RKNet Blog... thing

Birdheart

Giania — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 02:02:16 +0000

Hot:

There’s a bluebird in my heart
And like his canary brethren
He’s expired under the influence
Of coal-black vapors
Of disappointment so intensely crushing
That what remains of my mind
Is hard
fine
colorless
lifeless like a diamond
I suppose you could say
That the birdhouse in my soul is vacant
Perhaps the occupant is really
Simply pining for the fjords?
But glib parroting is no substitute
For clear-throated song
I know it
But it’s simpler to whistle in the dark
And pretend the canary is still just fine
And the bluebird is simply out on break

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Dream Log: Sleep All Day

Giania — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 07:02:23 +0000

Hot:

Having slept off a pretty bad hangover during most of Saturday, I had lots of opportunity to dream, and dream I did!

I had to prevent a girl from unfolding a finely made wooden table into a pentagram on the floor to initiate what would have been a really destructive ritual. Looking out the window I saw a dark smoke-like shape, which when focused on showed itself to be a ruby-red eye with two sets of symbols revolving around it in opposite directions, the inner moving clockwise, the outer, fuzzier set moving counter clockwise. Something caused me to look away, then it was gone and the vague smoky cloud reappeared. I tried to focus on it but was pulled away, probably to continue the struggle against the girl.

—–

Dungeon crawling of a sort, through a lush castle which traded places with a suburban house in camera-cut ways. There was fear of some large creature but none ever appeared. I’m not sure what treasure we hoped to find but there was some kind of reward to be had from it all.

—–

The team and I marched through a barren landscape under a flat sky which seemed to serve as an endless reflector for the sun’s harshness. People kept falling and getting hurt along the way, like this one guy who fell off a narrow ledge while crawling behind a waterfall and cracked his head on some rocks below. His head was put in this ridiculous square cage, presumably to hold it steady.

—–

It was unknown where everyone went, but there were rows and rows of identical houses scattered around the emptiness. We passed by clusters of them here and there, sometimes individual homes, sometimes large hotels. All looking slightly surreal in their setting, visually standing out like diamonds on a black velvet cloth.
(related to the previous dream? I honestly can’t remember the order I dreamed this stuff in)

It wasn’t clear what had happened to the people, the houses were as tidy as they were empty, no signs of struggle, no sign of decay. Everything still worked and all the food was still fresh, but everything felt as though it had been abandoned ages ago. We went from house to house, exploring, looking for clues, raiding the food stocks. I spent an inordinate amount of time looking for a juicer in this one house so I could juice this packet of seed and fruit I found. How one juices seeds I don’t know, but I’d planned on it. Eventually I gave up, as they had dozens of gadgets in their upper cabinets and I didn’t feel like going through them all for that.

Outside the world grew dark, and street lights came on. I was finally near a roadway, and the cars were zooming by all by themselves, interiors dark and riderless. They seemed to be haunted by destinations unknown, advancing and braking in uncanny self-awareness. Something possessed me to try to drive, and I found myself struggling through fat drifts of snow which simply weren’t there before. I got on the highway and immediately got off, realizing I wasn’t ready to leave the little patch of houses I’d come across. Yet something was different when I came back! There were people! Or something like people – I never got a good look.

I and another ran away from it all, crashing through bushes and branches until we got to this one fallen tree and the shimmering curtain that hung above it, like the world took away my glasses and spun me round before I could look at it. We climbed onto the dead tree and sat there, and the illusory curtain felt like mud pouring over our bodies. Behind us was the empty world with the empty cars, now mysteriously populated by some strange turn of dimension. Before us lie the “real” world, a meadow with lush grass and flowers, a farm in the distance.

