why i heart the spirit of black metal.

people often ask me what is is about black metal that draws me to it like a moth to an icy, windswept flame. i hear all kinds of objections to my predilection . "that shit is SO gay, dude. really?" they say. "it sounds like it was recorded in a bathroom by a retarded janitor" they say. "i can't stand 40 minutes of blastbeats" they say...
and, honestly, i don't have a really good answer to give anyone. taste is, obviously, a subjective matter: an opinion that is pretty hard to define and compartmentalize. it's like somebody asking why you prefer apple juice to orange juice, or beer to champagne. you can't really know why, you just do. truth be told, i thought BM was a pile of dumb horseshit when i first heard it myself. this was from me, who was heavily into 90's death metal and 20 minute long doom 'opuses' at the time. "black metal? why would anybody even bother to write a riff if you can hear the goddamned thing? plus they look like dead, gay clowns." ultimately, i'll thank mayhem and varg vikernes for turning the corner for me. what follows may seem like a non sequitir, but i promise to steer everything back on track in due time...
i will admit with conviction that i love manowar more than a lot of things. and while i can't remember the year, i remember very VERY clearly the first time i heard 'hail to england'. there was something about the over the toppedness, the macho bullshittery, the sheer 'kicking-ass-for-the-sake-of-kicking-assedness' that those guys exuded that made me buy into them immediately. they weren't on about chicks or partying at all back then. what you had instead was an entire album about valkyries and satan and gratuitous piccolo bass solos and goddamned cat-skin gloves and poisoned lips... on an album called 'hail to england'... and they were from goddamned auburn, new york. if you were to ever watch an inter view with manowar (most notably joey demiao, you would very quickly deduce that these guys are either totally, 100% behind every word they say pertaining to their love for metal as a whole, or that they are all fucking lunatics. personally, it is my opinion that joey demiao is 90% metall-er than shit and 10% loony. anyhow... it's this sort of conviction that leaves me believing eric adams when he talks kooky shit about 'dying for metal'.

that about sums it up. kinda makes me want to go to germany.

BM for me, at least in the beginning, kind of embodied that same "no, i'm not fucking kidding you" attitute. moreso than punk, which ultimately boiled down to a manufactured look, cultivated by petulant teens in the early 70s, those few early pioneers of the 2nd wave of BM took some questionable philosophical stands to an extreme end. norwegian kids obviously had an 'issue' with the spread of christianity in norway back in the early 90's, but what makes the whole phenomenon noteworthy is that there was a musical theme to their specific blend of activism: a specific soundtrack to the movement. it's comparable to PETA creating a genre of music to accompany them acting like stupid dicks outside of department stores. and pay attention here... they fact that they like to listen to fiona apple is not the same as starting a band. instead, all the rage (albiet baseless in reality) and feelings of isolation (again) were channeled into a distinct movement, the likes of which had never been fully explored. these were pissed off, middle class children railing furiously against intangible things that really didn't have much impact on their day-to-days. i think, ultimately, they were pissed because they had no genuine grief. comfortable and happy, they decided to hate jesus... and the gap... and people who weren't quite as angry as they were. but goddamnit, they did it with enthusiasm. and made some damn fine records along the way.
see... i admire conviction, i really do. and a lot of times, i wish i wasn't so apathetic about most things. i wish i had the balls to lay down and die for something that i believed in, but i don't. after all, even a questionable cause is still a cause which merits the tiniest modicum of respect in standing for. you hear these tales of church burnings and suicides over the depressive nature of life that these wacky kids had and you've gotta kind of admire (is that the right word here?) their willingness to subject themselves to prison and death to carry out their intent, no matter how screwy. it's something i'd never have the gumption to fuck with. hell, i bet even old joe demaio would wash his hands of the whole mess.

Adventures in travel. A train blog...

the following is a dialogue that i had with my notebook whilst on a fernet fueled amtrak train trip from los feliz, ca. to raton, nm. my instincts tell me i had fun... unfortunately, the amazing degradation of my handwriting skills will be lost to translation into text, but use your imagination, please.

