#moreфон365

[talamega]

4/365

One of the saddest days. Yet another legend and my personal guitar hero has gone. Alexi Laiho has left us. Still, I just can't believe it. What a fucking shitty start of the year.

I remember the first time I got my hands on Something Wild as if it was yesterday. Once my friends got me some zine from their trip to Germany. Don't remember its name but I can recall there was an article about Death, Morbid Angel, Limbonic Art, Falkenbach, some other stuff. And there was a page about a new Finnish band. COB. I guess it stuck in my mind 'cause I was a huge fan of Finland. I still am. So I just kept the name in my head. After several months or maybe more, dropping by a record shop I always bought stuff at, talking to a friend who worked there I mentioned COB, or maybe he recalled they'd got their cd's, anyway, he told me - dude, you have to take it, this is the real shit. So I did. And that was the start of a long long journey. Melody from Deadnight Warrior still plays in my head. Downfall, Warheart, Children Of Decadence, Everytime I Die, Sixpounder, Needled 24/7, Trashed Lost & Strungout, and many more are gonna stay with me until my end.

Bye Alexi, may you rest in peace. You'll be missed, your music will live with us.

[talamega]

54/352

Yet another heartbreaking date. Lars-Goran Petrov has left us yesterday. Another piece of teenage life has been torn apart.

I recall two things about my first take on Left Hand Path. First - the fattest sound I've ever heard back then. The fattest of fat but still brutal as fuck. I remember sitting with my jaw dropped listening to that mighty riffs and having just one thought in my mind - fuck, I would give my lung away to play with such a sound. And second - the final part of the title track. I fell in love with the song, still, it is on my playlist.

There was a period when I listened to LHP and Wolverine Blues daily along with Dismember and Napalm Death. It took me an hour and a half or maybe a bit more to get to the university so I put them in my cassette player and enjoyed that amazing death'n'roll all the way.

Well, as you put it out:

Live your life you're gonna die your own death

There's no one above that's gonna take your breath

Rest in peace brother, we'll see on the other side.

[talamega]

7/365

For me practicing the guitar has always resembled some meditation-like exercises. I've always appreciated this aspect of playing the guitar as much as playing itself. It didn't matter how much stress I've got or how upset I was. After two hours of practice, I felt refreshed and calm, and absolutely happy person. It was like some cleansing procedure for my consciousness. Listening to metronome clicking, doing exercises, focusing on fingers' motions, analyzing notes. I reckon this is how people practicing meditation should feel. Or maybe someone having had a seance of sensory deprivation. This was an amazing routine. Feel so sorry not having it now.

[talamega]

63/345

Reading Cock-The-Roach poem to my kids makes me feel uncomfortable every time. I can't say why but two images emerge before my eyes while reading. One is the streets of Saint Petersburg during the revolutionary uprising. The other one is trains of the Kindertransport taking the kids away from their parents. Such a disturbing text for me. But kids love it and ask to read it quite frequently. And these visions come again.

[talamega]

51/352

Got the second sting of vaccine today. A great excuse not to stay late working, but to go to bed early. Even have some time to read in bed. A crucially bad habit I've worked out at a primary school. My days were divided into time for school stuff and home stuff and drawing and whatever could happen daily in a life of a schoolboy, and The Time To Read In Bed. Most vividly I can remember reading Stevenson's Treasure Island. Laying in bed consuming dry muesli and at the same time sailing to a small bloody island among seamen singing their sea songs and listening to Long John's stories and his bird's swearing. For sure, I'd read this book countless times afterward, but reading it for the first time was a fuckin' magic.

[talamega]

44/361

Today my wife held a conference via the Clubhouse app. Frankly, I don't get all this hype around the app. As an Android user, I'm not that familiar with the program, so maybe I'm just missing something. There's suspiciously much fuss around it. Recently I run into a mem that after TikTok being banned here, Clubhouse is designed to gather all the local audio speakers and forbid them all at once. I don't know, I'm just being curious...

[talamega]

35/363

It's always hard feeling left when reading something from a trilogy about progressors by the Strugatsky brothers. You got hard feelings when trying to comprehend events that are far beyond the human mind could perceive. You got hard feelings when realizing the protagonists must eventually turn into antagonists as being the employees of yet another system of control. And the hardest pressure you feel when thinking about the inevitable separation of humankind to those who are making the next evolutionary leap and those who are not. This is the most horrifying thing the authors described. And the most beautiful either.

