A handsome piece of deformity.

Deeply exhausted and desperately need sleep, but I’d be remiss were I not to mention how incredible a weekend I had prior to snooze-deluxe. Spent two nights occupying a bed with Amy (it’s bound to be a novelty forever, folks; I’m just that kind of guy), the better part of forty-eight hours in the company of friends, conversing, joking, laughing, and sharing, and approximately six hours Saturday afternoon learning the necessary basics of skydiving. This training was followed by approximately six minutes, spread equally over Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon, falling seven thousand feet from the sky on two separate occasions.

It’s funny, really. I haven’t been in an airplane since I was two years old, and have no memory of it, at that. As of this weekend, I’ve been in an aircraft twice and now possess an inkling of an idea as to what it’s like taking off from a runway. However, I’ve absolutely no clue what the sensation of landing in a plane is like, having bailed both times at 3,500 feet and let gravity escort me down. Between Amy and I, we managed four jumps over two days and traversed upwards of 14,000 (vertical) feet. It’s an experience I wholly recommend to everyone.

Mad props to everyone I shared the weekend with, but to Chris especially, who dragged my earthbound ass up to Eden. Rock on!

Gearing up for another school year, and I have to say, I’m having more fun than I’m likely entitled to. There’s something magical about word processing and binder organization, something that playing DOOM3 or reading a book doesn’t have the benefit of without interference: music. See, I love music, adore it, and crunching out syllabi or assignments has never been more enjoyable then when it’s been done to the accompaniment of, say, the new Arcana on Cyclic Law. Of late, I’ve been listening to a lot of the following: Bad Sector, Beefcake, First Law, Navicon Torture Technologies, Novy Svet, Squaremeter, and Somatic Responses. For those curious — and I know that there are at least two of you reading this who are — that’s a nice starting list for some of the best, in my opinion, bands with multiple releases in the past few years.

Beyond that, getting ready to plummet towards the earth at terminal velocity from 3,500 feet tomorrow afternoon, in the company of my friends and fiancée. Char’s threatened me with some of her cooking — and I mean that in a good way — and also proposed that we, meaning Chris, Simon, Amy and I and many others, start a book club in the near future. I’m really looking forward to all of these things; skydiving, great food, and good reading accomplished in the pursuit of academic discussion.

No complaints here, despite work looming on the horizon like a behemoth.

“Wow! What’s this thing coming towards me very fast? Very VERY fast! It’s so big… and flat… and round… it needs a big wide sounding name. Like… ow… ound… round…… ground! That’s it! Ground! I wonder if it will be friends with me?”

DOOM3. Nightmare. Owned.

:)

/saunters off to bed, humming Queen.

Last night, I opted to try my luck at championing DOOM3 on the hardest difficulty: Nightmare. Having breezed through the game on Veteran, I figured it only fair that I try for victory on the now-unlocked and most difficult setting.

Nightmare is distinct from the other levels of difficulty in that there are no medical kits (though wall-mounted emergency units are still in effect), ammunition is more abundant (unnecessarily, in my estimation — there was far too much on Veteran… and now there’s even more), and — here’s the real kicker — the health of your character is in constant flux. Any health procured is temporary, dropping to a maximum of twenty-five percent at a rate of (approximately) one point per second, with a condescending demonic voice admonishing you for being “obsolete”. Additionally, you start the game with the Soul Cube, something you wouldn’t normally obtain until two-thirds of the way through the game. Though the Soul Cube grossly unbalanced the final third of DOOM3 on Veteran in favour of the player, it has thus far proven itself invaluable, and seems essential for making completion of the game on Nightmare feasible.

I’m having a blast, though I can’t say the same for my enemies: I’ve played for only a handful of hours and I’m already in the Delta Labs, having torn additional orifices into every creature encountered thus far. To say that the ever-diminishing health of your character is motivation to move quickly would be an understatement of gross proportion: when you’ve only got the health temporarily, and the munitions to really kick some ass, you move, and you move fast, making every second count.

