Box

'There is fiction in between the space between...fiction between you and me' - Tracy Chapman "Telling Stories" 

Opening a box of memories is sometimes like opening an old wound. Probably not recommended. I hadn't touched most of this stuff in 8 years and I thought it was about time. It surely wasn't. It is therapeutic to remind yourself where you came from. I found a fortune cookie which read "The best prophet of the future is the past", in my box of memories in the back of my attic. How oddly appropriate. I found old short stories and poems I wrote in high school which was wonderful remembering all those silly ideas in my young head and realizing how far I'd come . . . and then I found the kicker, the real wound. Things from the most painful chapter of my life. Why I'd decided to keep notes from my first girlfriend I'll never know. But I did, cause I figured one day in my old age I'd want to be reminded that someone truly loved me, and not in that fickle let's fuck kind of love, but that timeless let's grow old together and die kind of love. How real it was I can't remember. Whatever it was it reduced me to a sobbing emotional hemophiliac. And now I'm writing this journal because writing always gave me piece. 

I usually don't cry I usually only cry for maybe 30 minutes at the most. When I was younger I used to cry till it seemed all the fluid came out of my head through my eyes to the point of being woozy. 

Recently I re-met the acquaintance of my birth-grandmother. Something that should have been far more emotional than what it was, we just had dinner and relaxed and told jokes and talked about movies. Notes from an ex-girlfriend you barely remembered, a girl who changed your life but you had trouble remembering what her face looked like seemed like 'well that can't hurt' / 'who knows you might get a laugh and think how silly it all was, with this new perspective of 'life experience and age'. But when you've spent about 13 hours on 1 phone call when you were in college, putting her on speaker to eat lunch from 6am - 10pm is that love or something else? 

I kept the voice message on my phone of a (different) girl I care about in my saved messages so I could hear her voice whenever I felt, I'll see that one soon, I guess I wanted to be prepared if any emotions come up for her. (A little odd keeping the message I know but she has a pleasant voice and it helps keep me calm). Despite my seeming femininity I've always loved women. But despite some decent sex I've never emotionally invested in one after that first time. I had 1 on the hook a few years ago but when we split I cried for 2minutes. When I opened up a box of memories I cried for 4 hours. And if it weren't for me writing this in my notes at 5am now after my body recently launched me awake I'm assuming with too many thoughts in my brain that need to be purged I surely would still be crying and if if wasn't for writing this I'm sure I could cry for another week or so or longer.  

3 months ago I had a dream that this particular girl (the one in my memory box). Her and I were together at my house in California, it was a sex dream I must confess. But I couldn't remember her face, it was like a blur then. And because the 'Facebook' is so interconnected, as is the web, I'd always thought over the past couple of years (since I still keep in touch with some of her friends) and she was on myspace, that her face would pop up . . . and it never has. Not once even in 100's of 'friend's you may know' category. Like she never created an account and she used to be so adept with social media or what that front looked like 8 years ago. But it's refreshing not to see both the face of my dreams and my nightmares so that I can move on and not remember the face of the person when I lost lit a fire so hard underneath me I was determined to move out to California and make a life for myself. To think I never would have the guts to have moved this far away from my home town had it not been for that experience. That said because the memory of opening this box is so recent and I read everything in a rush it should be easy to block these thoughts from my head once I hit California. Concentrating on work has been such an easy distraction. If I found another girl that made me as happy as that (I've come very close believe me) I thought I'd be too afraid to do anything and I'm happy now to know that's not true. 

I think after a first true love it may be impossible to love like that again. But I think adults try and find whatever that second step of adulthood and security is that isn't as passionate but just as banal and nonthreatening kind of love to the psyche to keep them going day by day. 

If there is a heaven I'm sure it'll be like my best moments, with my arms wrapped around her at 2 in the morning staring into her eyes underneath the sheets. 

And if there is a hell I'm sure it'll be like my worst moments like the time I opened a box of memories and 2 1/2 years of memories punched me in the face all at once and like flash-cuts to my psyche I saw every wound she'd slashed on her wrist and every argument we'd ever had and every kiss I'd lost. 

But I am sure now beyond a shadow of a doubt their are neither. And that there are great people waiting for me in my present. And that I shouldn't have been tempted the the hands of a skinny fair haired ghost to go delving into my past, hand by hand to scare the Dicken's out of me. 

