I originally set out looking for a video of "Lord of This World" from the 70s, but only found video of Sabbath performing it during their reunion tour in 1997/98. This, however... wow. The band was still four working-class guys from Birmingham, touring to support their first two albums.
Note the alternate vocals on "Hand of Doom" and "War Pigs," or the (insanely out of tune) instrumental intro to Black Sabbath during which we get a close-up on Tony Iommi's finger extensions he had designed so he could play after having the tips of two fingers cut off in the machine press where he worked prior to the band's success.
Years ago, I had a VHS titled something like "The Black Sabbath Story" that combined interviews with live footage spanning the group's Ozzy era. This particular concert supplied the War Pigs that video presented, and the band's no-frills vintage from this performance always stayed with me because most of what you see live from Sabbath footage is post-Master of Reality, when the band had become huge and Ozzy's fringe was growing longer and longer. Mr. Brown, Sonny and I always theorized that the more cocaine Ozzy used for the performance, the longer the fringe.
There's something insanely intimate and special about this footage. I'm assuming it was released at some point, but I've never seen it (need to look).
The opening track from, in my opinion, the best album Black Sabbath ever recorded. Not only does all the music knock it out of the park, but Sabotage is easily the best collection of lyrics the band ever produced, highlights being "Meglomania," "Thrill Of It All" and "The Writ" (on an album where nearly every song has deep, introspective and philosophical lyrics, most of which were written by Geezer Butler).
NCBD:
Cannot wait for this issue. You'll Do Bad Things is proving to be a bizarre, Slasher/Giallo tribute that has me questioning everything I've seen in its pages so far. Look at that cover!
WTFPFH?'s current solicitations end with this issue, so I'm not sure where we are in the story. Also, because of the recent gap, I just feel lost again. I'll probably wait to start a re-read until I know when this is returning again. I did, however, sign up for Matthew Rosenberg's free Substack newsletter HERE just to see if I can get any updates. Looking at his page, it seems like all the focus is on a book I totally missed called, We're Taking Everyone Down With Us. I love Rosenberg's writing, but with how WTFPFH? has languished for so long, not sure I'm down with jumping on anything new from him yet.
Garth Ennis and Becky Cloonan? Goddamn right I'm picking this up. I'm so happy to see Boom! still doing so well. Not sure how many issues this is going to run, but I'm in just based on the creators alone. I can't remember the last title I read that Ms. Cloonan drew.
Mike Shinabarger and I covered News From the Fallout issue one on Drinking with Comics a few weeks ago, and both of us quite liked it. Looking forward to issue 2. Jeffrey Alan Love's art really makes an impression and seems ideally suited to the story.
The more I hear about Mark Spears' Monsters, the more I realize this is a career-making book for Mr. Spears. I think that's awesome. I also think the book is slowly getting better, uncoiling into something I don't think any of us can anticipate. Spears is drawing from such a broad swathe of comic book character iconography - Universal Monsters, Spy Stories, Grindhouse, and now... Superheroes?
I'm still holding onto Lazarus Fallen issue #1 as I finish a rather large spate of current readings and prepare to deep-dive the original two series, Lazarus and Lazarus Risen, again. I can't believe this book is back and coming out monthly like clockwork! Not a knock on the creators; I've just gone without for so long. And talk about a timely return. A not-so-distant future where wealth is politics? Sound familiar?
Watch:
Last night, K and I saw Michael Shanks' debut film Together, where real-life couple Dave Franco and Alison Brie play a married couple going through issues who encounter an alien substance that begins to fuse them into a single form.
This one is getting A LOT of traction, and it's well deserved. I love that Body Horror has become something of a household word post-The Substance, and Together will likely continue that. And while I'm not the biggest fan of the two leads, both do a fantastic job, as does Damon Harriman, who most will know as Dewey Crow from Justified.
I can't wait to see what Michael Shanks does next!
Playlist:
Faetooth - Hole (pre-release single)
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ghost - Meliora
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Shellac - At Action Park
Type O Negative - Life Is Killing Me
Windhand - Eternal Return
Liars - Drum's Not Dead
Black Pyramid - The Paths of Time are Vast
Ozzy Osbourne - The Ultimate Sin
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Wands
• Eight of Pentacles
• XV: The Devil
Baggage. All the fiery energy of the Knight of Wands, but held back by over-analysis or indecision. Concentration can help. However, it's often difficult to know how to begin that, as concentration is itself a product of Will.
All this seems to shore up this idea I have in my head that I need to take a reboot day and really dig in and clean up a bunch of the unfinished shit in my head to make room for a new concetration generator.
