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Christian Mistress’ “Pentagram and Crucifix”

I gambled recently and pre-ordered the LP of Christian Mistress’ new album Possession based on some sample tracks I’d heard online. It arrived a week or so ago and it is pretty amazing. I am really into this whole throw-back, female-lead-singer metal thing that’s happening right now. As much as I like me some face-melting grindcore and black metal, sometimes you just want punchy, no bullshit, Sabbath-y riffs with a lady wailing on top. Who doesn’t like that? Bands like Christian Mistress, Blood Ceremony, and Witch Mountain are really scratching an inch for me that I had no idea existed. I am glad, however, that it was called to my attention. Scratch me! That so many of these bands come from the Pacific Northwest can’t be a coincidence either. Time for a roadtrip!

Even the video for this song, the first off their new record, is a throw-back. It looks like it was shot in 16mm black and white reversal, a format all my other film school graduate friends will have fond memories of working with. The song is awesome too. Perhaps not the best example of what singer Christine Davis can do when she’s really pushing her voice (listen to “Black To Gold” instead), the song still serves as a perfect example of what Christian Mistress is about on Possession: riffs, guitar interplay, driving beats, and a powerful female lead. If you don’t like this track, you won’t like the record. But, what’s not to like about this track?

Check out their Bandcamp. Christian Mistress.

My utterly stressful day.

I know you have all missed my banter so much while I’ve been in California, but you don’t have to long anymore now that I am back in Brooklyn. I intend to recommence posting at the same semi-regular clip I maintained in the past. That is, 15 music videos to 1 post with any content. Deal.

Anywayyyyyy, I had a super stressful day today and thought I’d share it with you. Here’s what I done.

  • I woke up, discovered a job I thought was supposed to start today got killed, and went back to sleep.
  • I woke up a second time, much later. I won’t tell you when, but Europeans would call it 14 o’clock.
  • I showered.
  • I shaved.
  • I realized I left my toothbrush and toothpaste in the shower in California, but then I found I had an extra tube of toothpaste and an extra toothbrush. Score!
  • I went to the bank and deposited a check.
  • I walked down Manhattan Avenue to Bedford to the N7th L train stop and boarded the train.
  • At Union Square I transferred to a downtown 6.
  • I got off at Spring Street, dropped off my rent check and the stupid parking ticket I got in Durango, and went into Smoke & Mirrors.
  • I met S&M’s pretty new receptionist, picked up Chip Chip, and left. Total time for that errand: 5 minutes.
  • I sauntered up Broadway since it was beautiful out and got back on the train at Union Square.
  • I got off at Beford again, walked down to get a burrito.
  • They didn’t have pork, so I got the steak. O! life’s hardships.
  • Burrito in hand, I found my spot in McCarren Park and laid in the grass for maybe an hour and a half enjoying the sun and the breeze.
  • Satiated with my burrito and entertained by the inane conversation the two teenaged girls playing badminton next to me had, I went home.
  • I played my old Gibson for a little bit.
  • I came online to download some scale tabs to practice my fingering. GET YOUR MIND OUT OF THE GUTTER, MISTER.
  • I reapplied for my leftover funemployment benefits. Booyah!
  • I wrote this.
  • I am going to turn on yesterday’s baseball game and play my guitar.

Isn’t my life hard? Don’t you all wish you were coming to visit me on my summer vacation? It’s so great.

A Letter to My Tonsils Regarding Their Current Inability to Function For Longer than a Week Without Providing Me Serious Distress.

Dear Tonsils,

It has been a long road for the three of us, hasn’t it? I recall clearly my entire childhood my mother noting that you two were very large, even then, and I always thought it curious. What a strange thing to have large tonsils. We had such a fine life together through most of my childhood.

