Just Needed to Share vol. 6

I don't like talking to people.

perhaps that should be amended. I don't enjoy conversing with people who are just waiting with an answer to everything i say. People who meet my fears and anxieties with dismissive put-downs and veiled insults masked as "motivation". 25 years and they still don't understand.

I hate this. i hate the idea of having to subjugate my actions to other people's will only cause i lack the means to survive on my own. i hate having to report to people, especially at this stage in my life, only cause i lack the means to be completely on my own. i hate that too many people make up their minds based on surface noise without actually knowing a damn thing. i hate how hard it has been for me to turn this rage into something creative as of late. i've tried losing myself in the art of Zdzislaw Beksinski, the films of Richard Stanley, the music of Diamanda Galas...and while they are indeed more than adequate reflections of the images and words and sounds in my head, my own lack of output is stifling.

The idea of becoming part of a some bland office mechanism doesn't bother me. whatever "job" i get will not be who i am. It will be the means to the end and that's it. i know people don't understand that notion...that i refuse to be defined by my place of employment. i do not have that kind of mentality. it has only just dawned on me; I am an artist. I am a writer. I am a vocalist. They may not pay me a fucking thing, but that's my cross to bear. Status is not in my interest. These blogs and these lyrics are me. Clerical work is not me. It's just something to give me money so i can enable myself to be me again. so everyone will let me be and me be. I'm sorry if this seems foolish to you, or if you don't understand, but it's really not about you. don't be upset if you find i am dragging my feet through this process. if these hooves are lethargic in the sand, it is because i feel defeated. because i've made this inane quest for poorly defined office work the center of my being for low these many months. no more, though. no more of this. Your lack of identity is not going to be pushed on me anymore. I know who i am. i know what i am. Now start paying.

Just Needed to Share.

Just Needed to Share vol. 5

NP: Articles of Faith - Bad Attitude

Haven't done one of these sort of blogs in over a month. I've just been using this to showcase my copy/paste skills as of late. the truth is i have been having a hard time writing anything substantial since November.

I've been fretting about money/finding work now more than ever, seeing as how it's been a solid year since i graduated and not-a-god-damn-thing has come through in the ways of work. i'm doing my best to take solace in the fact that we are approaching a recession, yet i still can't help but feel like a failure.

I've got a birthday coming up. come Monday i'll be 25 years old. .

Just needed to share...

NP: Articles of Faith - Every Man for Himself

We Are the Sprocket Holes vol. the 13th part 88: Jason Tests Positive

the greatest movie that will never exist.

from Between Death and the Devil: the Unofficial Richard Stanley Website;

This screenplay is an undated draft of Hardware 2: Ground Zero, the unproduced sequel to Hardware.

The Mark-13's are in mass production. The US government is employing them to patrol the US-Mexican border and deal with illegal aliens. Shades returns to Earth after a series of space flight assignments. Feeling alone in the world, he decides to seek out Jill, who's now living in a hippie colony in Splendora, Texas. The colony consists of 'destructuralists', who beseech the human race to abandon all technology and re-unite with nature. As Shades and his newly-found companion, battle-scarred vet Lyle Maddox arrive to Splendora, they find Jill earnestly believing in the cause, but even she is oblivious to what ultimately lies beneath the peaceful colony. Something big enough to attract a phalanx of Mark-13 droids as well as a Mexican guerilla leader, who thinks he's channelling the spirit of Emilio Zapata...

If Ground Zero should be described with one word, the word would be 'epic'. After the first hour of people shuffling in and out and getting into Splendora, all bets are suddenly off. Stanley shifts gears dramatically at the mid-point of his 120-page script, gradually raising the adrenaline levels ten miles high. The last 20 pages might be over the top, if it weren't without the previous 40. Ground Zero goes out in a bang instead of a whimper, and along the way has grown into such proportions that there is only one suitable way out.

The script is a definite page-turner, but it's also violent, challenging, and ultimately, perhaps even too crazy for its own good. At the same time however, it could've been Richard Stanley's magnum opus, his coming to age as a filmmaker. Amidst the chaos, Stanley even takes the time to build upon and expand the lore established in his previous films, which is also something that might cause some head-scratching and confusion. Yet it's also very logical and even nostalgic to see a familiar face on the roadside.

