Lunacy, masses smashed by a holy shit, or, almost twenty-five years of DSM-IV no. 295

Not until Halloween eve, officially, but since, A, this is the only sorta-finished draft in the queue, & B, I'm tired of this thus cleaning said queue out, here you go you undemanding non-metallic weenies. Today's socioeconomic lesson courtesy of Kerrang. Or Aardschok, Rip, I can't remember. Ain't gonna get them from a high school textbook, then, or now. Seems that Brazil circa Italia '90 was, sadly to middle class suburban morons like yours truly, more than joga bonito & bikinis, & after reading both a glowing bit on Beneath the Remains [ed. note: hagiography ain't new, kids, but is occasionally spot on], & an ad for the Roadrunner reissue of Schizophrenia -- Now With A Rerecording of Troops of Doom!, I got Perry's Rockpile [ed. note: RIP] to double my ordering pleasure. Jesus H. Cthulhu, all my stories are over twenty years old. Adult Randal is as milquetoast as the Beatles. [ed. note: stuff your vapors, I don't care]
 
Metallica was the template for musical swank in days of yore, so pressing play of course meant being lulled into false security 'fore chromaticism tore the goddamn heads off those within earshot, Psycho shower scene screech backward masked, or in Portuguese, or backward masked Portuguese. The whole platter has a weird, The Who-in-catacomb clarity contra the lo-fi, lo-budget muck of the visceral debut, hammered home via the triptych of From the Past Comes the Storms,

To the Wall (whose scaling runs wink & nod towards Ride the Lightning's colossal House of Hammett title track), Escape to the Void, all nearly as unbreakable as anything the so-called Big Four had yet conjured. Can you believe some folks actually tried to convince me that if I wanted to get my rage on, I should be spinning The Motherfucking Clash? Fuck off.

"Brains of armed lives hidden in pits." Such ESL fuckups are endearing, especially in light of my continued foreign language failures, though there's also the Byronic "the rose's smell corrodes me" of the machine gun R.I.P. (Rest In Pain) that concludes with a few measures of The Daring Young Man on the Flying Trapeze crashing through Marshalls.

There's nothing about love &/or bunga bunga on this record but there are cyclones of USDA grade A riffs, the essential ingredient in thrash, a spasmodic reaction to the symptoms of perceived, wish-fulfillment apocalypse: the proliferation of computer gizmos; war transmogrified from smokestacks, cattle cars, & black-and-white human pain to out-of-sight, out-of-mind video game remote controlling; the ubiquitous nuke. See: Nuclear Assault, Napalm Death, Killing Technology, etc.

Bay Area redux: new axman Andreas Kisser playing the Cliff Burton role in elevating the band beyond thrash and thrash alone -- in fairness, the immature Morbid Visions can't hold a candelabra to Kill 'Em All, one of the ten best power chorders ever. Even the cover's dominant color in each case shifts from red to blue, jumping out of the fire & into an eerie, otherworldly undercurrent. To further strain the mock parallelogram, both bands' fifth album was viable, if commercial, though let us temporarily shelve our aspersion casting & pretend 1996 never happened, dwelling instead on the ear-opening Inquisition Symphony,

seven-plus minutes of instrumental fanfare for the common hesher, proving that grime-proboscised punks from crime- & poverty-stricken Belo Horizonte could hold their own with any metal band on the planet. Check the genuine Lovecraftian creep of Screams Behind the Shadows -- or to be precise, the initial riff. Each smorgasbord has a baker's dozen of the goddamn things, so many that I could start pedaling & match local landmarks, such as they were, with each riff change, Dark Side of the Moon holding hands with Wizard of Oz before I had even heard of such dorm room occupations.

Septic Schizo Max was possessed. "Jackhammer" is among the most cliche metal writing adjectives, but the next time there's midday orange barreling, pay attention & spin this, or this. That's the rhythm, only now with the faint dweomer of death metal. So, of course the gentle, Bert Jansch-esque Kisser interlude The Abyss makes perfect sense, the calm before the double-barreled Venom storm.

Maybe Beneath the Remains and Arise are "better," but what the fuck does that even mean? There are a million fine sounding bands in the world, but they don't all bring you riffs at work. Most of them just HM-2 you. Find it at your local record shop then go away.

