On The Inside

  To start off with, I just have to get this tidbit of trivia off my chest.  Whenever I listen to the song, Tusk by Fleetwood Mac off their album, Tusk, it strikes me that the drum breakdown is exactly the same one from Slipknot's song Only One from their eponymous album.  Of course, Fleetwood's album came out in 1979 and Slipknot came out in 1999 so it's clear what came first.  Check it out for yourself and see if I'm crazy.
  But what I really wanted to talk about is how my emotions have helped me to write more meaningful (at least in my opinion) characterizations.  Before I met my amazing wife, I was so closed off to my emotions.  Now I alternate between anger and depression with moments of laughter sprinkled here and there.  My psychologist says she wants to get a second opinion by my psychiatrist before diagnosing me with bipolar disorder because once it's in my medical record, it's permanent.
  Anyway, I enjoy giving some depth to my characters by talking about various emotions they have in response to different situations I place them in.  It gives a satisfying richness to the narrative that I like to read as much as I like to write them.  The biggest problem my wife and I have with horror movies these days is that many of the characters do stupid things that inevitably lead to their demise.  To me, a scary movie would have a character making intelligent choices and doing things exactly the way I would do them, but ends up dying anyway.  What's scary about a killer who knows how to kill idiots?  A revolving door could do that. Man, I come off sounding like a whiny, cynical asshole sometimes.
  Well, at this moment I'm about halfway through writing the sequel to the Nocent book.  I uploaded a chapter from the Nocent part 3: Revenant War on Helium.com under the heading Novel excerpts: zombies. I wanted to put out a piece that will exhibit emotion-driven characterization.  This is the first morsel of my newest book that I've revealed to the world.  Hope you enjoy it!

Masked Bands

  These are just the random musings of a nerd with too much time on his hands.  This is not meant to insinuate any copycatting (is that a word?), plagiarism, band wagoning or Johnny-Come-Latelys.  What this is is a bunch of similarities I've noticed between a few masked bands from the past and the present.

1. Both Slipknot and Sykotik Sinfoney capitalize the S, K and T in their names.
2. Both Slipknot and Sykotik Sinfoney mix musical genres within the context of a single song:
-Slipknot: "Do Nothing (Bitchslap)" from the album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat
-Sikotik Sinfoney: "Cake Fuck" from the album, Eargasm
3. They also both do the rap/metal thing, as does Mushroomhead:
-Slipknot: "No Life" from the album, Slipknot
-Sykotik Sinfoney: "Mr. Cool" from the album, Eargasm
-Mushroomhead: "BWOMP" from the album, XX
4. Sykotic Sinfoney and Green Jello both have singers dressed as cows:
-Sykotik Sinfoney with Crusty Udder
-Green Jello with the Cow God
5. Slipknot and Mushroomhead both have bassists with pig masks:
-Slipknot with Paul Gray
-Mushroomhead with Pig Benis
6. Slipknot and Mushroomhead both have similar analogies for their relationships with their bands:
-Slipknot as the carcass with the fans as maggots feeding off them
-Mushroomhead as the shit with the fans as mushrooms growing off them
7. All four bands have lots of members.
8. Slipknot and Sykotik Sinfoney have each appeared in movies:
-Slipknot in Rollerball
-Sykotic Sinfoney in Bad Channels
9. Mushroomhead and Sykotik Sinfoney both seem to put down Slipknot (in my perception) in songs:
-Mushroomhead with the line "just another number in a long line of no one" on "Just Pretending" from the album, Savior Sorrow.
-Sykotik Sinfoney with the line "he's stupid when he's dressing like a clown" on "Stupid" from the album, Eargasm.
10. Slipknot seems to have a diatribe of their own against Mushroomhead in the song, 'Only One' with the line, "Filthy Hands stay away from mine" (a possible allusion to Mushroomhead's Filthy Hands label).
11. Both Slipknot and Sykotik Sinfoney have someone request the song "Freebird" in one of their songs:
-Slipknot: the hidden live track "Dogfish Rising" on the album, Mate.Feed.Kill.Repeat.
-Sykotik Sinfoney: "Mr. Cool" on the Bad Channels soundtrack.

  There's probably other things I've thought of, but don't remember right now.  There's probably also things you've noticed that I haven't.  Anyway, I love all these bands so this is in no way a putdown on any of them.