LA SLASHER

I had saw the LA Slasher recently at Zed Fest (where it won I believe 12 awards). And was pleasantly surprised by what I saw. I halfway expected a trope salad and disappointment and was mentally preparing myself to sit down and watch a film I ultimately wouldn't like...couldn't have been further off in my irrational fear. LA Slasher was great, great fun. The film uses the slasher genre to lampoon and satirize popular culture, consumers digestion of pop culture, and news outlets like TMZ and E! News. Needless to say it was a refreshing film to sit down and watch. It's supremely tongue and cheek and stylistically evocative of films like "Natural Born Killers" and "Spring Breakers" . Despite being a slasher it is very upbeat and extremely funny. In the most positive way "The LA Slasher" is very much and possibly the first Bubblegum-Slasher film...and I like it!

BURNING MaN!!!!?!!!%*(&#*(*(@

        I know that I had no idea what the festival was before I came. And now after having gone in 2014 I still don't think I am any closer to an idea of what it is all really about.

Burning Man for the moment was as if the Lost Boys from J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan grew up into the world of Mad Max. As I drove out of Gerlach, Nevada after my Burning Man experience I had said to one of the other passengers in my ride 'I leave a city filled with hippies and neon lights, to go back to a city filled with hippies and neon lights'. And we spent about 10 hours in the car driving to the City of the Angels caked in alkali dust. 

How does one collate and quantify the experiences of their first trip to Burning Man? How does one write a journal entry explaining all the things he did and saw that were amazing, beautiful, and wonderful? I'm not sure. I had so many ideas and thoughts about how I was going to go about this journal entry when I was there. I then gave up those thoughts and began to have fun and live in the moment. Which is what you should be doing in your regular life but what is definitely encouraged in the looser society that is Burning Man. 

Burning Man is a place for artists, a welcome place for artists, painters, sculptures, so I thought as someone who does enjoy writing from time to time explaining what it is all about would be relatively easy. Unfortunately it has been relatively difficult for my mind to think of the right non-sarcastic type of prose to describe things a more cynical mindset would have already dove into about the festival.

Do you like casual nudity, being naked in front of strangers, drugs, music (of all kinds it's not just EDM people), and lights, and art, and sculpture, and bike rides, and yoga, and juggling, and stilt walkers, and vaginas, and alcohol, and penises, and tea, and pornography, and being sprayed with a fire hose, and electroshock, and dangerously climbing on weird structures, and bumper cars, and ooooohhhhh ahhhhhhh sooooooo many things. Oh look at that thing, ooh strip chess, he took your pawn 'take off your socks' he took your queen 'take off your panties'. Oh wait we forgot there's an art car out in Playa playing Stevie Wonder but you have to be dressed as an animal to join the party . . . lets doooo that!!!!! *.* BURNING MAN FOREVER!!!! 

Basically that sums up the somersaults my brain was doing walking through the Playa. 

There are 4 basic guidelines to enjoying yourself at Burning Man; though there are 10 "Principal's of Burning Man" I'm too lazy to look them up right now :P. There are 4 basic things to know. In the words of Scar "Be Prepared"… 'Don't Be a Dick", "Take Care of Yourself", "Participate", "Share", "Clean Up". (Yeah I know it's not four, leave me alone, I don't have to participate in your spelling regime man, save that for the regular world. I can spill how every I want to punchtuate my words dammit!) Muffins. 

I feel like everything anybody can possibly say and have already said won't do anywhere near justice what a first hand account will do so I won't bore you with the utter tedium that is spelling out all the things I did. Naked shower dance party (Maybe) Drugs (Maybe) Falling asleep in a piece of art (Maybe) watching the sunrise and sunset (Maybe) Drugs (Also maybe, stop asking Narcos!) Oooooh Muffins. 

Anyways so I took a whole bunch of Euphemisms and Euphamismed my Euphamising brain off. Look at all those colors . . . *.* 

(INNER MONOLOGUE) 'Wholly crap everyone's so friendly and and huggy and free beer and drinks and woah look at all the lights and Weeeeee there's a pirate ship with dance music and hurray!!!! Wow look at that thing, and that thing, neat, ah sandstorm, need my goggles.' (I call the use of commas in this sentence (and a lot of my writing) the "Fuck You Comma". I use them instead of the Oxford Comma.) 

It's a 7 week long party in the middle of the dessert built by 65'000 people all with unique costumes and structures they are living in and ideals on what 'fun' means. Sooooo yeah it's kinda hard to actually describe and if I did a play by play I would feel like a bad tedious writer and this entry might not be fun to read, so JUst Go JuSt go to BurNinggg Mann at some point Doooo IT!!!!! 

It's like a whole other universe man. 

Smiley Face.  :)  

Captian's Log - BURNING MAN ENTRY 10/22/14 - SPECIMEN - DANIEL LOUIS KRONE. 

OVER AND OUT.

10 Favorite Rap Songs.

So as anybody that know me knows I don't listen to rap a lot. I just listen off and on especially when my roommate is listening to it but I've been on kick lately so I made this list. So just so you know it's hardly coming from a place of someone who is immersed in this genre. I know there are better songs out there. But I do love these.

10.) Step Into the World - KRS ONE (Just Classic)



9.) NAIL IN THE COFFIN - EMINEM (YES. Eminem has better songs, more heartfelt songs, more important songs, ect...but this song just makes me laugh, no seriously, it's fantastic lyrically. Truth is if I really thought about Eminem's body of work for longer than I am in this moment writing this I could probably fill half this list with them.)

One of the best diss tracks ever written. Of course Benzino is just plain awful from the few songs I've heard so eh it was like fighting a puppy.



