Post by Gurgen Hovhanissian on Dec 12, 2016 6:07:18 GMT -5
The Armenian Beast is waiting outside his newly acquired residence, the ruins of what would once have been the NAW library.
He’s whittling something or other with the trusty, and rusty, old machete he doesn’t use all that often anymore, out of a piece of wood. Since NAW had the total lack of foresight to set up shop anywhere near a beach, thus neglecting to supply its wrestlers with the driftwood they so urgently need for all their whittling needs, he seems to be using what appears to be the leg from a sturdy table.
He notices the intrepid reporters. “Ah, there be Bobnfrank.”
“What are you making?” Frank inquired.
Beast thrusts his creation forward and says, “Beast make victory. Bobnfrank like it?”
The piece of wood yet mostly resembles a table leg that the cat scratched up.
“Sure,” Frank affirms, “it’s great.”
“Liar,” dismisses the Beast as he stores his machete in his coat. He drops the table leg to the floor. His paw disappears down the front of his pants. He rummages about for bit. Finally, he pulls from his loins, the key to his domain.
“Safe keeping,” Frank remarks.
“More so than Fort Knox,” Bob adds.
“Goldfinger just took on a whole new meaning,” Frank muses.
By now, Gurgen has managed to employ the key for the purpose it was designed for. He nods for the pair of journalists to follow him.
“Close the door!” he calls out while advancing through some heavy curtains.
“This is new,” Bob observes as he runs his hand along the curtains, “He’s been doing some interior decorating. There have been rock legends in wrestling, correctional officers, professional male models, a fucking mortician and all sorts of nightmarish creatures with face paint and tattoos … but I don’t think we’ve ever had an interior decorator.”
In a mock, slightly nasal voice meant to emulate the commentators Frank muses, “’And The Beast applies his Wall-to-Wall-Carpeting finisher!’ ‘And the crowd goes tepid!’”
They follow The Upholstery Underworlder through another set of curtains. While Frank is still trying to extradite the camera from the drapes, we hear Bob go, ‘What the fuck in the name of fucking hell,’ oddly enough a common phrase when dealing with The Beast.
Frank finally manages to wrest the camera free. The reason for Bob’s miniature outburst is readily apparent. There’s an old-timey, metal bathtub set up in the middle of the room. It sits high on its ornate, lion claw shaped legs. The bath is full of water, the steam curling upward. Languishing in the water are two bonobo apes.
Gurgen tells them, “get out before you get all wrinkled.”
But it is readily apparent that he has interrupted this pair of simians in mid lovemaking and they aren’t quite ready to vacate their sanctuary. To underscore this fact, they simultaneously reach into the water and extract something. Which they, being apes and all, fling at Gurgen.
Gurgen raises his arm to shield himself from the worst of it but otherwise pays neither them, nor their excrement much heed.
He ducks through another set of curtains. Frank momentarily stops Bob.
He points at the pair of bonobo who have resumed their fornication, splashing excrement laced water all over the place. “Why?” he asks, “I mean … WHY?!”
Bob shrugs. “It’s Gurgen … he’s like a gravity well of weirdness. It’s a fact of life. The sun comes up, prices rise, politicians lie … weird things happen when Gurgen is around. Accept it and move on.”
And move on, they do, through the curtains, after the Wayward Weirdling.
Whom they discover soon enough. Evidently, they have reached the inner sanctum of the Beast’s new lair. He has affixed torches to the walls. It’s ok, he tore the fire detectors from the ceiling. There’s a badly worn red carpet on the floor. It has holes and tears in it; and reeks of the sort of stomach turning stenches you might encounter in your average back alley … which it probably where he found it in the first place. The carpet leads up to a platform, cobbled together from whatever he could find. The left side of the podium seems to be entirely made from the tables NAW uses for table matches. Guess there won’t be too many of those in the near future. Atop the platform stands Gurgen’s ornate chair. This, leaning forward on Harley Quinn barbed wire baseball bat, one foot resting atop the briefcase of choice, is where we find The Armenian Beast.
“He’s gone insane!” remarks Frank.
Bob turns to the camera and raises on eyebrow in what could pass as a pretty decent Mr. Spock cosplay as portrayed by Zachary Quinto.
“Well, ok, insane-er …” Frank amends his statement.
The Beast stirs. He raises his paw and bids, “Approach!”
Still looking at the camera, Bob says, “And he has learned a word … for the first time since the Seattle Grunge Scene.”
