I was trying to write a witty joke comparing Scientology with an implausible amalgamation of the Stalin-era Soviet Union, Nazi Germany, New Age hucksters, and anything else that sounded good, but I'll be damned if the joke doesn't write itself.

Go read Andy's newest, and incredibly good, work in progress.

Christmas has come and gone, and it was good. Not ideal, since my folks aren't in the country and I have to go back to work tomorrow, but there's no point in complaining. I enjoyed the company of good people, including some I haven't seen in a while, received some excellent gifts, and gave some gifts of my own, which I think people liked. Thanks to everyone who made Christmas what it was.

While life is good, I've had a very uneasy feeling all night. I'm sure it'll pass, but man, I wish it would hurry up about it. I'd also like to pinpoint what's causing it, but that's not likely, so I think I'll just read.

2L45 AM on Christmas Day.

I wish all of you, and the world beyond, an exceptional Christmas. Enjoy your time while you can, fellow wageslavesl

While barely resembling any of the Christmases of my past, I think this year's celebration is off to a good start. You can't beat getting off of work two hours early, coming home, drinking beer, enjoying some burl sense, hanging out with friends, getting good emails, waxing emotional over music, daydreaming, watching the X-Files, eating homemade meatloaf and macaroni and cheese, and falling asleep on the couch.

N.B. I'm only falling asleep on the couch- and not getting up at eight or nine in the morning, because I often fall asleep on the couch and have to move myself into my room- because I can't afford to miss the UPS delivery tomorrow. There are some Christmas gifts in there for some pretty worthwhile folks, and like any sane person, I don't want to drive thirty minutes out of my way to pick them up next week.

Take it easy, folks, and should you not hear from me in person, or read this anytime soon, Merry Christmas and happy holidays. Revel in the company of your loved ones, friends, and family.

-Dave

Feel like writing or receiving an honest-to-God, pen-and-paper letter? Then give me your address, and I'll give you mine, with the condition that we at least send out the occasional postcard with more than a dozen words scrawled upon it. I miss written correspondence, especially of the lengthy variety.

(Thanks to H.P. Lovecraft and company for renewing my long-quiet interest in letters.)

I've got four separate packages heading my way, all of which have been shipped and none of which have arrived. Given that only one of these packages contains anything for myself, I am especially annoyed that none of them are here yet. The time of year probably has something to do with the tardiness of my mail, but should Friday arrive and I am still empty-handed, I am going to be very angry at the USPS and UPS.

Let's hope that people decide to lay off advertising in the Greensheet this week, at least a little bit. I don't feel like devoting much of my time and energy to work, which, of course, should come as no surprise, but people should also sit back and enjoy what passes for a Christmas holiday among non-students.

Bare-Faced Messiah, the less than glowing biography of L. Ron Hubbard, just gets more and more interesting- and incredible. The things that people will (or will not) do for a charismatic fellow man are astonishing, sometimes revoltingly so.

Some statements:

Sometimes my nocturnal schedule is perfect, in that I am usually guaranteed time alone after everyone else retires for the night.

The girl who works at Nan's is cute as hell and I want to ask her out.

My friends are top-notch.

The Animatrix puts forth all the good ideas that the Matrix films failed to capitalize on or ignored entirely.

Ulver is perfect night music.

Somehow, without the knowledge of a future Pete, I managed to obtain this brief interview with myself at the age of 75. Actually, Pete might know about it, but since he's busy living his mid-21st century life, he probably just didn't get around to letting us in the present in on the discovery.

The interviewer isn't mentioned by name, so I've designated him "I" for simplicity's sake. Here goes.

--

I: So, Dave, how's life?

Dave: Man, I'm tired. Being old is an ass-kicker, and I reckon I've still got another seventy-five years or so before I call it a day. Damn.

I: Seventy-five? I know life extension's come a long way, but that's still pretty impressive. Do you foresee the current generation living to 200 or longer?

Dave: This has nothing to do with life extension, and I stopped paying attention to what's going on with younger folks after some little shit sent me a bomb back in '36. He apparently wasn't too happy that I wasn't writing very much, so he sent me a Hickory Farms Christmas box filled with black powder, nails, and broken glass.

I: You're kidding. How did you survive that?

Dave: Because the kid forgot to put a fuse in with the explosives.

I: Wow. I guess having your life threatened by your audience might potentially make you turn your back on them.

Dave: No, it was the kid's stupidity. I'm ashamed that this kid, who enclosed a note saying how much he liked my first novel, forgot something as basic as the fucking fuse. Even when I was young- in my twenties, say- I didn't hold out a lot of hope for folks younger than myself. After that shitty bomb, I just gave up on them completely, just like I gave up on politics, coffee shops, and every post-mp3/DVD audio format.

I: So what are you doing these days? Still writing?

Dave: Still dabbling is more like it. I still read a lot. Drink beer. Cruise around in the Judge or the six-five. I collect turntables too.

I: Turntables?

Dave: Come on, you know what a turntable is. I don't collect them for any reason other than to cannibalize them for parts, though. The only things I collect, so to speak, are spent shell casings, empty beer cans, and the occasional royalty check from my writing.

I: Wait, shell casings? I know you still drink beer-

Dave: Yeah, those liver filters are the best things that ever happened to me. Well, and the cancer pseudo-vaccine.

I: But what about the shell casings? Do you own a gun?

Dave: I'm not answering that, for obvious legal reasons. But yeah, I've got about 100,000 spent shell casings. 7.62x39. I'm hoping to find someone who will eventually fuse them all together to build my coffin, and maybe my headstone as well. Want a beer?

I: No thanks.

Dave: Your loss, dude.

I: I'm curious as to your opinion of-

Dave: Come on, dude, I'm not that interested in offering my opinion to strangers. You should know that, if you've followed my life and career at all.

I: All right. That sounds kind of cynical, though.

Dave: Maybe it is. Or maybe you could just call me Johannes de Silentio. Or just more interested in takin' it easy and sitting on the porch.

I: So you're still an advocate of idleness?

Dave: Did you expect me to have an epiphany and start busting my ass?

I: No, but you have a family, and-

Dave: Christ on a crutch, who the hell chose you to do this interview? Of course I've got a family, but I'm seventy-fucking-five years old, and the kids have been taking care of themselves for years. Ask me a decent question, please.

I: Sorry. Okay. Are you happy?

Dave: I reckon I am. I don't have to do much except kick back, drink beer, read, and think a lot, so I've pretty much achieved my life's goals.

I: Those don't seem like very... complex goals.

Dave: I dare you to quit your job and fuck off for the rest of your life. I bet you couldn't handle it. I've got a question for you, son.

I: Um, okay.

Dave: Why is asking old fucks like me questions any more complex or fulfilling than trying to answer questions about your own life? Don't get me wrong, I like a good interview or novel or essay as much as the next guy, if not more, but really, wouldn't you rather take some time and engage in a little introspection?

I: Well, yes, but-

Dave: But you're too busy trying to build a career and leave a legacy. Fuck it, dude. I don't feel like giving a lecture right now.

I: Okay.

Dave: You ever seen a GTO?

I: What's that?

Dave: I knew that's what you'd say. You into cars?

I: Uh, not really.

Dave: Me neither, but the 1970 GTO Judge is the finest car ever made. Before you ask, yes, it runs on gasoline, not hydrogen.

I: I thought they outlawed those.

Dave: Maybe where you're from, but not in Texas. They've still got the old twentieth-century oil economy mindset. Anyway, fuck this interview. You wanna go cruise?

I: Sure. Can I bring the recorder along?

Dave: Why not? Let me get my cigarettes and a CD. Yes, I still have a CD player. I'm seventy-fuckin'-five, and I'm not gonna shell out for anything newer, especially since nobody could install a new system in the Judge without fuckin' it up. Come on, dude, let's hit it.

--

Looks like being old will kick ass.

Having a few drinks, swallowing half a bar, and going to some sort of half-assed fetish show at what used to be a gay club makes for an interesting nights. There's plenty of eye candy, which is good because the Xanax turned me in a slow-moving automaton. Not that this was a bad thing at all. I was quite detached from my surroundings, and everyone except whatever half- or mostly-naked women were on stage at the time seemed like a blank shell of a human being, a cardboard cut-out with a drink in their hand. Quite an interesting experience, and the first I've had with the aforementioned pill that didn't just make me want to fall asleep within a couple hours.

In other news, the new Unleashed album is fuckin' great.

Strolling down West Alabama at 7 AM to buy beer is a peaceful experience. There's not much traffic. The air is clear. Slightly sullen kids and paint-spattered old men ride by on bicycles. The seemingly condemned apartment complex at 1707 appears even more desolate and compelling. And, if you're walking down the right side of the street, you may even encounter the mutilated remains of what appears to be a manicotti or ravioli, a bludgeoned orangey mess smeared a good foot and a half across the pavement.

I've been pondering my fate as a writer lately. Given that I've gone almost a year without producing any new work of substance, and have put very little effort into promoting my existing work, I can't help but ask myself a few questions, namely:

-Is there anything that I'm really compelled to write about?

-Is my love of idleness (and drink, to be honest) eroding my authorial motivation entirely?

-Why, really, do I even write?

As pessimistic as these questions may sound, expressions as they are of the continual doubt at the core of my being, I do have some tentative answers.

-Yes, kind of;

-no, not entirely, as a considerable break from self-inflicted pressure to write may actually be helping me;

-Because it is my sole means of expression, and despite all failed attempts at writing, I feel the need to (at the very least) console myself with the notion that I have something to say through the written word, even if it is never read by others.

Really, though, I don't actually worry about this matter very much. I suppose it's come to mind recently due to the rather ex post facto realization that my authorial brain is on vacation and hasn't bothered to purchase a return ticket yet.

