One More Round the Bend (Blarobbarg's half-assed journal where he recommends stuff)
 

Looking forward to this Blaro.

Thanks. <3

Church

x3
You've got good taste.

You started your journal with one of the most beautiful and heartbreaking albums ever made. You have impeccable taste.

Talking to other people about my family is... complicated. There are so many layers of pain and trauma and cultural quirks that are hard to explain to anyone who has had a relatively normal life. It's kind of like unearthing an ancient city that was, at one time, consumed by ash. The first strike into the black, packed earth is fine. The second pulls up tools, maybe a few bones, and that makes the unaware uneasy. The third, fourth, and fifth reveal homes full of burned bodies, pagan temples with worshipers flat on their face, begging for salvation, an entire civilization buried alive.

That's how it feels, anyway. And that's why I started listening to metal, way back in the day. For a traumatized, emotionally broken, religiously radicalized, closeted bisexual teenager in rural Kentucky, metal sounded how I felt. Extreme circumstance requires extreme response.

Swallowed have one album, from 2014. It's a ****ing wild ride. Avant garde freedom and spaced-out, old school death metal collide and twist and roar against each other. It is free, it is maddening, and it is fantastic. Take special note of the 25 minute closing track, and get lost in the noise.

Subbed

I listened to this directly after stepping out to get high at work today. Sort of reminds me of Gorguts which is something I might say about a lot of creepy metal. Gorguts really give me the creeps. I kept your description in mind as I listened to Lunarterial. It is a powerful collision of styles. When I was listening to it I was imagining different members with different visions for what they wanted to do artistically but instead of letting that stir up conflict they were all getting off on what each other was doing. But checking on it now I’m not even sure if there was even more than one guitarist. However it was created it’s definitely a monster.

I’m going to teach you how to make the best goddamned half-assed white boy fried rice that you’ve ever put into your mouth, step by step. This is a multi-day recipe, so don’t fucc it up.

1. DAY 1: Order your favorite Thai food, preferably from a place that is a little dirtier than your conservative aunt would be comfortable with. Make sure at least 65% of the clientele aren’t white—that’s how you know it’s good—and get two dishes. I’m married, so that makes it easy, but if you’re not romantically involved share with a friend, or eat both by yourself in the dark. Make sure one of the entrees is a curry or something else wet.

2. Eat your food while watching episodes of Survivor from ten years ago. Enjoy. Comment on the spiciness of the curry, especially if you’re by yourself in the dark. Make sure to save at least half the curry.

3. DAY 2: Make a goddamned whole lot of rice. This is vital. I usually make 2 cups of brown rice at a time in my instant pot, but use what you got.

4. Slice up a whole onion and a whole bell pepper and las many mushrooms as you want. Sauté in a deep pan, season with whatever you’ve got, and dump in the leftover curry. Eat with NEW rice that you’ve made. Watch another episode of Survivor. Put the extra rice away.

5. DAY 3: Now we’re to it: the day of the fried rice. You’ll be glad you were patient. Cut up a whole onion, a whole bell pepper, some cherry tomatoes, maybe some carrots, maybe some peas… this is half-assed white boy fried rice, so do what feels good. We’re all gonna die someday, you don’t have to get stressed about fried rice. Sauté in a pot in your preferred oil. I would use peanut or olive.

6. While veggies are cooking, mix one big spoonful of peanut butter (I like chunky), one spoonful of chili paste, soy sauce, sesame oil, fish sauce, chili flakes, black pepper, lemon pepper, lime juice, and a touch of GOOD honey (everyone should have real, made-by-endangered-bees, unadulterated honey, not that bull**** watered down corporate honey in a bear shaped bottle). Stir vigorously. Set aside.

7. When veggies are sautéed nicely, put in your leftover rice from the previous night, and then your sauce. Mix continuously, until the rice has “unbunched” itself and become saucy.

8. After a few minutes, once rice is warm, smoosh the rice against the side of the pot and make a “hole.” Crack one or two eggs here, directly onto the pan. Once eggs are at preferred level of firmness, mix thoroughly. Add peanuts to taste.

9. Eat the fucc out of your White Boy Fried Rice. It took you three days to get to this moment: enjoy it. Make sure to watch another episode of Survivor. Savor every delicious bite in between yelling at your favorite contestant’s gameplay strategies.


