Thanks, khet.

I didn’t even know that gma and gpa W knew each other when they were so young. This is a high school graduation picture:

We were going through old photo albums to put together a collection for the open house birthday celebration for g-ma’s 90th, and came across so many wonderful snapshots.

Spending time with grandma for her birthday -going up there- was so great and rich in many ways. It was wonderful and weird to see her house again, exactly as I remembered it –the attic steps smelled the same -Nick and I both said that, but it was all smaller, as Nick had said it seemed when he’d been up there a few years ago for the first time since we were kids. We used to spend every summer and holiday there with my grandmother. –My grandpa too, though, sadly, he died when we were quite young. I was 5 or 6. so i don’t have as many memories of him. My grandmother, Dorothy, has been my closest grandparent and sends me wonderful cards and well wishing all the time, she is so generous and supportive. My grandpa W, Merle, I remember being very loving to me and taking me around town with him, showing me off and buying me stuff. He had a great sense of humor and I suspect I get a lot of my adventurousness and drier humor from him.  I remember being just absolutely thrilled as a kid to see him, each trip as we would pull up, I’d run yelling to hug him. We had many good times together.

I knew I got a lot of my features from my grandmother (along with common sense brains in general), but some of these shocked me for how it felt like I was looking in a mirror or had gone through a time machine and taken a b&w picture of myself….or something very odd feeling (like the first one above)

Then in others she looks quite different. i think this is her senior yearbook picture.

When we were at my dad’s sister’s house and a bunch of his family were there, we inherited several photos from generous family members. Seeing pictures of dad’s parents so young is even more unique in many ways, because I saw them much less often than my mother’s parents, and have always wanted to know more about them, well both sets of g-parents’ earlier lives.

My grandfather Bruce about as I remember him, but youngerish:

how very young-and-handsome he looks in this next one!

i mainly remember his sense of humor and inventions and suspect is who/where i got my mechanical sensibilities from. i mean like feeling a machine and if it’s happy/running-well or not, feeling the interface of man and machine. that must have come from this quarter of grandparent.lol

this is about how I remember g-ma Bruce, but somewhat youngerish than when I spent most of the time I remember with her:

i remember her being very funny and playing games, and how cool it was when she visited that she looked at my garden. turned out she was the gardener of the family and it feels like I get my desire an love of green things and interest in growing/cultivating such things from her. Various interesting things about myself I’ve come to learn were also traits, interests or passions she shared.

this is probably the youngest i’ve seen her, though there were some earlier ones passed around while we were visiting, but I can’t recall for sure.

I have been trying to make time to work on grandma Bruce’s poetry site. I need to do that in March for sure, so more about that soon… Can’t wait– discovering her poetry thanks to aunt Tammy sending out the around the book of poetry after g-ma died, was a very rare gift. I still have not read every poem. Anyway, hope to have it all on the net sooner than later

omfg will someone pay me. it’s just one of those times when 5+ clients owe me for 1-3 weeks’ worth of work. i mean moving (colocating for 2 weeks too) took out a chunk and i’m working and workin (well again now, uh-hegm, with some 18 hour days), and don’t have time to unpack the frigging jumble pile of CRAP in the living room –that having been said, Squeebs was good enough to put in a few hours after his work last night and got quite a deal put away (into odd places I think have now order whatsoever, but the goal is not to live here longer than 6 months, so guess I won’t rearrange too much).

So, you get to know the something-for-nothing client pretty quick, and then there are the variations. This is a new breed, not a something-for-nothing, cuz clientX has forked over a lot of beans, yet do I not deserve to be compensated for my time? If clientX wants to go on making tweaks and changes, should I stop getting paid at some point because the total bill suddenly freaks them out? No, but I did agree to a ‘let’s wrap up A-Q inclusively’ sorts of deal because I try to see it from their PoV and ok, that’s fair enough for me. but then the wrap-up list expands. AHHHHHH!!!! AHH! no really, AHHH! why why why why hwy why why why why why – I just [after putting in FREE hour 20 or so] sent an amendment to our little i work for free agreement and resubmitted invoice. wish me luck

One step closer to getting roach-free -only had to kill about a dozen today so far. gross, i know, it’s amazing how many can hide in such small areas and stowaway like that. we’ve each got our own techniques when we spot a stowaway. Chad sprays the cloth and squashes em, I just spray em. great, right, after going to all the hassle of natural bug control, just to completely fail and lose a gecko. Got completely infested and are still dealing with the consequences though i have faith that I can see their end. It’s wicked, true and plain. We scream bloody war cries as we plunge across the room to squash or spray them. It’s all out war.

