Gojira’s birthday around the corner..

So Gojira’s birthday is coming up.. I’m so excited and I know it’s never a day he looks forward to but I cant resist the urge to try and make it special and celebrate it in the best way I know how. First I was thinking a Tool tshirt or some sort of Tool clothing. Here are some of my favorite Tool tshirt prints:

(damn this dress is hot, i want)

But then I thought there will always be Tool tshirts. It’s the limited edition Tool merchandise that I need to focus on, which later maybe 10 years down the line will be rare to find. A while back I had seen these Revolver magazines that were featuring Tool on their cover and I was planning on getting them and then suddenly after searching for them I couldn’t find them. I completely freaked out. I googled and googled and it seemed to have disappeared off the face of the Internet. I began thinking maybe they had sold all their copies and they had removed that magazine for sale. The fact that I couldn’t remember which magazine cover they were featured on made the search all the more difficult. But somehow I finally found it again and they were indeed still there.. and may I add, waiting to be bought by some diehard Tool fan :P So I didn’t lose my chance and got them for his birthday. I ordered it and they will be coming by the end of this week :D I’m so happy and excited. There are 2 different Tool covers and so I ordered both. Here are some awesome sneak previews of the magazine they were featured on:

Isn’t it hawt.. <3 Can’t wait till it comes in the mail so I can take play-by-play pictures of opening the package and the magazine itself. if the magazine is sealed in plastic I might just leave it for Gojira to open when he comes here..  But obviously this is not enough to make it speshul…:P I want to pamper him and make him happy.. If he was here I would have baked him a Tool inspired birthday cake… This girl did one which I found while browsing but I think I could do a way better job.. I will try next year hopefully :) If you’re interesting in following this tutorial to make your own Tool cake you can do so here.

This is the interesting thing about fate.. I had no idea what the 2nd gift I was getting Gojira for his birthday. Day before yesterday I was looking for a Tool logo on Google Images and it showed a pendant of one of the Tool eyes. I almost jumped out of my skin in excitement. It is so hot and so damn classy. And its the same eye he has tattoed on his arm.. I put my order in for it today :D and its got the signature of Alex Grey impressed on the back.

When I clicked on the image of the pendant it led me to this cool website selling a bunch of Alex Grey and Tool merchandise. I so badly wanted to get him the Vicarious DVD signed by Alex Grey himself but it turns out his brother already got him that same DVD last month.

I like Alex Grey’s work. But I get shivers down my spine from the rush of looking at Cam De Leon’s artwork. Alex Grey, Cam De Leon and Peter Westermann are my ultimate favorite artists of all time. These are few of my favorite pieces…When I get settled down I will adorn the walls of my home with their artwork.. I can so envision it..

alex grey's

alex grey's

alex grey's

alex grey's

alex grey's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

cam de leon's

peter westermann's

peter westermann's

peter westermann's

peter westermann's

peter westermann's

peter westermann's

Speaking of Tool, since when did a department stores like JCPenney start selling unconventional items like a Tool shirt? It shocked the daylights out of me yesterday when I saw this.. weird..  You have to see this to believe it…

anyways its a good deal too good to pass up so I’m going to call the nearest one to my house and ask them if they have any available. Wish me luck that they have them in stock..!!  This light is turned off…

my next tattoo

Prying open my third eye. This is Tool’s third eye. This is the next tattoo I’m getting. This light is turned off.

Currently Listening to
Lateralus
By Tool

“C” Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference HERE)

I’ve randomly spoken about my love for TOOL over the past year or so.. I’ve still not quite grasped it.. Sometimes it’s so overwhelming I have to keep my distance from it and then come back to it. somewhat how an artist may work on a painting. Tool it’s one of those things that you never have full understanding of. Anyone can interpret it in their own way. People have varying degrees of understanding but there is nothing complete when it comes to TOOL. Take the song “The Patient” for example. Gojira explains most of the deeper meanings of songs to me. It’s so complex according to me that I need him to break it down for me…  He was explaining how that song is about vampires sucking the life from you. Some say it is a metaphor for the music industry and how they suck the life out of him. All this time I thought it was about a patient in a hospital being needled,poked tested and prodded.. sick of it all but has no choice but to be right there in the hospital day in and day out giving blood and hoping they will make him well. I really thought this is what he told me. Years ago while we were sitting and listening to the song and he was explaining the meaning I got this from what he explained to me. I don’t know how I didn’t catch the vampire part.. but that makes so much sense too.  There are no words for Maynard’s creations. You will never find anything like it. No genre, no band that will move you the way this does.

