(In this post, NCS contributor Phro reviews an album by Clinging To the Trees of A Forest Fire as only Phro can.)
(Phro’s note: Clinging to the Trees of a Forest Fire is a Denver (woo!) funeral grind band (band’s words, not mine, but incredibly appropriate) that will rip your face skin off and then burn it as you stare hopelessly and slowly bleed to death. Today, I listened to their 2008 album Omega Drunk On the Blood of Alpha. It’s fucking amazing. If you want to hear or get more of their music, go to their facebook page (http://www.facebook.com/CTTTOAFF) or their bandcamp page (http://ctttoaff.bandcamp.com/))
“Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!!”
Furious wind whips at my face like tiny dicks fighting for a place in the bukkake circle, desperately trying to get close enough to the girl to avoid just masturbating in a room full of perverts and a slightly uncomfortable woman. My arms flail as I fight against gravity, Newton, and all that physics has birthed—screaming—into the world.
“Motherfuckermotherfuckermotherfuckermotherfucker!!!”
My screams are nearly drowned out by the robotic howl of the wind.
Suddenly, whoomp! I’m alive. I’m two feet down in a powdery snowhill, but, thankfully, alive. The wind has quieted a bit, and I slowly crawl out of the snow. It’s cold like the hands of Sadako, the ghost, who was jerking me off in the airplane bathroom. Just as I was about to cum (I mean, really, just when you feel your asshole clench up tight and you think your heart just locked up and there’s a good chance you’re having a heart attack, but, fuck it, you’re about to CUM!), the plane shook and the nice ghost lady kinda…grabbed…a bit hard…for something to hang onto and…
I winced. I slowly, trepidatiously, looked down. I fainted.
It was good that it was so fucking cold. The cold air kept the…wound…from getting infected. I thought. Either way, when she fell backwards, she gripped so hard her ghost hand melded with the outer layer of my dick skin and…
I woke up in a small cabin. My “down there part” was wrapped in bandages. Hello Kitty bandages to be precise. Everything smelled vaguely of roses and dill—like a ’60s comedy-romance movie about people who loved to fuck pickles. I was numb all over, but I was still able to move around. I assumed that it was just really excellent painkillers. Either that or I’d lost all sensation due to shock.
I shook my head. I wasn’t exactly sure where I was or why I was there. I glanced around the room looking for candies—hoping, desperately, that I wasn’t going to be turned into some avant-garde Hansel. Nothing. There was a small fire going in a fire place. But no pictures, decorations or even flowers neatly arranged in a vase. In fact, there weren’t even any windows.
I cleared my throat. It sounded like a couple of teenagers fucking in a graveyard, it was so loud.
“Ahem. Umm…hello?”
I waited. I thought I heard something in the next room, but I wasn’t sure.
“Ahhh…HEY! Ummm…thanks for bringing me here…and…umm…taking care of my…uhhh…wound. I really appreciate it, yah?”
This time I definitely heard something.
Footsteps. And clinking….like bondage handcuffs tapping against each other. I swallowed my terror and waited.
Suddenly, an old, slightly wizened figure came around the corner and into view. In the dark, it looked like a kindly old woman carrying a tea set. As she got closer, the light from the fire fell on her and I could see that she was a bit older, indeed, and a bit plump as well. But she seemed energetic and kind.
She set the tea set down next on a small night stand next to the bed that I’d not noticed before. Hmmm…was it always there and I hadn’t seen it or was she magic? Hahahah! I’d just gotten a handjob from a Japanese ghost on an airplane. Surely, magic wasn’t real, too. Right? Right???
“Ummm…hey, I’m…”
She held a finger up and pressed it to my mouth. It was like my grandmother putting me to sleep, except she had much larger tits and I couldn’t help noticing them (uncomfortably) brushing against my arm. Something moved in my bandages that I really didn’t want to move.
She smiled warmly and took a small portable MP3 stereo out from…somewhere. Okay, maybe she really was magic. She set the stereo down and pressed play.
The music that erupted from the speakers filled the room like a horde of angry souls who’d been set free from the place in hell reserved for people who died while stabbing other people in the face with sharp pointy things. The voice that rang out from the speakers was less the voice of a tortured soul and more the soul of torture.
The woman slowly took off her buttoned sweater. I was a bit surprised by the…clothing…or rather lack of clothing…underneath. After removing her ankle length skirt, I realized she was wearing a leather corset and nothing but a leather corset. I felt a twinge of terror rip through my body, but the drumming from the speakers was like a herd of elephants in titanium boots marching through a forest fire. The drums pounded my chest into submission, and I swear each bass hit pressed me harder into the mattress.
