No this is not a John Carpenter / Kurt Russel sequel. A new poll shows that over half the residents of the SF Bay Area wish to leave, in a mass exodus, due to high rents and housing prices, combined with homeless blight and other factors. High taxes are yet another reason.
The median house price is 800k there, by the way. Some people claim to like their property values increasing, but in reality the government will eat up most of your profits by taxing you to death through property taxes. Yet we have some of the worst performing schools.
I moved all around San Jose over the years, including living right near Apple HQ in Cupertino when I was younger. When I left I could not stand:
-The loud fireworks every night. Some of which were landing, smoldering on my roof. An ex firefighter and myself organized a campaign to put liability and fines on homeowners who light them off.
-The traffic was ridiculous. The whole city became a big, overcrowded parking lot. It became hard just to run errands.
-People were getting run over and stabbed at places such as the grocery store I shopped at (produce section), bloody pool from stabbing en frente de taqueria I used to eat at, fruit vender with many kids run over and killed by drunk driver at the gas station I went to the most.
-Loud oompa music at all hours from multiple parties as a ‘normal thing’. It could not be drowned out even with earplugs. Some parties had the ‘grandpa’ dancing with a tequila bottle on top of his shed, while a wild party raged below him. These were the super Christian people too, by the way. Sometimes there would be a block party and a full on oompa live band would be brought over , complete with the crowd chanting ‘ ei ei ei ei!!! at top volume.
– There were really bad potholes and tons of homeless people everywhere. Nobody watered any plants due to the drought , so everything died and heat collected. The area became ugly.
-Also, you had Trump supporters getting beat up at Trump rallies, and people in the Bay Area hate Trump so much, I know people who more or less get fired for supporting Trump. Socially, people felt the need to berate me over how I planned to vote.
These are just some of the reasons people are moving from the Bay Area in a mass exodus.
Here are the top metal albums of all time, in my humble opinion. I would honestly probably put Danzig How the Gods Kill at #1 , but that might be considered rock.
1. Sepultura- Arise
This album had amazing vocals and catchy driving, fast thrash guitars. Has basically no flaws at all. Songs like Dead Embryonic Cells, Arise, and Desperate Cry are untouchable. When I saw them live, people at the front got completely crushed against the front barrier during Dead Embryonic Cells.
2. Disincarnate- Dreams of the Carrion Kind
This 90’s classic had some of the best metal riffs and leads ever. Total sick melodic death metal written by James Murphy, and a bunch of college students. Talked to James once after a Napalm Death , Obituary show he was attending and he said he just could not get the college kid band members to write another album but wished he could have. They were too busy with school. Told him amazing we thought the album was. Here check it out. On the way to show performances in the 90s, friends of mine like Bud and I would get amped off of this album:
3. Obituary – Cause of Death
Another James Murphy classic. John and Donald Tardy also kicked ass on vocals and supporting guitar. Catchy songs like Bodybags and Chopped in Half are completely immortal. Just a super heavy album overall, with killer riffs and leads. Great artwork too. Got to see them play this live by the way, at a show with Morbid Angel.
4. Slayer – Seasons in the Abyss
While its not their most old school album, Seasons was their catchiest and best written effort. Songs such as Dead Skin Mask helped me take the transition to death metal at the time from thrash. There was also something spooky and truly evil sounding about this album.
5. Morbid Angel – Altars, Blessed are the Sick, Covenants (all tied)
Along with Slayer, Morbid Angel is the other really Satanic band I like. Their earlier stuff like Altars of Madness was more thrash influenced. Blessed are the Sick is their best album, since its a hybrid of death metal, with the thrash hidden more. Fall From Grace, as well as the instrumentals on the album, are very atmospheric considering they are death metal. The solos sound super evil on it by Trey.
5. Krabathor – Orthodox
Krabathor is a Czech death metal band from a real small town near Busloviche’, just above Moravia. I had the pleasure of seeing them in the Czech Republic, along with Vader, and Malignant Tumor at a 24 hour 2 day long huge beer truck 2 stage event , with grindcore on one stage and death metal on the other. There was also an all female black metal band playing that night. Krabathor have been around since the old days, and had Fade to Black styled Metalica kinda stuff early on. What makes Orthodox so great are the American styled blast beats , catchy 3 piece band mixing, and the fact that the bassist’s vocals and bass parts rival those of David Vincent from Morbid Angel. The whole album is super catchy death metal, with lots of grinding. Be sure to check out their old albums too.
6. Dismember – Dreaming in Red
There is just something about this album. It is so catchy. The bass is so clean and nice sounding. There is some punk mixed in, and the beats have a lot of energy.
7. Mayhem – their only good album
Mayhem had one good album. It was so good, it is legend. For obvious reasons. Needs to be listened to on a really loud truck stereo with enough bass to bring out all the drum tom work. Fucking amazing drums, killer production (all their other albums had bad production or sounded tinny).
