Pop Tarts
By
Brian Lovestar
Copyright © 2015
www.brianlovestar.com
Introduction
Brian Lovestar has always loved the 1980s. In writing ‘Pop Tarts’ he has created the ultimate tribute to it. Join him as he reunites 80s pop favourites Tequila Sun in your newest, filthiest and frothiest guilty pleasure…
Legal Notes
First published in Great Britain in 2015.
Brian Lovestar has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
This is a book of fiction and, except in the case of historical fact, any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
No part of this publication may be reproduced without the prior consent of the copyright holder.
Cover image by MILA Zed @ Shutterstock
Copyright © 2015 Brian Lovestar
All rights reserved.
Preface:
“Growing up in the 1980s, grown-ups would harp on about how special the 60s were and I didn’t get it. The music sounded basic and TV and film seemed mostly in black and white. But everyone has their ‘special decade’ I’ve since realised and mine was certainly the 80s. The 70s was just a little before my time and I totally rejected the 90s. The fashions, TV and music just weren’t quite in the same league – and they’ve dated badly too – whereas the 80s are still fresh and cool. So when it came to writing my second novel, of course it was the only place I wanted to go back to.”
After the release of his debut novel ‘Dream Myself Alive’ in 2014, Brian Lovestar decided on a new concept for follow up ‘Pop Tarts’. “I released ‘Dream Myself Alive’ on paperback first,” he says. “It felt good to hold the actual physical copy in my hand. But for ‘Pop Tarts’ I decided to release it digitally first and to stagger the release in volumes. The idea was to generate interest and promotion in the build up to the fully fledged release.”
Three volumes later and the paperback omnibus edition is finally in your hands. “I’m excited to be in print again,” Brian says. “It was good to release the eBooks and kind of felt like I was writing the novel live and able to get instant feedback, but a lot of people still like the feel of something hard in their hands.” Not that ‘Pop Tarts’ doesn’t come without its fair share of puns…
It’s about Felix, an 80s pop star who - to achieve another fifteen minutes of fame - has to reform the band that made him a star… the only problem is they haven’t spoken in over 20 years and generally hate each other.
Soap operatic cliff hangers with supernatural elements to boot ‘Pop Tarts’ really does serve up all the main ingredients of this year’s newest and most exciting guilty pleasure.
“The main character Felix is trisexual,” Brian reveals. “As in he’ll try anything once and usually thrice, just to make sure.” He’s joined by sultry starlet Holly Wood, stage schooled from the uterus; and hermaphrodite-with-a-heart Cherry Fontaine, and together they endure an adventure that spans two decades of time.
There’s also the bonus treat of actual music by the fictional band themselves. “The band are called Tequila Sun,” Brian says. “They have their own Twitter and Facebook pages, as well as a Sound Cloud page where you can listen to the tracks mentioned in the story. They aren’t the greatest of recordings but they seem almost authentic - and it would have been a shame not to use them.”
The novel is multiple genre crossing. “It’s a retro parody of the 80s, with an infusion of black comedy,” Brian reveals. “Anyone who read my first novel will know I have a twisted sense of humour. That is only evident tenfold here. This book is definitely not for the faint-hearted or easily offended. But if you’re as sick and twisted as me, you’re going to absolutely love it!”
And here’s hoping you do…
Chapter 1. (The Lion Wakes Up)
The man on TV smiles and his teeth sparkle. They are a lighter shade of white so brilliant, you feel the need to grab for your shades. His face is lobster red perma-tanned, his jaw chiselled to perfection. He looks plastic fantastic. And he introduces himself:
“Hello and welcome to ‘I’m a Has Been, Please Don’t Feed Me to the Lions’. I am your host Dexter Anton and tonight we see former 80s heart throb Felix from pop band Tequila Sun face off against sex siren Jade Astley, the sultry one from Pink Champagne and one of the Ants from Adam And. But first, here are the highlights from yesterday’s live feed.”
