THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN CHAPTER XIII:  A TEE BONE MAN CLIP SHOW

Incognito!  Without his mask, nobody recognized the superhero named Tee Bone Man browsing the vinyl at the record store.  And without his helmet, nobody knew it was Superdekes himself currently working his way through the rock section.  There he was, in the flesh, studiously looking for Kiss bootlegs.  Vinyl only.  Superdekes doesn’t do CD.

“Hey Deke, check this out!” said Tee Bone in his civvies, next to Superdekes in the H section.  “Helix!  Does this remind you of anybody?”

Deke grabbed the Helix record from his friend’s hands.  “Yeah!  Southern Ontario rock!  Breakin’ Loose!  You know who really liked this album?  That Brainiac guy from down south, remember him?”  Tee Bone nodded in the affirmative with a heartfelt smile.

Just as Deke held the record, a store clerk could be heard shouting, “Hey, we’re all out of Helix!” to the manager in the back.

“I remember those guys…Brainiac gave us that sweet Lego Deke’s Motorcycle for Christmas!” said Deke as he gazed upon the vinyl.  “I’m gonna get this one.  Brainiac says it’s their best album.”

Tee Bone continued to flip.  “Yeah, but he also puts Black Sabbath’s Born Again as his favourite album of all time, so take everything he says about music with a grain of salt,” reminded Tee Bone.  “Still, I sure am glad we saved those guys from a Sasquatch last year!  Solid group of fellas, those Southern Ontario guys.  ‘Sausagefesters’ is what they called their group.  Not sure what that means.”

 

“Not sure I wanna know,” answered Deke.  “That was so early in our adventures!” he reminisced.  “You had just started wearing a cape, against my advice, and I didn’t even have a flying motorcycle yet.  The paint was still fresh at Deke’s Palace.”

“Back when you were still bitching that I could fly, but you couldn’t!” laughed Tee Bone.

Deke harumphed.  “I still don’t understand how that happened,” said Deke.

“Now’s not the time for origin stories,” shushed Tee Bone.  “Let’s get back to looking at the records.”

Deke had shuffled over to the A section so an old man could pass by.  He spied from the corner of his eye, AC/DC.  “Hey Tee…AC/DC’s Iron Man 2 soundtrack.  First record we ever played at Deke’s Palace, if you wanna talk about origin stories!”

Tee Bone smiled at the memory.  The first song ever played at the Palace!  He remembered so clearly.  But then another memory came to mind.  “You know what AC/DC really reminds me of?” he asked.  “Australia!”

Deke laughed.  “Oh yeah!  Not that I got see much of it,” he remembered.  “You met that Harrison guy down there, El Moustachio.  That was the time we had to stop earthquakes that were tearing the planet apart.  He helped you find an actual highway to hell and a vehicle hardy enough to handle it!  But I missed that part since I can’t fly…”

“Oh you shush,” chided Tee Bone.  “You finished your flying motorcycle and joined us just in time,” he reminded his friend.  “It was Highway To Hell that was the key album to the whole affair,” he remembered as he grabbed the album from the racks.  “Original Albert productions edition.  Hah!  Little did we expect to run into the great Satan himself at the end of it all!”

“Yeah,” laughed Deke.  “What a knob he is!”

“Total dickhead!” responded Tee Bone.  “And he can’t even hold his liquor!  But that Harrison really proved his mettle down there.  He stood right up to that big red douche canoe.”  He paused.  “Satan seems to have become a bit of a recurring villain in our story, hey Deke?”

“Unfortunately!” answered Superdekes.  “But it all worked out in the end, we saved the world, and Harrison joined Team Tee Bone didn’t he?”

“Pretty much!” answered Tee who had wandered over to compilations.  “Well ho-leee shit!  Would you look at this!” he exclaimed and nudged his best friend, at the record he had just found.  “How rare is this?”

Deke lowered his glasses to better see this record that got his pal so excited.  “Wow!  1972, the official Hockey Night in Canada album.  First ever release of ‘The Hockey Theme’.  Rare, but not holy grail rare,” answered Deke.  “I’ll bet you know what this reminds me of!”

