<p>Below are some selections from photo walks around Chinatown and the Upper East Side to the Guggenheim, plus an excursion upstate to see some buddies in the band $500 (check out <a href="https://500dollars.bandcamp.com/album/twelve-eyes">their new record</a>, it rips). Details:</p><ul><li>Camera: Nikon FG with 50mm f1.8 kit lens</li><li>Roll: Cinestill 400</li></ul><p>This may be the last time I buy a Cinestill roll. I've gotten good results <a href="/blog/announcements-la-photo-dump">in the past</a>, but the halation on these photos is out of control, more distracting than interesting at this point. I'm also finding the stock quite a bit warmer than I usually go for—muted blues and greens, borderline sepia tones on high exposure shots. That said, I managed to find some photos I don't hate in this set.</p><p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597930/summer_2025_01_379a3fa65e.jpg" alt="summer-2025-01.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597929/summer_2025_02_63f3c48aa7.jpg" alt="summer-2025-02.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597930/summer_2025_03_3d8834bf64.jpg" alt="summer-2025-03.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597929/summer_2025_06_1659e40ae0.jpg" alt="summer-2025-06.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597930/summer_2025_04_b5b5a718dd.jpg" alt="summer-2025-04.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597931/summer_2025_07_e3739b0d65.jpg" alt="summer-2025-07.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597931/summer_2025_08_7bec5433a4.jpg" alt="summer-2025-08.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597931/summer_2025_09_47913b10b3.jpg" alt="summer-2025-09.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597931/summer_2025_10_d6132bbb7d.jpg" alt="summer-2025-10.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597932/summer_2025_12_ffda92f2cc.jpg" alt="summer-2025-12.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597932/summer_2025_11_e8e8f7612a.jpg" alt="summer-2025-11.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1757597932/summer_2025_13_7174d0922a.jpg" alt="summer-2025-13.jpg"></p>

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Photo Roll, September 2025

<p>I'm settling back into post-release depression, so I'm holding the symptoms at bay with another attempt at blogging. I noticed I hadn't updated this site with info regarding the projects I've worked on this year, so let's first fix that.</p><p>I put out a <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/constant-current-stimulus">dr. mocker record</a> back in February on Negative Wingspan called <i>Constant Current Stimulus</i>. It's likely the hardest I've worked on a release since the days of Penrose, a band I fronted with my two brothers back in the early 2010s, when responsibilities were limited solely to the music and rent, before getting sober and building more of what might be deemed "a life." The songs came easier back then despite knowing far less about songwriting and about myself—a side effect of booze and youthful hubris I guess. This is all to say that <i>Constant Current Stimulus</i> is the first proper album I've made in a very long time, and while every release feels less like I've completed something and more that it's only "done" because I can't make it any better, this one bothers me the least of all (for now). I hope you'll listen to it.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2161481173/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless=""><a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/constant-current-stimulus">Constant Current Stimulus by Dr. Mocker</a></iframe></div><p>While I'm asking my dear reader for things, I should also mention I have a new <a href="https://droningmuffler.bandcamp.com/album/deeper-into-movies-v">droning muffler EP</a> dropping in four days: the fifth installment of the <i>deeper into movies</i> series. Its recording process began shortly after <i>Constant Current Stimulus</i> as a way to not think about guitar for a while.&nbsp;</p><p>I don't know if I've ever revealed this on the internet, but each EP in the series corresponds to a particular film as some probably have inferred. None are meant to be a rescore (a concept I find abhorrent, especially considering some of the choices in this series have scores far better than anything I'm capable of), but more an exploration of the feelings I associate with each movie, at times in relation to particular scenes, at other times digging into more general feelings about the film. I haven't ever said which EP is for which film to anyone but my wife. I'd like to think the music can stand on its own, and associating a piece with something specific might minimize meaning for the listener.</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2681019321/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless=""><a href="https://droningmuffler.bandcamp.com/album/deeper-into-movies-v">deeper into movies v by droning muffler</a></iframe></div><p>That's all for now. Writing is difficult when you're out of practice. This is something I aim to fix, so expect more action here in the coming weeks. Thanks.</p>

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Tunes Update, Summer 2025

<ol><li><i>The Invitation</i> (2015), Karyn Kusama</li><li><i>The Changeling</i> (1980), Peter Medak</li><li><i>Let the Right One In</i>&nbsp;(2008), Tomas Alfredson</li><li><i>The Wailing</i>&nbsp;(2016), Na Hong-jin</li><li><i>The Devil's Backbone</i>&nbsp;(2001), Guillermo del Toro</li><li><i>Hellraiser</i>&nbsp;(1987), Clive Barker</li><li><i>The Fog</i>&nbsp;(1980), John Carpenter</li><li><i>The Beyond</i>&nbsp;(1981), Lucio Fulci</li><li><i>Jacob's Ladder</i>&nbsp;(1990), Adrian Lyne</li><li><i>The Vanishing</i>&nbsp;(1988), George Sluzier</li><li><i>The Empty Man</i>&nbsp;(2020), David Prior</li><li><i>A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night</i>&nbsp;(2014), Ana Lily Amirpour</li><li><i>The Exorcist III</i>&nbsp;(1990), William Peter Blatty</li><li><i>Event Horizon</i>&nbsp;(1997), Paul W. S. Anderson</li><li><i>Seance</i>&nbsp;(2000), Kiyoshi Kurosawa</li><li><i>Hour of the Wolf</i>&nbsp;(1968), Ingmar Bergman</li><li><i>The Borderlands&nbsp;</i>(2013), Elliot Goldner</li><li><i>Blade II</i>&nbsp;(2002), Guillermo del Toro</li><li><i>Rosemary’s Baby</i>&nbsp;(1968), Roman Polanski</li><li><i>Day of the Dead</i>&nbsp;(1985), George Romero</li><li><i>Phenomena</i>&nbsp;(1985), Dario Argento</li><li><i>Barbarian</i>&nbsp;(2022), Zach Cregger</li><li><i>Possession</i>&nbsp;(1981), Andrzej Zulawski</li><li><i>Longlegs</i>&nbsp;(2024), Osgood Perkins</li><li><i>The Lost Boys</i>&nbsp;(1987), Joel Schumacher</li><li><i>The VVitch</i>&nbsp;(2015), Robert Eggers</li><li><i>Scream</i>&nbsp;(1996), Wes Craven</li><li><i>The Craft</i>&nbsp;(1996), Andrew Fleming</li><li><i>Candyman</i>&nbsp;(1992), Bernard Rose</li><li><i>The Exorcist</i>&nbsp;(1973), William Friedkin</li><li><i>The Texas Chainsaw Massacre</i>&nbsp;(1974), Tobe Hooper</li><li><i>The Thing</i>&nbsp;(1982), John Carpenter</li><li><i>It Follows</i>&nbsp;(2014), David Robert Mitchell</li><li><i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i>&nbsp;(1984), Wes Craven</li><li><i>The Shining</i>&nbsp;(1980), Stanley Kubrick</li><li><i>Halloween</i>&nbsp;(1978), John Carpenter</li></ol>

