Do Not Read This One.

I’m writing this one straight into the WordPress editor. I’m practicing a little advice that I preached in one of my comments today. So, here goes, twenty minutes, straight into the WordPress editor. No way to make it pretty then, huh?

Oh, it’s going to be tough. I can feel that. Well, here comes a horrible post.

“We’ll dance together till the end of time,

And the world will fall, submitting its authority.

Oh, the things we do to fit in.”

There are three updates, or points, which I’d like to make you aware of.

First, from now onwards, Saturdays will be Gratitude Saturday. I whine a lot, it’s only fair I give gratitude to all that I have. Maybe I’ll end up less pessimistic that way. Who knows?

Why Saturday?

If you force my hand, and I’d have to choose a favourite day, it’d have to be Saturday. No competition there. If I look for reason why that is so, I don’t know, maybe I can come up with few. The fact that it’ll be Sunday next day would be the first. Sunday’s are good but they are masked by the horror of upcoming Monday. On that note, I hate Mondays, by the way.

Second would be the fact that, on Saturdays, I end up having going on a binge Heavy Metal album listening. I listened to Metallica’s first three albums in one go today. Kill ‘em All, Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets. I’m on my seventh album, right now, as I am writing this.

In addition to the aforementioned, the list goes like this, Goatwhore’s Carving Out The Eyes of God, Amon Amarth’s Twilight of The Thunder God, Slayer’s Season in Abyss and well, as always, Slipknot’s Iowa. Megadeth’s Rust in Peace is next, in case that information is relevant.

Second, in this week’s Sometimes Stellar Six Word Story Challenge, I finished second for my entry, “On tiny graves, gravedigger often cried.”

Third, I recently became the Top Writer in Art category on Medium and I’ve been selected as a writer for five publications there.

For the unknowing, it’s a community of writers and readers just like WordPress. And unlike WordPress, it’s a community dominated by readers rather than writers. If you ask me, I’ll say that is its biggest advantage. If it was upto me, I’d Frankenstein something between WordPress, Medium and Path. Oh, and maybe Instagram.

Lately, I’ve been active on Medium a lot. And maybe, I’d like to finish this post on that note. Give Medium a go, believe me, it has a beautiful interface and if you love reading, you cannot go wrong there. If you do decide to join Medium, give my profile a read. It’s @nitesh.mishra3.

That’s all. Nice. It didn’t come out half bad, huh?

P.S.

Images are prepared using Canva, by the way, which means I have all the rights to them.  Don’t tell me you’re still not using it. Learning Canva is a necessity in this blogging age, believe me. 

P.P.S.

Have you checked out my profile on Instagram? It isn’t that bad, at least I don’t think so.

Let’s Talk About Metal

So, this post doesn’t contain any life-altering advice. Or writing advice. Or blogging advice. Or poetry advice. Or requests.

You get the gist, right?

My “Albums to listen to,” list is too long. One hundred and sixty-eight albums to be exact. And I add few more every day. The problem with that? I’m a selective listener. My playlist consists of fifty, or something, songs that I listen to, over and over again.

So, to clear the backlog, I’ve come up with a plan, like we are generally supposed to. I’m going to review every single album that I listen to, not for the general public, but for my own personal gain.

A little test for you, what are the two things I talk most passionately about? Struggling?

Let’s Talk About Music

So, think of the most exaggerated metaphor you can think of, you know, the kinds of, it’s as important as air, as important as water, as important as coffee. You get the idea, right?

I am presuming that everyone who is reading this post at this moment knows of my undying love for Heavy Metal. In case you didn’t, um, it’s the loudest, craziest, and most meaningful kind of music you can think of. You might not agree with the last part, after all, they consists nothing more than distorted guitars, right? Well, anyways. I am in a good mood, so I’ll let that pass.

Now imagine my surprise when I found out that Rolling Stone has a 100 Greatest Heavy Metal Albums list. Yeah, even I was surprised. How the heck did the devil music get such appreciation by the greatest magazine to grace God’s great green earth? In case, it appears that I am trying to be pretentious, it’s because I am.

