In a Smiths mood this morning. Sometimes Morrissey's biting observations and poetic turns of phrase just hit the spot intellectually, to say nothing of Marr, Rourke and Joyce's music, which transports me to a very specific place in my head, more feeling than thought. That's why this group worked so well for the time it did - Morrissey anchors you while the music compels the soul to soar.
Of course, to enjoy any of this, I've had to maintain my ignorance of what an unbelievable twat Morrissey has become over the years.
Watch:
Browsing the Just Added on Shudder, I followed a hunch - a hunch that all Irish Horror Films are fantastic - and clicked on Billy O'Brien's 2005 Isolation.
I could not find a serviceable trailer, and also, I think the less you know about this one going in, the better you are. Believe me, however, when I tell you that my hunch continues to prove correct because Isolation is fantastic. A taut little creature feature with notes of The Thing and Alien, only set on an Irish farm.
Read:
Completely off the cuff, I began re-reading Alan Campbell's brilliant Deepgate Codex trilogy over the weekend. About a third of the way through the first book, Scar Night (2006), these have a special place in my heart, and I am ashamed to say I never finished the trilogy by reading that final book.
Back when I first moved to LaLaLand in 2006, I was working at a Borders bookstore as an inventory supervisor. Myspace was the thing at the time, and through its messaging, author Alan Campbell - then relatively unknown, as Scar Night was his first novel coming off the success of having helped write the Grand Theft Auto game - messaged me. Seeing that I was a pretty vocal champion of China Mieville's work at the time (still am), Campbell reached out to tell me about his book, which is set in the city of Deepgate - a city that hangs from chains suspended above a bottomless pit.
No way I wasn't going to read that!
I bought the book when it came out in Hardcover, and continued to buy Campbell's books as they were released in that manner. By the time book three came out, though, I was probably in the middle of something with a completely different tone, and it wasn't the time to reread the first two and go into number three.
And the years lapsed...
Back around 2019, I picked up and plowed through the first two books of Campbell's subsequent series, The Gravedigger Chronicles. These were immediately among my favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels ever - we're still waiting on that third book though, and from time to time the thought that we may never see it (the Author, who is not active on social media, has stated that the third book in the series is finished, however, the publishing deal he had went south and the book remains, well, suspended by metaphorical chains above the abyss that was once the publishing industry). That particular sadness darkened my door this past week, and thus, I grabbed the Deepgate Codex with the intention of loving it so much again that the power of that love might somehow aetherically find Mr. Campbell and transmute into a resolution for that final book.
And yes, Scar Night is just as good as I remember. Maybe better. And no, aetherically is not a word. Well, not until now.
Playlist:
Lustmord - The Others
Fvunerals - Let The Earth Be Silent
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Karl Casey - XX
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Final Light - Eponymous
Ager Sonus - Book of the Black Earth
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Special Interest - Endure
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Anthrax - Attack of the Killers B's
Aerosmith - Pump
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Thou - Rhea Sylvia
David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise
Silent - Modern Hate
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Metallica - Hardwired...
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
A reminder that balance is what supports harmony, and balance is not achieved by the narratives about others we sometimes tell ourselves repeatedly. I've 100% done just this, and it's not without a breakthrough of Will that I will be able to smooth things over.
It's been a minute since I last broke out the House of Pain. Not sure what inspired it, exactly, but damn! I miss 90s Hip Hop.
**
The sixth episode of the Borrasca podcast dropped Monday. I didn't get a chance to listen until yesterday, and wow! Best episode yet. This one was chilling in its stoicism.
Only two episodes left. I'm all in.
**
Playlist:
Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery
The Chameleons UK - Strange Times
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth
Helms Alee - Sleepwalking Sailors
Code Orange - Underneath
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Skinny Puppy - Bites
Crystal Castles - (II)
Full article on Bloody Disgusting, Legion looks like it will be one hell of a ride. I love the visual allusions to Evil Dead, I love the links to Shamanism and Sorcery, and, well, I guess I love everything about this trailer.
**
Playlist:
C-Building Kids - Shitting in the Urinal
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Bell Witch and Aerial Ruin - Stygian Bough, Vol. 1
Belong - October Language
Psychetect - Extremism
Andy Fosberry - Death Ship 2047
**
Channeling the Will to forge new goals. As usual, on the nose with my creative endeavors. The novel is finished, I'm palate cleansing with a short story, and then it's back to Shadow Play.
Speaking of writing, here's a situation I find myself in need of help with.
I'm running a poll on the Horror Amino at the moment, but I'll post my quandary here as well. Any readers who are able to post a reply with their opinion on this matter, it would be much appreciated. That said, I generally do not comment on other sites due to an aversion to elongating my online fingerprint, so I will absolutely understand if no one does.