They comply, half expecting the floor to open up underneath them, sending them plummeting to their doom in a dungeon filled with crocodiles, giant spiders and things yet to be identified by science.
But Beast hasn’t quite gotten around to installing deathtraps just yet.
When he deems them close enough to understand him yet far enough to fully capture his majesty with their little camera, Gurgen instructs them to arrest their advance by means of a raised paw.
He picks up the briefcase. Showing it to them, Gurgen says, “Finally. The time be here. Finally, Beast get to trade ugly old case for chance at pretty, shiny belt. Be Beast ready for big fight? Beast can never be sure. How anyone can be sure of question like that? Just look at Jason Price. He no get lost in frilly things. He see goal and he go for it. He no let anyone or anything stop him. He be strong. He be fast. Jason know thousand moves. And what do Beast have? Beast know thousand kinds of booze! That be something! It no win matches though. Unless Jason wanna make it drinking contest instead of wrestling match … then Beast win for sure! But in regular match … Beast should lose. Beast stand no chance. Peoples always tell Beasty, Beasty be no good. Beasty never mount on anything. And that be true, Beast no like horsies and horsies no like Beast. So, us forget about match. Beast just go crawl into corner and cry self to sleep. Yes?”
He pauses. It takes Bob a moment to realize Gurgen is expecting a reply. “You … want to bail?” he guesses.
Beast bows his head. Bob sees it as a sign of submission and begins to turn to the camera for his closing statement.
Behind him, however, a sound somewhat similar to an elderly jackal having an asthma attack begins to rise. It is the Beast … laughing, presumably … either that or he’s in the middle of a long overdue heart attack.
Bob turns to see that, regrettably, The Beast yet lives.
When done laughing, which takes a while, given that Gurgen is a charter member of the league of the easily amused, and he find this an excellent joke, he finally states, “That be what people say.”
“O…okay,” Bob stammers. Judging by the visual daggers Gurgen flings at him, Bob figures this was not his time to speak.
“People also say Gurgen no have long to live after Pripyat power plant. It be … erm … one … two … erm … MANY! Yes, it be many year later now and Gurgen still no be dead. It just smell that way. Peoples say Gurgen never win matches in ring.”
He taps his cherished case of brief.
“Seems like Beast win matches just fine. And of course, peoples says Beast never have chance against Jason Price. What Bobnfrank think? Peoples be right? Gurgen gonna get ass kicked?”
At the risk of speaking out of turn, and thereby forfeiting his life, Bob says, “Well, he IS the champion …”
“Well, if Jason no have belt, there be little point in Beasty taking it from him, now is there? Boys think Jason gonna kick Beastly ass? Maybe Beasty make Jason kiss the Beastly ass. Beasty wash it special for Jason, maybe even put on fresh underwear!”
Beast gets up prompting Bobnfrank to fear that he will demonstrate the cleanliness of his underwear.
To their brief delight he picks up the ornate chair instead. That thing must weigh an absolute ton. Which begs the question, is he going to crush them with it?
But no, he settles for pumping it above his head a few times. A man of his disposition is not suited for sitting idly for all too long, baring the involvement of vast amounts of wodka. He just needs to offload some excess energy. In mid pump, Beast gets a hankering. He holds the chair aloft with his left hand while he digs the ever present bottle of wodka from his coat and takes a sip that would put many a man under for the evening.
Energy offloaded, Beast plops the chair down again and resumes his regal position, though leaning forward now.
Frank moves closer to get a more intimate shot, and better sound.
“Boys see … Beast be no stranger to fights. Others fight for money. Others fight for glory … or for kisses from cute girls. Others fight to prove a point. Beast believe, this be why Jason be in ring. Jason wanna show world that Jason be best. Beast admit, yes, right now Jason BE best. But, Jason wanna know why Beast fight? Yes, sure, Beast fight to prove others wrong and the money be nice, and Beast no mind the kisses from the girls. But above all, Beast fight because … it be only thing Beast know to do. Beast been fighting so long, against wrestlers of all kind, against assholes in bars, against cops and senators and judges back in Armenia. Hell, Beast even fight Death himself. Beast no remember what else there be. But Beast no mind. Beast fight in the bars and Beast fight in the street and in the backstage. Beast fight in the ring. Beast never surrender!”
Gurgen beckons Frank closer still. He pulls the habitual bottle of wodka from his coat and, for once, an actual glass. He pours himself a triple double and sloshes it about, not spilling all that much, as if it were anything other than the cheapest gut rot he was able to track down.
