New Issue of Drinking with Comics is up!

And I'll be damned, we talk about comics THE ENTIRE TIME!!!

2018: March 30th 5:13 AM

Unboxed and shelved my CDs last night, and listened to U2's Achtung Baby for the first time in a long time while doing so. That's probably why I woke up with this one in my head.

U2 is a pretty polarizing group for me; they're a lot like Metallica or RHCP - I love the early stuff, hate the later/current stuff, and generally dislike the public personas they present to the world. That said, War and Achtung are two unbelievably strong records that help define certain moments of my early life, so they will be with me always.

Playlist from yesterday:

Luscious Jackson - Electric Honey

Silkworm - Firewater

U2 - Achtung Baby

Brian Eno, David Byrne - My Life in the Bush of Ghosts

I noticed that Stop Making Sense is currently included with Prime - I've somehow managed to make it 42 years without seeing it so I began remedying that last night, although we didn't make it far before I had to turn in. Today and tomorrow have the potential to be nightmares at work, so it may be a time before I get back to watch the rest. Thus far, three songs in, it is of course awesome.

No Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying today. Next week I'm back at that for sure.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Emotional depths honed by intellect - the airy aspect of water, or the intelligent aspect of emotion. I'm taking this as a sign to temper my emotions (read: anger) over the next two days as other departments play their little end-of-the-month games. Games that always fuck over my department. Okay. I'll keep my mouth to a minimum in the interest of the greater good (read: my paycheck).

2018: March 29th 10:33 PM

Bit late today, eh? Looooooong day.



I'd forgotten how goddamn funny this song is. I remember when The King in Yellow was first released, Mr. Brown sent it to me with the comment that the chorus about the 300 lb psychic baby was hysterical.

It is.

Playlist from yesterday:

Singles OST
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
Odonis Odonis - Hard Boiled Soft Boiled
Silkworm - Firewater
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Dead Milkmen - The King in Yellow

Card for the day, which I actually pulled this morning at 6:32 AM, was indeed, following through from yesterday:

Energy that began with the five of wands Strife, ballooned with Six of Wands Victory, is now expended.

Also, the eye thing is totally a side effect of the prednisone and I am now, at my pulmonologist's recommendation, tapering off of it.

2018: March 28th 11:59 AM

After the Astronaut is the Butthole Surfers album Capitol never released, back at the end of the 90s/early 00s. I don't remember the whole story any more, but basically in the great 'alternative buy-up' that occurred after Nirvana's success, when label execs were plugging their ears and counting their checks from Oh the Guilt, the major labels spent a lot of time scratching their heads and signing checks to bands they thought might be the next "big thing". As long-time stalwarts of underground madness, the Surfers were held in high regard by a lot of people labels deemed to be 'in the know' and they were signed. One has to imagine the man who signed them never went back and actually listened to much of the band's back catalogue, certainly not Psychic... Powerless... Another Man's Sac. Anyway, I think Capitol released two records for the Surfers and then pulled the plug on releasing the third. I ended up finding most of the tracks on Napster back when that was still a thing - that's what I used the sight for, not pirating stuff I could hand band's money for - and have loved it ever since. Eventually most of the content was released as The Weird Revolution album - I've never bothered with that, as it seemed superfluous to my version and the version of my favorite song - embedded above - is just different for me to turn my head back to the one I know. Not sure how the band feels about the Weird Revolution or even who put it out, but that's really just a Wikipedia entry away I'm sure. Anyway, I love this song. A lot. Specifically the way Gibby delivers the lines about Macaroni hanging from his chin and Sadness filling the air for the hurt shirt. 

Playlist from 3/27:

The Wire Tapper #23

Captain Jack - For Ron

Black Sabbath - Masters of Reality
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. #1

Odonis Odonis - Post Plague

Butthole Surfers - After the Astronaut

Card of the day:

While performing my standard, 3-shuffle pre-draw, the following two card leapt from the deck and landed on the floor.

My subsequent pull was:

I wasn't planning on doing an all-out spread this morning, but let's see what we have. So, going off of my notes in the Grimoire, we get the following:

Knight of Cups - Enlightenment, or perhaps Victory, is within reach, but there's danger of an emotional deluge. Act fast and be careful not to drown.

The Hierophant - a wise teacher, take advantage of opportunities to learn and advance in stature.

Six of Wands Victory - Energy has crested to reward, but this is a pinion card, caught between the fireball of energy in the Five of Wands Strife and the Seven of Wands Valour. This accentuates the 'act fast and be careful not to drown,' or maybe in this case it's be careful not to get burned.

Not sure how this applies to me for the day or moving forward, but it will be good to keep my eye open for it.

2018: March 27th 4:22 AM

Starting the day with The Wire Tapper #23, specifically at the moment a track called "Sevilla Una Maravilla. I wanted to embed this here, as per the norm, however the track is not on youtube and the information provided on the liner notes of the disc point in the direction of a warm circuit.com, I'm guessing a label, which is no longer operative, due to the fact that if you click that link you'll see the domain is up for sale. First another track, the subsequent one on the disc, which I really quite like:




Not finding the warmcircuit or Windup track brings to mind the idea that in this 'high speed age', things appear and disappear quickly, and amazingly almost without track. The Wire Tapper disc itself is a free anthology that would accompany Wire magazine back when I bought it ravenously every month or other month - can't quite remember the schedule - circa 2009/2010. I stopped simply because of the mounting financial issues that culminated with my personal apocalypse in 2015, and the fact that I stopped working at Borders and they went out of business in 2011. Sure I could have subscribed, even felt guilty sometimes that I didn't, as Wire is a truly, completely independent magazine, owned and operated by the staff, who bought the publication out from its former publisher sometime in the mid-to-late 00s. It's still available, and what's more it's available online here, every issue ever for the 2.50 lbs a month (a new concern of mine is space - I just had to throw almost all my old issues away in the move).

