You see him screaming on Tik Tok, neck veins bulging, sinews in his wrists taut, shaking the printed lyrics to Elevator 19 by Marinated Antelope.
Fizz Winston looks like he is trying to have a rational conversation with the man, while Sparky Laffrey, the tour manager, holds back Tony Erevan, the oft intoxicated drummer.
The record store meet and greet flares briefly into chaos.
The GuGu Archway Remix of the video has 821 million views.
He’s known as Mad Dad, Papa Bloodvessel.
He’s from somewhere in Wisconsin, according to Wikipedia, though that famous first appearance was outside of Chicago.
His real name in the Wiki is Michael Teshadra. He’s not a devout Christian or anything, just a guy who doesn’t believe his teenage daughters should be subjected to the subliminal sexuality of Elevator 19.
Michael is mad because the band dismissed him, refused to create a dialogue or stop playing the song live, he says in the one interview he granted.
He shows up again in Nashville.
Again Fizz, who wrote the lyrics, tries to talk rationally, but the man screams and shakes and you think Tony might get him this time.
Elevator 19’s downloads keep rising, surpassing the first single from the Bloodlovely album.
Mad Dad really loses it in Sarasota, and the police haul him away.
He’s charged with disorderly conduct and makes bail immediately, hounded by reporters, civilian influencers and “Shaved Horns,” Marinated Antelope’s biggest fan group.
A van is waiting to pick up Michael Teshadra.
You’re watching live now because Mad Dad, Papa Bloodvessel is such a big story dozens of people are streaming the story.
The van looks too clean, too…something. Why would a dad from Wisconsin have a van like that in Sarasota, Florida?
The minute you think that you see a hand reach out of the crowd. The audio isn’t perfect, but that pop you hear can’t be wind.
There’s a rugby scrum and cops and wailing and the livestream you’re watching goes black.
You search for another livestream, and find one hyperventilating Shaved Horn about 40 yards from the white van saying “I think he’s dead.”
You think, with an overflowing cup of cynicism, that the guy’s teenage daughters would be better off with some marginally poetic, plausibly smutty lyrics than they would be with a dead dad.
You Google the lyrics. You’re not a big fan,not even casual, just someone who hears Marinated Antelope songs coming from car windows and ads for some awards show on a network you don’t subscribe to.
The lyrics are shittier than you thought. The sexual innuendo is just that: innuendo. Almost, in the scheme of things, not sexual at all.
You wonder what would make some guy go slithering off the dock of sanity about them, then you wonder why a young fan of the band was carrying a gun.
You’re on the toilet when the cynicism rises over your head and you think maybe the guy was covering up for his own bad behavior and took it out on a pop band, then a friend of one of the guy’s victims shot him.
You decide you’re not a cynic, you’re a realist, then you wipe and flush.
The story is on the TV now, the 24 Hour News you rarely watch because some guy in Texas can eat a cheeseburger and spit it back up whole with the bun barely soggy and the girl with three breasts just landed her first double back flip on her wakeboard, though half the comments claim it’s AI.
And on the TV, they’re saying Mad Dad, Papa Bloodvessel, The Prude Dude is going to live.
And they’re saying that his name is not Michael Teshadra, his name is Felix Bellemon. They show Felix without the prosthetic makeup and say that he’s a character actor from Van Nuys, employed by the management of Marinated Antelope as a publicity stunt.
A very, very successful publicity stunt, unless your name is Felix Bellemon, and they’re pulling a bullet out of you at Manatee Memorial Hospital, or your name is Kaden Grubert, and you’re about to do fifteen plus years for shooting one of the millions of people in the world who aren’t who they claim to be.
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Nicely done. Thoroughly and convincingly showcases a viewpoint I hold that I also wish was “cynical not realistic” that an overwhelming percentage of human behaviors seem performative and role-fulfillment. Still trying to engage in society, but rivers and mountains usually make better company than people.
Dude... DUDE! This is exceptional!