The League of (the same ole) Nations

♪ Predictions, predictions, roly poly predictions, eat them up, yum ♫

The first week of the fall semester: nothing is a finer reminder of just how much I really loathe other humans man you fuckers are annoying. How about doing something for yourself, disorganized space cadets. Now, on to more important things, namely humans I don't have to interact with, ever.

Disclaimer: if you're looking for analysis with depth, I'm sure there's an expert who shacks up with the devil in the deep blue Marianas Trench.

A: Anyone-But-PSG, & all former Yugos suck, thus Porto & Dynamo Kiev.
B: ARSENE! &, since Giroud's gone, a Raul-less Schalke, I guess.
C: Milan is lucky. Them & Zenit, especially if Hulk bixbys over.
D: HA HA CITY HA HA. Fucking Madrid & Borussia.
E: Fucking Chelsea & a sack of cheaters (everyone in the Oakland Raiders of footie leagues cheats)
F: FC Hollywood & Valencia.
G: Celtic, you're fucked. Enjoy the cash. B & B.
H: If Man U fucks this up, time to toss SAF in a peat bog.

This year's APOEL: bet there ain't one.

Sweet love my labor

Darkthronin', drinkin', prestidigitatin', & a bunch o' other things that end with n or are at least consonance-adjacent save conversatin' 'cause you know. Tried & true has left me blue. Period. Art jokes aren't as funny as bar jokes. Just watch. 

Gauguin, Carvaggio, Mauve, & Van Gogh walk into a bar. The latter says, "friend, Roman, countryman, lend me an ear." 

HOT TOMATOES A' FLYIN'.

An other bunch o' other things going on, but check the header. I can't fix yours, you can't fix mine. Need a fix o' something. This post is very leprechauny. Perhaps some perhaps imminent vegemite might help?



All this serious is seriously egadsing my soule's intestinal tract.

Magic 8-ball says

Masks

Masaka is waking.

Lock up, clock out, scour European scores, predict who's getting nodded out of the pile of part time outfielders & corner men for a league I'm doing terrific in but care very little about, the exact opposite of black notebook stuff. Non, black codex stuff 'cause each page holds alchymick formulae -- that sputter, fizzle, & a bunch of other adjectives for frustrating incompetence.

Nyet, today (Saturday to thee & me) I'm going to clock out then kill the time twixt (un mot juste) the Slab & the Wheelie Bus that won't get back to Parmastan till past seven by sunning the carefully-placed cobwebs away, curbs tattooed with grimy perspiration as I get the gun get the gun shoot shoot shoot. I'm no TD Jakes, but I do sweat, which is why I would love Oslo whether it was full of snow & darkness & Neseblod Records or not but I'm glad that it is, not that I'll ever get there but at least it's on the shortlist which is more than most cities can brag I'm looking at you, Los Angeles.

So this new move, as small as it appears, is the first, likely temporary if I know me & I do much to my chagrin, crack in the big black monolith of routine, soon to reveal no new life signs, HAL. The air sags with moisture, concrete, & the incontrovertible fact that the self is the one person we cannot escape.

Comfort, cold or an étant occupé, isn't always gold but is the only thing that is always. Silence isn't either. Beyond this wall of sleep, speak dead speaker, beyond dead city centres, though I much prefer their funnier, kvlter old stuff, folk kveldssanger, too, smoking just like those bookend scours about wolves.



I blinde gaar jeg/Redd meg, ikke/La natten føre meg/Bestandig? Ha. I'm not fooled. As for new developments the lizard Shelley childishly perceives as brazen, I wait to hear a distracting pop song, people pinballing past, people about whose carnival I wonder, whether their frolic & shield is dis/similar to mine, yes even those feline-chapeau baroque off in the distance, forgetting that not all ears get one.

These posts, so grandiloquent in the synapse, quickly peter out like a dying Perseid you know is still there but that naked glass can no longer see, its wretched end forgotten the moment beautiful sparks evaporate in a city's overwhelming artificial light like a house in the Nevada Proving Grounds after a hundred kiloton test. (This image would work better later in the year when it's actually dark this early, I know.) The corner of the eye, having cocooned something terrible flapping in the breeze, readjusts. It turns out to only be the circle, recoiling. Stretching it to gather contact only leads to further getting burned.

Tomorrow at 4:30, ringing will reawaken reanimation.

People get ready, there's a new semester

Darkthroning, like graffiti, jaywalking, sidewalk chalk art, and bus people, kills

Since darkthroning in the city is so dangerous,* I decided last eve to troo kvlt with the SBH twixt trees & trolls & yeah actions incongruous but you try toting both a viking axe & berserker rage over the concrete of your burg, smart guy/gal. Even Olaf would be taken down by a .45.