Then she touched…the bandages. I opened my mouth to protest, but as soon as I parted my lips, the voice from the speakers ran down my throat and punched my heart and moshed through my lungs. I struggled to breathe, let alone protest. She slowly peeled the bandages away one by one. I tried to move my arms, but they were bound by the wicked, torrential riffs. As massive as the Nio statues standing in front of Todai-ji (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nio), the guitar and bass manifested themselves and held my arms down. The monstrosities stared, unblinking, into my eyes. It was kind of like being in detention, but with a little less fire and humiliation.
Soon, the bandages were off. I was sweating bullets. The music continued marauding ferociously around the room at breakneck sped. Then, much to my horror, she put my ripped up, wounded, lifeless dangle in her mouth. Suddenly, the music slowed to a lumbering funeral march. The bass slowly rocked back and forth like redwoods swaying in the wind. Time, for a moment, stood as still as eternity.
Then, life flowed. The room grew as brilliant as a nuclear explosion, and I swear the walls caught fire. The music raged and howled, and the kindly old lady did…things…with her mouth. Time sped up and danced like a drunken Susa-no-o (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Susa-no-o) through Amaterasu’s holy house. But instead of a flayed horse and splattered shit, my cock grew back it’s skin. And, then, time slowed again…the roar of anguish from the speakers stretched out for an eternity and the guitars and bass froze in horrified shrieks.
The old woman suddenly stood back and the ceiling splattered with tiny pieces of me. The music slowly grew quieter and slunk back into the speakers, the voice still echoing in my ears and stalking the hallways of my heart.
Still erect in a glorious frenzy, I saw that my “down there part” was now fully covered in skin and glistening like a metal band soaked in sweat, with droplets slowly dribbling off the beardos’ chins. I was relieved, but also kinda weirded out. I stared at it in rapt appreciation for at least a minute. Then I giggled a little. Penises sure do look silly, don’t they?
When I looked at the old woman, she was wearing her knit button sweater and the ankle length skirt and handing me a nice cup of tea. She smiled kindly.
“I…wha…how…umm…”
“Oh,” she said in a soft but firm voice, “don’t you worry none. Ripped penis flesh ain’t nothing I can’t fix with a little help from Clinging To The Trees Of A Forest Fire and my magic.”
“Your…magic?”
She winked.
“Please return your trays to the upright position.”
I jerked awake. I was in an airplane. Headed…where was I headed again? I couldn’t remember for a moment. I looked at my MP3 player…Omega Drunk on the Blood of Alpha (http://ctttoaff.bandcamp.com/album/omega-drunk-on-the-blood-of-alpha) is a hell of a funeral grind album.
IT WAS ALL A DREAM.
I like the fact that the music is as insane as your review. It’s incredibly fun to read the thing while listening to it.
It was a cheap trick, to be sure.
I’m glad you like these guys! Colorado represent! (I’m so gangsta.)
Old ladies mouths do seem magic. I think it’s ’cause the teeth come out.
And their tits are sooooooo soft!
I just woke up, but now I think I’m going back to bed.
Do you have naked old ladies there?
Eeeeew.
That’s a yes!
Or is it a no?
I’m guessing yes….
Will remember to skip reviews posted here on NCS in the future. I’ve read enough creative writing 101 stories in my life.
I can appreciate that.
But it would be a be a shame for you to miss the really good reviews by all the other fine folks who post here, so just skip anything by Phro. You should be good to go with that plan.
Your reply epitomizes the civility with which we like to greet visitors, even when they make really insulting comments about the writing: I think your piece was definitely creative writing 102 material.
I dunno, it was a pretty honest (and possibly accurate) assessment. And he/she didn’t call me anything homophobic, so I don’t think it’s really that insulting.
I like to think it’s maybe even a decent final story of a creative writing 102 course. Possibly a solid B in the professor’s been laid lately. (Hopefully not by me….)
I suppose everyone is entitled to their opinion, no matter how wrong it is; but in MY opinion that kind of dismissive attitude is close-minded and rude.
Not to mention supercilious.
The word supercilious always makes me think of flagellum.
I have no idea why, but I know there’s a logical connection…I think an old lady stole it htough.
Connection: cilia. Maybe that partly explains your tentacle obsession. Or is symptomatic of it…I can’t be sure.