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Fall Movie List

<p>Before posting photos, an announcement: There's a gig on <a href="https://aftontickets.com/event/buyticket/k3xdld1pjw">September 22 at Arlene's Grocery</a>. I'll be doing a set of <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/hold-me-close-before-it-ends">droning</a> <a href="https://droningmuffler.bandcamp.com/">muffler</a> material with <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/faintly-glowing-skull">Chipped Topaz</a> (Conor of <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/">Negative Wingspan</a> fame's dungeon synth project, catch me on guitar for this set as well) and <a href="https://assortedpotions.bandcamp.com/album/assorted-potions-iii">Assorted Potions</a> (dungeon magick from Austin, TX). I'm very stoked for it and hope to see you there.</p><p>I've also been working on new tunes on and off since May for a new dr. mocker release. Keep an eye out for that.</p><hr><p>I spent four days in LA. Just for fun. I got around. I covered a lot of ground across southern California. I must admit: the most affecting thing I did in my time there was drive fast with the windows down from West Hollywood back to my hotel blasting Can. As corny as it sounds, the fucker's right, <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJvqTokgvjI">there really is something to it</a>.<img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728435/240809000007020008_010e7c2d4c.jpg" alt="240809000007020008.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728435/240809000007020006_3ad16b314a.jpg" alt="240809000007020006.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728433/240809000007020019_6dcbb14b24.jpg" alt="240809000007020019.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728435/240809000007020021_1fbb92a0ad.jpg" alt="240809000007020021.jpg"></p><p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728436/240809000007020014_1bb7249939.jpg" alt="240809000007020014.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728435/240809000007020013_6204370c4f.jpg" alt="240809000007020013.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728434/240809000007020011_79e8399f9d.jpg" alt="240809000007020011.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728434/240809000007020016_c75eab0502.jpg" alt="240809000007020016.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728434/240809000007020024_c4d68c6649.jpg" alt="240809000007020024.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728433/240809000007020018_72391023e8.jpg" alt="240809000007020018.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728433/240809000007020020_f429c70040.jpg" alt="240809000007020020.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728433/240809000007020017_3dffcb349d.jpg" alt="240809000007020017.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728434/240809000007020026_39810a8ac5.jpg" alt="240809000007020026.jpg"><img class="image_resized" style="width:50%;" src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728433/240809000007020004_709c9b0015.jpg" alt="240809000007020004.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1724728434/skater_original_crop_0dc96d3b2c.jpg" alt="skater original crop.jpg"></p>

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Announcements + LA Photo Dump

<p>Not that I was ever a prolific blogger, but I'm having some serious writer's block on the music front and figured dedicating some time elsewhere might clear out some cobwebs. So here's an update.</p><p>It occurred to me recently that I never posted about my most recent release on here. My EP <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/hold-me-close-before-it-ends"><i>Hold Me Close, Before It Ends</i></a> dropped in December on my buddy Conor's newish tape label <a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/">Negative Wingspan</a> (check out the full catalog, all excellent stuff so far).&nbsp;</p><div class="raw-html-embed"><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 120px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2112970857/size=large/bgcol=333333/linkcol=0f91ff/tracklist=false/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless=""><a href="https://negativewingspan.bandcamp.com/album/hold-me-close-before-it-ends">Hold Me Close, Before It Ends by Droning Muffler</a></iframe></div><p>Since then, I've been kicking around some ideas for a new music project involving some buddies. It'll be the first time playing regularly in a full band since the beginning of the pandemic. Hopefully will have more to say about in due time.&nbsp;</p><p>I also played my first live show ever as droning muffler in the bcc basement for the Doubting Thomas Cruise Control reunion, celebrating the 10 year anniversary of their <a href="https://doubtingthomascruisecontrol.bandcamp.com/album/appleton-on-2">Appleton ON EP</a>, on which you can hear guitar contributions from very hungover 23 year-old dm. I'm very grateful to have been able to try out a live set for some of my oldest friends in such a comfortable environment, and I believe it went well enough to book more shows. Keep an eye out for those.</p><p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1717558895/000069110034_9f80c0cf3a.jpg" alt="dm playing live at lobby inc"></p><p>Final update: I recently finished Roberto Bolaño's <i>2666</i>. It is high on the list of the best books I've ever read. I also finished J.G. Ballard's <i>Concrete Island</i> (pretty good!) and have started <i>Moby-Dick</i>. By simply carrying around a copy of <i>Moby-Dick</i>, I have discovered one friend is also currently reading it, while two other friends have just finished it, which begs the question of whether <i>Moby-Dick</i> is somehow back in style (is it truly <a href="https://x.com/droningmuffler/status/1797965470529917427">the summer of the <i>Dick</i></a>) or if enough people are constantly reading <i>Moby-Dick</i> that at any time, one can display a copy and be greeted with a camaraderie, a fellowship of shared labor similarly found within its pages. A couple stray thoughts that have accompanied these first eight or so chapters:&nbsp;</p><ul><li>Subtext must have still been in its infancy in Melville's time.</li><li>It would be really funny if the sailor priest only gave sermons about Jonah and the whale.</li></ul><p>That's all for now.</p>

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A Resurrection

<p>B bought a Nikon FG off eBay sometime in 2018, and between September of that year and the start of this month, it hasn't been used. Over the last few weeks, I finished a roll that sat dormant in the camera those several years and got it developed. Contrary to some very pessimistic Reddit threads, the film held up really well.</p><p><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1717119872/240530000280920010_bb425c9f30.jpg" alt="240530000280920010.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1717119872/240530000280920015_f91bb030d0.jpg" alt="240530000280920015.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1717119871/240530000280920021_7a54860d4c.jpg" alt="240530000280920021.jpg"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1717119872/240530000280920022_893a5d00e8.jpg" alt="240530000280920022.jpg"></p>

