Category Archives: Keep it Metal!

Blades for Baal

… Ahab went to meet Elijah. When he saw Elijah, he said to him, “Is that you, you troubler of Israel?”

“I have not made trouble for Israel,” Elijah replied. “But you and your father’s family have. You have abandoned the Lord’s commands and have followed the Baals. Now summon the people from all over Israel to meet me on Mount Carmel. And bring the four hundred and fifty prophets of Baal and the four hundred prophets of Asherah, who eat at Jezebel’s table.”

So Ahab sent word throughout all Israel and assembled the prophets on Mount Carmel. Elijah went before the people and said, “How long will you waver between two opinions? If the Lord is God, follow him; but if Baal is God, follow him.”

But the people said nothing.

Then Elijah said to them, “I am the only one of the Lord’s prophets left, but Baal has four hundred and fifty prophets. Get two bulls for us. Let Baal’s prophets choose one for themselves, and let them cut it into pieces and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. I will prepare the other bull and put it on the wood but not set fire to it. Then you call on the name of your god, and I will call on the name of the Lord. The god who answers by fire—he is God.”

Then all the people said, “What you say is good.”

Elijah said to the prophets of Baal, “Choose one of the bulls and prepare it first, since there are so many of you. Call on the name of your god, but do not light the fire.” So they took the bull given them and prepared it.

Then they called on the name of Baal from morning till noon. “Baal, answer us!” they shouted. But there was no response; no one answered. And they danced around the altar they had made.

At noon Elijah began to taunt them. “Shout louder!” he said. “Surely he is a god! Perhaps he is deep in thought, or busy, or traveling. Maybe he is sleeping and must be awakened.” So they shouted louder and slashed themselves with swords and spears, as was their custom, until their blood flowed. Midday passed, and they continued their frantic prophesying until the time for the evening sacrifice. But there was no response, no one answered, no one paid attention.

Then Elijah said to all the people, “Come here to me.” They came to him, and he repaired the altar of the Lord, which had been torn down. Elijah took twelve stones, one for each of the tribes descended from Jacob, to whom the word of the Lord had come, saying, “Your name shall be Israel.” With the stones he built an altar in the name of the Lord, and he dug a trench around it large enough to hold two seahs of seed. He arranged the wood, cut the bull into pieces and laid it on the wood. Then he said to them, “Fill four large jars with water and pour it on the offering and on the wood.”

“Do it again,” he said, and they did it again.

“Do it a third time,” he ordered, and they did it the third time. The water ran down around the altar and even filled the trench.

At the time of sacrifice, the prophet Elijah stepped forward and prayed: “Lord, the God of Abraham, Isaac and Israel, let it be known today that you are God in Israel and that I am your servant and have done all these things at your command. Answer me, Lord, answer me, so these people will know that you, Lord, are God, and that you are turning their hearts back again.”

Then the fire of the Lord fell and burned up the sacrifice, the wood, the stones and the soil, and also licked up the water in the trench.

When all the people saw this, they fell prostrate and cried, “The Lord—he is God! The Lord—he is God!”

Then Elijah commanded them, “Seize the prophets of Baal. Don’t let anyone get away!” They seized them, and Elijah had them brought down to the Kishon Valley and slaughtered there. (NIV)

Sentenced to Burn One

See also Sentenced to Burn.

If all stoners go straight to hell, then I guess I’ll get to smoke with Satan, himself
Bored with the bullshit of a get-a-head world
Kept to himself a habit that his country can’t afford, criminalization
Smokes on the weekends and at parties or with babes
Eventually he gets ratted, is arrested but gives no names

Beat to shit by the cops, a monster for his love of good pot
Dragged into the court of law, soon he’ll be sentenced and probably left to rot
Whatever punishment the judge decides
There will be no laughing, no stoned high-fives
His life will be ruined, his spirits run weak
A thoughtless verdict, the judge begins to speak

I’d say you’ve earned one, sentenced to burn one
Now it’s high-time you’ve learned, son

