LIFE IS STRANGE and NEWS

LIFE IS STRANGE, NO?


Firstly, life is strange. It just is. The whys and wherefores matter not, oft times, only instinct and intuition. Timing. Decision. Action. Perception. Reality.

But just what is real.

Sometimes weird things just happen, and something from somewhere says no or now. Sometimes it can be at the best of possible times, others the worst. Sometimes just in the middle, when you feel you live in a "dying place" inside yourself. When you feel incorporeal; or like a fully dried raisin, empty but for a few useless and wasting calories. Spent and tired and drained and passionless and always awake. Too awake. Scary awake. Too many shadows darting from the corners of your eyes. You are sober when this happens. That is when the bottom feels like it is slipping out. The bottom of your mind, sluicing through empty and invisible pores as sweat and invisible gasses . . . you feel like an Android. Or perhaps a Replicant. Devoid of ALL creativity and Free Will and Thought . . . and you feel like living damage: a consistently self-deprecating invisible demon claws forever at your back,your heart. Depression, anxiety . . . madness slowly sets in as creativity slithers silently out.

Then?

Nothing.

Until that one day your demons decide to fukk with you just a little more. Then seclusion, exile of the self and will and mind; all of it self-delusion.

But you don't know that yet.

No, not til that day you, seemingly for no apparent reason whatsoever, decide get up and attempt to (proactively through intuition/instinct?) do something you've been battling with yourself about for what by now feels like aeons, actively fighting to remember passwords and log-ins and usernames and all that bullshit.

"A writer who doesn't write, is merely an insane person."  Not the exact quote; do not recall who said it; too lazy to look it up, heh. But it was something writer and friend John Claude Smith had said to me once in an online conversation we had been having about writing and madness and muses.

Your perceptions,of all things, have shifted. Now you have noticed that.

But this comes with another something you didn't notice due to your ever so oddly wired perpetual-motor time-shift mind frame (of the passed [yes, spelled as such on purpose] what feels like aeons), as again it didn't allow you to notice. Things you would not/could not have conceived.

My own mind, once again, my own worst enemy.

Finally, though, it circles round, the slithering Ouroborous round the Moebius Strip; the machine has re-awoken, restarted itself, not alone but through the other beautiful strips that criss-crossed yours, bringing to your eyes now colors that you did not even realize existed yet always have; colors that speak in the soft martian-sky whispers of cosmic winds and the safe, warm eternal sands they cover you with, cocoon-like. A cocoon that slowly crackles, bringing forth a different, healthier, safer beast, one of positive energy as opposed to negative despair. 

Its like learning to breathe for the first time. Creativity has come back. Learning, slowly, to take better of myself, inside my mind; inside my heart.

We all should, we all need to.

If you actually read all this ramble, try to learn from it as I am, if you yourself are in despair. And thank you for your time.

Onto other things now:

NEWS:

Starting at some point today at the FREEZINE Of Fantasy And Science Fiction, is my 4 part serial OF CADENCE AND WEATHERED STATUES. Runs from today until Monday Sept. 29th. Go read and enjoy some great FREE Lovecraftian-themed fiction, my style, as well as the other great stories by Gene Stewart and Keith Graham that appeared in this edition of the FZ. Go here: http://boardtree.blogspot.com/2014/09/the-return-of-vincent-daemon.html?spref=fb and check until it is up, which should be by this evening. When up I'll put in the proper link.

Also, check out my regular new column ROSETTA BONES ( http://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/category/reviews-editorials/rosetta-bones/  ) on the e-zine THE INTESTINAL FORTITUDE ( http://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/ ), essentially the online companion to THE ANDROID VIRUS AND SEAN radio show ( http://www.theintestinalfortitude.com/ ). My ROSETTA BONES column covers music/film reviews and rants and rages on whatever topic hits at the time and more. Currentlyup, my review for the new album from Dave Lombardo's project PHILM  (http://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/2014/09/22/philm-fire-from-the-evening-sun-review-by-vincent-daemon/ ), and a commentary on morbid porn titled Elegy: The Death Knell Of Sensuality In Smut (  http://theintestinalfortitude.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/rosetta-bones-elegy-the-death-knell-of-sensuality-in-smut/ ).  For October's horrors I'll be doing (amongst reviews) a several part article on the horrific history of the band CHRISTIAN DEATH, righting wrongs, dispelling misgivings and the many myths that surround these enigmatic Goth Rock legends. And on that, I just may be on the radio show at some point in October, as it is their special October Horror's Month, and they have a great line-up of guests and gags. More info as it comes.

