Everyone has their definition of “comedy” because everyone has their own sense of humor and everyone has their own idea of what is “funny” and what isn’t, which could also include satire (which I will deal with later…in my opinion there is more satire than comedy in these three books that make up the trilogy.)
The first example also includes some slapstick…well, that’s my opinion anyway. This example is found in the final chapter of Battle of the Band and comes right before another category I just added to the series, Tragedy.
While creating videos for a new video marketing company in their home town, Walltown, the singer (Erik) and the bassist (Keith) are leaving a pub called the White Horse Pub and heading back to the tour bus so as to get ready to party somewhere else high on a designer drug called skuz. It is evening in early February, 1996. Both were drunk on whiskey, but Erik more so–he was trying to drown his self-pity over his wife’s (Ger) supposed “betrayal” in that she never told him she was bulimic. She was a TV hostess as well as supermodel. Note: I have heard and read in magazine articles that many supermodels as well as models, to keep their weight down, turn to eating disorders such as bulimia or anorexia.
Two-and-a-half hours and uncounted whiskey shots later, Keith, himself swaggering drunk, had to support his blood brother as the two swayed back to the bus parked by the alley site.
It was almost eight o’clock when the singer finally told himself he’d drunk enough for the blues to swim away. Now, he needed something to pep himself up so that, maybe, he and his brother rogue could go out and party somewhere else.
Keith had just the something—a hit of skuz. Or two. Or three.
Moments from the van, Erik fell into Keith’s chest. “Am I gonna make it, bro?” He slurred. “I can barely—”
“We almost there, eh? Just a wee bit, eh? Get the hell of me!” The besotted bassist held him up. “Shit! You a ton o’ dead weight.”
Ten more tortuous steps. Slam! Erik’s body hit the back door of the van.
“Hold on to the handles, eh bro? Gonna open the door in front, eh? Then I’ll figure out some damned way to get you in.” Keith rounded the van. “Why the hell I let you drink so much? And now you gonna need a whole packet of skuz to get you right.” He entered the van, cussing at himself. “Nice going, eh Keith?” Nearly tripping over the black bags in the aisle way, he kicked them to the side, yelling, “Move your bloody bag next time, eh Bry? Little—big!—shit screws his back, so he thinks he can leave his bags wherever the hell he feels like. Up yours, Bry!”
Erik banged on the back doors. “Open the goddamned door, Keith! Bloody cold out here!”
“Wait up, bro.” Tripping over the handle of Jack’s ever-present portable amp—“Get the hell off me!”—Keith’s head accidentally slammed into the inside back doors. Cusses galore.
Erik, about to fall down, yelled, “Stop your bloody cussing and let me in, Keith!”
“Hold your goddamned balls, Erik! Bloody door won’t open.”
Wham! Erik crashed backwards into the van as Keith kicked open the back door.
Five minutes and a cavalcade of cussing later, Keith had Erik within, the singer sprawled atop the amp, his own bag as well as Jack’s and Tom’s, nearly out like a dead lightbulb.
“I found it, bro. Skuz. Good for what ails you, eh? Right here in the side pocket o’ me bag. We fix you up.”
The whiskey-soaked singer barely found his thick voice. “I’ll prob’ly need—” His voice trailed off into slumber.
In the second example within Chapter Three of The Prophesied Band is found the women of four of the band members, by then married to these members. Laurie is married to guitarist Jack; Jarris is married to bassist Keith; Ger is married to singer Erik; and Mo is married to keyboardist Bry. Also mentioned is Bry’s synth-building partner, Reg Lewis. Some groupies are also mentioned, Peaches and Artesia. The scene begins (narrated by a pop culture journalist) with the women exiting a heliport atop the hotel and heading to their men’s fancy suite rooms. Meanwhile, a groupie, knowing Ger is coming, tries to get Erik to let her go before Ger shows up but he keeps her there on purpose. When Ger enters the suite a round of ‘verbal judo’ ensues. Later, during a band concert, the four women are off-stage, but close enough to the performing band, and are smoking a joint, discussing what happened when they had arrived at the fancy hotel in New York City that day to be with their men. They are trying to “one up” each other, which was standard operating procedure for this foursome.
Warning: the following is rated R.
And then there were the women: blonde-bombshell-turned-mommy Laurie Koolig; fiery red-head cosmetics tycoon Jarris Mullock; Ger Manilow, Britain’s top super-model; and wavy red-head Mo McClellan. Since they couldn’t join the tour in Los Angeles, it had to be New York City. As in the luxurious New York Wynworth Hotel, The Club, and The Studio—where, for a fifty-thousand dollar membership and all the skuz you could snort, you could engage in foreplay as you and your date strolled past hundreds of milling wanna-bes and gossip hounds.
Besides, the Richmont Port Authority wouldn’t let a hired helicopter land at Richmont Speedway. It wouldn’t have been in good taste for the one in New York to refuse the same request from four of the world’s most glamorous females, so a whirlybird from a local airport arrived atop the Wynworth one roasting afternoon in mid-June.
Must have been sweltering weather for the girls. They all wore their most alluring sables.
