Time Burrito

9 Rejected Bank Robbery Scenes

It seems like every time they rob a bank in a comic book movie, they need to up the ridiculousness of the bank robbers. Gone are the days of the striped shirt and the dollar sign bag. Move over guy dressed in black with a ski mask. Here are 10 bank robbery scenes you probably won’t see in the next comic book movie:

Historically racist and sexist costume gang. They usually hold a group discussion during the robbery about why some tropes of the past are offensive today. Periodically the main guy will say, “Oh no, you don’t have to agree with me because I’m the guy with the gun.”
Cirque du Soleil gang. Nothing combines art with crime better than one of Vegas’ longest standing acts. Imagine a human ball of people in stretchy body suits tumbling in and breaking apart like a rose petal with guns while a human chain hops over the counter like a living slinky. People will practically want to throw the robbers their money because they’ll be moved and they won’t know why.
Political Parties Working together gang. Republicans and Democrats coordinating their efforts to steal large sums of money. That’ll be the day. But don’t they already do that to the American public (rimshot). I’m here all-night folks!
Reality TV bank robberies. They were too busy attempting to tear each other down that they forgot the value of working together.
Nonprofit Earth first bank heist. The complicated narration of the plan involves the sustainability efforts of the job.

Darrius: Jimmy will burst into the main room with a shotgun but not just any shotgun, a biodegradable one.

Frankie: But are the bullets biodegradable?

Darrius: Of course, the bullets are biodegradable! What do you think? That I’m a monster! The casings are compostable too. Now, Johnny has a safe cracking kit made with completely recyclable plastic.

Frankie: But will it make it to the recycling bin?

Darrius: Are you kidding me! Can you believe this guy! You think we would bring plastic without recycling!

6. Vintage clothing hipster gang. They stand and pose a lot, and eventually the bank pays them to go away.

7. Social media influencers gang. It’s kinda hard to ascertain what exactly this gang is doing but they are somehow getting money for it.

8. Forgotten mascot heist. Aunt Jemima, out of work hatches a plan with the Noid and the Taco Bell Chihuahua. They reach a roadblock in their planning, and there is only one man that can do the job, but he’s been out of the business a long time. They find him in a dingy bar halfway through a fifth of whiskey. Camel Joe turns to the young hopefuls and berates them, “Whaddya want?”

9. Cats. That’s it really. Just bring a cat into the bank and say that he wants money. It seems to work for everything else in a cat’s life.

Music in Novels

A lot of the novel writing advice out there will tell you that writing pop culture and music into novels is a bad idea. The reason behind this advice is fairly solid. First off, it dates your novel. If you were to open a book with Hilary Clinton and Donald Trump references abound, that would squarely put the novel in a bygone area and remove its ability to be contemporary.

I think the same would be true even without references to pop culture. My wife read a novel recently that was set in the 90’s and she was really captivated by how well it portrayed the nineties. People were leaving handwritten notes on people’s doors, and they were writing letters. Later, she realized the reason it felt so 90’s was that it was published in the 90’s! Even though the book was contemporary at the time it was written, it was historical fiction by the time my wife read it in 2023.

The same will be true of anything contemporary that comes out now. While selfie sticks and smart phones will be a defining characteristic of this era, the advances in AI, quantum computing, and everything else will change everything. Will text messaging be quaint like letter writing? I don’t really know. I’m mostly a sci fi writer and not a futurist. A writer, even science fiction ones, take liberties with reality for their storytelling. Think of the Matrix movies. People were used as batteries, that’s not very efficient especially because you must feed them, and whatever was used to feed them could probably be used as a fuel source that doesn’t require keeping humanity alive or giving them the possibility of revolting. That fact doesn’t change that they were fun movies to watch.

Simply put, writers will bend reality for the sake of storytelling. Conspiracy theorists do the same thing. The problem with most conspiracies is they require the commitment of many people to keep them going. Most movie studios can’t make a movie without something being leaked to the public. So, imagine how many people would have to keep the secret about alien bodies, reptiles infiltrating the government, or shadow organizations ruling the world. In order to believe in them you have to believe that anywhere from thousands of people to a small city’s worth of people wouldn’t say anything, or made a mistake, or took picture on their phone, or went drinking and said too much.

