Woke up to Sade in my head, so I popped the Deftones version in on my morning drive:
I suspect I will get around to the original version later tonight.
Playlist from yesterday:
Grotus - Mass
Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age
Windhand - Soma
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire (which really does need expanding, I just haven't had the time during these morning posts):
Enlightenment. Joy, Revelation; Dance.
The Triumph of the Spirit (which seems especially pertinent in a block of stressful days)
Entry portal to XX Aeon. "Taking the Pill will open your eyes."
Actually, that last bit seems very pertinent, as today I will be seeing my Pulmonologist and beginning my treatment regiment - most likely in pill form - for the Sarcoisdosisthat I learned last year has been occupying more and more of the cells in my lungs for, oh, the better part of at least ten years now. No idea where it came from, but it's advancing rapidly now, or at least more rapidly than it has yet. It's known to affect the eyes and yep, definitely feeling that. Also, upon my last visit to the Pumonologist, he asked if I experienced random rashes, which I did not. Now, starting a few weeks ago, I have a nasty little bugger on my right foot. It's time to kick this out before it begins affecting my heart and/or liver. The treatment, Prednisone, will possibly lower my immune system, so I'm kind of expecting to get sick once or twice, but we'll see. So if the day's pull is telling me the pill might open my eyes, is it possible the steroid might have an expected mental effect?
There was indeed music in my head this morning, however I have forgotten what it was. In lieu of that, here's what I'm starting my workday with:
The same way I'm dipping back into 80s music to try and recontextualize it, I'm also moving back among the more recent cobwebs of the 00s - especially the late 00s - and attempting to re-engage with a lot of the music I was into at the time but have since let slip by the wayside. This album is a great example of that; I've never stopped liking Broadcast and the Focus Group Investigate Witch Cults of the Radio Age, or either of the two groups' individual work, I've simply found less time and impetus to fully surrender to the more spooky, occult soundscape-y areas of my collection. When I was into this in 2009-2010 I was not only very interested in the Occult, I practiced it a lot. This means music such as this was perfect for creating and sustaining altered states and temporal anomalies. The only temporal anomaly I experience now are on the dreaded 405. Will re-engaging with this music segue me back into a more occult-involved day-to-day? Maybe. I suppose it's no accident that I start doing daily Tarot readings and this music pops back onto my radar. It's life - let's see where it goes, shall we?
Playlist from yesterday:
Swans - The Glowing Man (disc 2)
Lantlos - .neon
Dio - Holy Diver
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
Mogwai - Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards (truncated listen)
Helmet - Meantime
Windhand/Satan's Satrys - Split (my vinyl arrived!)
Lawrence Whelk - Polks
House of Waxwork Vol. 2
Card of the day:
Balancing vigor with responsibility and action can be tricky. There's that lion almost running away with the Air of Fire's chariot again.
Second day in a row, no music in my head upon waking. Although I began my day with Swan's Frankie M this morning, my work day started with Lantlos. Not sure if I've posted anything by them here yet, but wow, this album immediately endeared itself to me upon a friend recommending it several weeks ago. There's a definite similarity to Fen, another band I love. Lots of blue, jazz tones here, a definite somber, rainy feel.
Playlist yesterday was brief due to a large part of our Sunday once again going to the search for new quarters. And ladies and gentlemen, we may have a winner (though I've thought that before).
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Bauhaus - In the Flat Field
Led Zeppelin - Eponymous
Led Zeppelin - IV
No music in my head this morning and I'm enjoying the quiet by sprinting through a couple chapters from this very enjoyable romp through 70s and 80s paperback horror:
I've mentioned Paperbacks from Hell here before, I think, but as I've moved into the last third of Thomas Ligotti's first two volumes of short fiction I wanted to take a break and chew through something fun. This is it. Highly recommended.
Yesterday was insanely productive. My own first Horror Anthology will most likely be hitting print and digital in April. Titled A Collection of Desires after one of the stories in the book, it's seven tales of modern terror. I hope you'll give it a try.
