The Boogeyman

A few weeks ago, Mr. Brown asked me if I'd ever heard the Chicago band Ganser. I had not. I added a few records in Apple Music but didn't actually hit play on one until last week.

Instant adoration.

The album I'm currently obsessed with is 2018's Odd Talk, and the song on that album that gets the most play is also the first song on this live Audiotree session the band did in 2020, "Satsuma." Watching them play live is literally thrilling, especially guitarist Charlie Landsman. I love everything about this band, but I love Charlie's guitar the most, as it conjures White Lung, US Maple, Assembly Line People Program, and Erase Errata, to name a few bands I've carried on love affairs with in the past. 

Ganser is on the always fantastic Felte Records, and you can check them out on the label's site HERE or the band's Bandcamp HERE.

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Watch:

Last night K and I caught the first screening of Rob Savage's new film The Boogeyman. This is based on an adaptation of Stephen King's short story, "The Boogeyman," from his Night Shift collection. I've read the story, although I had no memory of it at the time of the screening, so I was free to judge the film simply as the film. In that context, and ultimately in any other, The Boogeyman is a damn solid monster movie. Here's the trailer:

          

What goes right with this flick? Pretty much everything. In many respects, this is a by-the-numbers Horror flick, but Savage - whose breakthrough was 2020's Host (the Zoom movie, which I love) - is showing himself to be an auteur at heart, so there are enough personal touches and 'aberrations' from the formula that while The Boogeyman feels familiar, it also feels different enough that you won't be bored. The third act really sealed the deal - it's fantastic.

Also, and this is the smallest of spoilers, if at all, but I found it very cool that actress Seylan Baxter, who played the Medium in Host appears in this film in a youtube video on Seances one of the characters watches. It's little touches like that I always appreciate in a filmmaker's work.

  

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Read:

After seeing the film The Boogeyman, I woke up this morning and re-read the story in Stephen King's Night Shift.

The story strictly follows Billings's visit to Dr. Harper's office, where he avails himself of his guilt. That's it. So the film is an adaptation and expansion of the story, and in that, it's pretty fantastic in what it accomplishes, using King's story as the seed for a larger world that's really only hinted at between the lines of the story.

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Playlist:

Radiohead - The Bends

Ganser - Odd Talk

Lustmord - Berlin

Boy Harsher - Burn it Down (single)

Boy Harsher - Careful

Code Orange - Grooming My Replacement/The Game (single)

Code Orange - Underneath

            

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Card:

From Aleister Crowley and Lady Frieda Harris's Thoth deck:

• Prince of Swords - The "Air" of Air, or doubling down on conflict

• 2 Change - The Ebb and Flow.

• Princess of Wands - Physical act or manifestation of Will

Cut and dry, once again. Of course, that's because it's all in the interpretation, and the interpretation is steeped in what's on your mind. I know exactly what's on my mind, and it's writing. Hence, why all of this week's Pulls have concerned my Art. 

I've had two decent days getting back in the saddle; nothing stellar, but that's the ebb and flow mentioned above - I have to take the good with the bad, especially when overcoming the inertia of having not written in a bit. It's easy to get discouraged, but you just have to apply your Will and fight that part of yourself that wants to be lazy, or is looking to be discouraged. Frustrations be damned, a breakthrough will come!!!

 

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The Boogeyman's Milk Leg

 

Man, this track takes me places. Some of those places are imaginary, and some are memory-laden ephemera from the early 2000s. Despite being released in 2013 - the year Mr. Brown sent me this record that's taken ten years to fully gestate an appreciation for - something here really reminds me of the particular era of my life circa 2000-2004. I think it's because my first real exposure to jazz-tinted metal came during that time when my friend Hammerstock turned me onto Cynic's brilliant 1993 album Focus. Whatever the case, I played Habitual Levitations a lot in the year or two surrounding my exposure to it, but haven't really visited since. Turns out, it fits like a warm glove.

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Watch:

I didn't watch the first trailer for Rob Savage's upcoming Stephen King adaptation The Boogeyman, and I'm not watching this one, but as usual, I'm posting it here for posterity's sake:

 

Nothing but good feedback surrounding this one, so I'll definitely be catching it in the theatre. I'm still searching for a new film to really scare the hell out of me; I know Evil Dead Rise is going to be an ordeal, or at least I hope it's going to be, but if this can accompany follow that as a genuine bone-shaking scary movie, then 2023 will be looking pretty good at the halfway point when The Boogeyman arrives on June 2nd!

