Every city has secrets. But none as terrible as this

With emphasis on terrible.

When I was fifteen-ish I read a lot of Stephen King and Dean Koontz. A very small number of those books made enough of an impression that I can still remember them, and most of them were King's. Of Koontz's stuff it's only Twilight Eyes, which was the first of his that I read, and The Bad Place that I really remember.

Recently I discovered that Mr. Koontz had come up with his own twist on the Frankenstein mythos, mad scientists and monsters and all, and I decided to order the first part of the trilogy, Prodigal Son.

The reason I stopped reading Koontz was that I wanted more. Not more plot or more suspense or more monsters, no, I wanted better writing. The reason that Koontz has sold millions and millions of copies of his novels is that he writes page-turners, and not because you have to know what happens on the next page, but because you sit down and read and all of a sudden you've read 130 pages and it feels like you've just been flipping through them without reading them. The text requires only the slightest processing involving higher brain functions, and it moves through the reader like sterile water. Tasteless, transparent, forgettable.

And I also wanted less. Less clichés. Less formulaic plots and characters. After a couple of books it was very easy to pick out who would die when and who would hook up with who.

So my expectations concerning Prodigal Son were very low. I went into this novel suspecting I would be disappointed. And I was, and am.

I'm sorry to say that Prodigal Son is a POS. Piece of shit. While the idea of a modern twist on the Frankenstein myth appeals to me, it's poorly executed both in terms of story and writing, and I find myself annoyed whenever I read it. And cliché upon cliché upon cliché. Tiresome.

I will finish it, because I rarely put down a book. The exceptions being Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close that I had to put down because I started crying, and Gravity's Rainbow because I just couldn't handle it. I've read Extremely since then, and enjoyed it immensely, and while I intend to read Rainbow some time, I need to make my way through some earlier Pynchon before I tackle it again.

After Prodigal Son, I will probably reread The Road or Pattern Recognition to purge my system of this literary travesty. Again, with emphasis on terrible.

ADDED:
I just took a "Which crazy writer are you" quiz, and the result is here!

What are the odds?

Critics? How do they happen?

It was a fluke that got me into writing about music. Back in 1995, a friend and I walked into the local paper in Karlskoga and said “we want to review movies”. They looked at us, these journalists that had slaved away at a minor paper for twenty years, and said “Eh...you can't. The culture section does that”.

We did however get an offer to write for the youth section. It is a true sign of a great newspaper that they let just anyone walk in and start writing.

So we wrote reviews of ice cream and board games and books and the occasional text on pretty much whatever. Then, in what alcoholics refer to as “a moment of clarity”, I emailed a record company and asked for CDs for reviews. And they sent them! So I started reviewing CDs. I still have some of those first reviews, in my clippings folder, and they're horrible. Unspeakably horrible.

Then I moved to Sundsvall to go to college. I went to a Peace, Love and Pitbulls gig with some friends, and being music geeks, we stood there and had opinions on pretty much everything. A woman behind me asked if I knew the titles of the last few songs and I told her, in that condescending “my taste in music is better than you” way that I had back then (and still have, to some degree). That condescension gave me a job reviewing CDs for Sundsvall Tidning, which is a considerably bigger newspaper than Karlskoga's local rag.

After that I wrote for a couple of fanzines (this was back in the day when fanzines were still paper, made using a Xerox machine) and yet another paper in a city I went to college in. Then along came Supersatan, in maybe 1998 or 1999.

Yet another treasure from the depths of my closet

And here's a question for Hans. How did I come to write for Supersatan? I can't remember.

Supersatan was a metal site, where I wrote reviews and did interviews and such. I think I interviewed earthtone9 there, as well as P3 Rocks Håkan Persson. Writing there was a lot of fun, and we got a lot of attention and readers. Then one of Sweden's premier rock journalists wrote a column in Close-Up Magazine praising our site as Sweden's best metal site in Swedish, and specifically mentioned me as a writer with pretty much the same taste in music as he has.

