Monday, September 6, 2021
Monday, February 22, 2021
:Looking for Cosmic Gods Inside of Trinket Shops: (Update Later to Edited Version.)
:Looking for Cosmic Gods Inside of Trinket Shops:
By
Daniel Louis Krone
“Uncertainty, like opening your eyes wide in the dark then closing them hard then open and blinded by the sparkling silver dots created from pressure on the cornea, squint, roll, focus, then your blind again but at least you saw light somehow.” - Kurt Cobain.
The Shower Thoughts of a Djinn
Would you wish upon a star or perhaps a Djinn, would you beg a Genie for help, or your god, as your world comes crashing in?
Could you commit hari-kari with the Sword of Damocles . . . while down on your knees, begging please?
Would you like to meet a god even if you knew doing so would drive you insane?
Or have a quiet picket fence in the suburbs that slowly picks at your brain?
Would you slit your wrist with Occam's or perhaps Hanlon's razor?
Isn’t it life though you’d rather savor?
Would you shake the devil’s hand even if his hand felt cold?
Could you warm that hand up if you were so bold?
And tell me strange little human…
How do you feel about growing old?
….
Stars are merely the catchlight in the eyes of great cosmic gods.
Dev was looking for a god, it was the only thing that kept him going.
Dev stared out at the sparkling desert and blew the ashes of his cigarette into the wind, remembering so many dandelion petals he’d blown in the past making wishes that had never once come true.
This time though he was determined to finish his task.
Dev sat far away from the nearest civilization cradling a small brass lamp in his hands as though it were a newborn. A few tears dripped out of Dev’s head onto the small brass lamp currently leaking oil. Perhaps they were a few tears of it’s own.
The lamp just stat their as he rubbed it. He felt like an idiot rubbing such a benign and placid thing.
Then suddenly small tufts of smoke almost invisible like steam began to pour out of the lamp until the smoke began to flood surrounding Dev. A monsoon of fog enveloped the entirety of the landscape around Dev so much that he could barely see the lamp in front of him. Then the lamp itself faded into the fog and two large golden glowing eyes floated just above Dev and where the lamp was. A voice as large as lightning bellowed through it causing giant wakes in the fog that opened up to the visage of a great floating man dressed in platinum, opal, and silver. The face looked the shape of an elk or that of a giant goat or both.
Dev was frozen not in fear but strangely enough aghast in a strange climaxing of his ego.
The Djjinn sat upright, legs crossed and arms crossed looking like a worn out fisherman’s knot with horns. As he stood upright his old bones began to crack and each crack erupted like a thunder strike.
Dev thought,
‘He’d done it’.
‘He’d done it’!
And just as the Djjinn stood up a sound deflated Dev.
It was a laugh…
…a laugh like Dev had never heard before.
The laugh was very clearly mocking him but the robust voice of a man beyond age, no not of a man, an animal that learned to talk. The voice laughed a hearty laugh that shook Dev down to the bottom of his soul in a way he’d never felt in the entirety of his life. A life that to the Djjinn was no longer than the subtle blink of a hummingbird’s eye.
Dev’s awe deflated as quickly as his heart dropped. The Djjinn was not this thing to be mocked. Dev realized suddenly like he never realized anything in his life: in all the splendor of his chase he never thought he’d actually find it.
Dev’s sudden realization that deep down he never really believed he’d of found a Djjinn seized his body and mind full force that outside of focusing on his breathing he could simply focus on the Djjinn’s titanic laughter.
Dev had dedicated the entire latter half of his life to this one moment and it was laughing at him.
Before Dev could even speak, the Djjinn did the very last thing he expected. Out of thin air appeared a cigarette, the size of a tree trunk, and a flame erupted from his fingertips, the size of a bonfire, to light it. He took a drag and the lukewarm ashes fell atop Dev. A shower of disinterest.
A yawn slid out of the Djjinn before Dev spoke “….Not what I’d expected, ha” and like a kite in a squall Dev’s tone fluttered about as he spoke. His head dropped.