Playlist from yesterday:
Grimes - Visions
Black Sabbath - Eponymous
Disasterpeace - It Follows OST
Anthrax - Worship Music
Prince & 3RDEYEGIRL - PLECTRUMELECTRUM
Watched the first episode of AHS My Roanoke Nightmare. While I loved Hotel and Murderhouse, I've largely avoided or been disappointed by a lot of AHS. This one already has me.
Card of the day:
One of my favorite cards in the deck, both visually and philosophically. From the Grimoire:
"Will synchronized with the imagination. Dreams become reality. Areas of life coming together, falling into place."
All good signs for the endeavors I am currently undertaking, all of which pertain to my writing, or Art.
Can't leave you without a song. This is as relevant as it is awesome:
Woke up with a kind of mash-up of two songs in my head. This is a weird one:
and
The Scorpions track being in there is somewhat bizarre because, despite the fact that our drunken celebration's late night playlist devolved into 80s Rock cheese, Scorpions was not a part of that. They have been on my mind intermittently lately, as I keep hearing Rock You Like A Hurricane on the radio at work.
Playlist from 2/23:
David Bowie - Blackstar
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Preoccupations - Cassette
Melvins - Stoner Witch
David Bowie - No Plan E.P.
The Birthday Party - Hits
She Wants Revenge - These Things/Tear You Apart/Spend the Night/Black
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Sinead O'Connor - I Want Your (Hands on Me) single
Prince - Sign O' the Times
Metallica - Garage Days Re-Revisited
Anthrax - I'm the Man E.P.
Proto Music: The Best of 80s Radio*
Skid Row - Eponymous
80s Rock Hop Scotch**
Bob Dylan - Blood on the Tracks
Elvis Presley - Simple Minds - single
Joe Walsh - In the City - single
Jerry Jeff Walker - Don't it make you Wanna dance? - single
Grimes - Symphonia IX (My Wait is U) - single
David Bowie/Bing Crosby - Peace on Earth
............
* This is a selection I made shortly after joining Apple Music, the week after Christmas when I flew home for my Uncle's funeral to be specific; it contains the songs I consider some of the essential radio fodder of my youth in the 80s: Phil Collins, Don Henley, Golden Earring, Red Rider, Billy Squire, The Police and Peter Gabriel.
** This was a drunken Keller and I taking turns reminiscing about 80s rock we liked. The session included Dokken, Cinderella, Dio (who I have always staunchly disliked but may have warmed to last night thanks to Keller) and Tesla.
..........
You can see I've been slowly re-evaluating and re-contextualizing a lot of 80s rock into the sonic tapestry I weave around myself. Some of it only fits for nostalgia, some may have a place outside that nostalgia. We'll see.
Card of the day:
Nothing in the Grimoire on this one. Courage needed for victory to opposition.
Well, just like that. Finished my second pass through on the project and passed the Scrivener session off to Keller. We meet tonight to discuss moving forward with it, then celebrate. I had my own little party with K to celebrate one stressor lifted, ended my musical day with Anthrax - State of Euphoria on vinyl and, fittingly, woke up with the final track off the album, Finale, blaring in my head. Growing up, as a Freshman or so in High School, Anthrax was my band (before Alice in Chains Dirt came along and knocked them off their throne). I had all their albums except their first two, Fistful of Metal and Armed and Dangerous, on cassette. Still have and listen to some of those cassettes. State of Euphoria was always my least favorite, and now I am just not sure why. I mean, it's nowhere near Persistence of Time - still my favorite - but it's really good and features songs about Blue Velvet and Stephen King's Misery, and just generally rocks.
Yesterday's Playlist:
OOIOO - Gold and Green
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Mastodon - Once More Around the Sun
Prince - Sign O' The Times
Prince - Paisley Park
Prince - Purple Rain
Madlove - White With Foam
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
Anthrax - State of Euphoria
Card of the day:
"Appears after trauma. Period of rest invested with planning."
