I mentioned in that Mercyful Fate post that I (largely inspired by King Diamond) dabbled with occult and Satanic nonsense. I do feel the need to specify that I was of the Luciferian breed of Satanism (which is just spectacled, flashy Atheism). I didn't believe in any hoodoo-voodoo nonsense or anything that couldn't be explained or wouldn't be able to be explained eventually. But through wanting to understand things deeper and deep meditation I found that there seems to be something, beyond. Something that you can indeed interact with if you follow the steps that the old priests, and houngans did. And it fucking works. Of course I always questioned whether I was just being paranoid or whether I was just being silly, but when other people claimed to feel an unexplainable feeling that I also felt. It confirmed my suspicions that I was doing something strange. And I didn't like it. There's nothing that will put the fear of god in you, like finding out that you are deeply, deeply wrong about everything and that there is possibly something out there beyond your understanding. Something beyond the explanation of science, or Catholicism. And then when that horror gets correlated by pretty reasonable folk, it makes you feel even more - terrified.
A lot of people tell me that this sounds like a bunch of hokey-pokey nonsense, when I tell them about this. If it sounds like nonsense to you, I invite you to go and seek out the knowledge, seek out that practice. But don't do it in any place you'd like to remain in for a long time.
This isn't an MMA blog by any stretch of the imagination, but goddamn, where else do I gush about what I saw last night?
I never thought this would end like this. I'd never root for an Englishman, it just ain't in my nature. It doesn't matter that Kamaru Usman is one of the most cringeworthy athletes I can think of. He's one of my countrymen, and he's the reigning champion so I'm going to be in his corner. And I was rooting for him the whole fight. It also doesn't help that Edwards cheated a few times. It doesn't help that Edwards hasn't fought Colby, or Masvidal, or Burns. Come on, we all knew that Usman was going to steamroll through this guy like he's been doing with everyone for the past two years.
Man, I was so damn confident that Usman had just won the decision over this fool that I took to Twitter and started sounding off during the last round -
With the repeated cheating, cocky attitude, and the fact that he hasn't fought Colby or Jorge, I'm happy and unsurprised to see Edwards lose.
You never know what to expect from this sport. Me and this guy on Discord immediately started going back and forth about whether Khamzat will be the first to fight Leon, but honestly I think last night just proved, you never, ever know what to expect from MMA.
I was a teenager once upon a time. In fact, I started this blog when I was 18. My point here is that I dabbled with Satanism and the occult, and I was that edgy kid that used to walk around yelling "Hail Satan!" to scare and offend people. And admittedly I still think faux-satanism is fucking hilarious. So when I heard Mercyful Fate for the first time I immediately fell in love. I was more than in love. I went and downloaded the whole fucking album.
Yes, downloaded. I'm 22 and own about 270 albums and my last name isn't Gates. I did what I had to.
And then I went on a journey of exploring everything about King Diamond and Mercyful Fate. You see, for some reason I wasn't aware that there was a such thing a Satanic-themed music. So when I discovered Mercyful Fate, I legitimately started a Satanic music collection. I remember I would go onto music downloading sites and type in "Satan" or "Lucifer" under the metal section and just download everything en masse. And most of it was cringeworthy even by my seventeen-year-old edgelord standards. But there were definitely some bangers -
This shit isn't even metal and it has nothing to do with Lucifer. It's the album version of clickbait...
But Mercyful Fate was legitimately metal, and legitimately about some pretty gnarly shit. When I found out that Metallica were inspired by them early on, it was a wrap I went and "bought" all of their records. I've talked about how fucking diverse Fate is but gotdamn, Mercyful Fate is diverse.
Their first record / demo is basically all straightforward proto-heavy-metal bangers about horror / sacrilegious / devil shit. Except "Devil Eyes." I mean, its' lyrically the same as everything else on the record but it's straight up disco-metal. I don't know if the King felt like one of the Bee Gees that day, but from the rapid drumming throughout to the more subdued riffing, "Devil Eyes" is just a straight up disco song.
