Depression is a metaphysical ailment that debilitates a person from attaining a livable life. The key emphasis is “life”. For all intensive purposes (I always wanted to say that in a sentence), I would much rather see myself stiff underground, decomposing and being in eternal sleep. But I have not yet found myself, at a level of completion where I could confidently greet death. To me, I do not want to die because of depression, or because of life being unbearable. I want death to be something special, something complete, something that I welcome with open arms. My goal in life is to be in eternal rest, but at this point in my life, I am not confident in presenting myself over to death.
“The Satanist decides of his own life and death and prefers to go out with a smile on his lips when he has reached his peak in life, when he has accomplished everything, and aim to transcend this earthly existence. But it is completely un-satanic to end one’s own life because one is sad or miserable. The Satanistdies strong, not by age, disease or depression, and he chooses death before dishonor! Death is the orgasm of life! So live life accordingly, as intense as possible!“ -Jon Kristiansen, Metallion: The Slayer Mag Diaries, p. 569
I like to live by this philosophy, with the exception of being a satanist, I consider that contradictory to my life. All the same I think I am in 100% agreement with the aforementioned quote.
With this all being said, I find one of the greatest deterrents of depression is exercise. Now I am not going to be full fledged into this, like I have been in the past. And I am not trying to being physically fit by aesthetics of the human body. I am trying to just follow a simple set of principles, and try to achieve strength gain, and not be concerned with diet, looks, weight etc. A unhealthy approach to a healthy life style, a contradiction, most would say. But my abilities are efficient, and I am not debilitated in any way, this is not to get me out of some kind of obesity or life obstacle that prevents from be able to physical do something.
So starting today I will begin a process of weight training, mostly barbell, dumbells and will do pushups and dips. I will follow the 5×12 plan, and in the case of pushups, 4×30, and try to reach 500 pushups daily, and all the while do some kind of weight training for arms. Eliminating situps and any kind of cardio, I will get my cardio from work, and my daily routine of walking. I am content with having a fat gut, I really don’t care about looks as I said before. I am doing this only for mind, and well being. Trying to curb depression, and get stronger. I think the workout culture, and “muscles” is pretty effing gay, but I am more concerned about my well being and a healthy mental life. I will try to follow some simple principles, and maintain an active work life, as well implement simple exercise goals that will be easy enough to accomplish my daily life. Adios.
I am not one to get into any kind of gossip like news, but I thought this was worth mentioning if for nothing more than offer exposure to the underground. It seems as if a poster, for the band Moonspell ripped off a lesser known band Infinitum Obscure.
Artist: Cemetary Album: An Evil Shade Of Grey Year: 1992 Wiki: yes
One thing that is fun for me is searching around for old school death metal bands that appeal to me. Surprisingly, more times than not I find a lot of boring bands. Maybe I am not as true to the genre as I thought I was, but I think all of the standout bands are a standout for a reason, they have a unquestionable ability to appeal to the genre. Well as it turns out I actually discovered an old school band today that actually piqued my interest, and I thought I would give it a go, and try to delve into their sound, and offer a seminal review in the process. Sound good? no, well fuck it I am going to drivel on anyway.
The band I speak of is Cemetery, and the album is “An Evil Shade of Grey”, debuting in the year 1992. It’s rather atmospheric in sound and delivery, it does remain in the ranks of death metal with the down tuned guitars and the guttural vocals. There are some synth sounding arrangements, and they do dive into some softer classical guitar sounding bits. But the crushing patterns interwove between somber and elegant arrangements. It’s a interchangeable sound that I oftenest enjoy, especially in death metal. I have heard this band described as more heavy metal than even death metal. But it to me remains true to death metal, but as said before they do have the ability to change their style from brutality into softer parts.
I cannot believe this band fell through my radar, because they do have a unique sound and are prominently one of few bands from the earlier time period that stands out. Nothing too overly destructive as far as the genre is concerned, this remains an enjoyable piece of music that rely’s heavily on atmosphere, and borrows lightly on the harsh nature of metal music. I cannot say this band is something that I would listen to on a repeatedly basis, but I do consider them something unique, and definitely beautiful. Definitely something to check out considering the time period.
After reading their wiki it turns out this band considers themselves, (swedish) Gothic Metal, maybe something along the lines of Tiamat? I haven’t listened to any of their other albums, to make any kind of judgment. But on this album alone, it is pretty damn good and worth picking up.
