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Diazepam Dreams, my first novel and release number 001 of this "literary label" (chuckle), is still available. The story is reality-based fiction, an emotional rollercoaster of a character-study set in the beginning of the pandemic (just as the backdrop but not as part of the plot). With this novel, it isn't so much about what the plot or story is, it is more about how the story is written. If you are the type of person that appreciates nuance and style, then give this a viddy, oh my brothers and sisters. Copies of the novel are $10 plus postage (payment through Zelle). To hook up, just shoot a nasty e-mail threatening my life to misanthropaganda@yahoo.com.
Also, I still have like twenty or so copies of Death Metal Phone Sex, a collection of two-year's worth of poems that were written during the darkest chapter of my life, in its 'Zine' format. Those are free but I do have to hit you up for postage, and again, payment needs to be through Zelle...
Here... I'll tickle your ass with a feather a little bit... Let me shoot you a little taste... Here is a random selection from some of the shenanigans you may find lurking in this bad-boy -a grimoire of sorts which our own Brooklyn, NY correspondent Killer Kim has described as "some dark shit infused with some weird voodoo, hoodoo energy in it", a reference to one particular poem that literally drew her blood onto the page via a loose staple. Coincidence? I think not!
(a more "humorous" selection from Death Metal Phone Sex)
Conjuring the Daemon of Irritation
At every turn
and every corner, on streets that split into pathways and alleys that lead to pitchforks
in roads no matter which way you carry your life’s load lurks a hungry entity,
the very personification of the spirit of aggravation. His name is ire. His
name is wrath. I’ve jovially dubbed him Mr. Irritation...
Mr. Irritation
is the patron non-saint of displeasure, the unfriendly ghost of vexation whom works
his demonic demagoguery to make me particularly bellicose and ornery at human scum whenever
contact has come close. So I have to show teeth to some, I have to growl at
others so that they stand clear and over-stand that I’m no keeper of my
brother, I bear no love for any other. Social distance is the first tenet of my
religion –it’s no great asceticism, it requires no effort on my part, it is
just my commentary on my repugnance for priests and pundits and politicians by
the hundreds, for the rich scum who sip their Bowmore 1957 to calm their nerves
because just below the ivory tower the Niggers and the Spics with liberals and anarchists in
their mix are fighting the power, they watch us all sink as they pour the next
drink, now THINK… Who’s filthy and stinking yet bankrupt and such? Who is poor
and devoid of moral currency when urgency is given to form over substance and
rhyme over reason when bending their knees for the worship of that Jesus
horseshit – they’d commit treason for the finder’s fee.
The other end
of the spectrum is no better to me. Last night around 2AM I took a night-skate
down southwest 8, east bound past avenue 27. Ignorance is bliss or so they say that’s
why this intersection is the piss-infested stairway to section 8 heaven. If I
was low on words, this little ride would ignite the furnace and make me wish I
could just burn this slum to the fucking ground but then the cockroaches would
scurry to my part of town. Send eviction letters to these ham-and-eggers and
insurance scam limp-leggers, poor trash who have adapted economic status as an
apparatus of their low-budget thinking that is partly warped by the drinking of
their low-budget ales and lagers brewed specially for cretins and simpletons
because it gives them slacker swagger... Because, I see them… I see them at the
market with a 12Pack in each hand, standing in line with stupid fitted caps –big
ass ears tucked into them and gross smelly beards. Standing rooted into crusty,
smelly bootleg FILA flip-flops and dry, fungal feet; or they’re grown men in Capri
pants or tight jean shorts two inches above the knee sporting tribal tattoos
that look like Anthony Kiedis vomited on their arm or like the D-graded art
project of a half-blind mongoloid... I see them... With wives waiting their turn,
can’t stand still because a UTI burns in dollar-store Lycra tights with the
leopard print. Blamed it on his dirty, uncleaned foreskin when really it’s from un familiar, unwrapped dicks getting forced in… and by the way of course they always vote
Republican.
