Courtney Love for President

It's the future, people, but don't be scared. It's what we always wanted.
*Megafast shit, like computers and McDonalds/Sheetz/Starbucks coffee that comes out exactly
like you dreamed it would taste.
*Laptops are shrinking. They're going to be the size of phones.
*The iPhone is growing. It's going to be the size of a laptop.

All kinds of kooky shit. We're realizing what kind of sci-fi movie our future is based on and, unfortunately, we're not in Star Trek or The Fifth Element. It's more like Blade Runner over here... or the Running Man. Dystopic shit, like omnipotent predator cops and increased government surveillance Wiretaps, a heavily manipulated and spun holy war. Fifteen minutes of fame chopped down to fifteen seconds. The all star villains of dystopic film hopping out of our screens and into positions of power.

Things are getting scary... as Hillary Clinton appears to be our last best hope for this election. We're doomed to another 12 year cycle, as Hunter S. Thompson so eloquently put it, of Republican presidents. It's like in the 90s, when Courtney Love won 15 minutes of dreary fame over Cobain's suicide. We felt our nihilism slipping away with disgust, we watched as Soundgarden and Alice in Chains slowly dwindled and split. Of the scene few survive now. Pearl Jam is the only surviving giant of that sweet, sweet movement... and they only survived because they evolved.

E V O L U T I O N

Now Bill Clinton, who I will argue was a damn fine president, is relegated to cheerleader status for his strange and smug wife, the Senator from "New York."

She's as much a New Yorker as Bush is a Texan. Give me a fucking break.

Anyone who has read their histories knows that political parties, like anything, have lifespans. The two dominant parties in our nation have outlived their usefulness. The Republicans (as we know them) are the ten thousand pound elephant in the room, with a smattering of nervous Democrats profusely apologizing to everything in sight. The Democrats know they're cornered and are screaming "uncle" as loudly as possible. They've been reading the Art of War, but they've been reading it upside down. The champions chosen from the ranks are the frailest soldiers, the pretenders.

I don't know enough about Obama, but I do know that he's no Kucinich. Now THAT bastard has balls. He's doomed, though. The curse of Nader hangs on his soul, drawing somehow Perot level disrespect. He's the third-party Democrat, doomed in a football obsessed society.

What does football have to do with anything? Well, it's a contest for supremacy between two polarizing powers. The magical number two is entrenched, forever established, to where a third party candidate can only be fodder for late night TV jokes or accused of "losing the election" for down and outers on November 8th. This is a shame for Kucinich, because he's the purveyor of some damn fine ideas.

He will fail. People like sitcoms and crime dramas, people like soap operas and the gibberish hysteria of reality TV. He's too damn smart. People get too envious when they see him. He's progressive, his wife is a hot redhead half his age. He's a non-traditional politician with a Jimmy Carter peace stripe five miles wide. People hate their betters and will not bring them to power, they will only bring the contemptible to power except in rare and freakish times.

Wait, that doesn't gel either. These are rare and freakish times! The African subcontinent is eating itself alive like a boa constrictor on acid, World War 4 is building over in Pakistan (WW3 was Korea, Viet Nam, Cambodia, et cetera. Do the research, all the properties are present. -HS), our stores are full of poison (product recalls on toxic foods and toys), and our weather patterns have gone fuck crazy from global warming. I mean, holy shit, the tropics have moved! This does not mean bikinis in December... this means drier weather. The big drought in NC is a sign of things to come.

Is there some kind of James Bond villain at work... some weirdo with a metal skull living in a hollowed out volcano?

No... there is not. This is the industrial revolution at work.

R E V O L U T I O N

Humans are an active species, so I won't go screaming the Big Hate right now. We interact with our environment, it's what we do. The trouble right now is that we're interacting globally and don't yet have a comprehensive understanding of our planet on that scale, or even what that scale means. We're not going to stop using petroleum, we're not going to stop building condominiums twenty feet from the breakers.

The worst that will happen is that we won't be able to live here. The planet will kick us out and make room for the next evolution. We're used to being here, we like it here, so we need to work on how to maintain our quality of life without causing further change to our preferred ecosphere.

