i’ve been trying to sell our old f-350 on craigslist for a few weeks now. it’s been a typical selling-used-stuff nightmare.
get it while it rots
i received lots of emails saying “i’m interested in your truck, is it still for sale?” and some that said “i was in your area but now i’m not, looks like a decent truck.” i have no idea what the point of the latter email was, and most of the other people never responded when i told them the truck was still available.
then a prompt, seemingly reliable guy showed up. he came and looked and liked it. then he took it for a test drive.
then the truck broke down on him mid-test drive. it wouldn’t start. we’ve owned the thing for 3, maybe 4 years now, and driven it to hell and back several times, and it’s never broken down, ever. it’s very likely it was just time for something to go but i couldn’t help wondering, ‘what did this fuckwad do to wreck my truck?’ however, despite the breakdown, he said he was still interested in it so i said i’d email him once i fixed it. we used jenn’s BCAA to tow the truck home and after a day of messing around, i got it sorted out. i let the guy know, he said groovy, he’ll come on thursday for it.
then he said friday.
then he said tuesday.
now it’s tuesday evening and i still haven’t heard from him. meanwhile, i’ve had a bunch more emails asking about the truck and i’ve told them all that the sale is pending. i can’t wait to email them tomorrow to tell them it’s still available, only to have them never get back to me.
i’ve had a few disturbing dreams lately. a couple days ago, i dreamed i was in a fancy, almost futuristic bathroom looking in the mirror. my face had all kinds of weeds growing out of it, like little blades of grass, thistles, dandelions. i was bewildered and horrified. in the dream, i figured either my pores were huge and full of dirt, or i was super, super filthy and had a thick layer of dirt on my face, or that my face was actually made of dirt. regardless, i didn’t like the stuff growing there so i started weeding my face. when i pulled stuff out it left gaping holes where the roots had been, and i was further disgusted by this.
this was deep in my face.
that was the end of it. i woke up and felt like i had just watched a good cronenberg film and was all fucked up from the gross body horror.
then today, i dreamed that a few normally friendly farm animals were fighting. i think it was an alpaca and a little goat but they were out for each others blood. it seemed like some sign of disharmony, of impending chaos, like when the light was orange and pink from the nearby forest fires this summer. anyway, then i saw a bunch of people with hands for feet and vice versa. it doesn’t sound too crazy but if you actually picture what that looks like when they use their hands to walk around and feet to write and carry stuff, it’s very strange. i woke up feeling not as grossed out as i did by the weed face thing, but very unsettled nonetheless. there was something very strange and ‘not right’ about it. i didn’t like it.
i told dana about the weed dream yesterday. he half joked that there might be some deeper meaning to it, like not liking something about myself, or feeling like i have some parasite attached to me that will be unpleasant to rid myself of. i don’t think i buy any of that though, i think brains just kind of go to town when it comes to dreams. sometimes they can feel powerful or meaningful but usually i don’t think they mean much.
man, that videodrome gif is disgusting. cronenberg has a real knack, wow. it’s pretty cool that he received the order of canada. it’s like even though his specialty isn’t classical music or schindler’s list — even though his specialty is strange nightmare gore — even classy types acknowledge that he does it really fucking good.
i keep reading about movie and music stars and their dramatic, troubled love lives. i find it all really disheartening. it seems like every star has been married at least 3 times, engaged another 3 separate times, and has multiple kids with multiple partners.
nuff said. and yuck, btw
when i say it like that, i imagine white trash living in trailer parks. it’s crazy that i’m actually talking about some of the most revered, wealthy, and recognized people in the world. rich white trash, indeed.
maybe that’s why the poor trash live like that. maybe they’re emulating the rich and famous people they see on tv. i think more than likely though, no one is emulating anyone else. they’re all probably just equally emotionally fucked up.
i understand that a lot of hollywood marriages are supposedly pure facade, just career moves to keep their names in the public spotlight so their music and films sell better, but i believe most of them are legit. i think most of them are people really trying to find love and a life partner, and they are actually failing miserably at it. there are a few reasons i believe this.
a fair amount of the marriages and engagements i’m reading about are to nobodies, and marrying a nobody doesn’t help a career out.
