All Waves Lead to NCBD

 

From Greg Puciato's 2022 solo album Mirrorcell, which I've been revisiting of late. I'm not sure this final track on the album made as big an impression on me with previous listens, but yesterday it really hit. I love a good outro track, and this one is fantastic; it builds and then explodes and ebbs out. 

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NCBD:

A considerably more robust week than last, here's what I'm bringing home for NCBD:

I can't say enough good things about Tyler Boss and Adriano Turtulici's Giallo-flavored You'll Do Bad Things. Issue three puts us at the halfway mark, and things are bound to get even more f*ked up as the story progresses. 

I never realized how much Skuxxoid kind of looks like Star Wars bounty hunter Bossk, but the resemblance is definitely there in close-up. I thought this guy died an issue or two back, but he's apparently the featured character this issue, so we'll see if that means ol' Skuxx is actually harder to kill than we thought, or if we're going back in time for context on something in the currently storyline. Either way, count me in. Oh! Also, spoiler, but the solicitation for this one mentions the introduction of some other characters I can't wait to see the Energon Universe's take on:

The breakout fan-favorite of the Energon Universe takes center stage. Who is Skuxxoid? What is Skuxxoid? This issue answers all your burning questions and more! Plus, the FIRST APPEARANCE of Wreck-Gar and the Junkions!

 

I'm excited for this one, as the book is breaking up the story from the last few issues with something new, and the introduction of one of my favorite Joes (Beachhead) has me rife with anticipation as well.

Jeff Lemire's Minor Arcana has me pretty jazzed right now as well. This man is such an incredible Writer/Artist, and this book has his trademark brand of mystery just dripping from nearly every page.

I originally saw solicitations for the finale of the McKendrys' Dark Horse series Barstow last month, so I'm not sure if I was off or the distributor was. Either way, I can't wait to sit down and read this entire series start to finish. Such an odd and horrifying story.

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Watch:

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I was due, and I finally got around to a re-watch of John Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China this past Monday night. 

The only thing, this time, I watched it on Joe Bob Briggs' The Lost Drive-In Patreon, an old episode of TNT's Monstervision with an original air date of 10/19/97. The picture was pretty much atrocious, however, this version had extra scenes I did not recognize from the movie! Of course, there's another Carpenter film with extra footage that was added for television - Halloween - so this isn't that big of a surprise. Caught me a bit off guard, though, and helped make the experience better. 

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Playlist:

Jóhann Jóhannsson - Mandy OST

Greg Puciato - Mirrorcell

Year of No Light - Les Maîtres Fous E.P.

Greg Puciato - Fc5n E.P.

Airiel - Winks & Kisses: Melted E.P.

Sorry... - Your Smile Is Killing Me (Alt. Version single)*

Sorry... - Drowned in Misery*

Genghis Tron - Board Up the House

John Carpenter w/ Alan Howarth - Big Trouble in Little China OST

Rick Derringer - All American Boy

Godflesh - Post Self

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

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* Thanks, Tommy!

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Queen of Cups

• Three of Pentacles

• V: The Hierophant

Emotions run high with the formation of an Earthly routine. 

Cherubini - Requiem in C Minor

 

One beautiful piece of music I've often taken for granted.

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Watch:

Friday night, I watched Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me on Joe Bob Brigg's The Last Drive-In Patreon. I'd seen this posted on the Patreon a while ago and had been saving it. Couldn't think of a better time; I'm two-thirds through my rewatch of Twin Peaks The Return and wanted to slow the roll on that. It's definitely gained momentum fast while watching, and I backed off to kind of savor it. 

The original air date of this one was March 6, 1999, on Joe Bob's Last Call. One of the cool things about the Patreon is even though Joe Bob's old shows were basic cable and, therefore edited, the films they put up are the whole enchilada.

I can't say I agreed with most of JB's commentary on the film. However, it was '99, and Twin Peaks was a distant memory to pop culture at large (not to me and my friends; Brown, myself and two other friends would make our first sojourn to the Twin Peaks Fest (RIP) in Washington state a year later in 2000), so without a fresh rewatch of the series - which would have been somewhat hard to do unless you had the Worldvision VHS box set I'd had since it was released in 1993 for $99.95 (had to look the release date on that one up), you probably hadn't seen the series since it originally aired in 90/91 or perhaps when the Bravo network reaired it in 1993. So FWWM would make even less sense.

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Read:

Speaking of surrealist Horrro, I finally got around to starting Sopia Ajram's Coup de Grâce.

Here's the description lifted directly from Goodreads:

A mindbending and visceral experimental horror about a young man trapped in an infinite Montreal subway station, perfect for readers of Mark Z. Danielewski and Susanna Clarke.

Don't remember where I first heard of this one, but I'm enjoying it so far, even though I'm still having a lot of trouble concentrating on prose at the moment. 

