California Cyberpunk

City of the Dead

2008-08-22T00:16:00.000-07:00

"California State Penal Code #297 prohibits burials on grounds other than established cemeteries"

That's how "colmahistory.org" introduces Colma, California in its very first paragraph. With 1500 residents, Colma is easily designated as a town rather than a city. Underground, 15,000,000 dead make for a full city. Seventeen cemetaries including a pet cemetary take up 73% of its land, making Colma a teeming necropolis otherwise best known for its large Target and Circuit City. The town motto is "It's great to be alive in Colma.""Kill-yrself then kick it in Colma" might be a more thematic name for this, but way too long a URL.

My family and I stayed in a Daly City Inn that borders Colma so closely that it may as well be annexed. The innkeepers were a smiling married couple who offered us fresh saltwater taffy as two elderly basset hounds shuffled around behind the desk. It was late August, which the weather did not reflect. That's characteristic for the Bay Area but hasn't felt so fitting since. Hundreds of knotty leafless trees reached their branches out for consolation from the blanket of rolling white fog that obscured everything but empty hillsides and shining black gravestones.

I live nowhere near the valley, anymore. Odd transitional town, but I'm no one to argue. The saltwater taffy was just as sweet as the innkeepers assured me it would be, and eating candy in foggy weather is a pretty solid treat even on its lonesome.

"PVA Returns"

2008-08-04T13:50:00.000-07:00

The future can never risk bringing about a paradox by speaking to us in words.

After finishing the last post, I used advanced tactics of the 21st century to get a link through to Pleasant Valley Aerospace by means other than their semi-deserted MySpace page. They got my message, but never replied--or, at least, directly. A day or so later, two new songs were up with no explanation anywhere.

The songs were solid, but more importantly, their page had ceased to be a static front for ideas frozen in time. I was pretty stoked about that but didn't think the update actually meant anything. I was wrong. This morning I had been awake for something like nineteen consecutive hours so nothing in the entire world made any sense to me. That sensation amplified ten-fold when I went on Pleasant Valley Aerospace's 'space, and discovered that they had uploaded their entire album "Missing Persons" along with a blog that reiterates their space-age persona just playfully enough to be cool and mysterious without being vulnerable. (I'd like to consider myself at least a small part of their "swift kick in the ass.") I'm not sure if they put up the album as some kind of a fuck-you for a sentiment they didn't like or as a cheerful response to interest, but either way it's real good stuff.

Anyhow, almost all of this information is pretty extraneous. You should go listen to it right now. It'll be a good backdrop for your next hour or so, and even if you don't like it, you'll have something to think about.

Pleasant Valley Aerospace

2008-07-16T22:38:00.000-07:00

The sunbelt is full of surprises, and my earlier scope of vision may have been too narrow. In my poorly documented journeys throughout late 2007 and early 2008, I have come to believe that much of California is thematically appropriate for this blog, and that the San Fernando valley may serve as a microcosm for the larger state, and that in its own way it might be more beautiful than it is depressing.

"Stanislaus County" lies in the central valley of California, tucked between Stockton and Fresno. There are reasons that (in all likelihood) you and I have never heard its name pronounced before. Of course, I could be wrong. Sometimes I am wrong. Somewhere in Stanislaus County is a city called "Oakdale" whose residents pride themselves on living in the "Cowboy Capital of the World." As near as I can tell from internet-skimming, Oakdale is best known for its agriculture, a soon-to-be-closed Hershey's factory, its loamy, fertile soil, and for several instances of toxic contamination in the groundwater/aquifers. The combination gets me, I've got to say. That said, I am interested in and discovered Oakdale for a completely different reason.

In the mid-1990's, two unrelated and underrated post-grunge bands, Hum and Failure, released two mind-blowing space-rock albums. In 1995, Hum released the concept album "You'd Prefer an Astronaut," and the following year Failure released the heroin-drenched "Fantastic Planet," the darker of the two. Aurally, both albums represent almost everything that the mid-90's grunge scene should have been--the bands use distortion not only to create epic sonic tapestries, but also to build walls and layers of emotions. A complete and perfect sense of loneliness and the anguish of being lost and isolated in a vacuum, or, really, distant space, pervades both bands' work, but simultaneously, a piercing sense of protection, familiarity and home peeks out through riffs and phrases.