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Photo Roll, May 2024

<ol><li><i>House of 1000 Corpses</i> (2003), Rob Zombie</li><li><i>Hausu</i> (1977), Nobuhiko Obayashi</li><li><i>The Guest</i> (2014), Adam Wingard</li><li><i>The Wailing</i> (2016), Na Hong-jin</li><li><i>Body Snatchers</i> (1993), Abel Ferrara</li><li><i>Barbarian</i> (2022), Zach Cregger</li><li><i>The Blob</i> (1988), Chuck Russell</li><li><i>Rosemary's Baby</i> (1968), Roman Polanski</li><li><i>Blade II</i> (2002), Guillermo del Toro</li><li><i>The Lost Boys</i> (1987), Joel Schumacher</li><li><i>From Beyond</i> (1986), Stuart Gordon</li><li><i>Cape Fear</i> (1991), Martin Scorsese</li><li><i>Shivers</i> (1975), David Cronenberg</li><li><i>Rabid</i> (1977), David Cronenberg</li><li><i>The Mist</i> (2007), Frank Darabont</li><li><i>Lifeforce</i> (1985), Tobe Hooper</li><li><i>Eyes Without a Face</i> (1960), Georges Franju</li><li><i>Cure</i> (1997), Kiyoshi Kurosawa</li><li><i>Zombi</i> (1978), George Romero</li><li><i>Jennifer's Body</i> (2009), Karyn Kusama</li><li><i>Pulse</i> (2001), Kiyoshi Kurosawa</li><li><i>The Faculty</i> (1998), Robert Rodriguez</li><li><i>Deep Red</i> (1975), Dario Argento</li><li><i>The Brood </i>(1979)(Divorce Package), David Cronenberg</li><li><i>Possession </i>(1981)(Divorce Package), Andrzej Żuławski</li><li><i>Hellraiser</i> (1987), Clive Barker</li><li><i>The Craft</i> (1996), Andrew Fleming</li><li><i>Suspiria</i> (1977), Dario Argento</li><li><i>The VVitch</i> (2015), Robert Eggers</li><li><i>Invasion of the Body Snatchers</i> (1978), Philip Kaufman</li><li><i>Candyman</i> (1992), Bernard Rose</li><li><i>The Texas Chain Saw Massacre</i> (1974), Tobe Hooper</li><li><i>Scream</i> (1996), Wes Craven</li><li><i>The Exorcist</i> (1973), William Friedkin</li><li><i>Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn</i> (1987), Sam Raimi</li><li><i>The Thing</i> (1982), John Carpenter</li><li><i>It Follows</i> (2014), David Robert Mitchell</li><li><i>A Nightmare on Elm Street</i> (1984), Wes Craven</li><li><i>The Shining</i> (1980), Stanley Kubrick</li><li><i>Halloween</i> (1978), John Carpenter</li></ol>

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<p>I hate these crows. They taunt my dog and have shit on my shoulder in the recent past. But I'll miss them when they're gone.</p>

Two crows, one on a powerline, one in flight, against the sky in the background

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Eternal Heat Wave, 2023

<p>In the humid heat of summer, the rusting train tracks, metal sheds, and shipping containers stashed among dense vegetation growing forth from swampy puddles outside the window of the Amtrak from Penn Station, New York to 30th Street Station, Philadelphia through the depths of New Jersey trick suggest I'm much farther south, among the ominous swamps and crossroads where one might expect to barter with demonic entities. Just past the trees, weeds, and creeks, a familiar vibration of ritualized consumption hums along, yet in this tiny, shrouded sliver, time and decay are in control. It's difficult not to wonder why no benevolent authority has ordered the removal of these unsightly metal beams, these decrepit shacks, as difficult to imagine a world so close to home spiraling on without oversight. What induces this desire for control? Perhaps the designs that govern our lives so often attempt to obscure the passage of time, and any reminder leaves us no alternative but to squirm.</p><hr><p>Adding "pt. 1" to the title is aspirational. Really I'd like to remind myself to look out the window every once in a while.</p>

side of the railroad, New Jersey, July 2023

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Ridin' the Rails pt. 1

My original idea for this site was to post shorter, more frequent entries, initial reactions to things I’ve consumed or was working on to start writing a bit again. So far I’ve failed in that regard. I’ve been treating every post like a sculpture to be carefully carved and sanded smooth rather than a canvas on which to haphazardly throw paint. I’m hoping to let go a bit more, and perhaps that will result in more entries. Here’s one, hopefully:

I coincidentally watched Tarkovsky’s _Andrei Rublev_ and Scorsese’s _Silence_ this week, two period-piece religious dramas that see clergymen forced to choose between the structural dictates of their respective Christian sects and the wellbeing of the people they’re supposedly serving.

In Tarkovsky’s film set in 14th century Russia, the titular artist and monk has been commanded by his bishop, at the request of the local political authority the Grand Duke, to paint an extravagant mural of The Last Judgment on the walls of the town’s church to scare the peasants into a life of religious fealty. He delays the mural for months, eventually disclosing to his companion his discomfort in depicting suffering, saying he’d rather inspire his audience than intimidate them.

Scorsese’s protagonist, a Jesuit missionary infiltrating 17th century Japan named Rodrigues, sees success early in the film, ministering to the peasant Christians who practiced their faith in secret after the Shimabara Rebellion and the following suppression of Christianity. This is soon dissipated as Rodrigues is captured and must choose several times over between publicly renouncing his faith, a mortal sin in the eyes of the Church, or being forced to watch the torture and murder of his fellow Christians.

The intense religiosity of these films was a turn off at times—in _Silence_, especially—but I’ve been thinking lately that part of being a good audience-member is finding ways in which the art you’re consuming applies to your own life and belief system—Death of the Author and all that. _Rublev_ is more of a skillfully rendered meditation on the purpose of art: is it meant to glorify God (and you can substitute the “God” bit for whatever you worship, some lofty notion of art for art’s/the universe’s sake, the Ancient Ones, whathaveyou) or to enrich the lives of the people who view it? Are the two even mutually exclusive? _Silence_ simply asks if you should give in to your oppressor to stop the immediate suffering of the people you care for? Is the suffering really worth it?

The answer to the previous question for a nonbeliever is obvious: no, you shouldn’t die for Christianity.  _Silence_ becomes interesting when Rodrigues, after his renunciation of Christ, works on behalf of the Inquisitor identifying Christian paraphernalia being smuggled into the country, suggesting that giving into the oppressor has indeed caused _more_ harm, that now, as a collaborator, Rodrigues is doing more to prevent Christianity from coming to Japan, even causing those smugglers to undergo the same torture he’d wanted to prevent earlier. In this view, Rodrigues’ supposed humanist act—to sacrifice his own faith to save the people around him—has ultimately enabled the current state of oppression to continue.

_Silence_ is a deeply pacifist film, so the notion of stirring a violent rebellion against the oppressive state isn’t entertained for a single moment by any of the characters. It was all I could think about as the torture went on. Scorsese excludes one relevant detail from the film's runtime: the beginning torture scene that causes Liam Neeson’s character to apostatize, leading Rodrigues to infiltrate Japan in the first place, is the direct result of a failed rebellion by an alliance of ronin and Japanese Catholic peasants against the Tokugawa Shoganate. Perhaps this failure and the following extreme punishment is why no one ever picks up a sword, although if the two presented options are either continued oppression and forced collusion or torture and death, someone might want to consider a third.