If I don't have photographic memory I'm not sure what I have because reading just one note I could remember exactly where I was standing and what the room smelled like. It was frightening more than one can imagine. Over the past 8 years somehow I'm numb to this level of emotionality I guess I remember how painful it is but I forgot how breathtaking it can be. When one love letter from a girl you haven't seen in 8 years is so emotional it causes you to cry so hard your dry-heaving you probably shouldn't have opened that fucking box. One thing about me is I don't have the ability to turn off my emotions. I'm not sure I'd want to, that numb at life feeling has it's own level of fear I don't want to experience again. 

Just wow. I've lived more in the blink of one iris than most human beings get to in their whole lives. And as arrogant as that sounds now I remember that it's also true.

But that's the thing about memories, when years go by and fade them it's hard to believe what's true...but when you open a box that reminds you just how true it really was you can't help but stay just a little wounded like you were back then . . . now a man but in ways still a scared little boy 

The ABC's of Death

The ABC's of Death is a new anthology horror experiment by Magnolia and it's exactly what you'd expect. It's 26 short film where each film has to associate with death. Granted one of my top 5 favorite ones "O is for Orgasm" doesn't have anything to do with death, or much of anything, that I could see that is.

(Warning the below trailer is violent.)


The premise is simple, give 26 directors a letter and some money (I heard 5'000$ but some definitely exceed that budget) and have them direct a film using the letter of the alphabet in some way. Granted some like H is for Hydro Electric Diffusion . . . . is kind of a ridiculous stretch of the theme, it could have been simple H is for Hyena or H is for Heat with a man being eaten alive or lit on fire, but no Hydro Electric Diffusion . . . . WTF!!! (Is actually the title for "W" and it's bat shit crazy.)

This one plays like shorts at a film festival. There is no wraparound story, it just dives right in. I love the poster I thought maybe it would have a wrap around of death reading to that baby with some cliched twist at the end like the baby turns out to be some sort of devil. But nope, no wraparound story, what a shame but I guess it allows them to squeeze a little more (a very little more) meat into the shorts.



Below is my Guide: (Do not read if you truly want to be surprised by this film) 

A is for Apocolypse - WEAK START***

B is for Bigfoot - WEAK START ***

C is for Cycle - I like this one, it reminds me of the film "Timecrimes" it's horribly weak but I like the concept, it's vague
enough to tickle my imagination just a bit.  

D is for Dogfight - (Love it) (Dir. Marcel Sarminento) - This one is fantastic, a boxer fistfights a dog in an underground match.

E is for Exterminate - (Um okay that was weird.) This one is about spiders and feels extremely cliche, it works as a short but is pretty forgettable. 

F is for Fart - Possibly the worst thing I've ever seen. If you like Asian cinema, pretty woman and lots and lots of horrible fart jokes...than this is for you...if you are human this is WAY WAY WAY too over the top and ridiculous for me.

G is for Gravity - Um well shot, but totally awful. It's a first person POV of a surfer.  

H is for Hydro Electric Diffusion - *.* This is a Loony Toons cartoon about Nazi Furries...I'm not even joking. It's the first truly bat shit crazy film on this list.

I is for Ingrown - Doesn't even make sense. It's a torture murder in bathtub with no real ending. I read the credits I think this director wanted to use it to raise awareness of real murders in his country...I am not sure this is the right platform for it. 

J is for Jidai-Geki - I liked this one. A man commits Harikiri and his executioner, (Because in tradition after stabbing oneself another man finishes the job.) Anyways...the executioner starts seeing him as very surrealistic, sort of slap stick comedy puppet faces giggling as he stabs himself, not as creepy as it sounds but extremely surreal and weird...but I thought it was funny.

K is for Klutz - Just no, just no, no, no, no . . . the first animated film about an anthropomorphic piece of poo...if that kind of humor is in your wheelhouse than good for you. But just no, no, no absolutely not. 

L is for Libido - Has an amazingly brilliant concept behind it. Extremely sick, extremely dark, and lots of body fluids but the concept is very, very clever. I really enjoyed this one about sex and a sick and twisted secret society pushing a mans Libido buttons. What turns on some may turn off others and this short delves into that concept in the darkest way. Not at all for the faint of heart, but well acted, well shot, slightly exaggerated, very, very sick but 100% works. The first one that genuinely impressed me.