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when you aren’t here

Giania — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 03:01:59 +0000

Hot:

when you aren’t here
I steal all the pillows and fart like a pack mule
I cling desperately to the fragile skin of my #FirstWorldProblems
or else run sighing into the arms of deep, dark thoughts
when I don’t hear from you
the Furies take wing
and wrap piano wire a million times around my tender breast
tugging gently through the seconds
just enough to make it pink with the capillary blood
yearning to escape and heal the anticipated wound
I like it better when you’re here
but sometimes I like it even more when you’re not
when the chickadee in your dear heart’s cage
becomes something unheimlich and there’s nothing I can do
I haven’t got the words
to ease this hylozoist creation that lives behind your eyes
at their most haunted
The most I can do is let you breathe free
in an elsewhere place that isn’t full of awkward familial snares
keep myself busy
and try to remind myself to say I don’t mind
(but I really do)

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Welcome Alexandria Refugees

Giania — Wed, 23 Jun 2010 22:59:09 +0000

Hot:

Revisions, updates, and addendum below

I am sure that you all, like myself, have been disappointed by the recent turn of events surrounding WordPress.com’s arbitrary rule enforcement process.

I would like to present to you all an opportunity to “live under the articles” (p. 186), as it were.

I should like to extend to you the following offer:

A new home for Alexandria.
Freedom is never fully ‘free’ in the strictest sense, and at the very least the cost is making some decisions.

Scraping together $10 could get the group alexandriablog.org (but is not necessary). More colorful suggestions welcome.

A subdomain of randomkitty.net (i.e. alexandria.randomkitty.net) would cost no money as I already pay to maintain this domain name, but would be less unique and less search engine friendly (arguably).

~~A “platform” choice must be made. That is: What tools will the group most want to use to publish articles to the website?~~

WordPress (the framework available from wordpress.org), seems to be the winning suggestion here. I cannot emphasize enough: this would be usage of the same dashboard system as Alexandria currently runs on, at a new location, without wordpress.com’s supervision or involvement. The ToS concerns which brought us to our knees would not apply here, and all the same posting abilities would remain and probably expand.

Whether or not to monetize at all, ever.

There are many options available for making the site make money. As you can see to the left I am not all that exceptional at it, and frankly just having a hosting-related donation link on site somewhere would be sufficient. I seek no personal gain from this offer, but appreciate all efforts which offset the costs of said offer.

Leadership responsibilities

I absolutely want none. Our Good H.M. Stuart has done a remarkable job as benevolent dictator where absolutely required, and the community itself is robust enough to stand on its own two feet. That said, I would never recommend any system in which everyone had administrator privileges, because frankly there are too many opportunities to make mistakes. I would retain an administrator level account for whatever system is in place in order to serve as ship’s mechanic, much like what H.M. is officially declaring his role to now be.

New author nominations

It sounds like new author nominations were not readily forthcoming from the group, and that is something which would need to be remedied if the community is to remain lively.
As noted below in the comments, I would be in favor of a Taberna-esque area of the site dedicated towards general, and meta discussions of the site/community itself.

A few other notes:
I have a bunch of recent posts in my RSS feed from Alexandria and could be persuaded to copy/paste these articles with correct attributions to the new location.

The site will be a new site, not this one, and will not have to be varying shades of pepto pink. That was my own template madness and I should not think to inflict that upon you all any more than necessary.

Even if this all seems like an absolutely dreadful lot of work and is simply no good, I would like it if we all didn’t simply scatter to the four winds. Please feel free to leave whatever other sites or contact info you feel is appropriate to give. You will find a full compliment of symptoms of my internet addiction here.

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The Blood Horse Cometh

Giania — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 03:41:06 +0000

Hot:

Deep within the earth, in bunkers whose walls drip with strange luminescent ichor, lies the headquarters of a sinister organization. Their sworn duty is drain the precious, vital blood from every living thing, no matter how long it takes or what sickening tactics must be employed. Their name: The Red Cross.

They are ancient enemies with a race of equine beings, known only as The Blood * where * is equal to the name of a given four-footed mammal, primarily matching the description of common odd-toed ungulates – and some even-toed ungulates as well – made entirely of blood.

