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Posts published in “Writing”

On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist II

August 24, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

Question:

I work for a media company. We’re quite busy lately, and I would like to send our interns, who are unpaid college students, on the occasional coffee run, but it seems wrong somehow. I know they wouldn’t be learning anything, but isn’t it better for the company to have an unpaid intern and not a paid employee do this?

If I am correct in my assumptions, you work for some miserable nameless drone factory spreading the disease of capitalism across the world. You seek to poison minds with your Christian agenda. Though I do not support your doctrine of the light, let us examine your question from an intellectual standpoint, something I am sure you know nothing about.

First, if you are going to draft students into working as slave labor for you performing menial tasks, is it really so inappropriate to send them on other less educational menial tasks? Nonsense. Banality is banality. Whether they are filing a heart-crushing stack of paperwork or fetching coffee for you and your lazy officemates, what’s the difference? Both are a supreme waste of the students’ time. What could they possibly be learning from such nonsensical tasks as you have appointed them? Don’t waste the time of people you actually pay to be there on something as foolish as coffee runs. Use the slaves.

In the darkened days of college, I spent the longest winter of my life working as the intern at a local radio station here in Trondheim. I took the job primarily to steal blank cassettes on which to release my countless, brutal black metal projects and demos. Everyone know that cassette tapes are the ideal medium for distributing black metal demos. Only sell-outs would use CDs. And digital files? Worthless.

During my internship I was sent out for coffee many times, but did I ever feel like it was a waste of time? Of course I did. It was an enormous waste of time as are all internships. Therefore your interns are wasting their time by just being there, so if you waste their time in turn by sending them for coffee nothing is lost.

You know what, maybe you should all—paid and unpaid—go on coffee runs all day. Then your pathetic propagandist media empire would crumble into dust as is the fate of all humanity. I beseech the wolves of the new moon to feast upon your bones.

Hang yourself.

Soundtrack: Darkthrone’s “Transylvanian Hunger”

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> Continue reading...On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist II

Get Drunk Tonight – TBD

August 19, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

TBD – Greenpoint, Brooklyn (Franklin & Green St)

Suppose that it is a nice day outside and you think to yourself, “What would be better right now than ruining the rest of my day by getting way too drunk after forgetting to eat anything? Oh, right. Nothing. Where to do my day drinking?!” And then you start to think of different places you might want to go have a drink or 17. Berry Park is full of shit heads. Nope. Radegast is terminally full. Nope. Ditto for Spitzenhaus. Nope. Loreley in Williamsburg is stuck under the freeway and the service sucks. Nope. Loreley in Manhattan is ok but tiny and gets packed. Nope. Züm Schneiders only has seating on the street which is not my favorite thing. Nope. The Bohemian Beer Garden is a bear to get to. Nope. Beer Island is great, but Coney Island is similarly hard to get to. Nope.

Where is a man with the desire to ruin his day supposed to go? The answer is TBD. Oh, how I love TBD on a perfect afternoon. The first drunken Sunday at TBD of the year is the sign that winter has broken and warmer days are ahead. This year it happened in April. I look forward to it.

Saddled with an unfortunate name and an even more unfortunate interior, one quick glance in the door at TBD and you might think, “No way, Get Drunk Tonight, you’re full of shit.” But trust me here. Go inside. And then go all the way to the back past the ping pong table, past the shitty furniture, past the bathrooms, and out in the glorious backyard fill with umbrellad picnic tables. It is a magical wonderland of empty tables and quiet and sunshine. It’s one of my favorite places to while away an afternoon with a couple good friends, my credit card at the bar, and a plan to be asleep at my house by 10pm.

TBD always has a good selection of interesting beers, usually one per variety so your palate will be tickled. They also have a grill in the back which is good, but can take quite a long time which is not a problem, of course, if you’re settling in to spend the next 6 hours assaulting your liver with foamy beer sodas. It’s a little out of the way for Manhattanites, but right near the Greenpoint G for those of you who live in real places. It’s never so packed you can’t find a table. The crowd is relaxed and diverse. TBD is just a great place to get your drink on. Just don’t go during the winter. The inside is the worst.

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> Continue reading...Get Drunk Tonight – TBD

On the Advice of Torgeir, The Black Metal Extremist

August 18, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

Editor’s note\\\ This is the first of a bunch of advice columns I’ve written for Vox Critica in the character of Torgeir The Black Metal Extremist. I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I’ve enjoyed writing them. -TBL

The world can be a tricky place to manage and we all need a little help from time to time. But, all too often, the advice giver is just as messed up as the givee, what with all their pretensions about what’s right and what’s wrong and all the hang ups that come with giving advice for a living.

Today we introduce a new Vox Critica advice columnist: Torgeir, the Black Metal Extremist. We think you’ll find his particular brand of austerity is not out of place amongst the many advice columnists who flitter about the interwebs. Greet him warmly, for surely there are consequences who stand in defiance of his decree.