“Dev Burman. 35. Indian American Born in Frankfort, Kentucky. Moved to
Rajasthan 3 years ago, B-Positive, favorite color Orange, favorite flower White Tulip, odd. Now that I’m here...what do you want? A Million Tulips? I’ve been asked stranger I assure.”
“Want…sir?”
The Djjinn spoke firmer, “Wishes sir. What everyman wants, fulfillment…anything. Are you a glutinous man, vengeful man, lonely man…a modest pervert?”
Dev thought… “I don’t know what I really want right now sir, now that you’re actually here.”
“Well you’ve got 2 more after. The first wish is usually a testing wish anyway. Throw it away. Use it on yourself. You could experience all the pleasures in the world…and for your second wish you could beg me to take it away?”
Dev’s stomach rumbled sharply and, as if from a memory coiled up to save his tongue from drying out, he belted “A sandwich, um the best Rubin sandwich I’ve ever had.”
Djjinn… “Ahahahahahahahah…one for the books. Game on. It’s been such a long time since I was asked for something so simple so early on. As you wish it sir.”
‘Game on’…Dev thought, ‘This was a game?…How do I win?’
The fog around them evaporated as if cut by the midday sun. They were no longer deep in the desert but a large parking lot with a sign in front of them reading “Hal’s Delicatessen, Butcher, and Grocery Store”.
“Whaaat”, Dev was awestruck by this appearance and yet with all the power it took to create this awe of a moment it faded into novelty as Dev was standing in front of a Deli like so many times before to anyone else a regular daily routine experience.
The Djjinn gleefully grabbed a shopping cart and went down isle by isle throwing all the ingredients of a quality Rubin into the cart and checked out like a common customer. No one in the store seemed to make note of his strange appearance. When they were done checking out the Djjinn snapped is fingers and the world around them rearranged itself, squishing and resizing, things disappearing, changing colors, and fading in and out into the vague shape of a kitchen. Then it all snapped into clarity. “Ah, pocket dimensions…I’ve not been to that store in ages”.
Dev stood locked into position fixated on the Djjinn now convinced this must be either dream, mirage, or the death rolls of a man’s rattled mind after freezing in the desert…but later he realized it was neither. It was a new inexplicable reality.
“Please have a seat.” The Djinn spoke and pointed to a stool behind him. Dev sat. His entire figure moved on what seemed muscle memory alone as this whole experience had rattled him. The Djjinn then toasted the bread and meticulously began arranging the sandwich. He moved like he’d done this 1’000’s before. He served it to Dev on a white styrofoam plate.
Dev took a bite…his face changed expressions deeply. He then scarfed the sandwich down in 4 long sloppy dripping large bites, gulped, and burped loudly as he swallowed the last of it.
“To your satisfaction” The Djjinn said with a smile as beautiful as it was insidious.
Dev began to cry again as a solid wave of realization swung through him. He had the power of gods in his hands.
“Are there any rules?” Dev spoke in a demure fashion.
The Djjinn’s eye coiled upwards in a thick spiral before he spoke. “No! There are no rules. Rewrite history for all I care. I am beyond your realm. I can shape everything around you.”
“Well what’s the meaning of life?” A question Dev always pondered he’d ask God. Since the Djjinn seemed the closest thing he’d ever met to a god he thought he might as well ask now.
“Oh, another easy one. Maybe I should make you my pet when this is all done. I like making sandwiches and answering easy childish questions.” A small ticklish animalistic cackle escaped the Djjinn. “Life is what you make of it. Everything in this world has its own shape, structure, and a unique set of rules around it. They all make the best they can of it no matter how twisted and strange of shapes they are. Where it came from, who designed it, now those are different questions…want to waste your third wish on the blue-prints of the universe? Do you even know how to read them?”
“That’s it!” Dev screamed up at the Djjinn. The Djjin then retorted quickly, “That’s all I thought I’d elaborate on so you don’t have any stupid human follow up questions.”
“Human…you grant wishes to animals?”
“Why yes!” The Djjinn smiled. “I once turned a stag into King Solomon.”
“Don’t think about asking me qualifying questions until you think you’ve figured out how this works. The last man who tried this died before his final wish. I believe his last words were ‘I wish…’, poor thing, never never finished the sentence.” He paused, “Want to know what he was going to say?”