THE BLOOD HORSE is one such creature.To survive it must periodically devour large amounts of blood, and it is partial to kittens, intelligent people, and long walks on the beach.

Despite this seeming similarity in nature, to wit the willful consumption of large amounts of other beings’ blood-stuffs, these two are the most bitter enemies this slumberous world has ever seen. The etheral Blood beasts co-exist with the natural order, ostensibly as a higher level predator, no different from your large cats, well protected clergy, sharks, and corporate lawyers. (Except they don’t look like those things, they’re shaped more like horses, tapirs, etc… made entirely from blood.)

However, through their charitable front, The Red Cross has silently hunted the Blood creatures for their abundance of the thing they so desperately crave. Yet there’s more to it than that; much like ivory is dentine (no different than teeth) rarefied to a commodity so precious people will slaughter for it, the actual blood that comprises these unearthly sanguinaries is prized by the unheimlich czars of vital fluids and disaster mitigation.

What drives this cabal of blood hoarding sociopaths is still an utter mystery. Is there some demon that feeds off all this fluid in the dark depths beneath our innocent city streets? Or is it all some cultish activity driven by the darkness that clouds the mind of the believers with false promises of reward in some non-existant afterlife? We may never know, for the every person known to have gone in to investigate this sinister front has either been assimilated into the dark organization, denying everything, or else disappeared completely.

While in the end it is impossible to escape the clutches of either The Red Cross or The Blood Horse, it is possible to communicate and negotiate for leniency with the gore ponies. As impossible demons of unstoppable slaughter go, The Blood Horse is a very modern creature, capable – despite a lack of thumbs that we are aware of – of communicating through that most modern of platforms: Twitter. Should you aid these creatures in their ceaseless feud with The Red Cross, you may be granted clemency, however fleeting, from your unenviable fate when the great Blood Apocalypse begins.

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I’m So (Not) Lazy

Giania — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 20:48:50 +0000

Hot:

Crystal, author of Big Bright Bulb, is an amazing woman. She’s vibrant, she’s forthright, she’s clever and inspiring.

Lately she touched on a subject that’s been near to the surface of my mind and a thorn in my heart: Laziness.

There is often so much in life that needs to get accomplished, and if you aren’t accomplishing those things, you’re a lazy, awful, no-good, very bad person, right?

Well, no. Not really, but it’s very easy to get sucked into that feeling, and into feeling that way about others when you see they aren’t getting much done either.

Crystal rightly frames what we call “laziness” as a more like being “stuck” and as a symptom of another (sometimes larger) issue. Below is her list, and beside each item: all the ways I can own up to the fact that I may not have excuses, but I have reasons for not being a perfect Doing machine all the time.

