Metal Monday: Belated Baptism

I’m late! So late! It’s already Wednesday and where has Metal Monday been? Well, I’ve been recovering from bout of the summer flu. So between urgent care, fever delirium, sweltering LA heat and negative covid tests I haven't had the energy to type.

But due to my bed ridden state; this week has been filled with media consumption! So let’s get it out there before I forget it all in a ‘flu haze.”

Listening

Blowback Podcast just released their season 4 covering a decades long history of U.S. interference in Afghanistan.

If you’re unfamiliar with Blowback, Brendan James and Noah Kulwin go through the history of forced American hegemony on foreign states. The series on the Cuban revolution is really one of the best summarizations of the conflict I’ve ever heard.

The podcast definitely has a leftist bent to it’s analyses and that’s perfectly fine. In this era of bipartisan-both-sides-are-bad history and news coverage it’s refreshing to hear the a views of a committed stance that isn’t from the right or -more commonly- centrist schools.

Which brings us to the 4 season “America and Afghanistan.”

This podcast was made for me. Regular readers will know I absolutely love Metal Gear Solid V and season 4 of Blowback is filled with references to Kojima’s “tactical espionage” video game series. Tying in themes of American tampering and ultimately supporting conservative regimes a la MGS:2, MGS:3’s criticism of the cyclical nature and heroic facades of fascism to MGS:V, detailing revenge as a geopolitical agenda.

(As an aside: It’s always so funny that Kojima is often regarded as a prescient creator and storyteller of American war-culture and he no doubt is particularly good at conveying that message through the medium of video games, but everything he has predicted was written on the walls of history for decades for any of those who care to look. Not a judgement at all on folks who don’t relate the themes in video games to geopolitics, I certainly wasn’t playing MGS:2 in 2001 for the political analysis.)

I cannot recommend Blowback any more than I already have. Go subscribe.

Reading

If It Sounds Like a Quack...: A Journey to the Fringes of American Medicine by Matthew Hongoltz-Hetling goes into the lives and cons of the people who sell snake-oil miracle cures. I’m only half through and so far what I enjoy most is that most of these people at one point, genuinely believed in their brand of hokum. It correlates the rise of these characters and their -often deadly- cures because the American privatized healthcare system is designed to fail it’s patients, especially in rural areas and among marginalized communities. When markets decide how healthcare should be run, giving priority to “big pharma” and insurance companies, it’s easy and sad to see how people turn to shady alternative medicines.

YouTube Obsession

When I am sick I go back to the comfort watches and Splitsie and his cohort never fail to deliver low-stake shenaniganry.

Industrious Splitsie and aloof Capac try to survive on a hardcore server in Space Engineers. Tom foolery, glitches and “Capac no!” ensues.

Other Items

My partner and I recently watched Teen Witch from 1989 and we unironically love the wails of primal melancholy from a slow saxophone solo of the main theme.

Also, what a badass album cover. “Sax at Mach 3”