Writer's Block: The Resurrection

 

The book is about a rock band, not Jesus, heh.

I started a new project, a book called The Resurrection about a middle-aged rock star trying to get his group back together. It's going pretty well as far as my projects go. The challenge is always trying to find enough time and motivation to write. Here's a little preview of the very first chapter (a sermon, really).

...

Sermon Numero Uno

I’m gonna let you in on a little secret, luv: every rock ‘n’ rolla sells out.

The Stones. Sold out. DC-wee-see. Sold out big time. The Stripes. You hear their music in car commercials.

But what the great ones have, luv, is a certain factor. A coolness. A winking eye that says “I’m above it all, friend. I might’ve shat in the corner and got a lump of coke stuck in me left nostril, but I’m a cynical sage for a cynical era. You can trust me. I’m cooler-than-thou.”

They say it, and their powers of persuasion are so immense, that you believe it.

I’ve always been of the opinion that a lie isn’t a falsehood if you really believe in its truth. What did the space wizard say? “It’s true, from a certain point of view.”

But you can’t sell out if you never had anything to sell.

Nobody epitomizes this fact better than the Back. You know the Back. The Paddle Pop Lion wrote about how he likes the trousers of his lady friend around his feet. He doesn’t want to go to San Quentin because it would probably be an unpleasant experience for all parties involved. You know that scene at the end of Blues Brothers where the band is playing “You Ain’t Nothing But a Hound Dog” for all the prisoners? Can you imagine a bunch of lifers listening to the Back? Imagine that you had the misfortune to be born on the wrong side of the tracks, and maybe you had to rob a liquor store because you were all out of boxed wine, and the goddamn flunkie behind the counter wouldn’t take your Euros even though the exchange rate was favorable, so you had to give him a slap or two as befits his station, and all of the sudden the place is surrounded by bobbies, and because you’re drunk you grossly misjudge the situation, and unzip your pants to prove to the entire crowd that yes, you are packing, and so you end up in prison for much longer than you should be, and after months of rubbing shoulders with hardened criminals you are rounded up in the atrium, only to learn that your live entertainment is the fucking Back of all bands? Can you fucking imagine?

It’s not that the Back are especially bad compared to other post-grunge groups. They took the sludgy Seattle sound and pulled a Black Album and shined it up. And I’m not jealous of their success. I’ve done alright for myself, but I’ve not sold 60 million albums. You can’t begrudge them their success.

It’s just they never had it, luv. They never had Jagger’s swing. You never believed that they were on the Highway to Hell. None of them ever studied taxidermy and inserted little notes inside upholstery. Far as I know, the Paddle Pop Lion never dated a transsexual or suffered electroshock therapy for his sexual proclivities.

It was like they were spawned in a Clear Channel laboratory, with their shiny, gelled hair and designer faded jeans. They all looked like put-together frat lads, the sort that you might not initially object to being your daughter’s boyfriend, provided that he prove himself. Sure, he played guitar, but he had nice shoes and no visible tattoos, and he sold cellphones for a major wireless carrier.

There ain’t any danger in that, is there, luv? If the music is perfectly compressed and all the guitars come in on time, and every three minutes somewhere in America someone is hearing the song about the trousers around the feet, then you’re not part of the counterculture, are you now, Mr. Paddle Pop Lion? If you’re the very subject of “In Bloom,” can you be a rock ‘n’ rolla? You’ve mastered the stylistic underpinnings but you’re totally lost on the internal subtleties. It doesn’t matter, though, does it? It didn’t matter for Jovi. For Joel. Or for that bald guy who won American Idol and went by his last name like he was fucking Prince or Cher or something. Not a fan of that guy, luv. We can do better.

So here I am. My band has fallen apart. My personal life is the kind of questionable morass that befuddled biographers while enticing them like the siren’s song. My cultural relevancy has decreased exponentially, to the point where your average lad or lass doesn’t know my name. “Mercy Maddock? Who’s that? Did he have a crime program in the eighties?”

But life is about come backs. Jesus Christ came back from the dead, and now I’m in charge of the Resurrection. I’m on a mission from God, but without all that what-would-Jesus-do crap. I know what Jesus would do. He would get the band back together, and then he would fucking party.

We’re gonna find it because we had it and once had, it can never be truly lost.

Video Game Review: Black Myth: Wukong

 

Black Myth:Wukong is this year's Jedi Survivor. It's a souls-lite with stunning graphics and compelling exploration that'll challenge you without making you beat your controller against your desk like a pathetic man-baby (not that I've ever done such a thing). You play as the reincarnation of a monkey deity referred to as Wukong the Destined One, who is set on reclaiming his former powers while taking out his anger on yaoguai with his dexterous staff skills as well as magical powers. Supposedly based on Journey to the West, an epic Chinese novel, the story isn't so much a linear tale as a collection of folk fables. At the end of every chapter, you'll be treated to an artful film sequence that has some relation to the monsters you'll meet. My favorite featured a kitsune (a fox yaoguai) who is rescued by a man from a trap. The man has a dream that the fox turns into a beautiful woman who he then marries. Years later he comes home to her transformed, feasting on their children. When he wakes, the man skins the fox to prevent the dream from becoming reality. You'll later stumble upon her pelt, and you can grant her revenge.

