Monday, February 22, 2010
Monday, February 15, 2010
Most Interesting and Awesome Movie I've Seen in a while!
Steamboat Round the Bend (1935) dir. John Ford, starring Will Rogers in his final film.
Friday, February 12, 2010
Folk Art
Bought a couple paintings yesterday. Here's one by Ric Long(pics are by seller--I haven't received these in mail yet):
The other is by a dude from Missouri named Earl Wayne Simmons, who built his residence/art shop (twice--the first burned down in 2002) out of scrap metal and whatever else he could find. I had to buy one of his pieces...I mean, Earl Wayne Simmons represents everything that I consider awesome.
Here is the piece (pics of his residence/art shop/art shack warehouse follow):
And here're some other outsider/folk art pieces I've come across on the online market:
"Pimp" by Spot Daniel (an 80-year old from Arkansas)
"Legs"--Spot Daniel (a dirty old man)
"Space Lady"--Spot Daniel
A few by John Henry Toney, a 70-something Alabaman whose art career started in the min-90's after he plowed up a turnip "with a face on it." His works usually feature his birth date, age, drivers license number, phone number, or a combination of these vital things.
"Delaying the War"
"She loves that little man"
"Interpreting sounds in words"
"A Blessed Woman"
"Her Lips"
"A Cotton Picking Woman With A Cotton Sack"
"We love to see you smile"
I almost bought this crappy old bass because someone had carved "SHEREL/GOD KEEP YOU" on the back.
1R!~~_12.jpg)
The other is by a dude from Missouri named Earl Wayne Simmons, who built his residence/art shop (twice--the first burned down in 2002) out of scrap metal and whatever else he could find. I had to buy one of his pieces...I mean, Earl Wayne Simmons represents everything that I consider awesome.
Here is the piece (pics of his residence/art shop/art shack warehouse follow):
And here're some other outsider/folk art pieces I've come across on the online market:
"Pimp" by Spot Daniel (an 80-year old from Arkansas)
"Legs"--Spot Daniel (a dirty old man)
"Space Lady"--Spot Daniel
A few by John Henry Toney, a 70-something Alabaman whose art career started in the min-90's after he plowed up a turnip "with a face on it." His works usually feature his birth date, age, drivers license number, phone number, or a combination of these vital things.
"Delaying the War"
"She loves that little man"
"Interpreting sounds in words"
"A Blessed Woman"
"Her Lips"
"A Cotton Picking Woman With A Cotton Sack"
"We love to see you smile"
I almost bought this crappy old bass because someone had carved "SHEREL/GOD KEEP YOU" on the back.
1R!~~_12.jpg)
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Sci-Fi Show-off!!!!!!!!!!
My sf shelf:
For coolness sakes, my Ray Bradbury books are on a lower shelf.
For coolness sakes, my Ray Bradbury books are on a lower shelf.
A Science Fiction Story
I've written a short sf story, in journal format, the journal of a man who makes an unfortunate download.
I'm probably going to submit it to Analog, Strange Horizons, Asimov's, etc., though I know they'll just laugh (or shudder, or get pissed off at my crappy writing). So be it.
Anyway, I'll just post it here so it's somewhere other than my hard drive. I like to spread my shit around sometimes. A blog within a blog.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BODY OF HADEM AXIT
By Ian Fines
3/18/10 1:35pm--Another cloudy day. Another crappy, cold, cloudy day. No rain or snow, just crappy clouds. And mud everywhere from last week’s crappy weather. None of this helps my overall moodiness one bit.
Trace said she’d be stopping by later. We’re supposed to be going downtown for some shopping, maybe dinner--probably at Eduardo’s. I don’t like Eduardo’s much. I once heard they spit in the food. A reliable source told me this. And it does kind of tastes like spit sometimes, now that I think of it. A sweet mucus-y taste to things now and then. I’m especially thinking of the risotto I had there last Spring. Maybe I can convince Trace to eat elsewhere.
I have no idea what she wants to shop for--I don’t need anything.
9:15pm--We ate at Eduardo’s, and you know what? It wasn’t that bad this time. I had spaghetti and meatballs. Played it safe. Trace didn’t, and that’s why she’s in the bathroom right now.
We’re going to watch a movie whenever she comes out.
3/19/10 10:10am--Last night we watched “Planet of Vampires” aka “Terrore nello spazio”…well, at least I watched. Trace fell asleep less than halfway through. Then she woke up, said goodbye and left me alone to finish it. And it was scary in a weird kind of way.