Here's the deal:
The current title for the new novel is The Secret Life of Murder. I'm having doubts about that name, primarily based on friends' who read this back when it was finished in 2008 and didn't take to the title.
Some background:
This is not the second book in the Shadow Play trilogy, which is completely outlined. And when I say outlined, we're talking detailed to the point that the word count of the outline may very well rival or best the eventual word count on the actual novel. That said, I am refraining from actually writing Book Two until Book Three's outline is complete. Three was about 50% outlined as of February, however, two things made me push both of these back so that Book Two will now release in 2021 and Book Three 2022. Those two things were A) Realizing I would not be able to finish outlining Book Three and write Book Two this year, and B) the onset of COVID-19, Shelter-in-Place, and borderline mass hysteria seemed too in-line with The Secret Life of Murder, which follows a small group of characters trapped in Seattle, Washington as a "Murder Virus" the press has nicknamed MV-3 works its way through the population. MV-3 turns everyone infected into rampaging murder drones, and the resulting wave of chaos appears unstoppable. The virus is introduced into the population by way of a book written by a shadowy ex-hippy guru names Abremlin Harvest.
Being that this one was already finished but has sat for over a decade, the work I set out to do was fairly straight forward: I knew there would be a lot of grammatical/syntax issues I needed to edit, because, simply put, I am a much better writer now than I was thirteen years ago. I also knew the timeline of events that make up the plot would need to be sharpened, and I wanted to work the emotions, situations, and socio-political elements occurring in our own world into the story, making it more parallel to what we've experienced so far in 2020. This was not difficult to do, although I did end up changing an entire layer of the final act to better reflect the character arc of the Earth, which figures in as a sort of character when you take into account that, much like I believe with COVID-19, the planet is employing the virus as a medicinal reaction to the overpopulation currently choking the life from it. Taking all this into account, I still feel as though The Secret Life of Murder is the best title, however, after living with this one for so long, I'm unsure if I feel that way because it is a good title, or if it just feels that way to me because it has stood as the uncontested 'placeholder' for it in my head for thirteen years.
The question then is, without having read this novel, is The Secret Life of Murder a title that you would scroll past on amazon or - if you're lucky enough to have one - the shelf of an actual book store. Is its not-so-subtle play on all those non-fiction books from the 00s (The Secret Life of Bees, The Secret Life of Lobsters, etc) cause for an eye roll? Or is it intriguing enough to make you want to at the very least read the synopsis?
There is a slew of things I could talk about that have come out since I posted last, but I'll save those for a later date. Instead, I decided to lead with Yoko Kanno's Space Lion, from the Cowboy Bebop Soundtrack. This is one of the most beautiful, calming compositions I have ever heard, and I've been using it every day on the way to and from work to try and induce a state of peace. This is, of course, an uphill battle at the moment. My resting heart rate is up an average of 10bpm a minute, and it's already high due to my constant caffeine intake. My baseline has become "Terrible Anxiety," inspired by the frustratingly hopeless state of things at the moment, along with what I can only describe as the first thing in my life that legitimately terrifies me: four more years of this come November.
It would be so easy to abandon my "Common Sense" approach to world affairs and politics; just lose my shit and go off on a crazy anti-trump, anti-conservative bender.
I will not.
This is an extremely difficult stance to take at the moment, because since February I have gone from staunchly saying, "In November I am voting for a third party. I am NOT voting to replace one of the big two parties with the other." I held onto this ideal not because I harbor anything but disgust for our current president, but because until this past March, his horrible decisions did not strike me as all that different from horrible decisions made by most presidents. I have long believed both parties have essentially the same goal: Perpetuate the Institution. When we did have a man who charged into office with a sense of altruism, with an actual desire to change things, the system absorbed and neutered him. For all Obama's lofty goals, the US government ate him alive, rendered his most lasting legacy a further blending of politics with celebrity, which, I still believe, helped set the stage for someone like trump to make it into office.
As for how I could endorse not voting Democrat simply to remove our current celebrity from office, it doesn't help that the the most vocal elements of the left have become as radicalized and ridiculous as the right. Cries that equated our president with adolf hitler are, I still believe, disrespectful to victims and survivors of the Holocaust. Refusal to rationally discuss any perceived aspects of the man's "accomplishments" do nothing but further entrench those who defend him. By pointing to the economy's resurrection, trump's defenders may only be seeing what they want to see, but by putting our hands over our ears and screaming we're simply adding to their refusal to listen to us. I'm not a fool, even if these rising economic numbers aren't the product of manipulation - unlikely - what is the cost of this supposed recovery? I speak of the cost to our Planet, our people, our reality. All of these concerns, however, are now moot points, because trump has become more dangerous than any human being on the planet. Not just because of his motives, but because of his platform. We have to get him OUT, and the contemplation of four more years of this is the single most terrifying idea I have ever encountered. Hence my anxiety, and what may come across in the following paragraphs as a muddled ability to properly express myself. But I'll try.
