Character Profile - Mick

"Drunk or sober, Mick is the only guitar player alive who could handle what we were doing. I mean, personally I think Mick is the greatest guitar player in the history of rock, but I’m biased. What I do know is that we auditioned about thirty people, and none of ‘em could hack it. And it wasn’t just that we were replacing an essential component to the band, or that we had a bunch’a people who were good players but shitty human beings – I really genuinely liked most of the ones who came in. But when it came down to playing the actual songs that the band had written, any replacement of parts sounded wrong." - Angel

Michael 'Mick' Rodriguez was originally created to be the antagonist of the Valerian's Garden subplot. In the original incarnation of the band, he was the singer, and Angel was his girlfriend, the guitar player - slash - songwriter. The crux of the conflict was going to be the fact that Mick was taking all the credit, while Angel and her best friend TJ (Angel, TJ, and Mick were the only three names set in stone from the start) lamented the fact that they were overlooked, though Mick had the charisma to carry the spotlight.

Slowly and carefully, Eli would have convinced Angel to try to sing, herself, and the band would have continued as a foursome. However, after my initial brainstorm, I realized that the whole point of the conflict was the fact that Angel needed to 'find her voice,' so I decided the ultimate irony would be to make her the singer. She was now singing, and Mick, while still her boyfriend, was playing guitar.

Another evolution took place when I decided that the story did not need a black and white rendition of good and evil inside the band proper; it needed to have five separate personalities with strengths and weaknesses all their own. Mick's ego was jettisoned and projected onto their manager, Mick's friend Eddie. His main problem was now chronic alcoholism. Still, his purpose was to cause friction at the beginning of Eli and Angel's relationship, and then fade out.

However, I like the idea of redemption. He showed up two months later, clean and sober, simply wanting another chance. Since then he has been the iron will of the Garden, dedicated to the point of fanaticism. This is partly due to the fact that he is now playing with a focused mind, and partly due to his own guilt over what happened during his alcoholic days.

He was born in Los Angeles and lived most of his life in the surrounding communities. His parents were highly dysfunctional, and his father was also a severe alcoholic, constantly out of work. His mother kept the family - Mick and a younger sister, Julia - clothed and fed by working multiple minimum wage jobs in between his father's spotty employment.

Mick quickly lost interest in school, and officially dropped out at seventeen. Through his three and a half years of highschool he excelled in his music and music theory classes, but languished in all his other classes. All he wanted to do was play music. After dropping out, he started sneaking into the area clubs to hang out with the local bands and listen to them warm up. He fast talked his way into a job as a guitar tech for local Led Zeppelin tribute band Time and Space at the age of eighteen, and from there was a fixture in the scene. Mick earned a reputation as a sought after session/replacement player through his quick learning and hard drinking. It was through Time and Space that he met Ed Carlson, who would become the first manager for Valerian's Garden.

One day, he got a call from a friend named Marcus Claude about a bunch of kids who lived across the street from him. Two guys - brothers - and a girl. They were always talking about starting a band, and now that they had a little money saved for gear, they were getting themselves going. First, they needed a new guitar player, and Mick was the first person Marcus thought of.

It was lust at first sight between himself and Angel. He was entrenched in the scene and could have any of the random women that hung around the bands that he wanted, but none of them offered anything of substance. Angel was a different story - she wasn't part of the scene. She wasn't a loud party girl. She took drugs and she drank, but her priority was on the music that TJ, Rob, and herself were creating. Also, the fact that she was more introverted than the girls he was usually around presented an irresistable challenge to him.

Angel thought he was everything she was looking for. He represented the ultimate dream for her - he was doing what he loved without regard for what anyone else thought of it. The fact that he blended with the rest of the band so well and seemed to get along with TJ cemented it for her. It was nearly six months after their first paying gig that the honeymoon was truly over.

Mick's main problem was that he was suddenly in decent money, compared to what he grew up with and what he was used to. Having lived well below his means for years, he spent the extra money on extra vices, and before too long he was drinking all the time. When sober he was quiet and thoughtful, but when he was drunk he would often become loud and abrasive, and verbally abusive. This was a sharp contrast to Angel and TJ, who would get loud and silly when on something.

Part of the reason that Mick's problem was allowed to get progressively worse was the fact that Rob's problems were far, far worse. As bad as he sometimes got, he was always able to work. Additionally, they could see what he was doing. Rob kept a lot of his use to himself and the drugs he was on were far worse than alcohol. Of course, the result of this is that by the time Rob was out of the band and Sex and Nine had joined, they were a well - oiled machine except for Mick's continued drinking.

After he was fired, I thought about how this affected the dynamic. Now, Angel was both singing and playing guitar, and therefore her mobility was cut. This was the very dynamic that I wanted to avoid when I first moved Angel to vocals. I wrote up a scene where Mick contritely called her and asked if he could return to the band. He did not make any mention of resuming their personal relationship; by this point she was firmly entrenched with Eli regardless. As originally written, they voted Mick back into the band for two shows and decided that he could stay. Since then, that scene has been modified to be referred to in flashback instead of written out, and has been modified to include the fact that the night Mick was fired was the last time he drank; the firing was a wake up call to him. He had played with a few people in the inbetween time, but it was never the same, likewise, Valerian's Garden as a foursome was never the same.

Since then, he has earned his place as the guts of the band, to go along with Angel's soul and TJ's heart. He spent several years in a self - imposed penance where he agreed with all of the band's decisions, even the ones he disagreed with. He almost never spoke up for himself during band discussions; the only time he ever voiced and held his own opinion on anything was when it came to how he was to specifically play certain songs.

Mick just kept his head down and played.

Physically, he was based on Slash, with slightly shorter, less 'big' hair and no hat. The rolled up flannel shirt, the cigarette hanging from his lip, and the low slung guitar were all an homage to Slash. In addition, Mick's details as an 80's style rocker cemented my continuing quest of having every member of the band look like they belong to a drastically different genre.

As it stands, Mick is second only to Angel when it comes to how they want to play their concerts. Angel and Mick continually challenge each other to play one more song, despite how exhausted the rest of the band may get.

If anything should ever arise to challenge the future of Valerian's Garden, it's possible that Mick would take the first bullet, even before TJ, even before Angel.