The Coffin from China

THE COFFIN FROM CHINA

There once was a coffin from China. It had a shape like an old world casket. It was wood, and not considered in the "high end" quality as caskets go.

I was filming my low budget vampire movie Jugular Wine when I suddenly needed a new prop...a coffin. This was a few years ago back in Los Angeles. There wasn't any money in the budget to rent one that particular weekend so I mentioned it to my father who just happened to be a funeral director.

"There's an old extra coffin in the garage," my step-mother replied.

"Don't tell him that! He'll want it," came my father's reply.

They gave me the coffin. Apparently an American man was killed in China, and shipped back to the states in this old world wooden coffin. The American family wanted a proper casket so this one was just placed in the garage among storage. Thus the coffin from China became donated to the film Jugular Wine as a movie prop.

Later, when I was on my next film creating the beginnings of the movie Black Pearls and became close with the underground gothic community around the country, often guests would comment about the interesting wooden coffin standing in my LA apartment. One friend, a Goth young man named Alejandro, liked the coffin so much I just unscrewed the coffin lid and gave him the lid as a gift. Alejandro said he was going to make it into a lid for his coffin bed. I kept the bottom half in case he needed a coffin prop down the road.

Not a few months later the Columbine High School massacre went down in Littleton, Colorado. Suddenly Goth culture was in the press everywhere. And my friend Alejandro made TIME Magazine in a small article on Goth culture that followed soon after the killings.

(TIME Magazine article which includes coffin lid in photo)

The TIME Magazine article reads:

WE'RE GOTHS AND NOT MONSTERS

-By Chris Taylor
-With reporting by Wendy Cole/Chicago and Tim Padgett/Miami

In any other week, the disclaimer on the door of Inkubus Haber-dashery, a Gothic fashion store in Miami's coconut grove district, would have seemed as out of place as the boutique itself. The Gothic community in no way condones the use of violence, it read. We are appalled by the killings and by the inference that the murderers belonged to our culture. Inside, owner Malaise Graves lamented the spotlight the Littletown killings had suddenly thrown on goth culture. "I'm afraid this violent stereotyping of us is only going to get worse now," she sighed.

The initial assumption that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were Goths -simply because they wore black trench coats, painted their fingernails black and listened to Marilyn Manson music- got real Goths everywhere hot under the black leather collar. "Teenagers tend to go after the most powerful images they can,' explains Seth Baker, a Los Angeles Goth. "They put together a lot of images." Real Goths have nothing to do with violence.

Still, if Klebold and Harris were wolves in Goth's clothing, there was plenty to identify with. "We romanticize the darkness of humanity," says Peter Stover, 21, a photography major at Chicago's Columbia College, who has midnight blue hair and regulation pale skin. "We're creatures of the night."

The current manifestation of Gothic culture began with the British punk scene in the early '80s. bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Joy Division created the atmospheric doom-rock sound. A clothing style evolved that was part Johnny Rotten, part Anne Rice and all black. Acolytes sometimes took an interest (purely academic) in subjects such as Satanism and blood drinking, which ensured this was one rebellion that would never enter the mainstream. In the '90s shock rockers like Manson appropriated the image and blurred the lines -until any shaggy-haired, trench-coat-wearing teen could be considered a Goth by his peers.

(Alejandro Goth in his bed with lid from my coffin)

And the TIME Magazine photo? There lay Alejandro, arms crossed in white death's face make up, showing off his new bed. And the lid to that bed? It was the coffin from my dad's garage, more famous than the old wood box ever could have imagined. The caption beneath the photo reads: DEAD WRONG: Goths like Alejandro, shown in his L.A. coffin, resent being linked with the killings.

It's been a few years now since Columbine. I have lost touch with Alejandro. And the TIME Magazine article was the last I saw of the old coffin lid. But here at the Grand Midway Hotel many new visiting people have asked to have their photo taken in the bottom half of this unusual coffin with its stories from China to TIME Magazine. They lay down into it and pose for their cameras. It's been great fun.

Eventually I converted the bottom half of the coffin into a coffee table. I placed a glass lid over it and then filled it with 400 voodoo dolls I'd purchased during an adventure down in New Orleans. As far as furniture goes, it's made quite an interesting conversation piece!