8. Winter – into Darkness is about SLOW, chunking doom, and flanger. It sounds best on tape. It was highly original , like a slowed Celtic Frost but different theme (environmental catastrophe). Very much saying , no showing off, only heaviness , to the point of becoming exquisite art
9. Forbidden – Forbidden Evil
Chalice of Blood has the awesome-est song lyrics ever. That other song where he goes ‘ I’m on the edge. Jump!’ is classic. Its a super catchy album with great leads and great vocals that can beat out almost any Metallica album. One of the most under-rated albums of all time, along with some Overkill albums such as Years of Decay. These guys are still at it last I heard, and they practice in Fremont , California. Just a great , under-rated band.
Bands like the Sword, Electric Wizard, and such are not original enough to make this list.
10. Suffocation – This was the best Suffocation album. It had the best mix and the catchiest riffs and sound. Ironically, it is the Florida engineering sound which produced the best sound album of this brutal all black New York band, which emphasized the power of the American blast beat, over the European blast beat.
11. Dark Throne – Transylvanian Hunger
This was the album that said: Fuck you. I will do a slowed down version of a European blast beat all day long , with a simple grinded chord progression over it for a whole hour! And if you don’t like it: You can go fuck yourself… This was original at the time. That is why it was on the list . That there are 1000’s of other albums now that sound exactly like Transylvanian Hunger is a testament to how awesome this album was at full blast in your headphones, on cassette at the time. It is their best , as well as most controversial album.
Well you have two choices at AMC: Star Wars #20, or Avengers #15. Or you can do what other dudes do: Buy quality beer and watch Netflix. Personally, I am drinking Guinness Stout, since that’s what us ‘real men’ drink. There is some good shit on Netflix these days. I will watch it even though its part of the FANG monopoly, since it is bringing me indie movies to watch – as in OPTIONS, something the major studios don’t care about anymore, now that we are all programmed as Illuminati consumerist robots.
Netflix has been making some really good movies lately, and “Cargo” is a perfect example of how they are beating Hollywood at their own game. The film is about a pandemic that turns people into zombies within 48 hours of infection. A family, led by Andy (from “Black Panther” and Bilbo in “The Hobbit” series) and Kay, and little infant child Rosie, are living safely on their houseboat. Unfortunately, they cannot stay safe for long, and soon Andy and Rosie
are on a long trek through the Australian desert, with Andy sick and needing to find a place where his daughter can stay, He soon comes into contact with Aborigines, and it becomes clear that they are better at dealing with the pandemic than he is. The film turns into an action-packed allegory for Australian-Aboriginal relations, and the suspense escalates as Freeman fights to save his daughter while the Aborigines have a more mystical approach to the problem.
This film is a candidate for best horror film of the year. The acting, by Freeman and everyone else, is great; you feel for the characters. The suspense is real and not contrived. The setting of the Australian outback is fresh, and the inclusion of the conflict between mainland Australians and Aborigines introduces a fresh element. The jump scares are scary, the plot twists are surprising, and the make=up effects are first-rate. If you’re looking for a good
horror film on Netflix, don’t miss “Cargo”!
Once you’ve watched “Cargo” on Netflix, you might want to see their new $20 million sci-fi thriller “Anon.” It is about a future dystopia in which no one has any privacy anymore, and in which all our info goes into something called “the Ether” and in which everyone has brain implants that subject them to endless streams of information called “The Mind’s Eye.” This is supposed to eliminate crime and make for a more docile populace. Clive Owen plays a cop baffled by a string of unsolved murders which show flaws and gaps in the government surveillance. His attempts to figure out whodunit lead to a beautiful
young woman (played by Amanda Seyfried) who desires complete anonymity. She is irresistible and dangerous so of course he falls in love with her. Did she commit the murders and does she love Clive Owen back? Tune in to find out!
The film is from Andrew Niccol, the director of “In Time” and “Gattaca,” who specializes in provocative dystopian science fiction. This time, he opts not to use any real expensive visual effects and instead focuses on the big questions. Will total surveillance eliminate crime? Is it possible for love to exist in this future world? Is “dangerous” anonymity preferable to submission to the state? The film, then, is really about the present and the Deep
State. We have already reached the future that “Anon” posits; we just don’t acknowledge it yet. If you’re looking for great sci-fi on Netflix, check out “Anon.”
The Knights Templar were a group of knights who accompanied early Christian Pilgrims on there route to the Holy Land. Muslims at the time were slaughtering the Pilgrims. This was the actual cause of the Crusades, which was sparked over access to the Holy Land. The Knights were connected to the Masons. The Masons held the secrets of stonework, and they built the very churches the knights prayed in. Most of the Founding Fathers, including George Washington and Thomas Jefferson were Masons. Much of US history runs parallel to the history of Jerusalem. Our forefathers were mindful of this and sought God’s protection, as America was the only nation with rights from God in it’s Constitution. This is partly why America has been so successful. If you want to read a book which will explain how America is connected to God through divine prophecy, this is a must read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Harbinger_(novel)
But let’s talk music instead.
