A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Daughter of God, Emotion and Inventory.

Hello fellow guests on theme park Earth, that wild fun vacation spot for divinity run amuck, and conveniently forgetful. This is episode 029 of the Daughter of Godcast, and if you’ve been listening for the last 6 months you know this is supposed to be all about the making of yet another post apocalyptic, romantic comedy, cult featurette, Daughter of God, but it’s also Shri Fugi Spilt aka Dan Kelly remembering who he really is and giving hints about how to make the ultimate vegan wheat free pancakes. He’s a code talker, clearly this is some kind of obscure language and you dear listener, are a native speaker. Listening with your heart, you are.

On August 15, 2011, I was pondering three versions of DOG. The 5:30 version which was my super sleeky core of 3:30+Uncle Joe bookends, the rough cut of 26:40 and the proposed grail version, or roughly 12:00, the alleged sweet spot length for festivals. Supposedly, back in 2011, film festival entries under 10 minutes were more likely to be accepted but less likely to win awards. Movies longer than 15 minutes would have a harder time being accepted.  Realizing a grail version would mean the best possible chance of winning festival laurels. Then I’d have something to put on the DVD cover. What’s a DVD?

How about that inventory from episode 028?

Digital artists like me have decades of prolific creation, entire universes stacked on a single bookshelf. This, like many modern miracles, is a mixed bag. First challenge is just knowing what’s in that universe. Second challenge is finding what you know. Third is having an ongoing protocol, so the universe can grow and the first and second challenge can stay tamed.

In 2011, my archive was about 40 terrabytes or 40 x 1 TB hard drives. For perspective, that’s about 100 hours of 720p HD footage or 4 days of watching movies around the clock. That’s not so much, right? With a couple of pots of coffee, or excellent sencha, totally doable. If that 40 TB were compressed to DVD quality, then that would 212 x 40 = 8480 feature movies. If the data were music CDs that would be 2000 x 40 or 80,000 albums. Simply stated, lots to keep track of.

Most of the DOG files were stored on the project drive, Momma and the rest were scattered over 20 or so other drives, about 4 TB total.

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Daughter of God, Resurrection.

Hey, hi! Episode 028 of the Daughter of Godcast. We’re back and about to unpack more treasure from the vault, starting back where we left off last week, spring of 2011. We’ve dug out about 7 years of ancient history, and 6 more will bring us up to now-ish. So don’t worry, there’s still plenty of podcast ahead!

Right here in 2017, I bumped into one my genius interns from back then and having not seen each other since 2013 or so, we had a catch up in Oryana, while I scarfed a tempeh reuben sandwich and a flagon of tomato soup. I also ran into Tanya from episode 025, skateboard guru, Tyler, and in-lovers Jesse and Gwenan who have taken over Keanu Reeves’ Airstream tonight after romping in the Sleeping Bear. Just a typical afternoon in the Coincidence Control Cafe.

Cody was my last intern before I threw in the towel on mentoring high school kids, and a smidgen of his roto work survives in the current version of DOG.

In 2008, Michigan had one of the top three film incentive programs in the USA, championed by Governor Jennifer Granholm. When Rick Synder took office,  changes were made to the incentive in 2011 that didn’t protect existing deals, so the big studios took their projects elsewhere. Having invested in Michigan and been burned, Hollywood was now wary of our unpredictable incentives, and the torrent of high end cinematic opportunity was gradually pinched off.

One version of the backstory involves Michael Moore, a fixture in Traverse City. Conservative Michigan legislators viewed Hollywood as Moore’s crowd, and the last thing they wanted was to encourage rival political influence in the state.

Micheal Moore showed up in Traverse City and helped save the historic State Theater and pretty much all of downtown from irrelevance. When he launched the Traverse City Film Festival in 2005, rabid regional conservatives retaliated with a sort of Freedom Festival, which disappeared after the first year.

After a brief flowering, 2011 marked the beginning of the end of Michigan’s subsidized cinematic renaissance. IE Effects’ Traverse City office from Episode 027 came and went, blindsided by political machinations. Even if Jonathan and I had been hired there, we would’ve have been SOL within a year.

But regional independent filmmakers were too excited to read the writing on the wall, we were Michigan’s newest economic juggernaut.