Whenever I talk about music, I get unbelievably passionate. You do not want to argue with me in one of those scenarios.

Well, back to the matter at hand. 100 Greatest Metal List and without even giving it a glance, I predicted the artists that’ll be featured in top 20. Yeah, we lack originality, so, there are only few good albums. Don’t worry though, I am pretty sure there is a new Justin Bieber in the market. Enjoy.

All right, artists in top 20, if any of you listen to heavy metal, would you like to guess?

Take a moment.

Let’s see how unoriginal we are.

Black Sabbath. Judas Priest. Iron Maiden. Metallica. Slayer. Megadeth. Anthrax. Motorhead. Ozzy Osbourne. Pantera. Tool.

Now imagine the pride I felt when I realized I’ve devoured the entire discography of the above mentioned bands.

Should I stop, you know, before I start creating eloquent metaphors in praise of Satan’s music? Ahh, who cares, after all, metal signifies rebellion, right?

If you do decide to give the list a read of your own, you might find a trend, it is filled with albums of legends, you know, the bands that were formed in 70s, 80s, some from 90s. Now it might make you worry, if you are a metalhead and happy if you love you know who.

Let me add my two cent knowledge to a million dollar debate. Told you, I can come up with strange and awkward metaphors too. Maybe I should write pop songs too?

Let’s brainstorm, one clichéd metaphor for sex, one clichéd metaphor for back-bitching, four lines to signify the heart break, you know, where the boy cheats on the girl with her best friend or the vice-versa. Hmm, what else? Any ideas?

Let’s leave it then, why glorify something that stupid pout making lip-gloss wearing girls will do without any effort?

Now, back to the decline of metal. How about we summon Satan and sacrifice virgins or something?

Too clichéd?

As an afterthought, did I really make any point or just rambled like a fool?

**

Via Daily Prompt: Atmospheric

My Heavy Metal Playlist – Part One

There is a little part of me that has always been unsure of everything. My words, my commitments, my abilities. All of it is questioned by that part of me. A tiny reptile brain that always creeps on you when you least expect it to.

I’m a science student who equally enjoys literature and fine arts. Luckily I can perform comparatively well in academics while making random diatribes through words and pens. It became too complicated, didn’t it? The point is I do my studies, my writing and my sketching relatively well (There’s always room for improvement). But as of late I’ve been making too many entries into the diary of a madman. Now before it becomes the general consensus that I am just a mean boy who knows nothing but to nag, let’s digress for a while.

Inktober 2017 – Day Ten Entry – Dirty Yellow Light

Through the grilled window, the hues of red and dirty yellow light from the street lamp is flooding my room as I am writing this. The entire room, except for those streaks of light, is emerged in darkness and the light from the screen of my smartphone is illuminating my otherwise grim face. I could talk a lot about tame and as I am typing it I have no idea where I’ll end up or what I’ll end up with.

That is quite a common occurrence with my rants. I start with one thought and somewhere in-between, I drift towards something entirely else. My Silent friend, you and I have this disadvantage, that we know each other through words.

Inktober – Day Three Entry – What’s your Poison?

Imagine this. A sixteen year old boy. An industrial area and the clock striking fifteen past midnight. No, I am not trying to make you imagine a bad horror movie or thriller movie. That scene was quite common in my teenage years.

There isn’t a point into going into details. At least this post isn’t dedicated to that. A sixteen year old unloading a truck filled to brim with twenty-five kilogram cartos is a quite common sight in India. There isn’t anything special or unique about it. And before you wonder, yes, those two words are different. Ahh, fuck. I just can’t stop showing off, can I? This idiotic rant, well not a rant today, is meant to be my respect for Metal. Yup, we are going there.

So, fifteen past midnight. Twenty-five kilogram cartons and, I’m having trouble remembering the number but I guess they used to be seventy in a fully loaded truck. Now, I am sixteen at that time and I am and I was a bright kid when it came to academics (I’m one of those who generally tops the class, but again that isn’t the point). I had my final exams next day. I was in tenth standard at that time and in India, 10^th standard used to be a very big deal. Used to be. I can make it poetic, after all I do know how to write poetry, but that’d be just a pathetic excuse.