2008/12/30

My Top Ten Albums of 2008




Oh look at me, shoving my opinion down your warm throat.
That is, if that warm wet throat of yours ever comes across
this blog...

last year El-P's I'll Sleep When You're Dead held down the
number one robes, this year I am a little sad to notice my
top ten has no hip-hop albums for 2008. Actually, it doesn't
make me sad but I did stop and in that narrow respite felt a
brief moment of disappointment visit me.

Automatik Spade's
Top Ten Albums of 2008

10. Foals - Antidotes
09. Why? - Alopecia
08. Marnie Stern - This is it and I am It...
07. M83 - Saturdays=Youth
06. French Kicks - Swimming
05. Fleet Foxes - Fleet Foxes
04. Coldplay - Viva La Vida
03. Goldfrapp - The Seventh Tree
02. Portishead - Third
01. The Walkmen - You & Me

2008/12/29

Directorial Debut

so theres this site xtranormal.com or something
that allows you to make your own movies using
characters, dialogue, settings, camera angles,
etc...

my very first short film, enjoy.

2008/12/15

Too Gentlemen



words: Azrael EncarnaciĆ³n
drawing: Mike DeNicola

2008/12/14

Sixth Sense

I'm on a 6 train. In NYC, 14 St. Union Square is where I boarded the late train. Others and I board and are immediately greeted by the news that the next stop will in fact be Bleeker and after Bleeker, Brooklyn Bridge, which is the last stop. Now for non-commuters and non-New York Citizens, here's some supplementary information: Bleeker is two stops from 14 ST. Union Square, Astor Place is the stop in between; After Bleeker, we have, Spring, Canal, and finally Brooklyn Bridge/Chambers ST. making the last stop three stops from Bleeker; the time was somewhere between 6:45pm-7:00pm, at the threshold of Rush Hours ending credits; the 6 train is a local train while the adjacent 4 and 5 trains are express and were not facing any significant delays at that specific point and time. Now let's get into it.

The conductor announces we will be skipping stops, he then accusingly awards the fault to us commuters and our habit of holding the doors which have delayed the overfared train. He repeatedly requires us to take notice of the delay and to make the connection between our action and its consequence. Almost as a punishment or reprimand, the stops will be skipped. We, however, are not overcrowded on the train nor is the Astor Place waiting platform any worst. In fact, Astor Place is pretty empty in comparison to Union Square. I do not see why we could not have easily made the stop, especially since we were at the closing end of the line anyway; especially since its a local train and to stop doesn't really stall the schedule as intensely as they'd have you believe through their saucy intercom announcements. They should keep in mind that public transportation means its for the public not the schedule, the MTA is a service for the people and its sweet that they'd like to keep everything running on time to get people where they are going but what about the folks waiting to get to Astor, Spring, or any of the skipped stops who had nothing to do with holding the doors, why should you make them pay for the actions of others, while we're at it, why turn them against or inspire contempt in them for fellow commuters because your schedule dictates time before service? True, we're running late and maybe skipping those stops does help to efficiently organize an overall commute down the entire line but my major problem is the announcement that blames the people, the customers, and makes them feel as if they need to behave better and "because of their actions we will teach them a lesson" by skipping some stops which some of the commuters may feel inconvenienced by having to exit the train and await the following train which will be making all the local stops that should be made by every train on that local track.

My stop was Bleeker so I wasn't affected but nonetheless the insult found me just the same. I place the entire experience as follows: Establishment slaps hand of citizen, and further conditions them to follow instruction or face inconvenient consequence.

If you paid $2 and have heard that the fare will be raised but your labour check will not, HOLD THE MOTHERFUCKING DOORS ALL YOU WANT!!! Far as I'm concerned they're our doors anyway.

2008/12/06

Venture Me Deathly

Preview into A N T A R C T I C A

...And Love Myself When God Isn't Looking

Loners
"The future is always difficult to quantify,
but tomorrow comes with at least one
guarantee: it will be lonely. The number
of single-person households across the
globe is growing at an alarming rate.
Struggling with feelings of loneliness
and isolation, more and more people
are turning to online dating and social
networking sites to try and muster up
some companionship. Meanwhile,
divorce rates are at an all-time high."

I found this today when a friend suggested I visit the pages
of an adbusters magazine she nurtured possession of. It
reminds me that I spent Thanksgiving alone; it reminds me
that I didn't mind in the slightest drop and furthermore only
felt dis-eased when the solitude was betrayed by the return
of company; it reminds me that it might be unusual to like
being alone.

