Calling it now: RTJ4 will be my album of the year. Everything surrounding this one is perfect. The digital form of the album dropped months early on Wednesday, June 3rd. The physical is still slated for September, so you know the boys saw the opportunity to issue their statement when it was most needed, in the midst of the Protests and Riots that surrounded George Floyd's murder at the hands of Minneapolis police officers. This particular song directly references Floyd's death, leading me to believe RTJ was recording lyrics up until only a few days or possibly even hours before they dropped the album. That is legendary in my eyes.
I've never been a huge fan of the previous three RTJ records. They're good, and I may grow to like them more in the wake of the impact 4 has made on me, but all my qualms are shattered here. The instrumentation and arrangements are amazing; bombastic, interesting, and weird. Catchy to boot. The lyrics, too, are a level up. As are their delivery, there's a new urgency on this album, one that I can only equate to Chuck D of Public Enemy fame, for my money still the best rapper ever.
**
I should offer a small explanation on my continued use of the "Isolation" moniker for these posts. While a large part of the rest of the world have shrugged off Science's warnings about the continued threat of COVID-19, I am not so cavalier. K and I will be continuing to practice isolation for months to come. Especially after the spike we're already seeing in local microcosmic environments, rising numbers it seems most of the population is content to ignore because they have, "had enough."
Whatever. Thin the population - it does nothing but help the planet and those who will remain.
**
New season of Dark arrives in just two short weeks. That means K and I have to re-watch seasons one and two soon. Nothing like the anticipation that comes from being invested in a series that is not only fantastic, but that has been finite and perfectly plotted from the jump.
**
Jesus, talk about watch list overload. Here's a trailer for the new season of Doom Patrol. Luckily, I won't have to waste my time and resubscribe to the DCU app, as I recently signed up for HBOMAX. That said, after subscribing I realized Max does not work on Firestick, so I have to figure something else out. Either way, this is a MUST.
**
I finished reading Laird Barron's Worse Angels (Fantastic) and Cliver Barker's Books of Blood Volume One, and now I'm on to a book my good friend Chris Saunders (DwC, The Horror Vision) gave me recently. Mark Frost's The List of 7. I've known about Frost's Arthur Conan Doyle novels since their publication in the early 90s thanks to Wrapped in Plastic magazine, the David Lynch/Twin Peaks magazine I subscribed to in the wake of discovering Twin Peaks as it aired. I always knew I'd get around to reading this and the sequel, 6 Messiahs - which Chris also gifted me - and now is as good a time as any.
Here's an awesome website entry about this book that I found while looking for a picture of the cover.
Chris's gifts came at a most opportune time, because the Al Jourgensen auto is proving difficult to get through. A lot closer to what I would expect from a Tommy Lee auto, all braggadocio and not a lot of believable substance at this point (granted, I'm still pretty early in the book). Of course, I expect sex and drugs from any rock star auto, but Al spends a lot of time jerking himself off - metaphorically, in the book there's plenty of random folks to do that for him - and I can't help juxtaposing this with Chris Connelly's auto Concrete, Invisible, Bulletproof, and Fried: My Life as a Revolting Cock, which I read well over ten years ago now, and which is both eloquent and humble. None of that in Uncle Al's early days thus far, and I can't help but wonder if his depiction of ages 13-16 is this filled with conquests and little else, what will the Ministry years be like? I'll get back to this eventually, but I'll probably have to ramp up my Ministry rotation in order to inspire myself to do so.
**
Playlist:
Alice Donut - Dry Humping the Cash Cow
David Bowie - Outside
Flying Lotus - Los Angeles
Flying Lotus - You're Dead
Flying Lotus - Flamagra
Jawbox - For Your Own
Old Tower - The Last Eidolon
Black Magic - Alastor
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen
NIN - Ghosts VI: Locusts
Underworld - 1992-2012
Run the Jewels - RTJ4
Run the Jewels - RTJ3
Hi-Lo - Poseidon (single)
Kendrick Lamar - Damn.