I recall, quite clearly, the first time you caused me pain. I was 13 and at camp for the summer. I remember one day my throat hurting like nothing I’d ever experienced before. A burning, miserable pain every time I swallowed. Down at the showers I looked at the back on my throat in the small mirror screwed to the tree by the hand washing basin and saw, for the very first time, a sight that would become something I’d know as a horrible, horrible sign: white splotches covering you two. It hurt even to swallow my spit; water and food caused me grievous discomfort. But, as a 13 year old, being sick means admitting that you can’t tough your way through everything and that is admitting defeat. Instead of going to the infirmary right away, I suffered silently. At lunch at the doctor’s table, I couldn’t eat at all and just sat there, frustrated, angry, in pain, and broke into silent tears. Jim, the table councilor, took a look at me and then took me straight over to the infirmary where I stayed for the next few days as I slept off my fever and had the anti-biotics I so dearly needed administered. That was our first, but most certainly not our last, experience with those dastardly streptococcus bacteria. I’m sure you’re familiar with them, tonsils.

Time passed and I forgot about the special type of hell I lived through that week. During my junior year of high school I came down with infectious mononucleosis. I thought I was just bored, but as it turned out I had mono. The mono made me slightly more tired, a little draggy, but wasn’t too bad. What it really did that I enjoyed so much was open the door for our good friend strep to walk right back into the back of my mouth and set up shop. TWICE. That was an unpleasant year, salvaged only by 800mg hits of ibuprofen, raspberry sorbet, and liquid penicillin. Really, tonsils, no one should have to deal with this. It’s unpleasant.

And how many times during college did we come down with strep throat, tonsils? 3? 4? More? Too many times, tonsils. It was about this point that I started to suspect that you were broken. Swollen, disfigured, scarred, I don’t know anyone else who gets food stuck in their tonsils. That’s a bad sign right? I’m fairly certain it means that something is wrong. When the doctor referred to you as “hypertrophic,” meaning that you were huge, he probably didn’t mean it in a complimentary way. I think what he meant to say was, “Damn, son. Those shits in the back of your throat are right fucked up.”

Now here we are hours away from April and I have strep for the third time since the end of February. What is that? Five weeks? Consider me frustrated. The first of the three was pretty easy. You two got gross and whatever, but I was never in any serious pain. But the second time? Lord. I was up all night having fever delusions, unable to sleep for the pain you were causing me, choking down water and Advil by the thimbleful so I wouldn’t keel over dead. Not nice. Not nice at all. And since I’m a freelancer, I don’t get sick days. I was sitting at Number 6, sipping soup, and wincing as I tried to get it into my stomach. When those white splotches reappeared this Monday, I nearly had a heart attack. I’m moving on Saturday and have so much stuff to do tomorrow and Friday that I could not afford to be incapacitated with strep.

All this begs the question, what’s the next step for us, tonsils? If I have anything to do about it, you will soon be but a memory. The Ear/Nose/Throat specialist I went to see tonight took a look at you, recoiled, and said, “Oh my god, yes. Those are infected.” I said to him, “Doc, this is nothing. You should have seen the last round,” and he looked at me like he couldn’t imagine how it could be worse. It made me wish I had a photo. He then told me that the next step was surgery but that he didn’t want to operate until I’d been infection-free for a few weeks. Here’s what I think will happen: I’m going to run this third round of anti-biotics, I’ll be fine for a few days, and BOOM splotches. He tried to put the fear of the surgery into me telling me how painful it would be for a couple weeks. But I just countered that it would be better than living under the constant tyranny of two motherfucking, goddamned, asshole tonsils that kept making me ill.

Sorry, guys, I got a little carried away there.

Anyway, it’s been a long road and I wish I could say that I was sad to see you go. But I’m not. Good riddance. I just want you out by mid-May so I can get healed and go down to the Maryland Death Fest and have a jolly old time.

Sincerely,

Joe Dillingham
The Black Laser.

A Musical Kids’ Remote With An Incredibly Strange Message

Anyone with children will know that kids toys love to make noise, especially cheap electronic noise. The books sing. The tables sing. The chairs sing. Everything sings these horrible, tinny, little songs that you can’t escape. They’re awful. I hate them. They are a one-way ticket on the express train to Headache Town for me.

I hate them so much, in fact, that when they come into the house via some well-meaning gift-giver I make them quietly disappear as soon as the children have wandered away from them. As my sister once said to me, gifts are meant to be given and after that it’s up to you what you do with them. I’m paraphrasing a bit, but that’s the gist.

However, one such toy found it’s way into our lives and made an impression on me.

