Forgiveness

Twice in the last week I've had to deal with the matter of forgiveness. I thought I was dealing with it. In reality it seems I had just pushed the anger and hurt away, at the back of my mind.

The first person I have to forgive is my father. I am working on it. It's next to impossible because forgiveness is a very special animal. It's easy to forgive when the damage inflicted to you by a person is minimal, or you have found a solution and it does not affect you anymore. But when the damage done has shaped your life to what it is now, and the past choices of that person still echo in your present situation ten years after his death, then... then you want to take the ossuary with his bones, fill it with kerosene and light it up. You are sure it will make an excellent fire, and that's the only kind of gesture that reflects your true feelings for him. 

There are those who say that once a person is dead, we should forgive them and move on. I consider that a grave oversimplification. So because they're dead, that means they didn't screw you over royally when they were alive? Hitler is dead too. Should everyone just forgive him because he's dead? That's the weird trip you get into with forgiveness. You can't forgive them when they've wronged you, when their decisions destroyed parts of your evolution and potential. They can't be absolved just because they are gone. The consequences of their actions are still part of your life, so forgive them how? And that's the paradox, because that is the exact case that forgiveness is needed, not in the sense of forgetting, but of moving on and not giving them power over you anymore.

If the person you need to forgive hasn't wronged you or hurt you, then you don't need to forgive them. You simply need to get over your ego. Forgiveness is needed when that person has left scars so deep that shaped your whole life. It's required when the damage done to you can't be undone, when their decisions have affected you deeply and profoundly and stolen from you your most valuable possessions; time and compassion. The one is the currency of life, the other is the currency of humanity.

If my father had been less of an asshole, my life would have been very different. He, too, would probably still be alive. I wouldn't have lost 14 years of my life trapped in a job I hated, without getting any stamps. I wouldn't have been forced to return from UK; I would have been able to get an MA and would have been working for the past 15 years in a job that would have paid me and given me social security. I would not have to deal with his sister taking me to court because she wants to appropriate more of his possessions. Perhaps I'd even have a companion. When your life has stability and security job-wise, it's not a giant leap to find someone. Right now I am where I am, doing what I am doing, and know that this man is more than 50% responsible for these things. I have a mother who's alone and slowly getting older and can't deal with everyday life, no job, no MA, no relationship, no previous job experience... The list goes on. I got social security for the first time this year. I am 39. And he has the nerve to ask for forgiveness when he has destroyed me, he has the nerve to think he can be forgiven when he ruined my life. Just because he died. So a bonfire with his bones seems like an excellent idea. Right?

The problem with forgiveness is that it takes a leap of faith, a gigantic motherfucker of a leap of faith. You need to forgive someone exactly because they did those things to you. You need to say, "I will deal with this mess and I will do it on my own terms". Because this is how you take the power back in your hands. As soon as you decide there is something you can do instead of being angry and accusing the other person of how they destroyed your life, you stop being a victim of that person or situation. From a "waaah waaah oh poor me" mess, you become the "come any closer and you'll see if this bitch has any fighting left in her" kind of person. Because truth is, that bitch (me) has a lot of fighting left in her. But she should do something better with that fighting spirit than bash the head of a person who's dead. 

I am trying very hard. Trying to let go while what I want to do is somehow get hold of him and yell at him, stomp him to the ground. Trying to move on when I see children with fathers who are there for them, who care, who help, who try to understand. I stare at those fathers, with their failings and mistakes and good intentions and wonder what planet was my father from. I wonder for the umpteenth time why, as I wrote in my previous poem, "I was raised by wolves". Why there wasn't a single safe adult in the family I grew up. And what the fuck it is that I'm doing here. 

And now I have to forgive him. How the fuck am I supposed to do that? 

I am just so tired. But I need to keep going. There is no time to lose. There just isn't any time for self-pity. I need to stop being a victim. And the only way one can stop being a victim is, curiously, by faith, and by letting go.

