I've been in the mood for The Police lately, and I can't think of a song I like more at the moment than Truth Hits Everybody from their absolutely perfect 1978 debut, Outlandos d'Amour. Talk about a track that will make you start bouncing your leg under the desk.
NCBD:
My picks for this week's NCBD:
Donny Cates is off this book, and Ryan Ottley is continuing what I can only assume is the story they conceived together, but this one only has a few more issues, and then Marvel is ending it and will no doubt begin a new Hulk book. I most likely won't be there for that - losing this one in the middle of what I thought was a pretty unique Hulk story is leaving a sour taste in my mouth. Still, until then, I'm still enjoying Hulk Planet.
Holy sh*t! Do my eyes deceive me? Wow - only a year later. Part of me wants to ignore this just because it's been so long, but oh, what the hell. At this rate, we'll get the conclusion in issue three in 2024, so at least it's not a big financial commitment. Hahaha.
TMNT is kind of creeping back toward the fence for me. 137 issues is a long run; I've had this thought before, though, just after the book's 100th issue, and that lull really only lasted half a year tops and then things got great again, so I'll hang. I probably just have fatigue from this Armageddon Game event taking place that I'm reading this without paying attention to.
Boss is back on main art, so I'm happy and can finally go back and re-read everything preceding this to welcome him back. Again, no offense to the artists that filled in, but Boss's style is just so much of this book that having him take a break directly after a hiatus was not a good thing, in my opinion.
Jeez - there was already an X-Men roster vote that I missed? Has it already been a year? Wow. Well, Havoc's out after Dark Web, and big things are afoot, so we'll see. In the meantime, welcome back to The Brood!
Watch:
After years on the outer regions of my peripheral awareness, I finally watched George Sluzier's Spoorloos, or The Vanishing. Wow.
I loved this. A lot, and I'm happy to be recording an episode of The Horror Vision Presents: Elements of Horror that will cover this next week.
Playlist:
The Police - Outlandos d'Amour
The Police - Zenyatta Mondatta
The Police - Regatta de Blanc
Various - Joe Begos' Bliss Spotify Playlist
Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP Deftones - White Pony
The Atlas Moth - Coma Noir
Kermit Ruffins w/ the Rebirth Brass Band - Throwback
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
There's conflict, Change and more emotion than you can shake a stick at. Those two 10s mean I'm way too grounded in Malkuth at the moment - Earthly matters battering the inside of my skull.
Not entirely sure how I came to have Faetooth's 2022 album Remnants of the Vessel in my Apple Music, but I stumbled across it there the other day, and it provided a pretty big leap in my mood. Really cool, doomy, deathy album that doesn't sacrifice the downtrodden mood when it goes full-on death-growl heavy. The band hail from "The depths of Los Angeles" (love that) and the album was voted Spin Magazine's #1 album of the year? I'm shocked Spin has such good taste.
Read:
I blew through Alan Campbell's Scar Night over the last week and started book 2 of his Deepgate Codex series on Sunday. I'd read Iron Angel sometime around 2010, so there's not too much I remember.
Fifty pages in and it's a perfect follow-up to book one, which really fleshes out the world and adds a host of new characters who really up the stakes. We're outside Deepgate and moving into a bigger world, and I'm just as enraptured by Mr. Campbell's prose here as I was in Scar Night. This really is one of the best Fantasy series I've ever read, with just the right amount of Steam Punk influence, without trying to tick all those "Write a Steam Punk Novel" boxes that, while I admit I sometimes have a soft spot for, began to feel endlessly tiring around 2012.
Also, I think the last time I read these, I had not yet read Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast trilogy and reading the Deepgate books now, I can very much appreciate the influence Peake's seminal series had on Campbell. That said, the influence is in no way overzealous, but rather hard-coded into the prose, which makes the experience of re-reading these ever more pleasant than before.
Watch:
Speaking of Steam Punk Fantasy, check out this trailer Bloody Disgusting posted about a few days ago:
Moon Garden looks like a film that will harken back to the Fantasy epics of my 80s youth - The Neverending Story, Legend, Etc. Totally blown away by the first half of this trailer, and then I turned it off so as not to see too much. Ryan Stevens Harris' new film can't come soon enough.
