Archive for May, 2015
An unInterview With Zyklon-V From AntiKosmos; I Am Transforming Into A Beagle
Posted by Keith Spillett in People Who Were Willing To Speak To Me on May 28, 2015
Photo by Kassandra Carmona of Konvulsion Photography
Zyklon-V from AntiKosmos is the mammal pictured above. She is wearing animal blood and wooden shoes. Myself and a team of botanists from NASA interviewed her moments before the heat death of the universe. Here’s what happened…
Me: AntiKosmos?!?! What…do you just want to see the Kosmos banned? Then what, only criminals and the government will have access to the Kosmos? You know who banned the Kosmos? Hitler! You know who thought it would be a bad idea to ban the Kosmos? Gandhi!
V: I’ve always found “Turkish Delight” to be a really presumptuous name for a candy (or, I should say, so-called candy). I mean, what’s delightful about popping a sweet into your mouth only to discover that some nasty, fez-wearing miscreant bent on revenge against the decadent West has swapped it out for one of those decorative rose-scented soaps your grandmother used to keep in the guest bathroom but yelled at you if you actually tried to use to wash your hands? “Turkish Disappointing Surprise You’ll Be Tasting With Every Burp For The Next Presidential Administration,” more like.
M: It’s your birthday. Someone gives you a calfskin wallet. How do you react?
V: I once listened to “Yakity Sax” for 36 straight hours on a loop while totally naked in a sensory deprivation tank, with no breaks for food or toilet. When I emerged, everything was exactly the same as it had been when I went in, except there was a gentle trickle of cerebro-spinal fluid from my ear that continued for a week, and I subsequently lost the ability to taste mallocreme. I think this is as relevant a commentary on the state of black metal as anything I have read in a glossy music criticism publication.
Q: If Arby’s began selling a sandwich covered in the sweat of Glenn Danzig, why do you think we faked the moon landing?
V: When I was a kid in primary school, I fell off my bike and scraped my knee so bad the kneecap was visible. My mother wanted to use a toothbrush to get the pebbles out of the wound, but my father said that was torture and used a washcloth. After that, I charged my classmates money to pull the bandage back and gaze upon the wound, like the contents of the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. I got addicted to the fame, and after the wound healed, I would eat anything brought to me for money – I ate bugs, pre-chewed gum, once all I had to do was put a found mouth guard in my mouth for thirty seconds. I guess what I’m saying is that child prostitution is educational but ultimately dehumanizing, and AntiKosmos does not use fake blood in our performances, so please stop asking.
H: Have you ever walked up to someone wearing those weird plastic “Bubba” novelty teeth that are pointing out in all weird directions started pointing and laughing hysterically then realized the person is not actually wearing novelty teeth and really looks that way?
V: For years, I avoided eating bananas because I read that an enzyme your skin secretes after banana consumption makes you more susceptible to mosquito bites. Then I realized I live in a high rise apartment complex in the middle of a city, and I haven’t seen a mosquito in almost a decade. So I bought a bunch of bananas, and when I reached for the first one, as if to mock the celebration of my return to banana-dom, I was immediately viciously attacked by a tarantula that had hidden itself amongst the bunches in a do-or-die immigration attempt from Honduras. Needless to say, I don’t watch televised figure skating anymore.
Ed: You get into a taxicab. The man sitting in the seat next to you has a necklace made out of the ears of deceased members of the Kennedy family. You ask the driver to go north, he immediately proceeds south. He has a picture of a Benito Mussolini branded into his forehead and looks slightly like Florence Henderson on the early episodes of The Brady Bunch. Over the radio, you faintly hear the whimpering of a small dog. What do you do next?
(warning the following answer contains strange Dutch stuffed animals talking to one another If you are allergic to stuffed animals or Dutch people or your workplace has a policy in which watching talking owls can cost you your job, do not click the link)
Click here if you dare
K: In John Cassavetes’ 1976 masterpiece, The Killing of a Chinese Bookie, the lead character, Cosmo Vitelli, skillfully played by Ben Gazzara, is sent on a mission for the local mob boss to whack a bookie that is cutting into his business. At some point during the film, a nuclear bomb is detonated in the city of Calgary. Years later, three-headed Canadian beasts emerge from below the surface of the earth and consume all of the margarine available on the United States mainland. Have you ever committed a blunder and later regretted it?