Now a black metal band has emerged which promises to safely guide metal away from its pathetic current shoe-gazing state, and lead it back into righteousness and excellence. Dawnbreaker has just recently come out with their new album. It is one of the best black metal releases in the past ten years, and I would highly recommend it to any metal enthusiast. The songs have a very nice chamber like quality to them, as if recorded in a big dark cathedral. There are lots of synchopated umpchet beats, with a lot of energy. I prefer that to blast beats greatly. Low diabolical male choir sounds accompany gritty, well thought out riffs. There is good play interaction between the harmonies and the melodies, which keep the rather simple chord patterns. They overlap and weave around each other, intersecting at dimensions which add nuance. Compositionally speaking, the songs are very solid and memorable. I recommend that you give this album a listen, and consider buying it. If I had to pin down a band or two to reference this to I would suggest early Enslaved, crossed with Jerry Goldsmith’s The Omen film score:
If you like movies like “The Blob” or “Critters,” you won’t want to miss “Slugs: The Movie”! An obscure 1987 horror film from New World Pictures (the great studio that gave us “Hellraiser” and “House”), the film concerns a small town which becomes infested with, you guessed it, slugs that kill! ‘Mutant garden snails with a taste for blood’ was the tag-line. The victims include a little boy, an old couple, and a nude teen couple that have just had sex. No one, of course, will believe the police detective’s theory that slugs are responsible. We, the viewers, know better and are wickedly entertained by this B MINUS film.
There are exactly NO name actors in this film. But it does have plenty of bare breasted women in leotards, so don’t worry!
Why is this movie so entertaining? Maybe because it knows it’s ridiculous, or maybe because it’s from the director of the cult classic “Pieces.” In any case, I was on the edge of my seat despite myself. The actors, who I’d never heard of, are decent, the special effects are gross, and the music score is appropriate, At the end of the day I enjoyed myself and crossed watching “Slugs: The Movie” off my bucket list. If you’re looking for a good time with an intentionally ridiculous film, check out “Slugs,” available on DVD and Blu-ray! It’s better than “Sharknado”! You may have missed this flick, in the 80’s, but don’t miss your chance to see it now, before the mysterious upcoming, final event.
This movie had 15 kills, 20 bare-breasts, 9 dancing women in leotards, one barbeque gone completely haywire, 3 dancing slug-infested clowns, one bathroom that looks like a nuclear hurricane hit it, 4.5 eradicator gnomes (from the 5th dimension) + even MORE. A total MUST SEE!
I just finished reading a more recent Ender’s Game book, from around 2011. This book is about Ender’s father Bean, who is sort of an omnipresent giant. He has three kid geniuses, one of which is Ender. Bean has to live in a cargo bay on the space-ship, and can hardly move due to being too huge and weak, yet he controls the ship through a hub. Bean’s kids have been travelling the speed of light, aging slower than the society they left (which has now forgotten them) in order to find a cure for their issue, which is basically being giants. A lot of snobby whiney six year old genius type arguments fill the early parts of the book, as the characters begin to have good development, through the scope of personal traits. Ender punches and breaks his brother Cincinatus’ (referred to simply as Sargent) nose, to end his dominance over himself and his siblings.
One interesting thing is how the sip has its own sustainable life food supply and garden, using the crew’s waste as fertilizer. The author also does a good job scientifically describing hydro-jet propulsion and a handful of other neat sci-fi concepts. If you saw that film the Martian, you will realize that the part where Matt Damon is growing a garden from his waste was heisted from earlier stories such as this one. Much of the book is written in Illuminati coding, otherwise known as metaphors. The Hive Queen which Ender and his siblings take on represents government and corporate control and programming. Ender alone maintains the belief that the worker class of aliens can survive and have meaning in their lives without the Hive Queen.
The major theme of this book is the enslavement of the individual to the state and whether or not the working class can survive without being directed by a strong dictator of sorts. The author, and the main character Ender, have faith in humanity, so he superimposes that on the alien species in regards to the Hive and its workers. I also assume that when card refers to the clones , he is thinking of them as part of the state’s enforcement apparatus, to be viewed as the strong arm necessary to keep the ranks in file.
Lets take a look at a passage from the book. On page 189 of the hardback, it reads, “Thinking of the workers made him realize that the workers who obeyed the Hive Queen as perfectly as they could, they were slaves. They were her daughters, but she refused to let them have minds of their own.”
