the shrunken head repair clinic & sacrificial brazier

Sunn O))) Monoliths & Dimensions

2009-06-21T11:04:00.001-07:00

A new Sunn O))) album always seems to be cause for celebration and on their 7th full-length they won't disappoint hardcore fans and it will no doubt open the doors to some new fans. The usual stripped down bass and guitar rumblings are mixed with other interesting combinations.

The first track ‘Aghartha’ starts off much like any other Sunn O))) album, with nice drones and rumbles, but soon we have some string section overtones creeping in with some haunting spoken word from Atilla Csihar, who sounds strangely reminiscent of the emporer in Return of the Jedi. Soon, the horns and brass build to a satisfying climax, then we go to the second track. Unfortunately the first track is the only one i seem to go back to for repated listens.

‘Big Church’,starts with some pretty predictable cheesy choir, juxtaposed with speaking-in-tongues babble and a tolling bell , but it doesn't seem to be convincing enough for these ears. The choir part could've been so much more damaging if they had worked it out more. They should've listened to some Ligeti for inspiration on that.

Track 3, ’Hunting And Gathering’ grinds away with some classic Sunn O))) primitive riffage mixed with horns and brass arrangements which remind me of Celtic Frost a bit. But again, it doesn't quite do it for me.

Eyvind Kang is the guest arranger on Track 4 ’Alice’, and even though I love Kang as a performer, arranger and composer, this track again falls short of my expectations.

Maybe I was expecting too much because of all the hype surrounding this album, but me thinks they missed the mark on this one.

Personally i enjoyed the Pentemple album that came out a few years ago better than this. How far they can take their drone/doom stylings will be something we'll just have to wait and see about. I think they should add a permanent drummer and perhaps vocalist and make an actual band. Maybe a new version of the band could add the other dimension they need.

Vancouver: The Cultural Vaccuum Pt. 1

2009-06-21T09:39:00.000-07:00

Vancouver. I've been back here 1 year now. Canada's most expensive city right now. Why? The fucking Olympics. You know what? Screw the Olympics. Anybody who goes and supports this shit should be shot dead. I can walk down few major streets without running into construction zones, some stupid construction worker telling me I have to cross somewhere else. I'm getting fed up with it. Granville Street looks like a war zone and it has for the last few years, Cambie as well. I want to crush the Olympics and if enough people thought the same way, we may just have something. I seriously hope there's a fucking riot or the games get invaded by a vicious army of Michael Jacksons. My advice is do whatever you can to fuck shit up during the Olympics. They must be stopped. Half the reason out economy sucks is because of it.

I still work at a Yacht Club. And I actually enjoy it. It's summer, I'm keeping a great tan, using my muscles everyday, get off at 3:30 every day, no overtime. I got no complaints. I ask myself daily whether or not I should get back into a design job full-time, working in some box, generating useless ideas for clients with narrow self serving objectives. I think maybe no. I look at the jobs people post on craigslist and it is a complete fucking joke. The design scene out here is at an all-time low, companies are looking for people to do websites and logos in exchange for cases of beer, if you DO find a full-time position, they only want to pay you 12 to 15 dollars and hour and have you do secretarial duties on top of your other stuff. These people and companies are scum and they should be ashamed of themselves for making such a mockery of a highly trained profession. YES. We actually have to go to school for this shit. What I've figured out in the last year is that anyone with any ounce of talent here will simply not make it out here. The odds are against creativity and all for being a sedate little follower. Originality, uniqueness, individuality are bullshit words that are thrown around a lot but I don't see much of it going around. I haven't seen a decent piece of creative come out of this city since I came back. There's some cool stuff being generated by some of the smaller 2 to 3 person shops, but they're probably just scraping by. It's a shame that Vancouver is so goddamn conservative. There is a lot of talent here, but it has little hope of going anywhere. So I think I'm better off working at a Yacht Club for 15 dollars an hour. No stress, no mess.

Something else I need to address is how bad and rude drivers and cyclists are here in Vancouver. First off, in my opinion, all cab drivers should be blown up. They are all assholes who deserve slow death. I'll just give you a few examples of situations I've been in.
a) I'm walking across the street, the light is green, cabby tries to get by, honks his horn and tells me to fuck off, even though I have the right of way
b) Cab drivers coming out of an alley or blind spots without looking both ways, going over the speed limit, almost scaring the shit out of you, and, killing you.
c) Cab drivers soliciting their services at bus stops. Yes, this has actually happened to me. I'm waiting for the B-Libe Bus, Indian cabby drives up and opens his door, looks at me and says "Are you getting in or not?" When I told him "No, I'm waiting for the bus", he tells me to FUCK OFF and drives off, tires screeching. Indian cab drivers think they own the show out here it seems. Well, fuck you.

Drivers in general are assholes, including most cyclists. They always cut you off, they yell insults at you like it's your fault, they screech their tires when they take off if they don't make the turn before you cross the street, etc etc. FUCK YOU. If you can't wait 10 seconds for people to cross, then tough tit, you shit.

Service in Vancouver? You rarely get a smile. You rarely get service at all. What you do get is shit, arguments, you-are-the-gulity-party-not-me looks. I sure do miss Japan that way. Nobody ever fucks with a customer over there. If they do, they usually get canned. Here, it's the norm.

I'll write some more rants about Vancouver as they come to me, but this is it for now.

BOREDOMS - Super Roots 10

2009-02-19T19:23:00.001-08:00

You might as well say that the Boredoms are a full-blown techno group now with real drummers. There seems to be 2 Boredoms, pre-Super Ar and post-Super Ar. This shit has obviously gone on long enough. When are the Boredoms going to put out a real album of substance and not this techno shit.This is not even interesting techno, it's like something you'd hear on a real cheap techno complilation that you'd find in a bargain bin at Zellers. It's just that bad. There is only 1 track and then 4 shitty remixes of the same track that aren't much more interesting than the original. This is a mess. Save your money. This is apparently sold out in Japan already after a week. Kind of cool cover artwork, looks like EYE is learning how to fuck with Illustrator a bit. I haven't seen the package but it's apprently one of them nice cardboard LP type sleeves. I have to listen to WOW 2 about 10 times just to erase the memory of this.

How to ride the bus for free in Vancouver

2008-12-14T18:11:00.000-08:00

BC Transit. Everybody complains about the shitty service, the high fares and the drivers who can't drive to save their life. The top executives give themselves raises and they're making like 200,000 bucks a year, yet they fucking strike every few years. Why should we have to pay $2.50 for a one fucking zone? Just a ride downtown is all I want. Should be free goddamn it. It was $1.50 for a one zone before, and that was still high. The Skytrain is great, there just isn't enough of them. Translink sucks moose cock.

So the solution is easy. Just don't pay. Here's how. The machines on the bus are still not made to accept bills. So just tell them you don't have any change or not the correct change. Just get on the bus like you're some confused tourist and have a 5 or 10 dollar bill ready to put in the machine. The say "Do these things take bills?" with a dumbass look on your face. They cannot turn you down if you have money. I've done this a million times and they never once rejected me.

Here's another thing that I do. During busy times, like rush hour, I just enter through one of the back doors after people get off. They never say anything. I got this idea from watching other people do it. Many people. It's difficult to do this if you're the only one being picked up or there's no one getting off. Like I said, the time to do this is in the morning or around 5 or 6 in the evening. It's especially easy to do this on the longer buses, like the B-Line Buses.

And as you know, it's easy to get on the Skytrain without paying. You just have to check as well as you can to make sure there are none of them pesky Skytrain officers waiting for you at the top. Those guys act all tough and shit like they're the police or something, but they actually have no authority, so if they ask you for ID, just tell them you don't have it. They cannot force you to show it to them.

Fuck paying for the bus. Ride for free baby. Yeah.

Bums N' Hosers: Chinese Food Democracy

2008-12-08T18:44:00.000-08:00

I know this album has already been reviewed by a million people already, but I'll add my 2 cents worth anyway. How fuckin' long have fans been waiting for this? How long has Axl Rose pissed around with recording, producing, mixing tweaking, etc? Too long. For an album that is so anticipated and steeped in controversy, why isn't it selling more copies? I think people just got fed up. And when you listen to it, it doesn't sound like anything special. But it IS good. I am actually pleasantly surprised. It's not Appetite For Destruction, Lies, Use Your Illusion, or even Spaghetti Incident. And that's a good thing.

It's quite a mess and that's not necessarily a bad thing. But in my opinion, the G n' R name should not be attached to this, because it's not a band. It's Axl Rose w/ a ton of guests.

There's a few great songs, a few good songs, and a few not so great songs. That's it. Axl's voice still sounds great. Buckethead's on it, and he shreds. My only real complaint is the cover, which is easily the worst cover of the year, if not the decade. Why? Just.... why did he use it? Anyway, it's not an album you need to buy and I think many people are just downloading it anyway, so screw Best Buy. I guess that's why it hasn't been selling as many copies as originally anticipated. Long live G n' R!!! Welcome to the motherf##kin' jungle. Yuk Yuk Yuk.

Beer, Emptiness, Despair

2008-11-28T14:17:00.000-08:00

Yeah, I haven't posted anything of substance in awhile. I've been busy keeping my new Blog, THE SHRUNKEN HEAD REPAIR CLINIC™ going at a good pace. Getting some good feedback from it, just have to spend a bit of time trying to get it out there for public worldwide consumption.

I've had nothing much to write about anyway. My life stinks right now, but it could always be much worse, so I shouldn't complain, but I'm going to anyway.

I've been in Vancouver for the last 5 months and still no job, despite plugging away every day, looking at job sites, sending numerous emails, and hounding people on the phone. It's been a long arduous road and not much to show for it other than a few jobs here and there. Doesn't help that sites like shitlist...er, I mean, craigslit, get all these bogus fucking posts from cheap cocksuckers looking for free work or next to nothing pay. A typical ad will be looking for a marketing saavy print and web graphic designer/art director / receptionist / coffee maker who can also do bookwork and spreadsheets in Microcock Excel. For 10 bucks an hour. I just got offered a job doing general clean-up and outside work at Stanley Park for 15 bucks an hour. No stress, good clean air, no ass sniffing invloved.

I swear to shit it must be something in the air out here in Vancouver. People just have their head up their ass most of the time, they're afraid to challenge anything or try anything new. Or even go out. People just do their dumb jobs, and come back home and play wii and watch the tube.

People are worse here than before. Nobody seems to have any get-up-and-go. You have to call people about 60 times before they even acknowledge your existence, especially when it comes to work. Designers out here seem to think they're shit doesn't stink. Why so much attitude and ego in this business? I'll never figure it out. As one of my friends put it, it's a big cultural vacuum here. People are not interested in much but their own boring life. There's more excitement going on in Halifax culturally. At least people are doing things. Here there's a handful of well-rounded creative people, but they are largely ignored. (looooooooong sigh...)

I think I may open a cold beer and wine store. In this so-called economic crisis, you know people are going to be drinking their misery away, so there's sure to be profits there, even if we went into a depression. So maybe I'll just research about how to open up one of 'em. Drink and forget, that's what I say. Fuck the economy.

One good thing is that the wife and I are moving to a much better place with a landlord who has something that's pretty rare these days: human compassion. The cocksucker we're renting from now is pure evil, a typical lazy Chinese landlord who does the bare minimum and charges and arm and a leg. We've written 5 letters in the last 5 months asking that shit be repaired, and very little of it has been done. So we demanded a rent decrease and flat-out refused, so we told him we're leaving. Simple. I know our situation is no the worst of its' kind, but it's pretty bad. Why do landlords have more rights than renters in BC? Why don't more people question these things? I'm trying to get the city inspector over here and try and get this prick in trouble but they haven't even called me back. Anyway, his name is Raymond Hung, his father's name is Henry Hung and his whole family SHOULD be hung up by their genitals. Anyone renting in the Vancouver area reading this should stay well away from this family and their fucking apartments. Mine is 2754 West 4th Avenue, stay away. They own other buildings, but I don't know where. You've been warned.

People are just useless here and it's fucking tiring. Maybe I was in Japan for too long and got used to good service and a friendly smile. Maybe I'm just over exaggerating, but people here just do not give a damn. You're lucky if you even get the right order when you go to a restaurant, let alone that nice smile.

Wake up from your eternal sleep, Vancouver. It's time to stop smoking pot and get in gear.

The Shrunken Head Repair Clinic

2008-11-09T23:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, that's right, I have a new blog and it's titled "The Shrunken Head Repair Clinic" and it's just what the doctor ordered, so go fuckin' visit it or I'll make sure you die a 1,000,000,000 deaths. The address is: here

New VICE

2008-10-18T11:09:00.001-07:00

I love this magazine. It used to suck but it's getting better and better all the time. They're actually using people who can write real articles nowadays as opposed to before, where they would have the odd good article with some funny shit like the Do' & Don'ts thrown in for good measure, but now they're kicking ass.

The new issue contains a whole shitload of interviews with random fucked up people like two coke dealers, an ex-heroin kingpin, 2 mexican squeegee punks, a guy who follows hobs and writes about them, a puppet master, a schizo, a chaos magician, a psychic spy, a lasy who made a documentary about vaginoplasty, a lady urologist, a sperm donor with 46 kids, a test-tube baby guy, Eric Wood from Man is the Bastard/Bastard Noise, a black metal band, a swedish jazz singer who sings weird, Italian hippies that talk to plants, an Orthodox R&B Jew Singer, one of the guys from Monty Python, and 3 couples who were interviewed right after they just had sex. Great issue!

The printing is also getting better, they're using some nice uncoated stock for the inside pages now, which is nice, nice smell too! Can't believe this magazine is still free. I remember picking this magazine up in Halifax in its' humble beginnings when it was still in newspaper format. It sucked balls then, even though it covered some cool underground shit that needed coverage. Now VICE is one of the most interesting, varied and readable magazines on the planet. My only complaint is still the dumb waste of space comics and the shitty album reviews which are not really even reviews. Review some real albums for fuck sake instead of fucking shitty garage bands who no one cares about but hippie VICE readers who smoke too much crack.

CARCASS: Reek of Putrefaction (re-issue)

2008-10-09T09:02:00.000-07:00

So many imitators, but everyone knows the real thing. This is the album that spawned an enitire genre (GORE GRIND) not to mention being one of the the seminal grindcore albums on the Earache Label from British grindcore/death metal legends CARCASS. This has been reissued and is available again in Europe. This WAS reissued by Earache a few years back with an unacceptably bad reproduction of the original cover. Hopefully they will get it right this time. The cover itself is pretty gruesome and it shocked the world at the time and was subsequently banned for future Earache issues of this except Japan's Toy's Factory, who issued the album with complete original artwork in proper format and amazing quality. (Bless the Japanese) I remember seeing the cover of Symphonies of Sickness for the first time and being utterly amazed at how fucked up it was, I'd stare at it in detail for longer than normal lengths of time. If you can get past the sickness, it's actually a very well put together collage, courtesy of Gruesome Graphics. Didn't they win the Olympic bid?

The other funny-as-shit thing is the lyrics. The rumor at the time was that all these dudes were medical students so they lifted a lot of the difficult words out of textbooks.

Available once again after many years out of print, Reek Of Putrefaction is the fourth of the five CARCASS albums to be reissued and is out now as a limited-edition DualDisc (combined CD and DVD) housed in a deluxe digipak with extra artwork. It includes 13 unreleased bonus tracks from the Flesh Ripping Sonic Torment demo, along with part 1 of a mini-documentary series entitled “The Pathologist’s Report” as bonus video material, all specially packaged in a white medical bag which conceals the shocking original cover art. I still don't know why they have to separate the whole documentary into 5 parts, it would've been nice to have it all on one disc. Anyone who doesn't want to buy the shitty Swan Song album will just get that part of the documentary from a torrent download, boys. So stop being so fuckin' stingy.

Anyway, the documentary consists of interviews, filmed in London and Liverpool at the end of 2007, featuring the members of CARCASS exploring their humble beginnings and lifting the lid on the controversy that brought the band to a wider audience.

Carcass has been touring recently too if you're interested. They came to Vancouver, but I skipped out, I was broke for one, and I'm not really interested in "reunion" tours.

Reading, Writing, my Childhood and Metal Up Your Ass

2008-10-08T10:28:00.000-07:00

Not sure why, but I was never much of a reader until just a few years ago. I remember a time when I was growing up, say from 6 until maybe 10 that I read some books, but not a lot other than Hardy Boys books, which I remember being great little adventure escapes. The other shit that I fed my mind was mostly comic books. In the early years, it was Archie, Jughead, Richie Rich and Disney to keep me going, and stuff that I would just take from my uncle's shelf at my grandmother's house, stuff that was long forgotten I would imagine, like Treasure Island, Huck Finn and again, a lot of bang bang western shoot-em-up comic digests that were popular during that era.

Then I remember that after I turned about 12 or 13, I started getting into Stephen King and Clive Barker, and a few other notable horror writers. Read almost everything by Stephen King right up until Dark Half. My brother was always reading a hell of a lot more than me, mostly travel shit, National Geographics, Hardy Boys, and James A Michener, never could figure out why he liked Michener. Don't get me wrong, Michener's stuff is definitely well-researched, but he ain't much of a writer. He's just plain boring. He just never did it for me, I'd rather read Penthouse letters anyday.

Comics and magazines were the other things when I was growing up. My old man gave me a buck for my allowance from about 6 until 8 or 9, I can't remember exactly. So every fuckin' Saturday morning, just as my dad was still in a Friday night after work "fuck-this-work-week" half-alcoholic mid-dream haze at about 7 in the morning, I'd be prying 'is fuckin' eyelids open tryin' to get my buck, so I could go blow it on candy and comics. I'd repeat "Dad." 20 seconds or so, he wouldn't respond at all, then a second "DAD", a little louder, then he'd rouse a bit and by about the 4th or 5th time he'd be pissed that I woke him up and mutter something like "Holy Jeeeezus, Mitch, it's fuckin' 7 in the mornin', fuckin' stores aren't even open yet. Didn't matter, just wanted my damn dollar. When my dad finally fumbled outta bed and gave me my dollar bill, I'd be happy as a wedding cock.

After a few years, my weekly allowance got raised to 2 bucks and eventually I stopped prying his eyes open at 7 in the morning and just waited until he sat down with his coffee around 8:00 am, then it got raised to 5, then maybe 10 for a bit, then I started getting too old to get free money from the old man. I had to start going around town askin' people if I could mow their lawns or do odd jobs.

I started getting into metal when I was about 13. This kid down the street bought Motley Crue "Shout At The Devil" and I had to have it too, because it was the heaviest thing I'd heard up to that point. I had a few metal albums around like Twisted Sister and a few other things, but I remember this being the first metal album I listened to on a daily basis. Before that, I'd only had an LP collection of about 20 albums, including Loverboy, Cheap Trick, CCR, Dr. Hook, Alice Cooper, J. Geils Band and some other shit.

Crue was the whole start of the rebellion thing for me, not just the loud obnoxious music, but the attitude and the image of these cats. And that's about the time I just lost interest in reading anything, except for horror comics and metal publications. My grandfather had been working on renovating one of the local grocery stores, so he carted a few magazine racks, a candy rack and a bunch of other crap home. Anyway, I talked him into giving me the magazine rack which i used to proudly display my metal magazine collection, as well as my beaten up issues of MAD, CRACKED, CARToons, FANGORIA, etc. Had pictures of glam rockers, album jackets and gore soaked scenes from splatter films all over my walls, so many that my mother wouldn't dare enter my lair.

So from about 14 to 20, my high school days and college days basically, I hardly read any books at all. Only comics and magazines, the odd horror or sci-fi novel thrown in from time to time. I'd always felt like reading a chore. How I missed out on all those years. So much of the stuff I've read in the last few years has blown my mind and I still don't know how it could've been, that i hadn't taken an avid interest in reading until just awhile back. But I do understand a bit now. Maybe my generation was a sort of pre-hipster culture, or maybe it was where I came from. I mean, fuck. Nobody under 20 reads books anymore. How many do you know? Kids are just not interested in creating anymore, they're just into technology and gadgets and recycling culture. They are not creating anything new. They're just busy getting fucked up on the latest designer drugs, engrossed in TV, video games and crappy pop music.

Anyway, the last few years i've been reading all I can get my hands on, finally discovering all the classics, old and new. I'm not sure what the spark was. I just remember being in a bookstore on day thinking I wanna start reading something again, so I picked up a few non-fiction books, one was Fast Food Nation by Eric Schlosser and the other Culture Jam by Kalle Lasn of ADBUSTERS fame. They both took me about a month to read. Bu then I suddenly felt hungry for more, so I started Googling the fuck out of writers like Charles Bukowski, Thomas Pynchon, and Roddy Doyle, went and picked up some of their books, devoured them and continued my search. Then I got into some Sci-Fi stuff like Philip K. Dick and Iain Banks that a friend sent me, more Pynchon, Nicholson Baker, some science / physics stuff like the works of Richard Dawkins, Darwin and Stephen Hawkings. I was feeling so good about reading shit again, it was like I had discovered this whole new world that had been out there, but was just too lazy or uninterested to dig deeply into it.

This past year or so has seen me getting heavily into the classics. I managed to read Tolstoy's WAR & PEACE in a month, I want to read more of his, especially the epic classic ANNA KARENINA. I've read books by Somerset Maugham, D.H. Lawrence, Alexander Dumas, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Harumi Murakami, Mordecai Richler, Wayson Choy, Knut Hamsun, Cormac McCarthy, Michel Houlleberg, Voltaire, Henry Miller, etc etc. But it's not enough. I'm craving more. I seem to be a book junkie now where as 5 years ago, I hardly set foot in a bookstore, only when I did, to look at design books or titty books.

