Podcasts about Death Song

Hana shines and Aya rises.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.“It is selfish to believe that your family will always love you. At some point you will be asked to earn it.”My equilibrium decided to cut me some slack and not invoke the reflexive vomiting. "It is only me, Hana, Imogen, Deidre, Mom, Buffy, hi Juanita," I hadn't spotted my designated bodyguard standing behind Chaz."Don't talk to me right now," she seethed. "I'm furious with you." Yep, she was the Caribbean Buffy."Perhaps she's pissed about the five extra Illuminati bodyguards added to the regular two around Hana plus the two circling Ghost Tigers having not a fucking clue what those other armed parties are doing in Hana's company," Pamela joked. She could. Everyone else was giving me crap about my social gaff."Hey now. This meeting is important. Imogen and I are going to have a child," I enlightened them. The door chimed open and we piled in with two Amazons whose 'fresh' look indicated a use of the showers within the past ten minutes."You consistently maintain particularly low standards," Chaz dryly remarked."I sent her here for a check-up and that gave Buffy a chance to meet Mom, Deidre and Imogen, plus two unarmed bodyguards," I kept bailing out the Titanic."Chaz, I am happy we aren't going to miss this one (lunch)," Pamela smiled at her two grandsons."Cáel, are you going to tell your fiancée you've impregnated your aunt?" Chaz was back to being mildly sympathetic to my 'totally fucked-up' life."Yes. I figured Buffy shooting death rays at me from her eyes will garner me enough confusion to get the words out of my mouth without her throwing her drink in my face, slapping me, then storming out," I envisioned.I got no more shit until I reached the garage for my vehicle. There an armed FBI Special Agent Virginia Maddox (did you know when a Federal Agent adds 'Special' to their title it means they have a gun?) stood next to my chariot. She'd drawn the short straw, meaning she had been given the chore of driving today.I found myself wondering when Yasmin would finally finish her orientation. Her training involved some serious mental challenges including a crash course from the FBI at Quantico concerning modern judicial theory & practice as well as whatever pre-Iron Age jurisprudence the Host practiced.Javiera promised me (and Katrina) that she would not-so-subtly remind those scholastically-groomed legal minds that a (couldn't use the word 'Amazon') legal code they followed had existed, with minor tweaking, as a successful social instrument for over 3,000 years. If they truly behaved in a respectful manner, the owners of the code might even show those people the Codex on the original horse-skin, written in Hittite cuneiform.Anyway, everyone assumed I had a good reason for heading to my apartment (aka need to retrieve a sleepy Odette.) Had I repeated 'the Bitch stole my fortune cookies', they might have simply taken me to an Asian-inclined grocery store. As we hit the second story landing, Chaz in the lead, we heard a passel of folks come down toward us from the fourth level.I didn't think there were that many people on the entire floor. Chaz and Pamela each went for their holstered pistol, while keeping them hidden in their jackets. Wiesława, who went for her PDW, backed up so she could fire through the stairs from beneath.Juanita, bless her heart, and Virginia had remained in the S U V because sending in more people would have left us piled into one another. If a firefight did break out, Juanita could bring in some serious hardware to back us up while Virginia called the appropriate authorities before rushing in herself.Around the corner on the third floor landing came a number of women, early/mid-twenties, physically fit, foreign clothes and downcast expressions. A few looked like they were about to cry. They were all in shirts and jeans, with no obvious weapons. Not looking lethal didn't ratchet down Chaz's vigilance. Me? I was instantly reminded how much sex I had been missing."Prince Cáel! You are alive!" spilled out of the first one, a fiery red-head with a billowing, thick mane, porcelain skin and adorable freckles. Her Irish brogue was enchanting. I had to wonder if she cried out in Gaelic during orgasm. Wasn't I about to meet my future bride plus numerous other love interests?She was fit, curvy and wearing an aqua shirt which exposed her midriff with a belly ring bearing a pearl drop, the requisite tattered skin-tight jeans and soft leather calf-boots."Why wouldn't I be alive?" I grinned, like a pirate discovering an all-girls school oceanographic classroom in need of plundering."How do total strangers know how unlikely it is that you would still be alive?" was Chaz's spin on things."We talked with your roommate. He said you had moved to Svalbard where you suffered an excruciating painful, yet richly deserved, death in a lemming stampede," she pouted, "and then the UN had your ashes exiled to Pluto because the Sun was too good for you."9, 10, 11 --12 of them looking, 3 with pale blonde hair that eerily reminded me of my fiancée, another red-head, two russet and five with deep, dark brown, or black hair. They were all fit, fit, fit! With an air of 'I graduated college only to discover: 1) no one was hiring Saline Soil Scientists, or 2) I no longer want to do any of the things I wanted to do when I picked this major. I was familiar with both types.Timothy would have been at work and Odette would have invited the troupe in to regale them with all sorts of tales, which would have included a tour of my bedroom. They clearly had missed Odette so, now I recalled; that particular excuse was one of the ten I had given the guy in 4B should anyone suspicious come calling.I imagine twelve hot, English-as-a-Second-Language girls might be considered, a bit odd. See, his was my address of record. I lied about my actual apartment, so random people who came looking for me went to him instead. This arrangement had been made prior to my understanding of the nature of my employment at Havenstone.I'd neglected, telling him to move out and go far, far away? Poor guy. I'd find a way to make it up to him later."Actually it was a southern vole immigration incident that was set off by the Bulgarian consulate offering repatriation for the first 10,000 applicants," I frowned, clearly traumatized by memory of the incident."These poor southern vole, native to the vacationer-friendly Black Sea resorts, were accidently introduced to the coldest inhabited place in the Northern hemisphere and they've been trying to get home ever since, that would be the equivalent of a century and a half in 'vole-years.""Despite the UN trying to quarantine any news of this Cricetidae catastrophe, I decided to evacuate the six most critically injured vole using a Bortolanza Pluto ultralight, which he must have confused with the UN sending my ashes to Pluto," I explained.Mind you, the 'southern' voles are native to, among other places, Norway, the owner of Svalbard. They were also native to the Bulgarian Black Sea coast so, The Pluto ultra-light, once built in Italy, is now called the 'Puma' and made in Canada, has a maximum range of 675 km, which would leave me crash landing into the Barents Sea, 260 km north of the northernmost airport in Norway, rendering me and my voles so much frozen food."You are an animal rights activist too?" several of the girls gasped. Yes. Yes I was. I was an animal and I was all for me having rights."Please, don't tell anyone about this," I grew serious. "I don't want my philanthropic efforts to be publicized. What I do, I do for the Earth's endangered ecosystems because it is what everyone should do, not because we suddenly feel bad about neglecting it.""E haere koe ki te whai kia nui ai," Pamela snorted. I'd ask her why she knew Maori later, right after I figured why Grandpa knew it."Ko toku mahere whānui," I replied. The girls looked confused."I'm also trying to revitalize endangered languages and revive dead ones. It is more of a hobby than life pursuit," I informed them."You really are a modern-day noble warrior-poet," the red-head leader sighed."Nah. I'm just a guy," I shrugged. "Besides, Ba ch ir fear a bheith ar eolas ag a gn omhais, n  a oidhreacht." (A man should be known by his deeds, not his heritage)."Sa ch s go bhfuil misneach, t  s il agam," she replied using my 'family' motto."Jos on jalot on toivoa,", "Ahol van b tors ga, van rem ny," and "cesaret olduğu yerde umut vardır," all followed. 'Where there is Valor, there is Hope' in Finnish, Hungarian and Turkish. I got the sneaking feeling this wasn't a college field trip gone awry. These chicks were coming at me with a purpose that included more than sexual gratification and a kiss good-bye. Ugh."Thank you," I genuflected, paying honor to their reciting of my personal vow. "Anyway, you appear to be looking for me, but I am afraid I don't know any of you. Taking into account that I have a late lunch date with my fiancée in a half-hour and will be taking notes at a feminist convention at 8, what can I do for you?" I was establishing my escape plan."We have come here to join you," an assertive, dusky-skinned one smiled. I had to think about this. I was a bit tired. Taking all twelve of these girls on in one orgy was currently beyond me. I'd do eight tonight and the last four before breakfast tomorrow. Ah, happy thoughts of the Lacrosse Finals."What exactly do you plan to do with Mr. Nyilas?" Chaz interrupted."We are the (Irish) 'Na conairte soith an   S aghdha ar', (Hungarian) 'A szuka kuty kat Herceg Nyilas', (Turkish) 'Prens ok u Kaltak K pekleri' and (Finnish) 'Narttu koirista prinssi jousimies'," they chorused.Pamela snickered. All of those fancy sounding names were variations on 'the Bitch Hounds of Prince Archer/Nyilas (with the Irish going for O'Shea)."You want to be my bodyguards?" I gawked. Lacking lions, the Irish choice of the 'fur-balls of death' were hounds. Being women technically made them 'bitches'. I had to move fast. Any second now Wiesława was going to figure out these over-anxious non-Amazons were trying to replace her."You do realize I've left piles of dead bodies in my wake, right?" I nearly choked. Pamela slapped me on my back."Of course," they sounded so chipper. Fuck you Internet and 'First Person Shooter' games. This wasn't a fucking game! Trained combatants who joined my retinue met grisly ends and this was their freaking profession!"Can I think about it? I mean, do any of you have any combat experience at all? Attacked someone in anger? Send off a blistering instant message?""Some of us have (combat experience I was assuming). We won't let you down.""You do realize Ms. Dubois is going to kill them, don't you Sir?" Chaz sent me a chilling look."Ms. Dubois?", "who is that?" and "kill us?" floated around."Ms. Dubois is my blood-hungry ferret who wears a 'naughty berserker' human suit to trick the masses.""Three of us have military training," one of the Finns spoke up.By that they meant they had volunteered for military service in their native countries, then left after their first term because they found military life to be boring. On the 'plus' side, all but one had martial arts experience and six of the twelve had been a member of a Gun Club of some kind. Yep, Buffy was going to kill them, all twelve at once by herself."I'll make you a deal," I offered. Chaz was giving me his 'I'm a stone yet clearly unhappy with you' face. "At 7:15 tonight, you will show up at Havenstone. I will sign you in, we'll go upstairs to one of the gyms and then warm up for fifteen minutes. When you are ready, or 7:30 rolls around, we are going to the sparing mats. If I lose, you can stay. If you lose, you will write this off as one of a legion of ideas that look good in print yet are foolish in practice. Do you accept?""How many of us do you have to beat for us to join with you and your Crusade?" the lead Irishwoman asked."All of you. I will fight you all at once. The mat space is quite extensive.""You mean all twelve of us against you at the same time?" one of the Turks blinked in disbelief."Yes. I am not disrespecting you, any of you. You've shown initiative, courage and a spirit of adventure. I found all three to be both admirable and worthy of reward (i.e. I will gladly have sex with you). What I am also telling you is of the three people with me, the only one I can most likely defeat in single combat is her," I motioned to Wiesława, "and I'm only saying that because she is 19 and relatively new to the art of killing."Their eyes flickered to Pamela. Chaz was scary without even trying. Pamela could be threatening, or appear harmless, as she wished."Chaz is a professional military man from a long line of diligent warriors and in a branch of service that requires close contact with hostile individuals, teams, tribes, clans and nations.""The woman behind me is much, much worse. I've met precisely three people who could possibly kill her and I killed one of them. Would you agree, Chaz?""Absolutely," he concurred."We know who you two are," a Finn spoke up. She had a dazzling smile and cleavage that had to obscure her toes when she stood."You do?" Pamela played nice. For once, it was technology biting her in the ass, not me. Yay?"You are Rhingyll lliw Siarl Yfory," the Irish lass looked at Chaz. That was Welsh, and meant Color Sergeant Charles Tomorrow, I imagined his superiors in the British military weren't going to be happy with any of us, him being a 'secret military operator', emphasis on the 'secret'."And you are Sverkhsekretnykh Shpiona Vsemed Svaya," the Turkish girl pointed at Pamela. Pamela snorted. In Russian that meant 'Super-secret Spy Pamela Pile'. Since Pamela in Russia was pronounced 'Pamela' they had gone back to the origin of the name of Pamela, a fictitious 17th English novelist creation using mangled Hellenic, which translated as 'all-honey'.'All-honey' in Russian was Vsemed. Pamela snickered. Oh yeah, those twelve had combed through millions of articles and pictures to figure out who Chaz was and who Pamela claimed to be. Actually, one of my Hungarian admires back when we were all in Eastern Europe had suggested Pamela was a remorseful ex-SMERSH agent turned Princely-sidekick. Pamela jabbed me, the unspoken 'sidekick' thing.(For those who don't know, in Russian SMERSH loosely means 'Death to Spies', it really existed from 1943 to 1946 and was resurrected by Ian Fleming as a foil for James Bond.)"Chaz, since Cáel is, without a doubt, already having a stupendously wretched day, we must insist he inform Addison of all three of these developments, in person. I want to see the look on her face," Pamela plotted with the man who had thrown himself between me and an explosive vest, probably out of some psychic impulse that I would suffer far, far worse later, like in today, within less than 24 hours of said act."Why am I here again today?" I lowered my head and groaned."Are you okay?" a dozen innocent voices cried out."We are here to pick up Odette," Wiesława reminded me."Oh yeah, fortune cookies," I mumbled."Is 'Fortune Cookie' a nickname for one of your other operatives? Many of them are real enigmas. We can't find out anything about her," one of the Hungarians said. Yeah, because SD doesn't have a Facebook page, or Twitter account. Odette, she was protected by a completely unremarkable lifestyle, but I had a feeling that was fading fast."Excuse us," I asserted myself. "I need to get something on the third floor. Chaz began pushing forward while Pamela had my back."What are you doing?" to me and "Hey, is that a gun?" to Chaz, then Wiesława. Pamela was too sneaky to get caught."I'm here to pick up Agent Fortune Cookie then head out to a meeting with some really shady characters and my fiancée," I informed them."Agent Fortune Cookie," Chaz mused. "She's going to love that,""And then," Pamela continued."She is going to want a gun," I groaned.Oh goddess! No! Chaz had joined Pamela and my 'group think'."No, I have not," Chaz corrected me, about my mental ruminations."I've been coaching him," Pamela faux-consoled me. As my new prospective bodyguards parted for my current bodyguards,"Do you have psychic powers?" "Where is your android?" and "Is it true you can have sex up to ten times a day?""Yes, but we can't talk about it," then, "Which one? We have six models," and finishing up with, "Yes, I can have sex up to ten times a day with each session lasting at least an hour, though I do need breaks for food, drink, quiet romantic conversations and showers, cause shower-sex is so damn fun."While they mulled that over, I unlocked my door in time to see a nicely-dressed (as if she was about to go out on an expensive lunch date) Odette spring off the sofa. Looking at the crowd behind me, she blessed me with an incredibly happy smile."Oh cool! Do we really have enough time for an orgy?"I wanted to cry.(A Family FUNction, minus the 'fun' part)My fiancée giving me a congenial and contented look. Good.My fuck-buddy/friend Libra giving me a salacious 'you and me are going to hook up soon' smile while dressed in a red, 'business suite/slinky number' combo with a plunging neckline. I put her invite on my mental day-planner. Fellas, if you can't keep it in your mind, forget about it. Print equals pain, believe me.Brooke had joined the lunch group, sharing a smile and wink with Libra with the secret agreement for a three-way. Sweet! I could do this, hmm, lunch break Friday, yum-yum-yum. She was wearing a beige business suit with slacks, minus the shirt. Only her cunningly cut jacket kept her goodies from exposure.Hana was a saint for putting up with those two, and me.Buffy was studying me with the clear desire to put me in a dog cage for the rest of the week. Technically she had to produce my body for work Monday. As for the hot, sweaty, intense Brooke-Libra-Cáel m nage   trois, Buffy was reading the undercurrents and setting up a breakwater. At least her attire suggested well-paid, successful international assassin. I wondered if I had paid for her clothing as well. I'd given Chaz's wardrobe a serious upgrade courtesy of Pamela faking my signature.The gathering was rounded out by Mom, Imogen and Deirdre. Thank God they all had different hair styles and forms of dress. Mom was in 'casual-durable' attire, Imogen was going with the military-chic and Deirdre's get up was in the same style as Hana.I was pleasantly pleased that Hana had reserved two adjacent tables for what she assumed would be my support network, Pamela, Odette, Chaz, Wiesława and Juanita, plus Imogen's five and her (Hana's) two Illuminati minders. That made me squeezing my twelve newest over-eager admirers into the mix doable, if not comfortable. Better yet, none of the new girls was dressed for a restaurant this exclusive.Hana was quietly amused. Buffy was volcanic. Thankfully she was being a volcano on the mid-Atlantic ocean ridge ~ submerged."Chaz, Pamela, explain," Buffy seethed."I don't work for you," Pamela playfully bantered back, "Sweet-Cheeks.""They are part of a clandestine operation to provide cooperation and assistance from the European Union," I offered up in such a sincere manner. I almost had them. Buffy looked to Chaz who opted to channeled his 'inner- Cáel'."I can neither confirm nor deny their status as operators from four European nations," he nodded.Buffy forked a helpless appetizer shrimp then catapulted at one of my Finns, I thought it was Oili. It bounced off her bosom. She couldn't even claim to not have seen it coming."What?" Oili gasped."Operatives?" Buffy sizzled at me."Prince Cáel," Flannery asked, "why did that strange woman throw a, shrimp at Oili?""It was a hand-eye coordination test," Odette informed her. "Had Oili been a real spy, you would have snatched up a nearby napkin, deflect the item with the napkin and all while drawing down on her. It is what they do all the time. It is pretty neat to watch.""Why use a napkin?" Oili asked Odette while eyeing Buffy in case another decapod was coming her way."You use a napkin because the shrimp might have a contact poison on it," Odette rolled her eyes. "Buffy used a fork to flip it at you. She didn't use her hands, so the possibility existed." Pamela gave Odette an 'atta girl' high five."Prince Cáel?" Brooke giggled. "What have you been up to?""Okay. I got this. Ladies, may I introduce Annikki, Belgin, Berit, Flannery, Gizi, Ilkay, Kato, Neve, Nuray, Oili, Pirkko and Zsuzsi. These fine women have decided to put their productive lives on hold so they can be my bodyguards," I made the introductions."They have volunteered to be, basically the 'Hounds of Prince O'Shea/Nyilas/Archer'. My Hounds, please let me introduce Hana, my fiancée, Brooke, my close friend, Libra, a sweet & sincere childhood acquaintance, my Mother, Sibeal, my O'Shea aunts, Deidre & Imogen and Kalmarasērmi Buffy."Despite the absurdity of the situation and my clear irresponsibility, Buffy let a smile crease her frown. 'Kalmarasērmi' was my term for her in the Amazon language = my Mountaintop."I will volunteer my facilities to train them," Aunt Imogen offered me drolly. She was the primary trainer for all O'Shea guardians/Special Forces."Train us?" a half dozen voices murmured."Yes Child. I am Imogen O'Shea, Cáel is the greatest treasure in my life and I have serious doubts any of you can be anything more than distracting bullet-catchers for my favorite (and only) nephew. It annoys me to think you are yet another walking advertisement showing him to be both big-hearted and soft-headed.""I will offer prayers upon the mounds of my ancestors (lie, her only 'ancestor' refused to stay buried) for Cáel's safety. You should invoke whatever supernatural entity you place faith in to keep Cáel safe as well, because if he gets so much as a scratch defending any one of you, I will exercise my nearly endless knowledge of human pain to make you pay.""Is she Ms. Dubois?" Flannery asked Odette."That would be me," Buffy showered fury their way."Do you really want to kill us?" Neve tried to stare Buffy down."Until ten seconds ago, Yes. Now I want to hand you over to these two," she motioned to Deidre and Imogen with her fork."Prince Cáel, why are they all so hostile?" Flannery requested understanding from me. "We have come here to help you. We have skills. All we are asking if for a chance to prove ourselves to you.""To Us," Buffy snapped. "Cáel's vote doesn't count.""Chill, Buffy," I snapped back. "I'm dealing with this, and your lack of trust is pissing me off.""Buffy," Hana intervened. She placed a hand on Buffy's thigh out of sight, yet not outside of my notice. "When was the last time Cáel failed to take your advice on something life-critical? These young ladies appear to be honest and diligent. If not, Pamela and the Color Sergeant wouldn't have let them come here, or near Odette."If I dated dumber women I would have less explaining (lying) to do, but I'd miss the challenge both inside and outside the bedroom. Hana's deft touch and gentle words calmed Buffy more than anything (outside of a righteous cocking) I could have accomplished. I was suddenly seized with the realization there was a goodly number of Katrina's positive attributes in Hana. How had I missed it?"Marrying you is going to be Hana's first step toward mortal beatification," Brooke teased me. Normally only dead people were made saints."A Servant of, probably not Jehovah. I think everyone at the table can agree she has interacted with supernatural forces," Sibeal hid her joking well."Martyring her hopes of monogamy?" Deidre's fey gaze flickered over the women of note (the women at the main table)."Her Heroic Virtue is Prudence?" Buffy added. Buffy had been Catholic?"Ladies, I'm Lutheran. We don't normally venerate saints. Joking aside, I was given a reason to believe this lunch date was important on a social level between myself and my fianc . Food would be nice too."Brooke and Libra's presence regulated Pamela and Chaz to an adjacent table. A waiter slipped in, took my order, I decided to forgo an appetizer because I was late, then the conversation began."Hana, this is my Mother, Sibeal Nyilas. Imogen and Deidre are my family from Ireland," I made the introductions, most definitely unnecessarily. I was buying time to get a better read on the women around me."I know," Hana showered me with mature compassion."Get to it, damn you," Buffy huffed."Wow, I'm thinking of the best way to tell you this," I barely could meet Hana's eyes."I am pregnant with your fianc 's child," Imogen cut to the chase. What she said was delivered on purpose. Imogen wasn't as socially maladjusted as Rachel. The fewer women in my life, the easier the O'Shea would have roping me in. Imogen's words were meant to hurt Hana and drive a wedge between us."You too?" Hana's sad eyes studied Imogen. She hid her anger-disappointment-disgust well. In this crowd her efforts to obfuscate her feeling only worked on Libra and Brooke. Those two ladies were less astute at concealing their surprise."She's your aunt, right?" Libra's look settled on me instead of a blatant Imogen, or a pained Hana."No," Mom answered for me. "My sisters and I were born sterile. It is impossible that our paternal heritage has been passed along. Whatever Imogen's maternal contribution was, it is not from our DNA. My sister does have a child inside her, Havenstone verified it and will have the precise genetic make-up within 24 hours," she persisted (lying)."If Cáel has a failing, it is that he was seduced by my sisters who played upon his very confusing Mother-Son relationship. I faked my death when he was seven. I 'died' in a quite painful manner and he had to watch helplessly as he witnessed me wasting away. I did such a horrible thing to a young boy because the people who were hunting me down, the two O'Shea before you and the nine who aren't here, would have used numerous means of torture to verify my death."(Until they realized 'what' I was. Then my imprisonment would have begun)"My wonderful husband would have died without giving them the truth. It was too much to ask of our son. For fifteen years he believed me dead. He learned the truth at his Father's funeral. I believe every woman at this table knows my son doesn't handle emotional pain well.""Imogen's statement was a thinly-veiled stab at Hana's heart and a kick to my son's sense of responsibility to both Hana and his unborn child. How could this not hurt Hana? How could Cáel possibly respond, torn between the woman who has already sacrificed so much of her happiness for a man barely aware of his own maturity, and the woman bringing his child into the world?""Good one, Imogen. Those two are better than you, or I. By all means, make a mockery of my son, your nephew, who has pledged to fight for your life when he should clearly walk away and let the rest of you die. He asks nothing of you yet you feel no remorse at sullying his happiness.""There are ten good reasons for you getting up and walking out of here intact right now. There are six better reasons for making you pay for your cruelty," she threatened."Ten?" Brooke whispered."The sisters' five bodyguards, the two body guards they gifted me with, Deidre, Imogen and Cáel. You don't think he would let the woman bearing his child take a beating, do you Brooke?" Hana enlightened her."No.""The Six?" Libra scanned the room."My other two bodyguards won't act unless I am directly threatened. They won't be out to hurt anyone. If anyone tries to hurt me, they will jump straight to the making them dead option. The 'Six' are Buffy, Pamela, Chaz, Juanita, Special Agent Maddox and Sibeal.""We'd help," Libra insisted. Brooke was onboard with that proclamation."No," came forth from Hana, Mom and me."Brooke and Libra; you two, Odette, the other twelve and the wait staff will only confuse the issue. My sisters and their soldiers will use you and the rest to distract Cáel. Except for Ms. Maddox, the rest won't give a fuck so your best bet is to hit the deck and let the professionals deal with things," Mom clarified."Brooke, Libra, this is a wacko chicks with guns moment," I put things in perspective."Hana?" Libra put a hand on Hana's shoulder."Don't mind me," she patted Libra's hand. "I'm diving for cover and not getting up until you, Brooke, Cáel, or Buffy tell me to get up. Sorry Sibeal, but I don't know you that well yet.""I understand," Mom agreed.To punctuate the awkwardness of the moment, Aisha (the Arabic swimsuit model) and three other SD ladies waltzed into the place and took a table. When the maytre dee tried to impede them, Aisha threatened to exterminate his entire extended family with a look alone. Been there, done that, and the maytre dee was nowhere close to being in my league.I had to think that through. Had Buffy called them, the SD would have been here before I arrived. Pamela was a possibility, except the SD still hated her over Constanza's maiming. If she told them my life 'was' in danger, they would still show up. My life wasn't in danger and Pamela wouldn't yank their chain.It had to be Juanita. The head of my bodyguard telling Elsa that I was in an exposed position with 9 armed Illuminati would have elicited this level of response. Pamela prodded Odette. Odette had a 'what do you want me to do' non-verbal exchange with Pamela then got up and went over to Aisha.Odette even remembered to navigate the room in such a manner Aisha and her team could keep an uninterrupted view of the threat. Pamela and Chaz's lessons were paying off. They weren't training her in the lethal arts. They were showing her how to not be an obstacle, which was better, given our current circumstances."Hana, don't hate Imogen. The only parent she's ever known was Granddad," I returned my attention to the crisis at hand."Oh, I'm sorry," Hana sent sympathetic waves Imogen's way. If there was a hint of 'you bitch' hidden within those words, none of us would admit it."Yes, yes," Imogen smiled back. "Father was a real troll.""That's not true," Hana responded. "I've met him and he has always been very nice to me. It was easy for me to look past the nations of dead he's murdered, his propensity to rape his daughters and his plans to destroy my Cáel.""I don't hold you to blame for not protecting Cáel more than you have. He's a handful and reminds you of your Father, the mass-murdering rapist. And Imogen, don't try to hurt Cáel using me again, you Bitch. I'm not a part of your circus. That doesn't render me powerless. I love more than I hate. I count a person great by the lives they save, not those they take. Where there is Valor, there is Hope and my fianc  has both in spades. Do we understand one another?""Proving you are smarter than Ms. Sievert is not something which equates to being a threat," Deidre countered."Cáel, why aren't you saying something?" Brooke whispered to me."Because he knows better," Mom grinned. "This is a battle Hana has to win, or lose, on her own.""Cáel has plenty of women willing to go behind his back and kill people, Brooke. Now, if Hana asks for such a favor, we know it is not over some petty bullshit," rolled menacingly forth from Buffy as her feral countenance made a few of the Illuminati at the next table nervous."That won't be necessary," I broke up the tension. "We are as dysfunctional a family as they come, but we are family and we will all treat one another as such by the standards of the only one who matters. Clear?""You?" Deidre soothed me."No. Ferko Nyilas', my Father and the best man I've ever known. He taught me to never make excuses for your own behavior. Surrendering our control over our lives is a cop-out. If you want to continue acting like the creepy-ass bitch daughters of Cáel O'Shea, so be it. That is your choice to make. I care for you.""I care enough for you to fight Granddad over your futures. I hope all of you know I mean what I say. Whatever you decide to do, no matter how you act, I will always love you. I've made my choices and I am going to hold you responsible for yours. Let's eat lunch. It has been a rough fucking day and it isn't over yet."If there was ever any doubt, I destroyed those twelve hopeful bodyguards on the mats. They possessed neither the skill nor the savagery necessary in a warrior culture. We Amazons didn't recoil from pain. Our sisters' lives were on the line. That was why you practiced no-holds-barred fighting with, or without, weapons."We can learn," the lead Finn protested. The rest were getting over the physical and spiritual pain of being so easily beaten."My normal bodyguards go through three years of intense 24/7 training. Being a member of that elite body means you train in all forms of weapons as well as hand-to-hand combat techniques.""Once you've mastered the core physical and skill baseline requirements, and this core training never stops, no point is considered 'good enough', you begin learning at least two specialties. Those are disciplines such as close-protection, sniping, small unit tactics, infiltration, battlefield medicine, electronics, computing, communication systems, linguistics and 'training' expertise.""In my current team, the ones who fought at my side in Hungry and Romania, all have three specialties. Discounting their regimen since the age of five, each had been on the job in a professional capacity at least six years. The leader had eleven years in.""Finally, when you are at that level of excellence, you need a specific mindset. What you need to do is think why you shouldn't kill someone, not if you should. If there is any doubt, you strike. If you hesitate, someone close to you might be killed, not just me.""Look around you. If you aren't ready to kill for any of your companions, you will never cut it. Now, I'm going to have you shown out. I will have taxis take you back to your hotel. Think about it. Seriously, think about dedicating yourself to more than some stranger you've met on the internet.""You will be dedicating yourself to the other elven women in your group, to the death. That is the level of spiritual dedication it takes to be at my side. Go, take a rest, talk it over, search your souls. Call me if any of you want to continue and we can have lunch Sunday and make plans. Questions?""Do the other women around you do this, make those choices?" one of the Turkish women frowned while nursing a bruised jaw."No. They have it worse. They have thrown their old lives away, never to return. Each and every one has either murdered a human being, or attempted to, before they are even considered for the task.""Under normal circumstances, we wouldn't be having his conversation. You would never be given the chance. You are woefully unqualified in every way except spirit. Your willingness to cross the Atlantic to make your offers resonates with me, so I am both warning you this is horrible, horrible path you are taking and I am explaining precisely how slender any of your chances are of accomplishing your goals.""I, I don't know," whispered one of the Hungarian lasses."At the Seven Skulls, I led three such women into combat (Rachel, Charlotte and Saku) against a group of warriors who were fighting free of 500 elite Romanian Mountain Troops. Of the Romanians, nearly 200 were either dead, or wounded. The FBI Special Agent we took with us was badly wounded."One of the three was killed, a head shot, and the remainder left her body where she had fallen because the enemy were still out there and they had to protect me. The world will not bend to your sensitivities. Life around me is exceedingly dangerous and unforgiving," I finished.No immediate consensus united them. Fear and disbelief were the major vibes I was picking up. None of them were angry, insulted, or overly terrified."Time for you to go," Buffy concluded our meeting. "Tigger Maeve and Dora Farānak, would you please see Cáel's guests to the lobby." A new pleasure of Buffy's was using the House names of the Full-bloods she interacted with.I have taken a few mystic liberties:Maeve was a Celtic War Goddess ~ the Enslaver of Men.Farānak was a Scythian Goddess also known as the Lynx Goddess and the Silent Huntress.As for the other new hires:Daphne was, as explained earlier, of House Cotyttia (Thracian Goddess of Sex, War and Slaughter)Fabiola was of House Minerva (Roman Goddess of War & Strategy)Violet Maza was in House Oshun, the Yoruba Goddess of Love, Sexuality, Beauty and Diplomacy; Lady of the Orisha ~ life spirits.Paula Wadena was of House Cybele (Phrygian Earth Mother, Guardian of the Lion Throne)}They were dismissed and smart enough to know that was the best possible answer to their current predicament, learning your romantic adventure was actually a gory supernatural battle for survival. A growing number of Isharans had been gathering while I dealt with the wannabes. A few were amused, perhaps even understanding, of my actions.Soon enough, using her position as Record Keeper of House Ishara, Helena cajoled the other Amazons into giving us peace and quiet. Not all left. Watching a jury-rigged House Ishara work through its business in a semi-public setting was an event both unlooked for and possibly enlightening.For this gathering, we had 122 of the 159 members. The missing members were not close enough, or were providing a critical function that wouldn't allow them to be in New York on this night."Sisters, a moment of personal prayer for each of us to seek guidance from our Ancestors as we seek to continue their legacy," I intoned softly, calling the meeting to order.I had barely opened my eyes, failing to get any inspiration from Yakko, when the struggle began."Why are we including them in a House Ishara meeting?" Madori pointed out the three 'new hires' who were sticking around."Memasant (Amazon for to speak true)," I answered her. Since Daphne, Paula and Violet had clearly been sitting among us before the meeting began, I gave Buffy a disappointing frown. "Ishara respects these three for teaching the rest of you the Amazon language so that we can teach it to others, thus all of you becoming able to engage all our sisters in our native tongue.""I doubt any other House would extend this honor to others. Thankfully, we are not like any other House. We know better. We have all been outsiders. We aren't a 'normal' House and I am working toward us never being one. We have to be kind and just when necessary, and forgive when it is what the Host needs.""We will do this because we Isharans alone will decide on the prestige of our sisters. If the other Houses make an issue of it, who cares? None of them have made the sacrifices necessary to be Isharans. I know that you have not all gathered here tonight to hear me pontificate. Who wants to be first?""Will you accept a challenge?" Madori stood up. We had spread out in a ring, two Amazons deep, along the edges of the mats. I had never sat down."Put forth your complaint," I responded."You emphasize duties other than that of a House Head. You don't take the time to show up at initiation ceremonies. In essence, you ignore your sisters to advance your own prestige.""Yes, I am not showing up at the initiation ceremonies.""Yes, I prioritize other activities over running the day-to-day operations of our House.""Yes, you are utterly ignoring the two Amazons sitting at either side of me. I chose Buffy Ishara and Helena Ishara to lead this House because I knew I would have others issues coming up in my life concerning the Host.""Buffy, are you challenging me?""No, Wakko Ishara," she responded angrily. She wasn't angry with me. She had chosen the majority of the assembly and they were turning on me, thus her."Helena, are you challenging me?""No Wakko Ishara. I am intimately familiar with your work and the dangers you constantly confront for the greater Host," she answered in an equally hostile tone."Now that the issue of relevance has been dealt with, I will accept any challenge from any of you selfish, bigoted, power-hungry cunts who wish to put your own self-interest above that of our House. By all means, stumble over one another for the top spot," I mocked them. I'd played nice. No more.It was telling that my classification of any challenger was completely ignored. Madori and five supporters stood. In theory, challenges were the rare 1-on-1 Amazon experience. Another Amazon, Arianne, stood with another supporter."Cool beans," I nodded.I backed up, stepped off the mats and picked up the four axes I had pre-prepared. Back on the mat I went past my handful of supporters, brandished two weapons and advanced a quarter way onto the sparring area. The mass of my opponents muttered in confusion and resentment."Ishara, we have not trained in archaic weapons. Most of our facilities never had then," Madori protested."Amazons don't play fair," I glared. Several migrated to the walls to pick out whatever looked the least daunting. Buffy, Helena, Marsha, Daphne Cotyttia, Violet Oshun and Paula Cybele did likewise."Is this how you want to answer a challenge for leadership?" Madori glowered. "Cheating, utilizing a clear advantage in a farce of equality and justice?""No. Please step back and call every member of JIKIT," my eyes narrowed. "How about this, call the Amazon's contact with the Earth & Sky? Can't do that either? How about convince the 9 Clans to help us pursue a House obligation?""You duties as Chief Diplomat are not that of Isharan House Head and actually make you less of a House Head," she countered. She had chosen a short spear, using it two-handed. And that made Katrina what precisely?"I should fucking kill you," Buffy snarled."Madori Ishara, Dot-Ishara is not the Goddess of Scrabble. She is not the Goddess of," and Madori tried to catch me flat-footed with a spear-thrust. I was appalled at how easy I dealt with her. My right axe diverted her spear enough so when I twisted my stance, she missed. I placed the head of my left axe on her shoulder, blade against her throat."Madori, you lose. Sit back down and contemplate that you were beaten by a 22 year old man," I seethed. There was no 'you didn't give me a chance' bullshit. She had struggled for advancement in the Amazon way. Such people weren't crybabies. "Next."Arianne approached me with a shield and short sword. My read on the situation was she was going to use acrobatics to compensate for my superior reach. I readied myself."I don't suppose you would accept a suggestion we fight unarmed?" she put out there. I took two steps toward her then dropped my axes."I trust you," I looked down at her. I could see the 'oh, fuck me' written all over her face. The unfairness had been tossed in her lap. She put the point of her leaf-shaped blade under the left side of my ribcage, close to my kidney."Yield.""Never.""Yield, or I will kill you."I took a quarter-inch penetration when I clamped down on her right wrist and slammed my elbow into her face. A quick exchange of footwork ended up with both of us on the mat, Arianne on her back, sword pinned to the mat and her shield trapped between us. Head-butt followed head-butt until she was unresponsive.I stood up, blood oozing down my side."Water!" I barked. A bottled water was rolled my way. Three more Amazons were sizing me up. This challenge phase was far from over. I splashed water down on Arianne's face until she sputtered into wakefulness."Pathetic," I sneered at her. "This House is worth any and all of our lives. If you were the best candidate to lead this house and I refused to yield, then why did you spare me? Not only could you not kill me when you clearly could, you failed to do so even when it became an unequal contest of arms."Arianne was shamed and furious. I was treating her like a presumptuous, outsider woman."I'm feeling particularly generous in victory, Arianne, don't you dare stand up," I growled when she tried. "I will not kill you for your disrespect. I will not exile you from our House because doing so would show both of us failing to grasp one of the key principles of our People, learn. Learn and keep learning. A loss is nothing more than a temporary setback. Learn, don't repeat the same mistake twice and never stop striving for success until you take yourself to the cliffs."One of the two newes