My notes in the Grimoire don't seem to fit so I'll have to look deeper into this one, which is good, because part of why I'm doing this, other than to reconnect with Tarot after almost two years away from it, is the Grimoire is largely unfinished.
Woke up with Coast to Coast, the second track on Tune-Yards new album, I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life in my head. I can't find a good version of it to embed here so instead here's the Melvins covering The Butthole Surfers in honor of the fact that the new Melvins album is out soon and features Jeff Pinkus on second bass for the entire album:
So good...
Playlist from 2/21:
Iron Maiden - Live After Death
Tune-Yards - I Can Feel You Creep Into My Private Life
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Brookville - Life in the Shade
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
Windhand - Soma
House of Waxwork Vol. #2 OST
Sinoia Caves - Beyond the Black Rainbow OST
New installment of Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is HERE.
Card of the day:
From the Grimoire:
Indicates greater objectivity/clarity
Healthy balance of emotions and intellect
Good time to make decisions
I can see clearly now the rain has gone
Hmm... Well, the convolutions thicken with the prospective move; the place we had settled on is out, a potentially better place has popped up and I suppose this is telling me to balance my approach inspire of exhaustion (which I haven't so much as half the right to claim as K does).
Oh! Check this out - Metallica Garage Days Re-Revisitied reissue; the CD comes in a limited edition long box like CDs used to come in back in the day. $10 bucks for the second of the only two albums by this band you need to own? Check!
More Bowie in my head upon waking. It's a wonderful way to open your eyes:
Playlist yesterday:
TV on the Radio - Return to Cookie Mountain
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank Vol. #1
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
The Knife - Shaking the Habitual
Somnium Nox -
David Bowie - Dollar Days*
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Playlist: K**
.............
* I had been thinking about listening to David Bowie's Blackstar to start off my writing session but was tired and a little out of sorts so I figured I should stick with the music I know works for these sessions, i.e. lately Deafheaven. However, before I could choose one of their albums, my iTunes jumped into random and picked Dollar Days. I treated this as something of a sonic Tarot pull and listened to the song. Lyrics for it are HERE - I'm not sure how these pertain to my life at the moment, rather hope they don't. It's a great song, one of the saddest deliveries on a final album filled with sad deliveries. I'm going to re-engage with the album today, as my original impetus for almost picking it yesterday was realizing it'd been quite a long time since I had, preferring for the last year or two to stick to Bowie's older material and also some of his more obscure, probably because as awesome as Black Star is, it's an emotional tour de force.
** The second or third CD I made for K after we started dating. The part of the playlist we made it through before dinner looks like this:
Card of the day:
Interesting interpretation when I juxtapose this card resurfacing with the 8 of Swords almost popping out of the deck as I shuffled (I always shuffle three times - unless I'm around a lot of people I know, like at work, and want to avoid being super ostentatious - and cut once). The 8 of Swords is, of course, Interference, and in keeping with that we are poised to move but have a sudden setback. The 2 of Disks coming up confirms putting our heads down and plowing through.
Upon waking I was pleasantly greeted by David Bowie:
Playlist from 2/19:
Windhand - Soma
Electric Wizard - Dopethrone
Electric Wizard - Wizard Bloody Wizard
David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars
David Lynch and John Neff - BLUEBOB
The Cramps - Psychedelic Jungle/Gravest Hits
Algiers - The Underside of Power
Grimes - Halfaxa
Tears for Fears - Songs From the Big Chair
Roy Ayers - Ubiquity
Funkdoobiest - Brothas Doobie
Tha Grimm Teachaz - There's a Situation on the Homefront
Card of the day:
Enlightenment; you're on the right path. Good things to come. A turning point for the positive - still interpreting this as juxtaposed to the last few pulls, all as an ongoing statement on our prospective move. K and her Mom saw the place yesterday and we have the applications. It is happening.