So all you young fuckers out there who think reading is a waste of time, think again. Feed your mind good stuff, not a diet of hip hop culture and FRIENDS. It'll do you good.

A lovely banner

2008-09-11T19:41:00.000-07:00

I just need to put this on MySpace, so I'm using my blog to host it, no other reason why it's here.

Klipsch 4.1 ProMedia Speakers

2008-09-11T11:07:00.000-07:00

Now that I bought a speaker splitter the other day and I have the whole system set up, It's about time I got around to reviewing these speakers.

I used to have a pair of Bose 301 shelf speakers hooked up to a NAD amp and I had a ROTEL CD deck, pretty simple setup, nothing extravagent, bu it did the job. I have to say that these cocksuckers blow those Bose speakers right out of the water. I only had 2 of them hooked up for the last few months, then i just got a splitter for my laptop so i could hook up the other two, and the 2 extra speakers make a big difference. I just have them set up on my coffee table at the moment with the subwoofer on the floor, but they sound great. (I don't have a PC desk yet)

This is one of the first desktop speakers to receive Lucasfilm's THX certification with the ProMedia's output rivaling that of a THX theater sound system. Even thought these are not new anymore and there is now a 5.1 system that probably make these look inferior, these little fuckers put out a staggering 400-watt amplifier, monster subwoofer, and lease-breaking volume levels that will leave you floored. I was anyway. For computer speakers, these are the shit. And I got them for 100 bucks used on craigslist. How lucky is that?

These speakers generate a very clear but thunderous low end that extends effortlessly into the lowest registers. It's rarely boomy, and it clearly reproduced challenging bass details like tympani reverberations. To test that, I listened to John Zorn's "Redbird" and it sounded magnificent. Sound like mallets on skins, rather than the undefined, dull thuds produced by most bottom-heavy speakers.

Even thought the lows and the highs are very flashy, the midrange remains very prominent. The 4.1 generates enough headbanging output that will satisfy hardcore gamers, metalheads and knock the socks off the most anal desktop-theater enthusiasts. Too bad these are discontinued (i think). But you can still get the 5.1 system (I think). These are well worth it if you listen to a lot of music, play a lot of games or watch a lot movies on your desktop computer.

Today is a SPECIAL day!!!!

2008-09-11T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today is September 11th. And you now what that means? It's the day Bush conspired to have a couple "hijacked" places crash into the World Trade Centre in NY.

Now that the evidence is gone, witnesses are silenced, and a real thorough independent investigation never happened, it's hard to bring the real criminals to justice. We've been fooled over for so long, no one is willing to accept the real truth about what happened.

You can find tons of links out there debunking the myths surrounding 9/11, so I'm not going to write anymore. You read on and decide.

Watch the 2nd and 3rd part of this movie, ZETGEIST. Actually, watch the whole movie.

http://mindprod.com/politics/bush911insidejob.html
http://www.wanttoknow.info/050908insidejob911
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/september2006/070906insidejob.htm
http://www.voxfux.com/archives/00000076.htm
http://www.communitycurrency.org/robin.html

BORAT: Touristic Guidings to Minor Nation of U.S. and A. and Touristic Guidings to Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan

2008-09-09T20:45:00.000-07:00

Damn. If you think the BORAT film was sick and perverted, then get this book. The movie is pale in comparison. There is something here to offend just about everyone whether it's the barely censored close-up cock shots, intentionally horrible design and printing job or the blatant anti-semitism that's scattered throughout.

Incest, rape, gay rape, prostitution, statues with boners, fingering goats "anoos" (as BORAT puts it), bestiality, stalking women, extremely ugly women spreading their legs, it's all here. Bad taste at it's baddest. A book to share with the whole family this is NOT. If the contents of this book were to have made it into the film, it would've been banned in every country. I'm actually surprised this made it into normal bookstores. This is not just an extension of the movie, this goes far beyond it. I think because of the enormous success of the movie, Sacha Baron Cohen can get away with whatever, and he did.

I don't think the general public is ready for just how wrong and depraved this book is. I love it personally. I don't think I have laughed so hard in years. There is just so much perfection of filth in this book, it's hard to put down. As you turn the pages, you think to yourself it can't get any worse, but it does.

Fans of the movie will want to pick this book up fore sure, but even if you didn't like the film, you might like this. It's 10 times better than the film in my opinion.

SNEEZE Magazine

2008-09-09T20:27:00.000-07:00

I just stumbled across this new magazine called Sneeze Magazine. It's a large 22 x 16 format, loose newspaper style skate magazine with interesting photography meant to be taken apart and hung up on your walls. SNEEZE provides news and stories on skateboarding, art, music and culture.

The primary distribution method is via the old style newspaper boxes so it’s available 24/7 to anybody looking for it. The magazine is also distributed in select shops around Asia and North America. The concept is really fresh and I hope it will take off. The goal is to create a destination for the reader by having one box per city in a select location — like a flagship store. And it’s only two bucks.

You can find the Vancouver box at the corner of Water & Abbot Street in Gastown. New York City’s got theirs at Lafayette & Prince Street. Los Angeles location is coming soon.

I have always had a soft spot for large oversize publications, and this is no exception. I remember a very unique oversized fashion / culture magazine called FAD that is no longer published, to my knowledge anyway. I wish it still was.

Go pick up a copy of this and check 'em out online at Sneezemag.com

Indiana Jones 4: Kingdom of the Crystal Skull

2008-09-09T20:25:00.000-07:00

The new Indy Jones was quite the ride. Harrison Ford still has it in him, the 'ol fucker. I don't know if it was intentional, Lucas & Spielberg throwing in all the "old man" jokes throughout the film, but I assume it was. Karen Allen is back playing Marion from the first film. Shia LaBeouf plays Indy's son in this movie. Son? Oops, I just spoiled that for you.

The only thing that I didn't like about the film were some of the "cute" C.G. moments like the groundhogs and the monkey scene. I'm sure these scenes were the brainchild of Mr. George "fuckhead" Lucas, who we all now know lost his mine long ago.

Then there's the story itself. Great adventure and breathtaking scenes, as expected in an Indy flick, but the end just went all fuckey ducked, just took me by complete surprise, not knowing anything about the film before seeing it. I'm not going to spoil too much for you, but we seem to have an adventure story which turns into a paranormal sci-fi thing. X-Files meets Indy Jones anyone? Slightly disappointing, but totally unexpected.

If I had to put all the films in the order I like 'em, I'd say Raiders, then Lost Crusade, Crystal Skull, then Temple of Doom the last in order, with CS and TOD being pretty close. Take it or leave it I guess. I don't imagine they'll be another one, but if there is, keep Lucas far away from it.

America - Land of the retards

2008-08-27T13:25:00.000-07:00

This is too warped. A Red Guard in your living room. How culture-obsessed has America really become?

Source: Vice Magazine Steve Schofield takes photographs of Brits obsessed with American popular culture. His fanatical subjects are usually shot sitting in their living rooms or making a cup of tea in their kitchens while dressed up as sci-fi characters, cowboys or Elvis. See selected images from this series of documentary portraiture after the jump... check out more here

The Film Music of Toru Takemitsu

2008-08-26T20:12:00.000-07:00

Shit, folks... I've had this boxset for over 2 years now, but I don't believe I ever reviewed it. I'm just sitting here now listening to "The Petrified Forest" (化石の森) and man, this is as good as it gets. Every time I dive into this set, I just pick a volume and track at random, and I'm never dissatisfied with anything I choose to listen to from it. I have to say though, my favorite volumes are 1 and 4, which have a lot of his soundtracks to horror films like Kwaidan and Woman of the Dunes. They're all stand-outs though. I've heard a rumour that a "complete" set of his music for films was released in a massive 20 + CD set, but I've never been able to find any info about it, so I guess it's just rumour or maybe it's scheduled for release at some point in the unknown future. Anyway, this set will definitely get you started.

Toru Takemitsu (1930-1996) was perhaps the greatest Japanese composer of all time. His music "wed the western aesthetics of impressionism and expressionism with the eastern aesthetic of meditation and contemplation. The resulting synthesis was an elegant exploration of musical chromatism, with little or no interest for dynamics." (source)

He also wrote a crapload of excellent film scores, for many famous directors (see below). This Japan-only, 7-volume re-issue box set compiles some of his best and most popular work for film and is very difficult to find here in the west. The original issue of this was a 6-volume set, which became almost impossible to find until a few years ago when the re-issue was released w/ a bonus disc full of excerpts from other scores and interviews w/ Takemitsu himself.

If you're a fan of film soundtracks at all and just plain good composing, you had better track this down. Some of this music will make your hair stand on end, some of it will bring you close to tears, some of it will make you overjoyed. It's all here, so dig into it.

English titles/track listing for the films:

Directed by Masaki Kobayashi
1-1 Kwaidan/Ghost Stories
1-2 Harakiri
1-3 Glowing Autumn
1-4 The Inheritance
1-5 Hymn to a Tired Man
1-6 The Fossil

Directed by Masahiro Shinoda
2-1 The Petrified Forest
2-2 Silence
2-3 With Beauty & Sorrow
2-4 The Assassin
2-5 Samurai Spy
2-6 Ballad of Orin
2-7 Clouds at Sunset

Directed by Nagisa Oshima/Susumu Hani
3-1 Empire of Passion
3-2 The Man Who Left His Will on Film
3-3 Dear Summer Sister
3-4 The Ceremony
3-5 Bad Boys
3-6 A Full Life

Directed by Hiroshi Teshigahara
4-1 The Face of Another
4-2 Summer Soliders
4-3 Pitfall
4-4 Shiroi asa
4-5 Woman in the Dunes
4-6 Jose Torres
4-7 The Ruined Map
4-8 Rikyu

Directed by Akira Kurosawa, Toichiro Narushima, Shiro Toyoda, Mikio Naruse, Shohei Imamura
5-1 Dodesukaden
5-2 Time Within Memory
5-3 Illusion of Blood
5-4 Scattered Clouds
5-5 Black Rain

Directed by Kon Ichikawa, Noboru Nakamura, Hideo Onchi
6-1 Kyoto
6-2 Alone on the Pacific
6-3 Twin Sisters of Kyoto
6-4 Nijuissai no chichi
6-5 The Kii River
6-6 Once a Rainy Day
6-7 The Call of Flesh
6-8 Wonderful Bad Woman
6-9 Shiawase

Bonus Disk
7-1 Beast Alley (Eizo Sugawa)
7-2 Saigo no shinpan (Hiromichi Horikawa)
7-3 Sabita en (Masahisa Sadanaga)
7-4 Under the Blossoming Cherry Trees (Masahiro Shinoda)
7-5 to 7-17 Conversation with Toru Takemitsu

MAO: The Untold Story

2008-08-25T18:40:00.001-07:00

I'm not a historian or expert on Chinese history, or even really familiar with the life of Mao. And that's why I picked up this book in the first place, to get a history. Well, I got that all right, and a pretty messed up one at that. Under Mao's rule, it is believed that over 70 million people died during peacetime, most of those his own people. He was willing for half of China to die to achieve military-nuclear superpowerdom. He wanted the bomb. He even scared Stalin in the end, probably causing Stalin's heart attack and subsequent death. Stalin and Hitler look like fairy godfathers in comparison. They preferred to carry out their torture and killing in secret. Mao liked to see people suffer in public. My big burning question is, and Im sure this is on many peopl's minds... Why is he still considered a hero, even today many of the Chinese people regard him as some kind of GOD who "freed" the people.

The authors Jung Chang and Jon Halliday have put out what I think is a pretty well researched and accurate account of the life of this mad bastard. Mao was a man willing to do anything and everything to make his way to the top. He conquered China but that wasn't enough, he wanted to conquer the world and he would've stopped at nothing to do it. Chang and her husband were shocked at what they discovered during the 10 years they spent researching this book. Halliday was able to access Russian archives on China that were inaccessible until recently. Some of his more shocking claims have not been examined by other historians as of yet. Chang travelled several times to China during the course of her research, interviewing many of those who were close to Mao, as well as alleged eyewitnesses to events such as the crossing of Luding Bridge.

People who've read Chang's prior work, WILD SWANS, are familiar with the woman's family history, that both of her parents were victims of Mao's Cultural Revolution, and that her father suffered permanent physical and mental damage from being routinely tortured while he was imprisoned. As a result, there has been much scorn and negative criticism against this book, calling her a fraud, etc etc. In the end, many people concluded that the book is factually and intellectually unreliable. Some people also say that it reads like an anti-communist propaganda book. Maybe, but I don't have a problem with that at all.

Even though he was born into a poor peasant family, Mao didn't give a shit for the welfare of the Chinese peasantry. He avoided work at all costs and pretty much just read books and attended different schools during his childhood, wasting his father's money. Mao became a Communist at the age of 27 for purely pragmatic reasons: a job and income from the Russians. According to the authors, Mao was responsible for the famine resulting from the Great Leap Forward and he actually made it worse by giving the OK to continue to export grain even though it was very clear that China did not have enough grain to feed its own people. Mao killed or tortured pretty much anyone who got in his way or tried to oppose him, whether they were political opponents, personal friends or peasants. Didn't matter. Another claim is that Mao's decisions during the Long March were not really as heroic and ingenious as people have generally believed; Chang and Halliday state that Chiang Kai-shek deliberately "let Mao go" because Chiang Kai-shek's son was being held hostage in the Soviet Union. Communist China was not a funpark to work and live at all during the Chinese Civil War, such as the Jiangxi and Yan'an soviets, were ruled through terror and mass murder. Mao willingly sacrificed thousands of troops simply in order to get rid of individual rivals from within the Communist Party, such as Chang Kuo-tao.

The Crossing of Luding Bridge? Didn't even happen according to Chang and Halliday. No raging battle nor "heroic" crossing against impossible odds like most of the history books have written, it was all Communist propaganda. There was apparently a witness, Li Xiu-zhen, who was still alive at the time this was written. She saw no fighting claims there was no fire on the bridge. That also made it into historical accounts until recent years. Nationalist Kuomintang's battleplans and communiques that indicated the force guarding the bridge had been withdrawn before the Reds even arrived. Another eye witness, a local blacksmith who had witnessed the event said that when the opposing troops were coming towards the Red Army, they pussied out and ran away. Not much of a battle. Other Chinese journalists will also attest that the Luding Bridge battle was greatly exaggerated.

Estimates of the numbers of deaths during this period vary pretty heavily, but Chang and Halliday's estimate is one of the highest. Sinologist Stuart Schram, in a review of the book, noted that the exact number of deaths under Mao's rule "has been estimated by well-informed writers at between 40 and 70 million. In addition to exporting pretty much every crop that China had, causing the greatest famine in history (The Great Leap Forward) Mao also grew mass quantities of opium for export. Most of the food and grain was exportied to Russia to buy nuclear and arms industries: close to 38 million people were starved and slave-driven to death in 1958-61. Chang and Halliday argue that this period accounts for roughly half of the 70 million total. An official estimate by Hu Yaobang in 1980 put the death toll at 20 million, whereas Philip Short in his 2000 book Mao: A Life found 20 to 30 million to be the most credible number. Chang and Halliday's figure is 37.67 million, which historian Stuart Schram indicated that he believes "may well be the most accurate. Professor R. J. Rummel published updated figures on world-wide democide in 2005, stating that he believed Chang and Halliday's estimates to be mostly correct and that he had revised his figures for China under Mao accordingly.

The book is banned in China, because the current Communist regime is fiercely perpetuating the myth of Mao. Today Mao's portrait and his corpse still dominate Tiananmen Square in the heart of Beijing, and the regime declares itself to be Mao's heir.

On of the funniest things I read in this book was that the bastard refused to take a bath for 27 years, he apparently didn't like baths. Maybe that's another reason no one wanted to get near him. Just imagining how hot and humid China is, especially in the summer months, I can only imagine how the fucker smelled.

Read this book and draw your own opinions.

Star Wars: The Clone Wars

2008-08-17T13:59:00.000-07:00

George Lucas happens to be one of the the biggest anus bubbles on the planet right now. Not only did he completely mangle the last 3 Star Wars films, partially mangled the 1st 3 films, now he's putting out this CG animated trash. It looks bad. Real fuckin' bad. He's just ruined the whole image and magic of the original Star Wars movies. The man just simply has no vision left. Sure, he can do whatever the fuck he wants, he's got more money than the State of Washington, has his very successful Lucasfilm Ranch, has the Star Wars franchise stuff which is an empire in itself. Just what is he trying to prove?

I hope someone cuts his head off with light saber soon, so it will save us from any of his future creations. George, you're an assclown. Leave the universe alone and don't make any more Star Wars movies.

George should cast Bubbles from Trailer Park Boys in his next Star Wars movie. Then I might go see it.

Metallica - Death Magnetic

2008-08-17T13:41:00.001-07:00

I don't even have to hear this to know it's gonna suck big time balls. It's pretty simple. Metallica used to make good music, now they're just a bunch of whiny old men who should be retired. Metallica, and many other classic bands, are trying to hold onto what they once had, and are just failing pathetically. We're in the age of nostalgia right now and there are many bands who are making comebacks, touring, putting out new material, just basically milking the fame thing for all its' worth. And for WHAT? Just to give the fans another chance to see them plus give the newer generations the chance to see how pathetic they are.

Van Halen recently did a comeback tour, and I heard it sucked. You can see some footage on YouTube. Extreme has a new album, but I guess they're not so old.. Alice Cooper. Rolling Stones. Motley Crue. AC/DC. New Kids on the Block. Fuck, even grindcore bands that have been out of action are making comebacks, like Carcass. It's just too much. Why can't people just be happy with what they did when they were good and leave it at that. How many times can a band get back together before they realize they just don't have it anymore. Fuckin' retire with dignity instead of looking like idiots.

The only recent "comeback" that just slayed me was Celtic Frost's new album and that came out 2 years ago.

Back to Metallifuck. Lars sucks cock and I urge you ALL to not buy this and copy it just to piss little Lars off, the whiny little drummer boy fuck. And who the hell designed the cover? It looks like a an abnormal vagina. Dumb title. Not as dumb as St. Anger but almost.

Metallica used to be a cool name, and I was proud to wear their shirts, but if I wore a Metallica shirt now, it would feel pretty much like wearing a sports shirt with a great big Nike swoosh on it meaning Metallica is nothing but a fast food nu-metal franchise now.

Don't waste your time. Listen to the old stuff when they were still cool.

Trailer Park Boys Season 1

2008-08-13T09:22:00.000-07:00

I'm finally getting round to properly watching this series in order, having previously only seen parts or specific episodes randomly.

This is pretty much like watching my old friends in New Brunswick. Looking for dope, bumming smokes, stealing, swearing and getting drunk a lot on cheap booze, going to jail, starting fights, losing fights, buying cars with missing doors, etc. The 3 main characters are Julian, who's just got out of jail, is always holding a drink no matter where he goes, and is always looking out for his "friend" Ricky, who's always getting himself into shit. The other main character is Bubbles, who is a cat lover and makes his living restoring stolen shopping carts.

As crazy as the people and the situations become, the characters hold it all together with flawless comic logic that usually ends in hilarious parodies of typical TV style. This is a character study of some of the most fucked up beings on the planet. These are lovable and offensive people in the Sunnyvale Trailer Park yet, so get over there and take a few quarts of vodka, some dope and smokes and you're all set. Watched the whole 1st season last night, looking forward to Season 2. It'll be interesting to see how things spin out in future seasons.

Another collection of really bad (but good) album covers

2008-08-08T20:23:00.001-07:00

A collection of really bad (but good) album covers

2008-08-08T19:57:00.001-07:00

The Happening

2008-08-08T10:16:00.001-07:00

This will be a short review because this movie simply sucks balls.

Plot? A bunch of natural chemicals from plants makes people crazy enough to snuff themselves, so a group of people try to figure out what's happening and decide to move away from where the "terrorist" plants are striking. The group is led by a science teacher, played by Mark Wahlberg.

Flat performances, dumb story and terrible characters. This is just one of the worst movies I've ever seen. Don't waste your time.

WORLD

2008-08-06T16:23:00.000-07:00

World was a noisecore band from Osaka, Japan and consisted of:

Hiroshi Zen (aka Left): Vocals and Noise
Akira Kawabata (aka Right): Vocals
Tadahiko Aono (aka Center): Drums
Kaname Ohara (original drummer, plays on 1st 7” only)

World is a fast, totally fucked brutal noisecore band from Osaka that started out circa 1995-96. They are the classic blurrcore threepiece except they have no guitar. So, only a drummer and 2 vocalists, but enough to generate one of the craziest noise ever made. Sort of like Masonna with drums. All their noise is generated via a special microphone created by Hiroshi Zen.

Interesting note about World's titles, each song has 2 titles because the vocalists both named their songs distinctly. For example, "Burned Away by Yourself" is also called "I Hate this World." ???????

This is about as fucked and crazy is it gets. Good luck finding this shit. I was only able to track down the split 7" w/ Crippled Bastards in Osaka a few years ago. Just got the rest of their mp3's ripped from a friend. You may be able to find the CD compilation easier than trying to find their individual 7" records.

Less than 30 minutes of total recorded output in 4 years, and some of the best in their genre. As far as I know, this band now kaput.
However, I heard Akira is now performing as a one-man noise artist.

