Dharma Beatdown

'Pervasive appropriateness,' fuck you Alanis.

2009-04-16T09:52:00.000-07:00

On my way in to work today, I came around a bend on the expressway and as I neared the traffic signal, I saw that a semi truck had laid on its brakes- hard, as it had arrived at the red light. There were long skidmarks and HUGE cloud of mephitic smoke. Lots of smoke.

As I pulled up alongside and stopped, I took a look at the cab of the truck. Guess who it belonged to?

AHAAAAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAAHHA

Haters: Eat a bag of dicks

2009-04-14T06:54:00.000-07:00

You know, as a man of very modest intellectual powers, and as an artist, a disciple of philosophy, and lover of mental stimulation, I must confess to a certain desire. I want to argue. I want to debate, to exchange barbs and quips and bon mots, to engage in some mutual shit-talking or a healthy round of the Dozens. Unfortunately, like some jaded gourmand with limited restaurant choices at hand, or a libertine who can sense the inhibitions that lock every sweaty curve away from him, I realize that it is not easy to get what I want. Most people are not up to the task. They assume that the idea of conflict, of opposition, is a negative one, and in their shallow understanding, their fear, we see a crude mimicry of the graceful forms that aesthetic debate can be. The haters- these rude commentators- are like untaught martial artists angry that the master has effortlessly counted coup on them, now losing control and striking out to wound.

But just as these martial tyros end up on the floor, embarassed and unharmed, so the haters are going to get called out for their bullshit. I've tried to be nice, to make allowances for ignorance, but at this point it's not helping anyone. These haters are absolute shitheads, and they're not even good at it.

In Zen, we have a concept called 'dharma combat.' It is from this idea that I took the name of the blog. Simply explained, dharma combat is some combination of masters and senior students engaging in dialogue to test each others' understanding and experience. Its nature is variable. The dialogue can run from cryptic to mundane, the language can be refined or scatological, and dharma combat can end in tears, laughter, frustration, or enlightenment. But as I have opined already, it is not for the rank novice. I'd like to take dharma combat as a model for modern oppositional discourse and critical response, with the idea that everyone can join in eventually and no whiny pee-pee pants get their feelings hurt.

Now, on to the good stuff.

In a previous post I critiqued, honestly, a local band. It turns out that they are good friends of my little brother's, so I know I can't be accused of cronyism. As can be easily read in the comments to that post, a representative of another local band responded in a rude and childish way to this criticism. The commentator was friends with the first band, and they play together, so I will call cronyism on her. My response was sharp, yet I tried to retain some humility and harmony, and I further went on to make a seperate post reviewing her band in an honest and actually flattering way. Make note- the important thing here is honesty, to yourself and the rest of the world. We'll come back to that. The point is, I have been really good to these people.

So now that the ashes are cold, along comes some anonymous douchebag to have a go at me. I'm starting to feel like Gene Wilder's character in "Blazing Saddles," laying my guns down undefeated and then getting shot in the ass by some young punk. Let's take his comment apart bit by bit, together, shall we.

Anonymous said...

Well, there's your first red flag. If this douche had really wanted me to understand his points, or to initiate some sort of dialogue, he would've at least left some way for me to contact him, instead of hiding behind the Intarweb anonymity that so perfectly matches his mediocrity. At least use a fake name with a dump email attached. I'm sure Eazy-E had a PO Box for Dr. Dre to send letters to in between albums.

welcome to the northwest. it gets chilly so people put on a flannel.

First off, already in the Northwest. Been here 18 years and counting. Your point? And my point, with the flannel, was that it was obviously a fashion choice, and a poor one. It looked like crap, and IT WAS JULY. The opposite of chilly. I used to wear a suit and trenchcoat at gigs sometimes. That was silly. But there were gigs where we all wore hipwaders, or we all wore masonic robes. It was part of the overall aesthetic. People wondered what crazy shit these guys were going to have on. While the flannel might have matched the WIBG aesthetic, nobody told the bass player that. So I don't see any consistency.

you attacking some guy for his body type/ appearance is pathetic.

Show me the attack. I reviewed the performance, which I liked overall, and talked about the parts of it that bothered me. That's my prerogative. I am the one putting my opinion out there. Everyone has an opinion. Anyone can express it inarticulately over PBR with their hangers-on or in an anonymous web post. But to expose your opinion for every douchebag with an aggregator, and to do it in a consistent and philosophically honest way that leaves you open and vulnerable- that's hard. One could easily say that the singer of WIBG doesn't say anything bad about me, so why pick on him? Well, that's kind of the point. He behaves in an extraordinary manner (getting on stage, using affected mannerisms), which takes courage, but if it had come off as being beneficial instead of detrimental to him and his band, I would have applauded him in an extraordinary manner instead of riffing on him in one. I don't know the guy, there is nothing personal in it. And if he wants to check out my band and review it, he's welcome to. I would hope that his criticism would display as much integrity and dedication as mine does. Criticism is egalitarian. Anyone can do it. It's even easier these days, but we must set the bar higher.

and, judging by yr comment to ms hatkin, it seems like you need to ditch the ego bullshit

Well, you sir cannot judge by my comment because you clearly did not comprehend it. I don't believe you read my followup post either. I assume by 'ditching the ego bullshit' you mean me talking about myself and what I've done. Well, you may recall, had you actually understood the things you read, that she challenged me with "WHO ARE YOU?" I did not take that as rhetorical. The rest of her comment seemed to indicate that I was not an artist myself, but a soulless critic lambasting other people out of feelings of inadequacy for being able to do what they do. I responded to that challenge. Not only is the field of criticism enriched by the experience of its practitioners, I feel that the sterotype of the cloistered, hateful critic is unfair. Do you want a realtor who's never bought a house? A doctor who's never been sick? Neither of those examples stay in business very long. Speaking in a strictly reductivist fashion, I believe that academic criticism that is uninformed by experience ends up as a fruitless discussion of qualia. Which sucks. Like you, Anonymous. Stop giving 'ego' a bad name. For better or worse, without ego there would be no human consciousness, and we don't need to ditch the ego, simply reconcile it.

quit explaining how yr projects are more legit than 'hipster' trends and ahead of some imaginary cultural curve

Don't put words in my mouth, motherfucker! If you're going to come up with your own ill-informed meanings for my statements, then use your own 'I' statements. Don't be a coward. And if you are going to be a coward, at least don't be complete-ass wrong. My explanation of my own projects' legitimacy is a response to Ms. Hatkin's prejudicial attempt to discredit me. Her own statements about how hard it is to play her style of music in a town that loves it are incorrect, at best. If I am independent of 'some imaginary cultural curve,' not ahead of it as you say, then it only signals my freedom from faddishness and my ability to have a broader perspective. And someone in this dialogue definitely needs to have that.

go back to buddha for some enlightenment.

Oh, snap! This was what set it off for me. I have to wonder, since you are clearly so insensitive and intolerant, do you tell aboriginal people to "Go back where they came from?" Do you really want to go there? Atheism is a core doctrine of Zen Buddhism, and like pretty much everyone in the world I was born an atheist. Remaining one makes me one of the last officially persecuted minorities in this country. Is that what you want, to make religiously inflammatory comments without any clue of what you're talking about? Again, you did not try to initiate a dialogue with me, but made a foolish drive-by comment without any sort of class or grace or wisdom. All this- the art, the learning, the critique, the philosophy, is part of my yearning towards enlightenment. I don't need to go back to the Buddha for that.

And that's that. Ignorant motherfuckers need to chill. Or, step up. And thanks to Louie CK for the title of the post. I'm not stealing your act, don't kill me, man...

Why "Spartan" may be the best movie ever written

2009-02-23T07:16:00.000-08:00

This is a repost from myspace from a while back. Kayla and I had dinner with her old roomies, who I had never met. They seem like pretty cool kids, but after I was dissing "Fargo" they seemed to think I was some sort of cinematic reject. We also got to the subject of "All The Real Girls," a David Gordon Green movie that is one of Kayla's favorites. I hold it to be the counterexample of the movie I'm about to review, and wrong in every place that "Spartan" is right, a pointless piece of cinema about a whole town of timewasters where the smartest person is a five-year-old with Down's. So, here it is, in brief. I was really just starting to get rolling with being a critical philosophy douchebag, so I didn't have all that much to say. I mean, I was a minimalist.

Heh, it's the movie you've never seen. The one you picked up next to "Syriana" and said, This looks interesting, but George Clooney...

