We are becoming irrelevant award-chasers.

~ Jeff Goodby, AdAge

I agree with a lot that Jeff Goodby says in this AdAge article, but know also that there are a couple shops in Portland that do indeed have a vision of changing the world.

Throne of Blood

Misune Pin Cushion

One of my favorite Kurosawa movies. From a director’s perspective: the amount of time waiting to get the fog results needed is a marvel to me.

I loved Range Murata’s military aesthetic in Last Exile and it looks to be present in the new work from Gonzo as well. This looks a lot like Nausicaa.

Early word is that 2009 is going to be an impressively strong year. So, thank you Vendetta Music for making some of the great things that happened in 2007, bleed all over 2008. 2008 needed the abuse.

I have heard and seen some great bands this year. However, I must say that there was not enough to constitute a top ten like I have years prior. I’m not saying that there wasn’t anything capable that was published, nor am I saying that it was all shit. I’m simply saying, compared to prior years, there wasn’t a lot of albums that blew my socks off this year. No, HexRx. No, Brain Leisure. etc. So, this year I’m choosing to list off everything that I remember listening^[1] to over the year (and I’m SURE I’m forgetting something… -as a matter of fact, I need to add Battery Cage’s digital only release now-) and am just saying if they were good, crappy or average.

I’m also adding some nuggets to the right hand-channel. A video, some quotes from the year by artists and various cover arts. Enjoy!

RATING KEY:

• Artist Name – Album Title = Excellent

• Artist Name – Album Title = Good

• Artist Name – Album Title = Above average.
• Artist Name – Album Title = Average.
• Artist Name – Album Title = Not so good.
• Artist Name – Album Title = FAIL-WHALE

If you are looking to purchase any of these albums, give all that hard earned .

2008: A year of tonal coitus in the ears of Stonethorn

[distatix] – Medication

Accessory – More Than Machinery

Adam-X – State Of Limbo

Ad·ver·sary – Bone Music

Aerodrone – Sceneboy

Aesthetic Perfection – A Violent Emotion^[2]

Agonised by Love – Lovesick Society^[3]

Agonoize – For The Sick And Disturbed
Ah Cama-Sotz – Declaration of Innocence, Limited Edition^[4]
Alec Empire – The Golden Foretaste Of Heaven

Alter Der Ruine – Giants From Far Away

Ambassador21 – Justified Thirst For Blood
Amduscia – Madness In Abyss
Amnistia – Blackguard
Anders Manga – Xs And The Eyes
Angelspit – Blood Death Ivory
Angie Damage – Nicotine Tongue

Animassacre – Evolve
Anne Clark – Full Moon
Apocalyptica – Worlds Collide, Special Edition
AqME – Heresie
Arcaide – Cyclic Sound From The Form
Artifact – Only Salvation

Ashbury Heights – Morningstar In A Black Car EP

Atrocity – Werk 80 II, Deluxe Edition
AutoAuto – Celeste
Ayreon – 01011001
Ayria – Hearts For Bullets, Limited Edition
Ayria – The Gun Song
Ayumi Hamasaki – Guilty
Bauhaus – Go Away White

Baxter Lilly – Unsichtbare Flecken

Behind The Scenes – Fragment[ed]
Birthday Massacre, The – Looking Glass
Black Heaven – Negativ
Black Light Burns – Cover Your Heart & the Anvil Pants Odyssey^[5]
Blank – Impact Zone
Blutengel – Dancing In The Light (Forsaken)
Blutengel – Dancing In The Light (Solitary)
Blutengel – Winter Of My Life/Point Of No Return

Boole – The Vital Few

Boris – Message/Floor Shaker
Boris – Smile
Bug, The – Angry Ganja

Bug, The – London Zoo
C/A/T – At Peace
Chiasm – Reform
Children Of Bodom – Blooddrunk
Christian Death – Six Six Sixth Communion
Client – Untitled Remix
Coil – The New Backwards
Collide – Two Headed Monster
Colony 5 – Buried Again

agonised-by-love-lovesick-society

Combichrist – Frost EP Sent To Destroy

Cruxshadows, The – Immortal

Die Form – Bach Project
Die Form – Her(t)z Frequenz

Enduser – Left

ESA – How Pure Would Your Utopia Be
Essence Of Mind – Insurrection^[8]

evol-intent-era-of-diversion

Evol Intent – Era Of Diversion

Faderhead – FH3
Faint, The – Fasciinatiion
Felix Marc – Pathways
FGFC820 – Law And Ordnance, Limited Edition^[9]
Filter – Anthems For The Damned
Firefox AK – If I Were A Melody
Fixmer McCarthy – Into The Night^[10]

F.O.D – Synthesizer Tanzmusik

Foretaste – Terrorist TV
Foundation Hope – Tunes For The Wounded
Fractional – Come Mierda
Funker Vogt – White Trash

Gary Numan – Jagged Edge^[11]

Geomatic – Blue Beam

Gothminister – Happiness In Darkness
Grid, The – Doppelganger

Hadouken! – Declaration of War
Hadouken! – Music For An Accelerated Culture
Hanzel Und Gretyl – 2012 Zwanzig Zwo?lf

Hardwire – Konflict

HEALTH – Disco
Hercules And Love Affair – Hercules And Love Affair
Hex On – In Slow Motion
Hocico – Memorias Atras
Hybrid – Finished Symphony, Remixed
Iambia – Provocateur, Limited Edition

IAMX – President^[12]

IC 434 – Bacteriate
Idiot Pilot – Wolves
Illusion Of Light – 3ndlo2
Imperative Reaction – Minus All

informatik-beyond

Informatik – Beyond

Integral – Rise
Interface – Destination Focus
Iris – Hydra
Iris – Lands Of Fire
James D. Stark – Moonstruck
Jens Bader – Compensation For Pain And Suffering-The Best Of 1991-2004
Jens Bader – Out Of Phase
Jesus On Extasy – Beloved Enemy, Limited Edition

johnny-hollow-dirty-hands

Johnny Hollow – Dirty Hands

Junkie XL – Booming Back At You
Juno Reactor – Gods & Monsters^[13]
kETvECTOR – The Infinite Regress

Kloq – Move Forward

KMFDM – Brimborium
KMFDM – Extra – Volume 1
KMFDM – Extra – Volume 2
Kontour – Scanners
Krystal System – Underground
L’Ame Immortelle – Namenlos
La Magra – Schwarze Boten, Silver Edition

Ladytron – Velocifero

Lahannya – Welcome To The Underground
Laibach – Laibachkunstderfuge
Latexxx Teens – Death Club Entertainment

Leandra – Metamorphine

Left Spine Down – Fighting For Voltage

Legion – Legion
Leæther Strip – Civil Disobedience
Leæther Strip – Retention No.2
Leæther Strip – When Blood Runs Dark

le-diktat-unabomber

Le Diktat – Unabomber

London After Midnight – Oddities (Live, Rare, Acoustic, Remix)
London After Midnight – Selected Scenes From The End Of The World
Lucidstatic – Gravedigger
Machinae Supremacy – Overworld
Man And Machines – Analog Hearts, Digital Minds
Manufactura – Psychogenic Fugue, Limited Edition
Margareds – Kingdom Of Patience
Mark Nicholas – Perversions
Mars Volta, The – The Bedlam In Goliath

Meat Beat Manifesto – Autoimmune

Memmaker – How To Enlist In A Robot Uprising

Midnight Resistance – Remote
Mind Necrosis Factor – Morphogenesis

Mindless Self Indulgence – If

Mindless Self Indulgence – Never Wanted To Dance, The Remixes
Mindless Self Indulgence – On It
Mindless Self Indulgence – Pay For It
Ministry – Cover Up

Miss Construction – Kunstprodukt

Miss Kittin – Batbox

Modulate – Detonation
Mono-Anime – Industrial Thought Patterns
Monolith – Reborn
Morgan Page – Elevate
Moshpit – Follow The Loser

Nachtmahr – Feuer Frei!

miss-kittin-batbox

Nine Inch Nails – Ghosts I-IV

Nine Inch Nails – The Slip

Noctiferia – Slovenska Morbida
Nordschlacht – Silence, Beauty And Cruelty
Nordvargr – Pyrrhula
Nurzery [Rhymes] – Thorns

Object – The Ethane Asylum

Ohgr – Devils In My Details
Olhon – Underwater Passage
Oomph – Monster
Otto Dix – Starost
Pain – Cynic Paradise^[14]

Pendulum – In Silico

Pivot – Original Soundtrack, My Heart
Plastic Noise Experience, The – Reiz und Reaktion
Plastic Toys – For Tonight Only

portion-control-slug

Portion Control – Slug

Portishead – Third
Proyecto Mirage – Turn It On
Puscifer – V Is For The Viagra – The Remixes
Qntal – VI Translucida

rabbit-junk-this-life-is-where-you-get-fucked

Rabbit Junk – This Life Is Where You Get Fucked

Ratatat – LP3

Recently Deceased – Cellardoor

Red Cell – Lead To Follow
Red Flag – Once Past Twice Future
Red Flag – Remnants
Retractor – The False Memory
Revue Noir – Anthology Archive
Rex The Dog – I Can See You, Can You See Me
Rex The Dog – The Rex The Dog Show

Rome – Masse Mensch Material

Rotersand – I Cry, Limited Edition
Rozencrantz – Romancer
Run Level Zero – Arctic Noise
SAM – Destruction Unit
Sara Noxx – XX-Ray
Scarlet Leaves – Outlining States Of Mind
Second Version – Schwarzer Engel Kuess Mich
Smashing Pumpkins, The – American Gothic
Soil And Eclipse – The Mirror

Solar Fake – Broken Grid

Sonne Hagal – Jordansfrost
Standeg – Ultrahightechviolet^[15]
State Of The Union – Evol Love Industry
Straftanz – Forward Ever, Backward Never!

stray-abuse-by-proxy

Stray – Abuse By Proxy

Suicidal Romance – A Kiss To Resist^[16]
System Syn – End
System Syn – Like Every Insect

T.Raumschmiere – I Tank U

Teknoist, The – Like A Hurricane Made Of Zombie
Tenth Stage, The – Grand Guignol
Thermostatic – Humanizer
Torrent Vaccine – Tentative Response
Travailleur En Trance – Cobra Coded Escalation
Tyske Ludder – Scientific Technology
Uberbyte – Sic
Unsun – The End Of Life

UnterART – Memento

Wavefall – Heartstarter
Welle Erdball – Ich Bin Aus Plastik

Wire – Object 47^[17]

Within Temptation & The Metro – Black Symphony
:wumpscut: – DJ Dwarf Eight
:wumpscut: – Dwarf Craving
:wumpscut: – Schaedlingsbox^[18]
Wynardtage – Praise The Fallen, Silver Edition Redux
Wynardtage – The Grey Line, Silver Edition

x-fusion-vast-abysm

X-Fusion – Vast Abysm

Xotox – Hyperactive
XP8 – The Art Of Revenge

Y-Luk-O – Sin(n)

WARNING: I’m not a big compilation fan and so, while I’ve listened to these – they don’t warrant any rating in my book. Compilations are nothing more than promotional material.

Various Artist, Label Compilation Albums:

Batbeliever Gothic Compilation, Part 39
Capture & Tension
Cyanotic Presents Gears Gone Wild
Das Bunker, Brighter Than A Thousand Suns
Elektrish Vol. 3
Extreme Lustlieder Vol. 2
Extreme Suendenfall Vol. 7
Extreme Traumfaenger Vol. 7
Forms Of Hands 08
Futureclash 2
Infacted 4
Kinetik Festival, Vol 01
Lights In The Sky Over North America 2008 Tour Sampler
Machinekunt Records Extreme Women in the Dark Future
Metropolis Rebirth 1.0
Nacht Der Maschinen, Vol 02
New Signs & Sounds 0208
Nightmare Revisited
Re:Connected 2.0
Sin-Tech
Sonic Seducer, Cold Hands Seduction, Vol. 84
Sounds From The Matrix 07

1. How the hell did I listen to this much music?! Well, various avenues: digital download, physical CDs, friends recommendations, online streaming, last.fm, myspace; you name it: I heard these albums and bought as much as I could afford to.
2. Wow. I really dug what I had been hearing compolation-side, but I was unprepared for how great this album was going to be.
3. This is good, but reminds me of Blaqk Audio. A lot. Southern Sun & Shelter are solid tracks. Super surprised these haven’t been club worn yet.
4. I was really let down by this release, but still love this band!
5. 2007s Cruel Melody is a great album
6. Come on LePlegua, pick a direction and get back in front of the pack
7. What the fuck is with all the Christian propaganda in this album?
8. A COMPLETE Combichrist rip-off band. Nothing new and not that good
9. Dear god. I wish I hadn’t listened to this album, because it almost has ruined my adoration of this band. WTF happened? Maybe take a bit more time on a release.
10. So many people here in Portland love this album, and I just can’t seem to figure out why.
11. I had incredibly high expectations of this album. The remixed/restructured version of Pure was so fucking amazing and this just really minimized the sound from Jagged but didn’t make anything… better. Slightly disappointed, but still listen to it often.
12. Anything by Mr. Corner is fucking good -so far-
13. One good track on this baby and a mediocre second. Standard-fare.
14. I really liked a couple of songs off their last album. Mo exceptions here though.
15. This was an interesting listen.
16. They so badly want to be Blutengel
17. This is the band that Radiohead wants to be
18. The only thing that would have saved this album, would be if Rudy would have turned it into a big scene pandered by changing the lyrics of Rikfi to DEATHKEY. I’d have loved that song then.

This band is so amazing. I bought the album from Corrosion Records last year and it still is in heavy rotation here at casa del Stonethorn. Listen and if you like, buy here or here.

UPDATE: I wanted to note that I am not endorsing SCRUM as the end-all-beat-all process for software development. I just wanted to illustrate that I like the “chicken and pig” story. SCRUM does has it’s downside as I clarify down below in the comments. No process is as productive as conversation which is something that SCRUM tries to minimize and mitigate.