And the storm thereafter...

NOTE: This is a new draft of Ground Zero, replacing the previous near 15-yeard old version.

d/l available here

U.S.A.! U.S.A.! vol. 5

http://www.petitiononline.com/free101/petition.html

Free Bryan Hathaway

To: All People Who Believe In Progress

A caring and loving relationship with a consenting dead animal on the side of the road is a constitutional right of every American regardless of ethnic, religious, or economic background.

Bryan James Hathaway is a young minority activist from Wisconsin who has been on the forefront of progressive struggle for the liberation of inanimate objects, plants, animals, and household appliances. His selfless devotion to fighting speciism and necrophobia in our society has led him to be brutally persecuted, tortured, and incarcerated - all for a laughable "crime" of "sexual gratification with a dead deer on the side of the road." As if his prior conviction of "horsing around" had not been enough, the bigoted ruling class is once again making him the whipping boy of their own suppressed anxieties, fantasies, and desires.

As if the judges, the persecutors, and the police have never had sexual fantasies as they drove past roadkill - a juicy squirrel or a skunk - or as they visited a funeral, petted a neighbor's dog, fed guppies in a fish tank, or handled a toaster? I know I do - just as every other broadminded human being on planet Earth!

Every generation should have a moral assignment, and one of ours should be justice for Bryan James Hathaway!

Free Hathaway and all prisoners of conscience!

Long live our collective commitment to sexual liberation of inanimate objects!

Sincerely,

The Undersigned

147. Nick Benoitschwitz

never let it be said that i don't reach for the sky....

Tired of Haulin' Oats! vol. 7

cds;

V/A - Nothing's Quiet on the Eastern Front
Milligram - This is Class War
Antigama - Discomfort

tapes;

Believer - Dimensions
Gorguts - Erosion of Sanity
GWAR - This Toilet Earth
Rollins Band - the End of Silence

DVDs;

the Abandoned

THE HAUL OF 2007;

MOVIES

DVDs;

Aftermath/Genesis
A Bittersweet Life
Audition
The Films of Alejandro Jodorwosky
Hard Candy
Ichi the Killer
Mermaid in a Manhole/He Never Dies
Rest in Pieces: a Portrait of Joe Coleman
Romper Stomper
Rubber's Lover
Tetsuo: the Iron Man
3 Extremes
To Sir With Love
the Untold Story
Wonder Showzen seasons 1&2

VHS;
Alien 3
Angel Heart
Bride of the Re-Animator
Dead Ringers
Dr. Strangelove
Doom Generation
Freddy Got Fingered
Girl Fight
Hardware
In the Mouth of Madness
Dario Argento's Phantom of the Opera
Spawn (animated)
Swimming With Sharks
the Toxic Avenger Part 2

MUSIC

Tapes;

THE CURE - Kiss Me, Kiss Me, Kiss Me
FRONT 242 - No Comment
HUEY LEWIS AND THE NEWS - Sports
LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER - Buscando Una Respuesta
THE MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA - Birds of Fire
OROKU - Living Through the End Times...

7 inches;

BERZERKERS - Annihilation Blues
CROM-TECH - s/t
DISSYSTEMA - s/t
INTEGRITY/LOCKWELD split
ISKRA - the Terrorist Act E.P.
LOOKING FOR AN ANSWER/ZANUSSI split
MONSTER X - s/t
PROTESTANT - s/t
THOUGHTS OF IONESCO - s/t

LPS;

BAD BRAINS - I Against I
Batman TV show score
BLACK SABBATH - Mob Rules
BLACK SABBATH - Born Again
CARPENTERS - s/t
THE JIM CARROLL BAND - Dry Dreams
CHICAGO - s/t
THE CHURCH - Starfish
DUKE ELLINGTON - The Indispensable Duke Ellington
JONAS HELLBORG - The Word
KAYO DOT/BLOODY PANDA split
KILLING JOKE - s/t
KING CRIMSON - Larks Tongue in Aspic
NEUTRAL MILK HOTEL - In an Aeroplane Over the Sea
THE PATTI SMITH GROUP - Radio Ethiopia
HANK WILLIAMS - Greatest Hits