“Hah!” laughed Tee Bone.  “Brad Marchand!  The Rink of Doom!”  Talk about a douche…”

“That guy was more of a big rat,” answered Deke.

“An attention hog!” laughed Tee Bone.  “He went to great lengths to set up a trap for us, try to kill us, and make it appear that it was all just a dream, as some kind of joke?”

“Too many Batman comics,” deadpanned Deke.  “That was one celebrity I did not enjoy meeting,” he sighed.  “But we hardly had a break!  Immediately after getting home from hell, Marchand pulled his shenanigans.  Then right after the Bruins game that followed, that idiot Snowman caught Satan’s attention.”  Deke made his way back to the Kiss section and pulled out Gene Simmons’ 1978 solo album.

Deke began to recall the circumstances.  “Snowman really did it to himself by buying that Gene Simmons Super Duper Vault box set.  He had to build a second house just to store it!  666 CDs of unreleased Simmons songs.  Who the hell would want that?”

“Who the hell indeed!” laughed Tee Bone.  “Our truce with Lucifer didn’t last long, and he sent those Knights In Satan’s Service to kill the Snowman and take the box set.”

“Except he called us!” shouted Deke.  “As if we’re his own personal security service!  And then the box set sucked so bad, Satan left in a huff as if nothing had happened!”

Tee Bone recalled, “He even showed up for a party at my Campground afterwards.  We nicknamed it Devil’s Deck from that point on…”  Tee Bone walked over to the C section and grabbed a copy of the debut Coney Hatch record.  “Take all you got!  Hell’s so hot!” he quoted as he admired the stunning artwork.  The lines were hypnotic.  The colours so deep.  His eyes began to turn glassy as he stared.  His left hand began to quiver.  “Devil’s Deck…Camp…that goddamned rodent…”  The Coney Hatch record dropped to the ground as Tee Bone began to shake.  He placed a hand on the record shelving to steady himself.

He began talking to himself as he stood there shaking.  “Camp…the squirrel ‘squee-ing’ all day and night…I’ll never tell Deke what really happened at Camp,” as if Deke wasn’t there with him.

Deke handed his friend a cold bottle of water, which Tee Bone grabbed and drank thirstily.  “Thanks Deke…sorry about that.  Just a dizzy spell, nothing to worry about.”

“You were talking about Camp and then started shaking!” responded Deke.  He decided to get straight with his best friend.  “Are you ever going to tell me what really happened at Camp?”  All Deke knew was that Tee Bone needed a break after all that non-stop action, and so decided to take a week off at his Camp.  Shortly thereafter, Deke discovered that one of his expensive rockets was fired from Camp to Australia, and that Tee Bone had not been the same since then.  He was jittery, irritable and prone to episodes such as the one we just witnessed.

“I already told you, I got a sunburn,” evaded Tee Bone.  “That can have an effect on people,” he rationalized.

“…Yeah but not half a year later…” Deke mumbled.  “Anyway,” he said aloud, “Let’s keep looking for vinyl.  Can you check Motley Crue for me?  I still want an original Leathur Records copy of Too Fast For Love.”

Tee Bone shuffled over to the M section and chuckled.  “Oooh…I got something better for you than that!”  He pulled a record from the M’s.  “Don’t you still need Lean Into It by Mr. Big?”

Deke took the record out of his friend’s hands and stuffed it into the miscellaneous M’s.  “That friggin’ guy…” he mumbled.

“Your arch nemesis, Common Knowledge, considered by some to be the greatest bassist alive today,” chided Tee Bone.

“Yeah well Geddy Lee might have something to say about that,” retorted Deke.  “Besides, I remain undefeated and I took him down that time single-handed.  Didn’t need your help, fly boy!”

Tee Bone laughed, “You sure didn’t!  Yep, I would say you soundly humbled him that time.  Not to mention you really upped your game as far as your tech and gadgets go.”

“True, I am a genius,” laughed Deke.  “Unlike that prick Common Knowledge!”