Playlist from yesterday:

Singles - OST
Preoccupations - New Material
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Sepultura - Rise
My Bloody Valentine - MBV (Vinyl)
The Soft Moon - Eponymous
Black Sabbath - Sabotage (Vinyl)
The Dead Boys - We Have Come for Your Children  (Vinyl)
Angelo Badalamenti/David Lynch - Twin Peaks Archive

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Indicates trouble earlier on that is now revealed/healed. Rest/recuperation. Find the high ground to gain perspective."

Okay, this is of particular interest to me, as today's pull appears to answer directly an insight I had upon waking this morning. If you've keep up with this page you know I've been pulling The Fool a lot lately. This has had me wondering if I'm on more of a 'journey' than I originally assumed, something more than an allusion to my move, now 90% complete. So why still pulling The Fool? Well, there are other interpretations, but that's not it. I hang with my gut on these, and my gut says journey. At the same time, in my everyday life, I've noticed over the last few days, specifically since the move, my eye sight has become horrendous. For example, yesterday at dusk I drove the five minutes to the nearby beer palace for a sixer, and had such a hard time with my night vision that I returned home essentially terrified that I'm going blind. Dramatic? Maybe, but I've begun fearing degeneration due to my Sarcoidosis, a disease I am currently treating with a first six-week salvo of Prednisone, but one that is known to affect the eyes. I've apparently had Sarcoidosis for a long time, possibly over ten years, and because of repeated missed diagnosis by medical professional fools, it was not until I was somewhat dramatically thrown in a local hospital's quarantine area for three days last spring that someone finally figured out what was wrong with me. Well, no, it wasn't at the hospital they figured it out, it was later, when I was first introduced to my current Pulmonologist, who is fantastic. So if I'm finally treating it, shouldn't any symptoms be diminishing, not escalating?

This is the question...

For the record it's not just at dusk or in the dark that my eyesight bothers me, and it's not consistent. I drove to work in the dark yesterday morning without incident, and yet my daylight drive home yesterday was a massive strain. Even over the weekend, Saturday specifically, the day after the move, I had moments of confusion and stress due to not seeing properly in broad daylight. So with all this mounting, I woke up pre-alarm this morning, and the first thought in my head was about what The Fool is trying to tell me. And I thought, "hey, my eyes feel better - maybe I'm just exhausted." Normally I nap at least once a week, but I haven't had that luxury since at least a week before the move. And even if I stay up late, I generally do not sleep in. So I wake up and the first thing I think is, "Maybe my eyes are a symptom of being exhausted?" and then I pull the Two of Swords and, to reiterate for effect, "Indicates trouble earlier on that is now revealed/healed. Rest/recuperation. Find the high ground to gain perspective."

Not sure at this point how the "Find the high ground..." might factor in, if at all, but I think the rest speaks for itself. And I realize that, whether it's a case of 'if you've convinced yourself, that's great' or not, pulling a card a day and making the effort to reengage with my Thoth deck and the Tarot/Jungian system in general has had a similar turn of results as my dream journaling/meditation experiments from 2015 - the more you engage, the more the results become exponentially interwoven in your daily life and, eventually USEFUL.

How's that for Magick?

2018: March 26th 7:25 AM

Currently listening to, my favorite track - thus far - off Preoccupations new album, appropriately titled, New Material. It dropped last Friday and I've been jamming it since Saturday. Really enjoying how this band's sound is carving its own niche. They sound like no one.

Rounding the corner on the Thomas Ligotti. Still not loving it, although the current story I'm on, Nethescurial, will probably bring me back into focus if I can stop my mind from ping-ponging around my new pad, trying to solve everything that needs solving all at once. You can actually read this story on Ligotti.net. Anyone who follows the link and reads it, let me know what you think in my comments; at this point it's really hard to know if my lack of bonding with the bulk of this book is the writer, me (when it's one of those, it's the other as well) or all this upheaval in my life.

Playlist from yesterday:

Preoccupations - New Material
Frank Sinatra - In the Wee Small Hours
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
Black Sabbath - Sabotage
Fire Walk With Me - OST
The Antlers - Familiars

Card of the day:

Now I need to look into why this one keeps coming up.

2018: March 25th, 8:49 AM

Establishing a new routine for the new pad. It's good that the first thing I want to do when I wake up is write, and now I have a desk with all my stuff on it directly next to the bed.

Saw Annihilation yesterday, the 'second'* film directed by Alex Garland. It probably will not last in the theaters past this coming Friday so I'll just say, if you have the chance, go see it. Now, if you can. As in, right now. It is gorgeous, nightmarish and utterly breathtaking at times. That bear scene... wow.



Playlist from yesterday:

iPod on shuffle
Preoccupations - New Material
Nikka Costa - Everybody's Got Their Something
Tears for Fears - Songs from the Big Chair (first LP played on the turntable in the new home, seemed a good choice)

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Financial/material/domestic trouble on the horizon." - for my money this is representing the fact that we just moved into a new place, so I have a bunch of financial 'plates' spinning right now, and they're all going to come down around the same time. I've got a large tax bill, my half of the move-in (which luckily gets us to May 1st, so that's not a huge deal), as well as all the little expenses that sneak up after a move like this. We're in a good place and all of this is doable, it's just until I'm over that tax line I'll be a little anxious, or worried. Now, what the Grimoire goes on to say here is a very good 'fix' for that anxiety, because:

"Worrying about encroaching threats only feed them. Emphasis in understanding and working with this card is it represents the anxiety of the threat, not the threat itself. Under the influence represented by this card, the worry becomes it's own threat."

