Kings (2015 Dust Devil Dreams post)
|
OKLAHOMA CITY – During the six-and-a-half years I spent working as a newspaper reporter in Alexandria, Louisiana, I wrote about all sorts of strange things, from Bigfoot sightings to UFO reports to small-town corruption that always seemed to remain covered up – much to my chagrin.
But there were some really weird stories. There was the strange case of John Fred Fontenot Jr., an Evangeline Parish man whose beaten body was found floating in remote Millers Lake after disappearing in late 1998. Official report was that Fontenot drowned. Family members and others disagreed. Rumors of drug dealing and more were bandied about at the time. It was a story I put a lot of time and effort into in the summer of 2001, the story appearing on the front page of The Town Talk on Sept. 2, 2001.
I have been thinking about those days – between 1999 and 2005 – before Hurricanes Katrina and Rita changed everything and I listened to that voice that told me to go to Oklahoma and start over – which I did.
Back in those days before I was Oklahoma-bound, my editors at The Town Talk would let me run around the rural countryside of central Louisiana with a photographer, drumming up whatever sort of story we could. This area of the state, nicknamed “Cenla,” is the crossroads connecting French-accented Acadiana and the more Protestant Scots-Irish and African-American influences of northern Louisiana.
As a reporter, particularly one not originally from the area, getting information could be difficult. Louisiana people are friendly but insular. And when crimes are committed or strange things happen, a lot of people clam up. But that’s really the case everywhere, isn’t it?
While watching the first season of HBO’s True Detective, I was struck by how this pulp-thriller seemed so familiar to me. With two Louisiana State Police detectives, working out of Lafayette, investigating a string of sex crimes and ritual murder, the mysteries on the screen brought back the memories of covering things like the mysterious death of John Fred Fontenot Jr. I sensed that there was far more going on in Evangeline Parish - a Cajun-majority area - than we ever discovered in our investigation.
MELLOW YELLOW
I came late to True Detective. I’m notoriously skeptical of hyped TV shows, even those where Twin Peaks comparisons seem to be uttered every five minutes.
But what changed my mind was during a trip to New Orleans to spend a weekend with my schoolteacher brother James who lives in Alabama. Turns out my bro is a major True Detective fan. So, one day while we were in New Orleans, he suggests we head out east of the city along Highway 90 and check out Fort Macomb, an abandoned fort that is used during the critical final encounter between detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart (Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson) in the episode “Form and Void.” In that episode – in the labyrinth of “Carcosa,” Cohle is trying to find the villain and suddenly sees – rather briefly and inexplicably - what looks like a black hole in space. Or is it a portal or wormhole? The jury is out on what it is that Cohle sees while in Carcosa near the altar of The Yellow King.
Cohle sees a "portal" (?) in Carcosa, near the altar of The Yellow King. (HBO)
What were the show’s creators trying to tell us?
I was vaguely familiar with the show’s plot. I knew it involved ritualistic murder on the bayou. I knew, somehow, that the rural version of Mardi Gras which I used to cover in Mamou as a reporter – Courir de Mardi Gras – was somehow related to the crimes in the show (that wasn’t entirely true). Rustic, twig-and-wood folk symbols were used, as were deer antler “crowns” and folk-horror-styled paintings.
And I also knew that a book of horror by Robert W. Chambers – The King in Yellow – was an important clue in True Detective, referred to as “The Yellow King.” There is an H.P. Lovecraft angle, I should note, as the classic horror author loved Chambers's work. Synchromystically, I found myself in Binger, Oklahoma, weeks later, seeking "the mound" in Lovecraft's short story "The Mound." In that story, the mound is an entrance - a portal or doorway - to a subterranean realm that is populated by a strange race of beings. Cougar Mound (which I was directed to investigate by Binger native Gary King) does have a cave entrance midway up the mound and it leads into the deep interior of said mound. Where it goes, I cannot say.
