2018: February 16th 8:10 AM

The last thing I saw before going to bed last night:



First thing in my head when I woke up:



No idea. One thing I do know? - Tracey Pew = God.

Playlist from the 15th:

The Soft Moon - Criminal
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
The Bronx - V
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
The Reverend Horton Heat - Liquor in the Front
The Men - Tomorrow Hits (aborted listen - not in the mood)
Eagulls - Eponymous
Lustmord - Songs of Gods and Demons
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Blood Lust

Watched - Nick Cave: 20,000 Days on Earth

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday. Read it HERE.

Card of the day:

The futility may have been a pointed remark about looking for a decent image of this card online.

From the grimoire:

"Difficult decisions to make
when overwhelmed, down on ourselves or stressed/helpless you MUST act or things will get exponentially worse.
Make a decision and more importantly STICK TO IT!!!

Action, pure and w/resolve breaks the will of this card. Action is Futility's Nemesis."

Applies 100% directly to our moving situation, so I think there will be a decision this weekend.

Thanks Al!

2018: February 15th 4:58 AM

In my head upon waking:



I've fallen off with Jucifer since they essentially became a thrash band - they're still awesome, and if you ever get the chance to see them live, even if you don't know their music they are definitely worth checking out. But Calling All Cars on the Vegas Strip, I Name You Destroyer, and Lambs are all fantastic records and essential musical elements to how I survived the veritable drought of the early 00's.

Valentine's Day Playlist:

God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Creeps)
Faith No More - Sol Invictus
Sunn O))) and Scott Walker - Soused
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Etta James - Second Time Around
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
Cocteau Twins - Heaven or Las Vegas
Simple Minds - Don't You Forget About Me (single)
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Kate Bush - The Dreaming
Ministry - Wargasm (pre-release single)

Card of the day:

Something hidden. The influence of the unconscious mind. You my have gone too far.

Hmm... definitely banking on the unconscious mind idea here.

February 14th 5:03 AM

I don't listen to very many bands' lyrics. That is not the case with Touche Amore.

.......

Just did the 7 Minute Workout App for the first time. Not bad. After several health issues last year, I'm no longer near as physically fit as I was. Not that I was a bastion of fitness, but I could hold my own. Hopefully this will put me back there and maybe even beyond. Also, although I'm currently in an 'anti-exercise' inertia period, any exercise definitely makes you feel better during the day (after that initial soreness/adjustment period that is). My favorite piece of writing on that is HERE.

The Tuesday the 13th's playlist:

Fen - Epoch
Lantlos - .neon
Touche Amore - Eponymous
Blut Aus Nord - Cosmosophy
Blut Aus Nord - Memorial Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Sunn O))) - Domkirke
Lustre - Night Spirit

"Mutha fucka must'a thought it was black metal day. It ain't black metal day, is it Marty?"

"Naw man. It ain't black metal day."

Daily words have been rough, as I'm not plowing on ahead now but editing and filling in, tweaking and expanding. Thus, project goal word-counts are near impossible on a week night due to the fact that whenever I cut from the document - which I'm doing plenty of as I snazzy it up - I counterbalance whatever I have written. My addiction to that little "You've met your daily goal" bell is in withdrawal. I pass the doc to Keller this week and then I can focus on my upcoming 3-issue comic collaboration with my good friend John: "The Legend of Parish Fen."

Card of the day:

Two again. This is interesting, and I have to go back and really think about this. I'm curious if this run of two-day pulls might link up to the day last week when a friend asked me for some spiritual help. If so, I need to organize the second pull in each of these into an ad hoc spread and relay the message to her. As for The Star again for me, well, I can only hope life is about to become easier and a path to enlightenment - a vague and wonderfully applicable concept if you throw out the biblical sense of it - doth appear on said horizon after a helpful conversation with a friend and the closing of a loop in my own head, all pertaining to my constant battle with my living situation.

They Remain Trailer

Based on the fantastic short story by Laird Barron, published in Occultation, my favorite of his anthologies.

February 13th, 9:15 AM

New obsession:



Lantlos reminds me a lot of Fen, and just to strengthen that comparison, the Universe saw fit to provide rain tonight in Southern California, just like the first night I heard Fen in 2011.

Playlist yesterday:

Killing Joke - Eponymous
Lantlos - Neon
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Slint - Spiderland
DyE - Fantasy
Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Lantlos again.

Reading wise I did manage to dig back into the Ligotti and actually jumped ahead, read and really enjoyed The Last Feast of the Harlequin. Since then I shifted back to Grady Hendrix's Paperbacks from Hell and dug out Laird Barron's 2014 anthology, The Beautiful Thing That Awaits Us All, just to re-read More Dark for a comically accompany "Tom L."