2018 brought a lot of great music. I was frequently surprised at the number of high-quality releases I was hearing anew every day, and often, the sheer volume of interesting-looking albums forced me to ignore some in favor of others, especially in genres that I don’t often favor. I revisited some of these later in the year, and some I’m still catching up on.

One of these late listens was Honey, by Robyn. I have never knowingly listened to Robyn before this year, so I wasn’t particularly interested to hear it, but I have a friend who raved about it to me for months, and so eventually tried it out in late November.

Good God. I cannot believe that I waited so long to listen to this warm, dreamy, melancholic, nostalgic dance-pop perfection. It sounds like a warm embrace with the love of your life. It is doe-eyed but mature, sexy but sophisticated, danceable but not childish. For me, it’s an immediate classic, sitting amongst the ranks of pop gods and goddesses. The disco-lite and house flairs insure that it isn’t a flash-in-the-pan trend-rider, but will truly stand the test of time.

If you like that, you should listen to Portal's album Ion from this past year. It's in my top 10. It's not even heavy, really... just scary. It sounds like a bunch of horror movie villains came together to make a ****ed up metal album together.

I like noting and jotting down phrases that pop out to me. Sometimes as I collect them I arrange them into "found phrase poems." This is my most recent, built from bits and pieces of conversations, things picked up in books, or on student homework.


Sometimes what we find incidentally is better than what we're looking for.

I found h hunt completely by accident on Spotify sometime in the last few years, and boy am I glad that I did. Their work, which appears to be improvised solo piano, is ethereal calm and pure goodness. I love listening to Playing Piano For Dad when I'm anxious or stressed out, or just when I want some supremely relaxing music to listen to. Their playing is gentle, and obviously influenced both by ambient and jazz. The creaking of a piano bench and physical tapping of the keys, as well as other sounds picked up on microphone, become delightful percussive bursts that make what might be an uninspired piano noodling into something joyful. The last track, which features our mysterious artist humming and singing, is a standout.

Speaking of Robyn, over the past few years it’s amazing how dominant the Kate Bush vocal sound has been in good pop music. She’s like the Tony Iommi of female pop vocals.

She's a goddess, can you blame the copycats?

No. I think they’re doing the right thing.

I've got a more serious entry in the works and have a fiction piece I'll be posting in increments, so keep your eye out. In the meantime, listen to this ****ing incredible comedy album.


Jeff Simmermon creates weird, surrealistic visions of his life using incredible storytelling and a nihilistic, self-effacing sense of humor. He's artsy, avant-garde, and would probably get along well here. Check the bits about being in an experimental band with two chickens, a long bit about a death metal dad, surviving cancer. It's so good.

Here are a few relevant links:

Jeff Simmermon

https://open.spotify.com/album/4YEpX...QRCkuEDdZjLqOQ

I'll be posting a fiction piece of mine that I wrote last year in bits here, because **** it, why not?

I'll be pairing a song or album with each entry. I hope you enjoy. Or at the very least, I hope you hate it enough to say something.


David eased the compound bow up in front of him and pulled the bowstring back to his eye. Inside the arrow rest was a hefty aluminum number, ending in a fierce, jagged tip. It was aimed at a young buck—seven points, musculature brimming underneath a beautiful pelt. It was chewing cud underneath an enormous white oak. David’s fingers slackened.
A crack rang out to David’s left, and his tan face was sprayed with a mess of deep red and hard bits of white. His shoulder, with its arm stretched out in front of it, seemed to have exploded.
His arrow, which had been carefully trained on the placid deer, jerked into the air and shot off in an unknown direction.
With a prehistoric scream, David plunged from his tree stand into the brush below. He was unsure whether he should throw up or pass out.
He did both.

I hope he threw up first, or we're gonna have another Jimi on our hands!