The VT plays and we see Felix and Jade sitting in a cage in the jungle. Felix is wearing a loin cloth, Jade is wearing a coconut bra and a Hawaiian hula skirt. Both are covered in war paint.
“Where is the Ant?” Felix asks.
“He’s still upset over losing Harry from Spandex Belly in the crocodile swamp yesterday,” Jade replies.
The camera cuts to the Ant sat huddled in a corner by himself, rocking backwards and forwards and humming, then mixes back to Dexter in front of a live studio audience. His look of put upon sorrow soon turns into a delighted smirk and he reads his next line right off of the tele-prompter:
“Who will be next to sashay his or her has been little tushie out of the limelight tonight? Find out now in a round we like to call ‘Pass the Bomb’.
Felix, Jade and the Ant are sat in a semi-circle on a giant inflatable banana. Felix is holding a parcel which looks to be a gift wrapped cartoon-style bomb, complete with a lit dynamite fuse sticking out of the top. He looks tentative but not half as freaky outy as the Ant, while cold-as-ice Jade is as cool as a cucumber.
When 80s pop classic ‘The Lion Sleeps Tonight’ starts playing, he passes the parcel of dynamite to Jade who then in turn passes it to the Ant and so on and so forth.
After a few rounds the music suddenly stops and the Ant is left holding the parcel, which then explodes into smithereens, the Ant along with it.
The feed cuts back to the studio, where a proportion of the audience are jeering and heckling.
“Not enough blood that time, eh?” asks Dexter. “Vultures the lot of us, I mean you, heh heh.” The baying crowd chuckles.
“So we are now down to the final 2 survivors and it’s a straight face off between Felix and Jade. Who will be crowned the winner of ‘I’m a Has Been, Please Don’t Feed Me to the Lions’? Find out now in ‘The Bridge of Doooooooom’…
Felix and Jade now stand either side of a rope suspension bridge, above a hundred foot steep drop into a fiery gushing lava.
Dexter fires off himself, again from the tele-prompter: “In this game each contestant has to answer questions from their former 80s heyday. Get a question right and you can move five steps over the bridge. The object is to reach the middle first. However get one wrong and face dire consequences.”
Felix and Jade gasp while Dexter raises an eyebrow with a wicked glint.
“Felix you’re up first. What year did Tequila Sun have their first and last hit singles?”
Felix bites his nails. He knows the first answer is 1984, but not the second. There was just too much vodka and cocaine. Through a haze of sex, drugs and sausage rolls, he throws out a wild guess: “1984 and… 1988?”
The crowd cheers enthusiastically as Dexter announces he is correct and tells him to move forward five spaces onto and over the bridge of certain death.
Felix breathes a sigh of relief as he does so, and mops some sweat from his brow.
“Over to you, Jade.” Dexter laments.
Jade would be shitting her panties, had she been wearing any. But she wasn’t, as usual. And her ankles were getting a tad cold because of it.
“If you can’t stand the cold, what should you do?”
Seems this is an
easy one for Jade: “…keep out of the fridge freezer!” she sings, almost in key. And joins Felix in the same position on the opposite side of the bridge.
Bubbling blood red lava spits below them and a gust of wind almost knocks Felix off his feet, giving him the heebie jeebies.
“Felix, who had the biggest penis in Tequila Sun? Yourself, Rhino Zagreb or Cherry Fontaine?”
Is this a trick question? Felix knows full well he was the biggest penis in the band, but did he have it? He decides to throw caution - and his ego - to the wind and go with Cherry instead, and earns himself another rapturous cheer and a further 5 space move into the centre of the bridge.
“Jade, who was the biggest biatch in Pink Champagne?”
Dexter’s eyebrows are dancing like a snake at a school disco. Jade seems stumped and befuzzled.
“Well I would say Rita Barker, but it was probably me.”
Dexter rolls his eyes in cheap disdain.
“I’m sorry Jade. The correct answer is Mick Nelson. Adios my little has been.”