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
DAF - Die Kleinen Und Die Bösen
Amon Düüll II - Vive La Trance
Makaveli - The 7 Day Theory
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Kendrick Lamar - To Pimp a Butterfly
Zombi - Breakthrough and Conquer (pre-release single)
Zombi - Earthscraper (pre-release single)
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
**
Card:
Explosion of energy/creativity. Fits perfectly, as over the last 48 hours, I have doubled down on finishing the book. By the end of the weekend, I'm hoping to be in a position to begin reading it aloud to K - one of my most important QC steps, as well as pass it off to two friends who I pay as beta readers. SOON.
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.
Wow. Didn't expect to see this. Very cool to see two very different icons come together to perform the music of a third.
**
I fell down a youtube rabbit hole after clicking on this video of David Lynch directing the infamous "Gotta Light?" scene from Twin Peaks: The Return. There's some really great supplemental Lynch material that came up based on viewing this one. I'm not sure how the algorithm works, so I'm not sure if you'll get the same videos I did, but my trip was both wonderful and strange...
Speaking of Lynch, I realized recently that the Wrapped in Plastic fanzine I subscribed to throughout the 90s and into the early 00s now has every issue available in ebook format. Read about it and link to buy HERE. John Thorne and Craig Miller's studious magazine is one hundred percent worth your time if you're a fan.
**
I took a break from Clive Barker's Books of Blood to blow through Sarah Lotz's The White Road. HIGHLY recommended. I literally blew through this one in a day.
The novel deals with the Third Man Phenomenon in and around extreme caving and climbing scenarios. It's horror, but it's Earthy and believable while still coming across visceral and haunting. I loved it.
**
The Cure - Seventeen Seconds
David Bowie - Outside
David Bowie - Black Star
L7 - Bricks Are Heavy
Body Count - Carnivore
Body Count - Cop Killer (Anti-Single)
Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti
Revolting Cocks - Beers, Steers and Queers
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Anthrax - Spreading the Disease
NIN - Pretty Hate Machine
NIN - Bad Witch
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Lustmord - Hobart
Soundgarden - Superunknown
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
**
Solid ground again after an anxiety-ridden couple days waiting for a COVID test result that, thankfully, came back negative. Sinus infection, I've never been so happy to see you!
From the forthcoming new album Prisyn, out August 7th on Sargent House. This is exciting, as I didn't discover Jaye Jaye until early last year, so this will be the first record released I can experience anticipation for.
Two weeks ago, my cohost on The Horror Vision and Drinking with Comics, Chris Saunders turned me on to The Magnus Archives Podcast.
Told from the perspective of the newly appointed Archivist for an organization known as The Maguns Archives, essentially an archive for people to log any experiences with potentially supernatural or paranormal phenomena. The idea is, after the person records their experience, the organization then sets out to either prove or disprove the event. The main strength here lies in creator/narrator Jonathan Sims' writing and voice performance. Also, the fifth and final season began at the beginning of April, so if you're like me and you're just discovering this, we won't have to wait between seasons, which, while I think would be a cool experience, is nice to know I'm jumping onto something tangibly finite. Below is the first episode, which I place here as something of a taste:
The Magnus Archives is distributed through the Rusty Quill Podcast Network, and is available on all current podcast platforms, as well as on the website and youtube.
Also, Sims' debut novel Thirteen Storeys is being released this August via UK publisher Gollancz. No pre-order is up yet, but you can read a bit about it HERE.
**
Excited beyond words to have Laird Barron's newest novel Worse Angels arriving this week. I've been waiting for this one alllll year, since the author began talking about it on Twitter shortly after last year's Black Mountain. Worse Angels is the third entry into Barron's Isaiah Coleridge series, and while these have been more straight-ahead, pulp-bred Crime/Noir novels, each book has become increasingly more in-line with Barron's other, "Weird Fiction" work. Worse Angels, sounds as though it moves further into this territory, with a 'stalled super collider' at the heart of a murder mystery.
While I'm waiting for Worse Angels to arrive, I've finished Clive Barker's Damnation Game and moved onto a re-read of the first volume of his Books Of Blood.
This is another I read back in high school, early 90s. Unlike Damnation Game, I remember most of these stories extremely vividly, and am very much enjoying retracing their steps.
