The Realm Of Rumph

(Featuring the Haunted Mirror and Puff the Magic)

In the Sixties my father was a teacher for the L. A. County School District and he was acquainted with another elementary school teacher who was throwing small “Medieval Fairs” at her school. He thought this was a novel idea and took the family to check it out. I remember it being on the school’s playground and was a “village” built out of plywood, cardboard, crepe paper and yarn. The teacher and parent volunteers, along with the school children “cast” all wore hand made costumes. It was cute but just another themed carnival put on by a grammar school. 

Years later I started attending Ye Olde Renaissance Pleasure Faire in a wooden area in Agoura. The school carnival had expanded. At one such fair in 1975 I met Jim Rumph. Rumph quickly came to represent the Renaissance Faire to me and as a cartoonist and animator I instantly related to his artistic style and appreciated his subject matter. 

A few years later in 1978 we collaborated on, what I believe is the only, Rumph-based hologram.  I had studied holography at San Diego State and had made holograms and I thought Rumph’s sculptures would make tremendous holograms. He sculpted a frame to hold the “HAUNTED MIRROR” and I used his two headed planter to make a hologram of the Sorceress which will appear within the center of the haunted mirror. At that time most holograms were viewed by shining a light through them which made viewing awkward but by mounting it flat onto a mirror we could light it from the front and have the light bounce off the mirror and through the hologram. 

My late brother also became a big fan of Jim’s and the three of us would venture out on occasion (but that’s another story). 

As a professional animator at the start of the Disney Renaissance, I pitched Jim on the idea of a movie based on his characters and design esthetic. I had prepared the standard pitch elements: a pilot script, character breakdowns, story bible and various design elements based heavily on Jim’s drawings and sculptures.  He wasn’t interested. I bring it up now because after recent health scares, like covid, and advancing age, I recently rummaged through old files and found these materials. One set of song lyrics I had written as a “music video” section of the story I’ve had friends complete and would like to present it as a reminder of the kind of friend or acquaintance that makes your life just a bit more magical.

 

The Realm Of Rumph

(Featuring the Haunted Mirror and Puff the Magic)



She seemed quite ethereal as we left the ball

And our chariot awaits 

So I drive us past her gates up to her hidden lair

With all the pleasures promised there


But little did I dream she was not what she had seemed

Or rather was exactly that

Just my imagination sorely lacked for she had made realities 

Of her romantic fantasies


The Realm of Rumph, a factory of slime

In the realm of Rumph is the circus of the mind


In the kitchen by the stove theres a tableaux to behold 

Of a wizard with a whisk 

While elfin fairies take the risk of being seen in broad daylight 

Next to the Priestess, stood straight upright. 


A sorcerer’s holding up a mirror through which the sorceress appear.   

And a troll with fern green hair 

Sits on the table, lost in a stare while a dragon in a pond 

Bids you puff the magic wand. 


The Realm of Rumph, a factory of slime

In the realm of Rumph is the circus of the mind


Little knickknacks here and there momentos of Renaissance fair. 

A time and place that’s hard to find 

Unless you look inside her mind. So I must soon decide

If in her world I could reside 


I’ve made no vow that I must keep so I guess tonight I won’t get sleep. 

But it’s only fair I stay around

And explore this land I’ve found if It’s my plan to triumph

Here, in the magic realm of Rumph


The Realm of Rumph, a factory of slime

In the realm of Rumph is the circus of the mind

420 Daze: LA Rock Band’s Easter Release Celebrates Cancer Recovery & Stoner Holiday"

 



The Tooners: 4/20 DAZE

This Easter Sunday, April 20, 2025, LA rock band The Tooners unveils their latest single, “4/20 Daze”—a soulful stoner-rock ballad with a deeper message. Released on a day that’s both Easter and the unofficial cannabis holiday 4/20, the track goes beyond laid-back vibes to explore themes of healing, friendship, and survival. Co-written by band members Neal Warner and Greg Piper, the lyrics follow a man lost at sea, symbolically adrift in a never-ending THC haze. But for Warner, the story is deeply personal—he was recently diagnosed with Stage 3 ALK+ lung cancer, a rare genetic form of the disease that affects non-smokers.

Thanks to cutting-edge treatment at the Disney Cancer Center, Warner is now cancer-free—a real-life miracle that mirrors the song’s dreamlike tone. Fittingly, the center sits just across from Warner’s old stomping grounds, where he once worked as an animator on Disney favorites like DuckTales, TailSpin, and Chip 'n Dale’s Rescue Rangers. “4/20 Daze” features a guest appearance by guitarist Paul Keller (of Bay Area prog-rock band Hush and the '80s supergroup 3 with Keith Emerson and Carl Palmer), along with solos from The Tooners' own Jerry Strull. From pain to peace, diagnosis to celebration, the track stands as both a musical journey and a testament to resilience.


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Paid To Die: The Exploits Of A Rock & Roll Bodyguard

In 1978 a new style of music came to America from England. It was rude, obnoxious and confrontational and the band spearheading this new British Invasion was set to tour the South, the least likely place they’d be welcomed. Anticipating a violent backlash to this coming culture clash, the band’s record label needed to hire a security team that could handle any situation that may arise. The man they chose for the job was Dwayne Warner, a bouncer in some of the toughest biker bars in Los Angeles County.