Gojira told me a couple days back about a new Puscifer album. Puscifer is Maynard’s side project besides TOOL and A Perfect Circle.  The last album of theirs that I listened to was “V is For Vagina” and I really took that album in but not as much as I’m digging their latest album. Their newest album is called “C” Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference HERE) I can’t stop listening to Potions (Deliverance Mix), Polar Bear and The Mission “M is for Milla Mix.” This whole album is so astounding cuz his voice sounds so pretty and hypnotic.. That’s what I fell in love with basically when I was introduced to Tool.. the way he croons is like he’s putting a baby to sleep and yet what he croons for and sings about is the most blunt reality of life and the way people choose to act. It’s like nursing a baby with sour milk. Saying I love you but this is what life is. Rather than you being shocked with finding out about it later, I’m going to spoon feed it to you now so you know how it is when you go out into the big bad world on your own. Most parents and people work the exact opposite if you think about it. They want to hold on to their children’s innocence just a little while longer. They mean well but they could be in fact hindering them by doing so.  The manner in which he’s sung this album “C” Is for (Please Insert Sophomoric Genitalia Reference HERE) reminds me of Porcupine Tree. The lead singer of Porcupine Tree sings in the same way… Especially the song Potions (Deliverance mix) His sorrow pulls the tears out of my eyes. I kid you not.  Just check out the lyrics of Potions

Someone sang your name today
and a stranger saw me crumble
Hold my broken heart and shell away
begging “bury me beside you”

The devil popped around today
selling promises and potions
that could take our memory away
help forget I’d ever met you

Tell me… can you please take away the misery?
Give me a baker’s dozen please,
wrap me up to go away

But I want to
I need to
forget you
Don’t want to, but I need to let you go

The devil bent my ear today
about his magical elixer
That would make the sorrow go away,
help me forget I’d ever met you

Give me
a baker’s dozen please,
wrap me up to go away

I want to
I need to
forget you
Don’t want to, but I need to let you go…

I think from reading this you can understand that he’s in the sort of pain where he wishes he could just forget the memories of a special love once had. Being in these shoes before I couldn’t help but understand exactly what it means to crumble when he talks about succumbing to the pain of trying to forget someone. When his voice elevates and his pain resonates at “But I want to…I need to forget you…Don’t want to, but I need to let you go….” I can’t help myself but cry my tears.. my hurt.. of being in that situation when I hear him sing this part. It’s such a humbling feeling when your OK and have dealt with the past and a song can put you back there all over again. And I’m not saying it’s a bad thing either. It’s a good reminder to be humbled it will make sure I never put myself in the same situation again. Once bitten twice shy anyone?

Polar Bear is another song I’m stuck on.. Even though this is not a Tool song I can’t help but compare it to “Right In Two” Maynard dissects the truth of the matter in the same way for this song. With “Right In Two” he expresses how humans since the dawn of time have destructed and fought rather than live in harmony and peace. In Polar Bear though I’m not positive (can you be positive when you interpret any of Maynard’s songs?)  is about global warming and how it has endangered polar bears. Here are the lyrics…

I see you chippin’ away again
Your own icicle island
Howling alone, the lies and the bone
Hoping to fade and disappear into the white
A polar bear

A moat of icy water
No end in sight save your own
I know that look of fear, I’m well-aware
No need to brave it all alone
I’ll be there

I see you chippin’ away again
Your own icicle island
I know that look of fear, I’m well-aware
No need to brave it all alone
I’ll be there

Hoping to fade and disappear into the white
A polar…

Due to the global warming the polar ice caps in the arctic regions are melting forcing polar bears to swim longer distances to get to their breeding grounds. Polar bears cannot swim for very long distances which can cause them to become hypothermic and die or drown because there are no ice caps en route to rest on. Many polar bears get lost too… It is also bluntly apparent that he is ridiculing the people who believe that God will come up with a magical solution saving us from the trouble that we have got ourselves into. Pollute the only habitat we live on and then cry that our resources are running out.  we can be funny sometimes. it cracks me up.. It’s a shame what state we’ve put this planet in. And we’re all to blame… sigh… trying to fix a problem only when we can see radical changes in the environment and by then it’s basically too late.