Discography:
1996: “Why Who What” 7” (S/Sided, Meaningless Sounds, MS #003)
1995-7: "Snarl Out Vol. 1" Compilation 7"(Slightly Fast Records)
1996: “Why Nobody Understand?”: World/Yesmeansyes Split 7” (NAT Records, NAT #004)
1998: "Space - Grind Osaka" 7" (M.C.R. Company)
1999: split with CRIPPLE BASTARDS 7" (Nat Records)
200?: "why deprive the world of World???" Digipack CD collection (Lofiordie Records)

CLASS OF 1984

2008-08-04T20:13:00.000-07:00

I have recently had the opportunity to revisit this classic 1982 film by Mark E. Lester about a new music teacher (played by Perry King, star of Slaughterhouse Five) at a very troubled inner city school where things are in a constant state of chaos. Students carry guns, knives and have to pass through a metal detector due to problems with gangs, drugs, and violence. It stars Perry King as teacher Andrew Norris, Merrie Lynn Ross (who also co-executive produced) as his wife Diane Norris, Roddy McDowall as Terry Corrigan and Timothy Van Patten as Peter Stegman, the leader of the gang of thugs who terrorize the school. It was one of Michael J. Fox's early roles, before he was a well-established actor.

The movie portrays the punk look and image that was becoming part of popular culture in the early 1980s. The movie's theme song, "I Am the Future", was performed by Alice Cooper. The film also features a performance by Canadian punk band Teenage Head.

Andrew Norris, the music teacher who's recently relocated to this area with his pregnant wife Diane (Ross) after accepting a position at Lincoln High, a run down inner city school with the worst kind thugs, misfits, lowlifes and junkies.... pretty much like a prison. Soon as he arrives he meets another one of the faculty,who gives him a few pointers on how to survive. Soon, in a music class, he runs into a group of smart-ass punks starts giving him a hard time, led by a sarcastic manipulative creep named Peter Stegman (Van Patten). Stegman and his buddies pretty much control the school. The staff, particularly the principal, are not intervening because they know that the police will just let theses guys go because of lack of evidence. Not worth the effort, in other words. After a kid has a shitty trip from some junk he bought from Stegman and his crew, Andy pushes to get them charged to stand in court. In turn, he gets his car blown up with a Molotov cocktail later that night.

The violence continues to escalate when Stegman recruits a 14-year guy to perform an initiation stunt to get into the group by stabbing one of the students (played by Michael J. Fox), leaving him in the hospital with major injuries. Eventually, Andy snaps after one of the main girls in the gang hands him an envelope (right before he has to conduct a performance at the school) containing pictures of his wife being brutally assaulted and kidnapped. They lure him into the darkened halls of the school for a final, bloody confrontation. At this point, Andy turns into fucking Rambo ready for revenge on these punks.

I already mentioned Perry King, but all the main characters are very impressive actors. I like Timothy Van Patten, he was excellent in his role as Stegmen, not just a punk but very intelligent and talented. Just also happens to be a real manipulative psychotic, and whose only goal is to rule the school and make sure sure no one gets in his way of staying on top. McDowall also gives a good performance as the tired biology teacher who really wants to make a difference in shaping young people's minds, but has pretty much given up, having been beaten down by the lack of caring on the students' part resorting to the bottle for comfort.

The last twenty minutes or so are the best part of the movie and Andy kicks some serious ass! The methods that he uses to kill his victims are pretty creative. The scene in the shop and auto classrooms are my faves, the girl pretty much kills herself trying to kill Andy by crashing a car into the wall. The final confrontation between Stegman and Andy resulting in Stegmen's demise are pretty cool too and I'm gonna leave it at that because if I tell you everything, it'll just spoil it. The violence is scattered throughout the film, and it's done pretty well with most of it being in the last fifteen minutes or so. It's really satisfying to watch these pricks get the pain dished back out to them.

I'm so glad this is finally in a proper DVD version. Anchor Bay Entertainment released it and the picture, presented in widescreen (1.77:1) anamorphic, looks very sharp and clean. As far as the audio, it's available in both Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital Surround 2.0, and comes through wonderfully. There are lots of juicy extras including a commentary track with director Mark L. Lester and DVD producer Perry Martin, a newly created featurette titled `Blood and Blackboards' (35:32), an original theatrical trailer, two television spots, a poster and still gallery, a Mark L. Lester biography, a six page insert booklet. The only thing I don't really like too much is the previews at the first of the disc. Seems to be more and more of that these days and I just don't like it. Reminds me too much of the VHS days when you annoyingly had to FF through 15 minutes of previews to get to the film. But that's my only complaint.

Highly recommended and if you like this film, you'll also like THE PRINCIPAL starring JAMES BELUSHI, which is the same concept spun in a different way.

Budweiser WAZZUP spoof ad

2008-08-04T19:29:00.000-07:00

BUDWANKERS - Loser. Anyone remember this spoof ad of the popular WAZZUP ads? This is by far the most funny one out of the whole bunch of spoof ads. And I've seen a lot of them. Some of them are just plain dumb. SUPERFRIENDS is also a good spoof ad.

Vancouver Gay Pride Day Parade! Fabulous!

2008-08-04T13:31:00.000-07:00

These are some photos I took at 30th Anniversary Vancouver Pride Society's Pride Parade, which started around noon yesterday at Robson and Thurlow, headed West down the hill to Denman street, following Denman to Pacific where it finished at Sunset Beach, which is where we were.

No, I am not gay, nor was I even interested in going to this thing. My wife really wanted to see it. But I'm glad I went now, it was pretty fun and this year was the biggest one ever. We were there for 3 hours and it still wasn't finished. We finally left because I had to take a piss so bad I couldn't hold it anymore.

You could see pretty much anything this year: sailors, freaks, people painted in rainbow colors, animals dressed up, drag queens, the whole lot. There was even full frontal nudity, tits, cocks, you name it. I really didn't think it was necessary for these fat balding men to parade naked with their ballsacs hanging down, kind of disgusting really. One guy didn't really even have a dick, it was more like a set of balls with an almond stuck on, it was so small. What does parading naked have to do with gay pride?

I can't believe how much time, money and effort went into making this happen. It was quite amazing. This is by far the biggest damn parade I've ever been to. But just way too long. I was exhausted by the end of it. We were planning on attending the Powell Street Festival afterwards but we were just too beat.

If you visit Vancouver Pride Society's Facebook page, there's tons more pictures.

The New Place

2008-08-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

This is me in the new apartment. Now that we have some furniture and got our stuff shipped from Japan, it's starting to look like a real lived-in apartment.

The apartment itself is not too shit hot, there's a lot of stuff that needs to be fixed. My wife and I have re-caulked the bathroom around the tub and sink. I don't think this place has been cleaned in about 100 years. There was a ton of shit that I vacuumed out of the heaters. It was truly disgusting.

And also, our landlord is a total crackerhead who I have to constantly bug to do minor repairs. He's a wasted of air. A typical Vancouver slumlord. Let's the building go to hell and keeps jacking up the rent, expects everyone to do their own repairs at their own expense. This building definitely violates several building codes. The doorknob on the side door is missing, so anyone could cut themselves on it. The side door doen't even have real glass, its just that cheap Plexiglass. A loud fart could break it. There is broken glass outside, there used to be a skylight on the top floor where we are, but there is just an empty hole covered with a fucking wooden pallet. That cannot be legal can it?

There's numerous other little things: shower knob is not screwed in, the drywall around the sink is all damp and needs to be repaired, doors won't shut properly. etc etc. All this for the low low price of 1,100 dollars!!! Yes, this is pretty much what you get now for 1,100 bucks. If you want a 1-bedroom where everything actually works and things are kept up, you're probably looking at more. It's ridiculously expensive now.

It's not all negative though. Getting used to the place and the people living here, who all seem to be very nice. And the location is very good. We're just 2 doors down from the famous NAAM, a very tasty vegetarian eatery that's always packed. There's also a good Indian restaurant just a block away, lots of grocery stores within 10 minutes walk.

There are some annoying things though. We're in the back of the building, so we get a lot of noise from the trucks coming to unload shit. Most of them are food trucks, delivering stuff to the NAAM. We also get the odd time where this guy in the building next to us gives us a sampling of his favorite classic rock tunes from about 4 in the afternoon, sometimes lasting 5 hours or more. At top volume. We were coming home from the Safeway on Broadway, once we hit around 6th, we could hear the music pumping out of his apartment.

Yesterday, we also had the privilege of some fine entertainment from some of the local homeless drunks. Just 4 guys and 1 woman sitting in a vacant parking lot just a few doors down getting completely shitfaced. Started out pretty harmless, drinking, laughing, having a good 'ol time. 3 or 4 hours later, they were all pretty erased, and I guess the woman had hit the dude's brother or something, so the dude freaked out and started hitting her, calling her a stupid bitch and just trailing off in to some drunken fuckjhhgffkdkikskfcokkgaaaaaaaa talk before 2 residents nearby told them to leave or theyd call the cops. Funny shit.

Vancouver. Doesn't matter where you live, there's always entertainment.

Julia Allison

2008-08-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

How do American white trash fuckin' bitches like Julia Allison get famous? Just by posting stupid crap on her blogs everyday and rubbing shoulders with famous people to make her LOOK like SHE's famous. Ha. Ha.

Pick up the new WIRED magazine and read all about her. The front page article says "GET INTERNET FAMOUS (Even If You're a Nobody)" - Julia Allison and The Secrets of Self-Promotion.

The sad thing is not so much her, but the sad sacks who eat this shit up and visit her sites all the time. She has quite a fan base, and what does she do? Absolutely nothing. She's famous for being famous, another Andy Warhol type schmoozer with a big greasy ego. But at least Andy Warhol did something, he was a pretty cool designer sometimes. Julia just exists.

If you're a follower of lame-ass lampshades like her, you need help. Start with getting outside once a day and get some sun instead of masturbating to pictures of Julia sitting in her posh NY apartment.

Fuck a star!!! Fuck a star!!! Fuck a star!!!

The Greyhound Bus Killer

2008-08-04T11:35:00.000-07:00

Everyone must know about this story by now, so I don't need to give you a history lesson. All I can say is that this will be an interesting case indeed. Is it even going to go to trial? Just finish this fucker off, that's what I say.

Vince Li stabbed Tim McLean 50 or 60 times and there were 37 other passengers on the bus. To stab someone 50 or 60 times and then behead them must take quite some time. And it just recently leaked that he was cutting a few pieces off of Tim for a little snack as well.

The 'eyewitnesses' as I've seen them described elsewhere did absolutely nothing. How much more did they plan to witness before they actually stopped witnessing and start intervening? Watch him play cards with the remains? Would any number have actually moved them to intervene?

I'm not calling myself Superman and I can honestly say I wouldn't know how I would react to a situation like this, maybe I'd run like a little girly too, but between 37 people, it seems like they could've come up with some kind of game plan and enough initiative to overpower this dumbfuck.

They should send this sick fuck to Iraq or Syria and let them deal with him. Under Canadian law, this guy will probably get 10 years, or go to the crazy house for awhile, since it was recently confirmed that he HAS had quite a history of mental illness and paranoid schizophrenia.

What WILL most likely happen is that you won't be able to take a Greyhound bus (or any other bus for that matter) without being frisked by security and getting all our stuff checked. One lousy shit goes nuts and everyone has to deal with the consequences. Canada and the U.S are supposed to be "free" countries. I'm not sure i know what that means anymore. Freedom is just a made up word, really.

This is off the topic, but I just heard a disturbing piece of news from my friend. Last month a US court ruled that border agents can search your laptop, or any other electronic device, when you're entering the country. They can do it to anyone, they can hold for as long as they want and they are not obliged to return it. What the fuck does that mean? I've heard that some people have not had their laptop returned after almost a year. Freedom. Ha.

Another other odd thing about Vince Li's case is that he's been charged with 2nd degree murder. Stabs a guy 50-60 times and decapitates him, cuts some pieces off to chew on. OK, what the fuck would you have to do to get 1st degree murder? Fuck the body, drag it around for a week, piss on it then kill 'em again? Geez. Me thinks there's a big problem with the Canadian legal system.

Hmmmmm. This is a curious case indeed.

Chris Ware: The ACME Novelty Library

2008-08-03T22:55:00.000-07:00

Chris Ware. I like his stuff a lot. ACME Novelty Library. I like this comic a lot.

The ACME Novelty Library (red hardcover, pictured) is a great feast of material from Chris Ware's ACME Novelty Library comic, collecting just about everything that isn't already collected in Jimmy Corrigan or Quimby the Mouse, along with strips that ran in The New Yorker and other periodicals. This includes the Big Tex, Tales of Tomorrow, Rocket Sam strips, preliminary strips for Rusty Brown, his next graphic novel, and the fat naked Super-Man, which is truly bizarre. Also included is all the impossible to read text pieces, fake ads and a selection of mini papercraft models from the comic. These have all be resized and re-laid-out over 114 oversized (15" x 8.5") pages.

At first glance his detailed geometrical layouts look like they were computer-generated using Adobe Illustrator but Ware works is almost exclusively old school, employing actual drawing tools (remember those?) such as paper and pencil, rulers and T-squares. He does use a computer for coloring however. He's definitely in a class of his own, not just a comic artist, he is an amazing graphic designer w/ a truly eclectic style reflecting his love of early 20th century American aesthetics. And a pretty warped sense of humor to boot.

If you just thumb through this book, you can't really get a sense of his true genius, you have to drink this book intensely. Once you start getting into this book, it's incredibly intense. I'd say you definitely can't read this in one sitting. I know the ads and text are hard to read, but they are well worth the effort. Some of them are pretty hilarious. Chris Ware has hit a new level of depravity with this stuff. You don't just merely read one of his graphic novels, you are inhabiting his unique world as soon as you lay your hands on the book. Some of the fake ad pages will take you almost 10 minutes to read 1 page because the text is so small.

If you're new to Chris Ware, this would be a perfect pace to start. It's a bit of a here-and-there assortment with the general themes being tragedy, pointlessness, hopelessness, despair, quiet horror, nostalgia, self-loathing and obsession with a healthy dose of self-depreciation throughout. If you are suffering from depression, I seriously wouldn't recommend this book. This is probably not bedtime reading either, this one needs to be just nibbled at, a few pages a day is enough.

I also recommend the Quimby the Mouse and Jimmy Corrigan collections. This book is highly recommended for people who are seeking something different in a comic rather than the usual Superman / X-Men fare. You should be able to find in most decent bookshops as it's published by Jonathan Cape with the ISBN 0224077023. Or, of course, discounted at Amazon. The other pictures are just some cover shots from some of the original Acme Library graphic novels.

Enjoy!

Welcome to Vancouver!

2008-06-29T18:59:00.000-07:00

I was out taking shots in the lovely part of town and got this off-the-cuff idea to do a few simple fake ads showing the darker side of Vancouver in all its' glory. Junkies, needles and trash! Oh My!!!

Vancouver: First observations on moving back.

2008-06-26T19:27:00.000-07:00

Well, this is my 5th day back in Vancouver and I'm finally settling back into the groove again, despite not having a place yet to call my own. I have found a place over on 4th Ave. which is pretty old, but great location. I cannot believe how damned expensive everything here is now. Rent is higher than shit. You're lucky if you can find a crummy basement apartment for under 1,000 bucks a month. We're gonna be paying 1,100 bucks, which is way too much for the apartment itself, considering the condition it's in, but we're paying more because of the location. Safeway 2 blocks away, library is a few blocks away, organic food shops, fresh fish shop, great restaurants, cool shops, including Zulu Records, about one of the only good record stores left in Vancouver. The other being Scratch, which is pretty good but not great.

I went to A&B Sound and they have hit rock bottom. I used to remember A&B being the best store in town. Now it is complete shit. They have nothing now. Just a top 40 store now. And Bob Bell is still there. Poor Bob. Still hanging in there. HMV is not much better. But at least they have an OK DVD selection. Looks like I'll be using mailorder from here on in. That's one thing I'll miss about Japan, tons of great record shops.

There's still tons of assholes bumming change, some of them the same people I saw 10 years ago. Fuck. Like, have some respect for yourself and do something, anything. Some of these buttsteaks actually get mad if you don't give them change, like we're supposed to be responsible for their well-being and financial support. I don't mind helping people at all if they're going to make an effort to help themselves. If not, forget it.

OK, the next thing is this. Why the hell does every second person have their Starbucks EXTRA DAMN LARGE coffee while they're walking? This is not just in the morning, but all hours of the day. Do you people realize how ridiculous you look? Stop supporting Starbucks for chrissake. It seems like everyone is under a permanent Starbucks spell. Don't be a slave to their shitty coffee and fake atmosphere, support another small privately owned coffee vendor. Sheeeeeesh. What would be the % of people who have their personal XL coffee containers? Pretty high I think. Nothing wrong with drinking coffee, but when I'm out walking, I can't avoid being bombarded with that damned ugly logo.

Next is all the development that's happening. Who the hell is designing some of these new buildings and apartment complexes? They look embarrassing. I've never seen so many tacky buildings in one city. Some of these places are going up so fast using cheap materials, they'll start falling apart in 10 years.

That's most of what I've noticed since I've been back. Not to sound all negative. Vancouver really IS a beautiful city, if you removed all the super arrogant egos (and there are many of them) and all the damn panhandlers and junkies, we might just have something. Half the people in the city look like they're either in a permanent Starbucks coffee trance or wigged out on coke and heroin.

Oh yeah, one more thing. Blackberry cellphones are gay. And turn off your stupid ringtone when you're taking public transit. It's rude and no one wants to hear it.

2008-05-21T20:05:00.000-07:00

This a recent re-issue of the self-titled album from Lurker of Chalice, otherwise known as Wrest aka Leviathan, originally recorded in 2005 w/ 1 bonus track (Track 7).

It was rumored that the recent Leviathan album "Massive Conspiracy Against All Life" was going to be a Lurker of Chalice album at one point, but I think they are quite different projects and "Massive" sounds more like a Leviathan thing than LoC. Of course there's going to be obvious similarities in terms of some of the vocal work and the speedy black metal parts, but LoC has a more gothic, ambient feel to it that is even more twisted and depressing than Leviathan.

Much of the work on LoC is very slow and dingy, like "Minions", one of the best tracks on the album. The bass is much more present on LoC than Leviathan, there's more prominent use of synth used and some of the chant-like vocals that you will hear throughout the compositions, I've just never heard that kind of creepy delivery on a Leviathan album. Everything just feels a bit more doomy and experimental, lots of obscurely layered guitar work that makes for some really nice ambience as opposed to the riffomania of Leviathan albums. There's also a lot more samples, used to cool effect. This is simply a very different beast than Leviathan and I think I enjoy this more than I do most Leviathan albums. Wrest is a force to be reckoned with in the black metal scene and the metal scene in general. Everything he does is new and fresh, not to mention, some of the darkest music ever put to tape.

This album has something to offer for all fans of extreme metal and experimental music in general, so give it a try, I think you won't be disappointed, but YOU WILL BE scared.

The World of Golden Eggs

2008-05-12T19:02:00.001-07:00

I, um…..maybe I'm just not hip with the times or maybe I'm just too old too understand these new fangled young people's shows, but this show is just messed up and horrendous, NOT in a good way.

Leave it to Japan to produce a messed-up animation show such as this

This complete waste of time (known as the World of Golden Eggs) is a MTV Japan show, and it’s taken entertainment to a new low.

The animation style is just plain bad, I know it's bad for bad's sake, but i mean, c'mon, it's bad to the point where it's just creepy and not interesting at all. The animation is flat, the characters are flat and the stories are just dumb. Even a 2-year couldn't be entertained by this junk.

The voice-overs sound too fast, like everyone's on speed or something, of course it's in Japanese so maybe you wouldn't know the difference anyway.

The whole thing just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, kind of like after you see a dead dog on the highway that's just been run over.

Check it out for yourself, there's tons of this shit on YouTube. It's an extremely popular show here in Japan, and I think it's getting more popular in the West now too, and for the life of me, I can't figure out why. This is just plain dogshit. If I drew a face on my cock, and gave it a name and a characteristic voice, then filmed it's adventures, it would be more entertaining than this cocaine-induced trip.

What happened to the good 'ol days of Looney Tunes and Tom & Jerry?

Attik Noise 5

2008-05-09T06:05:00.000-07:00

It's about damn time! Been waiting 7 years. Can't wait to get my hands on a copy of this. This is the info taken directly from Attik's site:

"NoiseFive will have 250 pages of exciting print design, on 9 unique paper stocks and 14 different print process finishes. With a limited print run of just 5,000 copies and a never seen before ATTIK 22 year retrospective it's set to be a bestseller.

Published in Summer 2008, NoiseFive will be available to purchase directly from this site, or through ATTIK recommended bookstores across the world."

Will I be buying this? Fuckin' rights! I own all of them except "Noise 1 (aka: Bob)" which is just a 16 page brochure which was reprinted in miniature form in the back pages of Noise 2. I hope this will be better than Noise 4, which was kind of disappointing. This one's a home-grown effort and Attik will have much more control over the printing of this one, so it should be good. Judging from some of the samples I've seen, it looks pretty cool.

Check out the blog and see some info and pics from previous editions here.

I love these books. I own many design books and these are best ones I have, without question. I pick up something new every time I look at them.

Popping the Cherry

2008-04-15T19:59:00.000-07:00

Well, cherry blossom season is pretty much over, and I'm kind of glad. Because during cherry blossom season, I can't go to a park without running into scads of tourists and natives with their cameras ready to take pictures.

Holy Jeebus, what's all the fuss? I never understood it I guess, I know it's a treasured cultural event in Japan, but I mean, c'mon, they're just fuckin' trees. And yes, they're pretty to look at, but they aren't the most beautiful thing there is... I think fall is a much more beautiful scene.

Anyway, I guess I should cherish the damn trees, since this will be my last spring in Japan, as I'm heading back to Vancouver in June.