Though to the best of my knowledge the two bands had nothing to do with each other save for sharing a genre, I group them together because the two of them created two perfect dystopic futures that could be understood without any context but the records themselves. In the same way that TRON and Blade Runner are meticulous visions of a future that could only be envisioned through the lens of the 1980's, "Fantastic Planet" and "You'd Prefer an Astronaut" could only ever be seen through the 1990's; As the synthesizers of New Wave and 80's films' background music were a quiet contemporary proclamation that the future is "now," the two bands acknowledged that the distortion-laden and pedal-mutated sounds of alternative rock could convey futuristic sound-scapes just as well as they could convey an angst-ridden "fuck you!" attitude.

Hum released their last album "Downward is Heavenward" in 1998, which felt less like a lonely space album than "You'd Prefer an Astronaut," and more like they had landed somewhere completely new and had a few years to get familiar with it, which we as listeners will also need to get familiar with the album.

There are reasons that neither band really "made it," and problems beyond just lacking "accessibility" that stopped them from garnering the underground following they both so genuinely deserve, but I am no speaker for the dead, so I will not delve into any flaws that they may or may not have had, but I will explain what I can.

Failure broke up shortly after the release of "Fantastic Planet," which was supposed to be their masterwork, because the 68 minute supernova of heart-swallowing syrupy hopelessness didn't sell well to greater earth. I suppose they were crushed and felt like they had nowhere to go but down, which may or may not be true. It's a brilliant and fascinating album in every way that I have already explained, but the culmination of all that gushing lies in its fourteenth track, "Another Space Song," which among the most perfect, perfectly written, and perfectly produced songs ever recorded--that sentence does it no justice. That song is not worth describing because it is evocative and eloquent enough to explain itself and a number of other experiences much better than anyone should ever try to.

Hum literally could not exist outside of the 1990's. Their final concert took place on New Years' Eve, 2000. After that, they ceased to exist. It was a fair decision--outside of the 1990's, they would cease to be completely transcendent. Confined to the context of a lost and confused decade that already was but written for a lost and confused decade yet to be, they will sound increasingly pertinent and beautiful as time keeps lapsing.

I had sort of assumed that like Hum, literal "space" rock bands had almost completely died along with the last decade. I was wrong. One or two computers ago, it came to my attention that I didn't have "Another Space Song" on file. Struck with an earworm and a dire craving, I downloaded absolutely every file my search returned, just in case the others fell through. A few months later, I noticed "Pleasant Valley Aerospace--Another Space Song.mp3" in my downloads folder. I wondered what kind of band would cover Failure, and how anyone could possibly go about trying to recreate that song. I've heard that no one should ever attempt to cover a song unless they plan to make it completely different than the original, or inarguably better than the original--this cover is neither of those things but, as I realized as soon as I had started the file and it was wafting through my speaker-holes, these guys know what they're doing. The arrangement was clearly thought out in the most active possible way, then filtered through layers of incredibly deliberate and intricate effects. Most importantly, it sounds
really, really cool.

This file became this huge enigma, for me-- I wanted to know everything about it, and about this band, Pleasant Valley Aerospace, but the only real, concrete information I manage to glean about the band is that it has two members, Chris Amato, and Jamie Jeness, who used to be in a band called Sinewave. The band cites Failure as an influence, but their songs sound more like what Hum might have written to follow "Downward is Heavenward," which ties all three bands together chronologically and links them in as the third part of the same idea of futures. Their semi-tongue in cheek description seems a lot more believable than anything they have to say for themselves about recordings or concerts Ironically enough, it does the band more justice and explains their existence more clearly:

"Towards the edge of creation you head. Your destination is the answer to the question of universal entropy. Will the truth you seek really matter or will it void you of purpose? Strapped into this cocoon of light and machinery these thoughts fill your mind. Nothing left to cradle you but the arms of loved ones in imagination. They are all long dead or maybe not yet born. Its hard to tell out here."