It's the same case for "Gyspy" off of The Oath. If someone else was singing the song and the guitars were tuned up just a tad bit, it would be a damn pop song. And since I'm used to King's voice, I'd argue that it 100% is a damn pop song. The title track is a five-minute masterpiece about taking an oath to Satan that sounds every bit like the lyrics would imply. But this is a damn near power-metal / pop rock ballad about a gypsy woman. And it doesn't take away from the record or make it any worse.
You see, I think tracks like "Devil Eyes" and "Gypsy", (especially the latter where King does that high-pitched "oh, no, no, no") completely make it so you can't take the Satanic shit seriously. And even if you do, you can't actually be afraid of it, if it's going to be this silly. Cause this shit is over-the-top ridiculous. Which makes me completely understand why King decided to break off and make his own "more serious" music.
Well, it's definitely at least more high-concept if it isn't more serious...
(Editor's Note: Apparently, Hank Shermann wanted to make pop rock, which admittedly would've absolutely solidified Fate as household names. But some people (a.k.a. King) just aren't willing to go commercial. Imagine a world where King and crew blew up in the US, returned to form in the 90s, and proceeded to keep making banger-ass records. You know, like Metallica did?)
And by extension, it makes occult practice / satanism look silly as all hell. I think that's a bigger reason why King didn't want to be involved with Mercyful Fate later in his career and wanted to build a reputation as the scary occult crypt-keeper of metal. Cause his solo records are grim. Half of the time, they're so grim, they're not even fun to listen to. They just feel dreary and long-winded. But to my understanding King did actually practice some sort of occult magic and ritualistic bullshit. (I don't care what it's called, because I don't take it seriously. And that's King's fault.) Apparently "Welcome Princes of Hell" is about some shit that actually happened to King. That song is about him summoning demons and shit into his house and partying with them. It's badass shit if you take it at face value and it's almost the only example of Mercyful Fate making the occult sound cool and serious. But they spelled the name of the song wrong on the record, and "Welcome Princess of Hell" sounds like an atheist edgelord fanfic.
It's almost like King was begging not to be taken seriously, while
simultaneously demanding to be taken seriously...
And honestly I played with grimoires and looked into summoning all of that shit. And to each his own, but it's not my cup of tea. It's not even something you can do while tripping balls, because it will have you paranoid that you summoned some ruler of the fifth ring of hell and he's going to put a financial curse on you. It sucks. But gotdamn this shit is hilarious. I used to think "Burn in Hell" was the most badass shit I'd ever heard. I would be tapping my foot along saying "Yeah, fuck Jesus, fuck them Christians!" But now as an old man, I'm tapping my foot along saying "Goddamn, Denner and Shermann can riff like a motherfucker, but these lyrics are goofy as hell." You see I've actually listened to nuanced Satanic lyrics. I've seen folks slip subtle shit into lyrics and song titles. I've listened to other Satanists / Luciferians actually make metal music that isn't just "Fuck Jesus, hail Satan, I love Hell, woohoo!"
This Candlemass ripoff is an okay example...
But take a song like "Doomed by the Living Dead." King has a unique ass voice, the riffing and the drumming is heavy as fuck, boy. And the switch-up to the chorus is something amazing. But then he shrieks "Say goodbye to all your holy angels." And he says that absolutely ridiculous shit with vigor and spite.
And you can't help but crack up because it's dead serious but it makes no sense. And I know I may be being too harsh on these guys since English isn't their first language. But it's not like they didn't have a producer / any English-speaker around them to tell them this sounded fucking silly.
Then take "Nuns Have No Fun" which is also an amazing song. The opening of this song is so damn graphic, I'll leave you to go look it up. (It involves a certain holy figure being tortured and assaulted.) And then the bridge hits and you hear, "C.U.N.T., that's what you are!" Firstly, these aren't even really song lyrics. This is something a vandal would spray-paint on a building or an upset child would scratch onto a church pew. Secondly, the song goes from violent torture and rape to an Australian cheerleading chant. And this is what we in the writing business call "mood whiplash." You're supposed to ramp things up, not scale them down. You can't help but laugh at how abruptly the lyrics switch up in intensity. And honestly when I think of it, there's no way this isn't intentional. They do it way too often. If the lyrics are too brutal then King starts saying silly shit. If the song sounds too intense then King shrieks something in broken English or there's a damn near Euro-pop-esque breakdown. In the few cases where they manage not to undermine their own intensity, either the next song is absolute shlock, or something immediately distracts from it. It feels like ritualistic magic how often this is the case.