V: People make a lot out of famous last words. I think some people reveal themselves to be utter deathbed try-hards (not naming names here, but I’m definitely looking at you, Oscar Wilde). For my money, the greatest last words ever uttered were those of Thomas Grasso, who was executed in 1995 for strangling an elderly woman to death with her own Christmas lights over what amounted to $137. His words stay with me to this day, and now I’m passing them on to you so their wisdom will echo through the ages. He said, “I did not get my Spaghetti-Os, I got spaghetti. I want the press to know this.”
KL: You’ve got a little boy. He shows you his butterfly collection plus the killing jar. What do you do?
V: Did you know that there’s a sort of tunnel-like spot in the architecture at the Canadian Embassy in Washington where you can scream as loud as you want, but nobody outside the tunnel can hear you at all? I’m starting to feel that way about this interview.
5: You’re watching television. Suddenly you realize there’s a wasp crawling on your arm.
V: I get a lot of emails from Smithsonian magazine. They’re that sort of “we want you back” emails that you get when you let your subscription lapse. They’re all intended for an ex-boyfriend I dated 6 years ago. I never mark them as spam or take myself off the mailing list, because I enjoy reading the mini articles they use to try to tantalize you into re-subscribing. There’s probably some ironic commentary there about the detritus of old relationships haunting you long after they end, but right now I’m much more concerned with when the 100,000 Dollar Bar changed its name to 100 Grand, and what made them think they could be so colloquial all of a sudden.
U: You’re in a desert walking along in the sand when all of a sudden you look down, and you see a tortoise, it’s crawling toward you. You reach down, you flip the tortoise over on its back. The tortoise lays on its back, its belly baking in the hot sun, beating its legs trying to turn itself over, but it can’t, not without your help. But you’re not helping. Why is that?
V: As a small act of protest against the patriarchal hegemony asserted by this question, I’m going to ask your readers to join me in a silent, ten-minute contemplation of the McRib sandwich (not available in all markets; check your local franchise for details and nutritional information; limit 17 per customer).
Photo by Kassandra Carmona of Konvulsion Photography
K: One more question: You’re watching a stage play – a banquet is in progress. The guests are enjoying an appetizer of raw oysters. The entree consists of boiled dog stuffed with rice. The raw oysters are less acceptable to you than a dish of boiled dog.
V: Great question. I get this one a lot, and it never fails to really trip me up and make me think. The thing we all have to come to terms with, I think, has less to do with whether human life is imbued with inherent value by nature or some sort of creator being (I think we waste a lot of time contemplating this – time that could almost certainly be better spent ingesting frozen custard), and more to do with whether there really is an “airport rate” that hired cars in Albuquerque are required to charge for rush-hour travel through downtown, or whether that cab driver was ripping me off. Look out for AntiKosmos’ debut long-playing record album “Lachryma Mortis,” available at finer stolen car chop-shops later this year.
Chief Keef Set To Release Chuck Schuldiner Hip Hop Tribute Record Titled “Trappin’ Da Corner”
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on May 27, 2015
Heavy metal artists and fans alike consider death frontman Chuck Schuldiner as the most significant force in the genre that came to be known as “Death Metal”. From the sheer brutality of “Scream Bloody Gore” to the technical wizardry of “Symbolic”, Schuldiner constantly took metal in directions it had never been before. However, what few headbangers realize is that Schuldiner is a legend of equal or even greater status in the Southern hip-hop scene.
Rapper Juicy J, seen wearing a 1991 era Spiritual Healing tour shirt in the video for his song “That What A Pimp Does”, recently recalled how Death’s music was a major influence on his decision to begin his musical career with several of his friends.