CDs;

1. AGAINST THE GRAIN/FACTION ZERO - War Stories
2. ANTIGAMA/DRUGS OF FAITH split
3. GRUNTSPLATTER/SLOWVENT split
4. PORTAL/RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE split
5. SLIGHT SLAPPERS/SHORT HATE TEMPER split
6. TORSO/UNICORN split
7. THE ACCUSED - Martha Splatterhead’s Maddest Stories Ever Told
8. ALBERT AYLER - The Impulse Story
9. ANTAEUS - De Principil Evangelicum
10. ANTAEUS - Blood Libels
11. ANTIGAMA - Intellect Made Us Blind
12. ANTIGAMA - Zeroland
13. ANTIGAMA - Resonance
14. ARKHON INFAUSTUS - Perdition Insanabilis
15. ARKHON INFAUSTUS - Orthodoxyn
16. ARTICLES OF FAITH - Complete Discography Vol. 1
17. ARTICLES OF FAITH - Complete Discography Vol. 2
18. ASUNDER - Clarion Call
19. ATAVIST - II: Ruined
20. THE BACK OF MY FACE - Skipping Stones
21. DEVENDRA BANHART - Rejoicing the Hands
22. BATTLE OF MICE - A Day of Nights
23. BAUHAUS - In the Flat Field
24. BJORK - Vespertine
25. BLACK SABBATH - The Dio Years
26. BOREDOMS - Pop Tatari
27. WILLIAM S. BURROUGHS - Dead City Radio
27. CANDIRU - Unloved and Weeded Out
28. CAR BOMB - Centralia
29. CRISIS - the Hollowing
30. CRYPTOPSY - Blasphemy Made Flesh
21. THE CURE - Pornography
28. DALEK - Absence
29. DALEK - Deadverse Massive Vol. 1
30. DANZIG - the Lost Tracks of Danzig
31. DEAD INFECTION - Brain Corrosion
32. DEATH CAB FOR CUTIE - Plans
33. DEATHPILE - Ne Plus Ultra
34. DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Kenose
35. DEATHSPELL OMEGA - Fas
36. DEFTONES - Saturday Night Wrist
37. DIE KRUEZEN - October File
38. DISASSOCIATE - Symbols, Signals, and Noise
39. DISASSOCIATE - Imperfect World
40. DURAN DURAN - the Wedding Album
41. EINSTURZENDE NEUBAUTEN - Strategies Against Architecture
42. ENOCHIAN CRESCENT - Black Church
43. FEAR OF GOD - First E.P.
44. FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM - Dawnrazor
45. FIELDS OF THE NEPHILIM - Revelations
46. FLIPPER - Blowin Chunks
47. FUGAZI - 13 Songs
48. FURZE - UTD
49. GENESIS - s/t
50. GLORIOR BELLI - Manifesting the Raging Beast
51. GOJIRA - From Mars to Sirius
52. GORGUTS - Obscura
53. GOREROTTED - Only Tools and Corpses
54. GOREROTTED - Mutilated in Minutes
55. GRAVEYARD RODEO - Sowing Discord in the Haunts of Man
56. GRAVEYARD RODEO - On The Verge
57. HAVOHEJ - Munundjinn
58. IMMOLATION - Shadows in the Light
59. IN SLAUGHTER NATIVES - Resurrection
60. INCANTATION - Mortal Throne of Nazarene
61. INHUMAN - Black Reign
62. INTEGRITY - Seasons in the Size of Days
63. INTEGRITY - Humanity is the Devil
64. INTEGRITY - For Those Who Fear Tomorrow
65. ISKRA - Selected Works
66. JESU - Conquerer