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Playlist:

Frank Black - Teenager of the Year

The Jesus Lizard - Down

Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante

Japandroids - Celebration Rock

Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh

Loathe - I Let It In and It Took Everything

Flogging Molly - Float

Riccardo Muti - Verdi: Requiem & Cherubini: Requiem in C Minor

Wolves in the Throne Room - Crypt of Ancestral Knowledge EP

Wolves in the Throne Room - Diadem of 12 Stars

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion

Boston Baroque, Conductor: Martin Pearlman - Chrubini: Requiem in C Minor

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Two of Pentacles

• Two of Wands

• Four of Wands

Stability ahead.

Body Count - Comfortably Numb

 Wait... what?

I don't love this, but it's definitely worth posting. "Comfortably Numb" was probably my favorite song when I was a stoned teenager in high school. My friend Anthony and I were obsessed with Pink Floyd, and this song... just moved the world for me. I still love it, but it's not all that often I go back and revisit Floyd in the religious manner I used to. Still, seeing this as a cover by Ice-T's thrash metal band Body Count floored me, and it's definitely worth a listen, as they do some interesting things with the song, which is an advance single from the upcoming album Meerciless, out November 22 on Century Media. Pre-order HERE.

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Watch:

Last night, K and I watched Tobe Hooper's Poltergeist on Joe Bob Brigg's The Last Drive-In Patreon. The original air date of the episode was 4/3/99 - why does the late '90s look so old to me now? - on a TNT series called Joe Bob's Last Call. 

As a huge fan who only ever heard of Joe Bob in 2018 when he hit Shudder with that Marathon (I never had cable growing up), I've obviously become aware of Monstervision and Up All Night, but Last Call was new to me. I'll have to look to see where that slots in between the others. Anyway, Poltergeist is something of an annual or bi-annual Autumn watch for me, and it was especially wonderful watching it with Joe Bob.

This is a perfect film, in my opinion. I never bothered with the 2015 remake, even out of curiosity, and I likely never will. The world on display in Poltergeist is the world I grew up in - early 1980s suburban America - and that's part of what makes it so effective both as a Horror film and a nostalgia piece. Also, I find it super interesting that the first few times I saw this film I was very young and Jobeth Williams was a "Mom" to me, but over the years as I've aged and the version of her in the film hasn't, she's become one of the hottest Horror movie women I've ever seen. 

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Playlist:

The Damned - AD 2022 Live in Manchester

Human Impact - Gone Dark (pre-release singles)

Human Impact - EP01

Mogwai - God Gets You Back (single)

Dale Crover - Glossolalia

The Mysterines - Afraid of Tomorrows

Bauhaus - Go Away White

Aerosmith - Pump

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Zeal & Ardor - GREIF

Body Count - Comfortably Numb (single)

Body Count - Eponymous

Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom

Jane's Addiction - Nothing Shocking

Amy Winehouse - Back to Black

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Card:

Today's card is the Ace of Disks:

Financial Breakthrough. Successful implementation of new ideas/rules/parameters in matters of Earthly providence. Growth and prosperity.

Bauhaus - Adrenaline

From their 2008 album Go Away White, which caught a fair amount of slack when it came out, but honestly, always sounded pretty fucking great to me.

 

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Watch:

Writing this Friday night with a pretty good head of steam. Since I pretty much passed out after the second movie of Joe Bob's Nightmareathon last week, I'm picking up the slack this week. I started with Fade to Black, a flick I've started watching several times before and never finished (not the movie's fault), and I found it to be just okay until the third act, which I actually thought was pretty fantastic.

   

The Nightmareathon segued into Children of the Corn after Fade to Black, and I wasn't in the mood for that, so I decided to re-watch Joe Bob host Spookies from The Last Drive-In Season three. Talk about a damn good time:

Some of the sound design really blew me away, and overall, you really have to admire anyone who makes such an absolutely batshit crazy flick. 

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Playlist:

The Cure - The Top

Miranda Sex Garden - Fairytales of Slavery

Bauhaus - Gotham

Blut Aus Nord - 777: Cosmosophy

Bauhaus - Go Away White

Joy Division - Still

Blackbraid - Warriors (single)

Ghost Bath - Moonlover

The Body - I Have Fought Against It, But I Can't Any Longer.

I guess it's Fall, eh?

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Card:

Today's card for study is II: The Priestess:

Alchemical marriage of elements to conceive a new thing (idea, being). This is the cosmic womb that takes I: The Magus's seed and gestates it into a new form. 

Raw Creation, and thus, Will. Tapping into a power greater than your own.

Thou - Umbilical

 

If you need a reason to love Thou beyond the music, this is it. Order the new album Umbilical HERE. I think Byran Funck's vocals are the closest I've ever heard to recreating that infamous "Stroke Me" effect Mike Patton used in old-school Mr. Bungle. And regardless of how much sludge this band piles on, I still hear the Staley-era Alice in Chains. Fucking love it.

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Watch:

Joe Bob and Darcy did my favorite movie of all time last night. Here are those Drive-in totals:

Loved this episode. 

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry

Dean Hurley - Tales From the Library of the Occult: Flower

Faith No More - Angel Dust

Warning - Why Can Bodies Fly (single)

Calderum - Mystical Fortress of Iberian Lands

INXS - Kick

Thou - Umbilical

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Card:

One card from Missi's Raven Deck to send me on my way to Chicago to see The Ravenonettes on Monday:

Always a comforting sight.