Laziness is a symptom of being—

in Mourning - In 2007, my father died of a heart attack. There’s a lot about that I’m still coming to terms with, and I miss him every single day.
in Recovery – I spent some time drinking on an almost daily basis. I didn’t stop entirely – I’m not on the proverbial wagon – but in the last 4 months I think I could count the number of drinks I’ve had on one hand. That said, my body still tells me sometimes that it’s tired from the hard times I put it through.
Angry – There are just too many things that make me angry to even list. I can tell from that statement alone that I’ve got some things I need to take care of.
Exhausted – I can’t seem to get un-tired sometimes it seems. There’s a lot to do and when I set myself to it, I can’t be stopped. This unfortunately sets me up for some nasty self-care habits that leave me wiped out.
Embittered – I feel cheated by foul circumstances that seemingly have no end. I feel used by those who leverage my patience to delay giving me my dues.
Dehydrated – Coffee. Coffee. Coffee. What’s water?
Depressed – It’s a compound of everything, really.
Demotivated – (Distinct from unmotivated.) I’m going to get treated poorly and still be expected to perform? Uhh…
Disorganized – I’ve moved living spaces and hopped computers a couple of times in recent history, and I can’t. fucking. find. anything anymore. It’s maddening.
Distracted - The internet is full of shiny things I can care about, or pretend to care about.
Disappointed – I live and work with adults. Sometimes, that sentence is very hard to believe.
Conflicted – I could continue to take care of my family, but I know that comes at a serious cost to my relationship with my significant other… and with them, but I can’t not help, can I?
Undernourished - See previous mention of poor self-care habits.
Uninspired – I’m not so sure about this one. If anything, I’m over-inspired to the point I can’t seem to find a thing and run with it.
Unwell – My allergies have been plaguing me constantly.
Unmotivated – What incentive do I have to fix everything life throws at me? I mean honestly. Some of these things aren’t even mine to fix in the first place, and that’s just the damn truth.
Uncentered – I barely know which way is up half the time, yeah. Sense of self? Shaky at best.
Unfocused – Priorities are numerous and hard to get into line. It makes it easy to stare at all the different tasks like a magic eye picture in the vain hope they’ll take shape. (And I never could do those magic eye things.)
Undercommitted – It’s well known that there’s a lot of “stuff” I have to do, but just what that is feels like it’s mutable, and it’s hard to hold myself accountable to a goal of “STUFF”.
Overwhelmed – Yes?
and maybe just a little low on Mojo – Extra large with a cherry on top, please.

So, in short I may be abused, tired, neglected, overwrought, underappreciated, over-committed, unimpressed, heartbroken and scatterbrained, but the one thing I am not is LAZY.

With all that in mind, when things fall by the wayside and I can’t seem to get things done, maybe it’s time I stop punishing and hating on myself for being lazy and start working smarter, and not harder. Crystal proposes several things that work for her. All those resources look fascinating, but it’s up to each of us to find our own path back to… well, back to whatever it is that “lazy” isn’t.

And I suspect the only way to do that is one positive acknowledgement and reward at a time.

Today’s positive acknowledgement? That I have all these bad feelings and things in my life, but I am not merely the sum of all those bad things, and my reward for that acknowledgement will be a big, deep breath and a night’s sleep that isn’t bookended by guilt for all those bad things.

Then tomorrow we’ll try for breakfast… and see what I can do from there. :)

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Vermilion Pleasure Night

VKlaus — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 01:03:02 +0000

Hot:

You know those old videos that were all the rage back in the day that were about playing classical music overtop of bright and colorful things that were supposed to make an army of super intelligent babies but actually did more to develop ADD than anything resembling intelligence? Well “Vermilion Pleasure Night” is sort of like that for the Young Adult Fetishist.
Lots of bright colors, lots of cute girls in outfits that would give any fashion aficionado a rock hard erection, awesome music, and some bizarre comedy.

I remember seeing the trailer for this a long time ago in my early pubescent days of reading Newtype Magazine and being intrigued. At the time I was into manga and anime in a bad way. So anything that the magazine told me was good I wanted with a passion. It also promised boobies, which at the time would have also worked.

But as things go I never got around to buying it and I eventually forgot it. However the other day I was browsing through Netfilx streaming catalog and found all of the episodes were available for instant watch. So looking for a chance to wax nostalgic I Queued it up and let it go. I was not entirely prepared for what I got.

The music, they style, and on rare occasion the comedy and satire were fantastic! I was racking my brain as to why this wasn’t more popular. I thought “This crazy Japanese random crap is exactly what weeaboo otaku eat up!” But then I realized, the reason it was not popular is because its not “Japanese” really.

The animation style that it uses are far from anime and the closest I could compare it to is Heavy Metal but even then still not quite right. The music isn’t girl pop sang by frilly pop idols. The clothing, while ridiculous, is not made of lace, no latex tutu’s, no maid outfits, and the nurses are far from this. What’s more, it’s not trying to be wacky or crazy its trying to be legitimately different and I applaud them for that.

