a bizarre ride on the lard slide
For the past few years I’ve been working with an Atlanta based absurdist and old friend by the name of Lard. They are a performance artist that built a volcano in their house. Occasionally, they identify as a banana, other times they identify as a terror clown. Their art is distributed mostly through their website and instagram, in the forms of collected lore and memes. It might sound a bit reductive to call what they are doing a meme. But that’s really what it is. A collection of chaotic cynicism that makes the viewer say “why?”
While many artists approach a project from a craft process, Lard approaches their art from an imagination forward process, where the end result is never really final.
“I want to purchase one of the planets in the MuX universe,” Lard said. “It will become a part of LardLore forever.”
“Of course,” I said. Admittedly, it felt a little like a late night infomercial selling the right to name a star. As though anyone could lay claim to an imaginary dot of light 24 million light years away. How could they own a planet that exists only in my speculation?
Often, I’m left agreeing to things like selling planet #644 to Lard simply because I trust in their borderline sociopathic process. They are a hurricane of ideas and concepts that somehow manifests into horrific patterns, like body dysmorphic sculpture mixed with intense photography. Despite what I said before about Lard approaching art with an imagined idea first, their process is clearly executed with obsessive attention to detail. In addition to their instagram, the LardLabs website changes pretty regularly. There is written lore, videos, secret pages, subliminal messages, and superliminal advertisements. An entire world is taking shape around this strange banana being in Atlanta. If you follow @Lardverse on instagram, you will see sets of bizarre images that can be viewed in different ways. Three images that line up across their profile to make a clown with weird baby arms. Repeated, mirrored images of banana Lard gritting their teeth around a crab poster. A set of photos where a semi-nude Lard dances with themself.
It’s enough to make me stop and say “what the fuck?”
I don’t think that Lard wants fame or fortune. In fact, they seem to have a little chuckle to themself whenever I mention “making it big in the art world.” I don’t think they want to alienate people from their art. And although Lard revels in the joy of making people uncomfortable, they aren’t malicious. Instead, I think they are trying to point out how comfortable we are with everything else, despite it being so fucking weird. Why is a giant Mcdonalds billboard with sweaty looking beef normal, but a crab-faced freak in a banana costume so weird?
The internet started as a place for freaks. Nerds like us used to control the message boards, the memes, and the art. One of my favorite websites as a kid was the personal site of this dude that used to live in my neighborhood. He was a large white man that walked up and down the major streets holding a black heart shaped shield and pulling a little red wagon filled with stuffed animals. The dude wore all black and a utilikilt. He looked like he had a really high pitched voice, but could definitely whoop your ass.
Eventually I found out his name was John the Pastor and he had a website. The Geocities style page was a treasure trove of photographs, manifestos, and secret pages filled with rants of lunacy. He posted his real address and threatened people to come check out his special forces training. There were photos of the little red wagon and the shrine he toted around, but the explanation was lost on me. He did admit that he carried the heart shaped shield so he could block all the shit that people threw at him.
I envy the lost soul of the internet that wanders into the multiverse that is LardLabs.com and is greeted with the sheer ridiculousness of what it presents. Or for those residents of Atlanta that stumbleupon Banana Lard and the volcano. Strange beings like this are a break from the mind bending monopoly of Disney television and fast food billboards.
— Chako from Mux, 2022
*Updated in June, 2024
The Sale of Planet #644
Archon Regibald Evans was the speaker dispatched to planet #644 for assessment of its sale. Reggie, as he was known among colleagues, would inspect the planet on behalf of the Bolt Joose corporation, assess its value, speak for any dead on the planet, and then sign the paperwork.
Reggie shuffled the papers in his lap. He sat in his private shuttle, staring out into the vast purple space. If he turned, he could see the bridge growing smaller as it receded in the distance. A tail of green smoke trailed their ship, leading through the bridge and to the capital city of Gorn. As the bridge grew smaller, the planet came into view. A speck of orange dirt with a bridge and a billboard. This planet #644 was even more pathetic, only sporting a billboard to prove that Bolt Joose was using it.
“We’re about five minutes from the atmosphere,” the captain said over the intercom.