Cherry blossom season is really just an excuse for people to set the tarps out and get wasted. Check out this video.

I saw SAW

2008-04-15T00:03:00.000-07:00

Well, I finally watched the SAW trilogy, the first 2 I viewed back to back on a Saturday night, and then I watched the 3rd one the following night. My impressions? First one is the best, 2nd one is not too interesting, the 3rd one is alright. Haven't seen the 4th one, and I don't know if I'll even bother.

James Wan's concept is a great, but the execution (no pun intended) could have been done so much better. I feel it could have been done to perfection in the hands of someone like Japanese director, Miike Takashi, or Hostel director Eli Roth.

I'll give you a brief outline of the first one. Our nice little fairy tale opens with our killer's current victims, two men chained on opposite ends of a dirty restroom, a body with its' head blown off in the center holding a cassette player and a handgun. Each man is given a tape to play, which provides him with a nice dilemma to ponder during his captivity. The history of the killer and the events leading up to the men's current situation unfolds nicely during narrated recollections and well-placed flashbacks, while the actual motive of out killer remains hidden underneath.

The filming itself is done well, the killing and torture methods pretty good, the gore is done pretty well and not overdone, and it has a pretty good plot. On the other hand, the cast is not so great, the acting not very convincing most of the time, and that doll character that the killer hides his identity behind is not creepy at all, it's just plain fucking silly to me. I laugh whenever I see a scene with that creepy doll and the down-pitched voice of our killer. oooooooooo, scary! Tobin Bell as the serial killer Jigsaw is just not convincing, he's not a great actor, plain and simple.

Saw II brings back many features from the original Saw: elaborate sadistic scenarios designed to "test" the victims' to see how far they will go to live. The set-up this time is a hard-ass cop named Eric who watches his son and a few other victims who are mysteriously connected, on video monitors, trapped in a house filled with deadly nerve gas. Eric has captured Jigsaw, but the implacable killer refuses to reveal where the cop's son is being held... unless Eric will play by Jigsaw's rules. The tortures this time are more gruesome than before. The reason this one's my least favorite is that we get to see and hear too much of Tobin. He has a really annoying voice.

With Saw III, the gore is just caked on as it yet again explores newer and better ways to torture human beings. All the loose ends from Saw II are concluded at beginning of the film, and a detective on the trail falls prey to Jigsaw's trap and ends up the player of one of his fucked up sadistic games, this time the only way of escape is by getting a key sitting in the bottom of a beaker of acid. Then we catch up with Jigsaw himself, as he's waiting to die from his debilitating illness; once again he's tended by helper Shawnee Smith. Some interesting stuff happens in this one, Jigsaw blackmails a doctor into keeping him alive, and tortures a vengeful soul into recognizing the futility of revenge.

These are worth seeing once, but I don't know if they're worth adding to the collection for future views or not. Hostel's a better and more interesting movie (for this genre of horror) than the SAW series in my opinion. But I'm not really into the gore that much anymore, I'd really like to see more shit coming out like Ring and Grudge, the psychological stuff. The gore gets too boring too fast.

Love the package/promotion/poster designs though. Very cool.

Leviathan: Massive Conspiracy Against All Life

2008-04-12T23:22:00.000-07:00

I heard this is going to be Wrest's final release as Leviathan, but I hope it isn't. You just need to get this. This is so fucking good, it's too hard to believe. One-man U.S. black metal outfit from San Fran, Leviathan, otherwise know as Wrest, has outdone himself.

This has been put on hold by the stupid arseholes at Moribound records in Oct. 2007 due to a legal dispute with the record label. Wrest brought the project back in January, 2008 to release the latest album. Wrest plays every instrument found in Leviathan’s music: guitar, drums (electronic + acoustic), bass, synths, ebow, and vocals.

This album has those everything that makes Leviathan great. The chillingly atmospheric parts; those black 'n thrashy parts; those creepy frog from hell croaks, moans and screams that sometimes come close to sounding like 100,000 nails scraping against a chalkboard. This is quite similiar in style to Tentacles of Whorror, but not so trebly. These are relatively long-winded compositions, but even with the majority of the tracks running from eight to 13 minutes, there's so much layering and directional shifts going on that you won't be bored or disappointed. Wrest easily outdoes most of the other "renown" one-man US Black Metal acts out there. This is one of the best of the genre, and I think this'll be getting much play on the days and weeks to come. This needs to be fully digested.

Tracklist:
1. Vesture Dipped in the Blood of Morning 05:22
2. Merging With Sword, Onto Them 10:58
3. Made as the Stale Wine of Wrath 08:44
4. VI-XI-VI 07:09
5. Receive the World 07:48
6. Vulgar Asceticism 09:20
7. Noisome Ash Crown 12:55

fLuX dEsIgN wOrKs update

2008-04-12T07:02:00.000-07:00

Just added quite a few new pieces to the portfolio section of my site, so please take a look when you have a minute. Here's a direct link:

Breaking Bad

2008-04-08T02:32:00.000-07:00

What does it mean to "Break Bad"? According to the book by Steve Mitchell "How to Speak Southern" it means To behave in a violent, wanton, or outrageous manner for no discernible reason.

Starring Bryan Cranston as Walter White (Our Main Protagonist), Anna Gunn as Skyler White, Aaron Paul as Jesse Pinkman, Dean Norris as Hank Schrader, Betsy Brandt as Marie Schrader and RJ Mitte as Walter White Jr., this has to be one of the most original and interesting shows on TV since David Lynch'sTwin Peaks. Great writing, excellent casting & acting, and highly enjoyable. Considering the concept of the show and its' "adult" subject matter, it is done with the upmost taste and originality, with one of the best scripts ever written. The show does not promote crystal meth use in any way, but focuses on the harsh realities of the drug war/trade in an objective and compelling way.

Here's the basis synopsis: The main character, Walt White is just an ordinary chemistry teacher w/ a part time job working at a car wash to make ends meet. When he is diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, he has to wake up and suddenly figure a way to deal with it. Realizing that he needs to provide financially for his pregnant wife and special needs son once he's gone, Walt puts his chemistry skills to use by creating a rolling meth lab w/ one of his former students, the hip hop mofo Jesse Pinkman, who teaches him about the "bidness" of drug dealing. The two set up shop in a converted Winnebago and before they know it, the boyz are making top quality product and the cash is rolling in.

Of course, making and selling crystal meth doesn't comes without its share of problems. First of all, you can't just cook it in your house. Next problem. Hank's brother-in-law is an obnoxious Drug Enforcement Agent!

What this show portrays is how an essentially good person can make some bad decisions in desperate situations. There are some extremely hillarious parts, but definitely of the black nature.

That's all I will tell you, if say anymore, it will spoil it. Just watch it. It's not on DVD yet, but you can download it from various places. And yes, there are torrents out there for it.

I can't recommend this show highly enough. I can't wait for the 2nd season.

A Real PEACHY Commercial

2008-04-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

I don't know why I love this series of videos so much. The catchy jingle plus the cute Japanese girls dressed up in some kind of peach uniform doing that cute little dance gives me a major boner, they just look so cute and shaggable. In case you're wondering, it's a commercial for a really healthy peach yogurt drink that's supposed to help you shit really good, hence the black "shit" charcters in this ad. If you wanna see all 3 ads, go here.

Mini Theremin

2008-04-01T02:26:00.000-07:00

I've been looking at this for awhile and finally bought one just a few days ago. This a pretty fun little gadget that works just like the original, but obviously on a smaller scale. And at ¥2,300 for the kit plus a magazine, it's a steal. The same company, GAKKEN, has a series of these "do-ot-yourself kits that are quite fascinating, I'd like to check out more of them.

For example, they also make diy kit for a stereo pinhole camera, a mini telescope and a mini phonograph player. Very cool shit. Gakken's theremin kit includes an 86-page book on the theremin and other electronic musical synthesizers, and of course a mini theremin for you to build and play. All text is in Japanese, but the instructions for assembly are well-illustrated.

Now a bit of history. The theremin, invented in 1919 by Russian scientist Leon Theremin, is one of the world's earliest fully electronic instruments, and is also unique in that it was the first musical instrument designed to be played without being touched. The eerie, other-wordly tones as heard in the films mentioned above are created by the proximity of the player's hands to the metal antennas, with the resulting radio frequency interference being transformed into musical tones. Funky!

Here are some links to videos that show you how to use this amazing little box:

Playing Movie 1
Playing Movie 2 (in Russian)
Playing Movie 3 (in Russian)
Tuning Video

BORIS. SMILE.

2008-03-31T19:09:00.001-07:00

Well, this has only been out a few weeks and a million people have already reviewed it, but I'll add my two cents worth anyway.

I'm by no means a BORIS "freak" but I do like them a lot, especially their drone-based works. Sunn O))) head Stephen O'Malley does play guitar on a song or two (Michio Kurihara also features), but their doom and psych influences are not as prominent as in the past.

SMILE is one of their most diverse albums to date. It's the closest Boris has come to combining all its artistic directions on one release. I like it much better than the overrated PINK that came out a few years ago, but their collaboration with Ghost man Michio Kurihara on last year's Rainbow was pretty darn good. SMILE's got everything, pop grooves, noise, psychedelia, of course lots of overblown speaker crushing riffs, and even a few surprises.

I have to say the only thing I don't like about them is the vocals. I don't know man, the main guy who does vocals just has such a weak style. They need some more "ummmph", he sounds like should be in Pennywise or Blink 182. It just doesn't fit the music all that well. But that's a minor point, because the music is just so devastating. I really like the guitar sound on this album, Wata seems to use more effects on this album than usual.

By all means, get the Japanese release, fuck the Southern Lord CD, it's got the crappiest artwork I've seen in awhile, where as the Japanese release has one of the coolest packages I've seen probably since Japanese issue of the Boredoms Super Ar (in the puffy liquid-filled case). Also, one of the best tracks is not on the SL release, "Message."

Sunn O))) head Stephen O'Malley does play guitar on a song or two (Michio Kurihara also features), but their doom and psych influences are not as prominent as in the past.

Anyway, of course every BORIS geek probably has 3 copies of both editions already. This is one of my favorite BORIS albums so far. Keep that shit comin'.

My only question is: When's Wata gonna do a nude photo book?

Sonoluminescence... Grooooooovy.

2008-03-31T18:29:00.000-07:00

I just came across an article about this cool project in WIRED magazine titled CAMERA LUCIDA by Evelina Domnitch and Dmitry Gelfand. Check the video and the photos, this is some trippy shit. The aim was to capture a phenomenon known as Sonoluminescenc, which requires a large quantity of xenon-infused sulfuric acid, which is dangerous even in small amounts because of its' ability to suck the water out of everything it touches, including human tissue.

They needed almost 3 gallons of the shit which they blasted in a specially made chamber with ultrasonic waves. The reactions were then photographed and videoed. The ultraviolet light emitted by the xenon bubbles collapsing as they collide with those waves generate4 temperatures as hot as the sun's surface. That being said, they encountered difficulties in finding a lab that would let them perform such chemical fuckery. They finally found a place in Germany where they killed the lights and started shooting.

The results were pretty psychedelic. They also turned it into an installation, which is even more fucked. People are put in a room for 5 minute in total darkness before the installation begins, to let people's eyes adjust before the acid kicks in. To avoid corrosive meltdowns, they have to use gallons of water spiked with sodium hydroxide and luminol.

Cool stuff, check out the photos and the video. Link above.

HellHammer - Demon Entrails

2008-03-26T20:18:00.000-07:00

Goddamn!!!!!! This is a fucking gift from the metal gods if there are such a thing. The first demos from the legendary pre-Celtic Frost band, Hellhammer in a gloriously packaged 2-CD set housed in a DVD-sized mediabook with O-Card plus 36-page booklet w/ extended liner notes, photos and a small poster. This is also available as a bare-bones 2-CD set in a digipak, but I recommend getting this special edition. 29 songs in all, re-mastered from original master copies by Tom Gabriel and Martin Eric Ain. They also dove into their personal archives to supply photo's and never before seen art work.

This set is an important chapter in the shaping of European Black Metal and every fan of Celtic Frost, 80's thrash, European thrash, black metal or just brutal music should make every effort to find this. It's probably hard to find in some areas of the world and if you have to have only the music, the bare bones set is fine, but the extras in the special edition are worth having, plus the price difference is not that much anyway.

These early demos even better than Hellhammer's only "official" 12" LP, the infamous APOCALYPTIC RAIDS, which at the time, was met with scathing reviews, but now remains a classic. It really shows their progression into what would later become Celtic Frost

These demos are actually presented backwards, meaning that Disc 1 starts with the latest demo of the 3, SATANIC RITES, the second disc contains 2 demos, DEATH FIEND and TRIUMPH OF DEATH, so I would recommend starting with Disc 2, then Disc 1.

It's really interesting to hear some of these songs, because much of the material would later be reworked into the early Celtic Frost repertoire. SATANIC RITES is my favorite of the 3 demos, sounding and feeling very much like the bastard child of Frost's MORBID TALES.

This is classic stuff, don't miss out. This will probably go out of print quickly. There is also an upcoming book coming out this year titled "ONLY DEATH IS REAL - The illustrated history of Hellhammer and Early Celtic Frost" written by Tom Gabriel Fischer. There is a page excerpt from the book in this set. Definitely looking forward to this band. Not an overlooked band by any means, but perhaps their importance in the history of black metal may be a bit under appreciated.

3 Films by Hiroshi Teshigahara

2008-03-12T19:37:00.000-07:00

This is instantly a classic box and I've been waiting for WOMAN IN THE DUNES to come in a decent fully uncut version for a long time now. Also a brand new transfer courtesy of Criterion. The first time I saw Woman in The Dunes about 2 years ago, it had quite an impact on me. It's one of best examples of the psychological horror genre that Japan is known for. It's images and sounds will sty with you forever.

These 3 films are a very unique and important collaboration between writer Abe Kobo, director Teshigahara Hiroshi and sound composer, Takemitsu Toru. They actually made four films together, and I have no idea why the 4th film wasn't part of this set, which is the only shortcoming I can point out with this box. The four films are PITFALL ((1962), WOMAN IN THE DUNES (1964), THE FACE OF ANOTHER (1966) and MAN WITHOUT A MAP (1968). The film that's missing from the set is the last one, MAN WITHOUT A MAP. These 4 films shook all conventions of Japanese film at the time.

Even though Teshigahara is responsible for organizing these collaborations, one can't ignore that without Takemitsu's score and sound design and Kobo's writing, they wouldn't have been what they turned out to be. Takemitsu not only composed the music, but did all the sound design as well. Especially with WOMAN IN THE DUNES, Takemitsu gives life to the sand through sound. It's there at all times, even when the scene seems completely silent.

Abe Kobo and Takemitsu Toru come from completely different backgrounds than Teshigahara, who's the most "Japanese" in heritage and upbringing. He is the son of Sofu Teshigahara, who's a very famous painter, sculptor, calligrapher and the founder of the the famous and highly innovative Sogetsu flower school.

On the other hand, Takemitsu and Kobo experienced a great deal of freedom and self-confidence that was not experienced by most Japanese people, who grew up in tighter, socially constrained environments.

The 3 films in this box pose essential questions but provide few answers. Like mostly "Who am I?" "Why do I exist?" "What is our purpose in this world and society?" etc. etc. These are the issues that the main characters struggle with alone in these films.

Like in the film FACE OF ANOTHER, the main character is introuced through an X-Ray image of his face. His identity is further called into question when we realize that his bandaged head is not his own face, but the mold of someone else's face grafted on. So then who is he? Does he really have an identity or does he just exist on paper? Can he get away with murder?

In Pitfall, the main character is continually in flight from some unknown pursuers. Is he running from a crime or the memory of his crime? This film has a truly alien quality to it, especially with the man in the white suit, who drifts in and out of the shots. Pitfall seems to morph into or back out of a new movie every few minutes. The acting is purposefully functional, without a trace of emotion or mannerisms. They just go through the motions with heedless efficiency.

Anyway, I'll keep this review short. Just watch the damn films, they are all classics and this is one of the best and most necessary boxsets Criterion has ever put out. My only complaint is the missing film. (?)

The Freedom Manifesto

2008-03-03T23:30:00.000-08:00

How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste (Paperback)

Reading this book will not solve all your problems like the long-winded title says, but it will help you get a start. It's a very refreshing and easy to read book, and I think this should be read along with Kalle Lasn's CULTURE JAM. This is the "sequel" to" How to Be Idle: A Loafer's Manifesto" by British author and editor (the Idler) Tom Hodgkinson.

He cuts through all the bullshit right from the beginning stating his goal, which is to present a philosophy for everyday life based on freedom, merriment and responsibility, or anarchy. He wants to overthrow modern Puritans and return to an approach to life that is basically having a laugh, doing what you want in your own time, not take life too seriously and reject the system as much as possible. And that approach sounds very inviting to me. I certainly try not take life too seriously. I sometimes have a hard time ignoring all the shit out there though.

The only problem is that many of his topics sound a bit too easy, for example, in the chapter titled Forget Government, the message is Stop Voting, while in another on Submit No More to the Machine, Use Your Hands, his main advice is Use a Scythe. Redefining human relationships based on local needs instead of global capitalism is a fine idea indeed, and in a perfect world, if everyone thought like him, I'm sure we would all be better off. But he never quite explores in enough detail how this would happen in the real world, relying instead on grand statements, like moving out of the city, growing your own garden and not consuming, etc etc. Easy to say, but not so easy to do. We're living in a world where we can't walk a km without seeing a Big M hitting us in the face. The message is quite clear, but more detail is needed. Nevertheless, reading this book, if nothing else, will make think twice about what we buy, how much we buy and what we are doing every day to feed this corporate shit system that we all feed. We all just have to do a few simple things, like reject big corporations as much as possible, just simply don't buy from Wal Mart, MacDonalds and don't buy Nike, recycle, that kind of shit. But most people couldn't live without their TV or cellphone for more than an hour, and they would go into major withdrawal.

The book is excellent at first, a little shaky in the middle, then it wavered between those two emotions for the remaining pages. About halfway through he acknowledges how someone could view his ideas as contradictory. Sometimes the chapters feel like they are unfinished or could have gone deeper with more research. A lot of his chapters could have been contained inside other chapters.

It IS up to the individual to find and create his own happiness and to break free of controls like government or guilt. But then he talks about how people should live in communes and advocates smoking and drinking which are 2 things that feed the system big time.

I do really like his idea about throwing out the TV and reading more books. I also really like the chapter about PLAY, something most of us adults have forgotten how to do. We put so much goddamn importance on CAREER and CAREER advancement, but what does it all mean? Nothing, unless we can't have fun. That's especially true in a place like Japan, where people just work like dogs and NEVER EVER question what they are doing with their lives, they're just serving this big fat machine that sucks their entire life out, then spits them out when they're 64, with no idea what to do with their free time, no hobbies, just wasting the rest of their life away in front of the box.

I also like the chapter about banks. Banks are absolutely the worst evil places on earth and WE ALL are almost forced to use them. It is my dream that one day, every bank in the world will come tumbling down like dominoes. Banks truly suck and they treat us like circus animals. If something is wrong on OUR end, banks bug the shit out of us to no end, or take our homes and assets, but if it's their fault, they usually try to cover it up or make us wait for months. I can't begin to describe the feeling I get every time I am even near a bank. I just start laughing evilly, plotting in my head how I could blow it up...

Anyway, a good book that you can read it a day. It won't change your life, but it will certainly make you think. and will put a smile on your face.

Check out The Idler, Tom's magazine. Pretty interesting.

WHORE - Unfinished Business

2008-02-15T04:54:00.000-08:00

This dandy little CD is from a band called WHORE. Fuckin' great cover art made by the infamous underground US artist Mike Diana and it tells a lot about the "musical" content of this platter of dogshit. Their mothers must be real fuckin' proud. WHORE's brand of mayhem is grinding porno-sicko-metal, one and two minute grinding noisy death metal tracks a little similar to Anal Cunt. Some of the tracks have dialogues from splatter b-movies and real time recorded bits from interviewed rape and abuse offenders and victims. Sometimes funny, most of the time pure shit. If you are in the right frame of mind, like wasted on heroin, maybe you can enjoy this. Great album cover though. Haven't laughed so hard since the last time I got a boner.

Track Listing
1. June 10th
2. Everything Will Be Alright
3. Look at the Little Baby
4. Rape Up!!!!!!!!!
5. Catholic Execution
6. Black Claw
7. Super Slut
8. Not This Again
9. A Phone Call
10. That Bitch is Gonna Pay
11. A Decision Needs to Be Made
12. What's Wrong?
13. Then It Happened.......I Killed Her
14. Still Life
15. My Basement Will Be Your Grave
16. Scabby Cock Massager

6-Pack in a vending machine

2008-02-13T19:22:00.000-08:00

Only in Japan could you find something like this. I thought I saw everything the first time I saw used schoolgirl underwear sold in a vending machine in Nipponbashi. The funniest part is about the 6-pack o' beer is, there's a 24-hour convenience store that also sells alcohol which is only about 15 metres away. I'd just like to buy a 6 pack from a vending machine just to hear what kind of resounding "thud" it would make when it comes out. "kerplunk"! Let's get drunk! This vending machine kicks ass and is for real lowlife drunks only.

Random Photos of a Montana Eagle vs Fox

2008-02-12T05:35:00.001-08:00

I got these very interesting photos sent to me from a "Kate Tuttle" which ended up in my spam folder. This is the second random email I have received from this person, and I have no fuckin' clue who she is. If this is spam, it's some of the most interesting spam I've received in a long time. The previous email I got was titled "David Copperfield's Cat" and it contained a video of a cat putting itself in a jar which appeared about half the cat's size. Anyway, whoever this Kate Tuttle is, she sure sends me some interesting spam. Keep 'em coming.