Playlist:
Trombone Shorty - For True
Odonis Odonis - Spectrums
Wolfpack - Lycanthro Punk
Metallica - ... And Justice For All
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Deftones - White Pony
Me and That Man - New Man, New Songs, Same Shit Vol. 1
Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent
Faetooth - Remnants of the Vessel
Feuerbahn - The Fire Dance EP
Television - Marquee Moon
Brainiac - The Predator Nominate
Kaiser Chiefs - I Predict A Riot
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Some big ideas/influences here that all seem to shore up ideas about Emotional Conflict being the result of too much unfocused Will. Sounds about right; I'm in a really good routine working on the new book, and it has occurred to me previously that when I'm at a creative spike, I become overly sensitive.
A little Fuck Buttons to start the day. Been awhile since I jammed these guys. Still one of the best electronic shows I ever saw - circa 2010 at LA's Troubador.
Watch:
Tell me this doesn't look like a bowl of fun:
Yeah, the 80s Summer Camp Slasher has been done to death, and maybe this won't work as well as the trailer suggests, but when done correctly, with a dash of something new, this genre still makes my blood sing. There's a full write-up over HERE on Bloody Disgusting.
Playlist:
C-Building Kids - Shitting in the Urinal
Cocksure - Operation C.O.C.K.S.U.R.E.
Metallica - Hardwired
Karl Casey - XX EP
Fvnerals - Let The Earth Be Silent
Fuck Buttons - Tarot Sport
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
In order to transform, Understanding and Balance are required. This is kind of what I'm in the middle of at the moment - I've been on a tear working on Shadow Play Book Two, and it's transforming before my eyes. However, while wholly invigorating, the actual act of this Transformation can lead to an overzealous tendency toward flights of fancy. The writing must remain balanced and joined to the inherent understanding I'm developing - in other words, let the book talk through me, and don't get in its way.
From Jarvis Cocker's 2009 album Further Complications. Not sure what brought this to mind yesterday, but it had been years since I jammed this record, and it still totally holds up (of course).
NCBD:
My picks for this week's NCBD:
The end of the storyline and the end of my time following Marvel's Alien comics. Exactly like that first year after they launched, we come to the end of the first arc with promises of this insanely horrific Alien-Lady that, to my knowledge, they still haven't actually introduced. This series was fine, but not enough for me to continue when it returns.
A book that just barely stayed on my recently abbreviated pull; I'm still not done with this one. Especially when Danny Ketch is returning this issue and he is apparently now part of the Weapon X program? What????
The Sins of Sinister stand-in for X-Men: Red. I'm very curious to see where this goes.
Watch:
Picked up my tickets to see this tomorrow night:
One thing about Skinamarink I love, despite not being able to make it through the movie in the theatre or at home, is I believe its success has opened the doors for a lot of way lower-budget Horror to get a shot at a big screen run. That's a win-win for everyone, and it should launch some interesting, non-Hollywood careers, also a win-win.
Playlist:
The Smiths - God Save the Queen
The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow
Chameleons UK - Strange Times
Jarvis Cocker - Further Complications
Pulp - A Different Class
Metallica - Hardwired
Fvnerals - Let the Earth Be Silent
Christopher Young & Lustmord - The Empty Man OST
Blanck Mass - Animated Violence Mild
Trombone Shorty - For True
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Completion of a project forestalled by obfuscation due to an overly emotional predilection. More commentary on my mental health, which is pretty much continuously at risk due to my living arrangement.
In a Smiths mood this morning. Sometimes Morrissey's biting observations and poetic turns of phrase just hit the spot intellectually, to say nothing of Marr, Rourke and Joyce's music, which transports me to a very specific place in my head, more feeling than thought. That's why this group worked so well for the time it did - Morrissey anchors you while the music compels the soul to soar.
Of course, to enjoy any of this, I've had to maintain my ignorance of what an unbelievable twat Morrissey has become over the years.
Watch:
Browsing the Just Added on Shudder, I followed a hunch - a hunch that all Irish Horror Films are fantastic - and clicked on Billy O'Brien's 2005 Isolation.