Right next to the M section, Tee Bone spied a copy of Led Zeppelin I.  Gazing at the aged vintage copy from 1969, Tee Bone gasped at the price tag.  “Jesus!  This sure didn’t cost this much in 1969!”  Deke’s jaw dropped as he leaned into it to look.

“And we’d know, since we were there!” he answered.

“Right you are!” said Tee Bone.  “Hard to believe we saved all of heavy metal in our time travelling adventure.  Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Aerosmith…all in their primes!”

“Not to mention meeting the ghosts of Dio, Lemmy, Bonham and Hanneman!” exclaimed Deke.  “That has to be one of our coolest adventures to date, don’t you think?” asked the superhero.

“Oh, absolutely,” agreed Tee Bone.  “Top three for sure.  I mean, you cannot understate the importance of what we did.  This wasn’t just saving some rich guy’s Gene Simmons Vault.”, he spat.  “This was saving all of heavy metal for all time!  That Suplee character really had a stick up his ass about good music,” concluded Tee Bone.  “Although we do owe a huge debt to the MetalMan for the assist on that one.  It may even tie into our origin story somehow, if you sidestep the causality loops.”

Deke scratched his head.  “Maybe we can buy this sweet ‘Black Night’ single by Deep Purple for the MetalMan?” asked Deke.

“Hey, that’s a cool record,” said Tee Bone as he checked out the picture sleeve.  “‘Black Night’…talk about epic adventures!  You know the one I’m talking about!”

“Oh, that’s right!  The castle,” said Deke.  “You lost your guitar on that mission.”

“True,” remembered Tee Bone, “But I’ll find a new weapon one day.”

“This was another one of our encounters with Satan and El Moustachio,” said Deke as he looked at the record.  He made room for another shopper who was passing by.

“Great adventure, that was,” said the passing customer.  “Lots of good word play in that one.”  He slipped off into the jazz aisle.

“Word play?  What’s he talking about?” asked Tee Bone.  “Did he recognize us?”

Deke shrugged.  “I dunno, but put on your sunglasses and keep your head down a bit,” he advised.

Tee Bone did as advised and moved to another section of the record store.  Now over by the box sets, there was less of a crowd.  Only those with plenty of liquid currency could afford the treasures behind the glass doors.  And there sat a first run Iron Maiden Eddie’s Archive box set, mint and complete.

“Would you look at that!” exclaimed Deke.  “I know it’s CD, but that’s still a beauty Maiden item right there.  Fortunately I got the Beast Over Hammersmith with my deluxe Number of the Beast vinyl.”

“I’ll bet you can guess what this reminds me of!” laughed Tee Bone.  “Maiden socks!”

Deke laughed.  “Of all the weird things we have encountered, a pair of cursed Iron Maiden socks seemed the least likely!  But then again we’ve run into a lot of weird stuff over the last year.  We could have avoided that whole ordeal if we just listened to that Aaron fellow from Southern Ontario.”

“Yep,” said Tee Bone.  “Lesson learned.  But at least we got to see him and thank him at Christmas.”

“That we did!” smiled Deke.  Man, we had a great Christmas this year.  And you have to admit, that Snowman guy really paid us back for the hard work we did on his behalf.  That Frankenstrat…the Mr. Big songwriting royalties…he’s a generous guy even if he is an idiot.”  Deke spied a vinyl copy of “The 12 Days of Christmas” by Bob and Doug McKenzie behind the glass.  “Nice collectable.  I’ll take it.”

Tee Bone smacked his head.  “I can’t believe that Snowman paid Gene Simmons to promote his WordPress post about the Simmons soda…which was a promotion for Gene Simmons in the first place!”

“Like I said, what an idiot!” laughed Deke.  “And then we had to rescue him from Mars!”

“That was honestly pretty sweet,” said Tee Bone.  “I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you about that secret hangar we built, with functional X-Wing and TIE Advanced fighters on standby.  It was a need-to-know kind of thing, until you needed to know.”

“No worries man,” said Deke as he patted his pal on the back.  “I can’t believe I have my very own X-Wing fighter now!” he gleamed.

