Burn out the night
I can’t see no reason to put up a fight
I’m living for giving the devil his due
And I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
Time is the essence
Time is the season
Time ain’t no reason
Got no time to slow
Time everlasting
Time to play B-sides
Time ain’t on my side
Time I’ll never know
Burn out the day
Burn out the night
I’m not the one to tell you what’s wrong or what’s right
I’ve seen suns that were freezin’ and lives that were through
Well I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
Burn out the day
Burn out the night
I can’t see no reason to put up a fight
I’m living for giving the devil his due
And I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
I’m burning, I’m burning, I’m burning for you
Ten long years have passed since Maddox Kane’s first day in prison. The world as he knows it has changed. But at the same time, it’s still the same. Nobody trusts anybody, and everything is just as messed up–if not more so–then before he left it.
Despite devoting the majority of his life to criminal activities, Maddox walks out prison with a vow to set his life straight, to make amends with his daughter, and to discover what a good life really means.
However, he quickly learns it’s not as easy to escape his past behavior as he once thought.
For good or bad, he’s back, baby.
LYRICS
Back in black, I hit the sack
I been too long, I’m glad to be back
Yes I am
Let loose from the noose
That’s kept me hanging about
I keep looking at the sky ’cause it’s gettin’ me high
Forget the hearse ’cause I’ll never die
I got nine lives, cat’s eyes
Using every one of them and runnin’ wild
Cause I’m back
Yes I’m back, well I’m back
Yes I’m back
Well I’m back back
Well I’m back in black
Yes I’m back in black
Back in the back of a Cadillac
Number one with a bullet, I’m a power pack
Yes I am
In a bang with the gang
They gotta catch me if they want me to hang
Cause I’m back on the track and I’m beatin’ the flack
Nobody’s gonna get me on another rap
So look at me now I’m just makin’ my play
Don’t try to push your luck, just get out of my way
Cause I’m back
Yes I’m back
Well I’m back
Yes I’m back
Well I’m back back
Well I’m back in black
Yes I’m back in black
With the prologue over, we are now taken to Day One of the main Four Days of Toxicity’s plot. This is a very short chapter, and is used as a space for Johnny Desperation’s now ex-girlfriend to rant about what a shitty, pretentious asshole Johnny has turned into since winning the lottery.
It sets the ground for what kind of atmosphere we can expect from Johnny’s chapters, as well as sparks a conspiratorial bond between Addison, Addison’s boyfriend (Connor), and Johnny’s ex-girlfriend (Candy).
But basically, everything sucks.
Especially today.
LYRICS
Got up this morning to make some coffee
Everything sucks today
Prayed someone hired a hitman to off me
Everything sucks today
Got up on the wrong side of life this morning
Nothin today is gonna go my way
Horoscope told me lies this morning
I don’t think anything is gonna be okay today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Right girl didn’t call and the wrong one’s knockin’
Everything sucks today
Flat tire on my car so I guess i’m walkin
Everything sucks today
Taxman came and took my money
Now all my other bills are gonna be late
My girlfriend’s movin in this mornin
I don’t think anything is gonna be okay today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Got up on the wrong side of life this mornin
Nothing today is gonna go my way
Horoscope told me lies this morning
I don’t think anything is gonna be okay today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Everything sucks today
Imagine your family is a few weeks away from being evicted. You have no money, your mother is mentally insane, your father can’t light his pipe on the first try, and your brother is too fat to get off the couch. In fact, your dog, Zooey Deschanel, is the only decent member of your dysfunctional family. Life is shit, and in your head, it will only get shittier.
Then, your mother suddenly wins the lottery, and you’re transformed into the lifestyle of the rich and famous. You get a big house, a giant chocolate fountain in your kitchen, and you go to a new school for hipsters and Microsoft prodigies. You have taken a severe 180.
Such is the dramatic turn of events for Johnny Desperation in the closing section of Toxicity’sprologue. He has gone from a ghetto kid to a new, upgraded 21st century digital boy. Johnny is a cynic at heart, and this new lifestyle does not sit well for him. He looks at his new peers, and all he can see is their utter bullshit. Nothing is real. He’s living in a condiment society, in an Apple-branded planet. Johnny is now an iLifer, and there’s no getting out.
LYRICS
I can’t believe it, the way you look sometimes
Like a trampled flag on a city street, oh yeah
And I don’t want it, the things you’re offering me
Symbolized bar code, quick ID, oh yeah
[Chorus:]
See I’m a 21st century digital boy
I don’t know how to read but I’ve got a lot of toys
My daddy’s a lazy middle class intellectual
My mommy’s on Valium, so ineffectual
Ain’t life a mystery?