Those who know me know that I love music with something bordering on obsession. I run a small record label, have a compact disc collection that is quickly approaching twelve-hundred CDs, and purchase and digest music at a rate akin to alarming (I am, at present, expecting no less than twenty-five discs in the mail from a variety of distributors and musicians; more, if you wish to count double- and triple- albums as two and three, respectively).

While I’ve only dabbled with crafting my own music, I’ve known enough musicians in my time and own enough discs to understand one thing above all others: artists deserve compensation for what they do. Now, think what you may, but this isn’t going to be a baseless tirade against mp3s (I’m all for them, as this post shall make explicit; mp3s don’t kill good music, they promote it). Rather, this post, a revision of an essay I posted to the Tumorlist nearly two years ago, is a dissertation on why musical art for which a demand exists must not be allowed to rot, half-remembered, in the purgatory that is an out-of-print state.

Some time ago I made the decision to pursue and purchase each release by Les Joyaux De La Princesse, be it current or long deleted. At the time that I vowed to find and treasure each release by Mr. Erik Konofal, I had but the loosest sense of how financially costly my endeavour would be. However, my utter fascination with the project’s carefully conceived orchestral drones and brilliantly aesthetic packaging appealed far too much to my auditory sense and personal historical interests to be denied.

Had I only known then what it was that I was stepping into. Tracking down, let alone purchasing copies of Les Joyaux De La Princesse items has proven to be a task well beyond my financial means and, most likely, beyond those of most individuals. Perhaps this applies to but a few of you, but I feel that I speak for many people when I lament the loss of beautiful releases, such as those written by Erik Konofal, to the sands of time — meaning, older releases are available only to those with pockets deep enough to afford them due to their respective rarity.

Mp3s have proven to be a source of satisfaction, albeit limited, in my pursuit. Fortunately for me I am blessed in having high bitrate encodings of the majority of Les Joyaux De La Princesse’s discography. Unfortunately, even mp3s of high quality fall victim to the shortcomings of audio compression and lack the exquisite packaging typical of each release. Much to my chagrin, it appears that mp3s are to be my only source of pleasure in regards to Les Joyaux De La Princesse due to personal financial restraint. I am eager to help support Erik Konofal’s musical endeavours through the purchasing of his discography, but buying through a private channel such as eBay is not only frighteningly expensive, it does nothing to lend any degree of financial support to him.

It is my hope that one day, perhaps soon, Les Joyaux De La Princesse himself will allow his out-of-print rarities to be republished. It is with growing dismay that I see items related to the project sell for hundreds of dollars on eBay, knowing that not a single penny of the sale is going to the man responsible for the music being sold. With each passing day and with each Les Joyaux De La Princesse item I see on the auction circuit I hope desperately, though most certainly not altruistically, that Erik’s material will see wide-spread availability in the immediate future. In the meantime, the free market will continue to prey on those eager to own copies of the material for it’s own personal gain.

A further example of this can be seen in some of Coil’s recent releases. Coil, prolific as ever despite — or perhaps in spite of — a twenty-plus year career, have been touring heavily in Europe and peddling concert-only CD-Rs at their shows. This is a wonderful opportunity for those fans living in Europe who are fortunate enough to live near the venue, but an unfortunate consequence of living in North America, as I do, is that I’ve — like the vast majority of North American fans — never had (and likely never will) the pleasure of witnessing a live Coil show, nor perusing their merchandise booths, nor making their affable acquintance either before or after the show. This cuts me and many others off from the variety of concert-only releases pressed, though I admit that I’ve managed to obtain copies of both the original Remote Viewer and the original ANS.

However, each of the aforementioned items was obtained through eBay, wherein I was forced to compete against other like-minded — and likely geographically isolated — fans, through the power of the dollar, of which Coil never saw a cent. This is my biggest objection to musicians allowing material to languish in a deleted state; where a demand exists, it should be filled. It is a most unfortunate state of affairs when certain people can turn a gross profit by attending a concert, purchasing at least five copies of a release, and selling them immediately to less fortunate fans.

