Pearl

The story of Pearl goes back to 1934 in Boise City, Oklahoma. Her grandparents owned a ranch not too far out of town, but, at the peak of the dust bowl, they had to cull the herd. They lost everything. Pearl's family packed up everything Henry Fonda-style and they made their way to California. There, Pearl's grandmother had a younger sister, named Pearl, who was a cigarette girl at the Copacabana Club. It didn't pay much, but she let the family stay with her in a little studio apartment until they were on their feet. Pearl's grandmother found a job as a seamstress at MGM, and her grandfather found a job as a line cook at a diner. It wasn't the high-life, but they pulled through. After the war, the family re-settled in Oregon, and as a tribute, each successive generation named the first-born girl "Pearl". 

Now, you'd think that with a story like that, one would be proud to have such a name, but not Pearl. She's in her twenties and she feels it makes her sound like a granny. As with many Millennials, she doesn't care much for what isn't an Apple product, and is quite resentful of her parents. Why couldn't she just be Jessica or Taylor or something normal? It's something she obsesses over quite a bit, actually... Well, come to think of it, she obsesses over pretty much everything. She's kinda like that. Obsessive, I mean. She is organised to a degree which is beyond anally retentive. (If you were to give her a coal suppository, she'd poop out a diamond). However, she's pretty creative too. By making liberal use of her local dollar store, she makes hand-made glittered file organisers and sells them on etsy. Who says you can't be both orderly and fabulous?

Randolf

Randolf was raised by two English professors in a small New England town. He was given the false impression from a young age that everyone should care about how he feels, so he became a poet. Since High School, he has been publishing the pointless drivel that comes out of him in whatever rag he can find. There seems to be an audience for the crap he writes, but it is mostly made up of other “poets” publishing in the same low-rent pits of narcissistic literature periodicals. To wit:

Flower of Winter by Ràndolf – (Of course, he doesn't use his last name, and adds gratuitous accents.)

Today

I am the apostate

I blaspheme with her touch

The warmth of her sigh

Is a bloom under the solstice.

Long, long night

Lonely no more:

The visions I once had

Are now at home in my temple.

And yet, the guilt

Wilts

As a flower of winter

I mean: what the hell does that even mean? It's like David Lynch is sending texts to himself about... pleasuring oneself? Is he cheating on himself? I don't get it.

Anyway, back to Randolf. Chances are he'll also get his PhD in English Lit, once he finishes his MA, and then get a similar job to his parents (though through an endless string of course loads, never actually getting tenure - that's just the way the wind blows these days). And so the cycle continues.

Udo

Remember that European metal band from some years ago (From, I want to say: Denmark?) that had that really big power ballad? Well, the drummer had an older brother, Udo, who is still resentful for his brother's coke-fueled sex rampage that was the 1997 world tour. While his brother was touring the world, Udo had to stay at home and take care of their ailing mother. He had to drop out of school, abandoning his dream of becoming a lepidopterist . Thankfully the mother got better – turns out her veganism was making her anaemic – and he got a decent job as a night custodian at the Lego factory (so yeah, I was right: totally Denmark). He has to frequently change mothballs in the urinals, but that's as close as he gets to his dream. However! Just this weekend, though, he received a surprise visit from his estranged brother, who, in a bid for reconciliation, is sending Udo to a one-month intensive butterfly seminar in Borneo this summer.

Darren and Chaz

Although Chaz and Darren both grew up just a couple of blocks away from each other, they represent very different versions of the modern Australian man. Since high school, Darren stayed in Wodonga. He's a hard working, salt-of-the-Earth kind of fella. Since technical college he's worked as a mechanic at the local Holden dealership. He listens to Slim Dusty, and cheers on his West Coast Eagles (his dad is from Perth). He and Liz have been together for seven years, now. Maybe this Christmas he'll propose.

Chaz, on the other hand, is a complete tosser. After finishing his year 12 at a private institution, he took a gap year. Actually, it was more of a “clap” year. Whilst backpacking through South-East Asia, he left behind a trail of venereal disease with mostly English and American hostel-dwellers. Now in University, having changed majors six times, he might actually graduate next year. In sports history. Not in engineering like he told mommy and daddy...

Mandie

When Mandie was in high school she smoked so much dope. I mean: So. Much. Fucking. Dope. Since the age of fifteen, she has been pretty much constantly high. She thinks her late teens were pretty good years, but it's hard to tell, as it is all pretty much a haze. She thinks she remembers dragons somewhere in there, but that's probably just the summer she followed Phish around on tour, and lived on a steady diet of shrooms and peyote. That was when she was dating Taz (if you can call it that... it was when she was whatever filthy hippies who form a couple do: that). Since then, though, Mandie decided to open up her own store. She sells karmically-aligned gemstones, vegan cookies, and, medicine. And by medicine, I mean weed. She's not rich, though, because she has to pay child support to Taz, with whom she adopted a child while they were together. Well, 'adopted' isn't quite right... it was just one of those World Vision sponsor a child things, but she's way too baked to clue in on that, and Taz has been milking thousands out of her for years. See, kids? This is why you should just say "No!" to drugs. And stay in school. Probably that, too.

McGurley

McGurley was a hard-nosed, hard drinking detective for twenty years. He played by his own rules, and always got the job done. Anyone who knows him knows you just don't fuck with McGurley: with a name like that, you learn to stand up for yourself pretty damned early if you want to survive in the school yard. In 2009, McGurley found out his Lieutenant was on the take from the Russian mob. His Lt. threatened him, so McGurley killed him. In prison, the Russkies sent some guys to shiv him. So he killed 'em too. You just don't fuck with McGurley.