A Walk In the Park  & Aya's Finest Hour.Book 3 in 18 parts, By FinalStand. Listen to the ► Podcast at Explicit Novels.Professional, conscript, or volunteer, they all have run away from battle.A Note on terminology and the metaphor of Cael's WorldThe terms Weave of Fate and 'Weave ' are interchangeable. Weave expresses the intersection ~ the sieve that all the possible futures entered to create what we perceive as this 'now'. Fate is the keeper of the sieve. The Present is what is happening right now. It is that infinitesimal which we interpret as Reality.The Legend is what happens when the present is pulled back through the weave and becomes the past. It is called the Legend because, as the former presents fade into the past, they blur; each becomes less precise and more open to interpretations. (It is as if you were looking at one thing through a prism; as you shift your stance, what you see appears to change.) Within the Legend exist mystic creatures, divinities, demons, spirits, all the Paradises and Hells.The Endless Black Sands is the final resting place for all failed legends. It is the place where all is forgotten until even former realities break down into the Black Sands. That Alal found a way to cheat this doom and retrieved Shammuramat, was truly remarkable; even though Fate 'balanced accounts' with him by sending Ajax and his war band along that path as well.If you wonder how that was a balancing, consider this:The only people Alal cares for (in his own brutal fashion) are Shammy, now Sakura, and his only true offspring in 5,000 years, Cáel.Fate sent Ajax.With Ajax available to test Cáel, how could Alal resist the temptation to place one of the planet's greatest killer on a collision course with both of his loves in order to test Cáel?The Veil is a function of the Weave that protects sentient perception from perceiving the Weave and disguises the otherness of creatures of legend, unless they willingly allow themselves to be seen, which they usually do only so they can 'physically' interact with the Present. Some sentient minds, through horrific trauma such as the Augurs' self- poisonings, through the quirks of Fate via Holy Men, Mad Prophets and Doomsayers such as Temujin, or through the touch of legends such as Ishara, can sense the fluctuations in the Veil and the things behind it. Cáel, in truth, has been shaped by all three vehicles (Ishara, the Augurs and Temujin's legend.)Oblivion is what awaits Reality if the Weave ever fails beyond its ability to heal itself. This threat is what keeps the creatures of legend from constantly traversing the Weave. They have to weaken the Weave to do so or to use powers in Reality, the greater the distortion they create, the greater the weakening that occurs.End Note(Two days ago, with thirty days left)"That was fantastic, Lady Yum-Yum," I sighed."What did you just call me?" she panted softly. We were naked in one of our Task Force bedrooms that was actually used for sleeping, and now sex. I was still pressed against her reposed body, despite our recent exertions. She was on her stomach, arms stretched down her sides.She was sweaty and short of breath. She still had her wits about her and an awareness of our situation: victory sex, me still aroused and her fingernails scratching my thighs and buttocks. My equally sticky body was pressing down on her, even though I supported my weight with outstretched hands placed on either side of her shoulders."Lady Yum-Yum," I mumbled as I kissed the back of her head. "That was the first thing that sprang to mind when you introduced yourself." I could see her working that through her highly complex mind."When writing your memoirs, please remember to me refer to me that way," she began to flex her thighs and abdominal muscles, so that her ass was pumping against my hips."Only if this helps persuade you to give me a repeat performance.""I'll consider,," she purred, then paused to catch her breathe. "You are in phenomenal shape, young man. Do any of your other lady-loves have pet names?""Nope," I grunted as I withdrew.She had teased me with anal sex hints repeatedly, yet never delivered. She liked the game and the power she wielded. My body being on top of hers was only an illusion of a tactical advantage. She knew me pretty well already. I wasn't the kind of guy who would use physical strength to overwhelm her vulnerable position. This being so, a cerebral skirmish only excited her more.We waged a war that was based on intakes of breath, the shimmying of muscles and the trembling of fatigued flesh. The prize for me was the winning. Lady Fathom Worthington-Burke played tricky-clever, but I was better. And at times like this, she admitted it. She gave me what I wanted. I rolled her.Straight, face-to-face fucking. The Lady's pulsar gaze trapped my vision. She smiled, grudgingly at first, then more and more sensually as my glans returned to her g-spot that it had scouted out earlier. This was 'surrender by the Fathom method'. She gave me what I wanted, so I took what I wanted, and pleasured her at the same time."Mmm, you are a bad, bad boy," she lapsed into her trashy West-End Londoner accent. It was perfect and an erotic whiplash when added to her native, refined manner of speech. This wasn't a trick this time, it was a treat. It was a gift, reciprocated. The tactile sensation of her cervix becoming a soft, spongey chalice for my final penetrations was icing on an all-so-luscious cake.I tendered her a tribute worthy of my first love, Dr. Kimberly Geisler. It was strange to find a woman like her. Outside of Kimberly, I had found only one other woman who graciously offered her ultimate pleasure paean to the hundreds of lovers who had become before. That other woman, it still floored me, was Buffy Du, no, Buffy Ishara, First of my House."Oh!" and several heartbeats later, "Cáel!" several hissed series of breathes and then, "Goddess! You are better than good!"Two thoughts collided within me:A) I had never seen a more controlled orgasmic explosion in my life. I was going to have to tell Buffy about this, once we were safely in bed. If it was office talk, she'd punch me through a window and that would make Aya cry. I couldn't have that.B) Goddess? I thought she was Anglican. This needed further study. This treatment was really nice. I leaned in, kissed her. Lady Yum-Yum smiled. "Take me to the shower. Play time is over, Cáel," and she was back to all business."You are treating me like a fleshy vibrator," I pointed out."But you are a very finely-trained, fleshy vibrator, you wonderful boy," she stroked my cheek. "Shower! Now!" So, like a Good Boy, International Merchant of Death and Chosen Son of a Divine Amazon Goddess, I slid off her, then cradled her in my arms as I rose from our totally trashed mattress.I didn't smile when it was confirmed that I wasn't carrying her out of any romantic after-coitus gesture. She couldn't walk. Woot! It took a bit of effort to get us into the walk-in shower and to get the water just perfect, all while keeping her cradled. She helped out by keeping her arms tightly around my neck."Cheeky bastard," she whispered in my ear. "You are gloating." Then she nibbled on my earlobe for good measure."Damn right," I did gloat as I let her slide down to her feet. "You are pretty sweet for an Old Chick." She wasn't angry, oh no."If you were trying to get me to say, 'I'll get you next time," she licked, nipped and sucked on my nipple as if I was the one with the mammaries in this relationship, "it worked." Double-Woot! I was going to get that damn four-way! I did coax a vigorous shower-quickie out of my Lady. Afterward, she shifted herself so she could get under one of the steaming showerheads."Cáel, why didn't you use a condom," she mused. Gak!"You aren't on Birth Control?" I panicked. She laughed at me."No. I've never been a fan of hormones replacement. I like the way I am. Do you expect the women to do all the anti-pregnancy measures?""No," I gulped."Don't' be so worried," she laughed. "We had unprotected sex one time. The odds are astronomical that an 'oops' happened, right?" Yes, it was a single sexual encounter, but included three firings of the one-eyed hydra, sigh."You are asking a man who has five children on the way, Fathom," I cautioned her."Oh, I'll update my files and make an appointment to seen a local, reliable O B G Y N," she slipped back into her unflappable British resolve. "Get along. I need to get cleaned up," she cupped my scrotum, ", again. So scoot." I scooted.I had updated my condom supply despite the forbiddance Dot Ishara, my Matron Goddess, beamed to me from the Other Side. She could only complain so much. I'd upped my selection of fortune cookies and added a fresh raisin chocolate brownie for my next visit with her. I had to get over to the other side of the floor to get a fresh shirt, and boxers.Yum-Yum had ripped off my shirt (a little kinky) and boxers (a little painful). I wasn't going commando, so I decided to quick step it before something important happened that required me to yank yet another solution out of my sexually-fueled creative imagination.How Lady Yum-Yum and I ended up in bedThe Secret Societies' long awaited war had begun in Africa and in India. The Amazons couldn't effectively reinforce these two homeland regions. No, my people's edge came from my stupid stunts (e.g., the fight outside that club in Chicago), the judicious application of a few kind words and a whole lot of targeted killing on my part along with that of my Amazons.Those actions convinced the Booth-gan (aka the Thuggee, but we no longer say that because it irritates them) and the Coils of the Serpent to toss in their lot with their local Amazons. They did the whole 'hostage exchange' thing as well. Two children from each side. That was a no-brainer on my part. All three concerned parties were willing to let their adults die if necessary. Their children were another matter.In Asia, the Seven Pillars had made only minimal progress. We now suspected the 7P had planned to roll over the three of the 9 Clans that were in their Sphere of Influence, the now 6 Ninja Families, the Black Lotus and the Booth-gan in rapid succession. A preemptive strike against both the Khanate and the Ninja were supposed to cripple those two factions.Against the Khanate, that had been a dismal failure. In Nippon, the Ninja were in dire straits and would be decades recovering from the original 7P blitz. But the combination of US black ops help and the infusion of Amazons and Okinawans had staved off extinction for the moment. Strategically, these failed actions were tying down 7P resources that the largest Secret Society had planned to move elsewhere.In China, the Black Lotus exhibited the same resilience and deceptiveness they'd shown in combating the Seven Pillars by themselves for the past 65 years. The chaos gripping the PRC was a blessing from the Ancestors, the four sacred spirits (lung/dragons, phoenix, unicorn and tortoise), and the nine entities (I now really had to know this stuff.) Word that a 'dragon' had appeared in the West had only heightened their desire to aid in our new alliance.Those factors meant a reprieve for India. As the 7 Pillars began ramping up their operations; increasing racial tensions, minor terrorist action and military and industrial sabotage; the Booth-gan and Amazon united resources and purpose. The Booth-gan would assassinate 7P operatives and pawns while the Amazons would hit 7P front companies and businesses based out of the People's Republic of China. (This activity also helped ratchet up India-PRC tensions and anti-PRC public sentiment in India.)In Africa, the Condotteiri had squandered precious hours reallocating resources before launching their assaults. Like everyone but the 7P, they had been caught flat-footed by the renewal of the Secret War. The Coils of the Serpent had never been overly antagonistic toward the Condos, since their interests rarely collided. The same went for the Coils and the Amazons.Two factors inspired a deep Amazon-Coil bond. They were both groups with deep African roots and a shared Central-Western African spirituality. Added to that was the growing power of the Coils of the Serpent in the past fifty years. Their main opponents had been the Illuminati who had a Eurocentric view. Pan-Africanism was in the Coil's best interest, but ran contrary to European economic interests.Long term, allying with the African Amazons was a good investment for the Coils. The 9 Clans relationships had already proved to be advantageous on multiple occasions in the past. The leaders of the Coils knew their power was rising with the fortunes of Sub-Saharan Africa. To them, the rise of the PRC and the Seven Pillars was a looming threat in the East.They had been handed a golden opportunity to deal with this enemy before the enemy was ready to deal with them. They had been 'gifted' with over 2000 highly-skilled, fanatical Amazon warriors as stealthy muscle to add to their own, more subtle arsenal. For the Amazons, it was access to continent wide clandestine intelligence network that could unmask their enemies' hiding places.The Condotteiri wiped out an Amazon freehold in Cameroon and a few Coils safe houses in Lagos, Nigeria. In the Republic of Mali, over 250 Condo mercenaries were slaughtered at a 'secret' installation and their armory was looted. Ebola kept breaking out in the West. The dominant regional powers, the Republic of the Congo and Nigeria, were tottering as a result of decades of economic mismanagement, civic, ethnic, tribal and religious strife, corruption and unreliable militaries.The scene was ripe for a secret conflict as well as public carnage. For the Joint International Khanate Interim Taskforce (JIKIT), this presented a dilemma. They were involved with a growing global struggle that went far beyond the Khanate and Central Asia. Their secret society allies strenuously objected to bringing any more 'outsider' people into the group.Handing over covert intelligence to other governmental agencies in the US and UK, then telling them they wouldn't divulge their sources went over like scuba diving with cement goulashes. Explaining to upper level bigwigs that they had a 'trust-based' team went nowhere. Those officials didn't care about a bunch of domestic/international criminals' sensibilities.They wanted names and faces. They wanted addresses, phone taps and bank account numbers. It would all be 'Secret', 'Top Secret', or 'Eyes Only'. It would all be vulnerable to all kinds of governmental subpoenas too. No threats were made from 'my' side. They'd killed more people than the Black Death and the lives of a few thousand bureaucrats (and their families) in London and Washington D.C. didn't mean shit to them.Selena did offer to kidnap some family members to get the message across. Javiera put her hands over her ears and began singing 'la-la-la' as she stormed out of the room. Lady Fathom suggested that we arrange a private meeting with the UK Prime Minister and the US President. It took a few seconds for Mehmet and Javiera to realize she wasn't kidding.That was a nearly impossible task, which on this taskforce meant we had to give it a shot. Let's just say that the US Attorney General, Eric Holder and Chairman John Jay of the British Joint Intelligence Committee thought their respective representative had lost her God-damn mind. I went to the Khanate for help.Twenty-four hours later Azerbaijan, Turkey, Tajikistan, Armenia and Georgia (yes, two tiny Christian nations) joined the Khanate. The integration of the first two nations had been in the works since the formation of the Turkic Council in 2009. For me, Temujin upped the time table strictly for our benefit. Turkey and Azerbaijan became the two newest states within the Khanate.The third, Tajikistan was different and the shakiest addition. The unoccupied title of 'Khwarazm Shah' was created, suggesting the Iranian Tajiks had a special status inside the Khanate. 'Khwarazm' referenced the Khwarazmian dynasty that ruled the last of the great, Persian-led, Iranian Super-States and dated back to the 13th century AD. 'Shah' was Persian for King.The announced status of Armenia and Georgia was quite a bit different. They become 'Protectorates', i.e., semi-autonomous states within the Khanate who were 'vassal' states, responsible only to the Great Khan and his personal representative in the region (ah, that would be me.)So, the first three entries made sense, strong geographic, ethnic and/or religious ties, plus this was part of the Khanate's agenda anyway. But Armenia and Georgia? That was the doing of the other regional secret society, the Hashashin.The Caucasus Mountains were the backyard of the Hashashin. They knew who to blackmail, pinch and kill to make the 'take-over' possible. The main stumbling block was the long Khanate-Hashashin history: the Mongols had destroyed the historical stronghold of the Hashashin, Alamut, in 1256 CE. In a way, that disaster had transformed the sect, making it move away from their strict Nizārī Ismaili roots and into a more ethnically and religiously diverse group that was centered in the Caucasus region.Temujin made it clear to this group that he was making a deal under my auspices. Both Armenia and, Georgia (as well as the future Kurdistan, his plans for the creation of that last state were told to me under condition of secrecy) would be part of my palatinate principality (along with Hungary, if we ever got there). Riki Martin defined the terms for me: I was the voice of those three regions in the Khan's court.They wouldn't have to deal with Muslim Khanate officials. They would deal with me and 'my officials'. If the Khanate had a problem with my principality, they came to me to resolve the issue. That translated to me giving a nod to the existing regimes ruling in Armenia and Georgia (along with the infusion of a few Hashashin supporters.)Publically the future of those three political and ethnic entities would be confirmed later. The existing governments knew three things.1) I was that madman who had led the charge in Romania, clearly a man of bravery and humility. The odds were good that I was going to be a man they could rely on to adequately represent their interests with the government that currently mattered the most (aka The Khanate.)2) The Great Khan thought the world of me and in this nascent New World Order that meant way more than membership in NATO, or begging the United Nations to apply sanctions of dubious value.3) There would be a change of leadership by about 2040. Children of excellent ethnic parentage would succeed me in this ceremonial role in the region. These new princes and princesses would be the scions of the line of Nyilas and representatives of the various states (translation: I was going to be sexing it up with Georgian, Armenian and Kurdish members of the Hashashin).That would establish the three 'cadet' branches of House Ishara (Nyilas) (which I've listed because all three alphabets are so freaking beautiful) that could weave the Amazons, 9 Clans and the varying ethnic identities into a quilt that could stand together as a force in the Great Khan's inner circle. This new spate of aristocratic, 'Archer'-themed lineages would be:1.       Moisari, in Georgia.2.       Aġeġnajig, in Armenia.3.       Ram- alsham, in Kurdistan.This fiction made the key named entities happy. The combination of all these events applied another jolt to the heart of the global power structure (after all, Turkey was in NATO) and made the US and UK governments back off.By tidying up the world map, we'd brought our governmental chiefs to the chilling revelation that their sole conduit for insider information regarding the ongoing global calamity had reacted to their intransience by simply letting them be blind-sided by events. After the fact, Javiera and Lady Fathom relayed that message very clearly.