Reggie dropped his paperwork into his bag, then ruffled his robe over his lap. He rubbed at the tusks that propped out from his lips then shut his eyes. He was half orc, half mycelium. His egg had hatched in a lush jungle with thick air and heavy gravity. It had made his legs stumpy and his skin fig-tree green. It also made him hate space travel.
“Just get it over with Captain,” Reggie said.
“Aye sir.”
A few minutes later the ship rumbled like an overcharged engine. The hull shrieked. Reggie gripped the armrests. He could feel gravity forcing it’s will through it all. Planet #644 had a unique gravitational anomaly that made swirling fluctuations like physical waves. The planet still dominated most of the physics, but occasionally, residents could find themselves swept in an upward dash of gravity.
The captain landed the ship in a dirt clearing next to a newly constructed pyramid. There were workers shuffling supplies back and forth. An army of blue coveralls fanned out across the land. Some worked on the pyramid, others tended to a field of trees.
The gravitational anomaly is supposed to make plant growth improbable. Reggie thought and immediately opened his briefcase to scan through his notes. The paperwork was mostly background checks on the purchaser. A being named LardGein. The most important checks were done on any Urflings to check for any evidence of Smithson ancestry. None was found. Next there was the invoice for building the billboard.
Reggie looked up from the painting and spotted the billboard on the horizon. A Bolt Joose crack of thunder and the announcement of a “Gravy Ghoul” flavor. Some local artist had taken a spray can and written “verbs” all over it.
“Good day,” A voice came from above Reggie.
He turned around and saw a humanoid creature floating in a well of gravity. He wore an Urfling’s black suit, and a lion’s mane headdress. His face was obscured by the thick yellow fur, but bits of pink flesh could be seen indicating humanoid traits. Chained around his ankle, a cannon ball kept him tethered to the ground of the planet.
“Are you LardGein?” Reggie asked.
“I am.” The being wiggled the chain and the cannonball.
Reggie introduced himself, and tossed his badge up at LardGein. He caught it, but then awkwardly turned and twisted in the air as another wave of gravity picked him up.
“You’ll have to bear with me,” LardGein said. His voice came nearer and farther as he spun in the air. “It seems the gravity here affects me more than most.”
“I see,” Reggie said. “Why would you want to buy the planet when it’s tossing you around like that?”
“Maybe I’m just bananas.” LardGein said with a laugh.
A sudden tidal wave of gravity rushed over them. Reggie saw the workers near the pyramids get hit first. Some were tossed into orbit. Then it hit Reggie in the ankles and he fell on his ass. He watched as LardGein floated off around the horizon of the planet, his cannonball dragging along behind him. He was still laughing maniacally.
Reggie got up and dusted off his robes. He went back to the briefcase on the hood of his shuttle. The bananas comment was too on the nose for Reggie, and he shuffled through his notes. Among the hand drawings of Planet #644 was a painting by the Urfling, Chako. It depicted a Shaman transporting a set of historic tablets along a road. In the background an open bridge dumped the duplicating banana-virus out into the road.
There weren’t supposed to be any bridges here though. Reggie double checked the transport registry again. No bridge. If there was one, Reggie should have been able to step into the Bridge on Gorn Prime Station and walk out here. Planet #644 would have a direct link to the city center, just like most prime planets in the MuX universe. The existence of a bridge drastically changed the value of the planet. Not only that, but if the bridge was spewing banana-virus, it would need to be contained.
Reggie needed to find the bridge here, if it existed. Bolt Joose Corporation had a responsibility to control the banana overflow in the MuX universe.
Reggie spent the next few days meeting the locals. According to Dutchman’s Gamble Law they were allowed to begin building a compound on the planet before their permit approval. However, if they weren’t approved, the rightful owner could seize everything on the planet. They were gambling with their time, and that Bolt Joose wouldn’t find anything here. Reggie stood in the way of their minds being at ease.
Some residents took it personally and frowned at Reggie when he walked by with his clipboard. Most creatures avoided him. Every once in a while LardGein would swing by, being dragged along by a wave of a gravity well. They didn’t seem too concerned with whether or not the paperwork was in order.
“Have you seen the Knobberwocky out beyond the border of town?” LardGein said during a slow gravity phase. “It’s named that way because of its knobby eyelids.”