Suddenly the bridge panel Jade is standing on gives way and she falls screaming into a fiery death below her.
Production mixes back to the TV studio and Dexter announces on set: “Please welcome our winner of ‘I’m a Has Been, Please Don’t Feed me to the Lions’, star of 80s pop tarts Tequila Sun… its Felix.
The audience reaction is mixed as Felix joins Dexter on stage, looking both terrified and thrilled. Confetti cannons and fireworks go off and the credits begin to roll.
Chapter 2. (Just Felix)
Felix wakes up with a jolt. He gets out of bed and goes to the shower. As he opens the shower door, a woman is showering with her back to him. She turns around and it is Jade Astley of Pink Champagne back from the dead Dallas-style!
“Good morning,” she says, as she yanks him in the shower to join her, clasping him between her heaving bosom and succubus love loins.
As the water hits him he wakes up again, this time for real as his mobile telephone rings by the side of his bed. He feels around for it blindly, still half asleep, burrowed in the pillow and knocks it from the bedside cabinet onto the floor.
He leans over the side of the bed to retrieve it and answer. It’s his agent Max Jacks.
“Felix this is your wake up call,” he says with a hype too fervent – according to Felix - for this time of the morning, even though it’s almost 12 noon.
“Oh Max, thank God it’s you,” Felix stifles through a yawn. “I thought the whole first chapter of the book had just been a dream.”
Max suspects Felix was up partying hard till probably dawn. Usually literally, with a revolving door of blatant floozies.
“Where are we meeting today?” asks Felix. “The Ivy? Have you sent a limo to pick me up?”
It’s the morning after the wrap party for ‘I’m a Has Been, Please Don’t Feed Me to the Lions’ and Felix is hopeful that having won the show, his career is now finally back on track.
He hasn’t really been in the public eye since 1988 when his band Tequila Sun broke up under somewhat acrimonious circumstances. And his crestfallen attempt at a solo career went somewhat tits up in the early 90s.
“I couldn’t get a table,” Max replies. “But I’ll see you in Wetherspoons at 1 o’clock, so get a move on or you’ll miss the number 27 bus.”
The realities of a supposedly glamorous lifestyle hit home harshly. It always amused Felix that the GBP (the Great British Public, as he called them) assumed that if anyone had been on TV just once, they were instantaneously a millionaire for life.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Felix lived in quite a modest apartment just outside of North London, afforded to him only by the godsend of a Christmas hit in 1986 that has been played every year since.
If it hadn’t been for that and the fact he’d co-written it - for co-written read changed a couple of words in a drunken and enthusiastic ad-lib - he’d probably be working his arse off in a fast food restaurant or living in a cardboard box right about now. Time had not been forgiving.
“So what are the plans, Max? Felix asks as he joins him at a table in the local pub. “What have you got lined up? I suppose the phones haven’t stopped ringing?”
“Not quite,” Max replies, stirring a cup of Earl Grey tea, white with no sugar.
Felix orders himself a pint of Strongbow and a packet of pickled onion crisps. How very rock and roll.
“The solo album you recorded in 1992 is back in stock at the pound shop,” Max relays with just the merest hint of sarcasm.
“Better get started on another one then, eh?” says Felix, refusing to let it dampen his enthusiasm.
“They’re not interested Felix,” Max tells it like it is. “Without Holly, Cherry and whatshisname, they just don’t give a damn. They never did.”
Felix is forlorn. He can sing, he’s got star quality and he’s managed to retain his somewhat youthful good looks – this despite two decades of chronic alcohol abuse and nigh on a thousand tri-sexual lovers, as in he’ll try anything once, and usually two or three times, just to make sure.
“But I wrote some new material,” he declares. Actually it sounds more like pleading. And then he suddenly breaks out into song:
“When I first saw her, my heart skipped a beat, I grew seven inches, I dropped my shredded wheat, her hair was golden, her eyes emerald green, to avoid her beauty, you would need a vaccine…”
Max interrupts, looking around in embarrassment. “Very good Felix,” he says. “But would Patience and Rule the World have been as big hits as solo singles?”
