Her Ghost In The Fog (A Side Trip...Nothing To Do With Anything)

I was frustrated. I ended up finding out why my application was rejected by FEMA. One simple fuckup on their part. In the application, where they asked if I'd lost any essential utilities, there was no answer.

For those of you who have never had to live through something as raw and evil as Mother Earth's awesome wrath and Her Aftermath...it's hell. Being without electricity just isn't the place you want to be while the sun blazes and everything around you seems to be ground to a screeching halt. No lights, AC, fridge, washers, dryers, gas for your car...all of it that you take for granted just gone. For nine days I lived like that. Sweating, burning amidst a sun with which I do not get along. Everyday, no hope for a better tomorrow unless the highs would only reach in the 70s and those goddamned mosquitoes, man. Terrible shit.

I was frustrated to be certain. I knew why I was going crazy. My vacation had been hindered by both storms and then when it was finally open again, I came down sick. I'd been stuck in this house for far too long. I needed to get out. Whether I'd recovered or not, I needed air, space, open places, streets and streetlights. Maybe even a walk to the cemetary would do me some good. Maybe the baseball complex. They leave those two things open here. I'll never understand why. I don't mind though. Two places of nice total sanctuary. A place away from the noise where I can ponder some of this rotten state I'm in and focus on what comes next.

I'd made my journey off. Heralding it, of course, with Nightwish's "Nemo" a beautifully painful song regarding the Captain of the Nautilus.

The night was filled with a dense fog. Still, I wouldn't be swayed. I kept walking. There was no way in hell I was going to just crap out now that I'd started. The time out would do me some good and the air would be just what I needed. I walked through the sounds of All:My:Faults, Apoptygma Berserk, 6Bit, Biopsy and finally, upon reaching one of my hallowed sanctuaries away from my own, Cradle Of Filth.

"Her Ghost In The Fog" came up. Sometimes, listening to that song is a particularly painful excersize and I'll never know to this day why I continuously subject myself to it. It was one of the favorites of myself and someone I loved dearly. She never knew that though. I would never tell her that. We were as close as any two people of opposite genders could be without actually being in a relationship or fucking. Many would have thought that but the opposite was true. The unfortunate aspect of the whole matter was that she did like her drugs and they did claim her. Tonight, I sat there in a dugout of that baseball complex and listened to that song. I didn't see her ghost in that fog standing in front of me, nothing but a ghost in my head to be honest. the song was over and "From The Cradle To Enslave" chimed in.

This was just one of my favorites.

"This is the theme to a better Armageddon," Dani screeched, "Nightchords rake the Heavens...PanDaemonAeon!" (prounouced Pan Daymon Eon)

These songs were not songs of heat and torment. No. They reeked of a cold inner desolation that would be forever a void. Some hellish part of every human psyche. And the boys in the Cradle camp saw to it that every song was worded like some twisted spell.

Tabulatures of gravel law
shall see Gehenna paved
when empires fall
our nightmares crawl from the...

From The Cradle To Enslave...

This Is The End Of Everything...

Except for this part, of course. This sounded like the heralding of a shockwave from a nuke and the rolling and roiling mass of fire and debris that would follow, consuming all but the spellcaster. This was the sound of existence unmade in the blink of an eye.

After the Cradle Of Filth cover to The Sisters Of Mercy's "No Time To Cry" and thier cover to Twisted Sister's "The Fire Still Burns" came Dope with thier cover to Billy Idol's "Rebel Yell". I have often found this song decadent. While bands like SiNDADDY and The Murderdolls chose to cover "White Wedding" nothing would ever come out with the emotional intensity or decadence of "Rebel Yell." That song was an anthem. It was a gross salute to the fist-pumping, wild-eyed, state that took some of us through the 80s even as children. More than an anthem it was a sex-driven lovesong. Possibly, there were misplaced emotions all throughout the song but it was loud and terrifying to the societal structure back then. Dope gave the song their signature edge and made it more so now than it ever was.

Then, there was The Genitorturers "Sin City", a song obviously about Vegas life but with such an evil edge that it likened Vegas to a more enjoyable level of Hell.

My journey ended on a more somber note when Girls Under Glass covered Madonna's "Frozen". Thier sound was larger than Madonna's was and that feeling of desolation was more so pronounced in their version. Overall, just a better version of it. By the time I had arrived back home, the fog had rolled away. The old ghosts in my mind had placed themselves back into their respective graves and had finally left me alone. I suppose my next trip will involve the bike. Perhaps, perhaps not. I don't know.

It's ocurred to me that the times we call The Wonder Years were the advent of the time we spend wondering when the world stopped making sense. During that time in our lives we knew everything and now, we must readily admit we know nothing. It's not an easy task to face, but it's ours.

Everyone deals with it differently. I've always dealt with it though my music. I suppose I always will.

"Let it burn
til there's nothing left but ashes..."

-The Dreaming, "Let It Burn"