I always seem to have scary dreams after I’ve watched a scary movie--like I mostly always have a happy dream after a happy movie. Surprise, surprise--scary dreams. A night of sweat-inducing nightmares. And all because of a half-scary stupid Italian B movie.
10:42pm--The weather is better and the sky is clear, so I decided to do a little stargazing. A few minutes in, around 9:15, I observed a flash of something like lightning, but something that definitely wasn’t lightning--first, it was a reddish color; second, the “lightning” burst seemed too short and traveled sideways; third, out of this burst came an object, a bright white light-filled object, brighter than all of the stars surrounding it, with no blinking lights of any variety, just vivid brightness. The object went fast across the sky for about fifteen seconds then disappeared. Twenty or so seconds later, a commercial airliner with typically flashing lights went across almost the same route at a quarter of the speed. Three to four minutes later, I noticed a somewhat dimmer light, maybe much higher now, travel horizontally across a different part of the sky for ten seconds then disappear. Again no blinking lights. The first object seemed to be at a much lower altitude than the airliner, much lower than even a helicopter would typically fly.
I still don’t believe in UFOs. What sort of alien would bother to visit metropolitan Detroit?
Afterwards I came inside and started downloading a few more movies. They should be done sometime tomorrow.
3/20/10--3:30pm--Went and applied for a job at the grocery store today. The fancy one with shelves of organic cereals, molecularly distilled fish oil, biodynamic nutrient-enhanced herbal tea, organic salad dressing, organic chicken broth, organic fat-free refried pinto beans, organic multi-grain instant oatmeal, etc etc…I’d been holding off applying there for a while. I’m not having luck anywhere else. I guess I think I can retain some glimmer of self-respect working at the fancy grocery store and not the “normal” grocery store, the kind I shop at. We’ll see what happens.
The movies I started downloading last night are taking longer than expected. So I started to download another, some movie I’ve never heard of, probably another “rare” sci-fi thing like “Liquid Sky” or “Exterminators of the Year 3000” et al... Luckily it finished super fast. And I mean SUPER fast. I’ve never seen bit rates like this before. 900 kB/s+...The others are still going slow, like 14.4/28.8 modem slow. I’m beginning to think that maybe AT&T knows what I’m up to.
6:57pm--I tried to convince Trace to get over here and watch this movie with me. It’s bound to be more exciting than “Planet of Vampires.” But she wanted to go out and see “Avatar” instead. Conformist.
9.40pm--Figures that the “movie” I downloaded so lightning fast is actually not a movie at all, just a bunch of fuzz. That’s right--reddish fuzz, somewhat like an infrared image, dark and lighter reds that hurt my eyes to look at. I put on sunglasses and this helps. In fact, now I think I can make out shapes of things within the fuzz; moving shapes, like there’s a movie playing in there somewhere but my player isn’t compatible with the file format.
Why am I staring at a bunch of fuzz on the TV? Honestly, I can’t seem to come up with a reason other than something about it interests me. The file is labeled “BodyofAxit.avi”…
3/21/10--4:15pm--I’ve watched “Body of Axit” about three or four times today, and it’s kind of like playing a video game; I stare at the TV screen and I lose all sense of time. Except I don’t have a joystick to control things--my mind is the joystick, and each time I watch, I feel like I have more control over what I see. The fuzzy shapes almost seem to move and change the way I want them to change. Even the sound changes. It’s hard to explain, but the white noise accompanying the fuzz has a certain mesmerizing character to it. Like a hidden melody within all the noise. A mystical kind of melody.
And when I get to the end and restart the video, it's not the same the next time around--never the same.
This isn’t a computer screensaver or cheap new age meditation device. This is real. I think maybe even something or someone--even though sounds far-fetched--is trying to communicate with me.
3/22/10--8:04am--Okay, so maybe I’ve taken this a bit far. I finally shut off the TV. But I didn’t want to shut it off. I feel like I was getting somewhere, starting to understand something. I’ve never felt this way before.
I’m going to try to take a day or two off from watching. Maybe I’ll just erase it. Maybe that’s a pretty good idea right now.
10:30am--I’ve been thinking, am I the only person who’s downloaded this??? Are there others out there like me, staring at weird shapes on their TV’s, listening to muffled noises, entranced, transfixed? If so, where are they? Why can’t I find any “Body of Axit” fan clubs, discussion boards, cults, etc.? I checked everywhere and no one seems to have heard of it. It does not exist.
6:04pm--Jason came over. I told him all about Axit, and after some prodding and a measure of personal embarrassment for both of us, he put on the sunglasses and watched for a few minutes…and didn’t see or hear anything. No magical shapes. No hidden mystical melodies. Just fuzz and more fuzz. I felt pretty stupid. Then I put on the glasses and looked. The shapes revolved and changed; beautiful music crept out of the noise, disappeared, then returned even more beautiful.