The point is, the bigger the conspiracy, the less likely it is to be true because it requires too many people to be committed to its continued secrecy. That’s even harder to believe in the world where we live were information can be sent very far and wide very quickly. However, that doesn’t mean a good conspiracy isn’t fun to think about or isn’t like a good book.

Speaking of books. Check out The Theft.

The Theft

My new book, The Theft, is out now, and this one will be my first ever thriller novel. If you like the Misfits of Carnt or the Time Burrito series, you’ll love this one. It has all the comedy bells and whistles, and there is a shootout in the first chapter, and it just gets going from there. While most of my books happen to be action packed, this one is especially packed as the entire plot happens in twenty-four hours.

I basically conceived of this novel when I was up late at night hearing the music of Street Cleaner coming from the baby monitor. I had this dream where a guy was going through a mall dodging security cameras. When I woke up, the song Daybreak was crackling through the tiny baby monitor speaker, I got a vision of the same guy, bloody, on a beach near a major city, holding a cup of coffee while the song played.

I could not get that image out of my head, so I conceived of a plot for a novel. Then Kindle Vella came out, and I wrote the story. I’m now finally getting around to publishing that book. For those in Kindle Unlimited, rejoice, The Theft will be exclusive to Amazon. For those on other platforms, my apologies, this one has to be Amazon exclusive because of Kindle Vella.

And in case anyone was wondering why was Street Cleaner playing on a baby monitor in the middle of the night? My son for a while would not sleep without listening to Street Cleaner, and if he woke up in the middle of the night without the music playing, there would be screaming. For a moment in history, we literally shuffled Street Cleaner songs all night for the benefit of him sleeping through the night. But knowing that it was unsustainable, we eventually got it to where we listen to four songs every night before bed (which Street Cleaner comes up often).

If you’ve been reading my stuff for a while, you’ll notice that music plays a heavy role in my books. In the Misfits of Carnt, they use music to cast spells. In my first novel published but second one written, Playlist of the Ancient Dead, they use music to open doors in this nightmare factory maze. In The Theft, the narrator thinks of inappropriate songs as the soundtrack of his life.

My original intention was to write the novel quoting song lyrics. I even had a draft of it where the lyrics of Dancing Queen lined up with a brutal gun battle. Sadly, none of the lyrics made it to the final draft. Mainly because I had learned that the music industry is swift to punish copyright violations and even quoting song lyrics without permission is copyright infringement. In addition, Amazon is also swift to punish copyright infringement.

So, if I wrote the book how I originally wanted to write it and indeed had written a few versions of the original draft, I would have found myself smacked down by titans. Perhaps one day, if I’m ever successful enough to afford an agent or whoever negotiates using song lyrics in books, I will release an updated version of this story with lyrics interjecting in the action sequences.

Until that day arrives, I think I did well without the use of song lyrics. Being that I was restricted to title of song and artist, I think I did a good job. I hope you enjoy this book. This one is fun and different. Even if you are here because of the sci fi and fantasy, check it out.

Thank you for being here.

Fantasy Influences of Mine

My two favorite fantasy series are Lord of the Rings and the Wheel of Time. Lord of the Rings will always be up there because I read it as a kid, experienced the late 70s/early 80stastic animated version, and grew up playing DnD which the DNA of the game spawns from the series. I was the right age for attending the Peter Jackson movies at midnight on opening day. Before we had a kid, my wife and I used to watch all three extended editions every year. And yes, I even read all the songs in the books, at least once, and will admit to skipping them in subsequent read throughs.

The Wheel of Time, however, came later in life. Amazon released the first season, and I remembered my high school days when it seemed that everyone was reading the Eye of the World. Knowing that people seemed to love the book series and being that my wife and I had nothing to watch, we watched the first season, and we were hooked.

A few weeks later, my wife downloaded the Eye of the World on audible. I kindly waited until she finished the first book to start because we share an audible account, and a year later we finished all fourteen books including the “15th” prequel book that basically felt like the entire X-Files series “are Mulder and Skully gonna kiss yet?” instead, it was “Is Moiraine gonna make Lan her warder yet?”