“Paul (DJ Paul), Richard (Lord Infamous) and I were sitting around discussing the merits of Keynesian economics. Richard was really into the whole Austrian, invisible hand scene at the time and was going on and on about methodological individualism. Now, Paul and myself were strictly Frankfurt School guys and had been reading heavy amounts of Marcuse and Horkheimer at the time, so we weren’t hearing it. As you an probably imagine, things were starting to get heated.”
“Anyway, we had on Death ‘Leprosy’ in the background and the song ‘Pull The Plug’ came on. The whole conversation stopped and we were mesmerized. A week later, we started Three 6 Mafia.”
According to Paste magazine editor Atticus Flinch, Three 6 Mafia is hardly the only rap group that was inspired by Death. “It’s hard to not hear a little bit of Schuldiner’s work on nearly every record that’s come out of the so-called “Dirty South” over the past twenty some odd years. Be it the 808 kick drums, the auto-tune vocals, the gritty, nihilistic lyrics about the everyday struggles associated with urban life or the frantically-paced, melodic guitar solos. Pick up anything from Waka Flaka Flame to Souljah Boy and you’ll see Schuldiner’s fingerprints all over it.”
The tribute record was put together by Chicago based rapper Chief Keef, but will feature some of the top names in hip hop as guest artists including the man some have taken to calling “Evil Chuck Jr.”, producing icon Shawty Redd. Shawty, whose name in real life is Preternatural Transmogrifyer, was 10 years old when “Individual Thought Patterns” first came out.
“I remember asking my parents over and over again to take me to the store to buy that album. At the time, I was deeply interested in gardening. I used to play ‘Cosmic Sea’ off of ‘Human’ to my begonias at night to help them grow. I remember running into my bedroom when we got back from Sam Goody and hearing that crazy opening from ‘Overactive Imagination’ and knowing, at that moment, the true meaning of love.”
“Trappin’ Da Corner” is due to drop on June 12th. If you see it on the floor, please pick it up and place it back on the shelf or, better, find a customer service person to help you find the correct place to put it.
Islamic Terrorist Group Sodom Banned From Traveling To U.S. For Maryland Deathfest
Posted by Keith Spillett in Uncategorized on May 21, 2015
The New Axis of Evil?
The State Department has refused to officially comment on a recent report that Islamofascist group Sodom was not issued visas in order to perform at this weekend’s Maryland Deathfest. However, senior sources with in the Office of Homeland Security have confirmed, off-the-record, that a visit to war-torn Baltimore by the band could lead to an outbreak of evil on a scale unrivaled in this nations history.
One unnamed official pointed out that the band has embraced a form of justice more menacing then even the Sharia Law practiced by ISIS. “We’ve seen reports that these doers of evil are so obsessed by cruelty that they have advocated a legal system based solely upon “The Saw”. The song “The Saw is The Law” is a manifesto encouraging the abandonment of democracy and the rule of law. Instead, these destroyers of civilization want to rule through the use of a violent tool INVENTED BY EGYPTIANS!”
“The saw is a simple tool that can be assembled by one terrorist alone in his basement. You could make one for less than the cost of a cup of coffee. However, when used correctly, a group of terrorist with saws could be responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of unarmed, innocent Americans.”
Angelripper Holding a Weapon of Mass Destrcution
Another concern voiced by officials connected to Sodom’s banishment from America site their frequent references to weapons of mass destruction in their songs. According to top ranking military intelligence officer, “Sodom consistently encourages their fans to use Agent Orange and Napalm. Granted, they only advocate the use of napalm in the morning, but nonetheless, this Group of Three has displayed wanton disregard for the safety of Americans with their irresponsible lyrics.”
“Can you imagine what would happen if the groups shadowy leader Thomas Angelripper, a man who has talked frequently at his concerts about having a “Nuclear Winter”, was able to sneak a nuclear warhead into his carryon bag? One word….Genocide.”
Norwegian Black Metal Linked To Abrupt Resignation of U.S. Secretary of Defense
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on May 20, 2015
Photo By Marlene Velasco (Luchafur Graphics)
Washington, D.C– Pentagon has released shocking new information surrounding Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel’s abrupt and unexpected resignation. Sources state that Hagel’s resignation was due, in part, to lack of support in his classified mission to negotiate alliances with various Norse metal icons in the fight against the expanding threat of Middle Eastern terrorist groups.