Another song by The Veils greets me as I break the waters on this side of consciousness:
Playlist from Sunday, 2/18:
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Windhand/Cough - Reflection of the Negative
The Body - No One Deserves Happiness
The Body - I Shall Die Here
Chrysta Bell - We Dissolve
Card of the day:
Overindulgence as a way to mask or meditate pain or problems. Too much booze or smoke, too much imagination not enough reality. Hmmm... doesn't sound like my current state, unless we count the fact that I was so irritated yesterday morning that I smoked at like 10 AM. Rare, but not unheard of on a Sunday. It was absolutely a tactic to attempt to squash the open loop in my head keeping me grumpy, and it worked to a degree, but it also did not interfere with anything that I can think of, as I do not smoke often and the reason for this is typically that I know pot yields a state of mind that is not conducive to writing (much to the contrary of what I thought back when I first began to seriously concentrate on writing). Yesterday however, I partook early enough that by 6:00 PM I was able to have a pretty successful writing session, although I had some trouble keeping my tenses straight in two chapters where I had bafflingly switched to present tense.
I'll just take this pull as a bit of a comment on yesterday and be done with it.
Continuing this somewhat - to me anyway - fascinating record of the music I wake up with in my head, because there's always music there when I open my eyes to a new day, today it was one of the more nuanced tracks from 2016's Total Depravity by The Veils:
I say nuanced and I do not mean it in a negative way; every track off Total Depravity is marvelous, and what's more, The Veils are very good at doing that that thing that I love: all the tracks add up to make an outstanding full album, one that resonates on multiple harmonic levels when listened to as a whole. We're talking sonically, thematically, and overall aesthetically, this record shines. In fact, I'd call it one of the best 'albums' I've heard in years.
Playlist yesterday was sparse. I finally found my CD copy of Shellac's most recent record Dude Incredible so that may be going into regular commute rotation for a while:
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Shellac - Dude Incredible
Deftones - Gore
The Doors - LA Woman (original vinyl pressing - used to be my Dad's and has THIS little nasty on the back of the bright yellow record sleeve).
I pre-ordered Dude Incredible on vinyl back when it was released and Mr. Albini and crew included as something of, I think, a philosophical statement on their preference for analog over digital, a totally unlabeled copy of the album on disc. Lately I've had the strongest hankerings for Shellac while in the car, so although it's been a while since I've pulled the vinyl out at night, during the day I'd several times been frustrated to discover I had no idea where the disc was. I even feared, due to its unmarked facade, its possible loss in the great divorce tally/purge of 2015. Then a couple days ago I pull out 1000 Hurts on disc and there's the unlabelled missing album on top. I very much count this as a win.
Last night K and I tried to watch both Good Time and It Comes at Night but failed at both. Part of this may have been due to a certain persnickety fatigue six long days of work surrounded by LA commutes had left me with by the time I'd prepared dinner and had a few Smithwicks, but I definitely feel it this lack of connection was not entirely on me. Both films are distributed byA24,whose films I normally fall right in line with, but with my shortage of time to appropriate for watching movies these days, I feel fairly certain I won't be giving either of these another chance. Instead, we're seeing The Philadelphia Story on the big screen this afternoon, thanks to Turner Movie Classics and Fathom Events, and steering tonight's Sunday Night Feature to Dark Song, a film several good friends have given near rave reviews of, and which I'd waited on since first reading about on the Horror Amino community, where there's a wealth of awesome horror information updated on pretty much an hourly basis.
Card of the day:
A lot in my Grimoire about this one, however most of it presupposes the card's value in a spread, in relation to other cards, especially Disks and its representation of Earthly matters. Specifically I see one relating to gambling. I'll keep this in mind, however the one point of primary interest here is the note that the Three of Swords can indicate, "... a current period of unhappiness, not necessarily one to come."