It looks like the sun has managed to crawl out of bed, take a piss, light a cigarette, and settle in for a day's worth of emitting radiation, so I'm going to go join it.

Remember to purchase Axis Mundi Sum for your friends, enemies, loved ones, and strangers this Christmas, and take it easy.

H.P. Lovecraft makes the finest bedtime reading I've ever come across.

Ah, if only I could enjoy crawling into a warm bed with a good book and leaden lids every night for the rest of my life.

Hot-cha.

The Corpse is now exercising his Second Amendment right, thanks to the Romanian AK-47 purchased for him by his brother. Snitches, counterrevolutionaries, and shitheads beware.

Slayer kicked tons of ass tonight. Unfortunately, the show started earlier than I'd expected, and I didn't get the chance to see Mastodon, who I really wanted to see live. Slayer's "wall of blood" effect wasn't used, either, which kinda sucked, but hardly ruined the show.

Andy sent me a link to an out-of-print book about L. Ron Hubbard, Bare-Faced Messiah, that's been released online. It promises to be quite interesting, and worth the inevitable eye strain. Speaking of reading, I really need to do more. I'm working on a couple books, but without much dedication. Just another sign of my recent, and not entirely unpleasant, mental torpor.

And another week begins. Yee-haw. At least I've got another four-day weekend coming up, and on one of those days, I get to see Slayer.

Good things in the immediate future aside, I'd still rather not go to work at all. Sleeping sounds a lot better, and clearly more useful.

Remember to buy Axis Mundi Sum for everyone this Christmas!

I know I've mentioned it before, but...

Peter, thanks for those handful of days I got to spend at your house alone, and thanks for always being one of my best friends.

I wish that both of us were a few years older, so that we could have enjoyed the Internet Bubble before it so rudely burst.

A million thanks to all of my friends of all stripes. You keep me sane and happy, though to fair, I wish you'd hook me up with some dames. I could use a kiss.

I either need to a) stop listening to Avril Lavigne, or b) get a life. Maybe I need to do both.

No matter what the case, I would really like to fall in love. Unlike what bullshit vidoes imply, strolling and/or loafing around town will not produce love. I really want to say "fuck this world," but the last time I fell in love, it was under highly expected circumstances, so who knows? Maybe I will meet a top-notch chick over a beer, an Avril Lavigne song, or staring at Starbucks employees at 6:30 AM (which, oddly enough, I've done more than once, thinking about how pitiable they are).

I'm a chump. Always have been, and always will be.

No big deal.

My brother's been installing Linux all weekend, so I've been without Internet access. I can't really complain, since there's not really a whole lot of time-sensitive information awaiting me online, and I've spent my time reading, being grotesquely lazy (and, off and on, slightly ill), and, today, eating (well, drinking) brunch with multiple Swulii, Sara, and Jackie. (I'm not sure how the latter spells her name, however.)

Various new ideas for the next novel are cropping up from time to time, and I'm trying to keep track of them with pen and paper. Making notes makes me feel less like I'm failing my art, and indeed even makes me feel like I'm doing myself some good, since the last couple novels weren't exactly thought out before I began writing them.

Speaking of my previous books, I've come up with an excellent idea for Christmas. Everyone I know should purchase a copy of Axis Mundi Sum as their Christmas gift to someone else. Naturally, people who already own copies are excluded from receiving them, but it would be a nifty idea, and I'd be willing to sign any and all copies that came my way. Instead of shirts, socks, immediately-obsolete electronic gadgetry, or mass-market paperbacks, buy Axis Mundi Sum for your friends and loved ones. I'd sincerely appreciate it.

Lastly- and this applies to none of the people who read this regularly, as far as I know- tolerance for the sake of not looking like an asshole is asenine. Then again, so is being a dick just to be a dick.

Good night.

Avril Lavigne's version of Metallica's otherwise tepid "Fuel" makes me think of X. She doesn't sound identical to Exene, and the riffs aren't exactly Billy Zoom material, but for some reason I draw the comparison. Now that I think about it, I'd like to hear how X would interpret the song, though it would never happen.

Ah, Madamoiselle Lavigne. The creation of the skewed demiurge that is the pop music industry, but nonetheless highly appealing. Enjoying her work has to be one of my few pleasant dips into the shallow pool of popular culture. And for those of you who may frown on said dip, fuck off: even my metal-lovin' cretin ass can fall for gorgeous young pop stars from time to time. I await the day that I can ply Madamoiselle Lavigne with Lone Star, ferrets, and metal, then make out with her. Yep, that would be sweet.

On an unrelated note, my speakers are incredibly shitty, but sometimes they do exactly what they should do, i.e. crank out a wall of almost completely undifferentiated sound. Shit, I'd almost be willing to say that this High On Fire song sounds strangely similar to the way it did the last time I saw them live.

Time for more intoxicants.

Oh, man, I'm not gonna be worth a shit this Thanksgiving. It's 7:13 AM and I still haven't gone to bed. Good thing I have no obligations.

I finally heard back from the literary agency that's showed some interest in Critical Hits lately.

They offered me a contract.

I'm not going to accept it.

They want money up front, and as much of a newbie as I am when it comes to the writing game, I know that such a request is bullshit. I meant to do some research on these people last week, but never got around to it. Minutes after getting their email, I googled them, and the only good remarks I found were made by the authors they represent. Other aspiring writers had nothing to offer but scathing rebukes and condemnations. Nowhere on their site is there a list of books they've sold to publishers.

I could go on with my list of complaints, but it's not worth the effort. I learned early on that any agent that wants money from you before they even sell your work is a fucking thief, and that's all I need to know.

Back to the drawing board.

12:30 PM-2:30 PM: Wake up after going to bed at 7 AM.
2:30 PM-4:00 PM: Drink available liquids, smoke cigarettes, read email, talk online with diurnal people, groom as needed, watch X-Files or Buffy, dread work.
4:00 PM-2:30 AM: Watch dignity and sanity ooze from orifices. Mentally shake fist at co-workers and customers and everyone in between. Smoke and read at all possible opportunities. Spend 45-minute lunch break running home simply to avoid being at work.
2:30 AM-7 AM: Come home, drink all available beer in sight, fail to write, and do metric tons of nothing until 5:30 or so, when it is time to watch more X-Files/Buffy. Go to bed at dawn, possibly after walking around the neighborhood to purchase food items, and almost always wondering "what the fuck."

Repeat for four days in a row, follow up with an alcoholic blur ofa three-day weekend, and you'll be me, D.A. Smith. The D.A. stands for "Domo Arigato," as in "domo arigato for nothing, you miserable shitfuck world."

Nah. I'm kind of enjoying the bizarre blank space that is my life.

I'm trying to imagine a single situation that wouldn't be improved by the presence of a cold beer, and nothing is coming to mind. I wish I had a beer right now, but no, I've got three hours until I can buy more.

Because I have no beer, can't tell if I'm really in the mood to write, and don't feel like watching Buffy, I've engrossed myself in my new favorite thing on the internet. Read and enjoy.

I think I'm actually bored.

Slowly-typed line by slowly-typed line, guzzled beer by guzzled beer, murky thought by murky thought, what may be my new novel is appearing before me on this screen.

Dark Tranquillity's Damage Done is one of the finest albums I have purchased in the past two years. While not summertime fare, it is most definitely an album for days and nights like these. You should purchase it, as well as a copy of Axis Mundi Sum, which would make an excellent Christmas gift. When you buy it for your friends and loved ones, you should also include a copy of Len Bracken's Aphorisms Against Work, because everyone needs to read it.

Fuck work.

Slowly-typed line by slowly-typed line, guzzled beer by guzzled beer, murky thought by murky thought, what may be my new novel is appearing before me on this screen.

Dark Tranquillity's Damage Done is one of the finest albums I have purchased in the past two years. While not summertime fare, it is most definitely an album for days and nights like these. You should purchase it, as well as a copy of Axis Mundi Sum, which would make an excellent Christmas gift.

A week's worth of poor sleeping habits and unusual mental lassitude have not, as they may in a fictional creation, culminated in anything particularly meaningful, but only a persisent, low-level discombobulation and sense of being at odds (although not necessarily in a negative sense) with the world around me. This is acceptable, because I briefly worried that I was once again moving toward the anxiety that I've run into every now and then over the last couple of years. I think that I've avoided that gnawing fate for the time being, however.

You may notice that my last post has vanished. In the cold light of day-after sobriety, the piece has been judged and found unworthy of continued existence. But fear not; there will inevitably be another another late night infused with too much alcohol and a different proper noun to rant about.

Man, I'm not gonna do shit today except drink water and watch Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Shit fire and save matches! Apparently I forgot that the literary agency that wanted to hear more about my work was the one I actually submitted a manuscript to. I got a standard "info received" email this evening after sending in the author intake form they wanted, and it mentioned going over my manuscript. "Hmm," sez I, "how are they going to review my manuscript when I... aw, fuck."

While this is a damned good start to the submission process, I'm terrified. Not so much because Critical Hits is a piece of shit, or because I'm afraid of rejection, but because whatever response I get will be a surprise. Had I remembered that this particular agency actually got my manuscript, I'd be prepared, but I'm not, and it's a creepy feeling. If the response is positive... fuckin' A.

I've puked up another tepid RPG.net column. Judging from some of the comments, I get the impression that at least one of the poor saps that reads the column likes Bush, but doesn't understand Hunter S. Thompson very much. Eh.

I'm playing the waiting game with a literary agency now, having sent back the stuff they requested about Critical Hits, and with Nuclear Blast Records, who really need to haul some ass and get the new Cathedral record out. I don't feel like waiting several months for it.

Last night, as I crawled into bed at 6 AM after falling asleep on the couch watching the X-Files, I had some really good ideas about my possible next novel, but I failed to write them down. Unsurprisingly, I can't remember them now.

