You Goddamned Son of a Bitch!!!

 

Flew into Chicago Midway this past Friday. Always amazing to be in Chicago, more 

so now that I live so close. I flew back out three days later on Monday, back to LaLaLand to work for two weeks. Of course, my boss is awesome, and when he asked me to cycle back in for a week to help out in-house, I asked if I could A) time my stint to coincide with Beyondfest, and B) if I could stay the entire two weeks of the fest. Once a patron of the festival himself (and the person who originally introduced me to it way back in 2012), he replied of course.

It's cool being back in LaLaLand, even if everything about the texture of the city reminds me why I left. There is garbage literally everywhere. Living here, you start to become desensitized to stuff like that; it's a mental and emotional survival skill to ignore crises like that. But once you're away for even a little while, you see it for what it is: an indicator that the population has given up because the civic leaders either don't care or have given up, and infrastructure suffers. This entire city just seems sad to me now. Filthy and dying. Of course, there are still bright bastions of joy housed here, a focal point for so much creative energy for so long now, but the top-heavy corruption that (probably) began with the old studio systems has finally evolved into something of an apex, and it doesn't look good.

Glad I got out but kept a tie. Nice place to visit, wouldn't want to live here (anymore).

But Chicago! Oh, the majesty! I had not driven on Lake Shore Drive for easily two decades, and I did so Saturday night, up to the Chicago Metro for Cold Waves X Day 1. We arrived late and missed the first few bands, but Rein was fantastic, Stromkern also fantastic, and Revco... well, talk about a dream come true, to finally see one of my favorite and most influential bands since Mr. Brown turned me on to them in High School. The night was perfect. The setlist:

Cattle Grind

Physical

Stainless Steel Providers

38 (with Richard 23)

Crackin' Up

Attack Ships on Fire

Something Wonderful

No Devotion

Beers, Steers and Queers

Do You Think I'm Sexy (with Duane Buford and Richard 23)

I might have mixed up the order a bit, but those are the songs.

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Watch:

My first Beyondfest screening is tomorrow night at the Aero in Santa Monica. Dario Argento's Dark Glasses:

I'm pretty psyched. After that, Saturday a bunch of us scored free tickets to Trick R' Treat on the big screen at the Hollywood Legion Theatre. Director Michael Dougherty will be in attendance for a Q&A. Pretty psyched. 

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NCBD:

Despite the fact that I will be visiting The Comic Bug on this trip, that's not until next week, and I won't be picking up any of the titles I have on my regular pull list back at Rick's Comic City in Clarksville. So this is what will be sitting in my box from this week when I get back to TN:

And Declan Shalvey's new book, Old Dog:

Mr. Shalvey is writing and drawing this, so I am very excited. I've been a fan of his since his work with Warren Ellis, particularly their six-issue run on Moon Knight (the definitive modern run, in my opinion) and Injection, one of if not my absolute favorite ongoing independent comic series in recent memory. Couple that with the writing chops he displayed with 2019's graphic novel Bog Bodies, and Old Dog feels poised to be an immediate obsession.

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Playlist:

Revco - Beers, Steers and Queers

Revco - Bix Sexy Land

Revco  - Linger Fickin' Good

Revco - You Goddamned Son of a Bitch

Thee Sacred Souls - Eponymous

Stereolab - Pulse of of the Early Brain (Switched On Vol. 5)

The Flamingos - Best of Playlist

Rein - Reincarnated

Idles - Joy as an Act of Resistance

Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children

Boards of Canada - Geogaddi

Frankie and the Witch Fingers - Brain Telephone

Stromkern - Armageddon

Zeal and Ardor - Stranger Fruit

Joe Begos' Bliss Playlist

Misfits - Static Age

Dio - Last in Line

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Card:

I haven't had the time to write or post an entry here (been working on this one since Monday), but I have been doing daily pulls:

Tuesday, 9/27/22:

Wednesday, 9/28/22:

Thursday, 9/29/22:

No time to try and read these all now, let alone write anything down, but I always try to record these here for posterity's sake.

Haute Tension

New video from Dance with the Dead, and it's really cool! I love the floating first-person perspective used to zoom along deserted, dilapidated forest roads and into old mine shafts. Very cool. Also, those shots are so alluring, I'd imagine it could be difficult to come up with something more narrative-like to compliment it, but a four-minute video of just that perspective stuff would definitely get old. Luckily, the creators knew exactly where to take this one. The "skeleton rave" is a bit goofy, but ultimately totally works for the song, and it gives us a destination for all those traveling shots.

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Watch:

Since seeing it pop up on Shudder at the beginning of the month, I've really been wanting to rewatch Alexander Aja's 2003 High Tension. The problem with that particular film, however, is as much as I like everything about the first two acts, the twist or reveal at the onset of the third never worked for me.