8.) The Tupac lyric is is what put this song over the top for me. This is also the most explicit song on this list so warning. But I love Immortal Technique so much that I wrote a fan letter in the form of a rap his manager forwarded him cause he's just that cool. IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE - OBNOXIOUS



7.) RIPPER STRIKES BACK - LL COOL J.

I gotta give my roommate credit for introducing me to this song. It is so much fun. I highly recommend you look up the history between Canibus and LL COOL J first and listen to Canibus's diss song against LL first "Second Round Knockout" before listening to this because LL rips that song in two and shreds it in this song. Lyrically maybe LL isn't the best ever or even close, however energy wise very few performers can beat him.



"Running around with the Bob Marley imposter" hahaha.

6.) LIFE GOES ON - TUPAC

When I used to work for a greyhound racing track most of the guys I worked with came strait out of jail. This was the only job they could get fresh on the outside. A lot of them had shirts made with their dead and shot gang member friends on them to work. This song reminds me of those guys and their stories.



5.) CYPRESS HILL - ROCK SUPERSTAR

Honest, heartfelt, fun, and truthful.



4.) FEEL ME FLOW - NAUGHTY BY NATURE

The flow in this song is just smooth as silk. It's fun, bouncy, and I love it.



Oh fun fact it plays in the bar scene in the background in "8 Mile".

3.) EBONICS - BIG L

The wordplay in this song is too smart and clever and as a fan of language (Fav novel "A Clockwork Orange") this song is just too lyrically clever, smart and fantastic. It's not a bragging song, not a club song, not a honey song, not a diss song, not a story song...this song is it's own thing. I love it.



2.) JUICY - BIGGIE SMALLS



Nothing more can be said about this song than already has.

1.) ICE CUBE - TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY



For all the diss songs and gang banging songs that ICE CUBE is known for...this song has nothing to do with that and even a bad attitude. This song is so good it transformed the genre to me and it said 'yeah even hard rappers can write about other aspects of their life' and it is still the best there is. I dare you to drive bumping this and not crack a smile. Not going to happen.

Rap Songs.

 (Probably the weakest in this list)





Rap Song 3. (Starts 13 seconds in)

My Top 5 Favorite Beers

1. Allagash Curieux

(Aged in whiskey barrel this Belgin style ale has an extra whiskey bite too it. It is hard to describe why it's my favorite beer. It's the perfect sipping beer but not so heavy you can't enjoy it with a large meal and the whiskey after taste adds a certain note of class and perfection to a perfectly brewed glass of beer. It is perfection.) 

2. Midis Touch 

(This beer is brewed from one of the oldest recipes known to man and was reverse engineered. The dogfish head company brews it currently. It contains hints of saffron and the recipe is about 1'000 years old.) 

3. Hoegaarden 

(Hoegarden is a Belgin White and extremely smooth, similar to Lefe, and has a nice floral taste.) 

4. Ginga Kogen 

(Ginga Kogen is Japanese and very hard to find. It tastes to me like the cross between a good stout and a good lager it has a nice lager finish but with a very malty and very heavy over taste. It is pretty smooth and the type of beer you might want to pair with a nice full meal.) 

5. Corona 

 

(A cheap pick I know however I love it. And at the end of a long day or one the beach a smooth simple lager to wash all your cares away one or two times.) 

My Top 10 Favorite Places in Los Angeles

1.) Hyaena Art Gallery (Burbank) 
 (They do group art shows all the time and even have an art vending machine.)
2.) Pinocchio's Deli (Burbank)
 (Amazing deli with amazing Italian food.)
3.) Van Eaton Art Galleries (Sherman Oaks) 

4.) Nuart Theatre (Santa Monica)

(It is my favorite independent theatre, it always seems to attract a good crowd and show off some of the most interesting films. It's also right next to an independent video store and a good Chinese Restaurant.)
5.) Farmer's Market (Hollywood) 

(If you're a foodie and spend some time there are so many things you can find.)
6.) Mystery Pier Books (Hollywood) 
(A true gem of a store. It is one of the best 1st edition book stores in the world.)
7.) Eddie Brant's Saturday Matinee


(Another hidden gem, if you're looking for a movie, as long as you have a VCR and they don't have it, odds are no one else will.)
8.) Robina's (North Hollywood)

(It's hard to find a good picture but it's basically a hole in the wall Indian place behind Circus Liquor in North Hollywood. The food there is excellent and they deliver if you live in the area. ;) )
9.) North Hollywood Diner (Not hard to figure out which part of LA it's located in.) 

(Simple diner food done right open 24 hours perfect thing after a long gig day.)
10.) L'Imagerie (Burbank) 
(Another off the beaten path gem, but if you maybe wanna purchase a Janis Joplin original tour poster or an original italian poster for "The Good, Bad, and The Ugly" odds are they have it.)

Bonus: Villian's Tavern. (Business district) 



It gets awfully crowded Thursdays-Saturdays, but for a place of sheer atmosphere, amazing cocktails live music this bar reminds me of an old church and feels like something I'd find in New Orleans. It would be higher on my list...however I don't make it there too often.

Now these are the places I picked because they aren't obvious I could easily have picked places like LACMA, THE GETTY, or THE MAGIC CASTLE. I wasn't in the mood to write individual detailed articles on these places either but merely keeping a list.

My Top 5 Favorite Music Videos.

1.)

2.)  Kenna - Hell Bent from Claudio Vera on Vimeo.

3.) 

4.) 

5.) 

Top 10 Fictional Movie Drugs.

I wrote this article for "Taste of Cinema" for the "Top 10 Fictional Drugs in Movies".

Top 10 Fictional Drugs in Movies

BBQ Shrimp Recipe.

 (Click to enlarge) 

Actual photos above * * *