Tag: sunset

The Fantastic Four – 26th December 2021

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

A family always on the edge
Fighting to hold itself together
Fear and doubt grows in the dark
And the fantastic four will be no more

Make your own bible. Select and collect all the words and sentences that in all your readings have been to you like the blast of a trumpet.

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Gratitude Journal

I am so happy and grateful to see the beautiful sunset over the cloudy mountains at Singha Park yesterday. The view was lovely and filled with warmth.

As I’m getting to the bottom of the bottle of weed tincture that I got off Matt, the effects are getting stronger. Today, Amy is off with her friends to celebrate Christmas, leaving me this opportunity to be home alone and get a little high..

Singha Park yesterday seems like weeks ago right now. In the end, I ate too much despite not finishing a third can of Wild Rose, drank too much. My stomach just couldn’t take it. I realised it soon after that the beer was just too gassy. I burped and farted the drive home. I took a minute at the park and savoured a divine moment watching the sunset to the clouds on the mountains. As the clouds were moving, the sun would peak out again and it felt like a special surprise and a secret message meant just for me. I’ll hold it in my memory more than any photo I could’ve taken as a reminder.

This morning has been righteous, with two good coffees and a few more pages of the Slash biography read. It has been interesting to me to see how their band worked (as people, not as musicians), think about how my bands worked and wonder how everyone deals with it differently.

I updated more blog posts and listened to the ..? album to write a review and that was fun, and the start of reviewing my CD collection – an impossible task, I know, and already this morning I could think of at least ten different, other, things I could be doing. This is life and I’m loving it.

..? – …! – CD review

I had downloaded this album back when I was living in Sydney and as I did with a few different albums I enjoyed, I burned them to CD and printed a cover and pretended they were the real thing. So something must have struck me about this album at the time but in all honesty, I have probably never listened to it since. I would venture to say that this album is more than 10,000 other album downloads ago by now!

Searching for this band (…?) and album (…!) is not google-friendly, to say the least. Luckily some of the track titles enabled me to find a little information that this was actually a one-man recording project and the music is described as avant-metal. 16 songs in 26 minutes apparently. Appealing to my short attention span.

Let’s see how it sounds on this slow, tired Sunday morning.

Goodnight, Folks
It’s a cartoon intro and vocals that recall Pentti Dassum from Deep Turtle. Ah yes, I can hear what pulled me into this. The first minute or so actually recalls a few Finnish bands such as Keukhot and Y.U.P. before a half-minute Darth Vegas/Mr Bungle bomp-a-long. Obviously, an ironically titled introduction that has me curious. I’m expecting the beginning of the next track to be bombastic.

The Band of Bald Mountain
Well, only for a second, a big booming crescendo before wandering off and then careering through all sorts of genres, this definitely has me smiling behind my serious lips. I like this middle section that hangs around for a relatively long chunk of time, until the end in fact. I like that balance and transition, from the crazed to the more straightforward and especially like the fact it doesn’t go back into zaniness as may have been expected.

One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten
Haha, this is a high-octane counting song that would be on my dream Sesame Street. The transition into single snare hits about three-quarters of the way through is very cute. The lyrics though… Well, I guess they are easy to remember. A favourite so far though.

3-2-3
More counting? It’s ominous, booming, and Emerson Lake and Palmer have arrived, then Slayer and it’s on. Fuck yeah. Yes, it’s that cartoon thrash that has been heard many times before, BUT, because it is cartoon thrash it’s never the same and I marvel at the musical dexterity of it all.

Moe and Mumbles
Ah-ha. The gypsy thrash song! And…..there’s the Simpsons theme tune thrown in for a couple of bars for good measure. Impossible not to smile at but feels a little filler here.

Tear Out My Eyes
What is this main riff, lifted from – it sounds familiar? I’m digging the pace of this one, a jaunty thing…oh – double speed and I’m turning the volume and pumping my imaginary double kick drums. And it’s over before I could even finish writing the first sentence. Dug.

Hello, Oh, Sweetheart
Is this the interlude? A show tune of sorts. It’s brief and serves as an intro to the following tune.