**
Playlist:
Revocation - Teratogenesis
Mastodon - Crack the Skye
Ghost - Meliora
Drab Majesty - Careless
Deftones - Gore
Melvins - Houdini
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Pixies - Surfer Rosa
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Bella Morte - Where Shadows Lie
The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That
Lustmord - Hobart
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night OST
**
Linear thinking and discipline have, indeed, taken up a fairly large portion of my brain of late, and likely will continue to do so.
I haven't much time to hang out here lately, and since I've been away, David Lynch has started releasing daily Los Angeles weather reports, and now he's dropped a short, hand-drawn film!
**
NCBD is back! A light week for sure, however, it was murder waiting an extra two months for the final chapter in Bone Machine, the current storyline in Rick Remender's Deadly Class. It still bums me out the SyFy adaptation was cancelled, but the book remains one of the strongest titles I read on a monthly basis.
Now that Diamond is distributing again, I can't wait to watch Marcus and friends' lives splinter as he returns to King's Dominion and all hell breaks loose.
**
Playlist:
Stevie Wonder - Greatest Hits of the 70s
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
They Might Be Giants -Flood
The Darts - I Like You But Not Like That
Arpeggiators - Freedom of Expression 7"
Cybordelics - Adventures of Drama 7"
Metal Master - Spectrum 7"
White Lung - Paradise
White Lung - Sorry
Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling (Single)
Ween - GodWeenSatan Live New Hope, PA 9/14/01
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Revocation - Deathless
Revocation - Teratogenesis
**
When driven by an intense sense of righteousness, beware of making foolish decisions.
I'd never really thought about which card I am, or even if there is one card that best represents me. I think this is the one. That said, I believe I drew this to remind myself of the slow slide away from my more compassionate qualities. This has been an ongoing recent insight, as the overflow of stupidity and selfishness that abound in the world at the moment drive me to sometimes frightening degrees of malevolent thought. Simply put, I very strongly dislike the human race as a whole. The last two months have made me slip closer to actively hating it. Maybe that's an oxymoron, considering how many individual humans I love and adore - there's A LOT - but it seems to be the case, and I find myself needing something spiritual to blanket my frustrations, even if it's just a more regular dose of marijuana, Stevie Wonder, and David Lynch. I'm tempted to start meditating again, however, that often leads to deep-level experiences that might not be so pleasant at the moment. Either way, I need something to mellow me out, before The King of Wands draws the Ten of Swords.
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
Two Minutes to Late Night has been around a while, but it's just popped up in my youtube feed. A heavy metal late night talk show? Sign me up. This is the video that filtered into my feed, and from there I'm hooked. Subscribe and sample the metallic hilarity HERE.
**
Taking another small break from Breaking Bad, I had K pick out a show she'd already watched but thought I would like.
I really like this show. Blew through six of the ten episodes of Season One last night, and Two just dropped, so that will serve as a nice pallet cleanser before we enter the last leg of Walter White's saga of blood, money, and meth.
**
Playlist:
Ennio Morricone - Black Belly of the Tarantula OST
Goblin/Giorgio Gaslini - Profondo Rosso OST
Bob Wils and His Texas Playboys - The Tiffany Transcriptions, Vol. 1
The Babies - Eponymous
X - Under the Big Black Sun
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night OST
**
Card:
I've had this overwhelming urge to start slowly playing music again. After two decades of considering myself a musician, I took a hard, sharp turn against that and have probably only picked a guitar or bass maybe ten times in the last four and a half years. Recently, with some undo work stress piled on top of the stress of COVID living, I pulled out my electric - which needs some TLC from a professional - and my Takamine acoustic and have started to play a bit. At this point, guitar-wise, I pretty much have to re-learn the fucking instrument, so there's frustration a plenty there. But the acoustic has proven a balm for overly stressful days, and strumming here and there have me thinking about, well, playing. So, the question is, does The Fool tell me it's time to undertake this new journey, or that I'd be foolish to do so?
I think I'm going to have to pull a full-on spread for this one. No time for that today, though.
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.
**
TKO Studiosis 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.