First these guys, then those sneaky sciuridae.

I suppose that you're hungry, too.

The spinner of this probably is. Better call Shatner.

Close enough. No killer frogs, though.

Aren't they cute? You shut up, you know who you are.

Wish I had gotten a better perspective; this sucker was mighty ominous.

As ominous as the lowest water level I've seen in a good while.

Scanning for suckers? St. Francis of the Squirrels is not fooled.

One bit, two bits, orb-its, a dollar.

Even the trees have Reflective Powers.

For they too know that Roots sucks.

Add a corpse, some ravens, B&W it, et voila, black metal album cover.

Canopy jar.

Artsy nouveau.

Every town has one.


*since we oft stroll near there, I or my ghost will let you know if we get plugged

It's none of your business if my laziness has been enabled

Tyre! Tyre! burning bright in the suburbs of the night

The piece of shit can't actually traverse Routes 66, 666, or n.

A nail, nay, a screw, lay deep inside the rubber.

Lest ye thinketh this post is très sexy, 'twas only the catalyst for dropping off the wizard jeep, trudging with the SBH back chez Randal, waiting for five lousy minutes for the workingman to herald a fresh, shiny finish at least I got the dishes done, & trudging back, the damn sun out the whole time I hate getting all sweaty & grimy but verily, a necessitie in shewing evasion to both this shambler from beyond the stars

& the interwebs which saveth me from being the 14,346,193rd comment on [insert Issue of the Hour here] because if I can't convince you to spend valuable time listening to Emperor, what chance do I have with anything unimportant?

Go forth & multiply slack.

Blah v aw yiss, or, is this thing on?

Ye Olde Ænglisc footie starts in the morn [ed. note: en plus, the Slab is closed, not permanently, sadly, not that my bank account heralds future world traveler], a boon for this bane of sociability. I should just fatten up & grow a mountainous beard already. No peaks 'round here, though plenty of valleys badoomboom, & since I can't swing that local abode graced with a Wizard Tower, murky meditation 'tis twixt ventures midst sky & wilderness masquerading as steel & glass. If I play my sorcery right, perhaps a foray into grass.

No, I'll wait for the obligatory pot jokes though I don't mean that at all.

Done? Good. Title tip: don't lay any quatloos on West Ham. Mmmm, ham.

Dusty, musty, and poorly lit

What else would the playlist be whilst squaring secrets?

Don't be so shallow, circling sea, there's no incongruity.

[find a title, nothing too clever]

 





















Not pictured: the Towering Slab.

Mission accomplished. Nephew's getting his baptism on this Sunday, thankfully after footie 'cause I'm selfish like that, which would probably prompt vapors from certain faux Springsteenian working class technocrats who fear Pagans of Distinction catching the Jesus bug yeah I'm looking at you; 'tis about time for a new one-act demanded by no one save yours truly & the Duchess who, being out of towne, cannot assist said truly with working out said interior guffaws in the classroom we call the Slab; & a third thing, a Bloody, inexorable Thing of sepulchral blackness v. rapturous white so unmentionable & unkillable that I cannot mention it here, there, & everywhere except on a Saturnian satellite, probably not Titan because I can't skate.

On the other hand, tomorrow is a holy day of obligation, i.e. "free" food.
On the other other hand, Worldcat is a steaming fecal landfill.
On the other other other rapidly hydra'd hand, look outside. 



Rain! Gloom! Yippee!

Never look a gift otyugh in the mouth seriously don't, or, talk to the hand

TPK dungeon mapping, here I come.
Holy shit, this flick can no longer be trusted.

And to all the corruption in my hands

Caution: contains electric guitars.

No Beard of Wisdom? Fret not, mon frère:

Spouting out some philosophy like it means a damn thing. 
-- Jack the beardless barkeep 

Anyone can be s-m-r-t. Anyway, replace philosophy with phantasm -- not this one, scram, Scrimm, but cavalcades of soporific F sounds that dream of landing oft in Nod, F off. Those who are lavish in happiness: the abnormally lucky, the terminally oblivious. For the rest, we float where the waves aren't relentless, nor even choppy. Still the boat bobs & weaves & you can even pick out moments of old leather comfort: paying the controlled lightning bolt bill in order to type this crap & spelunking in the freezer for the fabled pizza roll. Reflective powers, activate(d)! Alter a word or a line of a long-dormant corpse, & see it in a whole new necromancy, at least until it's dragged into the light. Brand spanking fresh is just a trick of the Kafka.