Mitch, The Bastard Id
Nice bass tone, nice guitar tone, this punks along before speeding off. Like a twisted cowboy song, the rhythm feels like horse riding. Weirdly, I think this is the first tune that has a repeated section before scattering itself all over the place. It’s good music, so why not?

Peeping Toms Make Good Spies
Yes, spy movies are brought to mind here, at least at the beginning. I like music when I have no idea where it is going. Of course, I also like music that is more conventional but I think I like to work a little when listening. I like things that most people would find testing. I’m gonna listen to this one again, right now.

Damn Gypsies
Gypsy? In a ska way. In a punk-ska way. Great chorus and again the pace is compelling. This is actually the most conventional song so far. I want to sing along and punch the air.

The Charmer – The Torture
A slow down, another interlude tune. Good to give the ears a little break from the nonsense-circus-core. Haha….and then…..great. Perfect. Yes – kill me!

Subservient Girlfriend
This intro reminds me of DI. A faster So-Cal classic punk bounce around which a swirling synth before a mad chorus that I wish I could hear the lyrics more clearly.

Siblings
OK – well, lyrically this one is straightforward and clearly understood. Sibling love.

Fireworks Away
A great speedy tune with uplifting tunes and some sweet percussion tingly away in the background. I’m liking that this one maintains a steady beat and not pounding off into double-time death metal mayhem. Another favourite.

X
Fuck, this recording is very nice, probably lots of time poured over each sound. I like that the distorted guitars are cut so cleanly into each section. Not attracted to this middle-end section breakdown but as with music like this, it’s not usually long before a change comes along.

Mania Love
Well, those recording cuts are even more overplayed at the beginning here. And I’m loving it. This farts around all over the place wildly and every moment is genius or thereabouts. And farts is the word as this crazy fun album blows off back onto the shelf for now.

That was a rad listen and I will check it again. I think the album has been looked over as it exists at spot #1 in my collection and so is not easily seen. Perhaps I should move to the D section (for dot).

Favourite track right now is ‘One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten’, I’m thinking purely because I have an idea how the lyrics go!

Well, I’m standing here what do I see? A big nothing, threatening me – 12th-16th March 2018

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

Back with the ants.  Life seems to be involving them in one way or another as each day passes.  I guess we gotta share this place.

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Another visitor we will be sharing time with.

One dinner time, as Amy was preparing some fabulous dish that I forget now as it’s not really relevant to this story, she told me to serve myself and heat up some rice from the fridge.  I grabbed the container and a plate and went to the table, plied the lid off and saw little black dots on the rice which looked like it may have been mould.  I decided to wait.  In Amy’s parent’s house, copious amounts of rice are made daily, whether it’s used or not, some kept out, some in the fridge and a fresh lot in the rice cooker.

I called out to Amy and said there was ‘black stuff’ in the rice.  She asked if it was mould, and I said maybe or maybe ant eggs.  She came to have a look and declared it was just tiny ants.  That’s ok then.  I picked around the black bits as best I could.  Amy estimates she would have probably eaten well over 10,000 ants by accident in her lifetime.

The following night Amy’s dad offered me a dish of red ant eggs with veggies to which I declined.  I also spied the tub of rice from the fridge and noticed that one of the tiny ants in there was still moving.  I bet those things can live all the way through your body.

The ants are everywhere in Amy’s parent’s house, anywhere where some form of food can be found, though not sure what’s in the bathroom that entices them, maybe flecks of toothpaste and dead skin.  I’m wondering how we can keep them out of our house.

Which leads me to the second ant story.  As I was watering the garden I’ve been pulling out weeds, loosening the ground with water so I can pull up as much of the roots as possible.  I find this strangely satisfying.  I’ve been careful to look out for snakes and other little beasties and then I came across an ant’s nest, less than ten feet from our kitchen.

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The ants were possibly disturbed by my watering but were running around in a bit of a tizzy, some of the carrying stuff that I couldn’t quite make out.  I went and told Amy about the nest and she didn’t think much of it at the time saying if we need to we can get rid of them with ‘chemicals’.