“Meditate on it.” The Djjinn smiled and then closed his eyes, crossed his legs, and began to float gently above Dev. Sand began to slide around them. The kitchen had dissolved back into the desert.
Dev began to do what he’d always done when he got nervous or restless. Dev began to pace back and forth and the tempest in his mind of possibilities became a squall that almost over took him until he finally settled the storm in his mind and landed on one thought.
“I know what I want!”
The Djjinn opened his eyes and they began to glow and flicker like there were storms fighting within his large pupils.
“What is it?”
“I want it all, not some rich simulacrum of all but I want to experience it all, every laughter, every breath…I want to experience it allllll!”
“Ha. And so you shall.” The Djjinn lifted his finger slowly to a snap. Dev’s fear of the unknown began to quake his body and he began to dry heave bits of sand that had previously flecked his lips. The Djinn snapped.
SNAP!
And so it happened, suddenly Dev was experiencing everything.
Every baby’s first laugh, the roar of 10’000 orgasms, the pain of being eaten alive by fire ants, the thrill of being a cloud on the first warm day of spring…everything….then lightning struck Dev’s scrambling shape and suddenly he felt the awe of being reborn, a spark that grows to ember that grows to a fire, screams, then withers to ash.”
The Djjinn took out another long cigarette and smothered the Dev shaped ash mound below. He then recoiled into the lamp after he took the final drag of his cigarette.
Soon after a large sandstorm blew for 3 days strait screaming across the desert in large whips of hot and cold. It took the lamp off into another world carrying a twisted smile leering behind a nondescript brass lamp.
The surrounding locals said the wind sounded like laughter.
Friday, February 12, 2021
GWAR: MY WEIRD HISTORY.
"I think they're like H.R. Giger crossed with that old Mexican boy band Menudo (because of their constantly-changing lineup), mixed with a little bit of The Blue Man Group on crack." - Juxtapoz.
My Experience with GWAR
By
Daniel Louis Krone
It was New Years 2021 when I fully realized the world had lost one of the greatest masked musicians, M.F. Doom.
I had just woke up with my girlfriend and was ritualistically burning a Juxtapoz Magazine from 2015 whose article by Nancy Strange was about the Rock and Roll Lords of Chaos themselves, GWAR, listening to a TYCHO New Years live~stream, I remembered I needed to write an essay about those strange Rock and Roll monsters and my experience with them. Times had changed but my commitment to David Brockie’s legacy remained.
I have a strange relationship with music and art.
If I were to write down all I was thinking on this matter it would sound like the pedantic ravings of a madman still trying to shake off the last drips of the year 2020 and other things out of his system.
Over the years I’ve been trying to correlate and quantify my experiences, feelings, thoughts, and emotions on my experience with the band GWAR. My history in the entertainment industry is less like an artist, or craftsman, but more like a journeyman. I have an Academy Award winning film (“Get Out”) and an Emmy winning T.V. show (“The Tonight Show with Jay Leno”) on my resume. Currently I work a retail job for the Government in Alabama.
This journey has been very strange. I’d told myself at the age of 30 I’d want to direct a film I was proud of…I did. I told myself in 2020 I wanted to finish that film…I did.
The GWAR project started out around 2010 when the idea of doing a documentary series on cult films, books, T.V. shows, and music began to take seed. I’d previously directed a short documentary film titled “A Cult Influence” about the nature of cult media and fan bases of very particular and peculiar tastes. It was received moderately well.
After the short film was featured on Slashfilm.com and a Full Moon sequel feature “Killer Eye: Halloween Haunt” I’d toyed with the idea of turning it into a T.V. series pitch. Each episode of the show would feature a new cult aspect of media. It would showcase everything from modern Quake tournaments to The Rocky Horror Picture Show’s domination of Midnight Cinema from September 25, 1975 to present day. The T.V. show was pitched around to various producers but some egos, logistic complications, and general life seemed to snuff out that large scale idea almost completely.