All my old arguments are gone. Come November, I will be voting Democrat JUST to get trump out of office. My breaking point? His cover-up and absolutely malevolent handling of COVID-19 in those first, initial months. You can't argue this. There's documented proof that up to and including the day before the president made the now infamous comment, "I've said it was a pandemic all along," he was claiming the exact opposite. I've said this before, but let me repeat it again, so it weighs in on what has become a much larger-scale argument: based on this alone, I believe trump should be brought up on charges of crimes against humanity.
I also believe there's a decent number of talking heads from fox news that should be brought up on the same charges, but that's an argument for a different time.
Add to this the fact that in the wake of the mayhem he helped perpetuate by his malevolent handling of COVID-19, we've now escalated into a division in our society that harkens back to the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s. And division? Division is where trump shines. As former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said recently, "donald trump is the first president in my lifetime who does not ry to unite the American people - does not even pretend to try. Instead, he tries to divide us."
And it's working. A large part of trump's constituency seem to have wiped the slate clean on the progress from the Civil Rights Movement. And how could we expect them to do anything but? In an era of 'alternative facts,' deep fakes, and facebook news, everyone on both sides is guilty of denying facts and perpetuating their own preferred version of reality. Facts are no longer sacred, but we'll get to the ignorance that lies at the heart of that problem in a bit. Back to the abolishment of Civil Rights, George Floyd's murder at the hands of Officer Derek Chauvin while Officers Tou Thao, Thomas K. Lane, and J. Alexander Kueng stood by and watched proves that, as the news outlets are now so fond of saying, the bigotry and malevolence that corrupts US Police Departments is most definitely systemic. I do not believe all cops are hostile, malevolent entities, however, the ideology permeates the police as an institution, and as I've heard police say on several occasions, "If you speak up, you become a target." I'm not saying that is a stand that isn't worth taking, but when the system is against you, your sacrifice will almost definitely be in vain.
The "Defund the Police" initiative is intriguing, but as with everything in our two-party system, taken at face value, it's reactionary and unrealistic. There has been a lot of theorizing from civic leaders on this of late - multiple members of the Minneapolis City Council, including Ward 11's Jeremy Schroeder and Ward 3's Steven Fletcher have begun what appear to be earnest discussions on how to 'disband' the city's police. See also the MPD150 Movement. The idea of shifting funding from armed response units to highly specialized domestic, narcotic, and mental health response units is absolutely part of the solution, however, all of the scenario examples I've seen used to illustrate this idea leave out more extreme scenarios, seemingly to further their argument. Here's one for you: You're with your loved ones at the premiere of a blockbuster Hollywood movie when a heavily armed active shooter walks into the room and begins killing people. Who do you call? A mental health counselor? A crisis negotiator?
The examples in favor of a complete dissolution of the police break down when you introduce examples such as the above. This is why I don't believe we can completely do away with some iteration of armed, militaristic response. But do they belong responding to domestic, homeless, drug, or any number of other potentially non-violent situations? No. What about a situation like Mr. Floyd's? How Chauvin and his goon squad even ended up involved is something I can't comprehend; I've been in retail situations where customers have tried to pass bad bills. I never even thought about calling the police. It's not a definite the person with the bill in question is the origin of said bill. It's not even likely. As an employee, you explain why you cannot accept the bill and that's that. If they argue, you call a manager. If they continue to argue, you turn your back on them. If they escalate, the manager calls the police, and then you have a situation that is already nothing like the one in question.
So, if we need to have some version of the police, how do we combat that systemic attitude of untouchability and violent dominance, that hateful bigotry that has sullied the organization in a way that is, I think, untreatable. How do you treat the untreatable?
Not easily, but let's look deeper into these issues for a moment.
Racism is learned. In example, I knew someone very briefly in High School who would make comments about a member of our group who was of Filipino descent. Behind his back, of course. These comments that were obviously learned behavior from his father, who was a Veteran of the Vietnamese Conflict. That's where his racism came from, and likewise, all racism takes its first seeding in a similar manner. No one is born with intolerance, bigotry or hatred. These traits are passed down. But seeds need nutrition to grow, and the nutrition that feeds racism is another learned ideology, one this country continues to celebrate: Ignorance.
