Isolation: Day 188 - Synchronic Gets a Trailer

I feel like  I have been waiting for a long time for the new Benson and Moorhead. These guys look to be at the top of their game with Synchronic, they certainly have a lot more money behind them here. I see big things ahead for these two, can't wait.

---

---

Watch:

Closing in on the end of Halt and Catch Fire's final season, this song - which I've always dug but kind of also always took for granted - now has special significance. Wow. I'm going to hate to see this show go.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Alice in Chains - Dirt

Ghost - Prequelle

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

Nirvana - Nevermind

Doves - The Universal Want

Tennis System - Technicolor Blind

Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City

Also, Apple Music does a weekly 'favorites' playlist based on what you're listening to. I normally ignore it, but this week's is pretty cool

---

---

---

Card:

Interrupted energy and/or creative flow. Heat, back pain, and lack of sleep have all conspired to interrupt my writing sessions. 

Isolation: Day 187

Musick

Another track from the upcoming eight album by The Ocean. Love this video, and love the song. The Ocean is still one of the bands that carry the metal through the 00s for me, and one that still feels as though they are reaching to continually change the landscape of the genre.

The new album, Phanerozoic II: Mesozoic I Cenozoic is out on September 25. Pre-order HERE.

---

---

---

NCBD

Not a lot of books this week, but one, in particular, I've been waiting for his Dead Day #3.

I know I've talked a lot about this one lately, but it's worth the hype. I am also aware that for someone who has, consistently for the last nearly two decades, endlessly recited a speech that contains, "Zombies are a dead scene, man," and, "First three Romeros and a couple others are all that matters," I've been logging a lot of excitement for quite a few new zombie books/movies/comics. Well, I guess there's more on heaven and earth than dreamt of in my philosophy, at least when it comes to zombies.

---

---

---

Playlist

Slipknot - Subliminal Verses

Kendrick Lamar - Damn.

The Ocean - Phanerozoic I: Paleozoic

Code Orange - Underneath

Electric Wizard - Let Us Prey

Turquoise Moon - The Sunset City

---

---

---

Card

Healing and compassion, two things I'm currently working on. 

Isolation: Day 186

Musick

I've been in an Electric Wizard mood lately. Here's one of my favorites from 2011's Black Mass, probably my favorite of the group's. 

---

---

---

Mindful Habitation:

The last few days have been a bit of a blank slate. Submerged in the same, endless routine of days didn't bother me at all. Until it did. I've experienced a sudden and overpowering loneliness that came on from out of nowhere. I need a pattern interrupt, but I'm not sure exactly how to do that. I would kill to go sit at the crappy BWW's in Hollywood by my friend's apartment and sit with him, have a burger and a few beers. Just typing that makes me feel like I want to cry. This is crazy. I'm not sure where this overwrought deluge of emotion has come from, but it's almost crippling. The workweek feels like one endless day, and the pattern at home has disintegrated my sleep patterns so that I'm always tired when I'm there during the week. I find joy in consumerism and food, a slippery slope. I'm not gaining weight, but the extra I have is setting up shop right in my stomach. 

Okay, now that that's hopefully been expunged, I can maybe get on with my day. Everything I said above is true, but it's also exaggerated from my perspective because everyone needs to feel a little goth/emo now and again. I'll continue to do what I do, however, I think K and I will maybe take a small weekend trip soon, and perhaps meet up with some friends this weekend, just to alter our landscape.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Slipknot - Subliminal Verses

Electric Wizard - Black Mass

Code Orange - Underneath

 

---

---

---

Card

Cause and Effect, eh? An interesting pull based on everything I wrote above. The emotional and psychological effects of this long-term isolation will most likely resound through our society for years, perhaps even after a vaccine.

Speaking of vaccines, I might as well put down my prediction here before it's too late, both as a warning and an 'I told you so,' because the frustration of the current socio-political landscape has made me into the kind of cunt that will say exactly that. Prediction: A 'vaccine' will appear shortly before the election, Trump will take credit, and it will then turn out to not work. Such is our world that even if he introduces a fake vaccine, his die-hard supporters will smile and champion its (and his) merits regardless of whether it's real or not. This MIGHT put him in enough favor to win.

I can see it clear as day: the CDC, FDA, AMA, can all shout at the top of their lungs that it's not thoroughly tested, or straight up doesn't work, and he will cry fake news and people will rally around him as a savior. Let's hope I'm wrong, let's hope there is some Justice served in November. But really, it wouldn't surprise me at this point if there wasn't.

Isolation: Day 185

Music:

Wow. This just blew me right the F&*K away. This year's Underneath is already on the shortlist to be on my top ten albums of 2020, this perfect cover of Alice in Chains' immortal 'Down in a Hole' may just put the newly released Under the Skin live album on that list, as well. 

This is one of those songs I can't hear without a slew of emotions, thoughts, and sensations from high school coming flooding back. That kind of emotion juxtaposition usually doesn't translate to covers. That is definitely not the case with this one. 

