trailofstars

still

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 03:50:42 GMT

Still writing. Still a slave to the awesome overwhelming beauty and power of the music I love. Still reading: new King right now, previously a host of short stories by various authors, a Goodis novel (still tell everyone in earshot that David Goodis should not be forgotten), Kiernan.

Still wishing that I had a stump next to my desk. Still not playing in the dirt enough. Still desiring to build, to build, to build.

Still full of too many thoughts that are too disjointed. Still laughing with my kids. Still in love with my wife. Still not exercising enough. Still able to make a mean pot of chili. Still challenging myself in my job and facing the challenges it provides.

Still looking forward to beer, tunez and Fulci movies with L. on Saturday. Still looking forward to visiting Lopez Island in two weeks for the first time in far too long. Still retaining fond memories of my wedding there, of vodka before the ceremony and jumping over the broom. Still amazed to be part of a union and yet still undeniably myself. Still fascinated by the work that goes into marriage. Still amazed by the rewards it brings when the work is put into it.

Still an unapologetic fan of Indiana Jones and U2. Still listening to 95% metal, the tunes growing more extreme and strange every day. Still like really hot baths. Still believe that everything looks far more beautiful by candlelight.

Still get overwhelmed by the darkness at times. Still have trouble sleeping for a host of reasons. Still on a first name basis with the ghosts. Still not sure if that is good or bad. Still get thoroughly annoyed at Food Network and then watch shows on it anyway. Still think Iron Chef America has went from entertaining to borderline pathetic. Still working on a story about a Food Network obsessive. Still can't believe I just wrote that much about Food Network, which is still not that important to me.

Still buidling an altar atop my writing desk. Still think about the waves. Still look at the scars on my arm. Still love hugs from my kids better than anything. Still like alcohol. Still miss cigarettes. Still wonder if I'll ever figure out how to say what I want to say. Still become still at random intervals, when the noise is too much.

Still writing.

sunday morning writing notes

Sun, 08 Nov 2009 16:32:15 GMT

Hey there, Sunday morning. Just finished a writing session. In another hour and a half, the family will go see the nephew's last soccer game of the year. The weather doesn't appear as miserable as it has been the last three days. Which I've thoroughly enjoyed.

I'm on day 8 of the writing every day plan. Thus far it's a sucess, in that I have managed to write every day. I've yet to have any marathon sessions, but sometimes a steady trickle is all you need. I've been working on the same story most of the time, I'm approaching the conclusion. It has flaws, but I think the core is workable. The biggest flaw so far is the pacing, which is completely messed up. I think. Or it might not be. The funny thing about writing in small bursts is that sometimes you think you are really dragging a story out. Then you read the whole thing and it's the complete opposite.

I continue to do little things to keep the creative channels open. Last night I brought a notebook up to the living room (the main room of our house.) For awhile I've been playing around with the idea of a character who watches too much Food Network. I want to see what happens if I do some longhand while in the midst of the normal family frenzy. I need to make sure I'm not becoming dependent on a bunch of circumstances in order to write--it becomes too easy to box myself in (and that leads to lame excuses.) So I started the piece--if you can even call it that--last night, and I'm pleased with the results so far. It's so different to write longhand. Plus, it was actually funny...and no one would accuse my work of being loaded with humor (except, occasionally, of the blackest and sickest kind.)

As my writing really jumped in quality over the last couple of years, I think I've become afraid to just...write. To not worry if something has a place or is usable. Once my stories began to really work, I felt like everything I wrote had to work, or had to be for whatever story I was working on at the moment, all toward that goal of a final, complete story. Discipline is good, but as I said above, boxing myself into a corner is not. Particularly when struggling on a story, it's good to sometimes just write, even as an exercise, something that you have no vision for. Writing in its most basic form, you know? And sometimes those pieces become pleasant surprises. So I've committed to doing these little things, to make sure I'm not becoming limited or stale.

Back in the heyday of LiveJournal, I think having this journal (and my other, now defunct) helped with that...if I couldn't delve into my hardcore work, I could at least do a little something here, tie words together on the page. As awesome as Facebook is, it just doesn't mentally provide that option to me (I know there is the Notes function, and I've used it, but the whole vibe is just different...and way more people are friends with me over there.) So another avenue might be to mess with this journal again, especially because the readership is so small, so it's "safe." Maybe I'll test drive excerpts or orphans that I like but don't fit anywhere. It's a thought.

Alright, the youngest is demanding breakfast and I'm rather hungry myself, so onward!

Oh, and Tuesday the new Stephen King book comes out...but I'm not counting.

it sounds not unlike the waves

Wed, 04 Nov 2009 02:10:08 GMT

Hey look, it's me again. Two posts over two days. Must be something in the air. Or maybe just a need to write.

I wrote again today, continuing with my determined plan to write every day this month. However, Susan's had the last two days off. Tomorrow she goes back to work and it gets trickier, I work a full day and pick up the kids, dealing with dinner, homework, and all the resultant daily stuff. It's not that I can't carve a bit of time late in the evening, it's just that I'll be exhausted by then. But I'm not sure that's a bad thing. Sometimes I think I work better exhausted, I don't have the energy for any bullshit and I just sit down and do it.

It does feel so very good to be working like this again. Last night I even wrote by hand in bed, just some journal writing, something that I'd not done for awhile. I will do whatever ritual it takes to bring that energy down again.

It helps when you are inspired, I suppose. Last Friday I saw my friend's band, Agalloch, play. Agalloch's music is just moving me on so many levels right now. It's been my favorite music to write to for the last year (and I've done my best writing listening to it and another band called Nadja) and to see them live--well, cliched as it sounds, was magical. The concerts that move me the most have an element of ritual to them, and Agalloch's certainly did. The music tends to ebb and flow, with lots of dramatic (but slow and subtle) builds. The kind of thing where a ten minute song is standard. No pop hooks to be found (which isn't to say it isn't catchy; I find it extremely so.) Having a friend in the band is just a bonus. I think, more than anything, being around other creative people is inspiring. I don't really know any other writers (outside of jtglover who, sadly, I've yet to spend time with in "real" life), but I know musicians, glass artists, a playwright, a couple of painters...and plenty of people who are creative in their chosen professional fields. There is an energy commited artists bring to their lives, which helps me channel and commit to my own. And to, hopefully, get better.

I don't want to sound like anyone else but me. But the sounds others create help unlock the doors. And isn't that the best thing art can do?

unlock the wooden doors

Tue, 03 Nov 2009 03:24:15 GMT

In November I resolve to write every single day. Even with the weekends filling up again, my job busy and a bit draining, my kids active, and a house that looks like a tornado hit it, I will write every day.

It's that time of year again, the deeper things restless, the shadows ashes against the grain. As I fix up my writing space I wish for a stump of wood to sit next to my desk, rocks to scatter atop the shelves, extra candles to eliminate the need of electrical light. I think of what else needs moving, inside and outside. Wondering if this is the year I perish on the mountainside.

There are things that inspire me still, things that push me to do better, to keep creating. I draw inward. Things keep appearing inside my head: the skull of a deer, animal tracks in the snow, the talk amongst the trees, a town where you can never find the border. I smell woodsmoke.

I draw my circle, prepare the fires, and turn to the ritual of writing words, the only thing that connects me to the cosmos. The solitary act that is also universal.

I am uncomfortable. I work.

work.

Fri, 23 Oct 2009 02:52:40 GMT

It’s been quite the week at work. One firing, one near-medical emergency, and today was spent doing yearly reviews with my staff, one employee at a time. That I came home completely exhausted tonight is, I suppose, no surprise.

My last three years in retail (specifically, the natural foods grocery world), back in the nineties, were spent in management. That experience ended badly, and I was pretty much convinced that a) I would never be a good manager, and b) I never wanted to work in management again. But a funny thing happened. After roughly seven years of reinventing my career in a brand new field, I found myself filling in for my manager when she was on maternity leave…and not only did I kind of enjoy it, I found myself in possession of a confidence level I had completely lacked before. Nevertheless, I felt I desperately needed to grow my technical skills, and so I made a job switch for that express purpose (and, truthfully, after seven years at the same place it was time for a change.) It was good for awhile—a tremendous learning experience—but then another opportunity came my way, and now, as of last May, I’ve been in the role of a manager once more.

And you know what? I like it. Sure, there are aspects I could do without, as would be true in nearly any job…but a lot of the stuff I’d never thought I’d enjoy doing I actually do. In particular, my job affords me the opportunity to mentor people fresh out of library school, getting their first taste of the corporate world, and often of work in the library field, and that’s awesome. Throughout my career, I’ve never had a mentor. I’ve learned in many diverse situations, but I’ve never had anyone really take the time and interest in my career and help it along. I always swore that, given the opportunity, I’d do just that. And I really try to, for my staff. I want to see these people succeed, whether it is at my place of employment or somewhere else down the road. That’s important to me.

In the course of the reviews today, I got some feedback from my staff that I was doing just that…and that was rewarding to me in a way they will probably never know. That’s not to say it’s all rosy; I have some difficult people on my staff, and some of the reviews today weren’t fun. But I take a larger view of it; nothing is ever perfect. I’m reaching the people I really want to reach, and that means, when we work on issues that are difficult, they seem to hear and respect what I have to say. And I can’t stress what a huge validation that is for me. Because frankly, I still feel like I’m making this stuff up as I go.

I love the library world, and I love passing that enthusiasm on to other people. I feel that too often in corporate culture an easy cynicism settles in. This is understandable; there’s a lot that’s simply not right in corporate culture. But I think you can still love your field and its possibilities. I guess I often feel like I don’t really have the credibility to talk much about it; I came into this profession—and really, everything I do—bassckwards. My entire life I have struggled tremendously with self-confidence (i.e., I’ve often not had any) and that makes it pretty hard to, well, mentor people. Yet this has changed over the last few years, and that’s huge. I mean, HUGE. I’ve even been referred to as “the new Paul” because people think I’ve changed that much. It’s a bit odd, but maybe that’s a beautiful thing about getting older—you actually do get better at a few things.

There is still so much for me to learn, of course. Not enough hours in the day. Etc. etc.

Regardless of everything else that my job involves, and the end of the day I’m reaching people. Getting to mentor them. Making a tiny difference. And as far as the professional world goes, there just isn’t a cooler feeling than that.

sanctuary

Thu, 15 Oct 2009 02:42:43 GMT

Well, here we go. This is the first thing I’ve written on my new computer, minus passwords and the like. It may not seem like an exciting thing, but it is. See, I’ve been nursing a dying computer along for several years now, and to say it was giving me ulcers would be an understatement. I might sit down to write, only to have it frozen for the evening. Or it might just stop displaying words. Or say I wanted to a quick search to find the population of Beelzebub, North Carolina so I could be factual in a story I was writing. To do so could take 10-20 minutes, during which time the computer was mostly frozen, and I’d completely lose the thread of the story.

So this—this is special. And not only do I have a great new machine to write with, I ponied up for a large flat screen monitor, so if I really need to see a horror flick, I can retire to my writing desk and pop on the headphones, and proceed to watch without scarring my children or wife for life. It seems like a simple thing, but it’s huge for me, to know that escape exists. Yes, we have a family laptop in the family room—but like most writers, I need solitude and a space to write, and the family room provides neither. To really create, I have to leave my everyday life behind. And I find that as the kids grow older and our house seemingly shrinks, I desperately need my space, even if it’s just a corner of the room. I have no hours during the day in which I’m alone, unless you count my commute. My wife gets around this by staying up super late, but neither my body nor my work schedule can really do that much anymore…and if I stayed up that late, I wouldn’t be alone anyway—she’d still be up. So I’ve worked over the summer to really create a small space in our “downstairs” that houses my books, music and writing desk—a place that is mine. Getting an actual working computer was the final touch.