At one official event, a defiant, rather Scotch-addled Hagel declared, “The only way to defeat such heinous acts of violence steeped so deeply in an extreme ideology is with counter-terror of epic proportion! The power of the quintessential warriors, whose ancient lineage of voracious brutality has been the stuff of legends! No more time can be wasted, no more innocents lost; we need to strike while the iron is hot! We absolutely MUST unleash the wrath of the Northern Darkness!”
Quoting his favorite drummer Frost (Satyricon/1349), Hagel further punctuated his position exclaiming he was, “talking about Darkness with a capital D, if you understand what I mean!” Unfortunately, no one really understood what he meant. Several of the President’s handlers believed it was meant as a racial slur towards the President and cut off Hagel’s bar tab; thus heightening tensions within the administration even further.
Hagel’s work was met with resistance from both sides. On the Norwegian front, meetings with the enigmatic Gaahl (Gorgoroth/Godseed/Wardruna) resulted in a stalemate of awkward silence and numerous unsettling stare-downs on the part of Gaahl, when Hagel simply could not ‘ask the right questions’.
Back stateside, “Operation FROSTbite” was never able to even get off the ground due to what Hagel claimed to be nefarious actions on behalf of Homeland Security in the form of repeated denial of work visas. According to Hagel, “Homeland Security’s energy would be better spent targeting home-grown terrorists such as Nickelback fans. Unlike America, Frost is a fine-tuned machine and his blast beats should be the least of this country’s concern.”
Hagel was contacted by representatives of Immortal to aid in the mission, however Hagel felt that Abbath’s proliferation of internet ‘memes’ and numerous unsavory associations with famed internet personality Grumpy Cat would compromise the integrity of the operation.
Hagel’s final, cryptic statement, “If you can’t beat’em, burn churches with ’em. I have much grimmer pastures to pursue” led many experts to believe there was more to the story than the government had previously indicated.
Before the arrival of his replacement Ashton Carter, Hagel cleared out his office, packed up his corpse paint and headed to Europe for Bloodstock and the 2015 European festival season. He was spotted as recently as last Wednesday wandering the streets of Oslo in the middle of night muttering Bathory lyrics under his breath and baying at the moon.
(By Kimmy Deranged, an enlightened Black Metal yogi who lives in the Rockies, drinks too much rubbing alcohol and is convinced she can talk to tortoises)
Pope Francis Introduced As New Singer Of Metal Band Ghost B.C.
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on May 19, 2015
In an attempt to show the modern, more tolerant face of the Catholic Church, the Vatican today announced that Pope Francis would be the new vocalist for the death metal band Ghost B.C. Pope Francis, whose only previous credit on an album come from singing backup vocals on the Annihilator song “Kraf Dinner”, has publically spoken about the “healing and transformative powers of heavy metal music”, but few expected him to actually appear on a metal album.
Ghost B.C. had initially planned to replace current vocalist Papa Emeritus II with a shadowy figure known only as Papa Emeritus III, but when the Vatican reached out and appealed to band to bring the Pope on board in order to bring harmony between “Catholics and hellbound non-believing scum”, the band immediately jumped at the opportunity. Pope Francis will be introduced as the singer during Sweden’s Hellfest in June.
Pope Francis has distinguished himself in the past by making statements that reflect tolerance towards other faiths and acceptance of people who disagree with the Catholic lifestyle. While beliefs of this sort were thought of as the gateway to eternal damnation by his predecessors, they have helped improve the image of The Church among non-Catholics who are blissfully unaware of what The Church actually thinks about them.
In a recent ABC News/Hormel Meat Corporation Poll, 63 percent of respondents said they believed they would “be very surprised” if the church began torturing and murdering non-believers as it has done throughout much of its past.