The lyrics of the very beautiful song are here: 

Chelsea Wolfe- Sick

This suffering brings me closer to you

and time is broken and moves slow

your pure heart, your white light

I should be put to death for ever being cruel to you

you washed me clean like no one ever could

come closer now and step right into

the wide mouth, the sharp teeth of the one you love

I'm not the kind of sick that you can fix

don't you worry about me baby

I've got no enemies and I've got no time

the song, we carry on

even though you pushed us down

we carry on

when you try to blind my eyes I can see tenfold

It's nothing that my heart can't take, 'cause your hate has made me strong

and stronger men than you have tried to break me

stronger men than you have tried to break me

leaning toward the golden days

forget about the older days

and everything we left behind

to stand here in another life

we carry on, even though you held us down

we carry on, with the song

we carry on, even though you pushed us down

we carry on

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American (F)arts

Can I complain about something? I know some people will think I'm mad. I don't particularly care. Also, I am going to be graphic, disgusting, and fixated on the Freudian anal stage. Be warned.

Have you ever had a friend who offered to get you on a date with someone they know? Naturally, you're reluctant, so they show you a photo of that person, and he or she is drop-dead gorgeous. And hey, from what your friend says, you have similar interests! So you give your consent and your friend arranges a date. The suspense is killing you, you count the days backwards, you are happy. Finally the day of your dream date comes, they arrive at the restaurant and they look just like their photo. You can't believe how lucky you are. You sit down, giddy with anticipation, and timidly engage in conversation. For the first few minutes it goes remarkably well. Then as you open the menu to order and glance at your dream date, you notice with pure horror that they are digging inside their nose. You stare because you can't believe you are seeing that. You are still staring while they pull out a ginormous booger, give it a perfunctory once-over and eat it.

I've just described my relationship with American Gods.

I read the book years ago. It's not my favourite from Gaiman's arsenal, but Gaiman is my favourite writer, so naturally I was very excited American Gods would become a TV series. I had also watched and loved two seasons of Hannibal, so Fuller seemed a good choice. Alas.

Before AG started, I made an attempt to watch the 3rd season of Hannibal. I managed to watch two episodes. They were painfully slow, boring, and pointlessly gross. Bodies forming out of blood, becoming blood, Will wandering around aimlessly while being up to his eyeballs on hard drugs, blah de blah. I may try to finish the season... or not.

Then American Gods started. And in the first minutes of the first episode I saw a chopped arm flying in the air. And I shuddered, because this is not Gaiman's style, and hoped I was wrong. 

But I was right.

To do the series justice, there are some brilliant scenes, and the actors are doing their best. But the rest of it is that dream date of yours eating boogers while you watch in fascinated horror.

"Artistic" slow mo with flies and candles, lots of sex, pointless mostly, bodies forming out of some liquid dark material and being re-absorbed... Wait, am I watching the 3rd season of Hannibal again? 
-No you dummy, that's American Gods. 
-Oh, silly me. But why is it so slow?
-They use slow mo to make every episode last for three hours, so that you think you got more time for the same money. It's a marketing trick. You wouldn't understand.
-You are right. I don't understand.

-Oh, these two guys are having sex... That's sweet. But why are they suddenly depicted in the desert and they change colour, as if they are the negatives of a photo?
-It's esthetics. You wouldn't understand.
-But...
-Stop asking questions. It's a Fuller/Gaiman show. That alone should have made you fall on your knees and pray. Why aren't you impressed?
-Because it doesn't make sense. It's like Galadriel turning black in LOTR... But she had the One Ring.
-Shut up and let me watch the show.
-Okay.

Let's talk about women... All the attractive female characters we've come across so far are unavailable virgins, neurotic wrecks, or man-devouring insane bitches who use everyone around them on a whim and destroy their lives. Poor, poor Laura Moon. In the book you are not the despicable, ego-centered bipolar bimbo of the series. It takes effort to make a female character so loathsome, but they spared no effort. And they succeeded spectacularly. If she was on fire, I'd douche her with gasoline to put her out. Of her misery, I mean.

The esthetics of the book are fucked six ways to Sunday. The book may be slow at parts, but it captures perfectly the atmosphere of a growing storm. It lets the reader steal momentary glimpses of those dangerous beings and situations looming at the edge of one's perception, at the edge of normal and every-day. Those glimpses come to slowly replace the normal until they are Shadow's every day. But it is subtle, smart, delicate. And then you have the series, which replaces the melancholy and restlessness with grunge, gore, dirt, filth, kitsch and blood. It sounds good... if we're talking about The Walking Dead. Or maybe the streets of a large medieval city where sheep, cows and beggars with leprosy are happily stepping on their own shit next to a marriage taking place. Everyone is fondling everyone else's tit and other parts of interest with fingers covered in sour wine and grease, someone is vomiting in their plate, and the rest are hailing the groom and the bride. But is this the book I read, even remotely? No fucking way. 

