I have returned to you, my people, with a message.  

I slumbered in my basement in darkness with Bolt Thrower “In Battle There is No Law” on repeat.  I had reached the outer limit of human experience, but was awakened by some eight-year-old kids doing Tic Toc dances on my front lawn.  I shot at them several times before they returned fire and ran into the woods.  But, regardless of the reason…I was awakened and now I returneth to you.  The Bettleheim of the Blastbeat.  The Borgia of Borknagar.  The Scapula of the Soul of Sadistic Solipsisic Slayerism.  For I am Blak Dan, and I can’t fall back asleep.

At first, I pondered my wasting words on you.  Having to think them, a burden.  Having to speak them, a chore.  Having to write them, a punishment.  But, I have stared into the abyss long enough now and have realized that the replies I thought I was getting were mere echoes.  Which was disappointing.  I thought I had found my soulmate.  Instead, I peered into the sheer vacuity of my soul, mate.

I come not to speak on politics for you have already done that. Your opinions like maple syrup running into your collective hashbrowns.    All opinions have been had and repeated.  Scattered.  Covered.  Smothered.  Chunked.  Diced. And forgotten.  Your blood sport no longer calculated in rational numbers on a scoreboard, now broken into electoral statements of condemnation of righteous hatred for thine neighbor.

I come not to speak of economics.  For I know not of the math you now practice.  I thought crypto a venerial disease and do not care if the Fed cuts rates.  If it feels good, do it, I say.  Inequality has always seemed fine with me.  For I wade in a cesspool of inequality anytime I leave the house and suffer the presence of others. 

For I am Post-Everything.  In my slumber, I transitioned into a state of Meta-Post-Everythingness.  You won’t understand what that means for another century, but trust me when I say, I seeeth.  Deepethly.  You are playing chess, whilst I am playing ten dimensional strip Parchesi with beautiful coed lizardwomen. You speak of numbers, yet can you even hear the One when I speak?

I come not to speak of wars or rumors of wars.  Or rumors of Fleetwood Mac albums.  For what price a man’s soul if he hasn’t truly understood the teachings contained in Tusk.  Iran?  Iran so far away, indeed.

I come to philosophize on a subject of consequence.  Many of you use your words in the vain hope of persuasiveness.  I need not persuade because I speak only in immutable truths and don’t bother with useless words like “Ouch, you’re stepping on my fingers” or “just take the battery out of the smoke detector and it’s no longer a problem”.  I have only the truth at my disposal.  Post-truth really.  Post-meta-proto-truth. The type of truth only known to those who have gained enlightenment and then stumbled back into this mad charnelhouse of a planet looking for a good fibula to gnaw on can understand.

For whilst you concern yourselves with issues of politics, issues of power, issues of survival and other such banalities, I come to speak the words unspoken.  Until I speak them.  Which I’m going to do at some point.  For as man seeith nations burn and fortunes spin like weeble-wobbles on the scorching hot pavement of time, I see only what needs seeing.

I speak these words to a specific audience.  I have allowed many of you along for the ride, because the members and former members of Judas Priest have obtained restaining orders from your so-called “courts” and thusly, speaking directly with them is no longer possible for me.  

For you, Judas Priest, you have sinned against nature.  You have doneth the unthinkable.  And you lie.  Your snake-like tongues spit truthless venom in our ears.  You pretend there never was a Jugulator.  You gaslight the human species with your acquired, refined insolence.  Your singer, that guy who was in that really good band called Fight, claims to never have even heard of what I speak.  Yet, you hold Jugulator hostage in an Iranian Embassy of the mind.  And you take from us, your adherents, the one moment of true perfection you ever achieved.  For it is YOU Judas Priest, that deny us access to the song Cathedral Spires!  J’accuse toi!

I have exerted and strained as I searched the so-called “internet”.  Humbled myself before its streaming services.  Scrolled and scrolled seeking even a mention of it.  Allowed my mind to be devoured by millions of offers of essential oils that are no longer essential to me.  Nary a word about it.   Nary a suggestion.  Nither a live recording with Mr. Halford singing.  Nither a 25th anniversary remaster with studio outtakes of Mr. Downing screaming lines from Dante over an early abandoned riff to “Bullet Train”.

Only Ripper hath spoken truth.  For it is he who remembers.  He who has acknowledged the song’s legacy and deadly aftermath.  He who speaks of rising up only to retire.  He who still tires while watching the world expire.  

He who shouteth the words “Cathedral Spires”.

And yet, he is forgotten to the pages of history.  Written out like that cute kid Oliver on the Brady Bunch.  Replaced by Mark Wahlberg in the movie and left to rot in the wretched refuse of former members of other bands.  We speak not of Ripper or his sacrifice.  Or of his glorious burden.  We go on pretending Jugulator never was. 

The absence you feel in your lives that you confuse with the death of meaning is merely the absence of this song.  It is as if the entirety of the human experience led to one ultimate, defining moment.  And that moment moulders in the cutout bin of human pathos somewhere between some 311 ripoff band and the only remaining copy of the Garth Brooks’ Chris Gaines CD left on the planet.  And you mock it with your ignorance.  We say “Jugu-later” when we really mean “Jug-u-never”.

So, I say to you, Priest of Judas, do not betray us with your lies!  Do not place a crown of thorns upon this head of metal!  Do not crucify us on this Cross of Brutish Steel! Bring forth a new recording of Cathedral Spires with Mr. Halford’s mighty voice intoning the words.  Free Cathedral Spires from beyond the realms of death!  

Uplift us, ye Priests.  Uplift us, to where we can look down from those spires you promised and see all that we have wrought and all needs wroughting.  Uplift us, to the downtuned soaring heights from which you left us dangling.  For I am Blak Dan, and I command you!  Bring forth the Spires, so I can renew my slumber and be free of this world!