Tomorrow I'm starting 7 Days of Sabbath, but in the interim, I wanted to get this awesome new track by L.A.'s Faetooth a little push. This band landed on my radar with their 2022 album Remnants. This new track precedes their upcoming second album, Labyrinthine, out September 5th on The Flenser record label. Pre-order HERE.
Watch:
I had my second theatrical viewing of Ari Aster's Eddington last night. There is almost no doubt this will be the movie of the year. I can scarcely believe the sophisticated levels of layering in this film. There are levels of insight into the human animal, human society and human ignorance in this film that I'll be unpacking for years.
Eddington is a Western, a Horror movie, and on a very subtle level, a comedy made for people who see humanity the way I do - pessimistically. Ari Aster also crafts one hell of a shoot-out sequence, and has the subtle audacity to pepper it with Looney Tunes-esque visual gags that, if you catch them, will blow your mind. So many disparate elements synthesized into a perfect whole.
The PERFECT 80s Hard Rock "slow" song. Not a ballad, but moody and great lyrics; a case where the kind of broad-stroke 80s hard rock platitudes pay off in dividends.
Watch:
Holy shit! Jason's back!!
I don't understand what the "Short-Form Vignette" description means in terms of where, exactly, this is premiering on Friday, August 13, but I'm cautiously optimistic. Will this be on YouTube? Peacock? Angry Orchard.com?
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Ozzy Osbourne - Bark at the Moon
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Judas Priest - Stained Class
Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance
Drug Church - Prude
Sinéad O'Connor - The Lion and the Cobra
The Dillinger Escape Plan - One of Us is the Killer
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Perturbator - New Model
King Woman - Doubt EP
King Woman - Bury (single)
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Knight of Wands
• O: The Fool
• King of Wands
Started rebuilding my writing routine last night. This is a conscious act of Will that, essentially, is a brand new journey, as all my positive inertia is long gone, and I will have to overcome the entropy of neglect.
The second track on 1991's No More Tears, the album that solidified me as a fan when it came out, and that was so good it actually hindered my acceptance of its follow-up, 1995's Ozmosis.
The guitars on this record are so goddamn gorgeous. I really feel like producers Duane Baron and John Purdell, who had not worked with Ozzy previously, took the sonic direction begun on 1988's No Rest for the Wicked and perfected it, and nowhere is that more evident than when this track starts.
Also, Lemmy's songwriting is all over this record, and I feel like it really helped elevate the lyrics, which might be the best of Ozzy's solo career.
The first Ozzy Osbourne album that I spent any substantial time getting to know was 1987's Tribute to Randy Rhoads, so even though this live album came out well after the first, Jet Records era of Ozzy's solo career, that is the era that initially defined Ozzy as a solo artist for me. And believe it or not, Sabbath came later.
There's something magical about the Ozzy/Randy albums. I'd offer my suggestion that 1981's Diary of a Madman is a far superior effort than 1980's Blizzard of Ozz, but that's not to put Blizzard down. It's fantastic, and opening track, "I Don't Know," while not really having much to say, is a banger. Cool seeing it performed here, live, even if this 1981 performance on live tv in Rochester, NY is one of the more sedate Ozzy performances I've seen. Hangovers all around would be my guess.
It's Friday, and that means the new edition of Fangoia's weekly newsletter, The Terror Teletype, landed in my inbox while I slept. Reading this brief email packed with genre news and goodies is one of the little events that I look forward to every week. This time, Editor-in-Chief Phil Noble's editorial is a lovely little eulogy for Ozzy.
Also, later in the WTF section, Fango links to a 1988 television commercial featuring Ozzy promoting his then-latest album, No Rest for the Wicked.
WTF indeed. Throughout the first two decades of his solo career, Ozzy always flirted with having one foot in camp, and I think it was a reaction to the televangelist backlash and the general fears conservatives displayed toward his music, Heavy Metal in general, and Horror movies. Bark At the Moon's ridiculous costuming plays a bit differently when you think that maybe the idea was to present a Horror movie aesthetic constructed to make people laugh at the people who decried it as frightening or depraved.
NCBD Addendum:
I haven't had a chance to read it yet, primarily because I'll need to locate the original series and re-read it, but Black Mask's CALEXIT returned this week with the first issue of CALEXIT: The Battle for Universal City. Writer Matteo Pizzolo returns with new artist C. Granda and colorist James Offredi to deliver a gorgeous new chapter:
I'd seen this solicited but almost dismissed it as a hallucination. The original, three-issue series ran back in 2017-2018, and while we covered it on Drinking with Comics, and I know I liked it, I really remember nothing else about it. It will be nice this weekend to sit down, read the old series and jump directly into this new one. Also, really hope Black Mask can make a comeback, so of course I'll support what they do. They had a good couple of years at the end of the last decade, and then kind of disappeared. Would love to see more Black Mask books on the shelf again.