In October I will be in a special holiday edition of the FREEZINE, with two of my favorites, but for now that remains between the nano's and I. However, you will not be disappointed. And if you are, shame on you.

And some things I have come across that you should all give a look-see:

For you words, check out the blog Liberate Tutemet ( http://liberatetutemet.com/  ), by writer Linda Nagle. Sonnets, verse, and wondrously worded, intelligent rants from this incredibly gifted and perceptive writer. Very powerful, passionate, raw, honest wordplay at work here.

For your visuals, check out Kara Koma's gallery  ( subculture-nos.deviantart.com/ ) to see some amazing, macabre and beautiful art from another of the great undiscovered's floating around. Plus her gruesomely erotic piece "Weathered Statue" accompanies my story this weekend in the FREEZINE.

That's all for now, kiddies. Looks like you all have some reading and investigating to do, and it will be well worth your while to do so.

Thanks for reading and Stay Sick,

Vincent Daemon

BACK ON THE GRID (No I Am Not Dead)

BACK ON THE GRID (No I Am Not Dead)

Greetings one and all. No, I am not dead (on the outside, anyway). It's been quite a while since I have made a post here, or anywhere for that matter. Details are not important here, merely that I am doing a bit better, have started writing regularly again, and even have started working on some visual art as well.

My disappearance from the grid was something I had to do for my own piece of mind and sanity. Depression, anxiety, insomnia, and agoraphobia (which became techno-agoraphobia) led to a severe writers block. It had never been this bad before, this was something new. Writer's block led to life block. And finally to a very fizzle-fried and broken computer, leading me to say fukk it.

I've hidden away long enough. It is now time to return from the shadows of the Cosmic Hades and do what it is I do (which could be any number of things on any given day -- you get the idea I'm sure).

As for GRAVE DEMAND, it is currently on hiatus until financial (and some other) situations improve. All contributors please send your submitted works elsewhere for now, where your greatnesses can be read and appreciated. 

I may have a new story entitled Of Cadence And Weathered Statues in the FREEZINE OF FANTASY AND SCIENCE FICTION come the end of September.

And currently special thanks to Kara Koma, Shaun Lawton, Adam Bolivar, and Eddie "Skinhead Gourmet" Petro for their time, patience, kind ears (eyes?), and special words to help me pull through this and start getting my shit back together. No man is an island, yet I tried to make myself one, due to so many varying factors, many of which were my own dear familiar phantoms.

I did have some work published in 2013 that I never bothered to advertise. So here it is:

-- TIMING IS EVERYTHING is in the Diabolic Publications anthology DIABOLIC TALES III   http://www.amazon.com/Diabolic-Tales-III-Adam-Millard/dp/0979169437/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1410373027&sr=8-1&keywords=diabolic+tales+3

-- PLASMATICK is in INFERNAL INK (Volume 2, Issue 1, April 2013)  http://www.amazon.com/Infernal-Magazine-vol-issue-April-ebook/dp/B00C37BIJA/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1410374041&sr=1-5&keywords=infernal+ink+magazine

-- A POISONED IDEA is in INFERNAL INK (Volume 2, Issue 2, July 2013) http://www.amazon.com/Infernal-Magazine-vol-issue-July-ebook/dp/B00DP1PGCS/ref=pd_sim_b_1?ie=UTF8&refRID=0N66CF45K3TTAGE1FW1V

-- TRIALS was featured in the print only zine Nightmares From The Attic (I believe that was the title, I never received a copy of the zine, only a few were printed and they are hard to find).

Again, there was another published piece or two in 2013 that my fried brain cannot quite recall, nor can I check my fried computer that had it all listed out. Nor the backup as that was accidentally smashed during a recent move.

Any further questions (about anything, personal, writing related, etc. direct them to me personally at vdaemon13@gmail.com

Otherwise, if anyone actually reads this, please join and pass the gun (ie: word) around, and, as always. Thank you for your time.

Never Let The Bastards Get You Down,

Vincent Daemon