Woo! 500 posts. Woo…And Some Book Stuffs!

I was totally going to honor this momentous occasion with a deep, impassioned post about blogging these, wow, last ten years + but, darn it, I wanted to share some more book stuff so that shall have to wait.

Odds are it’d just be stuff I have already said anyway.

HA.

I have had an awful time coming up with an effective cover for this book. I had hoped at one point to get an artist to do up a cover, had mused over doing the art myself, shoot, somewhere there are about a dozen attempts at covers (which I suppose is similar to a young band drawing and re-drawing their name and logo). I was never happy though. I just couldn’t come up with the right image that stood as the flag for what this book was. I couldn’t scratch that nagging itch that something wasn’t working.

This year, as I was having the book edited by a friend I finally started to get the germs in my brain for what I wanted. A neighbor in the building where I was living had held onto her Halloween pumpkin well into Winter and since the building’s first floor is so cold I thought that, hmm…perhaps I can use it, so I hid it away for later use. Well, I finally got the props I needed and during a warm turn earlier this year I put the elements together and took some photos.

These are a few of the raw pictures that I took and out of all of the images one of them became the cover. So, here you go, a sampling of what the cover will sorta look like.

Sorta. 

Perspective

Perspective

Maybe there is something more to the Biblical story of Lot’s wife than we always realize. Something perhaps not intended but which is there just the same. Looking over one’s shoulder back to the past can be a dangerous, sometimes deadly thing. There is glamour to the past, a haze that makes you forget the reality of what it was like. Need an example?

Do you really think the 1950s, with its women’s and racial oppression, with its limited view of anything that ran against the norm, was really that amazing? Sure, our memory of it is, but was the era that great? Same with the 1980s, an era of excess and selfishness. It isn’t that those times didn’t have amazing aspects but that if we forget the issues we lose sight of how truly good some things were.

Such is the case of me of late. I am preparing for the release of my first and probably only novel and in getting that together I have decided I wanted to see what weird stuff I could come up with to put out with it. I had recently moved so it was a good time to go through my little archive.

BOY!

And an archive it is. I found drawings that went back to the late 1980s, when I was not even a teenager yet. I found the first submission version of my first book. I found old school papers, old versions of stories, and all manner of ephemera that showed the path my art has taken. From drawing faces, to space ships, to monsters, to zombies, to nothing for a long, long time, to the modern era of silly monsters. I put much of this work in a large binder for people to go through at the book release party and seeing it all, from the weird magazine I made as a kid to the early version of the first book it reminded me of the weird path I have taken to get where I am. It reminded me of how foolish I have been.

As I have said before I was told when I was eighteen and in a Commercial Art course that I was no artist. It was the nastiest, meanest thing I could have heard and it cut deep enough to stop me from doing art regularly, seriously for a long, long time. I was told it by a nasty teacher who didn’t like that I had gotten into the class not on merit but because I was in Special Ed. I was certainly not the best artist there, and I am not a great artist in any way, but you can see in my work I was trying, just not always succeeding. Maybe I should have been better. I can’t say. I can say that I am sorry for halting my art for so long. I am sorry that I let someone do that to me. I will never know if I had become a painter earlier, if my art would have changed, gotten better, maybe even worse over the years.

It’s not as easy to be hard on myself about writing. Even though I couldn’t find a publisher I was always writing. I was putting together ‘zines, chapbooks, and blogging and reviewing constantly. I was certainly not lazy over those years. I do wish I had had a better outlet for my writing. In the marketplace that exists you have to be someone to get published in a paying publication and the alternative are sites with few views and no money and at that point the benefit of your being published gets dicey. Though I tried, to be sure. I have to admit though that I wish I had had more outlets for my writing. Having said that though, I did pretty ok keeping my head up through all that time. In the ten years between books I wrote a novel, hundreds of stories, and never stopped promoting my one book that was out. I never gave up. I can’t say that it lead me anywhere, but it didn’t lead me to an ending of my writing, which I am thankful for.

But there’s the thing.

The past is beautiful, is full of hope, of promise, of everything you dare to dream. It is in the present that reality sets in and you see the limitations of your situation. The future, the future is the real blank slate but it is often a slate that is colored by who you are today, and limited by that same thing. You can soar or crash based on how you act and react today. It’s just a fact. But looking over your shoulder and what was and could have been will get you nowhere.

