Inner Peace Through METAL (an early draft)

This is really several pieces mashed together into a collage of different threads and narratives which demand more attention than I’ve given here. So this is a compendium of fragments, more rumblings to the tune of future works. Or something.

A Guitar tech tests a majestically evil-looking guitar while the crowd mills about, joking, posturing awkwardly, cheering on the tech sarcastically. The venue is small. Dingy would not be an understatement, and we can feel that we are in gritty Worcester, Massachusetts.

The crowd is filled with an unusual assortment of people. They are mostly men, and mostly white. Some have girlfriends or wives by their sides. The whiteness of the crowd is accentuated by the blackness of their attire; black shirts, black jeans, black jackets, long black hair. There are a few latinos, and one black man. Maybe. If he is there, people come up to him with curiosity and congratulations for upending the stereotypes of those who revel in subverting stereotypes (yet never really escape them).

Continue reading “Inner Peace Through METAL (an early draft)”

A National Socialist Rejection of Black Metal

An oddly refreshing article reproduced at the the White Nationalist cesspool that is Stormfront.org (search SPLC.org for info)

Originally posted by Cezar
Impact 14 zine (Rumania)
Be consistent!
By Weisthor
It was early in the morning. Together with two comrades I was travelling to a black metal concert venue somewhere in Flanders (North-Belgium) where we were supposed to pick up a Swedish co-religionist. A black metal band, consisted of some his countrymen, was to appear on this concert, so he got to travel along with them. We would not go to this concert, we would only meet our comrade and go our way.My brethen and I arrived early at the concert and from our car we were able to observe the national socialist black metal crowd moving towards the concert hall. We were quite disgusted by the hippie-like or biker-gang looks of the people arriving. Long, unwashed hair, leather jackets filled with patches, a band shirt, black jeans and fancy boots seemed to be the standard uniform of the “nsbm soldier”. Oh, and let us not forget the standard spikes, chains and necklaces. Some were wearing make-up resembling the rockers of the band Kiss, but of course they were inspired by Immortal, Marduk or some other fancy band. From a hundred meters distance where the concert hall was, we heard one of those people scream “SATAN” followed by some more australopithecus afarensis-like screams. After this “rebellious action” he started to kick a garbage can. Obviously the garbage can was withstanding his aggression so this soldier of satan started kicking a phone booth. The windows of this booth were less withstanding than the garbage can; and at 10.00 a.m. in the morning the peace and quite of a holiday was shattered. Black metal had arrived.Our comrade from abroad was equally impressed with the people present at the venue. A French NSBM guy with an Arab girlfriend was trying to sell him a cheap “national socialist” magazine; consisted of low quality photocopies of lowbrow interviews, richly illustrated with pictures of “dead Jews” and such slogans as “Six million more!”. Yeah. Right. Don’t get me started.

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What does it mean to be Metal? (Re)(de)constructing a definition of Metalness. \m/

UPDATE:

UPDATE: FINAL VERSION: Inner Piece Through Metal

Here’s the (very) rough draft. I’d love feedback, but only if it’s constructive. Otherwise it gets deleted and ignored 🙂


I’m collecting perspectives for a creative nonfiction piece that I’m writing about Heavy Metal.

Continue reading “What does it mean to be Metal? (Re)(de)constructing a definition of Metalness. \m/”

On Poop

There are some things people just don’t like to talk about.

No matter how close a friend or significant other, poop perpetually exists as taboo, reserved for only medical emergencies (or kinky sex? Let’s not go there). If it exists at all.

When a group travels beyond the realm of bacterial familiarity, into a land where gastrointestinal integrity is no longer taken for granted, a special bond is formed.

Anyone who has traveled to a distant land can attest to the magic that is travelers talking about their GI lives. At home, people talk about work lives, sex lives; but in Mongolia, we had whole soap-operas worth of material and drama pertaining to nothing more than diarrhea and its many relatives.

A: Hey Kevin, how was your day?
K: Good, but I haven’t shat in 3 days! I’m gonna go try now…
A: Damn! Well, good luck! Give ’em hell!

[10 minutes later]

A: Well?
K: Great success!!
A: Hallelujah!

Such a situation was quite plausible, if not normal. This extreme take on a traditionally sensitive subject (flexibility borne of necessity and increasing familiarity with said subject’s less desirable territories) exposes the opposite extreme in which we are perpetually trapped back in the 1st world. Sure, once a healthy rhythm is established, and things stop being interesting, it fades from view…