67. DANIEL JOHNSTON - Songs of Pain
68. KILLING JOKE - Pandemonium
69. LICKGOLDENSKY - s/t
70. LOGICAL NONSENSE - Soul Pollution
72. LUNGBRUSH - Old School New School
73. LUGUBRUM - De Vette Cuecken
74. MANES - How The World Came To An End
75. MAUDLIN OF THE WELL - Leaving Your Body Map
76. MIDDIAN - Age Eternal
77. MILLIGRAM - s/t
76. MISSING FOUNDATION - Demise
78. MIRANDA SEX GARDEN - Madra
79. MONARCH! - Dead Men Tell No Tales
80. MY BLOODY VALENTINE - Isn't Anything
81. NAVICON TORTURE TECHNOLOGIES - Scenes from the Next Millennium
82. JOANNA NEWSOM - Ys
83. NYIA - Head Held High
84. OPETH - My Arms, Your Hearse
85. OPTIMUM WOUND PROFILE - Silver or Lead
86. OXBOW - The Narcotic Story
87. OUTLAW ORDER - Legalize Crime
88. OVERMARS - Affliction, Endocrine...Vertigo
89. PAIN KILLER - Guts of a Virgin/Buried Secrets
90. PIG DESTROYER - Phantom Limb
91. PLASMATICS - New Hope for the Wretched
92. PORTAL - Outre
93. PSYOPUS - Our Puzzling Encounters Considered
95. RABIES CASTE - Let the Soul Out and Cut the Vein
96. RAISON D'ETRE - the Empty Hollow Unfolds
97. RAJOITUS - Hat Morker Amfetamin
98. RAPEMAN - Two Nuns and a Pack Mule
99. RAW RADAR WAR - s/t
100. RED HARVEST - Cold Dark Matter
101. RINGWORM - the Venomous Grand Design
102. RITES OF THY DEGRINGOLADE - Totality
103. RUDIMENTARY PENI - Archaic
104. RWAKE - Voice of Omens
105. SCORN - White Iris Blind
106. SERAPHEL - Remembrance
107. SEMARGL - Attack on God
108. SEMARGL - Satanogensis
109. SIGH - Hangman’s Hymn
110. 16 HORSEPOWER - Sackcloth ‘N Ashes
111. SLEEPYTIME GORILLA MUSEUM - In Glorious Times
112. SLOWDIVE - Just for a Day
113. SPK - Leichenschrei
114. SSD - Power
115. STORMCROW - Enslaved in Darkness
116. STRESSBAL - s/t
117. SUTCLIFFE JUGEND - This is the Truth
118. SWERVEDRIVER - Mezcal Head
119. SYBIL VANE - s/t
120. THOSE POOR BASTARDS - Hellfire Hymns
121. THOUGHT INDUSTRY - Songs for Insects
122. THOUGHTS OF IONESCO - The Scar is our Watermark
123. TODAY IS THE DAY - Willpower
124. TODAY IS THE DAY - Axis of Eden
125. TOOL - Lateralus
126. TOOL - 10,000 Days
127. TOTAL FUCKING DESTRUCTION - Compact Disc vol. 1
128. TV ON THE RADIO - Desperate Youth, Blood Thirsty Babes
129. TV ON THE RADIO - Return to Cookie Mountain
130. UNEXPECT - In a Flesh Aquarium
131. UTUK XUL - Goat of the Black Possession
132. VORKUTA - Into the Chasms of Lunacy
133. SCOTT WALKER - The Drift
134. WATCHTOWER - Control and Resistance
135. WHIPPING BOY - Subcreature
136. THE WOLFGANG PRESS - Birdwood Cage
137. WOVENHAND - Consider the Birds
138. YDI - Out for Blood
139. YEAR OF THE RABBIT - s/t