i think most stars are totally out of touch with reality due to being coddled by everyone around them. if all of your friends and family were sucking your dick 24-7 in the hopes of borrowing some money from you or making it into your will or being invited on vacation with you, you would certainly be emotionally stunted by it. i think it’s rare that people can live in that world and not be affected by it, and even more rare that stars are able to control their personal lives so tightly as to not allow any leech scum into their sphere.
i don’t believe people are so dishonest as to have multiple sham weddings and relationships. i should believe it. i mean, i think a lot of non-stars relationships are shams too. couples that lie to and cheat on each other have sham relationships, it’s just a different shade of sham. but the idea of talking with managers about who is hot right now, who could really help catapult my name to the cover of US and people again, of spending years with a person that i don’t really care about, of having kids with that same person i don’t care about…someone would have to be a right fucked sociopath to wear that mask for so long. and as much as i hate people and believe the worst about many of us, i just don’t think many people have the diligence or work ethic to keep that up and pull it off. so i don’t think many would sign up for it in the first place. or maybe they sign up for it, realize it sucks, and that’s why they divorce so quickly? maybe the line between manufactured relationships and real life emotions gets blurred, maybe it’s only contrived as far as stars can handle it, and then reality boils to the surface and the whole thing falls to shit.
hollywood relationships are a lot like pro wrestling, actually.
whatever. regardless of why it happens, i think it’s fucked up and don’t like it. i like real life and real people.
because i was recently complaining about how uninterested i am in enslaved’s later ‘hard rock’ era, i decided to revisit the album that marked what i saw as their sudden, steep decline: isa. i just listened to it while doing the dishes. it’s an ok album that has a few moments i like quite a bit, but there’s tons of stuff i don’t like in between them. i give it maybe a 6/10, if i’m feeling positive.
however, i forgot that one of my favourite lines of all time appears in the title track — “a time to burn, a time to build.” i still love it. it pops up about 1:40 in the middle of the second verse, which seems like an odd place for something i find so powerful but i think it actually suits the intention of the line perfectly.
to me, the lyric is sort of a simple, old world norse take on ‘a time for everything.’ what i prefer about this version is the acknowledgement of the apparent chaos and destruction as part of the natural ebb and flow — no more, no less important. just part of the cycle. just a fact of life.
that’s why i like it appearing where it does, in the middle of the second verse. it’s like “this is no big deal. it’s just a simple truth. no need to get excited about it and make a chorus or focal point out of it.” to me, that inconspicuous placement of the lyric suits its theme: a quiet, confident acceptance of or indifference to these things beyond control, regardless of how pleasant or frightening they might be.
so even though i don’t like isa much, i’m glad i gave it another spin and was reminded of that powerful line. i hope i can remember it when our fucked up world erupts in utter bedlam in the not so distant future.
thanks, enslaved. now get dirge rep back on drums and make some more crazy psychedelic norse mythology-based death metal instead of the limp pink floyd-inspired bullshit you’ve been churning out for the last several albums.
i know an older person who was recently cheated on by their partner. my acquaintance has moved out/been kicked out of the place they shared with their partner and is now living in some shithole apartment. my acquaintance is also broke as a joke. it’s a rough situation.
i started to feel sorry for this poor schlub but then i remembered what a fat, lazy, stupid, hot-tempered oaf they are, and i realized: they aren’t the victim of bad luck. it’s not cruel fate. my acquaintance willfully created their life and current predicament by being a giant gross turd with zero financial sense in a lousy relationship. that’s how they’ve lived their entire life so it makes perfect sense that they are in such a pickle now. they worked hard for this situation, and have truly earned it.
i have a hard time feeling sorry for people who just make lousy choices.
occasionally, i feel just fine with passing judgement on some folks.
jenn downloaded some movies onto her laptop and brought it on our roadtrip so we could watch flicks on shitty rainy nights. one of the movies she got was beasts of the southern wild. i think it was a smelly, awful piece of shit. i hated it so much, i made a mental note to blog about it. and here i am, back at home, bored and ready to bitch.