That’s totally it!!!!!! Oh, thank god, I don’t have to kill any librarians today.
They’re so annoying when they’re dying.
I’m guessing it’s some weird symbiotic relationship.
Here’s a shocker: I thought of something roughly similar…
May Thor’s glistening uterus forbid that we spoil a perfectly good review with creative writing.
Also, what’s with all the wiki-links? I don’t come here to LEARN stuff.
I was kinda torn about that…but I really liked the images and I figured y’all know how to click links.
Besides, how fucking awesome are the Nio and Susa-no-o pictures???
Japanese mythology is a bit more disjointed that Greek mythology (that’s saying a hell of a lot), but it’s also equally fucked up. So, that’s a win in my book!
I was being sarcastic. Mythology and folklore are kinda my thing. I don’t know much about the Japanese variations of either so it was kind of cool to check it out.
Ah, I knew you were being sarcastic, but I didn’t know how to show it, so I just wrote that.
I also masturbated a little. But I’m guessing you couldn’t see that.
You’ll be happy to know that it pleased me. A lot.
Were there any naked old ladies there?
Only in my mind.
But at least in my mind they also have tentacles in all the right places.
Also, the Japanese creation myth is pretty cool. The Kojiki has some good shit in it for the first 1/3, I think. Susa-no-o becomes the central “character”, but it’s pretty obvious that it’s been thrown together piecemeal from a variety of myths and local beliefs.
Which makes it even weirder when you find out that the whole thing was written exclusively to document the legitimacy of the Emperor at the time of the writing (don’t ask, I forgot his name). Apparently the last half is just names of people who killed each other and is not particularly interesting. (According to Donald Keene, who basically defined what is and is not worth reading in classical Japanese literature for American scholars of Japanese lit.)
I’ve been meaning to properly read the Kojiki (at least the good parts) in more depth. We actually read the part that I referenced in my classical literature class in the original (though heavily annotated, thank fuck). Fun story: no one knew how to read it from the late 700s to the mid-eighteenth century. The guy who figured it out and translated it into a readable text did it ostensibly as a way of rejecting foreign influence from China.
Which is weird since it was written using Chinese characters……….
Okay, well, that was a major geekfest. I’m only posting it because I spent so much time writing it.
You kind of lost me after “also…”
It’s cool, I’m pretty sure I just enjoyed writing it.
It’s like jerking off at the back of the short bus, but with fewer kids staring.
That perfectly describes my entire experience with my academic degree.
You had a liberal arts education too, huh?
Nail on the head.
What’d you guys study??
I was a Creative Writing and History double major. My undergrad has a huge Creative Writing program (Knox College, if either of you have heard of it), and going in my thought process was something like “WRITING IS FUN I WANNA BE A WRITER YAY.” I realized this wasn’t the case while taking the last class I needed for my major.And I didn’t want to be a professional historian either (although I love the crap out of history and taking those classeswas my favorite part of school). So now I’m in grad school for library science. On a related note, Phro, librarians are our friends. We shouldn’t kill them.
Dual major in Classical Studies and Cultural Anthropology, planning a Master’s (and possibly a PhD) in Folklore as soon as I can figure out what the fuck I want to study.
Goddamnit, I knew I shouldn’t have said that. I actually love librarians and I think it’s like the coolest job EVER. Short of octopus masturbator.
I still foster fantasies of writing, but mostly just as a way of doing something that has more meaning than watching TV. I (think I) actually do want to be a professor of Japanese literature. But that means a PhD, and that means…five more years of school…….
Well, good luck to you with your masters!!! When do you graduate?
Two years. I’m in my first semester. And good luck to you too, sir, on your long tentecale-y road to Japanese Lit professor (I assume everything in Japan has tentacles)
Mostly.
Except the foxes. They turn into hot women, then trick you into fucking them. They also have a multitude of tails.
You’ll never notice the tails until you brood of kids have them too.
Holy fuck. I think this must be the best-educated metal Comments section on the web. And amazingly, all that education hasn’t beaten and squeezed the metal derangement out of any of you. Yet. Bravo.
Yeah, I’m with Islander here. YOU GUYS ARE AWESOME!
I wish I knew more about Japanese myths and legends. I love the weird-ass ghosts and monsters that theirfolklore has. Like the youkai that’s just an umbrella with a leg.
Hai. Phro, any recommendations for further reading?
I was thinking about that actually, because I need a refresher on some stuff myself.
I think a lot of the Wikipedia pages give good overviews actually, but if you want to read the actual texts your options get…strange.