In reality, the band is a barely tangible mass of contradictions and broken links, but in their four available recordings and one cover, they embody the beautiful but dystopic universe that their description hints at. On their MySpace they claim to have "self produced and recorded their first album "Missing Persons,"which would have been completed in the year 2004, but neither Google nor weeks of Soulseek-searches have yielded any trace of information about the album. They have 66 "fans" listed and a meager 15 "comments," which are abysmally low numbers by anyone's standards but all of their listed songs have near-perfect recording quality, meticulous production, and hundreds of plays. The only thing about this band that makes any sense to me is their listed location: Oakdale, California.

A band like Pleasant Valley Aerospace needs to exist without any kind of context, so that they can transcend boundaries without ever knowing that there were boundaries. People who submerge themselves in sensory deprivation tanks do it to unlock levels of creativity in their subconscious that otherwise never could have surfaced--Oakdale had that same effect on Pleasant Valley Aerospace. PVA exists outside of any kind of musical conglomerate. It exists for itself and for the presumed greater earth that lies outside of Oakdale, only in turn, it exists for any presumed greater earth outside of anywhere. It represents the unattainable but forever visible horizon--the outside world that anyone dreams is right outside the borders of whatever traps them. It is the odd fixed agricultural void, Oakdale, that allowed Pleasant Valley Aerospace to create and become something transcendent and ubiquitous-- a revolution in its own rite.

Independent musicians in metropolitan cities create music that impresses and advances their local scene, but that self-consciousness precludes genuine creativity. Pleasant Valley Aerospace makes no mutilating attempt to fall into any scene but their own perfectly set stage, but also no attempt to avoid anything or everything because that's considered cool and edgy. Because of their (agri)cultural isolation they don't have to. What's so beautiful about Pleasant Valley Aerospace is that they clearly had a vision and created a world in their minds and then executed it as sound. Nothing else permeates.

As far as I am willing to believe, "Somewhere above the roar of ocean surf and the heat of the vale lies Pleasant Valley Aerospace." The future is in Oakdale, and we're never going to make it out there.

Roboroaches

2008-05-14T21:07:00.000-07:00

I am not into cockroaches. Cockroaches are nasty motherfuckers.

Cockroaches are horrible repulsive sick heebly jimbly monsters. They sell hissing cockroaches as pets in little boxes at a pet store down the street from me, and it makes me wonder if cockroaches can learn to love. I don't know if that would make me feel sorry. I think that I could fight a war against cockroaches with conviction, even if they could be passionate or if they could love. I am sure that we would not share any of the same values.

Early in this decade, Hasbro released a line of toys called "B.I.O. Bugs," which I was really down with, despite their serious resemblance to cockroaches jammed through a roboticizer. I was never allowed to have one, because neither of my parents felt so keen about spending fifty dollars on a robot cockroach novelty toy, but I really wanted one. "B.I.O." stands for "Biologically Integrated Organisms." As I understand it, (a limited, limited understaanding) their artificial intelligence is based on sensors all over their body, rather than in a centralized "mind," but the electronic nervous network feeds back to the centralized mind which makes enough sense of it to learn. The little cowboy in the background is Mark Tilden, the roboticist who came up with that system, and a good portion of B.I.O. Bugs themselves:

B.I.O. Bugs can move, make horrible noises, and fight each other-- but what's really unsettling is that they can learn.
Artificial intelligence makes me nervous, because I seriously think that they have to be conscious, at least to some degree. Biological creatures perceive and feel through a chemical reward/punishment system, and some kind of electrical feedback, so it seems hard not to believe that anything capable of learning or problem-solving does not have some amount of perception. I don't mean that A.I.-bearing robots are capable of having thoughts, seeing, or smelling, but I think there's probably some consciousness-a knowledge most likely limited to PLEASURE/DISPLEASURE/IMMEDIATE-GOAL, and whatever senses are built in. I don't really know how to articulate what a robo-psyche would be like, so, maybe you shouldn't take that description too seriously. Just the basic idea. So, maybe, artificial intelligence scares me more than cockroaches and I still have a point. I mean. I don't really think so. Anyhow, B.I.O. Bugs failed massively. Hasbro has disowned any knowledge of their existence, and even the Wikipedia Article has been deleted.

If there's to be a point here at all, I guess I'd like to order myself a B.I.O. Bug off of eBay or somesuch, and if anyone would like to do the same and battle bugs with me, I would really like that.