Two reasons for this note's perceived poignancy at the moment with regards to my existence:
I'm not in the best of moods today due to a certain lackadaisical approach to property management by the cunts that run the building that I will soon be moving out of, and two, the "... not necessarily..." part really helps when looking back at the last few days' cards and tracking their ongoing juxtaposition with my moving situation: knowing the Futility of the current situation with finding a new place forces a decision to be made; accepting the Change that will come with that decision, and now the suggestion that unhappiness will not necessarily follow on the tide of that Change, well, the pieces are in motion and I'm helping to keep them that way. My contributions pail in comparison to K's near constant attempts to stay in contact with the other parties involved.
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Veils - Total Depravity
The Veils - Nux Vomica
The Veils - Time Stays, We Go
The Bronx - The Bronx (I) AKA White Drugs
Grand Duchy - Let the People Speak (aborted listen*)
New York Dolls - Dancing Backward in High Heels
Broken Social Scene - You Forgot it in People
The Soft Moon - Criminal
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Soundgarden - SOMMS (Record Store Day vinyl)
The Animals - Retrospective
....................
* I've tried, and despite absolutely LOVING the first album by Grand Duchy, and despite being an enormous Frank Black/Black Francis fan, I just can't get into this record at all. I keep waiting for the day that it catches me, but thus far, it has not.
......................
We watched Logan Lucky last night. Everything about the flick was solid except except except... I don't really know that it pulls off what it intends to pull off. Still, solid performances all the way around, very well written, likable characters, David Holmes does the music (of course), they use a Monks song in the soundtrack and it left me feeling good and like I want to move to West Virginia.
Ain't that something?
Bought tickets to go see this and I am PSYCHED.
Thursday, April 12th. One night only in the cinema. So I've got that on the 12th and The Soft Moon on Friday, April 13th. There's ALL kinds of synchronicities with my current writing project, but that aside, what an awesome two days of music!
Criminal, the new album from The Soft Moon was released earlier this month and so far, this is my favorite track on an outstanding album. Seeing these guys for the first time in April and I can't wait!
Tommy posted the pre-release Choke a few weeks back, check that out HERE.
Broken Social Scene is one of those bands I'd always meant to check out but never got around to. Changing that tonight, thanks to Chester Whelks' write-up for this week's edition of the Joup Friday Album. Favorite song so far, because it reminds me a bit of Godspeed You! Black Emperor, without the severe gravity (not that gravity is a bad thing).
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.
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.
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.
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."
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.
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
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Beginning the first of three days off with some Etta:
It's nice to wake up leisurely, lay in bed with the one you Love and read. I finished Han King's The Vegetarian - ranked it with four out of five stars on Goodreads. The prose itself was outstanding, especially in the third section of the book, which is sort of three short stories with characters that thread them together into a novel. I would be curious to read more by Han King, and perhaps I will do so, however, my to-read pile is currently out of control. For now I'm going to duck back into Thomas Ligotti's Songs of a Dead Dreamer/Grimscribe, which I started at the beginning of the year while I was in Chicago and, truthfully, am finding a little difficult to stick through. My one book from last year that still lingers at 25 % read is, similarly, Ramsey Campbell's Alone with the Horrors. It's not short story anthologies I have an issue sticking with per say, but instead the tone of both Ligotti and Campbell's work. No, they're not "Too Dark", there's just something in each that leaves me a bit flat. Perhaps my expectations for Ligotti were a tad high - this is the first of his works I've read, and knowing he was a major influence on True Detective Ssn 1 excited the hell out of me. I loved that season and - despite hating the ending - its tone is one of my favorites ever, and it's not that I expected or even wanted Ligotti's work to be similar, but I wasn't expecting the slightly truncated manner in which he sometimes works. I'm half way through Songs of a Dead Dreamer and although the first few stories hit me very hard, as I go deeper I feel a certain unfinished or rushed quality to some of them, the best example of which is The Lost Art of Twilight, which felt extremely rushed, as if the author had no idea how to pay-off what he had so carefully set up. Maybe I'm simply missing something, or maybe not, this is merely my perception at this point.