"Spartan" is the one that got away, but the other day I watched it. No shit, I really did. Now, I had put it down in favor of "Syriana," so don't think I'm bragging. I wasn't sure what to expect, really, and what I got was a revelation on the nature of art. I won't fuck you with the banality of a plot review, or anything like that. The basics of the Mamet-written-and-directed "Spartan" is thus: a competently shot and acted spy thriller, with dialogue that sounds as if it came from some occult ritual. It's offputting at first. You think you've stumbled onto a Special Forces unit made up of Asperger's sufferers. As the movie goes on, though, you realize that every single person speaks with the ritual cadence of someone on the continuum from novitiate to adept. In fact, the only naturalistic lines are uttered when characters are actually giving spy code phrases. How 'bout that, motherfuckers? Weird, huh? Here's a sample, with faceless agent Val Kilmer saying something to his protege:

Scott: In the city there is always a reflection, in the woods always a sound. Curtis: What about the desert? Scott: You don't wanna go to the desert.

I was taken with this movie and what it represented, but I didn't realize what it meant until I hit the right chapter in Theodor Adorno's landmark "Aesthetics." Schizophrenic Adorno's organization may be, he has the right ideas, and his judgement on effective art recognized the harmony or nonduality, the imposition of opposites. The visuals and plot of "Spartan" are the mechanical, realistic portrayal of life as we know and live it. Were you to extend this to the dialogue, it would either become a documentary or a cheezy sentimental... Hollywood film. Instead, the dialogue and acting of "Spartan" represent a formal pure artistry, ideas and expressions for their own sake, removed from conventional ideas of reality. What Mamet has done is blend them like oil and balsamic vinegar, distinct in each dip of the bread. Genius. And don't even begin to try and understand some of the things people say. They are ultra-Zen, with no rational iron bridge between islands in hell. You have to jump, and you will feel the meaning burn deep down in the cockles of your liver.

Now, I'm no Mamet whore, but I will declare unequivocaly that "Spartan" may be one of the best movies ever written in a formalist critical view, a la the Frankfurt School.

At least, that is, until your next step in the initiation...

I got a fucking book contract

2009-02-20T13:34:00.000-08:00

So, it's not exactly news that I have a book deal with Evil Nerd Empire for a trilogy of short novels. We're in the final stages of book one, "Antipaladin Blues," just waiting on the illustrator. However, I got my contract in the mail yesterday, and I'm very excited. This is a big deal for me. It's a lot of fun, and I have enthusiastically picked up working on book two, "Archlich Hotel." Characters are already getting stabbed, a wizard has been called an asshole, and it's shaping up to be sheer wall-to-wall awesomeness. I'll take some pictures of me signing the contract and acting like a buffoon.

Also, in some other fun news, I sent off the Coeur Machant demo link to a few labels. I heard back from one of them, Central Contol, which is Barry Adamson's label. They liked our stuff, but the roster is full up, so they want us to check back with them later. And I looked at alonetone, and sure enough, the guy I talked to had listened to a few songs. Woot!

Morrissey- 'Years Of' Brutal Asskicking begin... now.

2009-01-22T10:09:00.000-08:00

I was going to write a full review of Morrissey's new album, "Years of Refusal" which is due to be released Valentine's Day. Instead I'm going to share this actual conversation with my wife which happened this morning on the way to work when she plugged her iPod in.

Me: Hey, we could put my iPod in instead and listen to some of my music.

Kayla: Uh, no thanks. (the volume comes on very loud.) Jesus Christ, how loud do you listen to music in the car?

Me: The new Morrissey is pretty awesome, I had to turn it up.

Kayla: ...

Me: We should put it in. I think you'd actually like this one, it's pretty hardcore.

Kayla: I doubt that.

Me: It starts rocking and does not let up. He's crazy, like stabbing people and cutting off heads.

Kayla: Morrissey is not stabbing people! He sucks!

Me: Seriously, he's out of control. Morrissey's tearing shit up over there. (I listen to the Third Eye Blind coming out of the speakers.) It rocks much harder than this crap.

Kayla: You're ridiculous.

So, I heartily recommend it. Morrissey is rapidly becoming the Slayer of brit-pop- instead of wimping out over the years, the music keeps getting tougher and more brutal. For the rare opportunity to hear an artist who has actually matured in his work, check out "Years of Refusal." Just remember to check your Smiths nostalgia and kneejerk Morrissey hatred at the door.

"Bradley Sands is Nicholas Murray Butler's Ass"

2009-01-19T07:22:00.001-08:00

The "Bradley Sands Is A Dick" anthology is now available. Check out the official announcement from official editory Andersen Prunty here, and don't forget to vote for the best segment (mine) in the sidebar.

Not sure how to explain this antho... it was for short stories, and I submitted an acrostic. It was so full of win, that I was rejected. Andersen said that it would be included in a foreword to show the breadth of weirdness in the submissions, though apparently, to continue the meminess, it was so full of fail that it was admitted into the main body of work. The winner will be named Bradley Sands' archnemesis, and I do think I can fit the bill. I did threaten to "crawl inside [Sands'] ass and bust out all [his] teeth when I'm reborn through [his] ugly face." So read it... there's great stuff here... Jordan Krall, Garrett Cook, Kek-w, Cameron Pierce, and many more. And Mandy Moore.

My winter vacation

2009-01-18T07:59:00.000-08:00

Just returned from a week visiting with Kayla's fam down in the Paso/SLO area in California. A decent little break from the work grind, and great to have some time basically alone with my lovely wife and baby. A few things occurred to me through the week, and here they is.

Right before I left, I did karaoke with Tim, Robin, Sarah, and Edweird. It was a good night, and one of our previous haunts has come back better than before in wake of the smoking ban. The notable thing about this, apart from their acquisition of a sizeable number of Morrissey songs, is the fact that I managed to get semi-Rickrolled during karaoke. What? How is that even possible? Let me explain. I decided that in the wake of my Rick Astley halloween costume, I should try to do "Never Gonna Give You Up" at karaoke someday. So, I put it up that night as my very last song. Karaoke was about over, and I had two songs up, that one and "Ride On" by AC/DC. "Ride On" should have been the last song the way the timing went, so when I got called up for the last time, I was expecting that. The kj told me she loved the song when she was a kid, and she seemed like a rocker type, then...

We had a lot of down time in Cali. This was more of a family visit trip, and of course Amelia is just a wee baby. It's important to read to little children, and not just board books and Dick and Jane horseshit. So while we were there I was reading Richard Dawkins to her. As I was reading the chapter on computer-simulated life in "The Blind Watchmaker" I realized something. Not only is he probably one of the most important people in science and philosophy, but he's a cool motherfucker. There's a perception that Dawkins is a douchebag, perhaps because he is so tenacious when it comes to the religion issue, but that perception is not really based on anything. I've talked to him before. I called in to the Infidel Guy show years back when he was on, and while I knew who he was then, in the sense of him being an influential evolutionary biologist, I didn't know that this was the godfather of fucking meme theory. He just sounded like a cool dude. Dawkins and Reg were discussing atheism and evolution, and I had a legit question about using current advances in artificial life simulacra as a philosophical stepping stone to breaking the ice with our less enlightened creationist friends. Dawkins was a complete gentleman and discussed it with me. He didn't say "Hey, I wrote some of those programs, there's a whole chapter devoted to it in my book which you can buy on Amazon!" So kudos to you sir.

I also finished "Last Call" by Tim Powers. I was going to comment on that but have decided to devote a seperate entry to that, because it's a bigger literary issue, entitled 'What the fuck is wrong with Tim Powers?'

We had dinner with Kayla's cousin in SLO, a fun little college town during the height of its farmer's market. This was my only small world moment of the whole trip. I've been a fan of Michael Helm's photography for a while, since I've seen him featured on DA. So, it was pretty easy for me to notice that fetish model Natalie Addams, a favorite of his, was sitting a couple tables across from us. What's that, you say? Of course I didn't say anything? That would be gauche! I didn't say anything to Wallace Shawn when I ran into him in downtown PDX... just gave him a dignified nod. And for that I received a saucy wink.

Just like undead "Heroes"

2008-12-03T09:59:00.000-08:00

I've really had to think about this one. Why do I like the series "Heroes" so much?

I'm not sure, really. Perhaps it was the potential of it: a mainstream TV show that dealt with comic-book type superheros, able to tell vivid stories. Perhaps that's also why I keep watching it, despite its failure to deliver. It's hard to pinpoint one person to blame for this, anyway. Creators, writers, actors, etc. all deliver. Even Wendy and Lisa made a bang-up score, despite it being repeated over and over and each episode.

Wait, whoa. I have to back up a second. You know what? It is the writers' fault.