But of course it isn't, we all need space and we are more than
capable of living long spells of time without anyone else...Man
is mildly gregarious, we are not ants or bees who must live in
colonies stacked in honeycombs or packed underground in
labyrinthine networks. The difference between solitude and
loneliness is comfort. It all depends on your perspective and
how much solitude you can regard before submerging into the
definite grips of loneliness. Of course if you're used to being
around people and thats the system that revolves you, under
which your social obligations deem privileges and its so much
of a pleasure that to be withdrawn from such a revolution
would pose a pain, then loneliness stalk-fully follows solitude
far more expediently than it would the common hermit, anti-
social misanthrope. I am neither but placed some position
faithful to a compromise of each, where I am more often than
not at ease with time spent to myself but eventually the unease
will arrive and take a very plain seat where all my thoughts can
see and recognize, sinking in the realization that: I am alone
and it no longer feels good.

Upon rereading the passage over I began to wonder how much
this lonely future is a result of a socially pressured past. Career,
marriage, children, so much emphasis placed on these ideals
that many participants jumped in without dipping their feet.
Many didn't think an alternative to swimming would get them
anywhere until the pool became crowded. Or they thought, too
much effort and time trying to locate such an alternative seemed
overbearing and unnecessary when a ready-made solution had
already been studied and in practice. We believed we'd be happy
with success and love, the love of success and the success of
love, this might be very well structured in veritable foundation;
but a career, a marriage, and children are not guaranteed means
to that desired end. Maybe this lonely future will be a transitional
stage where we find we don't necessarily need the career-
spouse-offspring formula that failed us in the past but nothing
happens over night. And its hard to break habits even harder to
break conditioning, so the side effect of rejecting what we've been
conditioned to desire results in self-projected malefactions and
resentment, in this case, loneliness.

We've been packed together (in cities) over the last hundred
years. Industry changed the physical face of this world at a rate
that provides more wrinkles than age can account for. We are
constantly advancing technologically, whether the technology
advances the users is unclear but that that technology itself is
evolving can be seen by simply following iPod models, what's the
latest, 240 GB or something. My point is, that we've come a long
way since the steamboat and railroad. And like everything in a
capitalist society, there is a price to pay.

Its 2008-Winter. Bronx-New York. Saturday night and there are
too many cops in the street, the subways are running on
inconvenient schedules, and the streets surveilled by cameras
kiss your every action. The economy is supposedly in peril
and we should all buy garbage we don't need to save the market
but we have not the funds since the economy is supposedly in
peril and irresponsible splendors was the sure ticket that
qualified us to our current state. Rent is up, nothing's
affordable, everyone is crammed into the walls of the city
and gentrification is a cancer concentrating lower income
(classes) households even closer and thrice as electric,
hostile, and restless. There is a stress about the air,
furnished and blooming in the cold evening, desperately,
we yelp to be home, quiet and away from anything that
reminds us of the outside. There's an absence of space and
privacy that delivers a haven out of the miserable living
room we occupy and live, by whatever compensation of meaning
we wish to define. Outside gives us tension and claustrophobia.
The tension and claustrophobia gives us an anxiety worth noting
and hiding far away from it all can appeal highly as remedy.

Its beginning to take its toll, there's only so much abuse a
body can take, the same applies to a society. Hence Reality TV:
so you don't have to experience reality for yourself, along
with series after series of awful entertainment that trains
ADD through frequent commercial interruptions and fast paced
edited sequences. Perfectly accompanied by a preference to be
close to our friends but from a distance we talk more on
cellphones, that is until we discovered text messages. In our
homes we remain, from where we are provided the world so long
as we pay for it through internet bill, phone bill, con-ed bill,
hence email, aim, myspace, facebook, youtube, surf the channel,
second life, match.com, webcam porn, blogspot, etc. What happens
when you turn all these distractions off and you notice how
quiet and absolute you are when in the presence of nothing
other than self? What happens when you initially, at this point,
discover you have nothing to offer yourself because you're not
used to being alone. Some are greeted by comfort sooner than
others.

I too see a lonely future. I don't see loneliness becoming
solitude in metropolitan networks over-peopled and I see even
more distractions evolved from the ever eminent need to keep us
away from the discomfort of ourselves. Spread throughout steel
honeycombs buzzing and stinging one another, we want to be away
from one another but we can't bear it because what we'd actually
would like is just a little space but the alternative is such
an extreme that you're left in a kitchen alone eating dinner
you made for yourself, trying to finish the meal before 9 when
the season premier of Heroes airs.

2008/12/02

Rules of Ascension



if nil entertainment has found you bored and aimlessly
drifting from site to site, without recourse or science then
as a favor and mercy I propose this suggested site for the
moment; for you to gather yet a further addition to your
time despoiled by what journey has lead you here, reading
these words.

read the responses:
http://www.elevatorrules.com/rules/ladies-first/

Strip Joint



This month's Strip Joint is dedicated to my niece, Ely.