interject- new favorite (KMFDM) song – full worm garden . reminds me of something that i still cannot put my finger on, but anyway really beautiful. ogre on vocals. apropos: having decided I did not know enough KMFDM. partly AE inspired- and AE’s footage of KMFDM shows, but I had/have a lot to learn about them and how much of their music is *not just* the repetitive chanty campy stuff I tended to think of as KMFDM since sheesh like 93.

but yeah, the roaches. you gotta lead those fuckers when aiming the spray -what Chad doesn’t seem to get, and perhaps why he developed the squash variation –squishing is most effective and environmentally sound (I suppose more humane too), but I can’t squich em if they’re bigger than like 1 cm. ewwwww. anyway, those fuckers are fast. I got to thinking that one of these days when beebs finds a new job (gets away from he solvent ink fumes) his reaction time will vastly improve and we’ll all just be wowed with his increased agility.lol. I was up there with him on Sun as he was printing, and it’s godawfulobnoxious amounts of chemicals in the air. I did this a couple years ago, but again, found one of the ink boxes and researched the ingredients. supposedly the colored inks only can be ‘irritating’, but have been shown to reduce reaction time over a long period of exposure. then the black in is ‘possibly carcinogenic’ –which means it *is*, right. and that’s not including the weird plastic materials that get printed on, etc. anyway, so i was there for over 2 hours, and when we left I had a distinct ‘chemical pain’ all in the back of my neck and tops of my shoulders. which is interesting because that is where he’s always saying he’s sore when he comes home. I say ‘chemical pain’ because I just know it’s from chemicals. like when i go walking on the track anytime during 6:45AM-7/8PM I often get a ‘chemical headache’ from the increased motor vehicle traffic. There’s just something about the quality of pain, but also that it (the pain) has a taste/feel that matches up with how it smells in the air, like I’m sensing those particles concentrated in that part of my body. find another job!!! it’s insane, they have this like industrial air filter and then most of it is not even vented out of the room –it’s ths janky taped together boxes shooting into a warehouse next door –at such force that most of it stays in the room anyway, with a lady who has asthma, and 3-4 other workers; chad the only one who has to sit right by the beast most of the time. irresponsible employering.

So I had a birthday last week or so –yep, 33. my brain always says like 18 or something when someone asks me, though that happens less and less and i just draw a blank for a second. who cares. not me. I remember thinking i couldn’t wait to be old and ugly. not that i’m a babe, but just the kind of ‘attention’ that women have to put up with…tends to be much worse for younger women. not that it’s not fun to be young, i do try to appreciate youth, but alas what they say about youth being wasted on the young does seem to be true: like as the body sort of stiffens more easily and aches and pains, and I know that’s just a foreshadowing.heh oh the joys of life. seems like i had a sort of list of things i’d learned or finished developing in the last year, but if so, it escapes me now. i keep not journaling while the shit is fresh, so what do you expect?

been thinking about The Gits and Mia Zapata –people I did not know existed until about a week ago. the intro to the doc said it best: not jsut a punk band, or woman singer band, or singer who died tragically band, but a great all-round musically amazing and charged band. listen to the Gits . very interesting story and sub-culture and those kinds of people who had such a huge influence but are largely unknown, compared to the wave of liek grunge spotlight that happened just after, where bands they helped support/mentor became successful –yep, heard of 7 year bitch,  had not heard of the Gits. glad to have been enlightened. she was 27 when she died. no kidding. what is it about 27?

Woke up bright and early at 5 with Chad, then stayed in bed reading on the ipod until 8:30 Could.not.bring.self. to get up and deal with the mess. Chad, always empathetic (read ‘enabling’, mostly kidding), pointed out that moving over the weekend was not an easy task, and naturally we are somewhat drained, physically as well as other ways. Well, whatever the sources may be, all I wanted to do was sleep more, and I came up with about a zillion reasonable arguments for doing just that. It wasn’t until I spied myself deciding for the unconscious ‘oh I’ll get my way’ approach of just fucking falling asleep– that I decided to whip myself into action. I might be lazy, but I won’t be bossed around by less conscious portions of my self– not out of anything less than need/balance, anyway. So, HERE I AM.