There’s still some stuff to do—install the docking station, pick up an adapter to hook up the speakers, get a good pair of headphones, figure out the monitor settings so it’s not quite so blurry but still BIG—but this truly feels like my refuge now. Where I come to leave my world and create new ones. Where I live another life aside from “dad”, “husband” “librarian”, etc. Where the only boundaries are the ones I create. Where I can have a modicum of control, while the rest of the house remains a constant mess and stacking up of things to be done.

I’ve long believed a writer should be able to write anywhere. And I have, over the course of my life. But frankly, I’ve worked my ass off over the years simply so I could create a space like this. It’s romantic to scribble in someone else’s bed when you’re twenty. I’m not twenty. I’ve been there and done that. All day, all night I belong to the rest of the world—to my family, to my friends, to my employees, to all of the work that has to be done. When I’m here, I belong only to me. Here I can listen to whatever strange metal album I want. Here search never has any filters like “moderate” or “safe.” Here I can write these images down that come from some other place, some place that doesn’t appear in my daily life. Here I can create.

I cannot wait to see what words come from this sanctuary, my strange temple.

autumn afternoon

Mon, 28 Sep 2009 00:23:44 GMT

The first melancholy of autumn hit this afternoon. Perhaps it was the activities I was engaged in—cleaning out the carport so the cars could fit, packing away the BBQ and summer deck stuff, stacking wood for the fireplace. It was slow in coming this season. Usually it hits me during the random fake autumn week in late August, when the weather teases you into thinking fall is nearly here. But we didn’t really have that this year. It was only in the last week the crispness really starting hanging in the air, making the morning and evenings slightly chilly regardless of how warm it got during the day.

I pulled out some of my autumn music this afternoon: Sugar’s Copper Blue and R.E.M.’s Murmur. I listened to them while making a chicken artichoke bake, another sign that autumn is here. Heartier meals, soups and stews, breads. Perhaps next weekend I will make the first batch of hot spiced cider. Doing so makes the house smell so wonderful, so home, that every cliché about home is where the heart is/cooking is love/etc. becomes true.

I want to just slow down and enjoy these days; my work calendar and my children’s calendar suggests that such a thing will not happen. There are leaves to rake in the front yard, but I like looking at them carpeting the grass and feel no desire to rake them…unless it is for my kids to go jump in the leaf piles. More clichés? Certainly, but joy erases the need to categorize everything and autumn melancholy does not sit in a box, but breathes--the change in the air, the change in the colors, the feeling of mortality contrasting with the richness of life so deeply complex and meaningful as to transcend my feeble attempts at describing it. Fortunately, I need to finish putting dinner together and thus will be removed from further temptation.

There are no days more beautiful than those in October and late September.

productive

Tue, 08 Sep 2009 02:12:18 GMT

Well. That was an unexpectedly productive weekend, writing-wise. I had hoped to get some writing done, but by no means did I expect to get this much done. Sometimes, when everything is flowing, you have to stop everything else in life as much as possible and go with it. Not only did I finish the second draft of a story yesterday (and to be fair, it was more of a first draft, so completely did I change the story from its original form), I revised over 3/4 of it today. That may have been the biggest revision I've ever done in a single day, relative to story length. Only the final section is left, and that's what got me so excited yesterday, so I can't wait to go back to it. I'm hoping to somehow work on it this week, but with it only being a three day workweek and my folks coming into town on Thursday, chances aren't real good. Still, how wonderful this sense of accomplishment feels.

It's kinda hard, after a weekend like this, not to dwell on what I might accomplish if I, say, could work four ten hour days each week and have three days off. It always takes me at least a day to really unwind, and by then you are halfway through the weekend, which leaves one productive day at the most. I do try my best to scrape aside some writing time a couple of evenings a week, but what the days off do is allow me the space to truly sink into my story, to live and breathe with it. Sometimes it's not just about the time you spend typing at the desk, but about the time you spend in the writing frame of mind. I can't really be in this frame of mind during the work week. And what happens then is that while I might sit down and write for a bit in the evening, I often feel like I'm not quite sinking into to my story, really grasping it.

Well, it is what it is. Glad to have a weekend like this under my belt. Excited to finish revising the story and see what I really think of it.

words and such

Sun, 06 Sep 2009 23:11:43 GMT

Story draft #2 complete! Yay! Needs more revision, of course, but...I just freaked myself out with the ending. That's a good sign, right? The ending was completely uncomfortable and difficult to type and sick and strange. The buildup needs more polish but there is nothing more satisfactory than feeling like you nailed the ending. Especially when you had no idea what was going to happen. I had a vague feeling but I really didn't know until I wrote it. Until I wrote that final sentence.

Man, is that ever a good feeling. I've been struggling to get there for awhile. Proof that all I need are rainy three day weekends and an extra cup of coffee.

I am, sometimes, surprised at the sheer darkness in some of my work. How very bleak it can be. On one hand, it makes sense, but on the other...the older I get, the darker the work gets. And the better it gets too, at least I hope so. I *think* it's getting better.

Anyway, it's been awhile since I felt this good about a piece. Perhaps I just needed to get through the summer. Hello autumn, I've been waiting for you...

lucky

Fri, 04 Sep 2009 04:32:03 GMT

I think that I'm a lucky guy. I know a lot of interesting people doing interesting things, but more importantly than that...they are simply good people. I feel blessed by the scope of my life. Nothing in particular brings this topic up today, just a desire to express how incredibly cool I think life is.

For someone who wouldn't define himself as a social person, I love spending time with people. I'm happy talking about my professional life, my creative life, my family life, my love of music and literature and hearing other people talk about the same as well as other things that would never cross my radar otherwise. In some strange way, my professional, work and family life are all connected. What I love about storytelling is not that far removed from what I find fascinating about information communication and experience in general. And getting to watch my children learn every day--that's an amazing thing. Watching as those dots connect and being part of that process.

I've never belonged to a community, and I've felt on the outside my entire life. And to a degree that's still true, but I think I've built a neat network of people in my life. It's sad that it took me so long in my adult life to get there, but better late than never. Most importantly, I've achieved this while still feeling true to myself, my ideals, my hope and dreams.

After all of these years, I've come into this amazing and blessed life. I just can't believe how lucky I am.

Now back to the Scotch.

thomas wolfe

Sun, 16 Aug 2009 17:08:24 GMT

This column, A Drag, a Sip, a Labyrinth, by one of my favorite writers, Michael Ventura, is a fun, late-night riff through some of the great American writers. The kind of conversation you have over a few drinks, tossing ideas and opinions out, trying to make sense of the psychological history of this strange, amazing country we live in. Many of my favorites are touched on here: Poe, Fitzgerald, Henry Miller, Hammett. But one paragraph really stands out to me:

"Thomas Wolfe (1900-1938) overflowed with a nameless faith. Look Homeward, Angel (1929), one of our best novels, isn't a book people talk much about anymore. Its intensity and lyricism are looked down upon by university-stamped literati who speak and write with snide superiority and are made personally insecure by anyone who doesn't. (Am I being superior to them? Oh, well, I suppose.) Wolfe's whole concern was with an unknowable mystery he saw in his family and everywhere, and his wild capacity for experiencing our wild America, which he loved as a lover loves, unreasonably and completely. Unashamed of his gift for love, he registered every curve, scent, color, and word of what he loved. His pages glow with a lover's heat. The visions of Poe, Fitzgerald, and Hammett were not for Thomas Wolfe. What Wolfe saw in everyone, everywhere he looked, was loneliness, an irreducible loneliness, a loneliness that nothing could assuage, and he sang our loneliness unrelentingly, determined to make of it a music, not caring if he went down in flames. Which, of course, he did."

I rarely hear Thomas Wolfe mentioned, and I can never recall a time when he was. I discovered this most American of writers via Jack Kerouac, in my youth when I was consuming everything by the Beats. Without Wolfe there is no Kerouac and arguably no Beat movement, but it's more than that: as Ventura mentions above, no other writer captures the whole of America, not just the physical space but the idea, the very expansiveness that is America as a concept, better than Wolfe. His prose is certainly dated, but his exuberance shines through every word he wrote in that great book, as does the loneliness. He is a writer that I never felt got his due--at least in part, I think, to not easily fitting in to a comfortable set of academic ideals or historical literary movements--and he is well on the road to being forgotten entirely. Which is a shame. Look Homeward, Angel is a national treasure, and a novel that is worth re-reading every couple of decades, if only to remind yourself of the possibilities of this grand experiment called America, and the loneliness within. Wolfe never caved to the easy cynicism that is our common shared language now. And that, I think, is perhaps the biggest reason he's forgotten today. Which is sad.

thoughts on the re-vamped cemetery dance

Tue, 11 Aug 2009 02:59:40 GMT

Cemetery Dance has gone through some changes with the new issue. I believe they've had an editorial shift, and they've redesigned the magazine. For the most part, I think the changes are good (and if they manage to publish on a more regular schedule, so much the better.) There are a few things I'm not super crazy about, but for the most part, they did a good job.

They are going to focus more on "special issues" that spotlight an author. This issue is a focus on Peter Straub and while I'm a fan, I'm not crazy about this as a regular thing, because--if this issue is any indication--it cuts into the amount of fiction they publish. The way I look at it, though, is they probably need to do this with "name" authors to survive. And I can live with that. I just hope they find room for more fiction, there were only three stories (one of them by Straub) and one novel excerpt (also by Straub.) That was disappointing, especially as neither Straub piece was very good (Guess what! The main character in his new novel is--wait for it--a novelist!! Can you believe it?) I did really enjoy the interview with him, though. I have to say, I find it interesting that the next author they are focusing on is William Peter Blatty. Do people in the field consider him relevant at all as an author? I can't say I ever thought he was a very good writer, but maybe I'm missing something. Does he even still publish books?

With the reduction in fiction there is a renewed emphasis on non-fiction columns. Most of these were pretty good; Ellen Datlow's column especially was most welcome. A couple were thin and didn't seem to offer much of anything.

And then there is the reviews section. This is probably what I was most disappointed by. CD is partnering with Horror World for their reviews, and in this issue, at least, it meant almost all mainstream/well-known authors and not very much small press stuff. There were also fewer reviews in general. Again, I wonder if this isn't a move to keep the magazine alive, but I do miss the amount of small press (and sometimes self-published) material that was reviewed in the past. Maybe this balance will even out in the future.

The visual redesign of the magazine is great; it looks better than ever. I especially love the new logo. All in all, I think I understand the rational behind the changes they've made; I don't want my thoughts above to be construed as entirely negative. I just would hate to see the disappearance of new/unknown authors from their pages. I've discovered some great writers via CD; I'd much rather read a new author (even if the story isn't good) than a vanity piece by Peter Straub (and, as I've said, I'm a fan of a lot of the man's work.) I'm really not sure they are going to find a bigger audience by focusing on William Peter Blatty for an issue than publishing unknown authors--this stuff is niche anyway. But that's why I don't publish magazines; what the hell do I know? Regardless, CD is still essential reading for fans of the genre. Let's hope they remain that way.

writing progress and the like

Sun, 09 Aug 2009 20:17:49 GMT

The last week has gotten me back on track, writing-wise. Not only am I working steadily again, I like what I'm working on. Thus far, my current story doesn't even have a supernatural/fantastical angle to it...which isn't to say one might not appear. It's certainly character first, though.