Playlist:
Lady Gaga - Mayhem
Ozzy Osbourne - Shot in the Dark (single)
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ozzy Osbourne - Diary of a Madman
Ozzy Osbourne - Ordinary Man
Ozzy Osbourne - Black Rain
Wake the Devil - Angel's Won't Cry (single)
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Vol. 4
Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Two of Pentacles
• Two of Cups
• Ten of Pentacles
A change in balance leads to wealth.
I'm always hesitant to interpret concepts like 'wealth' at face value when dealing with the archetypes utilized in the cards. More likely, this is a nod to an upcoming triumph in undoing the negative inertia that has seized my brain when it comes to writing.
I had zero idea such a thing as this existed until a few minutes ago. I can tell by the set that this is during Dave's CBS years, of which I've only ever seen isolated clips. But to think that a theatre full of folks went in to see the Letterman show in 1998 and were treated to a fully reunited Black Sabbath - yes, that's Bill Ward playing the drums! - is just wonderful!
I love this clip because you can see how Ozzy starts the performance with a healthy dose of reserve, probably not having played a television show with his old Birmingham mates since 1978's Top of the Pops, and then Dave's crowd begins to react to his boisterous prompts, he really starts to come alive. That's my big takeaway from having seen Ozzy live four or five times: he was the consummate showman. Makes sense when you consider he performed up until two weeks before his death.
People talk about how Ozzy never really wrote anything and that somehow makes him lesser, however, anyone who saw this man live knows he is a voice and a performer above all things.
Probably my second favorite Ozzy track, "Shot in the Dark" is the final track on 1986's The Ultimate Sin. I knew this song from its inception as a single, and it wasn't until the early 90s that I heard the entire album from which it hails. At that time, I wasn't a fan of the album, just the song, which seemed like a moody anomaly on an otherwise, at-first-glance collection of so-so 80s hard rock (It didn't help that my high school girlfriend and her two older sisters played Ozzy non-stop for the three years we dated. Forced familiarity can indeed breed contempt, a lesson we could have applied to our relationship, as well).
Maybe ten years ago or so, I gave The Ultimate Spin another chance, and found that, not only did I remember a lot of the tracks, but I remembered them kindly. Excitedly, even. Since then, this has become a go-to Ozzy record for me. As much as I love and respect the man, I don't gel with a lot of his solo work. Riding high off No More Tears, I was ready to embrace Ozzmosis when it landed in 1995, but the lead single, "Perry Mason," just seemed like such a ridiculous song. Like Ozzy had somehow gone all the way around the bend into self-parody. The album didn't sit much better with me, and that was the last of his solo work I paid attention to until Mr. Brown got me into 2020's Ordinary Man circa 2021. Producer Andrew Watt ended up being the best thing to happen to the Ozzman in decades, as I'd rank Ordinary Man and Patient No. 9 as instant classics. Both records are of a caliber that, while the early stuff is still untouchable, hold their own.
I've made it my mission to comb through his catalogue and see if I missed anything.
NCBD:
Great pull list this week. Let's go!
Void Rivals has been picking up steam as we move toward the Quintesson War's start in upcoming issue 25. We have an army of Skuxxoids, Hot Rod and Springer, the Quintessons, Zerta, and Cobra La. That's A LOT of tension points for a story, and somehow, Kirkman balances them all perfectly, letting out little bits of steam here and there so we know that in a couple of issues, things are going to go OFF!
Zander Cannon's Sleep is the, ah, sleeper hit of 2025. Seriously, this book is fantastic! When I first picked up issue one, I thought the art would be a tonal aberration I wouldn't be able to get over. Turns out, it's the exact opposite. Cannon's style belies a dark underbelly that froths with blood and bad things.
Minor Arcana quickly proved itself as another burgeoning Jeff Lemire masterpiece, a la Fishflies. This time, however, there's a long run and a more involved plot. The sleepy seaside small town setting and exploration of a failed fortune teller are masks for something bigger and much more malevolent, and the reveals come slow and steady, once again showcasing the deep-seated influence of David Lynch in this man's storytelling.
Almost as if the Universe sent this cover to pay homage to Ozzy's passing. I have no idea what this book is about, but when I saw the title/cover combo, I knew I'd have to track it down.
James Tynion & Michael Walsh's Exquisite Corpses continues barreling along its destructive path and you're damn straight I'll once again have a front row seat! I have a feeling this book is going to really surprise us along the way. Not everything is as straightforward as it seems.