As always, the questions are real.

Question:

My girlfriend of six months has worn the same bra every day now for two weeks. I really wonder: Is this a normal thing for most women or a psychological issue? I feel it is a matter of hygiene, abnormal behavior, and also really gross.

If something so insignificant as whether or not she regularly changes her underwear bothers you, I suggest you stop analyzing her and start thinking about exactly what is wrong with you. Let me ask you some questions. What is normal? What is hygiene? If your vile lifemate has not changed her filthy undergarments for two weeks, what does it matter to you? Who are you to impose your fascist standards of cleanliness on her? What do you find, and I quote, “gross” about this? Are you some paragon of virtue who has never worn the same socks two days in a row? Who are you to judge this woman? When did you first recognize that you were a vile worm?

Do you look down on me, Torgeir, when you learn that I once wore the same leather armor for months without removing it or cleansing it of blood?

Many years ago, in the grim light of a winter’s dawn, as smoke rose from the embers of a recently burnt church, I raised my knife to the sky and plunged it into the chest of a man I had formed my first band with, a man who brazenly accused me of not truly being committed to the cause of purging this country of Christianity. When I felt his heart pumping blood all over my hands and I saw the light dim in his eyes, I knew that I was the victor. From his floating rib I fashioned a necklace as a grisly totem of my triumph. And what was the point? Nothing. There is no point. We are meat and when I took his life I changed nothing. His wasted existence is just another moment in time so vast and incomprehensible that our pathetic, weak, human brains can never possibly understand it. We are led by nature to believe that we have meaning and purpose, but this is a cold, dead world that will consume you and then forget you even existed.

To put this into words your feeble mind can comprehend, if you do not like that she does not change her bra for two weeks, liberate yourself of her. Stop being such a weak-willed worm and do what you must. In the end nothing matters at all. Do you think future humans will look back and care in the slightest that she did not change her bra? No one will ever even know she existed, just a stain on humanity’s poisoned genetic lineage. Soon she will be in the ground feeding worms and you will be dust.

Stab yourself.

Soundtrack: Emperor’s “Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk”

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Creative Projects-July: One and A Half is better than Zero, or, Where is all this money from!?

August 9, 2011 |

About Music, About Writing, Music, Thoughts and Writing

July was a successful for month for me on both pursuits for this year.

Creatively, I put another The Black Laser Reads… out into the universe and managed to finally begin the redesign of the site. I didn’t finish the redesign until we had rolled over into August so it won’t count towards July, but does count for my overall year tally of getting things did. I am pretty psyched on that. Hopefully, if I can keep this momentum up, you’ll be seeing a year end summary where I can claim to have finished more than 100% of my allotted projects. Pretty good. Gets my juices going, that does.

It is also quite nice to have finally passed 50% of my allotment, with another 8.333% in the works. It’s not yet ready to be shared, but it will be done before the month ends so look for more about that when the time comes for my August summary.

In regards to my secondary goal for the year, July was great. I was quite good at sticking to my “don’t go drinking during the week” guideline which feels good. I’m sleeping well (except for the heat), waking up easily, feeling chipper in the morning, and I’m finding money in my pocket from the beginning of the week. It just stays there! That was welcome because, for a variety of reasons, July ended up being a fairly cash-strapped month for me. Finding money that I would have previously written off as history ended up being nice little reminders that I was successfully sticking to my plan. That’s good.

I’ve also been riding my bike around a bit. I quite like it and find that I am flying around like a lunatic whenever possible. Not recklessly, of course, but enough. Though the month of constantly threatening rain has dissuaded me from taking the bike out on more than one occasion. That’s a drag, but getting caught in whipping sheets of rain in the dark with the wind blowing your contacts out as you ride through traffic is less desirable. I’ll pick my battles there.

Overall, pretty positive month for me and, aside from some weirdo mental shit on and off that has little to do with my theme, feeling pretty good about it. I feel like I am developing a healthy pattern here of work, followed by work, followed by relaxing.

I’ll check back in on this business in a month.

> Continue reading...Creative Projects-July: One and A Half is better than Zero, or, Where is all this money from!?

Get Drunk Tonight – The Turkey’s Nest

July 29, 2011 |

Vox Critica and Writing

The Turkey’s Nest – Williamsburg, Brooklyn (N 12th St & Bedford Ave)

Have you ever been to North Brooklyn? Do you have a friend there? Have you ever passed through? Have you spent even ten minutes in McCarren Park? Then you’ve probably passed The Turkey’s Nest. You might have even been inside to order a conveniently styrofoam-cupped beer or margarita (get the one with absinth) for quenching your thirst in the nearby park. But have you ever actually hung out there? I mean, like, have you ever actually gone to The Turkey’s Nest to tie one on and remind yourself that while life is fleeting, sometimes it’s best not to remember parts of it for your own longterm psychological well-being? I bet you haven’t.