It goes on to suggest a pattern interrupt; also says, "physically write down the object/cause of the anxiety," which I just did above, so that already feels as though I've transmuted some of the nervous energy.

There's an interesting site on this card here.

...............

*Second in quotes because it recently came out that Garland directed Dredd.

2018: March 24th, 12:16 PM

Well, yesterday's blog came and went - it's down right now but I'll re-post it with the correct time-stamp in a bit. Had a weird problem with HTML I had to figure out, which basically meant re-writing the entire thing. And as usual, what do we re-learn from re-writing? Everything always benefits from a re-write.

Lots of stuff to do to get the new place in order but it's my birthday and I'm going to try to enjoy it. Going to see Annihilation in a few hours, going to walk to the Comic Bug (yeah, we can do that now!), and then probably and evening of chill. I'm fighting the urge to throw a lot of stuff I own away, and I'm also trying to figure out how to arrange the entertainment center in the house; may have to purchase separate speakers for the U-Turn record player. Not loving that idea, as the last thing I want right now is more things, but if I can't get some room-volume music that's not coming out of a portable bluetooth speaker soon, I may loose my mind.

First world problems, eh?

Nothing in my head upon waking but the lingering strains of last night's beer, so here's what I'm listening to as I write this:

Playlist from yesterday was virtually non-existent. Actually, it may have been completely non-existent. Wow, a day with no music. That's f*&ked up.

UPDATED: I was incorrect on the 'no music' from the 23rd - we woke up to the last morning in the old pad with The Cure, Collector's Curiosities, Vol.#1, particularly for Carnage Visors.

Card for the day:

The journey continues...

2018: March 23rd, 4:34 PM

It’d been quite some time since I’d jammed the Singles OST. For an album that was a staple of my earlier life, Singles has essentially sat dormant on my shelf for years. Last night however, after spending another commute home with The Verve’s A Storm In Heaven as a soundtrack to unexpected Southern California rain, Singles caught my eye in the newly stocked CD wallet that now inhabits my car. The thought of traveling back to that sonic space rooted in ‘grunge’ seemed just what the doctor ordered.

And it was.

Later, driving to the new pad to sign the lease and take possession of the keys, the rain-slicked streets of Redondo Beach and balmy beach air* felt welcoming in the same way San Pedro now feels dismal. After the formalities, I drove over to my favorite beer store - now five minutes by car - and picked up some celebratory beverages: a twelve of Sierra Nevada in bottles and a six of Three Weavers’ Seafarer Kolsch. Windows down and Singles once again cranked, Eddie Vedder’s voice sounded like pure rocket fuel for a future where maybe all this highfalutin ‘re-contextualization’ might pay-off with some of the disparate or abandoned elements of my personality coming together into something stronger and more productive. It felt good.

Now, today, we’re almost finished moving. Keller and Kenta are irreplaceable in their fervor at moving my shit from the location they know to the one we will all acclimate to together. Tonight we dine and unwind in the new crib. 

Playlist from yesterday:

The Verve - Storm in Heaven
Interpol - Turn on the Bright Lights
Mastodon - Once More Round the Sun
Interpol - El Pintor
Converge - The Dusk in Us
Singles - OST

Card of the day:

Makes sense - I feel as though I am definitely on the right path. 

2018: March 22nd 4:35 AM

Woke up with this firmly entrenched in my head. Great song:



Two nights ago I watched the newest Hellraiser movie, Hellraiser: Judgement. I'm a huge fan of the first two films, and maybe a fan of number three, although it's not been since Hell on Earth was first released to video (while I was in high school!) that I've seen it and, in spite of liking it then, I've grown suspicious of it due to the fact that Part 3 is essentially where dimension films began to try and shoehorn Pinhead into being another Freddy-sized horror icon in a cookie cutter franchise series. Maybe cookie cutter isn't the correct term, but all I know is there are not too many instances where Hellraisers 4-8 are spoken of nicely, if at all. Judgement, however, was good despite its ostentatious nature, particularly in The 55 Ludovico Place sequences, which are gorgeous but suffer from a certain one-upmanship to its grotesqueries. You can almost hear the writer's process during these sequences, something along the lines of, "Oh, what if then the blood the Surgeon unleashes... um... gets sprayed from industrial piping built into the table and... soaks down the demon chicks' naked tits? Yeah! Holy shit! That's gnarly!" I mean, I loved the sequences in question, bloody naked breasts and all, but there's a certain contrivance that goes along with both the presentation and my appreciation. Regardless, in spite of this and a slightly tired biblical serial killer storyline with a predictable twist (for my $$ Se7en opened and shut the door on this concept), I really liked Hellraiser: Judgement.



Playlist from yesterday:

Flying Lotus - Cosmogramma
Screaming Females - All At Once
Ghost - Infestissumam
Windhand - Grief's Infernal Flower
The Verve - E.P.
Touche Amore - Eponymous
Antlers - Familiars
Boards of Canada - Music Has the Right to Children
Boards of Canada - In a Beautiful Place Out in the Country

Card for the day:

"Incredible energy to physical matters." Yep. That's moving. I've worked non-stop since Monday, coming home after work and physical grinding out the packing, cleaning, condensing, purging. Hard work pays off tonight when we sign the lease, pick up the keys and finish final preparations for the move tomorrow!

2018: March 21st 4:44 AM

So, a clarification I need to make from yesterday's post. I'm not intending to half-ass anything here, but there's no wifi connection in the office at work right now, it's crazy busy beside, and now even the personal hotspot connection when piggy-backing off my phone just doesn't hold up. I'm wondering if someone painted the office with lead over night?