“Don’t you see that?” I asked him. He shook his head and looked at me funny. “No music in there?” Nope. He probably thinks I’m a little crazy now.
3/23/10--7:11am--I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided to give Axit another go. And why not? Jason can’t see anything, neither can Trace (she tried last night)…Well, so what? That makes this all the more special.
2:46pm--So I switched from watching on TV to using my laptop and headphones--this way I can really study everything. And there’s a huge difference: moving beneath the reddish fuzz, a layer down, tiny points of light, each a different color; the shapes form out of this quickly moving light; and the noise isn’t noise at all, but more like thousands and thousands of musical notes of various lengths and tones, all competing for supremacy. Once in a while, a succession of notes comes through loud and clear, above the rest, a strange shape--or combination of shapes--appear, and I catch myself drooling--literally drooling all over the keyboard--at the sheer beauty of sound and light.
Sometimes the shapes form into more solid, nearly identifiable objects: I made out a sort of chair, a room with a chair in it. I thought I saw a person or being walk across this room and sit down in the chair. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t make out any distinct features of this being. After and hour or so, the tiny lights shifted and the room and the chair and the being were gone.
3/25/10--1:55am--I’m taking a minute off from Axit to take down a few notes. No more than a minute--I have my watch set. Some crazy things have been happening: the room with the chair came back, and so did the being. He/she/it, when not sitting, looked to be working on something along the walls of the room. Not long ago it dragged a large piece of machinery across the room and off-screen. It hasn’t been back since.
I really need to take a shower but I also really don’t want to miss anything. I should eat but I’m not hungry. I need to sleep. I tried to earlier, but I can’t close my eyes for long--all I see is Axit. Then I think, Why not just keep on watching? Besides, I’m not exactly tired. Axit gives me a kind of energy, an odd energy, enough to go on…and on and on.
Time to focus again.
3/26/10--8:02am--Late last night (or early this morning, actually) I finally saw the thing’s ugly face: a sickening sideways mouth, two huge eyes that never blink, and no visible nose. Not at all humanlike. All of a sudden it rushed up to the screen and stared out, like it could see me. It stared and stared, seemed to mouth a few words, then stared some more. After a couple minutes the being looked down for a moment and then held up a sign to the screen. This sign had writing on it--definitely alien writing. A few lines of big alien letters. Then it took down the sign, mouthed a few more words, and stared out at me again.
I’m going to keep away for a while. I think I’ll take a take a walk outside.
3/26/10--5:28pm--So I didn’t keep away for very long. And I never did get outside for a walk. Started right where I left off: now the thing was just sitting there in the chair, not moving at all, some type of uncomfortable-looking apparatus around its head, tubes and wires leading from the apparatus to someplace off screen. I watched for about two hours --no movement from my ugly friend. And no more music or mesmerizing shapes--just the alien in the chair.
At some point I got so bored that I stopped the video and erased it. Or maybe I wasn’t bored so much--maybe, deep down, I’m more than a little freaked out. Either way, it’ll be nice to watch some normal movies for a change.
3/28/10--3:40pm--I haven’t been feeling well the past couple days. Lightheaded, a weird empty feeling. Hollow. Kind of like something is slowly sucking the energy out of me.
And another unsettling thing: I’m slightly losing control of my body. Not like peeing in my pants or anything. This is different. Like my brain isn’t always successful in communicating with the rest of my body. For example, if I want to stand, it seems like I have to tell myself three or four times to get up--actually concentrate hard on standing, everything that the act of standing up entails, down to each tired muscle and ligament, for anything to happen. Walking is even more of a pain in the ass.
I think maybe I have mono or something. Trace thinks I should hurry up and see a doctor. She’s probably right.
3/29/10--10:18am--Trace and Jason helped get me to the doctor this morning. He couldn’t find anything serious, no real sickness. He says it might just be depression, something psychosomatic. I told him I’ve never really been depressed my entire life--and if it is psychosomatic or whatever, I asked, why so sudden? He couldn’t give me an answer, other than he wants me back in for tests three days from now.
I’m going back to sleep. I keep hoping that I can just sleep this all off.
3/30/10--8:40am--I’ve stopped trying to move around. It just takes too much energy--energy I don’t have anyway. So I’ve been laying in bed since yesterday. Sometimes I sit up and check my email.
My body is starting to feel numb. Even typing this is getting a bit difficult to do.
