2019: August 24th The Mandalorian Trailer

One and a half years ago I sat in a movie theatre in the South Suburbs of Chicago and took a killing blow to my nostalgia-based love of Star Wars. Today, watching the trailer Lucasfilm released for The Mandalorian, I feel that love intensley rekindled. Not rekindled in a capacity that will see me paying ~$20 for the next installment of the film franchise, but in a way that does what this new series was quite transparently made to do: reach back into my nostalgia bunker and pull out a big ol' pile of my childhood guts. I count quite a few checks in boxes I'd forgotten I have:

Boba Fett (in visage if not character, which in my opinion, is a fucking brilliant way to fan service us without a retcon that resurrects the ill-fated bounty hunter).

IG-88. Kicking ass and taking names, no less.

That squid-faced guy from Jedi.

Cantinas filled with wretch scum and unabashed villainy.

Oh yeah, and then there's the fact that Werner Herzog plays a heavy. Herzog and Star Wars? Talk about two things I never knew I wanted before seeing them with my own two eyes.

So yes, I will definitely be on board with the Disney steaming app for this one. No doubt. And I can appreciate my rabid fervor as nothing short of nostalgia - I'm fine with that.

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Today is day number 2 of Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week here on my page. For today's entry, I went with something newer - Fauxhemia, the second track from 2011's The King in Yellow. Once again, the Milkmen totally nail relatable lyrics. The entire album is quite adroit at that - surely one of the Milkmen's greatest strengths. What's more, this album really excels at striking a track-by-track synthesis of the two main song archetypes the band's songwriting typically manifests, which I'll trace all the way back to their 1985 debut Big Lizard in My Backyard (long my favorite by the band) to define: there's the biting, often hysterical social commentary in tracks such as Violent School and Right Wing Pigeons, and the more straight-forward, emotionally melodic numbers like Tugena. And the synthesis really works, perhaps on no song better than this one. In my head, when the "Your 300 lb Psychic Baby..." line comes up in the chorus, I immediately picture the cover of Big Lizard, except with the giant lizard replaced by a giant, fat baby, and it always makes me laugh.



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Playlist from 8/23:

The Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Mötley Crüe - Shout at the Devil
The National - High Violet
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
The Dead Milkmen - Big Lizard in My Backyard
Amy Winehouse - Back to Black
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
INXS - Kick

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Today's spread:

Something I'm working on isn't working, I'm trying to force the issue, and that's not going to work. So the question then, is what do I need to re-think? I think there's an underlying current here of anxiety concerning Ciazarn, because Grimm and I are attempting to get this up on its feet by September. That feels like I'm trying to force that deadline, and I think this spread is telling me what I already know: push it back.

2019: August 23rd The Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week!

I always say I dislike music videos that showcase the band pantomiming like they're playing the song, but in this case, I just can't help but smile seeing the Milkmen as they were back in the day. A great song from a great album. The Secret of Life kicks off Dead Milkmen Appreciation Week. For the next seven days, I'll post one track a day that make the Milkmen among my favorite all-time bands. And although Soul Rotation isn't an album I go to often, I pulled it out recently - thanks for the copy Mr. Brown - and really enjoyed hearing it again after a couple of years.

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Next Wednesday, 8/28, my new novel Shadow Play - Book One: Kim & Jessie will be released, and if I've done my job this time, it will be available in Bookstores as well as on Amazon. When I released my first published work, A Collection of Desires: 7 Tales of Modern Horror, I did so only through Amazon, with a free, Amazon-only ISBN number. This time, I've started a Publishing Company, Horror Vision Press (THV Press for eventual non-horror content), and released a new edition of A Collection of Desires complete with an internationally recognized ISB that means you can order it at Barns and Noble HERE and Amazon HERE. I'm not really sure what other book specialty stores exist at this point, but if you have a favorite and they do not have ACoD in stock, they should be able to order it from Ingram wholesale with the following ISBN: 978-1733410700.

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There's a new trailer for HBO's Watchmen series. Color me intrigued, as this doesn't look like anything I would have expected. There almost seems to be a comedic streak at times, and if that is the case, it will be interesting to see how that might or might not mesh with the harsher tones of the original series and cinematic adaptation.