This entity that
presides over the winds of exasperation brings these things into my laser focus
for my consideration, for my obsessive meditation. Take for instance when I walk
the line sideways through corporate corridors that are just the pathways to my
morning horror –the very same hallways that I must crawl across to beg for my
pittance where virtual illiterates -literal idiots- are paid to pose as
orators, and me, I get to take their orders, for a small royalty. They use
their lingo and terminology that makes no fucking sense to me, they speak so
loosely that the words drop like loose leaves prior to the dead of winter and then
their verbiage splinters when it hits the floor, “hey stupid that’s not what that word is used for”... They go
hip-hip-hooray when it was a good day for the company, another billion to accompany
the trillion from last month, Hey Ted how are the numbers? --you preppy St.
Thomas University cunt-- Pray tell how Capitalism once again prevails! This
principality of Irritation has an eye for fashion that inflames my passionate
opinions, like one in particular concerning endomorphs in tight ill-fitting garment.
A surgeon could not remove those smelly yoga pants that broads wear everyday
even though they’ve never once pressed a single ass cheek to the mat in
Sukhasana, gym membership expired during the Clinton administration. Still,
somewhere in that broad’s imagination she finds it okay to wear a belly shirt while
her Chernobyl muffin tops hang in the breeze and her flabby, dimpled ass down
behind her knees. The personification of pissed comes to me without warning or
conjuration. Anything I say can be an invocation to make him rise from the
sigil. Hand in hand he walks me from pacified to petulant, negligent of
anything other than what represents my discontent, like mumble rap, Christians
and Muslims, Democrats and Republicans, daycare daddy who is a hen-pecked
husband, hypocrisy, humans, life, society, sobriety, institutions,
constitutions, resolutions and mass confusion sewn by the same that get paid to
throw their own two cents into the truth before contaminating the mainline
which is the idiot box at prime time. Life itself an annoyance that if
clairvoyance was a real thing I could have seen it all coming and would have
asked for a refund – a raincheck on this avatar, just send me to hell –it can’t
be far… I don’t want to reincarnate, fuck humanity, I’d rather stay a cadaver,
I could have stayed in the ether, instead I’m imprisoned in the flesh that I
didn’t want either. In search of truth I continuously encounter parody on the
faces of the ignorant whose existence shouldn’t matter to me. Life, in and of
itself, the most horrible of tragedies…
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x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
I Picked the wrong incarnation in which to give up on Straight Edge
(To all the kids that chose the short way home just to give Kevin Scott daily ass-whoopings, karma is a bitch, and in some way, shape, or form, we are all reaping those seeds now...
... no one hears us!)
x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x
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Burning Strong. Miami Hardcore. 1994. Burning Strong was my first proper band. 'Proper' just means that we actually played venues, jumped in vans, and eventually recorded a demo that never saw the light of day. Shown in this picture are Tom Rankine (founding member)on Bass in the foreground, myself in the center on vocals, and 'Fab from the Lab'(Out Of Spite)on guitar above me. The drummer, Chris Velasco (also of Out Of Spite)is not shown here. This show was our last stand, at Churchill's Pub as per usual. That night we played with Brethren, Tension and Strongarm. I found a cool blog post a couple of years back that someone had written about us and it was flattering aides from being the only documentation that I have ever found on us. Apparently, the blogger had found a copy of Burning Strong's infamous 10 song warehouse rehearsal tape and reviewed it. Our proper 4-song studio tape ("Chalk Outline", "Silenced By Fear", "Pride Is Burning" and "Falling Down") never got released, but we had a warehouse rehearsal tape recorded right off of a tape deck that made a few rounds and somehow this gavone got a copy of it.(How the fuck?!) Hit this link!!! --------------------------------------------------------------------
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(This is my next personal graphic for the Hermit's Woods Mystical Skateboards project. Originally, I started Hermit's Woods in 2020 as a fun little father/son project to bond with my kid; but printing up your own decks is so much fun that I took it up a notch and printed an absolutely gorgeous 8.5" popsicle as a Christmas gift for our Brooklyn, NY correspondent Killer Kim (bustin' shells), thus my decision to explore this little venture deeper.
Killer Kim's "Amethyst Assassin" deck
To date, I have pressed four graphics, two of which with some GNARLY marketing ads (very much in the vein of old World Industries ads.) These include my very first graphic, which was just my name in script encased over the Hermit's Woods logo, my son's deck (whose graphic is way sick in its own right), the Killer Kim deck, and my latest shown next down here...