3/31/10--11:13am--Now I can only type with one hand--the left one--and one finger. The rest are totally numb. A cold numbness. Both my legs and most everything else is numb too.
Trace helped me with a lot yesterday, like going to the bathroom. She made me a sandwich, but I still wasn’t hungry--and I’m still not hungry. I haven’t eaten for a while.
4/1/10--7:02am--I am yfguiunoomoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ooooooooooooooooooooop999999999999][p[p’0o;p;il00000000000p;;//poolp;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;[
My name is Hadem Axit. I am here in new physical form: moderate height; pale thin skin, covered in hair; moderately weak muscles; bipedal; two arms, two legs, small head with two small eyes; small reproductive glands. Primitive society. Little chance of locating parts required for craft repair. Yet I had no other option. The previous spirit of this body is up there now.
I wish him luck.
I'm probably going to submit it to Analog, Strange Horizons, Asimov's, etc., though I know they'll just laugh (or shudder, or get pissed off at my crappy writing). So be it.
Anyway, I'll just post it here so it's somewhere other than my hard drive. I like to spread my shit around sometimes. A blog within a blog.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
THE BODY OF HADEM AXIT
By Ian Fines
3/18/10 1:35pm--Another cloudy day. Another crappy, cold, cloudy day. No rain or snow, just crappy clouds. And mud everywhere from last week’s crappy weather. None of this helps my overall moodiness one bit.
Trace said she’d be stopping by later. We’re supposed to be going downtown for some shopping, maybe dinner--probably at Eduardo’s. I don’t like Eduardo’s much. I once heard they spit in the food. A reliable source told me this. And it does kind of tastes like spit sometimes, now that I think of it. A sweet mucus-y taste to things now and then. I’m especially thinking of the risotto I had there last Spring. Maybe I can convince Trace to eat elsewhere.
I have no idea what she wants to shop for--I don’t need anything.
9:15pm--We ate at Eduardo’s, and you know what? It wasn’t that bad this time. I had spaghetti and meatballs. Played it safe. Trace didn’t, and that’s why she’s in the bathroom right now.
We’re going to watch a movie whenever she comes out.
3/19/10 10:10am--Last night we watched “Planet of Vampires” aka “Terrore nello spazio”…well, at least I watched. Trace fell asleep less than halfway through. Then she woke up, said goodbye and left me alone to finish it. And it was scary in a weird kind of way.
I always seem to have scary dreams after I’ve watched a scary movie--like I mostly always have a happy dream after a happy movie. Surprise, surprise--scary dreams. A night of sweat-inducing nightmares. And all because of a half-scary stupid Italian B movie.
10:42pm--The weather is better and the sky is clear, so I decided to do a little stargazing. A few minutes in, around 9:15, I observed a flash of something like lightning, but something that definitely wasn’t lightning--first, it was a reddish color; second, the “lightning” burst seemed too short and traveled sideways; third, out of this burst came an object, a bright white light-filled object, brighter than all of the stars surrounding it, with no blinking lights of any variety, just vivid brightness. The object went fast across the sky for about fifteen seconds then disappeared. Twenty or so seconds later, a commercial airliner with typically flashing lights went across almost the same route at a quarter of the speed. Three to four minutes later, I noticed a somewhat dimmer light, maybe much higher now, travel horizontally across a different part of the sky for ten seconds then disappear. Again no blinking lights. The first object seemed to be at a much lower altitude than the airliner, much lower than even a helicopter would typically fly.
I still don’t believe in UFOs. What sort of alien would bother to visit metropolitan Detroit?
Afterwards I came inside and started downloading a few more movies. They should be done sometime tomorrow.
3/20/10--3:30pm--Went and applied for a job at the grocery store today. The fancy one with shelves of organic cereals, molecularly distilled fish oil, biodynamic nutrient-enhanced herbal tea, organic salad dressing, organic chicken broth, organic fat-free refried pinto beans, organic multi-grain instant oatmeal, etc etc…I’d been holding off applying there for a while. I’m not having luck anywhere else. I guess I think I can retain some glimmer of self-respect working at the fancy grocery store and not the “normal” grocery store, the kind I shop at. We’ll see what happens.
The movies I started downloading last night are taking longer than expected. So I started to download another, some movie I’ve never heard of, probably another “rare” sci-fi thing like “Liquid Sky” or “Exterminators of the Year 3000” et al... Luckily it finished super fast. And I mean SUPER fast. I’ve never seen bit rates like this before. 900 kB/s+...The others are still going slow, like 14.4/28.8 modem slow. I’m beginning to think that maybe AT&T knows what I’m up to.