I inadvertently listed the first item on yesterday's detailing of the 19th's playlist as "Introduction to Stereoscopic Sound". That's close, but it doesn't really tell you what the hell this is. This is what that is:

A record I picked up in a thrift probably 10 or 11 years ago, I had a bunch of these 'demo' vinyls until the recent purge. Now I just have two, and this is one of those that I kept. It's gorgeous, sonically and visually, simply because it is such a holdover from a different era. These were records labels like Columbia released to demonstrate the new art of Stereo - imagine! Something we take 100% for granted! Very cool, and sounds a little something like this, with a track listing that includes Tchaikovsky, Bartok,Gershwin and Duke Ellington!



Playlist from 3/20:

Led Zeppelin - Presence
Screaming Females - All At Once
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin I
The Veils - Total Depravity
Alice Donut - Three Sisters
Blur - Eponymous
The Fixx - Reach the Beach
Black Sabbath - Sabotage

Card for the day:

From the grimoire, "Can be a dirt, focused woman or period of female-inspired energy. Confident in what she wants and forthright in acquiring it. Unceasing energy and determination, but this can lead to not knowing when to stop for the love of the battle."

Hmm...

2018: March 20th 8:56 AM

Let's start with some Zeppelin, shall we?





Attacked the house yesterday. Those who know it wouldn't recognize it. So much to do before Friday, but considerably less thanks to the hangover from hell keeping me out of work yesterday.


Playlist from yesterday:

Introduction to Stereophonic Sound
Urge Overkill - Saturation
King Woman - Created in the Image of Suffering
Charles Bradley - Changes
Led Zeppelin - Presence

Finished American Horror Story Roanoke last night. You know why it's the best season of AHS yet? Because it's only ten episodes! The one thing that always drags the show down a bit for me is the last few episodes where I always find myself asking, "Why is this still on?". Roanoke's narrative device of adopting reality TV formatting is, of course, an aesthetic problem for me, as I hate and have seen very little reality tv, yet the way they use it I can excuse the form and not hold it against the show. I really thought it was brilliant, especially because they didn't get too many plates spinning. Best and most concise season. And Kathy Bates was phenomenally terrifying, but Susan Berger ... just her statuary appearance in episode 8 left me with nightmare chills. Kudos.

No card today either, because I'm at work and there's just no time.

Almost forgot 3/18's Playlist

Which consisted of this record over and over again all day and all night. No bullshit.

2018: March 19th 4:10 PM

Well, I missed yesterday completely. Yeah, that St. Paddy's/moving out party was a mother fucker. Before I get into that, let's get into a tune for you to read by. I'm still really loving on Saturation; I haven't played it this much probably since it came out:



I didn't actually go to sleep Saturday night until Sunday morning, once for about two hours from 10AM to 12PM - woke up and had breakfast with those who had remained behind to sleep on the couch/floor/spare room (it was really that kind of party. Like we're fucking 20 or something... yeesh). Last breakfast at the Omelette and Waffle House for a while, although I will definitely be driving back to Pedro to eat there again. Still my favorite breakfast place ever. And I ended it how I began there, back the first time I walked through its doors and looked at its menu - Pineapple, Avocado and Sour Cream omelette. The rub was, I couldn't eat the damn thing. My stomach was a roiling sea of chaos and the cacophony of the breakfast crowd slammed through my ears and rattled my head until I nearly lost my mind. We returned home, friends departed and I lay in bed all day and all night, getting up to vomit occasionally, then curling back up and laying fetal in the dark, waiting for nausea to pass me by like some stalking predator in the dark. It was horrible, but not incredibly so. Really, I had anticipated it once I claimed the last third of the bottle of Bushmills as mine and carried it around the party like a glass iPhone.

Playlist from the Saturday, 3/17 was divided between work and the party, which flew well out of control at some point, so I'm probably not getting it all here:

Led Zeppelin - Presence
Fear - Live for the Record
David Bowie - Diamond Dogs
Monolord - Vaenir

The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
The Pogues - Rum, Sodomy and the Lash
The Pogues - If I Should Fall From Grace With God
Flogging Molly - Drunken Lullabies
Floggy Molly - Float
Urge Overkill - Saturation

No card yesterday, no card today. I'll get back to that tomorrow. For now, I had to call out from work today and since crawling from bed I've been prepping for the move on Friday.

Oh! My good friend and co-conspirator on the now-underway 3-issue The Legend of Parish Fenn comic book, Jonathan Grimm, sent me a birthday present that arrived today. Four of his absolutely legendary prints, a Phantasm, an Alien, Alien vs. Predator, and Pumpkinhead. SO good. Check out his art HERE. Prints are a fucking STEAL at $10 a pop.

2018: March 17th 9:12 AM

Happy St. Paddy's Day!



Two corned beef in the croc pots at home, a boat load of Guinness, Smithwicks, Bushmills, Jameson, and State of Grace on tap for a late viewing this evening. Life is good.

Playlist from yesterday:

Talking Heads - Sand in the Vaseline (disc 1)
Urge Overkill - Saturation
The Pogues - Red Roses for Me
Wrekmeister Harmonies - Light Falls
The Bronx - Eponymous
Sex Pistols - Never Mind the Bollocks...
White Zombie - Astro Creep 2000
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta II (Dialogue with the Stars)
Blut Aus Nord - Memoria Vetusta III (Saturnian Poetry)
Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats - Vol. 1 (Vinyl)

Card of the day:

Fitting, eh? As usual, totally in tune because, of course, this isn't "Magick" in so far as special powers from outside, but deeply connected Jungian hoo-ha from the gobbledygook far down inside our minds, the shit that comprises us but we don't understand or aren't even aware of. It colors every action, thought and day. And these cards help reflect a bit of it out into where we can try and draw juxtapositions with it. And here, Completion, because, of course, tonight is the end of my 11 years and 11 months at this place. I don't move until next Friday, but this is the pinnacle. Also, there's harmony here with the fact that, in 2006 when the girl I used to live with and I first got an inkling on moving out to CA, we flew out over St. Paddy's weekend to look at apartments and have her interviewed by her perspective employer. So total Completion. Yes.