The music of AG can be divided in two categories. The songs are incredibly bland. The creators of the show seemed to have picked the top 40 of pointless songs which cause mild irritation while they are being played, and get immediately erased from one's memory as soon as they stop. The rest of the soundtrack is a dream sonnet written by a renown proctologist. Every time something creepy/otherworldly happens, the music is literally from another world. Imagine three or four people with various wind instruments inserted in their anus. One has a saxophone, another a trumpet, one has a flute, and so on. Imagine whatever you like. These poor people are tied up and gagged and some psychos are torturing them. One of the psycho torturers repeatedly inserts a needle in the flesh of the guy with the saxophone in his butt. He can't scream, can't move or fight, hence those bleating, desperate little noises coming out of his other end. Something's gotta give. On the other side of the room, another psycho torturer is stepping on the gout of the person who has the trumpet in his butt, steadily increasing pressure. And so you get that deep, insistent, ominous wail that shudders, ululates and changes in tone. It really is a thing of beauty, if you have a poster with Tomás de Torquemada on your bedroom wall. And you masturbate to it morning and night.

Honestly, I know I am going to be part of the minority who hates the show, and I can understand why someone may be impressed by it. But I don't care. This show sucks. It sucks so much that it could easily have been the vacuum cleaner the Almighty used on the Sixth Day, to clean the mess before He rested. If you ask me, He's still asleep, and the creators of American Gods stole the bleeding thing and turned it into a TV show. That's how much it sucks.

Rant over. Watch the Handmaid's Tale. It's amazing. 
Off to bed.

PS: If anyone, absolutely anyone, dares say that the reason I don't like the series is that I can't take it, I'd like to inform them that horror is my favourite genre. Also, if they think I dislike it because I am a prude, I'll make them a part of that anal quartet I described above, and have demons gang-rape their mouths while I record the musical achievements of their butt for the next season of the show. I may even become rich, who knows? So don't even think about it.
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Demons for just 99c!

Art by Natalie Sau.

I am officially jobless. Which is fine, as I needed a bit of rest, and I'll be on unemployment benefits for a while. Hopefully I'll find something else. Of course the unemployment benefits are not much, but I can't complain. It's more than the money I'd get for working part-time.

Other than that, my very good friend Lizbeth Gabriel has her published book, the Theater of Dusk, on offer until the end of the month! She excels at describing some pretty dark relationships and situations, like murder, betrayal, death, suicide, but there is also humour. If you need some paranormal romance, vampires, demons, angels of Death and so on, you can have them for 99c. If you prefer a physical book, you can buy one on Amazon. Here is a video review of her book:

As the reviewer says, her stories have a strong emotional impact that stays with the reader for long, so please give her a go. You will not be disappointed, promise.

Other than that, I am selling more of my stamp albums on Ebay. You can find all the items I have for sale on Ebay here. Please take a look and help me increase my funds. The stray cats I feed need food nightly, and I can't explain to them I no longer have a job. Thanks for looking! :)
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Busy, broke, chubby and strangely pleased.

Chris and Seth, founding members of Septicflesh (and their cute as a button daemon-familiar).

I've been trying to tie loose ends for the past two weeks. There are countless little chores I've been avoiding like the devil avoids incense (as the Greek saying goes), but they need to be done. So lately I've been tackling them. They aren't important, but completing them offers me a strange sense of accomplishment. They are boring and unpleasant and necessary, so every single one that gets out of the way is one boring task less. I'm mightily impressed with myself.

On the good news' side, I plan to do an interview with the extreme metal band Septicflesh. They are Greek, they are awesome, and I've been a fan for many years. If you aren't familiar with them and you love symphonic death metal, check them out. They are excellent and constantly evolving. I hope they'll agree to an interview. My blog isn't music-related; it exists to document my obsessions so that my psychiatrist can have a better clinical picture er... so that I can write about my interests. Yes, of course. I have already started sacrificing pizzas and ice-creams to darker entities (it's plenty dark inside my stomach, believe me) to make sure I land that interview. If I don't, I'll just increase the number of sacrifices, fart despondently and wallow in disappointment.