“Is that a decided thing??” asked Tee Bone.  “So like, I never get to fly the X-Wing?  I always have to fly the TIE?” he questioned.

“I guess we’ll see!” teased Deke.  “I’m going to get this record,” as he pointed to a vintage John Williams Close Encounters of the Third Kind soundtrack.  Deke motioned to a clerk to retrieve the record from behind the glass.  “Not for my collection,” clarified Deke to Tee Bone.  “I know a couple guys in Southern Ontario who’ll be fighting over this baby.”

“Why not send it to Snowman for his growing collection of Richard Dreyfuss memorabilia?” laughed Tee Bone.  The two friends made their way to the checkout counter.  “In fact, he’s paying for it anyway.”  Tee Bone removed a credit card from his wallet.

“Isn’t that the key to the X-Wing hanger?” Deke asked of the card.

“Not this one, no,” answered Tee Bone.  “This is Snowman’s actual credit card.  It fell out of his pants when he was buried on Mars.  And this shopping trip is his payment for us having to save his butt again!”

Deke laughed some more.  “I won’t say a word!”  He grabbed a few magazines from the rack to add to the Snowman’s generosity.  A Classic Rock retrospective on Neil Peart, a Rolling Stone expose on Tommy Lee being abducted by aliens, and a Metal Edge featuring a hot new all-female Van Halen tribute band out of California.

After paying, the two men stepped out into the crisp Thunder Bay air.

“Great record store!” cheered Deke.  “Remember when this place used to sell drones and remote control cars?  I’m sure glad they closed and this record store opened.”

“Me too,” agreed Tee Bone, “Though even that brings us right back to our origin story, doesn’t it?  Now let’s go have a Scotch back at the Palace.  I got a bottle of Stewart’s I’ve been saving since the day I got my super powers.”

“Are we ever going to learn how you got your powers and I didn’t?” asked Deke as he sat on his flying motorcycle.

Tee Bone exposed his cape from under his winter jacket and prepared to fly.  He winked.

“Yes!” he answered simply as he took to the skies one more time.

NEXT TIME:  You’ve waited a whole year…it’s time for TEE BONE MAN…ORIGINS!

 

 

 

 

THE ADVENTURES OF TEE BONE MAN:  PHASE ONE

Chapter Zero:  Tee Bone Man – Origins (by LeBrain) Coming March 2023

Chapter One: A Friend in Need (by LeBrain)

Chapter Two: Hell Freezes Over (by Harrison Kopp)

Chapter Three: Hell Ain’t A Bad Place to Be (by LeBrain)

Chapter Four: Tee Bone Man and the Rink of…Doom? (by Aaron KMA)

Chapter Five: The Super Duper Vault (by John Snow)

Chapter Six: Tee Bone Man Goes to Camp (by LeBrain)

Chapter Seven:  The Revenge of Common Knowledge (by LeBrain)

Chapter Eight:  Tee Bone & Deke’s Time Travelling Adventure (by 80sMetalMan)

Chapter Nine:  Castle Communications (by Harrison Kopp)

Chapter Ten:  The Case of the Lost Iron Maiden Socks (by LeBrain)

Chapter Eleven:  A Tee Bone Man Christmas (by all five of us)

Chapter Twelve:  Lost In Space (by John T. Snow)

Chapter Thirteen:  Clip Show (by LeBrain)

 

THE EXTENDED LEBRAINIVERSE

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie vs. Tommy Lee in the Bouncy Castle of Doom! (By LeBrain)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie and the Quest for the Lost Lego (By LeBrain with Harrison Kopp)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Van Heelin’s Canadian Vacation (By LeBrain)

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Van Heelin’s Canadian Vacation Part 2 (By LeBrain) Coming Soon

The Adventures of Edie Van Heelin’:  Edie Van Heelin’s Winter Vacation (By LeBrain and California Girl) Coming this spring/summer

 

The Writer’s Room: Chapter One

The Writer’s Room:  It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like a Tee Bone Man Christmas