Edit: (Feb.14th,2008) I found out who the "mysterious" Kate Tuttle is. She's the girlfriend of a good friend. I didn't clue in, the last name threw me off.

BOREDOMS/EYE new releases

2008-02-11T21:44:00.000-08:00

Well, there's a new Boredoms (or V∞rdoms, as they're sometimes known as) release and hot on the heels of that come a new EYE remix CD. I gotta say, I haven't been too impressed with the last few Bore-related things that have come out, namely Super Roots 9 and the OOIOO remix CD (both of which were major disappointments), you can find my reviews for both in the archives.

First, the Boredoms new live DVD "Live at Sun Flancisco," It's billed as the group's first concert DVD. They DO have another official DVD release, "Super Seeeeee!!!!!!", but it's only 20 minutes and half of it is just the same loop repeated over and over again. It's not necessary and it's way overpriced. The new DVD also comes with a 2-song EP that clocks in at under 12 minutes.

The DVD is yet another disappointment, shot on a single camera that drifts in and out of focus. It was recorded at The Independent live house in San Francisco during the band's 2005 U.S. tour. What pisses me off is that the quality is not much better than what you'd find in a Windows Media video, or YouTube, even. So why charge 50 bucks for basically a YouTube quality concert plus 2 new songs? Greed, I guess. Even the package design is pretty lame and that's not something I've ever complained about with a Boredoms release.

The performance and sound are pretty good, actually. I just feel like they could've put something much better out at a more reasonable price. For collectors only.

Now, onto the new EYE Remix CD, simply titled "Re... Remix" I didn't buy it, but I listened to it in the store and it's actually pretty good. It's pretty much like the DJ Pica Pica Pica thing, just under a different name. EYE always tries to confuse people by having two hundred different names. DJ EYE, Yamatsuka EYE, DJ Pica Pica Pica, Yamantaka EYE, Destroy 2, MC Hellshit, UFO or Die, etc etc etc....

It's too bad he's not as prolific and retarded as he used to be. I think EYE actually takes himself too seriously now.

I don't know if I'll end up picking this up or not, but it IS worth a listen. Here's the Tracklisting: Walrus: "Moth (remixed by Eye)"; DJ Pica Pica Pica: "Spa"; Boat: "African Dawn Remix"; Flare (Ken Ishii): "Turbinates"; NXS: "Sleeper" (Micro Forest Mix 2000); Zeebra: "Smokin' At The Lobby (Your Turn) (Magic Mushroom Mix)"; Gong: "Master Builder (EYE Mix) ; Wrench: "Cosmic Hierarchy (EYE remix)"; OOIOO: "Asozan" (EYE Mix)"; Atami: "Nightingale (x-mas mix)"; Black Drop Bomb: "When The Man Have Realized The Sound-Flow (it's like that)" by I don't know who...

Cheeseburger in a Can

2008-02-07T19:45:00.000-08:00

What the fuck?! This is a cheeseburger. In a can. It's a cheeseburger in a can. From Germany. and it costs 4 fuckin' Euros!

I don't know what to think about this: is this one of the greatest things since sliced bread, or is it just a horrible fast food experiment gone wrong created by some evil genius at a crazy German food corporation corporation that should be flushed down the toilet immediately?

Would you eat a cheeseburger in a can? What's it going to actually look like when you pull it out of the can? Probably just a fucking mess. There should be some photos of this thing actually being taken out of the can, cause I don't think that it'll look anyhere near as delicious as the example above when you pull it out of the can. Crazy Germans. First the holocaust. Now THIS!

Original story and comments here.

The Happy World of Fassbinder

2008-02-05T01:26:00.000-08:00

My first exposure to the world of Fassbinder was seeing BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE about 8 years ago, and I didn't think too much of it at the time other than it was on of the bleakest films I ever saw, exposing the naked truth of dark side of human existence. But at that time, I wasn't so much into foreign films or art-house type films. But since then, my perception of film has changed greatly and only just recently have I found a new found appreciation for the works of Rainer Werner Fassbinder. It's a wondrous world he created, but not an easy one to follow.

As some of you may be aware, Fassbinder died very young at age 37 from a drug overdose, but managed to direct over 40 films in his career from 1969 to 1982, mostly feature films, a few TV specials and his towering achievement, the 940-minute TV mini-series BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ (1979-80), told in 13 parts, plus a 2 hour epilogue, which I recently finished watching. Nearly all his films were written or adapted for the screen by Fassbinder himself. He was also art director on most of the early films, editor or co-editor on a lot of them, and he acted in nine of his own films as well as for other directors. On top of this, he occasionally performed many other roles such as cinematographer and producer on a small number of them. In other words, he was pretty much a workaholic.

His films tackle a wide variety of themes and they give a pretty distorted picture of post-war Germany with a distinct political edge. But many of his films remain relevant to contemporary urban times and delve deeply into the dark side of human relationships with a very very black sense of humor. A great deal of his films were character studies of "misfits" unwanted by society for reasons beyond their control. His work was extremely personal, inspired by his own feelings of self-torture, rejection and alienation was never unwilling to tackle difficult subjects such as terrorism, racial tension, alienation, class exploitation (on the political left as well as right), trans-sexuality and masochism in a provocative but non-sensationalist manner. It was no secret that he had compassion for both victims and victimizers so many of his most monstrous creations are self-portraits, a peak example of this being the relationship between the characters Franz Biberkopf and Reinholdt in BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ. He was notorious for being a difficult person to work with, and deliberately created his own image of being a rather dislikable figure, but at the same time garnering the upmost respect from those close to him.

I've seen about 1/3 of Fassbinder's works a this point. I haven't seen many of his early works yet, but they seem to be shot with an almost always static camera and with very unnatural dialogue. The second phase is the one that brought him international attention, with films exploring how deep-rooted prejudices about race, sex, sexual orientation, politics and class are inherent in society, while also tackling his trademark subject of the everyday fascism of family life and friendship. The final phase of his career, from around 1977 until his death, were more varied, with international actors sometimes used and the stock company disbanded (although the casts of some films were still filled with Fassbinder regulars). He became increasingly more idiosyncratic in terms of plot, form and subject matter in movies like SATAN'S BREW (1976), IN A YEAR WITH 13 MOONS (1978), The Third Generation (1979) and Querelle (1982). His masterpiece BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ was also made in this period.

I'm just going to give a brief rundown of a few of the best Fassbinder films I've seen. They're all good in their own way though. The most recent film I have digested is his 16-hour masterpiece, BERLIN ALEXANDERPLATZ, finally re-mastered and preserved for generations to come in a decent version on DVD. The 1st version was a Europe-region only version that came out in 2006, but Criterion took that re-master, and re-mastered it even further, adding some nice extras not available on the previous version. This is a very faithful and natural adaptation of Alfred Doblin's novel. It shows how a man through his personal faults and a corrupt, unfriendly society is unable to still remain happy. Filming the book was Fassbinder's lifelong inspiration, and addition to the 13 part film, there is a 2-hour personal epilogue about his feelings about the protagonist. I finished this film just a week ago, but I am already missing the characters like they are people close to me.

Franz Biberkopf is not smart of a guy, but his heart is very big indeed and he would never rat on his friends and is one of those people who is ready to do anything he is asked to do by the people he considers his friends at the moment of the request. He suffers many trials and tribulations as the result of his "friends". There's one scene where Reindholdt throws him out of a moving car and he gets run over by another car and loses his left arm, but Franz is not mad about it, much to Reinholdt's surprise (and everyone else's) At times he may be taken over by a fit of rage that makes him blind and murderous, though he can easily be calmed. He is very dependent on women but at the same time very particular about them and actually loves only very few. Eva of course, his permanent love who lives with a rich Herbert and carries his child for a few months. Ida, who he kills out of rage one morning, resulting in his subsequent 4-year prison term. His other longest lasting love in the film is Mieze, who will be killed by Reinhold. Franz does what he has to do to survive in Germany: at first selling newspapers, including a nazi newspaper, selling erotic literature, selling shoelaces, being part of a gang of thieves, and being a pimp. It's basically an extremely well done character study of a sad life, so densely detailed that I didn't even notice the length of the film. Highly recommended and easily one of the 10 best films I've ever seen. Great score by Peer Raben, who has collaborated with Fassbinder on every film, excluding a few from his early period.

BEWARE OF A HOLY WHORE is the very first Fassbinder film I ever saw, and is a black comedy about the difficulties involved in movie making and sexual frustration, no doubt based on a personal experience, like so many Fassbinder movies. All the usual Fassbinder shit's here, violence, humiliation, slappin' women around, etc etc.

THE MERCHANT OF 4 SEASONS (1971) is a pretty dark, but morbidly entertaining film about a drunk who starts a fruit vending business, tries to stay sober and lead a good life, but that doesn't last long. He publicly humiliates his wife, beats her up in a drunken rage at home, tells her family off, drinks himself to death at the end of the film, all the usual Fassbinder stamps. After that came the brilliantly desolate and alienating THE BITTER TEARS OF PETRA VON KANT (1972), which was based on one of Fassbinder's plays. The film is a claustrophobic melodrama set in the apartment of the fashion designer of the title. Petra (Margit Carstensen) wallows in her own grief at being brushed off by a young wife she fell for while treating her devoted and subservient assistant Marlene (Fassbinder regular, Irm Herrmann) like shit. It's basically a story about letting ourselves being abused by others in the hope of gaining their love, or out of fear of being alone. This movie was shot is 10 days.

Fassbinder's recurrent theme of reckless abandon and excess reached its most tragic variation with IN A YEAR WITH 13 MOONS. This film tells the story of a transsexual Elvira / Erwin (Volker Spengler), who on a love-interest's whim goes to Casablanca to get his dick cut off. However, when s/he is later rejected, s/he admits s/he has ruined his/her life. Later, s/he confronts her old boss, now a wealthy capitalist pig named Anton Saitz (played to perfection by Gottfried John) in the hopes of gaining his love. Anton's image is built up throughout more than the first half of the film, so when he finally does make his first appearance wearing tennis shorts and shirt impersonating Jerry Lewis on television, the effect is quite powerful and humorous at the same time. Fassbinder certainly has his own brand of black humor. There's some pretty strange lighting effects and some of the music is very dark and experimental. This is one of his most sincere and honest investigations of minority urban life, making it one of his most explicitly personal films. He wrote, directed, shot, designed and edited it. This is one of Fassbinder's best.

Before 13 Moons came his biggest international success, THE MARRIAGE OF MARIA BRAUN (1978). The other 2 films in this "trilogy" are LOLA (1981) and VERONIKA VOSS (1982). They all focus on women in WW2 and its aftermath - a wife looking for her missing husband, a cabaret artist caught between two powerful men and a washed up Third Reich film star. These films are excellent studies of the changing and unchanging nature of Germany through that particular period. Stylistically these films are more confident and in your face than previous films, especially the amazing colors and textures throughout Maria Braun and LOLA. Then the stark contrasting b/w of Veronika Voss. These are all excellent films during Fassbinder's peak just a few years before his death in 1982.

THE THIRD GENERATION is Fassbinder's response to the Baader-Meinhof deaths which scandalized both the left and right. Revolving around the concept that the state could invent left-wing terrorists to conceal its own growing totalitarianism, The Third Generation has some pretty fucked up imagery throughout. The script and story are pretty scattered but the the excellent performances mark it as a major work.

Another one of Fassbinder's most personal statements was GERMANY IN AUTUMN (1978). The first 40 minutes or so, it cuts back and forth between Fassbinder arguing with his mother trying to coax her into making some reactionary statements against his boyfriend Armin Meier, with scenes of him and Fassbinder in a house usually fighting over trivial issues. It's one of the most personal and self-revealing pieces of film that Fassbinder ever made.

QUERELLE, the last film Fassbinder made, was based on Jean Genet's novel, Querelle de Brest, a very fractured fractured and difficult story. Although Dieter Schidor approached him to make the film, he rewrote the script with Burkhard Driest (who also plays Mario) and got regular production designer Rolf Zehetbauer onto the project. Zehetbauer's work on Querelle is quite remarkable, the studio set of the ports of Brest is bathed in a decadent orange glow like the town is in heat (complete with unsubtle phallic architecture, sketchy sailors and perverse bars and brothels). This is not one of my favorite Fassbinder movies, nor was it for critics who called it "laughable and "a bore". I've never read the novel, but apparently it totally captures Genet's style, which isn't easy to do.

Shortly after finishing Querelle, Fassbinder was found dead in his Munich apartment. His suicidal lifestyle had finally caught up with him - cocaine and alcohol-use in particular had caused his heart to fail after only 37 years. It's interesting to wonder what Fassbinder would have done if he has been still alive all these years - would he have sold out? I don't think so. Would he have embraced and gone along with digital technology? We'll simply never know. His next film was to be I'm the Happiness of This Earth, a drama about three failed detectives set in a discotheque.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder's productivity was such that some movies are almost impossible to see. And even though most of his films are available, some are not, and those re mostly his early works, like Eight Hours Are Not a Day (1972) and World on a Wire (1973) There is also no decent DVD version of Effi Briest (1974) or Bolweiser (1977). I'm hoping Criterion's sister company ECLIPSE will fill the void with some of his lesser known early works in box set.

Fassbinder was able to explore the disappointments and cruelties of urban life using different variations on themes. His work portrayed the horrifyingly empty and mechanical reality of family and working life of society when it allows materialism to become more important than its inhabitants. Underneath everything else, I think he was trying to teach us not to be afraid of ourselves and what we believe in.

FILMOGRAPHY

The City Tramp (Der Stadtstreicher) (1965, WGer, 10 mins)
The Little Chaos (Das Kleine Chaos) (1966, WGer, 9 mins)
Love is Colder Than Death (Liebe ist Kälter als der Tod) (1969, WGer, 88 mins)
Katzelmacher (Cock Artist) (1969, WGer, 88 mins)
Gods of the Plague (Götter der Pest) (1969, WGer, 91 mins)
Why does Herr R. Run Amok? (Warum läuft Herr R. Amok?) (1969, WGer, 88 mins. Co-directed with Michael Fengler. Script improvised)
Rios Das Mortes (1970, WGer, 84 mins)
The Coffee House (Das Kaffeehaus) (1970, WGer, 105 mins)
Whitey (1970, WGer, 95 mins)
The Nicklashausen Journey (Die Niklashauser Fahrt) (1970, WGer, 86 mins. Co-directed with Michael Fengler)
Beware of a Holy Whore (Warnung vor einer Heiligen Nutte) (1970, WGer/Italy, 103 mins)
The American Soldier (Der Amerikanische Soldat) (1970, WGer, 77 mins)
Pioneers in Ingolstadt (Pioniere in Ingolstadt) (1970, WGer, 84 mins)
The Merchant of Four Seasons (Der Händler der vie Jahreszeiten) (1971, WGer, 89 mins)
The Bitter Tears of Petra von Kant (Die Bitteren Tränen der Petra von Kant) (1972, WGer, 124 mins)
Wild Game (Wildwechsel) (1972, WGer, 102 mins)
"Eight Hours Are Not a Day" ("Acht Stunden sind kein Tag") (1972, WGer. Five episodes for television: 101 mins, 100 mins, 92 mins, 89 mins and 89 mins)
Bremen Coffee (Bremer Freiheit) (1972, WGer, 87 mins)
World on a Wire (Welt am Draht) (1973, WGer. Two parts for television screening: 99 and 106 mins)
Nora Helmer (1973, WGer, 101 mins)
Martha (1973, WGer, 112 mins)
Fear Eats the Soul (Angst essen Seele auf) (1973, WGer, 92 mins)
Effi Briest (1974, WGer, 141 mins)
Fox and his Friends (Faustrecht der Freiheit) (1974, WGer, 123 mins)
Like a Bird on the Wire (Wie ein Vogel auf dem Draht) (1974, WGer, 44 mins. Co-directed with Christian Hohoff)
Mother Küsters' Trip to Heaven (Mutter Küsters fahrt zum Himmel) (1975, WGer, 120 mins)
Fear of Fear (Angst vor der Angst) (1975, WGer, 88 mins)
I Only Want You to Love Me (Ich will doch nur, daß ihr mich liebt) (1976, WGer, 104 mins)
Satan's Brew (Satansbraten) (1976, WGer, 112 mins)
Chinese Roulette (Chinesisches Roulette) (1976, WGer, 86 mins)
Bolweiser (1977, WGer. Two parts for television screening: 104 mins and 96 mins. Feature film version approved by Fassbinder, 112 mins)
Women in New York (Frauen im New York) (1977, WGer, 111mins)
Despair (Despair - Eine Reise ins Licht) (1977, WGer/France, 119 mins. Script by Tom Stoppard)
Germany in Autumn (Deutschland im Herbst) (1978, WGer. Fassbinder episode 26 mins. Script improvised)
The Marriage of Maria Braun (Die Ehe der Maria Braun) (1978, WGer, 120 mins. Script by Peter Marthesheimer & Pea Frohlich)
In a Year with 13 Moons (In einem Jahr mit 13 Monden) (1978, WGer, 124 mins)
The Third Generation (Die Dritte Generation) (1979, WGer, 110 mins)
Berlin Alexanderplatz (1979-80, WGer. Originally screened for television in 13 parts: 81 mins, 58 mins, 59 mins, 59 mins, 59 mins, 58 mins, 58 mins, 58 mins, 59 mins, 59 mins, 59 mins, 59 mins and 111 mins. Also screened for the cinema over a number of nights.)
Lili Marleen (1980, WGer/Italy, 120 mins)
Lola (1981, WGer, 113 mins)
Theatre in a Trance (1981, WGer, 91 mins)
Veronika Voss (Die Sehnsucht der Veronkia Voss) (1982, WGer, 104 mins. Script by Peter Marthesheimer & Pea Frohlich)
Querelle (1982, WGer/France, 106 mins)

1,000 titles (part 2)

2008-01-28T07:36:00.000-08:00

Well, I finally finished my second batch of titles which took me much longer than the first batch, over a year to be exact, whereas the 1st 1,000 took me under half that. The actual title of the new book is going to be "1,000 titles + 1,000 more" and this again will change once I finish more titles. My eventual goal is to reach 10,000, after which I will actually try to publish the whole fuckin' mess as a REAL physical book with wicked cool design, notes, sketches and photos, maybe even throw in a CD/DVD of some weird shit. When that'll be, who knows, but let's just say I'd love to finish it before the decade is out.

Please wait a bit before downloading, because I'm still updating the design and shit. Not too much longer though... I posted a new cover design above, I don't know if it'll survive either too long, but it sure is better than the last cover, which I did in about 5 minutes...

A few of the new titles can be read on the sidebar of my blog if you scroll down a little. Enjoy...

Burning Witch - Crippled Lucifer re-issue

2008-01-27T08:06:00.000-08:00

EDIT (January 27th, 2008) NOTE: The release date has been pushed back until February 8th). Also coming out the same day on Daymare is a re-issue of Sunn O)))'s first album, VOID which is also getting the 2 disc treatment, Disk 2 being a re-mix by Steven Stapleton, it'll be worth purchasing just for that.

“Crippled Lucifer: 10 Psalms For Our Lord of Light” is finally out on Southern Lord as a 2 CD set, but I'm waiting for the Daymare version which comes out this Friday (Jan.25th), because it apparently has an extra live show which is not on the Southern Lord issue, however, it comes with a special download card with a link to download the show! What the fuck? If there's room, just put it on the disc ya fucking dweebs!!! I don't understand SL sometimes. Anyway, Daymare's gettin' my money.
A bit of history for those of you in the dark: After the breakup of the cult doom/death band Thorr's Hammer in 1995, Stephen O'Malley, Greg Anderson and Jamie Sykes formed Burning Witch. The band then added G. Stuart Dahlquist and vocalist Edgy 59 (Alan Dubin), rounding out their lineup. Anderson left the band and moved to Los Angeles to form Goatsnake. In 1996, the band (w/out Anderson) recorded songs with Steve Albini, which would become the Towers... EP. This collection would actually not see a formal release on 12" until 1998 on Slap A Ham Records. After the sessions for these songs, Sykes left the band and was replaced by B.R.A.D. The sessions that followed the Albini recordings resulted in the Rift.Canyon.Dreams EP, which would prove to be the final recordings by the band, as they broke up soon after the disc was completed. It was released on 12" by Merciless Records. Shortly after disbanding: " Crippled Lucifer" a compilation CD of the two EPs, was released in 1998 by the then new label Southern Lord Records. It was the second release of the label, the first being Thorrs' Hammer. Burning Witch briefly reformed for their last shows in the fall of 1998 after which Edgy 59 left the band. O'Malley reunited with Anderson to form Sunn O))), and Dahlquist joined both in sunn 0))) for their first two albums (The Grimm Robe Demos øø Void) then briefly joined Anderson in Goatsnake for the "Flower of Disease" album. This deluxe double cd re-issue of all Burning Witch recordings will serve as a respectful epitaph for this incredible band. It compiles both the Towers and Rift Canyon Dreams albums which were on the the original Crippled Lucifer release PLUS the following out of print material: "Communion" and "the Bleeder" from: split CD with Goatsnake (Hydra Head Records 2000) OUT OF PRINT and "Rift Canyon Dreams" from :split 12" with Asva (Dos Fatales Records 2004) OUT OF PRINT (remixed by Randall Dunn (sunn, boris, earth) and available for the first time ever on cd).