	THE COFFIN FROM CHINA There once was a coffin from China. It had a shape like an old world casket. It was wood, and not considered in the "high end" quality as caskets go. I was filming my low budget vampire movie Jugular Wine when I suddenly needed a new prop...a coffin. This was a few years ago back in Los Angeles. There wasn't any money in the budget to rent one that particular weekend so I mentioned it to my father who just happened to be a funeral director. "There's an old extra coffin in the garage," my step-mother replied. "Don't tell him that! He'll want it," came my father's reply. They gave me the coffin. Apparently an American man was killed in China, and shipped back to the states in this old world wooden coffin. The American family wanted a proper casket so this one was just placed in the garage among storage. Thus the coffin from China became donated to the film Jugular Wine as a movie prop. Later, when I was on my next film creating the beginnings of the movie Black Pearls and became close with the underground gothic community around the country, often guests would comment about the interesting wooden coffin standing in my LA apartment. One friend, a Goth young man named Alejandro, liked the coffin so much I just unscrewed the coffin lid and gave him the lid as a gift. Alejandro said he was going to make it into a lid for his coffin bed. I kept the bottom half in case he needed a coffin prop down the road. Not a few months later the Columbine High School massacre went down in Littleton, Colorado. Suddenly Goth culture was in the press everywhere. And my friend Alejandro made TIME Magazine in a small article on Goth culture that followed soon after the killings. (TIME Magazine article which includes coffin lid in photo) The TIME Magazine article reads: WE'RE GOTHS AND NOT MONSTERS -By Chris Taylor -With reporting by Wendy Cole/Chicago and Tim Padgett/Miami In any other week, the disclaimer on the door of Inkubus Haber-dashery, a Gothic fashion store in Miami's coconut grove district, would have seemed as out of place as the boutique itself. The Gothic community in no way condones the use of violence, it read. We are appalled by the killings and by the inference that the murderers belonged to our culture. Inside, owner Malaise Graves lamented the spotlight the Littletown killings had suddenly thrown on goth culture. "I'm afraid this violent stereotyping of us is only going to get worse now," she sighed. The initial assumption that Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold were Goths -simply because they wore black trench coats, painted their fingernails black and listened to Marilyn Manson music- got real Goths everywhere hot under the black leather collar. "Teenagers tend to go after the most powerful images they can,' explains Seth Baker, a Los Angeles Goth. "They put together a lot of images." Real Goths have nothing to do with violence. Still, if Klebold and Harris were wolves in Goth's clothing, there was plenty to identify with. "We romanticize the darkness of humanity," says Peter Stover, 21, a photography major at Chicago's Columbia College, who has midnight blue hair and regulation pale skin. "We're creatures of the night." The current manifestation of Gothic culture began with the British punk scene in the early '80s. bands like Bauhaus, Siouxsie and the Banshees, and Joy Division created the atmospheric doom-rock sound. A clothing style evolved that was part Johnny Rotten, part Anne Rice and all black. Acolytes sometimes took an interest (purely academic) in subjects such as Satanism and blood drinking, which ensured this was one rebellion that would never enter the mainstream. In the '90s shock rockers like Manson appropriated the image and blurred the lines -until any shaggy-haired, trench-coat-wearing teen could be considered a Goth by his peers. (Alejandro Goth in his bed with lid from my coffin) And the TIME Magazine photo? There lay Alejandro, arms crossed in white death's face make up, showing off his new bed. And the lid to that bed? It was the coffin from my dad's garage, more famous than the old wood box ever could have imagined. The caption beneath the photo reads: DEAD WRONG: Goths like Alejandro, shown in his L.A. coffin, resent being linked with the killings. It's been a few years now since Columbine. I have lost touch with Alejandro. And the TIME Magazine article was the last I saw of the old coffin lid. But here at the Grand Midway Hotel many new visiting people have asked to have their photo taken in the bottom half of this unusual coffin with its stories from China to TIME Magazine. They lay down into it and pose for their cameras. It's been great fun. Eventually I converted the bottom half of the coffin into a coffee table. I placed a glass lid over it and then filled it with 400 voodoo dolls I'd purchased during an adventure down in New Orleans. As far as furniture goes, it's made quite an interesting conversation piece!