EXCLUSIVE ! Full Interview With Daniel Palillo

Here is my full interview with Daniel Palillo, finally out in public.

The cartoons ask so harmlessly, What Is Buddy Dog Thinking?

So I decided to find an answer to precisely that question, and started to dig a bit deeper behind the nonchalant facade of cutesy animation strips circulating online. I embarked on a quest to sneak a peek between the curtain of mystery shrouding this operation – in pursuit of finding out –  what is Buddy Dog actually thinking and what Buddy and his gang are really up to? 

Something just didn’t feel right, as I soon noticed. 

Upon making contact with Buddy’s ‘organisation’ my requests for comments were quickly turned down and a wall of silence went up. Buddy’s manager Fluffy was very welcoming at first, when he seemed to think I was interested in taking part in their cause. But as  soon as I introduced myself to be a journalist, things got a bit strange and I was only getting answered with riddles as responses to my questions.

Somehow I managed to find a faint trail of leads, which I then begun to piece together. 

It all started from an old script which was unearthed from a stack of bankrupt Hollywood studio hard drives, bought from a North Korean black market hacker group. From these files emerged a very different Buddy Dog, not the zen-guru, which he is proclaimed to be. Instead I found myself looking at a whole season’s worth of a raucous, nihilistic, politically incorrect Buddy, swearing and making a mockery out of almost anything imaginable. 

Unfortunately, due to legal reasons we are not able to air any of those clips. But through these videos, I was able to trace Buddy Dog’s steps, from a failed aspiring Hollywood star, through some shady back-alleys of Tokyo and back into Los Angeles California. 

And that’s where I am today interviewing an artist who goes by the name Daniel Palillo, residing in trendy Silverlake. I discovered Daniel through some social media posts – that a source had shared with me – which have since been taken down. The posts were on a private, later closed, Instagram account, which seemed to belong to Buddy Dog. It depicted some of his escapades mostly in Japan, before anyone knew anything about Buddy. 

This Buddy Dog seemed to be thinking very differently, and instead of answering questions, – from what I had seen, this left me even more puzzled. 

Instead of pondering the age old zen-koan of: ‘What is the sound of one hand clapping’, it was more like: how many more claps of hands can one uncover in the darkness surrounding the past of Buddy Dog?

When I approached Daniel about Buddy, whom he seemed very close to, based on the photos found on social media, Daniel seemed almost as if he wouldn’t even know what I was talking about –as if he’d never even heard of the dog.  

After I showed Daniel some of the photos, he started to talk, but very little. Daniel was the first person, who seemed to have at least had a relationship with Buddy, who agreed to be interviewed on camera. 

We spoke a bit about their times together in Tokyo, about a Shibuya Jazz bar called ‘The Dog Bowl’ and Shinjuku drinking hole known as ‘Bare Bones Shinjuku’ as well as Nakameguro Breakfast Club, where Buddy had seemed to have a job at some stage.

What was even more strange, was when I started to ask about Buddy Dog’s blockchain ventures, if Daniel had had any part in creating the designs for Buddy’s line of rumoured NFTs –as one source had hinted at? 

When enquired about these, Daniel seemed to get very anxious and that is where our interview abruptly ended, so much for Zen. 

I was left under the impression, that Daniel had merely designed some apparel, which were then taken by Buddy’s manager Fluffy without Daniel’s consent. This left me even more puzzled. Based on the photos, Daniel and Buddy seemed so close, friends, having a good time, going through life. I wonder what happened? It seemed like everyone I asked either wouldn’t speak on camera, or declined to give any comment. I only found businesses that had long gone bankrupt, restaurants closed and many bridges burnt to ashes. 

When I approached the zen-temple on Mt. Koya in Japan, where Buddy was rumoured to having spent his years in retreat studying Zen – a monk named Joshu only replied to me with a Zen-koan:

‘Does a dog have Buddha nature?’

Which I of course couldn’t answer. After this exchange, the monastery also went silent.

So after all this, I am finding myself even more perplexed. And instead of asking ‘What is Buddy Dog Thinking?’ , it seems that one might be better off asking: What are Buddy Dog and his shady partners actually up to?

Stay tuned for more.