“So, Jason, step into the ring with Beast. And Jason use all his fancy moves on Beast. Jason beat Beast until Jason’s hands hurt. And then, Jason kick Beast til feets hurt. And then, when Jason be tired and ring be smeared with Beastly blood. Then, it be Beast’s turn. What Jason can do to Beast that have not yet been done million times? Nothing. What Beast can do to Jason?”
Frank advances further still until the entire shot is taken up by hairybeastface.
Gurgen grabs a hand full of beard. He shows it at the camera. “Jason tell Beast, Jason know what beard taste like? No?”
He glances at the wadded up tangles mess. Things move around in there. Things science has yet to name.
“After Holiday Fear … Jason know what beard taste like.”
Beast sits back, prompting Frank to zoom out.
“And then …” He makes the usual belt-goes-here gesture wrestlers are so fond of making, “peoples have one more thing they can say Beast no deserve.”
He throws his head back and laughs a deep rumbling laugh that probably registers on the Richter scale. Hell, knowing Gurgen, he probably nicked the Richter scale and uses it to eat lentils off of.
Frank beings making his closing shot when we hear Bob shout, “Oy, That’s my iPhone!”
A tiny monkey like creature darts across the floor, clutching an iPhone 4 to its chest. It scampers up Beasts legs and seeks refuge in the beard.
Bob advances on the beard, but Beast arrest his progress with a paw to the forehead.
“Bob scare Aye-aye! Bob be nice to Aye-aye.”
Still held at arm’s length, Bob tries to grasp the beard but his arms are a good deal shorter than Beast’s.
“But he took my iPhone!” his cries, muffled by the paw, come forward.
“Aye-aye give it back when Aye-aye be done with it!” Gurgen insists, “Bob no be greedy!”
“He’s dialing, he’s dialing, stop him!” Bob shouts, “He’s probably calling his buddies in Madagascar! I only have $2.54 of credit left on that thing! Stop him!”
Frank zooms in on the Aye-aye. Indeed, it seems to have figured out how to unlock the ancient iPhone.
Doing some figuring out of his own, Frank determines the shoot has had its best and terminates the recording.
After a brief moment of nothing on screen, the Aye-aye runs into view, still clutching the iPhone 4. It keeps swiping the screen. As he runs past, we get a brief glimpse of the screen. Oh, how cute, he’s playing Candy Crush. Seriously, I’m developing a drinking problem from watching Beastly promos.
He’s whittling something or other with the trusty, and rusty, old machete he doesn’t use all that often anymore, out of a piece of wood. Since NAW had the total lack of foresight to set up shop anywhere near a beach, thus neglecting to supply its wrestlers with the driftwood they so urgently need for all their whittling needs, he seems to be using what appears to be the leg from a sturdy table.
He notices the intrepid reporters. “Ah, there be Bobnfrank.”
“What are you making?” Frank inquired.
Beast thrusts his creation forward and says, “Beast make victory. Bobnfrank like it?”
The piece of wood yet mostly resembles a table leg that the cat scratched up.
“Sure,” Frank affirms, “it’s great.”
“Liar,” dismisses the Beast as he stores his machete in his coat. He drops the table leg to the floor. His paw disappears down the front of his pants. He rummages about for bit. Finally, he pulls from his loins, the key to his domain.
“Safe keeping,” Frank remarks.
“More so than Fort Knox,” Bob adds.
“Goldfinger just took on a whole new meaning,” Frank muses.
By now, Gurgen has managed to employ the key for the purpose it was designed for. He nods for the pair of journalists to follow him.
“Close the door!” he calls out while advancing through some heavy curtains.
“This is new,” Bob observes as he runs his hand along the curtains, “He’s been doing some interior decorating. There have been rock legends in wrestling, correctional officers, professional male models, a fucking mortician and all sorts of nightmarish creatures with face paint and tattoos … but I don’t think we’ve ever had an interior decorator.”
In a mock, slightly nasal voice meant to emulate the commentators Frank muses, “’And The Beast applies his Wall-to-Wall-Carpeting finisher!’ ‘And the crowd goes tepid!’”
They follow The Upholstery Underworlder through another set of curtains. While Frank is still trying to extradite the camera from the drapes, we hear Bob go, ‘What the fuck in the name of fucking hell,’ oddly enough a common phrase when dealing with The Beast.
Frank finally manages to wrest the camera free. The reason for Bob’s miniature outburst is readily apparent. There’s an old-timey, metal bathtub set up in the middle of the room. It sits high on its ornate, lion claw shaped legs. The bath is full of water, the steam curling upward. Languishing in the water are two bonobo apes.