2008/12/01

December Heart Beats For Annie Hardy



Giant Drag, she is half or now all.
Swan Song EP should be out soon.

Pretty Little Neighbor

My Monthly Ariesan Horoscope
march 21-april 19

There is a very attractive woman that lives upstairs
from the store you work in. You are entertainedly
obsessed with asking her name but she's a fast walker
and the opportunity fails to raise its hand during
attendance. You plan to stand outside more of an often
than not, this of course, to feed the chances of
"accidentally" running into a small conversation
of the favorable variety. Such a delightful gambit
might issue you forward into a familiarity of
relatively welcomed proximity and the possible
checkmate of confirming your interests in this
loveliest of strangers.

The Prime of Miss Stern

Prime by Marnie Stern
(from the album "This Is It and I Am It
and You Are It and So Is That and He Is
It and She Is It and It Is It and That
Is That" Released Octo-7, 2008
)

I made a start
Looked back just once.
Rebels of the frontier,
I can make it make sense.
Defenders of the real,
All I can see are dolphins.
I feel close to them
And no one else.
Road to nowhere,
Point of no return,
Stream of consciousness
He was just one.
Like a prime number,
He was devoid of plus.
He looked up waited, so frustrated.
I am vanishing into the trees
Defenders get onto your knees
Defenders get onto your knees

2008/11/12

A N T A R C T I C-H O R I Z O N

Enchant Emerson

My good friend, Enchant Emerson, is just about done recording his upcoming full length LP. The debut album from the Automatik Fax Format native, is the second release for the AutoFax collective and is titled A N T A R C T I C A (that's right, all caps and spaced). The album is currently being adjourned into the warm welcoming arms of the mixing/mastering stage, after which a cold winter release is more than to be expected.

2008/10/27

Pounce Vs. Purpose (Casting for Catwoman)


Carrie-Anne Moss


So I am hearing much talk of Angelina Jolie and her possible interest in playing Catwoman in the next Christopher Nolan Batman film. I truly hope this does not come to be. Yes, Angelina Jolie is attractive and known for her aggressive, strong roles and personae but I don't see her as Selina Kyle in a Nolan film. Maybe it would've worked in Joel Schumacher's Batman, the fact that Julie Newmar thinks Jolie would make a perfect Catwoman somehow reinforces my distrust of Jolie being a good casting choice. Angelina Jolie is not the only action-woman in cinema and though I'd be the first to celebrate if Ridley Scott made an X-Force film and casted Jolie as Domino, I still feel Christopher Nolan's Catwoman/Selina Kyle would have to be of a similar aesthetic as his Batman/Bruce Wayne. Carrie-Anne Moss would be my first pick for the role, its too easy to see why, she's almost even dressed as Catwoman in the Matrix films but its her role in Memento that reasons my choice. Manipulative, strong, independant and smart, this was Natalie, Moss' character in Memento. Carrie-Anne Moss also looks more like a real Gotham citizen much as Maggie Gyllenhal far exceeded Katie Holmes in authenticity as Rachel Dawes, so much in fact one wishes it were Gyllenhal in Batman Begins. And yes, Jolie has played manipulative, strong, independant and smart characters throughout her career but I can't get over how clean she looks, even without make-up she looks like a super-model. I think she would exaggerate the feel of the character. Lena Headey is also on my top choices for actors to play Catwoman. In the end whoever Nolan decides to go with for the role, I have faith in him. I, in that same end, am not a director and if he sees something I do not in an actor than I trust it will result in yet another addition to my favorite films.

2008/10/23

A Face Made From Flesh Enjoyed


English artist Jonathan Yeo figures celebritized pop portraits comprised of hardcore porn picture cutouts. The man is a good portrait painter as well, check out his oil translation of Sly Fox mogul, Rupert Murdoch on canvas. He definitely understands where everything should be as far as tone, light and shadow when cutting pictures depicting acts illegal in some states and composing the collages on these fuckfaces, as I like to call them. This is no doubt credited to and reflected by his talent as a portrait artist. He gets extra points from me for Bush's hair.