About a month later I got an email from the editor of Close-Up asking if I wanted to write there. Which is an offer you don't refuse if you write about metal in Sweden. Mostly I did reviews of CDs, but I also wrote a couple of columns and did some interviews. I got to fly to London to see the first European gig Linkin Park ever did, where they played for a bunch of journalists, some record company bigwigs and a handful of fans. Business class there and back and one night in a fancy London hotel on the record company's dime, and all they got was half a page where the band answered The Basic Questions. Hardly a fair trade, but I didn't complain.

In 2002 I stopped writing for Close-Up because I had sort of a nervous breakdown (more on that some other time), and once I was back on my feet I started writing for Slavestate, which back then was an actual magazine. All of a sudden I could pretty much pick and choose which bands I wanted to do interviews with, and I got a lot more printed than in Close-Up. I've done interviews with Slipknot, Machine Head, Isis, Ministry, Cult of Luna, Type O Negative, Prong, Devin Townsend, 36 Crazyfists, Poison the Well, Burst, Pelican, etc (yes, namedropping galore, but that's what you should expect from me).

I'm still writing for Slavestate, though not as often as I did back in the day and not as often as I would like. Time is something that has been in shorter and shorter supply over the last couple of years. But I'm happy I'm still writing, because expressing my opinions about music is one of my favorite pastimes.

Turn murder into art

Or is that art into murder?

I've written about vandalism vs art before. The point is not to distinguish between vandalism and art. The one does not exclude the other. However, vandalism is never OK, regardless of if its art or not. And sometimes its not even art. Its just vandalism, plain and simple.


This is the side of the building I live in. I figure, to get rid of this they should take Xhie's head, and then drag his face along the silver line on the wall. I think the blood will be the same color as the wall.

And don't call this graffiti. That gives this legitimacy that is not OK. Vandalism. Van-da-lism. Morons are what they are. Punks with no respect for the property of others. A good public whipping might be another way to go.

Law and justice are not always the same. When they aren't, destroying the law may be the first step toward changing it

Our attorney general (I know, I know, it's the American term, but Minister of Justice sounds too much like something out of a totalitarian vision of the future) Beatrice Ask wants to use manacles with positioning capabilities to keep track of underage criminals. The Swedish criminal justice system is already using similar manacles for adult criminals.

Back when I was in college, I had a period when I was living at home and studying over the Internet at a college in Sundsvall. I had a number of get-togethers there with the class, and being a poor student and since the school was 520 kilometers away, I had to be creative in finding travel solutions. There was a local trucking company that had a route from my home town to Sundsvall, and I could ride along free of charge, if only the drivers approved. And they did. It's a lonely job, driving a big-rig during five hours in the middle of the night.

One of the drivers had been convicted of assault, beating up a guy when he was drunk, and since he had no priors he didn't go to prison. Instead he wore a manacle around his ankle that kept track of his movements. He was allowed to be at work and at home and drive his truck to Sundsvall and back. Nothing else.

To me, this is a superior form of punishment/treatment. The guy had an alcohol problem, which was treated with Antabus, he got counseling to deal with anger management issues that it seemed like he really didn't have, and then the manacle to make sure he didn't get into trouble.

And now Ask wants to put manacles on underage criminals too. Right on, I say. A combination of therapy and keeping them away from whatever friends etc that are a bad influence sounds like the right way to go.

Of course, there are people opposing this idea, and not surprisingly from the other end of the political spectrum. Former Attorney General Thomas Bodström said (paraphrased and translated) “Beatrice Ask must realize that a manacle is an alternative to prison, and we don't put children in prison.”

But that there is the point, isn't it? This isn't putting children in prison. They can still go to school or work or whatever. And yes, I realize that treatment is needed too, as well as attention from child protective services or something similar to sort out conditions in the home, but just going with treatment is too soft, to me. Prison can turn into a downward spiral into further criminal activities. Using a manacle may seem like the middle ground, something you go for when the others seem to extreme, to either side. To me, though, it sounds like a real solution to a real problem.

Or, you know, you can just go with an exploding collar.