You’re choking, catch that feeling, for a minute, of toking
Poisonous strain provoking
Circulatory system is seething
And now you are slowly ceasing to keep control of your breathing
This sentence takes on new meaning
Execution witnessed, family’s grieving
Judiciary system’s deceiving, disgusted jury, head attorney’s heaving

Bored with the bullshit of a get-a-head world
Now you have been targeted by policies absurd
Stop, you cannot, for the right and wrong they must discern
They’re sending you to gas chambers, it’s just as you deserve

Fooled to the end, no one knows once again
To your death you are sent, terror is what is meant
Government conspiracy, lethal dose of THC
Revolting, head explodes yet the body’s still convulsing
Like the roach that he is by merely dying drug-free world indemnifying
Because they can, there’s no way to fight the man
New world order type of plan
Results are achieved through their lying, police spying, genocide they are implying

Who were the Blues and the Greens?

Who were the Blues and the Greens?

Who are the Democrats and the Republicans?

Imagine a future society that flees into a vast underground network of caverns and seals the entrances. We shall not specify whether they flee disease, war, or radiation; we shall suppose the first Undergrounders manage to grow food, find water, recycle air, make light, and survive, and that their descendants thrive and eventually form cities. Of the world above, there are only legends written on scraps of paper; and one of these scraps of paper describes the sky, a vast open space of air above a great unbounded floor. The sky is cerulean in color, and contains strange floating objects like enormous tufts of white cotton. But the meaning of the word “cerulean” is controversial; some say that it refers to the color known as “blue”, and others that it refers to the color known as “green”.

In the early days of the underground society, the Blues and Greens contested with open violence; but today, truce prevails—a peace born of a growing sense of pointlessness. Cultural mores have changed; there is a large and prosperous middle class that has grown up with effective law enforcement and become unaccustomed to violence. The schools provide some sense of historical perspective; how long the battle between Blues and Greens continued, how many died, how little changed as a result. Minds have been laid open to the strange new philosophy that people are people, whether they be Blue or Green.

The conflict has not vanished. Society is still divided along Blue and Green lines, and there is a “Blue” and a “Green” position on almost every contemporary issue of political or cultural importance. The Blues advocate taxes on individual incomes, the Greens advocate taxes on merchant sales; the Blues advocate stricter marriage laws, while the Greens wish to make it easier to obtain divorces; the Blues take their support from the heart of city areas, while the more distant farmers and watersellers tend to be Green; the Blues believe that the Earth is a huge spherical rock at the center of the universe, the Greens that it is a huge flat rock circling some other object called a Sun. Not every Blue or every Green citizen takes the “Blue” or “Green” position on every issue, but it would be rare to find a city merchant who believed the sky was blue, and yet advocated an individual tax and freer marriage laws.

The Underground is still polarized; an uneasy peace. A few folk genuinely think that Blues and Greens should be friends, and it is now common for a Green to patronize a Blue shop, or for a Blue to visit a Green tavern. Yet from a truce originally born of exhaustion, there is a quietly growing spirit of tolerance, even friendship.

One day, the Underground is shaken by a minor earthquake. A sightseeing party of six is caught in the tremblor while looking at the ruins of ancient dwellings in the upper caverns. They feel the brief movement of the rock under their feet, and one of the tourists trips and scrapes her knee. The party decides to turn back, fearing further earthquakes. On their way back, one person catches a whiff of something strange in the air, a scent coming from a long-unused passageway. Ignoring the well-meant cautions of fellow travellers, the person borrows a powered lantern and walks into the passageway. The stone corridor wends upward… and upward… and finally terminates in a hole carved out of the world, a place where all stone ends. Distance, endless distance, stretches away into forever; a gathering space to hold a thousand cities. Unimaginably far above, too bright to look at directly, a searing spark casts light over all visible space, the naked filament of some huge light bulb. In the air, hanging unsupported, are great incomprehensible tufts of white cotton. And the vast glowing ceiling above… the color… is…

Now history branches, depending on which member of the sightseeing party decided to follow the corridor to the surface.