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Playlist from the last few days:

The Dead Milkmen - Soul Rotation
Uniform and The Body - Everything That Dies Someday Comes Back
Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
David Bowie - Lodger
Khruangbin - Hasta El Cielo
Windhand - Eternal Return
Jozef Van Wissem and Jim Jarmusch - An Attempt to Draw Aside the Veil
Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Joan Jett and the Blackhearts - Album
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Ariel - Young Lovers
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
Jenny Lewis - The Voyager
Jenny Lewis - On the Line
Roxy Music - For Your Pleasure
Iggy Pop and Jarvis Cocker - Red Right Hand (single)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - The Night Creeper

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No spread today. Tomorrow for sure.

2019: August 21st The Ocean Collective's Permian

Yesterday, while driving around the South Bay with K and my cousin Charles, my iTunes shuffled up Epiphany, the eight track from Heliocentric, part 1 of the two-part album cycle The Ocean Collective released in 2010. Back when this came out, it was largely all I listened to; both Heliocentric and its counterpart, Anthropocentric, are fantastic records with big, philosophical themes and seriously intense musical arrangements. Hearing the penultimate track from a former favorite album (tracks 9 and 10 are really one track, imo) reminded me how awesome The Ocean is, and that they released their first album in five years last November. Through no fault of its own, I barely listened to Phanerozoic I; Palaeozoic. Following all this up, I found that two months ago, the band released this awesome video. This is one of the things I dig about The Ocean - everything is art with them. Everything has meaning.

I guess it's safe to say I'm about to fall back in love with a band that really reintroduced me to metal in the late 00s.

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NCBD:

Ed Brubaker and Sean Philips continue to put out one of the only must-read monthly monthly books. And look at that cover! Also, hoping that Transformers 84 #0 lands today, as when I originally posted about it a few weeks ago, I later found out the date I'd seen reported online was erroneous.

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Playlist from 8/20:

Siouxsie and the Banshees - Tinderbox
The Ocean - Heliocentric
Har Mar Superstar - Bye Bye 17
Twin Temple - Bring You Their Signature Sound...

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Spread of the day:

Interesting to note that despite not posting a spread in nine days, The Queen of Swords remains a diligent influence. This spread was specifically geared toward an issue with someone at work, and the spread directly mirrors events of the day, in a good way. Savagery must be clinical in order to bypass the Strife that can accompany getting what you want.

2019: August 20th Scott Cooper's Antlers

Based on a story by Channel Zero creator Nick Antosca and produced by Guillermo del Toro, this looks fantastic! I know a lot of hype out there right now in upcoming horror flicks is for The Lodge, but that one doesn't get the benefit of the doubt from me, simply because, as well-made as Goodnight Mommy was, I severely disliked it in a manner that makes me think Severin Fiala and Veronika Franz's horror aesthetic is diametrically opposed to my own. Not a judgement, just means while I can appreciate their craft as creators, I'm not a fan. But who knows, maybe The Lodge will change that. Regardless, this teaser and the names on the banner push this one up there with Joe Begos' Bliss and Chelsea Stardust's Satanic Panic as among my most anticipated horror flicks of the year.

Oh yeah, and of course there's The Lighthouse, but that bloody well goes without saying. With a schedule announcement imminent any day now, looks like I may have to take some PTO for Beyondfest this year.

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I've put a pin in Damien Echol's High Magick for a bit because I'm actually following his suggestions as I re-map my daily world to accommodate Magickal Practice. I will be spending a few months creating and adhering to some of the breathing practices he outlines in Section Three of the book. This is something I've always been bad at, and I think, the reason my results have been spotty in the past. This time, I can tell you that keeping a regular practice of Four-Fold Breathing has filled my last three weeks with sometimes scary reserves of energy. It feels good.

Speaking of reading, as I mentioned a few weeks ago, I arrested my first read of Laird Barron's second Isaiah Coleridge novel, Black Mountain, to re-read last year's Blood Standard. For a book I first read barely a year ago, this is already my favorite read of the year. For the second year in a row. I can't wait to dig into that second volume, probably by week's end!

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I spent the last few days in Joshua Tree. First trek out there in four, almost five years. It feels good to stand and sweat in the desert, as it catalyzes a very cosmic perspective.

We stayed at the Joshua Tree Inn, of course, in the fabled Donovan Suite, no less. It goes without saying then that I christened the room with this classic track, first put on my radar by George A. Romero's criminally underrated Season of the Witch:



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On podcast news, my co-host Anthony Guerra and I released a brief review episode for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark and 47 Meters Down: Uncaged. Spoiler-free. Check it out, we might save you some $$$:

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 was largely curated by my cousin Charles, who drive K and I out to JT, so some of the specifics of what we listened to is lost. I'll do my best:

Donovan - Season of the Witch (Single)
Calexico - Even Sure Things Fall Through
Kevin Morby - Oh My God
William Tyler - Modern Country
Whitney - Light Upon the Lake
Jenny Lewis - Acid Tongue
Al B. Sure! - Nite and Day (Single)
Jenny Hval - Blood Bitch
Chris Connelly - Night of Your Life
Hamilton Leithauser - Black Hours
Daniel Rossen - Silent Hour/Golden Mile EP
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Jaye Jayle - No Trail and Other Unholy Paths
John Carpenter - Big Trouble in Little China OST

**

No card today.

