i wish everything in life was constantly nightmarish

since i was a kid, i’ve been fascinated by things that disturb me. one of the earliest memories i have of this is catching a few snippets from the movie, dune. there is a scene where a guy has to put his hand in a mysterious box and it seems like something weird and awful is in the box and it’s going to hurt him, and another scene where a person is wearing a weird suit that looks like a cage of plexiglass and a bullet pierces the suit very slowly until it gets in, at which point it resumes normal speed and kills the person. both of those really stuck with me — i mean, here i am 30-odd years later, still yammering on about them.

the box that basically started it all

those examples (along with a bunch of other stuff that scared the hell out of me) basically set the tone for the rest of my life. as i’ve grown older and developed the means to search out freaky stuff on my own, i’ve found more of it, and in varying forms — music, film, visual art, words, abstract feelings. and at a certain point, i realized that the things i find most intriguing aren’t strictly gory or violent or typical slasher movie fodder. the things that really mesmerize me are things that are nightmarish. that is the key quality i seek.

what qualities make something nightmarish, you ask?

• sinister overtones in otherwise normal situations
• twisted, deformed versions of familiar things
• things that a) don’t make sense and b) inspire fear

i think it was the movie jacob’s ladder that finally illuminated this nightmare fascination thing to me. i saw it several years ago, loved it, and thought about it a lot afterwards. i thought about how it was scary as all hell but wasn’t really a horror movie. there wasn’t a demented killer or a demon or any of the usual horror trappings. it was more that the main character was experiencing weird, scary stuff and it was hard to tell what was real and what wasn’t. while ruminating on this, i had an epiphany where i realized that the film legitimately felt like a nightmare to me — PINGGGG — and then i thought about a lot of my other favourite things in this world, and started seeing the nightmarish qualities in those things too: lost highway, possession (1982), the shining, eyes wide shut, 2001: a space odyssey, antichrist, under the skin. virtually anything by cronenberg. akercocke, voices, faust (1994), too dark park, the process, the exorcist, and bosch, for example.

perfect example. can’t say why this is disturbing but it is. and i love it.

i’m not sure why i’m drawn to nightmarish stuff. my best guess is that i was a wimp as a kid and things like dune just set off some electrical pathway in my brain that has liked to be stimulated ever since. i think that’s a bland, cop-out explanation and i hope there’s a better reason but i can’t think of one. all i know is that i like the blurred line between what’s real and what isn’t, i like not understanding what’s going on, and i like the fear.

i like it so much, i want it to be present in my life whenever possible — like a shadow that i can sense is near, or catch a fleeting glimpse of. i learned this when jenn and i went on a summer road trip that was lovely fun but tinged with a weird darkness due to the fact i was reading faust by robert nye on the same trip. i only realized long afterward why even the warmest memories of that vacation had a vague portentous tone to them, and why other vacations where i had neglected to bring some good, dark art with me felt more one-dimensional, less compelling. since then, i’ve made a point to bring some kind of satanic literature with me to help spice things up, to help cast a dark cloud over the summer fun, and it’s worked wonderfully.

i can only hope that when i die, i’m plunged into an eternity of hellish experiences, like a scene from hellraiser. only then will i surely have my fill of nightmares.

what i’m listening to RIGHT NOW

i still listen to CDs, mainly because i am a lover of music and have acquired a lot of CDs that i still really dig. i listen to stuff on itunes and youtube and put mp3s on a flash drive to listen to in my car but there will probably always be a place in my life for my CD and vinyl collections, regardless of great technological advances.

with that in mind, i want to post what albums i have been listening to lately, what is currently stacked up by the CD player. those albums are as follows.

• neurosis – through silver in blood
• rollins band – the end of silence
• celtic frost – monotheist
• skinny puppy – too dark park
• enslaved – below the lights
• morbid angel – blessed are the sick
• opeth – morningrise
• devin townsend – terria
• david bowie – earthling

when i look at this list, i’m proud. i listen to awesome music.

newsflash: acting sexy is not sexy. also, my generation loves silliness and retro references.

speaking as a real person, i want to let women know that ‘smouldering’ eyes, come hither glances, languid movements, and lip- and teeth-licking are not sexy. at best, any half decent mate should find these things mildly irritating, and at worst, repulsive and puke-worthy. when i see a girl make those kind of phony gestures, i think “she’s imitating something she’s seen on TV. she’s trying to act like some kind of hyper femme fatale from a james bond movie but it’s clearly false and forced. she must be a psychopath. i’m going to walk over here to get away from her.”

fuck you

get real

wipe that stupid face off your head

the only guys who will buy into that kind of act are douchebags who are equally fake and insecure, and strut in the same phony way but with different mannerisms: wearing shirts as tight as possible to make them look bigger, buying shots for every pretty girl they see and driving huge trucks so they look flush, saying “fuckin” every second word to appear TOUGH and MANLY but then talking about how hurt they were by their ex-girlfriend to show how sensitive they really are. barf.

the only douchebag pics i can find are SUPER FUNNY MEMES that aren’t funny at all but i did find a plethora of underwear model jerks making the same goofy faces as the ladies.

just as bad. destroy.

fuck, i could go on for DAYS

i guess that’s all ok though because the phony girls should be landing the phony guys and vice versa. that should keep them all pretty busy and distracted from me and the few other sane humans kicking around.

hmmm. bearing that in mind: keep doing what you’re doing, douchebags and douchebagettes. good work. but please consider getting vasectomies and hysterectomies. there are plenty of you as it is and the world is running out of food, water, and space.

on an unrelated topic, every time i make a new post on here there is an interim screen that says ‘beep beep boop’ while wordpress prepares the template or whatever. and when i empty the junk folder in my hotmail account, it says ‘you have no junk mail in this folder now – hooray!’ or something like that. i’ve noticed similar lighthearted, mock childish comments/jokes and retro references in ads for banks and car insurance and whatever else that are aimed at people around my age (early 30s-ish). it strikes me now that my generation really loves this sort of unprofessional, uber casual, ‘child of the 80s’ retro reference. i find them hit and miss. i thought ‘beep beep boop’ was kind of cute but usually i find them asinine and annoying. yes, i grew up loving transformers and GI joe but i think the goofs my age who put decepticon stickers on their ford focus and say stuff like “DUDE, DUDE, i LOVE raphael, he’s totally the best ninja turtle, totes” must sadly grow up. i feel like they need to check out some serious and heavy stuff like documentaries on WWII death camps or listen to NIN’s ‘broken’, realize that life isn’t as carefree and fun as it was when we were kids, get depressed, and stop pretending that all it takes to be happy is a beer and a netflix marathon of 80’s cartoons. there’s a whole world of shit out there, waiting to crush you. once the overgrown kids acknowledge that, i’ll find them a whole lot less annoying.