I could not find a serviceable trailer, and also, I think the less you know about this one going in, the better you are. Believe me, however, when I tell you that my hunch continues to prove correct because Isolation is fantastic. A taut little creature feature with notes of The Thing and Alien, only set on an Irish farm.
Read:
Completely off the cuff, I began re-reading Alan Campbell's brilliant Deepgate Codex trilogy over the weekend. About a third of the way through the first book, Scar Night (2006), these have a special place in my heart, and I am ashamed to say I never finished the trilogy by reading that final book.
Back when I first moved to LaLaLand in 2006, I was working at a Borders bookstore as an inventory supervisor. Myspace was the thing at the time, and through its messaging, author Alan Campbell - then relatively unknown, as Scar Night was his first novel coming off the success of having helped write the Grand Theft Auto game - messaged me. Seeing that I was a pretty vocal champion of China Mieville's work at the time (still am), Campbell reached out to tell me about his book, which is set in the city of Deepgate - a city that hangs from chains suspended above a bottomless pit.
No way I wasn't going to read that!
I bought the book when it came out in Hardcover, and continued to buy Campbell's books as they were released in that manner. By the time book three came out, though, I was probably in the middle of something with a completely different tone, and it wasn't the time to reread the first two and go into number three.
And the years lapsed...
Back around 2019, I picked up and plowed through the first two books of Campbell's subsequent series, The Gravedigger Chronicles. These were immediately among my favorite Sci-Fi/Fantasy novels ever - we're still waiting on that third book though, and from time to time the thought that we may never see it (the Author, who is not active on social media, has stated that the third book in the series is finished, however, the publishing deal he had went south and the book remains, well, suspended by metaphorical chains above the abyss that was once the publishing industry). That particular sadness darkened my door this past week, and thus, I grabbed the Deepgate Codex with the intention of loving it so much again that the power of that love might somehow aetherically find Mr. Campbell and transmute into a resolution for that final book.
And yes, Scar Night is just as good as I remember. Maybe better. And no, aetherically is not a word. Well, not until now.
Playlist:
Lustmord - The Others
Fvunerals - Let The Earth Be Silent
Uncle Acid & The Deadbeats - Wasteland
Karl Casey - XX
Battle Tapes - Sweatshop Boys EP
Final Light - Eponymous
Ager Sonus - Book of the Black Earth
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Special Interest - Endure
Motörhead - Ace of Spades
Anthrax - Attack of the Killers B's
Aerosmith - Pump
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me
Perturbator - Lustful Sacraments
Talking Heads - Fear of Music
Iron Maiden - Fear of the Dark
Made Out of Babies - The Ruiner
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
Thou - Rhea Sylvia
David Bowie - Black Tie White Noise
Silent - Modern Hate
Melvins & Lustmord - Pigs of the Roman Empire
Metallica - Hardwired...
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
A reminder that balance is what supports harmony, and balance is not achieved by the narratives about others we sometimes tell ourselves repeatedly. I've 100% done just this, and it's not without a breakthrough of Will that I will be able to smooth things over.
From 1973's Master of Reality, a perfect record. I leaned heavily into this one last weekend while in Chicago, so when I walked into Rick's Comics City yesterday and saw that variant cover of Dan Panosian's new book Black Tape, I kind of felt as though I manifested it.
Tulpas have been on my mind again because, you know, Department of Truth.
Watch:
Rob Savage's Host impressed me to no end, and I've been waiting to see what he does next. Somehow, I missed that he followed Host with a film called Dashcam, however, I think I'll leave that off the list until after I see what he does with a non-found-footage film. And Savage has a big one coming out in June:
This adaptation of Stephen King's short story The Boogeyman is receiving a lot of hype - word is it's terrifying, so I am excited at the prospect of seeing a film in theatres that might actually induce some fear in me.
Read:
Here's a book I did not mention as one of my picks for yesterday's NCBD simply because I was on the fence and trying very hard not to start new series. How do you say no to this cover, though:
Black Tape #1 is all set up, but that's fine. Even if I don't continue with the series - which I'm betting I will - I'm happy as hell to own this cover. Here's the press description of the book:
"Jack King was a rock'n'roll god who projected a stage
persona on par with the devil. After Jack dies on stage, his widow, Cindy, grapples with grief and struggles to protect his
legacy, unaware that she is being surrounded by dark forces that covet the master tapes to Jack's final,
unreleased album - a heavy metal masterpiece that just
might open a doorway to hell."