---

---

---

Read:

Two stories from finishing Nathan Ballingrud's debut short story collection, North American Lake Monsters, I jumped into Stephen Graham Jones' Night of the Mannequins. I read the thing in a few hours and absolutely loved it. Funny, freaky, weird, hilarious, spooky, confounding. All of the above. This is a slasher novel that is not anywhere close to being what you would ever expect from a slasher story. Highest possible recommendation, especially since you can probably knock it out in a day. Perfect summer reading. 

Night of the Mannequins is $3.99 on Kindle right now, and worth every goddamn penny!

Next, as I savor these last few stories in Lake Monsters, I'm probably going to start a long-overdue re-read of Clive Barker's iconic The Hellbound Heart.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Doves - The Universal Want

Earth - Primitive and Deadly

X - Los Angeles

Steely Dan - Aja

Mudhoney - March to Fuzz

Electric Wizard - Black Masses

Electric Wizard - Dopethrone

---

---

---

CARD:

Getting back up on my writing legs after a fairly successful weekend that proved my new outline method will make writing these next two Shadow Play books considerably easier than the first.

Sunday Bandcamp: New Album from Exhalants!

I missed the pre-order on the vinyl for Atonement and now I'm kicking myself. Regardless, the entire album is fantastic, and I can't recommend a band more at this stage in their career. Support Exhalants HERE.

Isolation: Day 183 Doves - Prisoners

MUSICK:

My good friend Grez reminded me that the new Doves album dropped yesterday, a fact I had completely forgotten. When I crawled out of bed this morning and sat down to write this post, I threw on my headphones and dug in. So far, fantastic album, but of course those who know Doves would expect no less. Here's one of my favorite tracks, so far, although it was difficult to choose.  

---

---

---

READ:

I finally got around to working through the stack of comics I picked up from both The Comic Bug and Atomic Basement two weeks ago. On that pile was the second issue of Ryan Parrott and Evgeniy Bornyakov's Dead Day, published by Aftershock Comics. 

In prepping to read issue two, I went back and re-read issue one, realizing I'd completely forgotten how awesome this book is! Basic set up is every year for the last four years, dead people - not all dead people, no one knows who or why exactly - return from the grave and visit the loved ones they left behind. Well, as the story is showing us, some also visit those who wronged them. 

There felt like a considerable gap between issues 1 and 2, so here's to hoping that won't be the case with issue 3, which is currently scheduled for this coming week, 9/16.

---

---

---

Playlist:

Contours - 20th Century Masters

Black Sabbath - Sabbath Bloody Sabbath

Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

Melvins - Houdini

Afghan Whigs - Gentlemen

Fen - Dustwalker

Marilyn Manson - We Are Chaos

Marilyn Manson - Antichrist Superstar

Kings of Leon - Because of the Times

Kensonlovers - Keep Rolling (single)

Jaye Jayle - Prisyn

Exhalants - Atonement

Code Orange - Down in a Hole (single)

Code Orange - Underneath

X - Los Angeles

---

---

---

Card:

I wanted to do a full spread this morning, as it has been quite some time since I'd done one of these.

Starting with 0 The Fool, this spread lays out a slightly tumultuous path that includes overthrowing current paradigms and fighting through self-doubt toward a new idea that will help define the subject. 

Isolation: Day 181

Episode two of Halt and Catch Fire's fourth and final season ends with James' Laid playing over the characters as they move through the culmination of the episode's interactions, relationship and business shake-ups that no doubt begin to move all these people I've grown to love into position for the series' end in eight more episodes. It reminded me how long it had been since I last listened to James, and how much this song - a song I despised when it made its initial splash in the mid-90s zeitgeist - has come to mean to me since I fell in love with it in a pub in Dublin, circa 2001.

---

---

---

Watch: I'm not really a Dune fan. I've never read the novels, and the 80's film adaptation is the only film directed by David Lynch I abhor - and feel fine doing so, considering Lynch petitioned to have his name removed from it. That said, I am definitely a Denis Villeneuve fan. And this looks gorgeous, so I'm in:

   

I'd love for Mr. Villeneuve to pattern his career after someone like Christopher Nolan - alternating big-budget, franchise, or high-end IP projects with original films, and I have a feeling that's exactly what he will do. In the meantime, I loved Blade Runner 2049, and I think I'll love this, too.

---

---

---

Playlist:

I don't do many shuffles, but I ended up having a pretty good one this morning on Apple Music and then translated it into a playlist on Spotify. Here it is:

  

From there the day's music looked like this:

Firewater - The Ponzi Scheme

Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. 1

Lawnmower Deth - Billy

Iress - Prey

The Bronx - The Bronx (I)

 

---

---

---

Card:

"Quiet contemplation yields unexpected results."

I'll be looking for that today, in the (hopefully) quiet moments when contemplation often sneaks up on me.