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Just a quick word to evangelize the new oral history about New York’s own Lunachicks, “Fallopian Rhapsody,” penned with the aid of the mighty Jeanne Fury (a fellow rabid ILX’r from back in the day). Even if you’re not a fan of the band (and, if so,…. fuck is the matter wit’ you?), it’s yet another amazing taste of an era of New York City that — WAIT FOR IT — does not exist anymore. It's excellent -- I devoured it whole over the course of a weekend.
Go get it. Tell’em Flaming Pablum sent ya.
One of the downsides of being a brazenly oversharing chatty cathy like myself is that I while I might excel at turning relatively banal, workaday anecdotes into arguably compelling narratives (witness the recent "Mystery Package" saga as an example of same), every now and then I unwittingly tee up something that, in retrospect, I might have otherwise preferred to keep to myself.
Last week, in fidgety anticipation of both the fearsome prep and procedure of my first colonoscopy (a box I should have checked off three years ago), I took to the blog to post a floridly overwritten rumination on my penchant for procrastination and the mounting tolls of my advancing years. Sensing I might at least coax a compelling cautionary tale out of my experience and/or strike a chord with readers of a comparable age, I set the table, so to speak, for a larger piece about the episode after all was done and dusted. Much like the afore-cited “Mystery Package” story, I assumed, based on the testimonies of friends of mine who’d had colonoscopies, that the second part of the story would be banal and anticlimactic. “You get cleaned out,” they said, “ ya have a nice nap, ya wake up and then they tell ya to come back in seven years.” Sounds pretty simple, right?
Well, not so fast.
Most of that rang true. While a long way from pleasant, the prep wasn’t really anything too traumatic, and not nearly as ….er… explosive as I was anticipating. Fasting is never fun, but at no point did I ever feel like I was going to expire from hunger. I checked in the following morning, got hooked up to an I.V. (probably the worst part, for me, as I hate needles and getting tethered to things), and in no time at all, I was wheeled into “the procedure room.” They positioned me on my side and asked what I did for a living. About a third of the way into my invariably windy explanation of what a director of content and editorial services does for the corporate communications department of a performing rights organization (I’m sure they were riveted), I was out cold.
Next thing I know, I’m waking up in a sort of recovery alcove and am informed that my wife is on her way to pick me up. As I’m gradually regaining my cognizance, my pointedly dispassionate gastroenterologist pops his head around the curtain to tell me that they found and removed “a bunch of polyps” while spelunking in what Coil once called “The Anal Staircase.” This is not the news I was looking for. He then says that I am to come back for another colonoscopy next year. Not seven years. Not five years. Next year.
Now, given the eternal flame of guilt that burns deep within me, I project (probably correctly) that the preponderance of polyps they encountered in my …er… posterior is the consequence of my having not attended to this matter sooner. Had I gone and gotten this done when I was supposed to a few years ago, they could have nipped these problems in the bud (literally) and not had to contend with the “bunch” (technically seven, if I’m parsing their pathology tissue report correctly) that they excised.
I expect to get a more digestible summary of their findings later this week. I’m assured that they removed what needed to be removed, and while I completely understand why they want to have another look next year, I remain a little shaken by the whole experience, especially upon hearing shortly afterwards that my maternal grandmother grappled with (and was ultimately felled by) the same issue.
So, yeah — don’t procrastinate, kids. Get your colonoscopy when it’s time. Spare yourself the rude awakening.
Regular readers and similarly inclined music heads may remember my review of Killing Joke drummer Big Paul Ferguson’s debut EP, Remote Viewing, here in the summer of 2018, it being a bracing first solo outing that scored the tumult of the times to a disquieting tee. Of course, life as we all know it has only become seismically more complicated than those comparatively balmy, care-free days, and — as if on cue — Ferguson has delivered his first full album of music largely to address same, but also to satiate his ever-present compulsion to take the world to task. That album is Virtual Control, and like the opening salvo that was Remote Viewing, one shouldn’t expect it to go down easy.
Again flanked by guitarist/co-producer Mark “Gemini” Thwaite (storied string-bender for everyone from Tricky and Peter Murphy through The Wonder Stuff and The Mission), Ferguson resumes his withering and world-weary renunciation of the avaricious, the fatuously deceptive and irretrievably complacent, all set to a thwomping, burly backdrop of the drummer’s signature beats and Thwaite’s crackling guitars. These songs are rich with depth and expanse, probably best exemplified on tracks like “The Unraveling,” “Sea of Judgement,” “Lapdogs" and “Extrapolate.”
While Ferguson has stayed true to the trajectory forged on the first EP, that being a canny welding of disparate styles to frame his deliberate, concise and targeted lyrics, there is indeed a fundamental evolution to Virtual Control, that being the man’s own vocals. Considering the thundering sound Ferguson has cultivated that is singularly his own — both here and over the course of his wide body of work with Killing Joke — his voice remains one of the more nuanced elements of his arsenal. But where Remote Viewing found him reciting his verses almost like emphatic incantations, Big Paul Ferguson actually sings here. And while, again, he may lack the hellfire-blackened bombast of his old foil Jaz Coleman, Fegurson’s melodic crooning here helps add some new focus and personality to the overall project. This is the sound of an artist branching out, experimenting and pushing proceedings forward.
There is so much going on in this bristling, layered record that deserves your full attention. Give in to it.
Get it here, or on fetching red vinyl.
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