2019: August 17th: Mr. Bungle Returns!

NOTE: I've been attempting to post this for several days. Busy week.

This past Wednesday, my first alarm woke me as it always does at 4:07 AM. I keep my phone outside of arm's reach from where we sleep, just to ensure I don't just roll over and silence the alarm. I do, however, get up, snooze, and lay back down until one of the subsequent seven alarms finally rouse me from slumber completely. This particular morning, when I picked up the phone, I saw a push notification from Bandsintown that Mr. Bungle had announced a new show. Still mostly asleep, I dismissed this and when I finally did make my way to the kitchen to feed the cat and put some coffee on, the image of the notification was gone, wafting away as if the contents of a dream. You can imagine my surprise then, when I finally checked my messages, I saw that Mr. Bungle's return was indeed a reality.

Nineteen years ago I saw Mr. Bungle - then easily my favorite band ever - on two tours for their third and final album, California. After that, the band dissolved, the members went their separate ways, and I figured that maybe we would one day see some form of reunion, but more than likely not. Needless to say, as I dug deeper into the circumstances that prompted the unlikely reunion and saw that three of the five core members - Mike Patton, Trey Spruance, and Trevor Dunn - would be joined by Dave Lombardo and Scott Ian, reality shook for a moment and the feeling that I may still be trapped in a dream settled over me. When I read further and saw the new lineup would be performing Bungle's High School demo tape The Raging Wraith of the Easter Bunny in its full, my jaw dropped. I mean, what the absolute fuck?

I'll admit, although there is a lot of pre-first studio album Bungle material I dig, the material on Easter Bunny doesn't really fall into that category. It's juvenile and largely painful to listen to, especially when juxtaposed with what the band became later in its existence. But the idea of seeing these five men re-work and possibly really make something of this material fills me with hope! Although tickets are already selling at a premium and they're not even really on sale yet - only about 25% of the overall seating was allotted for the pre-sales that sold out in seconds - I am happy to say my good friend Dave secured us each one. February 7th is six months away, but I am overjoyed to be going on this adventure with Mr. Bungle once again. Is it nostalgia? Probably, but I also think we're probably in for one fantastic fucking surprise.

**

Playlist from the last few days:

Duck - Kaiser Chiefs
Time Stays, We Go - The Veils
Windhand - Eponymous
Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork
Wasted Theory - Defenders of the Riff
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Bluebob - David Lynch and John Neff
Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
High on Fire - Electric Messiah
Helms Alee - Sleepwalking Sailors
Iggy Pop - Lust for Life
Anthrax - Among the Living
Budapest Festival Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky's The Firebird Suite
Budapest Festival Orchestra - Igor Stravinsky's Petrushka: Part I
Opeth - Deliverance
Orville Peck - Pony
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante
Windhand - Eternal Return
Sleep - The Sciences
Opeth - Dignity (Pre-release single)
Opeth - Heart in Hand (Pre-release single)
Monolord - The Bastard Son (Pre-release single)
Revolting Cocks Playlist

No spread or card today.

2019: August 12th The Veils - Another Night on Earth

I've been on something of a kick with The Veils lately. This song... so good. Finn Andrews is, in my opinion, the heir to Nick Cave's throne. Not that Cave is going anywhere anytime soon, I hope. But there's an artistic comparison to be made, for sure.

**

Saturday night, K and I went to the theatre and saw Scary Stories to Tell In the Dark. It's not good.

I know, I know... what could go wrong? Well, for one, the framing device the filmmakers construct - a story about preteens that ride around on bikes and use walkie talkies to communicate during dangerous situations (sound familiar?; I can practically see the studio executives writing that in), situations that arise from the kids finding a mysterious book in a mysterious house and setting off strange events? It sucks. It's trite, completely unoriginal, and largely boring. Watching a movie that's this bad, I always go through about thirty to forty minutes of the, "Maybe it's just me..." phase, followed immediately by the, "Okay, if it's not me, what's wrong with it?" phase.