Keyword: change. Not damage, change. A warmer planet with different weather patterns will benefit certain forms of life.

So that's it. It's very simple. We work out a way to maintain our rampant consumption of natural resources while being responsible tenants in our preferred ecosystem. You know, be the guy who never takes a beer from the fridge without putting one back.

We're probably fucked.

Apocalyptically yours...

-HS

Six Questions of Death: Nat Turner & the Slave Rebellion (Published Dec '07, G-Vegas Magazine)

November 3^rd brought a massive event to Eastern North Carolina. A band of ingenuity, talent, and indescribable worth to the future of music descended upon an eager crowd. Eardrums were gleefully shattered, faces were rocked off, t-shirts were sold. There were some Fayattenamese who'd made the drive specifically to see the show singing themselves hoarse, pumping their fists like the inebriated pistons of a party bus.

Psst... if you went to X-fest you missed this show.

I am speaking of the Protomen, Nashville's premier Mega Man rock opera. The Protomen are a nine-strong rock monster and, no, I am not making this up. Imagine Rush, with Geddy Lee's pterodactyl shriek replaced by a raw and cutting counter-tenor spanning at least four octaves, all in android costumes.

See, Protomen are just one example of the kind of talent and innovation that regularly slips through town under the mainstream radar. It happens in a nondescript storefront somewhere on Dickinson, in a little beer and wine store across from Sheetz, in the living room of a party house. It happens.

Caspian, one of the brightest rising stars in the post rock world, have been through twice. These Are Powers (apocalypse dance noise featuring ex-members of Liars), the Silent Years (who received a rad shout out from Spin!), ex-members of the Dead Milkmen... really, I could go on. MC Homeless relocated here from Ohio almost a year ago. He's opened for the Coup and once chased MudVayne out of a Burger King in Maine, but you can find him in 21 Eleven most days with his feet on the couch. The Kickass had one of their first shows in a long time at the Spazz, and Future Islands play local showspaces when they come around, since the folding of the Red Rooster effectively closed downtown to nontraditional music.

I don't mean to idealize, not every band is gold... but every band is real. If you want to be on the frontlines, then get yourself out to an independent show. Do some research, go listen to the bands. There are so many shows to choose from, it's hard to not find something you love. Be scientists. Check out the listings on these links.

myspace.com/spazzgallery

myspace.com/21eleven

Our underground spaces are why Greenville is a bigger NC tour destination for independent bands than Asheville... that's right, Asheville! The state's big art town! The place where you can't throw a rock without giving a multi-instrumentalist a concussion!

Anyway... enough blather.

The members of Nat Turner and the Slave Rebellion were kind enough to meet me on an offshore oil rig to protect my identity. Nat Turner, who have been playing around town since early summer, bring an uncommon amount of energy to the stage along with an activist fire that's pretty rare these days.

(full interview below... as promised)

Hawk Season: Describe a post-apocalyptic society influenced by your music.

Victor Herazo: Wow

HS: Good answer.

Chipp Weatherly: If society was influenced by our music, hopefully we would avoid the post-apocalyptic world in the first place.

HS: That's good.

Jason Luther: I suppose a society influenced by our music – by the message we're trying to get across – if our music was introduced into a post-apocalyptic world I suppose it would work a little bit better because, like, we stand for the fight for freedom and against injustice, so if you could have that whole “hey, there's this big government or, you know, military force leading the way against a rebellion” and I feel like our music would be good for that. Like the theme music in a movie.

CW: It's interesting that you would pick that question because the first song we ever wrote was about a post-apocalyptic world. “Manmade Wasteland.”

VH: I think there would still be battles with giant robots, except for everything would be equal. There'd be freedom, but there would still be giant robots.

CW: Everybody would be giant robots... with light sabers.

HS: What's the hardest thing about being a newish band?