James Weston and I had reconstituted the Michigan Movie Makers for at least the third time. Before James, M3 had an incarnation in the 70s. Our 2011 incarnation met for the first time at the Traverse Area District Library on June 22, and 20 or so movers and shakers showed up, including Micheal Moore’s chief valkyrie, Deb, who encouraged us all to volunteer for the Traverse City Film Festival, just a month away. My trusty nephew Patrick was also there and my first intern, Louise, who was too shy to introduce herself.

Other notables included Jeff Gibbs, David Marek, Andrea Maio, Andy McFarlane, Scott Tompkins, Joe Carter, Matt Kinne, Damon Knight and Brad Kinnan. Iconic filmmaker Rich Brauer even made a cameo to offer  blessings and encouragement.

James announced our first initiative, the Micro Movie Marathon, a festival of 3 minute or less movi

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Freedom.

Howdy! OMG, this podcast is happening more! Thousands of listens now, more groovy people finding each other every week. Seems like yesterday when we settled into the sound booth for Episode 001 and spoke our first spells into the shotgun mic, when we played and sang the theme song and said hey, good enough for our first episode.

Then a few weeks later Melonie was like, “That theme song is creepy, gross old guys spying on teens.” No duh, Melonie it’s pre-adolescent boys spying on older high school girls. That’s acceptable, right? Maybe not? Shouldn’t go there? Wait, let me add a few sound effects of young boys playing soccer in Latvia to provide context. But not until Episode 004.1, tho, so new listeners have to brave 4 episodes of theoretical smarm. Just doing the best I can here folks… which is pretty freaking awesome! and just getting better. Or at least different.

Yah, definitely better, because now there’s 27 episodes and that’s better than 26. The Public Podcasting Service hasn’t canceled our show yet! and according to Joe Cissel, pretty much anything tolerated by the establishment must be some form of insidious indoctrination. I can shamelessly misquote Joe without fear of reprisal because he gave up on this podcast after episode 001. So I have to do all my brainwashing of Joe one on one, which is not the most effective use of my time. By the way, if it’s Friday around 7 pm eastern standard time and you happen to be eating at the Excellent Dumpling house on Lafayette and Canal in NYC’s Chinatown, your brain is sparkling.

Welcome back to the Daughter of Godcast.

The last couple of weeks, signals from a nearby now has been exploring communication, how modernity on alter-earth in the universe next door fell apart because their basis for communication was whacked.

a need for this, or a desire for that

Dog says, “I have a need for barking

Dog continues, “Would you be willing

Dog concludes, “I have need to chase

the Cat might reply

again, Cat “You want me to run

Dog, “Oh yes, that’s what I’m feeling

Cat, “Dog, your needs I’ve received deeply

Dog, “Yes, that would be fine

Cute verses

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Two, or Too.

Hello and hi and welcome. You’re listening to the Daughter of Godcast, yet another episode 026, Two. That’s the title of this episode, Two, as in the number or maybe Too like you too. Not the band. Ok, try me too. That’s not a band that I know of.

Here’s a milestone. 26 weeks. When I started this podcast, I didn’t realize I’d still be going a half a year later. What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking, honestly, and that’s why I started.

I started because podcasting felt good, mostly. Yes there were rationalizations for podcasting, which eventually imploded, like growing my audience. Branding is another abstraction of similiar ilk. Piling symbol upon symbol, a veil of abstraction obscuring the now, the unspeakable, the shine. I started podcasting to have fun, to look back with enhanced eyes, to invent a thousand answers to one question – why movie? To share a song and see who kicks in with harmonies. Deliberately moring myself along the way.

100,000 words or more by now, I’d guess. Have I explained anything, have I taught you how to make pancakes or accomplish anything pragmatic? Or have I just been singing. Paraphrasing that old rascal Alan Watts, the best music is not about anything. We think of words as having a jist, getting us somewhere, if we listen to enough of the right words our brain will assume an optimal configuration, we’ll get smart or wise. We’ll figure it all out.