First things first, got the stereo set up. No decent music for days, so that is a rejuvenator right there, though I have a long triangle mess of trip wires now, fuck it, there’s music and so I can convince myself to work. or can i? I *have* gotten started, then the bugs started in on me, and it’s really distracting. I know it won’t last, but, what I just said. So the new place is/WILL-BE bug-free, it’s just going to take some persistence. We fumigated everything, after mostly opening up boxes, but I think the ones we’re seeing are the ones who were hidden away inside the boxes. SO, another reason to get motivated about finishing up this moving bullshit, and sanitize every.single.last.item that comes out of a box, before putting it into its new home, and killing the revealed stowaways concurrently.

re: moving bullshit, I just mean those parts that suck about moving. Besides that, as Ch and I have both been commenting on, there are many layers of positive change and developments afoot, correlating to this apartment moving. I suppose that’s a good explanation for the general lazy restlessness I’ve been feeling since the active ‘lugging crap to/from the truck’ ended. Well, first there was the hours long nightmare yesterday morning where I was just sure I was about to be killed and was watching a video of being with Chad, and so when I woke up had that weird dream-not-quite-awake feeling of disbelief that I was not going to die yet, and was going to get to see Chad again. Those were really just the only-comfort tokens of the nightmare, which was sorting through some more of the crap related to being drugged and all that nazi culture unconsciousness that targeted me for release (as powerful and evil as you stalker sheep think you are, you cute little vicious kittens, you). As but one odd little sorted piece, finally got confirmation of finding myself repeating the Lord’s Prayer walking away from the drugging, along the long dark road (out of hell, tee hee), having been a mix of taunting suggestion/mockery, and somehow also my own desperation/reaching-out: the dream showed me that, as much of the torture had unfolded, I would be pushed to a certain psychological limit, tolerance for cruelty, then whatever reaction I finally had would be mocked and attempts made to reverse it against me / break my beliefs –which of course is all in a days work for a spiritual/philosopher type, but the name of the game is relentlessness and numbers (many against one, relentlessly chipping away) …. and this is how I came to pray, and this is how it came to be that the Lord’s Prayer suddenly rolled from my lips mnay hours/days(?) later when I finally got away, and yet it besides it feeling out of character for me, had the mark of them/the-damagers, because it felt mocking, even as it came out of my mouth, the sole comfort as I made my way down the road where the same truck kept driving by. Horrible fucking set of dreams.

all seems so long ago today, but dealing with that nebulous stuff can take a lot of energy –not the volumes of related synthesis since, but when it’s time to meet with another bit of self from the black holes of memory.

am i getting tired of web design/development? i was thinking this morning when even though I have actually some knowable tasks (nothing too intellectually demanding or tedious) I still can’t seem to find the interest to get up. I mean it started as just something else to teach myself and see if I enjoy it, then a way to make money, then a way to help people realize their net presence goals (as I developed more connections, the work got more meaningful and less for get-rich-splogging types), and now a much more developed and established way to both make money, and choose projects to help with because I can afford to do some work for less/free. Earlier I was just always doing stuff for free or less, though I could not afford it, because I like helping ppl, and because I was learning a lot. jump ahead to the last few months, and it’s a whole other game. too much work, too much demand, too much managing / not enough computing/brain power or time in a day…. but then this would make me lazy, so then you haveto also add in spending much less time working than it seemed like– adding not-enough-work-time to the mix. And but I can get away with it to a point. So, today, anyway a talking-toself about being grateful for the opportunity I have and all the pros about working from home, etc, helped to get me going.

so anyway, something is changing, it’s like there’s a fork in the road that must be taken eventually, and I feel like I’ve been waiting for the other for the longest time, but I also know it’s about needing more self-work. I mean it’s a push/pull thing, but we both contribute, so just because I’m feeling at the end of my rope today, doesn’t mean nothing’s happening, in fact it could mean the opposite, though everything seems so dead quiet.

end must end this before i get started because i must go back to work now, but more to come…

watched dogville last night and found it to be a curious marker for its variation on the role of scapegoat, or that phase /function in the path of personal development. quite interesting. i suppose i had gotten to where: i’m okay with disliking people, and I’m okay with not-bothering-not-to-hurt those who don’t deserve my other kind of love (:P) –in the film, she starts holding others to the same standards by which she lives her life, rather than feeling that mercy meant tolerating everyone–
, though not sure I would have shot everyone and torched dogville.lol

that’s funny though, right, because I’m thinking ‘every experiment deserves a good long run to see what development is possible’, but I suppose Nicole Kidman’s character was thinking the same thing, until, who knows, the nth time she was raped, or the nth time she saw people continually devolving and choosing the least transparent, most selfish and harmful choices, and seemingly in response to her kindness. think it was purposefully/artfully undefined after having introduced and explored so many biggies as far as philosophical themes. very heavy, as chad said, would have to agree with that.