JW: Getting out of your town, because everybody wants to know, like, if you have fans in that city. And it's like, “Well, not yet, but we will once you sign us into your venue.” We got that from the Luna Bean, the guy wanted us to send him a demo CD, and he's like “How many fans do you guys have in Wilson?” and I was like “None... yet.”

VH: I think the hardest thing is getting yourself out there, getting people to show up to shows, because at first they don't know who you are.

Heinrich Arnold: And then, likely, the majority of the town will like bad music anyways, so they won't come to support the underground music scene.

CW: Everyone loves bad music, except for us. We rock... don't put that in there.

HS: Are kids still being expelled for wearing your shirts to city schools?

VH: I think after the first one they kind of got the hint to stop wearing the shirts.

JL: It's a very interesting subject, it's kind of weird, the information came from a third party thing. It was like, my college professor heard it from one of his other students whose friend was involved with it, so I don't know exactly what happened. All I know is that I was told that somebody was expelled and that my roommate's brother was actually written up for wearing our t-shirt.

CW: One thing that should be stated, is that the way we view the name, and the t-shirt, and everything like that, you know, everything we stand for, it should not cause any discrepancies or whatever. I think a lot of times people see the word “slave” and get immediately offended.

JL: People like to get offended.

VH: Well, they need something to do, right?

JL: It's just that, it's like Chipp said, people don't take the time to read through it, think about it, like, “Hey, who is Nat Turner? Why is Abe Lincoln on this t-shirt?” Maybe you should look at the rebellion next to the word “slave.”

HS: Who would play each of you in a film?

VH: If Bruce Lee were still alive...

CW: Well, me and Jason both do acting, so...

VH: If Bruce Lee were still alive, yeah. But otherwise, Jackie Chan... or Mr. Bean? How about Mr. Bean? Okay. Mr. Bean. Mr. Bean would be mine.

CW: I think everybody should have to pick everybody else's. Like, you can't pick for yourself, you'd be like “I like this actor, he's hot... I'm hot, so...”

HA: Hmm... Jessica Alba for me.

HS: Do you have the lips for it?

JL: What kind of film are we talking here?

HS: I guess post-apocalyptic.

VH: Saving the world!

JL: I think, what about Chipp? Let's start with Chipp. Who does Chipp remind you of?

VH: Stephen Hawking.

JL: Heinrich would definitely be Steven Seagal.

CW: His hair!

JL: Make an expression like everything we're saying is stupid.

VH: Okay, Steven Seagal, it's decided.

JL: So we're decided for you, wait, did we ever decide on Chipp?

CW: No, we didn't.

VH: I don't know why this is all so difficult... it's because Chipp's so goshdarn unique.

JL: Johnny Depp comes to mind, just because he's got that soul patch and similar hair.

CW: Dude, nobody's going to watch my movie and go “WHOA JOHNNY DEPP WOW!”

VH: Dude, it's decided. It's Johnny Depp.

CW: No. Johnny Depp is such a good actor, but I get so tired of the way people act about him.

JL: He does too, though. That's why he's cool.

JL: Hugo Chavez.

VH: Chico Chavez?

JL: Hugo. Isn't he an actor?

HS: He's the president of a country.

JL:He's a president?

HS: He's in his 50s.

JL: Yeah. Let's not go with Hugo Chavez.

VH: What was that dude, from that movie, “the Mexican” or something?

JL: That's Johnny Depp.

VH: No, man.

CW: Oh! Antonio Banderas!

VH: Yes!

HS: Okay, we've got Antonio Banderas.

CW: Or Enrique Iglesias. (about Jason) No, no the guy, the guy that punches everybody, the drunk Irish dude, I think.

JL: What drunk Irish dude?

VH: Sean Connery?
CW: Russell Crowe? Russell Crowe! Yes!

HS: If you could open for any band or musician, alive or dead, who would it be?

VH: Bruce Lee.

HS: He just goes up on stage and kicks people.

JL: Exactly, that's a show in itself.

CW: Thirty minutes of entertainment.

HS: Dude, were you at the show last night where Bruce Lee kicked a bunch of people to death?

CW: He would just be screaming notes.