From the get-go, "Heroes" has been a show that is afraid of itself. Season one was great, a slow build towards the awesome Kirby Plaza climax, which... fizzled. I think, and a lot of people watching the show at the time agreed that bringing all your super-powered characters together for a big fight and then having the absolute minimum of combat happen was an insult to the viewer. It was somewhere around this time, that in a textual sense, "Heroes" tripped and fell through its own asshole and broke its motherfucking neck.

Season two was an abortion, and best not even talked about. The producers even admit that. Then, in Season three, the best character the show has ever had shows up... Arthur Petrelli, presumed-dead patriarch of the show's central family. Played in a vigorously understated way by Robert Forster, this power-sucking fiend barely even falls in 'supervillain' territory. The character's out-and-out humanity coupled with believable badassery makes him an 'ultravillain' in my book. He

UPDATE

This draft sat unedited for weeks. I had so many great ideas for how the show could have been improved, but the holidays and Arctic Blast '08 (don't ask) derailed it a bit, then THEY ENDED THE SEASON BY KILLING OFF FUCKING ARTHUR PETRELLI AND UNDOING PRETTY MUCH EVERYTHING THAT HAD HAPPENED. Sure, Ando has his red lightning power but it's some sort of lame meta power boost. And Mohinder is still alive. Come on!

So after some discussion with the fine folks on Fark, I came to realize that the only thing I could think of to save "Heroes" is a complete recast- not reboot, recast- for humorous effect. And here it is!

As Claire Bennet, regenerating cheerleader:

Leelee Sobieski. Why? Why the fuck not.

As her dad, the Horn-Rimmed Glasses man:

Will Ferrell. Don't get me wrong... Jack Coleman is awesome as the badass HRG, and a great actor despite all the crap script they give him. We're not going for good here, we're going for funny. And can't you just imagine him saying "I love you Claire-bear."?

As douchebag kinda-scientist Mohinder:

Ian Curtis. Plays his role well in the first act, then hangs himself with a clothesline before starting to suck ass.

As time-hopping otaku Hiro:

Jean-Claude Van Damme. Sure, I made a play on words with the time-hop/"Time Cop" thing, but wouldn't it be funny?

And as his grounded sidekick Ando:

Samuel motherfucking Jackson. Don't judge me.

As telepathic cop Matt Parkman:

Genius actor/writer/director/fanboy Mike McCafferty. In fact, in my bizarroverse, he's helming the series too. Go watch "Quest." Do it.

As mysterious presence the Haitian:

Cloris Leachman.

As head cutting semi-villain Sylar:

Mike Patton. Imposing, creepy as fuck, and versatile enough to handle any last minute character about faces the writers can throw at him.

Next up, in a surprising twist, as both Petrelli brothers Peter and Nathan:

David Duchovny. That's kind of an inside joke.

As Machiavellian mama Petrelli:

Porn star Sasha Grey. And with Duchovny on the set, it should get interesting. Yes, I know she's younger than he is, but you saw "The Manchurian Candidate" didn't you?

And finally, just to wrap this shit up, let me come to my favorite character of the whole series. There were so many cool choices I could have gone with, but this was the first one I thought of, and it's perhaps the best. As Arthur Petrelli:

A pipe dream, sure. But now, no matter what "Heroes" may sling at us, we've all had this little moment together, haven't we?

I agree with Bradley Sands

2008-11-19T05:49:00.000-08:00

There's something wrong in the blogosphere. Maybe the wrong thing is us.

I got to meet Bradley for the first time at BizarroCon over the weekend. It was a relief to find that he was not nearly as intimidating as I feared him to be, but instead endearing and quite possibly in the final throes of syphilitic agony. jk, bradley, bff omg.

He asked me why I haven't been blogging in a while, as he himself had not been. We both had the same problem with converse lead-ups and solutions. Bradley had been talking about his personal life, and was done with it. I had been talking about whatever, and was done with it.

As you may know, I am in the midst of a Kafka-esque custody battle. One of the defeats I have suffered is that I can only see my kids at a supervised facility, and don't get much of a chance to talk about any real issues with them. The weekend before the con was the first time I talked to them about being with Kayla and how they were going to have a new little sister. Leading up to that, it felt...bourgeouis to me to have this momentous issue to deal with and then at the same time to be blogging about how Justice uses sidechain compression or some shit.

Well, I've talked to the kids. The struggle continues. My blog is still here. Justice still pumps a pretty mean sidechain. Bradley Sands came up with the idea that instead of blogging about our lives how they really were, we should just lie. Make up some completely random interesting crap, so it doesn't take so much out of us. Well, isn't what we already do with the writing? I don't know if he's already doing that strategy. I'll have to be very careful reading his blog posts, especially the ones that say how handsome I am.

Not sure what my strategy will be. I think since I am of a certain persuasion, I can swallow the dilemma and move forward. Back on the worst horse.

Next blog: more on the con, how awesome it was and how it ultimately made me feel like shit.

Garrett Cook's "Murderland Part 1" Review

2008-10-13T11:31:00.000-07:00

If there was one thing that Hunter Thompson demonstrated through his writing and his antics, and we writers can take especial note, is that we are forever haunted by four ghosts, 'patron haints' if I may be allowed to coin a phrase: the Buddha, David Hume, Heraclitus, and Werner Heisenberg. I bring this up because recent events in my personal blogosphere have shown me just how small a world it is, and with some thoughts on interdependence, I realized I wanted to make things go ahead correctly.

One thing I've noticed is that a lot people review their friends' work with a less than critical eye. While that's great, it's nice to buoy your friends up a bit with praise, I think it does them a bit of disservice. I've seen reviews that are little more than a regurgitation of the jacket copy. Why bother putting that kind of review up? I've determined that I'm not going to do that. So disclosure time: I'll be reviewing "Murderland Part 1:h8" by Garrett Cook. He's a friend from afar- hopefully moving to PDX soon, and I hope I helped him with that a bit. We're also having our series of books come out from the same publisher, Evil Nerd Empire. What's the word for that? 'Labelmates' sounds more rock 'n roll, so I guess that works.

'Murderland,' in brief, is the story of Jeremy Jenkins, a mild-mannered pharmacist whose cover story of being a moralizing nebbish hides that he is in fact a vigilante killing the popularly-sanctioned serial killers of his day, but also one himself, targeting scores of young blondes who he believes to be the hosts of an invisible techno-chthonic menace that only he can see. It is here in Jeremy's insanity that he joins the ranks of other wonderful unreliable narrators such as Severian or Patrick Bateman: is Jeremy really a golden Adonis as he sees himself? Is there truly a Nanite invasion, or just a sick justification? A split personality also crops up as the assassin part of Jeremy's mind, and this personality is so effortlessly charming that it made me wish, as I did about William Hurt's apparition in 'Mr. Brooks', that it would get a lot more face time with the reader.

"You kill like a girl. Pills, Jeremy? God, pills? I'm starting to feel that my faith in you is quite misplaced. I need a Cuchulain and I get a Borgia."

My one complaint about this bit, and quite a backhanded one at that, is that Cook's voice in this novel is so strong, especially for a debut novel, that the transitions between the main character and his 'secret sharer' were a little too well-done. That same narrative voice makes this a wonderfully strong read, and very brisk- I read it over lunch and break at work and barely noticed when suddenly the book was over, and had to do a bit of a double-take. I'd read some comments about the futuristic or experimental language of the book, but did not see much of evidence of that. The running patter in Jeremy's head allows a graceful buildup to a nice piece of classic thriller-type climax: conveyed by Murderland's top murder afficionado, both reader and Jeremy realize the true magnitude of his violence and its impact on the world of 'Reap.' Great stuff. Again the narrative voice is so strong that it tends to overwhelm the supporting characters, such as Jeremy's girlfriend Cass. Her emergence at the end of the book as a 'real person' seemed a bit pat, but I feel that is part and parcel with transition into the action of the next book, as well as her association to the world of 'Reap,' as you'll see in a minute.

It is this alternate world of 'Reap' where 'Murderland' falls a bit flat, and I don't think it is Cook's fault at all. The dystopian shocker, as a genre, has a pedigree going back almost 200 years, but as a vital, living form of art seems to lack enough critical work being thrown at it. In 'Murderland' serial killers are extended a sort of disability/affirmative action, that instead of causing them to be mocked as our Asperger's sufferers are, instead are lionized by letting the basest instincts of the public run wild. This is a marvelous concept, like something Aldous Huxley would have come up with had 'Answer Me!' been around when he was alive. Instead we are treated to the same old stuff: murder-themed restaurants, gangs of people dressed like Jack the Ripper, and TV shows tracking killing instead of sports. One character does stand out: serpent-jawed Godless Jack, who shows the potential of combining the self-righteous killer with the bodily transgressive for maximum creepy effect.