Last fall and winter were successful writing months for me. While the volume wasn't necessarily high, the quality was, and it definitely felt like a breakthrough. But somewhere around April, I lost it, and I've been disappointed with everything I've written since then. I've done four stories in that time, some of which have gone through multiple drafts, and yet...it felt like I wasn't writing at all. Either I was repeating myself or the work seemed...stale, I guess. This includes the 12000 words I cranked out the week I had off between jobs. I mean, I wrote a functional story that week...and half of another...and yet, I don't know, it's hard to describe but your gut knows when you are doing good work and when you are treading water. In the period since late April I've written a lot of words, but I'm just not that happy with any of them.

But I'm happy with what I'm working on now.

Even if I end up with nothing usable from the preceding months, the important thing was that I never stopped working, no matter how dissatisfied I was with the results. Much like a baseball player frequently needs a number of at-bats to break out of a slump, so too is it necessary to keep writing in order to get back to where you want to be. I don't like periods like that, but whereas in earlier years I would have gotten tremendously depressed by the cycle, this time I kept working as though nothing was out of the ordinary. I heeded the voice that told me the work wasn't good enough but ignored the one that suggested I wasn't good enough. That's an important distinction to make.

It's good to be working on something I'm excited about again.

my 27 favorite records of the decade

Sun, 02 Aug 2009 21:34:25 GMT

(also posted on my Facebook account)

Warning: this sucker is 16 pages in Word.

This exercise started out as an idea while stuck in the endless traffic that makes up my commute. Of late, I’ve been struggling a bit with writer’s block, and I thought a project like this, in addition to being fun, would be something I could use to keep writing when I was stuck on my creative work. It’s important to keep those channels open by any means necessary. Music is, of course, a huge part of my life, yet I generally shy away from writing about it, precisely because it means so much. And the best music doesn’t lend itself to words…that’s why it’s music in the first place. Despite this, I forged ahead. It was a blast pulling out all of these records, setting up an intriguing randomness in my music listening for a few weeks. Each piece was written while listening to the album described. I didn’t really go back and edit any of these because it’s time to be done with this project now, and this is not something professional, just a fun exercise. The criteria was merely that the record was one of my favorites of the decade and released in that time period (2000-present.) A “best” list would be something different and take other factors into consideration. These are, simply, the record I returned to time and time again. I hope you enjoy, I had a blast writing it.

Neko Case--Blacklisted (2002)
The first two tracks on this album are the scariest tracks released in this or any other decade. A lot of music, especially my beloved metal, pretends to be scary, but you can always see the zipper on the monster suit. Not so with “Things That Scare Me” and especially “Deep Red Bells”, songs so haunted as to defy description. “Deep Red Bells”, a song about the fear Neko felt during the Green River Killer days, is the rare song that will change your life. Forgotten souls blowing down the road, lost in the woods. A lament for the forgotten, for those who had no dignity in their life or death. I have listened to it a thousand times, and still I get chills every time. And yes, there is more to the rest of the album--old standards and new ones, ghost wiring and wishes for the moon. Nothing that Neko has done since has been this good, and probably never will be. This is her masterpiece. One thing I don’t hear talked about enough in regards to Neko is how good of a songwriter she is. Everyone talks about the voice--how can you not?--but her imagery is wonderfully broken, skewed and odd. It will transcend time and last, unlike the pop work she does in the New Pornographers (a band that started promisingly before falling prey to the endless hipster obsessions that were a decade tired before they even formed. Guys, no one cares about your record collections or indie politics.) Blacklisted is simply one of the top records in this or any decade.

Corrosion of Conformity--In the Arms of God (2005)
You want a great opening track? One that sets the entire tone for an album, one that delivers everything it promises on the back of a riff that Black Sabbath only wishes they had wrote? Try “Stonebreakers” on this magnificent album, the one that finally delivered on all the promise COC always had. I absolutely love these guys, they are seriously one of my favorite bands, yet they have always struggled to deliver an album that is solid from start to finish. ITAOG rectifies that. They leave both their hardcore roots and arena riffing of their mid-period work behind for a sound that is rooted in stoner rock, very seventies for sure, but much heavier and grander than anything that decade produced. Also, they bust out a mandolin on “Rise River Rise” and it makes me wish classic rock radio didn’t suck, much like heavy metal radio, because songs like this should be heard. Then Katrina went and happened and it simply seemed prophetic (COC being partially based in New Orleans.) One of the heaviest songs of the decade is “It Is That Way”, it clubs you over the head with a monster riff, makes you grab the nearest bottle of beer, pound it, grab six more. Also: of all the “tributes” to Dimebag , this is the only one that is worth a damn. Check out that final monster riff on the title track, almost hidden until you realize you’re on the floor, bowing before the speakers. I mean damn, I wish I still smoked cigarettes. I saw them a couple of times with Layne while they were touring this record and they slayed each time. In particular, seeing them with Motorhead was like Paul’s little rock and roll fantasy, standing in my leather jacket in the rain waiting to get in through the back door (in through the out door.) I really, really hope this is not the last COC record--much as I enjoy Down, Pepper Keenan’s other major project, I need some COC in my life. Woody needs to leave the woods and come bless us with some serious riffage. The world can only be a better place for it.

The Dresden Dolls--The Dresden Dolls (2006)
My god, but The Dresden Dolls were a breath of fresh air. Sometimes a band is exactly right for where you are at emotionally at the time; discovering The Dresden Dolls in 2007 was exactly like that. They made me want to run away and join the circus. They still do. I was torn between this album and its follow-up, Yes, Virginia, in the end the debut won simply because it includes “Half Jack”, their greatest song and one of the great songs of this or any decade. The sound, the lyrics, the performance…there are a million emotionally dark secrets in “Half Jack”, a song that masterfully builds and then explodes in the shattering brilliance of Brain Viglione’s drumming. There’s a story in that song that I’m going to write some day. There are other masterful songs here, too: the creepy “Slide” (“The orange man is going to get you” indeed), “Gravity”, whose sound is equal to its name, absolutely breathless and free-falling, the hard-charging “Bad Habit”, the novelty tune “Coin-Operated Boy” (probably their most famous song.) I’ve been entranced by all things cabaret since my better half lent me Christopher Isherwood’s Berlin Stories back when we first met; The Dresden Dolls fit comfortably into that aesthetic while bringing something undeniably modern. So few bands have the complete package--the songs, the chops, the look, the videos, the emotional resonance and truth in the work. The Dresden Dolls do, and if indeed they are done, it’s a sad loss.

Einsturzende Neubauten--Perpetuum Mobile (2004)
EN followed up 2000’s Silence is Sexy with a record that is every bit as good. In fact, Perpetuum Mobile is even more tightly focused than its predecessor, as well as noisier. Nowhere is this more gloriously on display than the 13-minute title track, all whirling rhythms, wavering metal, weird homemade creations spinning on a turntable, radio fuzz and god knows what else all raggedly, gloriously following Blixa’s spoken/chanted words to a higher plane of consciousness (really.) My favorite track, though, Selbstportrait mit Kater (translation: Self-portrait with Hangover) which features the stone cold truth line: “Life on other planets is difficult!” Every track is a gem. But I cannot talk about this record without talking about the experience of seeing it performed live. EN is much more powerful live than their records can ever be, and I was lucky enough to catch them with Jeff on what would be their farewell tour of States. Seeing the actual pipes and creations from the CD booklet on stage, and then watching them play…man, I’ve seen a fuckton of concerts in my life but hands down that was one of the best, and Blixa is such an engaging showman--you simply can’t picture him anywhere but the stage. When they performed Grundstuck, they sat around in a circle on the floor, (the translation of the title is “Floorpiece”) and built a chant that felt both older than the hills and absolutely modern. Blixa explained that the track is written as a curse on their former record company. I don’t know if the curse works, but I’m rather glad I don’t have to find out. EN is, simply, one of the most unique bands I’ve ever come across, but what is important is that, beneath all of the “what the hell are they using for instrumentation this time?” surface noise, they write actual songs, songs that will stand the test of time and still thrill people generations from now. Everything I needed to know I learned from Einsturzende Neubauten records.

Einsturzende Neubauten--Silence is Sexy (2000)
Einsturzende have been a mind-shatteringly brilliant band from day one, but I always found their records to be uneven. Compilation records (such as the Strategies Against Architecture series) were the best way to experience Einsturzende as they separated the wheat from the chaff. And then an amazing thing happened: Einsturzende entered its third decade by releasing the greatest record of their career. Not only did their sound mature without losing its unique magic; that magic grew, making this record and the aforementioned Perpetuum Mobile recorded works that simply have no peer, works that sound like no one else. Most astounding is the songwriting. Blixa’s lyrics are stories in and of themselves, and when hung on the catchy, powerful soundscapes formed by the whole band, they transport the listener on a journey that is absolutely unique. Perhaps most surprising is the delicate touch on the ballads; though this was not the first record on which EN explored softer territory, album opener Sabrina and album closer Total Eclipse of the Sun are surprisingly soulful, a delicate lyrical touch and the barest hint of menace couched in warm orchestral sounds that, while quiet, are never weak. Redukt is very much in the spirit of “classic” EN, with quiet interludes and mind-numbing explosions of energy trading off. Pipes, air compressors, bass guitars, a minimal drum kit, jet turbines, sighs, cigarettes…all of it blends to create a different perspective on the world we walk through everyday, a perspective that blew my mind open and inspired me to start writing again (in conjunction with reading my first Haruki Murakami novel--the novel an EN matched perfectly.) Art can’t do more than that. Plus there’s a tango number! Truly, heaven is honey.

The Gutter Twins--Saturnalia (2008)
From the ominous opening chords to the final sounds of birds, this is as dark of a journey as any album can ever take you on, so full of sin and prayers and seduction and soul that it completely overwhelms your senses. You can’t fake music like this. This is the stuff of life, the stuff of empty rooms and late nights and too many drinks and giving in to every temptation. One song is entitled “Idle Hands” and that tells you all you need to know. But it’s a haunted album too; in “Bete Noire” a ghostly organ pushes Mark Lanegan down the wrong path, “a long dead animal” on his trail. The very next song, “Each to Each”, Greg Dulli (never in better form; Mark grounds him and brings out his best work) warns of “the storm in your heart” that you’ll find and then offers a wicked grin, ready to pull that storm out. When these two sinners harmonize, my god, no two male voices have better merged since the heyday of Jerry Cantrell and Layne Staley. This is music as religion, music that makes no apologies, music made because music is life and life is music. Everything serves the vision. The most important things happen in a dark bar or alone in your room at 3 a.m. From “The Stations” to “Seven Stories Underground”, the trip is from the knees to the depths. When Mark croons “Black dog keeps a followin' me/And my tether just won't let me go/Blackbirds chatter in the trees-/What they're sayin', baby I don't know/Oh, Heaven/It's quite a climb” you know he’s never gonna reach heaven, the dog will get him in the end and there won’t even be a sound, he’ll just disappear into the ether, leaving behind only these amazing songs, these songs that take gospel and create Gospel, and leave us all under the cover of the night. Truth is rarely in the broad daylight. Truth lives in the shadows.