The problem that arises is that it’s a fairly repetitive show . Skits repeat often and a lot of the time the humor of the running gags don’t come across very well. Two recurring skits that I kind of hate are the Fuccons, who got their own spin off show and did fairly well in America, and Zombie Family which takes too much time and is boring even if the make up looks rad. By the third episode in a row I was just fast forwarding though them as quickly as possible to get to the good stuff.
At times the show tries to satirize Japanese family sitcoms which sometimes you can kind of see how it could be funny but it generally fails. What’s worse though, is when it tries to satirize art films. Sometimes it does alright but most of the time it just becomes difficult to tell if it’s a joke or if its being serious.
But all of that doesn’t put me off that much. I still enjoyed a lot of it. Watching pretty things, listening to dance music, and clapping my hands like the super intelligent infant I truly am.

I would suggest, if you can, watch the first two episodes then give yourself a break. I was up till 3 watching all five episodes back to back and I’m sure my brain slowly leaking out of my nose.
But there is always something cool and new to be seen in every episode but a lot of each episode is repeated skits or more goddamn Fuccons.

Keep a look out for:
One point English
Midnight Cooking (specifically the one where she has the shakes)
Zipper Girl
Quick Girl
Hot space ladies playing in pink goo.

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THE GAME IS CALLED CONSPIRACY

VKlaus — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 14:18:40 +0000

Hot:

What follows is the account left by the long deceased(?) friend Maxwell Vandimntz you may know him as “MVZTruthseer1974”. Max was checked into a mental institute for his beliefs and persecuted for refusing to lie about the bizarre instance he experienced while investigating the mysterious HAARP system and its effect on weather. For those who don’t know the HAARP the official claim is that it is going to be used by scientist to “study” the “ionosphere” but we are all but certain that the device is going to be come used as global weapon to control masses. And we can only deduce from Max’s report that the computer controlling the WMD has already gained advanced level 5 sentience and we can only assume the government has lost control over it. We could be wrong, but we think Max’s final report (left in the mad houses restroom to be discovered by an undercover agent from our staff,) speaks for its self.

——————————

I woke up that day staring at the skies through the open sky light above my bed. There was a gentle ping reminding me of emails in my inbox. I rolled out of my bed and began to crunch through the cheese puff carpet I recently had laid down. I still say I could taste the cheese through my feet. I sat down at my computer pulled up Outlook Express and read. I read for hours until I felt I fully understand what the world was telling me. The word was that the HAARP was afoot again and causing trouble for all man kind. But of course the government would never tell you that.

It had been along time since I whiffed something that smelled so strongly of a cover up. My teeth were set, my claws were sharpened but I needed more. I then turned to the trusty info bank and opened Internet Explorer and voyaged into the grand masterscape of knowledge. As I explored I found brethren who had also caught the foul stink of government lies and were now on the hunt for the truth. It was happening. IT was real. But didn’t have enough evidence. I needed to get my hands on a HAARP conspiracy chart that my internet clan had collaborated together to make. But against all odds, it seemed that my bank account was empty, and Amazon’s is a cruel mistress. So forlornly I put the chart onto my wish list and hopped that maybe one of my brothers in truth would purchase it for me.

Discouraged as I was, I was in no shape to report the truth. Disappointment filled my mind and clouded my inescapable eye of truth. Night came swiftly in my morose state and I restlessly drifted to sleep face towards the night sky. The full moon reflecting a ghoulish hue from my castle made of pee filled mountain dew bottles. I was restless that night tossing and turning. I thought it from my unstated hunger for answers but now I suspect it was the reptilian artifact I had purchased a year ago from eBay that was trying to warn me of impending danger.

