Rebranded
What separates the mundane from the great? Is it one good idea? The execution of that idea? Or is it something else? In this modern day and age, is it the BRANDING that is key? This fifth episode of Genres Not Included, the Best Typewriter Improv on the Planet, examines that question. Eva Newcastle takes the lead after the intro quote from Joe!
Hello the night crowd. Welcome to another startling #GenresNotIncluded, the best typewriter improv on the planet.
For the next ten posts, me and @EvaNewcastle are going to make you read, thrill, and maybe cry (I don’t know)?
Tonight, Eva starts the show! Take it away my friend! — Joe Nelson, July 19, 2024
The BRAND was the EVERYTHING. “Yeah.” Russ wiped condensation from a bathroom mirror with a towel. “A ’74 Firebird?” He dragged a dull razor down his cheek. “Been done. A ’74 Corvette? Heh. May as well flag myself a bitter Dick as in Previously Owned.” He laughed at his own joke.
Russ made a mental note to buy more shaving cream. Because this soap and water crap was getting old.
“What about a Camaro?” He said loudly, maybe to himself, maybe to Brandy in the adjoining bedroom.
Probably to himself. She was likely asleep again.
The BRAND…that was key.
What was the brand? He rinsed a disposable razor before tossing it a trash can. Pointless, but he was trying.
The wheels were churning. He could smell smoke singing the gray matter.
“Babe?” he called. No answer. A shuffle. Out like a light after closing shift at the diner.
Russ, like any good musician, needed the BRAND, the one spark to connect with his peeps that would carry him into stardom.
Didn’t matter that he was born 20 years too late for his audience and couldn’t write music. He just needed the brand.
Goddamn. He wanted to rock and roll.
The school where he taught to supplement the gigs closed, the building torn down. Touring state fairs and suburban picnics on Sundays was embarrassing at this point.
The private investigator idea was ripe. Hell.
“Babe?” He burst into the bedroom. Rumpled sheets. Bent blinds.
Brandy was, as expected, asleep. Booze and pot did that real well.
“Babe!” he repeated, shaking her shoulder, forcing her out of her induced slumber.
“Mhem?” It wasn’t a word, just a noise.
“I’ve got it! Rock and roll…detective! Like, music and mystery, dig it?”
“Mroph?”
She was’t digging shit. Something was off. Her reaction wasn’t right. He grabbed a bottle from the nightstand.
“What the hell is this? What the hell did you just take?” Brown eyes, once big and alive, rolled back in her head.
“Knock it off.” He shook her again. “Knock it off!”
“We don’t do this!” he wailed. “We’ve got plans!” He didn’t. “We’ve got a future!” Wow, nope, not at this rate.
“I’m going to be the world’s first rock and roll PI! And I need my hot as shit secretary!”
He shook her, panic settling in.
“C’mon! Who’ll be my shotgun rider?”
The words were denial talking. She’d stopped breathing. He let go, her limp body sinking into the thin mattress.
Plans had shifted. The lyrics wouldn’t come, cheering fans a whisper by the end of his college days.
Minutes dragged before he dialed 911. A chord. A progression.
It was in prison two years later that he first wrote the song. He called it Lost for Love.
It got him a label when he got out.
He planned to dedicate it to the addict who died that day.
Only he didn’t remember her name.
She was just another part of his BRAND.
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