M is for Misscarrage - um yeap pretty wrong and by Ti West which is a shame, cause this one is pretty awful. And by pretty the more I think about it looks like it was shot in under 4 hours with no real thought to the concept at all it's completely 1 note and has no redeeming value. So much you can do with M. and that's what he came up with, Too short, no character, and a one note gross out shot that isn't even thought out well. BOO BOO this one sucks and if there budget was 5'000$ per short it looks like they pocketed most of this money. Some of these other shorts are animated, some are truly epic with giant robots that fight, this one is as bad as a student film by a town idiot.

N is for Nuptials is hilarious. This one is ridiculously simple but brilliant. A man uses a talking parrot to propose to his girlfriend, then the parrot starts revealing some of his secrets he overheard. A beautiful premise.

O is for Orgasm - It's not horror, but it's brilliantly surrealistically shot, wholly crap. The cinematography is phenominal. And these 2 directors (I believe French I may be totally wrong) missed the point cause if someone dies in this one, I didn't see it. It's close up shots of a woman breathing while having an orgasm and breathing out bubbles the music plays and shows the bubbles in extreme closeup with, close-ups of a cigarette being smoked and vairious other gorgeously shot closeups. It feels like an extremely erotic perfume commercial. It totally missed the point. But I loved it.

P is for Pressure - This one ends rather abruptly but the buildup is amazing, I think I'd see a whole film of this woman. 

Q is for Quack - strange choice but probably my favorite film of this series Adam Wingard. This one is one of two meta intros into this series but it's so ridiculous and well timed I couldn't help but laugh.

R is for Removed - I believe this one is from the director of "A Serbian Film". This one is about a famous killer escaping from a hospital. Very vague but you get the idea of a character in just a few minutes. Beautiful cinematography, very vague a lot of good deaths if you're into that, very messy some gross things in this but the killer character is cool and probably has a good backstory for horror, this one's rather slimy and filled with all sorts of visual textures but I dug it. Especially the final shot for some weird artistic reason.

S is for Speed - is great. Two woman in the desert being chased by a figure. Brilliant twist I won't spoil it but it does remind me a lot of Australian car cinema. This one has enough of a budget for a short desert car chase. :)

T is for Toilet - is the only stop motion animated one by Lee Hardcastle and it has some good things in it but I wished the ending was different, I think some people with darker senses of humor than I might like it better.

U is for Unearthed - Ben Wheatley (The director of Kill List) was curious what his might be, and I was very very happy with it. A first person POV of a vampire being hunted. Very, very good.

V is for Vagitus - Kaare Andrews - ABSOULUTELY BRILLIANT. It's an in-depth science fiction film about a futuristic society where having babies is privileged and requires a license, filled with psychics, a giant robot, explosions and many more. This is the one of this series I truly think deserves to be expanded upon100%.

W is for WTF! - Jon Schnepp - This one opens up with an animation in the style of Metalocolypse of a woman being killed by a witch all naked being rescued by a knight...then it pans out to a production office where the producer talks to the animator and asks if his submission for ABC's of Death is ready, it's totally meta but goes so far into crazyville I love it. 

X is for XXL - Extremely gross but the payoff is pretty clever. Kinda been done before in other places but a fat woman is teased about being fat and in a very gross way becomes skinny by the end of this. If you don't mind the level of gore associated with say Hellraiser 2 maybe you'll dig this. But it's really bloody and one note but kinda clever...kinda.

(THE ONLY GOOD IMAGE I CAN FIND IS THE TWIST as obvious as it is I don't want to give everything away.)

Y is for Young Buck - Ridiculous but the cinematography is great and music is fun, but it's dark and insane. I do like the 80's music and the way it's shot that throwback neon light thing that if you did see "Hobo with a Shotgun" you know what I'm talking about.

Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction) - Yoshiro Nishimura . . . my brain hurts. Just my brain hurts. WTF. Penis swords, vaginas, rice, sushi people, nazis, WW2 references, rocket ship people a Dr. Strangelove reference...from the director of Tokyo Gore Police and really what were you expecting. Probably the most manic and crazy short and that's saying a lot out of this collection. 

(And that is as they say is that.)

My Website.

http://www.danielkrone.com/

Tegan and Sara blog

"The only truth is music" ~ Jack Kerouac

On "Heartthrob" and other stuff and twintastic-ness.



 (*Tegan) (Cute)
(*Sara) (Adorable)



Last night I saw these two beauties at "Club Nokia" in Los Angeles and was probably 1 of 5 strait men out of probably 1'500 people. (Above is a small clip I found online from the show) I'd seen them once on tour before when they fronted for "Paramore" in San Diego. That was about a 40 minute set. The show I saw them at last night was around an hour and forty minutes.