I’ve been doing a lot of research lately into agile project development process. I found it interesting that while at opus:creative (Opus Creative Group), on one major project of mine, I was actually utilizing SCRUM as an active process. I had adapted into this process naturally based upon the constraints of the particular project. Essentially it boiled down that the client needed to see a working model each week in order to publish the build internally. Typical Opus process wouldn’t have allowed this and so I adapted. Come to find out: it was an agile development process called: SCRUM.

In my research into agile/SCRUM, I found the delineation of roles to be superb and comically accurate. There are only two types of roles in SCRUM: Pigs and Chickens. Pigs (such a Nine Inch Nails term!) are the developers, IA, UX, designers etc… while Chicken are account executives, strategists, project managers. Why would they possibly be named this? Here’s why:

A pig and a chicken are walking down a road. The chicken looks at the pig and says, “Hey, why don’t we open a restaurant?” The pig looks back at the chicken and says, “Good idea, what do you want to call it?” The chicken thinks about it and says, “Why don’t we call it ‘Ham and Eggs’?” “I don’t think so,” says the pig, “I’d be committed but you’d only be involved.”

Scrum was developed to cut out overhead on large software projects. Essentially, the issue of developers that would come into presentations with no deliverable completed because of communication meetings with uninvolved personnel (account executives, project managers etc.). Scrum removes the Chickens from the equation by allowing them into the development cycle ONLY at the end of the sprint. If they require additional information, they can look -themselves- at the backlog document which is updated organically, daily, but the Chicken can’t influence the sprint until the end of the week cycle.

Brilliant.

This puppy has nothing to do with the article except that she's sleeping with a pig. Photo by J.

The presentation itself is very light-hearted and comedically points out the truth to many facets of miscommunication between management and implementation teams. (An unfortunate product of compartmentalized, bucketed, need-to-know and traditional process coupled with project managers that simply are working for a paycheck and not the passion for all things web) I’ve seen these styles of PMs. They are everything she pokes fun at and worse. There are a lot of them in Portland, which is sad and holds back many teams and work.

Here is an excerpt from the presentation that I found particularly humorous:

Project managers all think of themselves like this guy:

Whereas, most developers think of you as this guy:

It’s true. I’ll also back it up that I’ve worked right next to a Lumbergh or two in Portland. Now, I have my faults as a producer, I’ll admit. But, I wanted to personalize this a bit.

I think of myself as a bald amalgamation of these two guys:

You see, I think that I’m the cynical semi-calm Spade, but outwardly I’m pretty sure that at times I come across as a ham-handed Chris Farley. In all cases, I am truly trying to help.

However, what I really strive to be is this guy:

(insert_allegory)

Bruce Wayne’s butler Alfred. There are qualities in him that I strive to attain and here are a couple reasons:

Alfred is an adviser, mentor and assistant. He’s completely content with taking care of the crappy shit that gets in the way of being a superhero. He’ll give you advise and solid reasoning why he is dishing it out, but he plans to mitigate the damage when the client or (in some cases) you don’t listen; because frankly speaking: why would the superhero listen, when Alfred himself has never been one? Alfred is also master of knowing what you need before you have to ask. So, when the times comes, you are empowered with everything needed to succeed.

At the end of the day, he’ll do anything for you. Anything…

…like in absence of superhero gadgets – grab a golf club and come to your rescue if you need it – maybe possibly even lift a flaming beam off you even though he’s physically old-and-busted:

Alfred didn’t walk into the flaming mansion and say: “Hold on Bruce, I’ll call Lucius Fox and see if he has anything that can help here!” He makes do with what he has because: deep down he loves what you do and knows that sometimes action is needed over words. And because – goddamn it – he loves you and wants to live in the world that you are changing for the better.

Maybe it’s just the developer in me talking and not the producer, but I agree with thebitchwhocodes and want to make change for her and the teams I’m involved with.

1. Heroism consists of action.
2. Do not act until necessary.
3. You will know that the action is right if everything happens swiftly.
4. Do whatever is necessary.
5. Heroism is revealed not by victory but by defeat.
6. You will have to lie to others, but never lie to yourself.
7. Organized retreat is a form of advance.
8. Become evil to do good.
9. Then do good to earn merit and undo harm.
10. Heroism is completed by inaction.

- As told by Geoff Ryman’s The Last Ten Years in the Life of Hero Kai.

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

This post is password protected. To view it please enter your password below:

Password:

I’ve neglected updating Stonethorn simply because I wanted to take the time to return to blogging sufficiently. In order to do this it warranted some rethinking of how to return. Creatively occupying my mind while keeping up on syndication technologies is the main goal of the site with keeping friends and enemies apprised of my actions and events being the secondary. The main problem was that for the first five months back in Portland my mind was occupied with integrating into the agency lifestyle and process. Then after that I was just so busy I couldn’t devote time to updating.

So, I’m going to start blogging again and I’m going to start by answering the question that plagues my inbox from everyone: what exactly is it that I do now? I’ve intentionally not answered these emails because I wanted to give a full complete answer. People know I’m busy, but they also know I’m not designing anything, I’m not programming code, I’m not working with IT infrastructures, nor photography. So what the hell am I doing and what is this ambiguous Project Manager thing? Well, I intend to clarify that.

Also I’ll be posting a mad cap ton of things I’ve written this past year that never got posted.

Tonight, I was laying in bed at midnight and I decided I should get out for a bit. I walked down to Backspace and ordered a coffee. I then headed around the corner and went into Ground Kontrol; ordered a beer – talked to the cute door girl and played some Star Wars. I walked up to the front Centipede game and all of a sudden, over the sound of music there was a rapid succession of popping sounds from outside. I looked out the windows and the streets erupted with crowds running and screaming away from the back parking lot (In front of Lush).

I stood there with the door girl as people – huge crowds – rushed by, people looking back over their shoulders as they ran; it was crazy. Then a cop ran across the street with a shotgun. Followed by more popping sounds. More crowds ran by. I just stood there at the window and watched. Soon more cop cars arrived and three horses (MPUs) and a plethora of police officers running around with flashlights. They started pushing crowds back. The bartender of Ground Kontrol (who later I came to know was Mark Mahoney @bandcandymark, one of Portland’s best fucking interface developers. This was before he got a position at opus:creative’s Innovation arm.) locked the front door and we stood there more. I couldn’t believe how many people there were. Many were yelling into their cellphones; yelling at the cops who were trying to contain the crowds of people. The police continued to push them back. Soon the street in front of Ground Kontrol was empty. The door girl said that now was the time to leave because the entire block was being corded off.

I headed out the door and at every corner were horses and police setting up yellow ribbons. A tall police woman came up and asked which direction I was heading. I told her and she said I had to go all the way to Burnside, then west to Broadway in order to get home.

All the way I walked the police had every street blocked all the way to Flanders.

Insane.

Last week I had a phone interview with the senior Project Managers, Estelle and Ethan, as an introduction and from that preliminary session they decided they wanted to meet me in the flesh and scheduled a physical interview for Wednesday morning.

Prior to my phone interview I spent a measure of time perusing their website and to say I was impressed is an understatement. Many agencies that I have viewed (including some of the largest and most prodigious ones with reputations that proceed via layman word-of-mouth) are rather lackluster, letting their clients success speak to the level of their creativity and ingenuity the agency has at arsenal, rather than actually showcasing themselves what their strengths are. Opus’ website was another beast altogether, employing some of the more progressive examples of how information can flow utilizing RSS and push technologies, database and dynamically driven Flash instead of simple creative Flash works and static pages. Upon seeing this site I became invigorated to talk with them about their future implementation plans for things like Ruby on Rails etc. While the technology was evident in the construction and deployment of their site, it gave amazing step-by-step examples of how projects started and ended. Print works, design, branding and collateral were all explored and detailed and not just projects that were years old, but current projects (displaying that they did not abandon projects). My synergy towards the interactive comes because at Kimber the projects were all print originating and the interactive and web came as a secondary heel; a necessary-evil in the mind of the marketing there. So to see a company that understands the future and how the two (print and interactive) are more a marriage than a sibling relationship was exciting.

My interview went very well and I felt I was able to portray both sides of my personality, both the fun self-deprecating side and the professional side. The team leaders all were memorable and stood out as distinct assets with their own expertise, ideally showcasing to me that this company was truly, A Team.

As I left I was told that a decision would come on Friday regarding a placement candidate. I drove back to my apartment and started packing; then I took a moment to email each one of the team members a personalized message (since they all so conveniently gave me business cards) and relay again how enthused I would be to be a part of what I saw there.

It worked. I’m now a Project Manager in training for them!

Instead of hearing on Friday about the position, I was told Thursday morning that they wanted me. YAY!

While I was in Portland I lived about 6 blocks away from Powell’s book store. (I’ll assume that its reputation proceeds) Each week I’d spend a few hours going through the floors of books and grab one or two. Sometimes I’d move past the D section in the Gold Room and see the racks and racks of Dragonlance books. It’d been years (probably since 9th grade) that I’d last read the series and with each pass by the section I pondered grabbing the Chronicles and reading them again. Then I’d see the F section down a few and get distracted by the Forgotten Realms books. I’d soon after call Christopher on my cell and ask him which of the trilogies were his favorite, since I loathed The Crystal Shard, thinking that since he’d read them all he’d steer me correctly. We’d discuss and I’d never buy one. Instead I finally started reading George R. R. Martin’s sweeping series.

When I headed this way to Boise I pondered which books to bring with me for the trip. I brought along my D&D 3.5 books just to read, but wondered if Sharon’s two eldest children, Z and P, were old enough to enjoy the mechanics of the game yet. Once I arrived, I shelved the idea; assuming their interests were so far differed from Sharon and mines that it was just a silly notion to think they might enjoy a small simple game.

A few weeks ago I was back in Portland on an interview trip and found myself in front of the D section of the Gold Room, looking at that same collected Chronicles book. Again, I walked past it, choosing to save my dollars – knowing that it was just nostalgia that made me desire reading them. Maybe in a few months I’ll drop the money to start reading them again.

When I arrived back to Boise, as I came in the door, P come running up to me with Dragons of Autumn Twilight in his hands. “Lynn, is the first book I’m supposed to read?” I furrowed my eyebrows in disbelief and answered.

“Yes; were did you get that?”

“Mom has a ton of them!” He yelled with glee. I smiled at his response and thought but of course Sharon did**. (Just before moving to Portland she had me give Christopher a big stack of her old Dragon magazines as a gift to him; “someone who would appreciate them like they deserve to be” she said.)

I followed P as he ran off, leading me to his mother’s treasure. There they were, a good measure of the trilogies and a few of the Preludes singles too. It looked like I didn’t need to buy them at all, Sharon had kept hers. You know, the original ones with the cool loose paper, not the crappy stiff ‘quality’ paper editions they print now. Larry Elmore covers and all.

For the past few weeks P comes running up indiscriminately and points at the novels and states inquisitively, “Is that Fizban?” or “That’s Verminaard?! My friend at school said it was Kit!”, sometimes “Why is Raistlin wearing black robs in this cover?” It’s been cool to see his enthusiasm. He has even been spotted running around in wizard’s robes, pretending to be Raistlin. I turned to Sharon and Rob and joked, feigning terror: “I’m frightened that your son is slipping into the path of The Occult!!! If you have a spare Chick track of Dark Dungeons around, maybe you should have him read it!” We laugh.

With my lastest trip to Portland this past Monday I found myself back at Powell’s, but I wasn’t in the D section of the Gold Room. I was in the manga and RPG section. There I was sifting through all the old Dragonlance materials. They have those new d20 books, but they simply do not have the allure the old books do. The ones I remember Woofie having, the ones I longed to own, but my parents considered it Satanic. As I sifted, my fingers ran over what I was looking for. Adventure DL1; the original, with color inserts and in great condition. I pulled it out and flipped it over to find the price: $5.95. It was mine and I was going to share it with P when I got back to Boise.

As I sat in the airport waiting for my much delayed flight to finally depart, I began reading its pages. As I read, I came to realize that they simply do not make adventures like this one anymore. This adventure encouraged the players to read sections of story and poems as if they were sitting around a campfire, each player in turn, until the story is concluded. It also was VERY loose in it’s structure, it didn’t hold the player and DMs hand forcing them along the plot plath. How cool. Then it encourages one character to actually sing and play a song – and the music is included. As I read this, I imagined Z playing Goldmoon and having her sit and learn the song on the piano (which she can play fantasticly). Sure, it’d interrupt the session for a bit, but the enthusiasm is what is important. I imagined how cool it would be to see Sharon’s eyes as she watched P and Z enacting and enjoying it all.

The next evening as I was heading off to bed, Sharon pulled me aside and said, “What do you think about maybe putting together a little D&D adventure for the kids and us to play?”

I nodded coolly, but inside I was warm and giddy.

**I must add also, I remember (how could I forget) that first time I picked Sharon up at Fatt Boys to go hang out with her at Prof X’s bingo arena. When we were driving the subject of roleplaying games came up when she said she loved roleplaying games. She didn’t believe that I read and sometimes played in the same kind of games so I produced from behind the passenger seat she was sitting in, copies of character sheets and books. I remember she smiled big as she looked at the Earthdawn books, and then I believe the women with the big breasts walked in front of the car…

It is the culmination of every wrong heart-and-hope-driven decision I’ve made in the past year balled up into one fucked up mess.

I hate everything about every inch of …

When we had arrived Savage mentioned that the manager for Dismantled was there and I smiled – knowing that Dismantled was an Oregon band. Then Savage mentioned a new CD he had gotten that was Noise Unit’s latest and I perked up to ask him to play Liberation for me. Which he did and there was a pretty good dance response to it.

I finally got the name for Adam (The gentleman that stated he actually liked what I had earlier written in criticism of the club’s music/name), that I’d met over a year ago, but never could recall his name. He actually doesn’t recall meeting me a year ago, but he’s a beer & booze connoisseur (like I was a few weekends ago) so that explains why there was never a follow up recognition all this time.

Talked LARP with The Prince of the city.