Richard Russell ist eigentlich Chef des Londoner Indie-Labels XL Recordings. Doch auch mit eigenen Releases kennt er sich aus: Letzten Freitag veröffentlichte er sein drittes Album unter dem Namen Everything Is Recorded und lud dafür fast zwanzig Featuring-Gäste ein. +++ PLAYLIST +++ 22:57 DEATH SONG von HEY, NOTHING 22:53 HONEYCOMB von PANCHIKO 22:50 CHOOSE THE LATTER von FINN WOLFHARD 22:46 END OF BEGINNING von DJO 22:41 TAKE A WALK von PASSION PIT 22:37 WE MUST HAVE BEEN ASLEEP von AINO SALTO 22:34 ROOM333 von SIRENS OF LESBOS FEAT. ZACARI 22:30 WE ALL FALL von BELIA WINNEWISSER 22:23 BOXING von MOUNT KIMBIE FEAT. KING KRULE 22:19 JUST AS WELL von PANDA BEAR 22:12 WHIRLPOOL von PANDA BEAR & SONIC BOOM 22:09 I CAN DO WHAT I WANT von MEI SEMONES 21:56 GOOD KID von KENDRICK LAMAR 21:51 RED BLACK AND GREEN von ROY AYERS 21:46 EVERYBODY LOVES THE SUNSHINE von ROY AYERS 21:43 POTENTIALLY THE INTERLUDE von NONAME 21:39 PONDEGGI von YAEJI/E WATA 21:35 MY & ME VON EVERYTHING IS RECORDED FEAT. LAURA GROVES/SAMPHA/RICKEY WASHINGTON/ALABASTER DEPLUME 21:31 PORCUPINE TATTOO von EVERYTHING IS RECORDED FEAT. NOAH CYRUS/BILL CALLAHAN 21:28 SUSPENDED von SAMPHA 21:23 ETHER von EVERYTHING IS RECORDED FEAT. MADDY PRIOR 21:22 FELL IN LOVE WITH A GIRL von THE WHITE STRIPES 21:15 FIRESTARTER von THE PRODIGY 21:12 FIRELIGHT von EVERYTHING IS RECORDED FEAT. BERWYN/FLORENCE WELCH/ALABASTER DEPLUME 21:08 FREE von FLORENCE AND THE MACHINE 21:03 LOSING YOU von EVERYTHING IS RECORDED FEAT. SAMPHA/LAURA GROVES/JAH WOBBLE/YAZZ AHMED

The UnconqueredBy FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.Politically, this was manna from Heaven. Putin couldn't strong arm both the Ukraine and the PRC. His priorities had switched, so now NATO could jump into the Ukraine which would appease their democratic constituencies.There were also larger economic/political issues to look at. Europe had constantly been threatened by Russia's interference with the oil and natural gas pipelines that first pass through Russia before crossing the Ukraine and Belarus and heading off to Central and Western Europe. A great deal of that fuel originated in what was now the Khanate.If the Khanate survived, and viewed the US and UK favorably, the 'oil and natural gas' boot would be on the other foot. If Russia threatened the European Democracies' petrochemical supplies, the Khanate could threaten to cut off Russia as well. The old Republic of Kazakhstan never had the will to confront Russia. The Khanate was turning out to be a very different beast.Because the world didn't need any more ominous rumblings, catastrophe and madness collided in Pyongyang, North Korea. North Korea was an energy exporter, with most of its power coming from coal-fired plants and hydro-electric facilities. The problem was you can't run armored vehicles and combat aircraft on electric power. You needed oil.North Korea's oil came from China, Liaoning province to be precise, and Liaoning was getting hammered around the clock by the Khanate. The oil pipeline had ruptured and it would be months before it was fixed. In that situation, a sane nation would have shopped around for other avenue of imported oil. But we were talking about North Korea here.Kim Jung-un was looking down the barrels of another famine (trucks and tractors need petrol too) as well as the far more important reduction in the Korean People's Army's readiness. He saw himself possessing the World's 4th largest military and it was in danger of running out of fuel, and Liaoning province was sitting right across the Yalu River, all helpless-like.End World News Behind the Scenes ReportIn the annals of martial history, the bloodiest, costliest battles are when elites face elites. As corny and melodramatic as it sounds, the truth is that neither has 'surrender' in their creed. They attack, defend, ambush, shoot, stab and kill one another until one side loses the capacity to carry on the struggle. It is a grapple to the death.All of Ajax's men were hardened killers, ten year veterans of the Trojan Wars every; one of them. The ranks of the 22nd Mountain Troops Battalion were filled with numerous combat-tested soldiers of the Afghan War. These Romanians were some of the finest combatants produced by the Romanian Army. The two companies earmarked for sealing off the road as a retreat route were about to find out what the price of being elite really was.They were fighting for their homeland, avenging their slain (technically, the slaughtered Amazons were Romanians) and had generations of their own warriors, dating back to the First World War, whose legacy of ferocity they had to maintain. Ajax had the advantage in technology and surprise. The Romanians had numbers, experience with the terrain and the advantage of multi-dimensional warfare.The lead vehicles of the 22nd had rounded the hilly terrain to the East of the Castle of Seven Skulls when they collided with Ajax's team rolling away from those ruins. The Mountain Troops were fast, Ajax's team was faster. One soldier stepped out of his still-braking Eagle transport.He snap-shot a Panzerfaust 3, a light anti-tank weapon, blowing up the first Romanian Piranha IIIc. Two Eagles further down the column, a second team member put another Panzerfaust into the follow-up 22nd MLVN (armored personal carrier). That was as good as it got. The third vehicle, another MLVN swung partially around its burning brethren and poured automatic fire into Ajax's lead Eagle, turning huge chunks of that 'Hummer on Steroids' transport into shrapnel.Trading vehicle for vehicle wasn't something Ajax could afford. For the Romanians, they couldn't race past the blocked road without incurring horrendous losses themselves. Besides, by holding their ground and keeping the enemy focused on them, they were fulfilling their part of the plan. The Mountain Troops disgorged from their MLVN's, spreading out into the meadow on either side of the path and were quickly bounding forward by fire.Ajax reacted quickly. His heavy weapons would allow him to attrition the enemy in front of him, yet he'd be a fool to think they were alone. He knew he was facing army troops, not police. That spelled serious trouble. He ordered his column to reverse course back into the wood cover. He lost his second Eagle to intensive fire.The warriors in the main column bailed out once they reached the shelter of the trees. Machineguns came forward and established a withering cover fire. The two survivors at the first Eagle were badly wounded. With fatalistic resolve, they lashed the advancing Romanians with grenades and their assault rifles until they were both silenced. The second Eagle's demise was much harder.Three of the four crew were alive and unharmed. Their fate was decided by 25 meters of open ground between them and their compatriots. Ajax's gunners kept firing, but the Romanians refused to be suppressed. Worse, that second MLVN was proving impossible to kill. Its driver had parked it so that barely the front of his vehicle body and turret were exposed.Two more of Ajax's precious anti-tank rockets failed to connect, though one did knock the first destroyed IFV into that troublesome vehicle. These were Ajax's brothers-in-arms, yet he knew their situation was hopeless. He cursed that his opposition wasn't made up of raw conscripts. Despite their losses, they were not wavering. Their morale remained solid.The Romanians had spread out to the north and south. They were leap-frogging their machineguns forward and it was clear he was facing over 200 men. The 22nds advance was relentless. Soon they'd be right on top of his trapped men. As a final ploy he dropped two smoke grenades around the endangered trio and every other grenade launcher dropped their payloads onto the aggressive Romanians.The three men ran for it. Their enemy were nobody's fool and sprayed their retreat path with bullets. Only one made it to safety.For the Romanian battalion's commander in his command IFV, this was its own kind of Hell. His boys were getting murdered out there. He hadn't really believed the sketchy intelligence analysis that described his expected foes as the finest trained mercenaries the world has ever seen. Now he was a believer. His opponents reacted like an organic unit. Their weapons were incredibly lethal and their discipline was chilling. Ajax's snipers picked off anyone who seemed to be in charge. One Captain fell, as did two lieutenants. One section lost all its non-commissioned officers.Despite that, individual initiative kept the 'leaderless' men of the 22nd advancing. Their snipers came into play by targeting the opposing machineguns. One gunner went down, then the other. To get one man back, Ajax had lost five dead, or seriously wounded. Ajax ordered the remaining Eagles back to the castle. The rest of the Warband would have to make a fighting retreat.He'd killed or wounded a third of the Romanians out there, yet they were still coming. Even as he pulled out, he got two more pieces of bad:First, his scouts had reported hearing helicopters as they returned toward the castle; this latest enemy was somewhere behind him, to the east.Second, two Mig-21's dropped out of the sky and raked his area with rockets and auto-cannon fire; eight more men gone.Ajax may not have been the greatest military mind of all time, but wasn't a fool. He was being boxed in. Since it was highly unlikely the Hylonome Amazons had sacrificed themselves, this was an ad hoc plan to take him out. Instead of hunting down that male Amazon as he wanted, Ajax had let the Condottieri side-track him on this mission. Now, it was proving far too costly.A whistle, a few traded hand signals and the Mycenaeans started sprinting back upslope toward the castle ruins. It wasn't a rout. His men maintained their élan and cohesion. Ajax was trading space for time and the Romanians wouldn't chase his men as fast as the Mycenaeans were moving because there was always the threat of ambush. Or, they wouldn't have if an An-30 Reconnaissance Aircraft hadn't been tracking his progress from high above.Just coming on-line, it identified the heat signatures of the Greeks and let the soldiers of the 22nd know that their enemies were trying to put some distance between them. The battalion commander knew his men had been mangled, yet believed they were still more than willing carry the fight to the enemy. Right as the 'pursuit' order went out, the promised company from the 24th Mountain troops rolled up, with the 61st Brigade's 385th artillery battalion. 'Now things were really going to get hot for those bastards', he thought.(The Seven Skulls, Cáel)I was true to my nature. I sent off my plan, Operation Funhouse, to the Russians via their attaché (a hot looking, curvaceous blonde Major) and to the Khanate through the offices of the US and UK. Only after that was done, did I ask for my favor. I wasn't going to bargain with the fate of Temujin's people. I couldn't.My only chip to play was that people in strange places thought well of me. I wasn't so naïve to believe that I got what I wanted because I'd forged emotional bonds that superseded personal ambitions or national loyalties. No, I was now on my own self-inflicted 'Ride of the Valkyries' because people in authority felt I could still be useful and they were willing to risk the lives a few hundred Romanian soldiers to pander to my eccentricities.Our intelligence came from Google Maps, a woman's recollections from twenty-five years ago and the frighteningly precise memories of a battle-scarred 11 year old girl. For the 24th Mountain Troops battalion intelligence officer, it was a stunning introduction to Amazons. The girl was one year away from her Rite of Passage and she'd been raised to take in the terrain and the sounds of battle.Several times, he tried to trick her, altering information she had provided minutes earlier, but the girl corrected him every time. Seventeen minutes and the man relayed to his battalion commander his belief that the girl's story was solid. The men and women of the 24th may not have known the specific of the valley we were going to, yet this was their backyard.They knew the rocks, trees and bushes. They knew the ground was crinkled and what marsh soil looked like, without stepping into it. They could do this, attack a rogue mercenary band threatening their native land. They were going to do this and do it quick. Me and mine coming along was problematic. But Me being one of the first ones in, I had to play my trump card."I am Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege," I proclaimed. "I have returned to my people in their hour of need. Besides, I'm the only one who can kill their leader.""You can kill Ajax?" Riki snorted in disbelief. "Ajax from the Trojan Wars? That Ajax?""Don't sweat it," I put my arm around her shoulder. "I got this covered. Get me close and I can make him dead.""You've lost your mind," Rachel muttered."I love you to," I grinned. To the Captain of the first company to rappel next to the ruins, "I'm your Prince. Let's do this.""Do you have any combat experience?" he shook his head."There are a whole bunch of dead Chinese who think so," I assured him."Let him go," Sakuniyas stated regally. "He is the Scion of Alal. He is invincible in battle." Hey, I liked that. Someone believed in me."Do you believe that?" Pamela asked Saku."Of course not, but if he's about to die, he should be allowed to feel good about himself," she told Pamela. Shit, I wish I hadn't heard that part."Oh, in that case, I agree. Let him go," Pamela added her preference to the final decision. The real weight in that Captain's final call was the small, well-armed group of supporters who seemed rather insistent that I get a chance at Valhalla.He took it well. The officer even announced to the entire battalion that their feudal overlord was leading them into the fight. My codename was 'Prince'. I hope I didn't turn out like the singer, I had no aspirations for being Machiavelli's 'hero', but being remember as someone like Prince Harry wouldn't be so bad.What I did know was this was my choice of actions and I couldn't send others into the madness I had inspired. I didn't blame myself for the deaths. Those were inevitable if Ajax was going to die. I didn't blame myself for Ajax, that was the Weave of Fate being a bastardly bitch. No, I had to kill Ajax because I was an idiot, and I loved my companions, and if it wasn't me making the attempt and possibly dying, it would be one of them. Not on my watch.Our IAR 330 Puma Helicopter lifted off into the sky. Our two companion birds, another troop carrier and an assault variant of the Puma, followed suit and soon we linked up with the rest of the company that was going to rappel into the clearing next to the ruins. Could I rappel? Sure, I lied. Hey, I'd made it to the top of the rope in gym class at the end of my senior year. That had to count for something.I was even lucky to have the lynchpin of my master plan sitting next to me. One in sixteen, what were the odds? "You, what's your name?" I asked the soldier barely older than me. "Master Corporal Menner," he grinned. Maybe he sensed my insanity. "Székely?" I asked. He nodded.   "Do you believe I am your Prince?""Either that, or you are crazy," he kept grinning. I leaned over and after some helmet shuffling, I whispered my request in his ear. I didn't demand that he agree, only that if he didn't, he wouldn't turn me in. Our eyes met."Why?" he was now filled with disbelief. I had passed beyond the realm of comedian to the land where all crazy ideas go off to die."It is the only way. Trust me, I don't love this plan either, but it is the only way I can think of to keep as many of you alive as possible," I explained. "He's a monster.""How will this help?" he was still confused, even if he was being swept away with my intensity."I don't have time to explain. All I can tell you is that I'm not crazy and I don't want to die, but this is the only thing I can think of to keep my people alive," I remained firm and confident in my beliefs."I will have to think about it," he conceded. At least he wasn't insisting I be forcibly committed to a mental institution. I did annoy one of the two crewmen in the back with the rest of us combatants when I stood up and looked out the side window. I glimpsed it, her, flowing through the forest beneath us. After I sat back down, the Captain flagged me.I had forgotten to cut on my communications rig on. "First Force (the two companies of the 22nd) has encountered the enemy before they could exit into the flatlands," he paused, somewhat shocked. "They are taking heavy casualties. It is just like you warned us. These foes are exceedingly lethal." "Don't worry about it," I overflowed with charisma. "Just follow me and we'll be fine." "But, I thought you said you didn't know anything about the compound?" the Captain looked at me funny."I don't. I'm relying on luck," I pumped my eyebrows. The Captain knew enough English to groan."I have a sudden desire to club a baby seal," Rachel stared at me intently. Who, me? "Let me and my men take the point," the Captain insisted. "Captain, either I'm diving headfirst out of our ride, or you are letting me rappel down in the first wave, either way, my boots are the first on the ground," I demanded. "No," the Captain shook his head. "You are a civilian." "Captain," I leaned forward. "Everyone else is fighting and dying because I made a judgment call. You can't ask me to hold back now."That shone through. Over his battalion frequency, he could hear the confusion and chaos chiseling away at his brethren in the 22nd. He could tell by my countenance that I both knew the enemy he was going to fight and that I wasn't ruled by guilt, or a death wish. I wanted to go first because I thought I could make the difference between someone else's life and death. "Who are the other three with you?" he stated. Four could rappel down at a time. "Rachel, Chaz and Master Corporal Menner here," I indicated. Rachel didn't freak, the Colour Sergeant looked my way and gave his acknowledgement, as did Menner. "I'll go down with you, Captain," Pamela spoke up.Of my group, Delilah, Wiesława and Virginia had stayed behind to guard Odette, Riki, the Lovasz sisters and the Loma family. Two troopers of the 24th joined them to provide extra security if needed. Vincent had pulled seniority to be the sole American going. With Chaz and Delilah, there hadn't been a real discussion about it. Chaz was the professional ground-pounder.Selena had volunteered to go even though this wasn't really her fight. She claimed the right of revenge for Ajax's attempt to kill the Vizsla, but I thought it was something else, some desire to step forward and make the point that the Black Hand were invested in this global struggle. There had been no doubt that Rachel  and  her team plus Sakuniyas and Pamela would be joining me.In my estimation, we were over the target area way too fast. I hadn't thought of a good reason to talk myself out of this harebrained scheme of mine. The side doors of the Puma opened. Rachel would be going down on my side."Look and see what Rachel does and do the same thing," Pamela yelled to me over the roar of the engines."And don't lock your knees or you'll sprain your ankles," she added. It was just another day of 'on the job' training at Havenstone Commercial Investments, I rationalized. I was scared, which was also a good indicator that I was still marginally sane. Rachel made her movements slow and steady.I went down a second later, barely remembering to avoid rope burn through my gloves and not bust my feet when I hit bottom. Rachel crouched. She was waiting for follow up troops before advancing. Me, I ran straight toward the ruins. Why? It was Alal once more. From the relayed chatter from the 22nd and whatever spy plane the Romanians had above, I 'knew' that Ajax hadn't made it back to the fortifications yet.If we hurried, we could beat him there. Then we would be ambushing his ass for a change. It almost worked. Whatever Chaz and Menner thought of my actions, they kept it to themselves. I didn't have to be a psychic to realize Rachel wasn't a fan. I leapt over the first Amazon corpse. The second one I passed was sitting with her back to the tree, hands tied around the trunk and had been tortured before she died.I believed that was when the momentum shifted. This was barbarism and the three following me knew it. Menner relayed our findings to his Captain even as the first helicopter was pulling away. My mind was picking up the details and processing somewhere in the back of my mind so as not to distracting me from the task of staying alive.A pile of bodies lumped too close together, they had been executed. A small girl, three, or four, with a close-contact wound to the temple. The smell of burnt flesh, more torture. Whatever Code of Military Conduct the Mycenaeans had, it wasn't the rules we, their opponents, fought by today. We were outraged and help was coming.We were running in from the northeast. Three meter from what had once been a doorway, I broke free of the underbrush and saw the closest Greek and the row of vehicles behind him. He was to my east, maybe ten meters away. I wasn't stopping. The terrain had funneled us down so that we weren't coming directly from the helicopter's noise.That must have been the reason he wasn't staring at us when we appeared. I didn't stop. Chaz and Menner were right behind me. Rachel only slowed enough to fire her P-90 at full-auto at the man as she ran. She killed him. The three of us ran across the open-aired, ruined room until we found the doorway to the other side of the building. From there, we had a good view of Ajax's remaining Eagles and the eight remaining men with them."I'm going for higher ground," Chaz growled before he took off."Rachel, go back and secure the corner we came in by," I shouted. She grimaced but obeyed. Menner had his own ideas. He fired off his first rocket-propelled grenade from his AG-7 at the farthest Eagle he could clearly see, blowing it to smithereens. I added the

