CRYPT MAGAZINE: sex. horror. rocknroll.

First, a word from our Editor In Grief, David Necro:

Everyone has problems, and as Alice Cooper says in his classick tune "Elected," "personally I don't care!" Well, I just happened to find someone that does, none other than Reverend Charles; gothic sex symbol, the sworn enemy of religious nuts everywhere, and leader of the band Dark Eden. Read his bio in our 'Epitaphs' section.

Reverend Charles is very experienced in more ways than 1, and he understands the needs, problems, and yes, dilemnas, of you boils and ghouls who make up our subculture. So, if you're about to slit your wrists or drink too much absinthe...ask the Reverend first!

Send your deepest and darkest thoughts to: askthereverend@gmail.com

Without futher ado, here's the Rev!

Hey there, my peeps. And by "peeps," I mean the little yellow marshmallows. Anyway, I'm back with another column. For some godawful reason, I am listening to many, many versions of a song called "Gloomy Sunday" right now, as it's apparently some sort of song that people kill themselves after listening to. As a musician, of course, you hear that and you think, "Hey, let's cover it!" Of course, the amount of covers of this song that exist are astounding. Diamanda Galas, Billie Holiday, Bjork, Christian Death, Portishead, Ray Charles, Lydia Lunch, Gitane Demone, Anton Levay, Elvis Costello...the list goes on and on and on...One would think after the, oh, four hundredth cover of the song, someone would think maybe there's been enough. But one would be wrong. Since 1933, there have been probably dozens of covers of this one song...and, now, that I find myself on the fifth version of it, I come to realize that they all kinda sound the same. Some bands do it a little better, some bands do it a little worse (I'm looking at you, fucking Elvis Costello!), but overall, no one seems to have wanted to do anything particularly different with it. Actually, Negator did an awesome heavy version of it, and there was a Korean rap version, but otherwise, everybody sticks with the same tempo, same basic arrangement. So, what does this have to do with my column? Nothing, except that much like the song, sometimes your letters make me want to kill myself. I wonder if being constantly barraged by your collective idiocy has made me immune to the effects of repeated listens to this song. For example...

Damn, you got some seriously hot asses in your band there. Wish I was in NY.
-skullee

Dear Skullee,
Normally, I would tell you how wouldn't have a chance anyway (let's take, Tantrum, for example...if you aren't built like Glenn Danzig and hung like Peter Steele, she'd be spitting out your bones. Trust me. I know the girl), but you know what? What's the point, anyway? What's the point of anything? You know, you talk about how attractive we all are, and we are, for now. Eventually, age comes and chances attraction. Everyone gets old. We are all rotting from the very moment we are born. Bruce Dickenson once said, "As soon as you're born, you're dying," and it's true. You're dying too, Skullee. Now, while an encounter with one of the women of Dark Eden might expediate that process, it doesn't matter. You're dying, and so am I. All of us. It's just part of the cycle, Skullee. What is beautiful today will, tomorrow, rot and fade away. Look at Goldie Hawn. Do you remember how hot she used to be? Have you seen the horrible monstrosity she's become? It's enough to give you nightmares. I'm sorry, Skullee, I just...I just can't...You realize no one loves you, right? You realize you're alone in the world and that if you're so hard up you have to write me letters like this, that no one is even attracted enough to you to give you some easy sex. Maybe you pay for sex, sometimes, but those girls don't even like you. They don't care about you. And what are you fulfilling, a simple animal urge to procreate with people who don't even want your offspring. How pointless. It's all so very pointless, Skullee. Especially you. You're very pointless. I don't say that to insult you. I say that to help you, to tell you the truth. Maybe I'm too much of a coward to end it all, Skullee, but please, be braver than I and just stop all this nothingness. Please. For yourself.

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Im new to the area, and want to learn more about the occult, any suggestions, is there a place I can go in the city to learn?

