Shchedryk Vechir

I pieced together my own interpretation of the classic Ukranian folk song Shchedryk Vechir (known popularly in the US by the name of it’s plagiarization Carol of the Bells) in FL Studio 8. I shot all of the video on a standard definition Samsung DigitalCam DVD camcorder recreationally and edited it together in Windows Live Movie Maker.

My Week In Twitter

Hit the jump for a mess of nonsense and vanity.

Poetry Publishing Links

   I have been looking into publishing my own work this year. In my quest, I have stumbled upon some helpful and informative websites. I will share them with you here. As time goes on and I discover more, I will update this post. May they help you in the ways they do.

Stuff For Sale

Updated: 15 August 2008

Nature of update: Price Reductions!

   Once again, I am thinning out my CD collection stuff to make room for new stuff! All of these CDs items are used, in awesome condition, and have been play tested. Unless otherwise noted, CDs & DVDs are $5 each. Shipping is dependent on your zip code and desired carrier service. Packaging (ie. envelope) is $1 on top of shipping, but if you’re getting multiple CDs items, that buck can encompass up to three CDs or two DVDs. Enough babble. Look below for buying instructions and here’s the list!

CDs

• Against Me! As The Eternal Cowboy
• Alien Sex Fiend The Bat Cave Masters
• Anathema The Silent Enigma
• Bush Sixteen Stone
• Patsy Cline The Definitive Collection
• Cradle of Filth Damnation And A Day
• Cradle of Filth Nymphetamine (2-disc digipak Ozzfest Edition)
• Danzig Circle of Snakes
• Death In Vegas dead elvis
• Dying Fetus War of Attrition
• Incantation Blasphemy
• Live Mental Jewelry
• Mayhem Grand Declaration of War (digipak)
• Slayer Live: Decade of Aggression  $10
• Slayer Seasons In The Abyss

DVDs

• Against Me! We’re Never Going Home [wikipedia]
• Bound [wikipedia]

Miscellaneous Items

• Visioneer 4400 USB flatbed scanner (with CD) $10

   Ordering is ass easy. Just drop me an email with your name, shipping info and what CD(s) you want to buy. PayPal is preferred. You can use your credit card with PayPal as well. I don’t do the money order or check thing because of Nigerian douchebags. I’ll send you a link to make the payment from when you email me. I am open to trades if that’s what you’d prefer! Let me know what you’ve got to offer and maybe we can work something out. Oh right, the email…

Clicky Here For Email Goodness

Keep an eye out for my upcoming comic book and book sales, too!

A Warm Summer Brief

   This is exactly what a summer day is supposed to be: hot, clear blue, bright and vibrant, and on a weekend. Why am I holed up indoors trying to avoid the heat? I should fill a couple water bottles pack a snack and head out to the backyard to spray my son and myself stupid with the hose. Problem: construction next door with no real dividing fence. We’ll see what happens when his nap is over.

Lord, Give Me A Sine

   I seek a stillness only found in death, but is it to be dead? I certainly love life. Life is motion. I desire a balance only found in life, but wherein lies this equilibrium? I definitely lust tumult. Instability is the ebb to a harmonious flux. This push and pull is the structure of nature. We swell and contract within a larger wave. Lord, give me a sine. This pulse I give myself unto, through my desires I do your will. And such desires they are; such a will it is!

   Through allegory and metaphor, we find the keys to ourselves and our world. The true gods are within us. Divinity is nothing more than a state of mind. I am no prophet, nor savior; I am both of these things. I am no god nor demigod; I am all of these things. From my heart is borne the flame; from my cup does the water pour. I am the source of all life and the consummate abyss to which death’s current carries it. I am of the source and result, thus I am. I am simply a man, flesh and bone, born of my mother. I am nothing; I am everything. I am within and without. I am you; you are me. We are not one.

   I am. I will be. I was. I am not. I will not be. I was not. I am knot. I will knot being. I was naught but manifest. Abstracts consume my thoughts. My dreams, they’ve gone; stripped of their potency, bled of their vibrance and seared of their sight, they are gone from me. I used to dream strong. I loved dreaming. I would dream mighty epics and dark tales of unspeakable beauty. Who took this from me? Who reached into the depths of my soul and silenced my spark; muted my flame? I will it to return! I refuse nothing less than renewed dreamforms! I am.

