2018: April 3rd, 5:21 AM

I'd written these guys off a long time ago. When I first heard System of a Down, and it was this exact song, they made a good impression on me. Then I dove a little deeper and found the malaise of the down-tuned, trace elliot 00s guitar-driven metal storm left me cold enough where I wrote off most of the groups that 'made it' during that time. Eventually a few exceptions leaked through, some of them rather begrudgingly . A few days ago at work one of the newer guys on my shift and I were talking music and System came up. He's considerably younger, and had a completely different perspective. I decided to hit that first record back up on Apple Music and, wouldn't you know, I listened to it yesterday and really enjoyed it. Also, I've always dug their completely insane cover of Sabbath's Snowblind that appears on the Nativity in Black tribute anthology record, so I guess I never 100% discounted these guys.



Playlist from yesterday:

The Fall - Early Singles
System of a Down - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Peter Gabriel - Us
Bloc Party - Silent Alarm
Bell Witch - Mirror Reaper
Soundgarden - SOMMS

Card for the day:

Gallantry, gentleness and a male in touch with his feminine side. This is me, to a degree. Since early 20s, I've always understood and respected the feminine aspects of my psyche, and I often pay homage to them with the music I listen to and how I relate to it while its on. Maybe I'll follow this side of things today and see where it gets me (I've been rather male/aggressive at work lately, not in an alpha male way, but with a lot of things going pear-shaped at month's end, I got pretty aggro. Today I'll play it a bit different, with this card in mind.

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.