JL: Jimi Hendrix. I dig Jimi Hendrix' style a lot, I would love to open for Jimi Hendrix, or Led Zeppelin.

CW: What a stereotypical answer.

JL: Dude, you can't help that those are my favorite bands. Well, then, who would you pick, Chipp?

CW: We can't say Motorhed, because we play one of their songs. Bach.

HS: He was a musician.

CW: I like Bach.

JL: Have you ever heard Back's organ fugue? Dude, it's insane, man!

HS: Oh, he's crazy. So, we have Bach and Hendrix?

CW: Bach, Hendrix, and Turbonegro.

VH: Wait, who decided on Turbonegro?

JL: Chipp.

CW: No I didn't.

VH: He decided on Bach!

CW: Oh, shit, then screw Turbonegro.

HS: So the answer is... either Bach or Hendrix, screw Turbonegro?

JL: Turbonegro's great.

VH: Jason, you pick one now.

JL: I picked Hendrix, man.

VH: Okay, fine, two Hendrix. Who do you pick, Yngwie?

HA: I don't know.

VH: Do you want to put the default Dragonforce?

CW: Everybody's like “You guys could open for their Guitar Hero song!”

HA: Who did 'Yes We Can?”

CW: Oh, god, Made in Mexico?

HA: Have you ever heard that song?

HS: No.

HA: It's so dumb. (plays guitar riff) That's basically what it is.

JL: It's completely out of tune.

HS: Heinrich: do you have a choice by any chance?

HA: I'll just go with Paganini if he's going with Bach.

HS: That's fair.

CW: No, actually, I would change mine to Deep Purple and not Bach, honestly I think it would be Deep Purple.

JL: Deep Purple would be cool.

VH: Yeah, that's a good choice.

CW: That's my serious answer. Deep Purple is amazing and they have influenced me so much. I love Ritchie Blackmore. Amazing guitar player.

VH: Let's get a slew. Deep Purple, Hendrix, Bach, Paganini.

HS: Okay!

VH: ...and Nat Turner and the Slave Rebellion!

HS: That would be an awesome show.

HS: Question number six of your Six Questions of Death is... how bright is the future?

VH: Whose?

HS: It's a pretty general pronoun.

VH: Good music's coming back.

CW: I think music's coming back. It's less about the image now and it's getting more about the roots of good, solid, fist-pumping excellence.

JL: Not necessarily on the radio, but, it's got to come from somewhere.

CW: It starts in the underground and it makes its way up to the top.

JL: In the world, there's a lot of things in the world that are going in bad directions right now, but at the same time people definitely have the ability to change that.

VH: So, what do you think? Is it going to work out or not?

JL: The future for this, our society, is looking kind of iffy right now.

CW: I personally believe that we're in a transition period.

JL: Musically, it's good.

VH: It's like the fall of Rome.

CW: It sounds really weird when you just say it, I've read a couple of books on it actually, and our society is going exactly the same way as they did. It's a huge parallel. A lot of people are saying that, because we're becoming so obsessed with convenience and niceties and everything that we're going to eventually... everyone's going to turn towards that. The things that are important are going to get harder and harder to find. It's really interesting.

JL: Convenience is ruining a lot of society, like, you get more convenient robots to build your product because people make mistakes.

HS: They won't rebel.

JL: It means they lose jobs because. It's getting harder to find people, I won't say harder because some people get forced into blue collar jobs, but... it used to be, like, you grew up to be a farmer. Not necessarily you wanted to, but at least you worked. Nowadays people just keep getting off the farm. Farming's going down, city life's going up, we're just going to be one big... what's that planet called?

HS: Uh, from...

JL: You know what I'm talking about. Coruscant.

HS: It's actually based on Trantor from Isaac Asimov's Foundation series.

CW: Oh! I know that! I know that!

HS: You've read Foundation?

CW: I've read it.

HS: Awesome. Awesome. (high fiving)

CW: Trantor.

JL: You've read it?

HS: A lot of Star Wars is based on the Foundation series. A lot of sci-fi, too.

CW: Isaac Asimov is science fiction.