   Lucifer is Jesus. Satan is a state of mind. Jesus of Nazareth is not Jesus Christ; the mythology of Jesus Christ is far older than any historical Jesus of Nazareth. The gods are simply astronomical concepts and naturally occurring elements personified so as to easily teach their attributes and interactions. Buddha is awake. I am the buddha. I am the christ. I am the lucifer. I am the satan. I am the enlightened. I am the anointed. I am the enlightener. I am the adversary. I am this and not. The universe is alive and so are we.

Looking Ahead To Autumn

   I find myself, on a rather quiet Tuesday afternoon, thinking quite passionately about the coming autumn. While I do love the summer in all its vibrant life and lustre, nothing touches me so deeply nor cracks my heart open so succinctly as the grand finale explosion of nature that is the waning year. While I should be living in the moment, living these brief warm months to the fullest, I always become distracted when I feel autumn on the horizon.

   Perhaps this condition is indicative of a broader issue in my perspective. I do often find myself focused more on the goal than the journey in everything from the most minute, daily tasks to the larger picture of life. When I walk to the store, I am focused on the store, not the walk. When I have sex, I am inclined to seek the climax, rather than enjoy rest of the act leading up to it. When I commit myself to house cleaning, I think only of the clean space rather than the work. In all of these things, I find I have to force myself to take notice of the present moment and enjoy it while it is here.

   The effect this way of perceiving the moment has on memory is a deep, almost inescapable feeling of nostalgia. In my downtime, when I  have not an immediate goal to focus on, my mind and heart are perpetually sucked back to my past, remembering and wishing I could go back. I drift from memory to thought, everywhere but here. Yet again, I am forced to make myself notice the present moment.

   I am aware that this is not the most enjoyable way in which to conduct myself. I know I need to focus on the present moment, for it is all present moments that build toward the future. A goal is, in part at least, the sum of its preceding steps. A close, if distant, friend taught me a great deal in focusing on the moment rather than the past or present. However, no matter how much I try, my natural inclination is to drift in either direction.

   There are events, incidents and situations that force me into the moment, and likely would anyone. At the birth of my son, my mind was nowhere else. In the midst of my first time to my favorite lake, I was truly centered and right there. Any point in which adrenaline came in to play, I was nowhere but right in the moment. I can only speculate that a combat situation does this very thing. Despite these moments, though, I can’t help but wonder if there is a way to train my mind to automatically focus on the moment, that I may not require the conscious act of putting myself in the now.

Courting Your Grace

The night claws at my back
at the back of my mind — I find serenity —
calling me out.

Sheltered away in my hole
Cannibalizing thoughts until
they are mere rotten remains.
Call me out, sweet night,
and take me into your arms.
Let me drink of your unseen wine
and replenish my well.

I will speak to you
of your divinity.
I will whisper to your ear
the ways I slither around you.
I will run across your plains
and make your earth quake.
I breathe you in,
bask in the euphoria of submersion,
and take you for a walk
into lands unbeknownst to me.

I crave and long.
I am driven to conquer
and devour.

I will dance around you.
I will chant your name.

The sun rose over barren hills to bring life.
Stars told where the sun would come
and when he set, he bled upon the mountains.
Far off a wolf howls over the fresh kill,
blood glistening in the moonlight.
The moon danced in the resting night.
The sea came upon the shore and sighed.
And in the distance, a lantern swayed slowly,
waiting to make port,
waiting to return home.

The future was never written
until it grew into past memory.
What was meant to be was
what I was intent to see.
The past rests.
The future is restless.

I will anger and disgust you.
I will please and enrapture you.
I will do everything but numb you.
We are alive. The blood pumps through our veins.
Our hearts beat, beat, beat the drums
in arcane rhythms.

Thoom, thoom, thoom
I sway and dance and drift about
in a crescendo of passion.
Come come come
Come and join.