(The last time I played Vampire it was the RPG flavor with a group in Portland in 1994 and the storyteller just let the PCs run amok with storylines they made up themselves with little interaction on his part. I played an Archon. One of the characters was a Malkavian and was running around the Succubus saying he was Caine. So I got permission (during an over-the-phone RPG session with the storyteller) to diablerie his ass from my Prince. Considering the prophecy that states when the end times came for Vamps it would be precluded by Caine returning; most Princes kill the upstart just to stave-off the apocalypse, so it was an easy sell to the Storyteller. I then returned to the game session and walk straight up to the Malkavian and filled his torso with phosphorous rounds. All the other players didn’t understand what was happening and came to rescue him and so I in turn burnt them too. After the smoke cleared, all the players were dead and I walked away. I never played that group again and actually found the whole experience disheartening. Later I ran into the storyteller and he told me it was the most fun he’d had in ages and that the following week, all the players decided to pretend that it was all a dream and were still to that day playing those same characters, drinking the same wine, speaking the same whine.)

I brought my 20D, but had forgotten the battery. Crap.

Spoke more with Damien; whose attitude we both adore.

Sharon and I had fun like we always have together.

Ah Cama-Sotz. The Way To Heresy. Industrial.

Alec Empire. Futurist. Electro-Punk.

Belladonnakillz. Perverted & Proud. Hardcore-Electronica.

Black Lung. Coming Dark Age. Rythmic Noise.

Combichrist. Everyone Hates You. Industrial.

Empusae. Error 404: Metaphorical Loss. Industrial.

Mindless Self Indulgence. You’ll Rebel To Anything (As Long As Its Not Challenging). Industrial-influenced Pop.

Red Cell. Hybrid Society. Industrial.

Rotersand. Welcome To Goodbye. EBM.

Stromkern. Light It Up. Industrial.

T.Raumschmiere. Blitzkrieg Pop. Electronica-Punk.

Xlover. Pleasure & Romance. Electroclash.

While under pressure to maintain a certain total of performance at my current job, I was juggling completely revamping my CV for a position my recruiter feels I have a good chance of snagging at HSBC that is listed as having a required Ivy League issued MBA. I’ve addendumed, spliced, revamped, obfuscated and again reclarified my CV so many times it had begun to loose the flow of english it initially had. Then mid-afternoon I was informed that a second position will be opening up at Nike (beyond the current one I’ve been pitched for) that fit my bill and I again needed to burgeon a section I had previously whittled.

OOF!

In addition to this measure of stress, I was informed today of the reasoning Leupold & Stevens chose to pass on me for the position I seemed destined to obtain. Stress say hello to anger and frustration.

For a moment I was back at Fatt Boys in Kalispell. I was standing at the bar about to order a drink when I looked back towards the pool tables. I saw Johnny Gaijin get laid out flat on his back by Professor X. A little trip from behind. The look on both their faces and that high pitched laugh of Prof’s filled the entire bar.

Never drop your guard. Always be ready. Even around friends, and especially ProfX.

It made my morning remembering that.

I took a couple more CDs to DJ Savage (Who is sadly stepping down from DJing duties at Industria so another can take over, but he says that over the next few weeks there will be some discussions on how to improve the night overall. He’ll still be there DJing a bit, but not as much) one CD was what I labeled: Quasi-Goth. It included acts such as: Collide, Rasputina, And One, 45 Grave, Tear Garden etc… and then another CD called: Quasi-Industrial-Rock. I wanted to rough it up with more rock stuff like 16 Volt, Machines of Loving Grace etc. It was a pleasant evening. It was the first time I got to hear Mesh’s new single (Crash – Alien Six Kerosene Remix) on the big speakers and when we were leaving he started spinning And One’s Sometimes. I overheard someone complain about all the ‘house music’ he was supposedly spinning – this was spoken while Virtual Embrace’s Fuck You was playing; which elicited a snicker from me. House music? Umm…ok. We would have stayed out longer and danced our asses off for another hour, but work duties and early morning personal training cut our evening short.

Someone had read the post and taken the time to register to let me know that I’m “the one who deserves to be pitied”*. Incredible. I didn’t know what to think at first. I was quite stunned that someone had read it and that it upset them enough to both register and comment. So, I posted back and then as planned, Sharon and I went to the club.

After we had grabbed waters and coffee, we were approached by a familiar face (who we’ve talked to before but I’m never sure the next time if he remembers us and I can’t ever recall his name – I’m such a face person) and he wanted to say he had read my journal and that he liked it, but that I had pissed off quite a few others. He then reiterated that he however liked the post and explained a little about the history of the club I had missed (you can read about some of it here) even further back to the days it was originally at the Neurolux and only 12 people were showing up. A vast improvement indeed. It was quite cool he approached me and we talked, it was a bit surprising though to know that my website had been read outside of my little circle of friends and beyond that one commenter. After he left, we were approached again by someone else and then I was asked what my name was and that they had read about me on a website. Sharon and I were asked if it would be alright if our pictures were taken. I must admit that I was extremely hesitant to agree, considering we had just been told that my post had irritated quite a few and this gentleman started off by saying he’d read about me on a site. After the introductions and permissions were out of the way he moved around taking pictures of the two girls dancing.

Once home I dug into my website stats and found that over the weekend 76 unique-cookied identifiable users had visited that post alone. In simple terms this means that each computer is tagged with a cookie the first time they visit stonethorn.com so that when they come back again, they don’t count as another person. 76. All on that Saturday and Sunday; based on this number, it was evident my post had made some rounds.

My web stats also tell a bit of a tale of how people found the post. Here is a listing of the search phrases from Google, MSN, Yahoo searches in descending order:

key: phrase (number of searches)

boise goths (7)

balcony club boise (3)

industria boise (3)

pain industria (2)

industrial rivetheads (2)

boise goth site (1)

One statement in the comment that astounds me is the following: “If you’re so unhappy with Depeche Mode, maybe you ought to wet your beak on some Gangsta Rap. Wouldn’t that be fun?!”* The implication here being that I should just be happy with what is spun because the alternative is rap. How more lackadaisical can this kind of attitude get? With this disposition there will be zero progress in flourishing a scene beyond its current stagnant state.

The reason I’m bringing all this up in a post is that I wanted to take a moment and say that I do not apologize for one single word of my critical post. It was meant as such and it will remain as such: my opinion of an event that I enjoy but see that it could use some improvement.

Of this I did want to make an addendum to my original post. I wanted to say that even with my criticism of the multiple plays of the same artist, I really do appreciate DJ Savage. He makes every attempt to please everyone, even when no one will dance. I can’t count how many times Sharon and I are the only ones dancing (I’m reminded of the Metric song Combat Baby**). Sharon and I both enjoy his sense of humor. How he’ll play some Rammstein and no one will dance, but then he mixes into Du Hast while holding his fingers up, starts a countdown to when everyone will go dance simply because they recognize it (unlike the previous track). Like clockwork, the GIers do.

* Apologies to the original commenter for editing their grammar and punctuation, however it was something that had to be done.

** “Who gets it good? Every mighty mild seventies child…beats me.” This song is one of our theme songs, however I wouldn’t call us mild.

Sharon and I went one evening to Embers, as we waited to pay the cover the doorman and cashier asked the people ahead of us how much they’d had to drink. They responded in a not-so-subtle way and he ejected them. Plain and simple. Loveland however has no such precautions and it’s an ALL AGES CLUB. The time I was there children were exiting the establishment and sneaking booze BACK into the club – getting wasted and then puking gelatinous bile all over the club which settled into the wood floor for over 30 minutes before someone grudgingly took care of it. Loveland’s owner and promoters allowed this behavior. Glad to see it go. Willamette Weekly states “Kids sharing Cokes? Cute.” Bullshit. I never saw kids sharing cokes. I saw kids puking booze, and the Loveland employees turned their heads instead of ejecting the parties involved.

I find it odd also that the Willamette Weekly thinks Loveland “is a great space”.

I don’t know what silly-dooky substance WW writer Mark Baumgarten is introducing into his veins, but the Loveland is a complete shit-hole and anyone that thinks otherwise has never experience a real club. The man obviously has never attended one of the events there to promote such drivel in the WW’s pages.

I’m happy about it’s possible demise, but writing this has brought back all my hatred of that place and the people responsible for it.

Download the full trailer here. I have removed the trailer at the request of my hosting company. I am currently attempting to contact manglobe and get permission to host it. Sorry!

I’m on the final legs of a burdensome two weeks of feeling terrible. Last night I OD’d on Nyquil and today my cheeks refuse to wake up. My mind is firing, but my face feels like Emil, the villain in Robocop that got that vat of nuclear sludge poured onto him. He moaned as best as he could as he limped across the industrial complex alley. His face frozen in a near mop of flesh only to get sloshed by the moving car. Yea, that’s me today. Wanna breed?

It’s been a long time since I’ve been so sick that I found myself laid up in bed with no desire to move. I’m finally moving today, but my cheeks and face refuse to catch up to my now ready to move mind.

Two weeks ago I got up at 8AM, took a shower and headed off to work. After the igniting cup of coffee I began the task of posting to eBay. Within an hour my back started to cramp up. I thought initially it was my posture, within another hour I knew this wasn’t true. My entire body ached. At 3PM I had posted enough items to warrant going home and I did.

In 30 minutes of stepping into the house and donning my comfy night jams, my temperature started rising. Then…

There is something that I’ve never heard any man bitch about when it comes to getting a severe cold or flu. The detail is hidden in a generality that true to form – I will detail. You see us men all get those miserable body aches same as any sex. But there is one thing that aches only in movement and that is: the testicles. Sure, everything else hurts, but as a man, when I stand up from sitting down, those things move and BAM it hits. It’s not as intense as a direct hit or a graze, but that indiscernibly located ache and pain throbs across their surface indeed strikes when there is movement.

I lay in bed and hated every moment and desired painless slumber. It came, slowly, but it indeed struck me in time. Then at 8-9PM I rose for a moment and could tell I had a massive fever. I asked the kids for the thermometer and Parker shoved it into my ear. After a beep the digital read out displayed: 101. I headed back to bed. I woke up in the middle of the night (4-5AM) and I was even hotter. The fever ravaging my insides, my testicles had become a noose to my thighs, their ache becoming even more burdensome. I was in hell.

By morning I had broke the fever but now my throat felt like I was attempting to swallow suede softballs.

I know why I’ve been sick. While I’ve been exposed to children, it’s always been in small or controlled doses. Not in living conditions with three that have many friends that indiscriminately come barreling through the house, not to mention have a tendency to hole up in my bedroom which happens to be the toy room where the Xbox resides. My room sees more kiddie activity than even the living room. I’ve been corrected here and I actually didn’t know why I’ve been sick, but S will tell everyone in time how I got sick.

The worse is behind me, but for today: my cheeks won’t wake up.

I’m adding mountain bikes to ebay and rocking socks out of my Docs.

• It falls on a Sunday night.
• It is located at The Balcony in Boise, Idaho.
• They won’t play industrial music.

My complaints here are identical to the ones I have with Portland’s own Crystal Ballroom’s HIVE night. It’s a corset attired alt-80s night, NOT an industrial dance night.

There have been glimmers of hope over these past couple years we’ve been going to it when I’m in Boise – but it’s pretty much the same crowd with altering DJs.

However, this time was different on many counts. This was the first time I’d been since being exposed to Portland’s GI scene and this was also the largest audience I’d seen at Industria.

When Sharon and I walked in this past Sunday, the first thing to catch my eye was that the DJ had setup a rig down on the wood dancefloor. I found this a very nice improvement. The typical DJ booth at The Balcony is located far above the audience in a hard to get to spot that keeps the DJ away from the crowd he’s spinning for. It’s tough to hear how loud the music is below when you are nestled in a booth with the door closed.

The next thing I noticed is that he was spinning 80s. (Depeche Mode was played 4 fucking times that night!)

I’m kicking myself now, but there was a song that he played and I was greatly impressed. It was a current rostered Metropolis artist and something that was fairly current. Sharon was ready to dance at that moment, but we would have been the only dancers on the floor, so we waited. We shouldn’t have. Because the very next song he spun into a damn slow alt-80s beat. It was shortly after this that I noticed the number of people filtering in. It was about 11PM now and I counted 104 people. Industria has no cover charge, so that number is to be expected from a city of 250,000. But this was a higher than usual number for this hour (By nights end, that number increased another 30-40 people). I noticed that everyone seemed to be waiting for that one song that puts them all on the dance floor. I told Sharon, “If he were to play VNV’s Chrome right now, it would pack the dance floor.” Well, his very next song was VNV Nation’s Chrome. Aside from Sharon, myself and a Ben Stiller look-a-like – we were the only ones that danced to it. I was shocked.

As the evening progressed the DJ’d mix a very wide range of music. But he played a lot of bands multiple times. Depeche Mode 4x. Covenant 4x. VNV Nation 3x. Nine Inch Nails 3x (if you include Supernaut). Derek, here’s a shocker: System Syn 3x. Icon of Coil 2x. He played some new stuff, but I noticed quickly that they were only Metropolis signed artists. So I approached him and struck up a few requests. I noticed on his table that he had a Metropolis 2005 DJ Promo disc. So that explained it. He was spinning what MR had sent him.

The resident Boise GIers were not happy. Many of them sat out the music. When one Wolfsheim would play – they’d jump out and swirl a bit. Then he’d follow up with a Benny Benassi song or mix (he played 2) and they’d gallop back to their chairs. I saw a few goth-fashioned women handed him CDs. Not one or two, but small stacks of CDs.

But I’ll say again: it wasn’t an ‘industrial’ night. I didn’t hear any Ah Cama Sotz, Mono No Aware, Neubauten etc… it was all goth-raver-dance.

Why the hell would you call your dance night: INDUSTRIA, and not play any INDUSTRIAL??!! It’s a question I’ve asked of this club in particular for ages (Before, when many residents considered it a good night, there was a resident DJ who spun that same alt-80s goth shit and I’d walk in and just sit down with a beer – there was no point dancing). Boise is smaller than Portland, yes; but the scene is almost the same size. Boise Goth Industrial Rivetheads don’t have an excuse.