Psst. Let me tell you a secret. I hate all those metal bands. Well, 'hate' might be too strong a word. Almost without exception, members of those bands have longer hair than mine and about 2.345 more tattoos than I do. I am jealous AF. That without referring to the fact men with long hair and tattoos accidentally press a special button inside my brain. I start secreting ginormous amounts of saliva while staring at them, one eye rapidly blinking, drool running down my chin, moonstruck smile splitting my face in two. I'm usually fantasizing that I have then in my bed in full metalhead gear and I comb their hair. Oooh what pretty hair you have. Oooh let me comb it for you. Show me your tattoos. Oooh you bad boy you, all dressed in black and leather. And so on. Of course, any sane person that sees me during that phase is certain I am having a stroke combined with a psychotic episode, and slowly tiptoes out of my field of vision. I don't even realise, too busy combing imaginary hair. *Sigh* My chances of capturing one of those specimens to enact that bedroom scene are slim to none, especially bearing in mind two facts: 1) the unreasonable number of cats on my bed 2) my super audacious chubby tummy, blowing raspberry to possible suitors from under my (carefully selected) loose t-shirts. But one can dream, right?

 

Quiz: cats on my bed. How many can you count? Plus foot porn.

In other news, I am broke as FCUK. Therefore I have started selling things I don't need. Right now I have three stamp albums listed on Ebay, official products, sold out years ago and completely impossible to find under normal circumstances. If you want, please take a look. They are very reasonably priced and I'd love to re-home them and use the money to buy more urgent things.

Items I sell on Ebay are here.

I'll keep you updated on the interview. Now go out and be as naughty and impudent as my round tummy.
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At the borders of dreamland

Art by Natalie Shau. That's what my (beloved) demons probably look like.

Just a note before I close my eyes and drift off to dreamland.
Isn't it funny how you can spend your entire day busy and when the time for sleep comes, still feel that you've achieved nothing?
In spite of my tiredness, I presently resent going to bed. It means the day is gone and it is not coming back.
Time is slipping from my fingers again. 
The only cure I know for this ailment? Writing.
When I am writing, time ceases to exist.
What is your cure?
Good-night.
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The mortal remains

Smell no evil either. I wish.

(Warning: the following post will be unpleasant and disgusting. Continue reading at your discretion).

A few nights ago I went to the garden to feed my strays. There was a smell of something rotting, but I could not really place it, and it was too dark. The next night the smell insisted, and the next was even worse. So I looked with the aid of my nose and located the remains of a cat I used to feed. It was a black one-eyed feral cat, perhaps less than a year old, who always looked sickly and I took extra care to give him or her food separately. As it turns out, in vain. It had died on some old woollen clothes I had placed in a space protected from the rain for the cats to sleep on, behind an old motorcycle. So I was faced with an interesting question. How do you pick up the rotting carcass from the narrow space between the motorcycle and the wall?

I put a plastic bag inside another and tried to put the carcass inside without touching it. Oh goodness gracious, the smell. And just as I had managed to cover the body, wrap the bags around it, and raise it in the air to slip it inside the bags, I realised three things. One, the body was lukewarm. I think it has to do with decomposition. Two, I would be lucky if pieces didn't fall off, like a leg, or the head. Three and worst, it was raining maggots. Fat, long, writhing white maggots, that landed on my shoes and the ground and kept writhing. Great.

I managed to bag the dead cat, and then I was faced with the realisation that the old woollen fabrics were saturated with the decomposition fluids and consequently full of maggots too. Oh joy. So after I threw away the bagged carcass, I had to pick (very carefully, from the corners) the fabrics, the pillow, and everything else. Second trip to the garbage bin. The excitement was palpable in the air (in waves of eye-watering stench). But there was nothing I could do. If you feed them, then you should also deal with the less enjoyable tasks of spaying them, giving them medication, or disposing of their remains. It's in nobody's top ten of favourite things to do in their spare time. At least nobody I know personally.

Right now I have in my flat a blind black kitten. I think it is a she. Her mother gave birth to two. The other kitten, also blinded by the same infection, did not survive. This one might. I don't know how I am going to feed an extra mouth, but you can't leave a blind kitten in the garden with a busy road ten meters away. I don't think anyone with a conscience can. I will try to capture and spay the mother soon, to prevent her from giving birth again in the future. This world does not need more blind kittens. It really doesn't.

Sometimes I feel I need ten arms and six legs (and 48 hour-long days) to deal with everything. But that's life, or that's my life. What can you do? I've repeatedly tried to win the lottery, to replace my set of problems with a different set of problems. No success as of yet. I will inform you if that happens (probably by publishing a glowing and rapidly changing colour fluorescent middle finger as a blog entry, intended as a message to The Powers That Be). Until then, have fun and may Lady Luck abstain from placing decomposing cats on your path. Spirits of dead cats are fine, they give good advice and are very protective. More importantly, they don't reek.

