RIP Sid Haig

Moments after I posted yesterday's page here I learned that Sid Haig passed away. This seemed inescapable after all the reading I'd done late last week about why he had such a small role in Rob Zombie's 3 From Hell, and sure enough, one week to the day after the film's release, we lost Captain Spaulding. I can think of no great tribute than the scene I've posted above; other than the intro to Way of the Gun, this is possibly my favorite to any movie ever.

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This record is absolutely fantastic!

After stumbling across it's premature release late last week and posting about it here, I ended up truncating my first listen; last week was my on-call shift at work, and during those weeks I always refrain from smoking, which I knew I wanted to do for my first go-through on this one. So yesterday, after turning the phone over to the next person in the rotation, I returned home after work and hit the ol' dugout, then put on my headphones and lay on the bed listening - and I mean full-attention, not doing anything else listening - to the album all the way through.

It's epic. My favorite Blut Aus Nord record since Memoria Vetusta II, probably because this feels like a direct sequel to that record, even more than Memoria Vetusta III does. Epic, cosmic, and majestic,  Hallucinogen takes me straight to the stars, and I love it.

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NCBD: This will be the first week in number of weeks that anything I read comes out, so I'm pretty excited:

After mis-reporting it last month, here it is, just in time to coincide with my re-read of the series: Black Science ends with issue forty-three!

Two Remender books in the same week - always a great thing!

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Playlist from 9/23:

Air - Talkie Walkie
Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe 2
Blut Aus Nord - Hallucinogen

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Card of the day:

Despite not having a formal writing session yesterday, I did a pretty good deal of research and I had a massive breakthrough on a major aspect of the overall Shadow Play story. It would seem the suggestion for today is to do a little housekeeping and translate some of those notes into actual story Bible material.

New Trailer for Shudder's Creepshow!

This Thursday! Can't wait.

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The Writing Process:

Lots of intense bursts of inspiration for Shadow Play Book Two: The Absence of Light. I have a general outline, sort of, but there's so much ground to cover and a lot of jumping around in the timeline, which currently runs from about 1576 to 2019, with one chapter most likely occurring in early pre-history. This is easily the most ambitious story architecture I've ever attempted, but it feels strong and alive in a way that is increasingly energizing. Which is great, because lately, I've had a lot of ups and downs with all the short stories I've been working on over the last year, and the first book of Ciazarn is largely written, but I can't quit nail the tone, so I'm easing away for the time being on that one. Frustrations are amplified by the fact that most of these issues would probably work themselves out if I could just get back on a consistent writing schedule. Hoping that happens this week.

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Super excited to announce I'll be doing a bit of a collaboration with my good friend Mr. Brown. I've never really been an X-Files fan; I don't have anything against it, but I also have never really gotten into it beyond a dalliance with the 'mythology' episodes way back in the day, which dried up as it became apparent the story wasn't really mapped out to conclude in any satisfying way. Or maybe I'm wrong - I liked some of what I saw, but could never commit to a regular watch-schedule with it, despite being sexually obsessed by Gillian Anderson in my late teens/early twenties.

But I digress...

Brown asked me recently if I'd be into the idea of him curating a playlist of stand alone X-Files episodes, the idea being I would watch them and write a little something about them as I go. I love this idea, as I trust Brown's taste implicitly, and have always wanted someone to show me just what the hell everyone loved about this show in the 90s. This is the perfect time for such a project as well; 31 Days of Horror begins next week, and I figure on days with little watch time, I could pepper in some X-Files. I have the list and can't wait to start!

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Recent Playlist:

Carpenter Brut - Leather Teeth
Carpenter Brut - Trilogy
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Wasteland
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Drab Majesty - Careless
Various - A Girl Walks Home Alone At Night OST
Boy Harsher - Careful
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe
Monolord - No Comfort
Joseph Loduca - Evil Dead 2 OST
John Carpenter - Prince of Darkness OST

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Card of the day:

Turning. Changing. Cycles. You can see on the diagram below that Atu X: Fortune manifests as the path between Mercy and Victory. Not sure how to read that in my own current context, but while digging around online for the image below, I came across something I'd never really noticed about Fortune - The Wheel or The Wheel of Fortune in other decks. It moves counter clockwise. Macro-definitions aside, I'm looking at this today as a nod to move forward in reverse-engineering something that has been giving me a bit of trouble.

New Blut Aus Nord Released Three Weeks Early!

Holy cow - I didn't even know this was coming! Read about the whys and wherefores of the early release HERE. Meanwhile, I'll be clicking over to Debemur Morti's North American Shop to pick this one up (even though I missed out on the awesome pink and purple splatter variant! Drat!)