“perfect for phony hipster loser audiences everywhere! 5/5!”
the soundtrack was the first thing to piss me off, and it did so on multiple levels. first, it’s all typical hipster folk instrumentation: toy piano, fiddle, banjo, some ‘ass shaker’ percussion…pathetic. this whole beards/cardigans/vests/wool caps/’old world style’ music movement is for fucking posers. it’s 100% imitation, and brings nothing new to the table. it’s the same shit we’ve already heard rehashed for the last 5 years. it sucked when it started and it still sucks now.
second musical complaint: typical ‘touching’ chord progressions. if i hear another 1-5-6-4 progression (or 1-6-3-7 in a minor key, they’re the same thing), i’m going to hop onstage at a mumford and sons concert and blow my fucking brains out.
i don’t need to get into why i hate this chord progression so much. it’s been well documented how overused it is by every saccharine pop musical hack (and some decent musicians too). see the following popular comic video that illustrates the point.
enough said on that. my third complaint about the music in beasts of the southern wild: TOO MUCH OF IT. it never shuts up. something touching happens, bam, queue the touching hipster folk bullshit music. something else happens, BAM more touching hipster folk trash music. i think that relying on crappy predictable music to build the emotional peaks and valleys of your film is weak. it’s like saying “i know this piece of shit lacks its own substance so i’m relying on familiar-sounding ’emotional’ music to connect with viewers.” grow up. make a real film that doesn’t rely on cheap techniques to elicit reactions.
ok, that’s it for the music. now for the film itself.
round two, pussies
whoever made this piece of crap made some feeble attempts to shock the audience with lots of shots of ‘gross’ stuff. like the people inhabiting ‘the bathtub,’ their living conditions, the kid’s father spearing chicken carcasses in a cooler and tossing them on the bbq, a close up of the cat food and vegetable oil the kid cooks for herself, blah blah blah. EEWWWW, SO GROSS, OH MY GOD. the only prisses who would be shocked by any of this stuff would be folks who’ve never had diarrhea, or had a pet die, or walked through a large city, or taken the garbage out before — folks who’ve never encountered anything unpleasant in their daily lives. i just feel like this director was trying to tag along on the the trashy gross-out vibe of gummo but 15 years too late, and watered down to boot. and i think gummo sucked too so that’s a pretty lousy jumping-off point.
my other big complaint about the film is how heavily it relies on the star saying what i imagine are supposed to be beautiful, simple, child-like truths, like “sometimes you just gotta let things go and see what happens to ’em,” or something generic like that. they did this at just about every other scene change. i can see why. everyone loves cute nice kids, and everyone loves cute nice kids pulling through adversity with the grace that adults are incapable of. i’m sure everyone sees those scenes and thinks, “she’s so adorable and helpless, i hope she makes it through ok, she’s so wise and strong for a child.” well, not me. i got angry. it’s just another cheap technique to tug heartstrings, like the crappy typical music that makes every wistful jerk want to cry.
so fuck beasts of the southern wild. that kid did a great job in it and under more sincere, thoughtful directing, i’m sure it could have been good but the people in charge made it a tawdry attempt at a tearjerker. 0/5 stars. stay away. download it just so you can delete it immediately without watching. and all those ‘critics’ calling it a masterpiece and a triumph can suck my dick and die. critics are fucking losers to start with, and critics that laud this piece of shit are either super high or corporate shills. kill em all.
after two and a half weeks on the road with jenn and no death metal, disturbing films, or satanic literature, i’m very happy to spend this nice sunday morning listening to mayhem’s a grand declaration of war while doing housework.
i got into this album almost 10 years ago. i liked it right away not because it was extreme or anti-christian or had black metal elements (although i was quite happy with all of those things), but because it was very fucking weird. the short songs, some long silences, the spoken word parts, the nietzche recitations, the lone electronic song with vocoder vocals…very interesting.
i was no stranger to mayhem when i heard this album, of course. everyone knows they are the storied norwegian black metal band who ate the brain of their lead singer who had committed suicide via a shotgun blast to the head.
i like his ‘i [heart] transylvania’ shirt.
i was familiar with their history and their crude early recordings, of which i was never a fan. i find their early works one dimensional and boring. but a grand declaration of war was totally different. although much more straightforward, i also like the subsequent album, chimera. but guess what, i hate everything they’ve done since.
while washing colanders and cutting boards and listening to mayhem this morning, it occurred to me how glad i am that i got into mayhem when i did, and that i got into the stuff of theirs i did. if i had listened to a bunch of wannabe elite metal fuckwads 15 years ago who told me how killer deathcrush was, i would have tried to choke it down, hated it, given up on mayhem, and missed out on two albums that i really dig.
