Liveblogging Listening to Clutch's Excellent Album Blast Tyrant, Coupled With a Job-Related Mental Meltdown

So it's been a rough time at work lately. Reorganization-related blues related to the return of past stress, possibly diabetes-related loss of ability to concentrate and form long-term memories (days blend together in a fuzzy streak in my memory, one with a deep red streak down the middle wearing my boss's head) combine to make life at this time... undesirable.

Mercury is the title of track #1 of Blast Tyrant. It's a rocking instrumental followed by a hymn to some Mythic Ones of Ancient Greece; Daedlus, Mercury, Diana, and the "Tongueless Muse of Time." Some half-deaf muse must have inspired this album, but the work is hopelessly, eclectically, enigmatic. Yet it hangs together.

I gave my boss notice today. I'd nerved myself to do it by telling three people- my dad, and some of the people I deal with professionally. My sister said my dad had freaked. Well, in retrospect, I should have kept my mouth shut there and just told my boss. Because I'm thinking about staying now.

The Profits of Doom is a caustic barrage against mainstream religion: "A Caliph, Rabbi and a Bishop walk into a bar. One says to the other, hey now brother we haven't gotten very far!" Acerbic, head-banging fun.

I'd come to the decision to do it following the realization that some sets of duplicate paperwork that I'd put in the recycle bin were back on my desk, in the middle of a pile of things I needed to work on. My boss had said to me the other day that though he wasn't one to go through others' stuff, he'd noticed this pile of stuff in that lower tray right there from like several months ago.
"Well, its there because it's unfilable stuff- duplicates, things that don't match up, some of which is dated before I took this position," I tried to get across, rather gracelessly (I wasn't feeling well that day- my verbal skills were degenerate and my temper short).
"Well I want to see it filed before Friday," he replied, not catching my drift.

The Mob Goes Wild. This is the big one, boys. Call every law-enforcement agency in the book- this is an incitement to riot comparable to the Stone's Street Fighting Man. "Streets on fire!" barks Fallon. "The mob goes wild, wild, wild!" and "Twenty-one guns, a box made of pine, letter from the government sealed and signed, delivered Federal Express, on your mother's doorstep," make the polemicist's intent unmistakable. Pity we didn't listen sooner.

Just before that, he'd busted my balls about some dates in some of my correspondence. I have to present people with a list of things to do, you see, often including fixing every paint chip in a 5 bedroom Victorian house in the bad part of town, the ones that teem with children whose mothers are too economically or otherwise stressed to watch them. You can imagine this makes me popular with the landlords who voluntarily work with me. Sometimes I even make them paint the outside in the dead of winter.

Cypress Grove is a charming fantasia of modern day Maenads with redneck flair- they patrol the boundaries of their eponymous territory heavily armed in a "jacked-up Ford," carrying an assortment of menacing animals and black plastic bags. Fallon growls and barks through just short of three minutes of pure rock fury.

If they fail to do what i tell them to do, I take away their monthly subsidy. No one responds well to this.

Promoter (of Earthbound Causes). Wow. Just, wow. This song has everything Clutch- a great hook, clever wordplay, a catchy chorus, and enigmatic, though true, depth. A tale of how people use drugs to cause and cure insanity- "Cool down my temper, try to remember, what it was I wasn't to lose. And I probably could were if not for the beer and the broads and the broads and the booze!" and "No thank you, that's enough for me, Prozacly not what I need!"

Another of my top responsibilities is to ensure that the landlords who voluntarily cooperate with us continue to do so. 2+2=??

The Regulator is a hair-raising tale of a man plotting to kill his ex-lover. The title refers to a brand of antique clock- the kind with the visible pendulum, the kind that ticks away as he waits outside for the moment to strike. It's southern-fried vibe has an undeniable groove and intensity.

So I'd come to work to find the duplicate paperwork taken out of the recycling bin and kind of snapped. I kept it together in the office, but I was seething. I never confront people for doing this kind of thing- I just get even.