When Penny and Bea were just becoming mobile, they were absolutely obsessed with the television remote. They are still obsessed with it, of course, but now they know what it does. Back then it was just a fun thing to hold on to that was always hanging around and being used by the grown-ups. The obsession got so serious that we had to hide the remotes out of their field of view or they would get upset at not being able to play with them.

Sarah or I—not sure who—had the brilliant idea of getting a couple of toy remotes for them to mess around with so the real remotes might lose their fascination. Sarah found one on Bezo’s store and it arrived shortly thereafter. The girls were happy and the toy became a beloved thing. Here is a photo of it.

The remote features a big 3 stage switch on the side to set it to off, low volume, or high volume. At first, this switch confounded the children. I could set it to off and be sure that I wouldn’t hear the beeping and chirping and music it polluted the room with. Gradually, as their fine motor skills developed, they learned to switch the thing on and had no reservation to set it all the way to high volume. Of course! Things are so much more fun when they are very loud, right?

And so, despite our valiant efforts to keep the thing set to off, we became acquainted with the music it made. At first you try to ignore it, let it fade into the din of two small children. Eventually, though, it starts to cut through the noise, it starts to insert itself into your consciousness, and you become aware of what it’s saying.

Most of the sounds the remote makes are pretty regular. Calling out the numbers. Stating the functions of the buttons. A song about how distressed the singer is that there isn’t more time in the day to watch television. You know, normal stuff.

Fortunately for you, you’re reading this in a multimedia format, so I can share the sounds with you. Here’s a sampling of what I am talking about.

There’s one song, however, that plays any time you turn the remote on. You hear it a lot because the kids are always switching the thing on and off. Then you start to really listen to the words the woman is singing from the remote. And then you realize that the lyrics are pretty weird. Like, seriously weird.

It’s great. And by “great” I mean “distressing”.

Seemingly innocuous, right? But really pay attention to what the words say.

Let’s gather round to pretend We’re going to enjoy some TV shows With our friends

Are we pretending to watch TV shows with our real friends? Or are we pretending to watch TV shows with our imaginary friends? Are we pretending to enjoy TV shows we are actually watching? What’s going on in this song? Is it calling for us to deceive our friends while we watch TV with them?

What adult thought this song was a good idea? Who paid so little attention that this thing is embedded in who knows how many toy remotes floating around the world?

The children will never understand the nuance if they even process the lyrics at all. But I’ve been thinking about this song for like a year and a half now. Maybe longer? I can’t figure it out. I don’t think I ever will figure it out.

But now I have shared it with you so it can take root in your mind. You’re welcome.


Listen to me reading you this post right here.

Psyche! Four* more weeks!

Do you remember six weeks ago when I was all, “I’ve got to wear this silly little finger brace for six weeks”? Well, as it turns out, that was a lie! I have the pleasure of wearing this stinky little thing until the doctor sees me again. He asked me to make a follow-up appointment in four weeks.

But guess again! The next available appointment was in six weeks, not four! Cool! That will bring the total time wearing this gross splint to 13 damn weeks. Woof.

I have a physical therapy appointment for Monday. I was able to bend the finger at the recent follow up, but not all the way. The doctor says if I try to make a fist right now, I’ll just tear through the scar tissue that has developed, which is not the ideal result apparently. Instead, we want to slowly stretch out the healed tendon. Sounds pretty tedious and boring, but better than a permanently messed up pinky.

The doctor wants me to go twice a week. Pretty cool. I was really hoping for a chance to have more chores integrated into my life.

Fortunately I still have an extra splint from my ER visit. I purchased a Dremel rotary tool after my appointment, even though I have one in my friend’s garage in California. Nothing fancy, but sufficient to cut the long, non-stinky splint down. I thought about buying snips which would have been cheaper and done the job just fine, but the rotary tool will be more useful in the long run for a wider variety of tasks.

Yesterday, I stressed the joint trying to hold Beatrice down so I could get her dressed. I heard a lovely cracking sound and the finger’s been all sorts of sensitive today. That bodes well. Afterward, I redressed it so the tape was much tighter than the doctor had applied it. There was too much wiggle room before which allowed for enough flexibility that my finger could try to bend. No good. Now it’s tight and straight and unbending.