I haven’t had a chance to check out the meaning of The Mission but I was shocked to find out Milla Jovovich is singing with Maynard. And not only has she sung in it, in my opinion she’s done an impressive track with him.  It’s so hot and sexy and you’d never believe what a good singer she is until you listen to this.. You must check it out…

Anywho…  felt good listening to some of Maynard’s new stuff.. I better go to bed now.. long day tomorrow.. let me know if any of you have already listened to any of this or if you liked it after listening to it for the first time. He’s seriously one of a kind. I’d pay through my nose to get a glimpse of what goes on in his head… it must seriously be something else. this light is turned off…

Currently listening to
Cuntry Boner
By Puscifer

hearing damage…

I can’t get enough of this song Hearing Damage by Thom Yorke. I can’t understand why it does something to me. I feel so moved and so taken up by this song. It rips out every emotion that I take so much time to bury within me and pulls it all out of me.. I feel so vulnerable about my emotions because I’m so sensitive and people have had the opportunity to take advantage of that in the past…so I take so much effort to hide it. Sometimes its the emotional baggage that I’ve taken years to bury… sometimes its just the daily strain I feel weighing down on me.. but it just takes it all out whatever it is that’s pent up within me..like some sort of detoxification. Depending on the mood I am in it chokes me up when I feel raw and I’m not ready to feel so exposed. Other times I just submit to the overpowering emotion and it evokes tears from the relief of feeling the stress being stripped away from me as I get into the song.. It makes me feel lighter as I am turned inside out.

There’s a lot of music that I listen to but I feel like this is on another plane. Obviously not even close to Tool. I don’t think nothing will ever come close to Tool. It’s one of those gifts that people don’t know that exists in the world. They think its just music. Another band, another record.  It’s right there in front of them but you have to be open to let it embrace you or you will just pass it by without even knowing how life changing it could have been for you. Tool is so immense that that I am sometimes intimidated to even listen to it. I have to prepare my body and mind to be able to listen to it and take it in. Like meditation. I have not even nicked the glacier when it comes to Tool but I still feel like I am such a different person because of it. I can’t even imagine how much more there is to know and the experience of embracing all of it completely. I am grateful to Gojira for introducing me to Tool. I wonder what kind of life I’d be living if I never came across it. If nothing ever happens to us I’ll be thankful that he at least was able to open my eyes and ears and give me the gift of Tool.

Note: Just now as I was looking on Amazon to see if Thom Yorke had his own album with Hearing Damage on it, I read that he is the lead singer of Radiohead. It’s so fucking mind blowing how this is all connected. Radiohead is another one of my favorites that I’ve recently gotten into after it was suggested to me by a number of people (including gojira). I put Radiohead at par with Porcupine Tree. They both have emotion evoking songs… Insane Insane Insane….

Have you ever listened to music that has been life altering for you? This light is turned off…

Currently listening to Hearing Damage- Thom Yorke
New Moon Soundtrack: Deluxe Edition (CD & DVD)

Betrayal

This weekend I was betrayed… I no longer have a best friend anymore. Its in many ways sad. But at the same time I should have known better to trust someone like that when I know they always betray and let me down when I let a person get that close. I should have known to not get so close to people cuz one day or another they will fall through. The only person that hasnt let me down knows who he is… and I’ll love him forever… For this moment of betrayal I dedicate a song to it. It’s a song by the best band there ever will be… TOOL. And the song is called Pushit.

[Pushit]
Saw that gap again today ,
while you were beggin’ me to stay,
take care not to make me enter,
if i do we both may disappear.

I will choke until I swallow…
Choke this infant here before me.
What is this but my reflection?
Who am I to judge and strike you down?
But you’re (pushing and shoving 4x) me.
(You’re pushing me and shoving me. 4x)
You (still love me, still love me,
pushit on me, pushit on me 2x).

Rest your trigger on my finger,
bang my head upon the fault line.
Better take care not to make me enter.
’cause if I do we both may disappear.
But (you’re pushing me, shoving me. 4x)
You still love me, still love me
pushit on me, pushit on me.
(You’re pushing me and shoving me. 2x)

Slipping back into the gap again.
I’m alive when you’re touching me,
alive when you’re shoving me down.

But i’d trade it all
for just a little
piece of miiiiiiiiiiiiiiind.

(Pushit on me, 4x)
You’re pushing,
and shoving,
and scrambling,
keep my feet back on the ground!

(Put me somewhere I don’t wanna beee. 2x)

Seeing someplace I don’t wanna seeee.

Never wanna see that place agaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaain.

Saw that gap again today
while you were begging me to stay.
Managed to push myself away,
and you, as well, my dear.

If, when I say I might fade like a sigh if I staaaay,
you minimize my movement anywaaaay,
I must persuade you another waaaaaaaaay.

pushing, shoving,
pushing, shoving,
pushing me
There’s no love in feaaaaaaaar!

Staring down the hole again.
Hands are on my back again.
Survival is my only friend.
Terrified of what may come.
Yeah. Remember I will always love you,
as I claw your fucking throat away.
(It will end no other way. 2x)

This light is turned off…

Currently listening to Pushit
Salival
By Tool