Rape It, Snake It, Don't Let Go!

Tonight's musical score is provided by a number of artists. I'll give you a run down of three, but I'm sure more will occur to me later (Akira Yamaoka, Deftones, Reuben spring to mind immediately).

Playing right now are Combichrist and their album "What The Fuck Is Wrong With You People?", which I described, when offering it to someone, as "angry, industrial, vulgar, heavy and horrifying." It's brilliant. I got into industrial big time about two years ago, firstly through Angelspit (the second of tonight's major contributors) and through them to this band, which is a complete mess of samples, heavy beats and industrial metal.

(Pick: In The Pit)

Angelspit is one of my all time favourite bands. I have all their releases, the debut EP Nurse Grenade and the two albums, Krankhaus and Blood Death Ivory. They never let me down. Thing is, I'm tired of all the stuff I hear on the radio. Nothing does it for me like these bands. I want something that's not populist, for once. That doesn't mean that once/if these bands begin to get major radio airplay I'll stop listening, but I just want something I enjoy, and I don't want to pollute my mind with... pop music.

(Pick: Skinny Little Bitch)

Old reliable and permanent staple of my listenings, Nine Inch Nails play pretty consistently throughout the night, and I'm wandering back into With Teeth territory, though you can't go wrong with Ghosts I-IV ("a soundtrack to daydreams") when you want to lean back and just get some writing done.

(Pick: Home off With Teeth, and from Ghosts III, 24)

I Made A Copy.

My words don't do my ideas justice.

I have ideas, we all do, and we all have a story we have to tell, but we can't get out. It's our Moby Dick, and we're Ahab, pushing and pushing for that story to be captured but ultimately dying in the final moments of victory. We need that story to be unattainable, else we wouldn't have the drive to move forward.

Is that true?

Maybe.

I have a story in my head. have done for a year or so now, and I just can't get it out. I have it mapped, in my head, but putting pen to pencil or finger to keyboard would dilute it. I wish I could distill it, from my mind, into a chalice of some sort, have it be perfect and untouched by my inability to deliver upon it. A story that's told badly is like some aborted foetus, and I don't that. Some miscarried half thing. Boo to that. Boo. I want perfection.

So that's why I don't write my idea. I need time. And maybe I need to be prepared to die for it.

Hey, like my tats? Full sleeved, black and white!

"Truthfully, the job security in this business is uncertain, the hours are long, long and lonely, the audience is increasingly small, fickle and dissatisfied, like 3 of the 7 Dwarves. Respect is nonexistent, success fleeting; you’d be better off in a boy band, where at least you’d get laid before they made you obsolete."
--Grant Morrison on comics.

God Made Me A Cannibal To Fix Problems Like You.

There's a reason for me to be posting here. Is it because I'm a writer for the Psychotronik Comics group? Maybe. Is it because I've found my way by weird coincidence onto this blog and am staking my claim whilst I still can? No. Thing is, I don't need an excuse. The world made me do this. I am not a man in control of his actions. Neither are you. I'm writing because the world made me, and my mind will rationalise my decisions later, because that is what it always does. To everyone. Forever.

The reason I write is because I thought I enjoyed it. I thought I was good at it. And that I could always get better. I like reading, I like learning, I like experimenting with different styles and all the stuff that is inherent to being "a writer". But apparently, the world made me do it. Here's the thing, there's a school of thought that says that the world affects us like we're puppets. That my typing this was preordained not by my thoughts, but because the world willed it, and me, like the puppet I am, am following through with that decree. This school of thought is called "Epiphenomenalism". It's a very hard word to remember on the fly, and I do hope I finally spelt it right after all my fretting.

So here's the thing, free will doesn't exist. We're slave to something bigger than all of us, the world. And think about this: We treat the world like shit. We use up resources like they're going out of fashion, we choke the air with fumes, we reproduce like vermin and spread ourselves across the continents, just looking for a hole to call our own so we can repeat the process all over again. If you were the world, what would you be forcing us to do? Sit back and be happy, continuing this ragged cycle of abuse that we inflict upon the world? Yes. Because you know why? We're killing ourselves. The world is giving us cancer because it's not making us do anything at all. The world inflicts disasters upon us and we're so inept that we can't even react to them. Then again, that's probably not entirely our doing, because, honestly, look at soon-to-be-former President Bush, and tell me that guy doesn't hate the world.

We're being turned into killers, not my television, videogames, gang culture and extreme porn, but by the actions we've inflicted upon the world. We're like puppets on a string. Now, I guess you could bring up the fact that the world made us treat it like a ten dollar hooker, but all evidence points to the world being a benevolent host, else why would it put up with us? Why doesn't it just open up, swallow us whole to fuel the core of the Earth and go about waiting for the evolutionary cycle to start again? Because it cares. Earth is a Mother. And no Mother truly wants to eat it's children whole, does it? (If you disagree with that statement right there you're right at home at this blog but you should keep away from me... cheers.) So we're killing the world, and in turn, the world is killing us slowly because it knows that most of us will go quietly in our sleep. How kind.

Doesn't that sound like a horror story to you?

(Originally published here, "Why The World Hates You (And Me. But Me Less)" 6/12/08)

There's a God in us all and he's so fucked up.

"The power of accurate observation is commonly called cynicism by those who have not got it."
-- George Bernard Shaw (1856 - 1950)