So as you can see, these recordings are the roots of much of what has grown into the current existence of Southern Lord alumni including Sunn 0))), Khanate, Goatsnake, Teeth Of Lions Rule The Divine etc.. as well as: KTL, Asva, etc.. This deluxe double cd re-issue of all Burning Witch recordings will serve as a respectful epitaph for this incredible band.

Slow swampy down tuned guitars, depression, agony, long songs, your basic doom metal gourmét meal. Be Warned, this is not fuckin' stoner rock like Sleep, Earth or OM. This is pure punishment. Let there be DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!

LICK MY BALLS, THEN LICK 'EM AGAIN...

2008-01-26T21:24:00.000-08:00

This is a much needed re-post of a little message I posted a year or so ago. This goes out to all the STUPID ASSHOLES OF THE WORLD (which is about 90% of the population) I just wish people would use some common sense and have a bit of respect for other people. I nearly get run over on a daily basis by cars going through red lights. I get smacked into from people RUNNING out of buildings without first looking to the left and to the right, running through crowded areas, or just plain running because they're in a hurry for their stupid unimportant business meeting or WHATEVER.

So here's an extra BIG BIG "FUCK YOU!!!" with sugar on top to the following people. You are the worst pieces of human scum there is, the existence of your pitiful life on this earth is not needed and I hope you all hang by your genitals and die a slow agonizing death while I watch and laugh unbcontrollably. You are:

1. Drivers who cannot wait 3 seconds for me to cross the street, even though the signal clearly indicates GO, so you drive about 3 millimeters from me and sometimes even run into me, then have the gall to honk on your horn at me. I do not give a fuck about your "important" meeting or golf game. This especially goes out to you fucking CAB Drivers, you ALL SUCK BALLS!!! Fuck you a million times!!!

2. People who wear headphones while you ride a bicycle or walk (this may be banned soon, but people will still do it anyway)

3. People who drive and talk on your cellular phones at the same time. This includes bikes. This is also being banned soon, but who's gonna follow this law? Who's gonna enforce it? You and I are going to enforce it, goddamnit! Every time you see a person on a bicycle talking on their cellphone, you should get as close as you can to that person and let out the loudest shriek possible, preferably directly in the person' ear, so that he is scared shitless and hopefully crashes his bike and dies. I've tested this a few times and it actually works quite well. I gave one guy a heart attack I think, another person I once sent crashing into a group of old ladies who were furious at the guy. I actually tried to grab a guy's cellphone while he was talking so I could smash it on the ground, but he was too quick.

4. People who butt in front of me when I'm in line waiting for the train

5. People who butt in front of me waiting in line at convenience stores, etc. This especially applies to you OLD FUCKING LADIES!

6. people who fail to look left and right after you RUN out of a building onto the street. Secondly, don't run, casually walk and look both ways, if the coast is clear, sure, go ahead and run.

7. people who run in crowded streets or crowded places

8. people who stand in front of convenience stores (or any store) entrances, therefore blocking the entrance. (I will hit you if you don't move)

9. people who talk loud while riding public transportation

10. women who sit in restaurants, public transportation and other public places putting on their make-up. Do you know how stupid you are? Go to the fucking restroom, nobody wants to see your ugly face and no one wants to smell your shitty cosmetics that were probably tested on animals.

11. people who fail to look out the window of a vehicle before opening the door, thus causing a cyclist or pedestrian to sustain major injuries. My wife experienced this and had extreme back, shoulder and neck pain which required her to visit a chiropractor and massage therapist every week for almost a year, plus numerous hospital visits (all because one person failed to take 2 seconds to look before she opened the door of her truck)

12. people who fail to flush the toilet in public places, so the next person has to deal with your little brown stinky surprise.

13. people who leave your trays and other shit behind at fast food restaurants, cafés, etc.

14. people who stand on sidewalks talking on their phones or whatever blocking human traffic

15. people with pets who don't clean up their shit so that I conveniently step into it

16. people who spit out your chewing gum anywhere else but the garbage bin, so that I can get it stuck to my shoe or my clothing

17. People who stand on the wrong side of escalator when it clearly indicates stand left, walk right. If you go back a few months in the archives, I posted something about a stupid new law that Japan is proposing about people not being able to walk AT ALL on escalators. How stupid is that? All this because a few people complained of being run into when in fact, THEY were in the wrong.

18. people who throw your bikes on top of mine, so that I have to spend 10 minutes fishing it out of a huge messy pile.

19. people who smoke in non-smoking sections when it clearly says NO SMOKING

Chistopher Hitchens' GOD IS NOT GREAT and some other book recommendations

2008-01-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

Just a couple days ago I posted a review of RICHARD DAWKINS' brilliant "THE GOD DELUSION" and I'd like to review another atheist book by Christopher Hitchens, one of the great political shit-disturbers of our time. Another book I'm looking forward to reading by him is THE PORTABLE ATHEIST: Essential Readings for the Nonbeliever.

This is a very different book than Dawkins'. but this book along with Dawkins' are 2 of the best of the recent rash of atheist manifestos. Dawkins' is much more scientific, Christopher Hitchens seems to write with more of a youthful rhetoric spirit that makes reading his book very entertaining indeed, especially once he's got God in the ring. "monotheistic religion is a plagiarism of a plagiarism of a hearsay of a hearsay, of an illusion of an illusion, extending all the way back to a fabrication of a few nonevents."

The main focus of Hitchens' book (and its' real strength) is the grim and bloody pictures he paints of religion's worst face in war and isolated despotic regimes. Hitchens is totally unapologetic about slamming religion. He once described Mother Teresa as "a fanatic, a fundamentalist, and a fraud." Hitchens writes, religion is "violent, irrational, intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive toward children." Hitchens argues that religion is "man-made" and murderous, originating in fear, forced and sustained by brutality.

Hitchens is unforgiving. This is scathing stuff and I think many people might be put off by the overall tone of the book. Just as an example, he slams world-respected Dalai Lama, St. Francis and Gandhi into the ground without an ounce of apology. Hitchens is right that you can be moral without being religious. He is right to trace contemporary sexism and sexual repression to ancient religious beliefs. And his attack on "intelligent design" is not only convincing but very funny. He describes the religious mind as "literal and limited" and the atheistic mind as "ironic and inquiring." I wholeheartedly agree.

My only real complaint about the book is that it often takes a Michael Moore-like approach to the subject, highlighting the evils of religion while not conceding any positive aspects. But given the fact that religious people tend to pigeonhole atheists at best as "lost souls" and "Satan-worshippers", a little counter-aggression and hatred is OK with me.

It's clear Hitchens KNOWS his topic. He was brought up in the Church of England, married into Greek Orthodoxy, was a former Marxist turned conservative who has acted as 'devil's advocate' in the Vatican's beatification of Mother Theresa, and has reported on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and Moslem insurgencies around the world. He is clearly disgusted for what religious belief makes people do.

He has read the Bible, the Torah, the Book of Mormon and the Koran, and finds no evidence that they contain the words of any being other than fallible, parochial and non-contemporary humans, writing well after the events they claim to describe. He is particularly scathing about the Book of Mormon, dictated by Joseph Smith to a scribe behind a curtain who was not permitted to see the golden tablets delivered to Smith personally by the angel Moroni, and given back to the angel without anyone else seeing them. Just to state this is to reveal its absurdity, and yet we have a presidential candidate who avows it.

This is a well-argued, well-researched book that is pretty easy and fun to read. This is one of those books that you wish you could get your religious friends to read. However, most religious people don't even read their own Bibles anymore, let alone anything that challenges their faith. This belongs on EVERY bookshelf.

Here are some other recommended readings:

THE ORIGIN OF THE SPECIES - Charles Darwin (This should need no introduction...)
Another 2 books I've heard much about, but I haven't read yet is Sam Harris' "THE END OF FAITH" and "LETTERS TO A CHRISTIAN NATION".
Nietzsche "THE ANTICHRIST" and "BEYOND GOOD AND EVIL",etc. http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/19322
Bertrand Russell "WHY I AM NOT A CHRISTIAN, AND OTHER ESSAYS" http://www.positiveatheism.org/hist/russ...
"The Atheist Debater's Handbook"
"The Demon Haunted World" Carl Sagan
"GOD: THE FAILED HYPOTHESIS" (Prometheus Books, 2007) by Victor Stenger. A physicist and astronomer considers and demolishes a number of the cosmological arguments for the existence of a supernatural creator, including the recently-in-vogue arguments (the Anthropic Principle or the "fine-tuned universe") that [allegedly] against very high odds to the contrary, various physical laws and constants have values and relationships that make intelligent life possible, and therefore that something must have designed and created this universe as it is.
"DARWINS'S DANGEROUS IDEA" by Daniel C. Dennett (Touchstone / Simon & Schuster 1995). A terrific book that patiently explains, in detail, many of the implications of Darwin's theory of descent with modification / natural selection as it has been tested, re-tested, and refined over the past 148 years.
Stephen Hawking's "A BRIEF HISTORY OF TIME" and the more recent more accessible revision of the above book "A BRIEFER HISTORY OF TIME"

Rufus Wainwright Live: Monday 21 January 2008 at Namba Hatch

2008-01-25T04:35:00.001-08:00

Well, what can say about about Rufus and his Monday night performance at Namba Hatch here in Osaka? It was first time ever to see Rufus Wainwright live and I wasn't disappointed with the performance itself, but I would've like to hear more stuff from Want 1 and Want 2, but he played mostly stuff from his new album RELEASE THE STARS, which I wasn't too impressed with. Live, it sounds great, but that was the first Rufus studio album that I traded a few weeks later. He also did a few selections from his October release, "Rufus Does Judy At Carnegie Hall", a 2 CD set that tries to recreate Judy Garland's performance at the infamous Carnegie Hall. Seems like a gay choice to me, but then again, Rufus is gay, so I guess it's OK.

He changed outfits about 3 times. During the 1st set, he was wearing this over-the-top white Elvis-like outfit with gold and glittery shit all over it, then he came out in the 2nd set wearing a green schoolboy uniform, r maybe it was a gay lumberjack uniform, I'm not quite sure actually. If he would've been wearing lime green tights and a green hat with a feather in it, he could've passed as Peter Pan. Then for the encore he wore black stockings, high heels and from the waist up he was wearing a penguin-type suit. How GAY!

Rufus can be a bit overly flamboyant about his gayness, kinda like Elton John, but I can excuse it because he's such a damn good singer/songwriter and performer. Doesn't surprise me, I mean, his whole family is famous, his mother Kate McGarrigle (half of the now famous folk duo of Kate and Anna McGarrigle), his dad Loudon Wainwright and now his sister, Martha, who I still haven't heard, but look forward to hearing.

The show was about 2 hours, good length, tickets were way too expensive in my opinion at 7,000 yen (about 70 bucks). But that's Japan. Shit, you pay 25 or 30 bucks just to see a minor metal act in this country.

By the way, RELEASE THE STARS is one of the WORST album covers I've ever seen.

THE GOD DELUSION: by Richard Dawkins

2008-01-24T06:30:00.000-08:00

If you're not an atheist yet, then you SHOULD be. And there are countless reasons why. These 2 books that I'm read recently and am about to briefly review here have confirmed in my mind that without a doubt, there is no stinking GOD and that religion IS, as Christopher Hitchens puts it in the sub-title of his book, POISON that destroys EVERYTHING. Free yourself from the religion trap now, it's an unnecessary prison and these 2 essential books are the life raft to guide you OUT of that prison and help you realize what a crock of shit GOD is.

An amazon reviewer, Harvey Ardman, put it like this:

"It won't convert many believers, not because it is wrong--it isn't--and not because it isn't well-written--it is--but because whatever else you can say about faith, it isn't easily extinguished. For those who have it, it is the only life raft on a limitless ocean. Those who don't have learned how to swim, or plan to. "

But if you ARE on of these that HAVE THE FAITH, be goddamned sure that you are ready to have it tested. I'm sure that most of the religious readers of this book will be unswayed from their opinions. In my experience, trying to argue with a religious person, especially Christian, is like talking to a wall, they're the most stubborn and snobby people on the face of the earth. Belief unquestioned is worthless, but Dawkins makes such a powerful and compelling argument for the non-existence of God that it really seems, to me, to leave very little room for doubt.

As a kid, I was sent to church at least 2 or 3 Sundays a month from when I was 6 until I was 13 or 14. After that, I refused to go to church anymore, except for a few exceptions out of respect for my mother or grandparents, like Christmas or Easter, special holidays and that kind of shit. From then until I was about 24 or 25, I was one of those fence -sitters (agnostic) but after meeting some key people and reading and watching a lot on the subject, especially science books, science documentaries, etc, I knew that there had to be another answer. If you put the basic pieces together, it's not that hard to imagine.

Think about real hard for a few minutes, a divine GOD who precisely designed everything in the vast universe and multiverse? Right down to every detail, like the eyes on very tiny bugs that we can't even see without a microscope? In 7 days? The only alternative could only be, of course, natural selection, as originally hypothesized and explained very well and very logically by Charles Darwin. This "GOD" that is supposed to love us will stab us in the back and send us to the eternal fires of hell if we get slightly out of line and not worship him every Sunday. It's simple, science has given us answers and solutions to many things and religion has not explained a thing that's even remotely believable. Not ONE FUCKIN' Thing. You'd think someone as important as GOD would have made it into the history books. The only record we have of his existence is the HOLY BIBLE, and everything in the modern New Testament Bible has been plagiarized from other sources from older religions. If you want the full story on this, watch Part 1 of Zeitgeist, or better yet, read the transcript HERE:

Evolution is not so hard to understand really, the basic fundamental principles. I don't consider myself to be a genius in any way, I'm actually quite stupid when it comes to practical everyday things. Anyway, we're not talking general relativity with shitloads of equations. It’s pretty simple stuff, really. But there ARE a few myths that have to be debunked. The most common is that evolution is just an random accident. It's not. Dawkins’ definition of evolution is a useful one: random mutations plus nonrandom cumulative selection. The natural selection part occurs with that cumulative selection — that’s where direction comes in. If it was random, we wouldn’t be here.

The other common myth is that we came from monkeys or great apes. I don't think that's true. Apes, monkeys and humans all came from a common ancestor millions of years ago. Evolution and natural selection require very careful balancing, so I don't think the famous progress ladder theory is right anymore like I used to.

Finally, the big question:What meaning does the universe have? What is our purpose? NOTHING. A star is just a blob of plasma, just atoms doing what they do under heat and pressure, nothing more, nothing less. Faith never entered the picture. So the meaning that's really important is what we put into life and what we make our life. GOD has nothing to do with "purpose" or "meaning" other than waiting around for some afterlife that may or may not be there. All the more reason to make this life a meaningful and fulfilling one.

I've been a proud atheist for about 10 years, but until reading this book, I hadn't fully grasped all the issues. This book is just an extension of what I've always been thinking about for years, but couldn't express in words. Now someone has, and I'm mighty thankful to Richard Dawkins for that. I just hope more people read it. I fear for most readers of the other side, this is a waste of time.

It's impossible to get into every issue that the book covers, so if I've sparked your curiosity even a little, pick up the book and read it. Read it twice, three times, absorb it, then pass it on to someone who may be sitting on the fence. Because I sincerely believe that we will never progress until religion is crushed, along with the corrupt political systems that supports religion.

The following dialogue is from BAD BOY BUBBY, and Australian film by Rolf de Heer

The Scientist: [plays organ music in church]
Bubby: Jesus can see everything I do... and he's going to beat me brainless!
The Scientist: Come down.
[Scene change; they are in a factory]
The Scientist: You see, no one's going to help you Bubby, because there isn't anybody out there to do it. No one. We're all just complicated arrangements of atoms and subatomic particles - we don't live. But our atoms do move about in such a way as to give us identity and consciousness. We don't die; our atoms just rearrange themselves. There is no God. There can be no God; it's ridiculous to think in terms of a superior being. An inferior being, maybe, because we, we who don't even exist, we arrange our lives with more order and harmony than God ever arranged the earth. We measure; we plot; we create wonderful new things. We are the architects of our own existence. What a lunatic concept to bow down before a God who slaughters millions of innocent children, slowly and agonizingly starves them to death, beats them, tortures them, rejects them. What folly to even think that we should not insult such a God, damn him, think him out of existence. It is our duty to think God out of existence. It is our duty to insult him. Fuck you, God! Strike me down if you dare, you tyrant, you non-existent fraud! It is the duty of all human beings to think God out of existence. Then we have a future. Because then - and only then - do we take full responsibility for who we are. And that's what you must do, Bubby: think God out of existence; take responsibility for who you are.

Another atheist book which I will review on here is Christopher Hitchen's "GOD IS NOT GREAT: How Religion Poisons Everything", which is a much less scientific book than Dawkin's book. It deals more with the unnecessary wars and violence throughout history as a result of different religions and their ridiculous beliefs and customs. Very interesting read.

Didn't This Guy's Mom Ever Tell Him Not to Bite Blasting Caps?

2008-01-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

This photo has haunted me for a long time. This image has been stamped in my brain ever since I found it on Rotten.com about 9 years ago and will probably never leave. Every time I look at this photo, I wonder what was going through this man's brain before and after he bit that blasting cap and what was he thinking when this shot was taken? Apparently, this guy survived, but nobody has any photo evidence of what he looks like today after the massive reconstruction he underwent. This photo has since been taken off rotten.com, because the guy threatened to sue, but I was lucky enough to stumble across it again on one of my old archive CD's. The original story is now quite legendary and he was the 2nd Runner up in the 1997 DARWIN AWARDS.

"Man loses face at party." A man at a West Virginia party (probably related to the winner last year, a man in Arkansas who used the .22 bullet to replace the fuse in his pickup truck) popped a blasting cap into his mouth and bit down, triggering an explosion that blew off his lips, teeth, and tongue. Jerry Stromyer, 24, of Kincaid, bit the blasting cap as a prank during the party late Tuesday night, said Cpl. M.D. Payne. "Another man had it in an aquarium hooked to a battery and was trying to explode it. It wouldn't go off and this guy said I'll show you how to set it off." He put it into his mouth, bit down and it blew all his teeth out and his lips and tongue off, Payne said. Stromyer was listed in guarded condition Wednesday with extensive facial injuries, according to a spokesperson at Charleston Area Medical Division. "I just can't imagine anyone doing something like that," Payne said.

Yes, this is the true account of The 2nd runner-up account of a lad who succeeded in his attempt to set off a blasting cap by biting down on it is another strange-yet-true tale. On 18 March 1986, a 24-year-old man named Jerry Stromyer did indeed blow off his lips, teeth and tongue in this manner.

All I can say is, I wish I would've been there. What a complete moron...

The Amazing Fart Man

2008-01-23T05:37:00.001-08:00

This is how fucked up TV has become in the last few years. Maybe ROTTEN MAN stands a chance, Ben Wilson and I have to film a pilot once I get my ass back to Vancouver. Beat that shit, CHURKO!

I'm Lovin' It!

2008-01-22T06:27:00.000-08:00

I did these fake McDonald's ads a number of months ago just for the hell of it and posted them on Facebook but no one else outside the my small community of Facebook friends has seen them until now. I just got bored one day and was looking at one of the McDonald's bag designs and I thought I would do some of my own. A few people said I should send them to Kalle Lasn at Adbusters, but I think they're so tasteless that even Adbusters wouldn't run them. So anyway, here they are in all their sick and crude glory for all to enjoy.

I have tons of other ideas for mock ad campaigns on the back burner, including the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, Nike, KFC, GAP, United Colors of Benetton, KODAK, Wendy's, and much more but haven't taken the time to execute them yet, some of them involve quite elaborate and expensive photo shoots.

Oh YES kiddies, I have plans, very special plans for this silly little world. No corporation will be safe! Boo Ha Ha Ha... no seriously, if things are taken too far, I may get sued or a term in jail, so I'd better restrain a little bit at least.

I didn't specifically target McDonalds, I just think the I'm Lovin' It campaign has gotten worn out, it's time for something new like "I'm Bulbous!!!" or "Barf it Up!!!"

I shamefully admit that I DO eat at McDonald's once in a while, and I feel guilty as hell about it. There's something about those Big Mac's and the crappy feeling they give me like I just ate a giant jar of lard...

Blast from the past

2008-01-22T06:03:00.000-08:00

Fuck. These are funny. Someone posted these on Facebook and I can't believe they are the same person. These were all taken in design college, probably 1992-93 I guess. College. What a fun time. Getting sloshed every weekend in PEI, going to Myron's pub, then after hanging out out at Subway, too drunk to finish our subs. This doesn't seem that long ago but I guess it was. I can't believe how fucking skinny I was. Now I have a bulbous ass. Really bulbous and gettin' bulbouser by the minute. I know that's not grammatically correct, but hey, I don't see no grammar police, so I'll say it like that. Ha.

Nothing much has changed since then, except I don't drink anymore, I'm married and I never go out, but I'm still a geek collector, then it was comics, now it's CD's, DVD's and design books. It was funny to look at some of my design shit when I was home last winter. I did this poster titled BEGINNINGS, which was supposed to be a poster introducing the first year student's artwork and I think my poster was the worst. I should've scanned it or taken a photo of it to post here. It was a drawing I did of this hellspawn creature coming outta hell, looked like a demo cover for a really bad black metal band, complete with hand-done type which looked like dripping blood or something melting. Everyone in my class thought I was completely insane.

It's amazing to look back at that time and then look at my shit now and see how far I've progressed. It's also funny that I don't have 1 goddamn piece of corporate work in 10 years of working in the design world that I'm happy with. It's all shit, done for corporate suit-and-tie clients with very narrow and self-sastifying objectives. That's advertising!

Anyway, enjoy the pictures.