I'm considering revisiting Roland Joffé’s 1986 film _The Mission_. I haven’t seen it since high school, and what I recall is a bit of a hammy drama. But the plot presents a worthwhile counterpoint to _Silence_: Jesuit missionaries in the Argentinian jungle defy their cardinal and assist in violently defending their mission against Spanish and Portuguese invaders on behalf of the local indigenous tribe. I’m pretty sure you get to see Robert De Niro doing guerilla warfare on conquistadores under a Morricone score. Just something to think about.

Well this wasn't short at all.

Anatoly Solonitsyn as Andrei Rublev in Andrei Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev (right), Andrew Garfield as Sebastião Rodrigues in Martin Scorsese's Silence (right)

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Notes on Art and Sacrifice

<div class='pullquote'><div class='inner-text'><p class='quote'>“I ain’t exactly on the bum, you know. I want to see the world.”</p>
<p class='quote'>“I guess I’m going to have to see the world now,” said Fainy.</p>
<span class='attribution'>—John Dos Passos, <em>The 42nd Parallel</em></span></div></div>

I just finished _The 42nd Parallel_ by John Dos Passos, the first entry in his _U.S.A._ trilogy. The book is excellent and I’m excited to continue with the series, which I’ll likely return to later this year. It employs modernist techniques you’d expect from the era—apparently Faulkner was a fan—as well as some forward-looking ones: an interweaving large cast of characters, collages (or cut-ups *wink*) made of song lyrics and newspaper clippings, and biographies of real figures who occasionally interact with the fictional characters, all very much my shit. Its plot takes place in an era I had liked to know more about—late-19th into early-20th century United States, a time of industrialization and corresponding labor disputes, revolutions abroad, and the brewing of a new type of war the characters are clearly not prepared for, the results of which are coming in the next section.

The early part of _42nd Parallel_, which closely follows Mac—real name Fenian McCreary (come ON!)—is particularly concerned with “ridin’ the rails” as it were. Mac’s early life is a volume of fuckups despite his constant good intentions. Whenever he runs out of cash, which happens frequently, his fallback is always to bum it on a train, sleeping in an empty freight car and hoping not to get caught by an overzealous conductor. We see him travel from Chicago to North Dakota, up to the woods of Canada, over to Vancouver, B.C., back down into Seattle and San Francisco. After attempting and failing at a domestic life, he returns to the rails, bumming it all the way to Mexico City looking for the revolution.

Despite the miserable conditions described in the book—starving nights, freezing cold winds, sleeping vibrating wooden boards—I couldn’t help but feel a bit jealous of Mac at times. He was seeing the country, meeting interesting people, taking real risks, and doing it almost for free. It’s unfortunate that the Beats and subsequent bumper-sticker valorizations of “wanderlust” stained such carefree roaming for decades to come, generally obscuring the true cost of such things. The people who did this were broke and constantly at the whims of whoever happened to find them. In one scene, a conductor robs Mac and his friend of most of their money as a fare while threatening to call the cops, and then doesn’t take them to their destination. Several times throughout Mac’s journey, only luck saves him from dire consequences, contrasted in one scene by the misfortunes of a sick old man in one of the cars who speaks of living his whole life broke on the rails before dying right in front of Mac. Still, though, I can’t help feeling a fondness for these journeys.

Trains seem to be having a moment in the popular imagination as well: Twitter progressives of the data-nerd fashion just _love_ posting that map of a proposed high speed rail system connecting all major cities across the US. Who can blame them? Our current transportation system heavily favors the most expensive and least environmentally-friendly forms of long-range travel.

Flying in particular has become a Kafkaesque nightmare in recent years: as prices increase and legroom decreases at a rapid pace, the frailties of the system are continually exposed in the form of constant delays and cancellations—another one of the many ways life gets gradually worse as the agents of capitalism continue wringing the final dollars out of an empire in decline. There seems to be a tacit acceptance on the parts of both proprietor and consumer that flying is now something meant to be endured rather than enjoyed. Passengers are corralled into their seats, given a cheap soda and snack, directed toward a screen a foot in front of their face as the lights are dimmed and the tiny windows closed, and encouraged to find an awkward position in which to sleep or kill the time watching a Marvel movie. While you’re flying! Through the air! [Like one of the guardian owls of legend!](https://getyarn.io/yarn-clip/de0e2797-4985-4a19-adf7-0a538867e194) Contrast that with even the current state of rail travel: big windows that allow you to see the landscape going by, cabins (if you can afford them) in which to stretch out a bit (I don’t actually know this for sure, but the pictures seem nice), and the tiniest peace of mind that this trip contributed a bit less carbon to the atmosphere (although those planes [will still fly with or without you](https://www.wired.com/story/airplanes-empty-slots-covid/), very cool).

But the main thing I’ve been thinking about with regards to train travel, something Dos Passos captures well in _42nd Parallel_, is the in-between places that would otherwise go overlooked—literally flown over. If there are stations in between your departure point and your final destination, and there always are, you can simply get off and look around if you’d like, given another train is coming relatively soon. Whereas with air travel, a passenger would more gladly submit to torture than exit the security area. It’s a big, interesting country, and yet, we’re never encouraged to see any of it or to interact with all those people, living out their lives in between major metropolitan areas.

I guess all of this is to say I’m thinking of trains lately. While our rail system isn’t anywhere near what it could be, Amtrak still offers some interesting options to watch the country go by and have a look around once in a while. Hopefully I’ll get the opportunity to do so soon.

Image of a railway track leading under a bridge into the horizon

trainsblogpostcover.jpg

Not Planes or Automobiles

Today I’m releasing my new EP under the moniker dr. mocker. It’s called _spark chamber_. I think it sounds different enough to file it under a new side project, and while I won’t bore you with pat descriptions of the music—as I was never any good at writing those anyway—I'll just say that lately I've been taken by a gnawing desire to increase tempos and maybe bounce around into other people in a small, crowded, poorly ventilated venue. Hopefully, these tunes reflect that sentiment. 

<div align="center"><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 280px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2526967022/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=0687f5/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://drmocker.bandcamp.com/album/spark-chamber">spark chamber by dr. mocker</a></iframe></div>

spark room.jpg

spark chamber EP

I'm currently skipping around Mark Fisher's _The Weird and the Eerie_ and have returned to and finished the essay "Simulations and Unworlding: Rainer Werner Fassbinder and Philip K. Dick" which discusses Fassbinder’s _World on a Wire_ and the Dick novel _Time Out of Joint_. I watched the film in question tonight but haven't read the novel. It turns out the novel bit was more intriguing than his notes on the film, go figure.

