Progressive Loyalists, Incorporated

THE BEGINNING

How Hell Froze Over

i"No matter what you should make some friends in life. Because sometimes you're just useless enough that you need someone to help you."

- Sam Laskey's Tip of the Day/i

CHAPTER I

My Mind Is Clearer Now

In a seedy basement near the southeastern regions of Arizona - a little dried-up wasteland of paradise that was great ninety percent of the year and hot as an oven the rest of it, like a wet towel hanging over your head - a man solely by the name of Gregg Martin, a socially outcasted teenager, was tapping away on his computer and waiting to update his vlog. A scrawny twig who forged his personality through hard rock and an intense liking for thrash metal, he was no more than five foot two with a boy's slenderly frame and hair the color of well roasted toast; he always seemed to have a look of calm on his face despite his headbanging ways of life.

Gregg lived in the western regions of the town of Mesa: the main thoroughfare didn't amount to much, and the population in itself was very low. Gregg naturally found it to be likable for the most part, but disliked its view on music; by that, he meant that if bands such as Nickelback and Born of Osiris would ever put out something good he would shoot himself. He didn't understand why the deaths of band members from shitty bands were viewed so badly by people who didn't know or love him / her - as a matter of fact, he or she probably escaped from a worse fate: mainstream. He missed the time when the music was complex and actually somewhat structured; not pompous, overplayed pop songs with vocalists who sing in that whiny voice like one of their testicles hadn't dropped yet. He missed the days when the band members actually counted and were all important to the foundation of music; not where the bassist, drummer, and any other band members did what they did best - i.e. not fuck anything up for the vocalist / guitarist and stay in the background. One would think that after a while, there had to be some form or level of maturity, depth, and experimentation in the mainstream scene, as there was before. Logically and theoretically this makes sense; but this is modern day music we're talking about. Gregg knew people like Fred Durst who called himself 'Polar Bear', the mind that named his band after the act of four guys jacking off on a cookie and whoever displays the most stamina ends up eating it. How Gregg was thirteen years old and there were thirty or forty year old rappers who were more self-absorbed, egotistical morons than he would ever be. How people like Eminem would still maintain what made them good, if only this time he threatens his wife with a chainsaw in one line, instead of making an entire song about her murder ; the evolution of 20 year old Eminem to the 30 year old Eminem. So the end of the world and the sole reason the universe was created? Music. That was what it was to Gregg.

Gregg had originally been from a short-grass prarie town of Oklahoma. Not one of the bigger, more populated and successful cities like the capitol; the small town of Fairview, Oklahoma. So small the population didn't even reach three thousand, last he checked. He hated everything about Oklahoma, from what he remembered of it. He hated the weather of it, which was either freezing or humid as hell for a couple months, then shaking the tops of imountains/i with its thunderstorms or tornadoes. He hated the musical style of it - of course - which never stopped playing primitive jazz: not the classical jazz of New Orleans, which was vivid and full of life; the kind that got stuck in your head and you wished you could blow a hole in your head just to get it out of your head. It was kind of annoying and always reminded him of the Negro National Anthem just played in loops - if the NNA was composed by Heathen while they were high. Not the ye olde classic Heathen when they were truly riding the lightning, the Heathen then reminded you of sour milk: spoiling over time. He hated the sports team - The Oklahoma City RedHawks, the 'RH' for 'Really Horrible'; he hated the bigass trucks everyone drove, and hated the radio stations and the FM and AM bands that played. He especially hated that he had to live there for eleven whole years of his life - it was like living in a different country altogether. If there was an end of the world that WASN'T modern music, it would probably be Oklahoma.

Gregg was actually a pretty friendly guy, all things considered: when he moved to Mesa, he got along with the city and the school - Mesquite - very well. He was a very attractive young boy and adjusted to new life better than most would have. Mostly because he didn't follow the testosterone-laced altar of every man he crossed. Most of them would be one of those guys Gregg always saw in a music video or rap song - wearing a ridiculously baggy outfit, their pants sagging out low you could read the tags on their underwear and wearing their hats backwards like something out of Limp Bizkit, who seemed to perfectly display the blatant example of unfounded arrogance in the history of history to Gregg (by the way, Fred Durst is 40). But he nonetheless got along with a lot of people, and found himself warming up to Arizona. Anything was better than Oklahoma, at least.