At a very early first listen, Hallucinogen appears to be the first Blut Aus Nord album in a while that really grabbed me right off the bat. That makes me super happy.

Also, I'm noticing Memoria Vetusta III: Saturnian Poetry is back in stock on Vinyl. That's been a long time coming! Can't wait for this package to arrive - two of my favorite album covers ever in one box!

M83 - DSVII - Feelings

M83's new album Digital Shades Vol. II dropped today. It's gorgeous, and coincidentally makes a perfect soundtrack to my re-read of Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science. I'm eleven issues in and th Telepathic Millipede death cult is one of the awesomest/creepiest lifeforms I've seen in a SciFi/Fantasy story like this. Check that - there are no SciFit/Fantasy stories like this. Pure, unraveling, multi-dimensional madness, and I'm loving it, especially with this lush, analog soundtrack. I fell out with M83 after HUWD, and I still want a non-instrumental record from them again, but in the meantime, DSVII is fantastic.

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Larry Fessenden's modern take on Mary Shelley's Frankenstein is fantastic, and if you're in Hollywood and get a chance to see that - or any of the other goodies playing there - you should definitely drop in at Arena Cinelounge. Fantastic venue for short run/obscure flicks. I posted the trailer for Depraved yesterday, so today, here's a super cool behind the scenes shot I found online, along with a LINK to a cool article by Fessenden on why he makes movies.

For my money, Mr. Fessenden is the closest thing to a John Carpenter-level talent who isn't wearing his JC influence on his sleeve (not always a bad thing, the point here is LF is as original in his approach now as JC was to his back in the day), toiling away in partial obscurity, making original, solid flicks that are as interesting to the philosophical mind as they are to the eye. Support this man's work!

My full, short review of Depraved is up on Letterbxd HERE.

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Playlist from 9/19:

Tomahawk - Eponymous
Pixies - Beneath the Eyrie
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Mind Control
Rob Zombie - Hellbilly Deluxe

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Card of the day:

Wow, talk about the cards talking directly, clearly, right to me! Two days of the 4 of Disks, Power while I recharge my mental and physical batteries, directly followed by the 3 of Disks, Work, telling me to get my ass back in gear and get to work. Time to wrap Black Science for the day and head out to write!

Larry Fessenden's Depraved

A friend and I are going to check out Larry Fessenden's new film Depraved in Hollywood tonight, and I am excited! I've been waiting for some time for this, a modern re-telling of Mary Shelley's classic Frankenstein tale. The trailer looks fantastic, and the theatre the film is playing at is one of my favorite little nooks and crannies in a city where everything is overblown and overexposed. A fun time will be had by all, of that I am certain.

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New Fangoria arrived two days ago and I've barely had a chance to scratch the surface.

Great cover.

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Playlist from 9/18:

Sausage - Riddle Are Abound Tonight
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Sepultura - Roots
Malcolm Middleton - Sleight of Heart
Lustmord - The Word as Power
Perturbator - Dangerous Days

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Card of the day:

I love seeing the same card multiple days in a row, especially when I can interpret the pull as a nod that what I've been doing is the right thing to be doing. Burnt out and not in the best physical shape, I took another day off from writing after work yesterday and had a big ol' nap. It was glorious! This restorative, Powering Up period has worked wonders - I feel considerably better today than I did yesterday, so tomorrow it's going to be rest in the morning, and then back at it.

Actually, I did a little bit of work yesterday: finally dug out an old manuscript I intend to canabalize for an upcoming short story. It was fun revisiting old material, especially looking at it with fresh eyes, seeing what I can use and what will be changed or tossed. This new one's been on my mind for over a year, so I can't wait to tear into it!

Blood Machines Official Trailer

SO happy I helped kickstart this one! There are two slots for this year's Beyondfest still to be announced - I'm hoping one of them is Blood Machines. My hope for the other slot is either Babak Anvari's Nathan Ballingrud adaptation Wounds or the Soska Sisters' Rabid.

Speaking of Beyondfest 2019, I was able to get tickets to almost everything I wanted:

Joe Bob Brigs - How Rednecks Saved Hollywood
Tammy and the T-Rex
Joe Begos Double Feature: Bliss and VFW, with Begos and crew in person
Tom Atkins Triple Feature with Mr. Atkins attending: Halloween III Season of the Witch, Night of the Creeps and John Carpenter's The Fog

The only flick I missed out on is Richard Stanley's adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft's The Color Out of Space with Stanley in person, but I'm cool with what I was able to score. There's also tickets available for a bunch of other films I'm toying with, but I'll probably decide some of those last minute since most are during the week.