SO, the entire moving process switches to plan b, which is lesser from a number of angles. Internet was already turned off here, so i fancy all i can do is ipod blog over pinons connection. Gonna miss you pinon. Youve always been there for me when our connection is having trouble:P thank you for not securing your stuff.

Reserved the truck, and so plan b here we come. Not as much time for moving on plan b, but hey it will just get done that much sooner. The thing thats killing me is “is bella ztill here? What do we do if in 10 days she does not appear?” if she IS still here and doesnt get trapped, it could well mean her death by sprayed insecticide before the next ppl move in. The horror. I just dont know what to do. Think she might jst be gone, but all the reading ive done suggests that they can be so skittish they can be undetectable if they want to be. And beyond providing more attracrive heating im not sure what else can be done to lure. There are so many bugs its difficjlt to imagine the crickets being enough to tip the scales. Ah- cant forget water. While weve been here, there has always been a drippy faucet here and bowls n the sink catching it, etc. With no catchers and sealed off faucets that waterfall in the terrarium will have to become very attractive after a few days. Ok, thats all we can do, and actually i suppose the odds are prettygood after 12 days if she has not been caught, she left long ago. In which case i have now iver 500 worth of lizard care stuff to sell on craigslist. Come on bella, unavoidable cataclysm is imminent, if you get on the ship we can guarantee your escape, but we cant make you go.lol. Oh yeah i do have something to do– think ill get off my ass and walk until action time.

Thanks, khet.

Before reading the MC comments on water fasting I noticed a couple of other things too. On water fasting I did not have as many detox symptoms. For example, on day 2 of MC I got a very bad headache and nausea for a few hours. I’m quite a baby when i comes to nausea, maybe, but it was horrible. As soon as I was about to fall asleep I’d have to jump up and pace around as another wave of nausea hit. This never happened on water fasts in the past. THAT SAID, those water fasts were all done during a time when I lived mostly by myself –when I live alone I naturally eat less and what I do eat is pretty much organic, veggie stuff.

(Anyway, on the water fasting I didn’t notice hunger as much in the early days as on MC, but then again I didn’t have others around making/eating food either. As far as having more detox symptoms, I suppose it could be a combination of SAD-eating-weekend and the lemons juice and cayenne pepper possibly cleaning out some stuff faster than just water. maybe. )

Whereas now…. I’ve been eating a lot of fresh veggies and organic stuff (for the last 4 months or so, but mixed with slightly more SAD type stuff for the 2 years previous), BUT last weekend before starting the cleanse I ‘got a wild hair’ as they say here in texas, and for the first time in many months decided to get a sampler of various kinds of SAD (standard american diet, as the MC ppl call it -cute). So that was fun– and not all un-nutritious –had souper-salad, movie popcorn(!love), KFC (hadn’t had extra crispy chicken in YEARS) with the gross but yummy thick mac&cheese and those distinctly KFC mashed potatoes, yummy pho the next day, which included one of those disgustingly sweet but deliciously clever way of getting even more delicious coffee flavor in it– iced ‘Vietnamese coffees’, also a super big latte the same weekend. SO…. … I think the headache could have been just from the 2 or 3 coffees I had over the weekend, even though I don’t tend to drink caffeine on a regular basis. This seems very likely, as some years ago a similar thing happenend: not being used to drinking coffee all the time, I went 3 or 4 days having one big late each day, then stopped and couldn’t figure out what the headaches were about (didn’t know about caffeine withdrawal headaches before).

