HEIR OF THE DOG

Good boy! Now run before the Hannitys wake up...

Or, "SCREWING THE POOCH."

I bring tidbits from the tits that nurse our suckling souls, the curdled musky purulence that bilks us as we milk it…junkie piss from humanity’s withered, cancerous spout, parading within our ignorance of irony as the very nectar of the heavens, while our fist-sized tumors sprout beneath our scalp.
I’ve been reading the AP Wire again. It’s like tempting Fate in prison with a heart-shaped ass, a bottlecap of liquid soap and a freshly sanded broom.

Thusly, I peer into the abyss; I lick the snatch of Destiny…and whew boy, it don’t smell so good.

A random search retrieved items both goofy and quite ominous. In no particular order, of course...

I've clearly been out of the loop; I hadn't realized that Terri Schiavo was actually cremated. Wait…how will she be RAPTURED now?!

While digging around for further abuse, I found THIS little nugget: “Chef Remembered For Love Of Kids And Food.”

The link itself is generally harmless. It’s the title…or is it just my MIND?!

Another gem of a headline: “ALL SHALL PERISH on the road!”

Yeah…I wish.

And then this… This is what happens when cousins fuck:

“SPARTANBURG, SOUTH CAROLINA (FOX Carolina News) - A Campobello teen is accused of raping one neighbor's dog and another neighbor's two little girls. Now the dog has died and charges against the teen have been upgraded…”

Wait…he raped a three-year old, a 13-year-old…but they only “upgrade” the charges after the dog dies? This says so much to me about the value of human life. It goes on:

"Sylvia says she and her husband would not have believed Cory Williamson raped Princess exactly two weeks to the day she died had they not seen it with their own eyes."When I got here we were laying on the deck looking at him and he had his pants down and he was doing sexual activity with the dog like a man would do to a woman."

So what the hell were they doing while watching the kid rape their dog?

“After receiving word that the dog died possibly because of the rape. Fox Carolina called the Solicitor's office to see if now new charges would be filed against the teen.”

Slow news day, eh? That’s the clincher—people did research on this. Repeated phone calls were made; interviews were conducted. This was news. And lets not forget the man who recently allowed a horse to sodomize him to death. How pleasant! There was once a time when Man rode the Horse.

In other news, senior citizens are reaching new depths of desperation, with one old coot arrested for selling dope, and another geriatric avenger calling 911 forty times to complain about a late pizza delivery, only to bite the officer who arrived to take the call. None of this surprises me, of course; I worked retail.

Meanwhile…a baby is born in a toilet (a fitting metaphor, really), people are having sex with inflatable sheep, and stupid rich people are paying to be abducted. They’re hiring, by the way.

Oh, it all gets worse. And worse. And worse. Weirdness and glass houses prevail. As I take some time to contemplate the meaning of it all (and those things far worse that never make the cut), I’ll leave you with a quote that comes to mind:

“The pack of cards in his hand was pornographic…each of the suits detailed a different area of sexual activity… Hearts represented male/female congress, though by no means limited to the missionary position. Spades were oralist… Clubs were analist… Diamonds, the most exquisitely drawn of the suits, were sadomasochistic…on these cards men and women suffered all manner of humiliation, their wracked bodies bearing diamond-shaped wounds to designate each card.

“But the grossest image of the pack was that of the Joker. He was a coprophiliac, and sat down before a plateful of steaming excrement, his eyes vast with greed, while a scabby monkey, it’s bald face horribly human, bared its puckered backside to the viewer.

“This was surely the definitive human portrait. The other pictures on the cards, with their pretensions to love and physical pleasure, only hid this terrible truth away for a while. Sooner or later, however ripe the body, however glorious the face, whatever wealth or power or faith could promise, a man is escorted to a table groaning under the weight of his own excrement and obliged, even though his instincts might revolt, to eat.”

--Clive Barker, The Damnation Game

(As a final note, fitting neatly into the puckered slot of the bestiality theme I seem to have inadvertantly fallen into, I implore any readers uncertain of just what this all means to track down and examine a very special film—a sociological essay on the Human Condition (masquerading as an exploitation documentary) called Mondo Cane. It isn’t what you think. It is a hulking, lacerous condemnation of humanity. It altered my worldview forever…for indeed, we live and die like animals, while animals know a peace we never will. And as we grow against nature, and toil against our own…Shake your angry spears at the complexity we’re cursed with—the complicated lives we toil at…and envy every dog, but one.)

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NUMBER ONE WITH A MULLET

"C'mon now...I'm not getting any younger."