Gamers Against Racism

2008-01-13T10:24:00.000-08:00

I'm still not over this:

"What is GAR!?

GAR! stands for Gamers Against Racism!. Racism has no place in the video game community. We fight against orcs, zombies, Sephiroth, and racism on a daily basis. We stomp on Koopa Paratroopers, but we also stomp on racist ideas.
How can I join GAR!?

If you love video games and hate racism, then you are already a member.

Does GAR! have any enemies?

Yes. Our enemies include hatred, intolerance, and a rival group calling themselves the Association of Racist Gamers (ARG).

How can I fight racism?

Whenever you hear somebody say something racist, jump up and point at them and scream at them until they apologize. You can also use violence if it becomes necessary. Sometimes extreme violence is the only way to stop racism."

STOP...

2008-01-08T12:05:00.001-08:00

...and think about what's important.

Drama in the Valley

2007-12-19T20:43:00.000-08:00

All drama originated in the San Fernando Valley--I'm almost sorry to open like this without the context of a witty and pertinent story, but I'm fully sure that anyone familiar with greater Los Angeles can fill in the blanks with his or her own applicable anecdote.

Drama began before America manifested its destiny and conquered the West, so it is hard to know when, precisely, what once was flat earth or fused mountain became "valley" because there were no civilized cultures to keep these things on record. What I can tell you is that Los Angeles' full valley annexation took 50 years, finished in 1965, and that drama began right about then, historically, which involves a tumultuous squabble over secession. Like the South, the San Fernando valley failed to secede from its larger, more arrogant counterpart, and, like the South, the valley has been stigmatized ever since, not without good reason. On the right is a visual explanation of one "good reason" out of many.

All valley families are dysfunctional; most families live in the valley because the valley is cheap, and they are either poor, frugal, or politically forward and therefore mistaking their distant land as "bohemian" instead of "dismal" and "sun-stained." Conversely, several nice, smart, and interesting people come from the valley--this does not diminish the fact that all drama comes from the valley, but I would like to assure you that I am not as biased as you might think me to be. I have met several valley-dwellers who fully charmed me, and I have valley friends. I really love Ventura. Like. I really love VEntura. And I can't imagine why.

2007-10-02T21:43:00.000-07:00

I would just like to point out that Ronald and Nancy Reagan were married in Studio City.

Preamble

2007-10-01T19:54:00.000-07:00

With the phenomenal success of such scene-blogs as "The Cobrasnake," and "not actually any scene-blogs but "The Cobrasnake'" I feel that while publicizing the fashion sense of an already accepted and smugly arrogant Los Angelean subculture is one of the first steps in the right direction of "cool" since Andy Warhol's factory collective, it severely under-represents a number of other important facets of the up-and-coming "cool," such as "hopeless valley sprawls." The truly "cool" don't work for it. They simply are, and always were. I hope that you remember that for years to come.
I have high hopes that I, too, can bring light to a subculture in need, like Mark the Cobra Snake.
The mountain-adjacent* (as opposed to the downtown underground) lives of deep valley residents are certainly elite and far removed from the lives of others in much the same way that MSTRKRFT's crowd seems not to appear anywhere else. This new ideology is the second photoblogging step in the right direction: Remember, today's lame has always been tomorrow's cool. Furthermore, what could make you more avante-garde and bohemian than living where that no one else lives and no one else wants to live (yet)? The answer is, "experimental noise rock." However, this is not a music blog. It is a scene blog. The music is necessary but secondary to the sensibility. So, we will make a journey towards the deepest realms of urban sprawls, the San Fernando Valley, and other places that you are more for ready than any of the other hipsters--they are two years behind, perpetually. We are the future, along with everything else that appears ordinary today.

P.S.
You may be wondering why I did not explain this blog's title, "Kill Yrself."
I would like to think that it speaks for itself.

*This is not a distinction between the La Crescenta Valley and the San Fernando Valley. It extends to West Hills, North Hills, Canoga Park, Sun Valley, etc. Locations that have no immediately apparent or conceivable reason for anyone but residents to approach, which are literally and physically and noticeably mountain adjacent.