Banalities foreign & domestic, notebooks & pathways of mock Technicolor explosions of those few hundred tubes of the same hue; clearing away this logarithmic logorrhea is the Chance card to clarity. These last few pages are a motherfucker, though, blank & ogling me with a sneer as I try to collect & Go away. Once upon a time I think I composed over a photo of berries. Displacing the beast of gawked hack, that was nice. The possibilities are as endless as my easily distracted zest for legerdemain -- for is not the blood the phantom zone to the intellect's General Zod?

[ed. note: those of you inclined towards prayer, tear someone's heart out for the Duchess, who, as the only other permanent member of the Esoteric Order of St. Drogo's security council, is cursed to occasionally be within earshot of my outerweb self-absorptions; you fools can simply stop reading & furthermore, if you parse this only literally, you know what you are. Qualifications are long-winded, thus, boring; ask the members of CONCACAF]

Complexities are birthed in fictions' bubbling trouble, yet attempts are increasingly too tired to design anything of candor; think 4e v. the elegant simplicity of old school stat blocks. So, an overdue reevaluation: if here & there weren't just charades -- driving, a driver, dancing, no, diving underneath flying clots of darkness, no, it's hopscotch, stupid -- & the lint don't forget the lint, maybe it would mean a damn thing but like the Important Things, it's unimportant. I blame Loki, you measured bastard, you.



Caution: contains really loud electric guitars.

Instead of Vertebrae on the Ruun, I'd rather be on Eld.

Badoomboom, tumbleweed. HUMOR IST KRIEG.

Have your cake and choke on it, too

'tis her birthing day, start gifting, nothing from Ronco, thanks, but some reading comprehension for uploaders might be nice.

Stupid un-troo 80s hats, a shield wall against listening, though with Reflective Powers comes Spidey sense. Example: post-Tanya's the better material. Sorry kids, & better late than never, thanks, homie.

Issue number six: now available, the old leather comfort (& excuse, & crutch) of routine, now with a dash of oregano those pesky morals! Rumors of a purple lotus ring have been greatly exaggerated. Supplies are unlimited!

Normally, this is where I'd place the navel lint, but today's batch looks suspiciously like the last batch, all frazzled & silent screaming like a vine strangled charcoal.

At least the local sports teams still suck. Wait.

You win again, gravity!

Postcards from the edge of hell

WE SEEK PEACEFUL COEXISTENCE

I warned ya. Though the official anniversary isn't until September, officially. Yet, since I do indeed have nothing else & I'd much rather talk Trek than the toxic strains of both news feedery & personalized jibber-jabberwocky interesting to no one, I present the wonder years & her slow creep of understanding: the world is a beautiful box sadly overstuffed with fuckers hemorrhaging cataracts of yellow & black bile, so let us hike away to the pleasant melodies of tunes, teevee, & trashing troglodytes. Some old geeks swear by TOS; a worthy choice, but for us not-entirely-greys, it was Gene's second (third, if we're counting the aborted Phase II) stab at interstellar futurama that fit the playbill.

To counter every

Space Irish

Space Beethoven

or The Worst™ introduction of an alien race in the history of science fiction either televised or in print go on find something more wretched I challenge thee [ed. note: you'll notice that I left out Flying Troi and The Where Are Yous, you're welcome], dig this baker's dozen plus one. A few favorites, yes. The best, perhaps, perhaps not. Hate them? You've got a blog, use it.

The Measure of a Man. Is Data one of us or no? This could have been so fucking heavy handed. It wasn't, & wouldn't work with Kirk who'd take a swing at Maddox, missing due to an uncomfortably crooked girdle, unable to do anything but watch helplessly as Starfleet trekked the android away to disassembly.

Accept the superiority of The Picard & move on.

The Best of Both Worlds, parts I & II. Once upon a time, I was a geek with skill. Now I'm just a geek with slack. Anyway, during the summer twixt junior & senior year of high schoolin', I was enrolled in a three-week computer class at Ohio State (stick your The, as tired as this guy using SOMETHING IST KRIEG) where, when not getting figuratively slaughtered by kind Middle Eastern kids at footie [ed. note: a clever ploy at imposing Sharia law I'm onto you] & hanging out for hours inside Magnolia Thunderpussy dissecting the merits of A Farewell to Kings & Show No Mercy, we butchered at birth bits of Fortran.

