If you are interested in checking my short story collection This Beautiful Darkness out you can find it on my own Create Space site for ten dollars -
https://www.createspace.com/3386414
You can find the book through Amazon.com as well, where you can download an e-book.
(thanks to David K. Ewen for having me on his show tonight! -
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/ewenprime)
Well, here you go, another option to read the new book, this time in the DIGISPHERE!
WOOO!
So if you have one of those new-fangled Kindles you can get yourself a copy of my short story collection for five bucks.
See for yourself -
http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002Y26YDY
Few things are as heart wrenching as watching someone you love die but I can tell you that watching someTHING you love die can elicit similar pain and heartache. It is torture to watch something you worked on and poured your passion into as it dies, worse when you see it dying but can’t stop it.
For me right now that THING is community art and it is dying…but it doesn’t have to.
With the loss of so many federal funds, the arts have been suffering a death of a thousand cuts and what money is left is sought after by a thousand groups. Imagine a mother bird trying to feed a nest of a hundred babies with one worm. It doesn’t feed everyone and those that do eat will eat very little. Everyone wants a non-profit and everyone needs money only, well, there just isn’t a lot to get. So you have a couple choices, you evolve, or you die. A lot of places though don’t have the foresight, or leadership to evolve. I can say from personal experience that for the area I live in, if you want to do arts work, you have to be willing to sacrifice because if you want someone else to fund it then you are dreaming. The arts, I am afraid, are an extravagance to many people and that is just how it is. My friends and I did art shows in this area, indie art shows, for over two years and never once did we ask for money from anyone but ourselves. Sure, who doesn’t want access to money so you can do more and accomplish more? The thing is though, if you can’t put something together on the cheap, then what is money gonna buy? For an art show you need a venue, a way do display art, and artists. That is it. The rest is so much window dressing.
Some people prefer drapes to canvas though.
The truth is that, for now and for the foreseeable future the money for the arts is almost all dried up. There are too many programs that need funding and the arts are just lower on the priority list. So what do you do in order to survive?
Well, you can keep fighting for the little money that is out there, something that is many times necessary in order to survive if you are a gallery or have staff and an overhead. The thing here is that if you don’t get the money then you are pushed into a corner, and then what?
So sure, you can fight for money but what if you don’t get it? You can work together, or try to, and pool your resources. The inherent problem here is that te more people that get under one roof, the more voices that will be fighting to be heard above the clamor and the more hands you have outstretched. You get into a situation similar to where we started, with lots of people and little money to go around.
Or…
Or you slim down and streamline. A venue is pretty hard to get around. You can only do street art in so many places and during so much of the year, but beyond that, you need somewhere to put art up. After that, it is about getting art and a way to show it. You can promote things digitally, and, frankly, if your artists are not invested enough to get the word out as well then they don’t need to be showing. You can supply your own snacks if you have to have them, and for music, make a damn mix on a computer. It isn’t complicated, just takes some work.
So which one is the evolved choice?
All of them.
That is the thing. You have to look for the money, and the venue, you should always look for ways to work with other people, other artists, and other groups, and if you are smart, you will always look for ways to save money. And while they save money they must never forget to foster the new talent. There has to be a balance where you celebrate the artists and art that has been around the scene but you have to also usher in the new generation of artists. There is a point of stagnancy that can occur in local arts where the old artists refuse to give up their ground, refuse to look for new venues and make it hard for young artists to break through. Without the mix of old and new, you run the risk of alienating the patrons and the artists, which can also lead to the death of community arts. And without an established art scene and room for an indie scene, the art community becomes boring and stagnant.
I love the arts, and have loved being a part of my city’s arts long enough to feel tied to them. Being tied to them though, I can see the sickness in the roots here. Too much infighting, too many unchecked egos, too many hands out, and not enough cooperation. There are never enough venues, too few artists that think beyond themselves, and with newspapers suffering so much it is hard to get the word out about what you are doing in a traditional sense. If this was only about the art, my god, this area would be a mecca, with so much ready talent available, but it isn’t that easy, and, in the end, nothing is.
