2018: April 2nd, 5:07 AM

This song. Wow.



Playlist from 4/01:

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin III
John Coltrane - Giant Steps

Card of the day:

Two, as one drifted from the pile while I shuffled and made itself known, so to speak:

Ace of Swords was the actual card I pulled. This card is BREAKTHROUGH and I feel that's a direct reference to the fact that in all the busyness yesterday, moving and cleaning and whatnot, I actually managed to get a final edit done on two more of the seven stories for the anthology.

This seems to be piggybacking off the last two pulls in some weird, reverse energy fluctuation. I had the Six of Wands and the Seven of Wands, a influx of energy and the expenditure of that energy, respectively. Now I have the beginning of that triumvirate, where the energy amasses. Fits, if I'm going to make a push this week to finish the editing and the first issue of Parish Fen, which is exactly what I'm going to do, all while hopefully only working about 45 hours between now and Friday and taking an actual weekend off.

New Zeal and Ardor!

Let's hope this heralds a new album or E.P. sometime soon!

2018: April 1st 10:21 AM

Yesterday was a sacrifice - finished the latest Drinking with Comics and put it up, worked in the middle of the day, cleaned and unboxed. Never had a chance to do the blog until later at night and by then March 30th, it's playlist and the idea of pulling a card were loooong gone. I do know that I woke up with this in my head yesterday though:



Nearing the end of Thomas Ligotti's Grimscribe and just finished The Dreaming in Nortown, easily one of my favorite stories in this collection of the author's earliest two anthologies. The story builds a nice, palpable dread by plumbing the depths of consciousness; that nasty little place where waking life and the oneiric plane intermingle. And Ligotti does this in a way that feels reminiscent of Lovecraft's best philosophical terror, i.e. the opening paragraph of The Call of Cthulhu, so there's a nostalgic harmony to my enjoyment of it, as well. That said, the slightly ineffective abstractions meant to masquerade as profound raison d'être for the characters wax and wane a bit in a kind of 'nothing is happening' way; not to say I'm complaining there's no action or monsters, quite the opposite. Once again though, as I have with other stories in this collection, I feel the The Dreaming in Nortown's end doesn't exactly payoff what the rest of the story sets up.

Also recently began Si Spencer and Sean Murphy's older Hellblazer story, City of Demons. So far, really good.

Playlist from 3/31

Tennis System - Technicolour Blind
Cash Money - Black Hearts and Broken Wills
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry - The Very Best of
Childish Gambino - Because the Internet
System of a Down - Eponymous
The Verve - A Storm in Heaven
Pink Floyd - the Wall
The Used - Ocean of the Sky
Garbage - Eponymous

New Issue of Drinking with Comics is up!

And I'll be damned, we talk about comics THE ENTIRE TIME!!!

2018: March 30th 5:13 AM

Unboxed and shelved my CDs last night, and listened to U2's Achtung Baby for the first time in a long time while doing so. That's probably why I woke up with this one in my head.

U2 is a pretty polarizing group for me; they're a lot like Metallica or RHCP - I love the early stuff, hate the later/current stuff, and generally dislike the public personas they present to the world. That said, War and Achtung are two unbelievably strong records that help define certain moments of my early life, so they will be with me always.

Playlist from yesterday:

Luscious Jackson - Electric Honey

Silkworm - Firewater

U2 - Achtung Baby

Brian Eno, David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I noticed that Stop Making Sense is currently included with Prime - I've somehow managed to make it 42 years without seeing it so I began remedying that last night, although we didn't make it far before I had to turn in. Today and tomorrow have the potential to be nightmares at work, so it may be a time before I get back to watch the rest. Thus far, three songs in, it is of course awesome.

No Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying today. Next week I'm back at that for sure.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Emotional depths honed by intellect - the airy aspect of water, or the intelligent aspect of emotion. I'm taking this as a sign to temper my emotions (read: anger) over the next two days as other departments play their little end-of-the-month games. Games that always fuck over my department. Okay. I'll keep my mouth to a minimum in the interest of the greater good (read: my paycheck).

2018: March 29th 10:33 PM

Bit late today, eh? Looooooong day.



I'd forgotten how goddamn funny this song is. I remember when The King in Yellow was first released, Mr. Brown sent it to me with the comment that the chorus about the 300 lb psychic baby was hysterical.

It is.

Playlist from yesterday:

Singles OST
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Odonis Odonis - Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
Silkworm - Firewater
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Card for the day, which I actually pulled this morning at 6:32 AM, was indeed, following through from yesterday:

Energy that began with the five of wands Strife, ballooned with Six of Wands Victory, is now expended.

Also, the eye thing is totally a side effect of the prednisone and I am now, at my pulmonologist's recommendation, tapering off of it.

2018: March 28th 11:59 AM

After the Astronaut is the Butthole Surfers album Capitol never released, back at the end of the 90s/early 00s. I don't remember the whole story any more, but basically in the great 'alternative buy-up' that occurred after Nirvana's success, when label execs were plugging their ears and counting their checks from Oh the Guilt, the major labels spent a lot of time scratching their heads and signing checks to bands they thought might be the next "big thing". As long-time stalwarts of underground madness, the Surfers were held in high regard by a lot of people labels deemed to be 'in the know' and they were signed. One has to imagine the man who signed them never went back and actually listened to much of the band's back catalogue, certainly not Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac. Anyway, I think Capitol released two records for the Surfers and then pulled the plug on releasing the third. I ended up finding most of the tracks on Napster back when that was still a thing - that's what I used the sight for, not pirating stuff I could hand band's money for - and have loved it ever since. Eventually most of the content was released as The Weird Revolution album - I've never bothered with that, as it seemed superfluous to my version and the version of my favorite song - embedded above - is just different for me to turn my head back to the one I know. Not sure how the band feels about the Weird Revolution or even who put it out, but that's really just a Wikipedia entry away I'm sure. Anyway, I love this song. A lot. Specifically the way Gibby delivers the lines about Macaroni hanging from his chin and Sadness filling the air for the hurt shirt. 

Playlist from 3/27:

The Wire Tapper #23

Captain Jack - For Ron

Black Sabbath - Masters of Reality
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. #1

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Butthole Surfers - After the Astronaut

Card of the day:

While performing my standard, 3-shuffle pre-draw, the following two card leapt from the deck and landed on the floor.

My subsequent pull was:

I wasn't planning on doing an all-out spread this morning, but let's see what we have. So, going off of my notes in the Grimoire, we get the following:

Knight of Cups - Enlightenment, or perhaps Victory, is within reach, but there's danger of an emotional deluge. Act fast and be careful not to drown.

The Hierophant - a wise teacher, take advantage of opportunities to learn and advance in stature.

Six of Wands Victory - Energy has crested to reward, but this is a pinion card, caught between the fireball of energy in the Five of Wands Strife and the Seven of Wands Valour. This accentuates the 'act fast and be careful not to drown,' or maybe in this case it's be careful not to get burned.

Not sure how this applies to me for the day or moving forward, but it will be good to keep my eye open for it.