In the spirit of Zazzafooky's "Tids and Bits" posts, we muse about our youth in snippets.

Damn youths and their ADD...and their ADHD, and their short attention spans, and their hula hoops, and their Dan Fogelberg and...

Anyway...enjoy another "quickie" post. You might as well; I certainly did.

Because self-absorbtion won't soak up the stains...

My old childhood hometown was quite dull; collecting dust was a hobby, and the farmers all grew cobwebs. It was a wide spot in the road, a rustling, fertile heartland hub from whenst our nation's aspiring gas station attendants spring. But a couple of things come to mind:

--We were so restless and bored, that alot of kids starting snorting Kool-Aid in junior high. Having a cherry-scented splotch beneath your nostril became a weird status symbol of the "cool" set. Except for Billy, who sprayed Right Guard up his nose, and Tim, who snorted Ajax. And lived. Tim's mother was really nice, but scared us--she was a burn victim who had been smoking in bed or some such, and lost half of her face to Big Melty Burns. When she spoke, her scars gave the illusion of movement, and it looked like she was still actively sizzling in the sun. Nice lady, though.

--My friend Brock and I didn't want to snort Kool Aid, or anything else for that matter, to find some sort of "cool" niche. So Brock started compulsively eating paper...sheets of it. I declined. I never was able to keep up with the popular kids...

--Kids routinely picked fights and beat each other up for fun. It was boredom. Darren and Shannon were best friends on the football team; one day, I overheard them talking. Darren said, "Hey man...there's nothin' on; you wanna fight after school." To which, Shannon replied, "Yeah, sure. But hurry, 'cuz I'm fighting Jimmy at seven at the quarry."

--Parents enrolled their children in school at the latest possible age. Many kids were almost seven years old when they started school (state law said they had to start no later than age six). They did this so their kids would be bigger than the other kids, and thus maybe be better at sports. (They certainly weren't going to college on any honor's programs, right?). The problem was, every parent did it. Except mine. (I was from the city, you see). And I was tiny even for my age. So when bulllies became a problem, my father got the brilliant idea to enroll me in a martial arts class. There was even one nearby, he said. When I arrived...there were all my class bullies, all lined up and practicing their kicks.

--Not being much of a fighter, I resorted to raising hell my own way. I took "For Sale" signs out of people's yards, and switched them. I did the same thing with bird baths, statues, lawn ornaments, etc. One night, we untied this guy's dog, and tied him back up at a different house across the street. Our wrath was entirely arbitrary. Any person on the block might wake up to find his birdbath missing, and replaced with a swingset. The sad thing is, we thought we were a gang.

--Alcohol and sex are the usual vices of smalltown kids. There's nothing else to do, right? Over a third of the graduating class was pregnant. Hey, it was Missouri. We didn't have girlfriends, so we chipped in on crappy cable descramblers and watched the scattered signals. Of course, everyone drank. But because me and my little 12-year-old friends weren't in with the "popular" crowd, we couldn't figure out where they were getting the alcohol. My parents didn't drink, so we couldn't get anything from them. Billy's mom drank alot, but she drank it so fast and so often, that we could never steal any of it.

--When these plans failed, we "made rounds." This entailed hitting all of the local mom-and-pop video stores. But we didn't have any money--jobs were scarce, and most of these kids' PARENTS couldn't find a job. So we just walked around, and looked at all the lurid covers of the (now vintage) 80's horror films, and occasionally snuck into the adult section. That's how little there was to do in this town. Oddly enough, this adolescent non-pasttime led to one of my many odd hobbies as an adult--acquiring nearly every cheesy horror/sci-fi/exploitation flick of the 1980's, many in their original VHS boxes, in all their "colorful" non-PC glory.

--The entire town closed up at sundown. Even the Wal-Mart closed at 7pm. The elderly town fathers "didn't want any after-dark shenanigans" going on. There was an arcade once; of course, the town fathers shut it down. It was "attracting the wrong element," they said. These are the same people who outlawed skateboarding within city limits.

--There was a movie theater, that played one film a week, a month or more after its release. They shut it down for the summer on occasion, when the owners decided to "take a stand" against the "crap" that was being released during the summer blockbuster season. As a result, many residents of that town have yet to see Tim Burton's Batman. They obviously could not afford a rental...

--Fortunately, we moved when I was 13...to the Ministry. But it was still far better; at least those people had a reason for being ignorant--they had a faith to uphold. The other folks were just...rural.

Maybe this explains why I turned into such a loose cannon in my twenties?