And that's why I'll always come back to this band.
Whether it be because you actually take this shit seriously and want to summon Bigbill the Colonel of Hell to get you fifteen girlfriends, or you just like offending people, or if you're a music fan, or if you need a good laugh, Mercyful Fate is goddamn enjoyable.
And that's the difference between what makes Mercyful Fate timeless and King Diamond's solo material so boring. He takes himself far too seriously. His shit is too high-concept. It's about bitches getting stuck in paintings and grandmas getting trapped in voodoo dolls. Which in itself is silly when you take it out of context. But Mercyful Fate, this shit is just Satan, witchcraft, and defiling nuns, while Satan laughs along. And you laugh along as well.
Firstly, yes that final fight between Vader and Obi-Wan was the most badass thing I've seen in a long time. It was almost worth sitting through the eight hours of boring nothingness that preceded it.
Almost.
Before I even start, I'm going to admit that I barely finished the show. I skipped half of the fifth episode, and skimmed through the sixth one. The only reason I didn't publish my initial review is because EVERY OTHER REVIEWER on the internet said the same thing I did. But shit, this is my show, and I get to call the shots here.
Kenobi was fucking boring. It was so goddamn boring that I didn't even enjoy skewering it on the blog. Usually when I'm watching something bad, I'm already stockpiling everything I'm going to say in my review and I can't wait to finish it. This show bored me to absolute tears. I could not force myself to sit through it. I could write a better show than this. It was nothing but fanservice with pointless filler in between. Yes, I liked seeing Hayden Christensen as Anakin. Yes, I loved every single time Darth Vader was onscreen. Yes, I laughed every time Obi-wan cracked a snarky one-liner. Yes, I gushed when I saw Liam fucking Neeson in the last episode. But, why did I have to sit through six hours of filler to see all of that?
For this, I admit it was worth it...
The problem with making Star Wars shows set in between the main saga, is that we already know what the fuck happens. So there's absolutely no tension. Obi-Wan is not going to die. Leia is never in any danger. If a new character shows up, he can't do anything too significant without some annoying retconning. And he HAS TO either die or be so insignificant that we never need to see him again.
When Ice Cube is part of the story but everyone fails to mention it...
How the fuck did these people manage to make Star Wars of all things unexciting and tensionless? Even though The Phantom Menace is poorly written and has no plot, there's nonstop action, people die, and shit explodes. There's actual stakes. In Kenobi, they do the same thing over and over again and then jam all the characters into their starting positions for the original trilogy and all the side characters die / fade into obscurity. Because they have to.
This is the equivalent of me one day telling you a badass story with a solid ending and then every day afterwards coming back and telling you little minute details that have no impact on the story whatsoever.
Also, I see Disney is coming out with another Bore Wars show either this year or next year. I didn't watch the fucking trailer, I'm on a Disney sabbatical after having to die through Ms. Marvel. I've literally never heard of the character that's in it, nor have I even seen the lead actor. And normally I'd take that as a good sign, but it's been eleven years.
Welp. I'm fucking back after my umpteenth hiatus. I don't like doing this anymore. In fact, the pressure of trying to finish a single post is a feeling I've come to despise. I used to post here every fucking day and I loved it. But I guess back then I had a lot of ideas of the person I wanted to be and who I thought I could become. I had a silly dream of becoming a musician, and being some established writer. It's not a dead dream, and honestly I've done a lot more than most people. Hell, I created and recorded multiple different episodes of a podcast. I remixed and released a few songs. I kept up this place for a few years. Hell, people read this shit.
But dammit, I'm old, now.
Me, but like twenty years younger...