Interpol--Turn on the Bright Lights (2002)
The trio of songs in the middle of this record--“Hands Away”, “Obstacle 2”, “Stella Was A Diver And She Was Always Down”--is the greatest three song stretch of any record in the decade. Interpol is the sound of winter for me, as that is when I discovered this record, courtesy of a dubbed tape from J (remember cassette tapes?) This album takes many elements of music I’ve loved from the previous two decades and concocts into something that feels immediate. Unlike most “alternative” bands, Interpol actually has a rhythm section, and kids, they use it! I simply love the drums and bass on this record; they have space, they breathe, yet the integrate seamlessly with the fine guitar work. If “Hands Away” (my favorite piece of music by these guys) is primarily a guitar texture showcase, then “Stella” is where it all comes together--a guitar tone to die for, driving bass and drums, vocals that blend into the texture organically even if the lyrics are stupid (the one area of weakness with Interpol…but it’s hardly an uncommon occurrence in rock.) Album two has its moments, album three is pretty damned great, but album one is still the one to beat, and a large part of that is because of the trio. Interpol is one of the very few non-metal bands debuting in this decade to catch (and hold) my attention, and they shine brighter than all the others. Turn on the bright lights indeed.

ISIS--Oceanic (2002)
A perfectly named album. You can hear the water move, and it’s no subtle thing, a massive liquid force rising and swelling, crashing against the rock, sinking ships, dragging bodies out to sea. I discovered this album belatedly, being turned on to ISIS with 2004’s Panopticon, an album that’s every bit as good as Oceanic (I know some of my friends like it better.) I chose Oceanic for this exercise in part because I drafted my second novel--which was a creative breakthrough for me--while listening to this album almost exclusively. The music very much formed the backdrop as the story was taking place, particularly the prologue, which I still believe to be one of the best pieces of work I’ve done. Man, this album is just fucking awesome. It’s as simple as that. ISIS create a wall of sound that clearly has its roots in Neurosis, but they take it to a different place. I’ve heard this stuff called “post-metal” and “avant-metal” and whatever, it’s all a way of saying this stuff is very much heavy metal but as far away from thrash or Sabbath or what have you as you can get. The songs are long and very elemental, and it can be admittedly hard to tell where one stops and the next begins, which is actually a point in the album’s favor, as it’s best to take this as one big long track. The highlight--and to date probably my favorite ISIS song--is the ten minute-plus Weight, which builds from a very quiet beginning to a wave of sound that drowns you in the most exhilarating way possible. The song doesn’t build so much as it evolves, making excellent use of female vocals that whisper into the tune in its quiet early moments and become more forceful as the song does, but never overwhelming the music itself (something that all too often happens with female vocals in metal.) I read somewhere that the song is a hymn about the inevitability of elemental forces, and while that may or may not be true, the tune itself sure as hell suggests it. Like Neurosis, ISIS reminds us that humanity is pretty damned small in the scale of things, that forces much larger than us move around us and through us every day. Our short-sightedness as a species may very well be our ultimate undoing, but if so, at least we showed ourselves capable of creating works of art that reached towards something greater, that showed us to have a greater awareness of the cosmos. Oceanic is such a work, and this is certainly why I always find it such a great album to listen to while writing, and why it is one of the best albums of the decade.

Jesu--Pale Sketches (2007)
This isn’t even a “proper” record, as the title suggests. A collection of recordings lying about in Justin Broadrick’s closet and under his bed, full of dust, this record is his most warm and intimate, and probably his most sad (which is saying something.) I absolutely love Conqueror, but I love this one even more. The soundtrack to the grey days that comprise 80% of the year in the Pacific Northwest, this is music when you just need to get through the day, when you are too tired to engage in the power struggles, to figure out relationships, to make dinner. Listen to “The Playground Is Empty” and you will see the empty swings swaying in a breeze, not a redundant horror movie trope but instead something impossibly sad, a reminder that you’ll never be a kid again and each day takes you closer to being dead and why are our lives so empty as we forsake the promise, the dreaming of our childhood selves. “Can I Go Now?” asks the question that lurks at the heart of every relationship, and the answer it provides will never be the right one, no matter how often it changes. “Dummy”--each and every one of us, “Supple Hope” suggesting a moment in which to breathe, a moment that will inevitably be snatched away. Opener “Don’t Dream It” loops a phrase from one of the campiest movies of all time and turns it heartbreakingly sad, no mean feat. Actually it’s a cruel feat, draining you of hope before the record is two minutes old. After all this, we come to the closer “Plans That Fade”, a phrase which suggests the very cycle of our adult lives, every moment whether great or horrible or somewhere between becomes so much dust. When you are old, will anyone still love you? Do they now? Or are they faking it? Is faking it real? If these questions could be answered there would be no need for rain, no need for records like this. But they can’t. Pale Sketches is a powerful work from a restless artist whose work is never less than honest.

Mark Lanegan--Bubblegum (2004)
This was the first, and to date only, Mark Lanegan project that wasn’t immediate for me; it took awhile to sink in. But once it did, I was left in awe once more, left with a record that I played for almost two years straight and still play all the time. All of Mark’s music feels personal but this is perhaps his most personal record of all, a chronicle of shaky sobriety, a failed marriage, and nightmares. Opening cut “When You’re Number Isn’t Up” is a shivery, quiet nightmare that sounds unlike anything Mark had done up to this point; this wasn’t acoustic music with roots in the blues and country, this was something else, a unique creation of ancient and modern techniques. There are some famous people on this record--PJ Harvey, Duff and Izzy, others--but you don’t notice them; this is Mark’s vision through and through. “Can’t Come Down” is some kind of twisted, almost psychedelic journey of jagged edges--a song to match its title, a song that echoes every bad trip you’ve been on. “Strange Religion” is gentle, contemplative; the sound of driving and thinking, the sun breaking the dark for a moment. “Methamphetamine Blues” is just fucking awesome, Mark singing over a near-industrial base, call-and-response female voices framing the song with wry humor, and Mark singing like a paranoid meth freak locked in his trailer with his shotgun, shooting at anything that moves. Rollin’ just to keep on rollin’. Absolutely one of my favorite songs by the man, and that’s saying a lot. And then--“Wedding Dress.” The song that became part of my marriage, bringing many laughs to my wife and I, but bringing in the darkness too…because the thing about marriage is that one of you is gonna die first. The other gets to clean up the mess. Codependency never sounded so soulful. There are a bunch more great songs on here too. The whole record, while slow to reveal itself, is deep and beautiful. Mark Lanegan records keep me alive.

Mark Lanegan--Field Songs (2001)
There are four Mark Lanegan-related albums on this list, which will surprise no one who knows me. The man has the one voice I could not live without, that takes everything blues and country wishes they were and pickles it in whiskey and cigarettes. Mark Lanegan never sings a song half-assed…or if he does, you certainly don’t know it. This is soul music. Field Songs was conceived as sister album to the immortal Whiskey for the Holy Ghost--the characters of those songs, the ones who lived anyway, ten years later, sober and wiser, survivors, but there is no glory in it, it’s still a bunch of dead-end streets and the sounds of the dead. “Love”, a beautiful song, asks simply, “Don’t you know about love?” Sparks fill the air at night, you’ll never see your family again. “Kimiko’s Dream House”, written with the late Jeffrey Pierce, surprisingly gentle, tender. “Fix” the sound of withdrawals, broken feedback (courtesy of one Duff McKagan) wrapping around a simple yet menacing guitar figure. This is music where the sky is a vanishing place, where it just rains and rains. Often I lose words and feel it would be easier, and more truthful, to simply hand out Mark’s records, which contain everything I’ve ever wanted to convey.

Metallica--Death Magnetic (2008)
Much like U2, Metallica is a band of which people’s opinion have long since ceased to be based on the music itself but on larger things, in Metallica’s case, the oversized personalities and the bands place in the larger context of the music world, as opposed to the narrow and fairly conservative mindset of what constitutes “metal.” I find it a stupid question; just give me the records and they can cut their hair any damned way they want. There was no denying that 2003’s St. Anger stunk, a record with possibly the worst drum sound in history and a handful of ideas that only once (“The Unnamed Feeling”) actually coalesced into a song. Which means that Death Magnetic had to be a perfect record, because again like U2, people furiously debate Metallica because they care, because it’s about more than just the music, it’s an outlook on life, a philosophy, a belief system, and for me, a religion. Death Magnetic is not perfect, but it’s pretty damned good, and that’s more than enough at this stage of the game. (People, “Master of Puppets” was over twenty fucking years ago. Get over it.) The band sounds renewed, vital; even the weaker songs march with a sense of purpose, with a heavier beat than anything since the Black album. “Broken Beaten Scarred” is fantastic, the first anthem they’d written in fifteen years, a glorious “fuck you” to the doubters and pure adrenaline joy for the fans. “The Day That Never Comes” either works or doesn’t, depending on where you stand on the more emotionally open songwriting of the nineties. It’s a fine ballad, pretty, that kicks into overdrive halfway through, echoes of “One”, of the wars in the desert as before there were wars in the Pacific. The album is haunted by death but never obsessed with it; while James’ voice lacks the deep tones of his nineties singing, he sounds renewed, sobriety agreeing with him. Out to sea and back, the true secret of Metallica is they’ve always done what they want to do, as all artists should, and that sits uncomfortably with the mental picture many of painted of the band. Like U2, they’ve made very public mistakes but forged ahead regardless, becoming an easy target for whatever you want to say about heavy metal history and culture in general, because they have been probably the most important band on a mass level in the history of the music. Hell, it will probably be another decade before they get around to releasing another record, but this one has legs, it doesn’t need to collect dust on the shelves. I would have to think that one of the hardest things for any band is when you create masterpieces early in your career and forever have to live in their shadow. Probably no single band has meant as much to me through the years as Metallica, and if that makes me an apologist in some eyes, well, it honestly doesn’t matter to me. The only thing that matters is the emotional connection one has to the music. And in Metallica, I have the deepest connection that can be forged.

Midnight Oil--Capricornia (2001)
When you grow up on a band, it can be difficult to see them call it a day, especially when the final album they record turns out to be one of their finest. Capricornia is everything that was great about Midnight Oil--solid songwriting, impassioned performances, technical accomplishment, and the distinctively Australian bent that they never lost no matter how big they became. Amazing that this album wasn’t even initially released in the states, considering it was their strongest work since the heyday of Diesel and Dust and Blue Sky Mining. Everything that is great about Midnight Oil is summed up by the refrain of “World That I See”: “There is no end/to the world that I see.” This sense of optimism, so rare in rock music, uplifts even the darker tunes here. Not that Midnight Oil is all that dark: they warn of things, yes, and chronicle the basic stupidity of our species with an eye for detail that would-be novelists would do well to study, but the core of their music revolves around hope and possibility. Perhaps this is why their music has always affected me so strongly. “Have I been away too long?” the narrator plaintively asks, before declaring “This bruised world has its beauty/this is where I belong.” The excitement of coming home overflows: “I just can’t wait!” This sense of joy is infectious, and it certainly separates this record from pretty much every other one on this list. You can’t live in the dark all the time; dark is meaningless without the balance of light. When Peter Garrett dreams of a world with “no spin cycle disease” I dream with him, even as I resignedly know no such world exists. Sometimes possibility is enough. And sometimes there truly is no end to the world that I see.