This Pope, whose trademark catch phrase “What the Hell do I know, I’m just the Pope?” has become a rallying cry for Catholics around the world who long to become tolerant of the people that they feel an instinctive hatred towards, seems to be doing everything within his power to remind people that The Church is much more than the largest Ponzi scam in human history. He has reached out to Muslims, Jews, sexual deviants and those being punished by God with a life of poverty.
Still, the past two singers of Ghost B.C. have been described as a “Satanic anti-Popes”. What could a Pope, who represents an organization that stands firmly against satanic rituals like birth control, abortion and homosexuality, possibly have in common with the band’s previous singers?
“Well, they all wear funny hats,” quipped Vatican spokesman Tom Torquemada.
The new Ghost B.C. album “Turning The Cross Upside Down” is due out in August.
Varg Vikernes Suspended For 4 Games By NFL For Using Deflated Murder Weapons
Posted by Keith Spillett in General Weirdness on May 18, 2015
The NFL has suspended Jacksonville Quislings quarterback Varg Vikernes for four games for deflating the footballs he used to beat nine French tourists to death last year.
The league called the discipline “relating to the use of underinflated footballs as tools of death and dismemberment” necessary to stop behavior “detrimental to the integrity of the league.”
Vikernes, who went on an anti-French murder rampage outside of the team’s stadium after Jacksonville’s 51-7 loss to the Houston Frotteurists in December, believed that “someone had to take a stand against their decadent lifestyle, Jewish tendencies and obsession with flaky pastries”.
While Vikernes would not deny his participation in what the media is calling #Deceasegate, he claims that the footballs used were regulation sized. According to his agent Mehlvin Goehring, “Vikernes would not willingly use undersized footballs in order to murder French people. His commitment to the proper use of regulation murder weapons is unparalleled in both the NFL and the black metal community.”
Vikernes Only Hours Before Killing Nine Frenchmen With Underinflated Footballs
Sports talk radio was aflame with anti-Vikernes rhetoric today. On ESPN’s morning radio show “Mike and The Barely Coherent Mook”, host Mike Greenback opined, “You can’t just murder people with underinflated footballs. There are rules that must be followed!”
“What sort of league would we have if players just went around killing one another with weapons not approved by the NFL? What if the Bears wanted to knock Aaron Rodgers out for the playoffs and threw a toaster oven in the bathtub with him instead of using NFL approved arsenic in his coffee? Or if the New England Bartholin Glands decided to bludgeon Abbath to death with a sledgehammer instead of stabbing him multiple times in the face with a regulation sized kitchen knife? It’s a slippery slope if you’re not playing on a level playing field.”
According to ESPN afternoon host Clam Cowheart, “See if you can follow me here… it’s not the actual murders that made the NFL punish Vikernes. He murdered French people. Americans HATE the French! They changed the name of fries to Freedom Fries in this country after a group that wasn’t EVEN FROM France attacked the US.”
“No one cares about Vikernes killing some French people whether he used regulation-sized footballs or mini-footballs or waffle irons. It’s the cover up. If Vikernes had come out right away and said ‘Yeah..I killed a few Frenchmen with some underinflated footballs’ the public would have forgiven him in a second. Just like Nixon…if he had told the truth right away he would have gotten a third term. He’d probably still be President today. It’s the lie that gets you in trouble. Has been since the beginning of time.”
Several former NFL players attempted to go on the record in support of Vikernes, but due to severe head injuries they received while participating in the sport they were incapable of uttering anything besides a few grunting, gurgling noises.
Koch Brothers Purchase The Sun
Posted by zenaphobe67 in General Weirdness on May 18, 2015
Corporate Friends With Benefits
Koch Industries, America’s most influential and wealthy corporate person in history, has scored a major victory for the free market today by purchasing the Sun. Like most non productive pieces of real estate, the Sun has been a drag on the solar system for far too long, but like with any other problem in life, it’s nothing that a few billion dollars and an army of lobbyists can’t solve.
The Sun has been seen by many on the political right as a model for socialism and entrepreneurial malaise, looted by moochers and takers for its life sustaining properties with zero return for shareholders. The concept of renewable energy has known ties to Marxist Nazi ideology, and has been foisted on impressionable schoolchildren for decades via socialistic fascist propaganda efforts such as Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood and Captain Planet, as well as aspartame free Pepsi and un-fracked drinking water.