Community arts are dying, friends. Sure, the artists will survive, but will the galleries and cooperatives? I dunno. I don’t know that anyone does. Unless we can support ourselves, and learn to support one another, things will only get worse. But where does autonomy end and group-think begin? How much do we need to evolve to survive? And finally, when does are simply become commerce and little else?
Time will tell.
Meet Mr. Bloos, he’s a happenin’ cat, a fun guy, but, unfortunately, he is trapped in a Hell dimension, but that doesn’t mean he doesn’t look good, just the same. So as he falls from tortuous dimension to torturous dimension, join Mr. Bloos on his journey, and ponder the imponderables like – does Hell have fresh linen?
Another funky drawing colored in Photoshop. With each drawing I am trying to add more, show more, do more. Trying to grow in some way. I am still learning, or maybe re-learning, though that implies I was good at it once, which isn’t the case. But here is Vikink, in all his glory.
I have been wanting to do more drawing and art stuff lately without the concern for deadlines but, as is always the case, time is not so forgiving. I drew this fella out the other day and, after way too much fighting with my scanner, scanned him in and colored him in Photoshop. I like him. I am still working on how to do what I do, and what I WANT to do, beyond silly monsters like this, and definitely need to find the time to work on doing a whole damn body and not just head shots, but, here is Nomster, in all his glory.
Brief interview with me is up on the Michigan Times website.
www.themichigantimes.com
Article by Annette Wierz
UM-Flint alumnus Chris Ringler promoted his second book “This Beautiful Darkness” at Pages Bookstore Oct. 9.
Ringler was born in Flint, raised in Linden and attended Lake Fenton High School. He attended Mott Community College and then UM-Flint where he graduated in 1997 with a B.A. in English.
When asked about what started him on his writing career Ringler said, “I began writing as a teenager and got serious about it when I turned 18. I published my first book, a book of short stories called ‘Back from Nothing’ in 1999.”
Since then, Ringler has had his work published in periodicals, online and in a magazine.
“I put ‘This Beautiful Darkness’ together with the help of my girlfriend and it came out in July,” Ringler said. “I had always wanted to be a cartoonist but kind of fell out of love with art and in love with writing as a way to be creative, as an outlet.”
This is not the first book signing that Ringler has done.
“I have only done a couple signings, both in Flint, and it’s fun. It’s more fun to do it during Art Walk, and to make it part of a fun event that is more than just something about me. The idea of a book signing for me, and it all about me was just weird, so I wanted to get other people involved and make it bigger.”
Being a writer is just half the battle though, it is difficult to get your story out there in the writing world.
When asked about publication and publicity of his works, Ringler said, “It’s hard to promote anything, for sure, but the book is a challenge. I don’t know that you can fully appreciate how much work you have to put into doing it yourself unless you do. You have to believe in what you’re doing completely, though, and just keep pushing.”
Ringler said it’s important to get book copies into people’s hands. “You have to get the book into stores, into people’s hands, into their friends’ hands. You have to build a buzz for it. And all of that work comes to nothing if the book is no good. The dream is always to find a publisher that will get my work out but until then I will totally get more books out. Hopefully, next year my kids’ book will hit. We shall see though.”
Ringlers’ book, “This Beautiful Darkness” costs $10 and can be purchased by following this link: https://www.createspace.com/3386414
MORPHEUS TALES posted their review of This Beautiful Darkness in their blog.
Dig it.
http://blogs.myspace.com/morpheustales
The Opening Night Jitters
Billy put the last body in place and let out a long breath. It was done. At least his part in it. Beyond the zombies and the skeletons wasn’t his problem, that was Mark’s job, and if Mark was still making eyes at Dani, well, that sir, wasn’t his problem, now was it? Billy got up off his knees and walk to the entrance of the Zombie Walk, his sort of homage to old school horror and modern pop culture. It was the third to last room in the haunt and was a set up for the big finale, a scene where the guests went into a large room with what look like more dummies of dead people but ah, there was the rub, they were not dummies at all, well, most of them weren’t. No, they were people playing dead, or undead maybe, and just when the guests reached the mid-way point in the room and were bellyaching about how fake it was, that was when the dead woke up to play. Oh, it was gonna be great. It was going to be epic, it was going to…
“William, Bill. BILLY! Hey, hey, hey shut it down. Shut it all down. We’re done.”
