The Bad Guys Are Here, and They Rock

I had completely forgotten. It had totally slipped my mind. I have to face facts - my memory, though still razor sharp 95% of the time, is not what it once was. 

There we were, all week, pondering the meaning of this cryptic message...

All week we wondered (well, not all week - just up until about lunchtime Thursday), and all week none of us could figure it out. 

Until about 11:57 am, when I saw a van making its way up the street while on periscope duty (that's right, we have a periscope - u jelly?).

Anyway, as I say, I saw a van tooling its way along Main St. and suddenly the penny dropped. Bad Guys! Thursday! A van! A tour van!

Not actual bad guys... Bad Guys the band! From the UK! THESE Bad Guys!

I completely forgot that I had invited them to our hideout to set up for this weekend's Unbelievables music Festival!

Wait, wait, let me back up...

Unbelievafest is our first foray into the festival scene. After all, May is nearly half over and everyone is getting ready for festivals such as Bestival and Rock Am Ring and Splendour In The Grass and Wychwood and Tentertainment and Create and all those other festivals that mostly end with the word "stock". So we thought - why not? We like music, and parties, and beer, and girls, so let's start it with just the one band, plentiful drinks and the Unbelievababes, and if all goes well, then we'll go bigger next year. So we asked Bad Guys (an appropriate name, I thought, given our line of work) to come along and play some kick-ass rock for us all weekend. And they were happy to come along. Because Bad Guys are our kind of guys. Need proof? Here you go.

So as I write, they are about to take the stage for their first set. Clark's just expertly crafting a few beer-based cocktails, Michael is blowing up some festive balloons (pantsless, naturally) and I have just made a mondo bowl of the most amaaaazing whipped potatoes for us all to enjoy. This should be a weekend to remember. Just us and the Bad Guys, rockin' and rollin' till Sunday night. Crank it up to eleven, boys!




P.S. That whole pin thing? We asked the guys about that and they said the reason they used a pin was not to throw us off or anything like that. They had simply run out of Blu-Tack and sticky tape.

Later This Week ...

Personally? I don't think we'll ever understand bad guys.

Oh ... they're simple enough to figure out most of the time. But there are time they just don't make sense.

Here's a note we found pinned - pinned, mind you - to our headquarter doors Sunday morning. It was just left there for us to discover:

"Bad Guys" ... ??? "Thursday" ... ??? What the? See what I mean? 

 We have some work to do.

Just who are these bad guys? Old enemies? Some foreign group out to make a name for themselves, hoping to "up" their notoriety quotient by tangling with The Unbelievables? Could this be the aforementioned "Stews" Clark noted last week?

Time to hunker down and see what we can come up with. 

In the meantime, it appears Thursday could quite possibly be one crazy day ...

We're Wild About Harry ...

All the tributes are nice, there's no doubt about that. And, as you might gather, there are a bevy of them.

But I'd like to switch gears for a moment and offer something by contrast - one of The Unbelievables favorite things to do when we defeat ne'er-do-wells, something I don't think we've shared previously.

We leave them a nice little present while they're wallowing in the misery of their defeat.

Each of us - Jeff, Clark and myself - enjoy playing the song "One" while we walk off the scene, leaving them to lick their wounds.

Psychologically, it's one more punch in the gut. And an appropriate one at that. You can imagine it being difficult to recover from a good old fashioned Unbelievables ass kicking any time of day or night. It's even more difficult with the iconic tune dancing 'round your head while you're holding it in your hands trying to make the throbbing stop. Poor bad guys.

Now, while one might thing the popular Three Dog Night recording would be the go-to tune, it's not. Each of us have our favorite versions, none of which is that particular one. 

Jeff's? The Aimee Mann rendition. (Who knew he was a sucker for Aimee Mann?!?)

Clark? He prefers Filter's take on the tune which is ... interesting to say the least. (There's a twinkle in his eye each time he puts this one on for Henri Petit. With the little twit flailing wildly after being chucked through a window to the waiting pavement below, "One" fades off in the distance. in. Can you imagine that? It's devastating, to say the least ...)

Me? I'm old school: I like the Harry Nilsson original ...

Those poor, poor bad guys ...

A Hive Of Scum And Villainy part 2

It's true, getting away to San Diego once a year to frolic with the Comic Con folks is pretty much his thang. What he doesn't know is that Jeff and I planned to show up and surprise him there this year. That scheme ran into a couple of snags though.
First, I got to town and talked my way into an extra key to his hotel suite at the impossibly posh San Diego Grand Plaza Terrarium. I changed into a perfect and brilliant disguise and went to his room. However, when I got there, I found a would-be assassin lying in wait. Tsk. As Unbelievables, there's never a time when we're truly safe from ne'er do-wells. Anyway, thanks to the top-notch security system at the San Diego Grand Plaza Terrarium, I'm able to show you exactly how I took care of the situation.
If you think that was wacky, just wait until you hear Jeff's story!

A Hive Of Scum And Villainy

Want to know where one of the world's most dangerous pantheons of deviousness resides? Where hundreds of ne'er-do-wells and schemers who wish to put the "bad" in badness meet up?

Beautiful San Diego, California.

In mid-July at the southern tip of the state smack dab in the middle of "America's Finest City" there's a little shindig known as Comic-Con International which showcases a festival of all things geek in nature.

Originally fueled at its core by the once lowly comic book, Comic-Con has morphed over the years into a spectacle welcoming dork interests, nerd attractants and cosplay weirdos for years. And it's really played up to television and film promotion in the last 10 showings, too. Enough hype to fill your wazoo, enough private parties to choke a horse, enough panels and detailed workshops and art shows to please any passerby. Add it all up and you have a 4-day orgy that brings out the heretofore socially stunted contingent of the world's population in unparalleled numbers.

But ...

Comic-Con isn't just for the geeky fan or casual observer. Oh, no.

Underneath it all is a not-so-secret playground for the criminal element, where bad guys glean ideas for new and innovative monkey business to foist on an unsuspecting public. Where they blueprint their next nefarious plan for world domination. Where they can hobnob and rub elbows with other fiends to network their skills and knowledge. Simply for the benefit of their over-sized delusions of grandeur.

Yep. Comic-Con. Bad people's paradise. 

Let me show you some examples, both brilliant and ... well, not so brilliant of their work:

Some wannabee villains think an unsuspecting public will fall for just about anything ...

Ummmmm ... no.

Clearly an aged and underhanded baddie who just doesn't know when to call it quits.
(As evidenced by her "cleverly disguised" motorized wheelchair.)

 Again: No. (*yeesh*)

Talk about "working it."
Even good guys like me are impressed with this kind of dedication.

Hello, Ladies!

 See what I mean about delusions of grandeur?

 As a bad guy wannabee,
if you think you can get away with putting a burger on your back
and using it as some sort of evil bomb or propulsion unit?
You've got quite a way to go in the R&D Department ...

No question which side of the fence this guy is on ... 

Obvious villains.

I again note the dude with the burger on his back a few photos up: 
It's back to the drawing board, folks.

Yes, it's obvious this woman doesn't have anyone's best interests at heart.
But, she's not the concern.
See the dude in the back giving the "thumbs up" at her?
He's a clear candidate for evil.

Now, while this Smokin' Joe may appear to be a badass,
you have to applaud his honesty.

I'm saddened to report fellow Unbelievables Clark and Jeff weren't able to accompany me on this (not so) little reconnaissance venture. But rest assured they'll weigh in just the same.