Isolation: Day 8 - More New Me and That Man!

At this point, I'm not listening to any more of Me and That Man's new record until I have the full album in my hands (pre-order HERE), but I'm posting it here so I can go back to it, and so you, dear reader, can strike out into the territory I'm eschewing simply because I am such a fan of full album immersion.

**

The best thing to come out of social media that I've seen since the Pandemic began? Right here:



Love these guys.

**

Finished Black Stars Above this morning. Five Issues of creepy, nuanced cosmic horror. Here's one of my favorite images, from issue four:

This very much reminds me of Alan Moore and JH Williams III's Promethea. Jenna Cha's art, Brad Simpson's colors, and Lonnie Nadler's story work in such perfect synthesis. They have to, it's the only way to tell such a macro/micro story that delves into infinite cosmic territory. This page illustrates the beautiful way the creative team delivers the ineffable.

**

Mindful Habitation:

As so many others are, Southern California is on Shelter-in-place. Weird, but really only in perception and big picture theory. Day-to-day won't be that different for many of us. I'm bummed to know this will halt a lot of businesses, the smaller ones especially. Many of those smaller ones are really using this to innovate and think outside the box. The Comic Bug remains purveyors of media via mail, delivery, or scheduled appointment (HERE for details). King Harbor Brewery is doing same-day local Growler delivery (HERE). These are examples local to me, however, I'm getting reports of this from friends all over the place, so if there's a business you love, reach out and see if they are working with similar innovations.

**

Event Viewing:

Episode Four of Alex Garland's Devs landed last night, and it was quite the ride. The opening floored me with it's image/sound juxtaposition. Geoff Barrow and The Insects' score is overall fantastic, but in this particular scene, it was unearthly, layered, textured sounds arranged in a way that made the images bloom from the screen.

And Nick Offerman? Killing it.

Playlist:

Exhalants - Eponymous
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel
The Bronx - The Bronx (I)
Seefeel - Fracture/Tied (Single)
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Metatron Omega - Evangelikon
Myrkur - Folkesange

**

Card:

An agent of enlightenment. Reproductive force - not necessarily biologically speaking. I'm leaning more toward an interpretation that reinforces people are finally learning what needs to be done and doing it (even a certain douche celebrity decided to comply and close his shitty restaurant). Also, the gray skeins in the background speak to the illusory world losing its leverage as knowledge dawns. That's the Devil - the Morningstar, enlightener extraordinaire.

Isolation: Day 6 - Beach Slang's Tommy in the 80s

Holy cow am I in love with this song. From Beach Slang's 2020 record The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City, released this past January on Bridge9 Records. Buy HERE. Many thanks to my friend Jeffrey for kicking this one my way, as the entire record is awesome.

**

Black Stars Above #5 comes out today. Or does it? At this point, I'm not sure if either the Comic Bug or Atomic Basement are open, or whether Diamond is distributing at all. So many things are locked down; what do you do? Well, if you're a fucking asshole, you go to Texas or Florida for Spring Break. If you're an even bigger, more famous asshole, you refuse to close your shitty hillbilly restaurant. And if you're the biggest asshole? You blame everyone else for the mess you might not have created, but that you sure as fuck helped spread. I am happy to announce I am now 100% A-political, and consider Capitalism as much a failed experiment as Communism. What's left? Well, if you're Mother Earth, you start trimming the virus choking the life out of you with a pandemic. Sad but true folks; nothing could be better for the planet as a whole than to have a couple billion people removed.

Anyway, here's to hoping no one you or I love gets removed, and come this afternoon, we can all go get some new comics. Unlikely, but I'll take it.

This book is so damn good!

**

Playlist:

Porridge Radio - Every Bad
Antemasque - Eponymous
The Black Angels - Eponymous EP
The Black Angels - Passover
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
Various Artists - The Void OST
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Metatron Omega - Evangelikon
Zonal - Instrumental Playlist

**

Here's today's card:

Yesterday's:

Monday's:

We're looking at a clear progression from Monday to today. Oppression kinda speaks for itself at this point, especially with Shelter-in-Place orders being handed out left and right. There's the Strength this is requiring/going to require to get through, and then there's the Queen, who indicates compassion for others, a mothering nature. We need that right now, and I'm happy that, for as many examples of complete human bullshit, there is an almost equal number of stories of compassion, civic-mindedness, and generosity. However, the Queen of Cups also opens the door for that gentle, compassionate nature to collapse in on itself, turning weakness and resentment. I'm not sure I've seen a three-day spread mirror the three days better.