I've discovered the pleasure that is watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer, thanks to Jennifer. I foresee spending the next three months or so watching the entire run of the show, or possibly longer if I don't maintain my current viewing schedule. As hokey as certain elements of the first season have been, the show's really a lot better than I ever expected it to be, and I dare say I'm learning something from it. Not about vampires or the like, but from the basic narrative structure, which is something I've always had a poor grasp on.

I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of the wasteland that is my desk.

Despite running on five hours' uneasy sleep, my weekend is already off to a good start. Came home from work and stayed up until eight in the morning in the company of, at various times, my brother, Jen, and Eric. Slept, listened to Dr. Long Ghost push a jingling ball of a ferret toy around the house, got up, talked to people online and via phone, and am currently working on response to literary agent, while listening to the almighty Thin Lizzy. Weather is perfect, beer is flowing, cigarettes are smoldering. Life is good.

Now that the election is over and I've run the gamut of mental and emotional responses (as my last few posts show), it feels like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders. There's no more doubt about the fate of the nation- it's screwed- so I reckon I can get back to concentrating on the things I want to concentrate on.

Sorry for the bitching and moaning yesterday (well, this morning), but until American stupidity provokes me again, I'll lay off.

I've posted this to the commentary (AKA "blog") area on MySpace, but I feel the need to post it here. It's not exactly enlightening, but it sheds some illumination on things for those who don't really know me. (I suspect there is exactly one of you that fits this category.)

As noted:

---

As lonely as they were at times, I yearn for the simple moments that comprised the weekends of my first year at SHSU. I miss getting a ride home on Friday nights from my pops, shooting the shit, drinking RC, eating grocery store pizza, going to Half Price Books, watching the X-Files, hearing the AC thrum, sleeping on the couch or in the computer room. I miss that house, and in my mind, it has been, and will be, the setting of many a story. I dare say that I'd live there again, except that I know it wouldn't be the same. It's not 1997-2001 anymore, my brother and father no longer live there, and, as oddly attached to the suburbs as I am, I know I could never do the place the justice it deserves, locus of good memories that it is.

I still drive by it almost every time I visit Spring, though. While Spring is a cancerous place these days, nothing can ruin the places of my youth, save their complete destruction.

Viva Spring 1991-1994, and, more intermittently, 1997-2001. If it wasn't for Bridgestone and Bridgestone West, I would not be who I am.

Before I break down, I'm going to go watch the X-Files.

----

Sometimes I miss being twelve, and other times I miss being eighteen or nineteen. Does everyone feel this way? I really think that I would derive considerable pleasure from once again spending weekends screwing around on a dial-up connection, reading, drinking coffee, and watching cable TV, all in the company of various family members, especially in the house at 19713 Westbridge.

If I ever get rich, I think I'll buy that house, and several other houses in the area.

I need to get out of this room and watch the X-Files. The urge to collapse in a heap of melancholy is overwhelming.

I'm going to wait until the real results, not those posited by the media, are in, before I make any statements about this fucking election.

I feel no shame now for not having voted anymore.

As I, quoting Len Bracken, have said before, Nobody wins in 2004. Fuck this shit and the ignorance than fuels it. To hell with oil- ignorance is the fossil fuel this world relies on, and will continue to rely on until aliens turn us into slaves or we murder the beautiful planet God gave us.

And no, you miserable cunts, I wouldn't be happy if Kerry ended up winning, but it would be nice to have a bandage to cover the hemorrage that is America over the past four years.

FUCK. On one hand, mankind deserves better, but on the other, I have yet to see it do anything en masse to prove itself.

This is addressed to myself and God, and is an expression of not only politics (which, actually, play an incredibly minimal part, but have brought me to this point on this night), but so many frustrations and questions that have plagued me for years. You all can hear it, for the sake of understanding me a little better.

WHY? WHY? WHY IS HUMANITY SO SELF-DEFEATING? WHY DOES THE SEARCH FOR MEANING REQUIRE SUCH MISERY?

Damn, I want to just break down and weep. Humanity has done so many amazing things, only to drown them in blood and piss and ignorance. The only thing I can do, as meaningless as it may be, is to keep creating myself, pouring out what I can to add to the stream of meaningfulness.

I realize that I'm in no way coherent, thanks to many beers, but fuck it. The sentiment is there.

Philosophy can be cold comfort, but I'll really find out when I go to bed soon.

Allow me to correct myself. Today the hammer comes down on not only the United States, but the entire world. All six billion of us, give or take a few, will feel the repercussions. The winner of the election merely determines how quickly and resoundingly the hammer will strike the anvil.

I'm no fan of the eschaton, and I don't know how imminent it is, but it's hard to convince myself it's not inevitable.

The hammer comes down on the United States today. I'm terrified to see what kind of horrible fate my countrymen will inflict upon themselves.

I've once again spent a weekend doing little of tangible value. Saw Natalie on Friday, which was fun, and went to Huntsville later that evening, which was also worthwhile. Did virtually nothing Saturday except drink and watch the X-Files, having recovered my collection of tapes from Darcy in Huntsville. Yesterday I watched Donnie Darko, which was incredible and disturbing, and made notes on what may be my next novel.

I reckon the big news around here is that I heard back from one of the literary agencies I fired a query letter off to. They haven't asked for more than additional information about myself and my novel, but it's the brightest prospect I've had so far. I may get lucky and get far enough to send them my manuscript, but I'm not holding my breath. It does make me a bit more confident about my work, however.

I really don't want to go to work.

All right, folks. I'm taking the time to type out the lyrics to a song here, so do me a favor and listen to it. If need be, you can drop by my place and hear it; otherwise, buy the album. It's money well spent.

I like to think of the subject of this song as "Dave's conspiracy theory girlfriend." Naturally, I have no such girlfriend, but a man can dream, can't he?

The Hidden Hand
"Coffin Lily"
from Mother Teacher Destroyer, Southern Lord Records, 2004.

In the pale blue light she thrives.
Velvet curtains no light shines.
High speed connection keeps her alive.
She's an adept of the night.

Hey Hey what she sees. A premonition
of the conspiracy. Hey Hey what
she knows. 33 degres at
bohemian grove.

Her daddy's from a Martian sea.
Mommy's Sycambrian. Her lord's a
Nibiru king. All things Merovingian.

Hey Hey what she sees. Her burning
heart is wrapped in tragedy. Hey Hey
the path she takes. A solar barge
out to China lake.

The Hidden Hand's newest album, Mother Teacher Destroyer, and Lair of the Minotaur's Carnage, finally arrived in the mail today. While I haven't listened to either one all the way through, I can safely say that my anticipation was completely warranted.

This is a good morning, and knowing that I only have one night of work left before the weekend only makes it better.

I'm probably jinxing myself by speaking too soon, but fuck it:

It's coming.

Let's hope it doesn't stop until it's as solid as, albeit nowhere like, what I saw at the end of my sophomore year of college.

Cryptic, I know, but they don't call them veiled words for nothing. And this is very much about words.

When I meet a woman who can make me as consistently happy as the Almighty Riff- and I'm not writing this as an homage to the Almighty Riff so much as a testament to the horribly fickle nature of females, and any charges of sexism be damned- I will be happy.

Sweet Jesus, humanity can be one hell of a disappointment.

I've had it for a couple months now, and Morgion's Cloaked By Ages, Crowned In Earth, while not something I listen to with any great frequency, gets better every time I hear it. At times, it reminds me, of all things, of Metallica's Master of Puppets, which to this day strikes chords in me that no other album does.

Don't think that Morgion is at all like Metallica, though. Far from it. Cloaked By Ages, Crowned In Earth is a slow, doomy record, but not of the Cathedral/Sabbath variety. It's much more in tune with, say, old My Dying Bride material, i.e., doomdeath, which is something I haven't listened to in years, but still plucks certain heartstrings. If you're not a metal fan, I can't really describe this album (or any of the metal albums I rave about, for that matter), but that's not important. If you want a late-night/early morning experience that doesn't involve your standard soundtrack, you may want to pick this up, especially if the weather is cool, the sky is grey, and you're willing to let your consciousness move into more fantastical realms. This all sounds cliche, but I'll be damned if it's not the truth as I see it, which may not be aligned with any universal truth, but, I like to think, actually is on some level.

Dave Mann, if you're reading this, here's the fucking psychogeographical core of Houston we've been hunting for, courtesy of Hunter S. Thompson:

" Houston is a cruel and crazy town on a filthy river in East Texas with no zoning laws and a culture of sex, money and violence. It's a shabby sprawling metropolis ruled by brazen women, crooked cops and super-rich pansexual cowboys who live by the code of the West -- which can mean just about anything you need it to mean, in a pinch."

Read Thompson's full article here.

Last night at work, in addition to my usual proofreading duties, I was asked to proof a set of mugshots for the Harris County Sheriff's Department/Crime Stoppers. I spent a good hour double-checking one set of mugshots and basic data of fugitives- 56 of them- against the info provided by the Sheriff's Department. Fifty-six people, wanted for everything from aggrevated assault to forgery to capital murder to indecency with a child to felony theft.

The Greensheet occasionally prints outside jobs, and this was one of them. It was the first time I'd seen the most-wanted list in our queue, so I was surprised, but it was a good change from looking at ads all night. It was weird, though, looking at all those faces and trying to imagine them committing the crimes they were wanted for. Some of the fugitives were younger than me, some looked perfectly normal, and some seemed like total incongruities, like the old Chinese guy wanted for assault with a deadly weapon. I started putting together stories about these people in my head, and I think that when I have the time I'm going to actually do something with them.