Watch:
For reasons I simply cannot fathom, about two years ago I walked away from HBOs Doom Patrol series and never came back. This wasn't intentional; I'm not really sure how I got like this, but I tend to leave shows - even shows I adore - hanging. Something kicked in again last week, and I rewatched the entire second season and am now perched atop the first episode of Season Three, which is unfamiliar ground for me.
I can't stress how much I love this show. It's absurd, moving, and outright bat shit. The look of it is among my favorite looks to any show or film - the lighting is soft, dark, but still colorful. The set design is symmetrical, cohesive and downright creepy A.F., when it needs to be. And the original, Dada-esque undertones Grant Morrison so lovingly wove through his run on the book in the 80s are always ever-present. These elements would be disparate and jarring in the hands of most, but this show blends them all perfectly.
Playlist:
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Deee-Lite - World Clique
Primus - Antipop
Hot Stove Jimmy - It's a System...
Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid
Meat Puppets - Dusty Notes
Deadfly Buchowski - Russian Doll E.P.
Zombi - 2020
Zombi - Direct Inject
Pixies - The Night the Zombies Came
Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears
Ozzy Osbourne - Perry Mason (single)
Ozzy Osbourne - Down to Earth
Ozzy Osbourne - No Rest for the Wicked
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Page of Wands
• Two of Cups
• Four of Wands
Creative emotional support is needed to reclaim a regular sense of balance, i.e. in this case, duty. I remain in a non-writing paradigm. I did begin re-reading Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie, a much-needed and until now shirked necessity for, you know, working on the sequel. That's a major step for me, but I need to get back to a regular routine and it just seems to be drifting further and further away. A day stolen here or there just doesn't amount to much, and I think the cards are telling me that I need to ask K for help.
Man, 2025 can suck a big bag O' clown peen. I mean, what the fuck? As per my tradition, thus begins Ozzy Week, where I'll post and celebrate the Demon Prince of Rock!!!
"No More Tears" is easily my favorite track and album from Ozzy's solo career, which is a pretty uneven solo career. Of course, the same can be said of all post-original line-up members of Black Sabbath once they tried to make it on their own.
The 80s were a tumultuous time for Rock Gods - too much blow and a frenzy of one-upmanship, and I'm sure they hardly knew which way was up. But this track - man, I remember the night I first heard this on 103.5 The BLAZE, Chicago's pre-Grunge rock radio station. I remember the DJ saying, "Here's the new track from Ozzy Osbourne," and I remember the bass grabbed me instantly.
Of course, bassist Mike Inez would go on to Alice in Chains greatness, and guitarist Zakk Wylde would go on to... wear a kilt. But on September 17, 1991, Ozzy released what I consider his crowning achievement, and the entire album ROCKS.
Can it be considered a 'cover' if there are members from the original band who wrote song performing in the band covering it? Probably. I'll say this - I am extremely attached to every song on The Thirsty Crows' Handman's Noose; however, this is fantastic!
Read:
I finally had a chance over the weekend to sit down and read Rebekah and David Ian McKendry's Barstow.
Four tight issues that tell a weird A.F. story that brings to mind Jeff Lemire and Gabriel H. Walta's Phantom Road and, I think, Greydon Clark's The Return. Barstow takes place in the desert, and if you've spent any time eating hallucinogens in Joshua Tree or an equivalent location, this will resonate. If you haven't, this is still a damn good time, with a mix of Body Horror, Satan Horror and a skosh of procedural thrown in to boot.
Watch:
Ari Aster's Eddington is probably not my favorite film of the year - its unflinching approach to America 2020 dovetails with the country we live in five years later. It doesn't pick at the low-hanging fruit by blaming politicians. Instead, it blames US.
As with Aster's previous film, Beau is Afraid, there is a lot of humor here. It's dark and subtle and twisted, though, and honestly, my uproarious laughter was, at one point during our showtime, misinterpreted by a fellow audience member. There could have been trouble, but instead, I think the misinterpreter realized his mistake as he adjusted to the movie's voice, and by the end of the film, he was laughing just as loud as I was.
I will say, I was expecting something approaching Civil War's "reasons to hate humanity" vibe, and instead, Aster pokes a kind of almost good-natured fun at just how stupid our species is.
I became excited when I saw that a new NIN track dropped yesterday. Alas, from what I see, this does not arrive ahead of an album, but the soundtrack for Tron: Not This Again. With NIN helming it, the OST will likely be solid, but it will likely lean into instrumentals. As much as I dig Ross and Reznor's ambient/score music, I was hoping for a full-on, proper NIN album. We'll see.
