What Came First, the Death or the Music?

Dying is something I look forward with more excitement every day/year/hour. Thinking about dying has become an eccentric hobby. I think about it at least once every hour; half the time a suicidal thought hosting one of those episodes.

It's been nearly two decades since I've considered performing the deed. The world is full of too many assholes needing to be outshined and dethroned by my spectacular bastard ways; I'd be committing a disservice to the universe by decomposing the sweet six feet under (Vive Six Feet Under!) despite the delight of being rid of God's crotch rot that is humankind.

When I think of dying these days, I think about the the techniques, the amounts of pain to be endured; even about my chances of survival that will hopefully manifest itself merely as long term suffering before imminent death.

Music doesn't play a role in these morbid visions (Vive Sepultura!!), but certain albums and songs make themselves known at the most essential moments in your life. One of those albums happened to be Staind's major label debut Dysfunction.

The grim overtone of the album immediately sparked a sonic rapport with me despite my mediocre reception to the music, but it was Aaron Lewis' honest, downtrodden lyrics that gripped me coldly, kicked me in the face, and had me knitting yarn nooses like they were holiday stockings.

Four songs especially:

Just Go - My relationships with my parents has never been what society would accept as "normal;" yet, I can't help but consider generations of joyful meatbags sitting together and consuming mounds of food without a single liquor bottle cracked over someone's skull "normal." Still, this song extends beyond them and into my immediate family and even some of my so-called friends. I've been betrayed and abandoned by both family and friends before; it will happen again. People come and go. At least now my primary concern will be to ensure that all of my borrowed belongings have been retrieved.

The death nail I imagine while hearing this song now is using an industrial clamp to steady a hunting knife so I may lunge at it, allowing it to stab me in the center of my neck. The blade needs to be long enough for the blade's tip to perforate straight through the nape of my neck.

Home - The album was released during the time I was involved in the greatest relationship I'd ever experienced. To this day, I know that if I only have one friend in the world, whether it's the woman I want to be with forever, or the dog dumb enough to stay by my side, I'll be just fine. And, eventually, I came back home and she was gone.

No twisted thoughts on this one. It just makes me miss being in love. It's difficulat and nearly trivial being a romantic with no one to romance; so, I focus on the macabre. It's humorous as Hades.

A Flat - When you do something amazing and no one is around to witness it, sometimes it's frustrating. I knew I was destined to do something amazing at a young age, but I never had any support because what I watned for my future wasn't what anybody else wanted for my future. According to the people I was supposed to trust and seek advice from, being twelve years old and writing your first novel is parallel to sitting in your room all day, being a lazy shit, and not doing a God damn thing. In regards to the friends that supposedly understand you, practicing an instrument three hours a day is nowhere near as important as getting loaded and telling dick jokes.

This song concocts an image of pasting glass shards on to strips of tape and wrapping those strips around my head so I may proceed to bash my skull against every hard surface in the room.

Me - With this tune, let me just say my fantasy is to carve a thin hole through a door to place a lengthy knife blade between; reinforce the knive's stability and strength with industrial adhesive, and slam that door as hard as possible, jamming that blade through my skull.

Too bad the best song of the entire album is the hidden track. And, too bad Staind went on to, you know, suck.

I Write Fiction About This Shit, These Sick Fucks Do It

Some news bits that caught my eye these past few days.

We have doctors in Missouri headlining news that once was found only in tabloid magazines. They accidentally decapitated a baby during delivery. The OBGYN - a woman - suggested the pregnant mother-to-be to deliver via C-section. The male doctor at the hospital handling the birth was against it and both pressured the mother to deliver naturally despite clear warning signs of potential obstruction in the birth canal due to the baby's enlarged chest. My favorite part is these "professionals" handled their error the way Homer Simpson handles breaking a Christmas present he shouldn't have opened. They put it back in the box - the mother's vagina - and decided to perform the caesarian, pretending to find their enormous blunder and ask, "But wha-ha-ha-happen?"

It's not just doctors killing newborns. Some mothers don't even give their uterus bombs a chance at a life. Take this adrenaline junkie for example. This brilliant flame decided to do one final base jump while she was four months pregnant. She died. SPLAT. Baby died too. She's just as bad if not worse than those selfish, cowardly shits that - for whatever reason - feel the need to kill their children before killing themselves. I wish one of them would try it the other way around for once. You get the same results with less mess. The kids don't have to grow up with such an emotional wreck and they get a chance at becoming something greater than the numbfuck that never wanted to have them in the first place. Parenthood is hard. Kill yourself not the kids.

This last one is something I might try if I ever find myself deep in the shit. A 21-year-old Utah "man" stabbed his grandmother 111 times in the heart and then removed her organs. First, I'm not sure what kind of man attacks his grandmother, let alone stabs her repeatedly, but I can't help to wonder if he realized he killed her after a few stabs and then realized he was going away for life, so he went the extra mile in order to garner an insanity plea. I definitely would have done that. The lad does have a history of mental health issues, but looking at the way public schools deduce mental deficiencies in their students these days, mental health issues seem to occur between meiosis and the incubator.

Just remember, the mankin has always been this dumb and twisted, we just now have overpopulization and social media to thank for exposing it to the rest of us, where as before it used to be quietly kept with the village secrets, and when it was made public it was shocking; now, it's almost banal, having lost all dispicable radiance.

A Look at The Safest Place

What spare time I had, I spent reading The Safest Place collected edition from Image Comics’ defunct 12 Gauge Comics publishing line. One way I’d like to analogize this book is by calling it an armor plated rhino rampaging through a mortar field.


In his childhood, tragedy befell combat photographer Matthew Castle, leaving him numb in ever aspect of his humanity, emotionally and physically, but children are the weakness of his conscience and heart. When a kidnapped girl and all the circumstances surrounding her disappearance send Matthew on a global mystery hunt from Afghanistan, to Texas, to Sudan, the action kicks into high gear, but it’s the characters’ personalities that are at full throttle throughout the entire book. The Safest Place is a character driven mystery where none of the players mind kicking you in the face – hard.

It was written by political journalist Victor Riches and writing veteran Steven Grant – the man who turned The Punisher from a potential comic book regular into the malicious badass most of us fell in love with, while providing the art is the always reliably marvelous Tom Mandrake.

I don’t normally give in to jealousy – it’s a waste of time and emotion – but damn Victor Riches; as I am unfamiliar and dare I say ignorant of his work, having never written a comic book before, he strikes gold, getting to work with two of the greatest in their respective fields. Now, I’m anxious to read some of his speeches and articles despite my lack of political interests, but good writing is good writing.

Steven Grant is the blunt force trauma of comic books. He is the sledgehammer to the brain that most comic book readers need but are too afraid and intellectually stunted to appreciate. He doesn’t parade around plots with unnecessary dialogue or drawn out, quiet scenes. He shoves it all down your throat and hopes you choke. Read Badlands, My Flesh is Cool; even his Marvel’s X-Man run had more balls and story in one issue than a modern day 12-part event comic. He remembers when the single issue was the event.

Tom Mandrake is a master craftsman. It interesting, reading how he experimented with his overall approach and design on The Safest Place, working with smaller frames and new inking techniques, but the black and white production rendered his art beautifully. I wish we could get an artist’s edition of some of his past work and am very much looking forward to his upcoming Dark Horse horror comic written by the endlessly cool Lance Henriksen – To Hell You Ride.

The Safest Place is a bare knuckle brawl of emotions and they’re all sporting brass knuckles thanks to the talent gathered for this gut wrenching tale.

Here's a link to a 2008 interview with all three creators, talking about the book.