But one day Gregg's chance came. Suddenly, his Facebook page buzzed with the life of a new update. He figured it was another pointless Twitter-esque update: such as 'I ATE A SANDWICH TODAY'! He'd always sit there staring at the screen for a good number of minutes at the pure stupidity of it. How stuff like that got fifteen likes a minute was baffling to him. He clicked on his page to see who it was. It was a teenager by the name of Sam: there was no picture of his actual face like most of his friends had - who, by the way, took pictures of themselves in the bathroom because they couldn't get other people to do it for them - and Gregg had added him to his friends list before, but never took note of it. He read it.

iGregg can I ask you a question?/i

bYes./b

iHave you ever heard of Pink Floyd? You know, the greatest band ever?/i

Gregg really had to pause then. He swore his allegiance to that one day - most of the people he talked to barely knew who these bastards were. He called up a line of text.

bYou actually know about them?/b

iYes - I think they were great on Dark Side of the Moon. Of course I also love Rush and Soundgarden, but they take the cake. Oceansize is a close one as well./i

An amazed pause. bA man of good taste. How you doing Sam?/b

iGood. Currently jamming to RIOT!/i

bDid you say Riot?/b

iYeah, thundersteel and all. Why?/i

bI think we're gonna get along. Meet me at school tomorrow./b

iAwesome m/i

Gregg then jumped out of his chair and hollered in cheer. He then decided to write an article to UpperUnctionShireBollocks about modern day music, who reviewed it in the forums and accepted it. It became popular in a matter of minutes, and then Gregg celebrated by taking all of his mom's Asking Alexandria albums, which she always listened to blocking out Gregg's jamming of Hardline's album double eclipse, and then threw them all out the 2-story window in his bed room and also throwing an expensive cock lamp out there as well, then eventually took his dad's Nintendo Wii and threw that out the window.

Eventually Sam met Gregg as he promised. A compact man with a brown, flapping comb over and a pair of stylish aviators - he seemed like a pretty nice guy despite needing a little bit of a haircut. The day he met him, Sam was wearing a rigid Cynic t-shirt in the style of their 1993 album and, tucked and belted at the waist, a pair of blue jeans with the stitching of the Rise Against symbol into the fabric. He also was wearing ash gray Converse shoes and seemed to be comfortable with his look - Gregg knew he instantly liked the guy. They got into a conversation about their experience with music and rock and some cool video games.

However, just when things were seeming really bright, a group of Neanderthals started to walk down the pathway where they were. They looked as ridiculously bad as possible - their skin pockmarked with acne scars, their hair ridiculously curled like something out of the Jonas Brothers (ironic consdering they made fun of them), and they smelled too badly of lemon air freshener: as in they had sprayed perfume on everything crease of their body. They bore a huge trench coat jacket and bore a Nickelback shirt, spangled with little bits of color all over it. They were talking loudly over the music sawbuzzing out of their headphones.

"Ugh look at them dude." Sam muttered. "I prefer to listen to music that doesn't sound like it was made by Suicide Silence."

Saying that your music sounded like that band meant that you really sucked. "I second that notion."

"Somebody should put a stop to it."

The next thing you know, at least one or two hundred kids were gathering around them. Several of them tried to start a conversation with Sam and Gregg, but the former seemed focused on the Neanderthals listened to their music. "Hey what are they playing in their iPod?"

"I think it's Muse."

Sam paused. "Muse?"

"Yeah, why?"

That was all Sam needed to hear. He then looked at the idiots - they were taking turns picking on a little twig of a kid: by forcing him to sing karaoke to an N-Sync and Backstreet Boys collaboration song. Gregg and Sam instantly felt bad for the kid and why he had to be beaten by the idiots who were playing that filthy jizz juice music. Sam took a stand to these idiots, who were now singing Nickelback.

"Hey!" At precisely this moment, they turned to him. "Who is that kid?"

"Oh, him?" The idiot asked in that stupid voice of his. "That's just Stefano. Why?"

That was the last straw. Unleashing the fury of a thousand ginger-haired demons - fueled and powered by a mix of sweat, hard rocking, and the tears of Sam and Gregg's girlfriends who only wanted them to be normal - they exploded into action and took the musical devices away from the Neanderthals and snapped them in half. The latter - Gregg - then spun around in a fury of rage and flying plasma and metal, and tackled two of them to the ground, then was able to avoid every punch they threw back at him and deflect it with the precision of Neil Peart pounding on his drum set. With teenagers flying everywhere like the cover of his favorite Slayer album, Sam tortured the leader of the pack by putting in his iPod and playing his favorite Yes song, which caused the Neanderthal to howl an animal sound of pain, a combination of nausea and exposition to actually good music. And then spinning around grasping the teen in a full nelson, Gregg threw the dude into his whiny girlfriend's arms - who sobbed and blubbered like a little kid. He was now the victim of a move Sam and Gregg both knew from headbanging to Pearl Jam while watching Rapid Fire in their mother's bedrooms.

"Sorry bout that, Stefano. I'm pretty sure you coulda taken them." Sam said, wincing a little, helping the teen up. Stefano was the toughest guy he knew and had good taste in music, and he didn't want Stefano to be . Nobody deserved that kind of torture.

"Yeah your right, dude. Dude gregg was a monster."

After sharing a bunch of dudes and fists, the greatest band in the world was born: sharing their friendship in a proud allegiance of rock and good music.

END OF CHAPTER I