Thanks to the Koch brothers America will no longer live in leftist darkness and grope through the night of solar hand outs and dependency, but will have the freedom to participate in the solar marketplace free of the influence of job killing big government.
Solar Fascism Destroying American Values
As they awaited for President Obama to retrieve the title deed for the Sun from the depths of the Hillary Clinton’s secret cache of 3.5″ floppy discs, the Koch brothers laid out their plan for the future of solar enterprise. Firstly, every American will be required to sign up for Koch Care. In order for all Americans to experience the joys of energy independence, they will need to obtain the needed technology to harness it’s never ending capitalistic freedom.
Koch Care entitles citizens to roam the sun soaked streets of old time America in a variety of job creating ways, the most basic of these being the Coolie Hat. The Coolie Hat gives the wearer a means by which to gather photons in an economical manner for use throughout the day. Each hour of sunlight will be stored in a tar sand battery and will emit a generous cloud of red, white, and blue carbon dioxide to help keep winter heating costs down.
Coolie Hat (Pancreas Pump Not Included)
The second component of Koch Care is harnessing the power of liberal rage. Ever since the dawn of time, liberals have generated tremendous amounts of wasted energy in the form of rage, from Neanderthal Snorg bemoaning the killing and eating of innocent nuts and berries, to Ronald Reagan advocating Second Amendment destroying legislation in the Brady Bill, liberal anger has been a squandered natural resource. To this end, Koch Care is taking several steps to ramp up liberal rage production.
One means is to use the newly acquired Sun to burn the useless coal and oil supplies America will find itself with through operation Coal Chamber. By buying the now defunct NASA from Ted Cruz for pennies on the dollar, operation Coal Chamber will utilize the space shuttles to haul excess coal and oil to the Sun for incineration. To optimize liberal rage production, the space shuttles will be fitted with 18 foot diameter smoke stacks to leave giant plumes of black smoke as they exit Earth’s gravity. America will once again be the envy of the world as her liberal rage storage grids burst at the seams, ready to be sold back to an unsuspecting public through programs such as Fox News and QVC.
Actual Liberal’s Head Exploding Literally
As one would expect,Democrats are already condemning the Koch’s solar acquisition and want to impose new taxes on the wealthy to pay for a Moon sized mirror to reflect free sunlight to pale children and families working less than 5 jobs. Democratic presidential hopeful, Dewy Givemore, is proposing new legislation to build the giant mirror with a sales tax on bottled fracking water and life saving pancreas pumps. Representative Givemore has also formed a committee to study the side effects of Coolie Hats on the endangered Spotted Mugwump and the link between aspartame and blast beat deficiency in black metal fans under 12 years of age.
Post Blast Beat Deficiency Syndrome
Metal Scientists Successfully Create Rainbow in Dark
Posted by birthad1 in Uncategorized on May 17, 2015
On the fifth anniversary of singer Ronnie James Dio’s passing, metalhead scientists at MIT have announced they have successfully created a rainbow in the dark.
“What was once just a cryptic metaphor is now a scientific reality,” said Chief Physicist Dr. Jim Durkin in a prepared statement, “Until now, rainbows were only possible with the presence of ultraviolet light. In this setting, we have been able to generate a rainbow in a completely dark room with its refraction as the sole source of illumination. This could pave the way to other discoveries like cold fusion.”
As of now, the potential of this new technology remain to be seen. Some researchers have suggested it could prevent people from being brought down by lightning or being left on their own, but most experts agree that its proper applications remain elusive.
“What we’re looking at here is an image caught in time,” said Dr. Wolf Hoffmann, MIT Laser Sciences Director, “when I consider the possibilities of this incredible find, it leaves me virtually speechless, like words without a rhyme.”
A symposium on the significance and meaning of a rainbow in the dark will be held this fall at the National Science Foundation in Washington, DC. Prominent physicists and engineers from all over the globe have already announced plans to attend.