If you are having epiphanies listening to these podcasts, it’s not because the words mean anything really, it’s just that the word noises and rhythms remind you of who you are. You’re using this gush of nonsense and anecdotes that I’ve been spouting for the last half year as your excuse to flip on your own power switches. You’re pretending that I am somehow MORE entertaining, effervescent, insightful than the mote of dust caught in the light off to your left or the blade of grass poking up through the concrete outside your front door.

Penny armor inspired by NASAs space shuttle

I’m just some dude in Michigan yaking into a microphone, YOU’RE the buddha, YOU’RE the savior, YOU’RE the freaking cosmos. Remember?

At the end of episode 025, 2009 I had left Hello World suspended from the ceiling of the Artist house, and returned to Prospect Heights, but my life in NYC had acquired a definite wobble. I was planning to launch the second expedition of ALM in May of 2010 – at the beginning of the summer this time instead of the end. That would give me 3 months to sail the 1000 miles around Lake Michigan. From January through April I did my usual New Yorkish things, tai chi and hot babes, but my heart was already on the Big Lake.

Prepared for launch in May 2010

I’m going to jump

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Circles.

Hello again, hi! I am Shri Fugi Spilt aka Dan Kelly, the fleshy aspect of Hello World, that zany self aware catamaran built in Oceanside, California by Hobie Alter and company in 1979, when I was just 16 years old. I also wrote and directed the sleekest little post-apocalyptic romantic cult featurette ever to come off the west coast of Michigan’s northern lower peninsula, Daughter of God. And that’s saying something, what with the Latino celebrated Dogman franchise and the upcoming Thaw of the Dead.

I am still here after 25 weeks taking about how movies almost get made, scrying futures we may or may not crave with the help of yet another magic crystal sphere, this one’s obsidian.  Playing the glorious game of being the most me ever, which includes expanding the wilds of Earth, falling in love with everything, eating really well and embarking on hilarious art adventures.

You’re here for reasons known only to you. Together we form an invincible power of podcasting, of global awakening!

Come onboard Episode 025 of the Daughter of Godcast and see how far we’ve traveled from post apocalyptic featurettes, more than 100 miles.

I keep reading that the post apocalyptic genre is supposedly big in YA (young adult) fiction, and for millenials too. Are they fascinated with doom and collapse because the apparent global conditions do not inspire optimism? Or are they visiting potential futures to get clear about which aspects of apocalypse might be worth encouraging and which brinks we should pull back from? Or has the rise of Trumpy amped up the chances of apocalypse in our lifetime?

As for me, I can imagine some benevolent apocalypse. Here’s an excerpt from my LinkedIn profile.

So there’s my high road. Americans got trained to pig out, to get really great at converting natural resources into landfill, which is very different from turning food into shit, at least if you compost your shit. Like I do daily and did while sailing on Hello World.

Oops, hang on. Recent stats show a boost in our audience. Yay! If this is your first episode of the Daughter of Godcast, WELCOME. You might be feeling a little lost. Hang in there, exposition is inevitable.

When you sail on a 16 foot catamaran for 300 miles, where to poop is not a trivial consideration. Where would YOU poop? Wild waters and poop don’t mix well. Since sailboats don’t need gasoline, we never pull over at the service plaza. The Barnes Park campground from episode 024 with it’s shiny white porcelain was an aberration.

I’ve mentioned the poopinator, the dung-0-matic. Are you curious about that? Sad to say, most people are pretty squeamish about their poop. Some things are just not discussed in polite company.

In episode 023, I rambled about the start of the trip while spitting out the pits from the wild cherries I had added to my breakfast. When I screened Around Lake Michigan to a test audience in the fall of 2009, I got lots of written feedback about how rude I was for eating and talking at the same time, spitting out those pits. If folks are going to get so riled for THAT violation of Emily Post, how am I going to talk about the pragmatics of pooping on a catamaran? Fugheddaboudit.

I know some of you are game. For the rest of you just hum really loud un

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Crazy.

Greetings and come on in to Episode 024 of the Daughter of Godcast, the story of the making of the scifi featurette, Daughter of God and a few other movies too.

This is Episode 024, Crazy and we’re deep into shirking Daughter of God for water and sunshine. In Episode 023, we left the 16ft Hobie catamaran Hello World anchored in familiar Traverse City after about 10 days and approximately 100 miles of open water sailing.