Gurgen tells them, “get out before you get all wrinkled.”
But it is readily apparent that he has interrupted this pair of simians in mid lovemaking and they aren’t quite ready to vacate their sanctuary. To underscore this fact, they simultaneously reach into the water and extract something. Which they, being apes and all, fling at Gurgen.
Gurgen raises his arm to shield himself from the worst of it but otherwise pays neither them, nor their excrement much heed.
He ducks through another set of curtains. Frank momentarily stops Bob.
He points at the pair of bonobo who have resumed their fornication, splashing excrement laced water all over the place. “Why?” he asks, “I mean … WHY?!”
Bob shrugs. “It’s Gurgen … he’s like a gravity well of weirdness. It’s a fact of life. The sun comes up, prices rise, politicians lie … weird things happen when Gurgen is around. Accept it and move on.”
And move on, they do, through the curtains, after the Wayward Weirdling.
Whom they discover soon enough. Evidently, they have reached the inner sanctum of the Beast’s new lair. He has affixed torches to the walls. It’s ok, he tore the fire detectors from the ceiling. There’s a badly worn red carpet on the floor. It has holes and tears in it; and reeks of the sort of stomach turning stenches you might encounter in your average back alley … which it probably where he found it in the first place. The carpet leads up to a platform, cobbled together from whatever he could find. The left side of the podium seems to be entirely made from the tables NAW uses for table matches. Guess there won’t be too many of those in the near future. Atop the platform stands Gurgen’s ornate chair. This, leaning forward on Harley Quinn barbed wire baseball bat, one foot resting atop the briefcase of choice, is where we find The Armenian Beast.
“He’s gone insane!” remarks Frank.
Bob turns to the camera and raises on eyebrow in what could pass as a pretty decent Mr. Spock cosplay as portrayed by Zachary Quinto.
“Well, ok, insane-er …” Frank amends his statement.
The Beast stirs. He raises his paw and bids, “Approach!”
Still looking at the camera, Bob says, “And he has learned a word … for the first time since the Seattle Grunge Scene.”
They comply, half expecting the floor to open up underneath them, sending them plummeting to their doom in a dungeon filled with crocodiles, giant spiders and things yet to be identified by science.
But Beast hasn’t quite gotten around to installing deathtraps just yet.
When he deems them close enough to understand him yet far enough to fully capture his majesty with their little camera, Gurgen instructs them to arrest their advance by means of a raised paw.
He picks up the briefcase. Showing it to them, Gurgen says, “Finally. The time be here. Finally, Beast get to trade ugly old case for chance at pretty, shiny belt. Be Beast ready for big fight? Beast can never be sure. How anyone can be sure of question like that? Just look at Jason Price. He no get lost in frilly things. He see goal and he go for it. He no let anyone or anything stop him. He be strong. He be fast. Jason know thousand moves. And what do Beast have? Beast know thousand kinds of booze! That be something! It no win matches though. Unless Jason wanna make it drinking contest instead of wrestling match … then Beast win for sure! But in regular match … Beast should lose. Beast stand no chance. Peoples always tell Beasty, Beasty be no good. Beasty never mount on anything. And that be true, Beast no like horsies and horsies no like Beast. So, us forget about match. Beast just go crawl into corner and cry self to sleep. Yes?”
He pauses. It takes Bob a moment to realize Gurgen is expecting a reply. “You … want to bail?” he guesses.
Beast bows his head. Bob sees it as a sign of submission and begins to turn to the camera for his closing statement.
Behind him, however, a sound somewhat similar to an elderly jackal having an asthma attack begins to rise. It is the Beast … laughing, presumably … either that or he’s in the middle of a long overdue heart attack.
Bob turns to see that, regrettably, The Beast yet lives.
When done laughing, which takes a while, given that Gurgen is a charter member of the league of the easily amused, and he find this an excellent joke, he finally states, “That be what people say.”
“O…okay,” Bob stammers. Judging by the visual daggers Gurgen flings at him, Bob figures this was not his time to speak.
“People also say Gurgen no have long to live after Pripyat power plant. It be … erm … one … two … erm … MANY! Yes, it be many year later now and Gurgen still no be dead. It just smell that way. Peoples say Gurgen never win matches in ring.”
He taps his cherished case of brief.
“Seems like Beast win matches just fine. And of course, peoples says Beast never have chance against Jason Price. What Bobnfrank think? Peoples be right? Gurgen gonna get ass kicked?”