Finally, and most importantly, the fingernail on my pinky is getting super long and gross. I suppose I could take the tape off and clip the thing, but where’s the fun in that? If it’s funny gross and not just gross gross when this is all done, I’ll share a photo of what 13 weeks of fingernail growth looks like.

Download the audio of this post.

The Avocado Book

The girls have this book, Little Avocado’s Big Adventure, and it’s got this cute little avocado finger puppet in the middle. Look:

He’s cute! You can wiggle him around while reading it and they absolutely love it. Easy to please, sure, but the little extra jazz is fun. If you look closely enough, you can see that they also think the book is quite delicious.

From the cover we learn that Little Avocado is going on vacation somewhere to sit by the pool. That certainly seems like a Big Adventure, especially if you are 11 months old. While I’m not totally clear on how an avocado wears the flip-flops on the floor next to his lounge chair, I’m willing to go along with the story.

This is nice! Our little avocado buddy is hanging out with other food friends. We’ve got our short and green avocado, a tomato, a lime, an onion, a Mexican bag of tortilla chips, and another slice of lime. Who seems to be in some sort of distress? Perhaps because he’s so tart? Or because he has been cut? It’s not really clear why Mr. Lime Wedge is unhappy. We can only speculate.

He’s getting ready for his trip! I hope he’s packed all the essentials. The onion is crying (or laughing) because that’s what onions do to people. Unless you’re wearing contact lenses, but that’s a discussion for another post. Everything else seems to be in order. The tomato is jumping. The whole lime is having a great time. The bag of chips’ mustache looks great. And the lime wedge is…. screaming?

Oh.

Oh my god.

The avocado is afraid of being murdered to make guacamole.

The little green avocado is escaping the kitchen where he is due to be cut open, scooped out, and mashed with his friends into the “world’s best guacamole”. And the only one of his friends who has any idea is the already mutilated lime wedge. The bag of chips has been disemboweled and his insides are dancing around the bowl. The tomato and onion have no idea what fate has in store for them. The avocado is abandoning his friends so he does not have to meet the reaper.

This isn’t a story about going on an adventure; this is a story about someone running for their life.

He left the lime wedge! So consumed with fear for his own life, the avocado left his friend who directly requested aid behind to suffer the very ignominious fate the avocado is running from. Perhaps the avocado is a self-centered monster who doesn’t care about anyone but himself.

Nevertheless, he’s on the plane now with some other fruit friends, none of whom are Mexican stereotypes, literally flying for his life.

A good question, to be sure. Based on this map, the avocado is either coming from somewhere in Yukon, Canada or from Russia’s coast along the Kara Sea and is destined for Western Australia, with a layover in New York City.

Though the book claims we’ll never know, I feel like we established where avocado’s flight from the clutches of the grave took him. Palm trees, sunshine, pools. Little guy is in Perth or somewhere in the vicinity.

But, wait a second. Wait a second. What is that on the table next to avocado? Is he drinking from the hollowed out skull of a coconut?? Forget that strawberry, banana, and pineapple seem to be totally cool with this refreshment abomination, witness protection program avocado is a monster! First he abandons lime wedge, and now he is enjoying a beverage from the split open head of another fruit friend? What bleak hell is this book? Murder! Abandonment! Cannibalism! Mutilation! Racism!

And thus ends the nightmare that is Little Avocado’s Big Adventure. Thankfully we only have to bear 12 pages of this ghastly tale. The mind of Brick Puffinton is a truly horrifying place.

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The Theme for 2022: No Social Media

Social media is bad. There’s no denying it’s bad. It’s been a major source of the disinformation which earned us Orange, a prolonged pandemic, and Q supporters. It’s also incredibly distracting, makes people compare their lives to illusions, and can be alienating. The companies that run the social media ecosphere are villainous with little respect for their users, only seeking to commoditize attention. This is no secret. No one doubts this.

And yet, social media used to be fun. When I first signed up for Facebook—which I assume was most people’s first major social media exposure—it was great. It was fun to see what people who I hadn’t seen or spoken with in ages were up to. I enjoyed looking at people’s silly photos and reading about their trips and lives and ups and downs. It was nice to bullshit with people in a way that allowed me not to face my crippling phone anxiety (sorry, everyone, I still love you). It often felt a lot like real connection. Distant, sure, but genuine still.