In stark contrast to newer Williamsburg’s hip bars with their bullshit dim lights and fancy drinks and bartenders who will actually talk to you, The Turkey’s Nest is a grim, unwelcoming reminder of the neighborhood’s past and I love it. I don’t like it at all, but I love it. If you’re looking for a place to sit with the lights on, drinking yourself into oblivion, not talking to anyone, and maybe watching sports, this place is your place. If you want to play pool with an aggressive dude and his weird mute girlfriend on what might be the neighborhood’s shittiest, smallest, most fucked up pool table, this is your place. If you want to get your drink on without the slightest bit of pretense that what you’re doing is anything but slow suicide (come on, we’ve all been there), this is your place.

You’ll never take a date to The Turkey’s Nest. You might go there with a girl—or guy if that’s your thing—and you might have been on a date beforehand, but crossing the threshold into the darkened world that is The Turkey’s Nest is the termination of your date. You might not even talk to each other again. That’s the sort of place The Turkey’s Nest is. It’s a destroyer of dreams, a breaker of homes, a shatterer of lives. You want a Super Big Gulp sized Budweiser? Sure you do. You want 3 shots of Jäger in a plastic cup? You can have that too. You want a fancy drink and a smile? Get the fuck out, asshole. Go to some trendy bitch bar.

I love The Turkey’s Nest and I hate The Turkey’s Nest. It is varsity level drinking at its worst and it serves a valuable role in an increasingly safe and boring neighborhood. When you are looking for a place where you will receive absolutely no bullshit, this is your place. Welcome, but you aren’t my friend. Get a drink and shut the fuck up.

If you are moved by this post to visit The Turkey’s Nest, please call 1-800-273-TALK (8255). Thanks.

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> Continue reading...Get Drunk Tonight – The Turkey’s Nest

The Black Laser Reads… Charles Bukowski’s “It’s A Dirty World”

July 7, 2011 |

The Black Laser Reads and Writing

For this edition of The Black Laser Reads I picked a relatively short short story by one of my favorites, Charles Bukowski, called “It’s A Dirty World” from his 1983 collection of short stories Hot Water Music. The subject matter, style, and tone could not be more different than “The Tell-Tale Heart” which made it an attractive choice.

I’m not sure I like my performance on this as much as the other one, but what are you going to do? These are supposed to be about learning, not putting out tons of ace material. It’s not bad, mind you, but something feels flat, a little wrong. I might just be hyper-critical so ignore my self-doubts if you would.

This time I also edited a lot less than the previous one. You’ll actually hear breaths in this one. I did, however, go through and get rid of any spit sounds. Sorry, purists, that shit is gross and I hate hearing it. If I missed any, it was not on purpose.

[audio:https://www.theblacklaser.net/projects/tblr/TBLR_02_Its_A_Dirty_World.mp3|artists=Charles Bukowksi|titles=It’s A Dirty World]
Download here. TBLR 02 “It’s A Dirty World”.

Check back for more! It’s hot as hell in my apartment when I do these without an air conditioner or fan running and with the windows closed. I’ve been sweating the whole time. I suffer for you all, my lovely Black Laserites.

> Continue reading...The Black Laser Reads… Charles Bukowski’s “It’s A Dirty World”

Creative Projects-June: Oh, Christ, again?!, or, Hello, velocipede.

July 6, 2011 |

About Music, About Writing, Music, Thoughts and Writing

It’s July 5th now and…wait. What the fuck? Where did June go?! Did this happen again?! Oh Christ. I had a whole month to accomplish something, yet my tally for projects for this year still stands at 4 of 12. Pathetic! Sure, it was a busy month at work and I did a lot of good stuff there, but none of that counts! Curses!

In other news, I’ve done quite well, I think, in pursuit of my other goal of slowing my roll. I’ve not been going out during the week, a new thing for me I assure you. I’m sleeping well, money stays in my pocket, and I feel good. All that is great.

I bought a bike this weekend and I am very excited about it. Not only did I fulfill a goal I set for myself last summer, but it feels damned good to ride around zipping past people. It should come as no surprise that I ride my bicycle like I walk: fast as hell. Why go slowly?!

In summary, not a lot to say this month. Hopefully July is more productive now that I’m feeling nice and easy about not drinking on school nights. Even a single drink is an impediment to my ability to produce creative work and staying dry will help. At the end of June I thought I would not be working again until Ford comes back mid-August and was looking forward to having a bunch of empty days to fill with projects and things, but last week I got all booked up. Good for my pocket book, not good for my free time. I’d rather be working than not, though, so it’s all right in the end.

I’m two behind at this point and something needs to give. My brain is not very creative these days and about the only thing I can think of is jokes in 140 characters or less. Summer time is a tough, stupid time for me. This is going to be tough.

Stay tuned, Black Laserites!

> Continue reading...Creative Projects-June: Oh, Christ, again?!, or, Hello, velocipede.