Fisher closes the essay recounting the end of _Time Out of Joint_ which sees its main character attempt to exit a simulation—in this case an idyllic 1950s American small town shielded from the grim reality of a far-future nuclear war. Signs of life decrease the farther he drives away from his home, eventually leaving only gas stations where full towns should be as the world seemingly breaks down around him: freight trains park indefinitely with no purpose, the desert gradually loses its geological and botanical features giving way to endless sand, “Peeking through a crack and seeing emptiness.”

I remembered a moment from a cross-country road trip my partner and I took two summers ago. We were somewhere in the Midwest—past Chicago for sure, maybe in Minnesota or the eastern part of North Dakota—and had been staring at nothing but rolling hills of cornfields for hours until the fuel gauge light turned on. I pulled off I-90 and came into a town not unlike Fisher's description of Dick’s postwar simulation: Main Street, a corn silo off in the distance, small retail stores. It was mostly forgettable, except that it lacked exactly what we sought: a gas station. I remember asking my partner something like, “How do these people function? They have cars and farm equipment that needs gas. They can’t possibly drive ten or fifteen miles (like we eventually would) to get gas? What town doesn’t have a gas station?” 

As I was wondering about this, she was urging me to get moving. She’s suspicious—perhaps correctly—of small towns, having grown up in one and, by extension, possessing an awareness I apparently lack of what they think of outsiders who look like they're from the city.

Why did this bother me so much? Why did I remember it? Maybe it’s what Fisher posits above—faults in the simulation, the result of an incomplete rendering, the fog at the edges of the map. Maybe what I’m really stuck on is the question never answered: what would we have found had we stuck around? What else could have been missing? What would I have seen had I peeked through the crack?

Or maybe some towns just don’t have gas stations. Pretty boring to think so, though.

<hr></hr>

I have to hand it to PKD, who realized that the last thing we would need to render in our simulation, the thing to ensure reality is intact as all other properties of daily life fade away, is a gas station.

There's an Isaac Brock lyric somewhere in here about how towns are gas stations with a few extra perks.

Photo of empty field, farmhouse and highway exit sign in the distance

IMG-5815.jpg

A Gas Station with Perks

This is my new EP. It was heavily inspired by Laura Grace Ford's _[Savage Messiah](https://www.versobooks.com/books/2677-savage-messiah)_. Thanks very much for listening. Feel free to download without paying.

<div align="center"><iframe style="border: 0; width: 100%; height: 241px;" src="https://bandcamp.com/EmbeddedPlayer/album=2558054076/size=large/bgcol=ffffff/linkcol=333333/artwork=small/transparent=true/" seamless><a href="https://droningmuffler.bandcamp.com/album/nomad-zone">nomad zone by droning muffler</a></iframe></div>

a0876418755_10.jpeg

nomad zone

1. _Scream_ (1996), dir. Wes Craven
2. _Blade_ (1998), dir. Stephen Norrington
3. _The Keep_ (1983), dir. Michael Mann
4. _Re-Animator_ (1985), dir. Stuart Gordon
5. _Barbarian_ (2022), dir. Zach Cregger
6. _House_ (1977), dir. Nobuhiko Obayashi
7. _Sleepaway Camp_ (1983), dir. Robert Hiltzik
8. _28 Days Later_ (2002), dir. Danny Boyle
9. _Hellraiser_ (1987), dir. Clive Barker
10. _Misery_ (1990), dir. Rob Reiner
11. _Psycho_ (1960), dir. Alfred Hitchcock
12. _The Texas Chain Saw Massacre_ (1974), dir. Tobe Hooper
13. _In the Mouth of Madness_ (1994), dir. John Carpenter
14. _Rosemary's Baby_ (1968), dir. Roman Polanski
15. _Zombi_ (1978), dir. George Romero (Dario Argento edit)
16. _House of 1000 Corpses_ (2003), dir. Rob Zombie
17. _Suspiria_ (1977), dir. Dario Argento
18. _The Craft_ (1996), dir. Andrew Fleming
19. _Poltergeist_ (1982), dir. Tobe Hooper
20. _Candyman_ (1992), dir. Bernard Rose
21. _The VVitch_ (2015), dir. Robert Eggers
22. _Carrie_ (1976), dir. Brian De Palma
23. _Possession_ (1981), dir. Andrzej Żuławski
24. _The Exorcist_ (1973), dir. William Friedkin
25. _Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn_ (1987), dir. Sam Raimi
26. _The Thing_ (1982), dir. John Carpenter
27. _It Follows_ (2014), dir. David Robert Mitchell
28. _A Nightmare on Elm Street_ (1984), dir. Wes Craven
29. _The Shining_ (1980), dir. Stanley Kubrick
30. _The Lost Boys_ (1987), dir. Joel Schumacher
31. _Halloween_ (1978), dir. John Carpenter

Scene from texas chainsaw massacre (1973)

texas chain saw massacre.jpeg

October Movie List

<div class='pullquote'><div class='inner-text'><span class='quote'>Captain, this is some spooky shit we got here.</span>
<span class='attribution'>—Guard Johnny Mack</span></div></div>

Caught the restoration of _Lost Highway_ in theaters recently. Still thinking about it. 

In a few interviews, Lynch said he was thinking a lot about O.J. Simpson while writing the film with Barry Gifford: 

>"Here is a guy who—at least I believe—committed two murders, and yet is able to go on living and speaking and doing and golfing... How does the mind protect itself from that knowledge and go on?"¹

Žižek's plot analysis² seems more or less correct with that inspiration in mind: the main character, Fred Madison, emasculated by his sexual incompetence, murders his wife, Renée, in a fit of jealous rage before fantasizing a life as the younger, cooler, more sexually-capable Pete. This fantasy deteriorates as a Renée-doppelgänger named Alice enters the picture, embodying all of his real world suspicions. She's the construct of a mind that's seen too many film noirs—a blonde femme fatale who fraternizes with mobsters and eventually goads Pete into committing a robbery that results in a murder. As the fantasy decays further, Pete and Alice escape to the desert, where she delivers one last façade-shattering emasculation, declaring "You'll never have me," mid-intercourse. Fred takes his original form and proceeds on another violent rampage, murdering Renée's would-be extramarital lover and employer, Dick Laurent, over multiple Rammstein needle drops. The film ends with Fred leading a Simpsonian police chase into the desert before spontaneously combusting in his car.