Mannequin Pussy - I Got Heaven

The title track from Mannequin Pussy's new album, I Got Heaven, which you can order HERE. This came out two weeks ago, the same day as the new Ministry, which is kind of hogging all my attention, hence why I haven't thought to post something here yet. This is probably my favorite track on the record, which is saying something because the entire thing is fantastic and a safe bet to end up in my best of 2024 list.

 

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NCBD:

Man, some weeks NCBD can't come fast enough. This was one of those weeks! 

The cover says it all: Let's SNIKT us some Dr. Stasis! While Rise of the Powers of X has been pretty much a major slog so far, its sister book Fall of the House of X has been pretty great. Hoping that continues. 

Jeff Lemire's Fish Flies comes to an end! I won't be able to read this one until early April, as I'll most likely have to have my Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Shin throw it in my box up in Chicago, but that's okay. Looking forward to rereading this entire weird little series. 

Hot off the heels of The Six Fingers, we pivot back to the detective's perspective with The One Hand issue #2. These two series really have me excited. 

One issue left after this, then the TMNT gets turned on its ear - luckily without restarting the continuity! It's anybody's guess where this is heading, but I'm psyched for the finale.

Has it already been a month since Daniel Warren Johnson's Transformers #5? Man! I love this cover, and can't wait to see Devastator in action. This series is really packing a punch.

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Watch:

Fuck yeah - Joe Bob and Darcy are BACK this Friday!

So happy to have The Last Drive-In back for another year! Granted, this year, Shudder is making it one movie instead of two and every other week, but that's because they're really trying to keep the subscribers who click on for JBB and then leave after as long as possible. That's fine - I'd advise anyone reading this who subs in and out simply for Joe Bob and Darcy to rethink their approach. There's tons of great stuff on Shudder and they're always adding more, a lot of which is exclusive content they help produce. In order to help folks navigate the best of the best on Shudder, my podcast, The Horror Vision, recently started an off-shoot called The Horror Vision Presents: ON SHUDDER. Kind of a streaming kind, the first episode went up this past Monday and highlights Josh Forbes' Destroy All Neighbors.

We're recording a new episode soon, as this may end up being a weekly addition to our regular episodes. There's just so much great stuff on Shudder.

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Nobuhiko Morino - Versus OST

Sleep - Dopesmoker

Ministry - Hopiumforthemasses

Ministry - The Last Sucker

Mudvayne - Lost and Found

Steve Moore - Bliss OST

Jim Williams - Possessor OST

Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower

John Carpenter - Lost Themes

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Perturbator - Nocturne City EP

Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

• Ten of Pentacles 

• Ace of Cups

• King of Cups

Culmination of hard work pays off with an emotional breakthrough that lends insight into 

Joy Orbison - Hyph Mngo

I'm not entirely certain how Joy Orbison came to mind this past Saturday morning as I sat in bed working on another new short story, but once I hit play on this track, I was immediately transported back to the dim evening light of 2009, when I spent a lot of time bumping the single that had "Hyph Mngo" on one side and "Wet Look" on the other*. I don't know exactly how long it's been since I listened to Joy Orbinson's music, let alone thought of it, but I'd wager a decade isn't too far off. A quick search of Apple Music revealed Joy's been consistently busy over the last thirteen years, and I had a wonderful morning tapping the keys and listening to everything I've missed. 

* That's a misnomer - I didn't actually have the physical single, but the digital tracks.

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Watch:

I watched quite a few flicks this weekend. Here's a rundown: 

Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl brought in another stellar episode of The Last Drive-In this past Friday, which helped assuage my blues that Yellowjackets took the week off. First, a flick I'd never really cared for previously, Kevin Tenney's Witch Board:

 

I remember seeing the tv spots for this one during its original theatrical release in 1986. As a ten-year-old, those spots freaked me right the hell out, but the movie never made it onto my screen until 2011 when I bought a used copy at Amoeba Music. Needless to say, Witch Board fell extremely short of my heightened expectations, and I immediately gave that copy to a friend at work. I didn't think anything could make me enjoy this one after that, but I have to say, it's just a totally different experience watching a flick like this with the Drive-In crew. I still wouldn't profess to be a Witch Board fan, but I had a damn good time with it Friday.

The Last Drive-In's second flick was 1975's The Devil's Rain, which features Ernest Borgnine as a red-cowl-wearing Satanist. I love this flick, and it'd been a while, so even though I ended up falling asleep during it on Friday, I restarted and finished it yesterday. That ending!

Predating the Satanic Panic by just a couple years, this is the post-Hippie fallout in America in the 70s: It makes me laugh that so many people entertained the idea of large, active "Satanic Cults" operating all over the U S of A in the dark, psychic corridor following Peace, Love and Understanding. I feel like this movie spins directly out of that idea. 