Anyway, shooting for 10 days for this first ‘MC’. Should be timed just right to have 2-3 days to ease out of it, in time for b-day celebratory outtings with family. I’m really looking forward to a particular restaurant I don’t go to all that often, but for now not hungry at all. though… day 1-3 did bring some challenges and delicious smelling sessions helped. I noticed that thinking about the most delicious foods helped more than trying not to. ON day 1 I cooked dinner for Chad -thought that was mildly heroic -j/k. Actually, besides wanting to be nice, we’d bought all this really good food from Whole Foods I didn’t want going bad -one of them being a CHEESE (yum), and I just couldn’t stand the thought of that delicious natural cheese just sitting in the frige. So I made a yummy-smelling basil pesto, ricotta, tomato pasta dish. Turns out the natural goat ricotta was a little mmm interesting. Chad just could not describe the taste to me, and the smell was too mysterious, so I took a gob and smeared on my tongue, then washed my mouth out. Wow. I don’t think it was bad, but just goaty. I mean keep in mind that most trips to WHole Foods are like white bread kids in a whole new land (not that I grew up on white bread, but I know someone who got through most of college on sugar cereal and easy-mac -glad you’re still with us, beebs), so we hadn’t had goat ricotta before. But the best way I can describe it is it tasted like if you saw a big hairy goat and stuck your nose deep into its furry coat and inhaled deeply. lol. I called it feral pasta. Well ,supposedly it worked great with the other ingredients -or so he says, he’ll eat anything I give him, so keep that in mind.lol. but seriously, I was thinking how nice that is really, I mean sometimes I don’t get how he can not have food cares –like he never gets up and says ,”you know, a baked potato sounds really good, that’s what I want today”. He never has any requests or certain desires for food. Not me. So sometimes it’s a little frustrating because I sometimes like to make what I know ppl want to eat, and since he likes everything nearly the same.. you get the idea. ANyway, it also makes it easier to do these healthy food experiments because he goes right along with it. THough you know…. sometimes I still think he just doesn’t share his opinions and nature with me…like yesterday he was talking weird about driving through somewhere and getting a shake. hmmm, wonder if he did. skinny sugar lovers, a strange breed.

OH, SWF (salt water flush) -this is recommended each morning -2 tsp non-iodized salt in 1 quart water. I was reluctant to do this because I’ve been avoiding salt, and read that some people do not get a flushing response, and just absorb the salt -not what i wanted, so I waited until day 5 to do it. Though many people report problems getting it down, etc, I found it to be pretty simple and doable. I did 2 cups with 1 tsp, then another –drank all but 1/2 cup. Took about 3 minute for it to work, and about 45 minutes of off and on but peeing. fun. but seriously, if I’d known it was so effective I would have started it sooner. It says you can do the lax tea morning and night if you don’t do the SWF, but I found that the SWF really cleans things out more efficiently. I mean it’s day 5 and this morning I actually got solid stuff out. So anyway, yeah, might not do it for the first 3 days or so to wait for food to clear, thus lessening chance of absorbing it, but then again, if i ever have such horrible detox symptoms again on early days (1-3) I will do the SWF.

ordered a complete terrarium getup for Bella. Yep, that’s my fantasy now: The bad-ass terrarium will be assembled with night heat lamp, day lamp, waterfall, fogger, under-tank heat pad, etc. I will place this heavenly terrarium on the floor in the kitchen, just in front of Bella’s under-fridge hide. Then add in a couple yummmmy worms and deliciously crunchy crickets… and she will not be able to resist the urge to get in that terrarium! I mean maybe a little far-fetched, but maybe not… It’s been very cold here still. What with the heat always not working if we go for a day without using it (get tired of calling maintenance so we just live with it, I mean it’s Houston, it’s a very mild winter for like 6 weeks). But anyway, I think it’s been a little tough on Bella, sure the frige makes heat, but even that not so much wince it doesn’t have to turn on as much during the cold.

So, that’s the plan. I think I will also turn the frige to the highest setting -no point in fucking around -thought of unpluggin it but don’t want to break it, as can happen with friges left unplugged for too long. If a day or 2 with heavenly terrarium placed nearby don’t lure her, then it’s time to try a variation of the ‘funnel trap’, THEN if that doesn’t work, get out the thick gloves and just pull out the fridge and grab her without losing a finger. fun!