They were standing in the market, near a jeweler’s table. The woman who owned the booth had a toothy grin that reflected the arcane focus at her neck.
“Fascinating.” Reggie said and noted it in his journal. “I would love to find the creature and sketch it. Earlier you mentioned bananas. Is there an outbreak of banana-virus on the planet?”
“Yesbuttheknobberwockyeatsthemfasterthantheycanspread.” Lardgein said it all in one word as a rush of gravity grabbed the cannon ball and swept them down into a canyon.
Reggie sighed as the lion-headed creature shrank into the void.
“I can show you the banana bridge.” The merchant at the jeweler’s table said. “You’ll want this for protection.” She handed a necklace to Reggie.
“From the Knobberwocky?” Reggie asked.
“The Knobberwocky is friendly once you give them something shiny.” She smiled and held her hand out for a shake. “My name is Jodi.”
“Archon Regibald Evans. Call me Reggie.”
When they shook hands, Reggie felt a spark of power transfer between them.
Jodi led Reggie away from the town. Past a handful of mountains and underneath the Bolt Joose billboard. They had been walking for over an hour, and Reggie’s legs were beginning to burn. A screeching guttural roar came from behind a cactus. Reggie froze in place. Jodi walked forward, waving the pendant back and forth on her neck.
“It’s okay.” She said quietly. She held the pendant forward.
A creature that came up to Jodi’s waist snuck out from the cactus. It had deep turquoise fur with big purple eyes and was shaped like a monkey with a bird’s head. The Knobberwocky waved a bright pink tail behind it. Then it opened its mouth, revealing rows of sharp teeth. It shrieked again, then grabbed the shiny pendant from Jodi’s hand and dashed away.
Jodi turned back to Reggie and smiled. These Urflings were more adaptable than he had given them credit for.
Once the silence returned Reggie heard a slight pop noise. A few moments later the pop noise happened again. Then again. As Jodi led the way around the billboard, Reggie could hear a slight noise like an inhale, then the pop.
They came up and over a ridge and Reggie saw it. A massive bridge, arced high in black stone. So big, it would allow for an entire fleet to pass through it. Reggie’s eyes followed it up and up, thinking of the transport possibilities. Then followed it back down, and saw the source of the pop noise.
A slight inhale and a pop, as entire clusters of bananas fell through the gate. Around the base of the bridge hundreds of Knobberwockies shrieked between mouthfuls of bananas. They split them open one in each hand and swallowed them whole. A few humanoid creatures that I recognized from the town congregated at the great pile of bananas. One shoveled some of the fruit into a cart.
This was a dangerous violation of subspace on a huge scale. In theory, the bridge could allow for an exponential growth of bananas in the MuX universe. Reggie would need to meditate on the implications.
He sat in a small patch of grass and planted his roots. The mycelium in his body began to mix with the local soil and stories were passed back and forth. As a Speaker, Reggie could use some sight from the past to make a story of the future. He reached his roots out like tentacles to see the stories. They came to him like an all encompassing vision. He could follow one path by looking to the right, or down one root of choices. Then later he could follow a different path down a different root.
The first place these stories took him was the future where Reggie works by the book. He reports the bridge and the bananavirus to the Bolt Joose Corporation. The future suddenly came tumbling forward.
A fleet of Bolt Force mercenaries fired through the gate. Sharp, dagger shaped starships make passes over the planet. Plasma cannons fire at anything that dares to move, while payloads drop and light the fires. The crops are burned as LardGein floats, dragged by cannon ball. He’s waving his hands like an inflatable toob man, somehow dodging the plasma bolts. Bolt Force lands their Thundersoldier squad, goons in white kevlar with pink visors. Every last resident and knobberwocky on the planet is put to the rifle. Even Jodi with her toothy grin, ends up in the pile of corpses tossed into the local volcano. The atmosphere grows heavy with blood. The Flavor Brigade is brought in to test a new concoction. Discovered between the turquoise adamantine of the knobberwocky and the heavy potassium of the bananavirus, Bolt Joose is ready to unleash a limited time flavor, Bananastrodamus. They plug their caffeine factory in directly to planet #644. Stock prices raise. Bolt Joose sees unprecedented .2% approval rating increase. Reggie is promoted to Vice Archon, and given a stuffed Knobberwocky as a trophy.