HS: Yeah, he really is.

VH: HG Wells!

CW: Everybody who saw the I, Robot movie but didn't read the book? Go read the book.

JL: But, Will Smith...

***

Nat Turner & the Slave Rebellion can be found online at myspace.com/natturnerx. I'll be back next month, deity willing. Stay rad.

Fear of a Peroxide Blonde

Later on that same day, I dropped in on my assistant who was supposedly drafting a new town charter for some obscure village closer to the ocean... fully absent of consent from said town. He was pumping the initial paragraphs full of strange anarchist drivel and belligerence about the entrenchment clause. I was shouting over the Sonic Youth ripoff band that was practicing next door, trying to get the Danger out of my system. A strange and terrible blonde cadaver hovered, following him everywhere and asking me idiotic questions.

Off the top of my head, I think the moon has ¼ of Earth's gravity. Leave me alone.

My assistant whispered with urgency for me not to leave him alone. “I think she's going to drug me and harvest my organs to replace her failing ones! I think she's a salt vampire! I think she's a fucking werebadger!”

I escaped. I could see the terror, the consuming fear of destruction. There was nothing I could do. Mulder might believe the story, but not Scully, and I can't imagine talking them down to Greenville. I'm sure they can smell the alcohol fumes all the way up in DC.

People are getting bitten by the undead that are coming to power through the underground, and it evils up the air. The Deranged are rising to power, and their evil scheme is to put the entire city on a turntable and play it backwards. They're convinced that there's a Satanic verse if you play the whole town in reverse. Welcome signs on back roads have been ripped out by an unholy force, replaced with tin sheets. “Ellivneerg” is scrawled in some kind of farm animal blood, most likely goat's blood. Wild eyed idiots sit outside of Sheetz, analyzing cloud patterns for Satan's face and working out anagrams for Greenville that make full use of the word “evil.” Once bitten, you are lost to the cause. You stagger down the middle of tenth street without regard for the speeding Jeeps. You gorge yourself on dead pigeons and McDonalds' bags. You are possessed with a strange immunity, one that prevents bars from ejecting you. Once bitten you can make an absolute beer menace of yourself without fear of reprisal. Swarms of these ghoulish jackasses can be seen throwing shoes at their terrified waitresses, howling for more beer as they work on their anagrams. No solution yet, nothing that satisfactorily incorporates “evil,” but research goes on tirelessly.

So far, the most common anagrams for Greenville are “Eleven Girl” and “I'll Revenge.”

Underground shows are becoming cathedrals of danger, as the wildest and most unhinged of the Deranged go there to purge. It starts innocently enough, with one lunatic braying along to the guitar and knocking over mic stands, but generally by the end of the night there are people who would otherwise be normal tearing PBR cans in half with their teeth. The Deranged are biting and infecting the populace at a terrible and epidemic rate. The danger is real and we have no Batman to save us.

I fled the peroxide demon that would be consuming my poor assistant, only to find myself in greater danger. Demon death horrible hounds wandered the streets, wrecking mailboxes and throwing pitchforks through screened doors, howling in the shadow of Steel Reserve. This is what I come to expect, since the door of the mental institution came off its hinges a few weeks ago. I tried to do like in the movie... I tried to walk like a zombie... but they could tell.

They can always tell.

It was ugly, some of my hair was torn out, and it ended in my flight back to my assistant's door. “You have to let me in!” I pleaded, “These deranged fuckpistols have tasted blood!”

The strange and terrible blonde emerged, following a thrown brick, gibbering and spinning her head all the way around. I lived only by virtue of quick thinking... I took off my jacket and threw it as far as I could. She charged after it, the human scent distracting her long enough for me to escape. My assistant's huge desk made a prime barricade. I collapsed, my back against it, laughing maniacally. “It isn't the apocalypse,” I said to myself, “but it sure feels like it.”

There was a small sound in the closet, and I knew Fear for a second. The door swung slowly open and my assistant emerged. “Is she gone? Is she really gone?” he asked in a tiny voice. I nodded, sighing in relief. On this particular day in Greenville he was the only non-beast I could find. Everyone else I could trust had fled town for the weekend, or, “until this whole thing blows over.”