So, about $350 later, the attempted natural roach control becomes a pampered pet, so that we can stop trying natural roach control.lol Naw, it’s that this old ass building is not sealed up. They don’t bother to keep up on sealing cracks inside or outside, all they do is more and more poison. I’ve tried to block he cracks, but it’s a losing battle. Moral of the story is any old and cheap apartment in houston is likely to have bugs if you don’t let them spray poison every 3-6 months. If a place is sealed up and maintained my usual natural solutions work just fine.

off for a walk…

Who are they, what are they, and what do they mean to me? These are the questions I am asking myself as well. One layer of this puzzle shows the former entities as musicians and artistic collectives yearning to freedom the cryptic associations like chains that weigh down thoughtless casual morality, and bind the authoritative predispositions of a public lost, not thinking for itself as it gets lead to the edge of the precipice. Each of these monikers represents an incarnate structure, and possibly one that includes some of the potent but dormant archetypes of the past, because no one can say what defines a perfect vision within this swiftly interconnected state with total certainty. Between them artistically are the smallest gaps as the circuitry of each respective collaborator cross-hatching together with the next, creating a perceptual three dimensions, but solid holographic projection from that cosmic third eye. A storybook illusion through strife and struggle, until we are standing at the gates of mystery so profound as that no one would ever find it the same way again, and from these tales are woven the phases of archetypal evolution. From levels mundane, to higher realms of inspiration, and back down through the incarnate forms. An idea of some kind of elemental electricity charging the circuits in the ever-repeating cycle with all the variables of the material world changing the combination of god and mortal drama to challenge the progress of conscious systems made reality. The ‘mindless IF, the ‘Nny Ppy’ (pronounced ‘nee-pee’), and the ‘VAC’… Separately known and functional as Mindless Self Indulgence, Skinny Puppy, and Velvet Acid Christ.

First, let us begin by reaffirming that these statements are purely my own feelings and opinions, and not necessarily a cosmic actuality in progress. Though inspired by the structure of a “holy trinity”, in no way am I trying to prove that there is incontrovertible truth to these ideas that I administer, and these are merely passing interests and connections within my own mind as I have documented them in varying degrees of detail. Again, these perspectives are something I take for being all my own in a limited point of view, but if others happen to share or see enlightenment in these words, then I challenge them to contact me to share any other connections there might be. Thank you.

Skinny Puppy; the devouring element in the triumvirate, that which reveals the base underbelly at the root of some of the more cruel aspects of humanity, and representing to some effectiveness the inevitable things. Our polite curtains we uphold to prevent sight into our private machinations are torn down when listening to this music, sight of unutterable existence forms from the shadow of isolated contemporary identity, and points out how we move like vapid drones marching ahead of the rest. This music reveals to me the spirit, both broken and that with hope and faith remaining, and this charge as what makes the progression from album to album consistent in a very fundamental way. Using the experimental medium as a means to portray unjust veneer to our hypocrisy. Earlier Puppy, has the sting of angst and anger sharpened (sharpening) into needle-point accuracy, striking and sinking into release the poison, and subverting the programmed response once again. Keeping the restless on their toes, beginning with Key’s background to Ogre’s foreground, but duo becomes trio and back again in such a short but powerfully profound movement that years pass before news of truth comes through their shared stage presence. Now, we have moved into discussion of the archetypes and their myth-making efforts, sounding out a call to bring us back from ironic shores, and to begin seeing the ability to understand taking things into our own hands instead of just letting the blood spill onto them by default.

Mindless Self Indulgence; hyperactive expression of prehensile and sophomoric tendencies to touch on all the rest of the issues, the wild and vigorous quality to the three part series, and their music hits the entire spectrum of attitudes in a way that mocks with total immunity from negative infringement. These ladies and gentlemen are punk as the spirit was truly devised to be, a means to spread the wealth around, and the best way has always been through tapping into those commonly related feelings that occur between one another. This energy is electric to the touch, and this is what stodgy old men drool over before they die without accomplishing any of their dreams. The inner child dies after only so many bitter real-time experiences become truth for a person, leaving yearned for ghosts of fancy behind, and sometimes recapturing the lost souls by the ankles and dragging them to the pits of the ecstasy and the agony of middle life crisis as decay sets in.