I also realized last night that I talk to an inordinate number of schizophrenics during the week. Since the Greensheet offices are downtown, and a mere block from the bus station, all manners of homeless and/or unemployed folks wander the streets, many of whom hit me up for cigarettes or change when I'm on a break outside. A significant percentage of them seem to suffer from one mental disorder or another, and I often wonder how their brain chemistry differs from mine. Since I'll probably never find out, I just talk to 'em and try to treat them like anyone else; this can be tough, though, when you think the guy you're talking to is gonna drop his pants and show you the hernia lurking near his genitals.

While work will inevitably disrupt the flow of an otherwise pleasant day, I will leave you with the things that have made this afternoon what it is:

Neal Stephenson's Q&A on Slashdot

and

Negura Bunget. Incredible Romanian black metal, complete with beautiful visuals of Transylvania on their site. I need to find somewhere to buy their albums.

I'm getting better at keeping myself in a good mood, but I'm sure as hell a failure when it comes to cutting back on my cigarette intake.

In approximately 84 hours, I should be relaxing at my uncle's place in deep East Texas. It's just too bad that I won't have a dame along who'll be interested in watching Headbangers Ball and/or Uranium on satellite TV.

Literature 2, Despair 0:

"And what's the point of waking up in the morning if you don't try to match the enormousness of the known forces in the world with something powerful in your own life?" -Don DeLillo, Underworld

After a day of discontent- something just didn't feel right, and my ire can be clearly seen in my last post- I crawled into bed with copy of P.G. Wodehouse's The Jeeves Omnibus, and I have emerged only to say that once again, good writing has buoyed my spirits. Thank God.

Well, this weekend hasn't lived up to my expectations, but that's hardly surprising. I drank a lot Friday and spent yesterday hung over and feeling shitty until I went to bed; I don't think it was only the booze, either. A hangover wouldn't have accounted for the mental malaise that lurked around me all day. I did get some query letters out, and watched Chungking Express, which was even better than the first time I saw it, so the day wasn't a total waste of consciousness.

I really want to see the series on the myth of terror this article is talking about. While I doubt it will change the minds of any fear-mongering politicians in Britain, it would be nice, especially if it had enough of an impact to make Britain think twice about having jumped on the terror bandwagon being driven by this country's cadre of conniving liars and whores.

I've been thinking a lot about why regular people lend their support to governments and/or political parties that, at their core, do nothing to represent the interests of the aforementioned regular people. The way I see it is that people are subjected to so much false or distorted information that they are no longer aware of the underlying reality. Not only the government and media feed this information to them; their churches, workplaces, families, and pop culture also inform their views. The real problem isn't that there are so many lies being circulated, it's that nobody wants to go to the effort of sorting the truth out. It's simply easier to believe what the President, or the newsanchor, or the pastor, or the parent, says. That way, no nasty little tidbits of information that run contrary to one's established worldview come to light, and no extra thought need be applied. I have no sympathy for those who breathe in the atmosphere of deceit without ever coughing, but it's nevertheless sad that the people that have the most to lose by uncritically accepting what's fed to them are the ones who ask the least questions.

On a larger scale- and this is where I'm at odds with a great deal of people- is the issue of belied in grand concepts. For now, I'll deal with the State. Assuming that some sort of central government is useful- another idea I'm not particularly convinced of, but I'll save that for later- I do not believe that unwavering allegiance to said government ("the State") is anything less than idiotic. The Founding Fathers would agree with me that never questioning one's government, or better yet, failing to be critical at all times, is foolish in the extreme, as such behavior leads to the individual being exploited by the State. If your government says jump, you should not ask how high; you should ask why jumping is necessary. Of course, a democratic State may allow you ask that question, but should you do so, you risk the condemnation of the State and its supporters, because the State does not want to be questioned. If it is questioned, then its viability is also in question, and those who profit from the existence of the State- politicians, for example- are threatened. It's better to create an image that the State is every man's friend, and that everyone should do their part for the State, even if said part is something unnecessary and/or odious, like, say, travelling across the globe to engage in war on another State that threatens the interests of your State- but not the citizens thereof. The citizens of both states get screwed because of a handful of people at the top. The absurdity is that the State does a fine job of convincing its constituents that it's acting in their best interest, and they totally buy it, because the State has been preparing them for such thinking since it started funding their education at the age of five or six. It's brilliant, actually, how good a job the state does of creating those who will support it, and allowing a modicum of "dissent" to make itself look magnanimous. Of course, the State has the support of any other number of allies, such as the media, the Church, the "market," and so forth. Since they all suckle on one another's bilious teats, it is in their collective interest to butress the opinions and actions of one another. That way, such groups profit from the shallow desires and beliefs they've created for the average person, who consumes them voraciously and without regard for any implicit meanings.

Fuck. I'm not really in the mood to be writing this, since thousands of people have done a better job of it than I. None of this is revelatory; people have railed against the bankruptcy of the State and similiar ideas for ages. I suppose that I've written what I have because, at this point in time, so few seem to acknowledge that even the least radical notions I've put forth, e.g. the deceit and hypocrisy of the government and media, exist at all. Once again, futility rears its ugly stone head, but you know what? Fuck futility. It might actually turn out to be the beast at the end of the road, but right now, I'm going to keep going. I don't think it's futile for people to think critically, despite any results thereof. In my case, I'm happy to have come to the point where I can see the State as a painfully manipulative, callous thing, knowing full well that it would be so much easier to accept the idea that the government acts in my best interest or that the media is being honest to me. It's not fun thinking that the conclusions I've reached could be wrong, and that I'm in a complete minority by giving minimal credibility to the government, but I take consolation in having tried to sort out the truth from the lies. Unlike a lot of people, I've fucking tried, and I'm willing to admit that I'm wrong. I might not participate in American democracy like the rest of you, but at least my knee doesn't jerk very much anymore.

The drudgery of work aside, today's been fucking sweet. Nice weather. Beer. William Gibson posting online again. Two new album purchases: Current 93 and, hell fucking yeah, Destroyer 666.

I suspect this weekend will be top notch.

William Gibson is, ahem, blogging again. Check it out. Not only is he a fantastic writer, but he's got his shit together in every other respect as well.

If you're a regular BoingBoing reader, you'll appreciate Wiley Wiggins' wry comments on BoingBoing Lite. You can only handle Cory Doctorow's increasingly tiresome flow of semi-self-aggrandizing copyright/DRM links for so long before you wish that he'd just shut the fuck up. Come to think of it, Xeni Jardin's build-ups to her articles for Wired aren't particularly thrilling either; phonecam chronicles may provide immediacy, but they're rarely compelling.

Nota bene: It appears that Wiley Wiggins removed his comment about why filtering BoingBoing is a good idea. I don't know exactly why, but it's a bit disappointing.

Hot damn. Martin Popoff finally published his book about Blue Oyster Cult's albums and everything surrounding them, and Darkthrone's new album has reached American shores at long last, so once I get paid next week (or, more likely, later this morning, after a few beers and the ache of impatience), I'll be getting my veiny hands on both.

For those of you that are voting this year- I'm not, and not exclusively because I find the entire system to be a sham, but because I moved at the wrong time and couldn't register even if I'd really wanted to- be prepared to be fucked. I'm not talking about the outcome, although that's likely; I'm talking about electronic voting. If you find yourself in front of a touch screen instead of pulling a mechanical level or holding a paper ballot, the possibility of casting your vote for someone other than your chosen shitheel is quite real. Cue the fiasco.

If I had registed to vote, I probably would have voted for Nobody. He won in 2000, so why not give Nobody a second term?

Went to bed at 7 AM, woke up at 2:30 PM, checked my email, and decided to spent my last hour and a half before work in bed reading. I am in a leisurely, warm-bed mood, and figured that I'd loaf in a different way for a change. My new idling technique is unstoppable.

Probably due to my own lack of understanding, I'm still trying to find some kind of middle ground between Kierkegaard's aesthetic and ethical stages. I don't know if there is one. I'm definitely stuck, so to speak, in the aesthetic stage, with the occasional brief foray into the ethical.

A good amount of new black metal has been pouring forth from my speakers since I moved back to West Alabama. Drudkh is the most noteworthy outfit, and proof that the loveliest of maggots can erupt from the cold corpse of the Soviet Union.

Holy shit. I was driving my friend back to the Heights about twenty minutes ago when I noticed an unusual light emenating from left. I look over, and the dome light of my car is on. It hasn't worked since I got the Blue Bastard in February. I have no idea why it started working, but it did, and wouldn't turn off, so I ended up pulling the bulb out to kill the light.

Less than a minute later, I heard music. After briefly thinking that it was coming from a church (despite there being no churches nearby) or an adjacent car, I look down and see that my FUCKING CD PLAYER IS WORKING. Like the dome light, it's never worked since I purchased the car, so I was utterly shocked. I hope it works tomorrow, and every day thereafter. Music will make driving exponentially more pleasant.

I assume there's been some sort of short in the electrical system of the Blue Bastard, but why did those two things start working now of all times? The weather? The dampness? The presence of a certain redhead? I'll probably never know, and with my luck the CD player will never function again, but I'll rejoice in tonight's little marvel while I can.

Well, shit.

After yesterday, I have no choice but to publicly admit that I like Avril Lavigne. I have for a while, though to be accurate I don't like everything I've heard from her, and, to make the sexist angle clear, I doubt I'd give half a fuck about her if she wasn't so damned good-looking. Really, man, I'm not the pop-star-lovin' type, but fuck it. I'll swallow my pride and say that I very much enjoy "Sk8r Boi" and "Happy Ending."

There goes any credibility I might've had, but at least I don't like Britney Spears, unlike a certain sibling of mine.

On a related, and unrelated note: what. the. fuck?

Ah, Saturday. I finally feel like I've got a real weekend at hand, since I have no obligations hanging over my head. So what am I going to do with my weekend? Very little. Read, drink, maybe write, and compose a couple breezy sonatas.

Andy's sister Janessa is going to Antarctica for three and a half months. I won't bother displaying my envy, but instead be thankful that she gave me a spiffy patch from the US Antarctic Program, and will probably send more once she's on the ice.