I looked on Amazon and I found this…
http://www.amazon.com/Japanese-Tales-Pantheon-folklore-library/dp/0375714510/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1317141314&sr=8-1
The author is a one of the best classic Japanese lit to English translators I’ve found. His style manages to capture the mood of the original while still being readable in English. I haven’t read this book, but I would
recommend pretty much anything by him.
Was listening to Obscura’s new album while reading this, seems appropriate because of the sheer confusion that reviews by Phro on here seem to invoke. (T’was a feeling of blissful confusion.)
Hahahah!
Well, be sure you listen to the actual music on this page, too, sometime. These guys are fucking madness.
Not mad…they are madness.
Of course I did you wonderful and sophisticated demented by-product of evolution, and yes they are madness incarnate.
Sophisticated????
Don’t be tryin’ to start no shit with me! I’ll…ummm……..THREATEN YOU MEANINGLESSLY OVER THE INTERNET!!!
DON’T MAKE ME BREAK OUT THE BAD GRAMMAR!
AW DAMN, SHIT’S GOIN’ DOWN. Phro, if he breaks out the bad grammar, counter with an ad hominem argument about how he lives in his mother’s basement. Grinder, fire back with some sort of slur, like “ginger” or “weasel-fucker”. Then you will each swear oaths to kill the other on sight should you meet IRL. This oath is minding, and you must duel to the death anywhere you should happen to meet, be it a wedding, a child’s birthday party, or a furry bondage orgy. No exceptions.
Binding. The oath is binding. Stupid letters being in close proximity.
“This oath is minding…”
You did that on purpose to see if I was paying attention.
I cannot accept those rules. Furry bondage orgies are sacred.
OH, NO YOU DI’N’T! IZ GUNNA TAKEZ YUZ DOWNZ LIKE SYNDROME!
PFFFFT!
THBBBBBPPPPPTTTTTT!!!
AWOOGEY BLOOGEY WOO!
SQUIGGLY WIGGLY BIGGLY!!!
Ah fuck you brought the squid into this, I know when I’m beat.
I think that, by virtue of neither of us using racial, religious, homophobic, or sexist slurs, we both win.
Sweet! +20 internets for everyone!
Sweet! I could use some more internets.
Ah jeez. I go away from my computer all day and look what happens. A tutorial in web beatdown.
Hey atleast I kept Phro occupied so that nothing that can’t be unseen really happened.
That’s what you think, but, like Ozymandias in the Watchmen, I’ve already done it!!!!
Ummm…yah, that’ll make sense when you see the Box O’ Poops.
I’m gonna use “AWOOGEY BLOOGEY WOO” to end every single argument I have from now on.
I might help if you also add “Q. E. FUCKING D.”
“Then I giggled a little. Penises sure do look silly, don’t they?”
HILARIOUS! Oh Phro, I’ll never tire of this review style of your’s. It’s a wonderful amalgamation of creativity, innapropriate humor and heavy music!
I also like the East Asian references, while I didn’t know them myself (thanks for providing Wikipedia links, by the way), I like Asian culture, so the inclusion of those was a big plus in my book!
Love the reviews Phro. Hope you plan on doing more of these!
You mean innaPHROpriate humor, right?
I snort laughed at this.
Well played!
I am actually going to be doing another review for the same band…though I might stick with something a bit more conventional. (We’ll see how the mood takes me.)
But, I’m very glad you liked it!
If you’re interested in East Asian culture, I highly recommend using one of your elective credits at your university to take a Japanese history class! If you’re really lucky, you school might even have a combined Japanese/Chinese history class. I actually fucked that up and DIDN’T take that class. Obviously, I got most or all of that info about Japan, but I’m pretty spotty on Chinese history.
Now that I think about it, I believe you said you’re a history major, so you’ll probably cover all that anyway. So, in that case, I’d recommend taking some East Asian literature classes.
I’m not a history major, but I plan on being one when I transfer from this school to another one, because the closest thing to history major is “Mid-level math major, social science minor” or some shit like that. I suppose it’s my fault though because I don’t exactly enjoy looking for things such as schools… but anyway, I’ll probably enjoy a Japanese history class a lot, I enjoy watching documentaries about Musashi, samurai in general, and Ieyasu and, and, and… I don’t think I’ve ever watched a doc about Masamune… but I’d probably enjoy it. Chinese history… not so sure about, because China is China… not Japan :P.
I found both of these posts amusing. 😀
I got the comment tiers mixed up. 🙁