I doubt if Ger’s racks of ice around her neck, waist, and wrists cooled her off. But that’s okay. She needed to be in the Big Apple anyway to do her Diamond Girl video. Rumor had it the world’s top supermodel, back in form after birthing her son Alec, wanted to upstage her rival.
She definitely upstaged New York’s most bodacious groupie, fiery red-head Peaches La Crème. Next to Rona, no Fun Girl could enflame Erik Manning’s manhood as the freckled former street-tough with Brooklyn accent to match.
But Ger was his something. The consummate pro at seduction. Her sultry eyes and voice, her Southern-Belle-ish smile played to enthrall the male race. Of expensive means, that is. She allowed no serious competition.
Having thrown a tawny-colored mink-and-leather wrap on her left shoulder, Peaches turned to leave the singer’s room.
Wearing a towel around his lower torso, Erik came out of the bathroom with a sigh. “It’s that time already, eh?”
She opened the bedroom door into the suite lounge and noticed the clock on an antique ornate table. “It’s past time, after two.” Turned to him with plaintive blue eyes. “I better get the hell outta here before Ger comes.” Out the door.
He briskly went after her. “Wait a bit, babe. One more hug, eh?”
Ger, and then the others, stepped out of the down elevator onto the Deluxe Suite floor.
Several wet kisses and squeezes. Peaches tried to push him away. “I gotta go, sweet love. She’s gonna walk in—”
“So what?” Grabbed her tightly. “What she gonna do?”
Ger opened the grand suite double doors.
“Well, I don’t—” Peaches, within his caress, turned her head around at the whoosh of the opening doors. Mouth opened.
Her eyes firing lava at the groupie, Ger cocked her head and seethed with stiffening body. That Peaches bitch! You kept her ‘til now on purpose, didn’t you, Erik!
“I’m outta here.” The blushing red-head almost shot out of the lounge, hastily passing Laurie, Jarris, and Mo, who stood at the doorway waiting for a scene.
For effect, the brunette whipped the carpet with her sable. “God, Erik! Didn’t you remember I was coming at two?” Sneer.
But Manning was too manly to be cowed by her play at wrath. He coolly glanced at the clock opposite the door. Two-twenty. Then slowly turned his head back to her with mockery. “Yeh, babe, at two. Just where the hell you been?” Snort. Then he went into his room, leaving the page-boy styled model there to stew in her vain possessiveness.
For her singer was the only man in the world who could put her back in her place. She’d never be above him.
That was why, with her plethora of tasty young lovers, she’d never put any of them ahead of him.
She picked up the sable, looking sidelong back at the girls as they entered the suite. “Sorry about that.”
Jarris looked her in the eyes. “Don’t apologize to us, girl.”
The others went to their men, and Ger went to hers. Humbled, she stood, sable, diamonds and all, in his doorway waiting for a pardon.
Propped on pillows, he lay naked outstretched on his bed. Victorious smile. “So like I’ve waited three months for you, and you just standing there sheepish?” He slapped the bed. “Get that gorgeous ass of yours over here.”
Her will to conquer him returned. On her way to his pulsating fruit, the bed would have come alive for her passion.
That night off-stage during the show at a nearby stadium
“So, Ger, what happened after you went into his room?” Laurie lit a joint for herself and the rest of this foursome of inseparable women. Long toke. “Did you two argue?” The sexy blonde’s smiling eyes wanted scandalous news that might set even the rafters and blazing speakers above them to listen. “Or did you give in to his lust?”
Cocky cool and jutting her left hip, she toked. “He was putty in my arms, girl. You know he was already naked when I got there. I strutted to his bed licking my diamonds and rubbing them in my twat, you know, and I threw ‘em at his feet. Then my sable at his pecker. Then I stripped, and threw my clothes at his face.” Toked again, then handed the joint to Jarris. “I slinked onto the bed and—you know.” Toothy smile. “So,” laugh, “that’s my story of salacious seduction.” Ger smiled sweetly to Laurie. “So like what’s yours?”
Laurie had to yell now because the music suddenly got a lot louder. “Would you believe he was taking a shower?”
“Oh, yeh?” Jarris interrupted. “Who’d he just lay?”
“How the hell would I know? You think the first thing I did when Jack came out of the shower was to ask him who he just wanked? Not bloody likely, Jar!”
“But you wondered, eh?” Mo asked with a throaty voice and a street tough accent. Toke.
“Yeh, right. But in the meantime, I was preparing myself for the feast, you know.” Took the joint from Mo. “You know that whipped cream I brought?” Laughs.
“Ooooohh!” Mo licked her lips. “And you licked him dry in the passion play.”
“He was limp with exhaustion, girl. Like, after I squirted his pecker and licked it clean, he could barely control himself. He never humped me so bloody hard in his life. Like he hadn’t any in weeks.” Laugh. “Well, hours, anyway.” She looked at Jarris. “Your turn, babe.” Toke.
“When I opened the door that bitch Artesia was biting Keith’s ear, so I grabbed her, dragged her out of his bed and threw her out the door.”
“Shit, Jar!” Mo shouted above the now muted music, causing Mick, the closest on stage, to give her a dirty look.