Billy looked at Nate dumbfounded. Unsure he’d heard him right.
“Yeah, you heard me. We’re cooked. It’s over. There ain’t gonna be no haunt this year.”
Nate’s eyes fell to his cowboy boots and he let out a sigh that blew his mustache out in a puff. He was beat, and it was clear. Billy pushed his hands into his pockets and kicked at the sawdust on the floor of the vampire room. This was one of the last rooms left that needed some work but it looked like it would never…
“Well, what if I, hmm, what if I could, you know, fix things, make it work?”
“Whatcha mean Bill? How ya gonna fix things?”
“Well, Nate, you just gotta trust me. Open it for one night, say, next Friday, and if that night ain’t a success then, well sir, you can shut the haunt down for good.”
“Damn, Bill, that’s still a couple hundred bucks of pay I gotta give people. And what do you want out of it all?”
“See, the beauty is that I will take care of things. I will get, uh, I will make sure the haunt is running, has, uh, is, uh, well, that there are scares, and all for a very low price.”
“Crap, Bill, what do you want? Spit it out.”
“Well sir, I had my eye on a new snow blower, say that Magnum 600 PX they got in at Wanger’s Lawn Care, and well, that seems pretty fair to me.”
“Dammit that’s, well, that’s…”
“Trust me Nate, just trust me.”
And Nate stood looking at Bill and scratched at his beard, wondering if there were still some crackers from lunch left in there, then he realized he was supposed to be thinking about this proposition. He had known old Bill for some three years, and the fella had worked for him for two of those three and, while his work on the haunted house wasn’t that great, well, he was spirited when he scared people, and that went a long way. Heck, he knew old Wagner and could get the snow blower for cost, which was less than the two hundred it’d take to run the haunt for the night so, well, it seemed pretty clear.
“Well Bill, I think we’ll just stay closed, yeah, that’s it.”
“Dammit Nate. Ok, gimme a six pack of Proctor’s Finest and I’ll do it. If it works, you owe me that blower. Deal?”
“See ya next Friday, buddy. Remember to lock up at night.”
Billy spat as soon as Nate was gone, the old fella’s fingers digging in his beard again for forgotten foods. Billy was mad, sure was, but, a sixer of Proctor’s wasn’t anything to fart at and, after he had the locals wetting themselves over the haunted house next Friday, well, he’d be blowin’ snow in style. Yes. Sir. Satisfied, Billy went off to get himself a cool one and see what the local ladies of the evening were up to ‘round this time of night.
The week passed like this for our Billy. He’d wake up at noon, wander in to work at the convenience store, get hollered at by his aunt, the owner, then leave from work and head right to the bar and, if he was lucky, wake up in some strange woman’s bed. It wasn’t until Thursday night that he remembered he was supposed to be working on the haunted house.
Oops.
It was ten at night and Billy was more than a little buzzed as he stood in his aunt’s basement peeing into the corner. This certainly wasn’t how things were supposed to work out, no sir. He had planned, back when he was talkin’ all big thunder to Nate, that he was gonna pull out all the stops on the haunt and really do the place up, really put some work in to it, and sure, he might borrow and idea or two from some of the other haunted attractions in the area but, you know, finders keepers. Well, he let himself get distracted, like he always did, and, well, that was sorta that. Billy finished peeing and stood wobbling a moment, the room sort of spinning as he tried to focus and that was when he saw it. The book.
The book looked to be one of his aunt’s weird old photo albums she always had sitting around the house, or maybe it was one of the weirder cookbooks she said came from ‘the old country’, but which for him was code for something that came from a re-sale shop but this didn’t seem like the other smelly old books his aunt had around. No, the other ones didn’t really glow when you peed on them, not that he could tell at least. Billy hiked his pants back up and belted them and stumbled over to the book, which he kicked. Sparks flew from the book as soon as the kick landed and Billy laughed and kicked it again, which made more sparks fly from it as it opened to reveal its insides. Curious, Billy knelt and squinted to see what secrets the book held.