At the risk of speaking out of turn, and thereby forfeiting his life, Bob says, “Well, he IS the champion …”
“Well, if Jason no have belt, there be little point in Beasty taking it from him, now is there? Boys think Jason gonna kick Beastly ass? Maybe Beasty make Jason kiss the Beastly ass. Beasty wash it special for Jason, maybe even put on fresh underwear!”
Beast gets up prompting Bobnfrank to fear that he will demonstrate the cleanliness of his underwear.
To their brief delight he picks up the ornate chair instead. That thing must weigh an absolute ton. Which begs the question, is he going to crush them with it?
But no, he settles for pumping it above his head a few times. A man of his disposition is not suited for sitting idly for all too long, baring the involvement of vast amounts of wodka. He just needs to offload some excess energy. In mid pump, Beast gets a hankering. He holds the chair aloft with his left hand while he digs the ever present bottle of wodka from his coat and takes a sip that would put many a man under for the evening.
Energy offloaded, Beast plops the chair down again and resumes his regal position, though leaning forward now.
Frank moves closer to get a more intimate shot, and better sound.
“Boys see … Beast be no stranger to fights. Others fight for money. Others fight for glory … or for kisses from cute girls. Others fight to prove a point. Beast believe, this be why Jason be in ring. Jason wanna show world that Jason be best. Beast admit, yes, right now Jason BE best. But, Jason wanna know why Beast fight? Yes, sure, Beast fight to prove others wrong and the money be nice, and Beast no mind the kisses from the girls. But above all, Beast fight because … it be only thing Beast know to do. Beast been fighting so long, against wrestlers of all kind, against assholes in bars, against cops and senators and judges back in Armenia. Hell, Beast even fight Death himself. Beast no remember what else there be. But Beast no mind. Beast fight in the bars and Beast fight in the street and in the backstage. Beast fight in the ring. Beast never surrender!”
Gurgen beckons Frank closer still. He pulls the habitual bottle of wodka from his coat and, for once, an actual glass. He pours himself a triple double and sloshes it about, not spilling all that much, as if it were anything other than the cheapest gut rot he was able to track down.
“So, Jason, step into the ring with Beast. And Jason use all his fancy moves on Beast. Jason beat Beast until Jason’s hands hurt. And then, Jason kick Beast til feets hurt. And then, when Jason be tired and ring be smeared with Beastly blood. Then, it be Beast’s turn. What Jason can do to Beast that have not yet been done million times? Nothing. What Beast can do to Jason?”
Frank advances further still until the entire shot is taken up by hairybeastface.
Gurgen grabs a hand full of beard. He shows it at the camera. “Jason tell Beast, Jason know what beard taste like? No?”
He glances at the wadded up tangles mess. Things move around in there. Things science has yet to name.
“After Holiday Fear … Jason know what beard taste like.”
Beast sits back, prompting Frank to zoom out.
“And then …” He makes the usual belt-goes-here gesture wrestlers are so fond of making, “peoples have one more thing they can say Beast no deserve.”
He throws his head back and laughs a deep rumbling laugh that probably registers on the Richter scale. Hell, knowing Gurgen, he probably nicked the Richter scale and uses it to eat lentils off of.
Frank beings making his closing shot when we hear Bob shout, “Oy, That’s my iPhone!”
A tiny monkey like creature darts across the floor, clutching an iPhone 4 to its chest. It scampers up Beasts legs and seeks refuge in the beard.
Bob advances on the beard, but Beast arrest his progress with a paw to the forehead.
“Bob scare Aye-aye! Bob be nice to Aye-aye.”
Still held at arm’s length, Bob tries to grasp the beard but his arms are a good deal shorter than Beast’s.
“But he took my iPhone!” his cries, muffled by the paw, come forward.
“Aye-aye give it back when Aye-aye be done with it!” Gurgen insists, “Bob no be greedy!”
“He’s dialing, he’s dialing, stop him!” Bob shouts, “He’s probably calling his buddies in Madagascar! I only have $2.54 of credit left on that thing! Stop him!”
Frank zooms in on the Aye-aye. Indeed, it seems to have figured out how to unlock the ancient iPhone.
Doing some figuring out of his own, Frank determines the shoot has had its best and terminates the recording.
After a brief moment of nothing on screen, the Aye-aye runs into view, still clutching the iPhone 4. It keeps swiping the screen. As he runs past, we get a brief glimpse of the screen. Oh, how cute, he’s playing Candy Crush. Seriously, I’m developing a drinking problem from watching Beastly promos.