 Paid To Die novel on Amazon.com

For twenty years after that historic tour, Dwayne’s brother, Neal Warner, co-founder of the L.A. multi-media band The Tooners, insisted Dwayne’s ever expanding and exaggerated stories of life on the road needed to be recorded for posterity. But being a biker, the idea of being perceived as a “rat” was unacceptable and as a professional bodyguard who worked with bands such as Steppenwolf and Van Halen, telling tales about his employers was unprofessional so he adamantly refused to write about his experiences.

Neal, a professional cartoonist and writer, decided an acceptable alternative could be to write Dwayne’s stories in the form of a novel.  Names, except for Dwayne’s, would be changed and the “facts” of what happened on the tour would be buried under a mountain of action-adventure movie-style scenes. Dwayne had imagined his memoir being titled Paid To Die and Neal’s band, The Tooners, had already record a CD (Rocktasia) which included the theme song to Paid To Die so that was chosen as the novel’s title.

The novel was written in 1999 and was intended to be an elaborate joke for Dwayne’s eyes only. Stories of experiences shared by the brothers were included in the book knowing that Dwayne would recognize, and hopefully appreciate, this very personal novel which included a lot of something the two brothers had in common; a very sick and twisted sense of humor. However, the joke was ultimately on Neal, the author, when his brother refused to read the novel citing plausible deniability fearing those caricatured in the book might recognize themselves and sue. The joke fell flat and was locked away on a hard drive from another 22 years.

Sometime in the year 2020, fourteen years after the sudden death of Dwayne Warner at age fifty, Neal Warner was self-quarantining in his home when he realized that if he were to die from the Coronavirus pandemic, his finished novel, Paid To Die, the story about his only brother, would die with him. And so, on May 30, 2021, the 65th birthday of the late Dwayne Earl Warner, a limited edition printing of the novel Paid To Die along with a release of the single Paid To Die from the album Rocktasia by The Tooners will be made available for the first time.

There Is Still Time For No Time To Die

 It has been about a year since the name for the new James Bond movie, No Time To Die, was announced. The movie was scheduled to premiere in April so that didn't give us, The Tooners, much time to write and record our own theme song to the movie and be able to include it on our latest CD, Theme To A Dream. There are several "theme songs" written over the years for various reasons that are included on that album so a James Bond movie theme seemed to fit right in.

And then the movie's premiere was pushed back one whole year. That means that although Billie Eilish has already written the official opening theme song there is still plenty of room over the movie's ending credits to include The Tooners' song.

So, we are now asking all of you out there, like us, with nothing better to do because we're all shut-ins now, to help us start a "grass roots" campaign to get the producers of the James Bond movies to include The Tooners' No Time To Die in the new movie since there's still time. Russia, if you hear us, please help us get our song noticed by the Powers That Be. Спасибо (Thank you).

The Tooners' No Time To Die video.


The TOONERS' James Bond Theme Song

The L. A. rock band The Tooners have released a new single that is their original take on a theme song for the upcoming James Bond movie starring Daniel Craig. No Time To Die is the 25th James Bond movie and will hit theaters this coming April. However, The Tooners’ song No Time To Die will probably not be heard in the film.

The Tooners' No Time To Die lyric video.

Although the band members and the song’s co-writers Neal Warner and Greg Piper are life-long Bond fans, their Bond theme is actually more inspired by shock rock group Alice Cooper. Also fans of the movie franchise, the original lineup of the band Alice Cooper wrote and recorded the song The Man With The Golden Gun as a proposed theme song for the film of the same name starring Roger Moore as secret agent 007. The producers of the Bond films felt using pop acts such as Paul McCartney, Carly Simon and Lulu (who sang the actual theme song for The Man With The Golden Gun) for the movie theme songs was appropriate but a hard rock band such as Alice Cooper didn’t fit the James Bond image and the song was rejected. The band went ahead and released it on their 1973 album Muscle Of Love anyway.

This inspired the independent band The Tooners to record their own Bond theme inspired by Alice Cooper’s initiative and even the Salvador Dali inspired look of their song’s logo has an Alice Cooper connection as Alice Cooper, the man as opposed to the band, is the only rock musician known to have ever collaborated with the surrealist painter.

No Time To Die is also included on The Tooners' full length CD, Theme To A Dream, available everywhere starting April 1, 2020.

The Live Rock & Roll Rehab Show Tour

The Rock & Roll Rehab Show is a live multimedia rock music show that is the story one man's life wasted chasing the Rock & Roll dream through the Classic Rock Era illustrated with big screen fully animated music videos.

Hosted by Greg Piper of The Tooners who narrates his journey from The British Invasion through the New Wave Era while performing all original music created in and inspired by the times of his life.
 

 

  "real underground rock and roll theater"
"sex, drugs, rock & roll and cartoons"
"beyond 420 friendly, it's 420 incestuous..."
"... too loud..."