Love this story.

Card of the day:

2 Cards jumped out of the deck again today:

2018: February 12th 4:40 AM

Based on two glowing reviews from friends, and the fact that A) I was in the mood for some new horror and, B) I had been reading about David Bruckner's latest film's steady hike to daylight (for those who have seen the film you will have guessed that pun was very much intended) on Bloodydisgusting for what feels like forever, we watched The Ritual last night. It landed on Netflix two days ago and is pretty fantastic. No reinvention of the wheel, except maybe in the effects department; not the actual FX per se, more what the film uses them to create. That's all I'll say, as I'm the type who finds movies - especially horror movies - are always better when you know as little as possible going into them.



Playlist from Sunday, 2/11/18:

PJ Harvey - To Bring You My Love
Johnny Jewel - Windswept
DyE - Fantasy

Not too much, but yesterday was a bit of a silent contemplation day, as we looked at a potential new home and decided it was too much to go ahead with purchasing. The rub is, of course, that what we almost paid for this small place in the SouthBay of LaLaLand would buy us a veritable mansion in the Midwest. But we'd also be buried in snow right now, so give and take, you know?

Card of the day:

Accidentally pulled two and turned them over, so I need to dig in a bit later this morning and figure out the juxtaposition:

"A well-rounded approach to material things - Success dictates understanding the actual value of material possessions, not taking for granted and not over reacting to gain and loss." This seems more like a card for a friend than me, so maybe the two show some insight into our business relationship? Priestess denoting change or fluctuation. Hmm.

2018: February 11th 1:41 PM

Late wake-up after a long night. Began the day with some PJ Harvey, courtesy of Season 2, Episode 1 of Peaky Blinders. Which is excellent (Thanks Tim & Lisa).



I have a feeling this album, which I haven't listened to in a while, more often than not being drawn back time and again to Stories from the City, Stories from the Sea and Uh-Huh Her, not for any reason other than To Bring You My Love is such an incredibly immersive experience for me, it does not mesh well with daily tasks, routines or whatnot. No, To Bring You My Love is the kind of album that I have to sit down to by myself with a buzz and give over to. So there's pot in my future apparently then.

Playlist from the 10th

The Foundations - Build Me Up Buttercup
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Touche Amore - Eponymous
Helmet - Aftertaste
The Veils - Nux Vomica
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
FNM - Angel Dust
Barry Adamson - Oedipus Schmoedipus

Card of the day:

This one again, eh?

2018: February 10th 10:04 AM

This one's been on my mind a lot lately.

Friday's playlist:

God is LSD - Spirit of Suicide
The Foundations - Now That I've Found You*
Helmet - Size Matters
The Jon Spencer Blues Explosion - Now I Got Worry
Le Butcherettes - A Raw Youth
Viet Cong - Eponymous
Dillinger Escape Plan - Disassociation
Judas Priest - Screaming For Vengeance (two songs; other than the single, which I love, this record seems unlistenable today)

Card of the day:

Breakthrough. Let's hope it's not Uncle Sam's breaking through my bank account when I get my taxes done in an hour.

Should be noted that while I shuffled two cards jumped out of the deck and hit the floor: The Princes of Cups and XVI The Star.

* Should be noted this was not the album I wanted. I'm a huge fan of both singles Now that I've Found You and the aforementioned Build Me Up Buttercup, both of which I've known my entire life as "oldies" but which have always, to me, stood out as something more than just a dusty that fades into the Oldies playlists the old Magic 104 FM used to spin perpetually in Chicago. No, there's something more to these songs. This record however, which I located with a quick search on Apple Music, is a re-recording from what I can only guess was the 80s based on the way the music has been re-arranged with 80s-sounding keyboard patches. No terrible, but not the originals. Another quick search and I located those.

2018: February 9th 4:53 AM

In my head upon waking. Waking, such absolute misery to crawl from my bed this cold, (relatively) California morning...

Not nearly enough sleep. My after-work nap yesterday set my sleep back and I didn't knock out until almost midnight. Just about 4.5 hours later I've hit all the snoozes I can and crawl from bed, feed the cats and put on an extra strong pot of coffee, put fingertips to these keys to make these words. How oh how am I going to manage to work 8 or 9 hours, drive 45-60 to Hollywood, come home around 10 and NOT be brain dead?

The new comic from Ales Kot, Danijel Zezelj, and Jordie Bellaire is Days of Hate; I picked issue #1 up on a whim and it's fantastic. And really, sadly relevant. Also, they have a super accurate visual depiction of DTLA on page 3 - looks like Bellaire was standing where I was two weeks ago coming out of the Converge concert at the Regent.