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The pink stars are falling in lines

Had my heart broken twice in two days. I'll live, of course. I always live. 

The title I used is a line from Under the Dome, an excellent novel by Stephen King. I dove into it and finished it in three days. King knows his craft, and keeps the reader spellbound. It's quite sad to think I needed three days to finish what took him two years to write, especially since King is known to be a prodigiously fast writer. But that's part of the human experience. What matters takes time to be completed; months, in some cases years.

In the book King speaks about the arrogance and stupidity of  human race. He's excellent at describing how easy it is for people to turn into a mob and how they can be manipulated when they are scared. What I've more or less been thinking my entire life. But who cares what I think? Facts are facts. It's the reason I have the words Non Serviam tattooed on my right arm, to constantly remind myself that this world is run by fear. Fear of lack, fear for the future, fear of not belonging, fear of old age, financial insecurity, loneliness. I will not serve this world's madness, I will not submit to fear and paranoia. I will be human. Not a cockroach, not a sheep, not a rodent.

I'm not going to refer to my first reason for sadness. My friends know what happened. But I will refer to the second one.

As you know, I feed stray cats. I try to catch and spay them, but some are feral and it is not an easy job without a cat trap. Three days ago, a female gave birth to four kittens in some bushes. One by one, I found them dead. I'm not sure what happened. Maybe the cat didn't know how to take care of them. It was the first time she gave birth and kittens are very fragile when they are just a few days old. Maybe something attacked them. I did find one of them dead with its front legs missing and bloody, and I don't know if it happened while it was still alive. I hope it didn't. 

Tonight that I went there to feed them, only one was left, and it was barely alive. The mother didn't seem to care, so I took it home. I knew it wouldn't live. Still I put it inside a small heating pad I have, cleansed its mouth from the dust and soil and gave it a bit of milk formula. It died after a couple of hours, but at least it died somewhere warm, with its belly full, and safe. My heart broke just the same, of course. Even when you do know, your heart breaks to see something so small struggling to draw breath.

Which takes me to the next subject. We believe we have our lives under control, yet in reality we're not very different from that kitten. People are cruel to each other even though they have no reason. Life is fragile and unpredictable, and they behave with abysmal arrogance. Why? I don't know. I honestly, really don't know. It's one of the reasons I want to bomb the entire dimension. Thankfully I lack the means to do so. 

Please do me a favour. Think before you act and speak. Don't let fear guide your actions. You can choose. Every moment of your life, you can change. You constantly choose and change in small ways. Be conscious of it. Be someone better than you were. This planet desperately needs it.

And do read Under the Dome if you enjoy horror that has both feet firmly on the ground and uses everyday life to show you just how disgusting and wonderful and unbelievable we are as a race. The series isn't good, but the book rocks. 
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Old Tiamat interview

So here is an interview I did more than fourteen years ago with Anders Iwers, the bassist of the Swedish death metal band Tiamat. It was going to be published in a fanzine I was then making with two friends. However, our plan fell through, the second issue was never published, and I was left with the interview in my recorder. I kind of forgot about it for years. Recently I decided it was a pity not to publish it somewhere, and this 'somewhere' is my blog. I was giggling throughout the interview because I was so nervous, but Anders was very sweet, easy-going and polite. So, after exchanging our hellos with him, here is the actual interview...

Elizabeth: -Before we begin, I am going to tell you something that I thought was a compliment to you. My best friend came to visit me last night, so you know, I just went to the stereo and pressed play, without checking which CD is inside. After the first ten seconds, he exclaims, "Oh! Tiamat!' and I am like, "Wow, how do you do this?" He replied, "Very simple! It's the bass. It's so characteristic. You can't mistake it." And I said, "Okay, I'm going to tell Anders! He'll probably appreciate it."

Anders Iwers: That's indeed a compliment. Thank you!

-You are welcome. He said that it's something totally characteristic of your sound. "Listen to it", he said. "It's deep, it's not rough. It's melodic. As soon as you hear it, you say, it's Tiamat." I was very happy about this comment.

AI: Well, I am happy about it.

-Okay, onward with the questions. I am going to ask you a few questions about your new album, (Note: at the time, it was Prey) hopefully not boring ones, and hopefully not something you have answered 3000 times before.

AI: I'm sure it is going to be fine.