Not the welcome we expectedWhen your tour guide is an assassin, what can go wrong?By FinalStand. Listen to the Podcast at Explicit Novels.You can do wrong while trying to do right.FlashbackAlal's 'milk of human kindness' had finally run dry as the Visigoths sacked his Roman villa. While looters ran off with his latest trappings of wealth, and deserted by his servants and his slaves, Grandpa decided that he was tired of fucking around with the Human Race. He felt they were simply too stupid, venal and weak to make any positive, lasting changes in the world.Alal decided that he was going to make the key choices for them. Fuck free will. Fuck letting the vermin that floated to the top of the cesspool destroy everything good in the world, as he had witnessed them doing time and time again. He had lost count of the monuments destroyed, histories of peoples forgotten and benefits to mankind burned away by barbarism and ignorance.By the fading light of August the 26th, 410 CE, Alal found himself sitting back in the pergola (a sort of mini-gazebo) in his rear gardens, drinking through several amphora of wine all the while having a deep philosophical debate with the several dozen very dead Goths decorating his environs.As three or four looters would enter the garden, he would kill them. And then three or four more would show up looking for the earlier group,, on and on. This reinforced Alal's belief that something drastic had to be done. He seriously considered going to the coast, getting a ship and five solid stone anchors. He'd sail out two days, maybe three, wrap himself in the anchors and jump overboard.The problem, as he saw it, was that given a few decades, the ropes would rot and he'd bob to the surface to see again that none of the fundamentals had changed. Further complicating his current thinking was that every time he came close to throwing in the cosmic towel, some more GOD DAMN GOTHS would come around, calling for their buddies, the dead ones. Somewhere around noon on August the 27th, Alal vowed that he was tired of this shit.Right on cue, around twenty Goths came strolling through the rear of his villa and soaked up the carnage out back. Fifty-two of their brethren were in various states of dismemberment and defilement (Alal had been, as usual, angry). They saw this dark-skinned Roman and rightly asked 'where's the army that killed these fellows?' He walked up to them in his wine-splashed toga."Are you the one in charge?" he asked the meanest looking Visigoth in passible Goth."I am," the leader responded. With lightning speed, he killed the man with his own sword. The Germans weren't sure what to make of that, it had happened so fast."You can join me," Alal indicated himself, "or you can join him," he indicated the corpse of their former leader. He had his new band of followers and the rest was Illuminati history.End FlashbackFor me, this meant more to me than living with the memories of a very bitter, driven and pitiless man. Alal was essentially the anti-me. It gave me chills to realize that all of Alal's gifts were bestowed on me with a purpose. I knew it was part of his greater plan. Normally, to end-run an evil genius, you just find him and kill him. Not only would Alal not stay dead, I now knew how well he could fight.I knew only four people who might be in his league, and I wasn't one of them. Of the four, Sakuniyas wasn't likely to help Pamela, Saint Marie and Elsa get the job done. That meant I had to rev up the deception engine to comfort my Aunts with hope, while dispelling the knowledge of how little they mattered to their sire. Almost as bad, I had to ignore what horribly people they were while extending that portion of my soul.It was with some relief that I hugged, kissed, and forcefully separated myself from the Aunts in Dublin. We were going on to Budapest's Ferenc Liszt International Airport. My next action was to make my request to Selena for a contract with the Ghost Tigers to defend Hana when she arrived in Russia. (Of the three 9 Clan Assassin-Babes, Selena was the least impressed with me.) She informed me that the Ghost Tigers didn't do bodyguard work. I still wanted her to relay my request, so she relented. After that, I passed out.We left Dublin around 9:30 am Friday morning and landed in Budapest at 1:45 pm., still Friday. As Rachel rousted me so I could grab a quick shower before touchdown, I was gifted with the misconceptions of my fellow travelers:To put it nicely, Riki thought I was somewhat revolting, Virginia was disturbed and Chaz had lowered his opinion of my moral character. It was the incest thing. Vincent being polite was a pleasant surprise, Delilah's camaraderie less so and Odette was peaches with my most recent sexcapades. She was far too good to me. The Amazons uniformly didn't give a crap."So, is there going to be any other bizarre behavior we should be prepared for?" Riki sat down next to me as I was drying my hair. I was back to my 'jeans, t-shirt and wind-breaker' style."Fine, " I said loudly. "It is really none of your business what I did with and to my mother's clones. Yes, they are all clones of my mother, who died when I was seven." A lie."They are also the genetic creations of my grandfather, also known by many as Cáel O'Shea. They are sterile, they are wickedly evil, and two weeks ago I didn't know they existed. I do have a real aunt in Maryland. She's my Father's sister and is not part of the menagerie. Oh yeah, my grandpa is currently a disembodied spirit, back from the Netherworld and looking for a body to take over, if he hasn't found one already," I added."He was born roughly five thousand years ago, was cursed by an ancient Sumerian Goddess such that he can never just die and stay dead. I have his memories running around my head, which, along with denying me a good night's sleep, allows me to speak an assortment of languages, use virtually every weapon built before 1970 and know that he is a vicious criminal mastermind the likes of which you've never imagined outside of fiction.How does that sound, Riki? Shall I get more bizarre? Trust me, I can," I regarded her evenly. She was speechless, but not out of awe. No, she was certain that I was completely unhinged."Everyone who believes Cáel, raise their hand," Odette demanded. Her hand went up. Odette and the Amazons agreeing was expected by the outsiders. Delilah and Virginia joining in was not."Captain Fairchild?" Colour Sgt. Chaz Tomorrow requested clarification."You've all seen those five O'Shea's that left the plane in Ireland. Barring some cosmetic changes, they were the exact same woman. You can either go with Sean Connery's Tak-ne creating a female clone army, or you can believe there is an otherworldly plastic surgeon altering a cadre of super-rich bitches to all look alike," Delilah, who was a captain of something, put out there."Who in the Hell is Tak-ne?" Riki mumbled."Duh," I poked the State Department lassie. "Connor MacLeod's Egyptian mentor in Highlander, the original movie and in the less than stellar sequel, Highlander: The Quickening"."You are mistaken. Connery was that Spanish guy," Riki poked me back."Actually, the relevant quote is: 'I am Juan Sánchez Villalobos Ramírez, Chief metallurgist to King Charles V of Spain. And I'm at your service'," Vincent regaled us with his movie trivia. "He later reveals that he was born Tak-ne in Egypt in the 9th century BCE. Also, his Spanish name makes no sense, he has one too many surnames.""Agent Loire, I am beginning to find intelligent men to be attractive," Charlotte said."Umm, thank you," Vincent responded warily."This might be a good point to get something clear," Chaz inquired. "Mr. Nyilas, whose side are you on? It appears to be rather complicated.""Okay, Chaz, call me Cáel. Calling me Mr. Nyilas makes me miss my dad. I can also be addressed as Cáel 'Wakko' Ishara, Head of House Ishara of the First Twenty Houses of the Amazon Host. Or, you can call me what the Great Khan does, Magyarorszag es Erdely Hercege. Finally, those who love me, or find me amusing, may call me Fehér mén."Selena's snort indicated she'd failed to hide her amusement at my presumptiveness, both titular and physically."Do you want to explain what's so amusing?" Riki looked over to the Black Hand assassin."Your job should be exceptionally easy now," Selena mocked me, "Prince of Hungry and Transylvania, or do you prefer 'White Stud'?""Laugh while you can, Monkey-Girl," I sneered. "The guy currently making a run at erasing seven hundred years of Asian history gave me that title. As for Fehér mén, that means 'White Stallion' and is symbolic of my ties to House Epona, not a phallic reference." Riki's look had gone from disgust, to anger (because she thought she was being played) and lastly, to shock."No," I interpreted her fear. "I am not here as some vanguard to unite the Magyar people to their cultural kinfolk in Central Asia. If you know your Central European history, you might recall that the Mongols devastated my homeland. For the next 450 years, the Turks were unwelcome visitors, conquerors and overlords. My princely status is a pat on the head for a job well done and nothing more.""What job did you do?" Riki prodded."I saved a man's life," I looked pained to admit. She didn't get it."It must have been a major VIPs life," Chaz suggested."You can say that," Pamela nodded. "End of discussion time too."At Ferenc Liszt International, we were diverted to a private hangar once more, courtesy of the Republic of Ireland's diplomatic umbrella. Three grey Ford Focuses and a white panel truck advertising a furniture repair store awaited us. Security issues were immediately obvious. They wanted to separate us (in the Fords) from most of our luggage (in the truck).The five guy welcoming party hid under the cloak of 'don't speak any language you claim to speak' and Selena was of zip help. So, I spoke to them in Hungarian. They glanced my way, but didn't respond. Serbian? Nope. Romanian? Nope."Bows and doves," I commanded.That translated rather logically as 'guns/bows' and 'phones/doves'. Out came our pistols. The only Black Hand to react fast enough was Selena and Pamela had her covered. The Amazons were aiming at the locals while Delilah and Chaz had their weapons out and scanning. Vincent and Virginia hadn't been fast enough, this time. They also didn't have guns pointed at them.The lead BH flunky began talking calmly in German, heavily Slavic accented German."What do you think you are doing?" he inquired of me, in German."Disarming you, ya Moron," I grumbled. Then added in Hittite; "Go", and in my Amazons went to very roughly search, disarm and de-phone our not so friendly friends."Alright, gather up your luggage," I called out to my group. "We are walking to town." That wasn't truly accurate. There was a metro associated with the airport, a kilometer away max. Our guides didn't speak English so they were rather surprised when the bags came out of the truck and were distributed to their owners. Riki Martin and Odette were in some trouble.Girls and 'only packing the necessities', Well, we had some diplomatic lumber to toss at the security services, Vincent had web-searched our location and the route we needed to take to the metro, and Delilah had purchased week-long public transport passes for the group. Only when we started marching out of the hangar did the BH comprehend the totality of their error.The five guys in the hangar were chattering away, in Hungarian, and Selena was peeved."You are upsetting my superiors by blatantly disrespecting their courtesy," she reminded me. "They have guaranteed your safety.""Less than a day has passed since the shootout in London, Selena," I countered."This is the Black Hand's backyard," Selena persisted, "not London.""So, you are only going to help us if we do stupid shit we wouldn't do, even on our own home ground, is that it?" I chuckled. "Sweet," then, to my people, "I guess we are on our own."The airport security guards didn't know what to make of our group of over-worked Sherpa, but the US State department and the RoI (Republic of Ireland) vouched for us, so they let us pass.We hadn't taken the cars and the truck because that would have been theft. The confiscated guns and phones had been disassembled and tossed into a large iron drum of used aviation lubricant. Odette began shopping around for hotel reservations (I was carrying most of her gear). She was the logical choice because she sounded the most human of the bunch.Selena called her people back, explained the fuck up and engaged in a mutual ass-chewing that spilled over a half-dozen languages and ended up with Dick-head, the local BH chieftain providing us with quarters that would turn a blind eye to our arsenal. With that address in mind, we made for the bowels of modern Budapest.Dutifully, Riki contacted the US Embassy to Hungary's CIA mission head and Chargé D' Affaires, a.i., updating them on our arrival and movements. At the last moment, I had Riki relay the wrong address, on a paranoid hunch. I was right to be paranoid except I was looking in the wrong direction.We had just disembarked at the Kőbánya-Kispest M3 station when we walked into the rolling ambush. A 'rolling ambush' is like a meeting engagement, the difference being that one side (ours) is on the move, not knowing it is being hunted while the other side (our attackers) was rushing to catch up with us, not knowing where along the path they would find us.As we preparing to transition from the station to the attached terminal, looking for the bus line that would connect us to the BH safe house in the Kőbánya (X) District, our attackers were dismounting their vehicles from across the street as well as to our left and right. They were dressed like cops. Had they been armed like cops,"Oh look," I snickered to Pamela, "I see a whole bunch of heavily armed people coming our way.""Good for you," Pamela muttered. "Your eyes are still working.""Do you think they are here to raise me up on their shields and proclaim me 'Prince'?" I joked."I think they are here to kill us," Pamela grinned."I prefer to think positively," I grinned back."I am positive they are here to kill us," Pamela laughed. It had to be our relaxed demeanor that confused them.Had we been the droids they were looking for, we wouldn't have been chatting in the open with our bags in our hands. That would have made us crazy, and they would have been right. We were crazy alright and there was a method to our madness. It was mid-afternoon, yet there were plenty of average Hungarians wandering about.Sure, they saw the 'special cops' closing in. They didn't see the upcoming shoot-out because that was plain nuts. A gun battle in a modern metropolis in broad daylight? London yesterday was an aberration, not the new normal. Our impromptu plan was to let the killers get as close as possible to limit the collateral damage.This wasn't classic Amazon training. It was a concession to allies who did care about civilians killed in the cross-fire. The oncoming hit squad was finally putting faces to targets when Odette broke the calm before the storm. All she did was squeak when Vincent pushed her behind a kiosk. Riki took Virginia shifting her to cover in silence.Delilah took off at a dead-run to the south-east. They were raising their shotguns and assault rifles. We were drawing our pistols. Normally this would have been an unequal match, except that in the time period where, in their eyes, we had gone from bystanders to targets, they'd also covered a good deal of ground, to the point that they were out in the open while my fighting band was in close proximity to all kinds of cover.It started out as eighteen to twelve. Pamela, Chaz and Selena quickly cut down those odd by five. Me? I didn't try to shoot and run at the same time, so I made it to cover and was stuck there by our opponents use of fully-automatic fire.My lack of martial prowess could be forgiven by the reality I was the one they were trying to off. My greatest contribution to this skirmish was tossing my SPAS-12 to Chaz so he could use something more than his standard military issue Glock-17. I had barely gotten Chaz's appreciative nod when two grenades went off in close proximity to me.At first, I heard and felt nothing. My eyes were having trouble focusing. When my limbs began to orient themselves, I had to fight down the instinct to move. I was lying down, which was far safer than staggering around in the middle of this hail of lead. The twin grenades turned out to be their second and very fatal mistake on this mission.The first had been their delay in identifying my group. The second, using the stun grenades, did put me, Pamela and Selena out of commission temporarily. But their mistake was having misplaced my six Amazons in this mess they had created. They did have thirteen shooters versus Chaz, Virginia and Vincent. They rushed our position using the classic advance while firing rote.Two meters from me, the six Amazons revealed themselves with five P-90's and one big-ass bow. Four escaped the kill zone only to find themselves flanked by Delilah. Her .480, combined with their confusion, finished off the survivors. That wasn't the end of it. We still had to effect our get-away.I was still getting my head on straight as the ladies decided to hotwire some of the deceased men's rides and get us the heck out of Dodge. Recovery brought with it the knowledge that Virginia and Chaz had been shot. Pamela, Selena and me, we had some scrapes and bruises. Everyone else checked out. Mona let us know that she could handle the wounded. They wouldn't be doing jumping jacks for a week or two, but a hospital was not required. On the downside, no one believed that eighteen killers dressed as cops randomly rolled up on our transit point by accident. The only people who knew about our change in travel plans had been the Black Hand. We'd lied to the US.We broke into an abandoned factory to stash the vehicles and make our next plan. Selena was coldly furious. Not only did she come to the same conclusion we had, the Black Hand had set us up to be murdered, we weren't letting her call in. Wiesława and Charlotte kept their guns pointed at her, so low was our level of trust.Chaz was pretty much of the opinion that Selena should be coerced to provide us with the names and locations of the Black Hand involved so that we could do our own 'fact finding tour'. Oddly, none of the Americans asked to be pulled out. Vincent and Riki wanted to let the US Embassy know what had happened, yet were willing to wait until we were secure somewhere first.Rachel was on board with Chaz's idea, with the addendum that they kill every Black Hand they could get their hands on before fleeing the city. They had tried to kill ME after all. I was touched. It was Pamela who put things in perspective.1) The attackers were not Black Hand, they were mercenaries and that pointed a bloody finger at the Condottieri.2) Selena wasn't a fanatic and her life had been in as much danger as anyone else's. She wasn't part of our ambush. Her buddies had tossed her under the bus.3) It would have been far easier to catch us in that convoy they'd tried to stick us with. Caught in pre-planned crossfires and without our heavier weapons, we would have all died.4) Having failed to deliver us to the pre-planned ambush site, the Condottieri had to rush to our metro stop because, the safe house they had prepared for us wouldn't have worked. We had the numbers to allow us take total charge of our security once we were in place. No, gauging our numbers, this traitor had sent the mercs into a straight-up fight they'd just lost.

The tradition continues, KT's 2024 Celebrity Death Song has arrived

It's the conclusion of the Death Song of Kulan Gath, as Triathlon becomes more fully a part of the team and Silverclaw joins!  Is it in time to stop the end of the world?

Pastor Mike discusses how even the resurrection will manifest by knowing the love of Jesus, also the nations that are saved in the next age. Audio >  

Meditative swimming, the bottomless pit of the 60's, and the treat of a record. Jake Garcia (The Black Angels, The Ripe, Christian Bland & The Revelators, Alex Maas, The Ugly Beats) "The best music reflects a wide-screen view of the world back at us, helping distill the universal into something far more personal. Since forming in Austin in 2004, The Black Angels have become standard-bearers for modern psych-rock that does exactly that, which is one of many reasons why the group's new album, Wilderness of Mirrors, feels so aptly named. In the five years since the band's prior album, Death Song, and the two-plus years spent working on Wilderness of Mirrors, pandemics, political tumult and the ongoing devastation of the environment have provided ample fodder for the Black Angels' signature sonic approach." Excerpt from https://theblackangels.com The Black Angels: Bandcamp: https://blackangels.bandcamp.com/music Instagram: @theblackangels Website: https://theblackangels.com Merch: https://theblackangels.com/collections/all Vinyl: https://theblackangels.com/collections/music-vinyl The Ripe: Instagram: @theripemusic Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/7JAIgk7kGXTscEb7pwRPWL Christian Bland & The Revelators: Bandcamp: https://christianblandandtherevelators.bandcamp.com Merch: https://christianblandandtherevelators.bandcamp.com/merch Vinyl: https://levitation.fm/products/the-lost-album Alex Maas: Bandcamp: https://alexmaas.bandcamp.com/music Merch: https://alexmaas.bandcamp.com/merch Vinyl: https://innovativeleisure.net/products/luca The 13th Floor: Instagram: @the13thflooraustin The Vineyard: Instagram: @thevineyardpodcast Website: https://www.thevineyardpodcast.com Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5Ndle3K... Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...

Verse by verse teaching in Song of Solomon 8:1-14 titled "Love is as Strong as Death" by Pastor Jeffrey Anderson of Calvary Youth of Calvary Chapel Clayton, NC on November 15, 2023.

The short Old English death lyric embedded in an emotional Latin letter about an expiring superstar scholar, coupled with an explosive lemon and anise dropshot.

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The Mutual Radio Theater was a variety radio show that ran every weeknight on hundreds of Mutual stations, form March to December 1980. This program was no small attempt to recapture the glory days of Old Time Radio by any means. Each program was written specifically for radio, including scripts penned by such radio legends as Arch Oboler, Norman, Corwin, and Elliot Lewis. GSMC Classics presents some of the greatest classic radio broadcasts, classic novels, dramas, comedies, mysteries, and theatrical presentations from a bygone era. The GSMC Classics collection is the embodiment of the best of the golden age of radio. Let Golden State Media Concepts take you on a ride through the classic age of radio, with this compiled collection of episodes from a wide variety of old programs. ***PLEASE NOTE*** GSMC Podcast Network presents these shows as historical content and have brought them to you unedited. Remember that times have changed and some shows might not reflect the standards of today's politically correct society. The shows do not necessarily reflect the views, standards, or beliefs of Golden State Media Concepts or the GSMC Podcast Network. Our goal is to entertain, educate, and give you a glimpse into the past.

In this podcast, Max Booth III talks about Abnormal Statistics, Indiana Death Song, 3 Eggs, and much more. About Max Booth III Max Booth III is an author, screenwriter, and publisher best known for his work in the horror field. His latest book is the short story collection, Abnormal Statistics. Show notes Thanks for Listening! Help … Continue reading

Chief Tecumseh was a Shawnee Chief and a warrior who spent the majority of his life fighting.  As such, he was familiar with and accepted death as a constant companion.  His words on death, both preparation and respect for it are as accurate today as they were more than 100 years ago.  