I don't know that the Hermit's Woods motif is an aesthetic that I would pursue if I were to dare attempt making a living by selling decks. Mainly, because Hermit's Woods doesn't really have an aesthetic per se (just a GREAT name); but also, if I did actually start a brand, I would like for the theme to have an on-point, hometown vibe. I haven't found one yet. Miami has been slept on a lot in skateboarding lore and it just can't be due to a lack of talent (um, Zion Effs, Lester "El Pingu" Cepero, others). There hasn't been a Miami pro since Felix Arguelles (early 90s); and even he wasn't 100% Miami, going back and forth from here to NY. I can only speculate this scarcity/neglect has been due to a lack of a strong, properly marketed local brand that can actually afford to employ skaters full time. California is home to a million brands, New York houses a handful of influential ones, now Miami needs a good one with a nuclear warhead of marketing (like me) at its tip.
In the meantime, while I concoct the next million-dollar idea that will transform me into a four-armed expansion of Sri Lord Steven Salvatore Rocco in the material world and revolutionize skating, I will keep on printing Hermit's Woods decks for shits and giggles from
CCS. Check them out if you've got your own art you want to slap on a deck. Their boards are just as good and durable as any name brand and usually have really beautiful staining that just screams for clear grip-tape. The 8.5"s have a really gnarly shape with a wide, broad-curved round nose. I personally prefer a more square-like "shovel" nose myself, but CCS blanks last, feel really good thanks to the mellow concave and the shapes look gnarly under your feet. It's also extremely fun to skate your own graphics. Plus, CCS is a literal institution in skating, going back to the eighties. If you're middle aged like myself, and skated in the late 80s, chances are one of your first three pro boards came from CCS, which back then was known by its full name -California Cheap Skates. Ah, the pre-internet days of mail-order, when you would send a check or money order and your board (or records) came two months later. (Hit the link...)
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The destruction of the youth begins with the music that they listen to, so here are some quickie reviews to plant the seeds of moral decay in fertile minds...
Life's Blood -Hardcore A.D. 1988- Prank Records
My days of purchasing music albums are very possibly nearing their end. A large part of me knows that this is a shaky and almost hollow promise, but I did vow that once the final 8 inch gap in my third CD shelf is jammed it'd be a wrap. Because of this, I have been racking my brain thinking of absolute essentials that I would like to actually possess and hold in my hands. Life's Blood is one of those essentials. I have been chasing this thing on RevHQ for a year and a half and finally it became available again recently.
I'm embarrassed to say that I did not discover this band until hearing The New Breed Compilation in like 2005 or so. I know, I know! Like a hundred years after its release!
Life's Blood has one of the toughest, heaviest sounds that I have ever heard from a band coming out of that era. While many of their contemporaries were beginning to go further into the murky waters by incorporating a few tricks they picked up from listening to Slayer, Life's Blood never really dove in to those murky waters... they just got heavier than the rest. You can hear the intent under that gruff tone, but they stayed affixed to that old-time sound. They still come/came across heavier and more aggressive than many of their class that were incorporating Jeff Hanneman licks into their breakdowns. Note the pronounced appreciation for D.C. style songwriting in their bag of tricks. Incidentally, their recruitment flyer, posted on the bulletin board at Some Records in 1987 when initially seeking members, listed The Faith and Void as desired influences.
I'm assuming that this 26 track CD encompasses all of their work, which would be the demo, compilation appearances (The New Breed, Murders Among Us and Where The Wild Things Are), the Defiance EP and their tracks from their split with Sticks+Stones. This is highly recommended to any NYHC enthusiast. If you don't own this in your collection then your shit is limping. So tough!
She Past Away -Belirdi Gece- Metropolis Records
Let's agree to not disagree with me and just label this as Post-Punk. It's a broad umbrella, I know, but quite frankly, I don't know the difference between "Cold-wave" and "Dark-wave", and the term (ugh) "Goth" makes me nauseous. So, for all intents and purposes of this review, we'll refer to this Turkish outfit as "very infectious, danceable Post-Punk".
There are only two types of music reviews, good ones and bad ones. I only tend to write favorable ones for albums that inspire a second consecutive spin, but it is difficult to succinctly encapsulate an album that has not ceased to rotate, back to back plays, ad nauseum for a week. She Past Away is derivative of some other group I am sure, still, Belirdi Gece (Turkish for "appeared at night") is absolutely superb. That an album of music in a category that isn't my usual fare can suck me in so deeply is evidence alone of its power. Sure, I have a long history with The Cure (whom I think set the template for this kind of stuff with "A Forest"), plus old industrial, but I have never gone this deep into the rabbit hole. I suppose it was inevitable once my obsession with Belgrado (which fucking rules/ruled) began about three years ago.