So what went south? And just barely, because this is a great book, and perhaps only a fellow writer with a head full of philosophy and nose for the Frankfurt school would really go this far. There's a pitfall in this fiction that needs to be explored, and I suppose instead of being bummed that I am rambling away from review territory, Garrett Cook may be pleased that I am inspired by his work to tackle a new term for the genre: 'The Reverse Uncanny Valley.'

The Uncanny Valley is a theory, not considered scientific necessarily, that as simulacra (such as robots or CGI characters) become more realistic, human reactions to them become more favorable up to a certain point, at which point they drop off sharply. Plotted on a graph, this dip in reactions is the Valley. The commonly accepted explanation is that as more things become 'normal,' the details that are not are more noticeable, and the brain rejects the whole. I disagree. To me, I think that something about an almost-perfect robot causes us to consciously or unconsciously question exactly what it is that makes us human, and we can't put our finger on it. Thus revulsion towards the object of our existential confusion. Obviously, if you want to sell a robot or market a cartoon character, no dice. Thus, as stated in the "Shrek" DVD extras, they had to make Princess Fiona less beautiful, because she was creeping the animators out. In a critical view, the idea of the Uncanny Valley is not a scientic one, supportable with data, but a philosophic and methodological one: we want it to be there as part of our aesthetics, we have decided that there will be an Uncanny Valley to avoid in the creation of simulacra.

However, a sort of mirror image exists, not a precise opposite, but a complimentary technique, and for a lack of better term, I'm calling it the Reverse Uncanny Valley. Perhaps something like Cook's Canyon would be more appropriate- but I must confess I am hoping that Stigler's Law of Eponymy doesn't take hold and Gulbranson's Canyon might be it.

So taking it as a given that there is an Uncanny Valley showcasing how little we know about what makes us human, I think there's very strong evidence that the Reverse Valley tells us all about how our society is fucked up and staring us in the face every day, only no matter how weird and roundabout a way it may choose to tell us, the issues it confronts are very immediate and direct. The dystopia- the fractured place- in the future, well, it's not in the future, and it's revolting because we're standing at ground zero, realizing it on the same level as staring into the soulless eyes of a robot with a sweet, fuckable body and perfect face. Take "A Clockwork Orange"- perhaps the most recognizable and effective piece of dystopian fiction (book and film) ever. Bowler hats and penis furniture aside, it's really about kids talking funny, morals being challenged, the government not giving a shit about you, and violence lying in the heart of everyone. Timeless stuff, and apply it to the environment of your story, and you have dystopian lit first class. It's going to resonate. Don't doubt me. I laughed when I read about the futuristic Stalin ad campaign in "Terraplane," but I wasn't laughing when I bought that bottle of black bean sauce with a dancing Stalin on it at the Russian market a month later.

Of course there's a wide spectrum- ranging from the prosaic and heartbreaking "Random Acts of Senseless Violence" by Jack Womack to "Grape City" by Kevin L. Donihe. Womack's is the diary of a 12-year-old girl during an economic collapse, and her eventual transformation into a killer. No miracles or alternate history required. Donihe gives us a vision of a humanity so distorted that demons and devils have been brought to their knees by our perversity and brutality, and the story veers into surreal and absurd at every turn, but still shows us our true face right now.

That's the power of dystopian fiction. Despite the trappings of a usually escapist science fiction setting, its immediacy lets us know we are somewhere between ankle-and upper lip-deep in the flood. The heavy hitters of this literature are credited with social change and literary influence unlike any other genre. Apart from the stylistic flubs I mentioned earlier(consequences of an industry-wide ignorance, and the equivalent of spiked armpads in post-apocalyptic movies), "Murderland" shows that Garrett Cook may be on his way to being one of those heavy hitters. Protagonist Jeremy reminds us that we're just a couple of newspaper articles away from going native wherever we are, and that is in the classic spirit of running straight down to the bottom of the Valley. Perhaps now that Cook knows why he should ... perhaps he'll

homestead for a while. There aren't many writers I'd rather have down there.

Trauma Center: Gettin' Stabby

2008-10-06T07:48:00.000-07:00

Kayla and I did something uncharacteristic and actually rented a video game over the weekend. I had played it briefly once before and been intrigued by its game mechanic- you're a surgeon, you go inside people and use the wiimote to carve them up like the Christmas turducken and save their lives. That's great, and this part was a lot of fun, and challenging even on easy, but it was the interstitial narrative sequences that made me wish that the Wii was a more powerful platform and the Japanese gaming culture a bit hungrier for innovation. The cutscenes comprise what is known as a 'visual novel', and what that means for the player is that you sit there and click A while pictures of the characters pop up in front of static backgrounds and you read their dialogue. Don't get me wrong... the plot was engrossing. Starting from some half-retarded JD from "Scrubs" bullshit, it moved to some neat stuff that seemed to combine elements from the wildly underrated Hugh Grant vehicle "Extreme Measures" and the mystical conspiracies from "Alias." Still, I found myself giving up and skipping all the cutscenes to get on to the next operation. Not a recipe for success.

That's why I wish the Wii was more powerful. If between operations you were immersed in a combat situation, and had to prowl around looking for wounded, that would be great. Or at least something better than... oh, I don't know, silent movie-level media? Remember how cool the talking heads were from "Fallout"? That's because they had some powerhouse voice acting like David Warner, Tony Shalhoub, and Tony Jay. Make the narrative portions a trifle interactive, perhaps adapt a property like "Black Jack"... and you have a recipe for an awesome game.

One minor quibble is that the operations can be a little obtuse even with the onscreen help and relative simplicity of the tools. A particular procedure had me "treating the epithelial" which did not immediately translate to "inject blue solution from your hypodermic into those five billion red spots on the intestine." Kayla didn't want to play at first... she said it looked stressful, and mind you, she occasionally has to hold peoples eyes open with forceps for a living. Yowza. And of course the 'click-everything-a-hundred-times' strategies you learned from Something Awful will not help you, as you not only have a time limit, but repeatedly suturing the patient or lasering them for no reason really tends to, well, kill them.

I did come up with quite an idea, though, and let it be known that it is my idea alone. I hope. Let's call it... "SPACE CHAPLAIN." You're the chaplain, a Zen monk or similar, on some futuristic starship, ministering to the brutal Space Marines of a galactic empire (why? I fucking love space marines!). Being on the 'wrong side' would force you to look at all sorts of tough moral and ethical issues, and here's the rub... you'd have to go through the conversational trees and solve the puzzles or whatever with a new Wii controller... the WiiKG. Or biofiidback machine. You'd have to maintain satori while being emotionally taxed. How cool and unique an idea is that? I think that like playing Rock Band drums on expert is supposed to make you a passable drummer, I think playing SPACE CHAPLAIN would eventually make you a damn Zen master. Or drive you insane. Of course, it would require extensive beta testing...

Volunteers?

The Grave? Your ass? A beartrap? Pudding?

2008-09-30T08:29:00.000-07:00

My novel is in the works right now... complete, needs editing, and we're having some stall issues with the illustrator. The bad news is that it may not exist in physical form in time for BizarroCon. That's okay, I'm thinking I'll print up some shirts, maybe improve the drawing, and give them out as swag. So speaking of BizarroCon...

As a relatively active member of the Bizarrocentral community, and the Portland Literary Offensive, I heard about the first rumblings of this momentous first con here in hometown PDX. Of course I was interested, and let CM3 and Rose know immediately that I would be interested in whatever events were forthcoming. That translated into one of the most pleasant surprises I've ever gotten, shown here as taken from the program of events:

3:00-3:50 pm CROSSOVER POTENTIAL (Garrett Cook, David Agranoff, Daniel Scott Buck, Jess Gulbranson) - Discuss ways bizarro can branch off into other genres and medias, led by four authors who have one foot in bizarro and one foot somewhere else. Thus the title of the blog.

Apparently I'm speaking on a panel. That's fucking awesome. A good panel, too- Garrett is publishing on Evil Nerd Empire like I am, David is a very articulate local author and activist, and I'm not sure what to say about the charming D.S. Buck. He is a breed apart... and perhaps a bon vivant author from another time. It should be interesting.

I'll be reading as well, and also be entering the freak-out contest, for which I have an exquisite plan, so we'll see what happens. Good times, and I suggest that anyone interested in writing, counterculture, subversive literature, bizarre media, or whatever... come out to the haunted-ass Edgefield and join the BizarroCon.