2018: March 16th 8:25 PM

Somehow I stumbled back into Urge Overkill yesterday after having not even thought of them for quite some time. This probably has something to do with the fact that in preparation for the move, I am going through my CDs and slimming down the collection. Not a hard thing with Apple Music, although there is still a part of me that will always feel better having some things in a tactile form. That cloud goes down or my phone dies and I can't access The Birthday Party's Prayers on Fire or Bowie's Reality at the exact moment I want to hear them and I'm gonna flip. But, not everything needs to stay tactile, and a lot of what does can be trimmed by tossing the cases. It's funny, similar to how Amazon completely changed the way we shop for records - because I for one never thought I'd be into shopping for music online instead of walking stoned through a record store - Apple Music seems to be the service that has redefined my musical paradigm. And I love it, although I still don't like thinking of music as a 'service'. Gas is a service. Power's a service.

I ordered a Boskine 100-space CD wallet and will be tossing the cases on a lot of albums, slipping the discs and liner notes into far less ostentatious space. Doing the same with some DVDs too, another aspect of the collection that took a hit. I was able to pack up and send 14.83 lbs of movies to a good friend whose collection was pillaged a few years back - and his collection was awe-inspiring and an inspiration for my own - so I'm happy to do something to help a friend and clear up my clutter a bit. I just don't need Simpsons, Family Guy, or Aqua Teen Hunger Force seasons on disc when they're all so ubiquitous streaming anyway. Well, I did keep Simpsons seasons 5 and 6. Cape Fear, Clown College and several other of the best, Conan O'Brien-era episodes that remain among the funniest things I've ever seen. That has to be at my beck and call. Always. But there are limits to what I will purge movie wise as there is no comprehensive service for those and The Burbs, Dog Soldiers, May, and at least 100 other movies must remain in my possession, not to mention all the Twin Peaks sets I've amassed over the years... and the other lynch, and the Kubrick, and the...

You get the point. The other thing there's no compromise on is books. I've built a healthy collection, I re-read often, and one day I want Gatsby's library, complete with Owl Eyes. So aside from a few left over peculiarities from my previous roommate, everything stays.

Playlist from 3/15:

The Ocean - Anthropocentric
Odonis Odonis - Post Plague
NIN - Not the Actual Events
Say Sue Me - Eponymous
Urge Overkill - Saturation
Goblin - Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork vinyl)

Card of the day:

Second or third time this one's come up in a week and I've figured it out. My journey is this purge. It's something else. And if sweet, sweet detritus like Urge Overkill floats to the surface for the first time in a while, all the better.

2018: March 15th 9:18 AM

Two years since Tom died. Remember that fucking Death card yesterday? How does this shit sneak up on me? I mean, I was anticipating the anniversary, but I didn't see it coming. I know that doesn't make sense, it's not even what I mean to say, it's just the only way I can think to say it. Tom, I miss You my friend. A lot.

Playlist from yesterday:
Blut Aus Nord - Memorium
Blut Aus Nord - MORT
Judas Priest - Painkiller
Faith No More - Angel Dust
The Birthday Party -
Bohren & Der Club of Gore - Gore Motel
The Cure - Collector's Curiosities Vol. 2 (Carnage Visors and Rarities)

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE on Joup.

Card for the day:

From the Grimoire: "Enlightenment. Joy, Revelation; Dance: The Triumph of the Spirit."

2018: March 14th 8:17 AM

Happy Birthday Jeremy Musica, wherever you are. Great bass work on this one mate! You are missed.



Playlist from yesterday:

Still going through that same mix from the 00s
Pallbearer - Foundations of Burden
Deftones - Gore
Eagulls - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Soul Coughing - El Oso

Card of the day:

Well, now that's interesting. For the record, sometimes I've already pulled my card of the day by the time I sit down to write these entries, but not today. You can see then why, even though this card is more about Change than it is Death, there's an eerie correlation with the way I began the post. Per the grimoire, "A necessary change of state, needed in order to advance." Again, I can't help but juxtapose that with the encroaching move of residence.

2018: March 13th 7:16 AM

Have already lost what was in my head upon waking, so here's something I found on an old mix disc from the mid-00's, another time period I'm working to recontextualize into my modern mindset.



I don't think I love the video - although I'm posting it, I still haven't actually watched it. If you can, maybe throw on headphones, close your eyes and just listen instead of watching. This really is a wonderful song, everything about it, from the lyrics, delivery and production right down to the restraint shown with the guitar.

Playlist from yesterday:

The aforementioned Mix disc, which contains a lot of 2007-2009 stuff I might list later.
Genghis Tron - Board Up the House (prompted by finding the track Arms on the disc)
Casket Lottery - Survival is for Cowards
The Antlers - Familiars
Monolord - Rust
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
Windhand - Split (their side of the 7" with Satan's Satyrs)
Goblin - George A. Romero's Dawn of the Dead OST (Waxwork edition - so cool!)

Here's the track that reminded me how much I love Genghis Tron:



Card of the day:

I feel like continually drawing such a great card is a beacon assuring me I am on the correct path. Every man and every woman, and all that. Thanks Aleister.