The mysterious Cougar Mound near Binger, Oklahoma. (Andrew W. Griffin / Red Dirt Report)
While working on this Dust Devil Dreams piece, sync blogger Michael S. posted on a Facebook sync page that “The Yellow King” was syncing for him, along with “solar flares,” the Tour de France “yellow jersey,” “Yellow Submarine” and “The Sun King.” That last one, "The Sun King," not only has a French connection, but that it is a Beatles song on the Abbey Road album. It's the only Beatles song to be officially "reversed" and made available on the compilation Love. It is called "Gnik Nus" and was featured in our sync piece "Sleepwalk (Gnik nus)."
Who or what "The Yellow King" was in never fully explained in Season One.
Perhaps we learn more as the series continues, as we learn there will likely be a Season 3 of True Detective.
Finding the "king," as it were, is a major part of the show. In fact, in the second season, which takes place in the fictional town of Vinci, California, the city manager, Ben Caspere, is found dead, suffering from eyes burned out with acid and a "severe pelvic wound." That is a euphemysm for genital mutilation. The leg wound to "the king," as Alan Abbadessa-Green's "Suicide Kings" video where he addresses "the death and ritual murder of kings," as written about by Sir James George Frazer in The Golden Bough, which I noted here.
As for yellow in Season 2, it came quite quickly, via the Spanish surname "Amarilla." Yes, a Latino gangster named Ledo Amarilla is featured in this season and he is gunned down (shockingly syncing, as I posted this, with the horrific gun-related massacre in the Inland Empire/Route 66-syncing city of San Bernardino, California).
Caspere, in Season 2 of True Detective, was clearly powerful and was a sex maniac. He was a partner to Frank Semyon (Vince Vaughn) who is now left hanging and not sure what is going on or who is behind this mutilation and murder.
The color yellow is subtle and plays a role in scenes throughout the series. In Season 1, a flyer for a Christian big tent revival is printed on bright yellow paper. And proves to be a clue.
Back to Fort Macomb/Carcosa, as I wrote in my October DDD piece "The yellow store," this location was near a convenience store of sorts simply called The Yellow Store, because it was, well, yellow in color. A strange sync, for sure.
The Yellow Store, near Fort Macomb, which doubled as "Carcosa" in "True Detective." (Andrew W. Griffin / Red Dirt Report)
As I noted then, there was a spooky vibe out there, and this was before I had even watched a single episode of True Detective.
Fort Macomb, east of New Orleans, was used as the site of "Carcosa" in the first season of True Detective. (Andrew W. Griffin / Red Dirt Report)
INSPIRATION?
Watching the eight-episode series (which was followed by a slow-burning, second season with a lot of enigmatic angles throughout) of the first season, it was hard not to be fully sucked into this dark, swampy world of south Louisiana. The story, about a seeming conspiracy by a powerful family to cover-up child-sexual abuse activity at church-linked schools up and down the coast. Sadly, it reminded me of a horrific story out of Ponchatoula, Louisiana that broke in May 2005, some five months before I left Louisiana entirely and moved to Oklahoma that sad and haunted year.
I'm referring to the notorious “Hosanna Church Case” shocked the nation and left the city of Ponchatoula, Louisiana reeling. This, as details came out about the child-sex abuse and satanic rituals that went on behind the walls of a blandly normal “Christian” church were revealed by the pastor and an assistant. For more on that case, check out this Vice video on the Hosanna case.
Refineries and burned out churches in rural Louisiana feature in True Detective. HBO
True Detective creator Nic Pizzolatto has more or less confirmed that the pulp-thriller series, as featured in Season One, was, in part, inspired by the Hosanna Church case.
But also, a major character of True Detective is the mysterious Louisiana countryside. It's bewitching, thanks to the eye of producer Cary Fukunaga.
Detectives Rust Cohle and Marty Hart in True Detective. (HBO)
And as someone who ventured all over the Bayou State covering all manner of high weirdness, the creators captured the aura and mystery of Louisiana in True Detective, far better than I had imagined they would.
Comments
Post a Comment