Why must goth’s constantly dip their chocolate gothbar into my tub of industrial peanut butter?! I like my carbs and protein thank you. Not candy.

For all the musical up and downness, it was an interesting night. Sharon and I finally had a dinner alone (SUSHI!), uninterrupted by children or friends or ringing doorbells etc…, so that was very nice. Since I’ve been here, neither of us have had the luxury of spending a few moments alone to get caught up on our lives and happenings (and I’m LIVING in her house!). Later, The sky opened up and dumped the snow that had earlier that day hit Portland. It fell in huge flakes, and made the drive home slow and fun. While there were many old familiar faces at Industria, there were plenty of new ones as well.

ADDENDUM FROM THIS POST: I wanted to say that even with my criticism of the multiple plays of the same artist, I really do appreciate DJ Savage. He makes every attempt to please everyone, even when no one will dance. I can’t count how many times Sharon and I are the only ones dancing (I’m reminded of the Metric song Combat Baby**). Sharon and I both enjoy his sense of humor. How he’ll play some Rammstein and no one will dance, but then he mixes into Du Hast while holding his fingers up, starts a countdown to when everyone will go dance simply because they recognize it (unlike the previous track). Like clockwork, the GIers do.

It’s a near impossibility for me to not come off sounding arrogant about my thoughts today, so please accept my up-front apology.

It is interesting to see how such small things can hinder people’s efficiency and it’s even more interesting to see how their patterns of routine force them into lethargy. They’d rather continue in mediocrity than resolve the conflicts these small things create and begin to excel. I won’t say the intelligence doesn’t exist in the people doing the job I’m taking on – it does. However, they simply survive day-to-day and think no longer of the future than what it should bring them, not what they themselves can do to make it better. They don’t assess the steps they take in their job and just how often they retrace them out of habit and cripple themselves in doing so.

I’ve read about the implementation of Six Sigma and seen it put to action, but always more on the level I’ve been surrounded by: management. I’ve never seen just how under utilized the smallest prole could benefit from some assessment on a singular level. I understand that is a great measure of the Six Sigma plan, but again – I’ve never seen the grass-roots affects.

It’s going to be interesting to see how my work here will play out over the next month and just how much I can make this branch of the company grow. At first glance, it seems easy and quite simple – but I’ve not jumped into the personal politics in the building yet.

We shall see.

I mentioned this story to Audra, and last night while I was devouring some Chinese food with Dawn & Jeff she called me and asked me what my favored cookie was.

Today when she came over, in her hands she was cradling a stack of Ziploc bags. In one of those Ziplocs was a true Audra-home-made Cookie-The-Size-of-My-Headâ„¢, a mint-chocolate chip cookie to be exact. It’s almost a full 12 inches in diameter and ¾ of an inch thick! So tonight I headed down to the Backspace Gallery & Internet Cafe. The usual fare was nestled in my Tom Bihn laptop bag, but I had broken off a big chunk of The Cookie-The-Size-of-My-Headâ„¢ and I ate it while I drank a Yoo-hoo! chocolate drink and downloaded some Usenet.

Audra was also holding two Ziplocs of brownie-bites for my road trip to Boise. (Home made brownies too, none of the box stuff!)

YAY! I’m all happy and full of cookie-chocolate and I have the newest fansubbed episode of Mushishi to watch tonight!!!!

One of these times horsing around, Sharon and I were mock fighting and she punched me square in the chest which of course resulted in my typical girl-yelp of pain. I keep playing but it’s not until the next day the damage really rears its head. I went and had x-rays done to my chest and found that I had ripped my costal cartilage and hairline fractured a rib. No biggie, it healed well. (Yes, I’m obfuscating the fact that I was technically beat-up by a woman.)

Since moving to Portland I spend a good measure of my day walking about. I walk all over downtown and easily put in many miles a day. This coupled with more respectable eating habits (like not indulging in Crème Brule for lunch AND dinner; or devouring brownie-bites topped with cream cheese frosting) has resulted in me losing a very large amount of weight. I hid my weight well, but my face (jowls) gave a lot of it away. I’m not saying I was overweight, I’m saying that I was over average.

Aristai took me to dinner at Montage, a Cajun restaurant here in Portland, a few weeks back because he was worried about my weight loss. I explained that the loss is from all the walking I’ve been doing and has nothing to do with me looking for work. Then this weekend while sitting at Slow Bar with Danielle, she looked at me in shock and said, “You’ve lost weight.” To which I replied in the positive and she included, “No, I mean you’ve lost a lot of weight.”

This weight loss is something a bit new to me and I think it’s made my little frame even more frail.

When I first was moving about Portland populating my apartment with new furnishings. I purchased some Tempur-Pedic ComfortPillows. These things RULE. They are very heavy (5-8 pounds) and conform to your head or arm etc… (They are GREAT for humping!! Take that you silly pillowbitch! Hey, what can I say? It’s been a while.) A few weeks back Audra was over and I’m not sure who initiated it, but I got clobbered along my side by one of these heavy pillows and I felt my ribs buckle. I grabbed another pillow and swung it back at her to show their weight. Even she was shocked by them. “What kind of pillows ARE these??” Well, they are the kind that made my once bruised costal cartilage and fractured rib hurt for another two weeks! (Yes, I’m obfuscating the fact that I was technically beat-up in a pillow fight.)

Then finally, the other night at Noir/Dementia Naomi came and picked me up and swung me around; then while she continued to squeeze me, she carried me over towards Kevin and Len. I was a squirming creature of squeak. She asked into my ear, “Am I hurting you?” How to answer that without sounding a total glass-framed wimp? “Yes!” She put me down and we all started dancing again. Now a few days later, my ribs on the other side of body, right down where they look like the inverted wingtips of a butterfly, hurt and pang every time I bend over or lay down. Making no bones about it: I hurt myself being carried around by a girl.

Good thing I’m not a secret government agent, I’d literally crack under the pressure.

That was eight months ago. I still have no career to replace the wasted years; I still walk about alone and I still download my culture when I can’t afford it.

The only thing I expect from Portland now is nothing; because I finally have some realistic information beyond my silly desires.

It’s funny to see in hindsight how many illusions I built up in my mind to sate these ridiculous desires. I’ve gotten pretty good at it over these past ten years of really indulging in the practice. I suppose I may be misinterpreting the word hope when I speak of illusion. What was once hope and desire is now illusion but through hindsight I think it’s a proper definition.

I understand that nothing falls into one’s lap and I understand that effort is necessary for fulfillment; I do. I have tried damn hard to see these illusions to fruit. I also understand now that hope and illusion are things that make the present reality all that much worse.

I guess I’m trying to detail how I’m finding it hard to aspire without hope or illusion when even your skills and potential are not utilized. How to strive with no vision. I figured that the precedent set over the past ten years would make this new journey easy. Again, it’s an illusion.

Are illusions necessary for growth? We want the illusion and try to get it and when we succeed we call it aggressiveness or aspiring; but when you don’t get the illusion its failure, lethargy or we fault an external reality. In this case I’m blaming Portland for the unfulfilled illusion that prompted me to leave Montana.

There is a friend of mine that once advised that I never should act on desire, but this was also one of the same people that said me moving out of Montana back to Portland was a good idea. In one hand they say the desire for the illusion is a bad action to pursue, but then they say that my current reality in Montana was worse than the promise of a place that is supposedly better suited to me, Portland.

Just randomness and conflict.

I moved here in May this year and settled into my apartment the first of June. It seems like ages ago, so much has transpired these past two seasons (a little bit I have documented here on Stonethorn for your enjoyment) and I’ve had an immeasurable amount of fun and met some wonderful people.

But this city is one nasty bitch.

I’m told that the job market here is utterly amazing. However I must say each person that has said these words to me – either has had a job for years and has no clue or says it with the PR-Smile-of-Propaganda. The papers and city rags chant it like a mantra: Portland has a great job market; Portland has a great job market. I’ll tell you now, printed prayer isn’t working, and the cities publicity campaign to lure families in is a good measure of a sham. Let me explain, even with over 10 years of experience in your field, if you don’t have a college degree: don’t move to Portland without a job, or fully expect to become a wage-slave to the service industry (and then understand that a good measure of the time – they won’t take the risk on you because your experience assures that the minute a career comes along you’ll bail).

Then there are the others that warned me when I first arrived that I’d best get my head down and start looking for work straightaway. With the amount of experience I had I shrugged their jittery job seeking advice and figured it’d be no problem finding employment. Well, I’m eating crow and wishing I’d spent those first two months looking hard. [An added note for you Google & Yahoo search visitors that wonder if I'm just speaking bitterly, please read the following article by a local paper.]

With over 400 submissions for employment in just a few months I’ll stand by my statement of the bitch, and not only is she nasty, she’s tight.

Dark Horse, Nike, Adidas, Benchmade, Leupold, etc… were prospects that gave me a shot with interviews and second interviews and third…but passed on me for one reason or another. Lower end jobs passed on me for the above mentioned reasoning.

So, I’m taking a pass on Portland. I’m leaving this next week. I intend on coming back, but next time I’ll have a job waiting for me.

I do want to say thanks to many people for their support and making my short time here enjoyable.

Damned Events. Derek and Joe, you guys rock. Dementia was my first taste of music I’d only been hearing piped out of my own speakers for years. It was a giddy day that I descended into the red-velvet depths of Noir to hear DJ Medusa spinning Pow[d]er Pussy and DJ Nevermore cranking the Stromkern. If you guys made enough money to promote the scene full time – I can’t imagine how incredible things would be. Even with your time split between RL jobs and Damned Events, you kept the hits coming and crunchy. Combichrist, Mono No Aware, Terrorfakt, etc… Thank you! Don’t let the goth seep to much into the good stuff!!! Leave the goth to Hive!

To all the acquaintances, Cynthia, Len, Kevin, Jeremy (all of them. I think I know of four), Roger, Carolee, Chelsy, Coradee, Michelle, Jason, Katie, Liz, Cedric, Greg, Andrea, Buttercup, The Yakima crew, The employees of The Backspace Gallery & Internet Cafe, also those whose names escape me every time I see them and to the many I’m missing: you too.

To those that the time was to short for us to become better friends please rest assured I’m coming back and we’ll start where I’m abandoning us. Adam, Naomi, Miky, Aristai.

Most of all, I’ll miss the one really great endearing friend I’ve made here: Audra. I will be back and we’ll run down the streets screaming and rubbing soup in people’s hair. I promise.

The weekends are the worst pain of all. Holidays like today only make the pain fester longer. It’s weekends like these I wish: I wish I did drugs. That’s some distance removed from the thought I suppose, but it’s only a novelty thought process. I only want a time waster and considering the fact that I don’t do drugs; the grass is always greener… I want a future, now, not after 8AM Monday-Friday.

Tonight, while Smive pumped tunes into my cerebrum via my ears, I felt an impending emotion seep into me, made full of gravity from thoughts in my head. I boxed it up and put it in a place inside me for later use. I had one of these three weeks ago while I was on the phone with Sharon, and she had the unfortunate timing of bearing witness to a meager measure of it. I feel weak knowing she had to bear that pressure, and I wish I had the capacity to take her advice. I don’t. I compartmentalize, read more H.P. Lovecraft, watch more anime, turn off the lights and make Smive sing louder. Sometimes it’s a whole lot easier to bottle it when you have the luxury of solitude. It’s only when I have someone to listen to me these dumb superfluous crisis’s surface.

I know I’m emotionally strong, but somedays I worry that in my compartmentalized frustration and anger that my right leg can’t stomp loud enough for both my feet.

As I make this jaunt, I walk past Union Station, Greyhound and a few homeless shelters. Fifth Ave downtown is also a big wide bus lane, making the street a prime residence for many less fortunate. They approach anyone they see, hand out and begging.

But I’ve noticed a trend: when I’m walking with my white iPod ear-buds in – they make for me, then see the phones and stop to turn away. With music blaring in my ears, I can’t hear them calling out to me for change I don’t have, and they know it.

They aren’t on my friends list, I’ve never met them but they are a member of one of the LJ community lists I am a member of.

Now understand that I know that LJ and blogging etc is a narcissistic hobby. It’s all about me, myself and I. It’s about voicing your opinions, keeping people aware of what you are doing etc. However, I have rarely seen such expansive elitism regarding such heterogeneous topics. I’ve never seen a person so utterly encapsulate such an opposing force of myself; a near nemesis. Everything they say makes me ill. Their opinions (in some cases have actually critiqued ME and my friend Sharon) put me into defense-mode.

However, I enjoy hating this person. I read their journal and smile and say, what a (insert gender-insulting-title here). Then I go about my day and briefly think, thank god I’m not like that person.

I don’t ever want to know this person. I hope they don’t know anyone I know, but I know that’s an improbability. I don’t want to humanitize them, I want them to remain: That Person on LJ I Enjoy Hating. I’ve actually found myself wondering how I’d act if ever introduced to this person.

Now how fucked up is that? [sniggle]

I figure that it’s about time for the cyclical threads to begin again soon, and time for me to bail ship.

Two ‘fond’ memories of the P.I.G. list.

• Getting sick of DJ Catalyst’s ignorant criticism of a scene he isn’t involved with anymore, asking him why he must pollute everything and then getting my ass handed to me via 4 emails from 4 different female members of the list.

• Being mistaken for another member and then being ‘brushed off’ by a member of the list at The Cruxshadow show.

I’m happy to be rid of that drivel!

For months now I’ve been dodging the subject every time Audra and Miky brought it up. “Are you coming? We’re renting a vehicle! You HAVE to come!” I’d side step it with a brief, “We’ll see!”

After my Skanska USA interview on the Nike off-Campus Business Center, while I was on the MAX heading back into Portland, Audra called me with a funny-funny problem of hers regarding a message she had fired over to the P.I.G. list. After some initial panicking, I was able to sooth her fears to rest and assure her everything was ok. She mentioned she was in town meeting up with Miky at a coffee shop in the Pearl to distribute funds for the Front 242 concert. Since this is in my neighborhood I figured I’d sneakily stop in and bug them. It was cool seeing Miky’s fashion drawings and after Audra ran off to get to work, I walked Miky back to Portland Art Institute and we discussed portfolios, which is something I’ve never really conversed about. It was refreshing.