 

Maybe I've just been looking for a reason to try the film again - I seem to watch it about every ten years, always hoping I feel different. That's never the case. However - I recently began listening to the Horror podcast The House That Screams, and I'll be damned if their most recent episode didn't change my view of the film's personality-warping twist. 

The important thing is, I think, the idea one of the hosts expresses that the killer is not so much a secondary personality, as it is a personification of Marie's romantic (?) feelings for her friend Alex. Something about this just helped my acceptance of the film's outcome, I think probably because at the time of its release, there had already been so many films that imitated Fight Club's masterful maneuvering of character that any hint of it immediately killed a film for me. The only exception to that was Brad Anderson's The Machinist, and my acceptance of that one only came after a conversation with a friend where they explained their understanding of Ivan as a physical personification of Trevor's guilt. The House That Screams hosts (I'm new to the show and haven't heard enough to know exactly who is talking when) make a comparison to Leland Palmer/Bob. Now, while they don't suggest it's exactly the same scenario as Bob's "inhabiting spirit," I'd never thought of this angle before. That kind of surprises me, being what a huge Twin Peaks fan I am. But hearing it and making the earlier, perhaps more 1:1 comparison with The Machinist, I feel like I'm ready to watch the film again and see how it sits.

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Read:

Re-reading Warren Ellis & Declan Shalvey's painfully short run on Moon Knight. Goddamn, I wish they'd stayed with it for at least twelve issues.

The good news, of course, was the relationship between Ellis and Shalvey that started here went on to give us three GLORIOUS volumes of Injection, and further went on to launch Shalvey as not only a top-tier artist but a pretty damn great writer as well. I'm still thinking about Bog Bodies after re-reading it middle of last year.

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Playlist:

Ghost - Impera

Orville Peck - Bronco

The Cure - Faith

Greg Puciato - Lowered (single)

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

Isobell Campbell & Mark Lanegan - Sunday at Devil Dirt.

Mad Season - Above

Revocation - The Outer Ones

Mark Lanegan - Bubblegum

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Card:

Okay, I love this spread:

To see such a clear narrative offset by instructions that don't just make sense in the course of my current life, but in the course of the nature of the cards, is almost breathtaking. 

Past = Princess of Swords: Confusion and chaos. This is my exact mindset of late. I'm fighting myself, my intuition, everything. 

Present = Queen of Wands: Not a fan of this card, however, you look at that calming hand on top of the Lion and you get the picture. Reel it in, son. Tame your inner fires and FOCUS.

Future = Prince of Wands: Here's where the beauty emerges. These two cards are in sequence in the deck. One tells you to tame the Lion, the other shows it under your control, pulling you forward. 

It Never Rains in Southern California

It gives me infinite pleasure to have finished Season Three of Veronica Mars last night - the episode ends with this song - and wake up to find it POURING. Because, like the man sings, it literally never rains in Southern California.

Next: Veronica Mars the movie, then Season 4! WU-HU!

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Couple movies I watched recently:



Nothing revelatory, but an entertaining watch, to be sure. I really liked the way they used a huge red herring out of the gate and then totally dropped it. Also, the faux choking gag that results from this made me laugh out loud. Letterbxd



I LOVE this movie so very much. Letterboxd.



I LOVE Brad Anderson's films. Most of them, anyway. Transiberian owns a very special place in my heart, as does Session 9 and The Machinist, though to a lesser degree. IN my opinion, Trans is his masterpiece thus far - although there's a few I didn't see in the last few years and one I didn't care for at all, Vanishing on Seventh Street. Letterbxd.

**

I never thought I'd say it, but after reading Gideon the Ninth on a kindle, then moving on to Warren Ellis' Dead Pig Collector (finished, fantastic), and Autumn Christian's Girl Like A Bomb (in the middle of, also great) on it as well, I am in love with the digital reading format. I bought the Kindle version of the Injection Omnibus by Warren Ellis and Declan Shalvey - I have all the issues at home, but wanted to be able to carry the entire thing around with me all the time, as it is a source of endless inspiration at the moment, even though I've been pretty spotty on actually getting any writing done the last few days. Those weekend shifts at work kill me this time of year, and I've generally just been tired and obsessed with finishing V. Mars.

**

Playlist:

Orville Peck - Pony
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Beth Gibbons and the Polish National Radio Symphony - Henry Górecki - Symphony No. 3
New Radicals - Maybe You've Been Brainwashed Too
Canyons - Barrie (single)
Caterina Barbieri - Ecstatic Computation
Blood Red Shoes - Get Tragic
Spotlights - Love and Decay
The Soft Moon - Criminal
The Smiths - Meat is Murder
Meg Myers - Sorry
Blackwater Holylight - Veils of Winter
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell
Meg Myers - Take Me to the Disco
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
(Sandy) Alex G - House of Sugar

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No card today.