"All My Ghosts" 2004-01-24 - 4:17 a.m.

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this is gonna be one of those annoying, glib, upbeat entries

so if you want darkness and misanthropy; go here

first, the other day I found out that I share a birthday with Aleister Crowley

the "wickedest man in the world"

I found a biography of him online

and his real life was more interesting than some novels I've read

I look at his life and I just think: "gee, it really is possible to go out and live an extraordinary, storybook life"

but despite how much I want to go out and be an active person and get involved in things that would eventually lead to magical duels and bisexual experimentation;

I just don't have the motivation

fuck me

so anyway, as usual I've wasted another day

I keep meaning to turn in job applications; but the only place actually hiring was Vitamin Barn

[ok, it's actually called Warehouse Vitamins; but I like my name better, so I hereby dub the place Vitamin Barn. God I hope I get a job there so I can repeatedly talk about how my day at Vitamin Barn was.]

that and Office Max; but Office Max's application is this gigantic fucking pamphlet; and I don't really want to work there/am not likely to get hired there anyway

so meh

and in case I didn't mention so I turned in the application for Vitamin Barn already

so I just wasted another day waking up late as fuck and sitting around

I need to call my counciler and start figuring out my future, but I just don't have the energy

that's really gonna bite me in the ass; I'll have to do something monday

I swear

anyway,

in order to pass the disgusting amounts of time I have on my hands, I've started writing stories again

really they're more like blueprints for comics I intend to write/draw

since the problem I run into most while trying to create comics is getting bored with the concept while doing the arduous work of drawing it all out

I figure if I write it all out first, I'll have something to work from

and won't be making it up as I'm drawing it

and plus if worse comes to worse I can simply release them as novels

the part I'm most proud of myself for, though, is that they're original

the biggest problem I've had in the past is that despite how creative I am; I wind up taking a bit too much from the things that inspire me to be creative

I remember about five or six years ago I tried to write a sci-fi novel

and it was the worst, most horrible Frankenstein's Monster of a story

just chunks of other videogames/books/etc. torn out and clumsily stitched together

it was really bad

and since then I've been getting better and better about it

but I've never quite been able to be completely original

and I stopped writing stories for a long time

with my attempts at comics[which rarely ever got off the ground] being the closest I came

but lately I've started again and the stories are pretty original

there's only one or two little things each where somebody could look at it and see a connection to whatever inspired me

I'm rather proud of myself

of course, just because they're original doesn't mean they're any good

I think they're decent

mostly they're still just the blueprints for comics; and as such I've been skimping on the sensory imagery and visuals a little

[since as comics that will be drawn out]

but they could stand alone if they had to

I don't know

other than that I've mostly just been playing videogames

and mostly Fatal Frame 2

one thing I will say about the game; is that it's more addictive than fucking heroin

it's a lot like Stephen King's 'Insomnia' in that for the first 200 pages or so of the book; it was slow going and I was tempted to just give up

but those last 300 hundred pages were so good that it was insanely hard to put down

Fatal Frame 2 took a while to warm up

but now I find it hard to stop playing

and if Tecmo has anything going for them; it's that they know how to do atmosphere

it has impressed the pants off me

however, one of the two main failings of the game; is that whenever something big happens, rather than being like: "dude, that was so scary"

I'm more like: "man, that was awesome"

which of course, isn't really a bad thing

it just doesn't support the mood they were going for

I'm sure it's better for my nerves and/or psyche; but it's not as fun

another point of interest is that the story revolves around two twin sisters

and sometimes your sister follows you around

now, in real life, having another person around in that situation would be comforting

but I'm so used to being alone in these games that seeing another being following me around has me on edge

due to a combination of all the videogames I play and years of antagonism from my father I'm a pretty high-strung person

which is an advantage in videogames

the slightest motion and/or noise draws my attention; and my reflexes are pretty quick, so getting the drop on me is pretty hard

but I can never really tune her out when she's around

so I always have to kind of work around her when I'm watching for movement

it's hard to explain but it's really annoying

anyway

the game's other main failing is the fact that the enemies are ghosts

ghosts just aren't all that frightening to me

after a certain age I realized that you don't have to be afraid of ghosts because they can't touch you to hurt you

they're ethereal

and even though I was proven wrong about that

ghosts still just aren't that intimidating

when it comes down to it; ghosts are really just ex-people

compared to the monsters in Silent Hill

where if you get a good, still picture of them and stare at it for hours you still won't be able to tell just what the fuck they are

that just doesn't stand up

so even though it's kinda nice to be able to play a game like this and be able to walk into a dark room afterwords;

I still miss being strung out on adrenaline and paranoid all night

yes, there is something very wrong with me

I warned you this wouldn't be a good read

Sweet Dreams

if I could live to be several hundred

I could take a walk and really wander

really wander

all my ghosts

on every sea in every land

oh who needs that now?

who needs that now?

who needs that now?

have you heard about the heavenly angels

how they came to earth and met some ladies

with whom they mated?

and their young became giants every one

oh who needs that now?

who needs that now?

who needs that now?

I was driving across the valley floor

going past a scene of gore

something that had ended here

then I stopped in at a porno store

and I found among the pictures there

a vision that was very fair

just a moment from yesteryear

all I could do was stare

I had a date for the eleventh hour

and we took a tour of the Seven Horrors

plus just one more

Hank The Eight was a duplicated man

oh who needs that now?

who needs that now?

who needs that now?

-All My Ghosts

Frank Black and The Catholics

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