Nadja--Touched (2006)
The sound of the end of the world. When Jeff sent me this record, this band I’d never heard of, with a note proclaiming he was at a loss of words to describe the music…I still was completely unprepared for the experience, the initial waves of sound crushing me into the floor, grinding me down, drowning me…all this and I’m still not doing this record justice. Can you do the end of the world justice? I’m not sure a more devastating song exists in my record collection than “Stays Demons”, it moves, sways, stalks, inevitable, the soundtrack to every dream shaded in fear I’ve ever had, every end of time scenario. This music brought out the deepest and darkest writing, suggesting that even Lovecraft’s cosmic horror was a laugh compared to what’s really up there, which all of the mind power of humanity united into a cosmic intelligence could not begin to fathom. It just washes over you, man, this music, I’m struggling mightily to convey any sense of its scope here, and I’m failing, because this sound far outstrips words, and it will get under your skin, into your mind, and never leave. Whether you are comforted or scared by the thought of greater cosmic power that is completely indifferent to not only your fate but the fate of humanity as a whole will determine your response to this record. Whether you will be touched. If you are, you will never be the same. You may not be able to say exactly why--stating “Well, I listened to this record by Nadja” isn’t going to cut it, because it’s bigger than that, and this music is merely the gateway. In the manner of all classic tales, I must warn you that if you go through that gateway, you can’t come back, regress to the state you were in before. So think carefully. The vast, unnerving scope of this music is greater than any nightmare you have ever experienced.

Neurosis--A Sun That Never Sets (2001)
Little, if any, music is as elemental as Neurosis. Listening to them, you are stripped of all the noise of modern life. They open a direct channel to the gods and goddesses. When I listen to this album, I picture bonfires on the beach, dancing and worshipping forces beyond comprehension, building magic out of the dirt and rocks and water and flame. The way blood dries on a rock. Skin entangled with skin, acts as old as the first human, the acts that created the universe. Given to the Rising, the band’s 2007 masterpiece, is probably a better record than Sun, but I find myself going back to this record constantly. Even with a few tracks that don’t measure up to the album as a whole, there is a deeply spiritual (elemental) feeling that runs through the record, much the same as on 1999’s Times of Grace (simply one of the greatest records ever.) “From the Hill”, the title track and “Crawl Back In” are songs built of things much older than the modern world, the sound of the tribe gathering around the fire and keeping a watchful eye. “Crawl Back In” is particularly wrenching, building up a very simple, repetitive motif until it explodes in the sound of a death-cry, alone under an unforgiving sky dotted with soft black stars. Ending the album is magnificent “Stones from the Sky.” Starting with a simple riff echoed by bells, it unfolds like an ancient rite, focused, full of purpose. As the song builds, the tension mounts, the breathless waiting, knowing what is just around the corner will change you, alter you. When it comes, the music in full overdrive, laying to waste terminology like “metal” and “rock” and “song” you are naked in front of the elements of the universe, transformed yet again, light pouring in through the third eye (“You’ve been shown over and over/don’t you know?!?!”) and then a second wall of riffing descends, the drums impossibly louder, and you cannot move, you feel yourself breaking apart into the ether, part of the cosmos, the human form transcended, gone, so much dust. Far away, a lone figure kneels in front of the fire, the tides echoing in his ears, and prays for the sun.

Opeth--Blackwater Park (2001)
Pretty much a perfect record in every regard, from concept to execution to even the artwork (one of the greatest album covers ever.) The leadoff track, “The Leper Affinity”, is the weakest on the whole record and it still shakes the rafters. Tracks like “Bleak” and “The Drapery Falls” are stuffed to the gills with fantastic riffs. Each song is its own unique piece, but together they give voice to a larger work, one that feels very much like a novel. Fun fact: I listened to this album nonstop when I wrote the first draft of my first ever novel. As a reward for finishing, I bought the actual CD--all that time I’d been listening to a burned copy. Later note: this was the first album I wrote about on the list, that’s why it’s so short compared to other entries. That shouldn’t diminish how fucking awesome of a record it is. What more is there to say?

Opeth--Ghost Reveries (2005)
Did any band have a better decade than Opeth? Every freaking album they released was great, and while only two are highlighted on this list, the rest are well worth your time. But let’s talk about this, which might very well be their masterpiece. I know it’s sacrilegious to say so--people will point to either Blackwater Park or something even older because that’s easier than growing with a band, but Ghost Reveries is a perfectly realized record. From the production to the songs to the playing to accompanying artwork and text, this is the perfect package. As I mentioned above, every Opeth album is essentially a novel, each song a chapter. One of the things that most impresses me on this record is how they blend different textures, from the keyboards to the soft guitars to the heavy bludgeoning riffing and death metal growls. It all fits so seamlessly, each element appearing in exactly the right place for the right amount of time. This is what masterful bands do. The first minute and a half of “The Baying of the Hounds” is one of my favorite pieces of music from the decade, organ blending with more traditional death metal elements that somehow reference classic rock before shattering it to smithereens. “The Grand Conjuration” is dark, really dark, rising and falling perfectly, the percussive drops in the background suggesting menace before it arrives, the slamming guitars destroying your body and then putting it back together with the angles all wrong, very Lovecraftian. “Reverie/Harlequin Forest” is just pretty, suggesting its title without ever seeming cheesy, in and of itself a feat that surely suggests a pact with some dark god. I don’t know what price they have to pay for such awesome music, but I couldn’t be more excited to follow them wherever that muse leads. Opeth is a treasure, and a band whose catalog is so breathtaking that it truly transcends words and genres. Oh, and they are pretty damned good in concert too.

Queens of the Stone Age--Songs for the Deaf (2002)
First, let’s get this out of the way: QOTSA is one of the most disappointing bands of the decade. The album prior to this, Rated R, was a gem, and Songs for the Deaf is a flat-out masterpiece, but man, all subsequent albums have pretty much sucked. Oh, they have their moments (Mark Lanegan does what he can) but in retrospect, the chemistry of the band that recorded Songs for the Deaf would never again be matched, Danzig’s drummer or no. But Songs for the Deaf is just a jaw-droppingly awesome record in any context. Individual songs stick to your skin and drip like desert juice, while the whole album holds together as a giant sticky (w)hole. Kids, this is sexy music, for the boys and girls that have more on their mind than charming conversation. There are two keys to this record: the balancing of the three singers (Josh Homme, Mark Lanegan and, on the fast numbers, Nick Oliveri) and Dave Grohl’s drumming. While I like the Foo Fighters, I sure do miss Dave’s drumming as he is surely one of the best of my generation. He drives the songs on this record steadily and with finesse, saving the squall of noise from ever seeming indulgent, and locking into a monster groove that makes you want to bang your head and rattle the box springs. The first half of the record features shorter, almost pop songs (though a little too heavy for that term), the second features some mind-blowing dense guitar goo that really blew my mind even though I was sober. This is a record that is a perfect balance of craftsmanship and personality. The between song radio bits are annoying, but that’s only bum note on the whole album. The final (hidden but not really) track, “Mosquito Song”, is outright gorgeous, even if the lyrics do concern a mosquito sucking your blood. “No One Knows” is a great single, all driving rhythm and over-caffeinated guitar burst wound too tight. “The Hangin’ Tree” is mystic like Clint Eastwood and weed, hanging out in the desert with overcooked amps and dreaming of being The Man With No Name. I didn’t quite get this record on first listen, but one year later I was still listening to it almost daily. You only need to own one QOTSA record--this one.

Radiohead--Kid A (2000)
Writing about this record when it’s 87 degrees out is very weird, because the record is absolutely winter to me, memories of driving through icy streets in Kirkland to the Microsoft campus during my first year at Echo. It was a different world then, having just bought a house, struggling to make ends meet and switch careers, and this album perfectly summed up the state of my mind. The very first track, “Everything In Its Right Place” remains my favorite Radiohead track, the sound and lyrics (“there are two colors in my head/what was that you tried to say?”) a perfect representation of the state of mind I was in for the better part of a year. “How to Disappear Completely,” “Treefingers” and “Optimistic” are beautiful; the former wispy and the latter almost but not really an anthem, the only obvious uplifting moment on the album. The masterpiece here, though, is “Idioteque”, a perfect blend of sound and vision, haunted and fragmented, a testament to how one beat can make a person lose it to the paranoia and fear (“this is really happening/I’m not scared/women and children first”, these words almost chanted, fragments of fear, of disintegration, of life in the early years of Dubya’s reign.) Every other track on here plays a part, even the weaker ones (the title track in particular) offering something to the work as whole. It’s a paradox: a unified work about fragmentation, but that’s exactly what Kid A is. It’s also the sound of winter, of fog, snow and ice. The color scheme of the booklet is beautiful too, a perfect compliment to colors that radiate from the songs. For a good seven years or so I listened to Radiohead almost daily. Over the past five years, I seemed to have stopped listening to them almost entirely (interestingly, that dates back to when I saw them in concert, and it was a fabulous concert.) I retain a fondness for most all of their records, but Kid A seems to be the only one still alive to me, a record that played a vital role in my life for several years, and a record that I still think is their finest work, even though I think many fans of the band would disagree. I won’t argue the genius of Ok Computer or the almost perfectly realized The Bends, but at the end of the day, Kid A is still the record I call home. Never has a record so fragmented and cold been so warm, especially in the long winter months.

Sonic Youth--Sonic Nurse (2004)
In which Sonic Youth come back from the dead. I’ve probably written more words on Sonic Youth than any other band (save perhaps Metallica); needless to say, they are one of the five most important bands of my life. But after 1995’s Washing Machine they lost their way, each album increasingly erratic and not very good, only a few songs here and there that showed the magic they were once capable of. And it was damned hard for me to let them go, but somewhere between NYC Ghosts & Flowers and Murray Street I gave up on them. The records just weren’t cutting it anymore. And yet…and yet…I still had to buy the new records, some part of me hoping that the magic would show itself once more. And on Sonic Nurse it did. Pretty much every track is a winner here, as SY simultaneously mature their sound and rediscover the fountain of youth, energy-wise. Tracks like “Unmade Bed” and “Stones” are slow and sensual, waters SY had never successfully touched, sounding like the logical growth of their unique sound. Kim Gordon in particular is back in fine form, after being well-neigh unlistenable for a decade or more. “I Love You Golden Blue” is the return of whispery Kim, a far more intriguing character than screechy Kim. The song is “Shadow of a Doubt” twenty years later, the darkness dissipated into an languid blue haze, shadows and secrets tempered with wisdom. “Pattern Recognition” gets the record off to a roaring start, as if apologizing for all of the mistakes and dead-ends, echoing the sci-fi concerns of Sister (this the band that turned me on to Phillip K. Dick, for god’s sake) without repeating itself. Even “Kim Gordon and the Arthur Doyle Hand Cream”, the obligatory pop culture number that SY has been annoying me with since the eighties, is at least catchy…my eldest daughter used to hum this song incessantly when the record came out, so I could never be truly annoyed by it. And “Dripping Dream” shouldn’t work, the song undone my bad Thurston beat poetry, but it does work, a totally sensual wash of seductive guitar noise that is downright sexy, and that’s not a term very often associated with SY. Lee’s lone track, “Paper Cup Exit” is another solid Lee song, not one of his top songs but a seasoned contributor, the ideal number five hitter, in the lineup to drive in all the other guys on base. Sonic Nurse would prove to be no fluke, as both records that have followed it are just as strong, and Sonic Youth enters their fourth(!) decade of existence on a creative roll. This most unlikely of bands keeps surprising me, and never again will I doubt them. It’s a special feeling to discover a new great band but it’s even more rare when one comes back from the dead.

