Wednesday, October 16, 2013

Interview with Dave Castr.


Full Name:
Dave Castr

Do you have a nickname or what do your friends call you?
Dave.

Birthplace:
Bell (shit) Flower.

Current hometown:
Hawaiian (Shittier) Gardens.

Favorite city and why?
Berkley Ca. Cause rich people look like poor people, so who the hell cares.

Birthday/Age:
01-29-1980 (add it up lazy)
I do writing, not math.

How would you describe yourself physically?
A hazel eyed shape shifter.

How would someone else describe you physically?
“That Mexican guy”

The first thing people notice about you is…
My eyes (which is why I have trouble with eye contact.)
I hate eye contact too. On the bus I wear sunglasses because I hate getting into stare-downs with schizophrenic crazies on the bus.

Sexual orientation?
Straight.

Religion, if any?
God has no human form, so let’s get over ourselves.

Are you superstitious at all? Any phobias?
Superstitious, yes. Phobias…forgetting to breathe.

Do you smoke/drink?   If so, what?   Any bad habits?
I can be quite compulsive. Drawing, drinking, neck and knuckle cracking. I do my best to avoid these things or indulge fully.

Current occupation/Dream job:
Occupation: Bookstore Clerk/ artist. Dream job: Living obsessively.

What do you like to do when you’re not at work?
Draw, paint, write and observe what society considers “normal” It fascinates the hell out of me.
That’s what Lynch was commenting on with Blue Velvet. His intention was to expose the dark underbelly of what everyone buys into as “normal” society. That’s why I love that film. Okay, one of the reasons that I love that film.

What is your zombie outbreak survival plan?
Destroy, kill, incinerate and steal.

Weapon of choice:
Fishing Line.

Do you have any special skills?
Empathy.

Did you go to college and, if so, what for?
College never liked me.

Any pets?   If so, what are they and what are their names?
I do not indulge in animal domestication.
It’s one of my pet peeves. Pun unavoidable, but not intended.

What is your favorite animal?
Wolf.

Speaking of pets, any pet peeves?
Laziness .

Favorite/Least favorite Food:
Favorite: Banana Bread. LEAST: Indian, Thai, and German food.

What is your favorite quotation/motto/saying?
I’d rather aim for the stars and miss than aim for the gutter and make it.” Danny Trejo.

What is the best thing that ever happened to you?
I met a young girl named Ozarrah

What is the worst thing that ever happened to you?
Realizing the American dream is a crock of shit.

Ever had your heart broken? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer?
Heartbreak, Definitely. Story? Eh, nothing they haven’t made a movie about.

Ever broken someone’s heart? Is there a story worth telling behind your answer?
Yeah I broke a heart. In Jr. High this girl dumped me because I had too many zits. She said people would talk about my zit face. I cried for a week. Even ditched school a couple of days after. A year later my face cleared. Gained a little clout. She acted like I was someone different, better. I dated her again only to dump her for having a big nose. Judge me. I’m a vengeful asshole.
-slow clap building to a standing ovation- That… is an amazing story.

What is the best thing you’ve ever done?
Co-Created a young girl named Ozarrah.

What is the worst thing you’ve ever done?
Made fun of a guy with no legs to his face, Pulled a wig off a sick bald kid.

If you could kill one person, consequence free, who would it be and why?
Myself, so nothing would matter or ever make sense.

What do you do?
Walk into the void.

How did you get started doing what you do?
I wrote stories I thought had meaning. No one gave a shit. Then tried to make them rhyme in hopes people would care. They didn’t. Then I drew to tell the story better. They still didn’t care, but looked. It was the spark I needed to move forward. No one thought I was any good, but were compelled to watch. I haven’t stopped yet.

What is your advice to other people that want to get started doing what you do?
Give up. Give it away. Accept you are a failure. Smile and be happy knowing every time you try you are one step ahead to sucking less.

What are some of the projects you’ve worked on/finished in the past? Give us a little history if you will.
I got into sketch cards for a little while. A DC comics series, Tarzan, even Walking Dead. They rejected all my walking dead cards cause they were all super violent with more zombies than main characters. I worked on a comic project with Robert Z’Dar. Very charming and friendly guy. The comic wasn’t good enough to get and financial backing, but I completed it. Created my own Indy comic convention called Slum Circus. Only put together one. It was cool and had potential, but it was too much work on my own. I started a small artist Magazine called DRAWIST. I only printed 500. Probably half actually got circulation. It was 14 pages and about 6 months of my life I researched my eyes crossed for that thing. Created a small press called Taco Comics. I made 4 comic titles and a few sketch books of my work under that press. The name was too silly and people in the industry were calling me Taco. I had to bury it before it got out of control. Didn’t expect it to gain the steam it did where people only knew me through it. I even got a little write up in Fangoria.
That all sounds cool!
Where can we see your “super violent” sketch cards?

A part of my contract is that those images belong to them. I can not show them without consent.  I have been known to crop out watermarks though.
If you decide to try and put on your indy comic convention again, let me know. One of my special skills is convention coordination and my services are available for an affordable fee.
This will serve useful at a later time.

What projects are you working on now?
She! She That Kills The Dead! It’s a comic series that’s been in my head and on the drawing table for a while. I met a guy by the name Robert Earl Ray and a fitting actress Monique Papp. They have helped me created a new realistic vision. We are currently in development for a Television Series as well as the comic book I originally began. It has become a collaborative process I never thought possible until now. Aside from that I am working with Aaron Cohen, the man who created the Radioactive Chicken Heads. A full costume rock band out of Los Angeles. We are working on the Radioactive Chicken Heads comic as he is in Development for a live action/animated television series himself. Pretty exciting stuff at the moment.
That stuff also sounds cool! Keep us posted! If you need to do promo for any of those projects if they come to fruition let me know and we can do a follow-up interview and interview the other people involved. INTERVIEWS FOR EVERYONE!