then i realized i had the same relationship with the viking metal band, enslaved.
i like the pudgy girl’s battle axe
i got into them on their mardraum album. it’s heavy as fuck but super psychedelic. i also love the next few albums that followed it, monumension and below the lights, for the same reasons. but then they got this shitty boring drummer and lost the extreme shit like blast beats and brutal heavy parts. now it’s more like psychedelic hard rock, like TOOL or something. i hate that. and their early shit has tons of blast beats but it’s really juvenile, so i don’t like it either. incredibly though, i’ve found almost no one shares my enthusiasm for their middle era. virtually ever enslaved fan i’ve talked to prefers their extreme, poorly executed early shit or their boring hard rock late shit. well, FUCK THEM.
it’s been many years since i got into mayhem and enslaved, and i still have the same feelings on both of them. it makes me feel good to review these feelings and confirm ‘yup, that stuff still sucks/this stuff is still awesome.’ i like that i can trust my taste, even years after the fact. it makes me feel confident in my discerning nature.
so i’m going to recede even deeper into isolation now. i like my taste so much that i want other views and opinions to have even less effect on me — i want to achieve the purest distillation of my personal tastes. so ta ta, everyone. it’s been a slice.
jenn and i just got back from a road trip through BC, alberta, montana, and wyoming. one of the things we checked out was yellowstone national park. you know, home of the iconic ‘old faithful.’
yellowstone was pretty nice but it wasn’t without its annoying and stupid bullshit. by our third day there, we couldn’t get out of there fast enough. i made a mental note to bitch about it here so here goes.
too many fucking people. i don’t know how busy the place is normally but we ended up there right on the labour day long weekend — i know, so stupid. we had planned on avoiding it but it’s just the way the timing worked out. anyway, it was absolutely overrun with people, especially the big attractions with easy access like old faithful and artist point.
too many terrible drivers. the busloads of foreign tourists who swarmed on the sights with total disregard for common north american courtesies like not pushing and shoving were annoying in their own special way but what bothered me more were the families jam-packed into several rental cars, caravan-ing around the park at breakneck speeds on the narrow, twisty roads. the parking lot situations at the small pullouts were absolute chaos. there was no rhyme or reason as to how anyone parked or got out of there, it was simply ‘look out, i’m coming in hot.’ we saw one woman who had taped park pamphlets over her driver side window, presumably to keep the sun out. i guess she decided she would simply not look to her left for the rest of the drive. she also didn’t understand how 4-way stops worked, although that may have been due to the fact she couldn’t see anything on her left. christ.
some really crappy ‘sights.’ there were some beautiful sights in yellowstone, for sure. old faithful was neat (when viewed from a lookout that was a short hike away — we were lucky that the throngs weren’t willing to walk any further than absolutely necessary), artist point was incredible, and we encountered a 20-minute traffic jam that was caused by a stoic, plodding bison who had decided to walk to wherever he was going using our traffic lane. they’re majestic, powerful-looking beasts but up close, their eyes look like cows: dumb and blank. that dumb blank look while he slowly walked on and on in our lane, oblivious to or simply not concerned with the lineup of cars behind him and the occasional car that managed to pass him, made him even more adorable. for me, the bison traffic jam was the highlight of yellowstone. but there were some super shitty sights too, like this petrified tree stump:
wow
and countless cauldrons of boiling mud:
double wow
i think petrified trees are neat, for sure, but a squat, busted up old stump of a petrified tree? fuck off. that was a letdown and a half. and all the boiling mud got old fast. it was neat but then i realized that while the abundance of geothermal stuff is what makes yellowstone unique, it’s also a comically ugly, stinky thing to be a national attraction. “come check out our countless mud pits that stink like farts.” that’s wack but that’s basically what it BOILS down to, hahahahahaha!!!!!!!
in a nutshell, my final opinion on yellowstone was this: it’s cool to check out if you’re in that area but fuck it, BC in general is way better. BC is huge and varied with all manners of breathtaking sights, and very few of them involve mud, farts, and rocky stumps.
i know i’m complaining a lot but i did enjoy yellowstone. i just wouldn’t go again.
crimson highway 