I really try. I do.

Finally, we get the "Well, how could they have done this better" phase. For this one, I think the better option would have been to invent a Cryptkeeper-like character or device and use that to introduce and/or narrate the 'Scary Stories' culled from the book. As it stands with this film, the framing device story involving the kids is about 90% of the screen time, and the Scary Stories are maybe 10%.

It is, however, visually and sonically really well made. And if you have younger children and want to get them on Horror, I'd definitely recommend this for them. And admittedly, the brief moments that bring the original stories from the books to life are pretty awesome, there just isn't nearly enough of them to make up for the rest.

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Playlist from the last few days:

Waxwork Records - House of Waxwork Issue #1
Revolting Cocks Playlist
Drab Majesty - Careless
Beach House - Thank Your Lucky Stars
Beak> - L.A. Playback
Opeth - Still Life
Sunn O))) - Life Metal
High on Fire - The Art of Self Defense
The Veils - Nux Vomica
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go
The Veils - Total Depravity
Sleep - Dopesmoker
Ritual Howls - Rendered Armor
Deafheaven - Ordinary Corrupt Human Love

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Today's spread:

Continuing the theme of larger ideas affecting everyday life. I'm really only feeling the barest beginnings of this, but it's there.

2019: August 10th

Starting the day like I ended last night, with some vintage High On Fire. My copy of the band's first album, The Art of Self Defense, is the old Man's Ruin version, and a few years ago I discovered that when I put the disc into my computer and open iTunes, it reads it as Sleep - The Art of Self Defense. I've wondered since if when Matt Pike split ways with Cisneros and Hakius, his original plan was to record a new Sleep album with new members, and it ended up just becoming High On Fire. Either way, The Art of Self Defense is a fantastic album that features a little bit more Doom/Sabbath influence on HoF's songwriting than later albums, and that always makes it fun to go back to.

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I keep forgetting to plug the latest episode of The Horror Vision here. For this episode, Chris, Anthony, Ray, and I discuss Genre Icon Rutger Hauer's passing, our favorite movies/moments from his career, and we give you our reaction to 1992's Split Second, a kind of schizophrenic action/horror/sci fi flick that Hauer chews through the scenery on. Other topics of discussion include but are not limited to, What We Do In The Shadows the show, Slaughterhouse Rulez, Holy Mountain, and my painstaking attempt to watch my way through the Friday the 13th movies in chronological order!

The Horror Vision on Apple

The Horror Vision on Spotify

The Horror Vision on Google Play

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There's news on the web about the about-to-be-in-production third GIJOE movie. Said news, forwarded to me by Mr. Brown, is that the character known as Chuckles will be featured. Now, that might seem funny to some, but as several of THIS article's commenters point out, Chuckles figured prominently in the Mike Costa's GIJOE series Cobra from about ten years ago. This is by far the best Joe Story I have ever read. No disrespect meant to those classic Larry Hama issues at Marvel, but this is another level altogether. The entire storyline is collected in an omnibus titled The Last Laugh and is absolutely worth checking out. If this third flick is based on Costa's run, we are in for a treat indeed.

And now I'm excited for another Joe movie!

Interesting also that my two main 80s toy obsessions made it into these pages with current news this week, even if I mis-reported the release date of Simon Furman and Guido Guidi's Transformers 84 issue 0 - which I learned is stand alone at this point - by a week or two.

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I caught Michael O'Shea's indie Vampire flick The Transfiguration yesterday. Loved it. Highly recommended, especially if you like a more psychological approach to your horror. Reminded me a lot of Larry Fessenden's movies, and knowing nothing about this film going in, I was overjoyed to see Fessenden make a cameo about half way through!

The Transfiguration is streaming right now on Shudder!



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Playlist from 8/09:

Sleep - Sleep's Holy Mountain
Sleep - Dopesmoker
Sleep - The Sciences

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Spread of the day:

All big ideas and macrocosmic influences. Paradigms are shifting. The idea of turning The Horror Vision into a Publishing Imprint is still intimidating, as dealing with massive ideas like The Universe, The Star, or something as volatile as Lust is, but intimidation is a not insurmountable. Lust is also known as Strength in the original Tarot, and while Crowley changed the name, it retains many of the qualities/attributions originally associated with it. Also, Sephirothically, we're looking at a path that traces the Tree of Life's spheres from Wisdom, to Strength, to Foundation and eventually The Kingdom, by way of Beauty. I can't help but read this confluence of Major Arcana influences as further confirmation that my venture will transform my world.