Rutger wasn't sure the collar went with the color of his eyes

If I want a rush I just get out of a chair when I'm not expecting it

We saw the one and only Dylan Moran on Monday. It was...bliss. I laughed for ninety minutes. With a pause so Mr Moran could get some more red wine. And he spoke to me.

Not really to me specifically, but about people like me. I'm not quoting him to the letter now, but it went a little something like this:

There's a certain kind of man, around thirty (this is pronounced “tuurty” in Irish), who wears t-shirts meant for children, t-shirts that say “Zap” or “Pow” across the chest, and pants that you're not really sure if they're pants or shorts. What this kind of clothing says is “I don't ever want to get a real job, and I will be drinking milkshakes for the next fifteen years. Fuck off”. These men spend all their time with their friends, playing video games. These men are single. They will remain single. This is why there are so many women who never find the one. He's busy playing video games, drinking milkshakes. And if he ever has children all he has to teach them is how to get past the snakes on level six.

For the record, the night in question I was wearing a Skynet tee and my favorite baggy, long denim shorts. I like milkshakes. I like video games. I'm never having children. Never ever? Never ever ever. Mah Girl theorized that he saw me before the show and only avoided mentioning the beard to spare my feelings.

I have no problem with people seeing me as childish or as someone not capable of contributing to the continuation of the human race. There's too much crap floating around in the gene pool anyway, so why add my own flaws there?

I'm quite happy with who I am, on that level. Childishness is something to be cherished, cultivated, and used. Childishness is joy, and simple joys at that. I mean, come on, if you can't laugh so hard your jaws hurt and tears run down your cheeks at things (like when we play Lego Star Wars, for example), you're dead inside. And who would want to be that?

A mercenary, a psychopath & a bundle of cash...what could go wrong?

Again, a question of plot.

I recently finished the game Kane & Lynch: Dead Men, on my Xbox 360. It received mixed reviews, and some people I know with insight into the gaming business sort of sneered when I said I had bought it.

Lynch was a bit pissed at Kane's snoring and bought him a Breathe-Right

In the campaign mode, you play Kane, a former merc who is rescued from a prison transport and then paired up with an unstable psycho called Lynch to retrieve a large sum of money that Kane supposedly stole from his former mercenary partners, The7. The game involves shootouts, sneaking around, family members murdered, betrayals, yada yada yada.

Kane & Lynch is definitely not the best game I've played, nor is it the worst. And while there are some problems with the actual mechanics of the game (is that the right term, oh game geeks? Mechanics?), the main problem is the story. The plot.

It begins promising, but clichéd, then builds through a number of cityscape scenes obviously inspired by, among others, Michael Mann's Heat (Best. Shootout. Ever.). Unfortunately, the end doesn't deliver, at all, and throughout the game, it feels as if there are cut scenes missing between levels, and no real explanation of why you move from one setting to the next.

With more time, more work on the story and a more powerful ending, this could have been a great game. Dark and intense, and above all different. Now it feels like any low-rate action thriller that didn't get the proper budget or script treatment. Too bad.

Oh. Of course there's a movie in the making. Lo and behold, it's stunt coordinator/second unit director Simon Crane who'll make his directorial debut, and rumors point to Bruce Willis starring as Kane and possible Mickey Rourke or Billy Bob Thornton as Lynch. In the hands of an experienced director and above all an experienced screenwriter (Kyle Ward has written one movie that no one has heard of), Kane & Lynch could be really great. Again: dark, intense, different. Is it too much to ask for the Coen Brothers or David Fincher to do a video game adaptation? Script by Jonathan Nolan? No?

It is in games that many men discover their paradise

On Monday I participated in the City of Masks, a sort of pseudo-interactive theater walk through parts of Stockholm. It's a part of Maskspel, an ARG run by Interacting Arts.

It's been a long time since I was involved with anything even resembling the City of Masks, and it's only the second time I've been in an ARG. My other live game experiences have all been in a closed environment.

The experience, from within the game itself, is outlined in my post yesterday. Before I go into specific thoughts on it, I need to explain my standpoint when it comes to Interacting Arts. They have a lot of interesting ideas, especially regarding stepping outside your comfort zone, which I talked about here.

However, a lot of their ideas and events, including the City of Masks, contain undertones of both anarchism and primitivism, philosophies that I can't say I know a lot about, really, but which don't appeal to me. At all. Vandalism of public or private property is not my cup o' tea. Rejecting modern society isn't either. I like my TV, my Xbox, my iPod, my hot water, public transportation, etc. I'm not Tyler Durden. In any way, shape or form.

The City of Masks took the form of a long walk through various parts of Söder in Stockholm. We got a small pamphlet, with several maps and pages of texts, and downloaded sound files, that we listened to at set places along the way. A very interesting way of conveying a story/alternate reality game.

There were definitely moments when the story pulled me in, and I found myself living within the reality of the game. Above all it was when we walked through a series of allotment gardens, along winding paths, poking around a shed marked on the map and marveling at how the gardens climbed the hill above us, and when we walked through the crowd of people prepping the piers for summer, something which I believe was just a happy coincidence and not an actual part of the game. At times it did feel like we were in some kind of modern fairytale.

My main problem with the whole thing is that there were too many parts of the walk where nothing happened. We walked for a long while along Ringvägen without anything to listen to, and there were several places where they could have added a little something, someone in a mask, a madman, a Kerberos security guard, whatever, that could have heightened the experience considerably. As it was, there were too many places where we felt like reality intruded on the story, and we moved outside the alternate reality of the City of Masks.

My other gripe is that there wasn't enough story. I've read some of the background material, but not everything, and some hadn't read anything at all. I would have liked to see more context, more plot, if you will.

The overall experience was good, but I find myself a bit disappointed that the event didn't deliver the way it could have. I will, however, keep my eyes peeled for more events tied to the same ARG, and also other things Interacting Arts arrange.

Shadow of the Shapeless

On Friday, I had the privilege of receiving an advance copy of Kongh's new album. And yes, Jesper. That's copy as in physical copy, and not a bunch of files. It's been the only thing in my player since then. A 60 minute, five track ride on riffs the size of Brontosauri. Not for the faint hearted, and so far the metal release of the year in my book. And oh yeah. The new Mastodon album sucks.

The greatest argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter

ege wrote a killer post the day before the US election, which touched on a lot of thoughts and opinions I've gone through over the years. Consider me inspired.

I don't know a lot about the political process in the US, but I do know that I was hoping Obama would win. Why? For me it was simple. He's at least talking about moving troops out of Iraq (even though some people seem to think he'll just shift the troops around to Afghanistan, keeping up the same level of US military presence in the Middle East), and he didn't have a total nutcase as his Vice President candidate.

Comedian on the left. Psychopathic hockey mom on the right.

The main thing that caught my attention in the post has nothing to do with Obama or the US election in general though. It was one sentence:
“There are stupid people everywhere. Most people, in fact, are pretty fucking dumb.”

Yes. Yes, exactly. Most people, not some people, are fucking dumb. I stand by that. Sometimes I am “most people”. But usually, at least, I know what I don't know.

Like the Euro referendum in 2003. I left a blank vote. Why? Because I didn't consider myself fit to make that decision. I couldn't even make an educated guess as to where a yes or a no would take us, cause I don't know squat about national or international economy. So I voted blank.

Then came the confirmation that most people are stupid. I asked four people about why they voted as they did in the referendum. Only one could tell me why. One! Three out of four could not tell me. The lesson here is that people vote with their gut and hearts, not their brains. This is a mistake.

I believe that in order to vote, on anything, you need information. You need to take the time, and make the effort, to know what the issue at stake is, otherwise you shouldn't vote. Stay at home. Your gut has shit for brains (to quote Rob Gordon from High Fidelity), and should not be allowed near any decision-making process other than when and what your next meal should be. On the same note, your heart should also stay away from political decisions. Way away.

Here's something that usually gets people going: I believe there should be a minimum knowledge level required to vote. You should be able to answer ten, fifteen, maybe twenty questions about the issues at stake in whatever election you're about to vote in, to be allowed to vote.

I know some people think this would not be democracy. I don't care. If the majority don't have the time or the inclination to get some info on the issues they vote for, the majority shouldn't be able to decide. Very simple.

And by the way. The headline of today's post is a quote from Winston Churchill.

Without music, life would be a mistake

I'm still reading Klosterman, after a slight hiatus trying to catch up with Empire and Wired. A quote caught my eye today:

Do you know people who insist they like “all kinds of music”? That actually means they like no kinds of music.

This is, in fact, truth. At least from my point of view. Since my discovery of music that seemed to speak to me, on a very primal level, I have had a very emotional relationship with music, and I can't really understand people that don't approach it in the same way. I know this is elitist of me, but I don't care. Passion about music, is in some ways the yardstick by which I measure people. That and if they like TOOL or not.

The mighty TOOL, live. The closest to a religious experience I've ever had.

Music matters. It's that simple. And I'm going to say that again: Music matters. Not bands, not artists. Music. I don't put bands up on pedestals because of image or adherence to a particular genre of music. If they have captivating tunes, that's enough. But I still put them on pedestals, and I consider myself passionate about music.

I get goose bumps from some songs. I feel like I'm about to rise into the sky on the voices of some singers. There are some songs I can't listen to on bad days, since they would make me cry, some of them because there are specific events tied to them and some simply because they are powerful. There are songs that make me want to scream, songs that make me want to laugh, songs that make me want to curl up under a blanket and just stare vacantly at the ceiling.

Personally, I believe I have a fairly broad taste in music, in some ways, but that's probably not true. Most of the stuff I listen to is connected to the other stuff I listen to, but more on an emotional level then on a “this sounds just like all the other bands you listen to”. There is a core of American bands with big guitars and big melodies in my CD collection, but lots of other things as well.

Now, two lists. This is a challenge to y'all. Meet it by commenting, or face my wrath.

Top three CDs (I realize many see this as an impossibility to list, but at least you have three favorites right now):
- TOOL, “Aenima”. Always number one. Scarily powerful, scarily good. I can't fathom how anything can ever top this.
- The Tea Party, “Transmission”. Led Zeppelin meets Nine Inch Nails, with sitars. Exceptional.
- The Dillinger Escape Plan, “Ire Works”. This is a “right now”, but their fascination with Faith No More-ish melodies, electronics and musical insanity in general creates a combination unlike anything else I've heard.

Three most unexpected CDs in collection (and these must be CDs you listen to, not stuff that sloshes about at the bottom of some crate in your storage room, and they can't be more than one from the same artist):
- Wannadies, “Skellefteå”. Swedish guitar pop sensation of the 90's.
- Photek, “Modus Operandi”. Drum'n'bass.

And the fact I could only come up with two, proves how homogeneous my taste in music must be. I'm soo alternative...

Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent

So now is later.

Lately, I've been considering what the hell is wrong with the world and people.

Over the past two months three people I know have been assaulted in one way or the other. As I've expressed in previous posts, I'm not a real believer in the inner goodness of man, but I still think that it takes a certain kind of person to beat up someone without a reason.

This is where you go “A reason you say?”.

Yes. A reason. I know I have the capacity within me for violence. I know that if someone close to me was threatened or attacked, I wouldn't hesitate to step in and deal with the situation. With violence, if need be. I know this might seem hypocritical, and that may be, but I have little doubt this is the way a lot of people are wired. For me, that realization came when my then-girlfriend was attacked by her stepfather. The rage I felt when I found out was terrifying. The realization that I would have thrown myself at him had I been there, with no regard for my own safety, was terrifying. The fact that I would do it again, for anyone close to me, is terrifying. But still true.

I felt the same way when my now-girlfriend was trapped inside the entrance of a club between a locked door and a guy gone berserk on anti-psychotics and alcohol. Good combo, that... He was about as tall as a Smurf, and managed to throw a 200-pound security guard around.

So yes. A reason. Then again, that's the only reason I can think of.

That situation aside, to me normal people don't hurt other people. Here's where we need to define normal. Normal as in “functioning properly emotionally”, nothing else. It has nothing to do with normalcy regarding looks or political views or race or whatever (the middle one sometimes fits, though that's a topic for another post). The urge might be there, those primal fight or flight instincts, but normal people don't let the urges get the better of them. That's what's called “civilization”.

I consider the three people (I won't dignify them with the term “men”), and any other people really that do the same thing, to be below me on an evolutionary scale. Yes, all men are created equal, but again, those degenerates aren't men.

Those are my two cents.

Let me help you tie the rope around your neck

So I wrote this post about useless people and nurture vs. nature and inner darkness vs. the goodness of mankind, etc. Basically I’d had a bad day and needed to vent.

I’ve calmed down now (yeah, right), and figured I would continue that train of thought, especially since Joel went to such great lengths to comment.

I don’t believe that the inner core of humans is evil. Neither do I believe that it’s good. Beneath the veneer of civilization, we’re still animals, still the creatures that either hid in the shadows when the predators stalked by or planted our feet and fought, tooth and nail. That fight or flight reflex is still there, and it wakes up when we’re put in a situation that pushes us beyond the limits that we, and society, have set for ourselves.

Because of that, I remain convinced that every human being is capable of lethal violence. It doesn’t matter how much of a non-violent person you are, that primal reflex remains there, dormant.

That aside, I also believe some people are inherently evil. There are some atrocities that people commit that I simply cannot attribute to a messed-up childhood, or to the instinct for violence at our core. There are things that humans simply don’t do. And yes, I acknowledge that abuse or childhood trauma or whatever can make things worse, and probably shape someone who otherwise would have stopped at ripping the wings of insects into something far worse, and I even acknowledge that video games or movies or whatever intense experience there is out there, can act as something of a trigger, though not as a root cause. That, however, is a discussion for another day.

In Western society, we choose to meet such atrocities with prison time, and in some states in the US with the death penalty. I’m not an avid proponent of ending someone’s life, but in some cases, I actually see no other way out. This is not out of any biblical sense of an eye for an eye and all that nonsense. It’s simply because some people, that can no longer be called humans, simply don’t deserve to live.

Case in point: Andrei Chikatilo. This pathetic excuse of a man wanted the death penalty and got it. Can anyone argue that incarcerating him would have made more sense, or that therapy could ever have rehabilitated a man who murdered 52 people over 12 years? And ate some of them?

I claim to be an agnostic of some sort, but I sincerely hope that there’s some deep dark Hell where sadists like Chikatilo endure everlasting pain, or that nothing awaits them beyond death other than a cold lonely grave.

So yes. I’m in favor of killing people occasionally. Please argue with me.

A condom is the glass slipper of our generation

I’ve made some observations today and while on vacation. A few truths/opinions/whatever I felt I needed to share with y’all. Enjoy.

- There’s a certain breed of sixteen year old girls, with hair bleached blond beyond anything nature could come up with, usually dressed in sweatpants, that should be eradicated from the face of the Earth.
- The perfect soundtrack to a rainy Stockholm is Cult of Luna’s “Eternal Kingdom” or Portishead’s self-titled second album.
- My own pillow trumps away-pillow any day of the week.
- If Heaven exists and I have been a good enough boy to get there (which isn't likely), Chokladfabriken will be the official supplier of dessert at the all you can eat buffet.
- There’s a substantial difference between “penetrating” and “penetrated”, a difference I almost experienced today. Long story short, I almost had an intimate moment with a gear stick.
- Stellan Skarsgård has six children. Excellent. He has filled my quota as well.
- The vending machines at the supermarket contain everything you need for a weekend that begins well but ends horribly. Except alcohol.

Cum-err-shell

An acquaintance of mine works as an art director/web designer/whatever, had a spread in Cap & Design once, and produces some kick-ass art and stuff. He thinks the Nike Commercial running right now is excellent. I think it's...annoying. He should be right. I don't know squat about commercials.

Is one opinion worth more than another? When that opinion is based on experience and know-how, I would say yes. I could go on, but I don't have the energy.

Tomorrow, off to the movies. A horror double whammy. The Happening and The Mist. I'm expecting the first one to sucky sucky, and the second one to be not so bad. We'll see. Good night.