Jesus, where the hell is that coffee? This is not going to make too much sense unless I can pour some of that black, life-giving elixir down my throat, and fast. Hell, the first cup is just to get the heart started, it's the third one that I need to be able to function.

How did I ever get into this? Damn it, I should be lounging on the beach, having my shoulders massaged by some deeply tanned 19 - 25 year-old bimbette. Instead I am here, banging away on this damn keyboard, writing this damn thing for this damn write off. And for what? The 40 stinking cents I will make from it? I've got to be insane. Still, I've committed myself to this task, and I will see it through to the end! And I know that it is Saturday the 30th, because the TV has an international friendly soccer match going on with the announcers speaking Spanish. From the looks of the kits it is France taking on some yellow-clad team. Hang on a sec while I check it out. Ah, it's France against Ghana. This ought to have all the suspense of diarrhea: you know what will happen; it's just a matter of when the cramps hit you. Even though France is using their B- team - there isn't a single soul from their Euro2000 championship team on the pitch, not Zizou, not Djorkaeff, not even Anelka - you know they'll win by at least three. Oh well, futbol is still futbol, so it will do, pig - it will do. Besides, the sun is up, and the mercury's a-risin'. Can it get any better? Sure it can … both the beach and that brown-skinned babe are waiting for me.

More coffee! That's the ticket. Keep it coming, cup after cup. Hell, I'm going to make another pot. Yeah, baby … that New Guinea Peaberry is singing the siren's song to me, and I'm not lashed to any mast. I've got to have more just to stave off The Fear. Oh, it's not here yet, but it's in the mail, that's for sure, and once it hits I'll be reduced to a gibbering wreck, legs and arms twitching uncontrollably and strings of drool running down my chin, while I fade away into that dark corner of my psyche I don't like to visit. No sir, too much introspection is a bad thing, particularly for someone like me. Demons? Hell yes, Pooter. I got demons.

All right, let's get to this while I am still relatively coherent. I figure I've got about another 45 minutes before those damned bats start swooping down on me. You've seen them, haven't you? Black furry things, about six-feet long, each with the face of Strom Thurmond. Don't tell me my nightmares aren't frightening, Tough Guy. But those bastards aren't here yet, so I can plod on.

Ahem: Sequels Suck.

You know, that has to be one of the most obvious statements ever made. Aside from the glaring exceptions of The Godfather Part II and Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn that's about as self-evident as pointing out that Gee-Dub is a deceitful, corrupt, malignant little toad who ought to be boiled in poison oil (and, parenthetically, another outstanding example of a sequel that sucks golf balls through garden hoses. And given how much the original Bush sucked, the fact that his son sucks more has got to be some sort of World Record in sucking). Look, by definition a sequel will invariably suck because it is trying to recapture the lightning-in-a-bottle that the successful original had. Think about it: If the original swallowed, there wouldn't be a need for the sequel, right? So, when something taps that vein with the public that turns them into slobbering consumer-zombies, the greed-heads and exploitation mongers see a chance to mine some more fat coin and pounce in a vain attempt to capitalize on that success. Naturally they can't duplicate the intangibles of the original, because now they are trying to manufacture it. And art don't work that way, Slim. It is perhaps the last refuge of honesty around. You can't fake it there.

But am I going off on too much of a tangent here? Maybe I ought to just stick to the topic. But isn't discussing the statement that sequels suck in a Sequels Suck write off "on topic?" After all, I am engaging in discourse about the subject. That's a good question, too bad there's not a philosopher around for further examination of the premise (Hmmm, I wonder what Hume or Nietzche would say about this? I know Plato would just be interested in how it impacts his appeal to little boys. I'd better get back to the topic at hand now before I get into trouble). Besides, I've got more important things to deal with. Say, that reminds me of a joke: This hillbilly sees his buddy all dressed up in his Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and asks him, "Hey, Cletus. Why's you doin' all gussied up?" To which Cletus responds, "Well, Jethro, I jes' went 'n got back from the doc and he done told me that I was impotent. So, I figger if I'm gunner be impotent I'd had better get to start to dressin' impotent." Get it? The dumb hillbilly mistook the word "impotent" for "important." Have you noticed how today the only groups it is okay to stereotype and mock are the obese and white trash? Think about that for a second, while I get more coffee.

Mmmm, that is some goo-ood coffee! All right, now that I've stood on the proverbial (or is that metaphorical) soapbox to lecture you regarding the evils of faking it and wasted your time with a stupid and irrelevant joke, I can get on with the specifics. After all, Dr. Johnson, my 11th & 12th grade history teacher always said that when writing an essay you start with generalizations and then offer specifics to support your claims. So, I'd better pony up with the meat to go with all these taters I've been serving you, eh? Yeah, I don't want those devious little Eep topic Nazis to tenderize my kidneys for daring to color outside the lines. You gotta watch out for those swine. The minute you start to stray from the lifeless regurgitation of meaningless factoids (" … made from 100% Cordura® Nylon!") or insipid personal experience ("… if it weren't for the fact that it gave little Gomer the shingles, these would be the best diapers ever!") they start to salivate. Sometimes I think these people ought to be introduced to a little thing known as a life, as they obviously take this place way too seriously.