Reggie spits that memory out like bad taste. He had never been a part of a Bolt Joose hostile takeover. He had never even seen a future with such a brutal flavor. He follows the second story. Here he approves the sale of Planet #644 to LardGein.
This story comes slower and more disjointed. Where the first story had given Reggie an heir of certainty. This story was fuzzy and hard to make out.
He saw a creature. Dressed all in black. Fuzzy and wearing a black suit. It must be LardGein, Reggie thought. He moved closer in on the story. Further down the root. The figure split into two, joined at the hand. On one side, it was LardGein, attached at the ankle by his cannon ball, and wearing the lion’s mane. Shaking his hand, was another creature in a suit. It had crab hands, and wore a white ceramic mask under a flat brim black hat. It’s eyes bulged from the mask.
“Cons.” It said.
They were among the colonists of Planet #644, frozen for a moment. But not dead. The story grew fuzzier there, as it often did when things got too chaotic from the number of choices.
“I’ve approved the sale.” Reggie said. It was the next day, and he stood on the top of a hill yelling at LardGein, who has flattened against the side of a monolith.
“Fantastic!” LardGein said.
“But I’m going to stay for a while. There’s someone else coming that I want to meet. I’m afraid they might cause you some trouble.”
“I’d like to see them try.” Then the cannon ball rolled up and swung LardGein into low orbit.
— Chako from Mux, 2022
"I built a volcano in my house." Lard said.
These are some of the first words an old friend spoke to me upon reconnecting a few months ago. Lard spun the camera around their living room, where one wall turned into a monolithic face pieced together from cardboard with a web of emojis exploding from its crater across the ceiling. Lard is a professional absurdist, and prospective Atlanta myth.
"And I'm going to have a volcano pop up here in East Atlanta Village." Lard said.
"Is the volcano going to erupt at the show?" I asked.
"No! Why do people think its going to erupt?"
"Well, what are you going to do with the volcano?"
"We just use it to talk to aliens through the rift." Lard said. Then they took the camera through their house into the kitchen, where a spiraling vortex was painted across the ceiling. "Can you help me turn this idea into an NFT?"
My eyes went a little cross eyed at the thought. But I'd been reading about how to make NFTs and what people were making with them. A piece of performance art like this is, in theory, what NFTs should really be all about. Lard should be able to put on a one-time alien communication performance through their volcano then attach the performance to a digital code and sell this like a piece of live art... right?
I showed Lard the opensea marketplace that I'd been researching, including the single measly orc token that I'd put up for sale.
"Wait..." They said. "Do you have more of these orc tokens?"
"Oh yeah." I said. "Tons. I guess you probably haven't seen what my art looks like."
Lard started exploring the MuX is here website. I don't want to speak for them, but I think they found in my work some sort of alien communication from the other side of the vortex. Much like the volcano shrine of their creation, my paintings have these monoliths and pyramids among scifi settings.
The idea morphed from being based around the NFT prospects…Instead, Lard commissioned me to create a portrait of their volcano in my style to commemorate and promote the pop up, which has grown to include a few other artists.
Lynx Nguyen, a natural and powerful wizard, who has created a shrine room at “Marcells” Lard’s outdoor pop up space. Leanna Butterbean, who's Alcove of Wonder will strike viewers with its painted contrasted patterns. And Teddi, who sculpted the left side of the Mystical Shack, a found item installation.
— Chako from Mux, June 2021
is a Phoenix native who tells stories with paintings and words. He grew up influenced by artwork from the covers of Heavy Metal magazine and Sega Genesis cartridges. Combined with the pastel sunsets of the Sonoran desert, Chako shows a new side of old Southwestern landscapes. His work incorporates pop art into vibrant contemporary images.
Mux is the name for the world of Chako’s mythology. It reflects our own world, through landscape, emotion, and experience. Lone explorers drift through a universe too big for them to comprehend, at times ignoring higher powers and other times investing too much in them. Chako graduated from Arizona State University 2018 with a Bachelors in English and emphasis on Creative Writing. He has been published in Write on Downtown and Marooned, and has shown at Coastline Art Gallery.