Double You, Tea F. vol. 14

We Are The Sprocket Holes vol. 12

i am haunted by this film. a film i have yet to see in it's entirety. i've watched the trailer on YouTube every other day for the last couple of months. i am developing an unhealthy fixation on it, to the point where rarely a moment goes by where the few images I've seen or many words I've read aren't trailing the creases of my mind, the slime seeping into my thoughts like liquid LSD. here's Bloody Disgusting's review;

This slice of cinematic surrealism is truly the last stand of the formerly bursting underground scene that brought us such cinematic dynamos as Jim VanBebber, Nacho Cerda and Jorg Buttgerreit. Now the scene is utterly and completely dead, with no one shooting on film anymore and the online community murdering the former camaraderie that was felt amongst “underground” enthusiasts in the late nineties. SUBCONSCIOUS CREULTY stands nearly alone, as it is clearly a film of cinematic demon exorcism, made to purge torturous images from the filmmaker’s heart and soul. Something very few backyard auteurs are willing to even attempt anymore (though there are a few of us still trying). This is the antithesis of backyard tits and gore for laughs that poses as underground filmmaking these days.

The film starts out with a low-key, stylish montage with voiceover explaining that film is a lie; just images strung together from stolen moments of dreams. This is followed with an on screen text message explaining the difference between the right and left-brain, suggesting we kill the side attached to reason. Stark black on white credits drop us headfirst into the nightmarish visions ahead. A woman lies naked and prone on a concrete slab in a dusty and dank basement. A well-manicured female hand caresses her, puts a red cloth over her face, then proceeds to slice open the nude woman’s stomach and pullout an eyeball. The dreams have begun.

The first “story” deals with a pregnant woman and her obsessive brother. He watches her through doorways and keyholes, obsessing constantly about her sexuality and pregnancy. He makes her both physically and emotionally dependent upon him as his sickness grows, mirroring the child growing inside her. His inner monologue often talks of making the birth the biggest mockery of life the world would ever see. And he does. Without spoiling the climax, it suffices to say that it is unsettling and certainly not for the fainthearted. But also with that said, the climax of this segment runs a bit long, lingering on the horrific incident past the point of shock or even revulsion. At the end the characters are dead inside and feel nothing, I felt a very similar way. Perhaps that was the intention.

Segment two is easily the best of the film, and some of the purest surrealist filmmaking made in the last fifteen years. Without explanation or even dialogue we watch as a group of people literally make love to the Earth. They writhe in complete ecstasy as they grind their genitals into muddy holes. As one man digs deeper into the Earth it bleeds heavily with him rubbing the planetary menstruation all over himself. A woman fellates a tree branch and breaks it off sending geysers of ejaculate/blood all around. At the end of the segment a man fellates a woman in white robes who has a large knife as a surrogate penis. It slices and cuts his mouth to sheds, but he continues while she pants in orgasm.

The scene is agonizingly beautiful, shot with slow movement and high film speed to give it all a dreamlike slur of motion. Though bloody, no one seems to be in pain, the whole segment seems to communicate something positive and wondrous. These are people connecting with the very content of nature itself, with blood, dirt, vegetation, sex and humanity become one. The segment seems to be trying to say the same sort of thing the Elias Merhage’s film BEGOTTEN (1992) attempted, but does it in a much less self important way. Just like the original Surrealists intended, this is dream-life on film.

The lyrical nature of the film then drastically changes pace to rapid fire editing and hard-edged industrial rock music when we meet a lonely businessman drinking coffee after work. He is jettisoned through the streets (through the use of hyper stylized editing not unlike TETSUO). Once home the man indulges in what seems to be his nightly ritual of masturbation to hardcore pornography. Once he ejaculates he clearly seems rather disgusted with himself, throwing a cum covered coin at the TV. That’s his life in a nutshell- money, joyless self service sex and no fulfillment at all. Once asleep, a faceless, black-gloved entity attacks. The focus of his life is the target. His dick gets impaled by fishhooks and peeled back like a bloody flesh-banana, all the while being masturbated furiously.

Cut from there to the last segment (which is actually the second half of the above segment) and the most obvious. Christ is on his knees wailing in front of a church in a modern street. He is carried into a darkened warehouse and attacked by several demonic women who proceed to tear him limb from limb, cannibalizing him the whole way. Just in case you miss the body of Christ idea there is a quick flash of the Eucharist being eaten. They gut him and for the final indignity shove a large tree branch up his ass. Christ suffers far more horrifying indignities here than in any passages of the bible, which is pretty substantial. His pain is made flesh and alive in front of our eyes. Most viewers will turn away either at the blasphemy of the images or the sheer revulsion. Others may find the imagery so obvious that they turn off as well. But for those very few who can read between the lines and have some faith in director Hussain, they may see that he is indeed exploring a message; the pain of being a martyr for the human race. The global suffering of mankind at the hands of a church that has long forgotten the real reason they are worshipping. Hypocrisy, at its most vile and repugnant, made blood, shit and cum. In between we get a haunting set up of religious objects and icons with real life wartime atrocity footage (much of it from the British documentary EXECUTIONS) being projected onto them.