**
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
Last Friday, seminal LA punk rock group X released their first album with the all-original line-up in, well, I don't really know how long, but a pretty damn long time! Especially good news is the fact that founding guitarist Billy Zoom has conquered his health problems and returned to the fold. I saw X live (with Dwight Yokam!) five or six years ago and Billy was not present. They were great, but it's just not the same without that man.
A couple of days ago I finally watched V/H/S/2 and V/H/S: Viral. Part 2 is more or less fantastic, the Indonesian segment being one of the scariest things I've seen in a while. Viral is, as several friends warned me, not all that great. The one segment I absolutely loved though was "Bonestorm," and turned out to have been done by Benson and Moorhead, the guys responsible for Resolution and The Endless, which I talked about recently in these pages.
I finished Preston Fassel's fantastic novel Our Lady of the Inferno and have moved on to Clive Barker's Damnation Game and Al Jourgensen's autobiography Ministry: The Lost Gospels According to Al Jourgensen, the latter of which Mr. Brown lent me months ago and I've been chomping at the bit to read since.. I'm not huge on reading multiple books at a time, but I'm stumbling through the last three chapters of the novel I'm editing/re-tooling, and when I write, I tend to need to be reading fiction at the same time. I actually consider this part of the writing process. I don't punch-in and out for it, like I do with actual writing writing (I use two apps, ATracker PRO and Focus Keeper), but I recognize that it's most definitely an integral part of my process. That said, Jourgensen's biography is conversational, not prosaic like Juan F. Thompson's Stories I Tell Myself, thus it's not fitting the bill. So I'm splitting my time, treating Uncle Al's book like having a beer, and Barker's like sharpening my craft.
The Damnation Game is actually one I read long ago, back when I first discovered Barker's work in the early 90s. I believe I was a Sophomore or Junior in High School when I checked The Great and Secret Show out of the library. That one blew my mind - still meaning to re-read it and hit the sequel Eversville - and I went straight into The Books of Blood and subsequently The Damnation Game afterward. Funny thing, although I remember quite a bit of Great and Secret and Books of Blood, but I remember next to nothing about Damnation. Which is cool, because already, only a handful of pages in, and Barker's sumptuous prose has already had a massive effect on me.
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Cocksure - Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E.
X - Alphabetland
X - Under the Big Black Sun
The Neighbourhood - I Love You.
The Neighbourhood - Wiped Out
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Void King - There Is Nothing
A couple weeks ago, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds announced their youtube channel would be going 24/7 with streaming content. This morning when I checked my subscription page (have I mentioned how much I hate the layout of the most recent youtube overhaul? It happened a few months ago, but I used to meticulously curate the landing page, which displayed a single, horizontal row of each channel subscribed to, history, recommendations, and trending, the category I couldn't give less of a toss about) I noticed the little "Live" icon in the bottom left-hand corner, clicked over and caught part of an in-studio segment from Henry's Dream. Not sure about you, but the idea of 24 Hour Bad Seeds makes my heart swell.
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Last weekend, I made serious progress in a project that I've been putting off for some time, transferring all of my comics out of long boxes and into short boxes. Oh, the humanity!
I'm about 80% finished. To be brutally honest, I've divested myself of quite a bit of my collection, and when all is said and done, I will still end up with 24 short boxes of comics! Madness! I've talked about this here before, the existential crisis that has held me in its grip since last September, this idea that all this stuff that I've accumulated ends up being the major "WTF was I thinking?" regret of my life. Maybe regret is a harsh word, but seriously, if I'd only adjusted to the digital thing sooner, I'd probably have at least double in my 'buy a house' fund. Add to this the idea that, as I go through a lot of these comics, even series and runs that I love, some of them I look at and know, "I'll most likely never have the urge/chance to read this again in my life." It makes me think about subscriptions, the current zeitgeist, and as such something I may eventually turn around on, too, but surely a better way to consume media. It's one of the reasons I hardly ever buy movies anymore (still some exceptions, of course). It's also one of the reasons I've started to dig digital comics, because they're generally cheaper, take up no space, can travel with you at all times, and thus, don't leave nearly the footprint, if at all.