Still, I hadn’t told anyone that the chance was high I wasn’t going.

So, Friday rolls around and Audra pops into my place really early with a yummy double shot espresso (none of that Americano crap for me! Straight up espresso thank you!) and some doughnuts. We layed around for an hour and half, feeding each other doughnuts and laughed about random shit until I stood up and walked to my balcony to see the evil-evil parking lot attendant ticketing her vehicle. I yelled, and grabbed my jacket as I ran out the door. By the time I had run down to my management office and got the day pass for the tenant loop, and got to her car – he was gone and the $50 ticket was in place. So, I pulled the ticket, plopped the day pass on her dash and headed back up. She was straightening her hair. While I was running around, Miky had shown up. I stuffed the ticket into my pocket and assured Audra that I would take care of it and she shouldn’t worry about it at all. Lynn was on the case!

Then came the moment of truth; I had to break it to both of them I wasn’t going. Miky’s face fell and I dared not look at Audra. I felt so bad, but more so – I felt anger at Portland and how little opportunity there is here.

This was the worse part of my day. Not all the phone calls, CV addendums and cover letter writing, but the look in their faces as I had to tell them.

They started gathering up their stuff and I pulled my 40Gig iPod (Smive) out of its cradle and snapped the iTrip into place. Once we were downstairs in the car, I showed them how to use Smive, I had to say my goodbyes.

Once they left, I ran upstairs and called the parking patrol and got them to clear the ticket (yay). Then I set about working the next job prospect from all angles and then did some much needed groceries and house supplies shopping. I was on the phone pretty much all day pounding the virtual cellular pavement.

Later that night I received a call from the Fenix and it was fireesin calling to say that everyone missed me! Len yelled hello in the background once Audra took over the phone. It was cool hearing from everyone. HI back at everyone! I did miss ya all. I’m sad I missed Derek’s set, he always spins good current stuff!

Audra knocked on my door at 6 this morning after Miky dropped her off. I’m glad everyone got home safe and sound, that’s some dedication to the scene to drive to-and-fro all in the same day and night, just to get back to work the next.

But, of my busy day – that was the worse, having to say goodbye to everyone. I’m not a huge Front 242 fan, but I am a fan of my friends.

DJ Carrion’s Opening Playlist for Front 242 in Seattle:

01. Netz – Zeit
02. Snog – Real Estate Man(Hecq remix)
03. Pail – The Rage of The Angels
04. Analogue Brain – Fly In An Amber
05. Soman – Divine(remix)
06. Reaper – JagD(I-Rec-C2 remix)
07. X-Fusion – Guilty Mass
08. Centhron – Front Angel
09. Unterart – Just You Wait(Feil/Stein)
10. Infekktion – Human Nature(X-Fusion remix)
11. Terrorfakt – Arsenal(E-Craft remix)
12. Genital-A-Tech – Suck Hysteria(Long & Dirty remix)

Unter Null 9:30-10:00pm

Dj Carrion:
13. Solitary Experiments – Fast Forward(Total Rewind)
14. Les Anges De La Nuit – Reborn
15. Lights of Euphoria – One Nation(Le=Rav Vs. Massiv In Mensch remix)
16. Combichrist – Like To Thank My Buddies
17. E-Craft – Gerichtet
18. Powder Pussy – Cryogenic Pussylover

The first episode was pretty good, but… it only worked in spite of clichés. Please note that this series is called: MASTERS if Horror. These people are suppose to be furthering the genre from the success of their previous work. The twists were annoying; I’m not speaking of the ‘twist ending’ but the twist of all the clichés. Let’s see: most horrors have a girl screaming and running, let’s turn that on its ear and have her go Arnie vs. Predator on the baddie. Let’s put a twist on the ‘cabin full of horrors’ cliché too! Fuck, it got annoying how by the numbers the screenplay for this was. The director of cinematography far exceeded both the writing and directing. The look was excellent. Top notch. I’m curious to see what he’s done before.

What’s most sad about it though, is that even at its worse (which by no measure was it bad) it was better than 99% of the horror tripe that is making it to the big screen.

So, watch it. Its good TV, it’s better than the recent shit in Hollywood horror movies, but it only works in spite of what’s bad out there.

From time to time I’d pull out the camera and snap a pic, but it was mostly dance-dance-dance. Then we moved upstairs to the bar area above. It was all black lit and was playing some awesome Psy-Trance. Was introduced to a friend of Audra’s, then it was dance-dance-dance. That girl is an animal. She’s in shape, however I am not, and I thought my heart was going to explode just as she finally tired out and decided we should go do something else. (by this time it was 4:30AM, 5:30AM if you don’t account for Day-light-savings)

The best costume I saw was someone dressed as the villain from The Incredibles. He made the hair in a color so under the black lights it looked just like the crazy fire hair he had in the movie. The guy’s body was the same stubby kind of figure and it was awesome. I had to tell him how much I loved it. I didn’t get a picture though.

Bartender Jason @ Noir had said the previous day that he seriously hoped he saw a Storm Trooper this year. Well, I saw this one and took some photos for him. I love the one of him getting some ‘action’.

* Audra made it herself; some say she did it just so she could play with the double-boning.

While I was in Seattle doing some training with him, I was finally able to see and begin mastering how to do color correction, without the use of Adobe’s Auto Corrects, Levels or even a full color image. Instead, I now do my correction in black and white. I tweak each channel individually. This enables me to pull color data from one channel and mix/blend/add/extract into/out of another channel. Sometimes the yellow (Y) channel has better skin data than the Cyan (C) channel etc.

Here is an example.

This bored morning of mine I took the following picture of myself. (I look so sad!)

Please note how nasty the contrast and white balance is. I shoot in RAW, so pulling that into Photoshop CS2 and tweaking the WB is very easy.

From there I convert it from its native RGB 3-color embedment into a CMYK 4-color spread. I then contrast level all except for the Black (K) channel (contrasting the K level you loose massive amounts of data and clarity). This gives very punch and vibrant, but natural looking tones. This is an equivalent to the Telecine process that motion pictures undergo (this coupled with the 24p frame rate gives motion pictures that ‘edge’ over consumer cameras and short-films). Ending up looking like:

If you notice, the ridge of my nose and my lips are red. This is from the seasonal changes (lips) and my eye glasses (nose). So, in order to kill the redness and bring it more in line with my natural skin color I must dig into the red (M) channel now. The reason for this is, if I were to do a hue change in just those areas, we are pushing the color into a saturation of an unnatural tone. So, instead we will dampen the red, by simply removing it.

Using the Quickmask mode, I pull up a brush and feather it, then brush across my nose and lips, just in the areas that need some subduing. Then I pull up either the ‘curves’ or ‘levels’ (I tend to use curves when I’m doing professional work, and levels when its more personal and doesn’t need to be as precise for a magazine spread or a 22 foot long trade show booth image) and pull the dark space more towards a grey middle ground. This is telling Photoshop that the red shouldn’t be as saturated in that area.

After that I combine it all and do a simple sharpening of the image. Then so some simple ‘touch-up’ like removing blemishes and bug bites! (Canon’s CCDs tend to be very ‘smooth’ – even with the custom sharpening enabled. I like a good, detailed and ‘character filled’ face)

Final image (These images are all low resolution, I tend to work in MUCH higher R):

It is a bit cheating, but it’s a very accurate way of maintaining a full bodied color look, without compromising the original color data. (All the images I’ve taken for Kimber employed this process)

I must be bored.

I must say the interview was a hard push. The lady interviewing me was obviously very pressed for time with her leaving for Germany last week, and it showed. When I walked into the interview she only then began reading my resume and cover letter. It took me about 5 minutes to even get her to give me eye-contact and then it only came after I mentioned how good an idea I thought the mutual contract between Harlequin Romance Novels and Dark Horse’s Shojo Manga line was (She smiled, gave me full eye contact and said: “That was my idea.”) After that, eye-contact was far more common and I did make her smile often. I wish their job description would have been more complete, because the position was very heavy for trade show promotion, and while I have lots of experience with that field, my resume was tailored more for ‘marketing and coordination’, which their job description seemed to imply was what they sought. She mentioned that she used to work for Gerber knives and I threw out that Benchmade had made an offer for my employment before my promotion to Montana, but I don’t think that did much for me.

I do feel I botched a question that should have been an easy answer. I didn’t want to walk into the interview seeming a doting fan boy, so I tried hard to mention current DH distribution deals, but not over push my knowledge. When she asked me what my ideal job was, I unfortunately took a more ‘reserved approach’. I answered that what I had been doing over the past few years was exactly the kind of work I loved (Press Release writing, Trade Show organization, complete design accretion, web work etc.) but that I missed being a part of a creative team that both challenged and fostered my gained skills. I assumed she’d read me as saying: This job (Dark Horse) is my dream job. I guess she didn’t. I’ll remember next time that it is ok to let the fan boy loose a little bit.

I’ve got tons of resumes out currently looking for employment, so hopefully something else comes along, but Dark Horse has faded back into just a little boys dream. (I could possibly blame not getting the job on Jesus. You see, my parents came here a week back and prayed ON me to NOT get the job at [what they called] ‘Satan’s Horse’. I’m seriously NOT making that up. So, I can blame it on the interview being blasé, or God.)

Had an interview at Benchmade with the VP of Marketing (Joe) and his Human Resource Director (Karen) this morning. Seemed to go very well, and I’m pinning a few hopes with the possible position.

From the front desk sign in book, I saw two people before me with reasons of “Interview w/Joe” sign in and out times were appx. 15-20 mins each. I was in mine for nearly a full hour.

At one point I was asked to describe the process that went into a specific Ducks Unlimited flyer I designed and did photography for a few years ago. I elaborated, then after a pause, Joe looked to Karen and then they looked at me. I asked, “I hope I’m answering your questions, if not just tell me to be more specific.” Joe stated, “No, you are doing extraordinary; it’s nice for a change to actually ask a question and get a complete answer and not have to press the answer by asking 12 questions.” Karen then said, “It’s like we’re chatting, it’s very relaxing and yes, it’s a very nice change of pace.”

When I was leaving, I shook hands, said thanks and that I hoped I’d be hearing from them soon. Karen said under breath as the door opened, “You will.”

[UPDATE - Sat. 11/05/05]

Last night was the Front 242 concert in Seattle. I vowed that I wouldn’t go unless I had a job secured, which I was 98% sure I had. Since I never received the call back I was told I’d get by Friday if I had the job, it meant: Hello 2%, no Front 242 for me – and back to scraping for a job.

Benchmade Knives had brought me back for a second, third, fourth and fifth interview. Each one with a differing member of the management team. The second interview was with the original interview team of the Marketing Manager and the Human Resource Manager, where they went over my personality test. It was an odd personality test where I rated adjectives from 1-5. (Decisive 2, Callous 5, Tolerant 1, Shy 5, Autonomous 2, etc.) The results were: Type A, Director; Type B, Socializer; Type C, Thinker; Type D, Supporter. I figured even before the test that my results would classify me as a Socializer and a Thinker. I was wrong. I was primarily a Supporter (The HR Manager said, “I think you could empathize with anyone and can see every point of view, no matter who it is.”) and it was a tie between Director and Socializer for second, with thinker coming in last. This was a shock to me a little bit, over the past few years I’ve really pushed in bettering my personality by squashing my apathy – I didn’t realize how much this change has permeated my life. It makes me feel very good, but I still wish I was more of a Director than Socializer – maybe I’d get laid! (lol)

After this I had an interview with the Vice President of Operations who was in charge of the entire Benchmade operation excluding the accounting arm of the corporation. This puts him over the manufacturing, sales and marketing operations. It went great, on all counts. He was very aware of Kimber and knew all my previous bosses, so I didn’t need to get him up to speed to much regarding my professional experience. Of all the people I was interviewed he took the most detailed notes.

Then I had an interview with the Manager of OEM Manufacturing, Doug. The reason I actually mention his name is because of the manner in which everyone said it to me. They would explain to me all the interviews I’d be going through like this: “Well, first you will meet with Sally and Foster, from there Peiter, then DOOUUUUG and then George and finally Miguel” Everyone’s name was spoken professionally except for Doug. I assumed he was the fun guy of the group, and I hoped for a high rapport with him. He was a jovial guy, really happy and we did indeed hit it off. He wanted mostly to talk about my movie making and film school background, which was fun.

After Doug, I had an interview with the Manager of Benchmade Manufacturing, and finally the last interview before the huge factory tour was with the Chief Executive/Operating Officer. Of everyone I met, he was the most serine and intimidating. He was an older gentleman, but very passive and attentive. Of the eyes that watched me while I talked through all these interviews, his had the most weight. He really was paying attention more to ME, than the words coming out of my mouth. My fidgets, my energy; it felt like he was judging every intonation. The final question and the first to broach the subject was, “Well, Lynn what kind of salary expectation do we have here?” I was glad it was finally a subject, because it hadn’t been through this entire process. I explained, “Please understand that I am aware that this is a professional step down for me. I understand that the position won’t be paying as well as I was compensated for at Kimber. The most important thing to me is that I’m a member of a creative team that promotes a superior product I can be proud of, like I was with Kimber. That being said, I was compensated by Kimber in the sum of $XXk.” The minute I said the figure, I heard his sphincter cramp up and he cleared his throat. “Well, that’s a substantially higher figure than what we were expecting to pay.” This seemed odd to me. After all these interviews at the level of personnel I was being interviewed by – my figure really isn’t that high. I again reiterated that I fully understood this. I wish I’d have explained that I wanted to hear their figure before they cut me out of the run. Oh well. After that final interview I was taken on a big factory tour, it had been years since I’d seen CNC machines and that white coolant. It was refreshing and reminded me of Kimber in Clackamas and the struggles I went through during that time. Such a long way I’ve come.

I was told to expect a phone call on Friday if I got the position. Zero calls. I even called later on Friday to touch base with the HR woman, but my message was not returned.