Somehow through all of this the businessman is reborn, lying prone in a waterfall, naked, almost hairless, being cleansed by the purity of the Earth herself. He has passed through the muddled brutality of human kind and come out the other side. And so have we.

There are very few films that seem to literally hardwire themselves into the brain of the creator and imprint celluloid with their visions and dreams. This is one such film. Sometimes SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY is obtuse, aggravating and maybe a little pretentious. But more often than not it is driven, symbolic, heartfelt and engrossing.

There are moments in the film when you can feel that it is the first feature-film from a director who is being allowed total freedom and thus letting his reigns go slack. The end of the “Human Larva” segment is one example, as is the overuse of hardcore pornography footage in the last segment. Those clips are at their best when presented in ultra close up so the pixels on the TV render the images broken and hard to make out. The shock of open wound pornography numbs after it is shown too much.

But these are small complaints about an otherwise triumphant movie. Cinema should move you, and this does. Like it or loathe it you cannot remain emotionally idle during SUBCONSCIOUS CRUELTY. That, in and of itself, is remarkable but will definitely turn off simple-minded gorehounds looking for cheap thrills and special effects. But for fans of deeper cinema this is the last stop on the underground train and required viewing.

The DVD is a PAL Region 2 with, unfortunately, no Region 1 NTSC release in sight. This is an incredible 2-disc affair that comes in a special oversized collectible package (that unfortunately has a tendency to drop the discs from the trays, so be careful) with a full color booklet in Dutch and English. Disc one contains the movie in either a full frame or 1.66 matted edition. The full frame actually looks the most compositionally pleasing, while the matted is too tight more often than not.

Disc two is loaded down with tons of extras including a 70 odd minute making of feature called a SUBCONSCIOUS CREULTY CHRISTMAS where most of the movers and shakers involved explain the long (six years!) arduous road of production for this film. Not surprisingly there were many people who quit the production along the way, a crew revolt, kidnapped negatives, and worst of all, Karim Hussain being imprisoned at the US/Canada border because of his “questionable” last name and the movie being labeled obscene and not allowed back into Canada. Even though it was made there! Both director Hussain and producer Mitch Davis come off as slightly hyperactive, but totally committed, filmmakers who will stop at nothing to make their films. They also seem to be refreshingly honest about the artistic success of the film and see its oversights and flaws. They seem to be the kind of guys you would want to hang around with and talk film theory all day.

Another extra is producer Mitch Davis’ incredible short film DIVIDED INTO ZERO which is more approachable as for as narrative, but just as fragmentary and violent. This film deals with a killer who has a child captive and the ultimately the murder of said child. But the film is really about the gradual transformation of a man into a monster through the sometimes subtle and other times not so, intrusion of others into his lifeline. The movie zips back and forth at will throughout this elderly man’s life during which we are granted disorienting scenes from his horrid upbringing. While the material has been done before (Douglass Buck’s incredible work springs to mind), it has never quite been done like this. DIVIDED INTO ZERO makes you squirm in more ways than one. Once again if you are seeking just blood and guts you may be disappointed when you get a film that forces you to look at humanity such as this does. There is another short from Karim that I have unfortunately not watched, a hilarious cartoon/review by scatological comic artist Rick Trembles, plus the expected trailers, bios, motion menus etc.

This is the kind of loving package that makes owning a multi-region player worth the hassle. Put this on the shelf next to EL TOPO, TETSUO, NEKROMANTIC and UN CHIEN ANDALOU. If you don’t know those movies, then go back and watch your DAWN OF THE DEAD 2004 again. You don’t deserve movies this good. (AC)

By Andrew Copp