At press time, a team of nautical engineers at Stanford University have announced their intention to design and build a Holy Diver, as soon as they figure out what the hell that is.
Napalm Death’s “Scum” and Woman’s Search For Meaning
Posted by Keith Spillett in Really Brilliant Things You Should Read But Probably Won't Because You Are A Pantera Fan on May 15, 2015
I was born in 1982, seven years shy of the end of the Vietnam War. My birthdate left me unaware of the horrors of napalm, and because I like to justify my historical ignorance with the phrase, “I don’t know because I wasn’t alive then,” I’ve remained unenlightened for the past thirty years. But the real tragedy, readers, the unspeakable terror, is that I’ve known nothing of the band Napalm Death, the darling of the grindcore genre and a pioneering influence in the celebration of noise for noise’s sake.
I’ve been given a gift from my friend Keith Spillett: an invitation to review Napalm Death’s debut album, “Scum.” And fittingly, my exposure to this musical vanguard was a baptism by fire, and I can say with absolute clarity that I’ve been born again.
Go with me, readers, on a journey of the utmost existential significance.
“Scum” opens with the introduction of our protagonist, Angry Man. We don’t learn much about Angry Man on this track, only that he likes to yell, “Genocide! Stalin!” But soon, in the track “Instinct of Survival,” we find that Angry Man does not go through life alone. He has a faithful companion, St. Bernard, prone to manic barking (“Ruff! Ruff! Ruff! Ruff!”, times 32), and St. Bernard seems to be pulling Angry Man on his leash, urging his master to keep going and demanding that the listener go the distance.
Next up: “The Kill,” a track that introduces us to the album’s penchant for surprise. It opens with musical phrasing that fools us into believing that we’re to be treated to “You Really Got Me” by The Kinks. But it’s not to be: Angry Man has more to yell. And his message swells in the titular track, a song that rivetingly follows the classic A/B/A/B/C structure, A being palatable, B being obnoxious, and C being the hate child conceived between A and B premaritally.
Just when we think that Angry Man could not be more eloquent, we reach track 6, “Polluted Minds.” It’s among the most lyrically complex tracks on the album, leaving us pondering our role in society’s corruption. He explodes and engages: “Do you hear my muffin?! They must die!! Yo yo yo yo yellow dress!” There’s a story here, propelling us forward. What flavor is the muffin? Does the dress have an empire waist or a fitted bodice?
We’re confused. We want answers. We push on, and our persistence goes unrewarded. Frankly, track 8, “Siege of Power,” is self-indulgent and obtusely academic. The musicians seem to be boasting, “Look how fast I can drum! Look how unintelligibly I can make sounds come out of my face hole!” Angry Man mixes his messages, sounding in track 9 as if he’s hopping in the snow wearing only his boxers, vulnerably howling, “Follow your dream! Where’s my doll?!?!”
But then we come to track 12, “You Suffer.” The element of surprise introduced in “The Kill” finds delightful fruition here, as we meet Angry Man’s high-pitched foe: Toddler Alien. “Why?” screams Toddler Alien repeatedly, and as he belts out an aggressive duet with Angry Man, we find ourselves asking the same question. For this is the turning point of the album, the moment at which we must think critically about our need for answers, for neatly tied resolutions. We realize with sudden clarity that we’ve been waiting for Godot.
As we take a breath and move on to “Point of No Return,” we begin our ascent to the album’s climax. Angry Man throws up, then eats Cookie Monster, leaving us to wonder if our hero’s tragic flaw is his weakness for tasty Muppets; the linear reversal of projectile vomiting and food consumption challenges our dependence on the concept of time. We listen helplessly in “Negative Approach” as Angry Man’s identity dissociates into SNL’s Colonel Angus coming home from war, unable to stop the mockery of Toddler Alien’s Elfin Uncle who laughs mercilessly in the background.