Take Adrienne Hatkin... please

2008-09-23T07:11:00.000-07:00

Apparently time and Portland have not been kind to Wooden Indian Burial Ground... at least that is what one pundit would have me think after she blasted me for this blog entry. As you can see in the comment, it's not immediately obvious that she really paid any attention to what I said, but was tarring with a brush that had been used for some other reviewers. And was perhaps a wee bit sensitive... and why? Well, with but a click of the ol' button, it turns out that of course, she's in a band. Now, in my response to her tirade I feel I may have come off as a bit pompous when I really just wanted to show that I too am an artist with feelings. This blog will be an attempt to show that all along I was never picking on anyone, just commenting on the state of the music scene.

But in the age-old tradition of tall daisies being hammered down and standing-up nails being cut, we need an example... so thanks, Adrienne, for offering up your band, Autopilot Is For Lovers, for scrutiny.

So what do we see first... the band is a boy/girl duo. Ouch. Now, there's nothing wrong with duos. I'm in a duo... but the boy/girl thing is perilously trendy (Mates Of State, Raveonettes, Talkdemonic, White Stripes, WOODEN INDIAN BURIAL GROUND just off the top of my head). Posing in front of some hideous orange thing that might be the Canton Grill? Ignoring a question about your influences? Come on, people!

All of this is tangential, though it will return to my eventual point. What about the music? Well, not surprisingly, it's quirky indie folky songs. Surprisingly, in the same vein as WIBG ("In the morniiiing...") they're quite good. Though of course in a field crowded with the stuff, I can't say that they're exceptional yet. Yet. I'll wait to see them live for that... so wow me, Hatkin. The female vocals lead, which I find to be the more successful configuration for this style. Makes me wish I had hung around Numinous Knot long enough for Jolene to be our singer. The song "Shadows" jumped out at me most... it was more Liz Durrett than "Juno," which was a nice change of pace. The band definitely sounds like it needs a little road grime on them... they need to weather a few things musically to gain some gravitas, which could make them a damn good band, which they need to be if they want to last beyond the current crop of fashionable pairings. See Faith Purvis for an example of how indie is done right.

In one sense, I'm glad that there is ample opportunity for people of a certain musical persuasion to get out there and play their songs and get recognition. Adrienne and Paul or Justin and Judy get to go out and express themselves, enoy themselves, in front of people who are appreciative. Their style of music, and their fashion, is the style and fashion right now, so they have a place ready for them, so that's why I don't understand the complaint that Portland doesn't recognize honest music. Perhaps wanting to scream your ideas and the urge to make cute animal cutouts and the desire to have clever wordplay shouldn't overshadow the simple creation and execution of the music.

That's why I don't get turned on by Death Cab or "Juno." Undeniably, there's talent and creativity behind it, but they so desperately try to be clever and endearing that it's pathetic. Like someone produced a weapons-grade isotope of Adorno's definition of kitsch. That's why I persist in liking Morrissey despite the world's categorical hatred of him. He has sliced away so much of himself from the content of his music, that the empty spaces of what's left speak volumes. I feel there is a similar power and authenticity in the cryptic lyrical approach of Steely Dan or the vagueness of Morphine, neither of whom are 'cool' to the kids these days.

In the end, what do you do? You do what's right. For me, that's admitting that an indie retro lo-fi americana band is good, despite my preconceptions. It also feels right to continue to call bullshit on the stylistic pretentions of their otherwise talented frontman. Scale it back, dude! This is not a kneejerk reaction on my part. I have long objected to this sort of shenanigan. I think the criticism of my original blog was a hurt spur-of-the-moment reaction and I understand it. Being an artist makes you vulnerable, so I think we should understand that ultimately we are all on the same side, and can coexist despite differing approaches. Portland is the perfect town for that.

So from one artist to another, I would like to offer up this helpful hint: "Masters of War" is played in variations of Em, and the chorus is D and A. We did it with two guitars- one traditional folkstyle, the other electric, distorted in drop D with palm muting. Then, at the end, I threw in a brief motif of "Smoke On The Water" and a rawking pick slide. You're welcome.

Funeral for a friend

2008-09-20T08:11:00.001-07:00

There's a grand old tradition in my house of titling blogs with song lyrics or song titles... see the Autarch page for several instances, or my old myspace blog. "Ride My Face To Chicago" indeed. In this case it's hyper-literal again, though.

I've been sorely needing to write another blog, and have been avoiding it because a good friend of mind died recently and that is what I wanted to write about. Unfortunately, there are five stages of grief in this town and they are all anger.

Tim fought cancer for four years and succumbed with full knowledge that there was nothing he could do about it. He had a wife and two kids, about a million friends, an extended family, and more church hangers-on than you could beat with a stick before your arm got tired.

Not to eulogize him- I don't think he requires that, but for a dedicated Christian, he had unknowingly achieved a mental state at the end of his life that rivals that of accomplished meditators. He had done a great thing, going to that place as he died, and I told him so. Tim left everyone with a good taste in their mouth on his way. How many of us will be able to say that?

I met Tim when my ex and I were attending the young couples' group at a local megachurch. We hit it off pretty quickly- I'm discovering that that's how he was, just friendly, but we discovered we had a lot in common. Bass players, involved in IT, married young, dissatisfied with our lives, though ultimately he chose to reconcile himself to his situation and was happy with it. He was that kind of guy. After I outed myself as an atheist Tim and I played in the worship band. Heck, we pretty much were the worship band. Wrap your cognitive dissonance around that one.

Once my marriage exploded and my ex decided to destroy me, the community of people who were supposedly compassionate and moral dropped me like I was hot. The people who stuck by me I could count on one hand. There was Tim and... well, Tim. He remained my friend even though it wasn't fashionable anymore. Even the pastors who claimed to want to help now ignore. Honestly, it's what I expected from the people who pimp the most bloody, perverted bestselling work of fiction of all time but I try to be open-minded and expect the best from people. I really do.

So in the wake of that disappointment, here's the real rub. The person from that group who I really wanted to keep hanging out with, to build my friendship with- I can't. I won't let myself. Why? His wife and my soon-to-be ex are friends. And he's dying. Why does that matter to me? Because as I have discussed in this blog and others, I try to be a truly moral person. My moral decisions are my own, and they are intended for the weal of this world, in general. So I am not going to bring my drama onto the doorstep of a dying man, no matter how much I may feel like I'm being cheated of a most awesome friendship. So I made that decision and kept in touch by email.

It was no surprise when Tim passed the other day, and he had been planning all aspects of it for a while. The funeral itself was awkward, and it felt like I was attending some sort of mafia funeral where the rivals had betrayed me or something. The service seemed cheap- Jesus this, Jesus that, which to me detracts from the true glory that was Tim's life and maybe the even greater glory that was the way in which he chose to die over a period of four years. There was a reception afterwards, and I suppose I should have stayed, but I really felt like I was going to get icepicked in the back of the head, so I made like a tree and got the fuck out.

One last thing- Tim's uncle got up and talked about some 'Tim stories,' involving Tim's bizarre sense of humor. He asked who out there had their own 'Tim story', and I was surprised to see that in a huge church pretty much full of people, there weren't that many people with their hands up. But I was one of them. So here's mine, to honor the memory of Tim:

Tim (about 2 years into having cancer at this point) and Beth had a bunch of the couples from the church group over to their house for dinner and hanging out. All the various kids were upstairs playing legos and PS2 and whatnot. The adults were in the living room, having awkward conversation in the manner of Christian 20-somethings who don't know how to enjoy themselves. Tim brings out his parakeet, which is molting or disintegrating or something, and puts it on his shoulder. Each time the parakeet ruffles its feathers, a huge cloud of parrot dust billows out. The sunlight from the window is catching it, and no one is saying anything. I decide to.

"Holy crap, Tim. Don't breathe that stuff... it'll give you the cancer." He gives me an exaggerated deer in the headlights look. Then his wife shrieks at me.

"THAT WILL NOT GIVE YOU CANCER!"

Tim just cracks up...

POST-SCRIPTUM

Since we're on the subject, yesterday was the five year anniversary of my mom beating cancer, so I'd just like to say I'm grateful for that shit. "WOo-hah!" as Bustah Rhymes would say.

I have joined a choir

2008-09-12T06:10:00.000-07:00

Well, as much as it seems like it could be the lead in to the standard blog-type almost-joke, it's not.

Last night, with good buddy Tim in tow, I answered a craigslist ad for the Pacific Pops Choir, which claimed to be 'Your Friendly Neighborhood Heavy Metal Choir' which was desperately in need of tenors. Were we tenors? Who the fuck knows?