[talamega]

28/365

One unpleasant thing's bothering me a little. I'm talking about shit on a fan after Laiho's death. When I came across KimVoxRox's profile and read a couple of entries about "we were so good friends, we've been in contact until his death" and so on, this didn't seem to be quite right. On the contrary, I considered it was rude as fuck. Some people in the comments expressed the same point of view and got as an answer something like "piss off, I'm grieving". Well, I shrugged and went to other things. The next time I run into this there was something fucking insane going on. Tons of shit. Tons of inappropriate things. Ok, I'm not into the details of all this, I don't know much, I'm not familiar with the people and situation close, but I can say how it looks like from aside, from the point of view of an absolute stranger: you haven't been a couple for some years. You haven't been in contact at least publicly. The man has had another family, adopted a child. Then the dude dies. And you come out of nothing, claiming shit like "oh, we were a great couple, we often talked to each other, see the screenshots, and I have a secret, I don't want to share the secret, but I'll tell you the secret (because it's a fucking secret apparently), Alexi wasn't going to divorce me..." (I'm not sure I'm citing everything exactly like it was said, I'm just fucking mad). Fucking hell! You said you wanted to praise his memory? So just go, make an account in whatever social platform, name it somehow connected with Alexi or COB (not showing your name preferably), and share his photos, share stories behind them. Just that! Everyone loves his music, his guitar playing! And what you're doing Kimberly looks like gold-digging! FUCKING UGLY DISGUSTING GOLD-DIGGING!

[talamega]

22/365

Came out with the idea: when I can't find out any topic to write about I'm gonna count what I've done today. Though I'm afraid there is a possibility all the entries are going to turn into a daily routine description. And they all will be almost the same as the majority of affairs I do throughout the day does not change. In years. I am the man of repeating habits. I like to go to the same restaurants and order the same food. I like to put things in order at home and fall into a panic when something is missing. I like to arrange everything according to the system I've done once. I can barely accept changes, they are worst than tragedy. My wife insists that soon I'm gonna experience something like mind decrepitude if not started to change my routine from time to time. Perhaps this is the reason she likes to change the arrangements of clothes and stuff in the wardrobe and other places regularly. Well... Yeah... I'd better go to sleep.

[talamega]

66/344

The Last Witch Hunter is a good movie. Despite all ratings and all that crap. One weak thing is Vin Diesel. I mean, he's not a bad actor, at least, for entertaining movies. And he's not that bad for a witch hunter if he could get rid of his being that smug and complacent. This character should be sad and tired. His eyes should express infinite sadness and a burden of eight hundred years' grief and this is a hard thing to portray. But do you know who would do an amazing witch hunter? Adam Nergal Darsky would fit perfectly. Oh, I'd love to see the movie with that man (c) in a leading role. Well, maybe someday he'll appear in some good movie. I hope so.

[talamega]

65/345

My best buddy's got a birthday today. When I called him in the morning to wish him a happy birthday and ask how's he doing he said - like crap. That was utterly sad to hear as he's the funniest dude in the world.

Lots of my friends being decent kind and successful men don't get along with their wives. They love their work, they love their kids but there is an abyss between them and their spouses. Maybe this is the new times when a family doesn't mean anything in the modern world? Or maybe it's always been like that and monogamy's just a lame invention of society? They all are just good men, why they can't meet peace in their marriages? Sad shit.

[talamega]

64/345

Layin' down on the floor while kids are taking a bath. Can you remember Rat Race? Mr. Bean is my character. In terms of narcolepsy. I can crash down wherever I am. Last time I got a blackout sitting on my sofa among kids playing and jumping. Perhaps one of them pulled my beard trying to wake me up but didn't succeed. The next step should be sleepwalking, I reckon...

[talamega]

62/346

Amazing thing. I talked to one guitar strap manufacturer who suddenly offered to introduce me to a luthier I've always admired of. Oh, he makes outstanding instruments! After all, every professional world is small enough. That was unexpected and very pleasant, I must say. If anyone told me a year ago I would have an opportunity to talk to a professional like that I would have not believed it. On the other side, I'd have not believed it if someone told me I'd talk to one of my most favorite musicians of all time, but it happened! Mindblowing!..

[talamega]

61/346

I think this is a good time to skip to my safe island again. This time I would bring Heinlein's Glory Road. I read it countless times and will read countless times more. The book's always been my stress relief in any unpleasant circumstances. Unfortunately, my copy doesn't have decent illustrations, as far as I remember it doesn't have any illustrations at all. But anyway, every scene there is described in detail so I could imagine it all vividly as if watching a 3d movie.

Well, I'm gonna find some hideout place on my island and read this amazing novel.

[talamega]

60/347

I've started to reread My Unbelievable True Story. Again. This is the fourth or maybe fifth time. Or perhaps sixth. I can't remember any other book that turned out to be that exciting I've read during the last decade. For sure, I'm aware the content of the book should be approached with a great deal of criticism along with skepticism, but holy fuck, I just can't stop reading it. Though there is a lot of evidence that Arnold's never been a decent human, still he is the symbol of everything interesting, new, and unusual that once came here from abroad and blew my schoolboy mind and minds of lots of boys here somewhen in the nineties.

[talamega]

59/347

Frankly speaking, I've always loved being ill until recently. I always got all the seasonable colds, viruses, and all this crap since being a kid (especially being a kid). This actually helped me to get a break as all the other time I was busy with lots of things. Now it's not that funny as before. Mainly because I just can't lay down and rest. There's always work I have to keep doing and calls and mail that need to be answered. How I miss good old colds when I could lie and sleep throughout a day and read a book whenever I want. Or watch some show. It seems to be an unreachable dream to stay at home for a week and watch the whole Evangelion show including new installments. That would be so fucking cool!