Episode 164 of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "White Light/White Heat" and the career of the Velvet Underground. This is a long one, lasting three hours and twenty minutes. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a twenty-three minute bonus episode available, on "Why Don't You Smile Now?" by the Downliners Sect. Tilt Araiza has assisted invaluably by doing a first-pass edit, and will hopefully be doing so from now on. Check out Tilt's irregular podcasts at http://www.podnose.com/jaffa-cakes-for-proust and http://sitcomclub.com/ Errata I say the Velvet Underground didn't play New York for the rest of the sixties after 1966. They played at least one gig there in 1967, but did generally avoid the city. Also, I refer to Cale and Conrad as the other surviving members of the Theater of Eternal Music. Sadly Conrad died in 2016. Resources No Mixcloud this week, as there are too many songs by the Velvet Underground, and some of the avant-garde pieces excerpted run to six hours or more. I used a lot of resources for this one. Up-Tight: The Velvet Underground Story by Victor Bockris and Gerard Malanga is the best book on the group as a group. I also used Joe Harvard's 33 1/3 book on The Velvet Underground and Nico. Bockris also wrote one of the two biographies of Reed I referred to, Transformer. The other was Lou Reed by Anthony DeCurtis. Information on Cale mostly came from Sedition and Alchemy by Tim Mitchell. Information on Nico came from Nico: The Life and Lies of an Icon by Richard Witts. I used Draw a Straight Line and Follow it by Jeremy Grimshaw as my main source for La Monte Young, The Roaring Silence by David Revill for John Cage, and Warhol: A Life as Art by Blake Gopnik for Warhol. I also referred to the Criterion Collection Blu-Ray of the 2021 documentary The Velvet Underground.  The definitive collection of the Velvet Underground's music is the sadly out-of-print box set Peel Slowly and See, which contains the four albums the group made with Reed in full, plus demos, outtakes, and live recordings. Note that the digital version of the album as sold by Amazon for some reason doesn't include the last disc -- if you want the full box set you have to buy a physical copy. All four studio albums have also been released and rereleased many times over in different configurations with different numbers of CDs at different price points -- I have used the "45th Anniversary Super-Deluxe" versions for this episode, but for most people the standard CD versions will be fine. Sadly there are no good shorter compilation overviews of the group -- they tend to emphasise either the group's "pop" mode or its "avant-garde" mode to the exclusion of the other. Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript Before I begin this episode, there are a few things to say. This introductory section is going to be longer than normal because, as you will hear, this episode is also going to be longer than normal. Firstly, I try to warn people about potentially upsetting material in these episodes. But this is the first episode for 1968, and as you will see there is a *profound* increase in the amount of upsetting and disturbing material covered as we go through 1968 and 1969. The story is going to be in a much darker place for the next twenty or thirty episodes. And this episode is no exception. As always, I try to deal with everything as sensitively as possible, but you should be aware that the list of warnings for this one is so long I am very likely to have missed some. Among the topics touched on in this episode are mental illness, drug addiction, gun violence, racism, societal and medical homophobia, medical mistreatment of mental illness, domestic abuse, rape, and more. If you find discussion of any of those subjects upsetting, you might want to read the transcript. Also, I use the term "queer" freely in this episode. In the past I have received some pushback for this, because of a belief among some that "queer" is a slur. The following explanation will seem redundant to many of my listeners, but as with many of the things I discuss in the podcast I am dealing with multiple different audiences with different levels of awareness and understanding of issues, so I'd like to beg those people's indulgence a moment. The term "queer" has certainly been used as a slur in the past, but so have terms like "lesbian", "gay", "homosexual" and others. In all those cases, the term has gone from a term used as a self-identifier, to a slur, to a reclaimed slur, and back again many times. The reason for using that word, specifically, here is because the vast majority of people in this story have sexualities or genders that don't match the societal norms of their times, but used labels for themselves that have shifted in meaning over the years. There are at least two men in the story, for example, who are now dead and referred to themselves as "homosexual", but were in multiple long-term sexually-active relationships with women. Would those men now refer to themselves as "bisexual" or "pansexual" -- terms not in widespread use at the time -- or would they, in the relatively more tolerant society we live in now, only have been in same-gender relationships? We can't know. But in our current context using the word "homosexual" for those men would lead to incorrect assumptions about their behaviour. The labels people use change over time, and the definitions of them blur and shift. I have discussed this issue with many, many, friends who fall under the queer umbrella, and while not all of them are comfortable with "queer" as a personal label because of how it's been used against them in the past, there is near-unanimity from them that it's the correct word to use in this situation. Anyway, now that that rather lengthy set of disclaimers is over, let's get into the story proper, as we look at "White Light, White Heat" by the Velvet Underground: [Excerpt: The Velvet Underground, "White Light, White Heat"] And that look will start with... a disclaimer about length. This episode is going to be a long one. Not as long as episode one hundred and fifty, but almost certainly the longest episode I'll do this year, by some way. And there's a reason for that. One of the questions I've been asked repeatedly over the years about the podcast is why almost all the acts I've covered have been extremely commercially successful ones. "Where are the underground bands? The alternative bands? The little niche acts?" The answer to that is simple. Until the mid-sixties, the idea of an underground or alternative band made no sense at all in rock, pop, rock and roll, R&B, or soul. The idea would have been completely counterintuitive to the vast majority of the people we've discussed in the podcast. Those musics were commercial musics, made by people who wanted to make money and to  get the largest audiences possible. That doesn't mean that they had no artistic merit, or that there was no artistic intent behind them, but the artists making that music were *commercial* artists. They knew if they wanted to make another record, they had to sell enough copies of the last record for the record company to make another, and that if they wanted to keep eating, they had to draw enough of an audience to their gigs for promoters to keep booking them. There was no space in this worldview for what we might think of as cult success. If your record only sold a thousand copies, then you had failed in your goal, even if the thousand people who bought your record really loved it. Even less commercially successful artists we've covered to this point, like the Mothers of Invention or Love, were *trying* for commercial success, even if they made the decision not to compromise as much as others do. This started to change a tiny bit in the mid-sixties as the influence of jazz and folk in the US, and the British blues scene, started to be felt in rock music. But this influence, at first, was a one-way thing -- people who had been in the folk and jazz worlds deciding to modify their music to be more commercial. And that was followed by already massively commercial musicians, like the Beatles, taking on some of those influences and bringing their audience with them. But that started to change around the time that "rock" started to differentiate itself from "rock and roll" and "pop", in mid 1967. So in this episode and the next, we're going to look at two bands who in different ways provided a model for how to be an alternative band. Both of them still *wanted* commercial success, but neither achieved it, at least not at first and not in the conventional way. And both, when they started out, went by the name The Warlocks. But we have to take a rather circuitous route to get to this week's band, because we're now properly introducing a strand of music that has been there in the background for a while -- avant-garde art music. So before we go any further, let's have a listen to a thirty-second clip of the most famous piece of avant-garde music ever, and I'll be performing it myself: [Excerpt, Andrew Hickey "4'33 (Cage)"] Obviously that won't give the full effect, you have to listen to the whole piece to get that. That is of course a section of "4'33" by John Cage, a piece of music that is often incorrectly described as being four minutes and thirty three seconds of silence. As I've mentioned before, though, in the episode on "Papa's Got a Brand New Bag", it isn't that at all. The whole point of the piece is that there is no such thing as silence, and it's intended to make the listener appreciate all the normal ambient sounds as music, every bit as much as any piece by Bach or Beethoven. John Cage, the composer of "4'33", is possibly the single most influential avant-garde artist of the mid twentieth century, so as we're properly introducing the ideas of avant-garde music into the story here, we need to talk about him a little. Cage was, from an early age, torn between three great vocations, all of which in some fashion would shape his work for decades to come. One of these was architecture, and for a time he intended to become an architect. Another was the religious ministry, and he very seriously considered becoming a minister as a young man, and religion -- though not the religious faith of his youth -- was to be a massive factor in his work as he grew older. He started studying music from an early age, though he never had any facility as a performer -- though he did, when he discovered the work of Grieg, think that might change. He later said “For a while I played nothing else. I even imagined devoting my life to the performance of his works alone, for they did not seem to me to be too difficult, and I loved them.” [Excerpt: Grieg piano concerto in A minor] But he soon realised that he didn't have some of the basic skills that would be required to be a performer -- he never actually thought of himself as very musical -- and so he decided to move into composition, and he later talked about putting his musical limits to good use in being more inventive. From his very first pieces, Cage was trying to expand the definition of what a performance of a piece of music actually was. One of his friends, Harry Hay, who took part in the first documented performance of a piece by Cage, described how Cage's father, an inventor, had "devised a fluorescent light source over which Sample" -- Don Sample, Cage's boyfriend at the time -- "laid a piece of vellum painted with designs in oils. The blankets I was wearing were white, and a sort of lampshade shone coloured patterns onto me. It looked very good. The thing got so hot the designs began to run, but that only made it better.” Apparently the audience for this light show -- one that predated the light shows used by rock bands by a good thirty years -- were not impressed, though that may be more because the Santa Monica Women's Club in the early 1930s was not the vanguard of the avant-garde. Or maybe it was. Certainly the housewives of Santa Monica seemed more willing than one might expect to sign up for another of Cage's ideas. In 1933 he went door to door asking women if they would be interested in signing up to a lecture course from him on modern art and music. He told them that if they signed up for $2.50, he would give them ten lectures, and somewhere between twenty and forty of them signed up, even though, as he said later, “I explained to the housewives that I didn't know anything about either subject but that I was enthusiastic about both of them. I promised to learn faithfully enough about each subject so as to be able to give a talk an hour long each week.” And he did just that, going to the library every day and spending all week preparing an hour-long talk for them. History does not relate whether he ended these lectures by telling the housewives to tell just one friend about them. He said later “I came out of these lectures, with a devotion to the painting of Mondrian, on the one hand, and the music of Schoenberg on the other.” [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Ode to Napoleon Buonaparte"] Schoenberg was one of the two most widely-respected composers in the world at that point, the other being Stravinsky, but the two had very different attitudes to composition. Schoenberg's great innovation was the creation and popularisation of the twelve-tone technique, and I should probably explain that a little before I go any further. Most Western music is based on an eight-note scale -- do, re, mi, fa, so, la, ti, do -- with the eighth note being an octave up from the first. So in the key of C major that would be C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C: [demonstrates] And when you hear notes from that scale, if your ears are accustomed to basically any Western music written before about 1920, or any Western popular music written since then, you expect the melody to lead back to C, and you know to expect that because it only uses those notes -- there are differing intervals between them, some having a tone between them and some having a semitone, and you recognise the pattern. But of course there are other notes between the notes of that scale. There are actually an infinite number of these, but in conventional Western music we only look at a few more -- C# (or D flat), D# (or E flat), F# (or G flat), G# (or A flat) and A# (or B flat). If you add in all those notes you get this: [demonstrates] There's no clear beginning or end, no do for it to come back to. And Schoenberg's great innovation, which he was only starting to promote widely around this time, was to insist that all twelve notes should be equal -- his melodies would use all twelve of the notes the exact same number of times, and so if he used say a B flat, he would have to use all eleven other notes before he used B flat again in the piece. This was a radical new idea, but Schoenberg had only started advancing it after first winning great acclaim for earlier pieces, like his "Three Pieces for Piano", a work which wasn't properly twelve-tone, but did try to do without the idea of having any one note be more important than any other: [Excerpt: Schoenberg, "Three Pieces for Piano"] At this point, that work had only been performed in the US by one performer, Richard Buhlig, and hadn't been released as a recording yet. Cage was so eager to hear it that he'd found Buhlig's phone number and called him, asking him to play the piece, but Buhlig put the phone down on him. Now he was doing these lectures, though, he had to do one on Schoenberg, and he wasn't a competent enough pianist to play Schoenberg's pieces himself, and there were still no recordings of them. Cage hitch-hiked from Santa Monica to LA, where Buhlig lived, to try to get him to come and visit his class and play some of Schoenberg's pieces for them. Buhlig wasn't in, and Cage hung around in his garden hoping for him to come back -- he pulled the leaves off a bough from one of Buhlig's trees, going "He'll come back, he won't come back, he'll come back..." and the leaves said he'd be back. Buhlig arrived back at midnight, and quite understandably told the strange twenty-one-year-old who'd spent twelve hours in his garden pulling the leaves off his trees that no, he would not come to Santa Monica and give a free performance. But he did agree that if Cage brought some of his own compositions he'd give them a look over. Buhlig started giving Cage some proper lessons in composition, although he stressed that he was a performer, not a composer. Around this time Cage wrote his Sonata for Clarinet: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Sonata For Clarinet"] Buhlig suggested that Cage send that to Henry Cowell, the composer we heard about in the episode on "Good Vibrations" who was friends with Lev Termen and who created music by playing the strings inside a piano: [Excerpt: Henry Cowell, "Aeolian Harp and Sinister Resonance"] Cowell offered to take Cage on as an assistant, in return for which Cowell would teach him for a semester, as would Adolph Weiss, a pupil of Schoenberg's. But the goal, which Cowell suggested, was always to have Cage study with Schoenberg himself. Schoenberg at first refused, saying that Cage couldn't afford his price, but eventually took Cage on as a student having been assured that he would devote his entire life to music -- a promise Cage kept. Cage started writing pieces for percussion, something that had been very rare up to that point -- only a handful of composers, most notably Edgard Varese, had written pieces for percussion alone, but Cage was: [Excerpt: John Cage, "Trio"] This is often portrayed as a break from the ideals of his teacher Schoenberg, but in fact there's a clear continuity there, once you see what Cage was taking from Schoenberg. Schoenberg's work is, in some senses, about equality, about all notes being equal. Or to put it another way, it's about fairness. About erasing arbitrary distinctions. What Cage was doing was erasing the arbitrary distinction between the more and less prominent instruments. Why should there be pieces for solo violin or string quartet, but not for multiple percussion players? That said, Schoenberg was not exactly the most encouraging of teachers. When Cage invited Schoenberg to go to a concert of Cage's percussion work, Schoenberg told him he was busy that night. When Cage offered to arrange another concert for a date Schoenberg wasn't busy, the reply came "No, I will not be free at any time". Despite this, Cage later said “Schoenberg was a magnificent teacher, who always gave the impression that he was putting us in touch with musical principles,” and said "I literally worshipped him" -- a strong statement from someone who took religious matters as seriously as Cage. Cage was so devoted to Schoenberg's music that when a concert of music by Stravinsky was promoted as "music of the world's greatest living composer", Cage stormed into the promoter's office angrily, confronting the promoter and making it very clear that such things should not be said in the city where Schoenberg lived. Schoenberg clearly didn't think much of Cage's attempts at composition, thinking -- correctly -- that Cage had no ear for harmony. And his reportedly aggressive and confrontational teaching style didn't sit well with Cage -- though it seems very similar to a lot of the teaching techniques of the Zen masters he would later go on to respect. The two eventually parted ways, although Cage always spoke highly of Schoenberg. Schoenberg later gave Cage a compliment of sorts, when asked if any of his students had gone on to do anything interesting. At first he replied that none had, but then he mentioned Cage and said “Of course he's not a composer, but an inventor—of genius.” Cage was at this point very worried if there was any point to being a composer at all. He said later “I'd read Cowell's New Musical Resources and . . . The Theory of Rhythm. I had also read Chavez's Towards a New Music. Both works gave me the feeling that everything that was possible in music had already happened. So I thought I could never compose socially important music. Only if I could invent something new, then would I be useful to society. But that seemed unlikely then.” [Excerpt: John Cage, "Totem Ancestor"] Part of the solution came when he was asked to compose music for an abstract animation by the filmmaker Oskar Fischinger, and also to work as Fischinger's assistant when making the film. He was fascinated by the stop-motion process, and by the results of the film, which he described as "a beautiful film in which these squares, triangles and circles and other things moved and changed colour.” But more than that he was overwhelmed by a comment by Fischinger, who told him “Everything in the world has its own spirit, and this spirit becomes audible by setting it into vibration.” Cage later said “That set me on fire. He started me on a path of exploration of the world around me which has never stopped—of hitting and stretching and scraping and rubbing everything.” Cage now took his ideas further. His compositions for percussion had been about, if you like, giving the underdog a chance -- percussion was always in the background, why should it not be in the spotlight? Now he realised that there were other things getting excluded in conventional music -- the sounds that we characterise as noise. Why should composers work to exclude those sounds, but work to *include* other sounds? Surely that was... well, a little unfair? Eventually this would lead to pieces like his 1952 piece "Water Music", later expanded and retitled "Water Walk", which can be heard here in his 1959 appearance on the TV show "I've Got a Secret".  It's a piece for, amongst other things, a flowerpot full of flowers, a bathtub, a watering can, a pipe, a duck call, a blender full of ice cubes, and five unplugged radios: [Excerpt: John Cage "Water Walk"] As he was now avoiding pitch and harmony as organising principles for his music, he turned to time. But note -- not to rhythm. He said “There's none of this boom, boom, boom, business in my music . . . a measure is taken as a strict measure of time—not a one two three four—which I fill with various sounds.” He came up with a system he referred to as “micro-macrocosmic rhythmic structure,” what we would now call fractals, though that word hadn't yet been invented, where the structure of the whole piece was reflected in the smallest part of it. For a time he started moving away from the term music, preferring to refer to the "art of noise" or to "organised sound" -- though he later received a telegram from Edgard Varese, one of his musical heroes and one of the few other people writing works purely for percussion, asking him not to use that phrase, which Varese used for his own work. After meeting with Varese and his wife, he later became convinced that it was Varese's wife who had initiated the telegram, as she explained to Cage's wife "we didn't want your husband's work confused with my husband's work, any more than you'd want some . . . any artist's work confused with that of a cartoonist.” While there is a humour to Cage's work, I don't really hear much qualitative difference between a Cage piece like the one we just heard and a Varese piece like Ionisation: [Excerpt: Edgard Varese, "Ionisation"] But it was in 1952, the year of "Water Music" that John Cage made his two biggest impacts on the cultural world, though the full force of those impacts wasn't felt for some years. To understand Cage's 1952 work, you first have to understand that he had become heavily influenced by Zen, which at that time was very little known in the Western world. Indeed he had studied with Daisetsu Suzuki, who is credited with introducing Zen to the West, and said later “I didn't study music with just anybody; I studied with Schoenberg, I didn't study Zen with just anybody; I studied with Suzuki. I've always gone, insofar as I could, to the president of the company.” Cage's whole worldview was profoundly affected by Zen, but he was also naturally sympathetic to it, and his work after learning about Zen is mostly a continuation of trends we can already see. In particular, he became convinced that the point of music isn't to communicate anything between two people, rather its point is merely to be experienced. I'm far from an expert on Buddhism, but one way of thinking about its central lessons is that one should experience things as they are, experiencing the thing itself rather than one's thoughts or preconceptions about it. And so at Black Mountain college came Theatre Piece Number 1: [Excerpt: Edith Piaf, "La Vie En Rose" ] In this piece, Cage had set the audience on all sides, so they'd be facing each other. He stood on a stepladder, as colleagues danced in and around the audience, another colleague played the piano, two more took turns to stand on another stepladder to recite poetry, different films and slides were projected, seemingly at random, onto the walls, and the painter Robert Rauschenberg played scratchy Edith Piaf records on a wind-up gramophone. The audience were included in the performance, and it was meant to be experienced as a gestalt, as a whole, to be what we would now call an immersive experience. One of Cage's students around this time was the artist Allan Kaprow, and he would be inspired by Theatre Piece Number 1 to put on several similar events in the late fifties. Those events he called "happenings", because the point of them was that you were meant to experience an event as it was happening rather than bring preconceptions of form and structure to them. Those happenings were the inspiration for events like The 14 Hour Technicolor Dream, and the term "happening" became such an integral part of the counterculture that by 1967 there were comedy films being released about them, including one just called The Happening with a title track by the Supremes that made number one: [Excerpt: The Supremes, "The Happening"] Theatre Piece Number 1 was retrospectively considered the first happening, and as such its influence is incalculable. But one part I didn't mention about Theatre Piece Number 1 is that as well as Rauschenberg playing Edith Piaf's records, he also displayed some of his paintings. These paintings were totally white -- at a glance, they looked like blank canvases, but as one inspected them more clearly, it became apparent that Rauschenberg had painted them with white paint, with visible brushstrokes. These paintings, along with a visit to an anechoic chamber in which Cage discovered that even in total silence one can still hear one's own blood and nervous system, so will never experience total silence, were the final key to something Cage had been working towards -- if music had minimised percussion, and excluded noise, how much more had it excluded silence? As Cage said in 1958 “Curiously enough, the twelve-tone system has no zero in it.” And so came 4'33, the piece that we heard an excerpt of near the start of this episode. That piece was the something new he'd been looking for that could be useful to society. It took the sounds the audience could already hear, and without changing them even slightly gave them a new context and made the audience hear them as they were. Simply by saying "this is music", it caused the ambient noise to be perceived as music. This idea, of recontextualising existing material, was one that had already been done in the art world -- Marcel Duchamp, in 1917, had exhibited a urinal as a sculpture titled "Fountain" -- but even Duchamp had talked about his work as "everyday objects raised to the dignity of a work of art by the artist's act of choice". The artist was *raising* the object to art. What Cage was saying was "the object is already art". This was all massively influential to a young painter who had seen Cage give lectures many times, and while at art school had with friends prepared a piano in the same way Cage did for his own experimental compositions, dampening the strings with different objects. [Excerpt: Dana Gillespie, "Andy Warhol (live)"] Duchamp and Rauschenberg were both big influences on Andy Warhol, but he would say in the early sixties "John Cage is really so responsible for so much that's going on," and would for the rest of his life cite Cage as one of the two or three prime influences of his career. Warhol is a difficult figure to discuss, because his work is very intellectual but he was not very articulate -- which is one reason I've led up to him by discussing Cage in such detail, because Cage was always eager to talk at great length about the theoretical basis of his work, while Warhol would say very few words about anything at all. Probably the person who knew him best was his business partner and collaborator Paul Morrissey, and Morrissey's descriptions of Warhol have shaped my own view of his life, but it's very worth noting that Morrissey is an extremely right-wing moralist who wishes to see a Catholic theocracy imposed to do away with the scourges of sexual immorality, drug use, hedonism, and liberalism, so his view of Warhol, a queer drug using progressive whose worldview seems to have been totally opposed to Morrissey's in every way, might be a little distorted. Warhol came from an impoverished background, and so, as many people who grew up poor do, he was, throughout his life, very eager to make money. He studied art at university, and got decent but not exceptional grades -- he was a competent draughtsman, but not a great one, and most importantly as far as success in the art world goes he didn't have what is known as his own "line" -- with most successful artists, you can look at a handful of lines they've drawn and see something of their own personality in it. You couldn't with Warhol. His drawings looked like mediocre imitations of other people's work. Perfectly competent, but nothing that stood out. So Warhol came up with a technique to make his drawings stand out -- blotting. He would do a normal drawing, then go over it with a lot of wet ink. He'd lower a piece of paper on to the wet drawing, and the new paper would soak up the ink, and that second piece of paper would become the finished work. The lines would be fractured and smeared, broken in places where the ink didn't get picked up, and thick in others where it had pooled. With this mechanical process, Warhol had managed to create an individual style, and he became an extremely successful commercial artist. In the early 1950s photography was still seen as a somewhat low-class way of advertising things. If you wanted to sell to a rich audience, you needed to use drawings or paintings. By 1955 Warhol was making about twelve thousand dollars a year -- somewhere close to a hundred and thirty thousand a year in today's money -- drawing shoes for advertisements. He also had a sideline in doing record covers for people like Count Basie: [Excerpt: Count Basie, "Seventh Avenue Express"] For most of the 1950s he also tried to put on shows of his more serious artistic work -- often with homoerotic themes -- but to little success. The dominant art style of the time was the abstract expressionism of people like Jackson Pollock, whose art was visceral, emotional, and macho. The term "action paintings" which was coined for the work of people like Pollock, sums it up. This was manly art for manly men having manly emotions and expressing them loudly. It was very male and very straight, and even the gay artists who were prominent at the time tended to be very conformist and look down on anything they considered flamboyant or effeminate. Warhol was a rather effeminate, very reserved man, who strongly disliked showing his emotions, and whose tastes ran firmly to the camp. Camp as an aesthetic of finding joy in the flamboyant or trashy, as opposed to merely a descriptive term for men who behaved in a way considered effeminate, was only just starting to be codified at this time -- it wouldn't really become a fully-formed recognisable thing until Susan Sontag's essay "Notes on Camp" in 1964 -- but of course just because something hasn't been recognised doesn't mean it doesn't exist, and Warhol's aesthetic was always very camp, and in the 1950s in the US that was frowned upon even in gay culture, where the mainstream opinion was that the best way to acceptance was through assimilation. Abstract expressionism was all about expressing the self, and that was something Warhol never wanted to do -- in fact he made some pronouncements at times which suggested he didn't think of himself as *having* a self in the conventional sense. The combination of not wanting to express himself and of wanting to work more efficiently as a commercial artist led to some interesting results. For example, he was commissioned in 1957 to do a cover for an album by Moondog, the blind street musician whose name Alan Freed had once stolen: [Excerpt: Moondog, "Gloving It"] For that cover, Warhol got his mother, Julia Warhola, to just write out the liner notes for the album in her rather ornamental cursive script, and that became the front cover, leading to an award for graphic design going that year to "Andy Warhol's mother". (Incidentally, my copy of the current CD issue of that album, complete with Julia Warhola's cover, is put out by Pickwick Records...) But towards the end of the fifties, the work for commercial artists started to dry up. If you wanted to advertise shoes, now, you just took a photo of the shoes rather than get Andy Warhol to draw a picture of them. The money started to disappear, and Warhol started to panic. If there was no room for him in graphic design any more, he had to make his living in the fine arts, which he'd been totally unsuccessful in. But luckily for Warhol, there was a new movement that was starting to form -- Pop Art. Pop Art started in England, and had originally been intended, at least in part, as a critique of American consumerist capitalism. Pieces like "Just what is it that makes today's homes so different, so appealing?" by Richard Hamilton (who went on to design the Beatles' White Album cover) are collages of found images, almost all from American sources, recontextualised and juxtaposed in interesting ways, so a bodybuilder poses in a room that's taken from an advert in Ladies' Home Journal, while on the wall, instead of a painting, hangs a blown-up cover of a Jack Kirby romance comic. Pop Art changed slightly when it got taken up in America, and there it became something rather different, something closer to Duchamp, taking those found images and displaying them as art with no juxtaposition. Where Richard Hamilton created collage art which *showed* a comic cover by Jack Kirby as a painting in the background, Roy Lichtenstein would take a panel of comic art by Kirby, or Russ Heath or Irv Novick or a dozen other comic artists, and redraw it at the size of a normal painting. So Warhol took Cage's idea that the object is already art, and brought that into painting, starting by doing paintings of Campbell's soup cans, in which he tried as far as possible to make the cans look exactly like actual soup cans. The paintings were controversial, inciting fury in some and laughter in others and causing almost everyone to question whether they were art. Warhol would embrace an aesthetic in which things considered unimportant or trash or pop culture detritus were the greatest art of all. For example pretty much every profile of him written in the mid sixties talks about him obsessively playing "Sally Go Round the Roses", a girl-group single by the one-hit wonders the Jaynettes: [Excerpt: The Jaynettes, "Sally Go Round the Roses"] After his paintings of Campbell's soup cans, and some rather controversial but less commercially successful paintings of photographs of horrors and catastrophes taken from newspapers, Warhol abandoned painting in the conventional sense altogether, instead creating brightly coloured screen prints -- a form of stencilling -- based on photographs of celebrities like Elvis Presley, Elizabeth Taylor and, most famously, Marilyn Monroe. That way he could produce images which could be mass-produced, without his active involvement, and which supposedly had none of his personality in them, though of course his personality pervades the work anyway. He put on exhibitions of wooden boxes, silk-screen printed to look exactly like shipping cartons of Brillo pads. Images we see everywhere -- in newspapers, in supermarkets -- were art. And Warhol even briefly formed a band. The Druds were a garage band formed to play at a show at the Washington Gallery of Modern Art, the opening night of an exhibition that featured a silkscreen by Warhol of 210 identical bottles of Coca-Cola, as well as paintings by Rauschenberg and others. That opening night featured a happening by Claes Oldenburg, and a performance by Cage -- Cage gave a live lecture while three recordings of his own voice also played. The Druds were also meant to perform, but they fell apart after only a few rehearsals. Some recordings apparently exist, but they don't seem to circulate, but they'd be fascinating to hear as almost the entire band were non-musician artists like Warhol, Jasper Johns, and the sculptor Walter de Maria. Warhol said of the group “It didn't go too well, but if we had just stayed on it it would have been great.” On the other hand, the one actual musician in the group said “It was kind of ridiculous, so I quit after the second rehearsal". That musician was La Monte Young: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] That's an excerpt from what is generally considered Young's masterwork, "The Well-Tuned Piano". It's six and a half hours long. If Warhol is a difficult figure to write about, Young is almost impossible. He's a musician with a career stretching sixty years, who is arguably the most influential musician from the classical tradition in that time period. He's generally considered the father of minimalism, and he's also been called by Brian Eno "the daddy of us all" -- without Young you simply *do not* get art rock at all. Without Young there is no Velvet Underground, no David Bowie, no Eno, no New York punk scene, no Yoko Ono. Anywhere that the fine arts or conceptual art have intersected with popular music in the last fifty or more years has been influenced in one way or another by Young's work. BUT... he only rarely publishes his scores. He very, very rarely allows recordings of his work to be released -- there are four recordings on his bandcamp, plus a handful of recordings of his older, published, pieces, and very little else. He doesn't allow his music to be performed live without his supervision. There *are* bootleg recordings of his music, but even those are not easily obtainable -- Young is vigorous in enforcing his copyrights and issues takedown notices against anywhere that hosts them. So other than that handful of legitimately available recordings -- plus a recording by Young's Theater of Eternal Music, the legality of which is still disputed, and an off-air recording of a 1971 radio programme I've managed to track down, the only way to experience Young's music unless you're willing to travel to one of his rare live performances or installations is second-hand, by reading about it. Except that the one book that deals solely with Young and his music is not only a dense and difficult book to read, it's also one that Young vehemently disagreed with and considered extremely inaccurate, to the point he refused to allow permissions to quote his work in the book. Young did apparently prepare a list of corrections for the book, but he wouldn't tell the author what they were without payment. So please assume that anything I say about Young is wrong, but also accept that the short section of this episode about Young has required more work to *try* to get it right than pretty much anything else this year. Young's musical career actually started out in a relatively straightforward manner. He didn't grow up in the most loving of homes -- he's talked about his father beating him as a child because he had been told that young La Monte was clever -- but his father did buy him a saxophone and teach him the rudiments of the instrument, and as a child he was most influenced by the music of the big band saxophone player Jimmy Dorsey: [Excerpt: Jimmy Dorsey, “It's the Dreamer in Me”] The family, who were Mormon farmers, relocated several times in Young's childhood, from Idaho first to California and then to Utah, but everywhere they went La Monte seemed to find musical inspiration, whether from an uncle who had been part of the Kansas City jazz scene, a classmate who was a musical prodigy who had played with Perez Prado in his early teens, or a teacher who took the class to see a performance of Bartok's Concerto for Orchestra: [Excerpt: Bartok, "Concerto for Orchestra"] After leaving high school, Young went to Los Angeles City College to study music under Leonard Stein, who had been Schoenberg's assistant when Schoenberg had taught at UCLA, and there he became part of the thriving jazz scene based around Central Avenue, studying and performing with musicians like Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Eric Dolphy -- Young once beat Dolphy in an audition for a place in the City College dance band, and the two would apparently substitute for each other on their regular gigs when one couldn't make it. During this time, Young's musical tastes became much more adventurous. He was a particular fan of the work of John Coltrane, and also got inspired by City of Glass, an album by Stan Kenton that attempted to combine jazz and modern classical music: [Excerpt: Stan Kenton's Innovations Orchestra, "City of Glass: The Structures"] His other major musical discovery in the mid-fifties was one we've talked about on several previous occasions -- the album Music of India, Morning and Evening Ragas by Ali Akhbar Khan: [Excerpt: Ali Akhbar Khan, "Rag Sindhi Bhairavi"] Young's music at this point was becoming increasingly modal, and equally influenced by the blues and Indian music. But he was also becoming interested in serialism. Serialism is an extension and generalisation of twelve-tone music, inspired by mathematical set theory. In serialism, you choose a set of musical elements -- in twelve-tone music that's the twelve notes in the twelve-tone scale, but it can also be a set of tonal relations, a chord, or any other set of elements. You then define all the possible ways you can permute those elements, a defined set of operations you can perform on them -- so you could play a scale forwards, play it backwards, play all the notes in the scale simultaneously, and so on. You then go through all the possible permutations, exactly once, and that's your piece of music. Young was particularly influenced by the works of Anton Webern, one of the earliest serialists: [Excerpt: Anton Webern, "Cantata number 1 for Soprano, Mixed Chorus, and Orchestra"] That piece we just heard, Webern's "Cantata number 1", was the subject of some of the earliest theoretical discussion of serialism, and in particular led to some discussion of the next step on from serialism. If serialism was all about going through every single permutation of a set, what if you *didn't* permute every element? There was a lot of discussion in the late fifties in music-theoretical circles about the idea of invariance. Normally in music, the interesting thing is what gets changed. To use a very simple example, you might change a melody from a major key to a minor one to make it sound sadder. What theorists at this point were starting to discuss is what happens if you leave something the same, but change the surrounding context, so the thing you *don't* vary sounds different because of the changed context. And going further, what if you don't change the context at all, and merely *imply* a changed context? These ideas were some of those which inspired Young's first major work, his Trio For Strings from 1958, a complex, palindromic, serial piece which is now credited as the first work of minimalism, because the notes in it change so infrequently: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Trio for Strings"] Though I should point out that Young never considers his works truly finished, and constantly rewrites them, and what we just heard is an excerpt from the only recording of the trio ever officially released, which is of the 2015 version. So I can't state for certain how close what we just heard is to the piece he wrote in 1958, except that it sounds very like the written descriptions of it I've read. After writing the Trio For Strings, Young moved to Germany to study with the modernist composer Karlheinz Stockhausen. While studying with Stockhausen, he became interested in the work of John Cage, and started up a correspondence with Cage. On his return to New York he studied with Cage and started writing pieces inspired by Cage, of which the most musical is probably Composition 1960 #7: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "Composition 1960 #7"] The score for that piece is a stave on which is drawn a treble clef, the notes B and F#, and the words "To be held for a long Time". Other of his compositions from 1960 -- which are among the few of his compositions which have been published -- include composition 1960 #10 ("To Bob Morris"), the score for which is just the instruction "Draw a straight line and follow it.", and Piano Piece for David  Tudor #1, the score for which reads "Bring a bale of hay and a bucket of water onto the stage for the piano to eat and drink. The performer may then feed the piano or leave it to eat by itself. If the former, the piece is over after the piano has been fed. If the latter, it is over after the piano eats or decides not to". Most of these compositions were performed as part of a loose New York art collective called Fluxus, all of whom were influenced by Cage and the Dadaists. This collective, led by George Maciunas, sometimes involved Cage himself, but also involved people like Henry Flynt, the inventor of conceptual art, who later became a campaigner against art itself, and who also much to Young's bemusement abandoned abstract music in the mid-sixties to form a garage band with Walter de Maria (who had played drums with the Druds): [Excerpt: Henry Flynt and the Insurrections, "I Don't Wanna"] Much of Young's work was performed at Fluxus concerts given in a New York loft belonging to another member of the collective, Yoko Ono, who co-curated the concerts with Young. One of Ono's mid-sixties pieces, her "Four Pieces for Orchestra" is dedicated to Young, and consists of such instructions as "Count all the stars of that night by heart. The piece ends when all the orchestra members finish counting the stars, or when it dawns. This can be done with windows instead of stars." But while these conceptual ideas remained a huge part of Young's thinking, he soon became interested in two other ideas. The first was the idea of just intonation -- tuning instruments and voices to perfect harmonics, rather than using the subtly-off tuning that is used in Western music. I'm sure I've explained that before in a previous episode, but to put it simply when you're tuning an instrument with fixed pitches like a piano, you have a choice -- you can either tune it so that the notes in one key are perfectly in tune with each other, but then when you change key things go very out of tune, or you can choose to make *everything* a tiny bit, almost unnoticeably, out of tune, but equally so. For the last several hundred years, musicians as a community have chosen the latter course, which was among other things promoted by Bach's Well-Tempered Clavier, a collection of compositions which shows how the different keys work together: [Excerpt: Bach (Glenn Gould), "The Well-Tempered Clavier, Book II: Fugue in F-sharp minor, BWV 883"] Young, by contrast, has his own esoteric tuning system, which he uses in his own work The Well-Tuned Piano: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Well-Tuned Piano"] The other idea that Young took on was from Indian music, the idea of the drone. One of the four recordings of Young's music that is available from his Bandcamp, a 1982 recording titled The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath, consists of one hour, thirteen minutes, and fifty-eight seconds of this: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Tamburas of Pandit Pran Nath"] Yes, I have listened to the whole piece. No, nothing else happens. The minimalist composer Terry Riley describes the recording as "a singularly rare contribution that far outshines any other attempts to capture this instrument in recorded media". In 1962, Young started writing pieces based on what he called the "dream chord", a chord consisting of a root, fourth, sharpened fourth, and fifth: [dream chord] That chord had already appeared in his Trio for Strings, but now it would become the focus of much of his work, in pieces like his 1962 piece The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer, heard here in a 1982 revision: [Excerpt: La Monte Young, "The Second Dream of the High-Tension Line Stepdown Transformer"] That was part of a series of works titled The Four Dreams of China, and Young began to plan an installation work titled Dream House, which would eventually be created, and which currently exists in Tribeca, New York, where it's been in continuous "performance" for thirty years -- and which consists of thirty-two different pure sine wave tones all played continuously, plus purple lighting by Young's wife Marian Zazeela. But as an initial step towards creating this, Young formed a collective called Theatre of Eternal Music, which some of the members -- though never Young himself -- always claim also went by the alternative name The Dream Syndicate. According to John Cale, a member of the group, that name came about because the group tuned their instruments to the 60hz hum of the fridge in Young's apartment, which Cale called "the key of Western civilisation". According to Cale, that meant the fundamental of the chords they played was 10hz, the frequency of alpha waves when dreaming -- hence the name. The group initially consisted of Young, Zazeela, the photographer Billy Name, and percussionist Angus MacLise, but by this recording in 1964 the lineup was Young, Zazeela, MacLise, Tony Conrad and John Cale: [Excerpt: "Cale, Conrad, Maclise, Young, Zazeela - The Dream Syndicate 2 IV 64-4"] That recording, like any others that have leaked by the 1960s version of the Theatre of Eternal Music or Dream Syndicate, is of disputed legality, because Young and Zazeela claim to this day that what the group performed were La Monte Young's compositions, while the other two surviving members, Cale and Conrad, claim that their performances were improvisational collaborations and should be equally credited to all the members, and so there have been lawsuits and countersuits any time anyone has released the recordings. John Cale, the youngest member of the group, was also the only one who wasn't American. He'd been born in Wales in 1942, and had had the kind of childhood that, in retrospect, seems guaranteed to lead to eccentricity. He was the product of a mixed-language marriage -- his father, William, was an English speaker while his mother, Margaret, spoke Welsh, but the couple had moved in on their marriage with Margaret's mother, who insisted that only Welsh could be spoken in her house. William didn't speak Welsh, and while he eventually picked up the basics from spending all his life surrounded by Welsh-speakers, he refused on principle to capitulate to his mother-in-law, and so remained silent in the house. John, meanwhile, grew up a monolingual Welsh speaker, and didn't start to learn English until he went to school when he was seven, and so couldn't speak to his father until then even though they lived together. Young John was extremely unwell for most of his childhood, both physically -- he had bronchial problems for which he had to take a cough mixture that was largely opium to help him sleep at night -- and mentally. He was hospitalised when he was sixteen with what was at first thought to be meningitis, but turned out to be a psychosomatic condition, the result of what he has described as a nervous breakdown. That breakdown is probably connected to the fact that during his teenage years he was sexually assaulted by two adults in positions of authority -- a vicar and a music teacher -- and felt unable to talk to anyone about this. He was, though, a child prodigy and was playing viola with the National Youth Orchestra of Wales from the age of thirteen, and listening to music by Schoenberg, Webern, and Stravinsky. He was so talented a multi-instrumentalist that at school he was the only person other than one of the music teachers and the headmaster who was allowed to use the piano -- which led to a prank on his very last day at school. The headmaster would, on the last day, hit a low G on the piano to cue the assembly to stand up, and Cale had placed a comb on the string, muting it and stopping the note from sounding -- in much the same way that his near-namesake John Cage was "preparing" pianos for his own compositions in the USA. Cale went on to Goldsmith's College to study music and composition, under Humphrey Searle, one of Britain's greatest proponents of serialism who had himself studied under Webern. Cale's main instrument was the viola, but he insisted on also playing pieces written for the violin, because they required more technical skill. For his final exam he chose to play Hindemith's notoriously difficult Viola Sonata: [Excerpt: Hindemith Viola Sonata] While at Goldsmith's, Cale became friendly with Cornelius Cardew, a composer and cellist who had studied with Stockhausen and at the time was a great admirer of and advocate for the works of Cage and Young (though by the mid-seventies Cardew rejected their work as counter-revolutionary bourgeois imperialism). Through Cardew, Cale started to correspond with Cage, and with George Maciunas and other members of Fluxus. In July 1963, just after he'd finished his studies at Goldsmith's, Cale presented a festival there consisting of an afternoon and an evening show. These shows included the first British performances of several works including Cardew's Autumn '60 for Orchestra -- a piece in which the musicians were given blank staves on which to write whatever part they wanted to play, but a separate set of instructions in *how* to play the parts they'd written. Another piece Cale presented in its British premiere at that show was Cage's "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra": [Excerpt: John Cage, "Concerto for Piano and Orchestra"] In the evening show, they performed Two Pieces For String Quartet by George Brecht (in which the musicians polish their instruments with dusters, making scraping sounds as they clean them),  and two new pieces by Cale, one of which involved a plant being put on the stage, and then the performer, Robin Page, screaming from the balcony at the plant that it would die, then running down, through the audience, and onto the stage, screaming abuse and threats at the plant. The final piece in the show was a performance by Cale (the first one in Britain) of La Monte Young's "X For Henry Flynt". For this piece, Cale put his hands together and then smashed both his arms onto the keyboard as hard as he could, over and over. After five minutes some of the audience stormed the stage and tried to drag the piano away from him. Cale followed the piano on his knees, continuing to bang the keys, and eventually the audience gave up in defeat and Cale the performer won. After this Cale moved to the USA, to further study composition, this time with Iannis Xenakis, the modernist composer who had also taught Mickey Baker orchestration after Baker left Mickey and Sylvia, and who composed such works as "Orient Occident": [Excerpt: Iannis Xenakis, "Orient Occident"] Cale had been recommended to Xenakis as a student by Aaron Copland, who thought the young man was probably a genius. But Cale's musical ambitions were rather too great for Tanglewood, Massachusetts -- he discovered that the institute had eighty-eight pianos, the same number as there are keys on a piano keyboard, and thought it would be great if for a piece he could take all eighty-eight pianos, put them all on different boats, sail the boats out onto a lake, and have eighty-eight different musicians each play one note on each piano, while the boats sank with the pianos on board. For some reason, Cale wasn't allowed to perform this composition, and instead had to make do with one where he pulled an axe out of a single piano and slammed it down on a table. Hardly the same, I'm sure you'll agree. From Tanglewood, Cale moved on to New York, where he soon became part of the artistic circles surrounding John Cage and La Monte Young. It was at this time that he joined Young's Theatre of Eternal Music, and also took part in a performance with Cage that would get Cale his first television exposure: [Excerpt: John Cale playing Erik Satie's "Vexations" on "I've Got a Secret"] That's Cale playing through "Vexations", a piece by Erik Satie that wasn't published until after Satie's death, and that remained in obscurity until Cage popularised -- if that's the word -- the piece. The piece, which Cage had found while studying Satie's notes, seems to be written as an exercise and has the inscription (in French) "In order to play the motif 840 times in succession, it would be advisable to prepare oneself beforehand, and in the deepest silence, by serious immobilities." Cage interpreted that, possibly correctly, as an instruction that the piece should be played eight hundred and forty times straight through, and so he put together a performance of the piece, the first one ever, by a group he called the Pocket Theatre Piano Relay Team, which included Cage himself, Cale, Joshua Rifkin, and several other notable musical figures, who took it in turns playing the piece. For that performance, which ended up lasting eighteen hours, there was an entry fee of five dollars, and there was a time-clock in the lobby. Audience members punched in and punched out, and got a refund of five cents for every twenty minutes they'd spent listening to the music. Supposedly, at the end, one audience member yelled "Encore!" A week later, Cale appeared on "I've Got a Secret", a popular game-show in which celebrities tried to guess people's secrets (and which is where that performance of Cage's "Water Walk" we heard earlier comes from): [Excerpt: John Cale on I've Got a Secret] For a while, Cale lived with a friend of La Monte Young's, Terry Jennings, before moving in to a flat with Tony Conrad, one of the other members of the Theatre of Eternal Music. Angus MacLise lived in another flat in the same building. As there was not much money to be made in avant-garde music, Cale also worked in a bookshop -- a job Cage had found him -- and had a sideline in dealing drugs. But rents were so cheap at this time that Cale and Conrad only had to work part-time, and could spend much of their time working on the music they were making with Young. Both were string players -- Conrad violin, Cale viola -- and they soon modified their instruments. Conrad merely attached pickups to his so it could be amplified, but Cale went much further. He filed down the viola's bridge so he could play three strings at once, and he replaced the normal viola strings with thicker, heavier, guitar and mandolin strings. This created a sound so loud that it sounded like a distorted electric guitar -- though in late 1963 and early 1964 there were very few people who even knew what a distorted guitar sounded like. Cale and Conrad were also starting to become interested in rock and roll music, to which neither of them had previously paid much attention, because John Cage's music had taught them to listen for music in sounds they previously dismissed. In particular, Cale became fascinated with the harmonies of the Everly Brothers, hearing in them the same just intonation that Young advocated for: [Excerpt: The Everly Brothers, "All I Have to Do is Dream"] And it was with this newfound interest in rock and roll that Cale and Conrad suddenly found themselves members of a manufactured pop band. The two men had been invited to a party on the Lower East Side, and there they'd been introduced to Terry Phillips of Pickwick Records. Phillips had seen their long hair and asked if they were musicians, so they'd answered "yes". He asked if they were in a band, and they said yes. He asked if that band had a drummer, and again they said yes. By this point they realised that he had assumed they were rock guitarists, rather than experimental avant-garde string players, but they decided to play along and see where this was going. Phillips told them that if they brought along their drummer to Pickwick's studios the next day, he had a job for them. The two of them went along with Walter de Maria, who did play the drums a little in between his conceptual art work, and there they were played a record: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] It was explained to them that Pickwick made knock-off records -- soundalikes of big hits, and their own records in the style of those hits, all played by a bunch of session musicians and put out under different band names. This one, by "the Primitives", they thought had a shot at being an actual hit, even though it was a dance-craze song about a dance where one partner lays on the floor and the other stamps on their head. But if it was going to be a hit, they needed an actual band to go out and perform it, backing the singer. How would Cale, Conrad, and de Maria like to be three quarters of the Primitives? It sounded fun, but of course they weren't actually guitarists. But as it turned out, that wasn't going to be a problem. They were told that the guitars on the track had all been tuned to one note -- not even to an open chord, like we talked about Steve Cropper doing last episode, but all the strings to one note. Cale and Conrad were astonished -- that was exactly the kind of thing they'd been doing in their drone experiments with La Monte Young. Who was this person who was independently inventing the most advanced ideas in experimental music but applying them to pop songs? And that was how they met Lou Reed: [Excerpt: The Primitives, "The Ostrich"] Where Cale and Conrad were avant-gardeists who had only just started paying attention to rock and roll music, rock and roll was in Lou Reed's blood, but there were a few striking similarities between him and Cale, even though at a glance their backgrounds could not have seemed more different. Reed had been brought up in a comfortably middle-class home in Long Island, but despised the suburban conformity that surrounded him from a very early age, and by his teens was starting to rebel against it very strongly. According to one classmate “Lou was always more advanced than the rest of us. The drinking age was eighteen back then, so we all started drinking at around sixteen. We were drinking quarts of beer, but Lou was smoking joints. He didn't do that in front of many people, but I knew he was doing it. While we were looking at girls in Playboy, Lou was reading Story of O. He was reading the Marquis de Sade, stuff that I wouldn't even have thought about or known how to find.” But one way in which Reed was a typical teenager of the period was his love for rock and roll, especially doo-wop. He'd got himself a guitar, but only had one lesson -- according to the story he would tell on numerous occasions, he turned up with a copy of "Blue Suede Shoes" and told the teacher he only wanted to know how to play the chords for that, and he'd work out the rest himself. Reed and two schoolfriends, Alan Walters and Phil Harris, put together a doo-wop trio they called The Shades, because they wore sunglasses, and a neighbour introduced them to Bob Shad, who had been an A&R man for Mercury Records and was starting his own new label. He renamed them the Jades and took them into the studio with some of the best New York session players, and at fourteen years old Lou Reed was writing songs and singing them backed by Mickey Baker and King Curtis: [Excerpt: The Jades, "Leave Her For Me"] Sadly the Jades' single was a flop -- the closest it came to success was being played on Murray the K's radio show, but on a day when Murray the K was off ill and someone else was filling in for him, much to Reed's disappointment. Phil Harris, the lead singer of the group, got to record some solo sessions after that, but the Jades split up and it would be several years before Reed made any more records. Partly this was because of Reed's mental health, and here's where things get disputed and rather messy. What we know is that in his late teens, just after he'd gone off to New