6:57pm--I tried to convince Trace to get over here and watch this movie with me. It’s bound to be more exciting than “Planet of Vampires.” But she wanted to go out and see “Avatar” instead. Conformist.
9.40pm--Figures that the “movie” I downloaded so lightning fast is actually not a movie at all, just a bunch of fuzz. That’s right--reddish fuzz, somewhat like an infrared image, dark and lighter reds that hurt my eyes to look at. I put on sunglasses and this helps. In fact, now I think I can make out shapes of things within the fuzz; moving shapes, like there’s a movie playing in there somewhere but my player isn’t compatible with the file format.
Why am I staring at a bunch of fuzz on the TV? Honestly, I can’t seem to come up with a reason other than something about it interests me. The file is labeled “BodyofAxit.avi”…
3/21/10--4:15pm--I’ve watched “Body of Axit” about three or four times today, and it’s kind of like playing a video game; I stare at the TV screen and I lose all sense of time. Except I don’t have a joystick to control things--my mind is the joystick, and each time I watch, I feel like I have more control over what I see. The fuzzy shapes almost seem to move and change the way I want them to change. Even the sound changes. It’s hard to explain, but the white noise accompanying the fuzz has a certain mesmerizing character to it. Like a hidden melody within all the noise. A mystical kind of melody.
And when I get to the end and restart the video, it's not the same the next time around--never the same.
This isn’t a computer screensaver or cheap new age meditation device. This is real. I think maybe even something or someone--even though sounds far-fetched--is trying to communicate with me.
3/22/10--8:04am--Okay, so maybe I’ve taken this a bit far. I finally shut off the TV. But I didn’t want to shut it off. I feel like I was getting somewhere, starting to understand something. I’ve never felt this way before.
I’m going to try to take a day or two off from watching. Maybe I’ll just erase it. Maybe that’s a pretty good idea right now.
10:30am--I’ve been thinking, am I the only person who’s downloaded this??? Are there others out there like me, staring at weird shapes on their TV’s, listening to muffled noises, entranced, transfixed? If so, where are they? Why can’t I find any “Body of Axit” fan clubs, discussion boards, cults, etc.? I checked everywhere and no one seems to have heard of it. It does not exist.
6:04pm--Jason came over. I told him all about Axit, and after some prodding and a measure of personal embarrassment for both of us, he put on the sunglasses and watched for a few minutes…and didn’t see or hear anything. No magical shapes. No hidden mystical melodies. Just fuzz and more fuzz. I felt pretty stupid. Then I put on the glasses and looked. The shapes revolved and changed; beautiful music crept out of the noise, disappeared, then returned even more beautiful.
“Don’t you see that?” I asked him. He shook his head and looked at me funny. “No music in there?” Nope. He probably thinks I’m a little crazy now.
3/23/10--7:11am--I’ve thought about it and I’ve decided to give Axit another go. And why not? Jason can’t see anything, neither can Trace (she tried last night)…Well, so what? That makes this all the more special.
2:46pm--So I switched from watching on TV to using my laptop and headphones--this way I can really study everything. And there’s a huge difference: moving beneath the reddish fuzz, a layer down, tiny points of light, each a different color; the shapes form out of this quickly moving light; and the noise isn’t noise at all, but more like thousands and thousands of musical notes of various lengths and tones, all competing for supremacy. Once in a while, a succession of notes comes through loud and clear, above the rest, a strange shape--or combination of shapes--appear, and I catch myself drooling--literally drooling all over the keyboard--at the sheer beauty of sound and light.
Sometimes the shapes form into more solid, nearly identifiable objects: I made out a sort of chair, a room with a chair in it. I thought I saw a person or being walk across this room and sit down in the chair. I tried as hard as I could, but I couldn’t make out any distinct features of this being. After and hour or so, the tiny lights shifted and the room and the chair and the being were gone.
3/25/10--1:55am--I’m taking a minute off from Axit to take down a few notes. No more than a minute--I have my watch set. Some crazy things have been happening: the room with the chair came back, and so did the being. He/she/it, when not sitting, looked to be working on something along the walls of the room. Not long ago it dragged a large piece of machinery across the room and off-screen. It hasn’t been back since.
I really need to take a shower but I also really don’t want to miss anything. I should eat but I’m not hungry. I need to sleep. I tried to earlier, but I can’t close my eyes for long--all I see is Axit. Then I think, Why not just keep on watching? Besides, I’m not exactly tired. Axit gives me a kind of energy, an odd energy, enough to go on…and on and on.
Time to focus again.