2008/10/19

One of the Last Nights

Yesterday myself and other fallen stars
approached a cold night with golden throats.
So many heartbeats
that occupied the tundra tentacles of night.
In the midst of stories made of hands
and gray eyes that film like wornout scotch tape.
I am in the middle of this October
and in this apart-mented planet laughs
are slanted in wine
and galaxies of smoke serpents
dance spirals above our silk woven smiles.
Eyes and hands, voices and
shapes for bodies radiation flirts through;
with the warmest approach
tenderly addressed homelessly as far as intention propels.
5 like a hand, each finger a lover,
a glove fits like a night on a day; a week in a heart.
We bid apart as a fist opens,
after swallowing suns into moons
and drifts of December whisper
voluminous previsions among the eyelids
of cold celestial sidewalks.
A burned image in oil protrudes in mind,
holds me there as warm and lonely
as in the arms of a new prostitute.
I surrender submission in exchange
for domain and all its friends.
I stand and fold the moment into my long tired arms,
like years that extend from the shoulders
and end with branch-like boney fingers
that call in stretched creases,
the touch of a sweet banquet of flesh.
5 origins in a carousel at light speed;
the spinning metal whirs
into a long note sung,
proclaimed by our lungs
and all of its deaths.

2008/10/03

I Believe in Harvey Dent!



and part of one half of his face is in red.

for those who remember Batman: The Animated Series here is Harvey Dent:

2008/10/02

Watch Like You Listen


"Listen Carefully" by Kana Kate Togashi
http://www.kanakatetogashi.com

Eclipse - Coming quickly to terms of all expression laid.
Emotion revealed as the ocean maid
As a movement regained and regarded both the same,
All complete in the side of seeds of life with you.

2008/08/18

Thank You, Lhasa and Albert

whatever is going on through your head right now,
whatever reason shoves you forward;
here is something you should consider,
nothing is going to happen in the end.
no one will cheer, smile, pat you on the back.
there will be no applause.
no standing ovation.
definitely no trophy.
you will have came and went.
you will not be judged.
you will not be congratulated
or condemned.
there was ultimately nothing
added to you after you left.
at the end, all you were
was finished.

you will not re-awaken with
a lesson learned.
nothing is going to happen in the end.
you will not sit through
a review of your merits or,
an analysis of your flaws.
nothing is going to happen in the end.
and if this makes you give up
and decide its not worth the walk.
then, that is where you stop walking.
but I don't care if
nothing is going to happen in the end.
I still enjoy my walk

2008/08/08

Death on the Installment Plan

II.
The summation of random events is life and life is the self-presented perspective of universe. The summation of random events leads to more random events. Every life will lead one way or another to the random event of death. Most have a default setting of thought foundation applied to death; they believe death will come at an old age when life is fully lived. Death is a random event that can arrive as plainly as the next breath. One will never discover the pattern in a pattern-less system. Most fear that which is without judgement and cannot be controlled or influenced. Every moment has been added by everything that came before it. Every moment is sequence followed by random consequences. And every consequence is in itself a newly added sequence. I believe everything you learn and experience will give you nothing after death. I believe the random events of life are solely for the living to make the most of and lead to no goal or lesson. The only thing it leads to is just a random death that becomes the consequence of their living sequence and that very same consequence of death is in itself a random sequence added to the random events of those who are still living.

2008/08/06

Noise No. 001


Within matters of The Cure and discographical gauge of quality, Pornography by far demolishes Disintegration. I only mention Disintegration because of the summation of occurrences when I was told, upon inquiring, that Disintegration is the most common favorite Cure album. Portray me not, unjust, I do enjoy Disintegration and had it not been for 1 or 2 songs on that album I would be able to participate in the much of a more enriching audiometric experience .Of course to each his/her opinion and by all means kick, shout, and pounce about in what your mind makes comfortable for your taste and value. As I shall. 


Dark, Primal, and Heavy are the three governing Queens of Pornography. And hailing blessedly under their terra spanning commands are synths that hum out screams, Tolhurst's snares like damp bodies of mud that fail vertical composure and award gravity full custody in a faithful fall onto concrete under crushed glass. Yells from Smith into rivers of reverb, guitars that screech and get lured into the air, bass groans and moans underlying the tension of pleasure, searching through paranoia's shut fists for relief. Its the only Cure album that interrupts not with the wince gathered suggestion of alternating the occupation of playing the record in its entirety. Faith and Seventeen Seconds I also share in this pocket of undisturbed play but those two albums are the rising studies that slowly manifest themselves into Pornography. From 1980 to 1982 this was their era that most translates to me, Seventeen Seconds is far more bare than Faith and just as such is the relationship between the latter and Pornography. Its almost as if a body is undressing itself, removing the silence of clothes and as each article is removed the louder the flesh and the more intricate the layers of nudity. Tension and relief. 


And somewhere in 1982 I am born and it will be a long time before I even listen to either The Cure or music in general. As I grow age after age They release album after album, always a song that I'll love but within an album that has moved on from previous movements. This is what every artist is entitled to...expression forward from yesterday's experience. Interestingly enough, it results in a diverse following of enthusiastic listeners that would argue albums and eras of the same artist as if they were the property of several different bands.