To make another example from my childhood, when I was in fourth grade and transferred to a new school, I received a social beating based on the fact that I was a 'reader.' Nerd, egghead, whatever. It was much cooler to be ignorant than to be academic or bookish. I never relinquished my love of reading, but I definitely began to hide it. To act stupid. How does this happen? I mean, think about any toddler you have ever interacted with. They are veritable sponges for new experiences and information. Learning is what young children do. So how does that get truncated, removed, and perverted so that by the time these kids get to fourth grade, they turn off that initiative to learn and adopt its antithesis? The answer, like the installation of the racist paradigm, is they are taught ignorance is cool and knowledge is an undesirable trait. Whether by their parents, older siblings, babysitters, aunts, uncles, whatever. ALL of the problems that infect, gestate, and blossom into the systemic moral crisis that corrupts the people in our world is learned behavior. I ask you again, and with more emphasis on the arduous nature of finding the solution to the problem: How do we combat the ideologies of bigotry and ignorance when they are planted at such early development stages?
Not through penduluming from one extreme to the other, that's for sure.
And the problem exists on both sides. I was shocked to see people on social media this past week saying things like, "If you have a problem with the riots, you're part of the problem."
Oh, really? I guess that means George Floyd's family is part of the problem, because this past Monday, George's brother Terrence made a public speech calling for an end to the violence.
"First of all, first of all, if I'm not out here wilin' out, if I'm not over here blowing up stuff, if I'm not over here messing up my community - then what are y'all doing? What are y'all doing? Y'all doing nothing, because that's not going to bring my brother back at all. It may feel good for the moment, just like when you drink. But when you come down, you're gonna wonder what you did. My family is a peaceful family. My family is god fearing. yeah, we upset. But we're not going to take it, we're not going to be repetitious. In every case of police brutality, the same thing has been happening. Y'all protest. Y'all destroy stuff. And if they don't move, you know why they don't move? Because it's not their stuff, it's our stuff. They want us to destroy our stuff. They not going to move. So let's do this another way. Let's do this another way. Let's stop thinking that our voice don't matter and vote."
Terrence knows what any rational person should be able to take a breath and deduce: violence on the side of the protest only exacerbates the tension. Peaceful protest is the right of all Americans, however, when you're already dealing with A) A bigoted, malevolent system of armed enforcer/responders, and B) you have ineffectual civic leaders and a president that cares nothing but himself and how he can shape the country's economy to his and his cabal's best interests, all it takes is one tiny action to set off a crescendo of violence. I'm not saying the violence is solely the protestors' fault. The violence we've seen in the last week is a simple 2+2=4 equation: violent cops + violent rioters = violence on an exponential scale.
Imagine if no one had reacted violently to the police? Think about one of the most iconic images of the Twentieth Century, that of Vietnamese Mahayana Monk Thích Dúc's self-immolation. Immortalized to my generation as the cover to the first rage against the machine album cover, you'd think people who love a band that much would have at least learned a little something about the imagery the band uses (definitely not the case, as evidenced by the band's fans misunderstanding of the symbolism surrounding Che Guevara). I'm not calling for anyone to set themselves on fire, but it seems to me we already have our inciting incident. It's easy for me to say, because I'm not out there on the front lines, but if looters hadn't intervened and protestors had remained peaceful, had gone out of their way to avoid organzing protests around retail locations so as to distance themselves from the criminals seeking to exploit their platform for their own nefarious agenda, then any violent response on the part of the police would have been undeniable for what it was: Uncalled for. That would have rendered it nearly impossible for the media or trump's ministry of propaganda to spin these events as anything but police brutality. Dúc's self-immolation was a direct response to a similar situation, an altruistic recognition that he had the power to decide what the world would see. In our case, escalating violence on both sides - granted begun by the police - ended up making the rioters the figureheads for what should have been a message of change. As always, careful consideration from afar leads to twenty/twenty hindsight, but the point is we've been here before. I have a problem with police, but I also have a problem with criminals using a peaceful protest to set off a war, or to masquerade their looting. Protest is legal, burning shit down is not, and it simply underlines the argument against the protests, no matter the reality of the situation. Reactionary responses do no good, so leave them to the people who we want to lose the argument. As a nation, we have to learn and progress, and part of that is understanding how to control the argument.
Where does this leave us? I don't fucking know, but unfortunately, if I had to guess, things will settle down and go back to normal, much the same as they did after the first highly publicized cycle of white-cop-on-black-male-violence from just before trump's election, set off by Trayvon Martin's murder at the hands of Officer George Zimmerman. The outrage doesn't go away, however, it only lies in wait, bubbling and becoming more caustic. Maybe I'm wrong, and due to the added frustrations of COVID, we'll see change. If not, one thing I can guarantee is, when this comes back around again, it will be worse. Across the board. For everyone.