3/26/10--8:02am--Late last night (or early this morning, actually) I finally saw the thing’s ugly face: a sickening sideways mouth, two huge eyes that never blink, and no visible nose. Not at all humanlike. All of a sudden it rushed up to the screen and stared out, like it could see me. It stared and stared, seemed to mouth a few words, then stared some more. After a couple minutes the being looked down for a moment and then held up a sign to the screen. This sign had writing on it--definitely alien writing. A few lines of big alien letters. Then it took down the sign, mouthed a few more words, and stared out at me again.
I’m going to keep away for a while. I think I’ll take a take a walk outside.
3/26/10--5:28pm--So I didn’t keep away for very long. And I never did get outside for a walk. Started right where I left off: now the thing was just sitting there in the chair, not moving at all, some type of uncomfortable-looking apparatus around its head, tubes and wires leading from the apparatus to someplace off screen. I watched for about two hours --no movement from my ugly friend. And no more music or mesmerizing shapes--just the alien in the chair.
At some point I got so bored that I stopped the video and erased it. Or maybe I wasn’t bored so much--maybe, deep down, I’m more than a little freaked out. Either way, it’ll be nice to watch some normal movies for a change.
3/28/10--3:40pm--I haven’t been feeling well the past couple days. Lightheaded, a weird empty feeling. Hollow. Kind of like something is slowly sucking the energy out of me.
And another unsettling thing: I’m slightly losing control of my body. Not like peeing in my pants or anything. This is different. Like my brain isn’t always successful in communicating with the rest of my body. For example, if I want to stand, it seems like I have to tell myself three or four times to get up--actually concentrate hard on standing, everything that the act of standing up entails, down to each tired muscle and ligament, for anything to happen. Walking is even more of a pain in the ass.
I think maybe I have mono or something. Trace thinks I should hurry up and see a doctor. She’s probably right.
3/29/10--10:18am--Trace and Jason helped get me to the doctor this morning. He couldn’t find anything serious, no real sickness. He says it might just be depression, something psychosomatic. I told him I’ve never really been depressed my entire life--and if it is psychosomatic or whatever, I asked, why so sudden? He couldn’t give me an answer, other than he wants me back in for tests three days from now.
I’m going back to sleep. I keep hoping that I can just sleep this all off.
3/30/10--8:40am--I’ve stopped trying to move around. It just takes too much energy--energy I don’t have anyway. So I’ve been laying in bed since yesterday. Sometimes I sit up and check my email.
My body is starting to feel numb. Even typing this is getting a bit difficult to do.
3/31/10--11:13am--Now I can only type with one hand--the left one--and one finger. The rest are totally numb. A cold numbness. Both my legs and most everything else is numb too.
Trace helped me with a lot yesterday, like going to the bathroom. She made me a sandwich, but I still wasn’t hungry--and I’m still not hungry. I haven’t eaten for a while.
4/1/10--7:02am--I am yfguiunoomoiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiii[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ooooooooooooooooooooop999999999999][p[p’0o;p;il00000000000p;;//poolp;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;;[
My name is Hadem Axit. I am here in new physical form: moderate height; pale thin skin, covered in hair; moderately weak muscles; bipedal; two arms, two legs, small head with two small eyes; small reproductive glands. Primitive society. Little chance of locating parts required for craft repair. Yet I had no other option. The previous spirit of this body is up there now.
I wish him luck.
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
LONG LIVE PROG ROCK!
A bunch of children playing Yes's "Heart of the Sunrise"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAHYdM8Vt-o&feature=related
...they also play King Crimson's "Exiles"...
Yes (And You & I):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkgA9vo5YCs
Van der Graaf Generator (Darkness):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmhP6YiN6s
Magma (Die Futura):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73XLkf43-s
Genesis (Watcher of the Skies):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwVo27KJ1I&feature=related
(Dancing with the Moonlit Knight):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdD6L4cKKU8&feature=related
Robert Wyatt (Shipbuilding--not prog, but there aren't any good Soft Machine vids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY&feature=related
Frank Zappa (Black Napkins, full cock-out version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-NMnYhM3Q&feature=related
Some group of street people with John Wetton (Fallen Angel):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-e3kDV3poA
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAHYdM8Vt-o&feature=related
...they also play King Crimson's "Exiles"...
