A teaser finally dropped for Jonas Åkerlund's Lords of Chaos! I saw this back in the Fall at Beyondfest and it's fantastic. I'll definitely be going again - if it gets a proper theatrical release.
How about some more Horror, eh?
I believe I've discussed Luchagore Productions in these pages at some point in the past. I first came across their short film El Gigante back at Beyondfest 2014 and absolutely loved its Texas Chainsaw Massacre-meets-underground wrestling premise. Recently this new short film popped up on their youtube channel. Bad ASS! Check out all their great stuff on their website HERE. I still haven't made it around to reading their comics, but it's on my list.
Playlist from 01/01:
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Lebanon Hanover - Let Them Be Alien
M83 - Junk
U2 - War
Card of the day:
I crossed a super barrier on the finale of the book yesterday, here's a nod to the strength I'll need to try and finish it off this week - then the edit! Major goal for the new year is to have it published in April, just like A Collection of Desires was last year.
I've been hitting the Calexico pretty hard since Mr. Brown gifted me that Twentieth Anniversary vinyl edition of The Black Light. Their 2001 album Even Sure Things Fall Through still holds its place as my favorite record by the band, opening its sonic maw and swallowing me multiple times yesterday morning, a nice ending to 2018 that should help me segue into a peaceful and creative 2019.
2019, eh? Insert trite colloquialism about how fast the hands of the clock move here.
I finished 2018 reading the eldritch horrors of August Derleth, only to began 2019 reading about the real-life horrors of hatred in Christian Picciolini's autobiography White American Youth, a memoir of a youth spent organizing racial hatred in America and how the author escaped before it was too late.
I can't put this book down. Picciolini's raw, unpleasant accounts are sociologically fascinating, but also enlightening in a true WTF way, as his accounts of places I know in the city I grew up in pave the way for my own personal realization to the dark underbelly of a burgeoning national hate movement in 90s Southside Chicago. A movement that was happening parallel to my own group of friends and our interest in Chicago punk rock. I didn't know Picciolini, but he was something of a boogey man in my youth. The skinhead thug brother-in-law of a high school friend whose house we partied at pretty much 24/7 Junior year, there was always frightened whisperings that while we filled my friend's two-level home with bong smoke, Picciolini might show up at any moment with a Buick of skinheads bent on kicking our scrawny asses for 'polluting our precious white bodies with drugs from the inner city.' The book and Picciolini's evolution out of the skinhead movement, his formation of the non-profit organization Life After Hateand itsdedication to fighting racism, were a total surprise to me; Mr. Brown sent me a copy of the book last March, the first I'd heard Christian's name in twenty-five years.
I've begun and discarded several television shows recently; FX's Legion came highly recommended, but after four over-wrought episodes, ultimately just annoyed me. And the SyFy adaptation of Grant Morrison and Darick Robertson's Happy proved to be the funniest thing I've seen in yeaaaars for two episodes and then just kind of left me uninterested (I may go back to it; it's that funny). Finally K and I went back to Channel Zero: Candle Cove. We started this one before we left for Chicago and then kind of forgot about it. While there's some rough edges to the overall presentation, conceptually Candle Cove is right up my alley, and I'm eager to wrap up this first season and see how good the Anthology series becomes as popularity increases and, reciprocally, so does the show's budget.
Here's a clip of the titular phantom kid's show that runs through the first season storyline of Channel Zero; something about the close-up superimpositions of the character's faces freaks me right the fuck out:
Oh wow, and I almost forgot. Last night I realized for the first time that May 2019 brings another Laird Barron Isaiah Coleridge novel! The new literally made my New Year's Eve! You can pre-order Black Mountainhere.
Playlist from 12/31:
Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through
Mark Ronson - Version
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
Graham Reznick - Robophasia
Iggy Pop - The Idiot
Alice in Chains - Rainier Fog
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Sunset Mission
Card of the year:
Interestingly enough, both K and I received the same card. Spiritually aligned. The big idea here is the saving of money (both pulls of XVII were preceded by Princess of Swords, as if to help direct the reading). To quote from a source, "Make your plans for the future and risk a new beginning in which you set long-term goals."
Easily in my top ten Horror of 2018, Graham Reznick's Dead Wax on Shudder is a descent into the danger and madness of the strange subculture that surrounds a record that can destroy you via Frequency Range Manipulation, as well as three mysterious records that surround the fatal prize. Everybody involved just kills it acting wise, especially lead Hannah Gross and Ted Raimi. Reznick was interviewed on the Shockwaves Podcast recently and he mentioned Mondo/Death Waltz would be putting out the OST sometime real soon. Needless to say, I'm checking the M/DW website daily.
Playlist from 12/30:
U2 - War
Uncle Acid and the Dead Beats - Wasteland
Perturbator - The Uncanny Valley
A Perfect Circle - Mer De Noms
Pale Dian - Narrow Birth
Card of the day is being delayed until just before Midnight tonight.