Saturday I received a call from my Cousin Charles, who had just watched John Carpenter's Prince of Darkness for the first time. This made me realize I hadn't sat down with some Carpenter in a while, so I planned a double feature and kicked it off with Big Trouble in Little China:

 

I'm not sure there's a movie I know of that is more quintessentially 'Me.' I first saw Big Trouble in 86 or 87 -whenever it first hit VHS - and that put me at 10 or 11 years old and 100% in Double Dragon, Snakes Eyes and Storm Shadow, and any stories that included underground caverns and realms. BTiLC has ALL of that, and it shaped me in a way I'm still trying to tap into in my writing. 

I followed one Carpenter favorite with another, 1987's Prince of Darkness: In terms of John Carpenter's films, I always say Prince of the Darkness is my favorite, but the caveat I add is you have to just take Big Trouble out of the ranking - it's always going to win. The Thing and Halloween are both up near the top as well, but the mechanics of the story in Prince of Darkness always blow me away, as well as how effective the film is with such an obviously diminished budget from JC's better-known films.

Finally, Sunday afternoon I finally dug out my old DVD copy of Doug Limon's Go and showed it to K. Here's the trailer:

Maybe it was because I caught the tail end of K watching the Train Wreck: Woodstock 99 doc on Netflix Saturday afternoon, but I had the late 90s on the brain, as awful as they were. Anyway, this flick was introduced to me by friends after we got into a fight with a bunch of gangbangers at, where else, the Crazy Horse II in Vegas. I'm not a strip club kinda guy, but I've been to a few in my early 20s. This was by far the highlight, and not because it was a strip club, but because we literally had to run out of the club, jump a taxi line and steal someone's cab to get away in one piece. After all that, one of the friends with me remarked how much like a sequence in Go the whole thing was, and when I professed to not having seen the film, he showed me.

 

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Playlist:

Forhist - Eponymous

Joy Orbison - Apple Essentials

Spotlights - Seance EP

Spotlights - Alchemy for the Dead

Goatsnake - Black Age Blues

Windhand - Eponymous

Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

Blut Aus Nord - 777 Cosmosophy

Dorthia Cottrell - Death Folk Country

Body Maintenance - Beside You

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations

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Deftones - Simple Man

I'm traveling, so any posts here will probably be abbreviated and sporadic. I'm not really a Skynard fan, however, after hearing the Deftones cover this one on their B-Sides collection that came out a few years ago, I realized I very much dig this song.

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Watch:

I don't know anything about Luke Boyce's upcoming flick Revealer, which debuts on Shudder this coming Friday, however, here's the trailer:

Being that I'm traveling and have had a lot of my time spoken for over the last week, I missed last Friday's penultimate episode of Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In, where the trailer for Revealer played between movies. The following day, however, I saw this tweet and subsequently looked into the film:

Tonight is surreal. I fell in love with horror watching @therealjoebob’s MonsterVision. Last yr on Father’s Day my wife gifted me this Cameo & a YEAR later, on his Fathers Day ep, the trailer for my debut feature played. 😭😵‍💫 @Shudder @kinky_horror #TheLastDriveIn @RevealerMovie pic.twitter.com/nYIwPaze7H

— Luke Boyce (@lukeslens) June 18, 2022

This entire thing just makes me so happy, for Luke Boyce, for the movie, and for us, because this flick looks awesome! 80s Chicago? Mandy color-palette? I'm in.

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Read:

I finally began reading The Song of Salome by Tom Johnstone, published by the always wonderful Omnium Gatherum. 

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous pretty much on repeat, all day, every day. When I have a chance to listen to music, that is.

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Card:

Bridging emotion (Cups) and reason (Air, Princes).

I feel like there's a lot of that right now, as we set up shop in Tennessee looking for houses, my parents in tow. I love my parents but haven't lived with them in over twenty years, or near them, aside from when I come home to visit every year, and I'm finding they are... a little bit of a challenge. Prince of Cups is one of the cards that represents me pretty well, as I'm pretty good at mitigating emotion with reason. Let's hope I can 

H6LLB6ND6R - Armageddon

 

This past Friday on The Last Drive-In, Joe Bob Briggs and Darcy the Mailgirl hosted Hellbender, the sixth movie by the prolific and endlessly fascinating indie filmmaking Adams/Poser family. 

During the interview segments of the broadcast, the family revealed that not only is H6llb6nd6r an actual band they play in, but Ship to Shore media are releasing their debut record on vinyl. I immediately pre-ordered the vinyl, despite an estimated ship date of Q4 2022 and the fact that, hopefully, by that time I will no longer live at my current address or even in California. Because of this, I used my parents' address in Illinois. However, there is the very real possibility they may also end up near us in Tennessee, so I'm hoping that, when all this finally happens, I will have enough time to go into the order and change the shipping address. 

 You can pre-order H6llb6nd6r's Side A from Ship to Shore Media HERE. The entire record is currently streaming on all platforms, and it's fantastic.

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Cast:

A new episode of Southside 90s dropped concurrently with the newest installment of my Newsletter, which appropriately enough features a "Giant-sized" 90s playlist that chronicles all of the bands and albums I associate with those long-ago days spent playing in bands and smoking pot, getting crazy and watching friends build flamethrowers out of fire extinguishers. Sound insane? Yeah, it kinda was. 

