2018: March 19th 4:10 PM

Well, I missed yesterday completely. Yeah, that St. Paddy's/moving out party was a mother fucker. Before I get into that, let's get into a tune for you to read by. I'm still really loving on Saturation; I haven't played it this much probably since it came out:



I didn't actually go to sleep Saturday night until Sunday morning, once for about two hours from 10AM to 12PM - woke up and had breakfast with those who had remained behind to sleep on the couch/floor/spare room (it was really that kind of party. Like we're fucking 20 or something... yeesh). Last breakfast at the Omelette and Waffle House for a while, although I will definitely be driving back to Pedro to eat there again. Still my favorite breakfast place ever. And I ended it how I began there, back the first time I walked through its doors and looked at its menu - Pineapple, Avocado and Sour Cream omelette. The rub was, I couldn't eat the damn thing. My stomach was a roiling sea of chaos and the cacophony of the breakfast crowd slammed through my ears and rattled my head until I nearly lost my mind. We returned home, friends departed and I lay in bed all day and all night, getting up to vomit occasionally, then curling back up and laying fetal in the dark, waiting for nausea to pass me by like some stalking predator in the dark. It was horrible, but not incredibly so. Really, I had anticipated it once I claimed the last third of the bottle of Bushmills as mine and carried it around the party like a glass iPhone.

Playlist from the Saturday, 3/17 was divided between work and the party, which flew well out of control at some point, so I'm probably not getting it all here:

Led Zeppelin - Presence
Fear - Live for the Record
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Monolord - Vaenir

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies
Floggy Molly - Float
Urge Overkill - Saturation

No card yesterday, no card today. I'll get back to that tomorrow. For now, I had to call out from work today and since crawling from bed I've been prepping for the move on Friday.

Oh! My good friend and co-conspirator on the now-underway 3-issue The Legend of Parish Fenn comic book, Jonathan Grimm, sent me a birthday present that arrived today. Four of his absolutely legendary prints, a Phantasm, an Alien, Alien vs. Predator, and Pumpkinhead. SO good. Check out his art HERE. Prints are a fucking STEAL at $10 a pop.

2018: March 17th 9:12 AM

Happy St. Paddy's Day!



Two corned beef in the croc pots at home, a boat load of Guinness, Smithwicks, Bushmills, Jameson, and State of Grace on tap for a late viewing this evening. Life is good.

Playlist from yesterday:

Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (disc 1)
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls
The Bronx - Eponymous
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II (Dialogue with the Stars)
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1 (Vinyl)

Card of the day:

Fitting, eh? As usual, totally in tune because, of course, this isn't "Magick" in so far as special powers from outside, but deeply connected Jungian hoo-ha from the gobbledygook far down inside our minds, the shit that comprises us but we don't understand or aren't even aware of. It colors every action, thought and day. And these cards help reflect a bit of it out into where we can try and draw juxtapositions with it. And here, Completion, because, of course, tonight is the end of my 11 years and 11 months at this place. I don't move until next Friday, but this is the pinnacle. Also, there's harmony here with the fact that, in 2006 when the girl I used to live with and I first got an inkling on moving out to CA, we flew out over St. Paddy's weekend to look at apartments and have her interviewed by her perspective employer. So total Completion. Yes.

2018: March 16th 8:25 PM

Somehow I stumbled back into Urge Overkill yesterday after having not even thought of them for quite some time. This probably has something to do with the fact that in preparation for the move, I am going through my CDs and slimming down the collection. Not a hard thing with Apple Music, although there is still a part of me that will always feel better having some things in a tactile form. That cloud goes down or my phone dies and I can't access The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire or Bowie's Reality at the exact moment I want to hear them and I'm gonna flip. But, not everything needs to stay tactile, and a lot of what does can be trimmed by tossing the cases. It's funny, similar to how Amazon completely changed the way we shop for records - because I for one never thought I'd be into shopping for music online instead of walking stoned through a record store - Apple Music seems to be the service that has redefined my musical paradigm. And I love it, although I still don't like thinking of music as a 'service'. Gas is a service. Power's a service.

I ordered a Boskine 100-space CD wallet and will be tossing the cases on a lot of albums, slipping the discs and liner notes into far less ostentatious space. Doing the same with some DVDs too, another aspect of the collection that took a hit. I was able to pack up and send 14.83 lbs of movies to a good friend whose collection was pillaged a few years back - and his collection was awe-inspiring and an inspiration for my own - so I'm happy to do something to help a friend and clear up my clutter a bit. I just don't need Simpsons, Family Guy, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force seasons on disc when they're all so ubiquitous streaming anyway. Well, I did keep Simpsons seasons 5 and 6. Cape Fear, Clown College and several other of the best, Conan O'Brien-era episodes that remain among the funniest things I've ever seen. That has to be at my beck and call. Always. But there are limits to what I will purge movie wise as there is no comprehensive service for those and The Burbs, Dog Soldiers, May, and at least 100 other movies must remain in my possession, not to mention all the Twin Peaks sets I've amassed over the years... and the other lynch, and the Kubrick, and the...

You get the point. The other thing there's no compromise on is books. I've built a healthy collection, I re-read often, and one day I want Gatsby's library, complete with Owl Eyes. So aside from a few left over peculiarities from my previous roommate, everything stays.

Playlist from 3/15:

The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
NIN - Not the Actual Events
Say Sue Me - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork vinyl)

Card of the day:

Second or third time this one's come up in a week and I've figured it out. My journey is this purge. It's something else. And if sweet, sweet detritus like Urge Overkill floats to the surface for the first time in a while, all the better.