Would it tell him out to make gold?
Perhaps it’d tell him how to win the hearts of beautiful women.
Oh, maybe, just maybe it’d get him that awesome speed boat he wanted.
Nope.
The book told him none of that, only revealing, in a list that really did look like a recipe, how to summon the dead to do one’s bidding.
Bah, what good…
Billy tilted his head to the side.
Hmm.
It took a moment but it hit him all right, and hit him hard.
Oh yes, it hit him, and so he grabbed the book up, brushing the dampness onto his pants as he did, and stumbled towards the worktable his aunt kept beneath the giant pentagram and the jars of body parts.
Once Billy had gotten the lights on and the book open, he did something he only did when he was alone and unwatched – he read.
Billy had sobered up by the time he made it back to the haunted house but he felt pretty rough, a big part of that coming from the book he had found, which had turned out to be a sort of How To guide to getting up to mystical mischief. From the look of it, his aunt, or some other witchy lady had been up to lots of shenanigans, or at least had some planned, what with all the stick ‘em notes littered through the thing. Billy knew the book was old because it had the same smell his grand dad had and, like pee and menthol cigarettes. Billy, still well into legally alcoholic, flipped through the book, not so much reading the passages as looking at the pictures, which sent shivers down his spine. That was when he got the idea – what if he could get some of these fellas into the haunted house that night. If he could figure out how to get these guys to show up, and could sort of command them then there still might be a chance he could get his snow blower.
Maybe he was drunk, but Billy smiled and started gathering supplies.
The easiest thing for him to have done would have been to just ask his aunt for some help but no one likes to do that, especially Bill, who thought his aunt might have some problem with conjuring up the minions of the abyss to do his bidding. She could be a bit of a bitch like that. So instead of asking, Billy just sort of, well, took her book, and most of her witch supplies, put them all into his duffel bag and headed towards The Gray Wizard’s Pirate Revenge, Mark’s haunt. It was a stupid name, to be sure, Billy just thought that wizards were never pirates, and didn’t think anyone else would buy it either. Oh well. Lugging the bag and its contents the three miles to the haunt was no fun, and was made less so with the downpour he had to walk through but it would be worth it in the end when he got that sweet snow blower. Billy bumbled his way into the haunted house and set the alarm off, which was luckily just a set of rusty wind-chimes that were set up in the back entry. The sound echoed in Billy’s head and started his guts churning so he sat heavily onto his but, and let the room stop spinning as he pulled the supplies out of the bag. He lined up the jars in a row and then pulled the book out last, which didn’t really smell that bad anymore; it had an odor that was sorta like spice or something. He looked at it and didn’t see any page markers. Well, that’s ok, they must have fallen out. He dropped the book onto the floor and opened the book. For some reason he was looking down at a picture of a meatloaf. He turned the page and it was a picture of chili. He turned twenty pages and it was a picture of guacamole. Billy closed the book and looked at the cover. Oh dear, sweet Lucifer’s corns, he’d grabbed his aunt’s cookbook. The book she’d written in the sixties when she had still wanted to be a famous chef and not a famous witch.
Oh god.
Billy’s heart sank.
He looked down at his watch, saw it was half past five in the morning, and it sank lower. He looked in the duffel bag and saw nothing but some old corn chip leavings and a dirty sock. His shoulders slumped and he felt like he wanted to cry. He looked at the jars lined up and saw the eyes were watching him, the ears were listening to his sobs, the noses were smelling the stink of his failure, and the, well, let’s not talk about what was in some of those others jars.
Ah, but Billy was not one to give up easily, not when a snow blower was on the line.
Billy stood up clumsily, hitting his head on a low hanging light as he did, and ran over to a mock work table that was in the room. He grabbed the plastic bucket that was on it, dumped out all the fake guts onto the floor, and ran back to where he’d left his supplies. He placed the bucket onto the floor and began dumping the contents of each jar into it, and when he’d emptied all seven jars, he threw in the corn chip dust, the dirty sock, and spit in the concoction for luck.