The stories are only going to get weirder from here out, so if you're listening, buckle up.

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Watch:

My good friend and Horror Vision cohost Ray kicked off his summer outdoor movie series Cineray this past Saturday with one of the coolest double features I've seen in a while. First up, my first-ever viewing of Tango and Cash:

 

Next, and I had no idea this movie existed, was John Stamos and Vanity in an all-out 80s action movie called Never Too Young To Die. Feat your eyes on this glory:

 

Yeah, it's ridiculous, and maybe it was the tall cans of Stone's Hazy IPA I was sucking down, but it really hit the spot.

 

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Playlist:

H6LLB6ND6R - Side A

Various - Lost Highway OST

David Bowie - A Reality Tour

Duende and David J - Oracle of the Horizontal

Deftones - Gore

Deftones - Diamond Eyes

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Card:

I was SUPER excited to receive my copy of The Bound Tarot, which my friend and occasional co-conspirator Jonathan Grimm recently released. I'm extremely proud of Grimm - I watched him work on this deck over the last year and his skill never ceases to amaze me.

You can buy a set of these amazing cards on Grimm's site HERE. 

Page of Cups indicates a predilection for following your Creativity, which, as of yesterday, is where I'm at again after weeks of spinning my wheels.

Rebel Rebel

 

I've been listening to the live double album David Bowie released from the Reality tour. Not only is Reality my favorite Bowie album, I think A Reality Tour is my favorite Bowie live album, as well. Such a great, career-spanning selection of songs, and some especially insightful new versions of old favorites and deep cuts, the best of which might just be this re-working of "Rebel Rebel", the studio version of which was included on a later edition of Reality as a bonus track.

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Watch:

I can't wait for Friday. Seeing Joe Bob and Darcy kick off a new season will be like old friends having a party after time away, and my Last Drive-In text threads - Tommy, Ray and Missy - are always a welcome respite. 

 

My bet is we finally get Halloween III: Season of the Witch, which hit Shudder for the first time since I've been subscribed (2018) and leaves the service on the first of next month.

 

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Playlist:

Calexico - El Mirador

Concrete Blonde - Bloodletting

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Emilie Levienaise-Farrouch - Censor OST

Testament - The New Order

Download - The Eyes of Stanley Pain

Puppy Gristle - Eponymous (Thanks, Klint!)

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Card:

The mass of all my possessions occasionally weighs on me. Yesterday was one of those days.

New Zombi!!!

New Zombi! I'm still blasting last year's aptly titled 2020 and here there is, more on the way! Pre-order from Relapse Records HERE.

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Watch:

Our entire household received our first doses of the Pfizer Vaccine on Thursday afternoon and it subsequently knocked me on my ass. I had flu-like body ache, fatigue and borderline nausea until yesterday. Which was fine, because I called out from work on Friday and other than having to work five hours on Saturday - which sucked - and interviewing comics artist and entrepreneur Jay Fotos for A Most Horrible Library afterward (episode out now), I basically watched a bunch of stuff, read a lot, and got some writing done. Oh yeah, and sleep. I slept A LOT.

Watch-wise, first up was Andrzej Zulawski's Possession, which I'd been wanting to see for a long time but is fairly hard to come by. Luckily, Anthony from The Horror Vision has several European Region copies and I now have a Region-Free player, so the stars aligned and my mind was literally blown. 

  

I'm seriously planning a second viewing of this one SOON, because I really need to unpack it. 

Friday night, Joe Bob Briggs returned with the first episode of The Last Drive-In. I'm a huge fan of JBB, however, after about thirty minutes of Lloyd Kaufman's Mother's Day, I jumped ship. I respect the hell out of the Kaufman's and Troma, but thus far, I've never had a single one of their movies work for me. This one was no different, so instead, K and I rented Travis Stevens' new film Jakob's Wife.

Starring Barbara Crampton and Larry Fessenden, there was pretty much no way this one would miss for me, and it didn't fail. Solid Five Stars on Lettrbxd.

I'm finally going back and re-watching all the Marvel MCU flicks that I missed due to total Superhero burn-out. If you're keeping track, I loved Ms. Marvel, and now loved Spider-Man: Homecoming! 

Wow. I knew these flicks would all be good, however, damn! This one was awesome. K and I both LOVED Homecoming and now can't wait to watch Far From Home.

Finally, Saturday night we watched Michael Kennedy and Christopher Landon's Freaky. Everyone told me this one was great, and they were all 100% correct. Loved it! 

   

As my good friend Missi said, "Vince Vaughn was born to play a seventeen-year-old girl!" Amen!
 