Watch:
Well, what the hell do you know? Stranger Things season 5 finally gets a teaser?
The wait on this one has been ludicrous to say the very least. That said, I have faith the Duffer Brothers will stick the landing and possibly propel the cast into a Golden Girls-esque sitcom as a sort of postscript.
I can't stress enough, A) How much I loved the previous season, and B) how much damage I think postponing this final season has done the show overall. You can't drag stories like this out this long and expect the material not to suffer.
Read:
A few weeks ago, my good friend Chris Saunders clued me in on a series of novels written by Matt Dinniman called Dungeon Crawler Carl. This is a series with six books already released, so that's usually a pretty good excuse for me to pass (Friends have been asking me to read Jim Butcher's Harry Dresden books for nearly 20 years, but even back then, there were too many of them; there's just too much shit to read!)
Here's the solicitation:
"You know what’s worse than breaking up with your girlfriend? Being stuck with her prize-winning show cat. And you know what’s worse than that? An alien invasion, the destruction of all man-made structures on Earth, and the systematic exploitation of all the survivors for a sadistic intergalactic game show. That’s what.
Join Coast Guard vet Carl and his ex-girlfriend’s cat, Princess Donut, as they try to survive the end of the world—or just get to the next level—in a video game–like, trap-filled fantasy dungeon. A dungeon that’s actually the set of a reality television show with countless viewers across the galaxy. Exploding goblins. Magical potions. Deadly, drug-dealing llamas. This ain’t your ordinary game show."
The thing that drew me in was how much Douglas Adams I sensed as Chris described it to me. The aliens show up to drain and destroy Earth for blatantly corporate reasons, and use the "game show" as an industry unto itself. So far, I definitely see the Adams influence, but also, Dinniman is a fantastic writer whose prose moves swiftly without forsaking his characters. An extremly enjoyable reading experience.
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Four of Wands
• Eight of Swords
• Ten of Wands
Completion. Interference and thwarted Will.
Completion is blocked by our own lacklustre willpower to actually focus. Interference is the enemy of all success, i.e. my waivering attention span of late is severly hampering my work.
From the LONG-AWAITED album Private Music, out August 22nd. Order HERE. Easily one of my most anticipated albums of the last five years, I'm absolutely stoked we're getting this next month. I cannot wait to put on headphones, smoke some pot (increasingly rare) and listen to this record from start to finish.
NCBD:
HUGE haul today. Let's dive in:
Oni's resurrection of EC comics continues to evolve. No sooner did Epitaphs From the Abyss end, than the the Grave Digger has passed the proverbial Horror mic to his cohort, The Tormentor, for the new series Catacomb of Torment.
New Z News! I still have barely scratched the surface of the backlog of issues I picked up in Chicago last month, but good to no it's still going.
Has this series had the best covers of 2025? Maybe. I'm still loving that this is bi-monthly and wondering how we lucked into that? Reminds me of the old 80s Turtles, when it would come out bi-monthly or... maybe later. Either way, it's been very cool to see Jason Aaron come on board with the brothers completely pulled apart and slowly... oh so slowly... put them back together.
Oh man. Crisis time - Phantom Road's current arc, The Horror Men, ends next issue and the solicitations on League of Comic Book Geeks ends there, so that means, with Lemire having all the irons in the fire he does, this series is about to go back on hiatus.
One of my most anticipated books when it's dropping, it's hard to imagine going another couple of months without Phantom Road. But I guess we do what we have to do.
I have been waiting for Imperial issue 2 for what feels like months! I loved the first issue, and cannot wait to jump back in, especially with Hulk's proclamation of "War" at the end of the first issue!
This whole "Baroness as a Joe" scenario continues despite the hope last issue's cover instilled in me. Oh well, I'll just shut my mouth because at this point, there's probably no way I'm not going to continue this series. The one silver lining is the burgeoning friendship between Clutch and Hound. LOVE that development A LOT! Hear Mike Shin and I talk about this on the new episode of Drinking with Comics, HERE.
\Speaking of the latest episode of Drinking with Comics, I convinced my cohost, Mike Shin, to read Ben Winters and Leomacs' Philip K. Dick amalgamation, Benjamin, and he loved it! What's not to love? PKD lived an absolutely fascinating life, and, in retrospect, it blows my mind that it took this long for someone to use that life as fodder for a fictional story! Issue two drops tomorrow, and I cannot wait!!!
I wasn't blown away by issue one of "Death of the Silver Surfer," probably because the whole "Death of" idea seems incredibly passé at this point. That said, there's no way in hell I'm not buying a book with this cover. Holy smokes!