End transmission.

Certain parts of "The Honour of Silence" by Death in June nicely sum up the week thus far.

Merely knowing I have to go to work on any given weekday, Fridays excepted, is completely enervating.

At least I've gotten back in touch with one of my favorite people of all time, Amanda Beasley. Turns out her dog is gay and she's going to Iceland for a week later this month. I'm only envious of the latter.

Well, I'm all moved into the place on West Alabama. I have bookshelves and broadband and beer, and I recently heard from one of my best friends for the first time in ages, so life is good.

I watched three movies in a row last night, which is something I never do, but it was top notch. At 5:30 in the morning, I walked over to Donut Wheel, drunk as hell, and bought kolaches for everyone, everyone being myself, my brother, and kt.

Yep, life's good.

Friday afternoon, and the only sign of Ivan is a pleasant breeze. It appears that my fears were unfounded, but I'm assuming that we'll at least get some nasty rain, most likely while I'm moving my shit tomorrow. Man, I'm gonna miss this house, and I'm definitely gonna miss the Heights. One day, should I ever have the money, I think I'd like to settle down here, though that's contigent on not finding a more appealing locale in the meantime.

For now, it's a last few Lone Stars, some more Thin Lizzy, and conversation online with friends and loved ones. I'll pack the last of my shit later.

It took a few years, but purchasing Thin Lizzy's Jailbreak LP for a quarter back at SHSU has struck me as one of the best things I've ever done for myself, and, simultaneously, one of the worst. Last weekend I bought Dedication, a Thin Lizzy best-of, and while I've enjoyed it immensely- it's nice hearing what else they have to offer other than Jailbreak, which is a damnedly good record- I can't help but really feel remorseful that Phil Lynott is dead. I don't know that I've ever felt so sad that a musician or other artist has passed on, which is odd, given that I'm no long-term Thin Lizzy fan. Maybe when Bruce Dickinson, or Rob Halford, or Lemmy, or Matt Pike, or Tony Iommi, or other people I've dug for a while, become worm food, I'll feel the way I do now. I suppose it's a testament to how good a songwriter and bassist Mr. Lynott was that I truly wish he was still alive to put out albums. I can see why Brant Bjork dedicated Local Angel to him. Said album is very much a Thin Lizzy kinda record, which I never recognized until Randy and I were enjoying instant classics such as "I'm A Rocker" and "Chinatown," among others.

I think I need to try to talk my brother into learning how to play "Jailbreak." What a fucking RIFF! Why don't you fuckin' heathens enjoy this shit as much as I do?

Word is that a tropical storm is supposed to hit Houston sometime tomorrow afternoon or evening, most likely while I'm at work. I can't help but recall the hellacious flood of 2001, of which I had the dishonor of being subjected to, and which I desperately hope is not reprised in the next couple of days. I cannot afford to have my car fucked by the vagaries of weather, nor do I wish to be stuck at work, worrying whether or not my house is receiving an aquatic reaming, especially since my ferrets will be here. I'm going to get hold of Sara first thing tomorrow and see if she can keep an eye on the place, since her new apartment is on the third floor and is therefore pretty much floodproof. With any luck, the rain will come at a steady pace, knocking on the door of H-Town instead of trying to kick it in, and my possessions and well-being will remain intact. Either way, it's supposed to rain all weekend, which should be fucking great, since I'll be moving. Nothing like lugging furniture and waterlogged cardboard boxes around town.

Ah, well. There's nowt to be done about it, so I'll just sit here, smoke a du Maurier, and sip on this glass of incredibly good Rhum Barbancourt from Haiti. C'est la vie.

Behold September's RPG.net column. May I suggest sampling some dilled brussel sprouts while you peruse it?

I really shouldn't listen to Katatonia and think about how much I wish the girl I'm seeing was around. Hell, Katatonia are just a flat-out downer anytime you listen to them, albeit magnificently so, but damn, their brand of morbid, offbeat romanticism just isn't what I need at the moment. It just makes me miss Natalie more.

I think it's time for more Thin Lizzy, though it's hard to break away from this aurally-induced melancholy.

My day has consisted of sleep, beer, hanging out with Randy, buying books and albums, more beer, visiting lame "hip" bars, fuckin' off on MySpace, and listening to shitloads of Thin Lizzy. Life ain't too bad.

Download this song. Listen to this song. Repeatedly. I dare say this song has been the most meaningful piece of music I've consistently listened to for the past two or three months. Here are the most accurate lyrics the Internet could provide, with editing and additions on my part.

"Lone Wolf Winter"
Destroyer 666


Lone wolf winter...
Alone again
Lookin' sideways
Paranoid again

Gotta get out
Out of here
Cannot breathe
With the stench of fear!

Black days and blacker nights
Gets the gift of second sight
Don't believe that I belong
Don't feel right but I don't feel wrong

I think I'm a wolf
Then again I'm fuckin' crazy
I think what I need is a bitch
Don't you?
Lone wolf winter

Lone wolf winter

How is it that I have become the hunter
And the hunted
And thought has become my enemy?

Memory falls away behind me
Leaving me in despair
I run but I cannot hide
The terror is inside
I awake but the nightmare is still here

-----

How I loathe mankind sometimes.

-Dave
"I am still here"

Tonight I'm going to finish my RPG.net column, really. I'm not reveling in luxurious sloth at the moment, so might as well go for it. As a matter of fact, I even jotted down some notes for a potential new novel at work tonight, some of which involved ideas I had last night while propelling myself to bed, which wasn't as hard as I thought it would be, thanks to a couple of hasty beers.

Fuckin' A, the new Mastodon album is bad-ass. I'd love to be in a boat with Queequeg or Dagoo chasing a whale while listening to "Iron Tusk" and dodging the line as it whips from the tub. Yeah, fuckers, go read Moby-Dick and you'll know what I'm talking about.

Man, I'm lazy.

I'm so lazy I don't want to do nothing. Don't let yourself think that the double negative cancels itself out, because what I mean is that I am so lazy that doing nothing sounds like too much effort, so I want to do less than nothing.

My RPG.net column is horribly overdue, and while I've got maybe half of it finished, I'm too lazy to write the rest tonight. I don't even want to bother plugging in my headphones to listen to the new Ghost album, which is fantastic. Shit, I'm so fucking lazy I don't want to drag my ass to bed, because falling asleep will take some work.

This level of laziness is awe-inspiring.

Another blur of a weekend, but I can't say it's been a bad blur, even though I failed to write my column for RPG.net in a timely fashion. With any luck I'll have it emailed off tomorrow. Sorry, Aeon.

And now, the requisite shallow metal album reviews.

Mastodon, Leviathan
Let's see... technical, rifftastic, modern metal with a Moby-Dick theme. I FAIL TO FIND ANY FUCKING PROBLEMS WITH THAT.

Amon Amarth, Fate of Norns
Despite sounding exactly like Amon Amarth should, there's a slight variance from their old albums here, albeit a good one. It'll take a few more listens to put my finger on it, but if you dig Amon Amarth, you can't go wrong. Even if you don't like them, this is worth your time if you want solid Swedish metal.

Thursday morning, 3:05 AM, payday, booze, etc etc. (Thanks for that one, DFW.)

I'm desperately trying to find a medium-sized Dopesmoker t-shirt. Sleep, despite being defunct, need to be promulgated.

Fuck. I think I'm going to lose it, and I have the Murder City Devils to thank for it. "18 Wheels" is not a song I can afford to hear right now, but I'll be damned if I'm not playing it again.

The follow-up to the emotional ditch the MCD threw me into is an old Gas Giant song, and it's doing a fine job of putting my head in a better place, albeit temporarily.

I need a permanent vacation.

Why does practically every action feel like one taken in the service of entropy?

I ran across this on Blabbermouth.net, a metal news site.

Amy Norton of Reuters Health reports: Blasting music can be hard on the ears and the neighbors, and now researchers say it can also pack enough punch to collapse a lung.

Reporting in the medical journal Thorax, they describe the cases of four young men who suffered a lung collapse — technically called pneumothorax — that appeared to be triggered by loud music. Three of the men were at a concert or club when the pneumothorax occurred, while the fourth was in his car, which was outfitted with a 1,000-watt bass box because he "liked to listen to loud music."

A pneumothorax occurs when a small rupture in one of the lungs allows air to leak into the space between the lungs and the chest wall, causing the lung to collapse. Symptoms include breathlessness and chest pain on the affected side.

A small, partial collapse may resolve on its own, but more severe cases may require the insertion of a chest tube to allow the air to escape the chest cavity.

Often, an underlying lung disease or chest injury is the culprit in pneumothorax. But so-called primary spontaneous pneumothorax happens in the absence of an underlying disease, typically striking tall, thin, male smokers.

Given that I like loud music, am a tall, thin, male smoker, and suffered a pneumothorax last year (courtesy of a car accident) that required the aforementioned chest tube, I am incredibly creeped out to read this, and have all the more reason to quit smoking, which I will do long before I stop listening to loud music.

I don't know that I've ever been as rapidly overwhelmed by a piece of writing as I was when I read David Foster Wallace's "Incarnations of Burned Children" on my lunch (or maybe it was a smoke) break at work today. A mere three pages or so, the story hit me in a way that I would imagine a shotgun fired by God would. I simply cannot describe it. I re-read the final few lines at least four times, and went back to work in a daze, which I haven't fully recovered from.

If you're interested in reading it, "Incarnations of Burned Children" can be found in DFW's newest book, Oblivion. I recently checked it out from the library, and halfway through reading the first story, "Mr. Squishy," which dredged up all the horror roiling in the quiet corners of everyone's daily existence, I went out and bought a book of the man's essays, A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. My God, I've never read contemporary fiction like this. Simply put, it is everything that literary fiction should be- no, fuck that, it's everything all fiction should aspire to, on some level. I cannot wait to read the reast of Wallace's work.