Stuff For Sale

Updated: 31 May 2008

   Once again, I am thinning out my CD collection stuff to make room for new stuff! All of these CDs items are used, in awesome condition, and have been play tested. Unless otherwise noted, CDs & DVDs are $6 each. Shipping is dependent on your zip code and desired carrier service. Packaging (ie. envelope) is $1 on top of shipping, but if you’re getting multiple CDs items, that buck can encompass up to three CDs or two DVDs. Enough babble. Look below for buying instructions and here’s the list!

CDs

• Against Me! As The Eternal Cowboy
• Alien Sex Fiend The Bat Cave Masters
• Anathema The Silent Enigma
• Patsy Cline The Definitive Collection
• Cradle of Filth Damnation And A Day
• Cradle of Filth Nymphetamine (2-disc digipak Ozzfest Edition)
• Danzig Circle of Snakes
• Death In Vegas dead elvis
• Dying Fetus War of Attrition
• Incantation Blasphemy
• Live Mental Jewelry
• Mayhem Grand Declaration of War (digipak)
• Slayer Live: Decade of Aggression  $10
• Slayer Seasons In The Abyss

DVDs

• Against Me! We’re Never Going Home [wikipedia]
• Bound [wikipedia]

   Ordering is ass easy. Just drop me an email with your name, shipping info and what CD(s)items you want to buy. PayPal is preferred. You can use your credit card with PayPal as well. I don’t do the money order or check thing because of Nigerian douchebags. I’ll send you a link to make the payment from when you email me. I am open to trades if that’s what you’d prefer! Let me know what you’ve got to offer (not limited to CDs) and maybe we can work something out. Oh right, the email…

Clicky Here For Email Goodness

Keep an eye out for my upcoming comic book, DVD and book sales, too!

Thoughts On Zeitgeist

   I recently watched two parts to Zeitgeist. I viewed the World Trade Center and Federal Reserve oriented bits. It raised questions in my mind, but for the most part I am still on the fence. The Federal Reserve part began to irritate me around World War Two. I have the following thoughts on the subject.

   The insinuation is that the United Stated government provoked Japan into attacking Pearl Harbor to create anti-Axis sentiment and get us into the war when, allegedly, 83% of the US population wanted nothing to do with it. The main route of provocation alleged by the film are the freezing of Japanese assets in the US and a full halt on trade with Japan. Sure, we may not have jumped into the war right off, but there was no reason (other than International War Laws, but when have we ever paid attention to those haha) we couldn’t cease things that would assist Japan in their alliance with the Nazis (ie. all the items listed as our ‘provocations’). Japan already had a grudge toward us (forced trade via warship cannon fire onto land awhile back) and perceived us (horrifyingly correctly) as a serious threat should we become involved. Pearl Harbor was not, I repeat, was not a US coordinated event. The evil meanie international bankers in the film did not make this happen, they merely took sickly advantage of it. I agree with the documentary up to this point, but I wonder even how much prior to that point was merely an act of taking advantage of the situation taking advantage of rather than orchestrating it.

   When we bombed Japan in WW2, the Soviet Union felt both threatened by the bomb and insulted that we did not include them. A once potential ally became an enemy. Hello, Cold War. Afghanistan was a strategic spot and both sides on the Cold War trained Afghan soldiers. The extremist Islamic movement swept the area. The Cold War ended. We, pendejos that we are, got involved on both sides of the extreme-Islamist Iran and the more mafioso-like Iraqi conflict (re: Iran Contra scandal). Saddam felt betrayed when it came to light and attempted to take Kuwait as a slight against us. We stepped in, officially to protect the Saudi border with permission from the Saudi government and Desert Fox/Shield/Storm was born. The Saudi King(prince?) was advised by Osama Bin Laden to not let the US on holy Saudi land. He was then sent into exile out of Saudi Arabia by the Saudi government and swore vengeance on the US. This, as the official story goes, (which I do question on all points, but, in the context of this chain makes sense) led to the ‘93 WTC bombing, the USS Cole bombing, and the events of Sept 11th, 2001. In retaliation, we began war in Afghanistan. The Iraqi war makes little sense in "official" story, however. Saddam was considered an infidel by al Qaeda and the Taliban, who are proponents of extremist Islamic law. Anyway, the cycle of war can be traced back from events of prior wars. This is all cause and effect in an ugly, ugly chain.