Everyone has that one band they have difficulty describing to people 'why' they love it so much...but I'm gonna try.

My top favorite musical artists are "Joy Division",  "The Cure", and "Richie Havens".

A post punk band whose lead singer has a brooding Jim Morrisonesque voice and writes songs of pure poetry. A gothic rock band who writes songs about love and breakups and fun with such grace each one crescendo's on something darker richer and more various in tone and sounds than the next ("Disintegration" is seriously one of the best albums ever produced) and an African American folk singer who does mostly covers with his own flare and style and a rich brooding voice.



 (*I saw them previously on this tour. Cute hat.)
("Sainthood" is a really good album too)

How does a little Canadian lesbian punk, pop, singer, song-writer, twin sister band become so influential to peak the interest of bands and artists like "NoFx" and "Jack White". (Also for those of you unfamiliar...ewe, they're sisters, they're not a couple, hence the word "twins".)



(Written by Tegan and Sara)



Bill Hicks said it best 'Since when do mediocrity and banality become a good image for your children . . . play from your heart.'

And Tegan and Sara most certainly do play from their heart. They write songs about them, about their marrow, what it means to be in love, from the point of view of that doll eyed look a woman has when she watches you sleep to that rage filled sadness that most people remember from spouting poetry to their lovers in their teenage years behind bleachers and twisted rotten trees. Tegan and Sara's songs certainly tap into that point of view of a woman...but they're gay so since a lot of their songs are about relationships it's the strange juxtaposition I find beautifully relatable. Romantic songs with a female point of view about woman. Something about that undercurrent I dig, I can't explain it, but I love it, It's not vocal, it's not on the nose it's there it's that femininity that if your a man you can't just ignore and pretend it's not there when you say you love a band like this.



Truth be told a buddy of mine recommended them too me. (Around 2005) I believe because I told her I dug folk and singer/songwriter type musicians and that I was a twin. (I'm a twin, me and my brother have joked about as kids that we should have a band together, me keyboard him guitar...however our tastes are completely different.) He only likes 2 Tegan and Sara songs that I know of. "Dark Come Soon" (Probably my fav) and "Come On" a rather obscure one.




And I noticed at the show that I knew the lyrics to all but two of the songs they played. (Having been marathoning their new album "Heartthrob" in my car while I worked. "Heartthrob" is much more electronica influenced than their previous records and reminded me of that 80's pop thing like Cyndi Lauper, Tiffany, or Blondi - but with their own flare and emotionality.)

It's the sweetness and sincerity I get with them. When they write a song, and perform it, you believe they've been there and are inviting you into that moment.

A "Smiths" song titled "Panic" has the lyric "the music they constantly play, it says nothing to me about my life" ... Jack Kerouac wrote "Boys and girls in America have such a sad time together; sophistication demands that they submit to sex immediately without proper preliminary talk. Not courting talk - real straight talk about souls, for life is holy and every moment is precious."

Sophistication, intimacy, and simplicity make memories and moments in one's life as razor sharp as imaginable. And each one of Tegan and Sara's songs as different and various in tone as they are seems to have that little gem. That little nugget of reality that penetrates it's audience deeply to their core. At least the ones that get it. That are open to it. This song is about what it was like when you were 19 years old and had your heart shattered. If you've been their than you get it...if not well then...

I can see how most men might be embarrassed to listen to songs about crying and shit and stuff ya know. But those men are pussies. To say you don't have a heart willing to empathize with the true tragedy of what a past relationship might have done to your soul is just denying a part of a unique human experience I think everyone deserves to experience. And I have. And I relate to this music. And I'm not ashamed to say I've sat for hours at a time playing the same song ("Cut here" - The Cure) over an over again and balling like a little kitten after I broke up with my first girlfriend. A little kitten I say.

You see I've seen bands ranging from Nine Inch Nails (was actually tempted to wear my shirt to the TandS show), GWAR, B.B. King, Muse (*amazing live) and working at the particular job I do (in TV that has bands) I get to experience the joys of all different varieties of music.

