#triplenegative

Triple Negative, God Bless The Death Drive (Penultimate Press, 2020)

I’d been thinking about this record lately. I’d bought it on a whim in the Summer, and after listening to it a lot for a month or so, the Triple Negative LP had fallen to the back of the pile as I kept accumulating new purchases. And I missed it. So when I saw it in some year-end best-of list (things I peruse riddled with anxiety, thinking I suck for not having listened to enough music this year) I immediately went to the shelf and put it back on the turntable.

Triple Negative sound like a radio playing in a comic book. Fragments of sound pop up like fishes’ mouths in a pond of static and tape hiss, sometimes speaking the language of a 1930 Greek folk standard, or of tortured muzak mixed with trance-like chants and the sound of banging on metal, or of a sweet ballad for voice and a weary, huffing organ.

It’s one of those impenetrable sort of records, one could only tentatively connect it to a vague atmosphere, a Russian novella feeling, a quiet, composed sort of tale of black magic, the nautical theme of the comic on the record’s sleeve only adding to this impenetrable narrative fog.

Having been recorded on tape over the course of 15 years, God Bless The Death Drive sounds like layers of dusty recordings on top of older, dustier recordings. Tape loops, winds, things that squeak, grind and squall interact with muffled vocals, guitars, and percussions building trembling, precarious songs that are as unpredictable as fascinating.

I wasted a lot of your time on GRRAWR trying to understand why I enjoy free, abstract music, and there isn’t a real reason, at least not a fixed one. Maybe today I feel like listening to God Bless The Death Drive because I want to be challenged. Or I want to close my eyes and feel like I’m on a ghost ship, floating on a sea of tape glistening with shards of punk sensitivity. Or I just feel like annoying my partner. In any case, this is a challenging, freeing, puzzling and inspiring record. Dive in.

Click here to listen to God Bless The Death Drive on Bandcamp.

Perhaps life or fate has a way of protecting you in some odd way. Graduation is one of my personal favorite celebrations, but this year, my last, was colored by interruption. Out with the old I guess. My brave face faltered in the end. I lost it at requests for group pictures.

If a hard to schedule geneticist says yes to a one hour meeting, then you take what you can get. A quick exit for me. I am no wiser as a result of this conversation. My lack of familial patterning, the mutation location on both BRCA 1 and 2 mind you, all turn up as flukes of nature. How much do we know about potential nutrient gene interactions? Still not enough.

The greatest fight is survival and thus my friends, I have decided to present myself once again on the chopping block and will have my ovaries removed. The good thing may be an oophorectomy increases survivability in us TN gals. Now I find this ironic as this cancer is non respondent to estrogen anyway, but we’ll have to have a read about the mechanism more closely.

But, how do I feel? So what if I’m not having any more babies, we still need our hormones. We kinda need them for things like maintaining bone density, joint and epithelial lubrication, skin turgor, heart disease prevention. Stuff like that. Aya, the only thing I can think about is De Niro. Well, lucky for him, he doesn’t have to worry about his ovaries.

Yeah, I'll admit it. I expected to come back in August with glowing reports of NED. No Evidence of Disease. But I didn't. I had to take a break from putting my feelings down. Isn't this supposed to be a fight that ends victorious? There wasn't supposed to be an epilogue. Merely yearly reports of a glowing healthy body.

But I'm not there yet. Six months of Xeloda only to find out there is no improvement. Instead only a creeping growth in my lymph nodes. Nothing past the margins of what used to be my breast, so all other places holding fort.

Next comes another drug, Halaven. The thing about this stage, is that there is no time limit. At least, when I initially started chemo in the “good old days,” I received a number, happily skipping along to each countdown. Now, there is no time limit, only until you can’t stand the symptoms anymore or there is no improvement.

As proof, here is the aftermath of Xeloda. It’s graphic. Sorry. My hands and feet take a beating and will most likely lose my big toe nails. At least with Halaven, one doesn’t worry about hand and foot syndrome, only neuropathy which can lead to nerve damage. My poor hands and feet. When I come out of this, I will treat you to the best mani-pedi and slather you with oils never imagined.

I start Halaven today.