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NCBD - so weird. Third NCBD in a row with no books, and I'm not particularly bothered. In fact, probably to sub the weekly comic experience, I chomped down hard on my re-read of Rick Remender and Matteo Scalera's Black Science, which I erroneously reported ended last month, but actually ends next week with issue forty-three. As of last night, I am eight issues into the re-read, and having an absolute blast with it. Such great world building, both story wise and with Scalera's incomparable art.

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I've been doing a lot of digital reading. So much so, that it's becoming a bit of a problem. Kindle books are so cheap it's insane. Case in point, this was $0.99:

Forty freakin' stories by a variety of different authors. Some of those, like the Lovecraft and the Howard I already have, but there's a ton of stuff I do not. In fact, what led me to this one was researching T.E.D. Klein, whose OOP paperback Dark Gods keeps coming up in conversation as essential reading to further Lovecraft's mythos, but which runs for about $50+ on eBay. Klein's story The Events at Poroth Farm is included in this one, and it also comes recommended as a great place to start with his work. Instead of that one though, I started with a Clark Ashton Smith, whose SciFi/Fantasy work I adore, but whose entries in the mythos I've never read before. I'm about a quarter of the way through The Return of the Sorcerer, and it is, as I suspected, fantastic. Smith's handling of Lovecraft's work actually reminds me a lot Howard's, whose Lovecraft-related work I actually probably like better than Lovecraft's. Sacrilege, I know, but the man can write. And so can Smith.

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Well, I went and saw Rob Zombie's 3 From Hell two nights ago. I didn't like it. My short review is up on Letterbxd HERE. I'll add that I am happy RZ made the movie he wanted to, it just wasn't to my tastes or what I wanted from a sequel to two movies I adore. Despite of my negative take, I'll still go see the next one when it comes out (there will be a next one).

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Playlist of late:

Danzig - Danzig 1
Sepultura - Chaos A.D.
Mark Korven - The Witch OST
Slipknot - We Are Not Your Kind
Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar
David Bowie - Aladdin Sane
Flipper - Generic Flipper
Various - Under Frustration, Vol. 2
Brass Hearse - Eponymous EP
Rob Zombie - Apple Essentials
Brass Hearse - In Death (I'll Love You More) single

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Card of the day:

To me, this card always indicates a solid foundation, or re-gathering thereof. And that's what I've been doing of late - a lot of rest. I've felt out of sorts, stressed out, and my wrist in probably badly sprained. I may continue to rest today, even if I am neglecting my writing. We'll see. The reading - of comics, The Queen's Conjuror, and now some Cthulhu Mythos, is also an attempt at re-cementing my foundation, and that combined with the added rest is helping put me back together a bit after traveling and a grueling return to work last week.

Ghost - 7" of Satanic Panic!

Ghost released two new tracks last week. At first listen, I'll be honest and say I wrinkled my nose a bit. After a few more, I've come around a bit. I get the campy 70s thing, I just don't particularly care for it. Still, new Ghost is always something to look forward to. However, now I'm curious. Since the second record, Ghost's M.O. has been an album every two years, with an E.P. in-between. Do the two tracks released as "Seven Inches of Satanic Panic" constitute the entire release, or is there more still to come?

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In keeping with the theme, I watched Chelsea Stardust's Satanic Panic last night. Solid horror comedy, with some very bizarre scenes. Watch Rebecca Romijn read recently excavated intestines was fantastic, and I'm always happy to see AJ Bowen.



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A new episode of The Horror Vision went up Saturday. Featured film is Richard Stanley's Hardware, but we hit all kinds of stuff, from Wes Craven's original The Hills Have Eyes, to Mindhunter Season Two, to the theatrical release of Ari Aster's Midsummer.

Check it out:

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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Playlist from the last few days:

Pixies - Head Carrier
Ghost - Seven Inches of Satanic Panic
Ghost - Prequelle
Twin Temple - Twin Temple (Bring You Their Signature Sound... Satanic Doo-Wop)

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Card of the day:

Change. This is good. I've been so stressed out from work lately, I'm having night terrors. First time for that, and it's pretty fucked up. Also, my diet is not what I want it to be, and I need to change that; I've developed a running fear of heart attacks due to the stress and the amount of red meat I've been eating. Change won't be easy though, because having K's mother live with us means for the last year and some change and continuing forward, there's a lot of food in the house I would normally not buy. I need to figure out a way to topple this current paradigm. I also need to get back to my breathing exercises and meditation, which, after a good start, went out the window with my Chicago trip. First part of the battle though, is recognizing what needs to Change.

Read my books: Shadow Play Book One: Kim & Jessie • A Collection of Desires: 7 Tales of Modern Horror