The moral of the story is: I don't watch the Blue Collar Comedy Hour. I get flashbacks. I also have mixed feelings about evolution: I believe it was possible...but it clearly doesn't work. (Closing notation: how is it that the people who spend the most time reenacting the Civil War are also the ones who've learned the least from it?)


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HORTON HEARS A WHORE

Audio Pirates...Steal this logo!



Or, "A SOUND BEATING FOR ALL."

Because one can not rape the mind and eyes too long before other orifices begin to look tasty as well, I offer you all this sampling of mash-up madness to consume, while I finish up work on my next two posts--you know, the ones I said I'd have up two days ago... :)

Each track takes an underground Extreme Metal band from the esteemed Earache Records roster, and combines it with Radio Ga-Ga trendwhore fluff, or something equally inappropriate. The first two actually sort of work; the others are just to punish you with. The Napalm Death one is probably the funniest--I'm still not quite sure why.

These mp3's are courtesy of the twisted minds behind Industrial Death pioneers DEAD WORLD. Recommended! Download away--it's like shooting dope, right into your hard drive!

Godflesh VS. Destiny's Child

Carcass VS. Missy Elliot

Pitchshifter VS. B-52's

Napalm Death VS. Shakira

Entombed VS. Outkast

Terrorizer VS. 50 Cent

Delta 9 VS. Sean Paul

The Bonus Track


Mix it up...mosh it up...confuse your inner Rock Snob, as you thrash your inner child!

Have fun.


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GIVE CHANCE A PIECE

Where the streets have no shame...


ALL HAIL POPE BONO I

Thanks to FreakingNews.com for the photo.

Because you can’t have “slaughter” without “laughter,” I make my overdue observation/unabashedly ignorant opinion of the day: Boy, I bet Sudan wishes they had huge oil reserves right about now. Sure, they have a bit--but nothing worth, say, invading the country and "liberating" the suffering populace for. If nothing, it proves our President does not play favorites: He invades Iraq, "liberating" anti-Christian Muslims from tyranny; meanwhile thousands of his fellow Christians are being ruthlessly exterminated. And what does he do? The presidential equivalent of scrounging around his couch cushions for something to shut that veteran guy up at the Wal-mart entrance. If he were any more aloof in the face of disaster, there'd be a laugh track.

I am obviously not the first to make this observation; however, it is I alone who hears their somber cries…they scream out, “Help us, Pink Floyd! We need your healing laser lights!”

They said they’d see us on the dark side of the moon…but it seems they’ve settled for merely the wrong side of an issue. Live Aid? Oh, please. I can do better, with both hands and the Armenian Pride tied tautly behind my hairy mammal back...

I now present you with the ultimate feel-goodnik voyeuristic feed-the-children hippie love-in of all time:

“OIL FOR DARFUR!” 2005—A FESTIVAL OF HOPE AND STUFF.

RAISING MONEY TO PURCHASE ADDITIONAL OILFIELDS/COMPASSION FOR WARTORN DARFUR.

1. Bono and Bruce Springsteen will take turns giving earnest, heartfelt glares at one another, coupled with couplets—random and overwrought—of various assorted faux-spirituals, impassioned pleas, and anthems for the working class/proletariat. It can be a virtual staring contest of earnestness…tell me—who shall out-earnest the other?Who shall best the better man? Later, Eddie Vedder will attempt to outdo them by slicing off snippets of his own flesh to feed to the homeless.

2. Forget about this last Pink Floyd fiasco—let’s get Syd Barrett on the stage, and have a REAL reunion. Twenty minutes containing alternating bouts of laughter and weeping, messages from the space-fathers, drool, and incoherent ravings that could only be genius. And then a guitar solo…a long one.

3. A message from the President...you know…to make Syd sound more coherent by comparison. Furthermore: Bingo cards shall be distributed amongst those in attendance.Anytime the President says the words “terrorists,” “9-11,” “security,” “freedom,” “honor,” “liberty,” “heroes,” or “sacrifice,” we mark off squares.

4. Campfire with folk songs, and Karl Rove. Karl will then proceed to tell us all a secret…the secret of powerful, natural male enhancement—courtesy of Enzyte!

5. Enlistment-age children of present Congressmen are tagged, numbered, and released into the wild. Mothers of “collateral damage”/”human casualties” are saddled upon horses, and given dart guns.