So I went back to watering and weeding, noticing that the ant action had died down mostly, with just a few scattered wanderers scurrying about.  That was when I felt an almighty sting on my finger as I was pulling up a weed.  I let go of the weed and pulled up my hand to find one of these little bastards attached to my finger.  I quickly brushed it off as the pain intensified and I wondered if I needed to go to the hospital or something serious like that.

I pissed and moaned for a bit and carried on watering and after a while, the pain subsided.  It did make me think though that if a bunch of these ants had decided to climb up inside my shirt or shoes, that would be something a little more worrying and potentially dangerous.

Later, Amy saw a picture I took of the ants and proclaimed ‘Oh those ones are nasty – we need to get rid of them’.  We’re looking for ‘chemicals’ now.

PS – the feature picture isn’t connected to this post.  It was taken when I managed to duck out from Amy’s parent’s house on my pushbike.  I enjoy just riding around the small sois (streets) nearby and getting lost before finding my way again.

12th Mar 2023 – How cautious I was at the time, still not knowing what was dangerous or not. Now, ants and lizards, in and around the house, are just normal. We never did get any chemicals.

Hello tomorrow, today – 11th November 1994

~ shaun tenzenmen ~ Leave a comment

We make today a special day (oh, very holy) and decide to head to the beach for the first time in this fair land. We look forward to it all day but its about 4 o’clock by the time we get there, heading south to Cronulla, through the bushy suburbs of the city to what seems like the outskirts.

My eyes are stuck to the windows of the train, our usual journey into the city is lined with factories and industry and where it is suburban all the houses are visible, but here all you can see is trees with the odd corners of houses sticking out or braking the skyline. Some houses are built on steep embankments above small tree infested valleys, stilts sticking out of the floor of the construction, going down twenty, forty feet til finding ground to support from.

Over a bridge over a river with a peninsula in the foreground standing high, along the waters edge, small boat buildings and above, up the windy steps, huge houses nestle in the bush, the wealthy cats must hang out there.

Cronulla, last stop on the line, this train terminates. It’s a blistering hot day but the cool breeze is blowing off the sea to the station and we follow our noses to the beach, past a hardcore record shop where skaters hang out outside listening to the music blasting away, what more could you want? It briefly reminded me of Black Flag coming from Redondo Beach, but with a blink my mind was captured by the sight of the beach, beautiful warm yellow sand in a tiny cove lined by slippery slimy rocks which went off one way round the corner and out of sight and the other leading to the main beach, apparently the longest stretch of sand in the area.

We walked round, past ocean baths, swimming pools built into the rocks and watered by the ocean, a safe swim and if you go to the ocean edge of the pool the wave will bash up against the side and over your head. We carried on, to our left, blocks of flats towered on the small cliff but trailed off as we walked round the corner and the sand started again. We laughed and played like kids in the sand and remembered the times we used to go down to the beach after work, with John, when we lived in England, it being a similar time of day (despite the lateness the sun was still high and hot).

We ventured into the water, very slowly, it was freezing to our little hot bodies, slowly letting it envelope us, but after a few metres the waves became bigger and we didn’t have much choice about getting wet. Once in though it began to feel warm, our bodies adjusting. We watched the other kids body surfing, catching a wave and swimming with it and we attempted to imitate them with little success at first but after a while I caught a wave and frightened myself as I was riding this wave, my head was in front of it and all I could see in front of me was bare sand, no water! I was flying along about two feet above the ground, but the wave broke and cushioned my fall to the sand and I got up, huge grin and back out to try it again.

The next time though we were both stood awkwardly and we got dumped, I went under for about five seconds and all I could see was the white wave all around me, when will I come up!? I found Broni and she got hit bad, dragged along the sand on her back and tumbled into a somersault, she retired hurt and slightly embarrassed, but it did make us realise the power of the water.

I went back in and the waves grew stronger and stronger, one minute the water was knocking round your ankles, the next it was too deep to touch the bottom, big waves which we would never see in England, I managed a couple more rides before getting out and drying in the sun as it slowly set over the other side of Australia.