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The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Jack, the Guitarist-Band Leader

Next up is band-founder, song-writer, and leader, guitarist Jack.

Before forming the band Sound Unltd, he led the street gang that some of those band members helped him lead as well. While both he and singer Erik lived in great poverty as children, Jack’s own father was abusive, beating his young son over the head with a Bible! Of all the band members, Jack thus hated religion the most. In a snippet also revealing the abuse, he himself dishes out another form of abuse, but not with a Bible. Yet, having to be the leader of the band and make sure any disagreements within the band are solved, Jack does manage to keep his wits about himself for the most part. He does occasionally take part in ‘verbal judo’ with is adoptive father, Billy, the band’s original manager. As with the singer and others in the group, he, too, is a sex hound of sorts, and does over-do on opium-laced drugs at times.

His description?

“The tall, angular-faced guitarist possessed dirty-blond hair now growing on once-shaved sides of his head. Now without the screaming instrument he fired into immortality.”

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The Prodigal Band Trilogy Character Snippets: Erik, the Singer-Frontman

I now begin the snippets about the several major characters: the members of the band this trilogy is about, their women, the main “bad guy” characters and the main “good guy” characters. All in all there are close to 20 of these!

Folks I don’t know a trilogy series with as many as 20 important characters, but I couldn’t help it. So I will boil it down to the major characters that appear in all three books of the trilogy.

I am starting off with the singer-frontman band member, Erik, because in most bands the singer-frontman is the most noticeable and most well-known member, the one ‘the whole world’ has heard of. Here is his physical description:

A lead singer with dark brown mid-back length hair accentuated by sensuous bangs on a baby-face was slender, thin-lipped and of medium height. Voice a Godly gift. Yet, some said, the devil’s tool.

Plus he has blue eyes.

Without going into telling this character’s main attributes–I will let the reader figure these out for themselves–I will state wherein these character snippets occur, in what chapter of what book the snippet is within.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Tragedy

Since this “snippet” series began with the genre category of Comedy, it is fitting that it ends with the category of Tragedy. Both are the hallmarks of theater that began in ancient Greece and are historically headlined by the immortal William Shakespeare.

When it comes to plays, NOBODY rivals Shakespeare! Tragedies IMHO are his magnum opus (especially MacBeth and Hamlet) but my favorite comedy character, theatrical or otherwise, is the ‘buffoon’ known as Falstaff, who appears in several of Shakespeare’s plays about various kings named Richard. Then there is Romeo and Juliet, which has inspired any number of spinoffs, one of my favorites being Adam Sandler’s You Don’t Mess with the Zohan, where an Israeli special ops agent takes on his main rival, The Phantom, a Palestinian “terrorist” leader with Hezbollah ties. But Zohan gets tired of that job and wants to be a hair-dresser. So he secretly moves to the US (after failing to take down Phantom) and becomes a hair-dresser. At a salon owned by Palestinian Dahlia, who turns out to be sister to the Phantom! They fall in love and marry–the Israeli-Palestinian “Romeo and Juliet”!

The greatest tragedy? When Hamlet ponders his existence using the immortal line, “To be or not to be, that is the question.” And then the rest of the soliloquy.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Suspense

Suspense is defined as a play on anxiety, and when reading a book or watching a show or movie, “suspense” leaves one “on tenterhooks” as if one is holding one’s breath waiting for some event to happen. Mystery novels and horror novels and crime novels are loaded with suspense, and likely all novels have some suspense attached to them.

There is plenty of suspense in The Prodigal Band Trilogy, but in only a few instances is the suspense of truly “being on tenterhooks” level exists in this three-books-in-one trilogy. Below I will “snippet” perhaps the most suspenseful part of the book, which takes place in Chapter Twelve of The Prodigal Band.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Spiritual

Gee, Hallowe’en is almost here! Time for spiritual snippets! After all, I’ve already done horror, paranormal, fantasy, and two occult snippets, part 1 and part 2…or should I have left the occult snippets for Hallowe’en? But anyway….

These snippets involve actual (fictional) duals between the good and evil spiritual forces as well as communication between the Evil and its human minions. I could mention many instances here, but three snippets should be enough, and they are shorter than usual; some of my snippets have been quite long!

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Satire

The Prodigal Band Trilogy, being about the trials, tribulations, and triumphs of a fictitious and big time rock and roll band, is full of celebrities. That makes the trilogy and the books within it ripe for satire among other genres. Though the three-books-in-one trilogy leaves out much of the satire originally published in the original three books, there is still enough to regale the reader here, with two snippets posted. One involves celebrity attention-seeking behavior, and the other involves their hypocrisy, especially when it comes to their so-called ‘environmental activism,’ which, in my opinion, is just more attention-seeking behavior but often strictly for tax-write-off purposes.

Note: while it would be nice to be a best-selling author, one thing I absolutely do not want is to be a celebrity! I value my privacy as much as I could have what with having to market my books, but if I became a celebrity I would have no privacy!

Being a celebrity is a double-edged sword. Yes, they have fortunes and fabulous homes and cars and whatever, but while it takes attention-seeking to maintain celebrity, at some point the celebrity wants privacy and to go about with their lives devoid of constant media-tabloid-hounds chasing after them. And at some point, someone will come up with some nonsense about them that is not true and turns their lives inside out and backwards. Yet, whose fault is that? Theirs! They’re the ones who sought the attention, right?