 

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Read:

Although I won't be watching the trailer for The Boogeyman, I'm digging out the first edition copy of Stephen King's Night Shift I found at a Las Vegas thrift store ten years ago or so and re-read the story it's based on - also called The Boogeyman - for the first time in quite a few years. 

This was a FIND for sure, and the first time I'd read really early King. Although I discovered him in High School with The Gunslinger, then read a handful of his other novels, I never dug into his early short stories until I found this. I'm less than 100 pages from the end of King's newest novel, Fairy Tale, but I should be able to slip this quick re-read in just to prime my excitement for Savage's new adaptation.

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Playlist:

Black Sabbath - Eponymous

Black Sabbath - Master of Reality

Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy

The Sword - Warp Riders

Kyuss - ... And the Circus Leaves Town

Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

Intronaut - Habitual Levitations (Instilling Words with Tones)

Godflesh - Nero EP

Mars Red Sky - Eponymous

            

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

To arrive at the best decision, and truly be fair and uncompromised by emotion, you have to be honest about your emotions toward the situation. I have no idea what this is in reference to at the moment, so I will do what I always do in situations like these - leave the spread on my desk today, so it's always in front of me. Sometimes that's the best way to unlock something you're stumped on.

 

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Lord of this World

 

From 1973's Master of Reality, a perfect record. I leaned heavily into this one last weekend while in Chicago, so when I walked into Rick's Comics City yesterday and saw that variant cover of Dan Panosian's new book Black Tape, I kind of felt as though I manifested it.

Tulpas have been on my mind again because, you know, Department of Truth.

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Watch:

Rob Savage's Host impressed me to no end, and I've been waiting to see what he does next. Somehow, I missed that he followed Host with a film called Dashcam, however, I think I'll leave that off the list until after I see what he does with a non-found-footage film. And Savage has a big one coming out in June:

This adaptation of Stephen King's short story The Boogeyman is receiving a lot of hype - word is it's terrifying, so I am excited at the prospect of seeing a film in theatres that might actually induce some fear in me. 

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Read:

Here's a book I did not mention as one of my picks for yesterday's NCBD simply because I was on the fence and trying very hard not to start new series. How do you say no to this cover, though: 

Black Tape #1 is all set up, but that's fine. Even if I don't continue with the series - which I'm betting I will - I'm happy as hell to own this cover. Here's the press description of the book:

"Jack King was a rock'n'roll god who projected a stage persona on par with the devil. After Jack dies on stage, his widow, Cindy, grapples with grief and struggles to protect his legacy, unaware that she is being surrounded by dark forces that covet the master tapes to Jack's final, unreleased album - a heavy metal masterpiece that just might open a doorway to hell."

Great premise, so let's see where it goes.

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Playlist:

Thought Gang - Eponymous

Anoni Wit & Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra - Pendereck's Polymorphia

Krzysztof Penderecki - Metamorphosen

Krzysztof Penderecki - A Polish Requiem

Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria

Allegaeon - Apoptosis

Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP

Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP

Karl Casey - XX EP

King Woman - Doubt EP

Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire

Metallica - ...And Justice for All

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Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.

Tens in Tarot are interesting. On one hand, there's a sense of closure, of completion and accomplishment. On the other, you realize when juxtaposing the Tarot with the Sephiroths on the Tree of Life, Ten is where we enter Malkuth, and thus, the most materialized in the regular, physical world. This tells us that, what we consider a success or accomplishment in our physical lives, can conversely be seen as the farthest movement away from anything spiritually compelling. Which makes sense in a lot of ways. Today's pull builds on yesterday's Emotional question, suggesting that to transform from yesterday's Eight of Cups to today's Ten, a transformation of Will in order. What's more, there is a decision or leap of faith that will be involved.  

So today's Pull gives me the insight into yesterday's that I never arrived at. This is a direct nod to the fact that I'm attempting to change my daily writing routine - which has never been in better shape - by moving from driving to a coffee shop and paying $4.22 a day to sit and write to staying at home and saving that money but getting the same level of removal and concentration. I know this can be done because I did it during the pandemic when I wrote/re-wrote a novel sitting at the kitchen table in our Redondo Beach apartment. I just have to do it here now. 

Quick reminder: if you dig those cards above from Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, he has an insanely awesome Kickstarter going on at the moment: