Ariel Pink's Back (last fagbook post)

Disclaimer: This is the last thing I'm posting on fagbook before I delete my account. I'm leaving it up for a bit to see if I get any response to it (I won't) because I want to know if anyone wants me to leave them anything. Its presented here... for posterity? Without any alterations, keep that in mind if I refer to "here" I'm talking about fagbook.



Look who's back.

The first time I heard "Helen" on KTRU (remember that, remember when Houston had an actual radio station? Before the mega-corps bought it out?), I honestly thought it was from some sort of under the radar band from, specifically 1969 (I'm usually pretty good with dating things like that). I thought that was pretty cool, I had only recently discovered Bruce Haack, so the notion that I didn't know the whole picture and that stuff as far out as Jefferson Airplane and the Doors and Pink Floyd was "mainstream" and that was even more gold lying just beneath the surface... it shivers up my spine. Whole worlds of music completely hidden, stuff unlike anything I'd ever heard before.

Well, skipping ahead, yes that world exists, but according to archival projects like Psychedelic Arhcaeology, it is hopelessly mundane. Good stuff, but nothing to write home about.
But I WAS right, Ariel Pink was unlike anything I'd ever heard before. At first I couldn't even process it, I didn't understand it at all, just the surface problem alone, for a quick review:

1. This is new?
2. What IS Ariel?
3. Is this... a revival? Like, do I count it as a being space rock because that's what it is or... or... what is this?

But of course it isn't space rock, or anything else, it's fundamentally different from everything else, there's something going on there that isn't just what it sounds like. And it's easy to say "oh, well you mean because it's lo-fi, lo-fi stuff is a genre now." Um, no, no it isn't. It's not the quality of the recordings either, as evidenced when he went hi-fi for Before Today and absolutely nothing changed.

Normally it's very hard to put a finger on exactly what Ariel Pink is, but I've been listening to it for a long time and I think I'm just crazy enough to figure it out: he's figured out how to induce memory. Engineered nostalgia, false memories, pining for the good ol' days that never actually happened. These are all things I'm very familiar with, and it's essentially unique to Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti (whole name typed out because fagbook suggested it be), that's not to slight Geneva Jacuzzi or Nite Jewel or even WaVVes, who are all very good at getting inside that ballpark and I love them all to death, but there's something... else... here. And I don't know how he does it but every time I hear a new Ariel Pink song it's like I've known it for my entire life.

I don't know if everyone feels it, but I do.

When I first found out about "hauntology" it really seemed like I had left off of my child life and was moving towards being an adult. I was a goth kid, but I would be a "hauntology" adult. I was in school, then briefly had a job, then finally I started taking film classes and it looked for all the world like I knew where I was going and what I wanted to do. I mean, I'm not going to lie, all the alcohol and hauntology had a pretty detrimental effect for a while, there was the whole thing about Denisera (you can ask Tom or w/e about that if you want), and I was actually living that sort of "perpetual regret" lifestyle where I could never really get into what was happening now because everything was always "the good ol' days," but even so I was still moving forward, and once I got into film school that attitude mostly died.

But in a very short period of time R-real became almost as important to me as Godzilla, because of that synthetic "you're entire life" quality which I sometimes wonder about how real or imagined it actually is. It's clearly not just music anymore, it's some other whole THING now, less about the stuff itself and more about where I was and what I was thinking, and why it would ever matter so much. This song here got released... what, today? I've already heard it before, I can't explain it, but it's one of the best songs I've ever heard, up there with Artifact and Helen for me. The album comes out a week after my birthday, but there don't seem to be any tour dates yet. So... there's that.

So here's the deal: I already know no one's going to read this, but I'm going to leave it up for... idunno, a day or something, because it's the last thing I'm going to post here, I'll copypaste it on my old blog I guess, but I'm giving up. Giving up on fagbook for sure, and most other things as well. I was just looking at how exactly you're supposed to get your name changed legally, it costs upwards of $350 and it's subject to all the same government incompetency and hoops as everything else, I heard one story where an attorney almost died because a set of x-rays where filed under her maiden name. The state of Texas is more than willing to let me die before I get any sort of respect, and if that's what they want I'm more than happy to oblige.

Organizing Music OR Arranging Ariel Pink plus some other crap no one listens too anymore

So when I saw him at Fitzgeralds, Diva Dompe (you know, from blackblack? It's ok, I didn't either, but she's just as good as any of those L.A. bands, which no longer surprises me) came out wearing this floral jumpsuit thing that was pretty damn cool looking. But then when R-real came out he was wearing the thing and it was far cooler than anything Diva did.

I have this new computer (which is either a Decemberween or birthday present, can't remember which) and it got to me blank with a few games. Now, I've had to start fresh about... four or fives times by now, with my original E and C drives still holed up (although this new, stable computer is where it will go) at my dad's house and very little connectivity between the (now) three desktops, my laptop, and my mom's laptop on the count of that I don't trust removable hard drives anymore.

It is in these times when I have truly begun to appreciate a well seeded torrent. See, not only do I not have the balls to risk everything to back up one folder, but I also don't really have the time or resources o dig through my absurd cd collection (and thank you Vinyl, by the way, because I was actually beginning to get tired of all these increasingly fragile parts, and with USB turntables I don't even need the damned things anymore. Plus, bands that don't produce vinyl records make a bold statement about how they don't want my money!) to rip stuff, because I can't do just one thing, I have to get everything.

Torrents allow me to get the WHOLE damn body of work without spending half an hour in a cold sweat hoping that my drive doesn't crap out and I loose everything (this is, by the way, all the fault of a mac. If they were just normal fucking computers then my drive wouldn't bother me anymore, and I'd just get a terabyte thing and be done with it) or digging through boxes to re-find a cd I already ripped so that I could safely ignore the shattered jewel cases and mismatched sleeves.

Plus, it's a great feeling when, after spending so much time tracking down all the music, neatly ripping and organizing the music in a fashion that makes sense for that individual artist (as they all have different ways), and meticulously going through the files and making sure the name and file info all sync up, that I never have to do that again. Plus, there's always going to be stuff I missed, and I'm never spending another fucking dime on NIN after that bullshit trainwreck he went through called "sobriety." Of course, Trent really doesn't care nowadays and even leaks his own stuff, so there's that. Perhaps thats why the post-fragile (yeah, because I never really HEARD the Fragile before, so I didn't really get it back then, but now I realize it was him slowly wasting away in a cocaine-ish way, meaning a great theme plus Trent's already insatiable addiction to workahol equals an awesome double album that I had overlooked because I thought "starfuckers" sounded a little TOO marilyn manson-y, even though now I sort of like it) stuff sucks so bad, because it's free anyways!

The irony of this, of course, was that I actually bought both With Teeth (Sunspots and You Know What You Are? are good, Home rules, and some of the remixes are grade A, of course all I got with the album were those first two tracks and alot of guitar-driven non-industrial bulshit) AND Year Zerlao (which is easily forgiven, since the concept involved a giant monster and was really cool, although realizing what With Teeth was actually supposed to be about [because it didn't "click" for me then, but now it's almost too obvious] is cooler in concept than ANOTHER dystopian future ruled by neo-cons, even without the presence, and Year Zero only has "the Warning," which is only good because it's the presence... okay the song really is pretty good but I wouldn't have given it a chance otherwise) but never really knew about or bought Ghosts I-IV, which is easily the best thing he's ever done, before going right back into the suck-zone with The Slip, whose title seems to be a pun.

bauhaus might be a bit of a problem, as before the ONLY TRACK I didn't have throughout the entirety of everything they ever recorded was "Shows" from the 1978 tape that came with "Behind the Mask" which was only released in a couple thousand copies from Metropolis, and I don't think they're going to re-issue it soon, if ever. I even had spirit in the sky, and all the other crap from the 1978 tape. And you better believe I got Crackle, Gotham, and Go Away White. The torrents for them I'm seeing are nowhere near as asinine about completeness as I was as a crazy goth teenager that, really, didn't listen to other things. Much as I now grow tired of all of that music which has been rendered obsolete by Ariel Pink, being everything else.

So there's a very good Ariel Pink torrent out there that really helped me get a grip on his whole catalogue, despite being a little bare bones for my current needs. See, it doesn't have "Gettin' High in the Morning" (which turns out is about crystal meth). Also other stuff.

The problem is that only a few of it's mistakes can be corrected with the widely available stuff (HG 1, 2, faux 3, 4, 5, 6 (which I don't have on CD, so I'm missing a track here that, for some damn reason I can't find anywhere), 8, 9, and 10, added pizzaz and other things that you can physically get without TOO much trouble aren't counted here, but you can trust that I'm not starting out empty handed, that's for damn sure.) Most of the things that are screwy is like,YAS DuDette, where "Stevie Storm" is that plus like eight other songs, so that if I wanted to hear "Shower Me With Lipstick" I have to FF>> like it's a damn CaSette! And it's just awkward to me how FF>> gets a vinyl release while Scared Famous languishes in it's "well, at least I have Politely Declined" CD form. Which, of course, I bought specifically for that song, and didn't realize at the time what a bunk deal it was.

Most of that has been remedied nowadays, and with my USB turntable even Added Pizzaz can join in on the fun. Plus, Papermache, a version of Scared Famous (incorrectly labeled FF+) that's more complete, but not entirely, Underground with Function and I Love Her Still (like the 8-track I bought), the complete YAS DuDette, and something called "Welcome 2 Our World" are floating around on the net, so that's good news, although I won't be happy until I have absolutely everything.

For those of you wondering what was up with that whole "Haunted Graffiti" thing, it turns out it isn't as cryptic as you would believe. It was a numbering system invented around 1998 for Underground for Ariel to keep track of stuff, and not necessarily anyone else. Because this is also roughly the times when the band formed (Gary War, John Maus, and Tim Koh), it was also used as a name for this group of backers, all of whom were doing other things as well, which seemed like a good idea to seperate Ariel Pink from the "band" asthetic which didn't technically apply to the recordings.

Of course, there are always exceptions, and I still haven't gotten over not being able to see the "real" haunted graffiti. Not that I don't like Aaron and Kenny or anything, it's just... like seeing bauhaus play with a couple of guys you've never heard of playing in place of Daniel Ash and Kevin Haskins.

And this thing about it being a planned group of 10 releases? Not so much. According to Ariel, Before Today can be considered 10 if you want to, but really, because it is so different from everything before it, it should be counted as 1 in... I guess just how many 4AD albums they have. This prompts the question "Well then what the hell was HG#9?" To me this seemed obvious, as the only thing it could really be is Odds + Sods (Vol. 1), and this was later confirmed. So we have the base 8 where somehow the idea that there was 10 got out, a bunch of loosely catalogued singles and EPs from the time between getting signed and touring with Paw Tracks and losing Gary and John during which many stuff is culled from the past as well as perhaps things that are new (and really, it's hard to tell, he could have gotten by without writing a single new song for 6 years, but I seriously doubt he did that, given how prolific he is) culminating in a new release of back-logged stuff that seems new to everyone who doesn't live in L.A. Then some wierd, in-studio non-lo-fi (what do you even call that?) singles, and finally another album, which doubles as the end of the HG series and beginning of... something else.

To reiterate, if you want Haunted Graffiti to go to 10, then they are:
1. Underground (1998)
2. The Doldrums (2000)
3. Scared Famous (2002)
4. FF>> (2002)
5. House Arrest (2002)
6. Lover Boy (2002)
7. Holy Shit! EP (2003) - Does this mean Stranded at Two Harbors is an HG? Probably not.
8. Worn Copy (2003)
9. Oddities Sodomies Vol. 1 (2008)
10. Before Today (2008)

Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash & Burn: Pre can count as 0, as it's the only real "album" that predates the HG thing and has a (formerly) attainable release. As I said, Papermache/Attention!/Hum It In The Streets is out there, and in a configuration that contains "Track 16," the most mysterious Ariel Pink recording of all time by my count, and the reason he never gets to say "lo-fi wan't a choice" to me. But, for a more inclusive list, let's take a look at the early stuff as dictated by R. Stevie Moore himself:

1996 The Nile Ran pt. 1-11
1996-1998 "Various Gorilla" rehearsals + performances (with a bunch of guys I don't recognize. Not sure what this is supposed to mean)
1996 Kids on Drugs (cassette, RSM makes an important note that this "includes just like peter schilling," which I suppose is a song of note in his early career. Could this be the mysterious "Track 16?" Don't bet on it.
1996 Kraftwerk/Expirements (I'm guessing it's more of his early WS-esque sampling-to-it's-natural-conclusion nonsense plus some wacky cool shit like Rain or Equus, but not those songs, mind you)
1996 Dove
1997 Death Dorm 1-4 (compilation, so don't worry about this one)
1997 tape 1 (first new for '97, if we are to assume the list is complete, which it isn't)
1997 metamorfosi/INUMI
1997 Equus 1 & 3 (here we go, I know what this is. could be versions, much longer, or just the name and is missing the track called "Equus")
1997 Master 1 & 2 (related to Equus?)
1997 BIANCA LIVE/DEMOES (ariel in a glam-punk band, apparently they left for NY and ariel didn't follow.
1998 Hum It In The Streets/Paper Mache (thouroughly not a mystery anymore)
1998 Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash n' Burn + Pre (note here the "&" is an "n'" and the colon becomes a plus sign. This is called a compilation on RSM's site, so I'm guessing the tracks are identical to the HEM release, meaning I don't know where each song actually comes from, so I could potentially have all of "tape 1" and just not know it)
1998 Gorilla Live 1 + Solo CD (Gorilla must have been a loose collection of people playing, roughly, as a group, sort of like Psycho Mental Terrorists, or PMT, or whatever name they decided to use that week. Here begins a series of releases from them... I guess?)
1998 Unreleased Gorilla tape (then why is it here?)
1998 GORILLA 2 CD
1998 Appleasians Vaults (another group of releases this time refering to "Appleasians." Could it be another band Ariel was in? I don't know, but it was clearly a unified concept sometime in early-to-mid 1998)
1998 Appleasians Greatest Hits CD (all they have is the vaults and a best of? Where is this coming from?)
1998 Appleasians LIVE / The Birth of Haunted Graffiti DEMOES CD (this is intriguing. Is Applesasians the fore-runner of what would become the Haunted Graffiti? Was HG originally a project under the Appleasians name? Was Appleasians an unrelated concept that failed to take off because Ariel left to pursue said haunted graffiti? If so, is there a parallel universe where APPLEASIANS, and not APHG, have rendered all past and future attempts at music obsolete? Many questions remain unanswered)
1998 Haunted Graffiti - Cemetaries/Railrods first album CD (C/R is called "crash crash on the drummer" on subsequent releases. This is interesting because it is the first in a group of releases named after well known APHG songs. As an album, this is likely a stripped down version of Underground)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Underground Double CD (17 tracks can fit onto one CD, so I'm wondering what the other junk is. Judging from the rest f the list, Phantasm and Young Pilot Astray may show up, and in fact the addendum to the Doldrums CD, called Vital Pink, may be around this group and showed up there in case Underground never saw print from paw tracks, hence "Vital Pink.")
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Spires in the Snow EP CD (can't be anything surprising here)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Phantasm EP (or here)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - Young Pilot Astray + Phantasm EP CD (again, nothing new)
1999 Haunted Graffiti - The Doldrums Sessions CD (the idea of Ariel Pink sitting around in a studio saying stuff like "that take was good, let's hear that back" while sitting around a sound booth and listening intently is hilarious to me, although one must assume he did this for Before Today)
2000 Haunted Graffiti - The Doldrums CD (and now we have entered fully modern APHG territory)
2000 STEVIEPINK - Ariel Pink + R. Stevie Moore (this one is listed as an upcoming CD, but the only real evidence we have of this genuine collab happening is, well, Stevie Pink. That showed up later, alongside RSM's Brain, on Scared Famous, and then after that on either Papergutz or YAS DuDette. So this thing may not even be a thing)
2000 Ariel Pink w/ Rebecca Lynn Excuse Live VIDEO (not even sure how to interpret this)
2000 Ariel Pink - Safeguards from Home (Thanx Mama, I'm Dead) VIDEO (so, uh, SfH shows up later on Odds + Sods, I don't why in the hell... just forget it)
2000 Mother of God + Orange S*NS - LIVE (I have no clue, but since APHG was in full swing by this time, I'm not sure it will ever become a concern, and it seems to me as if this was a one-off gig of some conglomerate L.A. bands that then dissapeared to time)

We also have "Welcome 2 Our World," most of which I've never heard of before, but happens to have alot of tracks listed as a tracklist for a version of YAS DuDette (like hold your breath and wait and nighttime is great). There is an extended list on the wikipedia page (ironic as they usual omit information) but this is merely things that are track-down-able at there original release dates, like the other HG#'s and the other junk.

I've also got something called papergutz (which is... I don't know) and an "untitled CD-R" which has Omen and a shit load of stuff with no name that I haven't heard on ANYTHING else, and some of it is purposefully hi-fi (like New Trumets sort of is, and some even in the style of the enigmatic "track 16")

Now, after Paw Tracks, the genuinely obtainable Ariel Pink begins to show up, this was:

2004 The Doldrums (Paw Tracks, CD)
2005 Worn Copy (Paw Tracks, CD)
2006 House Arrest (Paw Tracks, CD)
2006 Lover Boy (CD on... Ballbearings something? My LP is by Cooler Cat, and that's all I know, but the CD has an extra live track called "You Are My Angel" that I've never seen or heard anywhere else, so it's kinda important)
2006 Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash & Burn: Pre (Human Ear Music's direct reissue of an old compilation of even older stuff. You NEED this, so HEM's... dissolving has become a pretty big pain in the ass for me)
2006 Stranded at Two Harbors (the Holy Shit! album)
2007 Underground (this version omits Function and I Love Her Still... unlike the 8-track)
2007 Scared Famous/FF>> (by HEM, CD, called the "West Coast Tour Edition," it is a hodge-podge mix of material from both albums, omitting much of the best songs. And while FF>> has since been saved by a Vinyl release (from what I can only assume is Cooler Cats), SF still languishes, although Privacy, Deathcrush 99, Birds in My Tree, and Shedon'tknow-Whattodowithherself are out there if you look)
2008 Oddities Sodomies Vol. 1
2010 Before Today (4AD LP & CD)

After this started up, a number of various releases showed up at shows, and it's pretty much common custom to snatch anything you don't recognize, because you won't find it later.

2005:
Pedestrian Pop Hits - A joke? See, because it's one really long track that is anything but a pedestrian pop hit. Very cool, find it if you can. If you give up it's in the torrent, and due to it's length it would need to appear on it's own, so don't expect to see it pop up again soon.

2006:
Ariel Friedman EP - All of the songs here seem to be new, and only Facts of Destiny and Ariel (Friedman) show up on anything else. Which is a shame, because Choose to Loose rules the schools.

Gates of Zion/Ghosts - an Australian tour goody. Gates of Zion is obviously new for this record, and the Ghosts track seems to be cleaned up, it may be a new recording or simply tweaked, it's hard to tell. If you don't live in australia and don't have a time machine, no worries, both tracks are on youtube. "Gates," by the by, is fantastic and simply needs to be put on something a little more accesible than an Australian-only tour exclusive.

Witchunt Suite for WWIII - the closest Ariel is ever going to get to social commentary, and some of the coolest shit he's ever done. This masterpiece, in two parts totalling about 20 minutes, have a habit of popping up in different places, including some of the iterations of YAS DuDette, under a couple of different names. There's a good chance you can get these, if not actually being put on an album (they are not, unfortunately, on Odds + Sods).

My Molly EP - Really important. My Molly is out now on the vinyl FF>>, The Bottom is on Odds + Sods, both and gox2 are on YAS DuDette, but Rock Play appears no where else. This is a crime, because My Molly is pretty much the perfect song. You will end up with these if you're doing it right, but it's something to keep you're finger on.

2007:
YAS DuDette - this is extremely important, and a more or less "full" version is out there, so get it. YAS was a our only deal, and I'm not sure what the full tracklist is, but there is one I've found from a blog or something that pretty much includes... everything. This thing is just begging for a rerelease as "Oddities Sodomies Vol. 2." Are you listening, Ariel? You need to do this one right.

2008:
Live at Pacific Palace Aids - a real thing, but I know next to nothing about it.

Can't Hear My Eyes/Evolution's a Lie - The first clue that something was up for me, because, as I have stated, I don't live in Australia. That's cool though, because Gates is more properly "HG9" era than Before Today era. This was a genuine new song with a genuine re-recording b-side. I don't understand why "Revolution" became "Evolution," especially considering it makes him look like a crazy person from uneducated eyes, but the title reverted to it's original form for the album (and what might be a re-re-recording)

2009:
Round and Round/Mistaken Wedding - It was a mistake not to put the b-side, which has it's own video, on the album. Whatever, I'm not buying a single for one song, so your loss.

Cooler Cat 7" - This one is a little less ignorable, though. It has Flashback (which does not appear on Before Today), Reminisces (which does), Rama Ya (which is the first recording released of a song the band is heard rehearsing in a video from 2007 or so, but is not on BT), and Phantasma (a longer name for a re-recording that does not show up on BT, but was already on Odds + Sods, so big deal). This one is pretty important, and there are apparently still some out there? I can't order shit online so I wouldn't know, but there is still alot of interest in it at least.

Grandes Exitos - isn't it just like Ariel to make a best of... and then turn it into a "you had to be there" tour only fiasco? Well, this is one I can safely not give a shit about. I'm more worried about...

Kind of Kind/RSM's Brain - Not only is this the second best (My Molly was a kick ass idea) idea for a APHG single, but it's only the B-SIDE of a song that I'VE NEVER EVEN HEARD!!! This one is driving me insane, because I had the chance to see him in 2009, but it fell apart when I couldn't get a fucking ride to Hailey's. Total Bullshit, man. And now it's like it never even existed! Look, if Gates of fucking Zion can find it's way to youtube, why the hell can't Kind of Kind, which is COMPLETELY NEW!!!

It just pisses me off, is all.

There is undoubtedly more crap too, but thinking about it gives me a headache.

Deo Gratis Pro Ariel Pink

The only thing left is the inevitable cover bands. By the by, you CAN NOT have Submarine Yellow's Spooky Doodles. That's mine. I call dibs.

But really though, why are there other things? Do we really need them anymore? We've got Ariel Pink already, soooo...

And it's wierd, because I've never felt this way before. I mean, really, I'm done. I know that, logically, we are only at middle Ariel Pink, and the late is still to come, but I can't stretch my brain around in order to figure out what the hell possibly comes next. Maybe I'm tired. Maybe all those wild times in the 70's with acid and Boyd Rice burned me out, maybe I'm still bitter after the divorce, or perhaps this has something to do with one of those other believable things that I totally did, but I'm just done.

Recently, I've tracked down some Ariel Pink stuff from 1996-1998 and such much that, before today (heheh) I never even bothered to look for because, get this, I was too scared of what I might hear. Like, if the stuff he was choosing to allow us, the unwashed public, to hear was, uh, like THAT, then what were his obscure and gritty underground recordings like? The very concept gives me shivers, and the fact that there is SO MUCH, that not many have dared attempting to collect it, and that Helen, Suicide Notice, and Artifact are totally enough and now I can die, just makes the whole proposition of "the super old school" Ariel Pink so mind-numbingly overpowering that...

I can't quite say what I'm trying to say here.

But, so what happened is I did find some of this stuff, specifically Hum It In the Streets, first run Underground (crash is still cemeteries/railroads, 2 or 3 cut songs, no Until the Night Dies) from like 1998, the original Scared Famous or FF>>, I forget, but it's got the "lost tracks," a version of YAS DuDette with the 15 minute steviestorm broken down (kinkaid? I was calling it "love emporium" this whole time!) and some other goodies, and something called "Welcome to Our World" which I can't find on any discographies.

And, of course, my worst fears were realized. Crazy 90's Ariel Pink (from the inception of Hauntology, and while his industrial influences are MUCH more prevalent) is painfully perfect. Did you know he was doing hi-fi in 1998? True story. The downloads are still around, so check this out to get them. Some of the tracks on this these things ARE on the accessible releases, but then, it would be wierd for me to assume you don't already have Underground or Oddities Sodomies Vol. 1 (where is vol. 2 already?). That, plus, being a pirate is cool.

And I'm still very hesitant about listening to all this, I mean, if the oppurtunity arose again I would grab it in a heartbeat because I can't miss a single thing, but still, knowing now that my hunch was right and 96-99 (or so) was just as, and in many cases more cool that, say, something on paw tracks you can just up and buy.

And certainty is always more scary than a vague idea. You want haunted, you say? The muddy netherverse of Ariel Pink in the late 90's is officially the most haunting thing on the planet. Color me (yellow/pink/whatever) artistically sated, I just don't need anything else anymore.

As a wise man once said, "Originality is dead, long live variations on a theme."

That is the will of the Grand Council of Hauntology.

But this too was all but a part of Architeuthis's plan...

Exciting announcements

Parabuteo: makes Deinonychus look bad. It can fucking fly.

This is my favorite song (the list)
1. Balaur
2. Sagittarius
3. PARABUTEO*
4. Corvus
5. Kelenken or Argentavis, depending on which day of the week it is

* pushes Corvus down and confuses K&A.

When this dinosaur became my favorite dinosaur, I wrote the list, it sat on top.
For weeks it pushed the others down, down.
But I never reached the bottom of that list.
And I would cry and cry, cause it had lied and lied...

I could literally transcribe Ariel Pink all day (it isn't ACTUALLY hard), but I want to cover this properly, so let me get a good intro going here:

The endless bloodlust earthlings seem to have never ceases to scare the shit out of me. I'm already scared to death of Owls (they need to fucking calm down, that is too much power for such a small animal), but now I'm just finding out that hawks have actually taken it much further.

Let's review: raptors today can fly. Cut and print, they've already won the contest. But wait, they are the BEST at flying. Also, talons. Okay, so basically you've got an animal that doesn't "hunt" anymore, but just sort of goes grocery shopping, and spends the rest of it's life soaring through skies.

And this sort of "I've already won, so I'm just complacent now" attitude is shared with, you know, us. Raptors (not a real thing, I know, but I still use it even though it does not include Cariamae) have done with evolution what we've done with technology, and there are no worries anymore. Understandably, the pack hunting styles that were so popular in the Mesozoic are now dropped in favor of a quiet, reflective lifestyle befitting hermits and poets.

And really, pack hunting is an effort to make up for vulnerability in a long term battle. Deinonychosaurs (except Balaur) are way to frail to put up an extended physical battle with a ceratopsian, so they run in huge groups and take a hit and run approach, dividing the attention of the prey and exponentially increasing the safety of any given individual. Golden Eagles need no such strategy, they simply drop goats off cliffs.

That's why when I heard Parabuteo is a pack hunting, I realized "overkill" doesn't quite get across how ridiculously overpowered these things are.

But at the same time this sort of irritates me (Irritator... heheh) because it makes me realize how little I know about living dinosaurs. I'm ALWAYS finding out shit like this, because they don't tell you this in the schools, you've got to learn it on the streets, man. Like the secretary bird, I'm well aware that birds (see that other post, I'm not doing that again) have the first toe turned into a "perching" sort of deal, but I had no idea that a dinosaur actually used that claw as a weapon. It's like a Bayonettasaurus or something, it's awesome. PLUS it can fly.

But anyways, back to Ariel (R-real). So, to conclude the cliffhanger of a previous post, I asked Ariel what the hell was up with the HG numbering thing.

So, he says that it was just a way to keep track of the albums, which proves my half-jesting claim that even Ariel can't keep track of all his stuff, and also that there was nothing "planned" about it. As far as he's concerned, he says, Before Today (shades... away!) is HG#1, not 9 (although he did say something about there being 9 hg's... so I guess he's counting Thrash & Burn + Pre? Or he lost count, most likely).

So that's that. I want to mention that being in the presence of the one true god is not nerve racking at all. I mean I was so nervous (let's get nervous... groan) that I wouldn't be able to handle it and I'd get embarassingly star struck or something, but after startling the crap out of me by magically showing at the merch stand with any fanfare, everything went fine. It's like he exudes good vibes (10 points for guessing that reference) or something.

And this is the sentiment across the board. It makes me wonder what it would have been like to meet David Bowie in the mid-70's or Ian Curtis in the late 70's, or Peter Murphy in the early 80's... or Boyd Rice ever. I've heard from alot of people that've met Boyd that he's great in person, but I can't imagine meeting Ian in person would be a... fun... experience. With his career essentially being four years of foreshadowing, it sounds kind of depressing. But, I wasn't there, so I don't know. I also have this idea that Dave is probably a prick in real life, but this is probably just a result of the glamorous image he had (has), and as we all know, divas are bitches.

Thinking about being in the same room as Peter Murphy makes my head explode, and in the early 80's... Well, it is probably more significant now than it would've been then. I mean, even knowing that something very important was happening, it would have been hard to guess exactly how far reaching he and what he started would become. It's 2010 now, and he's still the king.

Thats really the best way to describe APHG right now: it isn't clear exactly how much the world is going to change because of this, but being right here in the thick of it while it's happening (okay, so it's middle APHG, and I missed Doldrums when it was new, but still) is... just a completely unbelievable feeling. I just keep comparing it in my head to being a punk/goth in the late 70's.

But, so my birthday is Nov. 10, and here is the schedule for that month:

Nov. 5 - Friday - Ariel Pink's Haunted Grafitti in Dallas
Nov. 6 - Saturday - Austin Fun Fun Fun Fest, WaVVes at 3:30, and Ariel Pink right after them
Nov. 7 - Sunday - Come back to Houston, Ariel Pink (and Tim Koh too!) plays at Fitzgerald's
Nov. 8 - day off, depending on how things go I may be leaving for Dallas (again) on this day because...
Nov. 9 - Tuesday - Legendary Pink Dots in Dallas 2/3 or the pink triad isn't bad
Nov. 10 - Wednesday - my actually birthday. Maybe a party or something if I'm back in Houston then
Nov. 11 - Thursday - have to be back in Houston by now, probably get some sleep
Nov. 12 - Friday - Tim & Eric at warehouse live (where I saw Times New Viking)

Bad ass week, eh? How do I pull this off? I haven't worked everything out in my head yet, but I have some ideas and contingency plans. If nothing else, I HAVE to see Ariel at all three texas dates.

I mean, you don't understand. I HAVE to see Ariel Pink. It's the law. The law of the pinkhead.

What else can I ramble on about?

- on Monday, the coming one (two days from now), I'll meet up at the commons with three other guys after cutting out of acting early and we'll try to figure out why we are there.
- My keyboard might have kicked it, and I'm trying not to think about it. If that asshole acting teacher screws with me again, I'm going all method with this little bit.
- I might be doing more Mr. Shmolen on Tuesday. I'm still having technical problems editing the existing footage.
- DOOM 4 didn't show at QuakeCon this year, so jokes on you, assholes.
- You know how they're playing that old Cake song on that one commercial? I've been inspired to make that outfit happen, but the "long jacket" jacket part of the equation sort of requires it to be cold. So, I might need to come up with another way to do it. Pictures will happen if I'm around a camera.
- Increased activity on social networking sites DOES NOT mean I am officially social networking. I just don't have the ability to concentrate on these little things for extended periods of time, and I'm not going to pretend I can. I could disappear for months in the blink of an eye, because real life (the objective reality kind) is much more interesting.
- Kevin made a book, and now it's selling in the actual bookstore. Did I mention I'm the best writer in the state at the very least? Yeah, he should expect some competition coming soon.
- I'm soooooooooo bored... (la, la la-la la)
- Of all the things I started I would actually like to write out my ideas for an Eddie based Silent Hill and a treatment of my own original idea. If I get around to it.
- On Ramona Gonzalez: I think I have a chance with this girl (oh, wait, she lives in Stupid-ifornia, so fuck it).
- We need pictures.

Francis Bacon painting from 1946... I hope. Does this look familiar? It should. God lives in this painting. True story. You know how even though the face changes, God's body always looks the same? This is where Masahiro got it from.

I can not tell you how many times I've tried to come up with a way to make this work. There are a few unimpressive efforts on the (very specialized) market, but none of them have what I'm really wanting to happen: not heel to flats, but 4" to 5"... to 6". Actually adjucting the height, not removing it. These look really cool though.

Silent Hill again? This is the album cover for the SH4 OST. Fun facts, that monster is quite obviously Conjurer, but do you notice the Sniffer Dogs? And how about those dead bodies? There are 21. Killing Machine is in there, and you can tell that's supposed to be Eileen. Super stylish.

A Space Jockey Alien. It is completely possible for the Jockey Alien to still be alive in the film timeline, as it wouldn't have died in the crash, and there were no other occupants around to kill it. I love that it's so fucking huge, but it doesn't make sense that there isn't a trunk. Of course, Alien 0rigins is bound to fix this. Oh yeah, and I'm already unhappy with the decision to let a director do two alien movies, as it breaks tradition, but as long as I get to see a Jockey Alien, it'll all be cool.

Minilla grows up. Proof that Minilla is not a natural Godzillsaurus, but rather born to already mutated Godzilla parents. That means that in the Heisei timeline, there are at least FOUR Godzillas: GI, GII, Junior, and the female Godzilla which has to exist in order for Minilla to exist in 2032. Yes, this is real concept art.

Bit of a spoiler. This is Mira as seen by Eddie, in his very own, special, non-canon "Dog" ending. The cannon ending, of course, is the UFO one.

Mabus, the third antichrist. Nostradamus is hilarious on his own, but combine him with crazy people and you get a never ending (sodaaaa... woah-o-woah...) source of entertainment. Everyone knows about Hister, but did you know how they got the first antichrist? They took Nay, Pau, and Loron, the names of three french towns, and decided that it was an anagram for NAPAULON ROY. Which, by the way, isn't "Napoleon," but close enough is spot on for these people.

*sigh* Fun fact: Mana not only collects creepy dolls for photo-shoots, but also was a pioneering Hauntologist back in the late 90's. Yep, back then Mana and Julian House used to get together on the weekends and play Atari and drinking copious amounts of alcohol. One thing lead to another... and that's how the Gamecube was concieved. I'm joking, of course, Julian doesn't drink.

Also, Mana's music isn't very good. Hence, no hauntology. Oh, one last thing:

From what I understand, these are honest to goodness glass slippers. This is a fucking terrible idea. Don't these idiots know that glass breaks? The very idea of these makes me feel like that one scene in May where she talks to a group of blind kids and the glass... thing with her doll shatters on the floor and THERE'S BLOOD EVERYWHERE!!!

...this too was all a part of Architeuthis's plan.

All right, I'm sick of this now. Ima go figure out the chords for Ariel Pink songs now.

HEY! That's a good idea, I'll come back later and upload some chords! Huzzah!

Words That Are Not Used Correctly

4. Amphicoelias (Ken C. resized him in '06, bigger than Godzilla MOST of the time)
3. Kelenken (Fuck the Mesozoic, take that Argentavis, Carnosaurs are overrated)
2. Balaur (duh)
1. TIANYULONG!!!!!!!!

Let it never be said that Tianyulong didn't change everything...

because, my god, Tianyulong changed everything... the world is so different now. Everytime I open my eyes now, the world just seems so... uninportant, you know? It's like, I already know the meaning of life, so what else is there? Only in this situation, the consequences are far more dire.

It's like... I don't know. I've never felt this way about an Ornithischian before. The emotions are just beyond my ability to deal with. I'm in a very vulnerable place right now, ever since Tianyulong changed everything forever.

I'm actually not being melodramatic. Tinayulong yanked my heart around like sheltered manchildren are confused by people like Mana and cartoon characters that are male but painfully attractive (because in a cartoon you can just fudge it). Which brings me to why I am suddenly motivated to write right now. (hehehe)

Mana is a hot mess. My one complaint: what the fuck is up with those shoes? He always wears like, 5 inch mary janes with a stupid looking three inch platform. It's like, it looks okay, but really, why bother? I like this her picture because he can rock that flat chest like nobody's business. His music, however, is somewhat okay at best.

Pop Quiz: What does the word gender mean?
a. I don't know
b. more polite way of saying sex
c. social and cultural constructs
d. the basis for all sexism

It's actually (d) as far as I'm concerned, but, of course, the real answer is (c). Now, next question:

What does sex mean?
a. Present tense sexual reproduction
b. Which end of that whole process you are on (male or female)
c. both of those
d. all of the above

The answer, of course, is (d). If you picked (c) you got it wrong. Sex applies only to sexual reproduction. As in, "gettin' it on." In this "whole process," you get two types of sex: ZW for female and WW for male (XY system in mammals, but who gives a shit about non-dinosaurs?), and the two have "interlocking" parts that bring all those nifty little gametes together and babies happen. There's more to the story, but I'm working towards a point here.

Sexual reproduction is great because, unlike the other kind, the chances for mutation are through the roof. Literally anything can go wrong at any time, and I'm not just talking about how the offspring have a combination of the genes of both parents, I mean the whole fucking system is just flimsy. I mean, really magnificently easy to produce mutant babies from beyond the grave. Like, having ZWZ and WWZ kids and shit, just a paper-thin disguise for a non-functioning system.

And just like the male and female ends of a RCA wire, there is always going to be some inherent sexual dimorphism. This is a simple unavoidable fact of life as a screwing organism. Dinosaurs, of course, don't stop there. Male dinosaurs are typically (haha, I mean always, I was just joking) dainty, gorgeous, and singularily attractive. The females are huge, drab, ugly, protect the kids, and are attracted TO the males, because they are all so fucking bueatiful. I humans, it is generally considered to be the opposite, although as I understand it, males can be attractive in their own way. I don't believe this, but I've heard sentiments that echo this sort of thing.

Okay, so what is gender then? Is your gender male or female? No, that's your sex. Just think back to buying cables at a Best Buy, male and female refer to different "parts," and the dinosaur fashion slaves are just born that way, but that isn't the rule for all sexual dimorphism. Sagittarius. 'Nuff said.

Is your head bleeding from the exposition hammer yet? Because if someone who doesn't know this is reading, I need to make sure people of all comprehension levels can understand what I'm saying.

Now, in humans, sexual dimorphism is very faint. Female's breasts get much larger at puberty because they are mammals, and thats where the milk goes. In mammals, the females have the milk, but, pay attention, before they reach puberty, they have the same chest as a male. The hips are also wider, because they have to squeeze a whole working womb in there. Beyond the stuff that absolutely has to differ in order for each sex to play out their role, the difference is so subtle that it isn't even worth mentioning here.

So everything you have been conditioned to believe in your culture, what the social norms are, fashion, personality, stereotypes, everything is created entirely BY that culture. Females aren't born wearing heels, that is something that is created by these cultural expectations, and this is what we call a "Gender Role" or "Gender Identity." Gender meaning which "role" or "identity" and individual posesses or identifies with.

It is commonly agreed that there are four accepted, basal, "component," or whatever the fuck you want to call them, genders. Masculine, Feminine, Androgynous, and Neutral/Asexual. Mas. and Fem. are the basis of sexism, they are stereotypes created by a specific culture that each sex is expected to conform to in order to be properly a "man" or "woman." Androgynous is sort of a mix of both, but with it's own set of rules, and neutral is, well, removed from the whole affair in the same way that atheists are removed from religion: instead of just saying "I don't have one," they say they are "neutral" because they fell that they have to check a box regardless of whether or not they support that system in the first place.

Now, this is all backstory. This is the year 2010, which was considered the future in early Megaman games. Genders are outdated, ridiculed, ignored, taken for granted, and played with. They no longer mean anything to the average person, because the average person is not a sexist, and has no reason to expect others to conform to a gender role because of their sex. There are, of course, crazy people, as well as the aforemention confused nerds who simply can't deal with a male being presented in a feminine way, not because they are sexist, but because it makes them question their own sexual orientation, which I think is hilarious, but I know plenty of people who don't share my affection for Mana.

Me? I don't want to have to pick, but I'm neutral. I say neutral and not "I don't have one" because I'm actually all of them to aproximately equal degress. I'm a future person (P.C.), and those things are beneath me. But genders are a big deal to me because I find them extremely interesting. Not as neat as dinosaurs, or course, but worthy of further study nonetheless.

And so while it is probably a good thing for the progression of civil rights, equality, and cultural respect that the word gender actually lose it's meaning altogether, but, like I said, this is kind of important to me. What is sad is that it's the year 2010, and I still see forms with "gender" being a field, and the answer choices being male or female, not actual genders. I rant about this all the fucking time, and so here I am, doing it again.

I have another thing I want to cover, but let me close this by saying that for the past hour or so I've been reading these blogs by weeaboos talking about some girls-only club that happened in 2008 or so. The consistently used the word gender and not sex, but the context was so flimsy that it could've gone either way. There were a couple of guys who would not disclose their "gender," confusing fans and foes alike, and sparking guessing games that are so full of obscure references to things I hate that I had a hard time understanding what the hell they were talking about.

What I did get from it is that, even though this clique is pretty shallow on the surface, not a one of them really gives a shit about what sex the others are. What they seem to be mildly interested in, you might have guessed, is what they call "traps," which are feminine males who squick out heterosexuals that can't tell the difference between a male and female. I actually read this one post where I guy actually went full on girly for a day (or so, whatever) in the interest of becoming a "trap," which some of the readers actually encouraged. This is fantastic, and if these are the males that culture breeds, then I want it to survive forever.

I'm going to post the link to what I'm talking about, but be warned that if you are easily squicked by tomgirls, you should not look at this. I'm extremely serious. It's a cool little thing, but please, one guy that I noticed is "following" me (fucking stalker) and whoever else stumbles on to this, click at your own risk. It might actually be NSFW, but it's probably just "gross." It's here.

And for the record, that's not how it works. Skirts are supposed to "puff out" on the side, not the front. You're fucking doing it wrong, poser. Plus, I hate your shoes, you don't to call yourself a "trap" if you're wearing flats, you moron. Flats suck = science fact. The socks are cool though. Plus, other than the obvious, it does come off as really pretty. So, good job.

This is accurate. It makes me feel all wierd inside, because, like, in my time (Cenozoic::Quarternary:Anthropocene), ALL dinosaurs are covered in feathers. We get skin impressions from dinosaurs much larger than the ones alive now, and science says that the "Elephant Effect" must be true. But, because of my frame of reference, this, an accurate rendering of a sub-adult Triceratops, just feels so wrong. I can't remember the artist's name, but it's on deviantart, so... there.

Now, enough crap. What you really came to here me bitch about is cladistics, isn't it? Here are some of my least favorite words: bird, reptile, fish, and bug. What do these words mean? Nothing, and thats the problem.

Let's get one thing straight: words that have only one meaning, that is, words that are defined by one academic discipline can not be given some arbitrary new meaning by someone who doesn't understand that discipline. What a word means, of course, is different from both connotation and popular phraseology, and this is where these words piss me off EVEN MORE that confusing gender and sex. I saved the best for last.

I'll close on dinosaurs, so I'll start outside Deuterostomates.

BUG
This word is my least favorite, even more than bird, because unlike the others, this word NEVER MEANT ANYTHING EVER. What is a bug?
Oh, you know, like insects and stuff.
Insects... and stuff? So, we're talking about out to Hexapods? Bug is a common name for hexapods?
Um... what? No, like creepy crawlies, you know, spiders and...
SPIDERS?! I though you said insects?
Yeah, those too.
So, spiders are... arachnids, then... shit, grouped up with myriapods, right? My arthropod tree is a little rusty, but I'm pretty sure you're telling me that "bug" is synonymous with "Arthopod."
No, creepy crawlies.
You're an idiot, now prepare to die.

Bottom line, polyphly doesn't even begin to describe this word. It means nothing. Next.

FISH
Fish and reptile are in the same boat, but fish has it worse, because "Pisces" hasn't been used in LINAEAN taxonomy since... like, the fucking 1700's or some shit. Now we have Chordates. "Fish," working backwards, would need to cover every animal that has "fish" in it's name that is actually a chordate, then. Because of hagfish, then, this goes to... Agnathans? Cephalochordata? Pretty far. I'm not a fish guy, so I don't know, but it covers far more than what you would think. But that's okay, because those guys are, essentially, fish, so it works out. The paraphly here is unbelievable, though. It's so thick you can taste it. I'm reasonably certain calling a tetrapod a "fish with legs" is pretty common, but the further you take it the more people you lose. I snuck up behind this lepidosaur and took it's legs, and then he's all "I'm a fish with legs," and I say "snake, you don't even HAVE legs!"

Like that. But fish has no agreed clade name, so, really, it's perfectly natural to question naming dinosaurs as fish, because, really, fish doesn't mean anything. It COULD be a real clade, but it isn't really used in any such way, and if it were, the connection would be tenuous, because, again, nothing even close to fish is used as a name early enough to catch the whole clade.

REPTILE
Reptile is a little different, because in the first Mortal Kombat, he had both Scorpion and Sub-Zero's moves, an attribute that was later adopted by Chameleon, who is not officially even labelled as a Zaterran.

Up until (very) recently, reptile was a real thing, and for what it's worth, it is still used (debateable, no one uses Linaean taxonomy) in that thing I just said. Of course, this is classically defined as turtles, lepidosaurs, crocodilians, and a number of extinct forms (including some, but not all, dinosaurs). The only way to make this work is to set reptile to the last common ancestor of all of these groups, which makes all tetrapods more derived than "amphibians" reptiles. Basically, Diapsids, Synapsids, and Anapsids.

And this means dinosaurs and mammals are reptiles. When humans looked at this transcribed cladogram, they had somehow decided that by some miracle, they don't count. So, for no fucking reason, reptiles are now "Amniotes," and mammal-like reptiles are not actually reptiles anymore, although I've always thought that name is redundant.

So they took reptile away, leaving it with a linaean (as in "not real") meaning. Obviously, it's paraphyletic. Hence, it means nothing, and isn't a real group. This pisses me off because the only reason the name changed is because a bunch of humans got their panties in a bunch because they don't like the CONNOTATION of being a reptile. The reptile clade is totally solid, it's just not called reptiles anymore. Doesn't make any damn sense.

BIRD
As a dinosaur (and I do mean theropod) guy, this one pisses me off the most. I'll preface this by saying that, despite all the bullshit, this word DOES have a stable and genuine meaning. Crown group dinosaurs are birds, but nothing else is.

Quick! What are the defining traits of a bird? Flight and feathers? Okay, since protofeathers, O-quills (a name I just invented) and pycnofibres are all essentially the same thing, does that mean all Ornithodirans are birds?

Nah, let's be fair. None of us where prepared for Tianyulong, so lets take it down a notch. You mean flying dinosaurs. Okay, thats paraves. Paraves covers it all. Problem is, "bird" was in use long before we had this shit sorted out, and paraves was very long in the making. Good news is, it has, most of the time, always included another maniraptoran group, and has included all of them at least once. So, should we back it up to maniraptoran because Oviraptors have a pygostyle? No need. Modern paraves fits our description pretty well. The most popular "non-bird birds" were always Deinonychosaurs anyways, and it's because they are, well, related.

But calling Troodon a bird is very sketchy. I mean, don't get me wrong, Deinonychosaurs get called birds all the fucking time, but it is not taken so literally, and a more conservative definition is preferd by the people doing the actual work, and like I said, they get to decide what the definition of a biology term is. So what is it a common name for?

Aves. Aves = Birds. Great starting place. Now, where do we put aves? The original definition is crown group + Archaeopteryx, but, as you should be aware, Archaeopteryx is just a basal parave that was never really held up to modern standards because suggesting it is anything other than a bird is heretical... even though it has a long tail, and no keel. This puts us back where we started, so we have to ignore Archaeopteryx.

Now we get to Avialians. This is already the name of the clade, and it means "bird-like," so not all Avialians can be birds. That's cool, because Scansoriopterygids have long bony tails, unlike true birds. This is the most acceptable crown group plus usage of bird, and many times Aves will be used as the clade that combines Confuciusornithes with all more derived Avialians.

And what is that group? Ornithoraces, Ornithuromorphs, Ornithurines? Doesn't have a name, it changes depending on who you ask. It contains Enantiornithes and all more derived pygostylians, which is the actual name for "aves." Thats right, aves doesn't go where we put it, because that clade already has a name.

So what if we just use crown groups? That puts us at "neornithes," an outdated term that only exists because we at one time needed to include Archaeopteryx in linaean aves. However, because aves has become an orphaned child crying to the winds for it's parents, Neornithes has, genuinely, taken it's place.

Really, then, there IS no place for a clade named "aves" because all appropriate clades are already named, and a handful actually have several overlapping names, like the aforementioned ornithoraces, ornithurines, and ornithuromorpha. But birds DOES have a meaning. At the very least, we know it means cg dinos, and it has a clade name equivalent for which it is the common name counterpart.

So... what? In order for aves to become a clade, we need to replace a preexisting word, which seems extremely likely, because aves will predate any extinct clade name, and take priority of wherever we decide to put it. Agreement is a joke. My advice? Just dump Neornithes, since thats what birds actually means anywhicways.

But for the love of Godzilla, please reach some sort of consensus. I can't read papers about Avialians because I never have any idea what the fuck they're talking about. They use the same words in different contexts without bothering to tell you. It's fucking retarded.

And if birds = pygostylians? You've wasted a pretty kickass clade name for nothing. Nothing really makes as much sense as "pygostylians." Birds or no, there is no clade quite as solid as "Avialians with a pygostyle." It's like, BAM, you know? No one ever asks what a pygostylian is. It's in the damn name.

Also, Confuciusornis is fucking gorgeous. You know that picture of Mana up at the top? That guy is ultimate pug fugly like Beth's face compared to Confuciusornis.

But then, that's not really fair, because male dinosaurs are born bueatiful. They don't have to use giant sunglasses to create optical illusions with their face. Not that I do, I'm just saying.

...sure does pay off, though. In cinematography the other day, Jordan (the girl who played Mr. Cameo in... you're not gonna know, forget it) told me I have "nice lips," which was a first. I'm WW, in case you couldn't tell. I guess that makes me a "trap." Because, of course, why would a male be feminine other than as a part of some cruel joke? Surely one wouldn't be un-ironically THAT girly.

I'm being sarcastic, like the jackass masculine Maddox fanboy that I am. Has your head exploded yet? How about PRO-gress and CON-gress!?.

Progress being what John Maus is afraid of. Also, being in the presence of a living legend.

I'm just kidding, Maus is pretty cool. In fact, you could say he's a fucked up maniac. I wouldn't, but you can. Gary War is better any day of the week, and I'm Tim Koh's biggest fan.

Maybe I should just cut here and do a Ariel Pink post later.

The New Godzilla is Go, and So is the New Ariel Pink, Oh My GOOOOOOOD!!!

EDIT: I figured out how to load. So everything is ok now.

You know like the kid from Troll 2? Yeah, it's a stretch.

Anywhichways, HUGE fucking news involving my two favorite things, also Dinosaurs and Art, which is also nice.

1: That Rumor About Godzilla Was Actually True

And yes, this is actually supposed to be one of the design ideas. Godzilla might actually look like this.

So, um, in case you somehow missed this (which shouldn't be possible if you found this page), Godzilla #29 is coming in 2012.

I remember when I heard Tomiyama was shelving him until 2013 the first time, my first thought was "Pfft, bullshit, give it 'till 2009." While I was 3 years off, Tomiyama was only off by one. Well played, Clerks...

Well, the gist of it is Legendary Pictures (who made the Batman movie that Batman people like... and that's supposed to mean something to me) optioned doing the next Godzilla as a Japanese-American co-production sort of thing with Yoshimitsu Banno (from Godzilla vs. Hedorah, one of the best) as executive producer. Toho, we are now hearing, thinks this is a good idea.

Two things should be immediately cleared up. This is NOT another Zilla movie. Zilla is not touching this with a 10 foot pole. And while there is of course an underlying worry that, even then, somebody is going to screw up and make yet another, seperate G.I.N.O., I don't think it's something anyone should worry about.

Legendary has a good track record (apparently, I haven't seen these but I do know I like the Werewolves and junk) of getting fandoms right, and not pissing anyone off. This payed off for them in a big way with Batman, and now they got up the balls to try and do it with Big G.

That is BALLS, sir, Dean and Roland never did or will have balls. Or integrity. Plus, I'm pretty sure Legendary is run by a bunch of insufferable geeks anywhichways, so not getting the property right shouldn't be a problem.

Yes, even after Zilla, I'm willing to forgive, and I hope you are too.

Also, this is Yoshimitsu Banno we're talking about. Banno did Hedorah, remember that? That one got Tanaka all pissed off at him, despite the fact that it's easily one of the best movies... ever. He's most likely in this situation because some funding fell through on his "Godzilla 3D to the Max" fiasco and his next stop was Legendary. So, heck it might be 3D.

So bottom line is, you're probably going to see some crazy shit you never imagined you'd ever see in a Godzilla movie, but it's going to make Godzilla vs. Biollante look like yesterday's milk.

I have some really high hopes for this crazy-assed team, I really do. My one request is I want Eichi Asada back for the effects. I have never seen Mothra look better than in Tokyo S.O.S., straight up.

And I am keeping my fingers crossed for Bagan.

2: Ariel Pink is BACK BAY-BEE!!!

Whew, it's about time. I mean, I love Neon Indian and Washed Out and all that... whatever you would call that specific subgenre of hauntology, but I can only go so many years without new Ariel Pink. It was beginning to get ridiculous.

This is sort of making me look back at how hauntology, all of it, not just the music side, has made out over the last 15 years (yes, it is now goth-rock in the 90's). My conclusion? Not as well as I would have liked.

And I have no fucking idea why it hasn't taken over the world in a more overt way yet. I mean, yes, the problem is that the word itself is never used enough (and less used is the designation "haunter" or "ghost kid" that I came up with), but WHY isn't it used? Sometimes Ariel Pink is even left out, leaving article writers struggling for a way to describe him without the basic decency to call the fucking music what it is.

THERE IS A FUCKING PINK GHOST IN THE ALBUM COVER!!!

What the fuck!?

But I'm going off on a tangent (off on a comet... heheh), the news is all about Ariel Pink coming back to us.

So, it's on 4AD (you know, bauhaus's first album, Dead Can Dance, Xmal Deutschland, Clan of Xymox, Cocteau Twins, and Swans, right? Lots more, is my point), and it is... mildly well produced.

Well, I've always stressed that you do not need to be lo-fi in order be hauntology. I mean, would you argue that Broadcast or Telepathe aren't hauntology? And if so, are you stupid or something? So this is the ultimate test in my faith of that idea. And I gotta tell ya', from what I've heard, it does NOT matter at all. He's still got it, for sure.

So the 12 track album that drops on June 8th features a bulk of remakes. This doesn't bother me that much, but I am quite starved for something actually new, so it does sting a little. So far, I know he has re-recorded Hold On/Frontman (Round and Round, but you already knew that), Beverly Kills (YES!!!), and L'Estat (or the Widow's Estate, from Odds & Sods + either Holy Shit! or Worn Copy)... but NOT Before Today - Dazed in Dreams, which is odd considering that the album is named after that song.

Whatever.

This is what I KNOW he's doing over, not a comprehensive list. Some of the tracks from his last EP are on here, and if you've ever seen a video floating around youtube called "Ariel Pink - NEW SONG" of a live preformance playing a new song the name of which nobody seemed to know... it's on there too. It's called Fright Night (Nevermore) and it is one the best songs I've ever heard in my life.

Wait, one of? Shit, it's better than 0:00 by John Cage. Oh wait, it's the same thing. Nevermind.

3: The End?

So... all this has just got me thinking about how dissproportionate the amount of influence the hauntology style has in this (so far) and the last decade is to it's popular knowledge of being a style and not just "retro" or whatever. Maybe I'll do a rant about that.

Oh, and there was a problem with my blog not showing up on google, but that has been fixed.

And um... that really all there is to know about these things so far.

Oh, hold on (i'm calling, calling back to the ball, and we'll dazzle them all, hold on), I forgot something:

4... DOOM 4!!!

So, as a disclaimer, I can't really vouch for the authenticity of this image being actually DOOM 4 material or not, but I CAN say that it looks decidedly non-DOOM like.

So id tech 5 just got interesting. DOOM 4 in itself is old hat, as is the new engine, and the news of RAGE, an new "series" id is doing about a post-apocalyptic world where the planet (man, way to fuck up everything you stupid assed scientists) Apophis actually does collide with Earth in the late 2030's. It's got mutants, one giant mutant, and battle car racing. Whatever.

But there is a new DOOM on the way, and it will get it's official unvieling in august of this year at QuakeCon. I wanted to go (and why not, they're in Dallas, that's like 4 hours away), but unfortunately missed the "signup" period, which was earlier this month. Quite a line I suppose.

But that's not all folks. Carmack has also assured us that there will in fact be a Quake for id tech 5, which I guess is okay to call Quake 5. He also said that he wanted to do a sequel to Quake III, the plot of which was merely a Smash Bros.-esque framing story excuse to get player models for a multiplayer-only game, so that idea actually sounds really fucking cool to me.

Remember what they did with the story in Smash Bros. Brawl? Whose to say id can't do that with Quake III? I'd like to beat the shit out of a Vadrigar, myself.

More big news that may or may not have anything to do with id tech 5: a sequel to the best 3rd party id-based franchises since Heretic/HeXen, both Prey 2 AND Alice 2!

It's true, American is really set on getting Alice 2 out the door by 2011! Hooray!

Thing is though, he's working with these asians now, and the last game he did was developed with those programmers from scratch. So... I don't see why in the hell he wouldn't use id 5 for the new Alice, but it IS possible that he doesn't. That would irritate me, but at the same time I'm happy to hear it's still actually going to happen.

I'm a little less happy about having Alice Liddel shoved down my throat again. Say what you will about Tim Burton (and do it often, because the guy is a real asshole), but Alice Kingsly rocked my world in a way I didn't think an Alice could. Certainly showed up Johnny D... I mean the character he said he was playing.

Prey 2 is also a go, and I'm a little more certain that this is going to be on an id tech 5 engine. Then again, there has been no word, so it could go either way. The plot, as far as is known, involves something about Tommy coming back to Earth and being shunned by... someone, and then more aliens show up.

Or something. As long as I get to walk on walls, jump through portals and listen to Art Bell as I'm doing it, I don't ask too many questions.

Ok so that really IS all I was going to say.

Pick up the phone, 'cause I want to go home NOW!

Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti #1 through #8

I thought about doing this, because it would be a nice thing to do. Here is the list of the official haunted graffiti numbering type system thing.

First a disclaimer: The "haunted graffiti" series or whatever is said to be a series of 10 planned albums. When I say "planned" in reference to Ariel Pink, your bullshit sense should already be tingling. I know mine is. What's more, you would think that by "planned," they mean something like he organised a bunch of previously written material into 10 sections and gave them all different names. This makes sense to me especially because of how mind-bogglingly prolific Ariel was in the 90's (90's for hauntology means 1995-1999), and the fact that haunted graffiti #1, Underground, came at the tail end of this seems to indicate that somewhere along the lines his cd-r's got backed up and he wrote out a plan to release that body of work in sections, and so he could go on with writing new stuff. That seems like a likely scenario in my head.

But then, he's only up to #8, and one of those is the Holy Shit! EP, which he could not have "planned" prior to 1999.

Next is the part about naming it "haunted graffiti." There is a lot of confusion about how, why, and in what context this name has to do with Ariel Pink. Generally it is considered to be the name of his "band" whether he's live or recording on an 8-track in his bedroom. This is probably an artifact (of that) of the haunted graffiti series being picked up by paw tracks, and his other stuff from the 90's not so much, making "Ariel Pink" more or less synonymous with "Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti."

To complicate matters, one cd that is clearly not supposed to be Haunted Graffiti from the 90's was re-realesed (or just released dependin on your definition), one called Ariel Rosenberg's Thrash & Burn + Pre, whatever that means. So is that "Ariel Rosenberg," or can we still call it APHG? Whats worse, he has gotten into the habit of calling his current band (Tim Koh and a bunch of guys I don't care about) "Haunted Graffiti," and his latest single is actually just labeled "Haunted Graffiti." Ariel Pink isn't even at the front of the group on the cover... so what the heck is it?

Peronally, if it's obviously supposed to be the obtainable, HG "series," or new stuff featuring an actual band it's "Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti" as far as I'm concerned. As for the story behind the "planned" haunted graffiti... I don't even have a guess.

Whatever, here they are:

HG#1: UNDERGROUND (1999/2007)

1. Shaven
2. Spiers (Spires?) in the Snow
3. Jack Off
4. Ghost Town
5. Crash Crash on the Drummer
6. Crusades
7. Tractor Man
8. Underground
9. Bobby's on the Phone
10. Auto Vanity
11. Don't Turn Back
12. Nana
13. Damage Done
14. Until the Night Dies
15. Sensitive Man

HG#2: THE DOLDRUMS (1999/2004)
1. Good Kids Make Bad Grown Ups
2. Strange Fires
3. Among Dreams
4. For Kate I Wait
5. Haunted Graffiti
6. Gray Sunset
7. The Doldrums
8. Envelopes Another Day
9. The Ballad of Bobby Pyn
10. Don't Think Twice (Love)
11. Until the Night Dies
12. Crying
13. Theme from Unreleased "Claris Gardens"
14. Let's Build a Campfire There
15. Young Pilot Astray

HG#3: SCARED FAMOUS (2002/2007ish)
When scared famous was re-released, it was sort of merged with FF>> to make this wierd mutant child that could only be called a "best of" if you're insane enough to think that "R. Stevie's Brain" and "One More Time" somehow top "Inmates of a Heartache" and "Jesus Christ Came to Me in a Dream." Of the two originals, Sacred Famous is easier to obtain. I'm only listing the original versions here.
1. Baby Comes Around
2. Facts of Destiny
3. Privacy
4. Passing the Petal 2 You
5. Beverly Kills (Freaks With Golden Heirs)
6. Why Can't I Be Me?
7. Something Isn't Something
8. Express, Confess, Cover-Up
9. Birds In My Tree
10. Shedon'tknow-Whattodowithherself
11. Moya
12. SteviePink
13. R. Stevie's Brain
14. Spiers in the Snow
15. I Wanna Be Young
16. Gopacapulco
17. Hoist Interlude
18. Scared Famous
19. Deathcrush 99

HG#4: FF>> (2002/2007ish)
1. Intro/Where Does the Mind Go
2. Twenty Two Eyes
3. Are You Gonna Look After My Boys?
4. Inmates of a Heartache
5. Make Room For Harry
6. The List (My Favorite Song)
7. My Molly
8. Howling at the Moon
9. Beefbud
10. A Tomb All Your Own
11. Victor
12. The Kitchen Club
13. The Lament of Edward Boggles
14. Crying
15. Talking All the Time
16. Girl in a Tree
17. Jesus Christ Came to Me in a Dream
18. One More Time
19. May the Music Never Die
20. Make Room For Harry (Version)

HG#5: HOUSE ARREST (2002-2003?/2006)
1. Hardcore Pops Are Fun
2. Interesting Results
3. West Coast Calamities
4. Flying Circles
5. Getting High in the Morning
6. Helen
7. Every Night I Die at Miyagi's
8. House Arrest
9. Alisa
10. The People I'm Not
11. Almost Waiting
12. Oceans of Weep
13. Netherlands
14. Higher and Higher

HG#6: LOVERBOY (2002-2003?/2006)
1. Don't Talk to Strangers
2. Didn't It Click?
3. Credit (cut on cd)
4. One on One (cut on cd)
5. She's My Girl
6. Poultry Head
7. Older Then Her Years
8. So Glad
9. Want Me
10. Loverboy
11. Johnathan's Halo
12. Hobbies Galore
13. I Don't Need Enemies
14. Let's Get Married Tonite
15. Ghosts
16. Phoebus Palast
17. Blue Straws
18. The Birds They Sing in You
19. New Trumpets of Time
20. Doggone (Shegone)
Track 19 on cd is You Are My Angel live, but it comes after Doggone (Shegone), since tracks 3 & 4 are missing.

HG#7: HOLY SHIT! EP (2003)
This one is wierd because it's supposed to be a side project of Ariel Pink and Matt Fishbeck independent of HG, but... it's #7. So, I'm not sure what to think of it. Also, the track listing neglects to list the actual first song, Oblivious Peninsula, and starts numbering after that. Hence why this starts with 0.
0. Oblivious Peninsula
1. Inaccurate Information
2. New Colors
3. My Whole Life Story
4. N M E's
5. The Castle
6. Jules Lost His Jewels
7. The Drummer
8. Estate, According to the Widow's Maid
9. ...contin
9 through 31 or something are a bunch of random nameless jams between the two, interspliced with parts of a thing with R. Stevie Moore which can only be called "What Else Am I Not Supposed to Do?" Here is the breakdown:
...contin: 9, 16, 20-31
What Else Am I Not Supposed to Do?: 10-15, 17-19

WHEN INDIE WAS GOD,

WE PRAYED TO GOTH

That's adorable. Next!

HG#8: WORN COPY (2003/2005)

1. Trepanated Earth

   a. Trepan Overture

   b. Heaven's Hotter Than Hell

   c. Trepan Reprise

2. Immune to Emotion

3. Jules Lost His Jewels

4. Artifact

5. Bloody (Bagonia's)

6. Credit

7. Life in L.A.

8. The Drummer

9. Cable Access Follies

10. Creepshow

11. One on One

12. Oblivious Peninsula

13. Somewhere in Europe/Hotpink!

14. Thespian City

15. Crybaby

16. Foilly Foibles/GOLD

17. Jagged Carnival Tours

As should have been fairly obvious, this is not a full Ariel Pink discography. I don't even think such a thing is possible. This is just an inventory on the haunted graffiti series and a little postulating as to what the hell that's even supposed to mean.

So yeah, you're welcome.