Take care of people, and what's more - and I can't believe I'm saying this - if the order is to stay put and minimize your contact with others, fucking do it. These orders are not from the president - remember, he doesn't think the WHO's numbers are accurate - it's from the organizations and departments in the government that, despite Captain Hairdo's crippling of them over the last three years, are trying to deal with the strain this is going to put on Hospitals. Also, and fuck the human race for me even having to say this, regarding the fine folks working in groceries, hardware stores, wherever you're going for supplies, don't treat them poorly. They're heroes in this moment, and trust me, you would not want to be doing their job.

Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Deine Kusine

Last night Bohren and Der Club of Gore released a music video - really a short film - for "Deine Kusine," the fifth track off their new record Patchouli Blue, available HERE. A great album, my favorite of the band's since 2000's Sunset Mission, which I've recently noticed is criminally hard to find.

**

Along with Netflix's Black Spot, which we're almost caught up with and which is becoming increasingly interesting, I've circled back around to two shows I've been meaning to watch for quite some time now. The first, which I binged several episodes of over the weekend, is Love, Death, and Robots, the David Fincher-produced anthology of short, animated films. Those who know me know that, for whatever reason, I really don't get into much animation. Aside from shows with nostalgic value and Cowboy Bebop - truly the work that transcends the genre/medium - animation usually does not connect with me. For this show, I feel like I'm getting more out of it than usual, and the premises so far have been very interesting, so I'm enjoying it. I especially liked Frank Balson's Suits, where the humdrum, simple country life of the farmer has evolved to include piloting mech suits to fight off alien invaders, and Alberto Mielgo's The Witness, which plays like Cold Hell with strippers.



The other show I've gone back to is Warren Ellis' Castlevania. This one, K and I had the missed opportunity of starting multiple times when it first landed, and each and every one of those viewing experiences resulted in our falling asleep. I had long suspected this was not the show's fault, and now that I've settled back into it and completed the first season - at a whopping four episodes - I'm hooked. The first three episodes we'd seen before, in parts multiple times, and they just didn't do it for me. Episode Four? Fantastic. I plan on binging the rest of this over the coming weekend, just in time for Season Three, which Ellis announced in his weekly newsletter recently, and which the trailer for just dropped last week:



**

New Comic Book Day is slight but marvelous:

Previously, whenever I see the new issue of either Black Stars Above listed on Comics List's New Comics This Week list, the solicitation is always at least one week before the book actually ships. I'm hoping that this time, that is not the case. Black Stars Above continues to astound me with it's complex narrative, fluid prose, and beautiful art. I could really go for all of that today.

**

Playlist:

The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Roy Orbison - Mystery Girl
Second Still - Equals EP
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Odonis Odonis - No Pop
Mazzy Star - So Tonight That I Might See
Various Artists - The History of Northwest Garage Rock, Vol. 2

New Grimes and Release Date!

We now have a release date for the long-awaited next Grimes album. Miss Anthropocene will be out February 21st, and you can pre-order it HERE.

Being that I'm relatively new to her music - having really only been converted about four or five years ago - this will be the first new record Grimes has released that I've waited for. And I feel as though it has been a long wait.

**

Joe Begos' new film Bliss came out on Blu Ray/DVD this past Tuesday and I highly recommend you go out and pick this one up. I saw this at Beyondfest back in September and loved it, and upon re-watching it last night on Blu Ray, I found I enjoyed it, even more, a second time. Easily in my top top if not top five of the year:



And here's the awesome Spotify Soundtrack Mr. Begos put up to coincide with the release of the film.




**

Lo and behold, NCBD this week turned out to be a pretty big deal for me. It's been a while, but I left the shop with a couple new titles that I'm excited about supporting. I'm not thinking of backpaddling on easing off monthlies, but there were a few that were small press, so I'm paying it forward, in a manner of speaking.

And I'd completely forgotten there was a new Terry Moore series on the stands!

I don't really know anything about Five Years, but I'm fairly certain there are a couple of familiar faces on the cover to Issue #1.

**

This week's playlist:

Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Timber Timbre - Eponymous
Snatch OST (playlist)
James Browns's Funky People Vol. 1
The Edgar Winter Group - Shock Treatment
Return of the Mack - Mark Morrison (single)
Revocation - The Outer Ones
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Final - Solaris
Arthur Ahbez - Gold
Barry Adamson - Stranger on the Sofa
Me and That Man - Songs of Love and Death
Flipper - Album
Hall and Oats - Greatest Hits
The Knife - Silent Shout
Billy Idol - Greatest Hits
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Tyler Childers - Purgatory
Oh Baby - The Art of Sleeping Alone
The Nukes - Why Things Burn
Fields of the Nephilim - The Nephilim
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Tamaryn - The Waves
The Sword - Age of Winters
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Kode9 - Nothing

**

Card of the day:

Hoping this is good news pertaining to the submission I sent out yesterday afternoon.