Yes (And You & I):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkgA9vo5YCs
Van der Graaf Generator (Darkness):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmhP6YiN6s
Magma (Die Futura):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a73XLkf43-s
Genesis (Watcher of the Skies):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PBwVo27KJ1I&feature=related
(Dancing with the Moonlit Knight):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RdD6L4cKKU8&feature=related
Robert Wyatt (Shipbuilding--not prog, but there aren't any good Soft Machine vids)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6T9qp9XbRY&feature=related
Frank Zappa (Black Napkins, full cock-out version)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c-NMnYhM3Q&feature=related
Some group of street people with John Wetton (Fallen Angel):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X-e3kDV3poA
Another interesting name.
Say hi to Goodluck Jonathan, now acting president of Nigeria.
And notice my most recent Scrabble score (338) above the brim of President Jonathan's trademark fedora.
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
10 Least Mediocre American Movies of 2009!!!!!!!
1. World's Greatest Dad
2. Moon
10. Zombieland (only because of Bill Murray's short performance)
And the 4 most mediocre:
1. Avatar (watched the first 30 mins. of a download--ie. did not pay)
2. Precious (I didn't see this)
3. The Hurt Locker (another download; pretty depressing when Ebert calls this "one of the best war movies ever made." I threw this burnt disc into the garbage. If you want it, I can fish it out and send it to you for the cost of postage. I really do prefer recycling.)
4. Paranormal Activity
I refused to watch any movies starring Nic Cage this year, even if one is supposedly a pretty decent sf thing and the other is directed by Werner Herzog. The last movie Nic did with a cool director was very far from cool and made me consider the sanity and judgement of this director. Five minutes of viewing--a lifetime of questions. I won't let Nic fuck shit up for me like that ever again. (Though I've seen my share of horrible Werner Herzog efforts...)
2. Moon
10. Zombieland (only because of Bill Murray's short performance)
And the 4 most mediocre:
1. Avatar (watched the first 30 mins. of a download--ie. did not pay)
2. Precious (I didn't see this)
3. The Hurt Locker (another download; pretty depressing when Ebert calls this "one of the best war movies ever made." I threw this burnt disc into the garbage. If you want it, I can fish it out and send it to you for the cost of postage. I really do prefer recycling.)
4. Paranormal Activity
I refused to watch any movies starring Nic Cage this year, even if one is supposedly a pretty decent sf thing and the other is directed by Werner Herzog. The last movie Nic did with a cool director was very far from cool and made me consider the sanity and judgement of this director. Five minutes of viewing--a lifetime of questions. I won't let Nic fuck shit up for me like that ever again. (Though I've seen my share of horrible Werner Herzog efforts...)
Friday, January 29, 2010
MC5 Adventure in Ann Arbor!
Ever since I moved to Ann Arbor in November I've been meaning to visit some sites of historical importance/relevance regarding the great MC5. Today I got off my lazy ass and did just that.
I visited West Park, a nice little park where the MC5 (as well as the Rationals, SRC, the Up, etc.) played free Sunday concerts in 1968, before their heads exploded and they decided they were too big for that sort of thing.
I visited West Park, a nice little park where the MC5 (as well as the Rationals, SRC, the Up, etc.) played free Sunday concerts in 1968, before their heads exploded and they decided they were too big for that sort of thing.
This is the band shell. Those splotches are from paintballs, I think--and judging by the stuff growing in front of it, a big paintball target is probably it's only function these days. The stage looks out onto a fat ugly apartment building sitting up on the ridge running along one side of the park.
I can imagine the music reverberating off the apartment building, out of the park, and drenching the surrounding neighborhood with swathes of throbbing sonic nightmare. No wonder the MC5 and other groups were forced to move their Sunday freakouts to Gallup Park, a much less populated area, by August 1968.
Hands numbed by the cold, I made my way out of West Park and back to my car--and along the way I found a little iPod on the sidewalk! After getting home and charging it up, I found it works and is filled with lots and lots of horrible music!
But my adventure wasn't over with this fortuitous iPod discovery. I still had another place to visit. 1510 Hill Street, the MC5 house.
This old place is located right on frat row, next to a dental fraternity. And it's now a co-op. I bet you could find some pretty cool stuff hidden in there somewhere. I mean, John Sinclair ran his commune Trans-Love Energies and his underground rag The Sun from down the basement for christsakes!
On the other side (not the dental frat side) is 1520 Hill, where the Stooges lived. This place is also a co-op owned by the same company that owns 1510 Hill, and they are painted exactly the same. Here's a pic:
I'm thinking of going on another MC5 adventure in Ann Arbor in the upcoming days, maybe when and if it warms up a little. I want to find where the band played in Gallup Park. I've looked before and have come up with nothing (no band shell, though there should be one). Also, I'm interested in finding out if the psychedelic ballroom "The Fifth Dimension" is still erect. Posters I've seen online list its location as 216 W. Huron. Wait, maybe the Bob Seger System and Ted Nugent and the Amboy Dukes are playing tonight! I mean, it is Friday and I am in Ann Arbor.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
J.D. Salinger, Dead
So J.D. Salinger is dead. Here are a couple interesting Salinger-related images I gleaned from online sources.