2018: March 12th 3:51 AM

It was kind of a restless night; we were woken up repeatedly by people in the courtyard/parking area just outside the bedroom window. I'm not going to complain, as this is obvious karmic penance for the old-school weed circle some of my guests on Saturday had going off and on until 3 or 4 in the morning. Usually, I pride myself on being a good neighbor (unless it's to women named Dorothy), but Saturday just veered out of my control. I think there's footage of me doing my DIO impersonation at, like, 11:00 PM. My DIO impression is LOUD. Sorry neighbors. I'm gone in under two weeks, and there's a lot of pent-up stress the alcohol released, so that's what happened. In the give-and-take of communal living, everyone gets a chance to be a dick, and everyone gets a chance at making amends. I'll have been here one month shy of 12 years, and in that time I've pretty much been good enough to have pre-mended anything bad I do, which is good because next Saturday is St. Paddy's. This is commonly a quieter affair: I make corned beef, drink Guinness and Bushmills, and we watch the best damn Irish mob movie ever, State of Grace. This time it just might go off with a little more gusto, because there's a bunch of people, myself included, that want to say goodbye to this place.

I keep referring to parties here, but that's not exactly true. What I host are movie nights. It's generally the same cast of characters every time: Ray, Kenta and Maddy, Robert, Alex, Shailesh, Jesus, Joe, with a few now-and-thens like Keller who attend as well. Generally, everyone arrives between 8 and 9, I cook or we order out, and then we commiserate for a bit, watch a movie, commiserate a bit, watch another movie. These are not parties, per se. Peppered throughout these I'll have a  party here and there, usually in honor of someone's birthday. I think the last rager I had was my divorce party (earned, believe me). This past Saturday though, on the surface a birthday party for Ray and Maddy, was part of a two-step goodbye. We'll all still be able to hang, just not at my place and specifically, not at this place, where I've hosted going on seven years. It's been special, and I think a lot of my attendees - many who are in their twenties and early thirties now - see this place as their first communal, hang-out place. So we have to send it off right.

Playlist from yesterday was super small. Spent a lot of great time with Keller working on out writing project, so music would have been a distraction to two of us so geared toward it.

Etta James - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Paul Zaza - My Bloody Valentine OST (Waxwork vinyl)

My copy of Waxwork's reissue of Goblin's score for George A. Romero's original Dawn of the Dead should arrive today. SO psyched. I didn't do the Waxwork subscription this year, as this is the only release of the five I HAD to have, and I bought my boss a copy as well because he just got a record player and loves old horror, so I thought it was an appropriate 'record player warming' gesture.

Card of the day:

I've always been interested in the reflection in this card. It may simply be a scaling issue, wanting to devote as much of the card's area to the image and thus compressing its mirror image, but it seems more to me like there's a distortion here. This is the watery aspect of water, so we're talking emotions on top of emotion. That can blur things a bit. Also, there's a lot of lunar influence in this card, the Ibis, the crayfish and of course the big ol' moon behind the queen, and moon affects the flow of water, i.e., the tide. It also affects our brains, i.e., lunatic. And being that either the time change, the cumulative stress of work and the encroaching move, and/or my sarcoidosis medication may or may not be disrupting my sleep (hence why I'm up at three something AM on a Monday before work writing this), I feel a bit loony of late.

2018: March 11th 11:34 AM

Waking up gently after a full-on rager last night. One party left; next week it's Guinness, Whiskey, Corned Beef in the Croc Pot and my annual State of Grace viewing.

Three folks who are near and dear to me have birthdays today. Happy Birthday.

Playlist yesterday was immense; I'll try to get it all but at some point it devolves into a song here and a song there:

NIN - The Downward Spiral
NIN - With Teeth
Screaming Females - All At Once
Dead Milkmen - Big Lizard in my Backyard
Violent Femmes - Eponymous
The Animals - Retrospective
Windhand/Satan's Satyrs - Split
Suburban Living - Video Love
Alabama Shakes - Sound and Color
ACDC - Highway to Hell
Dio - Holy Diver
Proto Radio Playlist (Phil Collins early stuff, Golden Earring, Red Rider, Don Henley)
David Bowie - Scary Monsters (and Super Freaks)
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
King Woman -Created in the Image of Suffering
King Woman - I Wanna Be Adored
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Grimes - Art Angels
Drab Majesty - The Demonstration

Card for the day:

So I'm going on a journey, eh? A journey to... Redondo Beach!

2018: March 10th 11:05 AM

Starting today with Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral because Katie did it for the Joup Friday Album last night and I didn't get a chance to listen to it then.




Filming for Drinking w/ Comics #40 went fantastic - our little comic book reading session at Mike's the night before helped facilitate a show where for an hour and some chance we actually spent pretty much the entire time talking about comics! Should be up in about a week.

Playlist from yesterday:

Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
The Horrors - Primary Colours
Darkness Brings the Cold - Devil Swank, Vol. 1

Second to last party ever in my pad will happen tonight as I host a birthday party for two dear friends. Next week is my annual St. Paddy's, week after I turn 42 and move for the first time in 11 years and 11 months (remind me to tell you about my 111/1111 thing sometime).

Card for the day:

Strength, stability. Stable material balance. All good signs of things to come based on the outcome from our endeavors (K's more than mine - she really busted her ass on getting us the new place). 

2018: March 9th 7:37 AM

Wonderful night last night. After our move, we will live extremely close to both Mike and Chris from DwC, and in celebration of that we implemented a new, Night Before the show Reading Circle. Mike had us all over for a wonderful dinner and then we sat around and traded off the comics we were itching to talk about on tonight's show. This is a first and Mike gets full credit for the idea  - we always bring a bunch of disparate books to the table and that helps lead the discussions astray. Hopefully this will put us all on the same page. We'll be live on the Drinking with Comics facebook page tonight at 9:00 PM PST, so if you're not doing anything, drop by. One of the books we'll be discussing is a last minute edition to the stack and in two days turned into my most eagerly anticipated book so far this year:

From Image Comics.com:

"The lives of a reclusive young man obsessed with a conspiracy in the city's trash, and a washed-up Catholic priest arriving in a small town full of dark secrets become intertwined around the mysterious legend of The Black Barn, an otherworldly building that is alleged to have appeared in both the city and the small town, throughout history, bringing death and madness in its wake. Rural mystery and urban horror collide in this character-driven meditation on obsession, mental illness, and faith." From Image Comics.com



Sounds very "weird fiction" and that's my current wheelhouse, so I'm very much in.