In Search of Sustainable Civilizations, I shot interviews at the Schooner Festival and Home Grown, a local organic eatery. I also needed to tweak the rig, and tune my ensemble of components.

I discovered that my alcohol stove demanded undrinkable denatured alcohol rather than the multi-purposed grain I had stocked up on, so I swapped for my much hotter Whisperlite white gas stove. I needed the charger for my laptop. A new paddle. And Steve’s bike was going to come too!

A dash of this and a teaspoon of that. The recipe for life, for exploring what we are. Improvising the pancakes as we go along. Making me.

I rode my narrative scifi short as far as I could. The life recipe required other ingredients. I needed the wild earth, risk, freedom, discovery, physicality. The sensibility of traveling rough.

As above so below. The adjustments to the expedition’s gear were an analog, the trip itself was an adjustment to my creative process.

Melonie sent me emails at the start and end of the the 2009 expedition.

According to the standards of convention, OF COURSE I was crazy. I could have died. I could have woken up, I could have shed the assumptions and paradigms that keep Americans matrixed.

I want a real country, I want a just and sustainable world, I want things that no one should dare want because, according to sane perspectives, they are impossible.

I got arrested in 2003 protesting a war, but America IS war. Way before George W’s Shock and Awe, through Obama, the hep face of empire, to 2017 and the authentic face, Trump. Welcome to the national acid trip, staring into a mirror and unable to look away. If Trumpy bothers you, maybe you are at las

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Into the wilds.

Welcome to episode 023 of the Daughter of Godcast. Over the next few weeks, we’re on the water. Being an artist in the environs of your studio or within the frame of a flatscreen is wonderful, but to be physically engaged in creation, with your very survival dependent on your next decision, whoa. That is open water sailing.

In this episode, the starting days of the Around Lake Michigan on a $400 Hobie Cat! Getting into the groove, working out the bugs and preparing to leave familiar geography far behind. I expand my presence and am infused and blessed with the best energy available on Earth.

I’ll be reading blog entries from way back in September of 2009, playing snippets from the project videos and splicing in a bit of contemporary commentary for clarification.

Better figure out which one is proper, wouldn’t want to give the impression I don’t know what I’m doing. It’s all about the lingo.

So here we are heading north in the zig zaggy pattern sailors call tacking. I can see Point Betsie and another sailboat with a big spinnaker. I’m about to tack and head right towards the lighthouse.

It’s 4:57 UTC-4 (EST) and it couldn’t be more beautiful out here in the water wilderness. Nibbling on celery and squashed blueberries whilst blogging and steering with my feet. This is one happy boat.

The gps on my 2g iPhone is a little confused and the cost of repair is about the price of a new 3gs. Hmm. Anyway the fabulous charting software provided by my fabulous brother shows my position as somewhere near the south shore of Crystal Lake. My actual position is about 4 miles from Point Betsie NNE, (45 degrees). I’m heading almost due north now, and will tack after this sentence.

Bearing east more or less after a jibe and a pee. I mention peeing only because my new toasty wet suit is a bit tricky to slide out of, so it’s kind of a major accomplishment.

I’m in the catbird seat now. Heading is almost due east, I’ll pass on by Point Betsie and claw my way right up to tonight’s camp, Otter Creek, where the dang pagans will be throwing a soirée. 6:04 pm EST (UTC-4.)

This is Dan 2017. In

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). Giving up and getting out on the Water.

Welcome to Daughter of Godcast, stories about the making of the longest little movie ever, Dan Kelly’s first featurette, 11 years in the making, now 22 weeks into the gentle release. Episode 022, Water.

Many first features are never finished. They are abandoned, the writer / producer / director just gives up, maybe they start a new project or else stop making movies entirely.

At the beginning of 2009, I said I was taking a sabbatical from Daughter of God, handing over the project to trusted allies, redirecting my energy towards higher priorities. Simpler to say, I gave up.

Episode 020 and 021 detailed 2008’s abrupt ending of treasured friendships, the heartbreak out my back window, loss of performance clients, the dip in the economy. Bitter resentments building in the Prospect Heights Community Farm. Discouraging mojo was seeping into my Brooklyn life.