Anyway, in spite and contrary to all this, boy am I ready for Diamond to get NCBD up and running again. I stopped in at the Comic Bug this past Saturday to pick up more short boxes - the store isn't open, but you can call on Wednesdays from 12-4 and Saturdays from 12-2 and make an appointment to stop in - and picked up the last remaining book in my pull, one I hadn't gotten to yet. TMNT 104. The issue served as a beautiful coda on everything that has come before, and felt especially poignant reading now, in the midst of such an unprecedented industry stall. The final pages actually managed to bring a joyful tear to my eye, and closed and resealed it in bag and board remembering why, in spite of everything I just said above, I still read some comics monthly, in physical form.
**
Playlist:
Cocksure: Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E
The Juan Maclean - Happy House (Matthew Dear Remix)
X- Under the Big Black Sun
Chris Isaak - Heart Shaped World
I've been digging into Revocation's back catalogue on my writing sessions, and this FNM cover popped up at the end of 2011's Chaos of Forms. Great album, great cover! My writing music has been an example of the pendulum effect I complain about everywhere else in life; if I told you to consider Revocation and Lustmord as two nodes on the graph, you'd get the idea, yeah? It makes for some interesting ideas, one of which pretty much just changed the entire course of the third act for the better! Now I'm chasing that down and preparing for the final edit, which seems a bit like the ghost house that I relentless walk toward but never achieve. I have faith, though. Faith, and a killer work ethic. And music like this to keep me properly motivated (That and gallons and gallons of coffee, which I think is starting to fuck with my nervous system).
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Bandcamp did another Artist Relief day this past Friday. I snagged the new, Digital Cocksure EP and a vinyl copy of their 2014 debut T.V.M.A.L.S.V., along with a copy of a single the Living Nudes released a while ago. I paid more for all three than asked for, because, while I didn't have a lot of money to throw at all the independent artists I love, I had some, and wanted to make it go as far as possible for the artists, not my collection.
So much new music this past week because of the Bandcamp relief, it was hard to narrow things down. I think I did pretty good, though.
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After missing it at last year's Beyondfest, I finally got around to watching Travis Stevens' Girl on the Third Floor. I dug this one quite a bit; reminded me a lot of a kind of cross between American Horror Story and The Shining.
Dark Sky films can pretty much do no wrong in my eyes.
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Playlist:
Revocation: Chaos of Forms
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
Cocksure - T.V.M.A.L.S.V.
Blut Aus Nord - The Mystical Beast of Rebellion
Void King - Barren Dominion
Man Man - Dream Hunting in the In-Between
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Lustmord - Hobart
Klangkarussell & GIVVEN - Ghostkeeper
Woke up with this one in my head yesterday morning. Originally appearing on 1973's Aladdin Sane, the version I'm specifically referring to here is the live version from Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars - The Motion Picture Soundtrack. I picked the double album up in a cool CD package at a Fop store in London, circa 2004. To date, this is my favorite version of this song.
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Blew through Breaking Bad Seasons 1-3 and K asked to take a breather. It definitely has that effect, and while I'm loving revisiting this world, dark as it is, I also like the idea of spacing it out a bit, to further the effect I had watching it as it aired, broadcast gaps and all. We're not going to come anywhere close to building that kind of expectation-tension for K's first viewing, but a week off might help. With that in mind then, over the last few days we watched James Franco/JJ Abrams' 11.22.63. This adaptation of a novel by Stephen King is an 8-part mini-series on HULU, and although I had some small issues, overall it's great. 11.22.63 is also a rare bird, in that many times, I'll be enthralled by a show and then let down by its ending. In this case, my minor issues were along the way, and the finale was outstanding. Very much worth your time if you're in the mood for something finite.
**
I finished both William Gibson's The Peripheral and Juan F. Thompson's Stories I Tell Myself. Both incredible books for totally different reasons (obviously). Gibson's terse prose and refusal to set an initial lay-of-the-land are both facets one must acclimate to, however, that happens fairly quickly because he really pulls you in with the story. And Thompson's autobiography on growing up with Hunter S. Thompson as a father can get a bit hard to read at certain points - most definitely not due to his writing, which is simple but profound - due rather to the veil his stories lift on an icon who many of us hold dear. The end of this one brought me to tears, and the involvement of Johnny Depp in memorializing HST should prove once and for all how awesome that man is, even if his filmography has pretty much fallen by the wayside.
