I am due to be in Santa Barbara at the end of the week. Gram and Papa are celebrating their 50th Anniversary. It seems odd. Fifty years is quite a while. These days that would be a successful run for a major corporation, much less two people. There is something vaguely institutional about it: Come celebrate our Fiftieth Anniversary Sale: half off all Ladies' bowling shoes.
It is way too late to be carrying on like this, but I felt the need to acknowledge the weeks events and, specifically to comment on a chain of events that led me to this: Ascension which in turn led me down an oh so winding, crooked and lamenting path to Ashkelon Sain and his legacy in Trance to the Sun. What is particularly peculiar is that I "grew up" (if growing up takes place in your early twenties) in the presence of entirely too much meth, juvenile manic diary poetics and endless nights trying dearly to be as sensitive and Muse-ful as possible. I am feeling nostalgic and apologetic for this. I was, though tertiarily, a part of the "scenester" goth crowd in '94 and '95. We would spend time drinking Hot Spots shit coffee, full of speed and alcoholic nitrous excitement, smoking 20 or 30 cigarettes an hour, and really feeling on the verge of originality. Fortunately, I grew out of this, though there were some who I knew only as passing acquantance, who seemed like it was for real and it was a way of looking at the world that made sense. I think Ashkelon was like this, I didn't really ever know what he was about, except from what I could gather from his hanging around at Siena or Roma quietly taking in the scene. After spending the last few hours piecing together an image of him that speaks about his resilience as a musician and what he has meant to underground goth (darkie) music, I must admit I am impressed. I wish him luck with his future music projects.
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