**
Playlist:
Yoko Kanno/Seatbelts - Cowboy Bebop OST
Flying Lotus - Flamagra
Mr. Bungle - USA
Odonis Odonis - No Pop
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Titus Andronicus - The Most Lamentable Tragedy
ICE-T - The Iceberg
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Kendrick Lamar - Damn.
Zombi - Breakthrough and Conquer (Pre-release single)
L7 - Bricks are Heavy
Bella Morte - Where Shadows Lie
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
**
Card:
Skill, careful consideration of the micro-elements that comprise macro-level events. My translation/interpretation: reactionary responses motivated by emotional distress do not win the war. Plan, act with consideration of the larger picture.
Last night Joe Bob Briggs finally got me to watch One Cut of the Dead. Despite near universal acclaim from all my gatekeepers and curators, I had already tried this film and given up. After finally sticking it through, well I loved it. Also, I love this song, which I listened to about ten times in a row today while making a new version of my chili that turned out remarkably well.
After the film, Joe Bob had one of the most heartfelt and beautiful monologues I've seen from the man. The combined effect of the entire 2+ hours of his presentation of the film coming to a head with this brought me to tears:
Life is truly wonderful, even amidst rampant stupidity and a perilous existence of total uncertainty.
**
Playlist:
Barry Adamson - As Above So Below
Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Void King - Barren Dominion
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Irma Thomas - Straight from the Soul
Neil Young and Crazy Horse - Everybody Knows This is Nowhere
Bohren and Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta I: Fathers of the Icy Age
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry
Man Man - Dream Hunting in the Valley of the In-between
Burzum - Filosofem
They Might Be Giants - Flood
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Neighbourhood - I Love You.
Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss
Bibio - Vignetting the Compost
Tony Joe White - The Best of
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Cafe Racer - Shadow Talk
Go Gos - Vacation
Cocksure - TVMALSV
One of the things I really dig about Apple Music is the fact that I can see what my friends who have it are listening to (as long as their setting allow it). My good friend Jacob, back in my second favorite State of Ohio, has amazing taste and has turned me onto quite a few unbelievable records. He also, sometimes, reminds me of music that has spun so far out of my orbit there was little to no way I was coming back to it any time soon. Jawbox is such a band. When I think of era-defining 90s music, Jawbox is one of the bands that comes immediately to mind. And yet, unlike other groups from that era, there is nothing about Jawbox that sounds dated in any way. Maybe that because they helped inspire pretty much every new generation of "Post Punk," or maybe it's just because they are transcendently fantastic. Whatever the case, it's been a very long time since I'd heard this record, and it feels oh so good to have it back in my ears.
Thanks, Jacob!
**
My Blu Ray copy of Joe Begos' VFW arrived in the mail yesterday, and I'm hoping to get a chance to watch it this weekend. I caught this one at Beyondfest last year (talked about it on The Horror Vision HERE), and it's fantastic. If you haven't seen VFW and you dig old school Carpenter, Siege Horror, or bad ass old dude flicks, I would consider this one a must. Here's the trailer:
**
Firmly entrenched in William Gibson's The Peripheral. I have only the very vaguest sense of what the hell is happening, but I'm hooked.
No one writes the future like Mr. Gibson, it's a proven fact.
**
Playlist:
Nirvana - Bleach
Dee Lite - Sampladelic Relics and Dancefloor Oddities
Willie Nelson and Leon Russell - One For the Road
White Lung - Paradise
Code Orange - Underneath
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Carpenter Brut - Blood Machines OST
Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart
FMLYBND - Letting Go (Single)
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Old Man Gloom - Seminar IX: Darkness of Being
White Lung - Eponymous
White Lung - Sorry
Tub Ring - Zoo Hypothesis
Doves - Lost Soul
Brand New - God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me
**
Card:
Emerging from cloudy skies about troubled waters. Clarity lies not too far in the distance.
Bill Withers passed away a few days ago. I love this man's music; it echoes up from my childhood, one of my earliest exposures to Soul music. This song in particular has a lot of meaning for me, not only because I love it and it always makes me feel better, but because I put it on one of the early mix tapes I made for K when we first began dating. And yes, I used actual cassette tapes.
**
Finished Ozark Season Three. Good lord, it is going to be hard to wait for Season Four, especially not knowing when or if it might arrive after our current Global Crisis. In the meantime, I with Devs approaching the final episode (only two left), I think I may push to finally show K Breaking Bad, with the ulterior motive of finally being able to catch up on Better Call Saul afterward.