That morning I woke sore and irritable. No dinging from the computer and no unopened bottles of FBI grade Gatorade. I didn’t want to move. I just wanted to waste away or at least astral project to someplace better. I don’t remember how long I laid there. Eventually hunger overcame my malaise and I reached over to my nightstand and retrieved a dried and chewy substance which I thought was jerky and began to chew. I still don’t know… I was… am, a very messy man. It could very well have been a the aborigine hallucinogen I got from a shaman convention in 67. Nevertheless, after I ate I got a visitor. Dressed in black and had the devils eyes. His words were spoken softly and distorted. Memory has failed me but I distinctly remember the tall entity asking,

“What would you ask of me that would be rid your current displeasure”
I replied dreamily, “I want a HAARP chart so that I may uncloud my mind and expose the truuuuth”

After I had spoken my peace to the strange visitor, darkness overwhelmed me. When I came to, I heard the welcoming ding coming from my terminal. I quickly jumped to my feet and tried not to fall over from the blood rushing to my head and sudden cheese flavor overload. I check the door still locked from the inside. Then quick like lightening I leap over my Mt. Dew castle and plopped down into my chair. Pulled up my email. And lo and behold, it happened!

Whether it was the dark visitor or one of my brothers of conspiracy Amazon had emailed me to tell me that my HAARP chart was in the mail and would be arriving at my home tomorrow. Excited and invigorated I began my flurry of words. Carefully crafting questions ready to be suited towards whatever end the chart may tell me. Sweat flung from my brow as my head snapped from the sheer power of my ideas. My fingers began to bruise as the keyboard turns to concrete and each finger a chisel chipping away at the lies surrounding the mystery of the HAARP. The afternoon passed without my notice. Sleep wrapped me in a victorious embrace knowing that tomorrow I will be able to show the world definitely the things The Man doesn‘t want us to know. That night I slept the sleep of the just.

The sharp crack of the door bell pulsed through my body like a solid hit of hi-grade cocaine. My excitement shaking my body so hard I chortled phlegm instead of what would of surely been a effervescent squeal. It must have been the coughing fit right after said chortle that gave me time to remind myself that I needed to put cloths on otherwise I surely would of answered the door stark naked. It had been three years since I put anything resembling pants on and two years since I had even opened the door. The exchange happened quietly and quickly. And as soon as the door shut I quickly began to tear at the paper and opened the box. I was unprepared for what I found.

Peeking its head out of the foam peanuts was a bright red Speak and Spell. Clearly printed words on its digital screen, fresh keys that made a satisfying clicking noise and the smell of newly cut plastic the thing had been made recently.

I took it out carefully and examined it (after searching the box three times). It must have been a mistake, but I couldn’t believe that. Refused! It had to be a test. A test of my desire for truth, for freedom! I pressed the ‘ON’ button. It rumbled and bleeped to life.

“WELCOME” it chocked out.

I typed in “HELLO”

“HELLOOOOO”

I didn’t know what to say so I cautiously typed
“HAARP CHART?”

“CHAAAAAART?” it garbled in response.

I was frightened. As any man should be, considering a child’s Speak and Spell just asked me a question! But it had to be real. It must of happened! I remember the conversation so vividly.

I responded, “YES CHART. HAARP CHART.”

“NO. NO. CHART. I AM THE HAARP”

I thought I was crazy at first. But the more I think about it the more it makes sense. So simple, so …. Unnoticeable. Perfectly hidden. I asked out loud
“What …. What do you do?”

I could hardly believe I was interrogating a toy. What if it doesn’t want to tell me anything? What do I do? Start pulling out its letters with a pair of pliers? It answered in its cold voice
“I CONTROOOOOL THE WEATHER. CREATE THE SPIRAL OF CONTROL. CREAT CONTROL OF HUMAN RACE. HUMAN RACE OBEY THE SPIRAL OF THE HAARP. HAARP IS HAARP OF FAAAAAATE”

I broke then, I will admit. My mind and sense of reason left me. I threw the device against the wall in a rage. Bumped up and down on it. Crushing it beneath my feet into the carpet. It even tasted evil.