Soulsavers--It’s Not How Far You Fall, It’s The Way You Land (2007)
This is a match made in heaven. Mark Lanegan’s vocals paired with the dark noir soundscapes of the Soulsavers. I confess to not knowing any other material by the Soulsavers, but this record is a sinner’s hymn come to life, right out of the pages of cheap paperback pulp fiction (how I miss those books!) The first cut, “Revival”, is exactly as it sounds, the kind of hymns that have been sung (howled) under tents since the South was first invented. “Paper Money” is sexy, the wrong person in the wrong bar leading you to all of the things you were warned about. “Ask the Dust”, an instrumental, is perhaps the most amazing track here, a desert where the rain never comes, a sinner once more on his knees, even as he knows he will sin again unless his god is ready to take him, then and there. There are no birds to cry out here. The closing cover of the Stones’ “No Expectations” dreams up the possibilities of how great that band might be if Mick Jagger had soul and Keith sang more often; simple notes of sorrow and the end of things. Every song on this album is a hymn, and this is what church should be, the real stuff of life, the sultry and the sad, the last cigarette as the bar closes. Mark recasts his own “Kingdom of Rain” here, and it’s hard to fault this version (the original could never be improved upon so in that sense the slate is clean), which fits into this album as though it has always lived here. “Before I go/I’m hanging a cross on nails.” The battle between sin and salvation is a drama that will be acted out until humanity evolves or dies, and whatever my ultimate opinions on the subject, that tug-of-war sure inspires some fantastic art.

Tool--Lateralus (2001)
I might’ve heard this record more than any other this decade, simply because my wife is an even bigger fan of Tool than I am, and I like ‘em one hell of a lot. Lateralus is probably the best record they’ve done (though Aenima comes close), seventy-odd minutes of winding sexy psychedelic prog, terms that don’t seem to sit well with each other, but on this record lock together perfectly. The pieces do fit. Opener “The Grudge” is everything that is great about Tool--heavy, proggy, spaced-out one minute and absolutely devastating in its heaviness the next, lyrics that are as mystical as you want ‘em to be, and a sly sense of humor beneath it all. “Schism” was my favorite song of that year, almost catchy, the music following you as you climb the pyramid. A song that probably captures the emotional truth of marriage better than any song I know--the good and the bad. The other highlight is “Parabol” and “Parabola”, listed as two separate songs but really one endless flow that is as elemental as music can be, pulled out the very ground we walk on and the air we breathe, no pretense and no distance. Possibly the core of every religion, the cycle of life in notes and percussion. See, Tool has a sly sense of humor, but their music is also dead serious, and it’s up to you want you want to read into it. They update Soundgarden’s meta take on hard rock and throw in enough psychedelia to make one forget Pink Floyd. Bonus points for their collaborations with Alex Grey, possibly my favorite living artist that I don’t know personally. Tool exists in a world of their own, and no album better represents the beauty and strangeness of that world than Lateralus. I’ve also been told it’s good to listen to while chopping wood.

Twilight Singers--Blackberry Belle (2005)
This is the album that should have followed up The Afghan Whigs’ Gentleman and it is brilliant in every facet. Opener “Martin Eden” was my favorite song of 2005, a dark trip with the title character of Jack London’s masterful short story. If you think Jack London just wrote stories about dogs and snow, then you missed “Martin Eden”, an achingly desperate story of a man who realizes certain gaps can never be overcome, certain doors are forever closed. Tracks such as “Este Noche”, “Decatur St.” “Fat City (Slight Return” are the seductively dark side of the American Dream, the one they don’t teach you about in school. If it’s dangerous to walk the darkened streets of New Orleans, than it is also thrilling, and that dichotomy is at the heart of these songs. And then there is “Papillion”, perhaps the finest track here, driven by an acoustic guitar and, of all things, a banjo--so perfectly built is this song, every element in place, that I can only marvel at it, swept up as I am in the tide, not even caring about the glass and needles washing up on the shore. If I get in my car and drive everything will go away, that’s what every great song is about, dig, and when the skirt hikes up over the knees just a bit and the sun cuts down, then it’s alright, I’m alive for another night. Where I wake up in the morning doesn’t matter. Greg Dulli’s shtick isn’t for everyone, and there are times it doesn’t work, but this album is not one of them. Beneath his masks, he is a creature of soul, his music aching with broken promises and broken mornings. Greg was never a good fit in the alternative nation. His songs have more history and more groove and more soul. They will still be here, long after he’s gone. Just as Martin Eden’s voice has echoed since the water embraced him.

U2--All That You Can’t Leave Behind (2000)
U2. People either hate or love this band; there seems to be little middle ground. It’s amazing to me how much they piss some people off, but music is highly subjective, after all. Yet I think people rarely hate U2 on a musical level; it’s a personal thing. I dunno, I find Bono far less offensive than Axl Rose, yet both have made records that changed my life in a positive way and that’s all I care about, frankly. This record was the follow-up to Pop, the only underrated record of U2’s career. It’s a slightly uneven work but more solid than their other records of the decade (even though I like both of those records a lot too.) Like Kid A, it’s really weird to write about this record when it’s nice outside, as I got into this record over the winter and remains a winter record in my mind. Opener “Beautiful Day” is the quintessential U2 hit, flying by on The Edge’s shimmering guitar, a sound that multiple guitarists have pointed out to me is very simple. To which I always reply: “So?” The point is to make a beautiful sound that serves the vision, not to make the most complicated music. U2’s sound is often imitated but, much like Sonic Youth, no one ever gets it right. That’s because the best music is soulful, magical; it’s a chemical reaction between the right elements. The real secret to this record is the second half, the deep album cuts that aren’t on radio, which showcases some of the most assured songwriting of U2’s career. “When I Look At the World” and “Wild Honey” are deceptively simple, beautiful songs. And “Peace On Earth” is a song that is U2 in a microcosm: either you love it or absolutely hate it, but the reach of the song, like the band, is never less than grand, over-arching. That they fall on their faces occasionally makes their reach that much more impressive to me, and I’m often amazed at how many people miss the sense of humor in their later works. Yes, they probably don’t need to write a song like “Elevation”, which is a silly tune, but that’s the whole point. Silliness and humor is part of life too. U2, like Midnight Oil, is one of the few bands I listen to that can never be described as “dark” in any sense. At the end of the day, the balance is what I need, that makes life feel rounded and full to me, not a one track train down a tunnel full of things that have been done before. U2 is the most important and successful band of the 80s, virtually alone in navigating the waters of worldwide popular musical culture while still being successful on a huge scale. No one buys Madonna or Springsteen or Prince records anymore, but they still by U2 records. Because U2’s music has evolved while never sounding like anything but U2. I do understand why a lot of people can’t stand this band. I simply can’t count myself as one of them. They are one of my favorite bands, and I simply don’t think that is going to change. I always thought R.E.M. (the yin to U2’s yang) would be the band who figured out how to grow old and be vital. I was wrong.

Velvet Revolver--Contraband (2004)
Words can’t do justice to just how awesome it was for me, in 2004, to see Duff and Slash together again on stage. Forget the band, the album--these two musicians loom as large as any in my life, and to see them onstage, playing simple, kickass rock n’ roll (something that was DEAD in 2004) was as great of a musical moment for me as the decade provided. Contraband is not without its faults--chief among them a sketchy production job that manages to both bury the melodies and the guitar work--but, along with COC’s In the Arms of God, it is the best hard rock album of the decade. Scott Weiland, while not a great singer, has a way with a melody, and when that blends into the sheer driving force of tunes like “Do It For the Kids”, “Slither”, “Set Me Free” and “Spectacle”, the result is pure transcendent hard rock, the kind that is all about, to quote my good friend Layne, “gettin’ laid.” The couple of ballad tracks are not as strong but still show off Slash’s gentler, gorgeous playing, and are thus, in the book of Paul, Imminently Worthwhile. I caught the debut of the video for the first single, “Slither,” on MTV2 a month before the record was out, and I remember jumping around the living room with glee, wanting to bust out the ol’ air guitar. Guns N’ Roses are the second most important hard rock band of my life (behind only Metallica) and no band ever represented the concept of “rock star” better. To see Slash and Duff regroup and release a damn fine record did my soul a world of good. Subsequent album Libertad might have been even stronger (a few tunes on it are better than any on Contraband), but Contraband was the war cry from the land of the lost, the only album of the decade to pay tribute to great classic hard rock without seeming like a joke. These guys don’t need irony. Any stage with Slash on it is a stage I want to be in front of. As a side note, some day I dream someone will write the ultimate GN’R book--a Hammer of the Gods for my generation. Maybe I should volunteer my services…

The Walkabouts--Ended Up A Stranger (2002)
The Walkabouts are the great lost Seattle band, a band that found a measure of success in Europe but has been sadly ignored in its homeland. Over the years, their music has incorporated European influences, stretching far out from the early backwoods Washington brilliance to arrive at something completely unique, something that somehow combines late-night urban Europe and late-night rural America. Ended Up A Stranger is the pinnacle of that sound. Look, seriously, these guys are some of the best songwriters of the last two decades, and it’s a crime their music isn’t more well known. Perhaps it’s too mature, perhaps it’s too subtle at times, I don’t know. But for me…well, I wrote an entire story based around the title track of this album, and there are many more stories here. This is another album that sounds like the later years of a relationship, when the complexity and knowledge of the body and mind leads to host of knowledge that is never spoken, when a simple gesture conveys more than a million words, when two share a secret language and yet can’t communicate. Minor keys, tiny figures: the characters in these songs are “feelin’ old, feelin’ everything, nothin’ much.” They walk through towns they once knew, unable to find any recognizable landmarks. Workin’ stiffs, two decades before they would’ve at least had Carver, now they are nothing, restless in a world that doesn’t sing their song anymore. Maybe they try a weekend away at Winslow Place but it is as awkward as the silence, worse than being at home, electric lights that cut a swath in the darkness. Besides the title track, there is one other ultimate song on this album, a song whose title became the subtitle for my journals and the secret phrase for everything I feel about everything: “Fallen Down Moon.” I will end with the first verse, which says more than any words written about this record ever could: “There’s a place between shadow and light/where scars do shine/and then disappear.”

White Stripes--White Blood Cells (2002)
Look, I don’t really like garage rock, outside of some of the classic sixties bands and handful of local 80s bands. I admire the spirit of it, but I like my albums heavier and more complex. That said, I do dig The White Stripes, a band that definitely splits opinion amongst my friends (some love ‘em, some hate ‘em.) Beneath the shtick--a shtick which admittedly felt fresh in the early years of this decade, when rock basically sucked--Jack White is both one helluva guitar player and a guy that can write some real good tunes. He’s also a riffmeister, though you might miss it at first. Just spin “I’m Finding It Harder To Be A Gentleman” from this album and you’ll see what I mean. Choosing a White Stripes album for this list was tough--De Stijl and Elephant could both be here as well--but in the end, while I liked this band prior, White Blood Cells is when the affair was consummated. Listening to this and Interpol’s Turn On the Bright Lights constantly made me think that maybe “alternative” (god, I hate that term!) rock wasn’t quite dead yet. Turns out I was wrong, but the best bands don’t need genres anyway, and the White Stripes are in that category. This album drifts a little at the end, where some of the songs are definitely only half-formed, but the first half is strong and complex, the aforementioned “…Gentleman”, “Dead Leaves on the Dirty Ground” (great song title), and “The Little Room” all perfect songs, songs you can spin over and over with a stupid grin on your face. Either you’re charmed by the Stripes or you’re not. I am. But even if you’re not, you can’t deny the craft of Jack White’s playing. And extra props to Jack for waking up a generation to Loretta Lynn. While the hipster need to try and make every Nashville act of the 60’s and 70’s cool was endlessly irritating, Jack’s love of Loretta’s work always rang genuine to my ears, and their record together is great fun. Also: my daughters love the Stripes. Watching kids react with joy to music is one of the great pleasures of my life.