Hotels, hotels, and more hotels.

Some great horned owls were out there, hooting last night and woke me up. I grabbed my iPad to record 'em. The recording of the owls is REALLY poor quality (I put 'em in the beginning of the song, so you'll know what I mean). I thought I'd write a song about those owls hooting and how the owl is an omen of death according to some of indigenous peoples of this here continent. I lifted a picture from one of my comix cuz I was too lazy to draw an owl.

We continue the Choose your own adventure Death Song.  What evil awaits Shawn? Give a Listen to The Language of Bromance in Episode 427 BroVenture Death Song. Email Bros@LanguageofBromance.com Get your LOB Merchandise at the Language of Bromance Tee Public Store. Like us on Facebook Leave a Review and Subscribe on Apple Podcast, Google Podcast, Spotify, and Stitcher. Become a LOBarmy Patreon About Language of Bromance Language of Bromance is a weekly Improv Comedy Podcast that was created by Richard and Shawn in 2014.  Releasing a new episode every single Sunday featuring new weird stories from history, news, movies, and more.  The duo has performed live at the Kansas City Comic Con, Planet ComiCon, The Chicago Podcast Festival and more.  Language of Bromance has also been featured as part of Kevin Smith's SmodCo Pod U and BBC Radio Show World Have Your Say. A few stories Language of Bromance has covered are The Great Emu War, The Ninja of Heisei, and Lioness of Brittany.  The duo has also created staple episodes where they draft from specific topics, LOB Movie Pitch, Brolloween to celebrate Halloween season, and Super Question.

Avec John Cale, Graine de Violence n'a peut-être jamais aussi bien porté son nom. Voilà un mec qui appartient à la légende du rock malgré une célébrité toute relative. Les lauriers que l'on tresse au Velvet Underground échouent plus souvent sur la tombe de Lou Reed que sur ce natif du Pays de Galles, pourtant garant principal de son identité sonore. Les vicieux coups d'archers de Venus in fur, le piano martelé de Waiting for the man, l'alto malade de Black Angel's Death Song... Tout au long de sa carrière, John Cale ne cessera de corrompre le format pop avec des éléments issus de la musique contemporaine, inscrivant ses expérimentations dans le code génétique du punk, contribuant à l'esthétique de l'avant-garde du XXe siècle. Voici le récit d'un allumé notoire à la discographie superbement éclectique. Quelques références... Des bouquins : What's Welsh For Zen ?, de John Cale et Victor Bockris Sédition et Alchimie, de Tim Mitchell White Light White Heat, le Velver Underground au jour le jour, de Richie Unterberger The Velvet Underground, de Jim DeRogatis Nico - Songs they never paly on the radio - James Young Please Kill Me, de Legs McNeil et Gillian McCain La citation de Lester Bangs est tirée de l'article "Votre ombre a peur de vous : une tentative de ne pas avoir la trouille de Nico" présent dans le livre Fêtes Sanglante et Mauvais Goût Des documentaires : John Cale, de James Marsh (documentaire de la BBC) Nico Icon, de Susanne Ofteringer De l'internet : - Fear Is A Man's Best Friend (https://werksman.home.xs4all.nl/cale/index.html) Des concerts filmés de dingue : Fragment Of A Rainy Season (1992) ***** Live At Rockpalast (1984) **** Et puis des disques : John Cale en solo : - Vintage Violence (1970) **** - Paris 1919 (1973) ***** - Fear (1974) ***** - Slow Dazzle (1975) *** - Helen Of Troy (1975) **** - Sabotage / Live (1979) **** - Honit Soit (1981) *** - Music For A New Society (1981) ***** - Words For The Dying (1989) *** - HoboSapiens (2003) *** - M:FANS (2016) *** John Cale en collaboration : - The Velvet Underground & Nico - The Velvet Underground & Nico (1967) ***** - White Light / White Heat - The Velvet Underground (1968) ***** - Church Of Anthrax avec Terry Riley (1971) *** - Songs For Drella avec Lou Reed (1990) ***** - Wrong Way Up avec Brian Eno (1990) **** John Cale producteur : - The Marble Index (1969) *****, Desertshore (1970) *****, The End (1974)****, Camera Obscura (1985) *** - Nico - The Stooges - The Stooges (1969) **** - Horses - Patti Smith (1975) **** - The Modern Lovers - The Modern Lovers (1976) ***** En bonus, ma critique de Songs For Drella sur Albumrock.net https://www.albumrock.net/album-lou-reed---john-cale-songs-for-drella-8898.html Facebook Instagram Twitter

A meditation on Song of Song 8:6-7, a poem about love and death, written and narrated by Brent Strawn. This is from our podcast In Parallel. For future episodes, please subscribe wherever you listen (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). In Parallel is a new podcast that explores biblical and contemporary poetry. The post A Poem about Love and Death (Song 8:6-7) – Brent Strawn first appeared on OnScript.

A meditation on Song of Song 8:6-7, a poem about love and death, written and narrated by Brent Strawn. This is from our podcast In Parallel. For future episodes, please subscribe wherever you listen (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). In Parallel is a new podcast that explores biblical and contemporary poetry. The post A Poem about Love and Death (Song 8:6-7) – Brent Strawn first appeared on OnScript.

Episode: A meditation on Song of Songs 8:6-7, a poem about love and death, written and narrated by Brent Strawn. Please subscribe wherever you listen (Apple Podcasts, Spotify). In Parallel is a new podcast that explores biblical and contemporary poetry. For more information about the podcast, see HERE and to learn more about Brent, see HERE. Poetry: This episode makes reference to Sharon Olds' poem "The Signs," from The Golden Cell, p. 78. Help Support In Parallel: Visit our Donate Page if you want to support this new show.

For the fourth edition of Alex Bienstock's SOS side project Collectin' Scalps with 'Stock, Bienstock and Adam interview their friend Bradford Kessler. Kessler, a NY-based artist known for his work in sculpture, painting, illustration, and video, is currently plotting an emergence as a feature film director. The three men discuss their work, drugs, cinema, and the importance of constructing a collective of likeminded creative individuals.   SOUNDTRACK: The Virgin Prunes "Don't Look Back"  The Velvet Underground "The Black Angel's Death Song" live  Accept "Demon's Night"  the Shadow Ring "Man"  Impetigo "Dis-Organ-Ized"  The Sonics "The Witch" LINKS: Bradford Kessler website  Bradford Kessler Instagram @bradfordhurstkessler Bradford Kessler interview  Paul Thomas Anderson interview on 'The Master' 

Website - Tumblr - Twitter  We hope you have a great start to 2022!  Drink every time: Someone on screen drinks A toast is made Someone's life gets saved Merlin calls Arthur ‘Prat' Arthur calls Merlin ‘Idiot' Arthur gets knocked unconscious Arthur looks the other way when magic is used Obvious action/explanation for audience benefit Arthur & Merlin bicker like an old married couple Arthur & Merlin have a bromance moment Someone's angst is large The Dragon is on screen A Horse is on screen Gwaine's Hair (in honour of our friend Aimee) Have a shot everyt time: Telepathy is used Arthur has a ‘King Arthur' moment Arthur pouts Character is too good/pure for this world Please drink responsibly and make sure you know how you're getting home, if you're playing the game at a friend's house. #DestinyAndChicken

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The Mighty Boosh Ape of Death Song, Series 1, Episode 3 Credits to the BBC

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This week on Not Well with Bobby, Jim & Miz we talk about: Saying Goodbye to the name She's Not Doing So Well (See letter below) Bottoming and why Bobby feels guilty about it Going through changes Bobby embracing being a creator instead of the main event Bobby sent freak nasty pictures being entered  to a friend Dick PicsDwayne Wade Duane Reade BallsDick Point of View pornGoogle history Billy Bob Thorton Bad Santa Sling Blade The Nutcracker Death Songs Supply chain issues New York City is the Center Of The Universe Little people Fat to skinny people LA Trip...againMetaverseMiz's Death Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OIgq9spZnhkJim's Death Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQvIAs-nPSoBobby's Death Song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zXt56MB-3vc Bobby's letter to She's Not Doing So Well (left as written including bad punctuation) : This is not a goodbye but a thank you. The story about your name will forever hold a place in my heart. I am thankful for that gummy in denver, sitting with jim drinking Fiji water at a fucking Panera of all places and not being able to control my mouth when i said, sort of loudly at someone that was having a rough day " OH, She's Not Doing So Well" . When i wanted to start a podcast with Jim the only name i kept going to was you. So thank you for being such a statement. With that being said, this is goodbye. I have learned so much working on you and I have met so many amazing people. The experiences I have had because of you are priceless. I will use what i learned from you and apply it to your new name.  I know many people will be sad to see your name go and I know i have spent way too much money on stickers and shirts and swag, but you will forever be the OG name. We're gonna call you "NOT WELL" from this point forward.   Bobby ADULTS ONLY Discord JOIN NOWFollow us on Instagram:https://www.instagram.com/shesnotdoingsowell/Please share with your friends and make sure you rate and subscribe!Fun Notes: ·         A survey conducted by an independent market research firm found that there were three songs that respondents most wanted to play when they died; Frank Sinatra's My Way (the most popular), Imagine by John Lennon and American Pie by Don McLean. The researchers also discovered that many respondents had specific requests like 'Nothing too sad' or 'Anything upbeat. ·         Little People of America (LPA) defines dwarfism as a medical or genetic condition that usually results in an adult height of 4'10" or shorter, among both men and women, although in some cases a person with a dwarfing condition may be slightly taller than that. The average height of an adult with dwarfism is 4'0, but typical heights range from 2'8 to 4'8. #gaypodcast #podcast #gay #lgbtq #queerpodcast #lgbt #lgbtpodcast #lgbtqpodcast #gaypodcaster #queer#instagay #podcasts  #podcasting #gaylife  #pride #lesbian #bhfyp #gaycomedy #comedypodcast #comedy #nyc #614 #shesnotdoingsowell #Badsanta #gayuk #NotWell #Bottom #Google #metaverseSupport the show (https://www.patreon.com/notwellpodcast)

Anglo-Saxon Poetry encompasses verse written during the 600-year Anglo-Saxon period of British history, from the mid-fifth century to the Norman Conquest of 1066. Almost all of the literature of this period was orally transmitted, and almost all poems were intended for oral performance. As a result of this, Anglo-Saxon poetry tends to be highly rhythmical, much like other forms of verse that emerged from oral traditions. However, Anglo-Saxon poetry does not create rhythm through the techniques of meter and rhyme, derived from Latin poetry, that are utilized by most other Western European languages. Instead, Anglo-Saxon poetry creates rhythm through a unique system of alliteration. Syllables are not counted as they are in traditional European meters, but instead, the length of the line is determined by a pattern of stressed syllables that begin with the same consonant cluster. The result of this style of poetry is a harsher, more guttural sound and a rhythm that sounds more like a chant than a traditional song. Although most Anglo-Saxon poetry was never written down and as such is lost to us, it was clearly a thriving literary language, and there are extant works in a wide variety of genres including epic poetry, Bible translations, historical chronicles, riddles, and short lyrics. Some of the most important works from this period include the epic Beowulf, Bede's Death Song, and the wisdom poetry found in the Exeter Book such as The Seafarer, and The Wanderer.

The 4th Album Released In Year 2000 From The Shock Rocker Himself, Manson Would Conclude The Iconic Trilogy With This Album, Even Though The Album Has A Loose Storyline, Its Still A Great Album. RATE: 9/10 Favorites: Godeatgod, The Love Song, The Fight Song, Disposable Teens, "President Dead", In The Shadow Of The Valley Of Death, Cruci-Fiction In Space, A Place In The Dirt, The Nobodies, The Death Song, Lamb Of God, Coma Black, Valentine's Day, King Kill 33, Count To Six & Die Least Favorite: Born Again Keep On Craving My Lil Junkies

Episode 55 of @fortheloveofmerlinpodcast! Arthur wants to connect with Uther beyond the vail, and learns to be careful what he wishes for...