When we got to the church rec room that housed the initial meeting of the choir, we discovered that this group was primarily made up of... yes, you guessed it. OLD WOMEN. Nothing against old women, it's just that there was suddenly some cognitive dissonance happening. Most of the people there were veterans of this choir and its various showtune/family/movie theme iterations, so apparently the heavy metal theme this time just didn't matter to them.

Once the chairs were all arranged, we were dropped right in to the tenor section, which consisted of two tenor women and... us. To make matters worse, the two tenor women were not singing very loud, or at all, that I could hear, so when it came to rehearsing tenor parts, it was just me and Tim, who neither read music or have any choir experience.

Surprisingly, I think we pulled it off. The director of the choir, who is a very cool guy, said we did awesome, though it may be he is just desperate for tenors. Perhaps there is something to it, though. Tim is an amazing singer. Really great, and anyone who has heard him at karaoke or our performances at open mic will readily attest to his pipes. I'm not so hot as a singer, but don't give so much of a shit, so I was hitting high tenor F-sharp in a falsetto and just letting it resonate down in my nutsack, so I guess it worked.

The choir rehearsed "Born To Be Wild", "Boulevard Of Broken Dreams", and "Black Hole Sun" for starters. Yes, looks more like a B-theme. Apparently solos are available- one of the girls our age is doing "American Idiot." Tim and I joked about doing a duet of "Angel Of Death", but in all reality I'm pretty sure we're going to tackle one of the lesser-known Doors tunes. This crazy thing looks like it might just be hilarious and fun. We can look back on it and say, "Hey, remember that year we sang 'In-a-god-a-da-vida' with those old ladies?"

And I suppose I can add it to the list of all the wonderful crazy dreams I've been living lately. Let me just state that I remain mindful and grateful of my opportunities. RAWK!!!

I'm so excited, and I just can't hide it

2008-09-01T08:00:00.000-07:00

Kayla and I went to see The Dark Knight last night, and of course it was awesome. Heath Ledger, blah blah. Actually, I was of course wowed in my usually quirky way by some seemingly unimportant minor details. I was very impressed with Tommy Lister Jr.'s turn as a prisoner who focused all his murderous badassery into one moment of bodhisattva-esque peace, and newcomer Chris Petschler, as a Gotham PD convoy leader who rides shotgun in an armored convoy who can only watch helplessly with humorous results as his world goes to hell. Besides, sometimes it's just nice to go see a movie with your lady.

Now, I have to preface this by saying that I really am not a comic book nerd. I read a decent amount of comics when I was a kid, but even then I didn't do it right. I read Micronauts. Rom, Space Knight. Static. Ralph Snart. Ambush Bug. Weird shit. Sure, I borrowed my friends' comics that were a bit more mainstream, but on the whole I liked a bit of off-the-wall every now and then.

I lost interest in comics until after high school, when my friend Ackley pretty much demanded that I read Preacher, The Invisibles, and Sin City. I was blown away, not by the hackneyed revelation that "Golly, comics are literature!" but that there was so much talent being thrown at them. You have to love the public library... on my own I discovered Kingdom Come, Watchmen, Safe Area Gorazde, Blade of the Immortal, and others. I'm still not a comic nerd. I don't think I own a single graphic novel. (Okay, maybe that Punisher origin book I forgot to give back to Ackley...)

When the superhero movies started coming out I was generally pleased, but most of all with the X-men series. (Sin City doesn't count. It's like calling Casablanca one of those black and white movies.) They had kept true to the stories, given the characters clean modern looks that didn't rely on crappy spandex costumes, and most importantly, succeeded. See, you can revise all you want, but if it sucks you might as well have sold out or done nothing at all.

When word came trickling through that beyond the trilogy of X-men films they had planned a Wolverine spinoff... well, alright! Let's admit it. There are some great characters in the X-men world, and plenty of ridiculous fucktards, but it is Wolverine's show all the way, and in Hugh Jackman of course they have found the charismatic leading man who is able to pull it off.

At a recent Comic-con, they screened a trailer for the Origins: Wolverine movie, and of course some clever Johnny filmed it with his phone and leaked it on teh intarweb. That is officially why I am excited, because the filmmakers are either geniuses or certifiable. I know if you're interested you'll go find it, but here's the basics. Wolverine and his buddy Sabretooth are bestial, unkillable mutants with claws and sweets sideburns who are Vietnam soldiers. They're brought into a secret government program to give them stronger powers but Sabretooth is actually a psychopath and there are some more mutants. Hilarity ensues.

Doesn't sound like much, but for one thing, you've got the setting, the look... there's maybe one costume through the whole damn trailer. And then there's the casting, and that is why I am most excited.

First off, cast as Colonel Stryker is Danny Huston. Stryker was portrayed in X2 by Brian Cox, and as much as I am a fan of Cox and as great of a villain he was in that movie, bear with me and save your Super Troopers quotes for later. Yes, I know. Danny Huston who? Until fairly recently he was really only associated in my mind as a sort of charming smarm from tiny roles in Children of Men and Marie Antoinette. Then I saw the boss vampire in 30 Days of Night and thought to myself, "Who is this Morrissey-looking badass motherfucker?" I figured they would later make a Shadow of the Vampire type movie about how he actually was that vampire character and they just had to work around it. So he is going to be an awesome villain.

Next up, and most awesome, is a controversial casting choice. Sabretooth, Wolverine's archenemy, has been depicted in comics as a seven-foot-tall blond dude with some sort of faggoty skin tight Cats-reject bodysuit and a fur stole. Yuck. In the first X-men movie he was played by a seven-foot-tall blond wrestler, and as one pundit put it, a 'hippie in a pimp coat.' As shown in the trailer, in this movie they have cast Liev motherfucking Schreiber. Yes, the voice of PBS nature documentaries and Infiniti commercials. Grissom's temporary replacement on CSI. The goofy scientist from Kate and Leopold. He's also one of the finest Shakesperean actors in the world, the finest according to some sources, and is boning Naomi Watts. Take that, Tyler Mane.

Everyone objects to this choice, primarily in appearance. I think he looks just fine. The question that keeps coming up... why tamper with the look of the comics, the detail of the comic, if it works? Well, it doesn't work. That has been the focus of all the postmodern comics from The Incredibles ("No cape!") to Watchmen to The Secret Five which I helmed for Affinity Press before it folded ("... more like the Conspicous Five!") While people do like the escapism of comics, and I'm sure it's easier for continuity and better for branding to have iconic costumes, for the thinking person, the mind rebels at the idea of the world's most powerful entities looking like Wigstock has come to town. Why can't an ordinary looking guy be a brutal, powerful berserker with some claws and fangs thrown on? And let me tell you, having seen the trailer, with whatever combination of Schreiber's acting, physical training, stunts, CGI, and who knows what else, you will have trouble falling asleep watching NOVA after this movie.

So for me, seeing that they've decided to take a big risk by making a movie that bucks these trends even further than they've already done, well let me just say that until X-men Origins: Wolverine comes out, I'm about to lose control... and I think I like it.

It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.

2008-08-26T13:38:00.000-07:00

Things were starting to look pretty bleak.

I discovered something strange about myself. I've had hints about it over the years, but it came very clearly into focus the other day. The world holds me to a higher moral and ethical standard than it holds other people.

Ouch.

So yes, that is in part because of the fact that I hold myself to a higher standard. Yes, Tim, I realize because I am a philosophy-minded sort who ascribes to a virtue ethics-based creed that there may be some element of confirmation bias. I'm factoring that in. Beyond that, though...

I'll give a specific example. Due to unfair vicissitudes of divorce that I won't get into here, I am only allowed to see my kids at a supervised visitation facility. During intake at this facility, my ex was asked to fill out a form rating my capacity for violence. This form has been discredited by pretty much every government agency, including the judge in our case, who happens to be on the board of the visitation facility. The form had questions like these:

Has the other party threatened you with a weapon?
Were they implicated in the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?
Have they or have they not stopped clubbing cute little baby seals?

My intake form, on the other hand, only had a space for my name, with "Adolf Manson Satan" already filled in.

NOTE TO OFFICIALS GOOGLING ME: THE PREVIOUS STATEMENTS HAVE BEEN HYPERBOLIZED FOR HUMOROUS EFFECT

Regardless, the point is that the form was taken full advantage of, I was falsely portrayed as dangerous, and the supervisors should have expected me to be a complete raving lunatic. Now, instead I have been my usual self. Polite, cautious, honorable, articulate, and helpful even when being intolerably crapped on. I'm surrounded by methheads and worse who actually belong in this place, and who seem to be given every break imaginable when it comes to bending rules and such, but I am afraid to fart in this facility for fear of getting tasered. Still, I am treated more restrictively than the rules seem to imply, and not seemingly out of punishment. Maybe because I'm not struggling, the shackles just have a way of slipping tighter... figuratively speaking.