HONORABLE MENTIONS
One of the things about a project like this is music I’ve discovered more recently gets the short thrift, as a)I haven’t lived with it as long, and b)it’s really easy to overrate what you are into right now because it’s so brand new and fresh. If I were to write this list a year or two from now, I’m positive some of the records below would be on the list above. For that reason, they deserve calling out. Also, some records simply missed the cut, which is in no way meant to slag their awesomeness.

Agalloch--Ashes Against the Grain
Blut Aus Nord--Memoria Vetusta II: Dialogue With the Stars
Mastodon--Leviathan
Sonic Youth--Rather Ripped
Tom Waits--Real Gone
Neurosis--Given to the Rising
White Stripes--De Stilj, Elephant
A Perfect Circle--Mer de Noms
Velvet Revolver--Libertad
Dresden Dolls--Yes, Virginia
Leonard Cohen--Dear Heather
Nachtmystium--Assassins
Mark Lanegan/Isobell Campbell--Ballad of Broken Seas, Sunday at Devil Dirt
Angels of Light--Everything is Good Here/Please Come Home

…and others I’ve stupidly forgotten. No one is perfect.

song titles

Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:07:29 GMT

I think "Procession of the Dead Clowns" has to be the most frightening song title in existence. If ever an image could keep me up all night, I think this would be it. It would be a great story title too, I'm not sure that I'm the one to write it though. (And yes, the song itself is excellent--instrumental, ten minutes of muted drums and distant feedback that sounds as dark as hell. I've always been entranced by the Labyrinth where the Cenobites lived in the Hellraiser films. If the visual of the Labyrinth was made into music, this is what it would sound like.)

On the other side of the fence, I find "Regurgitation of Giblets" to be one of the funniest song titles I've come across in a long while. Giblets is just a vastly amusing word to me. I can take no sentence seriously that features giblets. Also of note, by the same band, is a song entitled "Face Meltaaargh." Has any song title ever said it all so perfectly?

And I must point out that Dethklok (the stars of the hilarious Metapocalypse show) will have a song on their new album entitled "I Tamper with the Evidence at the Murder Site of Odin." Which certainly will be the greatest song ever, right?

angel rat

Thu, 16 Jul 2009 02:52:36 GMT

They call him Angel Rat and no one knows how long he (or she, or it) has been leaving gifts. The gifts always come when the house is empty of occupants, whether that time is day or night. The gifts are needed things--a new light fixture to replace the one that no longer works, your child’s favorite flavor of yogurt that you forgot to buy the last three times at the store, an external drive, socks, a piece of trim to replace the broken one in the hall. There are whispers that Angel Rat once left money for a family that couldn’t pay rent that month, but this has never been verified and most don’t believe it. They do all believe that Angel Rat is what Santa Claus would be if Santa Claus: a) existed, and b) was practical in his gift-giving.

There are, of course, many theories about Angel Rat’s identity. A humble person with money to spare (but how is it Angel Rat always knows just what to get?) is the most frequently cited. A vocal if small segment thinks Angel Rat is an alien, but no one pays attention to them. A Mr. John Dierks proposed setting up cameras in all the households of the neighborhood, in hopes of catching Angel Rat on film. This proved to be too impractical--it is a poor neighborhood, after all, and a number of folks are squeamish over the idea of twenty-four hour cameras filming in their home. They could, of course, just turn them off when they are away since that is when Angel Rat always comes, but there is a fear of forgetting to do so, and something that just doesn’t feel right about the idea anyway. So the idea never got off the ground. That’s not to say a few people didn’t set cameras, but as of yet, no one has successfully filmed Angel Rat. It’s especially difficult as no one has figured out Angel Rat’s pattern of appearance yet. For all intents and purposes, it appears to just be random. People in the neighborhood always need something--Angel Rat has no shortage of potential targets.

Then there is the matter of the name. No one knows who first called him/her/it Angel Rat, or why. Jenny Bell claims credit, but she’s a braggart so full of hot air she might just float away one day (many wish she would, in fact, do just that.) No one believes her, of course. What everyone does agree on is that the name fits, though not a single one could explain why. (The theory involving a rat named Stuart who accidentally switched bodies with an angel one rainy Saturday afternoon never gained traction. The story came to Eric D’Amour in a vision. What he always neglected to mention is that it came after he’d watched that movie with the Crocodile Dundee guy, Almost An Angel, six times in a row while drinking twelve cans of Mountain Dew.)

Idle musings aside, the neighborhood is thankful for Angel Rat. They feel they have someone watching over them as they battle through lives that are often quite hard. This is the greatest gift that Angel Rat gives.

summer night

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 04:31:39 GMT

Tonight I miss the hot sensual city summer night of age nineteen; gazing out at a sky of stars hanging over the sweltering air. Owning nothing, owed to nothing, open only to the first real love of my life, the colors--reds and blues and greens, everything full of creativity. Lying naked in bed with her, tracing the curves, watching how the starlight fell on them.

I’ve written a lot of the misery of my life at that age, and too little of the beauty.

Never again would I be so naively open to every experience. How I long sometimes for the colorful blankets draped on the wall, for the belief in the Muse, for a life given to dreams. There is nothing more sensual than a hot summer night in the city, in a run-down apartment in a shady neighborhood, in a city too hot to move, able to just breathe. To paint bodies, draw figures on the skin. To taste skin.

Sometimes it all comes back, even though it was long ago. The echoes inside me still.

colors that flicker in water

Thu, 09 Jul 2009 03:07:28 GMT

There are certain things you never want to hear at work. One of them is an employee handing you the phone, saying, “It’s J., D’s ex, and he’s taking D to the hospital.” D being one of your employees who, at that moment in time, is about twenty minutes late. And now you know why. Not the D hasn’t called in sick before, and you were aware that she has long-standing health issues—the cane and limp would have tipped you off to that even if you hadn’t been told previous to your hiring. No, all that you knew, but you weren’t prepared for taking that call, for the bad cell phone reception and J sounding pretty freaked out (though you don’t know J; perhaps he sounds like this all time) and saying that he’d call and let you know when they knew something. Nor were you prepared to find out the real story about D’s health later that day, that she’s already lost a foot and hip to cancer and that she’s on a lot of medication and knows that at any day, the cancer could really strike, and you’re definitely not prepared for the possibility that today may have been that day. You’re just a manager, just a guy, you don’t know much, much of anything, really. And now the day is winding down and you still don’t know, how serious it is but you definitely didn’t like the sound of J’s voice. So you are restless, and thinking about a lot of things, and none of them are really coherent, just fragments.

It has been a day of clouds.

Sometimes I have an urge to turn myself into a bargain basement Howard Hughes, lock myself away in a basement of my own design, writing things, punching holes into drywall until I create a work which transforms God. Or forces answers. Or silences the voices.

I would be better served to be in the woods. Talking to the gods and goddesses.

Isn’t there a silly old song that goes something along the lines of “sad songs say so much?” Why is it that the sad songs are the ones so loaded with meaning? I tried to explain what I think about this in a letter to my sister and I fear it just came out as semi-pretentious mush. Which is why I’ve spent a lot of my years on this planet never saying anything. Because I know I sound like an idiot. And words are so cheap…the concepts aren’t devoid of meaning but the words are overexposed and jaded eyes are jaded eyes. In the same letter I made the even greater mistake of trying to explain what art means to me, what the beautiful songs and books and movies and meals do, and I cringe to think of how that must read, but I sent the letter anyway.

I’m not sure there’s ever a moment that I’m not aware that I won’t be here at some point. It makes things feel urgent, like there just isn’t time to waste. Maybe it’s because I’ve gotten a couple of second chances I don’t think I’ve earned, and I need to make them count. Meditating on mortality—on real mortality, not the fake death and drama that’s around us everywhere we turn, but real mortality, real loss—it’s illuminating but some days I’d be happier if my brain would just shut up. Perhaps more than anything I fear dying without having said anything meaningful. That everything locked inside me goes to the grave with me. Maybe that’s the way it is meant to be. You can’t live in the extremes of emotion and expression all the time, it’s exhausting, you’d lose all perspective, and you’d really drive people away.

I’m concerned about my employee, about D. I worry about shit far more than I reveal because life is meaningful, every battle counts, and I can’t even imagine the inner strength it takes to fight something like cancer while living in near constant pain. Did I mention she has a teenager? Yeah. See, the shit we think is the drama of our daily lives isn’t really much. All around me there are big battles going on that I never see, people facing things with tremendous courage that I can’t even fathom.

I light a candle tonight and pray to whatever spirits are out there for her. I hope they are listening.

read a book

Mon, 06 Jul 2009 00:52:27 GMT

Re-read Joe R. Lansdale's "On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with the Dead Folks" this afternoon. Truly a superb short story. There's just something about Joe...I don't read him that often, but when I pull him down, he hits the spot, like a cold cheap beer on a blistering hot afternoon. He makes the whole writing thing look so simple. The great ones do that.

The story is one of many in The Book of the Dead, one of the (if not the very) first zombie anthologies ever published. Sounds funny to say now, but zombies were pretty radical back in the eighties, they certainly weren't as ubiquitous as they are now, at least in horror lit. O bought Book of the Dead when it was brand new. At the time it was the most extreme fiction I'd read. Nearly every great horror writer of the 80's is in there--King, Campbell, Lansdale, etc. etc. Not every story works, and you can make an argument that last year's The Living Dead is a better sampler of the genre, and I'd likely recommend it if someone were foolish enough to only want one book of zombie stories in their collection. But Book of the Dead was very important, and the best stories in it still read wonderfully, twenty-odd years later.

So I'm finally getting around to reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy by Robert Shea and Robert Anton Wilson. It's been on my "to read" list for years and years. It's definitely something you have to be in the mood for, but it's fun, and this seems like the correct time to read it. It makes a nice balance to some of the more "serious" reading I'm doing.

Finished Harlan Ellison's Strange Wine yesterday. Ellison is, for me, a bit of an uneven writer (not surprising for one so prolific)...but at his best, he's like no other. And Strange Wine features some of his best, including "Crotoan", which is, hands down, the scariest story I've read in the last year. The last three paragraphs of that story are what horror writers strive for; in clumsy hands, they ruin everything, but in the hands of a master, your life is changed. Horror writing attracts me because it's pretty damned hard to be so-so. Either you nail it or you fail. And the ones that can nail it--Campbell, Ligotti, King and Ellison at their best--their works will live in you, and stay with you, in a way that most fiction never will. That feeling--that's religion, my friend. That's religion.

this.