Run (Part 2)

The rain was erupting from the black sky as David pleaded with his mother to slow down, but she was buzzed and reckless; she had nothing to lose but a son she hadn’t wanted in the first place. As a man of 17, David more than familiar with her caginess and bouts of fury, but this time was different. Her eyes were glazed, and her mouth was open, like her soul was already halfway to the other side in anticipation of what was to come.
The car flipped seven times and ended up against a beech tree just off the overpass. Sometime later, a rare passerby noticed the smashed husk dangling almost off the mountain, and rushed to a neighbor’s home to call for help. Rural living has many benefits, but the expediency of emergency vehicles is not one of them. When the ambulance finally managed to wind its way up and down the hills to their silent hollow, they found a battered and broken boy, completely unconscious, and what passed for the corpse of a woman. For the next month that he was with them, the doctors at Baptist Health in Lexington called his survival and speedy recovery “unprecedented” and “a miracle.” David did not.

Run (Part 3)

David’s eyes opened. The first thing he noticed was his shoulder, screaming like a dying rabbit. He turned his head from its resting place and groaned in horror. His left shoulder was a decimation of flesh and bone. His plaid shirt and orange vest were soaked with brown and red. It was sticky, but dry. The sun was going down.
As he pulled himself up, his teeth ground together, and a sharp exhalation of breath left his nose. The taste of vomit cloyed his mouth. He reached for his canteen—gone. So were his bow and his arrows.

As if from somewhere far away, alarm bells started ringing in his ears. He remembered his emergency training from his days in Iraq, and he transformed from flabbergasted hunter to battle-tried soldier.

This wasn’t an accident. Hunting accidents happen, of course—but they don’t usually end in a body abandoned with its weapon removed. This dread realization helped him to momentarily forget how much everything hurt.

He rolled into a deeper patch of weeds, and from his new vantage point, scanned the area. All was quiet, the only sounds being the cheerful gurgle of a nearby stream and the crackling of bare branches blowing in the breeze.

Without looking, he reached for the serrated hunting knife tucked into his belt. He wasn’t surprised at this point to find that it, too, was gone—but he was pleased to discover that the smaller knife, his grandfather’s knife, was still there, tucked into his jacket pocket. Thank Christ. He muttered a quick prayer and steeled himself. It was time to move.

“Ya know Davy, you ain’t going to be able to run forever.”

David looked up at the sound of his Papaw’s molasses-thick Appalachian accent. The older man’s gnarled, work-worn hands were gripped around a rake. It was nearly Halloween, and the leaves were thick on the ground in front of his modest home. It wasn’t much—but it was bought with the hard-won earnings of a man who worked for himself. Like every other home here in Hazard, Kentucky it was bought by coal.

“Whatcha mean, Papaw?” David was 19. He was back from basic training for a visit before he headed out to Iraq to fight for his country. His friends told him he was the best shot at Basic—he attributed it to years taking pot shots at squirrels and birds attempting to poach his grandfather’s garden. He was in that very garden right now, pulling up the old plants and working them into the earth while it was still soft. He didn’t fully understand why the old man insisted on doing something like this when you could just wait for the winter to take care of it for you, but Papaw had always been stubborn and particular, and there wasn’t anything to be done about it. So, he dug.

“I mean,” he started, and then took a moment to cough into his shaking fist before spitting on the ground. He tried again.

“I mean you’re young and healthy and you got prospects. You got good grades and a future.” He scratched his protruding stomach with too-long fingernails. “Y’aint like me. No need to throw yourself away. Stay here, Davy. Go to college. Find a gal.”

He paused a moment, face tight and unsure, as if he was wrestling with the words to get them out of his mouth. “Stop beatin’ yourself up over somethin’ that weren’t your fault.”

David, his face still turned towards the earth, stiffened. His grandfather had tried this same conversation at least half a dozen times before.

“Mom ain’t coming back, Papaw!” David’s voice cracked in a semblance of the puberty that he had so recently gone through. He paused to gather himself and said with finality and venom, “I ain’t either, so stop tryin’.”

David’s movements were quick for a man whose left arm was useless and who had lost a considerable amount of blood. He wasn’t quite running, but he was moving expertly forward in a deep crouch, on towards his jeep at the edge of the hills. He assumed he would be by himself, this deep in Daniel Boone National Forest. Sure, his family lived a little east of here, closer to Williamsburg—but aside from a few neighbors, there ain’t too many in these parts—at least, that’s what he had thought before heading into the hills. Obviously incorrect, his shoulder reminded him, as it snagged on a low branch and forced him to his knees.

He recalled, with grim sense of irony, a similar experience with roles reversed.