Age and disappointment have gotten to me. There was a time not too long ago when I was making a concerted effort to promote everything I posted here. Around the same time I was also posting for leisure. But you know time, addiction, stress, and aging have pulled me away from caring enough to trudge through the writer's block that comes with years of a lack of motivation. How many times do I pour my heart out about a movie to no one? How many songs, and albums do I review to deaf ears? I feel like a loser even complaining about this. I always said if you have a bad time writing something then people are going to have a bad time reading it. And I genuinely hate writing this shit half the time. I couldn't push through that Kenobi review series because the show sucked balls and my review was boring. I quit reviewing The Boys because I didn't want to trudge through it. I honestly don't even know whether I'm making excuses or I'm just ranting. And honestly who the fuck wants to read that shit?
But I said all that shit to say this.
Fuck this shit. No more review series, no more structured content, no more anything. I want to write whatever the fuck I want to write, how I want to write it. I don't want this place to turn into the ravings of a mad madman, but hell, no one is reading the shit in the first place, because I don't even post anything.
I think I'm just still mad about my fucking book launch failing...
Before I say anything else. This shot was genuinely one of the most badass things I've seen in any movie or TV show all year.
I'm not a big fan of all the retconning this series is doing, but if just for that shot of Vader and him saying "Now, it's your turn to suffer.", it's worth it. That was some badass shit. Everything pertaining to Vader in this show so far has been good. I like that during the mirage scene in the desert, Obi-Wan hallucinates Anakin as he looked when he stormed the Jedi Temple with the 501st. He isn't a seven-foot cyborg. He's a grimacing sociopath and child-killer in Jedi robes. Which makes Obi-Wan's horrified reaction all the more scarier.
But on to the review.
This episode was decent. The first half sort of felt like filler. Also, to be a Jedi, Obi-Wan isn't very stealthy or good at hiding. Why would you be walking around the desert in obvious jedi robes, when the entire Empire is looking for you. At least shave and wear a vest or something.
See? He looks like a completely different guy without the beard.
There's no way in hell that Star-Nosed Mole (yes, that's a real animal) didn't immediately recognize them and wasn't just playing along. Even the Stormtrooper who was interrogating Kenobi seemed two seconds away from asking him how dumb he thought they were.
Nothing else really happened in this episode. The bootlicking Mole gets taken hostage by Kenobi. A stormtrooper attempts to take Leia hostage (As if Leia is going to die. Wow, such tension.) and he wouldn't fucking miss the shit anyway. )The Inquisitors bicker like a bunch of stepchildren. And oh my god, the Inquistors.
I did my research between these reviews, and apparently both the Grand Inquisitor and the Sombrero Inquistor show up later down the line in Rebels. Guess who doesn't? That's right. No one's favorite character, the Third Sister.
This character is annoying as hell to watch and I can't wait till Vader chokes her or she gets cut down. Say what you will about the actress (except racist stuff, cause she'll complain to TMZ about you) but she does a damn good job of making you not like her.
So I just finished watching the first two episodes of the new Obi-Wan Kenobi show. And so far, so good. I'm going to break it down episode by episode, tackling what I liked so far, and didn't like, and then I guess I'll talk about where I hope the show goes.
Episode I
The show kick offs with a brief recap of the prequels. And I don't know if it's because I'm fresh off a bing of Mr. Plinkett's review of the movies, or because I'm just burnt out of Star Wars in general, but I didn't like it. I know that it was absolutely necessary to include that little bit of background for more casual fans who may not be familiar with that part of Star Wars, but I feel like it took away from the story. It makes it feel less like a standalone story and more of a sequel. And although I really liked the prologue scene in the Jedi Temple, it just ends abruptly. It feels a little off. I understand that we're setting up the premise that the Jedi are being hunted down and are extinct, but you just kicked off the show with two minutes of stuff unrelated to the main story. One of those scenes wasn't needed and you could've picked one.
Things don't feel right. I skipped a lot of the Disney Star Wars stuff, including Rebels and The Book of Boba Fett. So to me, this doesn't really look or feel like Tatooine. Hell, I don't remember a single shot of those iconic twin suns. And the way that Inquisitor ship jets over the desert and these black-suited Sith-wannabes pile out with lightsabers and capes just looks so out of place. This looks like a Star Wars fan film. I'm not shitting on anything, there's some dissonance. A lot of the aliens look either new or different. Tatooine just doesn't feel like Tatooine.