Playlist from yesterday:

Converge - The Dusk in Us
Monolord - Rust
Teenage Wrist - Chrome Neon Jesus
Queens of the Stone Age - Villains
Ludwig van Beethoven - King Stephen Overture OP 117
Joseph Haydn - Violin Concerto #4 in G

Card for the day:

"The Path to Enlightenment is about to become easier." - hanging out in my new neighborhood last night gave both K and I an enormous sense of happiness. There will now be time for so much more, Art, Love, and definitely Enlightenment. Another card tapping me on the shoulder, letting me know I'm on the right path. Accordingly, I can't help but also draw the juxtaposition with Crowley's maxim: "Every Man and Every Woman is a Star." Crowley had his more than fair share of BS, but he was a prophet to some degree, a human who communed with great, cosmic truths (when, to paraphrase a quote by Peter J. Carroll, he wasn't trying for your arse and your wallet) and that, well, that's one of his most important sentiments.

2018: March 8th 8:35 AM

New Ministry. I don't know how much I like it yet, but kudos to Uncle Al for doing something sonically different. Also, the mouth harp reminds me of their Lay Lady Lay cover, which I'm a big fan of.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous
Simple Minds - Life in a Day
Nevermen - Eponymous
Monolord - Rust
Afghan Whigs - In Spades
Deee-lite - Dewdrops in the Garden

New Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up HERE, on Joup.

Card of the day:

Now that the big question is resolved, it's time to get back to the ART.

2018: March 7th 10:55 AM

Playlist from yesterday:

Godflesh - In All Languages (disc 2)
Monolord - Rust
The Mutants - Your Desert My Mind
The Rolling Stones - Beggar's Banquet
The Jesus Lizard - Goat
The Birthday Party - Mutiny/The Bad Seed

Card of the day:

"A Positive Result dependent on the actions taken by the Querent." Fitting. We got the place!

Zeal and Ardor Off The Road Sessions

I almost forgot how much I love this band. WHEN NEW MUSIC????

2018: March 6th 4:34 AM

On repeat, in my head, all night long. Awesome song, and more than a little weird when you arrive at Eric Burdon doing that creepy falsetto thing:



Playlist from yesterday:

Godflesh - In All Languages (disc #2)
The Smiths - Strangeways, Here We Come
The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers
Cream - Disraeli Gears
The Rolling Stones - Beggars Banquet
Faith No More - Angel Dust
Budos Band - Burnt Offerings
Somnium Nox - Apocrypha
Seedna - Forlorn

I was interested to receive a notification from Apple Music yesterday that the new Teenage Wrist, Chrome Neon Jesus (damn, isn't that just a fantastic title?) dropped yesterday. I like that they did it on Tuesday, the day music used to drop. Now, I'm not certain if that's an industry-wide thing, as in the digital still utilizes Tuesdays as the release date and the physical media uses Friday, but ever since albums began to be released on Fridays I became a little sad. I always liked having Tuesdays as a free-floating island for new album releases, just to give an otherwise deadlocked day in the midst of the five-day quagmire something to shine for. Then again, how often is it possible I go out on any day to pick up new music these days, what with so few record stores left? (Mental note - I really need to get back down to Fingerprints in Long Beach soon).

Card of the day:

From the Grimoire: "Indicates you are in charge of the way your life is unfolding. Striking the harmonic resonance that sees events occur as we would like them to. Planning; thoughtfulness; mojo."

At this point I'm finding it hard to make anything useful; there's one big question on my mind, "Will we get the new place," and as the delay in the answer seems to drag on it causes these daily correspondences to seem pointless. That said, it occurs to me now they have all been positive, except for last Friday, March 2nd's Five of Swords: Defeat, which seen in the current context was probably my portent that I would be suffering through this delay. In keeping with the otherwise positive string of cards, they're actually comforting to me now, as I work this out while I write this and realize the cards have all been breadcrumbs leading to good news we will hopefully receive early today.

2018: March 5th 7:37 AM

Haunted by this song the last two days. It feels amazing to have something like this happen in the age of Apple Music, everything available right now, all the time. Bear with me a bit and I'll explain.



Saturday was a long work day in the midst of 12 days of work in a row. I did about 10 hours and then drove home. We made dinner and then watched Veronica on Netflix. Not bad. Reticent to forfeit the opportunity for a late night I pushed on to another flick, even as K fell asleep on the couch beside me. I'd been trying to watch the Silent Hill adaptation for a few weeks but never finding the time, so I figured this was perfect. I had a pretty good buzz and felt fatigue move through my muscles, so I popped the top on another can of Sierra Nevada and attempted to follow the characters down the rabbit hole into a creepy West Virginia mining town...

I made it through about half the flick and then woke up just as the ending credits began to roll. the Song above immediately caught my ear; at first I thought it was simply because it has that almost ineffable, defeated sound that a lot of songs in the 00's had - a sort of sonic malaise that I believe rolled in on the tide of the first wave of popular musicians and producers raised on prescription 'mood' altering drugs. I sat up and used shazm to identify it, then realized that there was another, stronger and more direct connection to the song. See, back in the early 00s I was still a bartender in Chicago, and every Wednesday night my friend's Brown and Chris would come up and hang out at the bar until I got off. At about 1:30 AM I'd head over to Chris's and we'd continue drinking, Brown would normally start in on some making some food (the man is a divine chef) and Chris and I would usually spend an hour or two playing Dance Dance Revolution. I know - it's weird that in my late 20s, as a Southside of Chicago musician in a metal band, I spent at least one night a week, every week, playing DDR. What can I say? I loved it.