One thing I have never really cared for is a Troma film, it’s not that I don’t appreciate what they do, but I think at times their minuscule budget and lack of talent, really leaves me with a disinterested response. Like I said before, it’s not that I don’t like what they are doing, I just personally cannot typically get into a lot of their films, it’s just below b-movie for me, and more like public access, or camcorder delivered. With all that being said I was a great deal swayed in wanting to watch Combat Shock, once I saw it was distributed by Troma Films. But after conversing with a group of bmovie, sleaze and gore fans, on facebook, the deliberated with me and guaranteed a good time if I watch it, so I did just that.
The film begins in Vietnam, and is narrated by our lead character Frankie. From this we learn he was a captive of war, and obviously a veteran of war. We soon fast forward to his present life, and begin to see another grim and depressing scene, something that very well parallels with the horror of war. An apartment that looks uninhabitable, a nagging wife, a crying deformed alien baby… and a steaming pot that just whistles and adds to the agonizing reality of a life, without money, food or really any hope to carry on. This assembles him to face the streets and begin his search for a.) food, b.) money/job. We also are introduced to a small gang syndicate on the streets, that we find out Frankie owes money to, he is pardoned for a day to pay them back. We also find his friend who is a severally wasted heroin junkie. A lot of the characters we meet on the street are poorly acted and portrayed, very unconvincing and almost comical in appearance. It’s all forgiven because Rick Giovinazzo does a commendable job, as a desperate man who is down and out and just on the brink of crumbling from the realities of urban life.
So yes, basically the whole movie is summarized with Frankie wandering the streets and receiving blow after blow, figuratively and physically. It’s absolutely the depressing tale of a man crumbling into insanity. Some of the scenes seemed kind of pointless, but it did help attribute to the dark depressing tone of the movie. Something I found funny was when he was in the employment office and the guy says “life is hot Frankie, and because it is hot, I am compelled to remove my jacket…”. I read in an interview with the director, he said he had the scene of the junkie friend “skin popping”, the heroin… and then it launches to the scene of the employment office with the guy taking the pills… both addicts. There was nothing positive at all in this movie… it was great. Its made me want to check out more movies from the director. And with the baby, I can see the similarities with Eraserhead. He was definitely influenced by lynch on the movie.
Here we have a slasher gem from the 80’s that runs in the similar vein of Maniac (around the same time period), where we meet a psycho killer who attributed their ill nature from a traumatic childhood, or event. Most namely, in the event of a family member traumatizing the said individual. I find this evident in other movies, but I think Maniac is one of the best examples.
Needless to say we find our psycho killer (as an adolescent) at the beginning of the movie starring at his father, and a women (maybe a prostitute?), who appear to be engaged in some BDSM fun. For whatever reason, George (our killer) doesn’t particularly enjoy seeing his dad being slapped by this women and he proceeds to hack them up with an axe, (the end will reveal more about this scene) and that begins our movie… off to a good start if you ask me.
George is hospitalized for several mental illness in the vein of schizophrenia, and the list enumerates on and on. His illness appears to be controlled with medication, and they prepare him for a release on the basis that he be relatively monitored and remain in a “half way house”. Of course George does what comes naturally, and he proceeds to a xxx theater, and he continues to see flashbacks of the time he murdered his father and lover, this will often time give him seizures, where he convulses and foams at the mouth, ya know? a seizure.
After this we find him escaped from the regulatory maintained requirements of his release from the hospital, and he murders a women and then proceeds to find the house of where his crime was committed in time past. This also proceeds to show the hospital, getting frustrated and demand that they find George before he murders more and all hell brakes loose. I think its funny that the man always smoking a cigar, sounds distinctly like a women. I mean he is obviously a man, you can see by his physical features, particularly the dead ringer of a mustache. Anyway this has nothing to do with, well really anything, but I just found it comical, him sounding a lot like a female.
Later on in the movie we are introduced to a family, with a particular trouble maker named CJ, between him and George it really makes up, and surmises the rest of the story. A lot of people will think CJ is a pain in the ass, but if you really think about it, he is just an adolescent out to have some fun and cause mischief. Albeit, some really fucked up practical jokes, but nonetheless he maintains a very independent and strong features about himself, and later you find him truly become the protagonist, or anti-hero if you will, but all the same a credible, and in the end a almost likable character.
I don’t want to dig too much more into the story, without revealing too much and spoiling it for those who have not seen it yet. But all in all, I think this is definitely a credible slasher in the horror genre, namely because of CJ and the quintessential creepiness of George. Not much gore in this movie, and because of CJ it almost takes away from the horror elements and lands it into a almost comedic story. But one thing is for certain it does offer some good gore, especially for the time period. Halloween is right around the corner, and this is good flick to pick up and check out.
For more information check out thegoresplatteredcorner.com, they have a nice review and more images.information about the movie.
Recent Comments