heard	Korn			Follow the Leader
			Severed Heads			Since The Accident/Blubberknife
			Roach/O'Hearn/Obmana/Bacchus/Unis			The Ambient Expanse
			David Bowie			Scary Monsters

Frostilicus We're here, you're saved (12-1) I was looking closely at the computer screen while I working today and had one of those instances where your eyes suddenly focus on something you've never noticed before. I saw that there was dust on the computer monitor's glass sitting still as the cursor moved underneath it, and then quickly away. And then I was suddenly enrapt in the realization that there is actually a little space between the layer of glass and the actual computer screen display. For some reason, I found this fact incredibly fascinating. There is a space between the me, the glass of the monitor, and the actual display of the computer. Some sort of barrier, a velvet rope put there for my protection. And I remembered thinking to myself that maybe David Blaine could find a way to get himself put in this space between the glass and the actual monitor, live there for a week, and broadcast the images to his website…. I'm disappointed in David Blaine. The other day as I was reading about his latest illusion, I imagined myself standing over his ice cube in the ground, shouting obscenities at him. I told him that he had big, googly bug eyes and that if he was any sort of real daredevil/magician he would understand that the most important thing about performing death-defying stunts is that some way, somehow they have to go horribly wrong. Because even though David Blaine did the unthinkable, the impossible, and the amazing; even though he buried himself alive on a busy New York street a couple of years ago, he did so in such a way that it was instantly apparent that absolutely nothing was going to go awry. You looked into the window in the ground and you didn't see some guy trapped in a nightmare, you didn't see a man being taken slowly into the throes of insanity. You just saw David Blaine, sleeping like a baby. He was six, eight feet in the ground - no food, no water, no companionship, and when I saw him on TV looking very comfortable in his self-made tomb, I caught myself saying, "Hell, I could do that." After a few days when it became clear that he was perfectly all right to lay there, people began to ignore him. Now he's laying in a block of ice… grinning. Boring.   See, in my day there was a man named Evil Kenevil, a man who dared fate by attempting all sorts of impossible stunts. And we would all watch with our hearts in our throats as he would try to jump a jet car over the grand canyon and miss, try to jump a motorcycle over the fountain at Caesar's Palace and miss, try to jump his bike over a line of cars, miss, and then burst into flames. And we would all watch as his bones snapped like toothpicks and his brain slowly turned to applesauce, and we would cheer. We called him stupid, we called him fool, we laughed at him in public, but we loved him all the same, because Evil Kenevil was the one who helped us come to realize that when you get right down to it -- a man successfully jumping a motorcycle over 12 buses parked side-by-side is actually really boring to watch, but a jet car slowly beginning to plummet down towards the Colorado river.. now that's entertainment! We have half-hour television shows dedicated to car crashes, animal attacks, and real life crime footage. Half a zillion people tuned in for weeks on end last summer to watch a bunch of yuppies eat rats on a deserted island, and you're going to get under hundreds of pounds of ice and take a goddamn nap? Hey, flail your arms a bit - at least try to look like there's some risk involved!   Maybe it's because we are all so wired in to technology, maybe it's because of all the special effect laden movies (and the inevitable "making of" specials), maybe it's because David Copperfield liked to use Barry Manilow songs as soundtracks for his illusions, but whatever the reason, magicians these days are just sorta lame. Personally I think the whole problem is that magicians are far too media friendly these days. They show up in comedy clubs, daytime talk shows, discovery channel specials - they like to talk about all the preparation they do, they like to be filmed working on computers, talking to guys in hard hats… hell, they don't even want to be called magicians anymore, now they're all illusionists. Even their name sounds like they are trying to ease your concerns, wink at you and let you know it's all a trick. Give me the days where Harry Blackstone would be in a blood red robe, sitting at a table surrounded by candles, staring at you with a cold, heartless expression. And then Dick Cavett, or whoever was there to interview him would hesitantly sit down, and you could tell that they were clearly uncomfortable as Blackstone would smile and ask them to pick a card out of the deck that was sitting on the table. But best of all would be when he would finish his little prestidigitation, smile at the interviewer and say, "And right there is the 5 of clubs, your original card, if I'm not mistaken?" and the interviewer would look at him in awe, and then invariably ask out loud, "How did you do know that was my card?" and Harry Blackstone would smile, look into the camera, and say "A good magician never reveals his secrets." But all the while there would be this gleam in his eyes saying, Satan told me. When I was a kid and I saw Harry Blackstone on television I had absolutely no doubt in my mind that he was in touch with the forces of darkness. It didn't matter to me that he was using his evil powers to help him perform card tricks -- the man had the Beelzebub on his speed dial! He looked like a real life Dr. Strange, but at the same time he was always kind and soft-spoken like a grandfather. And I think that's what always made Blackstone so cool (beyond his spooky name, foreboding voice, and sinister looking beard), was the fact that I always felt like I could go up to him and say, "Mr. Blackstone, there's this kid in the neighborhood who picks on me all the time -- Do you think that you could, you know, turn him into a toad or something?" and then Blackstone would lean down to me, put a hand on my shoulder and say. "Sure thing, kid. And hey, what's this behind your ear?" You think David Copperfield would turn Burt Sparks into a frog just because some little kid asked him to? phhht. I might as well go ask Sigfried and Roy to help me win the lottery.