New edition of Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying went up yesterday, you can read it HERE.

Yesterday's playlist:

Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Mono and The Ocean - Transcendental EP
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
The Politics of Punk (Disc 6)
Joy Division - Closer
The Afghan Whigs - In Spades
Sade - iTunes Essentials
Lustmord - The Dark Places of the Earth


Card of the day:

From my Grimoire:

"Add one to nine and perfect elemental alignment occurs (perfect in nature - the other end of the balanced path from The Crown). One big word: Culmination."

So what does that mean as a daily draw? You kidding? With my brain like this I can't even begin to wrap my head around it.

2018: February 8th 5:45 AM

Woke up with this one in my head today, probably because I listened to the album it's on - Teenage Wrist's Dazed EP about a half a half dozen times last night. At least.



Such a big, fuzzy neon dream of an album. Thanks to Jacob again for introducing me to this great band that has an album coming out in March. You can pre-order it HERE.

Playlist from yesterday:

The Fixx - Reach the Beach
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres
Nektar - A Tab in the Ocean
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
The Jesus Lizard - Down
Teenage Wrist - Dazed E.P.

Card of the day:

Emotional deluge, use intellect and Will to prevent being drowned. Interesting... a few words on these daily draws. Events yesterday, Wednesday the 7th lined-up directly with two repetitive pulls that culminated the Wednesday before, on January 31st. What's the grid system at work here, or is there one? Well, we'll see. That's why I've shifted this blog into this 'journaling' paradigm - looking for patterns in the grid of chaos that, even though we do all we can to refute the fact, defines our existences. Hopefully I will find some and learn a way to 'hack' the graphs and grids I make from those patterns.

Yesterday I indeed stopped to buy my comics. TWD did not disappoint, but I haven't read Papergirls yet. Why? Well, I had an abortive attempt at my daily words, and after that I didn't have much time for reading, and this was unexpected but I ended up buying my first current Batman comic since Grant Morrison's run ended in 2013 and I was super excited to dive in. Why? What could make me jump into a Batman comic? Three words:

Sean. Gordon. Murphy. Look at this cover:

It's ultra rare to impossible for art to convince me to read a book, in Murphy's case it's a combination of his art and the fact that he can spin one hell of a yarn. Punk Rock Jesus is still one of my all-time favorites. One issue into White Knight and I don't quite have the lay of the land yet, but A) it's stand alone continuity and B) it's NOT the tired iterations of Batman and Joker we're used to being regurgitated every few years, although it starts there and moves out in what I believe is virgin territory for the characters from there. Either way, I'm in for all eight issues (five are out so far).

2018: February 7th 4:55 AM

Wednesdays are typically Comics-and-Beer days, where I extend my arduous sojourn home on the 405 by stopping at The Comic Bug and then Total Wine. I don't always stop for comics - it depends on what came out and if I can spare the time. That said, I always stop when these hit the stands:

Look at that Paper Girls cover - GORGEOUS!

Forfeited my daily words yesterday in favor of spending hours after work making space on my computer, which with a max storage of 500 gigs only had a little over 5 left. Starts to act wonky under 20, and I can't have that. So I had to delete a lot of music. This wasn't the hardest thing in the world - Apple Music means it's all right at my fingertips anyway. HOWEVER, it's interesting to note how not too long ago I had to purge CDs and now its digital - reminds me of how email has become every bit as cumbersome and annoying as snail mail, more so actually, because most outlets have given up on snail service. But these comparisons/juxtapositions show how we've transitioned our lives so well into the digital realm only to have it essentially take on all the characteristics of the tactile one. Well, maybe not all, but many. Also, I'm a bit of a librarian when it comes to music, so the purge was able to free a lot of space without really lacing into anything I actively listen to or even what I keep on deck at all times. That Anthony Stewart Head album? Well, it's awesome that he made it but I'm never going to listen to it again, and if I want to, I'm sure its a keystroke or two away. That said:



Playlist from the 6th:

Killing Joke - Eponymous debut
Anthrax - Worship Music
Sam Cooke - One Night Stand! Live at the Harlem Square Club
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - The Good Son
Jucifer - I Name You Destroyer
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
David Bowie - Heroes
Sade - Greatest Hits
Lustmord - Dark Places of the Earth

Card of the day:

Ah, so I'm going on a journey, am I? Maybe today's sojourn for imbibes and reading material will take longer than I expected. Or maybe one of my projects is about to ramp up.

Either way.