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Playlist:

Steve Moore - VFW OST

Small Black - Cheap Dreams

Zombi - 2020

Tomahawk - Tonic Immobility

K's 70s Playlist

Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling

Kate Bush - The Dreaming

Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth

Selim Lemouchi and His Enemies - Earth Air Spirit Water Fire

Anthrax - Persistence of Time

Christopher Young and Lustmord - The Empty Man OST

Soul Coughing - Irresistible Bliss

Pilotpriest - Original Motion Picture Soundtrack

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III

Judas Priest - Hell Bent for Leather

Mrs. Piss - Self Surgery

CCR - Bayou Country

Greg Puciato - Child Soldier

Numenorean - Adore

Alice in Chains - Facelift

Judas Priest - Painkiller

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Revocation - Teratogenesis

Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction

Zombi - Shape Shift

Zombi - Escape Velocity

Voyag3r - Doom Fortress

Voyag3r - War Mask

Various - Valerie and Friends

 

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Card:

 Definitely feels like a Victory that A) I received that first dose of the vax, and B) I'm back into a pretty great vibe with Shadow Play Book Two!!!

Does this Slipper Belong to You?

Wow, I am in a weird headspace this morning. Woke up earlier than needed and went right to looking this album up on Apple Music. I've had hair rock on the mind for the last few days. This goes back to that Recontextualizing the 80s idea I was posting about here a few years ago. Some of this stuff from the Sunset Strip sound of the 80s is definitely best left forgotten, but some of it has a place in history. Or at least in my history, I guess. 

I never owned Cinderella's Long Cold Winter, but a friend in the neighborhood did, and I can remember hanging out at his house and popping it into the stereo more than a couple times. Other favorites at the time  (off the top of my head) would have included Metallica's ...And Justice for All, ICE T's Power, GnR's Lies, and NWA's Straight Outta Compton. This was really at the start of my getting into music in a 'beyond the radio' way, and this neighbor was loaded and, in the way of a lot of rich folk a bit clueless, so he tended to buy tapes and CDs rather haphazardly (I didn't have a CD player yet, so he was my first exposure to the format). 

I still have no idea why or how he chose to pick up a Cinderella album in the first place, this really wasn't his sound, but it was that anomaly factor that made me first pluck it from a pile of CDs and put it in the more than ample stereo. Over the course of a couple of weeks, Long Cold Winter became a go-to when hanging out at his house and listening to music, but that friendship dissolved shortly thereafter and he was lost to the waves of time. I haven't heard the album since. 

Once you get past Tom Keifer's throat-singing, this record has a pretty cool sound. The title track still stands as a damn good example of that 80s rock/blues sound that, in my opinion, was perfected on Gary Moore's Still Got the Blues for You, and it's this quality, as well as the ripping slide guitar sprinkled here and there, that elevates Long Cold Winter above your standard 80s Hair Rock sound, although Cinderella does that to varying degrees of palatability throughout the rest of the record, as well.

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Watch:

Joe Bob Briggs gave us the best of his Holiday specials he's done in some time last Friday with the Joe Bob Put a Spell on you, where he paired the Gore-cut of Tammy and the T-Rex with Anna Biller's The Love Witch. 

I was fortunate enough to catch the premiere of Vinegar Syndrome's release of the long-lost Gore-cut of Tammy at Beyondfest 2019 - the film actually followed an in-person presentation of Joe Bob doing his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood lecture. Both were fantastic, and it was cool to see the two together again. 

The Love Witch is one of the first movies K and I actively waited on the VOD premiere for back in the early phase of our relationship, due to a great LA Weekly article that talked about the absolute care and detail Ms. Biller put into making the film. 

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Playlist:

Deafheaven - Sunbather

Deafheaven - 10 Years Gone

Jim Jarmusch and Jozef Van Wissem - The Mystery of Heaven

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - Damn the Torpedoes

Fleetwood Mac - Greatest Hits

Flying Lotus - Los Angeles

Daniel Pemberton - Motherless Brooklyn OST

Lard - The Last Temptation of Reid

Lard - Pure Chewing Satisfaction

Teenage Wrist - Earth is a Black Hole

Helmet - Meantime

John Carpenter - Lost Themes III Alive After Death

Zombi - 2020

The Bangles - Different Light 

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Card:

Coincidentally, as I draw from my Thoth Deck, I reflect on the fact that one of the things I most love about The Love Witch is there is a room in the film painted with the colors of the deck. 

 Hammering away with increased gusto but an edge of carelessness that can bring the whole damn thing down around your ears. Ease back and keep a keen eye. This is totally a nod that I'm overworking myself and need to take tonight to chill out. Science and Will must be strategic (to a degree), and still possessed of mindfullness.

Isolation: Day 66 - Keep Rolling

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.

I wrote a super short Letterbxd review HERE.

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

Isolation - Day 58 Death Dies

Friday nights have been a thing of beauty and comfort ever since Shudder brought Joe Bob Briggs' The Last Drive-In back. This week, JBB did Frank Henelotter's bat-shit crazy Brain Dead and Dario Argento's Profundo Rosso (Deep Red). What a line up!

Watching Deep Red, I'd forgotten how much I love this score, and I'm kicking myself for not buying it when Waxwork Records put it out a few years ago. That said, finding the original version on Apple Music this morning, I realized that there's so much music on this one overall, I find myself wondering if the WW edition only has the Goblin stuff, which while iconic and amazing, would miss what might be my favorite track on the soundtrack altogether.