4:25 P.M.: fucking train. some old guy with a walker just queered my shot of fernet in the men's room. well.. he was unable to prevent it, but he made it pretty hasty.

4:37 los feliz to union station: not as secluded or romantic as i has (sic) hoped. what is? this seems like marta but way more solid. p.s. no one has asked me for any money yet.

5:56: union station looks like a crazy, goddamned gothic cathedral: beautiful and old. i met two guys traveling back from santa barbara to albuquerque. the lucky fuckers are done with their trip at 11 am tomorrow, which is 10 hours earlier than i'll be. still. the accomodations on this train are nice. i think i smell worse than anyone on this thing since i have been wearing a parka in los angeles all day. amtrak is pretty stringent about how much shit you can carry on, so i wore my bulkiest item of clothing. it's dark and i am underground, yearning for those mountains.

7:30 p.m.: more drunk than not. train travel seems to rule irrevocably. something about it is laid back and (illegible). some amazing, alcoholic airplane motel. not far out, but some shit has disappeared. i will be in new mexico and they say that the altitudes will kill me. it's higher there, i am told than denver, by about a thousand feet. i am not too terribly concerned with altitue (sic) as i am by coyotes, however. a good friend predicted that i will be gang raped by the fucker coyotes until i starve to death. raped by dogs until i starve.

10:41 lounge car: pulled through inky black, a sausage party blares through the desert night. HAHA! you are an alletevative (sic) faggot. honestly? i just want to end up drunk and asleep and in up in arizona. the good news? i will!!!

1:57: weird needles kid is gone. they won't ever, EVER let you smoke on this roving behemoth. goddamned ever. there is installment. vanessas opionion (sic) of me is ..."fucking brilliant, only he hides it under his foul mouthed, beer drinking manners". trains make people lie. "jason is clearly a crack baby :)" and so are other train passengers.

3:15 a.m: to much (rest of sentence is illegible. i believe it made reference to 'poison' and 'motherfuckers')

END OF SCENE

encinitas and the city of angels

i've spent a lot of time thinking about catalysts lately. what they are, how they work, the end result of the process they aid, and where they come from in general. speaking in an obtuse manner, 'life' in itself it a series of catalysts, what we call 'moments' that flare up and force the next one into existence. some are noteworthy, explosive things like the death of a parent or winning the lottery, but even the damnedest fool will tell you the the vast majority are unremarkable to the point that we forget about them by the next morning. 'get out of the road, you lunatic...'
right now i am laying across some very hard, hardwood floor in an apartment in los feliz, california. i have been traveling around this country, off and on, for the better part of a year, am unemployed, and am about one night of being a drunk asshole away from being homeless. i spend half of my time excited about the option of doing what ever i please, whenever i want to and under my conditions. i could hop a train to texas right this instant if i want to. i could sit tight until i wear out my welcome. i could wander out into the desert like a malfunctioning penguin on the ice floes and freeze to death. the other part of these days have been wondering what the fuck i must be thinking.
i don't know what i am talking about. i'm not a writer. i mean, i can articulate, i can string words together, but when i try to write, it just feels like i am 'trying' to write. i end up sounding like an unskilled dipshit. also, in trying to write this, i find that writing makes me feel like a dick. like i am hogging the entire conversation and you can't get a word in edgewise. i hate people like that. but, it's been suggested i document this, that somebody might care about what i have to say. maybe so i can look back on all of it. who knows? first of all, even though i kind of burned my life to the ground, and carry everything i own in 2 bags and took off for the wild west, my travels have been boring. i have worked a steady and completely unfulfilling job for a while until i decided to stop doing that. i caught a comfortable ride with good company up from encinitas and ended up welcomed into an apartment in east hollywood. i have no badass train hopping hobo stories, i haven't fallen in love or gone to jail or 'found myself'. most of my time has been spent hanging out with amazingly cool people drinking beers and talking about enjoyable drunk men topics. i feel grateful beyond words for how wonderful it's all been.