Watch:
Two episodes from the finale and I have to say, Ian Carpenter and Aaron Martin's Hell Motel (i.e. Slasher, season six) might just be the Horror Event of 2025! Every episode has been fantastic, but this week's? Chef's fucking kiss!
This show is so expertly plotted. A perfectly maddening Whodunit? combined with all the beautifully brutal flourishes Slasher is known for, the combination just works so goddamn well! Also, while I gave props to Martin and Carpenter up front as the creators, lest it not be forgotten that the inimitable Adam MacDonald directed all of these nasty little fuckers.
Playlist:
Ty Segall - Possession
Deftones - White Pony
Deftones - Saturday Night Wrist
Deftones - Eponymous
dan le sac Vs. Scroobius Pip - Angles
Drug Church - Prude
Hangman's Chair - Saddiction
YUNGBLUD - Idols
Horrendous - Ontological Mysterium
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Blind Willie McTell - Complete Recorded Works In Chronological Order (Vol. 1)
Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell
Reggie Watts - Fuck Shit Stack (single)
Jogger - Nephicide (single)
Mi Loco Tango - Rocco and His Brothers (single)
Abby Sage - Smoke Break (single)
Abby Sage - The Rot
Crystal Castles - II
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Nine of Swords
• IX: The Hermit
• Nine of Wands
Two nines? Not sure this has occurred for me before. Climax and accomplishment? That combined with the Hermit actually lead me to believe this is a direct acknowledgement by the cosmos (ie my inner self) that I've earned the break I've taken, through the accomplishment of finishing my book and the culmination of Sweetie's existence. But it's almost time to really tune back in,.
My good friend and former Thirsty Crow Chris Saunders' new group, Wake the Devil, released another single last week, the group's first foray into Country.
It's fantastic.
We listened to this on repeat last Thursday while driving Sweetie to what we were pretty sure was going to be her final Vet visit, and in that twenty or so minutes, I feel in love with this track and it simultaneously burned itself into my DNA for all time.
I cannot wait for a proper release from these guys.
Play:
Thanks to the mighty Bloody Disgusting for the heads up on this GROGEOUS Horror game coming to Switch on the 24th of July. I'd not heard of this, but SOMA is definitely now on my list:
I need to make some time coming up to play some of the games I still have lingering in half-completed states. I basically sat around the house all weekend mourning and didn't lift a thumb to make any progress on Inside, or Blasphemous, or Call of Cthulhu, or any of the Puppet Combo games - although those I honestly don't care about winning at all, as they are all about the atmosphere. That's the thing, though, and it's not a bad thing - I'd always rather read, or write, or watch a flick than play a video game. I can the spurts of interest and commitment where I find them.
Read:
I finished Timothy James' Like • Comment • Survive so quickly, I forgot to post about it here.
Upon starting Like Comment Survive, I was initially taken aback by the found footage formatting of the prose and feared this would infringe on my reading experience. NOT TRUE! Holy cow - the formatting sucked me right in.
James' characters are very well-developed, and the scenario he sets up instantly intriguing. I read this over the course of three days, winnowing out spare time from a busy schedule just to creep a few more pages in here and there. One of the most immersive reads I've had in a while.
Playlist:
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
Ian Lynch - All You Need Is Death OST
Tim Hecker - Infinity Pool OST
The Flaming Lips - Hit To Death in the Future Head
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Three of Cups
• Six of Cups
• Nine of Pentacles
The overflowing emotion of the first two cards I get. This has been a mourning weekend. I'm not sure where the Nine of Pentacles fits in, but maybe it's enough to know I will be able to temper my emotions with the daily grind this week. I certainly was barely capable of tempering them with anything other than Sierra Nevada and movies over the last few days.
I'm not really a Jimmy Eat World fan, but one of my many nicknames for Sweetie was The Sweetness, so I've always held a spot for this one in my heart. Plus, it is a great song, regardless of how I feel about the rest of the group's music, which isn't terrible, but just seems like so much more of that mid-level radio fodder of the year it came out, 2002.
The Sweetness found us on July 16th, 2016 - four months and one day after Tom died. She was another cat abandoned to San Pedro's wilds, and we went through a lot with her over the not even 9 years she had us. Our time in the little apartment in Redondo Beach didn't exactly make her happy, but since moving to TN and giving her a whole house and a backyard she spent almost every day all day in, we could see how we'd changed her life and even her attitude. A once "tough love" cat became amazingly affectionate. She slept between Kirsten and I almost every night since arriving here and now, well, it's hard to move on. Luckily, we have Knox, the younger brother that Sweetie didn't ask for or want, and who is himself a bit standoffish with affection.
We'll break him of that habit.