Velvet Acid Christ; the neutral tone of this equation, but certainly no less valuable to the circuit overall, and though many might perceive the entity of VAC to be a product of Skinny Puppy’s innovation. That is only half right because though the two Kevins made a name for themselves earlier than the mastermind behind VAC, there are more elements of the musician incorporated into VAC’s body of work, and this is the same cultural derivative that the other two feed from as well. The iteration loop carries with it all repercussions of the sounds before, and because a certain note of serious digression seeps into the “dark humor” tone that VAC displays, there is never a simple lumping for VAC to be placed within. Elements of industrial, rock, metal, and many other types of electronic music factor into the final picture of the Velvet Acid Christ as a complete entity realized. It is from this center that the other sides of the triumvirate seem compelled to lock into place, recycling energy and archetypes with equal measure despite the surface misconception that these musics commonly summon emotions that are referred to in extreme adjectives and negative connotations, and made scapegoats for such attentions. These provocations are made by ‘retro-link’ viewpoints that see backwards the truth of development, and forwards into a present-day cesspool from which no other ones but the right ones will escape. A total failure.

Powerful incarnations of archetypal energies that have existed forever in one form or another, each a different face or aspect of this congruent relationship to coalesce as the triumvirate, or the Holy Trinity in another way of looking at it. Well, actually, I’m not too sure yet of the exact relation to this particular trinity there is biblically-speaking. All three forces stand equal in the field of music, having carved their niches in the world we have today and are therefore balanced on this plane. However, each has certain attributes that give rise to the accent of various particular formations in the energy and thus nature of the expression, and this is what I prepared to delve into even if it might seem rather “far out there”.

Might it really get that loud? If we threw these three into a large room together with their instruments of preference, and would that make a stunning enough movie that people would pay to see it? Is that a question there was actually any need in answering in front of audiences because obviously there was some kind of market going for this “meeting of the minds” televised, and yet I feel essentially at peace in knowing that I caught a glimpse of these three wise men waxing guitar in their variously geeky ways. The special, which was what it really felt like, was consistent in revealing each respective musician in their particular element. Speaking personally on the genuine movement from earlier clunky constructions of sound into what made them great, each was candid with a history of their unique discovery of the instrument. Except for Jack, they all seemed to radiate a “little-boy-in-love-with-their-instrument” aura, and jammed a few of each others songs together. How lovely to see the children playing with their toys.

“to turn to the next, Page…”
Page was interesting for his “dirty old man/wise elder” dichotomy, playing off the legendary status without a hint of irony as he let the film makers into his home, but it is no wonder with Page as one of the primary people responsible for bringing the whole project together. Honestly, I never discovered Led Zeppelin until much later, and still don’t have the individual respect for the band that it would seem every other idiot and his son could idolize as holy towards them all. I have been introduced through my culture to their “high” art of music, and have so far only found snippets that weigh anything in-between my ears. As a bass fanatic, my respect is held for the more enigmatic John Paul Jones, and the wish and a hope that he and two other bass players could talk shop televised.

“it cuts to The Edge…”
To say that I do not like much U2 is an understatement, but to say that I absolutely disregard their skills as musicians would be a bold-faced lie at the very least. The Edge is not the least appreciable persona in this band, Bono strives to make the effort in that department with a genuine ease, and the other members seem to make the reluctant faces of musicians who have hit their stride no matter how professional their “chops” may be. However, when I hear ‘New Years’ Day’ or ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’, I get a certain feeling I can’t readily describe. Like many of the songs that we all truly love listening to. These musicians, whoever they are, are the conduits to a destiny that defies logical description. The average person does not necessarily have the bravado to impose their way into situations which tap into the grand inspiration, but those who seek will find a version that conforms to the truth of the experience envisioned. He gets to play his guitar in the Highlands, out by a loch somewhere there, and the echoes drive stars mad. I am so envious of that, he has gotten past the reigns of obscurity, and become able to be anyone’s friend.

“White, out…”
The final person to seem worth their salt in the struggle was Jack White, who really didn’t seem to consider himself a musician at all, but took on the stance of the scientific bluesman whose experiments into sound have yielded star results. His “sister” and he made that first great leap back into the “stone age” to come up with a guitar and drum duo that took some boundaries to a new level altogether, what they respectfully chose to enlist into their repertoire from the immediate past of struggle and tribulation, has helped to push music forward while hailing to the past. I remember going through his “guitar” line once I figured it out, over and over again, and still play the same song that Jack taught the other two on that fateful day. ‘Seven Nation Army’. I’m still getting the hang of playing it as a bass line, singing along with it when I can, but many things flit through and about the brain stem all at once. Sometimes it is easy to lose concentration when all things go haywire without attention. Sorry. I really liked the model of guitar that Jack plays that he had built custom, and this sweet beast has a Green Hornet microphone built into it. There is nothing finite quite like the pristine glimpse of this artist’s work at large.