6. Jane Fonda to cover the festivities as guest-anchor for Al-Jazeera.

7. Green Day, Rancid, Good Charlotte, Sum41, and The Distillers will appear together, representing the “counterculture” for those watching from the mall. In between pre-scripted sneers, and “accidental” slips of course language to show the folks how “punk” and “rebellious” they are, there will be frank discussions of Free Energy, as it is created on the spot by the spinning, freely oscillating corpses of Sid Vicious, Joe Strummer, Darby Crash, and Joey Ramone.

8. Former Korn guitarist Brian “Head” Welch to say some Jesus stuff. Afterwards, he is to be bound for 1000 years, after which time, he shall loosed for yet another fifteen minutes of fame. Meanwhile, NoFx to team up with Ellen Degeneres and Janeane Garofalo for something so cumbersomely unfunny and heavy-handed, it causes a spontaneous worldwide resurgence in the careers of Carrot Top, Pauly Shore, and Yahoo Serious.

9. Peter Gabriel to briefly rejoin Genesis on stage, long enough only to demonstrate why Phil Collins must die. Meanwhile, in the distance, Sting and David Bowie challenge one another to a duel, to be carried out in the most pretentious, condescending way possible.A clearly unhinged Thom Yorke to mediate, until viciously stabbed to death by members of Coldplay, who lull him into a lumbering trance-like slumber with their songs. A similar narcoleptic trance is induced upon the viewing audience, and a collection is taken.

10. Axl Rose—live, on television—unveils and performs the long-awaited Chinese Democracy album in its entirety…which turns out to be Brian Wilson’s Smile, played backwards. The concert then closes with a rousing version of “We Are The World,” featuring a passionate, tear-filled, crotch-grabbing performance by the recently exonerated Michael Jackson—whose performance is capped by a delirious, spittle-laden oath to “find the real molesters.”

The difference between comedy and tragedy is distance. You might wish to back away.

OIL FOR DARFUR! NO BLOOD FOR KRUNK!

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THE SLEEPER HAS AWAKENED

Severe Tire Damage for a Severely Tired Damn Age...

Three weeks.

Three damn weeks...

No posts... Scarcely any visits to my blogger brethren's sites... Nothing.

It's been a busy time...stricken with unceasing overtime, writer's block, injury, and this ridiculous fucking heat. I haven't been resting. I literally haven't had the time.

Thus I shall reward the returning reader--those not already alienated by my lax posting schedule--by posting frequently and obsessively throughout this week. Yes. Really. All at once, or not at all...that's the way I run this ship. I have too many half-finished tirades in the cue, anyway. These should have been posted ages ago...but I'm a perfectionist, you know ("perfectionist" roughly translating to "procrastinating self-indulgent prick").

Simply know that I am back, and hope to return to my only-slightly-lazy twice-a-week posting schedule. How all you daily bloggers manage to keep from madly trepanning hobos in frustration, I'll never know. I have much to learn from Jerky, still.

Here's a nice diversion for you: a metal-themed horoscope that despises you like fate itself.

Enjoy Round 1, kids. I have three goddamned fucking weeks of silence to undo...

WHOROSCOPES:

ARIES: (Mar. 21 - Apr. 19)
You will be more than a bit surprised this week when you find yourself waking up in Hell; even more surprising, however, is the Devil's strange affinity for Molly Hatchet and Foghat.

TAURUS: (Apr. 20 - May 20)
Your attempts to summon angels via Enochian Ritual Magick will receive a powerful boost this week, when you begin playing Stryper backwards during the ceremony.

GEMINI: (May 21 - Jun. 21)
Your penchant for sodomy will bring you sorrow this week, when you are forced to endure yet another Limp Bizkit show to locate others with your peculiar orientation.

CANCER: (Jun. 22 - Jul. 22)
Your growing disillusion with Metallica will blossom this week, as you hear James Hetfield describe his new tattoo as being "for his dead homies," whilst Lars drunkenly and mistakenly presses charges against himself.

LEO: (Jul. 23 - Aug. 22)
A new drummer, vocalist, and rhythm guitarist will be needed after your band mistakes an inquisitive pair of FBI agents for A&R scouts...enthusiastically attempting to impress them with your particularly anti-establishment brand of "Dope-smokin', Bush-hatin', Church-burning, Christian-raping Black Metal." Live chickens were a very bad idea.

VIRGO: (Aug. 23 - Sep. 22)
Your attempts to sign a band merging the best of Metal and Hardcore will hit an impasse today, as you realize that no one has played real Metal or real Hardcore in nearly twenty years.

LIBRA: (Sept. 23 - Oct. 23)
Your suspicion that you are not worthy to suck Gene Simmons' left testicle will be confirmed this week when your generous offer is once again declined.