I can almost smell the fog-machines, clove cigarettes and fresh coats of Manic Panic hair-dye when I listen to this. I cannot listen to this without wanting to move, or cut myself, but don't think for a second that this stuff is pop/synth garbage. She Past Away has a thick, moody sound with that deep, vampiric vocal tone (like Sisters Of Mercy -blech!) that can often be a hackneyed cliché of the genre though fitting here. (Think sexy dance party... in a mortuary!) I sense these fellas have an appreciation for Black Metal in their leisure time. I don't know. There's little things that I pick up here and there such as certain chord progressions and certain vocal tricks (and no it isn't shriek-vocals) that give me that vibe. Their sound is dark as per the institutional standard, but driving, energetic and compelling. The clean production on this will be deeply appreciated when the bass is pulsing in your chest. (Clean production can be a good thing sometimes... OK?!). I would love to be able to read some lyric sheets but unfortunately they would all be in Turkish so Thoth only knows what they're going on about. For the most part you can just imagine it's something morbid which works just fine for me. I've since picked up two other releases by this crew as well as a couple of other groups in this genre that I've just discovered.
Blitz -The Albums- Captain Oi! Records
I am of the opinion that Blitz was the best (nothing to do with my favorite) of the British Punk bands. To think of my favorite, or even top 5 would take some (not much) deliberation, but as far as who I feel is the best in terms of prowess and songwriting ability, I have to give it to them.
As a Punk band, or an Oi! band (whichever tickles your fancy), they were anthemic. As the title of their first album Voice Of A Generation implies, Blitz really captured the spirit of its time and place with ale-pissed hymns for restless UK youths that were either smashing the system or smashing a face open during a football riot. Lets do a quick inventory, shall we? "Razors In The Night", "Warriors", "Someone's Gonna Die", "Never Surrender", all classic cuts that are instantly recognizable to anybody who is even slightly adjacent to the Oi! sound. Also, these tracks listed here helped Blitz to not only appear, but hold their own on the UK indie charts.
Then sometime in 1983 they put out Second Empire Justice, which was a major departure from their original sound. When Blitz returned with a Post Punk record with New-Wave leanings they were not well received by OG fans and subsequently their label collapsed after the record sales dried up. The thing is though, that even in their new form, Blitz was amazing. Second Empire Justice is so, so good. It just has this clanging, British peel to it... its so transporting. (The only other time I've listened to something that just reeks of English is when jamming Cock Sparrer which I have just recently begun to appreciate.) Sure, their aggrieved, knucklehead tone wasn't there anymore and so armies of Punks with charged mohawks and Skins in their Cherry-Reds were disappointed -understandable, to a degree. However, if this record were a stand-alone, with no precedent, then it would never have been slept on by the Joy Division crowd, which it has been for years until recent re-issues. They produced another record in the same vein in 1989 titled The Killing Dream which is just as good (if not even better in certain regards) than Second Empire Justice.
This 5 disc collection of re-issues is worth every penny of the $30 (more or less) that I paid on Amazon for it. Captain Oi! Records does a really good job with all of these cool mini-boxsets and this one is probably the crown jewel in their repertoire. I highly recommend this if you're a fan of early 80s UK Punk. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pazahora- s/t- Prohibited Projects Records
A very dear old friend (my oldest, in fact), one with whom I first entered the threshold of Punk with hand-in-hand, gifted me this release as for house-warming when he visited the new Misanthro' offices a few weeks ago. It would have been nice of him to also gift me the first Bloodlet 7" EP on Smorgasbord Records which he showed up with as well. (He also came bearing another gift, we'll get into that...) This cat discovered the Malaysian band Pazahora when he had moved away, about 10 years ago, to Singapore where allegedly by his accounts he was "dando pinga pura en Singapura", or 'slinging pure dick in Singapore', as well as legends of weekend getaways to Thailand where while in Phuket he simply said "Fuck It!", if you catch my drift... (Can't blame him!) Singapore is the home of Prohibited Projects, which is the label that put this out. Prohibited projects is also what I have in mind once I make it to Thailand. They say "when in Rome do as the Romans", so when in Bangkok...