Ernie and Bert go BRUTAL

2008-01-21T15:54:00.001-08:00

This is a lesson in grindcore from the scum of Sesame Street! Die! Tickle Me Asshole! Die! Die! Die!

Hairy Chest = Sexual Harassment?

2008-01-20T05:17:00.000-08:00

OK. This recent "Hairy Chest/Naked Man/Sexually Harrassing/Disgusting Festival Man" or however you want to twist it has gone too fuckn' far. This controversy is a classic example of how the Japanese media takes one little miniscule, unimportant molecule of an issue and blows it up into a worldwide debate.

First, read the original MAINICHI News story here.

As most of you with a straight head would agree, this is just completely fucked and it shows how fucking spineless JR Rail is and how desperate the media is for stories. If anything, the poster is quite funny, the expression on the guy's face gives me quite a chuckle. But I find it about as offensive as a garden hose.

OK, I can point out a million things that would be considered more "offensive" and "sexually harassing" than this poster. How about the fact that you can legally buy pretty racy spank books of 10 year bikini chicks in any idol shop in the country. How about the fact that I get a mountain of unwanted porn related fliers in my fucking mailbox every year. How about the fact that you can walk in any convenience store and see extremely big breasted idols on normal weekly magazine covers, clearly on display. How's about the noise from Pachinko parlors? How about the large number of police officers raping women recently?

I find the smell of the pollution in Shinsaibashi, Namba, Umeda and pretty much every other area of Osaka very very offensive. I find it offensive that half the female population has to spend every 5 minutes looking in the mirror checking their make-up on the train or in public, also stinking up the air with their shitty perfume. I find it very offensive how much a public servant makes in a year.

I have a mustache and beard. AND CHEST HAIR. Am I offensive???.......er . . ... Wait. Don't answer that question.

Anyway, I can't see how a POSTER qualifies as sexual harassment anyway. Uhh, if I'm not mistaken "harass" is an action verb and if I look up SEXUAL HARASSMENT in the dictionary it says 1. comments about sex, physical contact, etc. usually that happens at work, that a person finds annoying and offensive 2. the repeated making of sexual advances or obscene remarks to a person, especially in a workplace. As far as I know, the guy in the poster did not sexually harass anyone. The guy reportedly apologized on TV about his offensive chest.

Maybe the reason they banned it is because the guy in the front looks like he's taking one up the poop chute, hence the strange facial expression...

THEY CALL ME TRINITY / TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME

2008-01-18T17:51:00.001-08:00

I'm extremely happy that these 2 classic Terence Hill/Bud Spencer spaghetti westerns have finally been released domestically in decent versions. THEY CALL ME TRINITY and the follow up TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME have been released umpteen dozen times in inferior versions ranging from absolute unwatchable crap to not-so-bad-not-so-good crappy version. It's a goddamn mystery why anyone hadn't got around to it sooner, especially since these are supposed to be 2 of the most successful and highest grossing films of all time in the spaghetti western genre. Apparently TRINITY IS STILL MY NAME made twice as much as THE GOOD, THE BAD AND UGLY at the box office.

It's nice to see them FINALLY mastered from the original negatives. I've never seen these films look so good. You can buy 'em seperately, but you may as well just get the Twin Pack, put out by Hen's Tooth Video late last year. These films are very special to me. The first time I watched these 2 films, I was only a young wipper snapper about 14 or 15, my dad had rented them on video, and I remember my dad laughing like a hyena at some of the scenes. I did too.

I'm sure this pair of slapstick clowns need no introduction to some of you, but for the uninitiated, these 2 films made Bud Spencer and Terence Hill overnight international superstars, ushering a 25 year association for the 2 actors. They went on to work with some of the most famous Italian directors in the biz, most notably Sergio Leone (Terence Hill starred in the brilliant MY NAME IS NOBODY), Sergio Corbucci and Luchino Visconti. Actually, It's fuckin' crazy how many films they made together. If you want to get an idea of just how many films they made, you should check out http://www.xs4all.nl/~hopmans/Budhill.htm, the interface is terrible but the info within very useful. Also, there's an international site for Terence Hill at http://www.terencehill.com/

If you're even remotely interested in the spaghetti western genre, you can't miss these 2 ground-breaking films.

MacBook Air? Yeah, that's about all it is. Air.

2008-01-17T18:37:00.000-08:00

What the fuck is this? Looks cool, nice and sleek design, the world's thinnest notebook. Great, great, great. But where's the beef? No CD/DVD combo drive. What's a laptop without that? The ad is exactly right. Stick it in an envelope and mail it to someone. Anyone. They want us to hook up a DVD drive on the plane if we wanna watch a movie? Put a CD/DVD reader/writer and MAYBE I'll buy one.

To me, this is one more step Steve Jobs is taking to sell more of his stupid i-Pods and for people to start embracing mp3 technology more. Well, I ain't going for it. You rat fink bastards can HAVE your stinking i-Pods! Fuck mp3's!!!! I'd rather lug my entire CD collection around on the bus or plane (cases and artwork included) than buy one of those monstrosities. i-Pods are one of the reasons musicians don't make money anymore. We're entering the download age and let me tell ya, I DON'T LIKE IT!!! If I sound old and not "down with the scene" well FUCK YA! Every time I see an i-Pod ai wanna smash it on the ground. My fucking wife even wants to buy one and I keep telling her NO!

Yes, I download like everyone else, but if I like what I hear I go out and buy it, especially if it's an independent artist. YES, I BUY THE CD! You know why? I'm an artist, and a total music geek collector and movie collector. I like to look at the liner notes, appreciate the cover art (not a fucking jpg of the cover art), smell the nice printing job, I like to get the whole experience. i-Pods and mp3's are slowly DESTROYING that experience. I shudder to think about when I have kids, are they gonna be reading novels and magazines on a screen? Are they gonna be just downloading shit and not browsing through record stores? Are record stores even gonna exist in 10 years?

Anyway, NO, I will never get rid of my books, records, CD's or DVD's and burn my CD collection to mp3 format. NEVER! Even if CD players become obsolete, I'll have to go to the antique shop and pick one up in 40 years I guess.

Call me old fashioned, I couldn't give a cold dead monkey's spunk. i-Pod's and mp3's are evil. EVIL. Crap on you for owning one. MacBook Air? Phooey! Double Phooey...

JAPAN: The air conditioned nightmare

2008-01-15T19:24:00.000-08:00

I'd like to address something that I think needs addressing and that I believe I ranted about a long time ago, perhaps last winter. That is, about the excessive amount of air conditioning in Japan.

I live in Kansai, and it seems to be the worst here, although everywhere i go, it's a fucking air conditioned nightmare. I can't take public transportation without sweating my balls off. I can't go inside a store, mall, or an other public place without the heat being blasted so high that I have to remove half my clothing to feel even remotely comfortable. Even in open outside ares like train platforms, the heat's blasted to make people feel more "comfortable".

First of all, it's not really that cold. You want to experience real cold, go to Russia, or Canada in the dead of January. Second, people are already dressed for the weather. Actually, people are wearing winter clothing as early as September or October, when the temperature is still sweltering hot and humid in most places in this country. Third, it's a big fucking waste of money. Japan prides itself recently on "Warm Biz" which is supposed to be get people to be more environmentally conscious and wear an extra later or 2 rather than using heat. What the fuck is the point? None.

Maybe it's just me. Maybe I have too much fat and I sweat too easily. But it seems to me that people care more about showing off their latest winter fashions than being comfortable anyway, so I'm wasting my breath.

Some days I get so furious that I feel like stripping off all my duds right on a crowded train and fanning myself with a sensu (Japanese folding fan) just to prove a point. But my point would be completely ignored, because even if I WAS naked, people would turn a blind eye to it. People are fucking pussies in this country and they don't want anyone invading their comfortable little world for fear that they might have to get involved. To prove this point, I recently watched one of those public sex porn videos featuring Ran Monbu, who's pretty famous. Anyway, their are basically 4 parts to the movie. Part 1 takes place in a convenience store. Ran Monbu is filmed pissing into an empty cup ramen bowl, then she sucks a guy's dick until he blows his load, all the while people are just walking around like nothing is happening.

The next scene is in a public phone booth, and actually a few guys stop and watch for a few seconds, but quickly move on. The last (and best) scene is on a crowded train. Ran Monbu plays with herself with a vibrator, then starts kissing another girl and feeling he tits for a few minutes, then if that's not enough, she starts sucking a guy off, then the guy is doin' er doggy style until he finally drops a big one all over her face. ON A CROWDED TRAIN!!!!! With little to NO reaction from anyone. There's people literally inches away reading the paper and shit. How many other countries could this happen but Japan?

Anyway, I digress from my original rant. The excessive air conditioning is not necessary, in my opinion. I feel strongly enough about it to actually petition, but my efforts would probably be in vain.

After enduring roughly 8 months of warm weather (4 or 5 months of which is intolerably hot and sticky), I look forward to the fall and the winter, and YES, I look forward to the COLD! but everywhere you go in Japan, they gotta make it feel like summer all year round.

Police want ban on using mobile phones while riding bicycles: a very sensible idea...

2007-12-27T18:12:00.000-08:00

http://mdn.mainichi.jp/national/news/20071227p2a00m0na014000c.html

Well, I'm happy to read the above article. This is about a report filed on Thursday that proposes banning cyclists from pedaling while: using a mobile phone; listening to music with headphones on; and randomly ringing the bell to avoid trouble with others. A very good idea i think. But even if this law is passed, how many policemen will strictly enforce this law? And how many people will even comply with the law?

I think it they should pass another law to go along with this one. Anyone talking on a cellphone, listening to music, or ringing their bell for no good reason should be SEVERELY BEATEN TO DEATH AND ANALLY RAPED WITH A BICYCLE PUMP. I don't know how many times I've been riding my bike, and some moron nearly crashes into me because he's got his head down, on his phone, not paying attention to where he's going. It happens to me on a daily basis almost. The other type of people I hate are the ones who are going through a red light and nearly cause an accident. Osaka has to be the worst place for bad motorists and cyclists in the world. Just driving my bike in one hour, I usually encounter 4 or 5 times where someone nearly causes a major accident because they're talking on their cellphone or their buried under their headphones and they can't hear what's going on.

Bottom line is this. If you're going to go out in a crowded public area, you have to be able to use all your senses and be aware of other people around you. So even if you're walking and listening to music, that's rude in my opinion.

Another proposed ban they were talking about not too long ago is walking on escalators. Now this one is just plain ridiculous. In Osaka, the rule is stand right, walk left. Easy, right? But no, there's always the idiot who doesn't get the program and stands on the left, blocking people who are trying to get by.

Well, apparently there have been a few cases of people getting pushed or shoved because they didn't comply with these simple rules. One woman said a guy shoved her kid out of the way saying something equivalent to "Get the fuck out of the way!" in Japanese. Well, in my opinion, he was a bit out of line, he should've said excuse me a few times first, then if she didn't move, push through by all means.

Anyway, people should fucking know better than to just stand on the escalator. Escalators were invented for a few reasons, 1. to save time and 2. to make it easier for the elderly who have a hard time climbing stairs. They were not meant for lazy assholes. So get the fuck out the way next time.

Now that we're on the subject of dangerous cyclists, let me address one of the most dangerous groups of all cyclists: Old People. I think there's more accidents caused by senile old farts who just don't know how to fuckin' drive because they're too old. Osaka's Obaachan are the absolute worst. They are a fucking menace to society. They go through red lights, they incessantly ring their bells at people, they always cut you off and never apologize and they pretty much think the whole road is theirs, ignoring every road rule in the book. I think if you're past 70 at least, you shouldn't be on a bicycle.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

2007-11-22T07:04:00.000-08:00

I've been discovering so much new metal recently that I decided to just talk about all of them in one post instead of individually reviewing them.

As I mentioned in my last post, I've recently been getting into the doom band Sunn O))) as well as a few other bands. After hearing a slew of Sunn O))) material in the past few weeks, i've still decided that the essential is still BLACK ONE. But all their releases seem to have something to draw me in. I haven't listened to WHITE 1 yet in depth, I've just skimmed it, and it sounds like it's worth diving into. I've already listened to WHITE 2 twice, and it's a good one, it's worth it just for the last track "Decay2". I have the Japanese 3-CD edition of this, and apparently, the 2nd and 3rd disc was originally released on Archive as a double disc set that was only sold at shows. Some people were reportedly paying 100 bucks for the original. Well, sadly, it's not that interesting actually, but Sunn O))) freaks would probably burn me at the stake for saying so. Anyway, enough about Sunn O))). I talked about them enough in my last post.

Let's move on to KHANATE, which features Stephen O'Malley from Sunn O))) on guitar, James Plotkin (Atomsmasher) on bass and electronics, Alan Dubin (O.L.D., Burning Witch) and Tim Wyskida (unknown to me until now). I think I like this band MORE than Sunn O))). This shit gets right under your skin and makes for quite a disturbing, uncomfortable listening experience. The vocals of Alan Dubin remind of an extremely pissed off Bon Scott (old AC/DC) spit through an assortment of effects to make it sound like a possessed, melting robot. The music itself is painfully slow and brutal, swallowing you in its' vast abyss of darkness and insanity. The closest thing to this I've heard to this kind of brutality is SWANS - Cop/Young God era or HENRY ROLLINS' Hard Volume. FOETUS - Thaw also comes to mind, so if you're into any of those albums, you'll love this. This is an entirely different beast of the doom genre, pretty much as far away from formula as you could get. These are not really "songs" in the conventional sense, but torture experiments that test the patience of even the most forgiving human beings. I've only got 2 of their CD's, I picked up THINGS VIRAL first, then their 1st self-titled CD. It's hard to pick which one I like better, but I think I'd have to say their first has been getting more play than THINGS VIRAL. I have yet to pick up their "EP" titled CAPTURE AND RELEASE (2 songs almost clocking in at 40 minutes is an EP!!??). The Japanese pressing includes a DVD, so I'm looking forward to getting that. I have the Japanese pressings of the 1ST and THINGS VIRAL and they both include a bonus disc with lots of alternate versions of tunes from both albums. So if you're sick and tired of the so-called "Nu-Metal" you might want to try these guys out. Buy it and throw a party, see how long it takes for the party to split after slapping this on.

The next release I'm gonna briefly review the new BORIS/MERZBOW live collaboration titled DOCK DREAM. This is not the 1st time these 2 giants have collaborated. There have been a number of releases as well as performances, most notably and recently, the brilliant SUN BAKED SNOW CAVE. I'm not gonna say much about this. Of course it's good, but is is it necessary? Hmmmm. Disc 1 is my personal favorite out of the 2 discs, containing more of their longer, more darker material mostly, with an awesome 35-minute version of FEEDBACKER, one of my favorite BORIS pieces. The 2nd disc contains more of their more shorter, rockin' out balls to the wall tracks off PINK, AKUMA NO UTA, another long track, from DRONEVIL and some other short ones. The choice of material is good, but I actually prefer the live material from the ARCHIVE series. Merzbow adds his sound nicely, not overdoing it. BORIS fans will be all over this of course, and likely there'll be about 10 different versions of it before the year closes out. The artwork and package, by Shizu (who I don't know) and Fangsanalsatan respectively is really amazing. This IS a good solid live album by 2 legends of noise/psych and I'm sure it will not disappoint fans of either band.

The Next CD is a split from 2 well-know doom bands, GOATSNAKE and BURNING WITCH (featuring Alan Dubin from KHANATE). This is actually getting pretty pretty hard to find, so I was lucky to find it. Burning Witch only put out a few 12" EP's, and couple splits, including this one with GOATSNAKE, the other split with ASVA, who I haven't checked out yet. but want to. Well, even though there are only 2 tracks on this split by Burning Witch, Dubin's vocals are pretty different than KHANATE. He uses more of a shrieky type voice with this band, whereas his vocals with KHANATE are far more angry and scary, with more effects and variation. The 2 tracks on here don't disappoint though, they're chunky as hell. The other 2 tracks by GOATSNAKE are good too, but i prefer the intensity and slightly more uncomfortable feeling of Burning Witch. GOATSNAKE sound very much like ST. VITUS, and it's not surprising since one of the tracks is actually a St. Vitus cover song. Definitely worth picking up, but not worth the collector prices it's going for on ebay, which are anywhere from 30 bucks to 100 bucks.

On to the last band and CD I'll mention in this post. CULT OF LUNA's Somewhere along the highway. My friend recommended this to me a few weeks ago, so I decided to take a chance on it and pick it up after reading a few reviews of it. I gotta say, it's pretty amazing stuff. It really reminds of a cross between GODSPEED YOU BLACK EMPEROR and OLD MAN GLOOM, mixed with some other doom and prog rock influences. Apparently it was recorded in some fuckin' barn in the middle of nowhere in 7 days. It wasn't at all what i was expecting. Coming from Sweden, I was expecting it to be a much darker affair, washed in black metal synth and too much reverb, and overly silly vocals, but what i got was a beautiful, hypnotic affair with many surprises and just plain excellent songwriting, tight compositions with the right blend of heaviness and melody. Maybe this could quite possibly be a doom version of Dream Theater. Yes, it's that good, and I'm sure repeated listens will reap even more rewards. Not sure who this LUNA dude is though... I just like the music.

Sunn O))) - Black One

2007-11-08T18:18:00.000-08:00

Black One. Fuckin' right it is. This is not mere black metal, my friends, this is a terrifying journey into outer reaches of hell without even the slightest glimpse of hope or light coming in to save you from it all. This is as cold and bleak as it gets. After the first couple of tracks, you'll be scared. After about half an hour as the sound has slowly enveloped you, it becomes emotionally damaging. Just picture a baby seal getting clubbed to death or a dog screeching as its skin is being slowly boiled off and you might get some picture of how this might sound. In the words of the immortal Pinhead from Hellraiser, this will TEEEAAARRR YOOUURR SOOOUULLL APAAAAAART!!!!

My first introduction to Sunn O))) was the collaboration with BORIS called ALTAR. That was good too, but by no means either band's best output. This was my first "real" introduction to Sunn O))) and I still think it's their best and if you only pick up one album by them, this should be it. So far, I've heard this, White 2 (which is also great), Flight of the Behemoth and Oracle. I've only listened to Flight of the Behemoth once and I think that one's gonna have to grow on me. This is not stuff to listen to breakfast to, so I doubt it'll be frequenting my CD player. It's more like one of those albums you dig out once every few months and revel in it's darkness and ponder about life itself. But Black One is different. Despite being as punishing as it is, there's also something about it that brings me back for repeated listenings quite often.

I haven't heard the Grimmrobe demos or White 1 yet, but I heard Grimmrobes is not really worth picking up so I'll probably leave that one.

I don't consider myself a big fan of doom, I just like a few of the bands. There are so many bands it's impossible to listen to everything, and I'm into so many more kinds of music. Anyway, if I listened to nothing but doom and black metal, I might start growing claws. But I've recently been getting into these guys, Khanate, Burning Witch, Boris, Beherit and a few other bands of this genre.

Also check out the recent BORIS/MERZBOW - Rock Dream, and KHANATE's "Things Viral" both of which I will probably review shortly.

SODOM - The Final Sign of Evil

2007-10-31T20:57:00.000-07:00

Fuckin' rights!!! Sodom decided to revisit their early days on their latest album, The Final Sign Of Evil, which is a re-recording of the band's 1984 EP In The Sign Of Evil along with 8 more tracks that were originally written for what was supposed to be a full album, not just an EP. The full album was never released because their label at the time didn't give them the opportunity to finish it because they didn't like the 4 songs they heard, so they just released it as a 4-song EP. Shame shame shame.

Vocalist/bassist Tom Angelripper even brought back the band's original drummer Chris Dudek (Witchhunter) and guitarist Josef "Peppi" Dominic (Grave Violator) for this CD. The production on the album was done by the band's webmaster, I don't know why. But it sounds like it was recorded on a 4-track with bad gear back in 1984. It's truly raw, but also very effective. I love all the 80's thrash bands with horrible production. It sounds like mud, but that's how thrash was meant to sound, in my opinion. I'm so glad they didn't decide to make them sound modern, like most bands would.

The re-done songs from the original EP hold up very well, and are pretty much like the originals. The new material good stuff with some dirge-like tunes. Angelripper's harsh broken-glass vocals and the cheesy pitching effects are just like he used to use on "Evil" and "Obsessed by Cruelty".

If you're a Sodom fan or love 80's thrash in general, you'll definitely need this. Here's hoping they will also do a re-record of Obsessed by Cruelty.

Tourettes Guy!!!

2007-10-31T20:52:00.001-07:00

I don't know if this guy is for real or not, but this is sure some funny (and at the same time, disturbing) stuff. I've heard that he WAS really diagnosed with Tourettes Syndrome but he just fakes these videos to make people aware of Tourettes in hopes they will make a donation. This video is a compilation of the "best of", so if you wanna see everything, go to the site: http//www.tourettesguy.com. The site is actually down at the moment, but it should be up again soon.

Another thing I just learned is that he apparently died after being invloved in a bad car accident. He had been out of the hospital for a couple of days staying with a friend when he suffered some medical complications. He just passed away during the night.

Also, I heard that the dudes who run the Tourettesguy site be releasing all the videos along with one last new video in a high quality DVD format in memory of Danny. This DVD will be free to download, but you will also be able to purchase a physical copy. All proceeds from the DVD will go to Danny's family.

Here's a LINK to samples of his raging and swearing in case you wanna stick em in a song or something.

piss on you

2007-10-27T19:15:00.001-07:00

I love this video. The Chapelle Show is pure genius.