Regular posts will resume Monday. For now, I'm too devastated to do much of anything.
Blackbraid III will be released independently on August 8th, and you can pre-order directly from the artist HERE.
I'll tell you, I have no problem spending whatever an artist wants to sell their physical media for in 2025 because they need to recoup the cost of services like spotify raping them (while pouring their profits in to the AI arms race). This Blackbraid merchandise looks fantastic - I had to restrain the impulse to buy one of the bundles with the shirt and hoodie - and this is easily the best-looking vinyl release I've seen all year.
NCBD:
A pretty robust haul this week. Let's go!
This time, it's all about the "B" cover! LOVE this! Those shadowy Decepticon images amidst fire and ruin, with Only two issues left with DWJ. I haven't seen who is taking over, but it looks like it's just in time for Quintesson War, which starts in Void Rivals 25 and, I'd imagine, will at the very least echo through this book.
My first issue of Savage Sword as a now monthly subscriber and I'm psyched! I owe a huge debt to my good friend Grimm for turning me onto this book.
I have been looking forward to Planet Death number one since stumbling on issue 0 last month. If you want to know more, check out the Drinking with Comics Mike Shinabarger and I did on this one HERE.
Dark Regrets is turning out to be insanely fun and pretty damn funny to boot! As much as I love Black Metal and (most) of its aesthetic, you have to admit, there's a lot there to make fun of.
Look at that cover by Miguel Mercado! And inside, Andrea Sorrentino's art adds an extra punch to the first mini-series spin-off from the anthology Epitaphs From the Abyss. Not sure if there are any more coming after this wraps up with issue number 4, but hopefully. That's the awesome thing about running an anthology - you can always mine the stories therein for longer ones down the road.
The penultimate issue of Dark Pattern's Case 03: Pareidolia. Can't wait to see where this is going. I've sampled a handful of Batman books over the last year - the first book* to feature the dark detective that I've read in years - and this? This has been one of my favorites (but nothing beats Gargoyle of Gotham!)
* Not entirely true; there was that Maxx/Batman book a few years ago. I didn't buy that for Batman, though.
Watch:
A few days ago, I mentioned my Criterion Sale items, Repo Man and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure. Since I spoke a bit about Repo Man the other day, I wanted to talk now about Cure.
I've heard about this one for years, but somehow never got around to it until now. Wow. Talk about atmospheric! There is a beautiful pall that hangs over this film, and while it grinds the characters to dust, it creates a singular cinematic experience for the viewer. The tension is so quiet! That's gotta be hard to do, because no one does it. At least, not like Kurosawa does here.
For years, one of the things I always saw referenced about this film was how it was the start of the Japanese Horror movement of the late 90s/early 00s. That was an immediate turn-off, because with few exceptions, I'm not really a fan of that era of Japanese Horror. I see now that both the inclusion of Cure in with films like Ringu and Juwon is a false relation, and my own preconceived notions about Japanese Horror from that era are wrong. I wouldn't call either a sweeping generalization, but it's close. It's also a great reminder to draw my own conclusions. Sometimes, certain cinematics feel akin to a quagmire, and I after a small sampling, I run for the hills. Best not to do that, and Cure is the, well, cure?
I loved this film and am happy to have it on my shelf. Further study is on the horizon.
Playlist:
Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face
The Dillinger Escape Plan - Miss Machine
Metallica - Master of Puppets
Arcade Fire - Everything Now
Shellac - 1000 Hurts
The Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
Sonic Youth - Dirty
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation
bunsenburner - Reverie
Ozzy Osbourne - Blizzard of Ozz
Ike Reilly - Salesmen and Racists
Muggs - Dust
Blackbraid - The Dying Breath of the Stag (pre-release single)
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality*
Ozzy Osbourne - Patient No. 9
* Read a fantastic article about a girl who owns 54 different vinyl pressings of Master of Reality HERE.
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Queen of Cups
• Eight of Pentacles
• Four of Wands
Queen of Cups again - as I write this on Tuesday afternoon, Sweetie has returned from surgery. A section of her intestines is enlarged, and - tests pending - it's likely lymphoma. We have been instructed to begin administering Prednisone today, which the Vet says should help hold it at bay and make her feel better. Once the lab results come back and we know for sure what we're dealing with, we can proceed. It's not the best result, but for now, I will take it and lavish her with Queen of Cups-sized emotion.
Eight of Pentacles - dedication.