SCORPIO: (Oct. 24 - Nov. 21)
Attempts to use a melodic vocalist, like many other modern Death Metal acts, will be met with mixed enthusiasm until you consider letting him sing, instead of simply using him as a kick drum.

SAGITTARIUS: (Nov. 22 - Dec. 21)
Once again, your Dead Pool loses money when Phil Anselmo OD’s and is resuscitated once yet again just to piss you off.

CAPRICORN: (Dec. 22 - Jan. 19)
When explaining to a coworker that Ratt is no longer led by singer Stephen Pearcy, but rather, is now fronted by former Love/Hate vocalist Jizzy Pearl, you come upon a thrilling, if not remarkable, observation: Damn…you’re gay.

AQUARIUS: (Jan. 22 - Feb. 18)
Your idolization of Mercyful Fate frontman King Diamond will lead to tragedy this week, as well as a hospital visit, a ruined pair of garden shears, a large pool of blood, and a small bowl of ice water containing two roughly ovoid lumps of flesh.

PISCES: (Feb. 19 - Mar. 20)
Your love of Christ-centered Heavy Metal will save you from folly tomorrow, as those girls, with their loose morals, large breasts, and free drugs would only compromise your faith.

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TILT!

Oh...just wait for it. It's coming. And then some.

You'll all be pleased; I know I've kept everyone waiting for a week now--two, if you feel like the last post was a gyp.

Anyway: the RHYME SCHEME posts have been removed, for now. This is for the sake of newer traffic I've received, who might get the wrong idea about this place... Perhaps I will restore them later on. Also, know that the insane hyperlinking shall return.

If you're new here, just scroll down for now, and check out some older posts.

The new material is coming later today.

Please check back later in the day (or night). Honest...it's coming.

Oh--and check me out on WAKING AMBROSE today, if you haven't already...

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ROCK SNOB CONFESSIONS

One of the pitfalls of being a rock journalist is that you don't bond with anything anymore.

Some things go in the "Hell Yeah!" basket...but at the end of the day, you still tossed them in a basket; and after a weeks worth of reviewing, all your baskets look alike.

Don't get me wrong--I'd never be stupid enough to complain. I know my job kicks ass, even when I've written for some less respected publications. Hell, I wish I could do this full time.

The point is that some of us receive so many CD's in a given week--many of which sounding exactly alike--that choosing one to genuinely enjoy becomes almost an arbitrary task.

For instance, I liked It Dies Today when I first heard them; two days later, I had received three other CD's with a nearly identical sound. A day after that, I heard the newest Dead To Fall, which is also quite similar. I totally panned it. And in retrospect, it bugs me, because I wonder whether I would have raved on it like I did It Dies Today, had it merely been blessed with arriving before the others.

When you write some 30+ reviews a month, it all begins to blur together after a while. You forget why you liked some things; and like I hinted earlier, it's quite often the timing.

I look back at some of my older reviews, and I can't remember for the life of me why perfectly ordinary bands like Lust Of Decay or The Black Maria garnered a rave review from me at the time. I just don't see it now. But then, not everybody reviews Brutal Gore Grind groups back to back with melodic Post-Hardcore, either. That gulf between Deicide and Husker Du was put there for a reason, they tell me...

Having diverse tastes can make you a great reviewer; but it can also undo you. I pride myself as being somewhat of an amateur Rock Historian; like every good smug bastard, I own the Rock Snob's Dictionary, and I actually care whether something "preserves or furthers the heritage of its subgenre," fruity as it sounds. I get OCD about the labels we give to things. Truth be told, a band like Schizoid is actually pretty clever if you know your genre history. But none of that will make the spikey-haired Screamo kids enjoy it any more...

And of course, after a while, you begin to believe you've heard it all. Alot of good bands probably get dismissed with a firm wanking motion by many of us critics, because we've seen these cycles pass by from the tracks. Years ago, when a publicist kept bugging me to give Linkin Park a chance, I coughed the words "half-rate-Faith-No-More-cough-cough," excused myself, then put some Immolation on for kicks. When they played me Ra, I asked if they remembered Stick, and yawned...then turned Fields Of The Nephilim back up, because I could.

I guess what this rambling diatribe means to say is this: Fuck the static-genre diehards. Branch out and find new flavors, 'cause your gum's not getting any fresher. And the more frames of reference you have, the more effectively you can mock another's taste. Being a myopic Metal fan is a great way to hate your own music one day; it's better to diversify, so that you can, one day, hate OTHER people's music as well.

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