The .50 caliber sniper rifle in his hands.

The shot that blew the goddamn arm off an unsuspecting towel head who was working diligently in the distance, planting a land mine on the edge of a ravaged town.

The young man—couldn’t have been older than 16 or 17—dropping to the ground, flailing in agony, trying to escape whatever dark god was smiting him from the sky.

The flower of viscera that bloomed after he tripped over his own trap.

The laughter and jeers he shared with his friends.

Who was laughing at David now, somewhere out there in the woods?

At this miserable thought, he stopped for a moment to consider his now-black surroundings. It was freezing, and he could see his breath in front of his face by what little light the moon provided. He gripped his grandpa’s knife in one hand. The small blade offered little comfort.

Suddenly, there was a crack somewhere behind him and to his right. It was the sound of a foot breaking a twig on the ground, and he dropped without hesitation.

Straining his eyes, he peered into the pitch, all looming shadows swaying against solid gloom. He saw nothing. He held his breath, listening, but heard as much as he saw. After a few tense moments, he released a breath and started to pick himself up.

A thwip sounded and he felt what could only be an arrow whir past his ear and into the thicket, and he took off into the brush.

David lay in his bunk in the mostly-empty barracks. He was still pretty new to life in Iraq, but he was smart enough to take downtime seriously when he got it. He chewed the wad of tobacco that was stuffed into the side of his mouth as he watched his new roommate, Luis, who was bent over, pulling a shoebox out from under his bed.

David propped himself up on one arm. “Whatcha got there, Luis?”

Luis looked up, at David and smiled. Back home, David had only met a handful of non-white folks. They were always around, but his people didn’t typically make friends with theirs—and the feeling was generally mutual. But as they’d gotten to know one another over the previous few weeks, David had come to truly respect, even love, Luis and the other brothers-in-arms that he worked with. Despite Luis’s brown skin, he was a standup guy.

Luis opened his shoebox, revealing a large black candle, rosary beads, a box of matches, and a small framed portrait of a skeleton wearing nun’s robes. The skeleton held a scythe in one hand and a globe in the other.

Luis pulled the objects out, methodically, one after another. He first propped the portrait up so the undead nun stared at him. He then set the black candle down next to it, lighting it with a match. Finally, taking the rosary, he began flipping through them, one by one. Glancing up at David, Luis explained: “This is Santa Muerte. Back home, my tía would sometimes perform little services for folks who had been hurt by someone. She would pray to Santa Muerte for them, they would light a candle, and then...”

Luis trailed off. He looked at the painting of Holy Death, and in the flickering of the black candle, she looked back. “Well,” he said with a chuckle, “I don’t really know what would happen then. But I was always told that Santa Muerte would get revenge for those treated badly, sinned against. She would protect them from harm.”

David cocked a dubious eyebrow, but before he could say anything, Luis waved him off. “Listen man,” he said, “I know it sounds like bull****, and it probably is. But we’re out here fighting for our lives. It can’t hurt anything.” With that, Luis turned his back on David, picked up his rosary, and began muttering under his breath, down on his knees, looking intently to the lighted, robed skeleton.

Santa Muerte, gripping her scythe and her globe, looked right back.

I listened to Jeff Rosenstock, “POST-“ on your recommendation today.

That track “Let them Win” is such a fantastic anthem! I was like RIGHT ON!!!

That was one of my top tracks of last year overall. It's such a ****ing banger. The whole album is great and makes me appreciate pop punk again as a genre, but HOLY **** that song.

This is a ****ing hella creepy record.

Liked this a lot. Again very Gorguts to my mind.

It's all about Vexovoid. Their whole discog is awesome.

Glad you liked those albums! They're both top shelf. I agree with Frown, Portal is amazing no matter what album it is.

He had never intended to run. His buddy Earl had told him going into the village that they were highly sympathetic to the United States.

“They hate Saddam!” he exclaimed happily, clapping David on the shoulder and giving that bucktooth grin of his. He continued in his weird, off-kilter canter that he always got into after a night of uppers and anxiety. “They’ll welcome us with open arms, about-goddamn-time I tell ya, how many days in a row have we been up to our ****ing ears in bullets and mines? Anyway, you and me pal, we’re gonna get in there, we’re gonna find the guys with that good contraband, and you ‘n’ me’ll get wild. And, hey!” He winked mischievously. “Maybe we’ll find ourselves a couple of local girlfriends and have ourselves a good time, yeah?”

