Let's go digging.

"Those who engage in Western left-hand path sex-magick, the rituals of Thelema and various other mental techniques designed to bring the operator into contact with a superconscious reality (what Terrence McKenna might call the entelechy of the Overmind) are openly setting themselves up to be exploited by that which resides on the other side."

-Blair MacKenzie Blake, "DMT and Magick," in Dark Lore, Vol II

I've often operated under the assumption that one of the prime motivators in life is the promise of great riches, material and otherwise, if only we are to obtain enough knowledge. Knowledge will make life bearable, yes? Knowledge will show us the way. Knowledge will allow us to live the good life.

Knowledge also possesses a great deal of intrinsic value, to me at least. It is valuable in and of itself, and we should appreciate it for what it is, not for what it does.

Well, I am growing tired of knowledge - particularly self-knowledge (indeed, one of the trickiest types of knowledge). I'm tired of these little epiphanies that the typical person is supposed to experience as we learn about ourselves. They're nonsense. I'm tired of trying to understand myself in terms of the things I already know of myself. "I'm this way," and "I'm like this," and "I do this when x happens." All incredibly boring, time consuming and pointless. I'm beginning to think that it would be a much more worthwhile experience to try and understand myself and the world that I inhabit in terms of the things that I don't know about myself. It's an seemingly arcane piece of wisdom that the unknown has vastly more to teach us than the known.

I rarely know what the hell I'm doing anyway. So fuck it. Let's go digging.

Depression Can Be A Real Motherfucker

Depression sucks. Big sweaty fucking balls. I should consider myself fortunate that it doesn't affect me the way it used to; whereas depression would once render me literally useless for weeks at a time, it now generally comes on and lasts only a few days at most, and the intensity of the DOWN is not typically as far DOWN as once before.

One of the things about depression that really pisses me off is the way that it comes on, hitting me like a tidal wave - all the bad, empty, devastating feelings coming over in an instant, but at the same time taking its sweet fucking time (all of about 15 seconds) so that I feel myself falling farther and farther from normalcy. I fucking hate it because the wave of depression falls over me so suddenly, for no apparent reason, and I can feel the cocktail of chemicals in my brain being shaken up with poison in it. The really unfair and unfortunate part is that when the depression lifts, there is no corresponding raising of the shades, if you will. Not for me, at least. I have to wonder how others experience this.

It makes me feel like curling myself into a ball and laying in a whole that I dug with my own weathered hands. I feel like no one gets it. I feel like punching people in the face for not getting it (though I don't have to be depressed for that to be the case). I feel like I could and should be alone for the rest of my life. And worst of all, none of the music that colors my life sounds good. I have nearly 7000 songs in my iTunes library, which, if played on a continuous loop from song 1 to song 7000, would take about 785 hours to listen to. And when I'm fucking down, none of it sounds good. It all sounds like bullshit.

I'm glad this latest bout with the motherfucker that depression is ended before Father's Day weekend, so I can enjoy the weekend with my wife and kidlets... though I'm still not feeling 100%.

Anyway, enough of this fucking crying.

We've been experiencing a lot of thunderstorms of late. I love them, for a number of varied reasons.

We've had thunderstorms for each of the past 3 days and nights, off and on. But there are little thunderstorms that come and go, their bark worse than their bite, and then there are thunderstorms that should be considered harbingers of the motherfucking apocalypse. The latter is what we endured last night.

To go with the torrential downpours, how about a side of hailstones the size of nickles (much like bullet holes the size of matzoh balls!)... Wind that blew the table over and practically put the umbrella through the siding of the house... Thunder that shook the very earth, and lightning that lit the entire sky like nuclear death, for 2-3 seconds at a time... it was unbelievably violent, and amazingly beautiful. Lucky for everyone, the world did not end. The sun rose again this morning. We didn't even lose the electricity.

I'm hoping for more of those today :-)

Suspended Animation

Hell, I feel ANIMATED today.

Perhaps it has something to do with the fact that I've been drinking small but substantial quantities of wine since 2:30PM this afternoon. Need to keep it up :-)

I was supposed to climb on the roof and clear the gutters, but suburban domestic servitude can wait. Cheap wine is today's over-arching theme. Not so inebriated that I can't help take care of my kids, but just enough so that I feel pretty good about it and everything else.