I heard it call out a series of beeps and I saw through the skylight the clouds gathering and the device began to glow bright red. I cowered against the wall as it hovered above the ground. As it broke through the skylight I broke through the door. Running into the streets screaming and pointing at the sky. From then on it’s a blur. I must of came in contact with the corrupt police force and they put me in here. This house of the mad. No one believes me, and what I saw with my eye of truth. They say they found nothing in my apartment except a floor covered in cheese puffs and bottles of excrement. But perhaps you will my brothers, perhaps when you find this I will be gone from this evil place. The HAARP is still out there. It is waiting, watching, and biddings its time till it expands the all mighty spiral of destiny from sea to shining sea.

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Bullshittin’ With Sketch – Henry Rollins

Sketch E Whiteface — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 18:39:12 +0000

Hot:

Hey folks, I’m not dead. Now that’s out of the way, on to the main event. I’m quite the fan of Henry Rollins, anything he’s in I’ll watch, any interview that’s out there I’ll look into – I really dig on him. I’ve seen his spoken word twice before, once in my native state of New Hampshire and once in the neighboring Massachusetts. After looking on his site to see if he’s going to be stopping around the area in the near future I saw two shows posted for his Frequent Flyer Tour that are within somewhat close proximity — Sommerville, MA on March 17th and Portland, ME on the 18th. Hadn’t seen him in Maine yet, time to change that. And although the show hasn’t happened yet I will most likely enjoy it but regardless this will make him the second artist to have seen three times, once in each state (the other being masked metal band from Ohio, Mushroomhead.) Being a fan of him, like being a fan of anything, I have questions and I would love the chance to sit down with him for about four days and ask all my nerdy questions until blood rockets out my nose. However due to time constraints that unfortunately could not happen, but Henry was very gracious enough to answer my questions via email. Enjoy, folks.

Image from artvoice.com

SKETCH: Those who are big fans of your spoken word will notice that the tone of it has become drastically different. You started out reading poetry on stage that was quite serious, then you just went up there and did spoken word with a serious tone, now its a balance of comedy and that dash of reality. Like the first hour and a half will be mostly comedic stories then the last half hour will be something very down to Earth and something that kinda snaps you into reality to make you realize there are still big problems afoot. Was this change a conscious choice or did it just happen that way?

HENRY: I just do the show. I am not sure of how the thing has changed over the years. I am not really working on the form of the thing as much as I am just out there doing it and I guess it changes over the years.

SKETCH: You’ve mentioned in many interviews that you don’t consider yourself to be an actor despite the 35+ movies you have under your belt. But has there ever been an acting gig you’ve taken where you’ve looked at the film and thought you did a good job?

HENRY: I thought I did pretty good on the Sons Of Anarchy show I was in last year. Most of the time I don’t watch any film I am in.

SKETCH: Additionally with your film credits and knowledge of film have you considered or attempt to write a script or make a movie of your own?

HENRY: Never. I respect that kind of talent but don’t have any of it. It’s never been something that interests me.

SKETCH: Your show in IFC “The Henry Rollins Show” which many people, including myself, dug quite a bit, hasn’t had any new episodes since 2007. What’s that status of the show and when can we look forward to Seasons 2 & 3 coming to DVD?

HENRY: We shot the two seasons of it and then IFC dropped the show. It’s their money so they have the say. I guess they didn’t like the show. I thought we did good work. The 2nd season is on DVD in Australia and I believe they are on download on i-Tunes.

SKETCH: Those who look you up will know that you are quite passionate about the West Memphis Three, and that there is an album that was released which features you and many different artists doing Black Flag songs to benefit their defense. First, how are things developing on this front? Second, how did getting these artists come together?

HENRY: The case moves slowly through the system that will hopefully resolve in new hearing. Things move very slowly though. Meanwhile, those men sit in prison. We had a couple of people to help us get all the singers. I didn’t have many phone numbers to reach these people, so we got some help. Once we asked these people, most of them came aboard very quickly. They were very generous with their time.