But if variety was something to be admired. Tegan and Sara have it in spades. Each song on their albums seems to live in a world of it's own, very few artists can accomplish that. At their show at Club Nokia they covered the chorus to a Bruce Springsteen song. "I'm on Fire" and it was hot. (Also I like John Mayer's version better than The Boss. But seriously this song is sexy, like slow dancing in a claw foot bathtub sexy.)  And when two lesbians sing it in a room full of dancing mostly lesbians it becomes a transcendent message about how we're all equals. Especially on this strange sexuality thing dumb people get all hung up about for no reason.

I love Tegan and Sara because they write and perform songs I find beautiful. Not for some novelty reason that they're either gay or twins. Simply they write beautiful songs. If they were a troupe of clowns with leprosy and wrote those songs I can relate too I'd of been in that room of diseased harliquin's dancing just the same.

(These pics are from the show.)

Their show was quite a strange one. One thing I noticed walking into the club once we moved to a better spot was a woman glaring at me as in no way I should like this band and then after a few songs she noticed I knew all the words and loosened up. The atmosphere was polarizing. Because of the loyalty of their fans and the uniqueness of their music it was pure electricity. The opened with an old favorite "Back of your Head" to which the shrieking of all the girls climaxed to a pulse as about the entire audience sang along in unison. This happened to just about EVERY SONG. Yes the audience knew every song intimately, sang every word like their life depended on it, and danced as if it was there last chance to dance, too many people making-out but all the audience was in sync with music. There wasn't that one person that seemed like they showed up at the wrong show. Like some concerts get. (Especially metal shows where  guy shows up who doesn't know the band but just wants to punch a guy, none of that bs here.) I was in awe the control these two tiny woman (and their bandmates) had over the room. It's about the only time I've heard a singer say. "Shut the fuck up, I want you to calm down during this song" and an entire crowd of hyped up people...calm down and listen to a small intimate song. Somewhere between that and a dance party made it easily one of the funnest shows I've ever been too.



;) 

Possession 1981

Possession from "1981" (Not "The Possession" 2012) is one of the wildest things I've ever seen.



 The film stars a young Sam Neill and a beautiful Isabelle Adjani. After watching this an John Carpenter's "Mouth of Madness"(Seen here "Mouth of Madness") and I'm convinced that Sam Neill's best performances are the ones where he unhinges himself and radiates either madness or a sense of mad passion.

It is very difficult to describe this plot other than it's basically about a man who's slowly losing his mind because he feels his wife (Isabelle Adjani) is cheating on him. Basically but the film tapers and not even slowly, the first act is like a deep breath, and the 2nd and 3rd are like the plunges deeper into madness.

Basically halfway through the film you start to realize that Isabelle's character is probably not having a real affair with the man Sam's Character thinks she is. 
but with a monster. 
Basically that's it. (There is a twist that I almost predicted but it's so out of left field and is part of a trope that's so unused and strange that it just tickled the back of my ideas while watching the film. But it comes from something that's a part of me that I understand, so if you know me really well, you'll understand but I won't spoil the twist cause it's just too strange.)

This film contains a type of dream or nightmare logic, like I described in my "Kill List" review, but with its strange ambiguity, I feel it rather unintended by the director just accidental. Because films like "Kill List', "The Shining", and even "Rosemary's Baby" while not being about dreams specifically or hallucinations like films like "Altered States" but it's a film that has a loose dream-like logic. However almost all the films described (other than "Altered States") have a rather even slow pacing to slowly rope you into it's own strangeness. "Possession" from performance, to camera, to editing after about 40mins in is easily one of the if not the most manic film I've ever seen. It's bat-shit crazy. Complete with wild explosions a crazy motorcycle chase and an amazingly passionate shootout in an apartment...the likes of which you wouldn't expect from a film about a love affair.


Some of the dialog in the film is so out there and vaguely philosophical but not tapered down to a regular logic, to come across as rather schizophrenic like a man on the side of the road reading philosophy and begging for change.

I cannot really recommend it. This film plays as if a foreign director saw the 'Frank' storyline in Hellraiser and 1/2 of "Jacob's Ladder" while reading a bunch of philosophy, doing uppers, and decided to change the last act into a twilight zone episode and a completely wild unkept action sequence. I FU*@(&*@(*&CKING LOVE IT!!! But it makes no sense. So I can't really recommend it.

But if you enjoy films that are really out their, that truly try to touch the void of madness. It is highly recomended. I was so curious about this film I bought a Korean copy of the DVD from Amazon (because the film is out of print I can't find a real good DVD copy and forget about Blu-Ray)

So if you like crazy cult films and hidden gems. Check it out. (The score is great and spooky too)