Four of Swords - two interpretations that I can see lining up from those in the Grimoire. The first is completion and balance. The second is, "recognize completion and channel it into the next phase." These would seem to be offering two separate wisps of advice, because, of course, I'm interpreting this all about Sweetie. It's not an easy thing to let a loved one suffer, and that is definitely not our intention. So the idea is we treat it best we can. If it's lymphoma, we'll do chemo, which for cats isn't the same as it is for people. We're talking about a pill. I don't know, I have to do a lot more research. First things first, though. We need those results.
NOTE: There was originally a stream version of this posted to YouTube, but a copyright claim by Mercury Records ultimately resulted in its removal. When I saw this video by PigeonPaul82 pop up, I made the switch. Give this man's channel a gander - lots of great stuff.
Papa V Perpetua singing "Bark at the Moon" at the Farewell Ozzy show. Not my favorite Ozzy record, but I'll take it. Also, I thought this was a Farewell Black Sabbath show, what with all four original members finally being reunited on stage, but I guess it's changed to focus on saying goodbye to Ozzy? Makes me think there's some medical diagnosis I missed.
I know there's a ton of hype for this, and it streamed as a pay-per-view event, but I paid next to no attention to any of it. I am a die-hard Black Sabbath fan, but in my eyes, the band ceased to exist about a year after Technical Ecstasy came out. I did manage to see them at the first Ozzfests in both '97 and '99 - the first time with Mike Bordin from Faith No More on drums, the second with Bill Ward, and I'm definitely happy I did, however, that was good enough. Not throwing shade - you look at the crowd in this video and there are a lot of younger generations present. I'm super happy they got to experience Ozzy and Sabbath the way I have over the years. Well, maybe not exactly the way I did, but you know what I mean.
Interestingly enough, I think my third concert ever was the original No More Tours tour, on August 23rd, 1992. Damn do I wish I still had the tour shirt I bought at that concert!
Watch:
The Criterion sale is underway, and I picked up two movies: Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure and Alex Cox's Repo Man. I'd like to take a minute to talk a bit about the latter.
Somehow, I did not see Repo Man for the first time until around 2015. Over the last ten years, I've probably watched it five times, each time growing increasingly excited by the film. Upon watching it the other night, I made a connection that struck me as so obvious, I'm not sure how I didn't see it before: William Burroughs' influence is all over this film! I think I intuitively understood this in that section of my lizard brain that sorts and catalogues all the movies, comics, fiction and other errata I consume, but that understanding only just made it to surface-level brain.
Read:
K and I finally had a chance to stop by the newly opened Clarksville Bookshop and we were not disappointed. A super nice family owns the store, and after chatting for a bit, we were both able to pick up a book. For myself, I left with a beautiful hardcover copy of the new Stephen Graham Jones novel, The Buffalo Hunter Hunter.
I didn't even realize this was out yet, and although I missed I Was A Teenage Slasher, I'm psyched to jump into a completely new novel by Jones that I know absolutely nothing about. I'm not even going to follow my usual protocol and paste in a solicitation blurb for fear I may read something I don't want to.
Playlist:
Willie Nelson - Oh What a Beautiful World Songs of Rodney Crowell
Arctic Monkeys - AM
The Grimm Teachaz - There's a Situation on the Homefront
Young Widows - Power Sucker
Various - Return of the Living Dead OST
Dreamkid - Daggers
G.B.H. - A Fridge Too Far
Deadguy - Near-Death Travel Services
Dr. John - Things Happen That Way
Ty Segall - Possession
T. Rex - The Slider
bunsenburner - Reverie
King Gizzard & The Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse
Various - Rocktober Blood OST
Billy Idol - Rebel Yell
Melvins - Thunderball
Blood Incantation - Absolute Everywhere
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP
Nachtmystium - As Made (Single)
Stephen Sanchez - Angel Face
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
• Ace of Swords
• Queen of Cups
• XIX: The Sun
A breakthrough of Will, heavy Emotion and Revelation. I don't have any idea how this relates to the only thing on my mind this morning - that our Cat Sweetie has to have exploratory surgery and possible mass removal tomorrow, but perhaps I can pin down my emotions (there's that one!) long enough to dig deeper.
One of the notes in my Grimoire for XIX is "Taking the pill will open your eyes." This is peripherally appropriate, as we've been giving her Meclizine (Dramamine 2) for the last five days to try to help her wavering balance and eyesight. This all came out of absolutely NOWHERE, and it reminds me how intense and uncertain the Universe is.
The Queen of Cups is LOVE and BEAUTY, two attributes I definitely associate with Sweetie and our love for her. This cat has been with us since 2016 when we adopted her as a San Pedro Stray, same as Tom before her. We've found the greatest joy in moving to TN with her and seeing her take to having a backyard she can lounge around in all day, hunt, whatever. This cannot be the end of Sweetie. It just cannot.