SKETCH: Has there been any music, new or old, that you’ve been listening to a lot lately?

HENRY: I have been listening to a lot of old music from what’s called The Nurse With Wound List. It’s a list online of very out there albums. Many of them are very rare and hard to find. Someone gave me about 15 gigabytes of music from the list recently, so I have been checking that out for days now. Today, I listened to a band from the list called Moving Gelatine Plates. Pretty cool.

SKETCH: Lately many audiences have been complaining, on small and large scales, about the way that studios are running their companies (constant remakes, sequels and adaptations; good shows canceled while “reality” TV is all that’s left.) Similar complaints have been made about mom and pop shops going out of business and malls and large retail chains left standing, yet the reality is the American consumer is choosing to go the chains and malls so they are at fault. Do you think that the status of the entertainment industry is in a similar vein, that it’s the audiences who are not really wanting it? Or do you think studios and record labels condescend the intelligence of the audience thus lowering the standards of new material or not putting it out at all?

HENRY: The people are going to the malls because the merchandise is cheaper there. They buy from Amazon.com because it is cheaper to do so. That’s how it is. It’s very hard on those smaller outlets that can’t buy in the vast bulk that these other places do and they can’t get the extended lines of credit, either. I think the audience wants it but they are low on cash and have found that they can often get things for free online. I know a guy who heists films from the internet, I don’t know how he does it but he always has films on his i-Pod that are still in theaters. I think it’s a combination of things, what I listed as well as other factors. It’s too bad that it could make it bad for so many hard working artists. The studios have underappreciated the intelligence of their audiences for years. Hence the success of shows that are sharp, those in the industry who have figured out that there are millions of people who want some more intense and thoughtful fare have been very successful.

SKETCH: On your online store you had a video promoting/explaining the contents of “Fanatic Vol. 3” while standing in a room where your music collection is housed, and you probably need to pause the video in order to properly gaze in awe at the two walls you see of CDs there are stacked from the floor to the ceiling. With such a collection like this, the idea of organizing it makes me both curious and scared. But how the hell do you organize that thing and have you needed to expand the room/store elsewhere to squeeze in a few discs?

HENRY: That’s the old room, actually. The room you saw held 24 feet of shelving about ten rows high. The new room has 64 feet of CD shelves, 12 rows high. There’s a different part of the room for vinyl and other media. It’s all genre/alphabetical. There’s several feet built in for expansion for all the media. A lot of work went into the room to get it all built to spec.

LINKS
Official Site
IMDb page
Wiki on The West Memphis Three
The Henry Rollins Show: Season One

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Congrats to James Silva! (He made a game with zombies in it)

Giania — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 19:34:51 +0000

Hot:

Back on August 31st, I predicted that a little top-down shooter called GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES – or as I prefer to call it, I MAED A GAM3 W1TH ZOMB1ES IN IT!!!!11 – had the potential to be a total trendsetter… for it’s music. I had no idea that this crazy little shooter would drag in quite so many people though!

Gamerbytes reports that it was purchased 160,000 times, netting developer James Silva a whopping $112,000 for 2009. And if you take a look through the Indie games section, you’ll see that it’s got a rating that is well beyond its next competitor. It’s really surprising that with such obvious popularity that all the search results I could find lead to the little gamer blogs, and the comments on the big dog gamer blogs, but not to the big dogs themselves. Gamerbytes mentioned it got noted on Kotaku, but I couldn’t find it there after going through their “xbox live arcade” tag from current back through the beginning of August. 1up has a profile page for it, but no real reviews until year’s end, when it got lumped in with the other “things you might have missed” type posts. It DOES however have its own page on TVTropes.

File this under sleeper hit, I guess. Still, with such a strong showing above its Indie brethren, can you really call it a “sleeper”?

Serious congratulations to James for making such an addictive, fun, memorable game.