-And then I am going to ask you some general questions as well. Okay, so: first strange question. The artwork on your CDs is becoming wackier and wackier, if you know what I mean. Actually it has become progressively darker, more rich, more distorted. Do you have any kind of control over the representation of your work? Some kind of collaboration, or...

AI: Absolutely. Our singer does the artwork for the albums. I mean we have as much control over it as we possibly can, actually.  We do it all ourselves. I really like that because it provides contact with the lyric sense and the atmosphere of the album. It's one step closer than using any artist, and it is very reflective of how we see the album.

-That is great! I noticed this, because there are bands that have this characteristic 'one type of artwork for everything' kind of artwork, so I was wondering how you did it. 

AI: Yes, you can have a really good artist who does his work, but he doesn't have anything to do with the music...

-But you want to use sight as much as hearing. To provoke thought, etc.

AI: Exactly. We tend to see music as covers. I don't want to say too much because the atmosphere is for everyone to decide. It's graphic.

-It creates images in one's mind. I am of the opinion that good music creates images in someone's mind. It's like traveling somewhere. Or seeing things. Snapshots of people, places.

AI: Exactly. 

-Next question. For the song Pentagram, you used a poem by Crowley. How did this come about? Is it a recent interest into the occult, or...

AI: It is not recent. We've been quite interested in all things religious and occult since day one, basically. The reason we used that poem is that we didn't have lyrics at that point. We used that because it seemed fitting like a working theme as we were developing the music, and after a while you couldn't really hear the song with different lyrics, so we had to ask for permission from the owner of his estate, the OTO. They didn't give us permission to print the lyrics. I am guessing they hoped that people interested in the lyrics would actually search for information and read more on Crowley. That's just a guess. 

-I think it is a good idea actually. Give someone a starting point to go and look for themselves.

AI: It's actually working. A while ago I was talking with a journalist, and he did go and found the poem. So it's working.

-Ha ha, that's great. Okay... next question. Most of the reviews I read are in praise of Wildhoney, which is an older album. It must be irritating after a while to read the same again and again. I have Wildhoney myself, I like it, but if was to choose between Wildhoney and another album, I wouldn't probably choose Wildhoney. But anyway, that is personal. Still, it must be tiring to read the same again and again. What's your view?

AI: Tiring is a good word. It is not irritating because it is a record that we made, it is our most successful album and we are very proud of it. But it can get a bit tiring after a while like you say because we've done four albums since Wildhoney, and I think better albums, actually.

-Yes, and I can see a steady evolution in your music. There is evolution, you can tell. I mean, I have been playing Deeper Kind of Slumber ever since it was out, and I am not bored of it. I recently got Judas Christ and I love it. So it must be irritating to read the same reviews again and again, because reviews influence the audience, so they probably say, "Let's buy Wildhoney instead of the new albums."

AI: Yeah.

-The same old story.

AI: Yeah, but you know, it's just... if people like it, fine.

-If they don't like it, they can go fuck themselves. I mean, I am of the opinion that if you really put your soul into something, you can't care less. If they like it, it's just fine, if they don't like it, that's just fine too. 

AI: Something like that.

-Next question, and that's probably a tricky one. Which album is your favourite?

AI: Well, at this moment I'll choose Prey, because it's the most fresh to me, but probably, if ask me again after a bit of time, I'll choose something else. For example, I am very proud of Deeper Kind of Slumber.

-Yeah, when I first got it I was wondering, "What the hell happened to them? What kind of drugs are they on? This is just amazing!"

AI: No no no, I am very proud of that album. Looking back in the day, I am really proud of that album. And I am proud of Judas Christ too. Actually it's very hard to choose.

-I was thinking the same. It must be like having five children and being asked which one is your favourite. And this is why I thought that it must be so irritating when people say about one of them again and again, "this one is lovely." Yeah, but what about the rest of them?

AI: Yes, exactly.

-So, what makes you laugh, and what makes you furious about the contemporary music scene?

AI: I don't know if you have this in Greece, but in Sweden, we have all those manufactured bands on TV. They have something like a school that creates those bands. For me, that's really disgusting. it makes me really really angry. It's a manufactured product. It's not even music, it's a product. 

-Based on a successful recipe.

AI: Yeah, and the only purpose is that it should sell as much as possible, and the fact there are companies like that makes me puke, I hate it. What makes me laugh it that every once in a while, a band or an artist becomes successful without using a formula. And you could not have foreseen that. Actually I can name only Swedish bands, but this happens in every country. And it makes me smile. It makes me think there is some hope.