About a year after those failed pitches I’d moved into a house on Carpenter Ave. in the valley with several wild, young, party-crazy, up and coming industry movers and shakers. After sitting on the idea and working on a horror script with a friend back in Alabama I’d still toyed with pitches and unique ideas for this project. The ideas all felt dead. Once you start to study a subculture sometimes you get embedded in them and you then go down the rabbit hole to as many others you can find. Art is a language and I wanted to be well versed in as many strange dialects as I could but later realized I may have just been learning to speak in tongues.
It wasn’t until seeing the anthology documentary film “Freakonomics”, based on the book of the same name, a different idea clicked. Since the balkanization of media into all these subgroups that already seemed to tackle the original thesis of the cults of the world I’d decided maybe a format change was best. Since you could type any cult subject into Youtube and for the most part find a decently crafted web-video on the subject I’d decided to boil it down into a feature film documentary pitch. It would be an anthology like “Freakonomics”, but each section dedicated to a particular cult of media; movies, books, video games and…bands.
When I’d mentioned this to my friend Eliza she’d said “Oh, bands. You ever heard of GWAR? I’m friends with Dave Brockie.” And a lightbulb shotgunned in my head.
The details of the GWAR shoot are best seen in the documentary. There are no interesting behind the scenes anecdotes. The only thing I do remember from the shoot is we listened to Tom Wait’s “Raindogs” on the ride up there and passed a strawberry field. The shoot despite a few glitches, false-starts, missed set-ups, out of focus shots, and rushes went fairly smooth it seemed. Dave was a gentleman.
When I’d got the news of Dave’s death the energy in his interview seemed more and more apparent of how precious he was over the other subjects in my documentary. I had been editing the project with my friend Kayla in the valley for some time after I’d moved out of that old Carpenter house and as we cut and chopped I realized more and more my interviews with men like Clint Carney (Artist, Musician, and Prop-Wizard), Nicolas Caesar (Artist), Bill Shafer (Hyena Art Gallery owner featured in my previous film), Mike Van Eaton (Art Gallery owner specializing in Animation Cels), the owners of Mystery Pier Books, and Marc Sheffler (The man who famously blew his brains out in Wes Cravens classic cult film “The Last House on the Left”) all had their own individual merits but didn’t gel in the same way as Dave’s interview did. Over time I ejected all the other aspects of the film and concentrated my energy on GWAR.
In 2016 I left LA after spending 9 1/2 years there. I spent a period of 4 days in a hospital unable to go home. Somehow Radiohead had triggered a hibernating psychotic episode to wake. (It’s a long story and a very different essay.)
I have a strange relationship with the language of music.
This project went on after I moved back home. When I went home to reconnect with my roots it helped me reconnect with some old friends, and even an old friend whom I’d worked with in news before I’d left for LA, at the infamous WPMI, home of the Mobile Leperchaun story. After a quick few days on Netflix’s “Gerald’s Game” to “Get Out” then into a commercial for the state of Alabama, which never aired, I’d worked on another film as part of a behind the scenes crew and around then it clicked that I needed real work after the tax incentives had slowed for media and it was apparent it wasn’t enough to keep me afloat. I’d dive in and out of the project with various editors met in coffee houses many miles away. A few odd jobs at liquor stores, gas stations, and Surf Shops I still tried on my off days to work on various shows and even tried to coordinate funding for a film in New York while simultaneously cleaning horrifying toilets at a gas station on the Florida - Alabama line and trying to piece my memories back together from what happened in L.A..
Soon after one of my media friends died of a heart disease and I knew the work he’d done would never be seen and my passion for the entertainment world wilted.
At one point during a serious re-edit of the material half of the GWAR footage went missing. It felt like part of this project was cursed. But I still wanted to finish it. I felt like I’d needed to.
Sometimes you ask god for a desert and he presents you with a grain of sand and you’ll look back on that grain and be proud of your tiny contribution to a strange legacy of art. To finish this project in 2020 which started in 2014 and still having the long uphill battle of trying to get it out there feels like some kind of closure rests in that it feels finished.
For a 14 minute short it sure feels like it was born in and out of chaos.
Like leaving a GWAR show I feel messy and probably stained after finishing this project.
Oh well, that’s life!