Coil, however, has wised up to this. In response to rampant demand, they’ve opted to made available the latest tour CD-R through their website, promised the re-release of previous concert-only discs in a revised and expanded format, and overall, bent over backwards to best accomdate their decades of fandom. Personally, having the option to purchase Black Antlers directly from Thresholdhouse, knowing that it is Coil reaping the benefit… I am all too happy to do so, knowing that the entity responsible for the music in question is profiting through their art. It is a wondrous thing that Coil has responded in this manner, and I suppose that certain people who have played the auction circuit to their personal advantage are partially to thank for this — especially if the band’s move is in direct response to it — but I cannot help but pity the fans (to think, I nearly typed “poor fans”, though that would hardly be prudent given what some of those discs sold for, now would it?) who shelled out small fortunes for this disc.

Bottomline, I am dissatified with the availability of certain releases by certain musicians. In all instances I am willing to support the source of the material, the artist, and am unable to. Market demand, such as the high bids, the number of bidders and the price frequently fetched on the auction circuit translates to high demand for the material. This could be extended beyond Les Joyaux De La Princesse to bands such as Genocide Organ, Der Blutharsch, and many, many more. It’s interesting to note that some bands beyond Coil, such as Haus Arafna, Navicon Torture Technologies, Propergol and Slogun are having — or have had — rare items reprinted and remastered for release — rare items that have fetched top-dollar on eBay and will soon see wide-spread distribution, because the demand has been so great.

I suppose then that I ask of you, gentlemen and ladies, why can’t Les Joyaux De La Princesse be more like Navicon Torture Technologies? Why can’t Genocide Organ be more like Coil? What reasons does a musician have for not republishing out-of-print items, particularily when there is such a clear and obvious demand for it?

ADDENDUM: I’m likely to revise this post, for clarity as well as clerical reasons, rounding it out with a handful of links, perhaps include further eBay analysis (of Les Joyaux De La Princesse), as well as the possible inclusion of a paragraph acknowledging that, yes, I know that these prices are being paid because the person bidding has chosen to do so.

Time flies when procrastinating in the face of a looming workload. The end of August is a time that, really, I despise; a time that’s spent clinging desperately to the tattered remains of summer and subconsciously acknowledging — if only through the very denial of — the start of another year of my career come September. Just thirty more years until retirement… at least…

As alluded to in previous updates, I had my wisdom teeth extracted on August 10th. The several days following the surgery — August 10 through August 16 — were spent confined to a bed, with any attempts to move quickly humbled through exhaustion. The first few post-operative days and nights found me at Amy’s, out of necessity due to my entire family being in British Columbia, and under supervision as the result of operative complications. Apparently — and I have no memory of this given that I was unconscious at the time — I was intubated during the course of my surgery due to “significant bloodloss”, and had something or other cause my sinuses grief. Needless to say, I was not a happy man upon awaking; I looked as though I’d gone ten rounds with a professional boxer and felt about the same. The novelty of looking like a mongoloid chipmunk rapidly diminished in the face of spitting up blood, a massive earache, slurred speech, and dizzy spells. In the eleven days since, I’ve recovered well and am now sporting a well-groomed beard for my troubles, due to the fact that I’d been unable to shave due to tenderness of the jaw.

While my mouth was out of commission, the thing I missed most was kissing. For the first two nights after my surgery, to be sharing a bed with Amy but feeling utterly sexless, was torture. Beyond that, I missed eating solid food with something akin to desperation. Since my mouth and jaw have started feeling like my own again, I’ve had not only my share of kissing — when it has been available, natch — but also of solid, sweet, chewable food. So… good…! When I first moved out on my own back in December, I had an epiphany, in that food tasted better when I was paying for it. Recovery of my faculties since the extraction of my wisdom teeth has resulted in something similar; an appreciation for food that was previously unrealized. Hell, to help celebrate the occasion and to thank Amy’s parents for putting up with and taking care of me for three days and two nights, I’m taking Amy and her folks out for dinner sometime in the immediate future.