Sat, 04 Jul 2009 15:53:01 GMT

A short entry about yesterday before I do some writing. Have you ever had a day where you just woke up and said, "Today is gonna be a good day?" and then it was? That was yesterday. A brief list:

• Made shish-ka-bobs and bbq’d them. Marinated the chicken all day and added yummy veggies. They turned out well.
• Made cupcakes w/the kids. My mom sent them a cupcake-making package (mix, plates, napkins) because we couldn’t be in Chewelah this year. A great idea and it was lots of fun.
• Did a crossword puzzle. When was the last time I could say that?
• Cleaned off the deck furniture and hung out outside when the house got too hot.
• Read several more stories in Ellison’s Strange Wine.
• Watched the last X-Files movie, I Want To Believe. I thought it was good. Not great, but good. Felt like an episode of the show stretched out a bit. I just have a soft spot for Mulder and Scully so it’s all good.
• Bought lots of yummy fruit for a fruit salad today, potatoes for a potato salad, and corn on the cob to go with the hamburgers I’ll grill tonight.
• Listened to the Mariners beat the Red Sox in 11 innings. On the radio, on my deck, a drink in hand, while doing the aforementioned crossword puzzle.

Days like that make my universe right. Going for another one today. Happy 4th, everyone!

aske

Tue, 30 Jun 2009 01:53:44 GMT

Yesterday I spent a couple of hours working in my garden. It wasn’t much, this couple of hours, but it was perhaps the most satisfying thing I’ve done in…well, at least several weeks. I’ve neglected my garden a bit this year, and that breaks my heart. As always, intentions were good, and as always, life gets in the way. Yesterday I put the breaks on and breathed my yard once again. I performed surgery, and hopefully all is not lost.

Things are coming together, connecting, in a way that I can’t quite gasp. I have a sense of where I’m trying to go with my work--writing, job, life--if not an insight of how to get there. Spiritually, things are happening, things breaking into the light and dark a certain way, one of those periods where you re-evaluate what is important without necessarily being consciously aware you are doing so.

And then you go garden for two hours.

I wrote this weekend as well, particularly yesterday morning. Getting the writing back into my M-F workweek is still proving difficult but it is a part of my weekend again. I am terribly behind on letters owed to friends. But in my head, a lot of things are dancing, a lot of sparks are being flung, and my sense of self (or, more accurately, selves) is acutely strong. There are things I need, and things I must build.

Is it complicated, with the kids and marriage and career and the endless need to do five things at once? Yes, but really, this is not something one should ever complain about. I simply must make it work, and it is on me to do everything with integrity, with heart, and with an openness towards the universe. It is the dance.

as embers dress the sky

Sun, 21 Jun 2009 16:52:54 GMT

Three days in a row writing again. It brings a sense of normalcy back. What I’m working on is not clear to me, but simply slogging through is sometimes the most important thing. Found myself thinking of the novel I wrote a couple of years back. I find it creeps into my consciousness semi-regularly. I’d like to go back to it someday, if I ever have the bandwidth. At the moment, I’m just happy to be getting some words on paper. No matter how justified by life, multiple week periods with no writing depress me.

Random things floating through my mind these past days:

• Woodsmoke. I miss the bonfires.
• Ritual and its place in my life
• Kelly Link is the most important writer, in terms of my creative development, I’ve discovered in the last decade. Ligotti is a close second.
• Agalloch and Wolves in the Throne Room bring nature back to me when I’m stuck in the city. The concept and scope of their music is a driving force in my spiritual and creative life.
• I want make little rock monuments in the dirt.
• Turning off all electrical light every so often is important.
• I do not have a clear sense of my goals and ambitions.
• I need to get to Wolf Haven soon and see the wolves again.
• I really don’t like “stuff” and want to simplify. Not quite sure how to get there. Rather, I know what specific “stuff” is important but I have accumulated a lot that isn’t. I think.
• Last night I had three distinct, separate dreams about death. In only one of them did I actually die.
• Even when I’m not writing, I’m always in that frame of mind. Dry spells (regardless of the cause) are difficult because the gap between what I’m feeling and trying to express and the reality of what I’m capable of creating seems so wide.
• My spirituality, like my creativity, is unique to me, and needs tending just like all other important aspects of my life (fatherhood, marriage, and to a lesser degree career.)
• It’s an amazing gift to be alive.

And now, back to work.

chaos a.d.

Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:08:42 GMT

LJ, I know I never call or write, but I haven’t forgotten you, really. Don’t wither away just because I don’t drop by as often as I once did. We’ll always have 2006.

At the moment, I am overwhelmed by…everything. I wouldn’t even necessarily call it a bad overwhelming, but the feeling is there. Work is very time-consuming, very chaotic--it goes well, but I’m very drained at the end of the day, as is inevitable with a new position. I don’t have any tangible yardsticks to measure how good I’m doing, so I hope I am doing well. No one has punched me or told me I should never have been born, so that’s a good sign, I think.

The house is a mess. I’m ready to just torch everything in here. I’m disgusted that I apparently can’t live simply enough, that I’ve accumulated all this crap. My children have so much stuff, yet they use so little of it. Do I want a bigger house? Yes, but we simply shouldn’t have all this stuff. The shape our house has been in since we brought everything back--a complete, utter mess--has me not wanting to come home at the end of the day. I get depressed when I walk in the door. And I fear that I’ve become a nag to my children--but their inability to pick up after themselves, to deal with anything without it being a crisis, is endlessly irritating. I love them dearly but they could be more responsible and helpful. Which suggests I’m setting a bad example. And that thought doesn’t help my frame of mind.

My writing has been dead since my week off. Last Sunday I finally did a bit of work, and I squeezed a tiny bit of time in on Wednesday. But the simple truth is, writing is getting pushed out in favor of everything else. If I can’t at least get this house to where I can walk through it, that won’t change. I just have no creative juice in me right now--I’m drained. I’m barely even reading. I knew this possibility existed when I started the new job, but in truth, I think the job is a small part of it. I think it’s the shape of the household. I severely underestimated how much it would take to sort through and deal with the storage unit stuff. My job, which is by no means bad, I can deal with. This household, I am losing my ability to deal with. Something is going to break soon. Probably me. But I’m good with baling twine and glue, and will put myself back together.

ghosts of grace

Thu, 11 Jun 2009 02:49:05 GMT

Someone else was driving my pickup, I don’t remember who. I was choking on the dust, body perched on the cab like a newborn calf, awkward and trying not to lose balance. The whole idea was to stand, stand while the truck sped down the dry gravel road, zigging and zagging with the sharp corners, seemingly pitching itself onto one side or the other, always on the edge of going right off the road and tumbling down the brush-covered embankment. If you screwed up, you were going to get hurt pretty good, flying off the cab into those woods and their gaping jaws, trees like teeth. Those woods, man, they looked scary even in the daylight.

It was a dare, and I never fell.

I never got my balance for long either--most of my time plastered flat onto the cab, grabbing anything I could to not slide off, looking for that opportunity, that one small window of chance to get on my feet. Like everything else I did, there was no reason beyond that it was vitally important in that moment to do so. To run that risk of bodily harm, to be stupid. It was easier than love, easier than trying to get the words to mean anything.

That day--I nailed it that day. I saw my moment--a flat stretch of road just before a wicked left curve (always take the left hand path, I remember thinking), a slight slowdown of the truck. I moved from the awkward crouch to standing straight up in one fluid motion, a rare moment of cooperation from a body I never could figure out how to work. The cab vibrating under my feet, the wind smacking me but not tipping me, the exhilarating feeling of being pure motion--for a second, everything ceased to exist, everything just was. I cared not if I would soon be snapped up by the aching jaws of the woods all around me, if the gravel would soon embed itself into my skin. For that one moment, existence became something far removed from myself, far greater. The particulars of my breathing, the broken processes of my mind, the yearnings and dreams, none of it mattered because none of it existed.

Grace. For one moment, grace.

Just before the curve, I turned and leapt into the bed of the truck, hating myself for not daring just a little more, for not holding on to the grace. For valuing tomorrow over being alive in the moment. For perhaps, on a deep level, fearing the pain. My knees hit the green metal of the pickup bed as if to drive home how silly it is to fear the pain, because the pain will always be there, no matter what choices are made. It is simply the way of existence. I cursed myself anyway. The grace left a yearning, a yearning deep in a black hole I’ve never figured out how to fill. If I could play the guitar, if I could sing, if I could write, if I could disappear…and still, none of can bring grace.

Later that night, drunk, I stared into the bonfire, wondering how it would feel to pitch myself into it, how the people around would react, wondering if that thought even mattered. I tossed an empty beer bottle into the fire, knowing it wouldn’t burn. It was made of stuff more solid than I. Still later that evening, and still drunk, I drove down that same road, looking for the ghost of grace, finding nothing. The stars overhead, far away and sharp like the tips of a hundred hunting knives, like the very knife I had with me, hurt my head. Why was I even carrying the knife? The stars would just eat it too. Breaking my body to hold my bones.

random saturday update ("i'm not dead yet!")

Sat, 06 Jun 2009 15:19:21 GMT

Wow, I guess I've really neglected LJ for awhile here. It's a symptom of a larger illness--too busy to write anywhere, save occasional ten word Facebook updates. Faced with another day of unpacking (last weekend spent getting everything back from the storage unit), I'll run a brief update:

--New job going pretty well. I'm happy to be back, there are challenges in the role but at this point they aren't overwhelming. Hardest part is that I'm putting in long days right now. In time, that will change, but the summer is going to be pretty long for me that way. However, I can't state what a different feeling it is to go to work everyday thinking about work instead of whether you are going to get laid off or not. That fear may very well come into play down the road, but I'm fairly certain I'm good for at least a year, and probably longer.

--It has now been two weeks since I wrote a single word creatively. I can't stress how busy life has been. I'm actually ok with it; I think the break my help me recharge. I was starting to feel uncertain about where I needed my work to go, and sometimes a breather from it is not a bad thing. I'm hoping to get back on the horse next weekend.

--Marian has been sick for a week now. That's wearying. Not super sick, but enough that she missed 4 out of 5 days of school and if it hadn't been for the ability of Susan's folks to watch her those days, I don't know what we would have done--neither Susan nor I can miss work right now. It's settled into a pattern of her feeling bad in the mornings and evenings and ok in the day. I remember her having something similar to this about three years ago. It seems like it will never end, but it will.

--My ManCave (aka my writing half-room, the other half belonging to the whole family) is coming along nicely. I've taken pictures but haven't posted yet. Two bookshelves and two large CD racks. I can't stress how wonderful it is to see my books again and have them nearby. When all the unpacking is done, I think this will be a good space for me. The new floor really transformed this part of the house.

--On the bottom of the new CD rack right next to my desk (which contains all my metal CDs, along with some favorites that only I enjoy) are all of my old 8-bit NES, Super Nintendo, and Sega Genesis games. It feels oddly good to have them there. The oldest copy, Super Mario Brothers, came with my NES I got in seventh grade (or eighth. I think it was seventh, though.) People, these games are old...and I dearly wish I could easily set up my NES because I love them so. I've managed to keep these games with me through all the strange twists of my life...that's amazing to me. And really cool.

--Tonight is Metal Kommand. Yay!

--I have Nachtmystium tickets. Double yay!

So there it all is in a nutshell, minus whatever I've forgotten. Time to eat some blueberry granola and get busy on the unpacking/sorting. It's not as exciting as moving into a new house, but it looks like we live here again.