So if I'm going to pick at Ligotti's short stories over the course of the next few months, using one or two as palate cleansers between longer works, I need something as my next main read. Nick Cave's And the Ass Saw the Angel is on deck, however K gifted me a copy of this little gem last night for our two-year anniversary and I'm already chomping at the bit to go through it, even though it will inevitably lead to that to-read pile growing exponentially.
"There are simply too many books to read, whatever shall I do?" This, ladies and germs, is the definition of First World Problems. We live amazing lives folks, don't take them for granted.
Play list from yesterday:
Swans - Glowing Man
ttt (Crosses) - Eponymous
Mastodon - Emperor of Sand
Godflesh - A World Lit Only by Fire
The Kills - Midnight Boom
Drove up to Hollywood last night and attended a limited screening of Robert Mockler's Like Me. I posted the trailer a few days ago but here it is again; I loved this flick. The characters are hard to like but the journey they take is one big dig on social media culture - or lack thereof - and the method by which the film is assembled is gorgeous, reminding me of Harmony Korine for sure. To me that's a good thing. And of course Larry Fessenden is in it, and I generally like everything he is associated with.
Card of the day:
This one shows up inverted; I've never placed a lot of weight on card inversion, especially in single card draws. There's something to be said for their interpretation when they're juxtaposed with other cards in a spread, but alone, it's kind of just the card to me.
There's nothing in my Grimoire about this one so what do we know? Well, this is the Airy-aspect of Fire; look at the movement in the card - rushing forward, so we're talking motivation, movement, doing. Interesting then that I'm intent on doing nothing but relaxing for the next three days. Well, that's not entirely true, we have some social events planned, and I had wanted to write each day, even if just to do these posts and get in my daily words, which could totally be the aspect of the weekend that I brush off. So I'll interpret drawing this card as sound advice not to do that.
Last night I absolutely killed the penultimate scene in my current writing project. It felt great. Today - if I have a chance - I'll move into the climax. This is all still just first pass, rough draft but it's still major progress. Once I write the climax and finale, I'll go back and add in a few chapters that I've come up with to flesh certain characters or ideas out - stuff I didn't know we were going to need until construction of the ongoing continuity revealed their necessity to me. One is probably a scene with Truby's "Half-man", although we intend to turn that on its ear a bit. After that I'll run everything through Grammarly, then tidy up and send it to Keller, who will read and add concepts/scenes/edits accordingly. Our deadline is in April - Thursday the 12th to be exact. Which is serendipitous indeed...
Started my musical day with Track #3 on Swans' 2016 release The Glowing Man. This is the title track and it's just fantastic. There's a real sense that Michael Gira's sound lodge has been influenced by the doors on this one, and after all the spacey effulgence that comprises the roughly the first half of the track, listen for the sheer awesomeness that Gira and company pull out at around the 15 minute mark. Mmmm-mmm!
Playlist for yesterday looks like this:
Zen Guerilla - Positronic Raygun
Nevermen - Eponymous
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Glass Animals - How to be a Human Being
Tuneyards - I Can Feel You Creep into my Private Life
Zen Guerilla - Positron Raygun
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Deafheaven - Sunbather
ttt (Crosses) Eponymous
Card of the day is The Priestess:
"The Will (Womb) that takes the Magus' spark (seed) and gives it form."
Can denote change/fluctuation; governed by gracious or pure influences.
The active difference between this and the preceding card in the deck's Major Arcana, The Magus, is that the Magus generates their own power, the Priestess taps into the power of the Universe.
Note the grid - I liken the difference outlined in that last sentence as the difference between so-called High Magick and Chaos Magick, the school I have always identified the most with. Chaos Magick is hacking the operating system or grid of reality. And there's that grid...
Looking forward to Sonny's Joup Friday Album tomorrow. In the meantime, I'll be posting the second installment of my "Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying later today. This week's song topic? Fighting.