Man, the Black Pyramid s/t CD is supposed to be "stoner rock," but neither weed nor weed culture is my style. Cheap wine, apparently, is my style. And that record still sounds great, from the Middle Eastern sounds on the first track to the blues-y riffs and solos throughout... I don't play it nearly enough. I wish it were out on vinyl, because I love vinyl. I'd rather not buy another CD ever.

Black Math Horseman up next...

perceive, to;

I either just formed a more honest and intimate relationship with the Earth and the immediate ground beneath me,

*OR*

that is the last time I mow the lawn in bare feet.

Miserer

One of my last.fm friends sent me a link today to an mp3 excerpt of "Miserere," one of the songs that will be appearing on Bloody Panda's new record, Summon (due out August 11th).

Here is that link:

http://www.profoundlorerecords.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=blogcategory&id=14&Itemid=33

Holy. Mother. Fucker.

I had to ask him if it was possible that the Panda's oppressive style of doom has become even darker and heavier, because that's just what I was hearing. I don't often get this excited for records, but whereas I was super-thrilled for this record before, I am now practically drooling. August 11th cannot come fast enough.


In other news, I'm considering going to Allston again on Monday night to see Bone Awl, Ashdautas, Volahn, and Witch Tomb at O'Brien's. If I can get Marilyn to pick up the kids, I think I may...

How many posts can I title "Clean Hands Go Foul?"

A lot of people who are supposedly very close to me really don't "get" me, and while I shouldn't, I do fault them for it. I'm not hard to read - in fact, I'm right here, laid out about as bare as one person can be, with my heart bleeding all over my sleeve. It pisses me off when these folks claim to know what's going on in my head and why I behave in the manner that I do.

This has nothing to do with the aforementioned long lost friends - I don't see them often, but they know me better than anyone on the planet, and they always have. They know when I'm headed in the right direction and they know when I'm full of shit - and, luckily for me, they have no problem pointing it out to me. Bailed me out (no, not out of jail!) more times than I can count.

But some people who claim to be my friend and claim to mean well are in reality full of stuff far worse than shit - twisting my words, actions, and feelings to their own twisted ends. You wanna twist my words? Fine. You wanna claim to know the intentions behind this or that action? Alright. You wanna twist my feelings to make yourself feel better about your fucked up little world? No beans motherfucker. No, I'm not gonna hurt you or even hold it against you, because who the hell has time for that? Not me. I'm simply going to forget you exist - and that's your fucking problem. And why is it your problem? Because I'm an awesome fucking person who has more REAL LOVE to give than most people dare dream of, and I'm am not afraid to give it. Not. Even. A Little.

I hate to sound like I hold my friends to abnormally high standards, or that truly being my friend is some sort of great privilege - like belonging to some elite club -because that's not it. I have friends all over the place - all over my immediate area, my home state, the country, all over the planet, and even in cyberspace - that I would literally bend over backwards for - simply because I CARE.

I don't claim to be perfect. I openly admit to having fucked over some people that didn't deserve what they got from me. I've fucked up, I've been wrong. Yeah, I've been bad. The difference is that I will say that I've done wrong, and I will tell you that I'm truly sorry, rather than twist around whatever you did or felt to make it look like I wasn't so bad. Because even though I've done wrong, I likely respect you enough to give you the truth.

If you're a friend of mine that reads this - be it an in-person friend, a person a million miles away, or one of my fine feathered internet friends - do me the favor of telling me if I've done something wrong. If I've made you uncomfortable, if I've screwed you over, or if I just plain neglected to do the right thing - do me the favor and call me out. You don't owe me that, but it would likely be in our mutual best interest

I never intended this blog to be for this sort of stuff, but if not here, then where? This shit comes out of me whenever I listen to Khanate's final album - the grand opus Clean Hands Go Foul. Somehow that record, and particularly Alan Dubin's agonizing vocals, bring me back to center on these things that keep me awake at night. And it fucking ROCKS, slow and mean. Those guys are sorely missed.