I can’t explain it, the things you’re saying to me
It’s going yayayayayayaya, oh yeah
[Chorus]
Tried to tell you about no control
But now I really don’t know
And then you told me how bad you had to suffer
Is that really all you have to offer?
[Chorus]
[outro]
Cat’s foot, iron claw
Neurosurgeon, scream for more
Innocence raped with napalm fire
Everything I want, I really need.
[fade out]
21st century schizoid boy
21st century video boy
21st century digital boy…
The second installment of the Toxicity prologue introduces the other two protagonists of the novel: Johnny Desperation and Addison Kane (we already met Addy’s father, Maddox, in the previous track). Throughout the book, the chapters will switch from Maddox, Addison, and Johnny’s perspectives. Their storylines will intertwine and clash together.
In the beginning of “In Which the Unlikely Occurs”, Johnny, Addison, and two other friends are getting high on a merry-go-round in the middle of their local park. They are teenagers staring at the sun, their whole lives ahead of them. While others their age are home trying to study and do good in school, these four just simply don’t give a shit. They’d rather burn out in the park and pretend reality is far away and the only things they need to care about is having a good time. I think many will be able to relate to this scene. It reminds me of my own childhood. It might remind you of yours.
I think it’s fairly obvious why I chose Green Day’s “Burnout” for the next track in the soundtrack. The whole song is about not growing up, not giving a shit. This life does not matter. None of these lives matter. So why bother?
LYRICS
I declare I don’t care no more
I’m burning up and out and growing bored
In my smoked out boring room
My hair is shagging in my eyes
Dragging my feet to hit the street tonight
To drive along these shit town lights
I’m not growing up
I’m just burning out
And I stepped in line
to walk amongst the dead
Apathy has rained on me
Now I’m feeling like a soggy dream
So close to drowning but I don’t mind
I’ve lived inside this mental cave
Throw my emotions in the grave
Hell, who needs them anyway
I’m not growing up
I’m just burning out
And I stepped in line
to walk amongst the dead
One of the ways I’ve planned on promoting the release of my debut novel, Toxicity, is by coming up with a massive soundtrack that captures the spirit of each chapter. There are 50 chapters total, along with a three-part prologue. So, to get straight to the point, let’s begin, shall we?
SONGS FROM THE UNOFFICIAL TOXICITY SOUNDTRACK
TRACK 1
“Fade to Black” by Metallica
PROLOGUE PART 1
“Wherein We Learn of Goat Curses”
Toxicity begins with Maddox Kane’s first day in prison. Maddox is one of three protagonists to be found in the novel (we’ll get to the other two in future blog installments). He has just been sentenced to a ten year stretch after being pulled over with a trunk loaded with drugs and automatics.
You see, in addition to being a new professional ballplayer for the Chicago Cubs, Maddox was also a certified gangster for the Chicago mob. And before you ask, I have no idea if there are actual certificates to being a gangster, but I have to assume there is. However, thanks to prison, both of those professions are abruptly terminated. Now Maddox finds himself trapped, forced away from his two greatest loves: baseball and his family.
No, make that three greatest loves: baseball, his family, and his sweet, sweet cocaine.
Kicking coke is a pain in the ass. Maddox learns this on his first day in the joint as he experiences the worst withdrawals of his life. Sitting in the prison cafeteria, sweating to death and losing his mind, Maddox realizes how simple it is to lose everything by a single, uncalculated action. All it takes is one fuck-up to ruin everything.
This feeling of absolute regret and horror, this “I really fucked up” punch to the gut, that is the same punch found in Metallica’s “Fade to Black”. It is a suicide song. A song for someone who realizes they have lost it all, and time is going to pass on by without him.
LYRICS
Life, it seems, will fade away
Drifting further every day
Getting lost within myself
Nothing matters, no one else
I have lost the will to live
Simply nothing more to give
There is nothing more for me
Need the end to set me free
Things not what they used to be
Missing one inside of me
Deathly lost, this can’t be real
Cannot stand this hell I feel
Emptiness is filling me
To the point of agony
Growing darkness taking dawn
I was me, but now he’s gone
No one but me can save myself, but it’s too late
Now I can’t think, think why I should even try
Yesterday seems as though it never existed
Death greets me warm, now I will just say goodbye