But I digress. The problem with this topic is that there are so many examples of exquisitely sucky sequels to choose from that it's hard, real damn hard to pick only one to focus on. Sorry, that should have read: on which to focus. Never end your sentences with a preposition, Grimey. If you take nothing else away with you from this, at least take that. Ending your sentences with a preposition gives you the appearance of ignorance, and is a sure fire way to get ragged on (yes, Poindexter, I know, I know). Where was I? Oh yes, choosing one example of a totally sucked up sequel. Well, since I am dead sure that this W/O will be over-populated with suckified movie sequels, I think I'll stick to books. After all, if you think about it, from the earliest days of literate cultures, sequels were attempted and, inevitably, failed. I think Joseph Campbell even touched on the existence of this phenomenon in pre-literate culture in his book: The Masks Of Suckified Storytelling Sequels. (Come on, Jasper, give me a bit of credit for working a Joseph Campbell reference into this, will ya?) It is a known fact that the ancient Greeks tried like hell to make decent sequels, but never could make a go of it. Aristophanes blew it with The Dung Beetles, the sequel to his play The Birds, and almost ended up getting the Socrates treatment from the locals (you don't know what the Socrates treatment is? Well, learn some history, Bubba; I'm not here to teach you everything). Good thing for him he plunged himself into a world of perverse sexual practice and mind-altering substances, allowing him to whip out The Frogs nine years later, or he would have been stripped naked, had his head sheaved, and been sent to Sparta on the first chariot out of there. Those Greeks weren't all smiles and sunshine, you know. When provoked they could easily go Achilles or Agamemnon on your punkass. Which just goes to disprove that whole idea of Greeks being soft pansies who are predisposed to musical theater and melodrama (gouging out his eyes, puh-leeze) and bursting into tears if their color scheme became threatened.

What? Agamemnon and color schemes? How the hell did I ever get here? Is this decaf I'm drinking? I have to focus on this. Say it with me: Sequels suck, sequels suck, sequels, suck, sequels suck. There, I'm feeling much better, thanks for your help. I can now continue.

Okay, the last thing I was going on about before I totally spun out of control was how Aristophanes nearly earned himself a hemlock cocktail for The Dung Beetles, but how he salvaged his nads by whipping up The Frogs. Lucky guy, that Aristophanes. Not everyone gets a second chance, and even fewer save their ratty hides with it. Don't believe me? Okay, let's take a look at yet another monumental sucking ancient sequel, the follow-up to The Old Testament. Now, The Old Testament kicked some serious boo-tay. It was chock full of intense sex with lusty broads, incest, deceit, homicide, patricide, fratricide, genocide, depravity, a bunch of old yahoodies tolchocking each other and then drinking their Hebrew vino before going to bed with their wives handmaidens, and some real hell-bent, fire-n-brimstone, olde tyme, hard-core wrath from a totally vengeful, spiteful, jealous, and badasss God. Hell, yeah, Bubba. Every page dripped with blood and reeked of degeneracy. This had it all, Chavo. Rape, pillage, rape, murder, rape revenge, rape, treachery, rape, torture, rape, and rape. This beauty spent over 100 years on the best-seller list for a reason. Seeing the runaway success and the chance to finance a summer home in Sumeria, the publishers demanded more, so, out came the sequel: The Bible, part II: The New Testament (This Time It's Personal).

And what happened? Instead of more of great battles, more sleazy sex, and more bone-shattering wrath-of-God-vengeance that made The Old Testament such a smash, they crank out some whiny, preachy thing, that goes on about how the meek will inherit the earth. In the The Old Testament, the meek would have been hung by their ankles, stuffed full of red peppers, and flogged to death on general principle. But not here. No way, The Bible, part II: The New Testament (This Time It's Personal) is a chick's book. Instead of swords dripping with blood we get a timid character study about some Mama's-boy trying to come to grips with his pre-ordained place in the universe. Instead of stepping into the slave-girls' tent to get Caligula with seven or eight honeys, we get him convincing a high-priced hooker to mend her ways and go straight. Instead of God wiping out entire cities in a fit of jealous rage over the fact that they sacrificed a fat ram to some wood-nymph - killing women, children, and the elderly, whether guilty or not - we get a forgiving deity full of love and understanding. Booooring! The only good part of The Bible, part II: The New Testament (This Time It's Personal) was the end, when we finally got some more of that good old wrathful God - some real hard-core, boiling seas and fire-from-the-skies wrath, too. But it was too little too late, and frankly seemed tacked on as an afterthought in a vain attempt to placate the male 16 to 24 year-old demographic. I don't even want to get into how stupefyingly ridiculous the third installment: The Bible, part III: The Book Of Mormon (Jesus Gets Jiggy With It) is. Still, my point is that The Bible, part II: The New Testament (This Time It's Personal) totally blew when compared to the original, and if it wasn't for the fact that it became some sort of cult classic, no one would even remember it today. I mean, do you remember the sequel to the The Epic of Gilgamesh, Gilgamesh II: Fury of the Hittites? I didn't think so. And you want to know why? Because it was a sequel and IT SUCKED!

I think I made my point. I sure hope that babe is still on the beach, because the day's got a few hours of sunlight left, and my shoulders need some deep tissue massage (nudge nudge, wink wink). Shecky, get the Jet. I am outta here.

********
Thanks to WretchedPyro for hosting this Write Off, and who, despite his own better judgement (and against the wishes of the Epinions community at large) asked me to join the esteemed group of writers listed below. After slogging through this you deserve to be cleansed. Do yourself a favor and read the offerings of these people. I am sure that their contributions will come as a welcome relief, much as the scent of roses comes as relief after smelling 200 pounds of fish rotting in the heat of the summer sun.

alex_isit, bluehawq, bmcnichol, Cartman_2k, David.C, DavidK93, Eplovejoy, Gasjocket214, Gig1221, Gorocco, kenshin-guy, korova, ledomaine, lorendiac, matt_harney, monssfisch, mtbat, officer, Orestes84, patach, rader6795, redmaple, sephiroth2000, Solid_Snake, SParkfan77, WretchedPyro, xeno3998


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