-Shoe String

Dear Shoe String,
We all want to know what's beyond the walls, we all want to know what the next world holds, what other dimensions may bring us, what lies beyond the veil... And you know what? There's no point. I could name a few places, but you're going to just die one day, Shoe-String. Why put all that effort into learning secrets that will just fade away in a few years? You realize the average human doesn't live past 70 years. We live on a planet that's billions of years old. We're such a young speeches and we're here for only a blink of an eye. You know how everyone always talks about "The End of the World" and nuclear war and such...but you know what? We're really only talking about the end of US, the end of the human race. If we made it so the planet was so irradiated tomorrow that no life could exist on it for thousands of years, do you know what? Life would still form. Maybe thousands of years from now. Maybe life in a form we're not accustomed to. But life would endure. Thousands of years to a planet as old as ours...it's a blink of an eye...it's a nap, at most. We are so fragile and insignificant, in the long run. All these secrets you want to learn about. They won't matter. You won't make yourself immortal, Shoe-string. You won't prolong your life any longer. Stop trying, sir. Stop trying...

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hi!
i was lookin' up this certain reverand && i came across you.
it was definitely by God that i found you.
i just wanted to tell you that you are a very handsome young man && God has a purpose for you if you submit unto him with your all.

-creative

Dear Creative,
Your optimism is amusing to me. You have some sort of weird idea that you're going to convert me to your little cult, and really, when it comes down to it, that's all Christianity was. A cult that managed to become particular large. Isn't it really only size that determines the difference between a cult and a "religion?" If I got ten people to follow me in worshiping a head of lettuce tomorrow, then we would only be a cult? But what if I could extend that belief to millions of people? Why then, Ralph the Head of Lettuce would have His own religion. We wouldn't be a cult anymore. So, anyway, getting back to the point, I am amused that you think that I will just turn over my life to your imaginary man, who, obviously, is better than all the other invisible men out there, to choose from. I'm amused by it. I'm also amused by your very beliefs, when it comes down to it. I know you like to think that when you die, you're going to go to a wonderful, bright, and happy white place, where everyone is happy all the time and your family is there and there's no bad people, and there's no pain, and there's nothing but warm, glowing, love, but I'm sorry, Creative, but that's all a lie! Your short and unimportant lifespan is all you're getting and you're using that very brief time you have to lie to yourself, to lie to others, to try to deceive them into joining your little cult of untruth? And why? Because you hope that there's more than just this horrible, horrible life of pain and sorrow and a mother who tells you that life would've been better for the both of you if she had just had that abortion...Oh, it's so cruel, Creative...Life is so...dark and empty...There's just... nothing... Nothing... No thing... Just think of those words... No... Thing... Just the absense of...well, anything... a void... And you want there to be more, and there just isn't... It's all just...No...Thing...

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Dear Charles Lupula,

I read the bible and am concerned at how important it is to have a place to live. Is homelessness more christian then having an apartment, house?

-Concerned

Dear Concerned,
If you actually read the Bible, you'd know that the vow of poverty is a big thing, but since no one actually follows anything that book or any book actually say, except for the stuff that already reinforces their personal prejudices and beliefs, why should it matter to you? The fact that you read the Bible but have to ask me means that you're just a big hypocrite, anyway. If your Bible was the truth, you'd know, in your heart, the real answer. You wouldn't need to ask me anything. I wouldn't matter. The fucking WORD would touch you. But there's no word. There's no truth. It's just a book and it means nothing. You won't follow it. You'll feel guilty for not following it, though. You'll waste precious moments of what little life you have left worrying about, when in reality, it won't matter. You won't get any more life from believing in it. You won't get any more life from not believing in it. You're just a speck of dust on the world. A tiny little blip in the radar that will be forgotten in a hundred years time. No one who knows you will still be around then, and your name won't ever be uttered. No one will care. You'll be gone. You might as well have not existed.

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So, there's another month's column. I'm on version number twenty nine of "Gloomy Sunday," right now, which, I am not sure if you knew this, was dubbed "The Hungarian Suicide Song," which is funny, because I don't feel any worse for having listened to this many versions of it. You know, my birthday's on March 6th. Another year...closer... Anyway, I'm going to go sit in my room now. In the dark. With a bottle of Jack Daniels. With these songs...on repeat...

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Dark Eden - http://www.darkeden.org