Then we had Twitter, Instagram, and a whole host of also-rans which worked themselves into our daily lives. And they were pretty fun, too! Each in their own way. Twitter was a fun way to interact as succinctly as possible. Instagram was a fun way to get a photostream of in-the-moment photos of what people were up to. That was pretty cool!

But then things started to change. Slowly. Imperceptibly. Yet change they did.

People started to perform for social media, instead of allowing their social media pages to reflect how they actually behaved. We saw the beginnings of what would come to be called “influencers”, a term nearly as cynical and heartbreaking as “content creator”. Soon after the advertisers came. And with advertisers came real money. And with real money, the platform was doomed.

Users transformed from participants in a network of real people, to click-throughs and eyes for a new generation of internet advertising. Sure, the new ads weren’t the old pop-ups everyone rightfully hated so much, but they were just as intrusive, just as in-your-face. And, worse, it was often harder to tell what was an ad and what was genuine. They learned to dress ads and news and lies in a friendly disguise. Those of us who were savvy understood the difference, but your uncle who grew up in a world without any internet at all didn’t.

Now, my Facebook feed is full of ads, suggested posts, and nonsense. I use an ad blocker and an additional browser plugin that cleans up the feed and it’s still filled with nonsense. Where we once got posts in a chronological order, the algorithm now puts them in some impenetrable order which is decipherable only to its machine intelligence. Why can I not just see what the most recent post is, by default, all the time? My well-curated selection of liked pages means nothing when Zuck & Crew just put whatever the hell they want in front of me any time they please. My eyes are vastly more valuable as a target for ads than I am as a contributor to the platform.

Instagram, now also owned by Facebook, is just as bad. Suggested posts slipped seamlessly into my feed, an unending stream of reels which I didn’t sign up for, ads shoved into ever crevice, and posts presented into the algorithm’s order.

All the old pleasures of the platforms are gone. It has been a death from a thousand cuts, but, finally, now, it has reached a point where it’s just not worth it any more. All social media gives me now is anxiety from yet another political post or someone else asking for me to be outraged about something or some dire click-bait news about something I have no power over shoved in my face. If I have to see one more photo of Mitch McConnell’s wattle in my social media feeds I will lose my mind.

It all just stresses me out. We have a duty as adults not to subject ourselves to things that make us crazy for no reason. Many things in life are unavoidably crazy-making. Why not eliminate the things we can?

With that, my theme for 2022 will be:

The Year Without Social Media

Seems simple, right? It’s not! Stupid social media has become such an easy crutch for me, my most favorite of all time-wasters even if it constantly makes me feel bad. Many of you have had me leave stupid comments on your posts or click through your Instagram stories (without my sound off) or whatever this or whatever that. This year I’ll be having none of that. For me, it’s time poorly spent avoiding doing things that would ultimately make me feel better even if they are more difficult in the short run. Like writing here on The Black Laser.

I won’t be checking my feeds this year. At all. None of them. If I had a way to check to see what my friends are family are posting without being subjected to endless aggravating noise, I would. All day! But I can’t. Clearing out that section of my head will be helpful. If your trash can was full, you’d take the trash out, right? Same thing.

I’m not glassing the earth, however. I still think my accounts will be a good way to direct people here. I still want to share and no one reads blogs anymore without being pointed to them. So, the accounts will stay with handy signposts to come here to The Black Laser to follow-up and see what I am doing.

I don’t know if I will eventually come back after the year is up. I am not even sure how it will make me feel. Better? Worse? More isolated? Less aware of my isolation? The whole point is to detox to see how I feel. Get some things done. Make some stuff. If I get to the halfway point in the year and I find myself direly missing social media, I’ll come back. Or if this year ends and I realize some utility for enduring the misery, I’ll come back. However, in the meantime, the break will be nice.

You want to see cute pictures of the girls? They’ll be here! You want to read my inane, messy thoughts about my life? This is the place! You want to comment on something I wrote or shared? Do it here! I’ve already got a platform; I built it myself thirteen years ago. There are no ads, no trackers, no algorithms. This is what it is and I encourage you to make yourself at home here with me.


Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Photo by Trollinho on Unsplash