David was too exhausted to answer, but he indulged in the first grin he’d had in a long while.

It was all cut short when the truck at the front of the line blew up. Rocket launcher.

It was a blur of lead, blood, and screams. And then—desert. Nothing but sand and regret.

He, once again, outran Death. He didn’t have to run fast—he just had to run faster than everyone else.

David was panicking. He was nearly as familiar with these trees and this ground as he was with his own body. He knew its dips, its hidden hollows, its scars and pains. But whoever this was following him—whatever it was? He couldn’t shake it. He would try dipping to the left or the right, and an arrow (his own arrow, he realized bitterly) would land directly in front of him.

He had the terrible feeling that this was retribution. This was no serial killer. This was Santa Muerte, the manifested form of Death herself, hunting him like the animal he knew, deep down inside, he was. He muttered prayers, desperate prayers, for forgiveness in between ragged breaths. He prayed to be absolved of his sins before he was taken.

His many, many sins.

Then: Snap. And a sickening crack. And for the second time tonight, he let out a terrible, animalistic yell, and dropped.

He gripped blindly at his right foot and discovered a small trap gripping foot. His sense of reason, already clouded by terror, evaporated completely. He whimpered and limped forward.

There was no one left to outrun. It was just him and Lady Death, coming to collect.

He had been back in Kentucky for two years, but he may as well have gotten back yesterday. He’d done nothing but drink and barely hold down part-time gigs with friends of friends the whole time. He’d burned nearly all his bridges and had little left to lose.

The Sons of the White Wolf were right there waiting for him. Their tenets—power through force, survival of the fittest—were quite attractive to a man down on his luck with a tendency to live through impossible situations. They welcomed him in like he was a prodigal son, and embraced him, and set to work correcting his errors. First to go was his vague tolerance of people who looked different than him. His old army buddies who spoke Spanish were revealed to be double agents. They were working against the nation by destroying it from within. The blacks were tools for the Jews, trying to destabilize the major cities to take control.

It was brilliant. It all made sense. And David, one of the lucky few, was blessed enough to be let in on the secret. He stopped answering the phone when his brother called. He had new brothers now.

He was elated when they he was informed that he was one step away from proving his devotion to the cause and that, if he could prove his strength, he would be given more valuable revelations of higher orders, by magnitudes.

He stared at the group of black-clad men around him and smiled like he had just won the lottery.

“I’d do anything for the Sons of the White Wolf. What do I have to do?”

Minutes went by and the only sound David heard was his own gasping for air and cries of pain with every step he took on his injured foot. He wasn’t trying to hide any longer. Why bother?

He limped on. After about half an hour of silence, he began to believe that he had, somehow, survived this brush with the void. Perhaps Santa Muerte had decided he had suffered enough? Or maybe he wasn’t worth her time?

He began to see the faint outline of the access road he had come in from. He was too tired and injured to celebrate openly, but he rejoiced inside. He knew that, as soon as he exited the woods into the clearing, his grandfather’s truck would be waiting for him. He picked up the pace by a microsecond and turned the corner.
The truck was gone.

From behind, he heard an engine turn over and roar to life, and he recognized the sound like the voice of a beloved family member.

He turned to it as the brights flashed in his face, and instinctively, he covered his eyes with his one good hand. He realized the mistake he had made as he felt his ribs, and innumerable other small bones, crack. The back of his head hit gravel, and he realized through the ringing in his ears that he was done running.
His assassin climbed out of the truck and he heard, but did not yet see, light boots trudge deliberately over the loose stones in his direction. The figure stepped in front of the lights and David squinted enough to make out what he was looking at.

She was a woman. She had a dark complexion and short, brown hair. She was wearing camouflage and carried a shotgun. She was much shorter than he. Her face was impossible to make out in the glare.

There was, for a moment, a curtain of stillness between them. He, a body broken and abused on the ground, she, a goddess of pain. He tore the veil with strangled questions, in a voice he barely recognized: “Who are you? Why are you doing this to me? What did I ever do to you?”