And the cruelty of circumstance only becomes more intense. Angry Man’s destiny is not to resolve his conflict and achieve victory over his foes; we’re not to experience the catharsis of a happy ending. He loses a tooth in “Deceiver,” then finds himself bound and gagged in “Conservative Sh%^head.” His shackles remain, even after repeatedly screaming out of his rope-gagged mouth, “Just wait ’til my lawyer gets here!” His needy cries of “We want corn! We want corn!” go unacknowledged in “Pseudo Youth,” and finally his tongue is numbed in “Divine Death,” leaving us with his final intelligible phrase of the album: “Ride this thing!” Haunting.
Not since Fiona Apple’s “Tidal” have I been so powerfully affected by the symbolic significance of a debut album. I recommend “Scum” unequivocally, with absolute assurance that you too will be catapulted into your own search for meaning. Readers, in our life on this earth, we won’t always be able to understand the words. Sometimes what sounds like “Die! Die! Die!” and an angry lawnmower is really a clarion call, an opportunity to question our place on earth, a chance to swing toward the absolutist tenet of nihilism or the belief that “everything happens for a reason.” Obviously, Napalm Death falls into the latter camp.
“Scum” by Napalm Death:
2 birds up
(Amy wrote this. She is the Chief Existential Heroine over at ‘Bring On The Whimsy’. She received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1978 for creating the Island of Madagascar. Her hobbies include botany, vanilla and water buffalos. She is not a Sagittarius)
You Go To The Beach Because You Are Stupid
Posted by Keith Spillett in Here's Why I Dislike You So Much on May 8, 2015
The Beach: America’s Garbage Can
Summer is just around the corner, which means a bunch of mindless automatons (often referred to derisively as Americans) will be burning their feet on scorching hot sand and wallowing in polluted, filthy water in order to have what the kids today call “fun”. The hotter it gets, the more people crowd into these mini-hells in order to soak up as much skin cancer as they can. Beaches are like giant moron magnets.
The beach is the single worst place in the world. Every last one of them. When I was a kid, we’d occasionally go to Jones Beach. If you got there by about 5 AM, you’d be one of the lucky people who go to get into Beach 6. It was everyone’s favorite because it was a short walk to the water. If you were any later than that, you’d stumble through a stretch of land resembling the Gobi Desert in order to have the rare treat of spending the day rolling around in dirt and washing it off with salt. I still swear I once saw a Jawa buying an ice cream sandwich from a vendor somewhere around the 11-mile mark of Beach 1.
Myself and Several Bedouins I Met On Our 8 Hour Walk To The Waters of Beach 1
If I wanted something a little closer to home, there was always Glen Island, made famous for its rare ability to attract used syringes, putrefied squirrel carcasses, tires and tennis balls. Demotion Hammer fans probably know what I’m talking about because I believe the song “Infectious Hospital Waste” was inspired by a trip there.
Of course, there was always Orchard Beach, a vile place that always smelled vaguely like horse vomit and Muscatel. Orchard Beach had a lovely, post-apocalyptic type ambiance that always made me feel like I was on the set of one of the Mad Max films.
What amazes me is the willingness people have to spend gobs of money to plunk themselves down in the middle of some miserable tourist trap surrounded by screaming children, drunken college students and kvetching adults under terribly uncomfortable conditions in order to what…relax???
Fork over hundreds of dollars to get on a crowded plane next and sit six centimeters from some chronic halitosis sufferer. In order to fork over hundreds more to stay in a shoebox sized room with LeRoy Nieman paintings and HBO. In order to burn your skin to the point where it peels off of your body. In order to take selfies that no one except for stalkers and the NSA care to see. In order to find what passes for happiness in this sick, decaying world of ours. In order to dream the same futile, ridiculous dream for 50 more weeks until you can repeat the unpleasantness again if you don’t drop dead first.
But, hell, who am I to ruin someone else’s obscene, twisted fantasy? You want to be a lobster colored version of Walter Mitty? Go ahead. You like the sensations of hot filth and wet slime all over your body? Have at it. You want to pass off discomfort as joy and feculence as beauty? Be my guest. Only don’t talk to me about it. As a matter of fact, just don’t talk to me. Not until winter anyway.
The Tyranny of Tradition 