a time for everything, but cooler

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.

conversations with my (massage) therapist, or how to have hope in a hopeless world: approach #2

i’m a talker. when i go for massage or physio or whatever, i’m a little chatterbox, yammering away at whatever unfortunate soul is obligated to endure my company for 30 minutes or even (gasp) a full hour.

“oh god in heaven, please make him shut up or die right now.”

speaking of which, i had a convo with my massage therapist a while ago where we talked about the meaning of life, why we’re here. we both felt that our time on earth is just a small part of who we really are, that this is only one step of many on our spirit’s path to…well, something. who knows. and we both felt that even the most horrible things probably happen for a reason. like if i were to finish this stupid post, head outside, get stung by a bee on my lip, and die of anaphylaxis, that would mean i had simply done what i was put here to do and it was time to move on. show’s over!

then i said to my tired, annoyed massage therapist that i hadn’t reconciled this ‘everything happens for a reason’ theory with tragedies, like murders, for example. i wondered if stuff like that was messing with the order of the universe. i said that while i feel the victim probably must have finished their work here, it didn’t feel right that the murderer simply played the role of facilitator, someone who ushers the other person on to the next world, and then just rots in jail for 15 years. what about the murderer, i wondered aloud.

at this, my vexed, exasperated massage therapist suggested that maybe there is a perfect balance to everyone’s needs, both murderers AND victims. she put forth the proposition that perhaps the victim needs to die (maybe they even need to die in that particular violent way, as part of their journey), while the murderer needs to kill in order to learn whatever it is they need to learn — remorse, regret, whatever. maybe the big, spiritual needs of both people are met with the single seemingly senseless act.

well, that was a crazy revelation i didn’t expect to encounter at massage. i don’t consider myself buddhist or any other religion but i do believe in something much larger than us. i think a lot about perfect chaos and perfect harmony, and i often wonder if they are not the same thing. and this idea that balance and harmony are present even in apparent chaos, even in the most fucked up situations…i don’t know that i necessarily buy it, but i like it a lot. it’s #2 on my list of ‘how to have hope in a hopeless world,’ behind my other approach that i wrote about a while back. i guess this one is a spiritual approach while the other is a practical one. both have their places, depending on how desperately alone you’re feeling, i think.

a horrible noise

as time goes on, i find myself enjoying music that is increasingly less melodic and more discordant, displeasing, unmusical. i’m not sure why. it’s taken a while to grow on me, for sure, but it has. i mean, when a friend first recommended the album ‘obscura’ by the band gorguts a few years ago, i was shocked.

i was really impressed that this chaos was actually written by someone, and then performed by musicians who had obviously practiced it — the point is, it’s not just random junk. it’s carefully crafted and entirely intentional. but i couldn’t listen to it, it made me feel like i had a headache even though i didn’t. it made me irritable and want to lie down. despite these things, a large part of me enjoyed what i was hearing. so i got into gorguts one song at a time and before i knew it, i was a huge fan of theirs.

the same thing happened with this ‘G major’ version of miley cyrus’ ‘wrecking ball.’

i had the same terribly unpleasant initial reaction, but i also couldn’t stop laughing at how perfectly horrible it was. it sounds the way that my nightmares feel, like worlds crumbling under the forces of chaos and disorder. like the sonic equivalent of a hellish hieronymus bosch painting.

just like gorguts, i kept coming back to wrecking ball in G major, and also like gorguts, it grew on me quickly. after a few days, i was in love with this godawful racket and had it stuck in my head all the time. an interesting aside here is that i had never heard the original version of wrecking ball until long after i was well acquainted with the G major version of it, and have loathed the original since then. it’s insipid and the video is tawdry.

now i’ve just gotten into the second album by the british band, voices. it’s a concept album about a delusional nut wandering the streets of london, suicidal and violent and in love with a prostitute named megan. while it’s not quite as grating musically as gorguts or the G major stuff, it’s far more difficult to stomach on a personal level. the content is painful and twisted yet feels deeply intimate, making it a very uncomfortable listen. when i hear it, i feel like i’m reading someone’s diary, discovering their most hideous, shameful secrets. like i’m prying into something not meant for public consumption.

obviously, that is something i need to share with the world.

 

how does it feel?

after just bitching so much about what is not sexy, i wanted to mention a few things that i DO find sexy.

• genuine smiles
• genuine love of sex
• nice eyes
• confidence
• womanly curves
• flesh

when it comes down to it, any real person has the potential to turn me on. for example, i typically love curves on a girl but that being said, there are some olive oyle’s i find really attractive too — literally! like shelley duvall.

 

i bitch lots but there’s lots of stuff i do like. it’s just not as fun to write about that stuff. despite my obsessions with death, depression, chaos, satan, destruction, and the like, i’m actually a pretty chipper individual. i imagine it’s actually because of those obsessions that i’m as happy as i am but i couldn’t begin to say why. at least, not today anyway.

god, i love having a blog. completely, shamelessly self-centered.