Great premise, so let's see where it goes.
Playlist:
Thought Gang - Eponymous
Anoni Wit & Warsaw National Philharmonic Orchestra - Pendereck's Polymorphia
Krzysztof Penderecki - Metamorphosen
Krzysztof Penderecki - A Polish Requiem
Miranda Sex Garden - Suspiria
Allegaeon - Apoptosis
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha EP
Karl Casey - White Bat XVIII EP
Karl Casey - XX EP
King Woman - Doubt EP
Godflesh - A World Lit Only By Fire
Metallica - ...And Justice for All
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Tens in Tarot are interesting. On one hand, there's a sense of closure, of completion and accomplishment. On the other, you realize when juxtaposing the Tarot with the Sephiroths on the Tree of Life, Ten is where we enter Malkuth, and thus, the most materialized in the regular, physical world. This tells us that, what we consider a success or accomplishment in our physical lives, can conversely be seen as the farthest movement away from anything spiritually compelling. Which makes sense in a lot of ways. Today's pull builds on yesterday's Emotional question, suggesting that to transform from yesterday's Eight of Cups to today's Ten, a transformation of Will in order. What's more, there is a decision or leap of faith that will be involved.
So today's Pull gives me the insight into yesterday's that I never arrived at. This is a direct nod to the fact that I'm attempting to change my daily writing routine - which has never been in better shape - by moving from driving to a coffee shop and paying $4.22 a day to sit and write to staying at home and saving that money but getting the same level of removal and concentration. I know this can be done because I did it during the pandemic when I wrote/re-wrote a novel sitting at the kitchen table in our Redondo Beach apartment. I just have to do it here now.
Quick reminder: if you dig those cards above from Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, he has an insanely awesome Kickstarter going on at the moment:
A considerably more mellow NCBD than I've had in a while and I like it!
Kinda glad to see Dark Web go. I mean, the series started great, but really overstayed its welcome about the time Peter began working at a Daily Bugle in Limbo. Dumb, as was the whole Rek Rap manifestation. Hopefully this "omega" chapter will dig back in and give us a satisfying ending.
Due to reassessments, this is most likely my last issue of Moon Knight. It's been a solid series, even though I never really warmed up to the art. I can't necessarily say I'll miss it, primarily because the big reason that I stayed around this long was what they did with making the House of Shadows the new Midnight Mission. I really thought there would be more with that, but we've been playing with vampires for most of the series since then.
Watch:
Last Thursday I saw Brendon Cronenberg's Infinity Pool at my local theatre. I really dig being able to say that. Then, on Sunday in Chicago, I saw it again.
My first impression was this was my least favorite of his three films. After that second viewing, I'd put it right up there, just behind Possessor. I'm still unpacking, and The Horror Vision will be releasing an in-depth discussion on the film next Monday, but for now, my knee-jerk from directly after that first viewing is a quick, spoiler-free read over on my Letterbxd.
Playlist:
Chat Pile - God's Country
Type O Negative - Dead Again
Zeal and Ardor - Devil is Fine
Type O Negative - Origin of the Feces
Joy Division - Still
David Lynch - The Big Dream
Revolting Cocks - Big Sexy Land
Mascara - Hla-11Tf
Angelo Badalamenti - Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me OST
Various - Shadow Play Two Writing Playlist
Lustmord - The Others
Black Sabbath - Master of Reality
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
David Bowie - Outside
Slayer - Live Undead
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Bonny Doon - Longwave
††† - PERMANENT.RADIANT
Trombone Shorty - For True
Card:
From Jonathan Grimm's Bound Tarot, which you can buy HERE.
Elements of Change that might be emotionally difficult will be better faced with a partner. No idea what that's about, and I'd be lying if I didn't admit it freaks me out a bit. I'll be chewing on this one all day. My new way to do that is to leave the three-card Pull out on my desk all day, so I'm constantly looking at it. Kinda a visual version of hearing music in the background and having it grab you. Revelations are not always won through direct engagement.