Queens of the Stone Age cover Brian Eno

I didn't know this existed until just now. In the midst of a binge on Eno's Here Come the Warm Jets I set out to find a youtube video for Needles in the Camel's Eye and found this in the search results:



And the original:



No matter who is singing it, this song makes me love life.

2018: February 6th

It's been interesting to keep track of what music I wake up with in my head:





Playlist from the 5th:

Deftones - Koi No Yokan
Arctic Monkeys - Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I Am
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Childish Gambino - Because the Internet
The Devil's Blood - The Thousandfold Epicenter
Godflesh - Streetcleaner Live at Roadburn 1989
Twin Peaks Playlist: Ssn 3 and Beyond ST
Bells into Machines - Your Crime Scene E.P.
Opeth - Still Life

Interesting to note that all of these except Arctic Monkeys, Sabbath and Devil's Blood were truncated listens; I had a distracting day yesterday and couldn't find music that quite fit my mindset, so I jumped around a lot.

The Twin Peaks playlist is of my own devising, something I assembled only a couple weeks into the airing of last years third season, before the OSTs came out. There's Chromatics, a Lynch/John Neff track from Blue Bob that wasn't used in the show but fits aesthetically, and - among other things - a fan's slowed down version of Muddy Magnolia's American Woman that I actually prefer to the one on the score:



Card of the day:

Blocked/thwarted Will. Can save time and energy by knowing what not to pursue.

2018: February 5th 4:29 AM

Woke up repeatedly with this little ditty in my head:



So a new Cloverfield hit Netflix last night - awesome! I didn't have time to watch it before bed but I'll remedy that this week. Trailer makes it look as though it may tie into at least one of the others, which I'd love.



There's a video I watched last year I'll have to post on here at some point, explains how the other two are tied together by an online ARG. Really interesting.

Playlist yesterday:

Sam Cooke: One Night Stand! Live at the Harlem Square Club (thanks Sonny!)
A Place to Bury Strangers - Never Coming Back single (pre-release track for upcoming album)
ttt (Crosses) - Eponymous
Soul Coughing - Ruby Vroom
ZZ Top - Tres Hombres (about five times in a row)
U2 - War
Worm is Green - Automagic
Joy Division - Closer

Card of the day:

The fiery aspect of Fire; purest manifestation of Fire in the deck - strength but unchecked can be imbalanced and disastrous. This tells me that either my passion, intuition or creative energy (I'm limiting interpretations based on my current situations/temperament) may be flustered and threaten to boil over today. Coincidence I'm heading back to work after three days off? Maybe, maybe not. My gig is fairly low maintenance, when you adjust to a certain, background-radiation level of stress that is probably common to many jobs, so I also wonder if this is a nod toward later in the day when I write; there are currently two projects fighting for space in my head and that can sometimes lead to an over exuberance that can grind productivity to a confused halt.

2018: February 4th 1:17 PM

The final of our three beautiful mornings sleeping late. It's been much-needed and glorious. Now that I'm up and moving - after spending the last two hours resuming my original issue-by-issue re-read of Preacher I left hanging back in late August - I'm starting our musical day with Sam Cooke's One Night Stand! Live at the Harlem Square Club, 1963, which Sonny chose for this past week's edition of The Joup Friday Album.

Playlist from yesterday looks like this:

Lacey Sturm - Life Screams

Shellac - 1000 Hurts

A Place to Bury Strangers - Exploding Head

Faith No More - Angel Dust

Deafheaven - New Bermuda

Glass Animals - How to be a Human Being

Card of the day:

In my mind, one of the most beautiful cards in Lady Freida Harris's deck stacked with nothing but beautiful cards, its mere appearance a good 'omen'.

"Create unto and within yourself a Universe, shaped of your strengths and built on your accomplishments as foundation."

I'll take that as a nod that I have earned my day of total rest. It's movies, a living room fort with my Love and relaxation, because tomorrow it's back to the grind.

2018: February 3rd 12:39 PM

Another late morning spent laying in bed. SO nice. K is kicking off our musical day with Lacey Sturm's solo record from 2016:



Playlist yesterday looked like this:

Viet Cong - Eponymous
Etta James - Eponymous
The Doors - LA Woman
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Steve Morse - The Mind's Eye OST
Swans - The Glowing Man (disc 2)
Viet Cong - Eponymous
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
Huey Lewis and the News - Sports

I heeded the Prince of Wands and absolutely killed it on my daily words. Almost done.

Card of the day:

The Penetrating Wand; the Spark of Essence.Skill and Wisdom. Can point to the essence or involvement of Magick.

Create thine own energy. Personal Fusion.