**
Chris Saunders and I recently relauched a Quarantine-approved version of Drinking with Comics. Not a replacement for the regular, live video-show, this spin-off, aptly named Drinking w/ Comics: The Conversation, is meant to be a podcast-only discussion of, well, comics. This first episode finds Chris and I discussing comic shop innovations during Quarantine, as well as what we've been reading, which includes but is not limited to Joe Hill's Hill House books, Mirka Andolfo's Mercy, and Jonathan Hickman's Decorum. Check it out!
**
Playlist:
Wire - Pink Flag
Prists - Nothing Feels Natural
Drudkh - Autumn Aurora
Apple Music Playlists - Blackgaze Pioneers
Helmet - Aftertaste
Slayer - Live Undead/Haunting the Chapel
BENNI - The Return
Steve Lynch - Let Us Prey OST
Anthrax - Among the Living
Wolves in the Throneroom - Two Hunters
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Carpathian Forest - Through Chasm, Caves and Titan Woods
Foster the People - Torches
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1 (Vinyl arrived!)
**
Card:
The Six of Swords leads perfectly into today's Mindful Habitation: As the Orwellian nature of our world - a state derived primarily through the Internet's ease of access to both true and falsified information and humanity's increasingly rabid need for convenience over actual rational, logic-based thought - continues to provide baffling reports of what's happening, remember. Everything except Science is, at this point, extrapolatory at best and anecdotal or misleading at worst. We are still firmly in the forest, and thus, have no way of counting how many trees we will pass before we exit. Science, while not entirely accurate - nothing beyond the subatomic level is - is our best bet at survival.
And yes, I made the word extrapolatory up just now, but feel cheated that it doesn't already exist, at least officially.
Man, this could not come at a better time! I cannot wait for weekly event viewing with Mr. Briggs.
**
I've been on a reading tear. I finished my re-read of Inferno, the mini series that ran through all the X-books in 1989. I even through in the What If...? Issue that contemplated what would have happened had the X-Folks lost to S'ym and Madelyne Pryor. Mr. Sinister remains my favorite X-Villain, however, it's unfortunate that Mr. Claremont never had the opportunity to fully explore his backstory. I know subsequent X-writers did, however, I don't know that I'd ever be interested in reading beyond Claremont's X-Men again. Louise Simonson works well writing X-Factor inside Claremont's domain, and I don't want to belittle what she did, but really, she began as Claremont's editor on the books, so it makes sense that when he had to hand the reins of one book over to someone, it would be her. And Ms. Simonson's contributions are fantastic. I even like a bit of what Fabian Nicezia added closer to the end of Claremont's tenure, but most of what other creators did at that time grew organically out of the seeds Claremont had laid. Who knows? Maybe I'll find the one of those Sinister-related trades on sale for Kindle at some point and take a chance. I know they took him back to the Victorian era - an immediate 'Pro' for me, however, the subsequent convolution of all things X after Claremont and the editorial insistence on 'Status Quo' just makes me want to pretend the characters were part of a finite series. (Although Morrison's stands on its own as a three-volume masterpiece, and I suspect that may be just about up for re-read as well).
Possibly my favorite splash in the entire series
Next up was the complete Alien/Predator/Prometheus Fire and Stone saga, which was pretty awesome.
One of my favorite elements of this was when the construct Elden - similar model to Bishop or David from the films - is injected with the Engineer's Life Accelerant "Black Goo" and begins an evolutionary journey that sees him become something almost as monstrous and distressing as the Xenomorphs themselves. Check this out:
More wonderful Nightmare fuel from the Alien Universe!
Next, the first installment of Warren Ellis' 2016 serial novel Normal, which I've had since its release and which I've just realized, is now only available as the collected novel. So, apparently in order to continue, I'll just have to pick that up, which is no problem, as it's readily available on Kindle:
Although I won't be doing the rest of Normal just yet, as reading the first part awakened in me a rabid desire to re-read Charles Stross' Atrocity Archives, which I believe I first read back in... 2007 or 2008, and which has perpetually been on my mind since setting up a Feedly account a few months ago and following Stross' blog (HERE).
If you're unfamiliar with Stross, his Laundry Files books follow an employee in the IT department of a company that deals with Necromantic Arts and Lovecraftian Elder Gods the way Silicon Valley companies deal with Technology. It's fascinating, and I'd been meaning to re-enter Stross world for sometime. I'm only a few pages into this re-read, but I may do more of the series afterward.