-For this world we live in.

AI: I don't think there is any hope for the world we live in.

-Okay, this explains a lot about the latest albums. (laughing)

AI: Yeah.

-There is always hope. If you lose that, you'd better jump off a building, you know? We have this little fanzine that has just begun. And there are people judging it from just the back cover. There are people who have asked us, "Oh, what are you trying to do? Establish an elite that is more elite than the elite?" And they don't even read it. But we are basically trying to do what we want to do, and we don't care. There is always hope. As long as you have people, original creative people, that they are trying to do what they want to do, you know, just express themselves, then anything can happen.

AI: Exactly.

-Tell me something that you did as a band, and you have sorely regretted it. This can be anything, not an album, just something you did as a band and then said, "oh, we shouldn't have done that".

AI: I don't know, I mean, I am not someone who believes in regretting the past, because there is nothing we can change about it. if it's done, it's done, and you really can't change it, even if you feel bad about it.

-You can get things from it, actually.

AI: Yeah, exactly.

-Usually it's bad experiences you get things from.

AI: Actually I regret something in Mexico.

-Sorry?

AI: We were on tour in Mexico and we ate something bad.

-Ha ha ha! So you were running to the toilet.

AI: Yep. That was something we shouldn't have done. But other than that, I am not regretting a thing.

-I am sure the toilet won't remember.

AI: I hope so. I want to forget it.

-Okay, one last question. I was reading the lyrics in your latest album and I thought that the song Clovenhoof is referring to the witch hunts. But I am not sure, so I am asking you.

AI: It's not, actually. It's metaphor from the witch hunting days to cast light on something else. It's more abstract, actually, and related to guilt. It's about taking in other people's guilty feelings and trying to absolve something you have nothing to do with. You should accept your own fate, carry your own burden.

-Or even put that burden down, if you can. Don't carry it. 

AI: There are consequences, you know. Do whatever you want, but pay the price.

-I realise that most of your songs are abstract. You are not very political, in the sense that you don't use current events; instead you seem to mostly draw your inspiration from feelings, frames of mind...

AI: Absolutely.

-Do you think that music should be political? Reflecting on events that happened to the world? Or you just prefer to speak about the feelings these events stir?

AI: I would say, if I had my own band, I would be very political, actually. I am very interested, ah, I am very outspoken in matters of politics as a private person. As a band, I don't think that Tiamat would be benefited. But a lot of my favourite bands are very political. In fact, most of our inspiration comes from current events.

-Yes, but you can filter it through, you don't have to put the event itself in the song.

AI: Exactly. The events from couple of years ago in the United States (note: he is referring to the 9/11 events) changed everything for everyone, basically. It made us question everything. More specifically, it made me think about what it takes to put a man in the frame of mind to fly a plane into a building.

-Yes, and the problem was, there were people inside the Towers. If it was just a madman who decided to take a plane and fly it into an empty building, I would not mind. But there were innocent people inside, everyday people, who had nothing to do with it.

AI: So just imagine what it would take to make you hijack a plane full of people and fly it in a building. That thought...

-Makes you wonder about human nature.

AI: And it's also based on religion.

-Yes, I know. Greece is an orthodox Christian country. If you are not with them, for some reason they think you are against them. It's very prominent, you see it everywhere. If you are Greek and you aren't Orthodox, there is something wrong with you. 

AI: Heh.

-Yes, for example, if I say to my co-workers I am not Christian, I would get all those weird looks from them. And if I try to explain to them, that would be a very long and awkward conversation. So you have to keep silent about it.

AI: He he.

-Okay... It was very nice talking to you.

AI: Likewise.

-I also got a funny comment from one of the guys in the fanzine. He works in a musical magazine, and yesterday I called him and told him, "Oh god I'm stressed, I'm so stressed about the interview with Tiamat." "Calm down," he said to me. "Who is the interview with?" and I said, "The bassist." He said, "Oh, that's great. Not the singer then?" "No, not the singer. Why, what's wrong with the singer?" I asked. "He's a fine guy," my friend said, "but he doesn't talk." "What, Tiamat have a mute singer?" I said. "No no no, he's just a little difficult to interview, not mute."

AI: Ha ha ha.

-Thank you, thank you, thank you. It was a very good interview.

AI: Yeah, absolutely. 
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