Chase Atlantic Talks OHMAMI ft. Maggie Lindemann, Beauty In Death, Song Writing, Production & More Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Chase Atlantic Talks OHMAMI ft. Maggie Lindemann, Beauty In Death, Song Writing, Production & More

Website - Tumblr - Twitter  Join us as we discuss The Death Song of Uther Pendragon -- Links mentioned in the episode:  F&F YouTube Channel - Welsh Hiatus Deleted Scene: Sleeping on the left Deleted Scene: Wedding Ring Who We Truly Are - Fic  

Sly Moore isn't as sly as she's perceived to be in the pages of Marvel's Darth Vader #14, while Farzala and Qort learn that a synonym for Hutt doesn't include the word "trustworthy" in the pages of The High Republic Adventures #6 from IDW.The breakout star of today's comics is Deva Lompop, a bounty hunter/information broker/socialite whose long history may prove quite informative and interesting (think The High Republich to the New Republic) as readers become more familiar with this character.In news, there's plenty of more variant covers for War of the Bounty Hunters, but also con-exclusive goodies, particularly Nick Brokenshire's SDCC exclusive for IDW's The High Republic Adventures #6 that's available starting July 23.Upcoming Star Wars comics include:July 21The High Republic Adventures #6Darth Vader #14War of the Bounty Hunters — Jabba the Hutt #1 (One-Shot)July 28Star Wars #15Star Wars Adventures #7The High Republic #7Aug. 4Bounty Hunters #15War of the Bounty Hunters: 4-LOM & Zuckuss #1 (One-Shot)Star Wars Legends Epic Collection: The Marvel Years, Vol. 5 TPBAug. 11The High Republic #8War of the Bounty Hunters #3 (of 5)The Monster of Temple Peak #1 (of 4)Star Wars: Guardians of the Whills MangaDoctor Aphra (Vol. 2), Vol. 2, “The Engine Job” TPBAug. 14 (Free Comic Book Day)Star Wars: The High Republic Adventures Free Comic Book Day IssueThe High Republic: The Edge of Balance/Guardians of the Whills FCBD IssueAug. 18Star Wars Adventures #8Star Wars #16The High Republic Adventures #7War of the Bounty Hunters #3 (of 5)Aug. 25Darth Vader #15Doctor Aphra #13The High Republic, Vol. 1, “There Is No Fear” TPBSept. 1The High Republic Adventures #8Doctor Aphra #14The High Republic #9Sept. 8The High Republic: Edge of Balance (Manga)The Monster of Temple Peak #2 (of 4)War of the Bounty Hunters #4 (of 5)Star Wars Adventures #9Sept. 15Darth Vader #16War of the Bounty Hunters — Boushh #1Sept. 22Ghosts of Vader's Castle #1 (of 5)Bounty Hunters #16Sept. 29Star Wars #17Star Wars Adventures #10Ghosts of Vader's Castle #2 (of 5)Oct. 6Star Wars Adventures: Smuggler's Run TPBOct. 20Darth Vader (Vol. 2) OmnibusNov. 3Star Wars Legends: Rise of the Sith OmnibusNov. 10War of the Bounty Hunters TPB (Collects Alpha #1, War of the Bounty Hunters 1-5)War of the Bounty Hunters Companion TPB (Collects Jabba, IG-88, Boushh, 4-LOM & Zuckuss)Darth Vader (Vol. 3), Vol. 3 TPB (Collects #12-16)Star Wars Legends Boba Fett: Blood Ties TPBThe High Republic Adventures, Vol. 1, TPBStar Wars Episodes IV-IX Adaptation Box Set (IDW)Nov. 17Star Wars (Vol. 3), Vol. 3 TPB (Collects #13-18)Nov. 24Bounty Hunters, Vol. 3, TPB (Collects #12-17)Star Wars Adventures (Vol. 2), Vol. 1, “The Light & the Dark” TPBNov. 30Star Wars: The High Republic, Vol. 2, TPB (Collects #6-10)Doctor Aphra (Vol. 2), Vol. 3, TPB (Collects #11-15)Dec. 7Attack of the Clones Graphic Novel Adaptation from IDW

Now’s a good time for the Austin Music Minute reminder: Don’t leave the earplugs at home. Heavy sounds at high volume, baby. Good for the soul. Lone Star Unleashed 2021 is an outdoor music festival featuring twenty-one Texas bands burning up two stages. And it’s one sick, merciless line-up: Duel, The Well (“Death Song” from […]

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I denne ombæring af Rockhistorier havde vi sanger og sangskriveren Christian Hjelm i gæstestolen. Det var både skægt, underholdende og illuminerende, for han valgte at bruge lejligheden til at fortælle om sin musikalske rejse fra han som 4-årig forelskede sig i temaet til ’Bamses Billedbog’ til hans musikalske odyssé kulminerede med Prodigys elektroniske punk i de sene 1990ere, hvor han selv gjorde sin entre på musikscenen. Men i stedet for at have ham som gæst i studiet, drog Rockhistorier til i det mørke Jylland, for at møde Hjelm på Engelsholm Højskole, hvor han også underviser. Så Rockhistorier blev i denne omgang optaget foran et levende, corona-testet, entusiastisk og ungt publikum, hvad der var spændende, for det gav forløbet en helt anden nerve og dynamik.Lige nu er Hjelm aktuel med kollektivet 'Nymalet', som består af syv koryfæer fra den danske musikscene – heriblandt Katinka og Johan Olsen – der netop har udsendt sin debutsingle. Han blev oprindelig kendt som sanger og guitarist i trioen Figurines, der i nullerne udsendte fire album, heriblandt hovedværket 'When the Deer Wore Blue' (2007). I 2012 debuterede han som solist med 'Før Vi Blev Lette', efterfulgt i 2014 af 'Vaskeægte' og i 2018 kom 'Uskolet Magi'. Derudover har han og Sarah Hepburn duoen 'Lucky Moon', der udsendte en ep i 2014. Playliste:Nymalet: Selvom du (2021)”Bamse”/Aske Bentzon: Signatur (1986)Anne Linnet: Barndommens gade (1986)Creedence Clearwater Revival: Porterville (1967)Bob Dylan: Oh Sister (1976)The Cure: Pictures of You (1989)Nirvana: Smells Like Teen Spirit (1991)Beck: Loser (1994)Sonic Youth: Little Trouble Girl (1995) The Velvet Underground & Nico: Black Angel’s Death Song (1967)Joy Division: Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980)Prodigy: Firestarter (1997)The Beach Boys: Don’t Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder) / Mono (1966) Cocteau Twins: Iceblink Luck (1990)Alessi Brothers: Seabird (1976)Søn: I Wanna Be Seen (2020)Christian Hjelm: Lille kolibri (2018)

Amigos Doramaniacos Sean bienvenidos a otro episodio de Fiebre de Dramas. En esta ocasión hablamos de Death Song, un drama corto, basado en hechos reales que nos cautivo y les damos a conocer toda la historia de este. Recuerden que tiene alto contenido de spoiler, así que escúchenlo con precaución. No olviden tampoco seguirnos en nuestro facebook e Instagram como Fiebre de Dramas. Todos los domingos a las 20.00 hrs (Chile) estamos en vivo comentando los mejores doramas del último tiempo. Gracias por acompañarnos una vez mas.

Alien Worlds was a science fiction/adventure omnibus—an anthology with the same characters set in the same universe, as opposed to an anthology of completely unrelated stories. The series was independently created, produced, and directed by Lee Hansen from 1979 to 1980. He produced 30 episodes covering 19 individual plotlines. Episodes were in standard 30-minute format, but story arcs were as long as 90 minutes. It's the mid-21st century and the International Space Authority (ISA) is the body which governs space exploration and development. Alien Worlds follows the adventures of ISA staff as they encounter strange cosmic mysteries. Some episodes take place aboard Starlab, an orbiting space station, while other episodes take place throughout the galaxy. All of the episodes are full of action. The series was written by Lee Hansen and Ron Thompson, with various co-writers, including Ken Ross, Jim Cook, Skip Press, Dudley Brown, Mike Hodel, and Babylon 5 writer J. Michael Stracynski. The full-symphonic soundtrack was written by Jim Kirk and performed by the London Symphony Orchestra.

Que tal. Pues ya llego el Episodio 47, no hay más que decir!!! Disfruten! Colaboran: Betty, Fer y Frank. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/frank-black7/support

During this episode Curt & Jason look at the text & background surrounding Psalm 59, a powerful passage composed while Saul is seeking to end David's life.

As dawn breaks across the icy tundra, Merlin and Arthur are close to exhaustion. With each tortured step, the fortress of Ismere looms ever nearer, and Merlin's fear intensifies. What game is Mordred playing? What powerful secrets are Morgana and the druid Ruadan searching for amongst its twisted catacombs? It seems like this time, not even Merlin can stop Arthur from walking right into the lion's den.   Scorecard: 7/10 When a stranger gives Arthur the power to summon the dead, the king finds himself torn between head and heart. Unable to resist temptation, he seizes the chance to speak to the person he misses most: his father, Uther. However, the spirit world is a dark and dangerous place; little does Arthur realise that his decision comes at a terrible price.   Scorecard: 3/10   Feedback : blackgirlcouch@gmail.com Twitter: Black Girl_Couch Tumblr: slowlandrogynousmiracle

This is the song where the girl realizes she and the fire god have the same death song. She gets scared that if they sing it together, she'll end up going up to the sun with him, cuz that's where he's from. The bong being smoked in this song is in California, where it's legal.

This song is about the fire god feeling homesick; he sings his death song cuz he thinks that'll bring him home. It's a wee confusing cuz his death song is identical to the me-character's death song. There's a cat in it; her name is Lulu. I had to change the pitch of her meows because they were originally in F sharp major and the song is in F minor.

Web Novel Site : https://www.reddit.com/r/HFY/wiki/authors/AgroSquerril  If You enjoyed consider leaving a Tip : https://www.paypal.me/agrosquerril  OR Patreon : https://www.patreon.com/agrosquerrils    {TimeStamps} 00:00 Intro 00:22 Xtrrli's List On Terran Social Behavior  12:39 The Death Song Check Out the Podcasts!   Greetings Ladies and Mentlegents and welcome to my channel where I like to make LEGAL Audiobooks of various types from web novels and short stories. If you are new to the channel then click on the information icon for the entire playlist to help get you up to current faster. This Oneshot was Taken from the HFY subreddit which hosts mostly Sci-Fi based short stories called oneshots and series. As Always i hope you enjoy and can find some content on my channel you like. Feel free to recommend a series or a story and i will have a look into it. Email : Agrosquerrils@gmail.com  Twitter : https://twitter.com/agrosquerrils  Streamlabs : https://streamlabs.com/agrosquerrils  Discord : https://discord.gg/XeMwEqX  All Donation are welcome and much appreciated. Thank you all for listening and your support.   Youtube Playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLcfzFNUhrNS0-gdyOWx2JEqL14UrG6TTd   Older Content https://youtu.be/fowgtGAvHkQ https://youtu.be/zWGocaV_IZY https://youtu.be/7i-ZHYS49pA https://youtu.be/HpWVvsqJ1KU  https://youtu.be/HpWVvsqJ1KU https://youtu.be/JCKXm1EDRok https://youtu.be/BNaVMxzoVFw https://youtu.be/OmjCjkUQCnI https://youtu.be/Q5t17bHI7iE https://youtu.be/ScV_IBRSsEo https://youtu.be/jcTgerYbkZk https://youtu.be/jcTgerYbkZk https://youtu.be/GJDfBaga4zQ https://youtu.be/N9sMBEYKFWo https://youtu.be/CvOF1mbDWXI https://youtu.be/CvOF1mbDWXI  

In this song in the possession album, the me-character realizes Father O'Malley's intervention with holy water didn't work. She's afraid of forgetting who she is, and then she gets an idea to sing her death song, which will bring the Bears to her, cuz bears are her allies.

Today we find a clue into why some people experience the paranormal, and then we travel to Wisconsin to find a cave that swallows men alive!   Patreon  https://www.patreon.com/user?u=18482113   MERCH STORE!!! https://www.redbubble.com/people/deadrabbitradio/works/35749420-dead-rabbit-radio?asc=u   Links:   Local woman collects more than 60 accounts of Bigfoot sightings in Idaho https://www.eastidahonews.com/2020/08/local-woman-collects-more-than-accounts-of-bigfoot-sightings-in-idaho/?utm_source=knewz Big Eagle Cave Mystery https://hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.BigEagleCaveMystery.html   Prisoner's Dance https://hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.Glossary.html#anchor18276250   Death Song https://hotcakencyclopedia.com/ho.Glossary.html#anchor404058   Listen to the daily podcast anywhere you listen to podcasts! ------------------------------------------------ Logo Art By Ash Black   Opening Song: "Atlantis Attacks" Closing Song: "Bella Royale" Reptilian Strip Song EP 374: “Empty Beds” Music By Dr. Huxxxtable Rabbitron 3000 created by Eerbud Thanks to Chris K, Founder Of The Golden Rabbit Brigade Dead Rabbit Archivist Some Weirdo On Twitter AKA Jack   http://www.DeadRabbit.com Email: DeadRabbitRadio@gmail.com Twitter: @DeadRabbitRadio Facebook: www.Facebook.com/DeadRabbitRadio   Paranormal, Conspiracy, and True Crime news as it happens! Jason Carpenter breaks the stories they'll be talking about tomorrow, assuming the world doesn't end today.   All Contents Of This Podcast Copyright Jason Carpenter 2018 - 2020    

The after death song list!

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A song predicted a sinister outcome to a young family. Want to listen? For more, visit: https://scarystorypodcast.com

Do you know what's coming, and more importantly, are you prepared for it? --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/barbarianrhetoric/support

'Dead' Dr. Bones and Mike 'Maccabre' Five are back this week with a super spooky New Music Saturday Halloween Special. Tune in to hear Terrifying Tracks like Shadows Fall, Demon, Bloodlust, Death Song, Ghosts, Skeleton Dance, Psychosis and more! Part 2 features brand new ones by Iron Volt, Simon Irvine, Healthy Junkies, The Knievel Dead, No One Sun, Down Not Out and MORE! Plus there's an amazing exclusive from Hands Of Blue, a cool Halloween track by Boxtape and a tonne of other great new tracks to wrap your ears around. And of course loads of cool scary / funny pop culture clips and the usual random sidetracks. #DiscoverYourNewFavouriteBand on https://www.newmusicsaturday.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/newmusicsaturday/message

'Dead' Dr. Bones and Mike 'Maccabre' Five are back this week with a super spooky New Music Saturday Halloween Special. Tune in to hear Terrifying Tracks like Shadows Fall, Demon, Bloodlust, Death Song, Ghosts, Skeleton Dance, Psychosis and more! We've got more new tracks than usual this week thanks to an overwhelming number of scary submissions, listen out for exclusives from Lemonade Kid feat Verity White, and Vektrill, AND new tracks by Vampire Money, Alice's Night Circus, Day Of The Jackal, Gallow Wood, Sin 7, Gallows High, Metalite, and LOADS more. PLUS loads of cool scary / funny pp culture clips and the usual random sidetracks. #DiscoverYourNewFavouriteBand on https://www.newmusicsaturday.com --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/newmusicsaturday/message

Life is precious. And no one knows that more than Andy Wirth. Andy recently retired as the CEO and President of Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows ski resort. He's also a former backcountry ranger in Rocky Mountain National Park. In 2013, while skydiving over Lodi, California, a perfect storm of events caused Andy to collide with a high-tension wire that severed his right arm at the elbow. What happened next has got to be heard to be believed. It all started with Andy, a trained first-responder himself, following the advice he had given countless victims he had encountered in trauma situations in the past: Just breathe.

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THE DOOMED & STONED SHOW -Season 5, Episode 17- Here we go, headlong into another countdown of the Top 25 albums on the monthly Doom Charts from www.DoomCharts.com! Billy Goate of Doomed & Stoned and co-host Bucky Brown of the Ripple Effect discuss the bands and albums on the list, while counting down their favorite tracks from the April edition of the Doom Charts! PLAYLIST INTRO (00:00) Albez Duz - "Emperor is Blind" (00:25) Eyes Fly - "The Dead, Living" (10:24) HOST SEGMENT I (15:44) Pesta (no. 25) - "Witches' Sabbath" (26:29) Pyramidal (no. 24) - "Visions of an Astral Journey" (34:45) Druids (no. 23) - "New Breath" (43:49) HOST SEGMENT II (48:21) Crypt Trip (No. 22) - "Death After Life" (1:01:43) KOOK (No. 21) - "Left Behind" (1:06:21) Monocluster (No. 20) - "Ocean In Our Bones" (1:15:08) HOST SEGMENT III (1:25:15) Smoulder (No. 19) - "The Sword Woman" (1:32:58) No Man's Valley (No. 18) - "Outside The Dream" (1:38:15) Haze Mage (No. 17) - "Bong Witch" (1:41:49) HOST SEGMENT IV (1:46:38) Monkey3 (No. 16) - "Mass" (1:58:33) High Priest (No. 15) - "Offering" (2:05:04) Lord Vicar (No. 14) - "World Encircled" (2:12:04) HOST SEGMENT V (2:18:40) Big Business (No, 13) - "Heal the Weak" (2:30:35) Cities of Mars (No. 12) - "Hydrahead" (2:35:41) Hey Satan (No. 11) - "KO Computer" (2:40:36) HOST SEGMENT VI (2:44:22) Wizzerd (No. 10) - "Great Mother Gaia" (2:52:50) High Reeper (No. 9) - "Buried Alive" (2:58:49) Troll (No. 8) - "The Door" (3:02:34) HOST SEGMENT VII (3:15:09) The Devil and The Almighty Blues (No. 7) - "Time Ruins Everything" (3:25:15) SKUNK (No. 6) - "Blood Moon Rising" (3:33:26) Magic Circle (No. 5) - "I've Found My Way To Die" (3:38:23) HOST SEGMENT VIII (3:43:34) The Well (No. 4) - "Death Song" (3:52:19) Green Lung (No. 3) - "Let The Devil In" (3:57:07) Shotgun Sawyer (no. 2) - "Ain't Tryin' To Go Down Slow" (4:02:09) HOST SEGMENT IX (4:05:26) Clouds Taste Satanic (No. 1) - "Pagan Worship" (4:12:00) *Information on how to purchase the albums featured in today's broadcast can be found at www.DoomCharts.com. If you dig the music, please show the band's some love! ------------------------- Thumbnail by John De Campos/Ghost Bat Illustration from 'Chronicle' by Haze Mage Incidental music: Dark is the Water, Sativa Breather, Gypsy Sun Revival, Sons of Alpha Centauri, Cleõphüzz, and Goat Bong ------------------------- Become a monthly supporter of The Doomed & Stoned Show and receive a bonus show with over 2 hours of brand new music and rare discoveries, made especially for patrons. Visit https://patreon.com/doomedandstoned to become a 'High On Fiver' supporter! ------------------------- Enjoy discovering new music? Check out Doomed & Stoned's scene-by-scene compilation series at doomedandstoned.bandcamp.com! Exclusive debuts, interviews, album reviews, concert footage, and festival photographs each week in our magazine-style blog: www.DoomedandStoned.com Daily updates at https://facebook.com/doomedstoned and https://twitter.com/doomedandstoned Live concert footage at https://youtube.com/user/crazispeedemon and https://youtube.com/doomedandstoned -------------------------

It is Part 2 of the latest edition of Wife's Picks!  This week we look at The Black Angels and their 2017 album Death Song.  We discuss the bands modern take on psychedelic rock music, debate when does a lot of reverb become too much reverb, break down our favorite songs and more!  Always a fun time, don't forget to rate, like and comment!

In this podcast Bastian Phelan, Outreach Officer at the Sydney node of the ARC Centre of Excellence for the History of Emotions, interviews Una McIlvenna about her time as a researcher with CHE. Una was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Centre at The University of Sydney from 2011 to 2014. Her CHE research project, 'Singing the News of Death: Song in Early Modern European Execution (1500–1900)’ examined emotional responses to public execution in the early modern period, looking in particular at the use of songs and verse in accounts of crime and execution across Europe. Una is currently a Hansen Lecturer in history at The University Melbourne.

https://bryanaiello.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/origin-104-Andrew-Mcbride-Mixdown-1.mp3   Andrew McBride fell in love with westerns after watching western movies, particularly those starring John Wayne and/or directed by John Ford, TV shows like The High Chaparral and reading novels such as A.B. Guthrie’s The Big Sky, John Prebble’s The Buffalo Soldiers, Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man, and Elmore Leonard’s Hombre. He’s had five westerns published: Canyon of the Dead, Death Wears a Star, Death Song, The Arizona Kid, and Shadow Man. All these novels feature Calvin Taylor, who is also the hero of The Peacemaker, which Sundown Press published in June 2016. Andrew lives in Brighton, England, by the English Channel. Authors mentioned on the podcast: RALPH COTTON PATRICK DEAREN MATTTHEW P. MAYO. Twitter: Website: http://prairierosepublications.com/authors_2/andrew-mcbride/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100012950586938 Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Andrew-McBride/e/B01N9O1C05/ref=dp_byline_cont_ebooks_1 *** Music on this episode courtesy of: Kevin MacLeod Mountain Emperor https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CkxQFdMlZcw *** Subscribe to my YouTube Channel for updates on my other show Mirage: Speculating on Speculative Fiction. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCbSnMk6QPiULXmKDYmwCmIg Subscribe on itunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/origin-stories-on-creativity/id1247194933?mt=2 Subscribe on stitcher https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/bryan-aiello/origins-stories-on-creativity?refid=stpr On Google Play https://play.google.com/music/listen#/ps/Iywh2sype4wvtcuq4ose2fuxhqq Follow me on twitter @bryaiello for updates on this channel and my podcast and my writing projects. The podcast has a facebook page! Check it out for schedules of upcoming shows and guests and to communicate with about whatever you want including be a guest or suggesting authors or artist. https://www.facebook.com/BryAiello/ My website is: http://www.bryanaiello.com Email questions and comments to: me@byranaiello.com Support the show on my poorly managed patreon here: https://www.patreon.com/BryanAiello  

My Heart is Awake: Love is Strong as Death (Song of Songs 8:6-7)