Felix is feeling despondent. He looks down at the worn carpet like a scolded child told he isn’t getting any pocket money this week. I could swear there was a pet lip out as well.
“We have to get the band back together, Felix,” Max says. “It’s what the public wants.”
“But I haven’t spoken to Holly or the others since 1988,” Felix declares, and he’s definitely declaring this time.
“Bands are all the rage now,” Max responds. “And everyone loves a flashback to the 80s. What exactly happened that was so bad anyway?”
Felix has a flashback of his own to numerous newspaper headlines that spelt the end for the band:
Tequila Sun Love Triangle.
Felix beds both Holly and Cherry.
Holly and Cherry at war over Felix.
Shocker! Cherry is a man!
Tri-sexual lothario Felix in threesome with midget and blow up goat.
Tequila Sun sets.
“Anyway I’ve booked the band into Rainbow nightclub on the 27th so you have a few weeks to find the girls. Oh and whatshisname too,” Max says referring to Rhino Zagreb, the 4th, remaining and other male member of the band.
“It’s up to you my friend. Would you prefer to go back to The Pig & Whistle working men’s club in Grimsby? Play your cards right and a new record deal could be in the bag.”
Chapter 3. (Entering Holly Wood)
A week has passed and Felix is in the local supermarket, getting his weekly groceries in. He’s depressed because he hasn’t been recognised in at least three aisles and is worried his relit star is already fading.
He notices his old flop solo album on special offer and while trying to get his head round the fact it’s in the buy none get two free section, his mobile phone rings.
“Felix its Max. Any luck?” Max asks, referring to his request that Felix find and reconcile with his former band mates.
“Not a sausage mate,” Felix replies. “I’ve used all my contacts up, called in every favour and was up till 4 in the morning scouring Facebook. I even hired a private detective.”
“Well you only have until next weekend,” Max warns. “Otherwise it’s back to playing your own lookalike in a tribute band.”
Max hangs up. Felix continues shopping in a zombie like trance, picking up some Shredded Wheat then getting the shock of his life when he sees the attractive lady on the checkout. It’s Ms Ho
lly Wood!
It’s also been almost a quarter of a century. How quickly time flies, even when you’re not having fun. Last time he saw Holly she was a pussycat. Now she’s a fully grown cougar. But he still would of course.
Old feelings come rushing back and suddenly the new song he has been writing comes to life in an epic 80s style video with real life accompanying every line:
Verse 1: When I first saw her my heart skipped a beat (his chest bulges.)
I grew seven inches, I dropped my shredded wheat (he does, his trousers bulge.)
Her hair was golden (it glows.)
Her eyes emerald green (they sparkle.)
To avoid her beauty you would need a vaccine (a doctor suddenly appears giving him an injection.)
Chorus: Oh-oh Supermarket Checkout Operator (in her uniform, looking glum.)
Please be my sexual navigator (her uniform transforms into sexy lingerie.)
Check me through (Felix is lying naked face down on the conveyor belt with a barcode on his derriere, she scans him, the till registers 50p.)
I’ll be good for you (subtitle “with added vitamins and minerals” pops up on the screen.)
Supermarket Checkout Operator…
Verse 2: Easy on the eye, but my wallet felt the strain (opens his wallet, its empty of notes.)
Became a shopaholic, threw my money down the drain (empties remaining coins down drain.)
Had to see her almost every single day, she was a walking poster girl for foreplay (Felix opens Smash Hits magazine and she is the centrespread poster.)
Chorus: Supermarket Checkout Operator (Holly steps out of the magazine, and transforms again into…)
Please be my sexual navigator (Holly is now dressed as a lollipop lady stood in traffic, holding a sign up to Felix in his car saying ‘Bedroom This Way’.)
Check me through, I’ll be good for you (those added vitamins and minerals in Felix’s cream has all the pussies purring.)
Pop Tarts: Omnibus Edition Page 1