I'm also concurrently reading Omoo by Herman Melville, which is most excellent, and incidentally the source of one of my ferrets' names.

If there was a printed-word equivalent of crack, I would be on it right now.

I have no recollection of writing last night's post. I was definitely drunk, but I didn't think I was that drunk, and certainly not drunk enough to produce what in retrospect look like some pretty good sentences.

On an unrelated note, I am possibly more aware of the implications of personal responsibility than I ever have been. It is a debilitating feeling.

Another late hour, the skull swims with beer and conversation and last-minute Alan Moore dialogue. So happy that I can even consider myself a writer, yet so angry, so bitter at the silent times, the days and months when nothing appears on the page. Which is the true love, writing or reading? Of course, both feed upon themselves, but damnation, I cannot sacrifice either, even when it's so much easier to read than write. I love these times when I feel just removed enough from quotidian life to exalt my own existence, all the utter shit down in the gutter where it belongs, synapses sparkling like the stars in the firmament.

Dawn will come soon, breaking against the alcohol-enriched shores of my consciousness, which I will escort out of waking hours with old Dungeons & Dragons books and a melancholy I cannot explain to anyone. So alone, so crippled, so hopeful, so full of fleeting love and desire of a world that will never be, and never should be, if only to guarantee that art will always have a place in the grey and misguided existence we all share.

"Twenty-five year-olds should be locked away and denied ink and paper."
-David Foster Wallace

A triumvirate:

The Girl, The Old-Timer, and the Writer As Of Yet Unread.

Huzzah. Critical Hits has received its first rejection from a literary agent. One down, thousands more to go. On the good side, at least my next monthly rpg.net column will have something to do with writing for once.

This is my third post, I believe, of the night/morning. Not having anything better to do, and not really wanting to write fiction at the moment (although I was pretty gung-ho about it a couple hours ago), I will now comment upon Bal-Sagoth.

Simply put: FUCK EACH AND EVERY ONE OF YOU WHO DO NOT APPRECIATE THE SOUNDS OF EPIC METAL BARBARIAN FANTASY!

Bal-Sagoth discography and related commentary:

A Black Moon Broods Over Lemuria (1994)
I have some MP3s of this album, but to be honest, I don't know that I've given them much attention.

Starfire Burning Upon the Ice-Veiled Throne of Ultima Thule (1996)
Bad-ass, but not my favorite. That said, songs like "To Dethrone the Witch-Queen of Mytos K'Unn (The Legend of the Battle of Blackhelm Vale)" are epic, head-banging, sword-swinging masterpieces.

Battle Magic (1998)
The first Bal-Sagoth album I bought. While the home of some true gems, it's not as consistent as I'd like, though the title track, "A Tale From the Deep Woods," and "Return to the Praesidium of Ys" are incredible.

The Power Cosmic (1999)
Solid, but it cannot compare to....

Atlantis Ascendant (2001)
Theatrically Lovecraftian in scope, this album contains such brilliant songs as "The Dreamer in the Catacombs of Ur," "In Search of the Lost Cities of Antarctica," and the creepy instrumental "The Ghosts of Angkor Wat."

I can't wait until Britain's most bombastic outfit puts out another record. I can't really pick a favorite from their existing albums, but suffice to say that playing favorites isn't necessary. Bal-Sagoth is a totality, and should be experienced as such.

For a writer, I sure spend a lot of time talking about music.

I failed to apply for a job in Antarctica this year, and I hate myself for it. Now that I check it out, however, polar.org is still hiring for the worst-paying but, as I hear, best position possible: that of general assistant. I think I'll throw in ASAP and see if I can get shipped to the South Pole, which I've been dying to do for a long while. Even if it means I have to quit smoking to pass the physical, so be it. A trip to Antarctica is, I dare say, worth sacrificing a testicle for.

I'm such a damned romantic.

See:

Big Bad Love. Thanks to Bob from work for lending it to me; he was right when he said it's a movie for writers.

Hear:

"Chaw" by Spirit Caravan. Fuckin' A, Wino's guitar is sick.

Read:

"Heart of Darkness" by Joseph Conrad. It's sad that more people have seen Apocalypse Now than have read the story that inspired it, but since it wasn't a bad flick, it's almost forgiveable. Conrad makes colonialism look as bleak as it truly was.

Drink:

Pilsner Urquell. As much as I love Lone Star, sometimes you just need Old World quality, even if the cost doesn't stop you from drinking six in less than three hours.

CRANK THAT SHIT UP, CUNTS! VOLUME IS THE FOURTH MEMBER! NO GOATS WERE HARMED IN THE WRITING OF THIS POST!

-Dave
P.S. One day I'm going to have a fuckin' party that will require all attendees to show up dressed in metal t-shirts and toting sixers of cheap beer, and we will go fuckin' nuts listening to metal. If Sara can admit to enjoying Iron Maiden's "Number of the Beast," then anyone can!

Dear Scientist,

The bottle of 18-year-old Glenlivet you so thoughtfully purchased for me on the occasion of my birthday is as excellent as we hoped. Rest assured that I'm not pounding it like Jim Beam, so the next time you stop by the house, it'll be here for you to sample. Keep it Taoist, brother.

Honored To Be Your Friend,
Dave

P.S. to the world at large: It appears Jay is planning on going to Malta next spring. I'm envious, naturally, since I've had my sights set on the former home base of the Royal Navy's Mediterranean Fleet for some time; however, I'm curious as to why he chose the island as his destination. Does he care about Maltese history? The syncretic native language? The fact that one of the greatest novels of the 20th century partially took place there? And who's he taking that makes him gloat about "schooling someone on international travel," which sounds like a poor reason to go anywhere? I'm stumped, and, as previously stated, envious, because, as far as I know, I'm the only person who's wanted to visit the history-soaked flyspeck between Sicily and North Africa. Curious indeed.

A typical Friday morning: drinking, the Almighty Riff (courtesy of High on Fire), and expectations for the weekend that I fear may be dashed upon the jagged, barnacle-covered rocks of reality.

As always, the only legitimate response I can offer is to say that it's casual, because that's exactly what it is.

I truly believe that my brother and his (most likely) defunct band, Last Eve, were a force to be reckoned with. Everytime I listen to "Remember" (click the aforementioned link and download the MP3 from the 'music' link), my soul aches, and if that's not a sign of good music, then I don't know what is. (And no, you cunts, I'm not saying this because half of the driving force behind Last Eve is/was my brother; if any of you had any taste, you'd be able to hear the song on your own and see the inherent beauty.)

I wish nothing but the best for my brother, whom I love dearly and believe has far more talent than I ever will. Axis Mundi Sum, or even Critical Hits, once it's published, will never have the emotional impact that Last Eve does have to someone who hears it with open ears. This may have to do with the difference between music and literature, but as far as I'm concerned, that's beside the point. I cannot live without both music and literature, and seeing as how one fuels the other, and vice versa, in my mind, debating the importance of one over the other is a moot fuckin' point.

I know that my brother, in all his self-deprecating genius, is destined for great things. He is an incredible human being and artist, and he deserves all the laurels that life may lay upon his head. If it came down to it, I would sacrifice my own life, and/or my own art, for his in a heartbeat.

Simply put, being able to claim Michael Scott Smith as as my brother is one of the greatest honors I can imagine. I love the boy more than life itself.

Here's to you, bro.

I just noticed that the entry for my birthday marked the date of writing as August 14, 1979, and not 2004. I'm not going to bother correcting it.

My new RPG.net column is up. If I'd had internet access last week, it might've been a little more timely, but I think it's nevertheless a decent piece of work. Read, enjoy, and comment.

My birthday was quite pleasant, and today has been no different. Yesterday I bought, courtesy of the Borders gift card Sara got me, Umberto Eco's Serendipities, Conrad's Heart of Darkness, and Melville's from which I took the name of my newest ferret, Dr. Long Ghost. After everyone left, I drank some beer, discussed the apparent tragedy that is Aliens vs. Predator with my brother when he stopped by, and read. Today has consisted of two activities: listening to Black Sabbath (and now Motorhead) and more reading. The weather is beautiful, the beer is cold, and my brain is active, so as soon as I'm done writing this entry, I'm going to work on what may be my next novel.

Thanks to everyone that made my birthday as good as it was, either through dropping me an email, calling on the phone, or showing up to knock back a couple cold ones. I hope that I can return the favor sometime.

I'll leave you all with Julian Cope's brilliant review of what has to be one of the most mind-blowing albums released in a very, very long time: Sleep's Dopesmoker. Everyone should own this religious monolith of a record.

It's 5:36 AM, the 14th of August, 1979, and today I turn twenty-five. I have emptied numerous Lone Stars, Shiner Summer Stocks, and Pilsner Urquells down my gullet since yesterday afternoon; I am listening to Venom; I am out of cigarettes; and I am tempted to drive to Spring tomorrow to purchase the (seemingly) original copy of Venom's Possessed on vinyl, and other metal albums, should the mood strike me.

If any of you dear readers wish to celebrate the birthday of a relatively anonymous chump, you can email me at dave at axismundisum.com for details re: tomorrow night's shindig, and/or purchase my novel. Either way works.

HAIL VENOM!

And the Riff of the Year Award goes to...

GOATSNAKE, "BLACK CAT BONE!"

I've finally got internet access again, after a little less than a week of having to go to the library every now and then for a thirty-minute allotment on a computer slower than mine. I didn't really mind not being able to sit down and waste two hours here and there doing nothing on the internet; I was, however, frustrated by not being able to keep up correspondence. Now that I'm back, I think I'll try to use my time a little more wisely, by reading, writing, and so on. The internet doesn't need as much attention as I'm used to giving it.