It's not just in that arena. It's at work, at play, with family in friends. People expect me not to act like a dick, even when it's okay to be one. Or to perform when there's no reason for me to. I realize there's no reason for me to get worked up about this, or feel singled out, and I'm not, but I have to be intellectually honest. It's something I'm noticing. Sometime's it's seemingly arbitrary, and while I have a definite knowledge that the phenomenon is there, I don't know the full scope of it.

These were the things I was thinking about recently, and honestly, the biggest feeling I was getting was that of being lonely. I felt really cut off from everyone, even the people who are most supportive of me all the time, until yesterday, when I realized...

So fucking what? Maybe I am unfairly held apart. Big deal. Life continues. So will I, just doing my thing, walking my Middle Way and trying to not be huge asshole and yet remain somewhat entertaining. So for this I would like to thank not only my homeboys Tim and Tim for direct and indirect consultation, but also my Mommy, my good friends online, and of course the evah-wonderful and savage Kayla, love of my life. Also:

"Do good. Don't do bad. Keep trying to figure out which is which." -Daolin

Damn. Do we really need a thousand millennia of fucking Buddhas to help us out with this?

Gym questions: What's a boobzout, and Am I evil?

2008-08-17T08:07:00.001-07:00

Saturday morning I was at the gym, and apparently the forces of interdependence decided it would be blog fodder.

Part one- public nudity. Everyone at the gym, if you've never been, is running around in scanty little outfits that leave very little to the imagination, which is nice to look at in some cases, horrid in some cases, and sweaty and straining in all cases. This is a given. Despite the reputation of my particular gym's location as being a meat market and gyms in general as being some sort of Roman orgy, there doesn't seem to be a whole lot of wanton naked flesh running around.

Until yesterday. The elliptical machines I prefer to warm up on are near the corridor that leads to the locker rooms. I was on one, and next to me was a guy who checked in at the same time I did. He's a regular, and we said hi and he seemed a friendly sort. Next to him was his friend.

Suddenly, amid the occasional people going in and out of the ladies' locker room, a ghastly old woman comes out wearing only a towel on her bottom half. She's only half-heartedly attempting to cover one scary boob with her arm, then she gives up and they're both just flopping in the wind. I don't know if she had soap in her eye from the shower and didn't know she was in front of the entire cardio room or what, but it was not pretty. She was walking around in that corridor for a minute or two. The guy next to me was pointing her out to his buddy and they were laughing. Then I got a chance to use some FARK terminology in real life other than 'asshat.'

I tapped the guy next to me on the shoulder, and he immediately got a serious expression on his face- he probably assumed that I was going to chastise him for making fun of a confused old woman. What I said was:

"Pardon me, do you have any eye bleach?"

He almost fell of the elliptical machine laughing.

Part two- Metallica's Garage Inc. Disc Two. Let me repeat that. DISC TWO. I WAS LISTENING TO DISC TWO, NOT DISC ONE. Which if you don't know, is composed of their excellent NWOBHM covers from their Garage Days eps, some b-sides, Lemmy's birthday party, etc. One of the songs popped up, and I was reminded of a simpler time in life, and a mystery that I have been unable to solve to this day...

In high school, I had a long distance romance with a beautiful, intelligent, cool girl from a farm, and I somehow managed to creepily bumble through it before she justifiably dumped my ass and moved on. No hard feelings, E, hope you know that!

My dad had gotten me into Los Lobos around this time, and I had shared that with her, and before the schism we had gotten concert tickets. Uh-oh... has anyone heard this one before? We were 15 and from Oregon so of course very cosmopolitan, so we would attend the concert together like civilized people and that would be it. I'm sure the gentlemanly thing would have been for me to give her the extra ticket, but none of her friends liked the boys from east L.A. She could have given her ticket to me, as my best friend liked them, but that must have smelled like defeat. So we were deadlocked and went ahead with. I think in a way I was also hoping that the summer magic, the sounds of Los Lobos' "Kiko", the spicy Zydeco opening band or some other bullshit would set me up for reconciliation. Honestly, I don't think I've every been Alpha male enough to count that kind of coup.

To bring this story to its point, the concert was wonderful musically and awkward personally. They came out for an astonishing 2 encores, and played a bunch of cool blues and soul covers. I've seen Los Lobos twice since then, and they are known for doing Cream, Marvin Gaye, stuff like that. There's even a guy, website now defunct, who kept a list of all their covers, and it was mindboggling. He had never even heard of what I will bring before you.

There's a question I'm sure you're asking. "Where's 'La Bamba'?" Well, it's right here, in just a second.

They came out for a third encore. Which, while not unheard of, was notable. I mean, this was Los Lobos in 1994 in Oregon, not the fucking Beatles. The guitarists launch into a brief distorted fanfare and then a crunchy riffing that would be recognizable to any young metalhead, especially one such as myself who had been obsessed with Metallica as a much younger metalhead. "Am I Evil", originally recorded by Diamond Head, the intro based in part on themes from two of Holst's "Planets" suites.

I am completely blown away. This isn't some song that sounds like "Am I Evil," it's it, note for note, full on distortion. The arrangement is very distinctive, it's on one of my favorite albums... Emily asks me what's wrong. "They're playing a fucking Metallica song, nothing's wrong." She shrugs. The song intro riffs for a while, crescendo; then goes into a brief solo, same as on the album, tapping, harmonics and all. When it reaches the tritone that signals the beginning of the song proper, right before the other instruments come in and Hetfield/Harris sing 'My mother was a witch/she was burned alive...'

THEY LAUNCH IN TO MOTHERFUCKING LA BAMBA.

The crowd is on their feet. It's probably the most recognizable song for them, sure, but I don't think it had the same impact for them that it had on me, the sound guy and a couple roadies.

I've used a light touch for this mystery ever since, in part because of my tender feelings toward the times in which they occur. Also because it brings up an interesting dilemma. Either I am completely insane or Los Lobos really really is the coolest band in the world and no one will ever know or care. I actually saw them on a magazine cover back in the 90's that proclaimed them the coolest band in the universe, but I think that was hyperbole. Los Lobos are an awesome band. Really world class versatile musicians, passionate the whole run. Commercially they are in a sense a one-hit wonder, and that one hit was a spanish-language song from a musician biopic starring Lou Diamond Phillips. You tend to associate a sort of shallowness with musical groups in that category, and I for one am glad that Los Lobos have completely transcended that.

So, the dilemma. Since I have found no record of them ever doing this type of shenanigans, I am forced to conclude that:

a. there is some instrumental song by... I don't know, Peter Green-era Fleetwood Mac or something that sounds note-for-note identical to "Am I Evil", which is incredibly unlikely.

b. I hallucinated it all.

c. They stepped out their bounds and did an obscure cover of an obscure band which contains an obscure shoutout to one of the most brutal,metal symphonies ever.

I'm throwing a. out right now. It's not impossible, but come on. I really, really don't like option b. either. I've hallucinated before and I'd like to think that the elaborate cognitive processes involved in me thinking about the song and what it meant and listening the parts, etc. were not all part of a waking dream. That just sucks. Option c.... I love it. "Am I Evil" was included on some copies of Metallica's "Kill Em All" but not most of them. A lot of my friends out here on the west coast had never heard it. Diamond Head's "Lightning to the Nations" was hard to find... there was a cassette version, but it was in short supply, to my chagrin, and I know the vinyl was a collector's item. So the person who would dig this cover would be a Metallica fan, and the Metallica-Los Lobos overlap was pretty tiny. This was the early nineties, and musical eclecticism was not de rigeur, kids!

So for now, until I have the wisdom to unlock all secrets, I'll let the secrets of Los Lobos' collective mind be hidden, and I'll hope that all the saggy boobs remain covered.

What would the Buddha say?

2008-08-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

So, I was over at my mom's house after helping her jump-start her car. My 13-year-old brother Cullen is in the background playing DS, not paying any attention as we have a conversation.

I'm ranting about how someone at my work steals the Friday A&E section of the paper, the only part of the paper apart from the comics that is worth a crap, and how I am totally fed up with it. Our company pays good money for multiple copies of The Oregonian for people to read and some douchebag prevents the rest of us from enjoying it. I'm describing my cunning and vicious plan to show my disapproval... I'm going to get the A&E first thing in the morning and take some spray adhesive and glue every fucking page together and leave it in the break room.