A lot of the music on the game is poppy J- or Euro Dance. Not really my thing, but I could always find some songs that I liked on each of the games. Sitting there on the couch Saturday night, hearing this song for the first time in well over ten years I was immediately thrown back to the way that I felt in the 00s - which probably not through coincidence was my own tired, malaise. I've since tried to locate this one on Apple Music, but despite there being several Silent Hill Soundtracks, this song is vacant.

So it's haunting me. Where normally when I become stuck on/obsessed with a song I just listen to it over and over for a few days, with this I can only listen to it on youtube, so it's creating scarcity, and that scarcity is making the song an event.

It's nice; nostalgic in a way, a throw-back to the days when music was not as easy to come by, when I had to save up the money to go out and buy the album, then listen to it when I had the Tape/CD player available.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - eponymous
High On Fire - Luminiferous
Deee-Lite - Dewdrops in the Garden
Godflesh - In All Language (disc 2)

Card of the day:

Ace of Cups: Good news later today? I'll let you know.

Drinking w/ Comics: Nick Cave Mercy on Me by Reinhard Kleist

A short clip (that was all I could cull from the massive cluster of the previous DwC, short clips. If you're curious why, follow us on facebook, scroll down a few posts from the present and see how much of the 3 hour feed from that night you can get through. Hint: Shit gets really bizarre about an hour and seven minutes in. Just saying.) wherein I talk about Reinhard Kleist's BRILLIANT Nick Cave Graphic Novel Biography, Mercy on Me:



New episode coming this Friday, March 9th at 9:00 PM PST. Topics I'm going to attempt to discuss:

2018: March 4th 8:01 PM

No idea what was in my head when I woke up this morning, if anything. This is rounding out the night though:

Long work weekend. Came home a little while ago - it was a nice drive in Los Angeles. Let me say that again, just to savor the feeling of typing eight words that almost never appear together:

It. Was. A. Nice. Drive. In. Los. Angeles.

Low traffic and I was able to mellow into several iterations of my favorite Godflesh song:

Drove slow, absorbing the night. Yeah, I copped a little buzz from my one hitter before hitting the street, it helped ease me into what I'd hoped, a nice, fluid drive; a near hypnagogic state. I can't go there too often these days. It conflicts with the writing. Nice to revisit it from time to time, need to try to do so once a week or so.

Playlist from yesterday:

Shrinebuilder - Eponymous

The Soft Moon - Criminal

David Bowie - Hunky Dory

David Bowie - Heroes

David Lynch - The Big Dream

Dave Brubeck - Time Out

Ghost - Infestissumam

Alabama Shakes - Sound & Color

Sade - iTunes Essentials

No card today.

2018: March 3rd 6:38 AM

Woke up with this dirge by Windhand in my head:



Playlist from yesterday:

Sleep - Dopesmoker*
Monolord - Vaenir
High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Monolord - Rust

*On my iPod; trying to fill in the holes only knowing it on vinyl has left me with.

Card of the day:

See, with one big question in my life right now, one big change that is pending and taking a very long time to play out for answers, it has become extremely frustrating to do these pulls everyday. Yeah, I know Change is coming, I just need it to arrive already.

2018: March 2nd 6:08 PM

This is late compared to how I've been posting here. Long day.

This week I'm filling in for KJVM on the Joup Friday Album. This installment's a bit of a departure for me. Read it HERE and welcome the weekend in with a theatrically evil 80s Metal icon, for better or for worse.

Playlist from yesterday seems 100,000,000 light years away, and I didn't take very good notes, so here goes from memory:

High On Fire - The Art of Self Defense
Sleep - Volume 1
High On Fire - Luminiferous
High On Fire - Blessed Black Wings
Sleep - Dopesmoker (Vinyl, which alters the experience by having to flip the side four times and remove and replace one record with another once)
Preoccupations - Eponymous
Type O Negative - Life is Killing Me

Was March 1st national Matt Pike day? Seems like it might have been.



Card of the day for today, which might be viewed a moot point at 6:16 PM, however you can learn a lot about Divination from reverse-engineering a draw:

From the Grimoire: Will indicate failing to achieve a goal. Paired with the 8 or 9 of Swords (which I did, drew two more cards and one was Interference) may indicate treachery. Or "Won't get the job." Hopefully that's not pointing toward the apartment we just applied for.

2018: March 1st

February's final playlist:

Deftones - B-Sides and Rarities
The Animals - Retrospective
The Soft Moon - Criminal
The Soft Moon - Deeper
Slayer - Seasons in the Abyss
Brian Eno - Here Come the Warm Jets
Deafheaven - Roads to Judah
Deafheaven - Sunbather
Grand Duchy - Petit Fours
The Soft Moon - Eponymous

The new Drinking, Fighting, F*&king, and Crying is up. Click this big ol' Red thing HERE to read it on Joup.

Card of the day:

Not a lot in the Grimoire on this one. This is one of two cards I've always gone back and forth associating with someone from my past. That's problematic though; you can't assign one card to represent people. Two? Maybe. So what's that telling me? Nothing, really. Not on that track. In other interpretations I'd have to say the Wand of Earth is telling me to watch my money, which is in flux at the moment, which is being pulled in several directions: a hefty tax bill, the imminent move, and a rather large, long-term investment. All that said, I think the Princess here is telling me to act with conviction when the time is right and not be afraid to fork down the green.