TO CELEBRATE 750 @TinDogPODCAST S HERE IS A SHORT STORY  MarginaliaMarginalia by Michael Gilroy-Sinclair   The fake monk was not happy. The school party was late and he had been reduced to simply staring out of the window. In the brightly lit education suite, he had neatly laid out a collection of fake parchment and quills in order to give the primary school children a taste of life as an eighth-century monk. It felt to him that he had been doing this, day in day out, for months and he was frankly bored. He knew from the minimal research he had been required to do, that the real monks had used goatskin and octopus ink, but such extravagances were beyond most education department budgets. Idly, he straightened a pile of A4 paper, which didn’t need straightening, only to return to the window and glance across the car park for the fiftieth time that morning. The sky was the clearest blue with only wisps of white dancing in the heavens. Surely, that blue portaloo hadn’t been there this morning. How could he not have noticed it until now? Maybe the council were finally going to fix those potholes? Only… Now that he could see it properly, there seemed to be a flashing light on the top and it clearly wasn’t a portaloo at all.   Rose was not impressed with the Doctor. He had landed the TARDIS without any of the usual build-up about their destination and headed for the door. There had been no talk of strange creatures or stranger lands. The Doctor’s behaviour may have been out of the ordinary, but Rose reasoned that it must have had something to do with the sound. Moments earlier, the extraordinary time and space ship had made an extraordinary racket that sounded almost exactly like it had a stone in its shoe. Rose knew fine and well that the TARDIS didn’t have shoes to get stones into, so this was a worry. She had come out of the kitchen and headed straight to the control room, where she saw the Doctor heading past the pale coral roof supports and out of the old wooden door and into the daylight beyond. “Oi, hold on!” “Hmm,” replied the Doctor; he was distracted by his sonic screwdriver as it bleeped and flashed in a way she had never seen it do before. “Do you have any idea what we are looking for?” asked Rose in her most patient voice. “Err… no…. but I will know it when I see it.” He seemed very positive about this. “And the bleeping helps?” “The bleeping will tell me when we are close to the source.” Rose’s patience was wearing thin, “The source of what?” The Doctor stopped walking and looked directly at Rose as if she were a child. “The source of the temporal disturbance. Honestly, it’s like I don’t explain anything to you…” “You don’t. All I know is that the TARDIS started making a weird noise and then we stopped and you stormed off with that thing in your hand.” As if it were joining in the conversation, the bleep of the sonic screwdriver suddenly became slightly more frenetic, taking away the Doctor’s concentration and causing him to walk off in a new direction. “Where are we anyway?” demanded Rose as she raced to catch up with the Doctor. “You tell me, Rose Tyler.” Rose looked around. “It’s cold. And it’s Earth… England.” “Why do you say that?” “Because… unless we are in some pretty weird parallel universe, that’s a Ford Escort and that’s a Volvo.” Rose was on a roll. She took a deep breath and smelled the air. “We’re near a river or close to the sea.” “Correct on both counts,” the Doctor said, beaming. “Anything more specific?” She looked over the Doctor’s shoulder and said, “We’re in Jarrow at a place called Bede’s World, near the river Tyne. Quite close to the tunnel, apparently.” “Amazing! And how do you know that?” “There’s a whopping great sign on the other side of the road,” said Rose smugly. The Doctor beamed with delight. “Fantastic! Anything else?” “It’s a World Heritage Site and it looks like the tea shop is open. Fancy a Hobnob?” The Doctor flicked at the screwdriver until it stopped making a noise. “I don’t mind if I do. Grab your coat, you’re paying.”   Calder, son of Eric, had not always been the Viking warrior he was today. He had been nothing more than a farmer with a sideline in jewellery making, when the Northern Lights had come down to the land to visit him and him alone. It had been an ordinary afternoon in the fields when the storm had risen. It was a tempest unlike any he had seen before. In a single heartbeat, the sky had ripped apart causing his flock to scatter and Calder to shelter under the nearest tree. From his refuge he could see the incredible colours swirl and pulse as the afternoon sun twisted and bent in the storm. Suddenly, a gash of darkest night filled the air above him. Beyond the hole in the sky, the stars swooped and curved, with a single shooting star at its centre, resembling a pendant of the gods. And then it was gone. Like a vivid dream, it passed and seemed to leave nothing but a memory. Calder shook his head as if to shake something loose, only finally to look up and see a small trail of smoke on the other side of the hill. He ran, stumbling over loose rocks to see what was beyond the crest of the hill. He arrived to find a short furrow in the ground, smoother than any plough could have made, with a small mound at one end. Calder could see something small and black embedded in the earth. He reached out and grabbed it. From that moment onwards, he was a changed man. Now, all of these year later, he stood on the prow of the longboat and looked deeply at his left hand, examining the stone that had changed him so much. It was the shape of half an apple and blacker than a winter’s night. Across its surface a billion points of light. The stone had taken him and his brethren on so many journeys. It had guided them from their homes in the West, across the seas to the fertile land again and again, only to have him return with a hold full of treasures and slaves and always an all-consuming feeling of loss. Calder was their guide; he used the stone from the heavens, the obsidian map of the sky to point the way, always listening to its silent whisper. Until today – today there was no wind; there were no birds in the sky and only tiny ripples on the surface of the water beneath the hulking mass of the longboat. Tentatively, Calder’s friend Tarben had suggested releasing the ravens in order to find the direction of the nearest land. Magic stones were one thing but the crew were realists. Calder had told them to be patient; the stone would show the way. After all, it had never let them down before.   The tea shop was a small affair with a view over the river and beyond. Through the bay window, Rose could see the port with thousands of identical cars neatly lined up, ready for distribution around the world. They had come in through the main entrance which also acted as a small gift shop, complete with pointless stationary and guidebooks. The woman behind the counter had a smile as wide as the Doctor’s and had welcomed them in like a seasoned pro. “Welcome to Bede’s World, home of the Venerable Bede. As well as the Monastery and Visitors’ Centre, we have a special exhibition on at the moment with some of the finest examples of…” “Is the coffee shop open?” interrupted Rose. “Yes, it is. And we do a storming hot chocolate, pet.” “Pet?” said the Doctor, worried that the TARDIS translation circuits might be on the blink. “Aye, pet. The tea is nice too… I can bring it over if you like? Have you come far?” Rose smiled to herself. “Oh, about six parsecs as the crow flies,” said the Doctor absent-mindedly. “Yeah you sound like you’ve come a long way. That accent… Somewhere in the South…? Manchester…?” “South?!” sniggered Rose. “Oh yes, pet lamb. Anything beyond Sunderland is the South as far as we’re concerned,” half joked the woman behind the counter. The Doctor was clearly affronted and headed for the comfiest looking chair for solace. “Your friend a bit touchy about his accent? Never mind. Now, what shall I get you?” Rose ordered then joined the Doctor. “Did that woman really call me ‘pet lamb’?” With a snort of derision, the Doctor busied himself with his screwdriver once again. “I’ve ordered you a tea, if that’s all right…” The Doctor didn’t answer. “What’s up? Gone off in a huff because you aren’t quite northern enough?” She tittered. “I’ll have you know I used to be Scottish. Is that northern enough?” he said, then stared out of the window. Whispering to himself, “And, for all I know, I might be again one day.” Clearly she had touched a nerve. “You don’t half talk some rubbish… So… What’s all this about then?” “I have my suspicions about what made the TARDIS…” The Doctor started to wave his hands about as if to explain something complex. “…Make an appalling noise and put you in a bad mood?” “Yeah! Only… it shouldn’t be possible. Not here, not now.” The drinks arrived and broke the conversation. “One tea and one hot chocolate, both with complimentary biscuits. Enjoy your visit. Make sure you see the special exhibition and be careful of that dig site. God only knows when they will be back.” At the mention of a dig site the Doctor sprang to his feet, almost knocking over his tea. Looming over them was a fake monk.   Calder smiled. A smile that the crew knew of old. That magic stone of his was telling him something. The wind began to rise and they were on the move again.   The monk stood directly in front of the Doctor and Rose. His face was full of nervous energy, which Rose found more than a little appealing. Suddenly the Doctor became tense. As Rose glanced in his direction, she could see that all of the usual warmth had evaporated from his face. He regarded the figure in front of them with the sort of suspicion he usually reserved for the galaxy’s most wanted criminals, rather than a man in a brown habit. The two men faced each other in silence. “Welcome to Bede’s World,” said the monk. “I am the Venerable Bede, born in 672 and died on the twenty-sixth of May, 735.” He paused for effect. “And I will be your guide today around my world. A world of knowledge and darkness and light and…” He paused. “And inspiration!” shouted the woman from the counter. “Gary, the line is ‘and inspiration.’” “You really know how to spoil the moment, Doreen… Anyway I thought the line was ‘and faith.’” “They changed it at the last meeting, which you would know if you had been on time. You know, we never get this problem with Pete. Now there is someone who really inhabits the role.” The truth dawned on the travellers. “Inhabits the habit,” joked the Doctor, his smile quickly returning. Gary, the fake monk, was not happy with Doreen. “Look, it’s Pete’s day off and I am Bede today.” Rose felt sorry for the man in brown. “Don’t worry… Gary, is it? I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it… Why don’t you tell us more about this place? Think of it as a practice run.” Doreen was still unimpressed. “Shouldn’t you be with that school group?” “They called and said they were running late. Engine trouble outside Middlesbrough, or something.” “There you go,” said the Doctor. “Gary can tell us all about the place before the school gets here.” “For a start, you can tell me who this Bede bloke actually was,” said Rose.   It felt like it had been raining for months. The land squelched underfoot. The sky, the river and the sea beyond were all the same dark murky grey. Beyond the pond, where the trout waited until Fridays, lay the wooden fence which held the young goats, next to the tanning shed, where the living raw materials were turned into parchment and would form part of their greater purpose. Beyond the rudimentary farm was the small, wooden jetty, the edge of which disappeared into the light fog over the river Tyne. The mist spread its tendrils out across the land, and yet the sun was fighting through increasingly larger gaps in the gloom, allowing shafts of light to warm the land. A small bell rang calling the monks to prayer, dragging them away from one form of devotion to another, their rough garments soaked from the constant drizzle. The heavy air made everything sound so much closer than normal. The echoing ring of the bell was both muffled and yet piercing, and the constant bleating of the goats seemed more immediate than usual. Most of the monks now stood in the chancel in silent contemplation while one, standing at a wooden lectern, was reading from the Scriptures. As always, one of their number was not at prayer. Novice Randal had a considerably more earthly task to fulfil. At the edge of the jetty, he sat listening to the sound of his brothers’ devotions travelling gently on the breeze, while his eyes were firmly fixed on the horizon. This was an important job reserved for the novices of the order, as the younger monks had better eyes and could see further. It was Randal’s job to keep a watch out for ships. Some would carry emissaries or pilgrims, while others brought those with darker motives. It had been some time since the last Viking attack, but you never knew when an innocent looking trading ship would conceal different intentions. He did not know which would be worse: to die or to be sold into slavery. He had read the accounts of attacks on monasteries further up the coast. Such earthly horrors kept Randal awake at night. For a fleeting moment, the sun fought the mist and won. At first Randal couldn’t be sure. He blinked and strained his eyes. Yes, there it was, he was certain now. He could make out a black dot on the horizon and it seemed intent on heading their way.   As the Doctor, Rose and Gary (the fake Bede) walked away from the Visitors’ Centre and down the small incline, the sounds of modern life went on around them. On the river, a gigantic tanker floated its way out to sea, while in the distance massive cranes were being dismantled. All around, the constant murmur of traffic impinged on this island of tranquility. Gary explained as they walked, “In all honesty, I’m just an actor in between gigs… And a bit of ‘theatre in education’ always looks good on your CV.” “You were going to tell us about Bede,” reminded Rose. The Doctor interrupted, “Bede was a monk and a historian who wrote one of the first history books.” “I think she was asking me,” said Gary, “but like he says, Bede was this priest who wrote… Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum…” He pronounced the Latin words with exaggerated care. “I knew I’d get that right.” “And what’s that when it’s at home?” The Doctor couldn’t help himself: “The Ecclesiastical History of the English People. It’s the first history book to use the AD system of dating. Without that book, you lot would know even less than you do.” Rose gave the Doctor a gentle punch in the arm. “Is it me or is it getting nippy?” “Time displacement does that… Or it could just be the wind off the sea.” “I’m just glad I get to keep my thermals on underneath this habit.” “That’s hardly historically accurate,” joked Rose. “And neither are his sandals.” “I’ll have you know, if eighth-century monks had had access to Crocs as comfortable as these, they would have worn them.” They were now getting closer to the actual monastery and could see it in more detail: a squat church made from heavy stone. Gary continued with pride, “We’ve always got archaeologists of one type or another poking around. It’s not like when Time Team came…” “Time Team?” asked the Doctor with interest. “It’s a TV show. Now shush and let Gary tell us about the place,” said Rose. Gary smiled. “Well, it was long before my time; they made a hell of a mess and they didn’t find anything much of interest, just a few pots and a lot of dead goats.” “Dead goats?” “Yeah, goat skin is what the monks made their special paper from,” explained Gary. “This lot are from the university; they only come a couple of times a week… The trench is just round this corner.” The Doctors sonic screwdriver began to buzz once more.   Novice Randal ran for all he was worth. The mist had cleared enough for him to be sure that the oncoming ship was the Norsemen returning. They had reached the river mouth itself. He had to raise the alarm. His feet pounded the soft earth, almost kicking a chicken as he ran haphazardly towards the church and his unsuspecting brothers. The large wooden door felt as light as a feather as he pulled it open with all of his strength, the fear coursing through his body. Eyes turned to him and he shouted a single word: “Vikings.” Every moment counted before an attack. Some of the older monks had sharp memories of times when the Norsemen had come and taken their friends and precious artefacts. Panic gripped them all.   Rose was not impressed; after all, if you have seen one hole, you have seen them all. “There’s not much to look at it, is there,” she said, stating the obvious. The Doctor thought for a moment. “I don’t know, you can tell a lot from a hole.” “You can?” asked Gary. “Like what?” “Well, for a start, you can tell that there aren’t any archaeologists about.” “I did say they only come a few days a week. In fact, I’m pretty sure they’re due tomorrow,” Gary explained. Rose joined in: “Go on then Mr. Smarty-Pants, what else can you tell from this hole?” “Well, the ground has been recently disturbed.” “Yes, it’s a hole, someone dug a hole. They disturbed the ground. That’s how you make holes.” The Doctor gave Rose the same sort of hard stare that Paddington Bear was famous for. “The earth at the bottom of the hole has been disturbed. There…” He pointed. “That line down the middle. The darker, dryer earth, it looks burnt.” Now that the Doctor had mentioned it, it was obvious. “I’m guessing it rained last night,” inquired the Doctor. “Bucketed down,” said Gary. “Why do you ask?” “Because whatever made that mark in the dirt happened after the rain and left a dry scorched line…” He peered into the ditch. “And as there are no muddy footprints, we know your students haven’t been anywhere near. I’m guessing whatever did it is still down there.” “Ohhhh! Get you! The new Mr. Holmes,” Rose quipped. “It’s a shame really,” said Gary. “What is?” asked the Doctor. “That we aren’t allowed down there to see what it is.” “Tell that to Rose,” replied the Doctor as Rose jumped into the hole.   The monks had only moments to act but they had prepared. With a few swift swings of an axe, the jetty had collapsed into the river and now lay beneath the surface. This would only delay the landing, but there was no point in making it easy for the invaders. The novice monks had very precise instructions: they were to go to the library and rescue as many of the books as they could carry. Each one had been given a specific tome to protect. They were to run and hide in the woods, and only come back once it was safe to do so. The older monks would defend the buildings for as long as they could. Once Randal had reached the library, a small room off the cloister, he was pleased to see that most of the other books had already been rescued. Only one remained and it was in the hands of the old monk, Brother Bede. The scholar was muttering to himself about the Norsemen and about how they would never take his life’s work. In his hands he held his history book. Randal had yearned to read it for himself and hoped one day to do so. It had taken years to complete, and the old man was not going to let it go. Quickly, the novice decided to do the only thing that was available to him: he would rescue the book and its author. Together they would protect the book. The knowledge would not go up in flames like so much had done in the past. He was convinced that the Norsemen might burn the church, but they would not take these words. By the time they left the small room, it was already too late – the Vikings had arrived, splashing and slashing their way on to the land. Some of the warriors had split from the main force and were busy gathering up the animals, while the others burned the tannery. From the mists of the river they came, organized and strong. At their head was a single figure holding a sword in one hand and a small black rounded object in his other. The sword was already dripping with blood. “We must go!” the young novice urged the older monk. Seconds later, the warrior was on them.   The jump into the hole was further than Rose had been expecting, but she had managed to avoid twisting her ankle. And, after all, any landing you can walk away from is a good one. “Hold your horses, Rose, I’m coming down,” said the Doctor, as he jumped the short distance, much to the protestations of Gary. “I only brought you here so that you could have a look.” From his position in the hole, the Doctor looked up and smiled his goofiest of grins. “And that’s exactly what we’re going to do. We’re going to have a look… and maybe a poke around. But mainly a look.” Gary gave in. “Hold on then, I’ll come too… I suppose someone from the museum should be present.” “That’s the spirit, come on down.” Gary slowly slid himself down the side of the hole, revealing the manufacturer of his underwear at least twice before arriving at the bottom. “They’re rather anachronistic, aren’t they?” said the Doctor judgmentally. “Do you mind!?” said Gary, as he straightened his robes. “I’m only joking,” said the Doctor. “No, not you, her! I said, do you mind not poking about! Do you want to damage any priceless artefacts?” “Since when is mud priceless? I just want to have a look.” Gary still seemed unimpressed: “You look with your eyes, not your hands.” Rose bent down. “I think there’s something in there.” “Whatever it is, don’t touch it. I want to take a reading,” said the Doctor, pulling out his sonic screwdriver. Gary moved forward, making a grab for Rose’s shoulder. “I told you not to touch anything.” As he touched her, she must have made contact with the thing that had made the gash in the dirt. It was small and black, and looked as if it contained a million tiny dancing points of light in the night. “I just want to have a…” And then Rose and Gary were gone… leaving the Doctor alone in the trench.   Randal was terrified; his master held tightly onto his greatest possession, clutching it safely to his chest. They both knew they were about to die. Randal knew that the Norsemen had no interest in the sacred words. Grimly, he realized that his last thoughts would be about the loss of the text, rather than concern for his own passing. The old man suddenly seemed to be at peace, as if he knew his destiny and was willing to accept it without question. He pushed the novice to one side and urged the boy to run, forgetting the manuscript clutched in his hands. The Viking was huge, at least two spans taller than the monk, and he had clearly seen battle. With a distant look in his eye, he raised his sword, ready to dispatch the old man. The monk simply held out a hand in friendship, his faith guiding his actions. This caught the Viking off guard, and he froze with his sword ready to strike. The monk touched the Viking’s sword-less hand, breaking the moment. The sword came down and hit the book with so much force that it embedded itself into it. In the same movement, the old monk touched something smooth in the warrior’s hand. There was a flash like lightning… and both monk and Viking were gone. Novice Randal stood in disbelief; had God taken his master and his attacker to heaven? Was this the Rapture? Standing before him, where his master had once stood, there was now an angel with purest yellow hair and standing next to her, her herald, a monk in the cleanest habit he had ever seen.   If the Doctor had been surprised by the disappearance of Rose and Gary, he was even more surprised by the sudden appearance of the huge Viking and a more authentic-looking monk holding the tattered and smouldering remains of a book.   The angel remained still, in a crouching position, her hands held as if unexpectedly and suddenly empty of something that they had previously been holding. The look on her face told of her confusion, but then which of God’s creatures would not be confused, after a fall from heaven? The blinding flash had attracted the attention of all the Vikings. Randal watched their confusion as they struggled to understand the disappearance of their leader. For a moment, there was silence, then an uncertain muttering. Randal knew enough of their strange tongue to pick out some of the words: “It’s magic! Thor has taken Calder! What have we done to anger him? It’s Freya! She’s not taking me to Helheim.” As the young monk watched, panic set in and the Vikings ran, back towards their ship, abandoning their captured treasures and animals. Randal felt a surge of pity for the Vikings, who seemed to have taken this angel for one of their own heathen gods, when clearly she had been sent from On High to save the monks from these savage invaders.   Rose gathered her thoughts. She was in almost exactly the same spot, only the ferry terminal, Visitors’ Centre and car park were all gone. The ancient church looked newer and there were more wooden buildings dotted around. With astonishment, she noticed the group of people running towards the river – who seemed to be a group of Vikings. Admittedly they were Vikings without horns on their helmets, but nevertheless they were clearly the warriors of legend. It also occurred to her that her sudden appearance may have grabbed their attention. Not one to let an opportunity slip – the Doctor had taught her that – she stood up and looked directly at the young novice. “Hello, I’m Rose.” It was then she noticed Gary, the fake monk, lying at her feet, with an expression of utter disbelief on his face.   At the Viking’s feet lay something the Doctor recognized. The Doctor smiled to himself in realization of what had happened. Oblivious to his change in circumstances, the Viking raised his sword once more, taking the heavy book in which it was still lodged with it. He lifted the weapon high above his head and again prepared to dispatch the cowering monk. “Oi, we’ll have none of that!” shouted the Doctor as he brought his sonic screwdriver level with the new arrivals. The blue light on the end pulsed and the book on the sword blade burst into flames, showering the Viking’s head in debris and breaking his concentration once and for all. The Viking stood in silence, finally aware of his new surroundings. “What magic is this?” he spat. “Now… I think one of you has something that doesn’t belong to you,” said the Doctor. “Is this Valhalla? Or Helheim…?” continued the confused Viking. “No, this is Jarrow. Just off the A19… Now, like I said… one of you has something that doesn’t belong to them… Small black stone?” Automatically the warrior raised his left hand. It was clear that he had no control over his actions: the stone was guiding him. With the Viking’s palm open the Doctor could see the hemisphere reacting to his words, a million points of swirling light danced. The Doctor spoke to the stone directly, “You are beautiful… and I think you’re looking for your friend, aren’t you?” As if in answer, the pattern of stars shone in unison, and the stone slipped from the warrior’s hand and into the Doctor’s. The Viking’s expression changed almost instantly, as if he had been released from a long captivity. “Well, I think your friend is over here in the mud.” Carefully the Doctor took the Viking’s stone over to the other, which remained embedded in the mud. Gently, he laid them together. A white light glowed and then began to shine like a small sun as the two halves became a single ball of energy. “I think we can leave those two to get reacquainted for a bit, don’t you?” The Doctor turned his attention to the two confused humans. “Now, did either of you see a girl in a white puffer jacket? She was probably with a very surprised-looking monk.” The old monk ignored the Doctor’s question; he was weeping at the smouldering remains of his life’s work, now reduced to little more than a pile of ashes. He had used it to defend himself from the blow from the sword, but the stranger’s wand had utterly destroyed it. “Erm… Sorry about the book… Here, let me help you up.”   Once the Vikings had gone, things began to return to normal at the monastery. Even the novelty of having an angel among them had worn off after a few days. Rose and Gary had settled in quite well. They had started by lending a hand where they could, and Gary had even suggested more than a few changes to the overall layout, using all he could remember from the scale model in the foyer of the Visitors’ Centre. He was experiencing life in the eighth century first-hand and was surprisingly adept at the general day-to-day tasks such as milking the goats. He had even taken to attending early morning prayers. Rose was sure that Gary wouldn’t have thrown himself into his new life quite so quickly, if she hadn’t been able to calm him down and had assured him that that the Doctor would be along to rescue them sooner or later; so they may as well make the best of things while they waited. This news had cushioned the shock to his system, and being treated like a visiting angel wasn’t something Rose was going to turn down. She knew in her heart that the Doctor would arrive… sooner or later. It was however the best part of a month before she heard the familiar tones of the materializing time machine in the cornfield that would one day be the visitors’ car park. With a familiar squeak, the wooden door opened and revealed the Doctor and a smiling elderly monk looming over the Doctor’s shoulder. “We just had to drop off a couple of friends before I picked you up. I hope you don’t mind.” Hiding her joy from her travelling companion, Rose said, “We’ve been here almost a month, Doctor. Honestly, for someone with a time machine, you really have no idea about time.” “You haven’t been changing history behind my back, have you?” joked the Doctor. “I had this confused Viking to take home, but he seemed pleased enough to be back amongst his own people. And he did promise to give up on the pillaging and concentrate more on trade… so that’s okay then.” “So who was this other person you had to drop off?” Rose asked. Smugly, the Doctor explained, “Oh, that was just your standard sentient time- and space-travelling sphere.” “Come again?” The Doctor loved these moments: “That rock you touched… It was part of a couple who escaped the Time War.” “A couple? It was a rock. Was it a ‘silicon life form’?” Rose grasped at a sci-fi reference in order to make sense of the Doctor’s words. “No, don’t be silly, silicon life is incredibly rare. This was graphene life.” Rose was catching up: “So it was a couple? There were two rocks?” “Yes, a couple… You know… a mummy and daddy, pair bond, lovers… that sort of thing. And they were attacked… out there.” The Doctor pointed up, beyond the sky and towards the infinity of space. “They were split and they fell through time onto the Earth. One of them could influence time and the other, space. Together they’re quite formidable.” The Doctor looked off into the distance. “You know, strictly speaking, they shouldn’t have been able come to Earth at all… Well, not after some bright spark time-locked this whole planet at the beginning of the War.” Rose knew when he was remembering the dark times in his life, and touched his shoulder gently. “Doctor, sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about. So are Mister and Missus Rock okay now?” “Let’s just say a shiny rock found its friend and they have gone back home, amongst the stars… to start again.” Novice Randal had heard the strange sound and came running from the other side of the buildings. He threw his arms around the old monk, before remembering his place and stood back, still contemplating the miracle of his master’s return. “Thank you. You truly are an angel,” he whispered to Rose. “Look Randal, we’ve talked about this… I’m no angel.” “That’s true,” said the Doctor. “It is good to see you again, Brother” said Randal to the old monk. “We thought we had lost you forever.” The old monk smiled. “Don’t worry, my son, it takes more than an angry Viking and a few magic journeys to take me away from my work.” “Do you still have the book, Brother?” “Sadly, the book was destroyed… But we can still make another.” “How?” The old monk simply held up his hands as if in prayer. “The Lord will provide.” In the monk’s hands, Rose noticed a Penguin edition of Bede’s own famous history book. “So how come me and Gary ended up here?” asked Rose. “Well, the hemisphere in this time wanted to be with its partner in your time. It used your spare artron energy to shift itself through time… dragging you and Monkey Boy along in its wake.” Gary had finally arrived, wheezing into view. “Rose tells me you can take me home in your magic box.” “Magic box?!” The Doctor appeared to be affronted. “There is nothing magical about it. It’s simply a box that’s bigger on the inside that can go anywhere and anywhen… What is in any way magical about that?” “So you can take me home again?” “If that’s what you want, yes.” “Hell yes! I’ve got a classroom full of kids, and I’ve got so much to tell them. Now that I’ve experienced life as a real eighth-century monk first-hand… I’m the ultimate in living history.” “Well, let’s get you home then. Into the TARDIS with you both.” Before the Doctor closed the door, he popped his head out for one last word: “Oh and Bede… One more thing… Try and check some of your facts will you?”   After saying his goodbyes, Gary headed out of the thing he had mistaken for a portaloo and headed across the car park, up towards the Visitors’ Centre. The genuine monk sandals made an odd scraping noise as he walked. Gary hoped that brother Randal would be happy with his Crocs and that the archaeologists wouldn’t get too upset if they found them in their ditch. His head was full of new ideas about the things he wanted to teach the children – and according to the Doctor, the coach would be here in a few moments. “You look awful,” said Doreen as Gary walked through the doors. “This is one-hundred-per-cent authentic Dark Ages monk,” replied Gary as he headed to the teaching room, full of new-found confidence. Outside the classroom, Gary paused to look at the new exhibition – Marginalia, the marks made by monks on manuscripts, beside the columns of text. He stopped to read an information panel, which explained how these doodles had revealed new and exciting facts about life long ago. The most mysterious of them all was from Bede’s history of the British people: a drawing of an angel with a Saxon inscription, “Réðnes Heoruwearg.” Underneath was the translation: “Bad Wolf.”   Before setting forth on that inevitable journey, none is wiser than the man who considers – before his soul departs hence – what good or evil he has done, and what judgement his soul will receive after its passing. —Bede’s Death Song    

Spring is here and it's brought some great new music! We recommend 2 recent releases from Chris Stapleton and The Black Angels. And we sprinkle in a listener recommendation for good measure. Turn that Nerd up to 11.

When Alex Maas from The Black Angels heard avant garde electronic pop band Silver Apples' first record in a bar in Cincinnati he had what he describes as a spiritual experience. Listen as he describes the effect that Silvers Apples had on The Black Angels music and how their new record "Death Song" has been an exercise in trying to understand the world we live in now.

When Alex Maas from The Black Angels heard avant garde electronic pop band Silver Apples' first record in a bar in Cincinnati he had what he describes as a spiritual experience. Listen as he describes the effect that Silvers Apples had on The Black Angels music and how their new record "Death Song" has been an exercise in trying to understand the world we live in now.

The Muckers - Eddie Conners The Muckers - Molly Sisters of Murphy - 40 Days At Sea The Rumjacks - Eight Beers McGee The Woods Band - Kilmainham's Glen Sisters of Murphy - Green Over Red Langers Ball - Sword of Light The Mighty Regis - Brothers Rafferty The Rumjacks - Kathleen The Gobshites - Lets Talk About Me The Muckers - New York Girls Cranky George - Misery Road Handsome Young Strangers - Battle Of Broken Hill The Wild Irish Roses - Margaret Thatcher's Death Song www.shitenonions.com  

Is... Is That Stalin? Hello, and welcome to episode 191 of The Fantasticast. Each week, Steve Lacey and Andy Leyland guide you through every issue, guest-appearance and cameo of The Fantastic Four. If there's something' strange in your neighbourhood, who you gonna call? Doctor Strange! Especially if the something' strange is an exploding manifestation of Destiny in a subway station, touching the lives of a myriad of New Yorkers. Threats for the Thing and Doctor Strange to overcome include faceless ones and a giant rat, which sounds like Steve Gerber has been raiding Doctor Who plots for this issue. Joining us is comics writer and long-time Fantastic Four fan Ryan O'Sullivan, who took a break from preparing his webcomic Turncoat for publication to help us work our way through this issue. Together, we uncover the secret history of Ben Grimm, and find out just what happens when Doctor Strange cooks. Ryan's webcomic Turncoat, with art by Plaid Klaus, can be found at http://turncoatcomic.com, and the collected edition will be in stores in September. Follow him on twitter, where he is @ryanosullivan Send in your feedback to fantastic4podcast@gmail.com, leave your comments at the libsyn site, or at www.TheFantasticast.com. Follow us on twitter, where we are @fantasticast The Fantasticast is Patreon supported. Visit www.patreon.com/fantasticast to donate and support us. The Fantasticast is part of the Flickering Myth Podcast network. Original artwork by Michael Georgiou. Check out his work at mikedraws.co.uk Episode cover design by Samuel Savage.