She remained like a statue for a full minute before responding. Her voice was icier than the November cold that surrounded them.

“There ain’t no rapists allowed in these parts.”

David never knew who she was. She was just a random pick at a random bar in middle of nowhere Appalachia. She was short, with a knee-length black dress on, her dark, curly hair pulled back in a bun. She was wearing a gold cross necklace, but instead of Christ, there was a robed figure, with a skeletal face. She was one of them… which made it so much more appropriate. He struggled to act like a gentleman, attempting to compose himself when he knew what was to come. She didn’t particularly mind. She was used to awkward, sad men. Hell, everyone out here was awkward and sad, herself included.

When her legs got wobbly, and her head swirled, she knew something was wrong, but it was too late.

He got her out of the bar and into his truck.

He took her out into an empty holler.

He got what he wanted and proved once and for all, he was strong.

He took a few pictures to prove to his brothers and left her on the side of the road. He got cheers and shots, and was given a hasty tattoo on his left breast: a wolf head over an iron cross. He had never felt so proud, so powerful, so free. He was never going to die.

wow. i really liked that patton track. knew about him from a crumb story and i kinda thought it was like museum music or something and that it would never interest me. how strange.
couple of other stuff i clicked are too heavy for my ear....

Patton was an AMAZING musician. Truly, a wondrous artist. Shockingly. I'm glad you enjoyed. Check out other Delta blues from the time period, I love it.

And yeah, I love extreme metal. I'm aware it ain't for everyone. Glad you tried anyway!

In a moment of wild desperation, David threw his Papaw’s knife at Death. It flew past her lamely and she didn’t bother flinching. She stepped forward onto his chest, forcing his breath out.

He didn’t have a chance to breathe back in before she took the shot.


David’s grandfather lay on the hospice bed. The lung cancer would take him away in another day or two.

Almost inaudibly, he rasped to his grandson, “Davy, you make good choices for me when I’m gone, alright? Make your Papaw proud.”

David choked down a sob.

“I will.”

http://tapmusic.net/collage.php?user...5&caption=true

Here's my top albums of the year so far. I've been listening to a lot of pop and pop adjacent stuff, which has always been unusual for me, but maybe I'm mellowing out as I slide into my thirties and fatherhood?

There's a lot I regret about growing up in the church world. There's a lot of bull**** self-hatred involved with thinking that I'm an evil, sinful being by my very nature. It took me WAY longer than anyone else to figure out basic science, like the concept of evolution. I've grappled with feeling insecure, unsure of myself, and literally responsible for the lives and eternal souls of everyone around me.

One thing I do NOT regret was the act of singing with a bunch of people at least once a week for extended periods of time.

You know, so many philosophical questions about existence just don't matter to me much these days, and the ones that do just aren't as big of a deal as they were. My beliefs are firmly grounded in tangible reality- and while the songs I grew up around are all quite untethered to a humanist worldview, there is something transcendentally beautiful about a bunch of folks- most of them not trained in any formal musical sense- getting together and singing, the music lifting them up into emotional ecstasy, encountering a big universal truth together and responding to it.

I was raised Charismatic, and in our circles, that meant that musical services were often jazz-like in their meandering nature, totally unrehearsed, and built around group improvisation. Songs would lengthen by one, two, five, SEVEN minutes, the changes built up and destroyed only to be built again, vocalists alternating between choruses and bridges and wordless vocalizations, percussionists (like myself) just losing themselves in the rhythm. I still find the act of playing this sort of spontaneous music, and singing with a bunch of people, profoundly religious... I'm not entirely sure what that means these days, but I do like it. That's enough for me.

All that is to say that I'm still a fan of a lot of church music, or religious music in general. Maybe I'll start posting my favorite religious music and why it feels meaningful to me still.

This song is what I'm currently jamming to. Maybe it's a bias against my own heritage, but I find that black gospel music is often musically superior to white-centered CCM. It seems to have a deeper musical and spiritual tradition, and the quality of the musicians and singers is often impeccable. The vocals in this song, ESPECIALLY at the end (holy ****) are something to behold. Just listen to the high notes that choir hits at the climax, it's a-****ing-mazing.

Do you ever wonder if Calvinism is in fact correct? Do you ever wonder if determinism is true regardless of whether or not Christianity says so?