It was an interesting journey to experience the entire series in one year. I stopped listening to podcasts, cut out music entirely, and just wanted to get to the next chapter. Even when the series slowed down in the couple of books that were right before Robert Jordan’s last solo authored book, I couldn’t wait to keep going.

Sometimes, I would imagine Michael Kramer and Kate Reading (the narrators of the audiobook) narrating my life. Imagine a commanding male voice saying, “he cracked an egg into the skillet, and it hissed as the goo hit the oil. The fire alarm went off from the smoldering sausages. ‘Blood and Bloody ashes,’ he swore as he entered the disarm code into the wall panel.”

My wife and I used to amuse ourselves by cackling at the idea of Heron marked pens, or in moments of discomfort would say in our best Loyal voice, “but Rand…” We even rewatched the first season that sent us on the journey just to compare notes with what we didn’t know at the time. I was fully immersed in the Wheel of Time when I wrote book 2, Orcs in Portland, and Other Social Justice issues.

While I would say that Lord of the Rings more heavily influences my writing in that it’s been in my brain longer, I would say that Robert Jordan’s series has left an imprint on my writing as well. Jordan hit something that I’ve encountered a lot in my stories, not all the characters are willing participants in the tale.

While Petra finds that she is more than just a pot dealing single mom, and capable of so much more than the role society has planned for her. She wants nothing more than to go home the moment she arrives in the fantasy land. While I find it believable for her to dislike every moment of her hero’s journey. I do believe there would be people out there into the idea of inhabiting a hero’s body.

Enter the character Tim. He is the dweeby kid who plays RPGS and MTG in the library. However, his older brother is the Sport’s god of the school. Which sets up Tim for repeated failure in life as he always attempts to emulate his brother’s success and fails every try out for every team. Being in the body of an elite dwarven crossbowman gives him talents he’s never had before, and it’s too keen on going back to his old life.

So yes, I think some people receiving the call to adventure would be resistant to the idea, I don’t think everyone would be. There are some folks who think the fantasy world is far greater than their own and would be pleased to find themselves in the situation, despite death lurking around every corner.

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How Magic Works in Carnt

Let’s talk about magic. Often, fantasy writers, especially in the world building ones, spend a great deal of time figuring out how magic works in their realm. In the Wheel of Time series there is an entire near religious institution of Aes Sedai who rule politics and shape the world. Magic is gendered with a male half and a female half, and the spell casters channel. While I think gender is being more thoroughly explored in other fantasy novels than in Jordan’s books, the rules of magic are clear, consistent, and an integral to the storytelling.

In RPGs, like DnD, the spell casters either gain their knowledge from books, use inherit power from within like channeling, or are granted the abilities as a divine boon. There are fantasy novels where people master elements like Earth, Air, Fire, and Water. No matter how magic manifests, it’s important to the story.

That’s why I needed a magical system in my books that was integral to the storyline, fit the fantasy/comedy tone of the book, and had clear and consistent rules. That’s why I invented shanneling. Spell casters in the Misfits series needed to be able to sing. I decided pretty early on that the words were not as important as the intent of the spell caster. This allowed me some leeway in the sense that I can do one of my favorite things in comedy of using inappropriate songs to fit the moment. Thus, why Jewel plays a climatic role at the end of the first book.

To give the readers consistency in spellcasting, I decided that each spell was created via intent of the magic user, popularity of the song (which can give it a boost), and performance ability. If Carnt had made it to our world with reality TV shows. I could easily picture American Idol or Eurovision song contest being the wizarding events much like Harry Potter’s Quidditch. In fact, I have one in mind for book 3.

Not only did singing as a requirement for spellcasting fit perfectly in the comedic tone of the series, but it’s perfect for high school as glee club stories are timeless when it comes to that age group. In a way, singers are like spellcasters. Whenever I hear Adelle’s “Hello.” I think of someone missing a dead person so powerfully that they want to break the impassible barrier between the living and the dead. I know that’s not what the song is about but that’s what it evokes for me.

I think most people interact with music in that way. It evokes a powerful emotional response that may or may not be intended by the songwriter. For some people, music takes them back to a time or place. Sometimes, it reminds them of a person important to them. Others, it simply gives them that “feeling.” Imagine being able to harness that connection with a song to use magic. That’s what I wanted to do with the series.

I hope you enjoy reading it as much as I did writing it.