Originally, I'd mistaken this track for Goblin, however, Italian Jazz musician Giorgio Gaslini is the actual author. I love all the music in Deep Red, but this one... this gives the iconic theme from the film a run for it's money.

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TKO Studios is creating major waves with an amazing business model. This is a new comic publisher, with exclusive, new titles by established creators, who sell online AND give 50% of the price to any comic book store you choose. I just placed an order for Jeff Lemire and Gabriel Walta's Sentient and sent half of the $19.99 for the trade paperback to Atomic Basement Comics in the LBC. Next up, probably Joshua Dysart and Alberto Ponticelli's Murder Mystery Goodnight Paradise, so I can send half to The Comic Bug.

This is the kind of business ingenuity that will see our beloved Comics Industry through the current crisis, and I'm proud to help out. I've been trying to patronize both my shops when I can, but with their limited, by appointment hours, it's been tough to balance it with my schedule. TKO is definitely going to help with that.

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Playlist:

Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vista III (Saturnian Poetry)
X- Under the Big Black Sun
Blut Aus Nord - MoRT
Blut Aus Nord - Deus Salutis Meae
Blut Aus Nord - What Once Was... Liver III EP
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Chelsea Wolfe - Hiss Spun
Blut Aus Nord - Odinist: Destruction of Reason By Illumination
Crystal Castles - (II)
Ministry - The Mind is a Terrible Thing To Taste
Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus
Hall and Oats - Essentials
M83 - Saturdays = Youth
Roachpowder - Atomic Church
Ministry - From Beer to Eternity
Ministry - Alert Level (Quarantine Mix) Single
White Lung - Paradise
The Neighbourhood - Wiped Out
The Neighbourhood - I Love You.
X- Alphabetland
Lead Into Gold - The Sun Behind the Sun
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Revocation - Deathless
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night
Goblin/Giorgio Gaslini - Profundo Rosso

Card:

Time to saddle up and finish this fucking book!

Isolation: Day 43 - Perturbator Hard Wired

There's a bunch of new music I could post, but I've been re-infatuated with Dangerous Days as we - hopefully - edge closer to a new Perturbator record. One that, according to the man himself, will not sound like this. I'm cool with that. Can't wait.

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I inadvertently began a Phantasm series rewatch yesterday. I've been working shortened hours, 6-12, so I get home and put a flick on the tube, something I've seen before so if I nod out during it won't be a big deal. I went with the 2018 Joe Bob Briggs Christmas presentation of Phantasm yesterday. This was a marathon of all the movies but Part Two, which JBB boycotts due to the destruction of a Hemi Cuda during the making of. I'm not a car guy, but fine. Anyway, I slept through some of Phantasm, which was actually pretty cool, as the film's creepy dream logic bored into my REM and made for an almost interactive napping experience. I woke for the end, immediately threw on my disc of Part Two, then made it most of the way through Three - which if I've ever seen I forgot most of - and intend on finishing the rest today. Before the return of Joe Bob tonight on Shudder! I'm not super psyched about the first movie or the co-host, but hopefully the second film he picks will be a winner, and hell, it's Joe Bob!

BTW - I absolutely ADORE Phantastm II and III.



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Playlist:

Brand New - Daisy
Brand New - God and the Devil are Raging Inside Me
The Temptations - Cloud Nine
Various - Motown Deep Cuts (Apple Music Playlist)
Zombi - Shape Shift
Code Orange - Underneath
White Lung - Paradise
Steve Moore - VFW OST
Spotlights - We Are All Atomic EP
Doves - Lost Sides
Doves - Lost Souls
Lustmord - Things That Were 1980-1983
Pigface - Fook
My Morning Jacket - Z
Diana Ross and the Supremes - Love Child
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Perturbator - Night Driving Avenger EP
Friendly Fires - Pala
Jawbox - For Your Own Special Sweetheart
Deftones - White Pony
Deth Crux - Mutant Flesh
Brand New - Science Fiction
John Zorn - Taboo and Exile
Perturbator - Dangerous Days

Card:

Last three days (because I pull every day, even if I don't post):

Wednesday:

Thursday:

Today:

I've had a lot of major influence over the last few weeks. A lot of Arcana and Court cards. Makes perfect sense, especially combined with the 7 of Swords Futility here, as being moved around by forces beyond our control can either make us feel manipulated and frustrated or empowered and ecstatic. And of late, we are all caught up in some pretty heavy, Macro shit that forces us to do or not do things based on variables we cannot control.

Mindful Habitation: Don't know what to believe anymore? The increasingly Orwellian nature of our Reality - where the State defines Reality - is the most frustrating and downright terrifying thing I have ever experienced. Don't know who or what to believe? Unplug the major News outlets and follow the impartial Science.

Isolation: Day 16 - The Return of Joe Bob Briggs!

Man, this could not come at a better time! I cannot wait for weekly event viewing with Mr. Briggs.

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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.