Such an ending feels almost hopeful in retrospect. I'm thinking of the grimly relevant actions of Robert Blake, who plays the Mystery Man in the film and, like Simpson, was acquitted of his own wife's murder in 2005 before losing a civil trial for her wrongful death, saddling him with insurmountable debt. Neither of these men were destroyed by their rage or guilt or whatever atomizes Fred Madison. They instead partake in odd attempts at personability: Simpson can still be found posting awkward front-facing camera videos on Twitter, while Blake uploads regularly to his YouTube channel "Robert Blake I Ain't Dead Yet, So Stay Tuned..." where he recounts _Little Rascals_ stories and tries to hawk old memorabilia³, each existing in a state somewhere between sad, demented, and aggrieved, both virulently maintaining their respective innocence. Rather than combusting, they each seem doomed to wither away in whatever public light is still available to them as discomfiting characters in stories most people would prefer to forget.

![Atomic bomb mushroom cloud — Twin Peaks: The Return, Episode 8{width:1920}{height:1080}](https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1680675221/E_H_Xekq_X0_A_Eu_C_Ap_49190cb8cd.jpg)
<div class="pullquote"><div class="inner-text"><span class="quote">You invited me. It is not my custom to go where I'm not wanted.</span>
<span class="attribution">—The Mystery Man</span></div></div>

Žižek, the dutiful materialist, describes Fred and Renée's bourgeois existence as a "drab, gray, upper-middle class, suburban reality."⁴ We can tease out a common theme in Lynch's work via this idea: the boredom and impotence of the privileged life pushing characters towards a dangerous mystery lurking just on the other side of the tracks, away from their comfort. Note the arcs of several characters in _Twin Peaks_ (Laura, Leland, Donna, Audrey—basically every high school student), Jeffery Beaumont in _Blue Velvet_, or Betty Elms in _Mulholland Drive_ ⁵. Consider also Fred's fantasy image of himself: a mechanic ("I wanna live like common people!") who lives with his parents and whose main client is a mob boss.

It's not new to suggest Lynch's supernatural characters are personifications of this amorphous mystery and evil (Bob in _Twin Peaks_, the man behind the diner in _Mulholland Drive_, the Mystery Man in _Lost Highway_). If we take these characters as representations of more or less the same thing, a conception of evil—or what could be considered a distinctly _American_ evil—emerges. In _Lost Highway_, we're told that this evil must be invited, that it goes only where it's wanted, and that siding with it comes with a price. In _Mulholland Drive_, we see a character investigate this evil, or what he says is causing his "god-awful feeling," only to enter a state catatonia when encountering it—"it" taking the form of a monster resembling a homeless person. And in _Twin Peaks: The Return_, we're shown an atomic blast that births this evil into existence, as Bob emerges from the chaos of a nuclear test in Los Alamos, infecting our world in subtle ways before preying on the "decent" people of that idyllic small town where "a yellow light still means slow down." 

Thus emerges the post-war Faustian bargain: comply with the evil, accept its existence on the imperial and domestic periphery, where bombs are dropped and resources are extracted, or where the poor at home live out tormented lives, and in return, prosperity and comfort will be yours. Given enough time, though, this fantasy, this oft-spoke of "dream" will erode as the chaos comes home, as the children drift away, drawn to anything that will supplant this "god-awful feeling." _This is the water. And this is the well. Drink full, and descend._

![Patricia Arquette looking bored — Lost Highway{width:1920}{height:800}](https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1680675266/3_C17_M12_G_49dbe18c3c.jpg)

<div class="pullquote"><div class='inner-text'><span class='quote'>It's okay...</span>
<span class='attribution'>—Renée Madison</span></div></div>

What does Fred do for a living? He's the tenor saxophone player in a strobe-doom-jazz band, naturally.

It's not lost on me that this is a [convenient Freudian representation for someone trying their damndest and failing at sex](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyZlYj8jpt8), I get it, but isn't there something else going on here? Take this first exchange between Fred and Renée: 

>Renée: You don't mind that I'm not coming to the club tonight?  
Fred: What are you going to do?  
Renée: Stay home. Read.  
Fred: Read? Read? Read what, Renée?  

_It's my hobby, Janice. Why you gotta belittle it?_ Poor Fred is relegated to the soundproofed spare bedroom, while his disinterested wife parties with known pornographers! Watch as he sheepishly admits this fact to the oafish detectives who epitomize the [Nick Mullen police tweet](https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1680675323/E_Zzp_M_Ym_UMAAY_0_MJ_fa826b4f40.png?updated_at=2023-04-05T06:15:23.962Z), who she trusts to protect their home more than him. Makes you wonder which of Lynch's three ex-wives didn't fully appreciate him as an artist, which regularly assailed his masculine pride.

![Mystery Man with Camera — Lost Highway{width:1920}{height:800}](https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1680675367/7_FQYYFU_1_b19f2337e1.jpg)
<div class="pullquote"><div class="inner-text"><span class="quote">And your name?! What the fuck is your name?!</span>
<span class="attribution">—The Mystery Man</span></div></div>

The pivotal moment in the film comes when Alice has disappeared and Fred finds himself alone in a cabin in the desert with the Mystery Man. He is threatened not with a knife or a blade—tools the Mystery Man will later come to use—but a camcorder. Earlier, we're told Fred doesn't like cameras, because he "likes to remember things his own way... Not necessarily how they happened." This all plays well with the plot points discussed above, that Fred prefers the fantasy—in which he's a decent guy who definitely doesn't suck at sex—to his real-world disappointments. But why such emphasis on the camera? 

The chief concern in both still and motion photography is exposure, i.e. the amount of light reaching the film strip or digital sensor, which, phrased differently, could be considered the degree to which the subject is revealed. In 1991, an amateur videographer revealed the transgressions of the LAPD by filming officers savagely beating Rodney King. Few things did more to implode O.J. Simpson's image as dorky Hertz spokesman, cameo actor, and all-around charming guy than the grainy helicopter camera footage of his white Bronco chase that cut into every major network's programming for one hour in 1994, displacing even the broadcast of the NBA Finals. And in 1996, a year before the film's release, Jeffrey Epstein would lead a young Maria Farmer into his "media room" where monitors displayed live feeds via hidden cameras of the bedrooms and bathrooms of his New York mansion, presumably for blackmail purposes. What is Lynch pointing his camera at? What exposure comes from _Lost Highway_?

As Dick Laurent is laying in the desert sand, blood spilling out of the wound in his neck, the Mystery Man shows him a clip on a portable television of a snuff film starring Renée and and a male talent played by Marilyn Manson⁶. The audience sees a flashback of Laurent excitedly groping Renée while the film plays to a cadre of Hollywood creeps. As the clip runs out to static, the Mystery Man puts a bullet in Laurent's head. 