Mo saw the guitarist glare at her. “Ooops! Sorry, Mick.” Turned her volume down. “Shit, Jar, you serious?”
The skinny red-head laughed. “No. He was playing his VideoGame.”
Sighs of relief all around.
“So I threw off me sable and marched up to him and said as a vixen in heat, ‘You put that stupid game away, Keith Mullock!’ and proceeded to rip off his leather trousers, eh? Then I took a flying leap on top of him that burned the hair off his chest. Before he could even unplug that game, he tossed it to the floor, eh? Then we wrestled each other’s clothes off.”
“Totally delicious!” Ger giggled. “Like you always say—he’s sooo good in bed. Need to try him sometime.”
“In your dreams, babe.” Snide laugh. “Now, Mo, can you top that?”
“Maybe.” Mo toked again, eyes flashing pride. “At least I got to throw someone outta Bry’s room.”
“Who?”
Stifled a laugh. “Reg Lewis.”
As the girls cackled, the music exploded and the audience roared.
With the other women nearly rolling on the floor with riotous comedy, Mo wiped tears of hard laughter from her eyes. “Yeh, I said, ‘Goodbye, Reg,’ and flung him out the door. His head almost,”—shriek of laughter—“hit the door frame!”
The girls were picking themselves off the floor.
“Bry got off the bed to protest, eh? So I shoved him back onto his bed and ripped his clothes off. Ripped ‘em, eh? Seriously.”
“Good for you, girl.” Laurie said.
“Yeh. When you deal with Bry McClellan, you sometimes have to get rough with him. The rougher, the better. Turns into a real sex machine.” Like he always was before he got me pregnant and we got married.
In the third example, from Chapter Eleven of The Prodigal Band (or chapter 13 of the PDF) the six band members are in a spiritual void–not heaven and not hell–after being “rescued” from a calamity on their private jet headed to a London Airport in order to attend a Directorate meeting. At first separated, the six band members find themselves together again a short time later–but in a realm without time. Spoiler alert: two of the band members had already experienced a similar spiritual void a few years before while their bodies were physically in hospital beds.
“Fancy meeting you here,” Erik smiled.
Keith went up to him. “This is the place, eh bro?”
“Yeh. Same place, but no black holes and no other people. But how’d we get here?” Then the singer dropped his jaw. “Are we—?”
The bassist anticipated the question. “No. We not dead.”
“You sure, bro?”
“We’re on a mission of God, eh? Not a mission to God.”
A glowing light turned on in Manning’s brain. “Well, that explains it, then!” He waved his arms with such joy he wanted to jump on the others with the news. “We’re on a mission of God but now we’re on a mission to God! That way, God can tell us what He wants us to do!”
Jack was nonplused, but turned annoyed. “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute!” He stood there, hands on hips in disbelief. “God isn’t some guy you meet on the street! Like you really, really think the Almighty God, Jehovah, Yahweh, whatever, is going to deign to face pipsqueaks like us and put us in a circle around Him and tell us big-time unrepentant sinners what He wants us to do?” He then marched up to the singer. “Are you freaking out of your freaking mind? Who do you think we are? Ezekiel, Daniel, Elijah, Jeremiah, Moses and David?”
“Who?”
Jack slumped, exasperated. “I thought you said you were reading the— Never mind!”
Tom said, “They’re Biblical prophets, right?”
“Not all of ‘em,” Jack answered. “Moses was the guy who took the Jews out of Egypt. David was the guy who slew Goliath with a sling shot. The other guys are big time prophets.”
“Why?” Erik wanted to know.
“Why were they prophets?” Jack had to think fast. “Because according to the Bible, God told them to say things to the Jews like repent from your sins and stuff like that, ‘cos if they didn’t, God would destroy them. And basically, that’s what happened. Most of the Jews— they had twelve tribes, but ten of them were wiped out. They were conquered, then scattered. The other two tribes were taken by the Babylonians, but later they returned. Anyway, God punished ‘em ‘cos they wouldn’t stop sinning. Something like that.”
“Okay, I get the picture!” But the singer got going. “But that brings us back to what we were saying months ago when we were given this mission. Why would God choose us unrepentant sinners to do this mission? Which leads us to why would God bring us here to tell us what—”
Jack flew off the handle. “I didn’t say that, you did! You’re the one who’s saying we got raptured up here!”
Keith’s eyes popped out. “You mean, this is THE rapture?”
“What rapture?” Bry asked.
“You know, THE rapture in those ‘end-times’ novels. That’s when all the Christians get taken up into Heaven—”
Jack shouted for effect. “It’s NOT the rapture! Bloody shit!”
Tom shot back, “No cussing in Heaven.”
There are more comedy scenarios with the three-book-novel trilogy. And I had a lot of fun writing these scenarios! More snippets to come next week!
The Prodigal Band Trilogy © 2019 by Deborah Lagarde, Battle of the Band © 1996 by Deborah Lagarde, The Prophesied Band © 1998 by Deborah Lagarde and The Prodigal Band © 2018 by Deborah Lagarde. Permission needed to copy any materials off this page.
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