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