At this time I began putting all my efforts into another position inside the industry. This time I’m taking no chances. I’m coming at it with multiple contacts at differing levels of seniority and influence inside the building, and external agency contacts that deal with the company. If I don’t get this one, I’ll be even more surprised.

While I’m making an example of just one of the positions I’ve been pressing for, through all this I’ve still been submitting 5-6 CVs a day to craiglist.org, careerbuilder.com, monster.com, jobdango.com (which is a crappy site BTW), trades and finally through direct job searches for companies I’d like to work at. After doing this for 3-4 months now, this had better come to an end soon. I can’t believe that no one is interested in an award winning marketing, creative and technical operations manager with ten years of experience. It’s utterly disheartening.

Portland does indeed suck for employment. Tax subsidized socialism can suck me silly.

…We all know how to interpolate what boob looks like, but there is something amazing about having a second layer of mystery…

…So how can we combat the summary execution of bushiness? First off, I think we need to unleash a public relations campaign unseen since the days of the “Syphilis Isn’t A Greek Philosopher” campaign of the 1950’s. …

It is for this reason I pushed Frosty to start up his own blog. The man is one funny S.O.B, honest to a point of hilarity.

I’ve been begging Woofie and Mike to come see me in Portland for a few months now. I have a big project I need their help with but they just seemed to busy to take the one and a half hour drive over.

Yesterday they finally showed up! It was great.

We first headed to Old Town Pizza, just up the street from me and while drinking a pitcher of beer we talked about old times. Considering the project I am working on is related to our old Dungeons & Dragons campaign we played in high school, the table talk was pretty verbose in high jinks and geek speak.

The Plan was for us to drink a few drinks and then end up at The Backspace playing some X-Box. The Plan never came together. Instead, we walked up to Ringler’s Pub and had more beer and French fries. Talked more but this time the subject was sex and Woofie’s new favorite body part (well, not NEW). [sniggle] I ran and grabbed a Mercury to root for something to do. Mike is like me, more open to dancing and socializing, while Woofie is quiet and likes hard rock. So, I was trying to find a balance for all of us, but then I noticed that The Mercury I was using wasn’t good until the next day. I though maybe The Fez, but Woofie might not enjoy it. When I was putting The Mercury back I noticed a huge truck with all these big men hauling equipement out of it, then it struck me! That Redhead Girl (Audra) had mentioned a head-banging rock concert and it was just up stairs from us. I threw the idea out to see if they wanted to do that. It was go.

We bought tickets and headed up to the Crystal Ballroom. Opeth was just hitting the stage, and Mike leaned over to me and said, “I feel a bit out of place”. He was wearing a bright orange outdoor jacket, while everyone else in the venue were wearing black. I giggled at that, and we moved over to the 21+ crowd and started drinking more. I walked over to an attendant and asked if I could take pictures and they were unsure, but didn’t see a problem. So I pulled out the 20D and started snapping pictures. In about 5 minutes a big tall security guard came over to me demanded I stop taking photos, because no professional photography was allowed. I retorted that I wasn’t professional, but just an amateur and he said: if it has a lense, it’s professional. Oh well, I managed to snag a few good shots before the smack down.

Woof loved it. He was bobbing his head in no time and I was happy to be there with them and the drummer for Opeth can kick some skin. I enjoyed how conversational the lead singer was, he engaged the audience between almost every song. One funny comment was “I’m going to play 13 Minutes of the same beat at differing variations.”

After Opeth finished up, Mike was antsy and wanted to hit another place, so we ducked out and grabbed a taxi to The Devil’s Point. Mikey had mentioned it when we stopped in to say hi while he was working at Spartacus. If I’d have known it was as far out as it was, I’d probably have just had the taxi take us to Acropolis. Oh well, it was fun! I drank more and had a lapdance from Stormy. I was pretty buzzed at this point and ended up just talking her ear off in the private dancer room instead of ogling her body, and when I came out both Mike and Woofie said to me, “Did we hear you giggling in there?!” While I was at the stage, Mike and Woofie pulled out my camera, took pictures, and quickly got into some trouble. I later apologized to the bartender and DJ who both were really cool, and just wanted to see some photos on the camera. I showed them the shots from the Cruxshadow show and when the bartender heard what kind of music I liked, he handed me a flyer for some of his events. Yay for future funness!

We then took a taxi over to what was once Doc’s, but is now The Safari Club. Woofie, all night, had been sheepishly sitting in the back and didn’t seem to be really having that much fun after we left the Opeth show. Here he got right up in front and the dancer loved him! So much so that the bouncer came up and told HER to quit dancing on him, she pouted a bit and then whispered into Woof’s ear a question. “Do you mind getting a little wet?” Who’s Woof to stop a naked woman? She poured his drink in his crotch via her leg – like Salma Hayek in From Dusk ‘Til Dawn. [sniggle]

From there we headed home and were generally dorks taking embarrassing photos of ourselves until 4AM.

It was a lot of fun to see them, but next time we need to just go play video games, my head hurts and so does Mike’s wallet!

I’ve never been a huge fan of The Cruxshadows. I can’t put my finger on the reason, they are a lot of things I love and enjoy all bundled together, but there is something… missing and empty about them for me. Some EBM, some goth, some violin, some guitar and now… some go-go dancers? I listen to their albums over and over and can still never pick out one favorite, because there just isn’t any. However, I continue to listen because they are unique and talented, and that’s why I went to the show at Sabalas Mt. Tabor in Portland.

I decided I wasn’t going to show up dressed all in black, so I threw on my jeans, a tan shirt with a black tie and pulled my Luke Skywalker Empire Strikes Back jacket over it all. Threw my 20D into my satchel and headed out.

I arrived just as Written In Ashes were starting their second song. Coradee and I chatted for a bit and took in the tunes. I was impressed by WIA, not what I was expecting at all. Portland has some fabulous local acts, and while not always my taste, very talented! It was also great seeing Adam (Fuck you Adam!), Derek, Roger and Carolee, Jeremy, Rachel, Aristai…goodness I’m really starting to meet people huh?!

While on the subject of chatting, I want to say that many of the Portland gothic people that showed up were damn disrespectful. When Ego Likeness moved into a slower and more melodic tune, the background talking was nearly as loud as the music. There was a particular obnoxiously loud group right in front of the bands merchandise counter. I nearly wacked them alongside the heads (sort of like a Six Feet Under reality-flash sequence). If people want to talk so badly and have to scream over the band, just go sit at the Sabalas Sideshow room and let the people enjoy the music they paid to hear.

Cruxshadows took the stage and I must say they had some wild energy! The lead singer had a wireless headset and he would walk around the concert hall getting the people in the back engaged. While it annoyed some, I thought it was pretty cool to hear the little voice hitting the mic and then big voice pumping out the speakers. Very entertaining and damn talented. However, like I mentioned earlier I’m on the fence with Crux’s music. The volume levels there were some of the loudest I’ve ever been bathed by. Even KMFDM in Boise at The Big Easy wasn’t this loud, and that was painful! After 3-4 songs I moved over to the Sideshow part of Sabalas and watched a Hammer film over Jeremy’s shoulder while Rachel vented some much needed venting on us.

I then headed home. I was pretty tired from getting up at 6:30AM so I could hit a Kinkos and then be early for my interview at Dark Horse (which went well, but I’ll know more tomorrow!)

As for the attached photos: I didn’t take to many this time around. The reason being that there were so many people there and I couldn’t get in a good place to take a single decent photo. Not only that, but when I did manage to get into somewhat of a fair position, I’d look around me and everyone had cameras and where flashing photos like crazy. I hadn’t seen that yet. (Circle 23 fuzzily has named them, The Gotharazzi) So, I just moved around and watched/listened to the bands and the people snappity snap away.

I hate the fact that in order to take a photo I have to pull a hunk of hardware out in front of my face and be so obvious about it. I want to blend in and not be noticed, to catch a good unposed shot etc. It’s just not possible yet.

I had been chatting with Frosty when I mentioned I was going to the Mindless Self Indulgence concert that evening with Aristai. Frosty wasn’t aware of the band, so I sent him the URL to their myspace account. (Go there and listen to Shut Me Up)

In just a few moments he started copy-pasting users comments, that included gems such as:

erect square(ILSE)!!!!
fuck jimmy urine i would tottaly fuck you and im 16 oh yeah and your music tottaly rocks like fucking sex

miss sharon stoned is an actress. duh.
MSI IS THE AWSOME-SEXXX. i fucking ♥ you fuckers

Then add about 3000 comments that were variations of “fucking awesome” “fucking kicked-ass” etc.

The mentality of those posts should have given me a good indication of what to expect from the audience. Frosty was right when he said, “…if that’s their audience, have fun sight seeing!”

We arrive to the venue (Loveland in Portland Oregon on the east side of the river) and the first thing to greet us is a busted door with no handle. Honeybucket about broke his nails off getting the ghetto-worn door to even nudge. Then when he mentioned it to the lifeless and judging ticket taker, she looked at us like we were stupid. Granted, it was an obvious charge, but we couldn’t get in, and she sat there and watched us attempt to open it! After a quick Q&A, I find that there isn’t an ATM in the building, so I have to run 4 blocks to the Slow Bar for cash. Once back at The Loveland, I find out it is an all age club with no alcohol. Then it hits me. Oh god, Frosty is going to be right. I look around and sure enough notice that Honeybucket and I are the oldest in sight. From ages 13-18 (I swear some were even younger) all out on a Sunday night, with no supervision. I wanted to stop a few and ask them where their parents were. Even Jimmy Urine, the lead singer later took to task the audience and show promoters, “Who let these 12 year olds in here, look at all of them!!”

The audience wasn’t the worse part of the evening, the venue was. I will say right now that I will never attend another act at the Loveland no matter who it is. The Loveland in Portland is the worse I’ve seen for performances. The sound was so nasty that Mindless Self Indulgence actually all sat down and listened to their own CD, for a track, in defiance of the muffled and warbled Loveland setup. Blistering humidity heat and sweat because of ZERO ventilation. I will never be critical of Noir’s ventilation again, Loveland was hell.

Some girl puked up an oatmeal like puddle of stomach, that everyone ignored and simply walked through. Their juvenile enthusiasm kept their heads up high and their feet dragging liquid and chunks all over the venue. Coupled with the heat, it quickly dried and soon the place reeked of acid and bile.

I can not overstate my contempt for The Loveland, its owners and the promoters of the show.

I would have left, for I didn’t want the venue to taint a band I enjoy, but I didn’t drive. So, I sat in the back sandwich and beverage shop, watching a 14 year old girl cry for an hour while her boyfriend sat there and worthlessly patted her back. For a complete hour!

I want that part of my life back.

From time to time when she visits you’ll see us make these faces. Make your own title, what was this one?

On the corner of Washington and Grand in Portland on the east side of the river is nestled a jukejoint with a dark cold wood bar. The chic dim lit and sparse layout would normally be designed to pull in the elitist Doug Fir types, but there is a little box in the back of the bar that pulls in a different crowd. For you see this box has the best selection of retro punk classics and alternative in the city, hands down.

This last visit of Sharon’s (I am working on a detailed chronicle for your digestion), we walked into the bar, threw in a couple dollars worth of tunes and ordered a Corona from the bartendress. We sat in the massive, dwarf-feel inducing (a feeling I’m comfortable with) booths and watched Valley Girl with Nicolas Cage while rocking out to Decendants etc.

I never stay too long, just long enough to absorb a few songs, drink a beer, smile about the comfort and energy the bar brings me; then exit.

Slow Bar: Home of The Best Juke Box in Portland. I highly recommend (and have before).

While reporting directly to the Vice President of Marketing & Sales, I coordinated and accreted materials and assets for an international marketing campaign with a budget in excess of 1.5 million dollars a year. ..[snip].. While in my tenure, (snip company name) emerged from obscurity to become a dominating and emulative leader in the industry; with a combined company asset total from 1.2 million at my hire to over 57 million at my departure. ..[snip].. Complimented and assisted in the development of a direct sales strategy that defied present industry practices and remains the exemplary exception to this day. ..[snip].. Solely responsible for establishing company internet presence and ecommerce implementation.

Maybe I need to tone it down? Dumb it down? Additionally, I’m terrified of an interview. I’ve worked for (snip) for over 10 years and this whole process is utterly daunting. I can handle mounds of stress, materials deadlines, government lawsuits, but the thought of all this is (lol) scary.

§ I finished up reading Lord Foul’s Bane, the first book in Thomas Covenant The Unbeliever. The lead, Covenant, is a leper who gets transported to a fantasy world whose magic cures him of his blight. Later the same week as completing this book, I burned my left hand. It was pretty bad, nasty boiling, lots of surrounding tissue damage that stretched up to my wrist. After a few days I was really getting weirded out by it. Closer towards the tip of my thumb a strange slice of flesh flaked off and exposed the lower dermis. I completely stated to freak out at the possibility I too, like Covenant, had leprosy. It all healed, including the ‘leper’ flake. YAY!

§ I found out Monday night that Le Tigre is Bikini Kill! Riot Grrl Weirdness! I also found out that Cedric adapts to new rules very very quickly.

§ The new Apoptygma, now sits on the counter by the door getting ready to be given back to the CD shop for credit. So disappointed. I like evolution and change, but this I can’t stomach. New Apoptygma makes me sad. New KMFDM makes up for it.

§ I watched Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children tonight. Graphics are the cool usual from Square Enix, but for a movie that has so much motorcycle stuff, you’d think they’d get the gravity physics of them down correctly. They look like they hover over the landscape instead of drive on it. Oh well, there is a big -dragon- like creature towards the end that reminds me of something from Rahxephon. It was alright, I’m still waiting for Square Enix to do something spectacular though.

§ There may be hope at getting my $270 cellphone returned…hmm. I’m sure once I have more, there will be a major post.

§ I watched all the Hellraiser movies up to the latest one (8), and I must say that the first, coupled with the back-story in Bloodlines (4) and Deader (7) are the only ones out of the bunch really worth their mettle (Shitty directing on all counts aside).