But, Obi-wan is still fucking Obi-Wan. It's almost like there's been one guy who's always writing Obi-Wan's witty one-liners because they never ever miss. This doesn't really shine so much in the first episode so much as the next.
And I didn't know that Princess Leia was gonna be in this show, but boy, is she in this show. The actress they have playing young Leia perfectly captures that snarky, headstrong energy that Carrie Fisher always exuded.
Towards the end of this episode, the pace really picks up. Obi-Wan is faced with a really difficult choice. Staying in hiding on Tatooine so he can watch over Luke, or leaving the planet to go rescue Leia, risking exposing himself and both of the kids in the process. And of course he picks the latter, and we see him dig up his old lightsaber, and put on his old robes. And it's a feel-good moment in what's so-far been a somber, melancholic viewing.
Episode I was kind of slow, but it wasn't bad. A little too many flashbacks to the Prequels.
Also, Flea is in this! And anything with Flea in it gets ten bonus points on my rating scale.
Episode II
This episode was miles ahead of the first in my opinion. The first episode ends on a cliffhanger, where Obi-Wan is pulled back into his old adventuring and wisecracking ways. And he hops right back into it. I meant it when I said Obi-Wan's one-liners are always on point. This episode really showcases that. We see some power struggles between the inquisitors (who I still don't really like, but they're here so whatever). There's also a John Wick ripoff sequence where a price is put on Obi's head and every bounty hunter in the city starts attacking him and Leia. It was definitely a fun watch. But I dislike the same things about this episode, as I dislike about the first episode. Since this is a prequel, the new elements seem blatantly out of place, and the older elements either don't seem the same or they're not focused on enough. Which is what happens when you erase decades worth of established lore, but it what is.
Also, Flea gets killed in this episode, and I won't stand for this kind of disrespect of one of the greatest bassists of all time. So I'm knocking like 1000 points off.
Things I Hope to See
I really hope that the shitty Inquisitor's (you know the one I'm talking about) "tragic" backstory with Obi-Wan gets revealed at the beginning of the next episode. I'm sure we all picked up on her saying that Obi-Wan owes her something, and then later on Obi tells Leia that some of the Inquisitors are former Jedi. Chekhov's gun. (Or Lightsaber in this case.) I'm getting tired of shows that write these lazy-ass tragic villains. They're not fun to watch, and the writers think they're clever by hinting that there's a reason she's soo ruthless. But yes we picked up on the hints, and no, we don't fucking care. Just let the asshole character be an asshole for once. Take TheMandalorian for example. Grand Moff Gideon was a slimeball, and we didn't need to know why or how he got that way. Because it doesn't matter. And it doesn't help that I'm also pretty sure I can probably guess what her backstory is. She's probably one of the padawans that ran away during that stinger from the first episode. Maybe in one of the later episodes, we'll see that she was a padawan and that Anakin cut down her Master in front of her, so she blames Obi-Wan. Maybe she's Mace Windu's daughter. My point here is that, even if that is the case, we don't care. The character fucking sucks so far. Also, one of the major plot threads of the prequels (and Star Wars in general) is that just because you've had a bad life, it doesn't justify you being a bad person and doing bad things. So engaging in this kind of ass-backwards character-building is just tone-deaf. But I hope I'm wrong.
Also, she's thick as hell, so I'll cut her some slack.
I kind of want to see some different kinds of planets and settings. The Mandalorian did a pretty good job of making sure we saw a diverse range of backgrounds and settings across te episodes. Things that took place on Tatooine were in parts in the planet we'd never seen onscreen before. Episodes that took place on ships made sure that the everything was laid out distinctively from any other ships we'd seen before. All of the settings had character. I'd love to see more of that.
Also, I'm liking the trend of seeing species and robots that were previously only seen as subservient or unintelligent taking more solid roles. Despite, all the years of lore they erased, there's been some really amazing world-building going on in the Star Wars universe under Disney. At least onscreen.
And I can't wait to see Qui-Gonn. The worse thing this world ever did was cancel Liam Neeson. I don't give a damn what anyone says, he was the biggest action stat of the 2000s hands down, and he's a cinematic legend. But I'll save the Liam Neeson ravings for the episode he shows up in.