Black Myth:Wukong has gameplay that will be familiar to Souls fans. You have a light attack and a heavy attack, and you build up Focus by dodging and hitting enemies. Holding down the heavy attack button charges a heavy attack, which spends Focus points. A heavy attack can stagger enemies, and special moves, triggered by hitting the heavy attack button at the end of a light attack combo, can chew up enemy health. Realizing when to use your Focus points can be the difference in a boss fight, along with your spells. Immobilize is one of the first you get, and it freezes enemies for a few seconds, allowing you to get some damage in or use your healing gourd. Cloud Step makes you invisible while leaving a decoy, so you can sneak behind the enemy and attack. Transformation spells let you transform into certain bosses, complete with a new health bar. Pluck of Many spawns a few copies of yourself to keep foes busy. Potions and various gourds with drinks and soaks allow you to customize your temporary buffs. There is a lot of complexity here, but it's simple enough to be understandable. Also of note are your three staff stances. There's a heavy stance, which launches a typical heavy attack, a pillar stance which lets you sit high above on your staff before swinging it downward, and a thrust stance, which treats your staff like a spear. I prefer the first two, but different play styles will gravitate to different stances.

As far as difficulty is concerned, Black Myth: Wukong is a hard game, but on the easier side of the Souls-like spectrum. Think Jedi Survivor on the harder difficulty modes rather than say, Lies of P, which I couldn't complete. The spells, potions, and stances give you a lot of options, and you can always grind levels if you want in order to upgrade your gear, although I only had to resort to that method for the Whiteclad Noble, the first true skill test. If you've played Elden Ring and made it most of the way through, you'll not have too much trouble. If you're expecting something like God of War, you might be in for a rude awakening. One notable difference between Wukong and other Souls-likes is that you don't lose experience points (Will) by dying.

Graphically, Wukong is one of the best-looking titles of this generation, along with Cyberpunk and Alan Wake 2. Utilizing Unreal Engine 5, Wukong features dazzling environments of jungle, snow, and rocky desert. I'm currently making my way through chapter 4 (Wukong has 6 chapters), and the underground spider-filled caverns are startlingly realistic. Only a few low-resolution textures and some overly-shimmering shadows mar the experience. Performance-wise, my Ryzen 7 5800x had no problems, for the game isn't at all CPU-bound like some other more recent titles. My 12 gig RTX 3080 was more than capable of higher settings at 1440p with DLSS Quality upscaling enabled, with frame rates usually in the 60 or 70s, with only a few drops. Unfortunately, there are Unreal Engine transitionary stutters, along with a few shader compilation stutters that the initial compile didn't catch. It's not Jedi Survivor bad, but it's noticeable, especially in Chapter 3. As for ray-tracing, it's only usable on top of the line GPUs and CPUs, so don't bother unless you're rocking a 4090 and a 7800x3d.

All in all, Black Myth:Wukong is a thrilling action RPG with great graphics, gameplay, and exploration. Definitely check it out. I've already put more than 30 hours into it, so it's a fairly long game. Screenshots below:

 

Bad Poetry: Things I Want to Remember about My Kids

 

Things I Want to Remember about My Kids

How Harrison looked at the digging machines;

How curly his baby hair was;

How he would stare at the children playing on the hillside,

Curious and longing.

I want to remember how he flapped his hands when he was excited,

as though trying to fly

And how pleased he was

When he learned how to swim.

I want to remember how Theo

Carried a glass container of paper clips

And collected shells and acorns;

How he wanted to build

A giant mechanical T-Rex

Out of junk.

The sounds he made

While he played with his Lego collection

On the dining room table.

There really is such a thing

As innocence.

Is it cruel

To want them to hold on to it

For as long as possible?

Or am I doing them

A disservice?

I recall my older neighbor Mark

Telling me he missed

A little hand

Reaching into his.

Harrison has big, sweaty paws

But he still

Reaches them into mine

when we walk the streets.

I want Theo

To always be fascinated

With what he finds in the world.

I want Harrison

To discover his place.

Most of all,

I want the child in them

To be there, somewhere

Forever.

Bad Poetry: The Reward

 

The Reward

Is this the reward

for all of those years

of loneliness?

Standing outside

in the night

scrambling after

the poky-little puppy

as I desperately 

plead for her

to take a shit?

Yes,

I suppose it is.

 

Coffee

is the elixir

of life.

 

The Feeling

you get

late at night

when you've spent hours

decompressing

by playing video games

or watching junk tv.

It takes you

right before bed

and you scramble back

to the computer

to type a few words

and make yourself feel better.

It's not

enough.

 

Kids

are a joy

a burden

a shackle

and a gift.

They stress me out

beyond belief

but I wish I was young enough

To have another.   

New Music: You Look Real Fine To Me

 

A vampy rocker with some creepy vibes, a la Queens of The Stone Age, perhaps. Wrote this many ages ago and decided to give it a more polished go than my original attempt. Everything is run through Propellerhead Reason; the guitars were recorded plugged into my USB preamp, and effects were added through the DAW rather than using amps or pedals. I spent more time arranging the drums than I usually do, and I think it paid off. A cool track, if I do say so myself.