BLOODCOUNT - Seconds

2007-10-15T19:14:00.000-07:00

This is a triple disc set which captures both the quartet and quintet version of Bloodcount. I've finally had time to digest it so I guess I'm ready to review it. Listened to the discs twice, and the stand-out disc for me is the first one, which contains 3 lengthy compositions, SCRAP METAL, YES, DEAR and MR. JOHNSON. Great production, very clean, but yet not too polished. Michael Formanek shines on both discs, and the interplay between Tim and Chris Speed is magic.

The second live disc contains more bluesy groove-oriented compositions, and is actually quite accessible for Tim Berne. I'm a bit disappointed that Marc Ducret is only on the DVD and not the other CD's, but that's no biggie.

The DVD is a little disappointing in my opinion, it's badly shot and it gives me a fucking headache looking if I stare at it too long. It's too shaky in most places and there's way too many annoying close-ups. It's mostly b/w with some color sequences of the band running around Paris. There's a few places where it looks like very short clips of erotic movies were thrown in for good measure. Why, I don't know.I think I'll extract the audio and just listen to the music, which is awesome. Marc Ducret really fuckin' rips it up on this version on EYE CONTACT.

As always, great package design Steve Byram, this time not his usual scribblings and fuckery but a more minimalist Byram. Looks like he's been playing with Adobe Illustrator, gettin' more digital and shit on us.

More good news is that Bloodcount is going to tour with some new material, which means we may see some future Bloodcount releases. let's hope so. For now, we have a nice blast from the past to tide us over until the next Bloodcount meal...

Miles Davis Complete On The Corner

2007-10-11T00:01:00.001-07:00

Jesus, there's just a ton of great sets coming out this month. Soon after I found out about the Glenn Gould 80-CD "complete" original jacket collection, I found out that Columbia/Legacy is laying yet another Miles Davis boxset on us, this time, THE COMPLETE ON THE CORNER sessions. Well, I've already read many good things and bad things about it.

Bad first. The price. They have it retailed at 140 U.S. dollars on Amazon. Fuck. Double FUCK. Is that necessary??? It's only 6 discs, so when you do the math, it's about 23 bucks a disc? C'mon.......... That's waaaaaaay too much. The next bummer which I read about is that it has the worst liner notes of any Miles Davis Box. The next bummer is that that it contains music already released. So really, there is not a great deal of new material. This collection SHOULD be called The Complete 'On The Corner' and 'Get Up With It' Sessions, because all the songs from that 1974 release are here, too. Even some stuff from Big Fun, is on here here, via the twenty-one minute epic, "Ife."

Nevertheless, I still want to get this set. Great design, by the look of the pictures I've seen already (as with all the Columbia/Legacy Miles boxes). I haven't seen it in stores yet though. I'm gonna wait for the price to drop however, or a good deal on ebay. By the way, this apparently THE LAST deluxe box that they will release, so I'm a little relieved at that. I'm always thinking "What are they gonna put out next??!!!" this is it, from this label anyway. i don't think THE CELLAR DOOR SESSIONS counted as a COLUMBIA/LEGACY release, because there's no number on the set. For example, The JACK JOHNSON set was number 7, ON THE CORNER is number 8. THE CELLAR DOOR SESSIONS was released between those boxes.

Sooooo, I don't have this set yet, but I am looking forward to getting it, at which time I'll try and review it here. I do own the original CD of ON THE CORNER, but I've never owned GET UP WITH IT, nor have I heard that one, so I can guess that I've heard about 30 to 40 % of the material that this set covers. I DO know that ON THE CORNER is considered by many to be the most controversial of his career, many calling it Miles "sell-out" album at the time of its' original release. I hardly think so. This album, in addition to Miles' other albums around the same period, was the blueprint for so-called "funk jazz" that followed it and continues to this day. If you want to hear Miles "sell-out", pick up Doo Bop", one of his worst albums, but still not that bad.

Glenn Gould Complete Original Jacket Collection

2007-10-04T19:10:00.000-07:00

Holy Shit, I can't believe this is out. A pretty good description of it can be found here or check the Glenn Gould Foundation site for more information.

The only thing is, I don't see any mention of the CBC radio broadcasts, which is a pretty important part of his career. So, as good as this box looks, I'd like to know if it is truly "complete" or not. It's still a great looking collection at a pretty reasonable price. I wouldn't call myself a Gould fanatic, but this set just looks so yummy, and I'm a sucker for large expensive box sets, so I'll probably end up buying at some point, but I'm gonna wait for awhile for a sale or a price drop. Probably in a few months, you'll be able to find it on ebay for under 150 bucks.

At any rate, this stands as quite a monumental testament to a legendary Canadian artist and I'm sure if you appreciate classical piano at all, this set would provide hours of inspiration.

I already have the 12-CD Original Jacket Collection of his Bach works, so I'm satisfied for now, at least.

PAT METHENY Secret Story Re-issue

2007-10-03T20:22:00.000-07:00

I have been anticipating this release for awhile since it was announced on Pat's site a few months back. Even though I own the original, this re-issue is certainly worth getting just for the bonus disc, which contains extra 5 tracks.

This is the first Pat Metheny CD I ever owned, so that's probably one reason why I still tend to like this one so much. I remember the day I walked into a small used shop in PEI and this was playing on the stereo. I was immediately hooked and I asked the guy what it was, he showed the cover to me, and I asked him if it was for sale. I quickly snapped it up after he said YES.

This is NOT really a jazz album, it's more like a soundtrack to a movie, very cinematic and breathtaking. Many people think this is one of Pat's worst albums just because it's too "world" and not jazz. Yes, it does contain some world instruments and a Cambodian choir on the first track, so I guess it's world, but who gives a shit. It's just a great album to me. Yeah, it's kinda gay and cheesy, but I'm one appreciates good cheese and Pat Metheny is definitely top quality cheddar in my book.

I haven't really compared the remaster to the original, but it sounds great to these ears. I remember the original sounding really good, so I can't imagine how it could be better, but I'll have to closely compare them one of these days.

BORIS Mania

2007-09-30T18:47:00.001-07:00

I think everything that needs to be said about this band has already been said a million times, so i won't get into how awesome I think this band is. I mean, it doesn't get any better than a fucking noise/stoner/sludge band that also happens to have a amazingly gorgeous big-breasted guitar player (Wata) who looks so beautiful, but shreds so evil. Check out the album cover for "Feedbacker", it's truly woody-inducing. Maybe we'll be lucky and get a nude photobook of her included with the next CD.

Anyway, enough about my sick fantasies of mounting Wata. Let's get to the music. First of all, there's a shitload of releases. I mean a shitload. And there's like 30 versions of the same album, which make them a very collectable band. So you can easily go broke just collecting Boris CD's and LP's. Or you can just download their entire discography from a torrent file, which is pretty easy to find actually.

The first Boris CD I ever bought was Feedbacker, and i think that one's still one of my favorites. But I'd have to say my personal favorite so far is DRONEVIL, it's a 2-CD set, but you're supposed to play the 2 CD's on 2 different stereos simultaneously. Well, I don't have two damn stereos and neither do most people, so I just mixed the two discs in ProTools and burned everything onto 1 track. Aaahhhhhhh, DRONEVIL, it IS the shit. I get a metal boner listening this, it's the epitamy of doom.

My other personal favorites are FLOOD, ABSOLUTEGO, and AMPLIFIER WORSHIP. The aforementioned albums are all long drone concept albums clocking in at over an hour, and that's the BORIS I prefer at this point. I have 7 or 8 Boris CD's which is nothing, considering that many of their fanbase collect EVERY version of every LP and CD. I like too many other bands to be just a collector of BORIS. I've heard most of the other limited LP's and some of them are not necessary anyway. I downloaded mp3's of most of those and made handmade CD versions. For example, there are 3 volumes of "The Thing Which Solomon Overlooked" which are good, but not absolutely necessary. Also, there are 2 completely different versions of VEIN, a hardcore version and a drone version. They're good too, but not essential.

There's also an soundtrack CD to an imaginary film called "Mabuta No Uta", which is really nice. There's 3 or 4 versions of that i think, and to make things even more frustrating, each version has different packaging and tracks that can't be found on the other version(s).

If you don't like the long drone/sludge so much and just wanna hear some great Sabbath-like balls to the wall ROCK, pick up PINK, HEAVY ROCKS or AKUMA NO UTA (which is actually a good sampling of all their flavors, so a good place to dive in head first). Boris has a little something for everyone I think, and that's part of what makes them so unique. They're not afraid to limit themselves and each subsequent release shows them growing.

A few of my other current favorites is the Sunn O))) Boris collaboration "ALTAR" and the MERZBOW / BORIS collaboration aptly titled "Sun Baked Snow Cave".

Like I said before, you don't need to buy everything they've ever put out, but just about everything I've heard so far is good in some way or another. I'm really looking forward to hearing their new CD with Ghost guitarist, Michio Kurihara, I heard nothing but good things about it.

There's tons of information and resources on Boris, and just about everyone and his dog has blogged about them in some way, so that's why I'm gonna keep this post relatively short. You can start by checking out their website at http://homepage1.nifty.com/boris/

STAR TREK TOS HD DVD

2007-09-14T03:36:00.000-07:00

Holy shit. Is this necessary? I already have the supposedly "remastered" STAR TREK TOS on standard DVD format, the ones that come in the hard plastic cases and those are just fine for me. I haven't even got around to watching ANY of the extras and I'll probably never get around to watching them all. So here comes another cash grab from Paramount Home Entertainment, announcing the US HD DVD release of Star Trek: The Original Series - Season 1 on 20th November 2007 priced at $217.99 SRP. Here's the description I lifted from another site:

"See The Original Series as never before when the legendary first season arrives for the first time ever in a 10-disc HD DVD/DVD combo disc set. Meticulously remastered from the original camera negative specifically for this high-definition release, each classic episode is presented in pristine condition with state-of-the-art digital visual effects. 1960s special effects have been replaced with 21st century computer-generated imagery to give new depth and atmosphere to various elements including the main title sequence, the galaxy shots frequently seen from the Enterprise's bridge, the battle scenes, planets and alien ships, some of the matte paintings used as backdrops for new worlds, as well as the Enterprise and other Starships, which have been replaced with state-of-the-art CGI-created ships. The new computer-generated Enterprise is based on the exact measurements of the original model, which now rests in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C.

The refurbished episodes also feature higher quality sound for the famous opening theme. The original score by Emmy Award-winning composer Alexander Courage has been re-recorded in state-of-the-art digital stereo audio with an orchestra and a female singer belting out the famous vocals. A digitally remastered version of William Shatner's classic original recording of the 38-word "Space, the final frontier..." monologue continues to open each episode.

In addition, the extraordinary set features true HD audio and exclusive HD DVD interactive features produced by New Wave Entertainment. Interactive menus and a "Starfleet Access" interface will allow viewers to activate icons which provide such features as Picture in Picture video commentaries and an interactive tour of the Starship Enterprise. Both the standard definition and high definition presentations also include rare on-set home movie footage, an inside perspective on what it took to transport Trek into the 21st century and much more. Finally the set comes housed in a futuristic clear case."

OK. Great. But I'm quite happy watching the original ones. I like the crappy cheap special effects and I don't need to see any added digital enhancements, thank you very much. This brings up the issue that arises AGAIN and AGAIN about adding digital effects to old movies. IT SHOULDN'T BE MESSED WITH. They're not even giving fans the whole picture. If you take a look at the startrek.com website and click on the remasterd episodes links you'll see pictures of the remastered effects shown in 1:85 ratio. There is plenty of room to construct a 1:85 frame from the original 35mm negatives of these shows. So probably in a few years, you'll see another WIDESCREEN version released saying that IT is the DEFINITIVE STAR TREK release. So it goes on and on.

I'm no rocket scientist, but wouldn't it be physically impossible to high definition version of a 40 year old show? This set will not look much better than the regular edition, which is selling for about 60 bucks now. Studios are basically ripping off consumers if they're releasing HD versions of old films. Would you buy an HD version of the original Dracula? No, I don't think you would unless you're a complete clod. HD reproductions of older films and TV shows will look even grainier than before, due to the fact that the computers responsible for creating the higher resolution output will attempt to compensate for the initial low-res by adding more pixels in the empty spaces. This has been proven by many people who've complained that "Blu-Ray" versions of older films looked worse than the standard DVD editions. This whole current trend of Blu-Ray and HD DVD is good for people who only like films that have been made in the past few years, but for people like me, the majority of films I watch are pre-1980, so Blue Ray and HD are useless and I can't understand why people are shelling out big bucks for these old films that have been "meticulously" restored to look like crap.

The only plus point I can see is that the package design looks pretty awesome, however, it doesn't in any way merit spending over 200 bucks. Keep your originals.

http://www.filmjunk.com/2007/09/04/star-trek-the-original-series-hd-dvd-features-revealed/

The education system in Japan, teaching kids, violent crime in Japan, suicide, murder, deterioration of Japanese society & other crap

2007-09-11T21:02:00.000-07:00

Teaching kids is for the birds. First of all, it's not the kids fault. Stupid kid, stupid parent, right? Stupidity is inherited I believe. i live in Japan, and I teach kids only on Monday, and thank ____ for that. (I don't believe in GOD™, that's why I left a blank) I can't believe that some people do this all week, 6 days a week. Good Christ, I'd have been committed by now if I had to teach kids every day.

It seems to have been the trend in Japan for the last 5 or 6 years + and it doesn't matter whether kids are interested in learning English or not, they're pretty much forced to attend English classes as early as 6 months old! Learning a second language when they're young is the ideal time to to do it, but a 6-month old baby doesn't even have their own language figured out yet, let alone a foreign language. Parents should at least wait until their child is old enough to make that choice for themselves.

Parents in Japan just send their kids to English school because that's what their friends are doing, and their friends, and so on and so on. It's just another example of the ruthless competitiveness this country is known for. The thinking is that if their kids aren't going to English school, their friends think they're poor, or weird or don't care about their kids' education and future. What a bunch of shit THAT IS.

What really pisses me off to no end is that when the mothers bring their kids to school, they are chit-chatting and gossiping like it's a fucking café, and I have to strain my voice sometimes just so it's loud enough for the kids to hear over their mothers' mundane chatter. Japanese wives are very good at certain things and one of those things is waste their husbands' salary. At least if you're forcing your kids to go to school, please TAKE A FUCKING INTEREST in what your kids are learning. If you wanna chat, piss off with ya and go home.

The school I teach is not that bad actually. Yeah, there's some bad kids, stupid kids and just down-right evil kids, but it doesn't even compare to some of the horror stories I've heard from other teachers. If there's so much violence in school's these days, why isn't there a camera monitoring every classroom? Now, before you think that's a little "extreme", why don't you read a few little bedtime stories about things that have happened in Japan over the last few years.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A50678-2004Aug8.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16500163/site/newsweek/
http://www.breakingnewsenglish.com/0509/050924-violence.html
http://web-japan.org/trends98/honbun/ntj980401.html
http://www.japantoday.com/jp/news/384109
http://search.japantimes.co.jp/member/member.html?nn20051007f1.htm

Here's a few more little "news bits". some of them are not school related, but they are included just to give you an idea of the nature of some of the violent crimes in the last few years in Japan.

"TOKYO — 17-year-old boy stabs his mother to death. Having killed his mother as she slept, the boy cut off her arm and head with a saw. Spray-painted her arm white and stuck it in a potted plant. Put her head in a sports bag and carried it with him to an Internet cafe, where he spent two hours watching rap music videos in a private booth. He then took a taxi to a police station in his town in northern Japan, where he surrendered the head and told the officers, "It didn't matter who I killed." It's pretty hard to swallow such a story, but it's real, and this kind of shit seems to be going on regularly in Japan."

Over the last several months, there has been a series of killings in which the bodies have been cut up or disposed of in sickening ways. Who's to blame? TV? Violent Manga? Movies? Music? There's a huge sense that a country once bound by tight family values and community ties is deteriorating into something quite ugly indeed. Here's more...

"In December, a Tokyo woman confessed to killing her allegedly adulterous husband hitting him with a wine bottle and then cutting his body into pieces. The parts were found scattered across two city wards; his head was buried in a suburban park."

"a 21-year-old Tokyo man was accused of killing his younger sister. He claimed he lashed out violently after she belittled him for his failure to win acceptance to dental school. Police said he hacked her body into pieces and stuffed the parts into four garbage bags."

"In March, the strangled body of a young, female English-language teacher from Britain was discovered buried in a sand-filled bathtub in a university student's Tokyo apartment. The suspect eluded a police raid and is still on the run."

"Woman in Yokohama randomly stabs her 2-year-old child in a shopping mall."

"Couple accused of dumping their toddler son's body on a mountainside after he suffocated in the helmet compartment of their motorcycle."

"a 14-year-old killer deposited the severed head of an 11-year-old child at the gates of an elementary school in Kobe, and taunted police and citizens with threats to kill again before he was finally caught."

OK. Who's to blame? It's easy to lay blame on Japan's many social ills or America's negative influence, or even violent games, movies, music, manga, etc but I can't help thinking it's due to all this pressure and competitiveness brought on by Japanese society. Firstly it starts in the home, then secondly, in the schools. Kids are so pressured in this country to do well in school that some actually commit suicide because they fail a test, or they lose a game. And we're not talking just high school kids, we're talking about elementary and junior high school kids too.

Another fact you should keep in mind is that Japan has one of the highest suicide rates in the world. On average, over 80 people EACH DAY off themselves, most commonly by hanging themselves or by jumping in front of a train.

Here's a personal account of one of my students, and I'm not going to mention any names for obvious reasons. She's only 5 and she has been attending a special English school for the last few years, and her English is pretty good actually. Her English is good because she has been going to school from 9:00 in the morning til 5:00 in the afternoon 5 days a week and she can ONLY SPEAK ENGLISH in the classroom. Then, her mother also brings her to the school that I teach for another hour. I can't help notice her mothers' stern look the whole time, she never smiles and she watches her daughter like a hawk, just waiting for her to fuck up, so that she can scold her. You can even sense a certain fear in the child, when she answers a question. It's truly sad and i feel really sorry for the kid, because she hasn't been given any choice in the matter. This may just be one of those kids that grows up later in life and suddenly snaps because she's been carefully controlled her whole life, and now she needs to feel freedom...

The current school system in the U.S., Canada, Japan and many other countries has done little else than force schools to teach kids how to beat those standardized tests. It's a common complaint for young teachers that they feel like they've become a slave to this nonsense. Those tests are fucking meaningless and everyone knows it.

I see a tremendous failure of the educational system every day in Japan, bad system, bad teachers who don't give a shit about students, too many classroom hours, no interaction between students and teachers, many cases of teachers molesting and raping their students, it's fucking pathetic actually. I don't want to call kids stupid, because I don't think that's the problem, exactly. They're just so incapable of forming complete, written or spoken thoughts with actual grammar and correct spelling. There was an article in VICE magazine a number of years ago that reproduced a bunch of essays handed in by Grade 12 high school students in the U.S. and they were riddled with spelling errors, terrible grammar and incomprehensible script.

What's the solution? I don't know, actually, but I think parents can stop by letting their kids have mind of their own and stop forcing them into doing shit they have no interest in doing. (How man of you remember taking piano lessons?) One thing is CRYSTAL CLEAR. Many parents in Japan are just plain STUPID. And also, be a good parent and do shit with your kids, don't just leave them in their rooms playing Nintendo DS.

If the U.S. and Japan doesn't get their shit together, they will fall desperately behind the rest of the world. They already ARE falling behind. THIS IS a global marketplace now, y'know?

Tim Berne's Bloodcount Boxset

2007-09-11T20:57:00.000-07:00

This is awesome news, so I thought I'd share it. Media: 2CD+DVD - STREET DATE 9/18. PLEASE NOTE: DVD IS 2-SIDED & INCLUDES NTSC+PAL! A double disc boxed set of UNRELEASED material from Tim Berne's legendary BLOODCOUNT quartet uncovered by TB himself & artfully mastered by DAVID TORN. BLOODCOUNT at its best w/JIM BLACK (drums), CHRIS SPEED (tenor, clarinet) & MICHAEL FORMANEK (contrabass). Includes 2 audio cds both recorded live in 1997 AND a DVD, brilliantly mastered by Bob Ludwig, of their legendary Paris concert in 1994 w/the addition of Marc Ducret on guitar. Can Screwgun be stopped? REGION=0.

Can't wait to seize this one. I hope it's not gonna cost an arm and a leg. I saw it listed on one Japanese site for almost 6,000 yen.

tits n ass beer

2007-09-06T18:34:00.001-07:00

Another classic spoof ad.

evil beavers vs. miller lite

2007-09-05T08:14:00.001-07:00

classic Miller Lite Ad from Swedish advertising geniuses, Traktor.

Jukka Bros.

2007-09-04T20:23:00.001-07:00

Classic MTV ad. Wish i could find the other ones. There were a series of 3 or 4 I believe.

Reach and Frequency

2007-09-04T20:15:00.001-07:00

I remember seeing this ad when I was working in advertising in Vancouver, and I thought it was hilarious. It's kind of a spoof of how free and crazy advertising agencies were in the 70's, with people sleeping around with other industry people. Great ad.

Spiders On Drugs

2007-09-04T19:58:00.001-07:00

This is pretty funny. I remember these ads very well, and if you're Canadian I'm sure you do too. Sure brings back some good memories. I learned a lot of shit from those "Hinterland Who's Who" Interludes.

FLUX DESIGN WORKS IS BACK UP

2007-08-16T07:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the inconvenience. Hoping to get around to making a brand new site at some point in the future. Just haven't had the ambition to do much of anything in this maddening summer heat and humidity. Cheers! The Belch