Worm Drink is a kind of sequel to The Mob Goes Wild (TMGW). The title character a military deserter, living the life of an alcoholic vagrant, fearing and despising the "snivelers" who chase him (the apellation is a conflation with "track sniffers"). Just as big an incitement as TMGW- "I'll march no longer, I'll fight no more... I'm done with war." A real gem in this strange crown.

My horoscope had said that I would play the prankster today. Unlike most pranksters though, I plotted serious consequences- the severing of ties between me and those who provide my living expenses in return for portions of my soul. I would quit- but I would do so with a slap in the face.

Army of Bono takes to task the alleged messianic tendencies of U2's frontman- "don't worry, it's just stigmata" with worries that we're going to hell in a handbasket- "when our world is over, children by the fire, raise their hands and pray that they may see a new messiah." Mocking a man's exaltations while worrying that he may not be up to the task ahead. Now you know- Clutch's lyrics can be great cynical fun.

But I did as well as I could in all respects that day. I put together a last-minute deal to get one tenant out of a bad unit in record time, and used the county nurse to pressure Bossman about an issue between us- should we really make those poor landlords paint in the winter? It doesn't make the tenant any safer. And it pisses everyone else off, and mightily.

Spleen Merchant is another anti-religious diatribe. If Christianity is about sharing the body of Christ, "pity the poor dumb fool who gets [his] bleeding spleen."

So Boss put down the phone, allowed how we might re-visit the issue since it seemed that everyone was against him, and I asked if I might have a couple more minutes of his time as I closed his office door.

(In the Wake Of) The Swollen Goat is the third in what I like to think of as the Worm Drink Trilogy. "Bury your treasure, burn your crops, black water rising and it ain't gonna stop!" The Blast Tyrant sails in search of The Worm Drink, wreaking havoc in far away lands. The lyrics evoke Blackwater, the band of mercenary contractors who were involved in so much havoc in Iraq. Probably not a coincidence, but a damn good riff.

"Is two weeks notice enough?" I asked. My eyes grew moist. This wasn't the way I wanted it to end, but I'd committed myself. It was principle, and dammit, I'm miserable in this job.

Weather Maker is a kind of funky short instrumental. Not bad, but filler.

He asked me to change my mind. He asked me for more time. Little more than a month ago he'd threatened to fire me for my last misadventure, he was disputing my plan to quit. I'd knew he was over in a barrel. Getting my replacement trained and up to speed was too much for him to contemplate, I guess. I'd believed it to be so, for many reasons.

Subtle Hustle rollicks and rolls- a great character sketch of a televangelist. "I got the heat in both feets! Snake handler's hands! Come back with slickness, and do it all again!" Fallon wraps up their unsavory ambitions thus- "I've got your number! I'll steal your thunder! I've got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm!"

I explained myself. I found dealing with these people difficult. My health was an issue, what with the diabetes and all. "I just read an article, it says diabetes messes with your short-term memory. Some days I'll do something with a document, or at least think I've done it- I can remember thinking about it- and I'll come back to find it somewhere else. I don't know if I'm losing it, or what."

Ghost is a masterpiece- another southern fried ballad dripping with erudition and (this time!) New Testament references- it's an almost Faulknerian tale a revenant, arising to find his erstwhile widow married to the grasping tax collector. Some of the greatest lyrics ever- "Have you heard the latest news? Lazarus is back from the dead, looking as one would expect- dripping with the waters of Sheol, babbling 'bout body and soul."

If he is the one going through my desk- and I'm sure he is- he didn't react. And the scary thing is that I'm not so sure anyone's going through my desk. I remember making decisions, but I don't remember acting. I'd had my reasons, and the truth seemed to serve them.

La Curandera is a letdown after Ghost. But what wouldn't be? Actual transcripts from the trial of a witch inspired the lyrics to this. Well, cool. Not too bad, really.

So now I'm thinking about whether to change my mind. "Nothing's written in stone yet," he said. My dad was apparently upset too. I'm not too badly positioned for underemployment (and this is what it would be at most.)

WYSIWYG is a driving instrumental, and the last track of the album. It has a heading-to-the-exits feel, but keeps your attention.

So here I am thinking- should I stay or should I go?