§ While I found Eon McKai sort of interesting at the beginning, seeing him turn into a glory gonzo hack is disheartening. Additionally hearing how he is craping on the people that helped him start isn’t a wise business decision. Even Jack The Zipper is pulling a cop-out and going ‘arty’ gonzo. Lame. I want interesting features. Maybe DCypher can handle the task? (How Jack The Zipper and DCypher get any work done is a feat unto it’s own however. Their significant others (Kimberly Kane and Justine Joli respectively) are knock outs.)

§ My New Republic subscription finally started showing up here in Portland, right along with my Gun Tests magazine. Now there’s some conflicting reads there! [sniggle]

§ I have Sarvas reading and researching the current new 2257 laws (just recently altered and ‘enhanced’ by Mr. Gonzales) but the more I read on the subject, the more I think I might actually seek legal counsel before this big embark. I highly doubt there is a ‘course’ you can take that covers the bases. Hmm. gauzy.net is going to be interesting.

§ Well, time to stop writing all these little blurps and watch Argento’s Tenebre (uncut). Ahhh, the classics. (I can’t wait to find a career again.)

Highly Anticipated include: Noein ~ Mou Hitori no Kimi E | Mushishi | Cluster Edge | Blood+ | Paradise Kiss

The full list (including least anticipated) with comments are here.

The other thing it’s good for is promotion; specifically: band promotion. It excels where even official band websites fail, in that you can stream complete songs and singles from bands. So, Miss Dawn Brown requested that I recommend some tunes. I’m recommending this following, but bear in mind, I’m cutting out all the ‘industrial’ stuff, otherwise the list would be far bigger (and better IMHO.) but, I’m catering to what I think some of you stonethorn.com followers will enjoy.

So, click on the links and in the upper right will be a ‘music player’, usually there are 4 songs to choose from. I’ve listed the singles and ones I like best in () below.

Have fun!

Conjure One (Extraordinary Way) Vocals by Poe with music by the man behind Front Line Assembly. The following track has him on vocals for the first time ever. Pretty good.
The Birthday Massacre The big single off this is (Blue), but I feel (Violet) is far superior, mostly because it doesn’t feel like such a knock off of the faux-gothic-rock band Evanescence.
The Lovemakers (Prepare for The Fight) Very Duran Durany. (Shake That Ass) is very 70s in a exploitive way.
Depeche Mode (Precious) here’s the new single. It’s ok, but the Motor Remix, which isn’t there for listening – go buy the CDM – is just awesome!
Xlover Everything here is great, I can’t recommend this one enough! BUY IT.
Ricodid the production on the Gary Numan remix album Hybrid and did an awesome job, his solo material is equally great. Trip-hoppy with some more jungle aspects in there.
Sohodolls If you like the electroclash stuff, here’s a good addition. The girls of Client signed these girls and I AM X to their label.
I AM X All these tracks are great, with the exception of Kiss + Swallow… it’s just fair. But the other three, aww yea. Good stuff! BUY IT!
Mindless Self Indulgence This is just _plain_ _fun_. Crazy tempo changes and crazy vocals. Fun Fun Fun.!!
Scarling I’m throwing this on here for a change of pace, I’m not to happy with this commercial release album really, but I know a few who will be.

You know the scene in Willow, where Madmartigan is caged at the crossroads between the warring human Daikini lands and the lush landscapes of the wee-folk known as Nelwyns and he curses Willow for not freeing him? That’s where my second nick came from. Who of the gang first threw it out, I can’t remember. It stuck, and after 10 years of not hearing it, I’m back and it’s one of the first things that is to greet me.

So, I’ve been struggling with Stonethorn over the past few weeks. With so much time on my hands I want to post little blurbs, or messages that aren’t quite full post material. It’s daunting to come up with full submissions for Stonethorn with that big House Industries font declaring that it’s an important post; so daunting, in fact, that I wanted another outlet to post my trivial waxings.

The solution is what I’m calling: PeckPosts!

PeckPosts are something you won’t get the usual email reminder telling you this site has been updated, because these little posts really aren’t that significant. They’ll be smaller book recommends, movies to see, idiots I collide with and criticize, things of that nature. Little Things. Peck Things. So, if you want to read them, you’ll have to check back without a cutsie reminder.

You can see them from now on: here.

Oh and the Red Cell‘s 2 CD Hybrid Society is right there with Rotersand for best albums of the year. IMHO.

LOL. I love the bobbing ‘stuka’ airplane!

Watched Infernal Affairs (American Trailer). This is an Chinese movie I’ve been intending to watch for two years now. Martin Scorsese is making a ‘rip off’ of it currently, and now that I’ve seen it, I can fully understand why Martin (used to be good) Scorsese is dying to get some of this amazing movie’s mojo.

It’s a cop vs. drug dealer movie, but far more interesting. You see the drug dealer has a mole in the police HQ and the police have a mole in the drug dealers organization. So, The chief of police and the drug tsar both declare a war on each other to find the mole and destroy the other. So, you have two moles looking for each other while trying to best the other side, but look like they aren’t. Complex yet terse like most Chinese films.

I’m dying to watch it again. It’s not a big shoot-em-up bang bang of a picture, it does have some gun play, but this is more of a cat and mouse on the edge of your hips type of movie.

There are two sequels that is said to be as good, hmmm… guess I’ll be watching those this week!

Current Music: Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Rockets Fall on Rockets Fall

DJ Uberlush pumped out some very tweaky-twitch-dancy tracks; I always enjoy his music choices and his bobbing enthusiasm to his own sets. (I swear that Xlover’s Aneurysm would have fit in there somewhere and not killed the floor) I managed to snag some good photos of him finally.

DJ Carrion’s set was dark dark dark. The mood he laid down early was very impressive. At the end he spun out two requests of mine: Battery Cage – State Machine (Stromkern Mix) which was a lot slower than I had remembered it. Oops. Then, when I was grabbing my bag to go pay my tab he growls at me: “you’d better dance to this one Lynn!” Then I listened and he was playing Red Cell – Related Skin from the Born-Evolve-Progress comp – ahh, that track is so good. (Sounds even better at the volume, its tough going from living alone in a house in BFE Montana to an apt downtown Portland… volume levels stay much lower.)

The crowd was very diverse, for every familiar face there was one I’d never seen out. The place really was packed for the last few hours and getting a drink was crazy, even with two bartenders the drink demand was unquenchable! I helped bar-back a few rounds of drinks from around the bar at one point. Great sign of Dementia’s popularity! Lots of dancing people!

UPDATE:

Chris Randall had this to say on his blog about the night @ Noir, which confirms what I say above about Portland IGs not dancing:

I’ve proved once again that I can kill a dancefloor faster than anyone ever imagined. What I don’t understand is as follows: I play Joy Division and everyone just stares, then the DJ after me, his first track is some current band that sounds _just_ like Joy Division, and it packs the floor. There’s some wannabe goths out there, I just want to warn you.

For a complete playlist of the evening click for

Dementia playlists from 09/03/05

Artist/Song

* – Specific request
** – Artist request
_________________________________________________
Atomica “Metropolitan” from 9:00pm-10:00pm

Dj Carrion:
01. Monstrum Sepsis – Trojan Horse
02. Spies – t:d:r:o:s
03. Pressure Control – Biogod
04. Terrorfakt – Hate Like This(Displacer remix)
05. Skorbut – Paradise Parasites
06. Framework – Kill Switch
07. Stromkern – Televised
08. Necro Facility – Methane View
09. Suicide Commando – Dead Call
10. Gridlock – Wound
11. *Christian Death – Cervix Couch(Spahn Ranch remix)
12. Die Form – Rain of Blood
13. **Coil – Love’s Secret Domain
14. *Broken Fabiola – Japanese Callgirl(Manufactura remix)

Dj Chris Randall:
15. Einsturzende Neubauten – Installation
16. Beautiful Assasins – Hellbent
17. KMFDM – Liebesleid
18. ARF – Sonda
19. Siouxsie & The Banshees – Monitor
20. Atomica – Larsen
21. Bauhaus – Third Uncle
22. Eco-Head – Land of The Free
23. Joy Division – Digital
24. Manufactura – I’ll Tear Your Fucking Head Off

Dj Uberlush:
25. Christian Death – Romeo’s Distress
26. Coil – Windowpane
27. Ministry – The Land of Rape & Honey
28. Thrill Kill Kult – A Daisy Chain 4 Satan
29. Oil 10 – Lost In Metropolis
30. Kraftwerk – The Robots
31. Covenant – Tension
32. Benny Benassi – Satisfaction
33. Berlin – Sex(I’m A)
34. P.T.P. – Rubber Glove Seduction

Dj Carrion:
35. *Snog – Corporate Slave
36. Front 242 – Rhythm of Time
37. Pop Will Eat Itself – Ich Bin Ein Auslander
38. *Feindflug – Stukas Im Viser
39. **Death In June – Leopard Flowers
40. **QNTAL – Name Der Rose
41. **Depeche Mode – Stripped
42. Wolfsheim – Touch
43. Camouflage – Close(We Stroke The Flame)
44. **Tactical Sekt – VX
45. *Psyclon Nine – Behind A Serrated Grin
46. Agonoize – Sick
47. Stromkern – Slow Cascade
48. *Battery Cage – Statemachine(Stromkern remix)
49. *Red Cell – Related Skin
50. Centhron – Tanz Im Strernen Feuer

So, when I limped up to the venue there was big line of polo tucked into the dockers, baseball cap adored late20-30some-things and my hopes of a fun night started sinking. I really didn’t want to spend money on a cover and have a shit night.

I had my iPod plugged into my head and was jamming to some mindfluxfuneral, and after standing there a few minutes waiting for the line to move along, I removed the plugs and instantly recognized the music pulsing from inside: it was theStart. theStart is a band I had heard a lot about but couldn’t gain access to until one night at a Jenny and Janessa’s Afterhours party, while Janessa was off in another room on the phone, I dug through her CDs and found it nestled in her case. Later I asked to borrow it and she relented. Overall a fair band, only one real stand out track on the CD, but it was something new at the time. Girl bands fade pretty quickly in my memory; they just don’t have the longevity for me. However, I was a bit excited to see them play live once I heard the vocals from outside the venue. When I approached, the big burly bouncer took my ID and then stated there was no photography allowed inside. I had intended on bringing my 20D, but decided not at the last second out the door, but did bring along my Olympus. I told him, I did have a camera, but promised not to take any photos. He looked at me, probably weighed me in his mind a bit and then stated: “Alright, if you keep it in you satchel and don’t remove either of them, I’ll let you in – I usually confiscate cameras and bags until you leave, but I’ll take your word.” I paid the $6 dollar cover and entered.

I watched theStart finish up one song and then they launched into their final piece before taking down the equipment. I had made it just for the end of their set. I wandered around looking for Miky or any familiar faces. Soon Miky came bounding up to me. He introduced me to a few coworkers, I remember Nicole but the other lady’s names escape me. (meep)

After theStart cleared the stage out came Dante’s answer to an MC. An obnoxious booze peddler, who looked a lot like the hypnotized hero in Office Space, and introduced each act with ‘cute’ little jingles like, “Booze, Boobies and Titties”. Don’t forget he made sure to keep pimping the booze between each set. “Drink up and grab the crotch beside you ladies!” (sigh)

Suicidegirls.com was highly present with three models. Stormy opened up with a stage crossing, high energy set, which showed she was used to more ‘small band venue’ stages and not the typical stripper stage. She moved around a lot (To Electric Six‘s Naked Pictures of Your Mother) and on all fours, often commanding the attention of all sides of the stage. She was such a tiny little thing for those huge high heels. The two go-go dancers that drew the in-between acts attention were London and Marie. London was my favored, with far smaller burlesque style staccato hip swings and lots of smiles. When a song played that she didn’t seem to enjoy, the more she sort of trotted around. Great body; very muscular in a very feminine way. I’d have stared at her endlessly if it weren’t for the crazy, swirling, wiggly dancing of Marie. From the distance I was sitting her tattoos complemented her womanly bits quite well, and her facial tattoos did just the same for her eyes. Her hand to neck and downwardly gaze towards the audience was her staple, plus all that swirling and wiggling. It’d be fun to watch her dance with her clothes on!

The two authentic adult dancers that I saw in the time I was there, were just that: authentic. The minute they took the stage, they slowly teased the crowds, showcased their stripper-pole acumen and showed measures of grace the younger Stormy couldn’t match. One even had a snake she played with while performing. I wondered about the snake as she quickly merry-a-go-rounded down the pole, does it get dizzy? I get dizzy watching that!

As all of this played out, the room temperature began to steadily rise. I had shown up in a long sleeved shirt under my bondage jacket, with my rubber Russian gasmask bag around my shoulders and I was a glisteny-white-thing under all of it. I was roasting. Hrpukensheet and Aloneindarkness arrived and it was awesome to catch them outside of Noir/Dementia. Hrpukensheet’s sense of brutal honesty is massively refreshing. The man will sum up a complaint like no ones business. H:“Jesus, it’s fucking hot in here!” H:“I fucking hate this venue.” H:“Fuck it’s crowded” H:“Fuck them!” H:”What the fuck?! (This one was used when T.A.T.U’s cover of The Smith’sHow Soon Is Nowpiped over the speakers.)

Malice image (C) PDXBlackbook and Carl Geers

When Malice took to the stage, it was adored with a metal surgery gurney, an assistants brushed steel surgical utensil tray and the entire floor was covered in a thick white plastic. On the surgery gurney was a hospital robed girl. She was laying flat and ‘lifeless’ when Malice walked out, the booming introduction to Dr. Thodt by :wumpscut: blasted from the speakers. Malice proceeded to take utensils form the tray and pry the girls chest open and saw away her ribs, exposing her internals so that she could scoop them up and rub them all over her flesh. Huh? She didn’t really right? No, it was all faked, but the energy was there and she was using real pigs intestines and blood. It was pretty gross. The girl on the gurney sat up, zombie like and struggled with Malice, who proceeded to bend her over the gurney and have her faux-way with her. After some more bloody chunk rubbing to performer flesh. The music faded with the lights and the act was over. Over all, like I said: the enthusiasm was there and it was interesting to see something different than just go-gos or the splits etc. However, my criticisms are that she had her back to the audience the entire time she performed the faux-surgery, so as she pulled the stringy chunks of matter from the kangaroo sack around the girls belly, we couldn’t see it until she turned around and displayed it. Then it seemed too detached from the horridness of the girl on the gurney. Additionally, when the zombie-girl struggled, only to get bent over the gurney, she again did this with her buttocks to the audience. If the struggle would have been more choreographed and more strangely sexy, it could have moved around to the side, so the crowd could see more of what was being implied. Lots of fun and sexy strong women, but could have been executed better with some stage direction.