Fortunately, for me and my characters, I realized these books were not going to be essays on satire. Yet I believe if your characters are celebrities some satire is necessary.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Romance

I have read few Romance novels, and I have seen few Romance movies that I have any affection for (but Romance Adventure movies like High Road to China, Jewel of the Nile, and Romancing the Stone are outstanding, IMHO). But one thing I know about the Romance genre–all Romance-themed novels or movies have this in common: sexual tension. It is not tension during the act of sex, but tension between the sexes involved with the romance relationship.

For instance: in High Road to China–one of my fave movies ever–the Bess Armstrong character and the Tom Selleck character (named O’Malley), in between hugging and kissing and bedding with each other, are constantly arguing, yelling at each other, her screaming, “O’Malley!” every few seconds or so, and O’Malley all pissed off because she demanded to fly her own plane and later crashed his plane named Dorothy in Nepal, as they headed to China to find her father, who was being screwed out of millions by his crooked business partner. In the end, of course, they decide to build a good relationship upon leaving western China where her dad is leading a rebellion against some overlord in the 1920s. All novels, Romance genre or not, that build some sexual tension, always have that tension relieved at the end, when love abounds.

And there is plenty of sexual tension in The Prodigal Band Trilogy. I have already discussed this marriage tension between the bassist Keith and his wife Jarris, in the Drama snippet.. In fact there is sexual tension between each band member and his woman throughout the three-books-in-one trilogy that get resolved at some point.

But the key “romance-sexual tension” partnership within the band and their women is between keyboard-synthist Bryan and his wife, Mo, who marry early and then things begin to go awry as they bring forth children. Prior to having kids, the relationship is as good as it could be; having children become the linchpin for what develops into a rocky relationship, as I will describe below in three snippets.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Paranormal

The two previous set of snippets dealt with the occult; this one deals with the paranormal. Some might consider occult and paranormal the same thing, but there are differences. Occult implies humans practicing witchcraft or satanic rituals or playing at them–that is, occult is where, to one degree or another, humans are in control or at least are doing the bidding of the spirit that is taking part in or leading the ritual. Paranormal, according to the definition I found, implies lack of control on the part of humans to some extent: denoting events or phenomena such as telekinesis or clairvoyance that are beyond the scope of normal scientific understanding. That is, normal human understanding!

The two snippets in this post, both from the final book of the trilogy, The Prodigal Band, are clearly beyond human understanding, as both events are completely under divine control, for divine purposes. One of the snippets is similar to an actual event that happened to someone I know. Similar events also occurred to some very key figures in the Bible.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Occult, Part 2

Part One of this snippet-occult series delves into mock occult practices which anyone that feels like faking occult practices could do, such as claiming to ‘channel’ some spirit entity so as to embed oneself into some New Age celebrity grouping, for instance. Heck, IMHO, anyone can claim to be a ‘witch’ or ‘wizard’ just by buying a Ouija Board or Tarot Cards or pretend to perform séances. Now I never owned a Ouija Board but I once bought Tarot Cards having no clue as to how to use them as a witch would, but just to see what Tarot Cards looked like. One girls’ slumber party I attended–I was in a high school B-list sorority–I witnessed (without taking part in it) a séance on a sorority member performed by another sorority member who may or may not have ever performed séances before. As I stated in the previous post, any activity I had with anything occultist stopped the night two friends and I created a mock Ouija Board and would up calling up spirits we should never have called up, scaring the crap out of all of us so that they had to walk me home over a mile around 11 p.m. and it was still winter.

In part 2, the snippets call forth much more sinister forces than mere fake channeling of some New Age ‘god.’ Anyone who studies the occult knows why occult rituals are used–for true witchcraft, and to capture souls for the forces of evil, the devil, aka Satan, which in The Prodigal Band Trilogy is referred to as Corion, a fictional false god of an ancient fictional Celtic cannibal sect that rivaled the Druids, called ‘the Crag-Dwellers’ of the mountains of Wales. Now who would want to ‘capture souls for the forces of evil’? The spiritual forces of evil, of course, and their minions on Earth whom they have given such as power, wealth, fame, fortune, and lusts in exchange for their loyalty to the Evil. And who would be victimized by these forces? Folks who get suckered into seeking advantages over others by “selling their souls to” the devil and such, which is supposedly rampant in the annals of popular culture, according to some. Rock stars, for instance, but also their fans.

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Snippets of The Prodigal Band Trilogy: Occult, Part 1

Along with snippets relating to the fiction genre known as horror within The Prodigal Band Trilogy are snippets of horror’s ‘sidekick,’ the occult. I have only witnessed the ‘milder’ side of occultism–Ouija Boards, Tarot Cards, mock séances with fake ‘mediums,’ and in all instances these tools were not being used by actual ‘witches’ or wiccans. Just ‘playing’ at it during parties or whatever. Yet one evening at a friend’s house more than a mile from my own house two friends and I did get a good look at what true witchcraft would look like without realizing it, and the event scared the crap out of me to the point where the two friends had to walk me home around 11 p.m.! After that, I eschewed any and all of these practices! But I did get to witness actual occult practices, and, while writing the trilogy, was glad I did partake in the occult, a little bit, knowing I would never do such things again. Any other knowledge of occult rituals came from horror movies or fiction novels.

All three novels that make up The Prodigal Band Trilogy have occult aspects. Part 1 of this snippet-occult series shows the mockery side of the occult as well as the witnessing of pure occultist evil that took place inside of a separate room within what is called an ‘Ashram,’ which is a Hindu religious retreat that could also be used in any eastern-type religion (which is what Swami Negran’s ‘Church of the Circle of Unity’ is derived from, using Hindu/Sikh systems for a New Age cult. Negran is a prominent fictional evil character within the trilogy. His successor, fake ‘healer’ Cole Blessing, is featured in the second snippet.)

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