Pure Evil

Dimitri Shostakovich wrote this (2nd movement, Symphony #10) as a musical portrait of Stalin, who had harrassed him directly and indirectly throughout his career.  This is pure malevolence, published after Stalin was safely dead.  While Uncle Joe was alive, DS was mostly confined to putting out government approved, “socalist realist” garbage, while keeping much of his “real” work private.  Occasionally he could put one over on the Soviets and follow the letter of their requirements while mocking them.  One cool thing is that in the finale of this same symphony, he has a theme based on his initials, DSCH, vie for dominance against the Stalin theme from this movement.  DSCH wins.  Artistic revenge at its finest.  “He who laughs last, laughs longest.”

The conductor seems a little too into his hair, and I’m not sure why he appears to be grinning during this grim business.    But you’ve gotta give him credit, his musicians are playing the hell out of this.  He made his reputation whipping these young Venezuelans into a respectable unit.  He’s since gone on to greener pastures in LA.

A Monster Science Created – But Could Not Destroy!

The Frankenstein Monster’s skull, possibly one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Every detail is perfect, from the flat metal plate on top being held in place by clamps to the wires running down the back of the skull to the neck bolts. My favorite part is the unevenly placed lid, haphazardly attached as if the person who made it didn’t know quite what he was doing – or was in a hurry. The little baroque nameplate on the base is a lovely touch as well.

Discovered amongst several other skeletons in a burned out castle in Darmstadt, Germany this strange skull is all that remains of what is believed to be the creation of Dr. Viktor Frankenstein. While somewhat crude in its design, the function of the skull was to enable repeated surgeries as well as to act as a conductor for electricity. A rudimentary iron skull cap is riveted to heavily calcified bone growth and a bulbous forehead. Wired from the skull down to the base, are the two neck electroconductors.

Sculpted and hand finished by professional artist Thomas Kuebler, this Frankenstein skull with spine is cast in solid resin chosen for its resemblance to actual bone. It measures about 15 inches from the top of the skull to the wood base, and the skull is about 9 inches from the top of the skull to the mandible. No detail has been missed in this mysterious and very rare piece of horror history. It is a must have for Frankenstein fans and horror enthusiasts or the collector of oddities.

This guy sold at auction for $1275.00.

Is This True?

Yeah, we were told that Elvis wasn’t discovered as such at all! He was just some freaky-looking kid always making a nuisance of himself around Sun Studios and nobody wanted to know him. Like here’s this guy who dyed his fuckin’ eyebrows and dressed in black pimp clothes—and this was the ‘50s in the South, you’ve got to remember—and Sam Phillips and all the session guys thought he was some disgusting little faggot!

However Elvis did have this one piece of luck. His mother, right, had a really bad weight problem and the doctor prescribed her this enormous supply of diet pills which just happened to be… these pills were just pure benzedrine, right, which is a very potent form of speed.

And all those Sun guys just lived on speed, man. So when Phillips found out that Elvis could get bottles of these things, he let him hang around. So, like, here was Elvis every week bringing huge bottles of these pills to the guys at Sun until, as he was the studio’s main source of supply for speed, Phillips was more or less obliged to let him cut a record.

So like, rock ‘n’ roll was born simply because Elvis Presley was Sun Records’ number one speed dealer.

Lux Interior

Speaking Of Cthulhu …

Received this in the mail yesterday! Even better than I expected, and the photo doesn’t really do it justice. Shout out to sculptor Joe Broers, who was nice enough to ship this thing in the middle of a massive snowstorm. The free demon magnet (also one of his originals, I assume) and the little doodle on the box were nice touches, too.

The most merciful thing in the world, I think, is the inability of the human mind to correlate all its contents. We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.

H.P. Lovecraft
“The Call of Cthulhu”
1928

Reading Is Fundamental

What are any of you bastards reading these days? Believe it or not, I put down the band bios for a minute and I’ve been enjoying the hell out of John Dies At The End. It’s got kind of a MIB vibe, if the agents were a couple of twenty-something college dropouts.

In this reissue of an Internet phenomenon originally slapped between two covers in 2007 by indie Permutus Press, Wong — Cracked.com editor Jason Pargin’s alter ego — adroitly spoofs the horror genre while simultaneously offering up a genuinely horrifying story. The terror is rooted in a substance known as soy sauce, a paranormal psychoactive that opens video store clerk Wong’s — and his penis-obsessed friend John’s — minds to higher levels of consciousness. Or is it just hell seeping into the unnamed Midwestern town where Wong and the others live? Meat monsters, wig-wearing scorpion aberrations and wingless white flies that burrow into human skin threaten to kill Wong and his crew before infesting the rest of the world. A multidimensional plot unfolds as the unlikely heroes drink lots of beer and battle the paradoxes of time and space, as well as the clichés of first-person-shooter video games and fantasy gore films. Sure to please the Fangoria set while appealing to a wider audience, the book’s smart take on fear manages to tap into readers’ existential dread on one page, then have them laughing the next.

Bullshit

I don’t think I want to live in a world where Janet Jackson is in the RNRHOF but DEVO isn’t.

Class of 2019

The Cure
Def Leppard
Janet Jackson
Stevie Nicks
Radiohead
Roxy Music
The Zombies

My Eyes! The Goggles Do Nothing!

The horror, the horror.

Sylvester Stallone designed this pen and watch set a few years ago as part of cross-promotion for The Expendables. The watches ranged in price from $5,000.00 up to $75,000.00!

So, basically the guy who sat next to you in 8th grade study hall is now making pens.

Or …

For the man who has everything … except taste.

Or …

EXOTIC. MAJESTIC. IMPOSING. A pen that feels like a steel dick in your pocket, stabbing your actual genitals.