I saw Brant Bjork and the Bros last night, and they were great. I asked Brant if he'd read any of Axis Mundi Sum, and he said yes, he'd been working on it and enjoying it. That made my night.

One more night of work, and then the week is over. Come Saturday, I'll be 25, and I intend on celebrating by taking it easy with anyone who wants to stop by the house with beer and food. I'll hopefully spend Friday writing, Saturday kickin' back, and Sunday doing some more writing, so it should be a pleasant weekend. If you want to make today a good day, read this excerpt from Tom Hodgkinson's upcoming book, and see why I wish I could find his magazine, The Idler, here in the States.

Adios, folks. If you've emailed me recently, I'll get back to you within the next couple days.

I very much enjoy listening to Garbage. While I no longer possess any of their albums, I recently downloaded "Kick My Ass," which is probably my favorite song of theirs. I first heard it at the home of one of the finest human beings I know, Peter Swulius, during the summer of 2000. While living in Dallas for a month, I spent a few days at his place, working on Axis Mundi Sum, smoking cigarettes, drinking Mountain Dew and soy milk, and generally enjoying the final days of the curious, energetic dot-com era. Despite being four years late, I would like to extend my heartfelt thanks to Peter for those few days, and more importantly, the friendship he and I have shared since our meeting in AB1 215.

In fact, I would like to acknowledge everyone that has done their part to make this world a better place, not by any particular action, but by simply being themselves. I do not mean "everyone who asserts their individuality," as that is not always impressive in itself, but those whose humanity, in the strongest sense of the word, is radiant to the point of impressing itself upon others without any hint of aggression. I am extremely fortunate to know many of these people, and I thank God that a common fool such as myself has been given such a privilege. You know who you are, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart. It is people like you that make being a human being an honor.

Nota bene: I am not writing this as some sort of drunken paean to friendship and Settimbrinian humanism, but in complete sincerity. Again, my deepest thanks.

What a day. I got my first-ever letter from a collection agency, regarding my unpaid hospital bill. Turns out that the county's temporary insurance plan for poor fucks like myself didn't cover my medical expenses... because I didn't turn over the $2,500 I got from my personal injury protection plan associated with my car insurance. Why didn't they tell me back in, say, October or November, or January, when I actually got the card, that I would be forced to hand over money I needed to live?

Thanks to the sins of omission of the county, I now owe somewhere around $4,300. I'll sort out payment options with the collection agency tomorrow, because I didn't have time to do so today. I don't believe there's a minimum monthly payment, so those greedy fucks are going to get nickel-and-dimed if I can get away with it.

Fuck this country for not providing free, or at least reasonably priced, health care to its citizens. Fuck all the politicians whose pockets are lined with pharmeceutical-lobby dollars, fuck the employers who shove their workers into shitty health plans to save money, and fuck all of us for not doing a damned thing about it.

My sinuses are haywire and I'm out of beer, which makes for a fitting end to a travesty of a day.

Friday night I found out I was supposed to go to my uncle's place the following day, since my pops is leaving for Mexico City shortly. I was not aware of this before then, and I'd already made plans with AJ. I ended up staying in Houston, and did see her for a little while. When I woke up on Saturday, however, I felt pretty bad; some chills, a general lack of energy, and a swimming head. Needless to say, being ill killed my plans with AJ, so I ended up missing out on the company of two different people and feeling like a real dick about it.

I got some rest, drank some tea, returned my long-overdue library books, and watched a movie with Sara and Matt (Bowling for Columbine, incidentally- not bad at all, I must say). By the end of the night, which came at four AM, I felt better than I had twelve hours earlier, and this morning, er, afternoon, I feel pretty much back to normal, although there are lingering traces of whatever hit me yesterday.

Aborted plans and illness aside, yesterday was unexpectedly satisfying. Ever since I began working nights and being forced to spend long stretches of time alone, I haven't often felt very content with life. Partly forced isolation from my friends, partly not having done any writing or anything related to it, and partly a low-level feeling of disappointment with myself for not doing what needs to be done with myself, the past month has been kind of rough, but I haven't succumbed to despair, or even drunk more than I usually would during psychological dry spells. I'm happy about this, as it implies that I'm slowly moving in the right direction. I don't know what direction that is, but as long as I'm on the right road, I'll be all right.

Next Saturday I'm going to play Call of Cthulhu with Sean and Ted, and next Sunday I'm going to see Judas Priest, Slayer, and Black Label Society with my brother and AJ. In the middle of next week, Brant Bjork and the Bros are coming to town, so I will see them as well. The following weekend I will turn 25, and despite having doubted the personal value of the past year at times, I think being 24 hasn't really been that bad. 25 should be better, given that it's a multiple of five and I'm aware that I need to recalibrate my sense of idleness so that it doesn't seep into places it doesn't belong all the time.

And now, a beer.

I was going to discuss some jumbled thoughts I've had about morality and the approaches thereto, but frankly, I don't have the energy or focus to do so right now. Shit, I don't want to do anything except drink more beer, smoke a cigarette, and bask in the pre-dawn glow of my three-day weekend.

It's official: Brant Bjork and the Bros, August 11th, Walter's on Washington. Be there.

Not being able to see anyone except coworkers four out of seven days a week is demoralizing enough, but when I think about the possibility of spending the next couple years with a schedule diametrically opposed to everyone else's, it's downright bleak.

I pray to God that in the near future I find an agent for Critical Hits, and, more importantly, start writing a new novel. I dread to imagine what'll happen if I don't put something down on paper soon.

Now playing: Blut Aus Nord, The Work Which Transforms God

I woke up around nine this morning and couldn't get back to sleep, so here I am, awake at an hour I'm usually not. At least I have the whole day ahead of me, unlike yesterday, when I got out of bed at three o'clock. The night shift does strange things to the ol' circadian rhythm.

I went to Jay's party last night with AJ, and while not as big a gathering as I'd expected, it was fun. We left around one o'clock or so, and I rudely didn't say my goodbyes, so here's an apology to everyone.

It's time to stretch out and read.

Goatsnake has a new EP, Trampled Under Hoof, out. Buy it now. Any band that can write songs as bad-ass as "El Coyote," "Black Cat Bone," and "A Truckload of Momma's Muffins" deservers all the support they can get.

There is a party at 1920 W. Alabama tomorrow. It starts at roughly 9 PM, and I hope to see you there, drinking beer and havin' a good fucking time.

Until I get all the piddly shit fixed on the Blue Bastard, driving will make me feel like Ichabod Crane, always hoping to get to the bridge before the Headless Horseman catches me. Inspection and tail light bezel aside, I do have a pretty sweet Jim Anchower upgrade in mind. It will be put into effect tomorrow, since I've got the next three days off.

Go buy Local Angel by Brant Bjork if you haven't done so already.

Please send me $1,000, preferably in cash, so I can purchase fuckloads of metal albums and talk about them to people who don't give a fuck about metal. That means you.

I realized a long time ago that my taste in metal is nowhere as obscure as non-metalheads think it is, if they think that at all, since most metal is obscure to the general public. Nevertheless, since I'm neither an obscurantist or GRIMM AND KVLT AS FVCK, I will hereby issue statements on a fairly well-known metal record, simply because I want to.

Voivod, "War and Pain": Having really only heard Voivod's weirder, more clinical "schizometal" (thanks, Erik Davis, for that one), this came as a surprise. Fuckin' A, it's the archetype of well-done American thrash in 1984, mais du Quebec. Of course, my version is the remastered one, and I have no idea what it sounded like for some sixteen-year-old headbanger when it was originally released twenty years ago, but I bet it fuckin' ruled.

Saint Vitus put out an album named "Born Too Late." Sometimes I feel the same way, but I know I couldn't have been put on this earth at any other time, as cool as it may be to have seen the birth of metal as we know it (among other things). No, I'm here and now, and it's good fuckin' times.

I was sitting at work having a cigarette this evening when something odd happened. Right behind our building, abutted against our barred and covered rear driveway, is a bar, and a fairly popular one, as far as I can tell. Some dude comes out and kneels down next to a Jeep Cherokee parked on the other side of the bars and begins letting air out of one of the tires. He didn't punch a hole in it, but was merely letting the air out through the valve. At first, I thought he had a flat and was filling his tire with an air compressor I couldn't see, but then I noticed that a) the tire was fine, and b) upon standing up, I couldn't see anything next to him. Several times, he got up, looked up and down the street, and went on with his less than valiant attempt to deflate the tire.

I took in all of this within the span of about twenty seconds, and within the first ten I realized that this guy was probably pissed at someone in the bar and was getting some kind of pathetic, petty revenge on them by letting the air out of their tire. Not being one to yell "WHAT THE FUCK, DUDE?", despite being on the other side of an impenetrable wall of bars, I took a moment to figure out how to stop him. After all, not only was his attempt weak, but I couldn't just stand there and let it happen.

The solution to the problem was easy. I coughed loudly, and the echo made sure he heard me. Clearly, he hadn't thought about looking down the driveway while getting back at his new enemy, and he jumped up when he saw me standing twenty feet away, staring at him. He applied pressure to the tire valve stem one more time, then jumped in his truck- parked next to the target of his vandalism- and sped off.

I went back to work bewildered by the man's cowardice, pleased that I had taken care of things without any semblance of violence or threats (to him or myself, mainly myself), and chuckling at the fact that despite the vandal's efforts, the Cherokee owner's right rear tire had lost no more than a pound or two of pressure.

Well, it's official: Realm of Chaos has to be one of Bolt Thrower's finest works. Along with ...For Victory, it's one of their most consistent albums. Of course, even when certain albums aren't solid from beginning to end, Bolt Thrower never fail to deliver. They are the 88mm of metal, punching holes in the weak armor of all others. Should I ever command an army, I will have all of my armored divisions outfitted with grotesquely loud sound systems which will blare Bolt Thrower at 300 decibels. If my superior firepower (said tanks will have fucking 12-inch naval guns as their primary cannon) doesn't win the day, then my foes will flee in fear of the mighty Bolt Thrower.