Monday, January 25, 2010
I am Satan, walk with me.
Recently, I watched a highly over-rated movie, Mario Bava's "Black Sabbath" (1963), and it got me thinking. Not about totally unthrilling Italian thrillers but about the band Black Sabbath and its wild and always drunk frontman Ozzy Osbourne. The first band I saw perform in concert (though without Ozzy on vocals).
Did you know Ozzy Osbourne could be Satan incarnate? Has his public persona the past ten years convinced you otherwise? Don't be fooled. Ozzy is still very likely Satan.
Why do I think so?
Let's go back nearly twenty years, to a dreary, rainy night in the fall of 1991. I was in the 7th grade. My older brother and I were doing our homework, listening to a cassette tape of Sabbath's greatest hits album "We Sold Our Soul For Rock 'N' Roll" on our cheap stereo. Great homework music. Suddenly, a volley of thunder and lightning from outside and the cassette player made a whirring, crunchy noise. The cassette stopped. No more "N.I.B."...Silence. I pressed eject to find a mess of tape. "We Sold Our Soul" had been eaten alive.
After some careful manuevering, I reeled the tape back into place, put it in the player and pressed play. The music was now backwards, a backwards "Black Sabbath", the song directly on the other side of the cassette from "N.I.B." Slightly intrigued, we listened, and then, just a few seconds in, we listened to Ozzy backwards-sing "I am Satan, walk with me." My brother and I looked at each other. I rewound the tape and we listened again. Same thing, right there in the slow, beginning verse of the song. Scared and slightly shaking, we listened to it a few more times. Ozzy seemed to be speaking to us. "Hey," he said, "it's rainy and cold outside but come on out and take a walk with me. I am Satan. Stop pretending to do your homework, bring some beer if you can find some, and walk with me." We played the rest of the song but found nothing, only "I am Satan, walk with me." I put the tape in my backpack.
I didn't feel like taking a walk with Satan or Ozzy. Neither did my brother.
The next day I took my walkman and some headphones to school and showed off my discovery to anyone who cared to listen. Many did. Many were never quite the same again.
Try it yourself. These days you don't even have to have a tape to manually fold over to hear everything backwards (btw, I methodically folded over and checked the rest of "We Sold Our Soul" and found zilch. Though I must say Tony Iommi's guitar work did sound pretty awesome).
Try it. I dare you.
(note: I originally finished writing this, clicked "Publish Post", and found my entry to be mysteriously missing. I closed Internet Explorer, reopened it, went back and nothing had been saved...no drafts, no traces. Coincidence? Hmm. So I wrote it all over again, remembering very little of what I'd originally written. Fuck you, Ozzy.)
Friday, January 22, 2010
FOUR LOKO
Have you ever stepped up and tried Four Loko, a premium malt beverage with artificial flavor, guarana, taurine, caffeine and FD&C blue #1?
No? Why not? You don't like the idea of drinking psuedo-methamphetamine out of a can?
You don't like the odd ticklish sensation Four Loko happily and instantly delivers to your stomach, liver and intestines? Are you ticklish?
Four Loko is for those of us who started with Boones Farm and Mickey's, graduated to Franzia, then moved along the desperate path to alcoholic 'energy' drinks, craving that extra little something, something like Sparks or JOOSE (no I didn't spell that wrong), then craving something even a little more extra. And that extra is FOUR LOKO.
I recommend the blue raspberry flavor. If you have taste buds, stay away from orange and watermelon, even though watermelon, I think, is 13% alcohol per volume. Blue raspberry is 12% alc/vol.. Blue raspberry is the health-conscious version.
The best SPARKS has to offer is the 'red' flavor at 8%...and I think JOOSE tops off at around 8.9% or thereabouts. WEAK!
Come on, FOUR LOKO is for true players. And at around 2.25 per 24 oz., how can you resist? Who cares that after the first 6 oz. you'll lose nearly all inhibitions. By 12 oz. you will not be able to form a solitary coherent thought. You will begin to sweat in areas you've probably never noticed yourself sweating before. You will shake a little. You will probably shake a lot. You will feel like lifting weights. You will feel a bit like Charles Manson feels. GUARANTEED.
Find yourself a can of FOUR LOKO! STEP UP!
And you will pee blue!
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