2018: February 8th 5:45 AM

Woke up with this one in my head today, probably because I listened to the album it's on - Teenage Wrist's Dazed EP about a half a half dozen times last night. At least.



Such a big, fuzzy neon dream of an album. Thanks to Jacob again for introducing me to this great band that has an album coming out in March. You can pre-order it HERE.

Playlist from yesterday:

The Fixx - Reach the Beach
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Nektar - A Tab in the Ocean
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
The Jesus Lizard - Down
Teenage Wrist - Dazed E.P.

Card of the day:

Emotional deluge, use intellect and Will to prevent being drowned. Interesting... a few words on these daily draws. Events yesterday, Wednesday the 7th lined-up directly with two repetitive pulls that culminated the Wednesday before, on January 31st. What's the grid system at work here, or is there one? Well, we'll see. That's why I've shifted this blog into this 'journaling' paradigm - looking for patterns in the grid of chaos that, even though we do all we can to refute the fact, defines our existences. Hopefully I will find some and learn a way to 'hack' the graphs and grids I make from those patterns.

Yesterday I indeed stopped to buy my comics. TWD did not disappoint, but I haven't read Papergirls yet. Why? Well, I had an abortive attempt at my daily words, and after that I didn't have much time for reading, and this was unexpected but I ended up buying my first current Batman comic since Grant Morrison's run ended in 2013 and I was super excited to dive in. Why? What could make me jump into a Batman comic? Three words:

Sean. Gordon. Murphy. Look at this cover:

It's ultra rare to impossible for art to convince me to read a book, in Murphy's case it's a combination of his art and the fact that he can spin one hell of a yarn. Punk Rock Jesus is still one of my all-time favorites. One issue into White Knight and I don't quite have the lay of the land yet, but A) it's stand alone continuity and B) it's NOT the tired iterations of Batman and Joker we're used to being regurgitated every few years, although it starts there and moves out in what I believe is virgin territory for the characters from there. Either way, I'm in for all eight issues (five are out so far).

2018: January 30th 6:26 AM

I once again began the day in silent contemplation of my current writing project and I am happy to say, after a vexing and truncated writing session last night I smashed my problems this morning. Used the Olympus - let's call her Diane from now on, for obvious reasons - to record it all and now I'll transcribe it, let it stew for a few hours and try and map it on lunch. To reward myself I spent the later half of my commute listening to my two favorite tracks off Zen Guerilla's Positronic Raygun album from 1997, the second because I always lust for this track when Spring kicks in, and in truly baffling Southern California fashion, it's spring ladies and gentlemen. The first because I wanted something to zone out to in order to pull my thoughts out of the 'writing soup' they'd been in:





To get the full effect of Frequency Out you really need to do Healing in the Water, 2000 Watts over the South Side and then Frequency Out, but I figured two tracks as an intro here was already a bit cumbersome. The entire album is online and I can't recommend it or Zen Guerrilla in general enough;  these guys were one of the best live bands I've ever seen - and I've seen a lot of bands live. Miss these guys. Miss the people Healing in the Water reminds me of, too. That's a different post though, one that I may have already put on here somewhere in the murky aeythers of the past.


Card of the day:

I've got nothing on this card in my Thoth Grimoire and I'm thinking now maybe that's why I have money but no gain - I don't know it, I haven't spent the time getting to know what it is to truly Gain. Or maybe that's a little new age. Not sure. More coffee please.

Yesterday's playlist looks like this:

The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus (just the three pre-release tracks currently available)
Teenage Wrist - Dazed EP
The Casket Lottery - Real Fear
Viet Cong - Eponymous
Sleigh Bells - Kid Kruschev
Ministry - Animositisomina
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club - Wrong Creatures
Deafheaven - Sunbather

A little Roxy Music off their debut in there somewhere too.

Teenage Wrist is a band my good friend Jacob told me about. They are Incredible:



The Casket Lottery are an Los Angeles band the sound guy at The Love Song bar told me about last week - I added their album Real Fear that night so I wouldn't forget it but didn't have a chance to listen to it until yesterday. They are also fantastic and not at all what I expected based on the context of the conversation they were originally brought up in and what the name/cover image might suggest. Let's all say thank you for artists still willing to defy expectations.