Later, a few lines down it says, “they had their own wills, just like humans, but she had the power to force obedience.” I read this as meaning Card thinks we are mostly all debt consumerist debt slaves to the Federal Reserve and Federal Government (the clones), ultimately owned by a handful of wealthy families, including the Queen of England, whose portrait is on roughly half the world’s currency.
On page 231, a society where people are damned if they do and damned if they don’t is described. Work hard, and die from the strain of it. Don’t work, and die of deprivation. An economy so bad that there are no good choices, and everything becomes a Hamlet-like paradox. Card phrases it like this,” Creating the ultimate serfs,” said Cincinnatus. “And the perfect soldiers. They fight and die when she tells them to. If they balk, she’ll cut them off and they die anyway. It is a desperate kind of life for them.” Card hints to us that the only way we can win is to not play the game. To succeed from within the Matrix, one has to find a way to live by one’s own rules, and assert their own will to power, even if you have to bloody someone’s nose, or destroy a whole species to do it once in a while. Because that is the smart thing to do.
Alice in Chains has released their first new song in five years. I saw them on that previous tour, by the way, and the album was good , however, it lacked aggression. This newest track also lacks aggression, and is rather laid back. The opening riff is like – one note. It promises to build up to something, then doesn’t. The chorus opens up finally with some solid vocal harmonies. However, the guitar is still that laid-back melodic stuff they started doing on Junk (Bury Me Softly), rather than that tuff old school sound from Facelift we all want, like the classic track And We Die Young. As an old fan of this band, I really wish these guys would factor back in more of their metal and hard rock elements, and stay away from trying to be a pure rock band.
I also feel the guitarist shies away from doing an outright guitar solo, which would add balls. That Jerry Cantrell , the old singer, passed away has always taken away a raw, visceral element which I enjoyed about this band, and has left it too polished sounding. Typically, I will still buy the albums from these guys and go to the concert tour, and yet I feel that with some more solos, some more involved riffage, and more aggression, they could really put a dent into the current paradigm in rock. But they never quite live up to the promise of their first three albums.
I would also say that the subject matter of the music video here is probably overthought out, and the effect of it is underwhelming. It starts off with a homeless guy in a bathroom at a laundry-mat , and then involves some dingy girl stealing a rat. At the end she makes out with the bum dude and trades the rat for a cell phone or something. Leaving me thinking – huh??
Mainstream heavy metal and hard rock seem to be on the upswing, with some surprisingly good releases over the last year or two. This Marty Friedman album has solid production. Riff wise there is not a lot of repetition at all. The riffs and solos just keep coming. There is an interesting mix of 80s technical /melodic thrash and some neoclassical progressive stuff. His solos have always been fairly complex and virtuosic. The extended solo on the first track calls Malmsteen to mind. The song goes on a long time, and makes it clear the album is mostly for musicians to listen to, for inspiration.
Sorrow and Madness is a very fun operatic sounding instrumental which has some slower heavier beats as the song gets going. A very catchy and inspired tune. Overall, the album is sounding much more inspired, and heavier than some of the other solo albums from him I had before, such as Music for Speeding. I have to say , I am honestly impressed with the obvious display of his understanding of music theory, as evidenced by the chord progressions in some of these tunes. I will probably not go on and on reviewing this album , especially since the songs are often over 6 minutes long, and sound more like a movie film score than a traditional album. This is an album I am probably looking to pick up a physical copy of and drive around a lot and listen to.
A little thriller called “Bad Samaritan” slipped into cinemas eight days ago, and it looks like it’s going to close just as quietly. That’s a shame because this is a well-crafted thriller that really does thrill.
It’s about an Irish valet with a hot girlfriend and a nice family who, along with his friend and fellow valet, runs a scam job on the mean and rich by robbing petty things from their homes while their clients are out having a good time. It seems like a great scheme because no one gets hurt, the targets “deserve” it, and only petty things are stolen that these rich jerks don’t need. All goes well until one night, invading mean snob’s house, our hero finds a woman bound and gagged and, if that wasn’t bad enough, a look at other rooms in the house indicate that this man (played by David Tennant of “Doctor Who” and “Jessica Jones” fame) is almost certainly a serial killer. What should our “bad Samaritan” do?
This is a good thriller because screenwriter Brandon Boyce (“Apt Pupil”) and director Dean Devlin (“Geostorm”) are far less interested in gore and jump scares than they are in surprising the audience with unexpected twists and suspense. The film refuses to use a predicable “Don’t Breathe” scenario and instead gives us a surprising cat-and-mouse battle of wits. By the end of the film, we feel like we’ve been through a journey at least worthy of a James Patterson novel and film.
The acting is pretty good down the line in the film, with Tennant being the standout as a psycho who enjoys messing with people’s heads as much as killing them. In that sense, “Bad Samaritan” is a welcome revival of the 1990’s serial killer thriller . It’s not going to be in theaters long, so if you like fun thrillers with smart characters, don’t miss “Bad Samaritan.”