I saw my sisters the other day for the time in several, given that they’d been on Vancouver Island with my parents. The eldest of the two amused me greatly by commenting on two things: that I looked thinner than I had previously, and that the red in my beard highlighted the red in my hair. See, due to my eating hardly anything for a week, I shed somewhere in the neighbourhood of eight pounds; on the plus side, I lost the slight paunch I’d accumulated over the past year, but now weigh in at a malnourished 150 pounds — a wee bit less than necessary to survive a famine. Given my newfound love for food, I look forward to putting the eight pounds lost back on again, but this time, in a much more healthy manner. I found the red hair comment especially funny, given that I’m not a red-head by any stretch of the imagination. Yet, oddly, growing in my beard are hairs that are undeniably red, as they have been doing for the past several years at least. Looking in the mirror rather carefully today, I think I can see what Michelle saw: that I do in fact have slight traces of red in my otherwise dirty blonde hair.

Chatting with my sisters was a good experience. I rarely realize that I miss them until I’m in the same room; they’re good kids (hey, they’ll always be kids to me — I’m the Big Brother) and a lot of fun to be around. They shared their vacation photos with me, their sense of humour, and showed me their recently acquired bungy jumping videos. Looks like they had one helluva time on the Island, and makes me wish for the chance to bungy. Suppose I’ll just have to console myself by diving out of a plane with a bunch of mates of mine next weekend… weather permitting, of course.

Amy’s heading out of town tonight for a brief sojourn in the country, spending the weekend among friends dear to her dear heart. She’s likely to have a blast roaming the wilderness, and is apt to be captivated by the natural beauty of the breathtaking Rockies. Her dashing out of town this weekend is probably both the best and the worst thing for me; best in the sense that it’ll give me ample time to prepare for the coming work year, and worst in the sense that I get very needy prior to the beginning of each September, almost as if I’m trying to shore up my self-confidence and self-esteem, my natural defenses, by having others remind me of my strengths prior to being tossed to the baying packs of wild children.

Dreams alternately fueled by flaring sensation or painkiller. Lucid. Epiphany tonight while drifting in and out; the world is a shithole. One day, the entirety of the heavenly body decided to create Earth because there was just too much crap in Heaven, and it had to go somewhere.

Earth is Heaven’s toilet bowl. Heaven stays pure and clean thanks to the dumping ground that is Earth, whereas all of humanity gets to mire and swallow and wallow in the shit that is Heaven’s biological refuse. Funny thing is, shit’s a great fertilizer… and life on Earth was an accident, a curiousity that took root and sprung forth from the froth that was God’s diarrhea.

Almost daily, an angel or two casts a line — a fishing line — into the Bowl for the Bowel, and from it are pulled any number of human beings. Each and every time, the angels are flabbergasted to find that, despite the divine origin of humanity, humans seem incapable of doing anything, being completely encased in caked crap, unable to move beneath the ever-increasing weight of it all.

Kind of puts things into perspective…

Finished DOOM3 at 1AM last night. Will post thoughts in the near future, though how near that is, what with my wisdom teeth coming out Tuesday, remains to be seen.

oh my god DOOM3 rules

You’d think that after waiting several years since the last installment and four years since it’s announcement, I’d be able to wait one more day for the new DOOM game.

But no.

I’m slowly going mad, and reading online accounts of people who already have copies thanks to some retailers selling copies before the official release date is only raising my ire further. Calls to local shops all yield the same result — game won’t be available until tomorrow. Argh!

Anyone else out there suffering the same dire straits as I? I mean, I’m a die-hard old-school DOOM nut and am eager to see if my predictions and hopes for the game (as plainly outlined in this article) were accurate.

Gah… so close, yet so far.

Rather, I’m Bach.

The Island, at least the portions we visited, was a blast. I’ll have a full update regarding the (mis)adventures of Amy and I once I procure the travelogue that I infrequently kept on the road because it is, as far as I can recall, sitting on m’love’s desk at this moment.

That said, my cat (currently whacking a bottle cap all over the room) has been all over me since my return. He won’t let me out of his sight, follows me from room to room to room, and jumps into my lap, bed, arms or at my legs at every available opportunity. It’s endearing, in a frightening “my cat is a stalker” kind of way. I missed him, too.

Anyways, further updates shall follow this one in time, though I can’t say exactly when. Given that Posted in General | 3 Comments »