It's been a few years since I've put on any of Ween's music. Still one of my all-time favorite bands, their break-up back in 2012I was heart-broken. A reunion seemed possible down the road, but it hurt regardless because Ween were two friends that had gown up and shared so much making music together, it was exactly like my friends and I - Grez, Mr. Brown, Sonny, Tim - who had done the same. Then, in 2014 Aaron Freeman - AKA Gene Ween - released this song and I was deeply affected by it. I found myself hoping Ween would not reunite; I didn't want him to end up back where he had been. And ever since I've felt a disconnect from Ween.
Then, two days ago a younger guy was listening to Mac Demarco. I'd heard Salad Days before, but something about it grabbed me in that moment. I put the album on my headphones and by the end had an irresistible urge to listen to Pure Guava. After Guava, I dipped right into Painting the Town Brown, and for the first time in probably ten years listened to the entire 25+ minute Poop Ship Destroyer version in sheer, invigorated awe.
I've avoided seeing Ween since they reunited in 2016, despite the fact that they've played near me countless times. I'm not sure I'll go see them live again - not because of a grudge, just because I've seen them live SO many times - but it's nice to reconnect with something I love in a purely organic way.
First Marvel movie I've seen since Civil War, which, along with batman vs. superman, kinda broke my interest in big two comic book adaptations. I would have been fine skipping this one, too, except I have to say, the trailer for Endgame has me, and I figured I should see the flick that leads into it.
I didn't hate this, but I will say I absolutely hated the overbearing score by Alan Silvestri.
All along, I've been far more interested in where Marvel is ultimately going with the big picture for their cinematic universe, and Endgame looks like it will shut the door on the Avengers, at least for a time.
Fucking insane. That's all I can say. Must have been an influence on Panos Cosmatos.
I watched this one more because I was in a Joe Bob mood than for the movie itself. That Last Drive-In special is still up on shudder, under series I think, and each film and its adjacent commentaries are listed as episodes in the 'season.' Did I call Blue Sunshine insane? I was wrong. This IS insanity. Like Porky's fucked Ghoulies and had a horny, satanic baby that grew up and went to college with the revenge of the nerds cast.
Playlist from 12/29:
Shannon - Let the Music Play (Single)
Ministry - Animositisomina
Corrosion of Conformity - No Cross No Crown
Deafheaven - New Bermuda
Card of the day:
Not, I think, the beginning of a journey, but the end of one.
I kept seeing the trailer for this new Black Mirror pop up, but as much as I love the first two seasons of the show, I'm behind. And it seems from afar that Netflix releases trailers for the individual episodes now, which feels a bit extreme to my increasingly trailer-phobic mindset, so I passed over Bandersnatch multiple times. In fact, despite posting it here now, I'm still not planning on watching this trailer. But the movie is definitely being pushed to the top of my watch list - especially now that we've done our 2018 Year in Horror on The Horror Vision Podcast (I'll have links tomorrow) - because according to a discussion with a friend last night, Bandersnatch is a full movie AND a choose your own adventure format. And I cannot even begin to imagine how that is going to work.
Probably my final read of the year - at least literature wise - was polishing off the last couple of stories in an old paperback copy of August Derleth's The Mask of Cthulhu. I've had this book for over twenty years and never read all of it; the first Lovecraft I ever read, The Lurker at the Threshold, turned out to be a Derleth book (the edition I found in a Record Swap in Tinley Park, Il in roughly 1993 boldly credited the novel to Lovecraft on the cover), and though I generally find Mr. Derleth to be a bit too repetitious for my taste, he is a pretty good writer at times, and his concepts often hook me, even if the execution isn't always great. I picked this one back up in October under the premise of finally reading some of the stuff I've had on shelves but never read or finished - an initiative that underscored my reading this past year - and I actually enjoyed pretty much all five stories to some degree. You'll note I had to break the book's contents up over a few months, though, otherwise that repetitious handling of Lovecraftian tropes can make me feel as though I'm reading one long reiteration of the same story.
Playlist from 12/28:
Mac Demarco - Salad Days
Ween - Pure Guava
Ween - Painting the Town
Perturbator - Dangerous Days
Perturbator - Uncanny Valley
Calexico - The Black Light
Card of the day:
The card's titled Peace but I'm reading this as indecision, which I am suffering from majorly at the moment. Time to pony up.
This will be the only time and the only trailer for Jordan Peele's upcoming film Us that I watch. I do not want to know a single thing more about this film before I sit down to watch it in a theatre in March. But boy is it a doozy. Can NOT wait for this one; Peele had proven himself to be a major voice in establishing a beachhead of viability for horror with major studio budgets again. Also, watching this trailer and being genuinely chilled at several moments therein, the idea that Peele is Producing a new Candyman movie makes me extremely excited.
Playlist from 12/25:
Vince Guaraldi Trio - A Charlie Brown Christmas
Christmas Music of all varieties (kinda need it to stop)
Henry Mancini and His Orchestra - Charade OST
The Police - Synchronicity
Talking Heads - Remain in Light
Card for today:
The Earthly aspect of Air. Let's read that initially as keep your head out of the clouds and down to Earth, or translated into Writerly Advice, stop f&^king talking about it and do it. There's also an element of destructive logic, which fits my overthinking the ending of this book. I've become gun-shy, and the next four days needs to undo that so I have a completed manuscript - in need of a hardcore edit, mind you - by NYE.