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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

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No Card.

Joe Bob Briggs Halloween Hootenanny

Shudder just announced what we all pretty much knew was going to happen. Friday, 10/25 Joe Bob returns!

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31 Days of Horror:

10/01: House of 1000 Corpses/31
10/02: Lords of Chaos
10/03: Creepshow Ep 2/Tales from the Crypt Ssn 1, Ep 1
10/04: IT Chapter 2, AHS 1984 Ep. 3
10/05: Bliss/VFW
10/06: Halloween III: Season of the Witch/Night of the Creeps/The Fog


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Playlist from 10/06:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Otis Redding - The Very Best of Otis Redding

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No card today.

Joe Bob Briggs @ Beyondfest 2019!

It's 3:31 AM as I begin this post. I've been up for nearly 24 hours. This is what I'm listening to - Paul Zaza's score for the 1981 My Bloody Valentine. I'm tired, but I have to tell you all something... shhh... lean in close...

I saw Joe Bob Briggs live tonight! He was amazing! Seriously, if you know who Joe Bob is, you probably know he's semi-touring the states doing his How Rednecks Saved Hollywood lecture. I expected it to be in-depth and scholarly, but holy cow. How Rednecks Saved Hollywood is nearly three hours long and, well, professorial is the word I would use. I mean, Joe Bob traces the roots of the 'Redneck' back to late the late Elizabethian era of England, then winds up through the Beverly Hillbillies, Deliverance, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, and Burt Reynolds. It's fascinating, educational, extremely entertaining, and well worth your time if he comes anywhere near your town.

Following JBB we hung around the Egyptian Theatre for the second Beyondfest feature of the night, the newly restored, gore-encrusted version of Stewart Raffill's Tammy and the T-Rex. Now this, this is also worth your time, but in a completely different way than Joe Bob. This is camp done in a hysterical intellectual capacity, and it really has to be experienced to be believed. You'll read about it, or hear someone talk about it, but you will NEVER understand its magic until you see it.

Playlist from 9/30:

Type O Negative - Bloody Kisses (Digipak Version)
Type O Negative - World Coming Down
NIN - The Downward Spiral
Nocturnal Projections - Complete Studio Recordings
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Monolord - No Comfort
Trust Obey - Fear and Bullets
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST

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Card of the day:

I still have to get back to taking care of business, and she's a reminder. I have tomorrow off, so it should be productive.

2019: May 24th - New Pelican Track!

On June 7th, Southern Lord is releasing the newest album from Chicago Post-Metal group Pelican, and from the two tracks we've heard so far, Nighttime Stories looks like it is a serious contender for my top ten this year. I love the texture of this track; thick, sludgy, but not without melody and a certain swing in its step. You can pre-order the album HERE.

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Two more episodes of Ozark season one down last night, so that means two to go, then I can finally begin Season Two. This show really holds up on second viewing, and I'm pretty sure its dark, foreboding tone, exceptionally well-written characters, and left-of-center plot twists will continue to impress me; Ozark is the kind of show that already feels destined for greatness.

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Final episode of The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs on Shudder tonight, but, in case you haven't heard, it will be back. In my excitement, I looked up some old clips:



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Playlist from 5/23:

The Cure - Disintegration
The Raveonettes - Lust Lust Lust
Faith No More - King for a Day
Faith No More - Angel Dust

Card of the day:

I've never been a fan of this card. Frankly, it has always visually been intertwined with a former lover, and I'm one who usually shuts the door on the past pretty hard, so I'm never really enthused to receive anything in the way of reminders. But last year at some point, this card came up a couple times in close proximity, and in discussing it with my good friend Missi, she put something to me I'd never stopped to consider; basically, why? Why did the Queen of Wands have to be what I had come to think of it as? And this morning, free from any pull of the past, I uncover this card and think, "That's not what this is at all."

So then, the question remains, what is the Queen of Thoth to me?

Let's start basic. From the Grimoire: "Emotional Intelligence." Well, that in and of itself is sometimes as difficult to find as the Dodo; the waters of emotion run rapid when they run best, and sluiced through the right tributary, we may find it very difficult to apply any guidance to the rush toward conclusion. So then, when I pull this, especially today, where my day-to-day gig at the biorepository feels a bit out of control (mother business expanding exponentially constantly), I feel as though the eyes of this fiery lady are telling me to watch my mouth, which runs often, loud, and considerably unchecked at work.

Also, there's the related idea of the 'Consciousness in Spirit,' which I see pop up online when scouting around for other facets of this card. Consciousness in Spirit equates to Intensity of Purpose, which I have absolutely lacked for going on a week now, as work as been difficult and some passing bug has kept me feeling sick and run down for most of the week, even now when I'm through the worst of it. I read this as a need to get my ass back in gear; for the past two weeks, I've had a fantastic regiment of after-work writing and yoga going almost every day, then Sunday I woke up sick and ever since, I've haven't done either. The little bit of yoga I forced myself to do last night ended up making me feel amazing, and that's as good as any other reason to re-focus and re-acquire that Intensity of Purpose.