As of writing this, I am ~75 page into Preston Fassel's Our Lady of the Inferno, which I have been wanting to read since I first heard of it, circa a year-and-a-half ago. I was hooked as of page one, and now I'm thinking this has the potential to really soar into a ranking in my favorite books of all time list.
If you're unfamiliar with Mr. Fassel, he writes the Corrupt Signals for Fangoria, easily my favorite column in the revamped mag (which is saying something, because each issue is a veritable treasure). So far, his debut novel is no less spectacular.
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Speaking of reading, as a sort of 'Quarantine Special', I've made the Kindle editions of my first two books $0.99 for the foreseeable future. If you've not read them, please consider giving one or both a chance. One is literary horror, the other the first book in a YA Horror/Suburban Fantasy series. I'm quite proud of both - I'm the first to know when something I write is shite. Also, I've been told both are good and, perhaps more importantly, fun:
If you do take this chance to read them, please take a moment to give a star rating or review on Amazon, or really, anywhere books are sold or discussed. Thank you in advance!
**
Playlist:
Revocation - Great is Our Sin
Revocation - Teratogenesis EP
Old Tower - The Last Eidolon
Alastor - Black Magic
The National - High Violet
The National - The Boxer
Various - The History of Northwest Rock Vol. 2 (The Garage Years)
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Burzum - Filosofem
Burzum - Thulêan Mysteries
Perturbator - I Am the Night
Pascal Rogé - Satie: 3 Gymnopédies
White Ward - Love Exchange Failure
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Code Orange - Underneath
Perturbator - Excess (Pre-release single)
Balthazar - Fever
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
My Morning Jacket - Z
Perturbator - Night Driving Avenger EP
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit, Vol. 1
Alio Die and Lorenzo Montaná - The Threshold of Beauty
Misfits - Collection Two
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Card:
From the Grimoire: The Spark of Essence. I'm aligning this with the mammoth writing session I am about to embark on as soon as I post this. I took the day off to finish the second pass on this year's book, which is currently on track to be released in late Summer/early Autumn.
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.
**
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.
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!
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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:
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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
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Card:
Emerging from cloudy skies about troubled waters. Clarity lies not too far in the distance.
Mr. Brown turned me on to Code Orange's new record Underneath a few days ago, and it's been quickly becoming a staple. The album is all over the place as far as textures; so many influences in these guys that, in a way, I feel like they're the bridge between reclaiming some of the cooler elements in late 90s/early 00s metal - most of which was ruined by near constant narcissism and ostentatious infusion of hip hop aesthetics - and bridging those elements with the groove-heavy pioneering of mid-period Sepultura, the speed of and precision of DEP, as well as the latter's occasional penchant for incorporating glitch-like electronic elements.
Underneath dropped on Roadrunner Records recently; if you're interested you can order it HERE.
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Speaking of metal, yesterday I re-watched the Joe Bob Briggs presentation of Jason Lei Howden's Deathgasm. Man, I love this movie.
Also, I finally watched the John Carpenter/Tobe Hooper anthology Body Bags. Not sure why this one took me so long to get around to. Fantastic. The cast really surprised me, with a slew of B-Level actors whose chops were never more apparent than at the direction of two Masters of Horror.
Killing Joke - The Fall of Because
Killing Joke - Night Time
Code Orange - Underneath
White Lung - Paradise
The Rolling Stones - Goats Head Soup
The Babies - Our House On the Hill
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Card:
From the Grimoire: "Saving Money." Fitting. Stimulus landed today and all but a tiny bit of it went directly into Savings. I'll stimulate the economy when we buy a house. In the meantime, a portion of the remainder of the government pay-off for ineptitude will be spent on Kindle editions of William Gibson's The Peripheral and it's recently released follow-up, Agency.