“She's a fucking salt vampire!” he wailed. “I don't know how I convinced her, but I played dead and she eventually got the Big Hunger and had to go feed.” A scream sounded somewhere outside and I shuddered. “You know they can unhinge every joint in their body? While I was playing dead she climbed the wall in this bizarre arachnid fashion and started gnawing on the blades of the ceiling fan. Creepiest shit I ever saw.” He had scratches on the back of his neck and his feet were crammed painfully into the wrong shoes.

“All she left was this piece of paper,” he showed me a horribly crumpled and dirty sheet of paper. “They're getting closer and closer to their goal. Regardless, half of these aren't even words... Le Evil Green, Evil Gel Nere, Evil Gree Len, Ren Glee Evil, Evil Glen Ere... it just goes on and on!”

Sunset Over Death Mountain (further insomniac tales from the brain farm)

The biggest problem with being a Doomed generation is that there's never any payoff. We're all doomed... every few generations... but are denied the release of actual destruction. It would just be total glee, the idiot pride of being the generation that gets to see the end of the world and scream "I TOLD YOU SO!" in the last seconds before the planet gets sucked into a huge black hole or pummeled by meteors or consumed in the firestorm of our own exploding sun or even snatched up by angels while God kicks the asses of the unbelievers.

Let me reiterate something I didn't make clear enough in that last passage, yet meant to. ALMOST EVERY GENERATION IS A DOOMED GENERATION. WE'RE NOT THAT SPECIAL. QUIT WHINING.

It's perennial blueballs. It's all the giddy joy of Doom without the snide self-gratification that comes with pure, unadulterated, destruction. Everyone has this in them, it's what drives wars and suicide cults and bad movies. 2012 is the latest end of the world, but so was Y2K (remember that shit? It was only seven years ago!) and so was World War Two and so was 1900 and so was the war of 1812 and to the Native Americans the end of the world has already come and gone.

This has everything to do with everything. Apocalypticism drives so many people. It ties into this whole "peace on earth" myth. By pure physics, there can never be a such thing as an "end" to the universe. Entropy (bastardized as the definition of destruction, as that is its primary property) guarantees that nothing is ever truly destroyed. Matter can only recombine. All things break down, but this breaking down (under the native forces of the universe, Jack) creates strange and new chemical bonds. Each generation of stars is more complex than the last, due to the extreme stresses caused by the basic forces' reaction to extremes of gravity. See, gravity is an expression of mass and mass is immutable. It's pure and beautiful. Nothing is ever truly destroyed.

Only doomed, and doom is a concept for brains. Gravity never counted on accidents of the mind. One of National Geographic's best taglines: "The Mind is What the Brain Does."

***

Disorganization, an essential ingredient to the entropy process, leads back to organization through the recombination of the elements involved. Now, let's work through this. Organization (which, for the sake of this example, we will use as a starting point) fosters breakdown. Any system, like the weather, seeks the impossible (homeostasis, to be anthropomorphic). Homeostasis is death and is only death. It is, in an organism, a point of perfection in which all systems are totally equalized. This, of course, precludes hunger or any variety of desire. It also is impossible for any living being to achieve.

Such is our example, the weather. "Calm" is what happens when one is within the influence of any individual pressure system. No two systems ever have identical pressure, therefore they will force each other around. Thus are created blizzards, tropical weather, downdrafts and tornadoes, drought. These are perceived by the sentient to be "destructive," as the power goes out and things die and water is either in excess or absence. However, weather that is perceived as "pleasant" (a.k.a. calm) will follow any of these phenomena. The release of pressure (a.k.a. destruction), which is endemic to any active system, is followed by a period of renewed growth. It's the same with fire, tectonic activity, stellar collapse, and our own system of organs.

***

Now, take the concepts of Doom, our pseudo-erotic fascination with the end times, and concepts of entropy and apply them to the local music scene.

You'll thank me when you're older.

-HS