Part 63
"The Chosen Rejects! Sign us please!" screamed a way-too-enthusiastic Robin as he stole the mic from Satan's poser-punk form. Back to silverchair stuff
"Robin you doofus...we're here for DREAMER, not you and your dumb British wank friends. So sit your ass down, boy!" said Ash.
At this point, Carson had taken back his precious microphone and continued being an ass. "Um...anyways...joining us this afternoon is dreamer, here to promote her new single 'MTV is Full Of S**t and Carson Daly Wants My Ass'! Give her a round of applause!"
At that dreamer shyly walked up to the large TRL screen...followed by the entire Bathroom Pioneer legion. "Carson, it's not MY single. It's OUR single. We're a band called the Bathroom Pioneers, you see. I'm just the lead singer. You know, I sing lead? But to you...that makes me main spokesperson and center of attention. See...I would be nothing without my band here..."
Carson was very perplexed at this statement, as were the rest of the brain-washed adolescents at MTV studios. However, dreamer continued. "Yeah, anyway, MTV sucks ass. You guys need lives. Go find them. Leave the pop forces and join us to destroy all demons of popular culture! Ooh, this would make a good song...."
So dreamer, in order to write down her new song idea, passed the mic to the person standing next to her, who just so happened to be the infamous KelNino. "What's up New York! No answer uh? All too dumb to comprehend the words that come out of my mouth? Guess so. In that case..."
"Ha...let's not OVER-exploit them, Kelnino. I mean, come on. They come to watch Britney Spears on a different TV set. That's exploitative enough. It's also cruel and inhumane," said Melinda.
During all of this, Ada was in the back room waiting with Sky. She was going to secretly put one of her carnie road shows on national television. But before she could...Cher ran in!
"You little brats! You're ruining TRL and the pop world! You're messing up everything! I was planning on making a comeback...again...and look what you're doing! Trying to turn everyone against pop! Well, I'll just have to..."
However, when Cher hit the lights, her plastic body melted into the floor and TRL resumed...
"So, why don't *you* tell us about this band thing, Kelnino?" Carson asked, not knowing what to make of a group of intelligent teens, college kids, and the guys from silverchair, who he really wanted to interview again because they're so darned hilarious.
"Well, I'm in this other band, Yo Mama, down in Alpharetta," she grinned, "and even though we all kind of knew each other already, we all just happened to be in the venue bathroom at a gig, and you can read our full story on dreamer's website, but let's get to the video now!"
"Yeah, yeah...okay." Carson fumbled with his mic and turned back to the camera. "Okay, here's the world premiere of "MTV Is Full of S**t and Carson Daly Wants My Ass," only here on TRL..." The camera faded into a screen and the video played. The pioneers intently watched the twisted scenes of the video, of dreamer plucking Daniel's eyebrows and of the rest of the band attempting to climb out of a deep grave even though its walls were covered in slippery chocolate pudding. dreamer was especially pleased about the close-up shots of her moshing and thrashing in her platform shoes. Except something flashed across the screen that bothered her...
"Hey...wasn't that Heath?" dreamer looked closer and the scene flashed again. She clearly saw Heath on an operating table, with Angie leaning over it. "Damnit, Angie!" She turned around and pinned Angie againt the wall. "You put that potato chip scene in my video!"
"But it was so cool!" Angie whined. dreamer groaned angrily and set Angie down. The video ended and silence descended on the Times Square room. The pioneers worried that everyone hated their video...until one punk rocker in the audience stood up and started applauding. Another guy stood up and yelled his approval, then a few girls, and before the pioneers could say "Hallelujah" the entire room of teenies was clapping and cheering. Even Carson was impressed. Carson calmed down the audience, which was in a full uproar.
He turned back to the pioneers. "Wow! That was kickass!"
"Uh...thanks," dreamer said. She had been caught off guard by the audience's enthusiasm because she hadn't expected such a sudden acceptance of the video's harsh visuals.
Carson stuck the mic in dreamer's face and the bathroom pioneers crowded around it. "So..." Carson continued, "How did you come up with that scene of your bandmate putting a potato chip in another member's brain? That was genius! Was it meant to symbolize the society's leader's plastic atempts to control their followers through the control of popular culture? The the potato chip is supposed to be the control, even though it won't work? Or is that the gyst of it - that attempts to control young people will always fail? Huh? HUH?" He inched the mic closer.
"Uh..sure, I guess so..." Kelnino stuttered. "Although I think we just wanted to put a potato chip in Heath's brain..."
"Hey!" Heath piped up. "Is that why my mouth always tastes like sour cream and onions?!"
"I told you that you should have used Lay's Classics, Angie," Junta snottily said.
"Shut up!" Angie pouted. "I started a teen craze...this has got to give us some great exposure for the band! Next thing you know, kids will be putting chips in their OWN heads! Heheh, dreamer, I WIN! Haha!" dreamer took Carson and chucked him at her.
"That was so cool dreamer, teach us all how to do that," Carson said as he peeled himself off the floor. "Meanwhile, we'll take you to the number 2 video, Britney Spears "[insert song here, I don't know any right now]." The pioneers decide to make a big gesture during the song, so they took their last package of eggs (rotten ones) and chucked them at the TV screens. Yellow ooze dribbled down Britney's face. Suprisingly, the TRL crowd cheered its approval. The kids all dropped their signs and started attacking Carson.