Bolt Thrower, who are anti-war, probably wouldn't appreciate this, but they have to be aware that their music is the sonic equivalent of a tank division rolling through no-man's land.

I'm drunk, sleepy, and listening to Voivod, Blut Aus Nord, Cruachan, and Bolt Thrower. Earlier I hung out with AJ, watched Better
Luck Tomorrow with the Mann, drank beer with my brother and
company, and took a nap. Like is pretty damned good.



Within thirty minutes I will hit the sack, and life will be even better.

Quality happenings in el mundo del cadaver, folks.

-Work's over for the week.
-Got paid.
-Have beer and cigarettes.
-Listening to Cathedral, Deathspell Omega, and Grand Magus.
-Probably gaming this weekend.
-Making a trip to the record store tomorrow, since I now have a job that allows for such things without fiduciary stress.

All right.

Ha! Some dude wrote a review of Axis Mundi Sum for Amazon, bitching about the lack of an ending and my presence in the book as a character and the author. He said he hoped it would be the first book of a trilogy, and if it wasn't, it would be even worse.

He's got some valid points. The author-as-character device is hackneyed, but it was amusing at the time. As for the ending, well, finality ain't much fun. Neatly wrapping up a book's worth of ramshackle adventures didn't strike me as the right thing to do, especially since half the characters- Kellogg, Null and Void, and Jennyquinn and Leigh, mainly- weren't in a position to conclude their escapades.

Fuck it, though. At least he read the thing and wasn't completely appalled. Then again, he did recommend reading one of Dan Brown's books instead of AMS. This doesn't strike me as a particularly creative, or even apt, suggestion, since (as far as I understand), Brown is a poor man's Umberto Eco when it comes to conspiracy fiction, while I'm the equivalent of a lazy fuck sleeping off a hangover in one of Eco's semiotics classes, and make no claims to much of anything. Comparing us is a waste of effort, but at least I'm the one not wasting it.

I would very much like to live in a world that resembled a Nicholas Roerich painting.

What a fuckin' night. Morning. Whatever. My neighbor's friend's boyfriend and she (the friend) are having some kind of fight and it's keeping me from sleeping. Not that it really matters, but fuck, I wanted to be in bed by 3:30 so I could get up at 11 and have some time to kill before work. It's 4:30 now, and if I'm lucky I'll get outta bed by 1 PM.

The worst part is that I'm out of cigarettes and alcohol.

I read BoingBoing every day. There are some interesting things to be found there, but to a large degree, it irks the living fuck out of me. You see, BoingBoing is run by a few intelligent folks that talk about shit I usually don't have very much interest in: copyright laws, the Disney company, wireless networking, blogs, and so forth. I realize that plenty of people care about these things, but I'm not usually one of them.

However, this isn't really the problem. My bitch, and Wiley Wiggins once voiced a related opinion using a Bob Black essay as a reference, is that they almost fetishize every little gadget, cultural trend, legal battle, piece of furniture, and hip blog they run across. Cory Doctorow, who's a sci-fi writer and a good one at that, has to be the worst offender. His whorish use of the adverb "screamingly" makes me want to hunt him down and tell him that NOT EVERYTHING HE GETS A KICK OUT OF IS REALLY THAT FUCKING GREAT! Another violator is Xeni Jardin, a writer for Wired among other things. She strikes me as the ultimate high-end, post-ironic hipster with an iPod and a fuckin' camera phone. BORING!

Fuck this. I'm not thinking coherently enough to make even a quasi-logical argument. Not that I need to, because this is just a near-buzzed diatribe. I have nothing personal against the BoingBoing staff; I'd just prefer to sit on the porch with a cigarette and a beer and shoot the breeze than run around talking about wifi and DRM. If some lawmaker thinks downloading songs is theft, or that using an open wifi connection is wrong, fine; there are plenty of other laws not pertaining to serious moral or ethical that suck. Just break 'em and be done with it.

I can't believe I've wasted as much time on this as I have. Fuck.

Getting home between as late as 4:15 is a weird feeling, but so far, life at the new job is worth it. I stay busy enough to keep my brain from rotting, but not so busy that I get pissed about having to work too hard. I also get to go to sleep when the sun rises, if I'm so inclined, which I was yesterday.

I think working the night shift may end up being just what I need.

I started my new job yesterday. While hardly exciting, it seems like it'll be all right, in the blase sense; the people are decent, there's just enough work to keep my busy, and it requires more thought on my part than any other job I've had. Tonight will be my first night shift, from 5 PM until 3:30 AM. I hope it goes smoothly.

I thought there was something else to say, but I'll be damned if I can remember what.

I have to thank the International Channel for pickin' me up last night. Around nine I hit the couch with some cold wine and had the pleasure of watching what is now one of my favorite kung fu flicks, Buddhist Fist. See this movie as soon as you can, especially if you like a bit of humor with your chop-socky. It's got bad-ass fight scenes, tons of item-fu, a recognizable plot, a creepy hunchback, shabby-looking cigarettes, hardcore old monks, a crafty xiang qi player, an unstoppably lazy but fierce temple guard, and hilarious dialogue. (It was dubbed, which I usually don't like, but it added to the comedy.)

I'm also writing again. What'll come of it, I don't know, but it doesn't matter. Life ain't too bad, dude.

"Left hand Buddha Palm, right hand Buddha Fist!"
"Sleeping Buddha!"
"Drunken Buddha!"
"Furious Buddha!"

Yeah, life is fuckin' sweet. Especially since I just found a bunch of Buddhist Fist .wav files!

Deep sense of unease. Much of it is probably the result of being nervous about starting a new job in a couple days, but there's something else I can't quite put my finger on.

At least I've got Local Angel to listen to. Brant Bjork can do no wrong.

It is done.

Now I have a few days of respite before I jump into the maw of a new job. Let's hope I can make the most of them.

Ha ha! My work-induced apathy rules. Here's a snippet of a conversation I had with a customer today. Apparently my answers weren't emotionally fulfilling, and my lack of small talk affronted his sensibilities as a responsible consumer.

(N.B. The actual topic of conversation is beside the point, so don't worry if you don't know what's being discussed. I guarantee that it's boring.)

14:33:25] Aymen : Once I purchase it do I need to set it up on Plesk
14:33:30] Aymen : or is it done automatically
[14:33:34] Aymen : as part of the purchase?
[14:33:37] Dave S : You need to set it up.
[14:34:58] Aymen : Thanks. Is there anything else that I can help you with today?
[14:36:43] Aymen : Well thanks and have a good day. I thought at least one of us should be doing the Nice Sales Rep thing since you don't seem to be in the mood.

Damn right I wasn't in the mood. I'm never in the mood to put up with human colostomy bags like this. Fuck customer service. Proofreading will inevitably be better.

I think I started this bit of fiction two and a half years ago. I've looked at it from time to time, but never gone anywhere with it. Given my mood as of late, the stars may be right to expand it.

Please note that this isn't all I've written, and it's by no means a finished, or even polished, product. Comments are nonetheless welcome.


A year ago she took up the worship of a dead god, acquired and failed to kick a fungus habit, and was photographed in the company of SS men thought to have been executed on the Eastern Front in 1944.

It was not a good year for her, according to the liquor store clerk and the revolver-carrying Malaysian in the back room of her favorite Chinese restaurant. She, of course, said otherwise.

Despite the demise of MonsterVision years ago, Joe Bob Briggs is still alive, well, and funny as ever. He is the embodiment of everything that is good about Texas.

In the spirit of Chin Shengt'an and The Idler magazine's reader-submitted take on his "Thirty-Three Happy Moments," I give you The Corpse's Handful of Happy Moments. I am in an exceptionally good mood, so I might as well try and lift the spirits of my six dedicated readers.


Waking up at two o'clock in the afternoon and drinking a beer. Ah, is this not happiness?


Spending a long evening by the pool conversing and drinking warm beer with someone you barely know. Ah, is this not happiness?


Being surrounded by good books in every room of the house, and having the time to peruse any of them at my leisure. Ah, is this not happiness?


Expecting a new album to arrive in the mail any day. Ah, is this not happiness?


Not being at work. Ah, is this not happiness?


Having a little money in my pocket that I can spend however I please. Ah, is this not happiness?


Casual correspondence with friends and the possibility of spending time with them. Ah, is this not happiness?


Being four blocks from the public library. Ah, is this not happiness?


Yes, a solid theory of leisure and idleness is most definitely key to recognizing the greatness of life. My thanks to Lin Yutang, Len Bracken, The Idler magazine, and everyone else who knows that the best way to live life is to keep it casual.

Hinda65



"Now it's time to walk the line
It's a beauty so pure and so fine
Watch the chumps go floatin' by
Three suckers high in the six-five


I think it's time to meet her
It's so easy to please her
Now we take it all 'til the end of time
She's a ride, she's a sweetie pie


Took a month but now I'm movin'
Back to the world where I belong in


Don't mind the fuzz, we'll burn 'em up
We're so bad when we fuck it up
Rollin' in downtown
To get our kicks underground


She's all mine, she's givin' me sunlight
Feelin' her curves, now I'm livin' the high life


Ain't nothin' gonna stop the rock tonight.


I got the rock tonight
Feelin' good it's so right


Ain't nothin' gonna stop the rock tonight"

Last night I happened to be watching the news and they brought up the bizarre coronation of Reverend Moon in the halls of Congress. This happened months ago, and only now the news mentions it. They also called him the "head of the Unitarian church." They didn't even fucking tell their anchor the proper name of the church!

There was something else that was utterly late, but I can't remember what it was.