Aditya the Blue stood under the blue forever, and slowly smiled. …

Barron the Green stared incomprehendingly at the chaos of colors for long seconds. …

Charles the Blue considered the blue ceiling, taken aback. …

Daria, once Green, tried to breathe amid the ashes of her world. …

Eddin, a Green, looked up at the blue sky and began to laugh cynically. …

Ferris gasped involuntarily, frozen by sheer wonder and delight. …

I hope you click through to read the six alternative endings to the story …

… if only to find out who were the Blues and the Greens. 🙂

RIP Mitch Lucker

Mitch Lucker, vocalist for Suicide Silence, died yesterday.

Mitch was a heavy metal dad.

Some things in life are happy accidents. Like the fact that Suicide Silence vocalist Mitch Lucker is releasing his band’s second album, ‘No Time to Bleed,’ on June 30, the same day his daughter turns two. When he’s not touring, the 24-year-old Lucker is a full time dad. “I go from two extremes,” Lucker told Noisecreep. “From being full-time on tour for three months straights to flying home and being at her beck and call until I go to bed! That’s also my job. They’re both me. I wouldn’t have it any other way!”

Being his daughter’s primary caregiver presents a conundrum for Lucker and that’s leaving her for brief spurts to tour the country. “It’s the hardest thing I deal with, but what I’m doing is the reason we have a roof over our heads and that I can take care of her. I hate being gone, but my family couldn’t survive without me going on tour. Tons of fathers out there don’t want to wake up and go to work, but they have to, in order provide. I don’t consider Suicide Silence work. I just tell her, ‘Daddy is going to leave and go play music now!'” Lucker makes the separation bearable through technology like Skype and his cell phone, saying, “It’s cool to be able to be elsewhere and hear her.”

Lucker’s daughter is probably the youngest attendee at Suicide Silence shows, too. “We put the decibel-eliminating headphones on her and she is super entertained.” Her first show wasn’t Suicide Silence, though; it was Circa Survive’s Anthony Green on a solo tour. “The bus dropped me off at the end of the Mayhem tour and that night, I took her to the show. She sat her on my shoulders. As long as there are lights, movement and music, that girl is happy. She saw me performing, telling the crowd to jump up and put their hands in air. I looked over at her in the corner on stage and she was jumping up and down and dancing, too!” And with that, Lucker pulls the phone from his mouth and says, “Hi, baby. Don’t tell mommy ‘no.’ You have to take your vitamins.” He comes back to the interview conversation, saying, “She’s gotta take her vitamins, you know?”

You only get one shot. Why’d you have to disengage, Mitch? A question that will remain unanswered.

One thing’s for sure, though. Alcohol and motorcycles don’t mix.

He’s an alcoholic, and it’s a been a big battle. And I tried to stop him. I was in front of him begging him not to leave the house. Begging him. Like, ‘Just seriously, for us, don’t leave.’ And he did. And this is what happened. I mean, It’s a wake-up call. He’s an amazing man. He’s a wonderful father and a great husband. And now he’s gonna miss out on watching [his five-year-old daughter] Kena grow, because he decided to drink and ride. Just don’t. Just think before you guys do something stupid. Please learn from this. Please.

If you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged: and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again.

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother’s eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye?

Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye?

Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother’s eye. (KJV)

The poor you will always have with you

While Jesus was in Bethany in the home of Simon the Leper, a woman came to him with an alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, which she poured on his head as he was reclining at the table.

When the disciples saw this, they were indignant. “Why this waste?” they asked. “This perfume could have been sold at a high price and the money given to the poor.”

Aware of this, Jesus said to them, “Why are you bothering this woman? She has done a beautiful thing to me. The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me. When she poured this perfume on my body, she did it to prepare me for burial. Truly I tell you, wherever this gospel is preached throughout the world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her.” (NIV)