Again, it makes you wonder. Leading up to this film's production, Lynch had spent about fifteen years in Hollywood. According to accusations from countless women that bear an eerie resemblance to Betty's audition scene in _Mulholland Drive_, Harvey Weinstein was sexually assaulting aspiring actresses throughout this entire period, a secret so open that, by the 2000s, sitcoms were dropping unsubtle jokes about it. The whole awful story suggests that Lynch didn't need to know about Weinstein in particular, but rather such behavior was an industry norm. In this sense, the Mystery Man isn't so much a representation of amorphous evil, but of karmic force, ensuring what is reaped is also sown. Thinking of the world in such terms feels like its own fantasy, as it seems the chaos rarely comes home for these people. The bastards always find a way to keep golfing.

<hr></hr>

Anyway. Good flick.

GL6RTN77.jpeg

We've Met Before, Haven't We?

I bought this t-shirt recently: 

![T-shirt promoting the concert film Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii{width:1920}{height:1080}](https://res.cloudinary.com/dcfaxrq0k/image/upload/v1680675903/liveinpompeiitshirt_5b34d8b22a.jpg)

I think that purchase combined with a recent dive into stereotypical classic rock guitar guy videos caused the YouTube algorithm to recommend some more recent performances of the remaining members of Pink Floyd, who have permanently gone their separate ways after the death of keyboardist Richard Wright in 2008, leaving their current individual acts looking more like cover bands stocked with overly-qualified session musicians.

Judging by the clips and a glance at some recent setlists, David Gilmour seems to favor songs that position him squarely as frontman and guitar god of the group, focusing mainly on tracks with extended guitar solos from their era of ultimate commercial success (_Dark Side_ and onwards). He's the only member who still plays Floyd cuts from the 80s and early 90s, his time as primary songwriter. The other two (and most fans) seem happy to forget this period.

Roger Waters has split his time publicly espousing hard line political stances¹ and touring his magnum opus, _The Wall_, as an arena-sized theater piece aimed at offending the gods of subtlety. I caught it in college and it fucking rocked. He's recently kicked off a run that combines parts of his _Wall_ set along with selections from that aforementioned era of commercial success.

Nick Mason, in contrast to his bandmates, has resurrected the preceding version of Pink Floyd with his act Nick Mason's Saucerful of Secrets. His sets include Syd Barrett songs—most of which haven't been touched by the band members in decades—and tracks from the era following Barrett's mental breakdown but before the ultimate success of _Dark Side_. This period saw the remaining members stumbling out of the British psych-rock haze on uneasy footing, tinkering with and building their sound from album to album while retaining a commitment to the occasional freak out or ambient interlude, culminating in the concert film _Live at Pompeii_. 

I was 14 or 15 when my older brother brought a copy of the _Pompeii_ director's cut DVD home. I was vaguely aware of the Syd Barrett saga from stories surrounding the _Wish You Were Here_ writing and recording sessions, but never had I fully delved into the records preceding _Dark Side_. Why should I? Most Pink Floyd fans I knew(read: parents) found nothing of value in those albums if they'd heard of them at all.

Maybe that's why I wasn't as into _Live at Pompeii_ the first time I watched it. This was definitively _not_ pop music and wasn't trying to be. The peaks were extreme and noisy, the troughs were ambient and sparse. This was not preaching an easily digestible gospel of existentialism, nor a boilerplate critique of the ills of modern life ("war is bad"/"don't be greedy"/etc.). The goal here seemed less to _say_ something explicitly, and more to push the listener into a different psychic state. Such aims may be cheesy vestiges of a hippie movement that lost the thread, but, nevertheless, it's obvious to me now what an effect this film would have on my musical preferences going forward. While it seems a bit lame to be under 40 and identifying so closely with one of the epitomical classic rock bands, this is still one of the few artifacts from my teenage years to which I regularly return. 

But I did not sit down to write this post simply out of appreciation for a concert film. No, sadly, I came here as a hater. Look at this shit:

<div class="video-container"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Z50ssGVeE94" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

This is from David Gilmour's 2016 solo concert film... _Live at Pompeii_. It looks like he forced his entire band to don shades just for this song. In the entirety of that show, he plays only one song that appeared in the original _Pompeii_, "[One of These Days](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaXKfyI7tQ)," which he starts by smirkingly playing cymbal rushes, as in _Isn't it so cute I'm doing the cymbal bit? Remember how Roger used to do that?_

Watching these clips really got to me, as I can't help but wonder what changes in a person like Gilmour. Plenty of things he does in the original _Pompeii_ could be construed as goofy, sure, but he never comes across that way. When did this new guy get here? What happened to make all of this seem cute? When do the aging musicians of the world stop trying these things in earnest? When do they stop experimenting and succumb to this awkward self-deprecation? When do they become corny tributes to their own glory days? Will it quietly happen to us, too? Will we even realize it when it does?

I need a palate-cleanser. Here's what's possibly my favorite live recording of all time, "Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun" from _Live at Pompeii_:

<div class="video-container"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/8RbXIMZmVv8" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

Roger Waters and David Gilmour in Live at Pompeii (1972)

liveinpompeiicover.jpg

One of These Days, I'm Going to Cut Myself Into Little Pieces

Writing lyrics sucks. I have attempted on and off for fifteen years to write good, meaningful lyrics that fit snugly in a memorable vocal melody, and most days I don't think I've ever been successful. For some annoying reason, I'm still compelled to do it. 

The easy thing to do was swear off lyric-writing for a while, which allowed me to release more music in two years than I had in the previous ten. The music part has always come easier. As long as I feel like I'm progressing a bit sonically, I can feel good about what I put out, even sometimes enjoying it upon relistening. But if I feel like I've burdened the world with another trite observation or, worse, some self-centered, hungover whining about unrequited love¹, I'm more likely to trash a song, regardless of how I felt about the musical content.

While I'm proud of the full droning muffler output so far, it was only a matter of time until the guilt about avoiding songwriting set in. When I returned to the notebook,  the lyrics were as terrible as I'd expected—uninspired, tediously political. Failing so drastically led to a series of desperate and embarrassing Google searches, mostly requests for songwriters I like to simply explain their process, please. It turns out most of them play those cards rather close to the chest, though I did try a few suggestions: dumping anything remotely engaging into my Notes app at all times of the day, talking into a voice recorder while driving, attempting music before lyrics and vice-versa—all to no avail. 

Which brings me to the point of this post: I did find one technique that produced a couple songs. See here: 

<div class="video-container"><iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/x3IKLMgFaDA" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>

A couple things about that clip:
- Wow is that music bad.
- Those lyrics would probably be annoying were I to hear them even in a decent sounding song.
- I wish he was less pleased with himself. 

But to offer the benefit of the doubt, I hold the belief that rolling cameras on a creative process nearly guarantees failure, and I'm pretty sure no song exists on a Bowie record featuring a mumbled "dead men don't talk" chorus over discordant guitar loops and free jazz piano.² It wasn't enough to dissuade me. 