2018: March 15th 9:18 AM

Two years since Tom died. Remember that fucking Death card yesterday? How does this shit sneak up on me? I mean, I was anticipating the anniversary, but I didn't see it coming. I know that doesn't make sense, it's not even what I mean to say, it's just the only way I can think to say it. Tom, I miss You my friend. A lot.

Playlist from yesterday:
Blut Aus Nord - Memorium
Blut Aus Nord - MORT
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Faith No More - Angel Dust
The Birthday Party -
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Gore Motel
The Cure - Collector's Curiosities Vol. 2 (Carnage Visors and Rarities)

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE on Joup.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Enlightenment. Joy, Revelation; Dance: The Triumph of the Spirit."

2018: March 14th 8:17 AM

Happy Birthday Jeremy Musica, wherever you are. Great bass work on this one mate! You are missed.



Playlist from yesterday:

Still going through that same mix from the 00s
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
Deftones - Gore
Eagulls - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Soul Coughing - El Oso

Card of the day:

Well, now that's interesting. For the record, sometimes I've already pulled my card of the day by the time I sit down to write these entries, but not today. You can see then why, even though this card is more about Change than it is Death, there's an eerie correlation with the way I began the post. Per the grimoire, "A necessary change of state, needed in order to advance." Again, I can't help but juxtapose that with the encroaching move of residence.

2018: March 13th 7:16 AM

Have already lost what was in my head upon waking, so here's something I found on an old mix disc from the mid-00's, another time period I'm working to recontextualize into my modern mindset.



I don't think I love the video - although I'm posting it, I still haven't actually watched it. If you can, maybe throw on headphones, close your eyes and just listen instead of watching. This really is a wonderful song, everything about it, from the lyrics, delivery and production right down to the restraint shown with the guitar.

Playlist from yesterday:

The aforementioned Mix disc, which contains a lot of 2007-2009 stuff I might list later.
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House (prompted by finding the track Arms on the disc)
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards
The Antlers - Familiars
Monolord - Rust
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
Windhand - Split (their side of the 7" with Satan's Satyrs)
Goblin - George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork edition - so cool!)

Here's the track that reminded me how much I love Genghis Tron:



Card of the day:

I feel like continually drawing such a great card is a beacon assuring me I am on the correct path. Every man and every woman, and all that. Thanks Aleister.

2018: March 12th 3:51 AM

It was kind of a restless night; we were woken up repeatedly by people in the courtyard/parking area just outside the bedroom window. I'm not going to complain, as this is obvious karmic penance for the old-school weed circle some of my guests on Saturday had going off and on until 3 or 4 in the morning. Usually, I pride myself on being a good neighbor (unless it's to women named Dorothy), but Saturday just veered out of my control. I think there's footage of me doing my DIO impersonation at, like, 11:00 PM. My DIO impression is LOUD. Sorry neighbors. I'm gone in under two weeks, and there's a lot of pent-up stress the alcohol released, so that's what happened. In the give-and-take of communal living, everyone gets a chance to be a dick, and everyone gets a chance at making amends. I'll have been here one month shy of 12 years, and in that time I've pretty much been good enough to have pre-mended anything bad I do, which is good because next Saturday is St. Paddy's. This is commonly a quieter affair: I make corned beef, drink Guinness and Bushmills, and we watch the best damn Irish mob movie ever, State of Grace. This time it just might go off with a little more gusto, because there's a bunch of people, myself included, that want to say goodbye to this place.

I keep referring to parties here, but that's not exactly true. What I host are movie nights. It's generally the same cast of characters every time: Ray, Kenta and Maddy, Robert, Alex, Shailesh, Jesus, Joe, with a few now-and-thens like Keller who attend as well. Generally, everyone arrives between 8 and 9, I cook or we order out, and then we commiserate for a bit, watch a movie, commiserate a bit, watch another movie. These are not parties, per se. Peppered throughout these I'll have a  party here and there, usually in honor of someone's birthday. I think the last rager I had was my divorce party (earned, believe me). This past Saturday though, on the surface a birthday party for Ray and Maddy, was part of a two-step goodbye. We'll all still be able to hang, just not at my place and specifically, not at this place, where I've hosted going on seven years. It's been special, and I think a lot of my attendees - many who are in their twenties and early thirties now - see this place as their first communal, hang-out place. So we have to send it off right.

Playlist from yesterday was super small. Spent a lot of great time with Keller working on out writing project, so music would have been a distraction to two of us so geared toward it.

Etta James - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST (Waxwork vinyl)

My copy of Waxwork's reissue of Goblin's score for George A. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead should arrive today. SO psyched. I didn't do the Waxwork subscription this year, as this is the only release of the five I HAD to have, and I bought my boss a copy as well because he just got a record player and loves old horror, so I thought it was an appropriate 'record player warming' gesture.

Card of the day:

I've always been interested in the reflection in this card. It may simply be a scaling issue, wanting to devote as much of the card's area to the image and thus compressing its mirror image, but it seems more to me like there's a distortion here. This is the watery aspect of water, so we're talking emotions on top of emotion. That can blur things a bit. Also, there's a lot of lunar influence in this card, the Ibis, the crayfish and of course the big ol' moon behind the queen, and moon affects the flow of water, i.e., the tide. It also affects our brains, i.e., lunatic. And being that either the time change, the cumulative stress of work and the encroaching move, and/or my sarcoidosis medication may or may not be disrupting my sleep (hence why I'm up at three something AM on a Monday before work writing this), I feel a bit loony of late.