**
Playlist:
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed EP
Fenn - Epoch
Balthazar - Fever
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
Siouxsie and the Banshees - Tinderbox
Tennis System - Lovesick
Spotlights - Love and Decay
Various Artists - The Void OST
LCD Soundsystem - Sound of Silver
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
NIN - Ghosts V: Together
Rammstein - Eponymous
When I was a Freshmen in High School in 1990, I fell really heavy into Anthrax. I loved all the Titans of Thrash, but Anthrax was the one that I loved best, mostly because of how The Persistence of Time hit me. That was the first Anthrax album I bought/heard, and when I spread my allowance out over the next few months digging into their back catalogue, I fell even deeper in love. Among the Living is the obvious gem, but State of Euphoria, Spreading the Disease, and the I'm the Man EP all occupied a place of great thrall in my cassette collection. Since then, Persistence, Among, and State have all stayed in and out of rotation, but for whatever reason, Spreading the Disease was the album I never really went back to again after those teenage years. Last month, after seeing Mr. Bungle's thrash set, I went through a reawakening on the marvels of classic thrash, and ever since then, Spreading the Disease has been inching its way up into the top rotation spot in my daily playlists. And this last week or so - no irony intended - it's been the album that has soundtracked my thoughts.
I wake up everyday with one of the songs in my head. For a few days it was Medusa. Yesterday it was The Enemy. Today it was Gung Ho. I'm absolutely loving this record right now, it feels like one of the crown jewels of 80s thrash. It's always such a good feeling to fall in love with an album all over again.
**
Last night, K and I watched Roger Avary's 1993 French Bank Heist gone wrong Killing Zoe. I saw this movie a lot when it came out on video; I'm pretty sure other than ReservoirDogs, this was a constant with my friends and I. Dark, funny, and thoroughly possessed by that "Tarantino Crime Aesthetic," probably because Avary helped create that vision with his work on Pulp Fiction. If you've never seen this one, it's definitely worth a watch, and if, like me, it's been at least a decade, I definitely recommend a re-watch. Killing Zoe won't disappoint.
**
Playlist:
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not
**
Card:
Fours are solid, but in my opinion, sometimes misleading. I've had a few days off writing simply because of it was my weekend to work and it kicked my ass. Now though, I have the next two days off, so it's back to work.
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.
As usual, Brooklyn Vegan has been killing it on curation and content during these trying times. THIS article, posted Wednesday, 3/18, runs down a list of several fantastic live shows currently available in-full on youtube. Of course, I went directly to the Type O one. I saw them twice on the October Rust tour - the shows are among my fondest concert memories - and this footage takes me back in a way I did not quite expect. With the tenth anniversary of Peter Steele's death on the horizon (April 14th), and with rain falling intermittently more than usual in LaLa Land, this landed at the perfect moment for me. Thanks Brooklyn Vegan, for all that you do!
**
Two nights ago, K and I finished the second season of Netflix's Castlevania, which means we finally get to move on to Season Three, which I keep seeing referred to as "Psychedelic Horror." Can't wait for that, especially considering the way events played out at the end of Season Two. Written by legendary comics scribe Warren Ellis, Castlevania is pure joy for Horror/Comics/Video Game fans alike. Ellis' writing is top notch; think of when the mostly creator-owned writer steps into high level IP's like X-Books, Batman, or, if you're like me and fondly remember Nextwave: Agents of H.A.T.E., and you'll get a ballpark sense of what a joy it is seeing this man play with super well-known toys. For a peak inside his process, go to Orbital Operations and sign up for his weekly newsletter. It is seriously one of the things in life I most look forward to reading every week, both for the process insights, and his unmatched aptitude as a curator of all things awesome! In the meantime, for only those who have finished Season Two, here's a clip of the penultimate battle that just blows my f*&king mind!
**
Playlist:
The Mars Volta - Deloused in the Comatorium
Antemasque - Eponymous
The Black Angels - Eponymous EP
SOD - Speak Spanish or Die
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
Slayer - Decade of Aggression
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
**
Card:
I'm not sure how to read the common interpretation of "Seed to a Tree." In light of world events, I'm not sure if that's positive for us now, on this side of what this thing will eventually become, or if it's referring to the growth of COVID-19, or if we're talking about the mass culling of our population and eventual rebuilding phase. Another common interpretation here is that something will begin, but that's pretty much as eerily ambiguous as the other.
Let's hope future generations aren't as irresponsible as we (collectively) have been.
As more and more cities go into Shelter-in-Place, I'm having moments throughout my day where Science Fiction interlopes my daily routines and shows me where we very well may be going. Remember, the difference between Science Fiction and Fantasy is Science Fiction is - in its purest form - fiction based on the extrapolation of current Scientific Knowledge/Method. In other words, the Orwells, RAW's, and Huxley's of the world - not to mention the Gilliams - have been warning us for decades. My company announced today they are drafting official documents for us in the event of checkpoints being erected to control non-quarantine compliance. I heard this and couldn't help envision a scene cobbled together from various fictional sources I've consumed in my life: I pull up to a police or military checkpoint, lower my window, and hand a gas-mask wearing official my papers, which they check over and hand back.