DOG’s post production process seemed endless. I wanted to make the movie I set out to make, not some amateurish blob of slag. The distance between where Daughter of God was and what I envisioned completion looking like was still hundreds of hours away. Perhaps thousands.

The temptation is to get all introspective and reveal a monumental epiphany, an introspective insight, but basically I lost heart. I had come smack up against a sort of internal void, a dearth of self worth.  The attempt to complete DOG had defined the frontiers of my fortitude and gumption. I had exhausted the exploit of conjuring external reasons to feel good.

Out of gas and coasting to a stop. In late 2008, I got the call.

My friend Kai had an idea. In 2001, he had sailed his little 26′ Westerly Centaur sloop Desire from San Diego to Hawaii, solo. A monumental achievement. After 3 years, Kai had left Desire on top of a lava flow on the Big Island and flown back to the mainland. Now, 8 years la

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). What’s our Mission?

Welcome, hello, hi, hi there! This is Episode 021 of the Daughter of Godcast, that crazy little podcast coming to you each week for no apparent reason except perhaps to reveal the mysteries of the universe via a deep delving into the making of an obscure and as yet practically unknown movie, the Daughter of God. Did you ever imagine you’d be on the cutting edge, a brave innovator? Years from now, when DOG takes it’s rightful place in the cult movie hall of fame, you will be able to tell your grand clones, Avalon and Bobalicious, I was there. I was one of the first 1000, perhaps even the first hundred. Which is why I encourage you to sign up for the email list if you haven’t already because those first 1000 names are epic. Still a few slots left.

In episode 020 I talked about the dissolution of the all the fun stuff that 2007 was about. Drama and struggle revealing a flawed premise. The edge of epiphany. Trouble helping me to learn about myself, to learn what I wanted.

There’s two components to my amazing life. To know what I want and to trust that I can have what I want – in full Technicolor, Panavision, Sensurround, Dolby, THX reality. I mean touchable, taste-able, kissable.

I talk to people and I ask them, hey, what’s your dream? They might not know, or they think they have to choose one thing from the two or three things that really matter to them, so they’re stuck. I want to be a nurse AND an astronaut.

I love feeling fully alive and present. I enjoy diverse experience and insight. Feeling phenomenal through and through. Deep connections with curious, courageous people. These are my fundamental desires, ever expanding and clarifying. I know what I want, I’ve answered the first question.

Way back before 2009, trusting that I can have what I want had two challenges. Was what I wanted

A podcast about movie making and the scifi featurette, Daughter of God, with Director Shri Fugi Spilt, (Dan Kelly). The failure of generosity sans awareness.

This is the 20th episode of the Daughter of Godcast. In 6 more episodes, we’ll have been podcasting for 1/2 year. Amazing, incredible. We might be starting the second act, where things go horribly wrong, if we’re talking in the tongue of jackals.  Shatter. Endings. Stars exploding. Running out of money. Gaffs. Training missions with live ammo. Heart break. A peak at the wiring behind the control panel.

020 Generosity

In 2007, I was enjoying a sleek, happy life. Combining Tai Chi with extreme urban biking, and becoming something of a bad ass. I had access to amazing organic produce and grains as a working member of the Park Slope Food Coop, a paragon of democracy and cooperation. The United Gardens hosted regular artist gatherings, so I was singing and playing consistently. I counted on steady if modest income doing dance documentation, which l really enjoyed. I was connected to a diverse friend network. Two of my most beloved comrades were living just across the back yard, Laura and Jon. I had soaked up Michigan several times and connected with my tribe there. Best of all, I had changed my perspective on DOG, emphasizing getting it right over getting it done.

I hinted in 019 about shaky foundations, like linking happiness to optimal external conditions and trying to play the hand the government dealt me. Giving of my time and energy as a way of rigging the universe to bless me.

I’m a transactive person, I love giving and getting. I was taught early on about generosity from my grandmother Redling and then later by my friend Bob, who flowed out his love and energy to his friends without keeping score. He showed me not only was it ok to be generous but it was a sort of super power and this became like a game for us, who could take care of the other more. I usually let Bob win, but I also became pretty protective of him, if I saw others taking advantage of his ge