That Cramps poster was spooky, but their tunes sure as hell weren't.

Whilst my roomie was off somewhere making out with the RA assigned to the chick half of our gang, us less handsome devils, including Pink Floyd (no one, no one, boomer or otherwise, was as obsessed with that band as much as this guy) & Lou Reed (cool dude, especially since he, unknowingly, introduced me to the vast overrated-nesse of his last great American whale. Belated thanks) & some of the young ladies who weren't totally repulsed by us, gathered in our RA's room to watch the season three cliffhanger. The return of the Borg, manly man Riker poker faced by a woman, & Locutus? Game, set, & match.

After coming down from a rousing chorus of holy fuck what the fuck just happened, we preceded to watch Major League & drink beer.

Sins of the Father. I never kill anyone at the supper table, either, Kurn. Season one Worf was merely a vehicle designed to alternate growls & overreactions. Now he's the coolest mofo around.

Sarek. The title character cried during a performance of Brahms' sextet in B-flat. So did I, but then I'm not a Vulcan. Nyah nyah nyah. Good on Angry Wesley's dig at Angry Geordi being the most hapless guy around the ladies this side of M-33.

Family. As everyone knows, Patrick Stewart owns. When he's paired with a supporting actor who can match his intensity, that's happy fun Halloween candy.


 

Redemption, parts I & II. A situation that required a more Klingon response. Not entirely sold on Sela's backstory, but fisticuffs, Romulan intrigue, righteous Klingon rage, the return of Gowron & Kurn, Data putting the command smackdown on a punkass Timothy Carhart? Let the good times roll.


 

A Matter of Honor. Speaking of Klingons, let's practice our growling. Saved Riker's bacon, & it'll save yours during that next staff meeting.

 

All Good Things... If Not Fade Away is the greatest series send-off ever, & it is, this is a close second (probably along with this I don't care about Newhart or The Wire, thus). Oodles of all-over-the-map, Q, & though emotion-chipped Data grates, this is how you do a finale.

Yesterday's Enterprise. Yeah, it's on every goddamn list, & for good reason. Time travel is incredibly easy to monkey wrench, but when you don't, & toss a hefty dollop of emotional sprinkles on top, delicious & nutritious.

 

Conspiracy. More X-Files than Kolchak ever was, just as ridiculous as the latter, though stumbling across the Horatio's remains so soon was pretty unsettling. Dig those alien FX, a Satanic, melted Fraggle goof-thing but lordy, that hideous death yelp. But [SPOILER ALERT] what a missed opportunity in never following up.

 

The Offspring. Data builds kid, The Man wants kid ['cause Data ain't human, pay attention], kid dies. Maudlin? Try moving, you heartless sack of rocks. Fuck off.

Chain of Command, parts I & II. I'm not gonna do the THERE ARE FOUR LIGHTS schtick. Shit. Still, Ronny Cox does dueling superiority/inferiority complexes with gusto, & David Warner's suavely sadistic.

Q Who. Once upon a time, there was no spandexed Jeri Ryan, no B-movie Borg Queen, only the bleakness of technosingularity robotnik circuiterianism.
  

Elementary, Dear Data. Yeah, yeah, easy to potshot the very notion of the holodeck, but I like Data, I like Sherlock Holmes, & this is a fun 45 minutes. Plus, Pulaski's a curmudgeon & that always gets bonus points with yours truly.

Live long & prosper far off my lawn.

It's an inanimate carbon rod's world

This afternoon, the glitterati shall present the First Eighth beats me Annual Towering Slab Award for Outstanding Achievement in the Field of Excellence. On a completely unrelated bit of current workplace yahooery, the sludge at the bottom of the cup, i.e. folks like yours truly, doth chortle at an excerpt from an actual internal email:

In doing this, we also are simplifying the policy on policies. We will retain a staff wide review of all proposed policies prior to implementation and, as always, staff can also suggest new policies. [REDACTED] will be sending the proposed new “policy on policies” out soon. And, just to clarify, we really can’t have “policies” with Board of Trustee approval, so most of what we are talking about will not be Policy, but rather policies, procedures, guidelines, rules, etc., but NOT Board approved Policy.

Gonna cleanse the Metal approved brain not with "maiden" but Maiden.