Wow. Yeah, that is most likely where we are going.
**
Mindful Habitation:
It has never been my intention to make this blog political, primarily because there is no answer when it comes to politics. I detest both sides and long for the day when I can remove my support from either tired old institution we continue to placate. I thought that would be this year. Now - assuming we still have an election in November - I not only want Captain Hairdo out of office, I want to see him tried for Crimes Against Humanity. Because all the other shit was bad, but not that different from what the other side does. Now though, we have a 'leader' who is very much responsible for not only the loss of human life on a grand scale, but what is looking like it will be the end of 'this great nation.' No, I'm blaming him for the existence of COVID-19. But when you follow his words and sentiment, you see where the irresponsibility sets in, and why I make such strong accusations.
Some things to think about are HERE and HERE. Don't dwell in there too long, and don't fall down the Twitter-hole, but these are the things to remember when/if we have an election in November. I would like to see these people Tried in a Court of Law for Crimes Against Humanity. The difference here is, if you compare to, for instance, when Nixon fell from grace, his supporters believed he wasn't guilty until his crimes were proven. In this day and age, people can see proven facts and simply refuse they are facts. This goes back to what I have been saying since the "Alternative Facts" bullshit that began post inauguration. There is no such thing as Alternative Facts. THIS is Orwell's 1984, where the state decides reality, and it's fucking terrifying.
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.
Caught this on Michael Stock's Part Time Punks on KXLU this past Thursday (there's a link via KXLU that archives the playlist for all Michael's shows HERE). Love it. Fracture is from the Fracture/Tied single on Warp Records. You can also find and support Seefeel through other releases available on their Bandcamp.
**
Seven episodes into HBO's The Outsider, and it has a hold of me good. Fantastic show that very much scratches the itch left over from True Detective Season One.
**
As more and more public events are cancelled, it was inevitable the upcoming Deafheaven tour got postponed. Mr. Brown pointed me HERE, where the band is selling what was supposed to be their tour merch, as well as taking pre-orders for the double live album that was supposed to be recorded over two nights in Chicago, but will now be recorded live in-studio. As the craziness increases, you're going to see a lot of messages from independent artists about helping to support them and/or others like them. Take this seriously. I've always considered myself a 'patron' of the arts, especially as we've moved into such a decentralized paradigm for creating and distributing said arts. Now with this, bands who would have made the bulk of their income touring - because even a band like Deafheaven isn't being supported by their label enough for its individual members to actually exist in the real world - are going to be effectively cut off at the knees. You can't support everyone, but please, support those you can.
Here's one of the older Deafheaven songs I'm hoping ends up on the double live, which titled 10 Years Gone, I'm assuming is a career-to-this-point retrospective:
**
Playlist:
Human Impact - Eponymous
Seefeel - Fracture/Tied (Single)
Various Artists - The Void OST
Beach Slang - The Deadbeat Bang of Heartbreak City
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
**
Card:
That's a bit disturbing in light of recent events. Or, I can interpret it as the hot streak I'm using all the media induced 'pandemic' paranoia to fuel re-writing something I will be releasing in a few months.
The debut album by Human Impact dropped on Ipecac Records today. This one brings me back - there's a little Helmet, a little Quicksand, and an undercurrent of Industrial vibes that makes their sound mildly nostalgic while also cutting edge. Haven't heard anything like this in some time, and Chris Spencer's sweat-and-vitriol laced vocals feel pretty damn timely, while the world seems to curl in from around the edges, like an old photograph in a winter hearth.
**
Nightmare fuel right here. Jesus, this looks insane, and the "bastard child of Ground Hog's Day and The Babadook" quote just seals the freakin' deal.
**
Playlist:
Balthazar - Fever
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed
Beth Gibbons/Henry Gorecki - Symphony No. 3
Drab Majesty - Modern Mirror
Eagulls - Eponymous
Emma Ruth Rundle - Marked for Death
Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
**
Card:
On this, the second time in three days I've pulled The Emperor, I'm reading on a more Macroscopic level. The Emperor is establishment, social order, social contract. Namely, all the things that feel like they are in jeopardy at the moment. I'm inclined to read this as a nod to the unwavering persistence of these systems we have set up - even though many of them are fucked up or in jeopardy in other ways - and that the current scare will subside without decimating our society. There's a host of conspiracy theories the Mulder in my brain keeps throwing at the back of my eyes, but I'm trying to acclimate to just believing everything will be, relatively, okay. Even if a lot is probably going to change by the end of the year.