When the rubble cleared, Carson was left dead on the floor. The pioneers stood by in befuddlement. But they had a bigger problem on their hands...even though their CD was flying off the shelves, and MTV was going to sue dreamer for Carson's death.
dreamer paced the floor in the band's hotel room, pulling out chunks of her reddish-brown hair. "What are we going to do?" she whimpered.
"dreamer, dear, calm down," Nathaniel said. "We'll get through this."
"Are you sure?" she asked.
"Of course! We're the Bathroom Pioneers!" Ben, after consuming all the alcohol in the minibar (he claimed it was as a stress reliever), was much more enthusiastic than before.
"But *how* do we do it...that's the issue..." Junta mused.
Suddenly, Kelnino jumped up. "I've got it! We'll call in expert witnesses!"
"Like who?" rockstar and Ash chorused, confused.
"Rock stars who've been in similar situations. Limp Bizkit, for one - we all know the Woodstock mess was mostly the promoters' fault and - oooh, wait, the Australian police are still investigating the Big Day Out tragedy..." Heath piped up.
"I don't think that's a good idea, Heath," dreamer sighed. "No court will respect that band, and didn't we already take care of Fred Durst?"
"Well, we *could* use Daniel's Junior Mad Scientist chemistry set to bring him back, if we had to."
"What about the Smashing Pumpkins? Didn't a girl get crushed in one of their pits once? And Pearl Jam. Maybe we can get them to help us out," Ada said.
Across the borough, at MTV headquarters...
"...To put it simply, we've done the math, and Carson's demise has been the best thing to happen to this network in the past two years. The kids were getting sick of him, which is why the audience killed him that day. And we've had over twenty thousand complaints on the phone lines today about the lawsuit. I suggest we drop it."
The network execs took a vote. The lone holdout finally gave in but, in his own words, "*only* because it really wasn't the band's fault."
The phone rang in the pioneers' hotel room...
"Hello?" Robin mumbled through a mouthful of banana. "Uh-huh..." He handed the phone to dreamer. "It's for you."
"Hello?" she asked, breaking into a cold sweat. "Yes, this is she...Really?...Seriously?...Oh, thank goodness! Thank you. Goodbye." She hung up and sighed in relief, then turned to her fellow pioneers with a huge grin on her face. "We're in the clear! And MTV asked us to host TRL tomorrow!"
So, the pioneers showed up at the studio the next day to survey *exactly* what they had to deal with. "Hmm..." KelNino rubbed her chin as she used her supreme powers of decorating. "Okay, this wall is gonna be black, that far wall red, and the wall in between the two is to be black with red streaks to resemble blood smears...Hmmm...and I want the floor to be replaced with dark concrete for a rough appearance. Oooh! And the chalk outline of Carson's body is to be left there! Hey, Janitor! Leave that there! We'll put a piece of glass over that chalk outline and then pave around it. That will be really cool! And we'll put posters up of classic bands on this partition...and posters of up and coming bands on the wall across from it. And during the show our special guests can write obscenities on the back windows with erasable markers! Hell Yeah!" She shook with excitement.
"Wow, KelNino! This room is gonna be great! Hey, can we make all the guests wear all black?" Robin asked.
"Great idea! Except not all black every day. We can have a 'Black Friday' every weeks, when everyone has to wear something really dark and gothic to get into the studio..." KelNino thought out loud.
"Ooooohhh...Aaaaaaahhh..." the pioneers said in unison, thoroughly awed by KelNino's decorating genius.
"And we can have a piercing contest...to see who has the best piercings...ooh! And a tattoo contest-"
"Okay, KelNino. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. You run out the store and get all the supplies you need while we learn how this place works, okay?" dreamer said.
"Yes Ma'am!" Kelnino grabbed Daniel's keys and took off out the door like a shot.
"Can she even drive?" Sky asked after Kelnino had ran out.
"She can drive a golf cart..." Kearbear noted.
"Oh dear."
"Oh, s**t!" Daniel yelled as he took off after her. Within seconds he was trying to pry the keys out of her hands.
"It's my car, Kelnino! And you can't even drive!"
"So what's your point? We're in New York, no one's going to notice!"
Ada, who had been looking out the window, yelped "Wait! Don't drive!"
"Why not?" Daniel and Kelnino asked in unison.
"Come here, you have to see this." They looked out the huge studio windows to see a huge morning traffic jam.
"I guess that settles that," Kelnino said. "I'm not driving in that kind of traffic!"
"I wouldn't let you anyway," Daniel smugly replied. "Why don't you take the subway? It's more convenient in New York anyway."
"What?" Kelnino shrieked. "You're telling a poor defenseless 15-year-old from Alpharetta to just get on a subway in mean old New York City with all the mass serial psycho killers and stuff? Do you have it in for me, Daniel? What kind of person ARE you?!"
Daniel turned bright red. "Uh...never mind then. I've got a better idea." He whispered something to her, and they both turned to face Robin...