Just when things couldn’t get more H:“fuck, I’m sweating to death”. Out came: Peach. Peach was a bald, tattooed, muscular toned crazy man! His specialty was fire! The DJ, who looked like he would fit right into an episode of The Sopranos, cranked up Rob Zombie’s Living Dead Girl (Exorcism Mix). I’m sorry, but I can’t really think of better music to swirl flaming balls and ropes around yourself too… can you? (I also can’t help but hear that song and see Faith (Eliza Dushku) dancing to that song and romping around stealing boyfriends and kicking some Sunnydale ass.) It was great! They dumped alcohol onto the plastic mat and lit on fire, with the swirling and smoking three foot flames around him, he shirtlessly whipped balls and long flaming cords around him. His finishing set was sort of a backfire. I’m not sure if it was the humidity of the room, or what, but he would drag an alcohol saturated flaming sponge across his bare chest and arms and the flames wouldn’t stay lit. Right after you’d see just a glimmer of a blue flame, and then nothing. He was growing frustrated with it and I felt for him. It would have been a cool ending.

Somewhere in here these two drunken jocks started horning on our table, that Miky and Nicole and friends had arrived VERY early to control. They moved in with their ever (not) so subtle and suave come-ons to the girls at our side. The girls were not impressed and were getting annoyed by them. Once a seat had opened up, the grungier of the two quickly filled it with his ass. He looked around our table for another chair for his buddy. He looked up to me, I had my arms on the back of one of the chairs, but I had it pushed in so that HRpukensheet and Aloneindarkness could stand behind me and not be all scrunched in. I saw him giving me the universal eyebrow raise of ‘is it cool we snag that chair’ I looked away and he got the hint. So, what does his buddy do? He puts his drink down and climbs up the huge pillar beside us. Storm, the head bartender at Dante’s, freaked, she threw handfuls of ice at him screaming for him to “get the fuck down!” Now, I know wha tyou are thinking, she couldn’t have thrown that hard, it’s only ice. I tell you, ouch, that guy must have had bruises on the side of his body the mext day, because I got hit in the side of the head with one of the peices and youch! It about knocked me over. She then hosed the guy down with a bar spiggot until the boncers arrived and escored them both out. Heh, that’s what you get for leeching into our turf!

But the best act of the night was a couple called: The Trained Professionals; a married couple who did a tease performance where they balanced on each other. She’d get on his shoulders and stick a leg out and he’d do the opposing motion below. It proceeded to get far more complicated then that. He’d bury his head in her thighs, she’d stand and squat, leaning back, then he would straighten his body out until just one of her legs was anchoring them to the ground, while they were both vertical, a foot off the ground. Incredible.

From there I followed behind Hrpukensheet and Aloneindarkness up to The Fez for HIVE. Very interesting venue… with air conditioning! That’s my one big complaint about Noir, is its lack of forced dance-heat removal. The Fez had interesting areas to sit and gawk at dancers and pretty black-dressed things. Talked with a few people, got some contact information of others. Received some praise for the photos I’ve been taking, which I still am not keen on, but I know one day I’ll knock it out of the park.

I think I drank ten glasses of water before setting off home. Dante’s inferno had nearly baked me!

From time to time when I’m talking to S, we talk about our pasts. How when I was a square hard-working diligent Fred Meyer prole on the Oregon coast, she was a club-kid hard-working hotel cleaning lady on the Oregon Coast. We laugh about how, back then, I’d probably think she was a crazy punk-rock chick, and she’d mock my conservative twelve-year-old-looks. Well, here is proof of my lameness, the dazzling colors of the rainbow I tell you. Wheew! MY how we change!

Here are more photos, taken by Woofie back at old Warrenton High School (WHS Warriors!) and also at my father’s business on the airport.

Just when I think things can’t get any more lonely, they do: I lost my fcuking cellphone on the journey home from Noir. I think I did it at the club, but we’ll see tomorrow. Until I replace the phone: no talky to Lynny. I’m sure thats a blessing for most.

(UPDATE: Sun. Sept 04) In a last futile attempt at finding my $270.00 phone, I struck out today. I took a few photos in the same spots as I did the other night. So, here they are!

For those who don’t know what the Allies section of the site is all about: it’s a resource for everyone to be able to put faces to names when I talk about different people from my past or now in my present. There are Allies, with acquaintances, maybe even some Axis! The goal isn’t to measure who my friends are, but a simple pictorial guide of those people in my life!

Never be lonely again! Action-figure ULTRA is here! Dress him up like Ed Harris from The Abyss and save the world from nuclear destruction; or throw a wig and dress on him like Mama Fratelli from The Goonies and find buried treasure in the Pacific! The scenarios are nearly limitless! You are impeded by your imagination alone!

Angry? Defile ULTRA with torture! Burn his feet or maybe just a toe! Poke his groin-area with painful viciousness, until nothing but a hole remains! Cut him out and stuff his head up his butt! Fold him in two, and then skewer him with cocktail umbrellas! Go crazy! Put white military issue underclothes on him, present him with a 7.62 Full Metal Jacket rifle and show him the restroom! There are no laws protecting Action-figure ULTRA!

Going on a business trip alone, or has your loved one gone on a business trip? Print two ULTRAs, carefully cut them out, staple them together along the edges, then stuff him full of soft down. Place him right beside you, but don’t worry! He only makes a move if you choose, but he’s best as a comforting pillow!

Want to relay advice (or maybe bitch out your boss), but don’t want to deal with the consequences of having said it? Make ULTRA do the dirty work. Simply pencil in a word or thought balloon next to him with what’s on your mind, and then put him in a public area for the advisee to read. He sticks easily to refrigerators with magnets!

Feel free to download as many copies of Action-figure ULTRA as you need here! Don’t forget to give him treats from time to time. He’ll need the energy!

Playlist:

Dementia Playlist 08-27-05

curatix
——-
human league – being boiled
oneroid psychosis – prurience
cocteau twins – all but an ark lark
skeletal family – so sure
wolfgang press – so long dead
cadra ash – call to rememberance
the sixteens – community people
katzenjammer kabarett – lies suck not
legendary pink dots – lisa’s party
xmal deutchland – hand in hand
gary numan – we are so fragile
chris connolly – get down here
peter murphy – marlene dietariey’s favorite poem
submarine fleet 0 sea of chance

medusa
——
tones on tail – when you’re smiling
monolith – matrix a
pow[d]er pussy – n rot
pal – discoroad
black lung – karmaggeddon
asche – riding the atomic ice
implant dont like them noizey
haujobb – less rmx
pzycho bitch – eden
kmfdm – loving can ba an art
kompressor – rappers we crush
pigface – fuck it up

adam
—-
g. jones- libertango
gogol bordello – dogs were barking
madness – isaerlites
op ivy – freeze up
bad religion – inner logic
evil’s toy – vicitm of the sun
qntal – flamm
rezillos – somebody’s gonna get their head kicked in tonight
dead kennedies – forward to death
misfits- turned into martian
dropkick murphys – captain kellys kitchen

nevermore
———
collide-halo
natacha atlas-yalla chant (banco de gaia mix)
broken fabiola-japanes call girl
combichrist-this shit will fuck you up
prodigy-smack my bitch up
snake river conspiracy-lovesong
miss kitten-rippin kitten
vnv nation-kathys song

horrid
——
numb-blood
wumpscutt-dark chamber
cop shoot cop $10 bill
crash worship- triple mania
di-richard hung himself
bow wow wow-i want candy
ministry-breathe
virtual embrace-fuck you

Zufall
——
Wolfsheim – Once in a Lifetime
Rotersand – Undone
Apoptygma Berzerk – Until the End of the World (Dan Framtpton Remix)
Seize – Don’t Let Me
Covenant – Dead Stars (Club Version )
Boole – Blow Up the World
And One -Wasted (Radio Edit)

burn
—-
little computer people – electro pop
spektrum – kinda new (tiefschwarz dub)

uberlush
——–
ministry – so what
dieform – savage logic rmx

burn
—-
icon of coil – shelter
dot alison – substance (felix da housecat rmx)

uberlush
——–
fpu – in the night
*benni banassai – satisfaction

burn
—-
tok tok – love and lust
underworld – bruce lee (the micronauts rmx)

uberlush
——–
june sex – fast food meshia (carl a, finlow rmx)
dirty sanchez – dig it

burn
—-
dj assault – ass and titties
alma x – a forest

uberlush
——–
praga khan – lonely

burn
—-
audio bullies – bang bang

carrion
——-
VNV Nation – Chrome
Combichrist – This Is My Rifle
**Skinny Puppy – Pro-Test
*Psyclon Nine – As You Sleep
X-Fusion – Nothing To Lose
Funker Vogt – Fallen Hero

valence
——-
*:w: – wreath of barbs
snog – corporate slave
*corvus corax – mille anni passi sunt
leaether strip – anti us
*ministry – new world order
*rammstein – zwitter
haujobb – eye over you
*this morn’ onina – epoch
pow[d]er pussy – icomeinpeace
tactical sekt – soulless
decoded feedback – EVOlution
dive – behind the sun

NoN
—
bio god 20 – Sick

Nestled in the warm underground stone speakeasy Noir tonight will be a grand ball of epic proportions, and all of Portland is invited! For tonight is the Second Annual Dark Alice in Wonderland Ball, celebrating the one year birthday of Dementia‘s wonderful taste in chilling tweaks, whispy vocals and bombastic throbbings.

Each hour of the evening will present a differing DJ that Dementia usually couples up, but here, unleashes them all; showcasing the differing sub-genres that are nourished each weekend in her red-depths.

Familiar faces and new blood will vie for best costume, while presents out of Pandora’s Box will handed to the first 20 to support the night.

Details:
21+ Only
7-9PM, Free (Lush musical backgrounds provided by DJ Curatix and Dj Medusa)
9PM-3AM, $5

Noir; 203 SE Grand Ave Portland, OR (503) 231-2925

Dark Alice @ Dementia line-up:

DJ Curatrix (7-8pm)
DJ Medusa (8-9pm)
DJ MohawkAdam (9-9:30pm)

DJ Nevermore (9:30-10pm)
DJ Onitako (10-10:30pm)
DJ Horrid (10:30-11pm)
DJ Zufall (11-11:30pm)
DJ Burn Vs. DJ Uberlush (11:30pm-12:30am)
DJ Carrion (12:30-1:10am)
DJ Valence (1:10-1:50am)
DJ NoN (1:50-2:30am)

No surprise to any of my friends, I’ve always had an affinity to Brenda, played by Rachel Griffiths. Even at her moral worst, I loved her real world view points. Click For SPOILERS and I’m very pleased with how the writers treated her in the finale. I was greatly worried, and all for nothing. Brenda deserved what she got in the end, but again, I loved her character.

[Spoilers Warning (highlight to view): I want to say that I was a little disappointed with everyone dying. I thought it was a great way to end the series, however when Keith bites it via gunshots, I smiled and figured that each Six Feet Under character was going to get their quirky deaths, like the beginning of each episode. Instead after Keith's death, each characters death seemed mundane and uninteresting (After a second viewing, I have to say that Claire dying blind was horribly sad, and well done.) I wish the writers would have tried a little harder, like they did with the great "The Rapture, with blowup dolls". (An insidiously ingenious death)]

I was invited to Noir’s monthly fetish night, found out it was queer fetish night, but there weren’t a lot of queers there. Over all it was a pretty timid night. Had dinner and talked business with DJ Non, galloped around the block with DJ Adam Mohawk*, and was served drinks by the lovely bartendress Michelle. The Cancer Fags played a set, but I couldn’t help but constantly look at the lead singer and think: “He looks like the villain from Hudson Hawk. ‘I’ve got myself a new goal…….World..DOMINATION!!!‘”

* UPDATE: I wanted to flesh this out a bit. MohawkAdam and I walked down the street to a pretty cool bar called: The Slow Bar. What makes the Slow Bar stand out isn’t the nice atmosphere, the cool massive-sized old-school bar, the big deep cavernous circular booths, but it’s the jukebox. This thing is great! (So, great I took photos.) Electric Six, Minor Threat, Descendents you name it. Ahhh.

Since I’ve decided to completely ditch Exhibit Image Plugin for WordPress until they (either WordPress or Exhibit authors) can figure out a way to work together, I’ve begun to move all my images to Flickr. Many of you may have already seen this transition. I have updated two old posts with new high quality images.

Goofin at Gasworks

Combichrist via Damned Events (renamed to: Damned Events Presents: Combichrist, Glis & Manufactura)

Additionally, once you are in Flickr, it will display a ‘medium’ sized image. If you want to see a higher quality, just above the picture to the left is a : all sizes link. If you click this you will be given the option to see the high quality versions.

Aug 24 2008 – Noir was closed (some time ago) and a new venue has emerged in it’s place: “East End”. I no longer frequent the club, so please note this information is simply historical.

Looking for me on a Saturday night? I’m more than likely here, at Noir. Saturday nights Noir houses Dementia, a very social and spunky goth/industrial night. Some nights it’s not even really goth/industrial – sometimes it’s psychobilly mixed with dark(cold)wave. While it’s not a larger club like place, I really enjoy the small social nature it exudes, the music starts out in a low volume so it’s easy to speak with some of the residents. It’s open till after 3AM so keep your dancing shoes on!

Photos are from 17 Aug 05.