I started looking around for a similar program and found [a faithful recreation of Bowie's Verbasizer](https://verbasizer.com/), but I didn't like using it. I think the columns are supposed to be reminiscent of Burroughs' cut-up technique (Bowie name drops him in [this video](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1InCrzGIPU)), but all the tabbing was slowing me down. I preferred one large text input, and perhaps the ability to retain particular phrases if something was already working.

My first attempt was a fairly simple Ruby script run from the terminal that took a string and randomized the individual words, but it was lacking features I didn't know how to implement, specifically the phrase retention bit. Still, it helped produce the lyrics on the most recent droning muffler ep, [_operation_](https://droningmuffler.bandcamp.com/album/operation). When creating this website, I thought I'd implement a [full version](/verbasizer) as a coding exercise, or at the very least, so I can use it in the future. Maybe some of my songwriter friends out there will give it a try as well. 

In my limited use so far, I've found this technique will rarely produce anything close to a useable lyric. It's more about taking raw materials and shaping them into something coherent. It points you occasionally towards a decent metaphor or a concept worth pursuing. There's also something about this process that has alleviated all the paralyzing self-judgment. It's almost as though someone else is dumping these words in front of me, asking me to edit them into a finished piece. I don't have to be so instantly irate at my ineptitude, because, well, I didn't write this shit. I just have to fix it.

Anyway, I'll probably keep pulling from this well until it goes dry. This hasn't necessarily made lyric-writing easier, but I despise the output less which is all I can really hope for. Even if it's only good for a few more songs, I had fun getting this up and running. 

Verbasize Me, Daddy

For those interested¹, I thought I'd detail a bit about this site's build process. My previous jobs only required writing some basic scripts. One thing I've never had to (or tried to) do is render the frontend side of a webpage from my own code, so I gave it a shot. 

I've suspected for a while—and confirmed through this process—that frontend web development these days is less coding from scratch and more configuring existing packages to your specific needs. Of course there are people toiling over extremely complex engineering tasks out there, but if your job is to get a basic content mill up-and-running and looking nice, you're mostly consuming someone else's hard work, configuring it to your coworkers' needs. While I found the "looking nice" aspect to be the hardest bit, usually that's someone else's job if you're writing the code. There are certainly harder ways to make less money.

Here's what I used: I'm not skilled enough to make a CMS from scratch, so I found [Strapi](https://strapi.io/), a headless, open-sourced CMS that has a decent UI and outputs API endpoints for the frontend to consume. I'm using Next.js for the frontend² purely because I think it'll help my career in the long run. Plus, it was surprisingly easy to make the [Verbasizer](/verbasizer) exactly to my liking in this framework, but more about that in another post. For the styles, I'm using `.scss` files in conjunction with the React components, and unless I've totally missed some big development, CSS as a technology hasn't been updated all that much in fifteen years, which is excellent news for the Tumblr customizers out there. It has been my least favorite thing about this whole process.

I'm using Heroku to host the API and Vercel to host the frontend because they were both free as long as I don't use too many features or traffic levels on this site don't exceed a certain threshold. I can't imagine they will. One shortcoming is that Heroku won't host images, so I'll have to find another solution in the future.

I've already written more than I wanted on this topic, so we'll wrap it up here. If this stack sounds really bad to professionals out there, it's a good thing I don't have your job.

Duct Tape and Spit

It's for me. I'd like to spend less time on Twitter and YouTube, get back some attention span, that sort of thing.

I wrote a lot when I was younger, and now I don't. My college major required a lot of writing, and I also contributed the occasional music or movie review to an on-campus paper. After college, I did a nine month stint writing for a blog that covered music festivals for very little money. For that period of four or five years, I was writing and getting feedback from professors and editors all the time. While I make no grand claims about the quality of my writing, I did, at the very least, enjoy practicing and refining it. Now I don't do that.

When I was working for the blog, I had a nagging suspicion that no read the articles we were writing, and if the site generated any revenue, I saw no indication of it. We placed no ads and were never paid for what seemed like free promotion for the festivals we covered, so it was not a shock when the site was shut down. I suspect the company, if you can call it that, was a make-work program for the creative director, whose father—a foreign diplomat, according to my editor—funded the whole operation. I can't say it was all a loss, though. My editor saw a few fundamental flaws in my writing, which no one else had cared enough to correct, and I was writing every single day. 

Throughout those nine months, I was constantly applying to other writing jobs. A targeted query of my email archive from that period turned up applications to mostly music sites and publishing companies, though the desperation became more evident as the rejection count grew.¹ I didn't get a single interview. When faced with such desperation, one begins to delude themself about the compromises they're about to make. They're not giving up, they're simply casting a wider net. They tell themself it'll only be temporary anyway, that they'll keep looking for their "real" job in their free time. And then they get comfortable. I often wonder where I would have ended up had I not gotten comfortable, but the time to do anything about it—having tried a few times—seems to have passed, and I'll work in my current field—tech—for the foreseeable future, for better or worse.

I'm more than capable of a lengthy anti-tech rant, but at this point in my life, I've come to understand that, while tech workers are capable of a very special douchebaggery and deluded self-importance, all industries share the same motivations, i.e. generating revenue for someone, be it their shareholders or the generous heads of a non-profit who make a measly $300k a year.²

Despite a somewhat vague, promising title ("Customer Care Advisor"), my first job was answering support emails. This was not so much "writing" as programmatically stringing together a series of canned responses. Despite marginally covering my living expenses, my salary was a lot higher than what I was making at the blog. It didn't hurt that I was praised often for my frequently exemplary stats, although the only times I felt like I ever helped customers was when I gave their money back.³ Eventually, I was promoted to a more technical job. I then learned to code a bit and got an even more technical job. These jobs never required me to write, rather to concisely fill out documentation templates, and not the cool rocket science kind.

This is all to say that outside of a few failed journals and Twitter, I haven't committed time to writing in almost eight years, and the effects are not lost on me. At the risk of sounding harsh, I have become unmistakably dumber since I gave up writing. Completing this short essay is the hardest my mind has worked in months, and being dumber in my thirties than I was at twenty-three has made me very uncomfortable. Again, I have no presumptions about ever being a "good" writer, only that I was once better than I am now.

That answers why I'd like to write more, but not why I set up this blog in particular. I went about coding this site, because, like a lot of things I might write about, I wanted to see how hard it would be. It turned out to not be that hard. I'd also be lying if I said I didn't have a personal interest in gaining some skills pertaining to my career by creating this site, but I'll save that for another post. So... voila. 

Why post publicly? I'd rather not psychoanalyze that impulse too deeply, so let's just say that while recognizing the primary objective of this site (forcing me to write more), I wouldn't mind engaging with friends about common interests, which is becoming more and more difficult as I get older.⁴