Now, for the secret, magic words that would create a horrible, evil creature to do his bidding.
“Shop…at…Salamander’s…for savings…and more…and…uh…uh…come forth…uh…evil spawn what does…my biddin’…to get me my snow blower….thanks”
Satisfied he sat back down onto the cement floor and waited.
Ten minutes passed and nothing happened.
Twenty.
Thirty.
DAMN!
Billy stood up and kicked the bucket over in a rage. What use was magic and evil if he couldn’t use it for personal gain? Ah, but when the bucket was kicked over, something started to happen. Thick, red smoke rose from the steaming pile of muck on the floor. The light in the room grew dim. And suddenly, Billy had to pee. Something moved in the goo on the floor, it moved again, and then it began to take shape and rise from the mess. A small form rose from the floor, the concoction forming and taking shape until before him stood something four feet tall and gray. Features quickly formed on the thing and, as it took shape, he realized the horror he had summoned and sensed the evil that would be unleashed. He took a step away from it as it came into full focus and took its first infernal breath.
Standing before Billy was a ten year old girl with long blonde hair and wearing a fashionable dress and black paten leather shoes. She looked around the room, looked at Billy and then smiled.
“You smell weird. And you’re fat.”
Having said this the girl skipped away from him and off into the haunt. Just as he was letting his breath out, the girl stuck her head around the corner, smiled again, put a finger to her lips and shushed him before disappearing again.
Billy let out a scream and ran.
Twelve hours later he awoke and realized the terrible thing he’d done and ran to the haunted house.
There was a line outside the place, which opened at seven, which was only fifteen minutes away. As he passed the people in line he caught the buzz – they had all heard something truly horrifying was going to be on store tonight and they were in. They had to see it. Had to experience it.
FOOLS!
Billy picked up his pace and, seeing Mark at the head of the line, broke into a run.
“Mark. MARK! Ya gotta shut it down. Bring it all down.”
“What’s going on Billy? What’s wrong?”
“I, I did a terrible thing. The haunt, the haunt it’s…”
Nate walked up on the two men, shaking his head at Billy.
“Look Bill, I knew when you talked me into that crazy scheme of yours that you wanted that snow blower bad. Real bad. I never realized though how far you’d go to get it.”
Billy’s heart sank. But at least he was in time.
“I am so sorry Nate, really, I am…”
“Sorry, hell, boy, you should be. That was the scariest damn thing I ever seen. Great goose gravy. I mean, you go in there, waiting for something to happen and nothing happens. Nothing happens in any of the rooms and the tension just builds and builds and builds until you can’t take it and then when you get to the very last room you find it. She’s sittin’ there, all crossed leg and nodding her head back and forth and humming to herself and you go into the room and she just looks up at you and tells you all your flaws and faults and tells ya, basically, what a big, fat, turd you are. And I heard that and ran out with tears in my eyes. It was the scariest thing I ever saw. You are a genius. A horrible, horrible genius. And you’re gonna make me…er, US rich.”
Nate smiled a wide smile, showing his bleeding gums.
“So, you, uh, liked it?” Billy asked.
“Like it, I LOVE it. It’s genius. And you can tell the kids are excited for it. Man. I wish you woulda thought of this sooner. Coulda had yourself TWO snow blowers.”
“You mean I still get the snow blowers?” Billy asked.
“Hell yes. And with all these customers, everyone gets to stay on to manage the line and sell concessions and crap. Hell, you saved the business, buddy.” Nate clapped Billy on the back, and as he did, so did Mark.
Billy smiled and felt a little wobbly. His head was full of possibilities now. A door had opened, a big, evil door, and the world was his. He could do anything now.
Anything.
“Whathca thinkin’ Bill?” Asked Dani, who had joined Mark and Nate.
Bill wickedly.
“I think…I think I am going to become…a snow blower this winter. Imagine all the loot I can make with that new blower I am getting. Man…I will be rich. RICH!”
Off in town the church bells rang and the crowd let out a cheer.
It was seven.
Haunting time.
And time for the screams to start.