He urged me to let this thing ride while he and I chatted it up to whiskey (me) and tequila (he). I figured that I wouldn't flinch while this thing was on and we carried on like two big Yentas; but I must remark that every track gave me dog-ears. Then once I spun it a couple of times while alone, I was blown away. This is their first full-length released in 2006. Upon first glance of the digi-pak I commented to him "oh this must be, like, on some Amebix tip", a thought that carried on as I listened to the clean guitar intro laced with political sound clips. It sounded like something right out of Amebix Sonic Mass record. Once the proceedings were well on their way, I realized that this band has just trace amounts of Amebix that really only manifest lyrically. (Well, actually, track 5 on the CD titled "No Peaceful Solution" does have a major Amebix influence.) Pazahora have a really cool new take on Anarcho-Crust (I guess), incorporating lots of Hardcore tricks here and there, like bouncy breakdowns and gang vocals. Yes, d-beat abounds here as well. Also, they utilize lots of big, stirring melodic parts that give them an almost epic (but still brutal) sound. They are like the ferocity of Wolf Brigade meets the melodramatic melody of early Shai Hulud (with Chad Gilbert on vocals). Weird mix I know, but these dudes make it work and their sound is really legit and super impassioned.
You can launch 1,000 bands in this vein out of the U.S. or the U.K., and maybe they can all ape the sound convincingly but that doesn't guarantee an infusion of genuine rebellious punk spirit into the music. These dudes, however, when they hit those big-hearted, vitriolic melodies you can clearly note a true rage against the system and the state. This is theme music for a Black-Block to fall out of formation and unleash war in the streets. I definitely encourage giving this a viddy on YouTube, if not forking over the two bucks that you can grab a copy on Discogs with. (Hit that link!) In fact, here... hit this link too... It will lead you to a cut off of the record. As for me, I'll just listen to it ad nauseum and fantasize about launching Molotov cocktails at Metro-Dade police cars in the middle of a riot.
...now, about my friend...
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We met in Elementary School. We had just discovered skateboarding and Guns And Roses, and were about to go through the leopard-printed, spike-studded door into Punk oblivion which we never came back from. In High School, we skated every single fucking day! Whether it was Downtown, the Beach, the old Coral Gables bus terminal, the curb at Eduardo's Furniture Store, or the spots in the FIU South Campus, it was a given that we'd be out antagonizing civilian calm and hassling shop-keeps. Later on, he would help me through a new gateway that I would never come back from... drugs and alcohol! We kept it Punk! We started with quarts of Schlitz Malt Liquor and fifths of MD 20/20, drinking in school playgrounds at night. My first everything occurred while in this dude's orbit- first drunken state, first joint smoked, first acid trip, etc. What a fucking enabler this guy! Now, this dude shows up in my wobbly adulthood and gifts me a flask as the other component to my house-warming gift that I had mentioned in the earlier music review. I don't drink everyday, nor weekly even, but when I do, I do it with the intention to get "fucked-the-fuck-up", not to become more social. Having a flask, however, is almost direct encouragement to engage in shenanigans and skullduggery with frequency. It is that one final accoutrement that completes this new persona which I have morphed into during the past two years of my life- the sophisticated degenerate. I mean, if you're going to be a scumbag, do it with style. You have got to do the damn thing with passion, man!
That night, we drank till about 1AM. As he left the Misanthro' offices I put my new flask into immediate use. I scanned my small but sufficient liquor stock and chose to fill it with the last fourth of a bottle of Maker's Mark that I was working on. I was in by about five drinks of whiskey at that point, and now was going to put in work with my new flask. I took my first sip- clocked in now.
The rest is a blur. The next thing I knew, I was emerging from the Clarion Inn at about 10AM on Sunday morning with a thousand dollars worth of counterfeit Ben Franklins in my wallet, my face smelling like boiled ham and latex, and quite possibly with a new predisposition to develop cancerous throat tumors in the future. Phuket! Thankfully, there was no anus pain that morning, so the very worst of scenarios clearly could not have occurred.
So, Conan, here's to you... as I always have... and clearly always will... not only do I love you, but still find my best (or most interesting) moments in life whenever caught in your toxic jet-wash.
Te quiero...
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