My mom says that my anger is misdirected, that I'm channeling it away from somewhere I should be and into these little things, then asks, "What would the Buddha say?"

"DO IT!" Cullen says.

There's a moment of silence.

"I love you," I say. "You are quite possibly one of the coolest people I've ever met, Cullen."

It's good to have a family that cares.

It's done

2008-08-11T00:02:00.000-07:00

Brief post, and then some radio silence. My novel "Antipaladin Blues" was completed this afternoon, gloriously. I'm feeling awesome. Sent it off to my publisher and now comes the fun and potentially nightmarish process of editing and illustrations. Whew.

Why I need to read "Gulag Archipelago" again

2008-08-04T09:04:00.000-07:00

The song I've been working on and mentioned in my last post, was called "The Captivity." This is important and either a wonderful coincidence or evidence of synchronicity. As sinister as the song is, it is elegaic... much like for as much of a death sentence as it was, "Closer" could have been "Closure."

So why coincidence or synchronicity? Well, on the same day I hit "Save Live project as...", Nobel Prize winner Alexsandr Solzhenitsyn died at the age of 89. Now, I've been noncommital about it before, and I will be again:

When circumstances begins coming together in a meaningful pattern without any obvious reason why, right? C'mon now, it's as plain as noses on faces that that happens, right? Right?
I'll agree to that. It's easy to notice that things come together like that, and if you're a believer in a higher power, it's even easier to fit things together with that meme working on the ol' melon. So be careful.
But what about the other side? I once stated that "Synchronicity is just apophenia," and while I do reserve the right to keep the file open, it's the stronger of the philosophical positions. It's easier, and simpler, according to the Principle of Parsimony (also known as Occam's Razor, if you really didn't know) that the entire phenomenon is just selecting hits over misses. Besides, and I quote a brilliant philosopher from Peacetrain, who said that "human cognition, honed by millions of years of evolution, is one bad-assed pattern recognition engine." Hard to argue with.
Yet... there's something there.
A mystery. Why does the idea carry so much weight? Are we just fooling ourselves, with ideas about destiny, masking untestable artifacts of consciousness with more romantic, emotional artifacts of consciousness?
All I know, is that for an acausal connective principle, it's some strong stuff- and you have to admire anyone who is willing to wrestle with it. I mean that.

Why is this song title connective? When I have a chance to sing the praises on the passing of a great man, such as I have with Thompson or Wray, I refuse to trivialize them by listing their accomplishments as other people will who are more qualified. Instead I share something of myself. I stumbled on Solzhenitszyn's great work "The Gulag Archipelago" in high school and was fascinated by him. There was something about the idea of the mild-mannered physics professor not only going off to command an artillery company on the front in WWII, but also having the huge sack to make fun of Stalin's mustache. AND SURVIVE. I was also in love with the idea of the writer enduring through adversity, and somehow I thought my adolescent/teenage struggles (while pretty horrible) were cognates with imprisonment, cancer, and exile.

I read it again after I was married, and this time was fascinated with the satanic machinery of the prison system, Prosecutor Krylenko and all his dark brethren. Pretty obvious stuff here- I was imprisoned cruelly for my own ill-thought words ("I do..") and abused arbitrarily at the hands of an illogical captor. Ugh.

Somewhere in that mess, I had a dream that Solzhenitsyn's ghost came to me and told me to get off my ass and that I knew what I needed to do. I thought at the time he meant to write... I know in retrospect he meant to get the hell out of the Dacha. He wasn't dead at the time either, so I wrote him a letter once I found that out. Don't know if Farrar, Straus, and Giroux ever passed it on, but I can hope.

So now Soli, as his friends called him, has passed. According to some Farkers who knew him in Vermont, he was a cool dude to drink and play chess with. According to Wikipedia, he was a dick who thought atheists and rock music were to blame for the downfall of the west. Regardless, he can be named as an inseperable part of the modern world's concience, and I think that it's time for me- as a man- to reexamine what that means.

Quoth the Raven "..."

2008-08-01T08:19:00.000-07:00

So, a literary post, then, instead of a musical post.

I am finishing up my novel. This is one of the biggest priorities in my life right now, and I really am not far from being done... a couple thousand words of sheer brutal assbeating with a little setup for the second book in the trilogy, some alchemical explosions, sexual tension, and as much filthy language as a book with no denoument can stand. Easy, right?

I had stalled out a bit, until I got a handle on how I wanted the action to play out. No sweat. Then, a couple of weeks ago, my migraines/cluster headaches returned in earnest. Now, I come from a long line of tough-skinned people who bury their pain no matter how acute, and just deal. Thanks, mom. That's been a bit difficult to reconcile with Buddhist mindfulness, but there you go. So, since cringing in a darkened bedroom is not conducive to a number of activities I do- work, play, etc., I went to the doctor the other day.

That was great- I reunited with my old doctor, who actually moved to a smaller practice closer to me. He was very supportive and understanding of the crap I've been through with the divorce, and helped me move forward with treating my migraines. The preventative treatment he put me is apparently a very successful one- with the wildly awesome side effect of weight loss, which I can more than handle, and another that maybe I can't...

On forums dedicated to migraine sufferers (migraineurs, if you want to be fancy about it) they have a name for this side effect, chosen by people who already seem to have it: "The Stupids." Or for you laymen, 'cognitive deficit.' It can include memory loss, aphasia, confusion... wow.

My first dose made me feel like Dementors had come to return me to fucking Azkaban. Not dopey, just zero energy. I tried to write and failed, then figured I could probably make a little music. I opened up a song I've been working on, kind of a scary "Security"-era Peter Gabriel type track. I cued up a part, then... sat there. For like five minutes. Not nudging tempos, not changing warp points... nothing.

So I called a mulligan and went to bed. Okay, Kayla made me go to bed because I had fallen zombie-fashion on the couch. Next morning, I woke up feeling like someone in the house had gone into bullet time. This was not encouraging. If this was how it was going to be, I'll take the fucking migraines.

The good news, again. After my second dose the effects are not as strong. I was able to sit through "So You Think You Can Dance" last night before going to bed in a relatively civilized manner. I suppose they titrate you on this medicine for a reason.

Well, I feel good and able to knock out some wordage tonight. That's great, and hopefully it means a future of not wanting to tear the livid flesh from my own skull. Wish me luck, kids.

Lo-fi Americana warning

2008-07-27T15:28:00.000-07:00

So, after a crushing cancellation of a visit with my kids, and a hellacious migraine, I decided to tag along with my little bro and his friend Mia to see some friends of his at PDX Pop Now!

Now, I'm not crazy about indie music, but this turned out to be quite a nice scene. A section of street, roughly located between Office Depot, the porno shop, some industrial food warehouses and the music venue Rotture, was closed off and a bunch of scrappy-looking indie kids had congregated for the ultra-short sets of various local bands. And by kids, I mean kids- there was a cute little two-year-old dancing about.

The band we were there to see, Wooden Indian Burial Ground, surprised me by being pretty darn good. The promo material had this to say about them: "With music made for waltzing in the kitchen or stomping barefoot in the grass, this boy/girl band presents lo-fi Americana tunes without cute boy/girl vocals." Blah blah blahblah... I'm sorry, that just screams pretentious. I was pleasantly surprised by a minimalist stage setup scattered with functional random percussion. They added a drummer for this set and some of the rhythmic constructions were just phenomenal for how little was actuall going on, and I really grooved on their next to last song, which was about as edgy as a song with a banjo can get. However....

I cannot say enough about how bad the frontman sucked. Doughy and clad in the worst flannel hipster garb, he warbled and screeched and wrapped his petulant lips around an overly processed SM-57 like it was Jack White's diseased cock. Seriously, I think we've all had enough with this Tiny Tim vocal fad. He was a competent guitarist, but should have shut the hell up and let his hot bass-playing girlfriend sing more.

So that was that. It was nice to hang out with my bro and have fun before he returns to Humboldt. I would also recommend that everyone come out Wednesday night to the Fez to see the Bears and the Bees. Faith is out from Arizona and we should all come check it out.

And a good goddam morning to you

2008-07-25T08:34:00.000-07:00

So, after a meeting of the Portland Literary Offensive, I've decided to get back on the ol' blogging horse. I'm pretty new to it, as I had started a Zen philosophy blog on myspace but it kind of fizzled out. I'd like to pick up where I left off, and add more of a literary bent. It makes sense, since if you didn't know, I do have a book coming out this winter from Evil Nerd Empire and should probably promote the hell out of it anyway.

That's it for the moment. I promise not to blog just for blogging's sake...