What are you watching?
John Dies at the End, Insidious 2, VHS, Dark City and Return of the Living Dead on repeat.

What are you listening to?
Right now I’m really digging this acoustic band called Rob The Liar. A skate punk band called the Gnarwolves and Hop Along. Band Camp is the shit!
I love myself some Bandcamp! Check out my artist profile!

What are you reading?
Save the Cat. A very straight forward approach to script writing.
Ugh. I heard that book single-handedly (bookedly?) ruined screenwriting as an art. Haha this is inspiring! The book shows how to create interest and appeal to the masses. I love me some indy! Don’t get me wrong. My main focus has always been communication. I read once Einstein said the difference between and intelligent person and a genius is Intelligence is understanding complex compositions (paraphrasing). A genius can do this AND decimate it for others to interpret. I don’t think I’m a genius, but this will not stop me from attempting to be.

Favorite author/book?
I really enjoy this book called Brain States and another called Strange Angel. A biography about rocket scientist John Whiteside Parsons

Favorite band/song?
One of my Favorites would probably be Coheed and Cambria.

Least favorite band/song?
The Gangnam style asshole. I want to punch him in his cunt.
Dude. He’s Asian. I think he must know some kind of martial art. I know that it sounds racist, but it’s not racist if it’s true and I think it might be true that all Asians know martial arts.
I always expect retaliation when I start shit.

Desert Island Music/Movies/Books: You know the deal. Five of each.
I don’t know the deal. Life lately feels like a desert island.

If you could do anything other than what you do now, what would you do?
Live a normal life in another country.

Who would you want to meet that you haven’t met? You get three choices:
Alive. Dead. Fictional.
Einstein, The brain of Steven Hawking, A youthful Socrates

What’s the best and worst job you’ve ever had?
Worst: Sanding the ends of light bulbs alone in a dark room with a file and one light bulb dangling over my head. Best Job: Working at a book store.

Are there any questions that I didn’t ask that you wished I had asked that you would like to answer now?
Nope.

Anyone you recommend I interview that you can put me in touch with?
Jose Gabriel Angeles.

Got any questions for me?
If you could breathe underwater as well as topside would any of this still matter?
I don’t think any of it matters anyway so being amphibious really wouldn’t change that much.
haha, You say that now, but we’ll see if you feel the same way in 20 years.
I’ve seen Waterworld. I think I’ll be able to make it out okay.

Closing questions / summary / and thanks:
When our time comes we will do 1 of three things:
Stay asleep, beg or smile.
If you’re not lucky enough to do one of the three which will you work toward?
I don’t think I understand the question. That happens to me a lot.
Me neither, sometimes my brain plays boggle with my mouth.

Who would you say were your artistic inspirations?
Damn, that’s really hard. Sam Kieth (until I met him), James O’Barr (until I met him). Todd McFarlane (he is a fucking genius), Dan O’Bannon, George Romero, Michel Gondry, Arthur Adams, Charlie Kaufman, Bernie Wrightson, Will Eisner.

Thanks for letting me subject you to being interviewed!


Pitch parade:
Give me all of your links for things you want to promote.   All of them.
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/shethatkillsthedead
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DCastr
Website: http://zarstarstudios.com 
DeviantArt: http://dcastr.deviantart.com/

About the Interviewee:
DCastr is a Bastardly Artist in search of chaos.


About the Interviewer:
Scott Lefebvre has probably read everything you've read and can write about whatever you want him to write about.
Mostly because when he was grounded for his outlandish behavior as a hyperactive school child, the only place he was allowed to go was the public library.
His literary tastes were forged by the works of Helen Hoke, Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell, Ray Bradbury, Richard Matheson, Stephen King, Clive Barker, Edgar Allan Poe, and H. P. Lovecraft.
He is the author of Spooky Creepy Long Island and a contributing author to Forrest J. Ackerman’s Anthology of the Living Dead, Fracas: A Collection of Short Friction, The Call of Lovecraft, and Cashiers du Cinemart.
His reviews have been published by a variety of in print and online media including Scars Magazine, Icons of Fright, Fatally Yours and Screams of Terror, and he has appeared in Fangoria, Rue Morgue and HorrorHound Magazine.
He is the Assistant Program Director for The Arkham Film Society and produces Electronic Music under the names Master Control and LOVECRAFTWORK.
He is currently working on a novel-length expansion of a short-story titled, "The End Of The World Is Nigh", a crowd-funded, crowd-sourced, post-apocalyptic, zombie epidemic project.
You can check out the blog for the book here: theendoftheworldisnighbook.blogspot.com
You can check out the Facebook Fan Page for the project here: www.facebook.com/TheEndOfTheWorldIsNighBook
You can check his author profile at: www.amazon.com/Scott-Lefebvre/e/B001TQ2W9G
You can follow him at GoodReads here:
www.goodreads.com/author/show/1617246.Scott_Lefebvre
You can check out his electronic music here: soundcloud.com/master_control
And here: master-control.bandcamp.com
You can check out his videos at: www.youtube.com/user/doctornapoleon
You can check out his IMDB profile here: www.imdb.com/name/nm3678959
You can follow his Twitter here: twitter.com/TheLefebvre or @TheLefebvre
You can follow his Tumblr here: thelefebvre.tumblr.com
You can check out his Etsy here: www.etsy.com/people/arkhamscreenings
You can join the group for The Arkham Film Society here:
www.facebook.com/groups/arkhamscreenings
You can stalk his Facebook at: www.facebook.com/TheLefebvre
You can e-mail him at: Scott_Lefebvre@hotmail.com



No comments:

Post a Comment