You need that knowledge, that perspective to move forward. You need to know what you did right, wrong, and what paths you may have taken so you can see where you want to head as you move toward the future. Without that knowledge you begin going over the well-worn tracks you are already in and it’s a lot harder to see the future from the bottom of a rut. But perspective, true perspective is knowing what things to value from the past and present and what to walk away from and survive.

Sometimes all it takes to change your fate is to survive, yourself, others, and the overpowering will of life. And sometimes you need to know you can survive to keep fighting and keep not give up.

And it’s all about knowing when to look back and when to keep walking forward, knowing that nothing lies behind you but the past.

c

http://www.meepsheep.com

A Declaration of Co-Dependence

The release event for my first and probably only novel, as well as a display of my art.

Art Fear

The Horror Movie As Gross-Out Joke

   There is something about horror, extreme horror, that plays a bit like a classic gross out joke. Oh, you know the kind, the baby in blender sorta jokes that kids tell each other on the bus ride home. The sorta jokes that you tell when an adult isn’t around because you know they won’t understand how funny it is, not knowing that some of those same adults made up these creepy dead baby jokes. Horror and humor are really close to one another. Really similar. Both are all about the delivery and the punchline. They just go in different directions because of the tone. Tell a joke about a clown standing in the middle of the street with a pie in his hand at mid-day and it’s funny, tell the same joke and it’s midnight and it suddenly becomes unnerving. There’s the rub. So, seeing how close these things are, it’s  no wonder that there are horror comedies that come out from time to time, mostly to poor reviews and reputations. Horror and humor are hard to do, especially when you mix the two. Ah, but the gross-out joke, well, that’s something a little different. A gross-out joke is quick and dirty, nasty and mean, and it is never going to be well received by the masses.

Ladies and gentlemen, I present The Human Centipede: Full Sequence, the ultimate gross-out joke.

   Now before you laugh at me, hear me out!

I have been avoiding watching Human Centipede 2 since it came out. As soon as people began seeing the film the reviews were all over the map but mostly were bad. And not JUST bad but horrible. Everything I read really worried me. I liked the first film all right, it wasn’t amazing, but it was a fun movie and was a lot funnier than disturbing, something I hadn’t expected. What I was reading about the sequel though reeked of pretention and absurdity and someone out to just top themselves. Little did I know that these reviews were accurate yet wrong.

So wrong.

What you have with HC2 is the horror film as absurdist gross out joke. This is a film that plays both as a joke and as a middle finger to people who were so appalled by the first film, a film that, truly and in the same way, Goodfellas plays as a comedy. There is a point in ‘realism’ and in realistic films where things become SO real, SO horrific that it becomes comedic. It isn’t funny to see Spider, the hapless go-for in Goodfellas, get shot and killed but the way it plays out IS funny in that world. It is funny because it is absurd. So too is HC2 funny because director Tom Six doesn’t take this nearly as seriously as his critics do. He is making films that are brutally tongue in cheek. Now, that isn’t to say that he’s a genius and auteur so much as he is a teller of dirty jokes, and honestly, pretty decent ones. The second film is his answer to critics who 1. thought his first film went too far and 2. to people who question what might happen if someone ‘sick’ were to take horror and extreme films too seriously. So plays HC2, as a ridiculous cautionary tale of a man so obsessed with the first film that he decided to make his own human centipede. The film is shot in black and white, is absolutely dripping with pathos and explanations as to WHY the man is how he is, and the film is far, far more disturbing in how the centipede comes together yet…it’s all so funny. It’s so over the top, so overly-‘real’ that you cannot help but laugh. And if you have doubts just wait until the climax of the film. This film plays the gross-out card so strongly that you realize he is playing it for comedy. The first film was so effective because it was pretty restrained, yet he still got lambasted for his over the top themes and ideas. So why not go all the way to ‘11’? Give the people what they want.

And that is the beauty of this film. This movie is ALL about the audience, and all about giving them what they wanted. They wanted a bizarre, disgusting film and so he gave it to them. And then he essentially flipped them off. And honestly, Six got what he wanted. Got such a reaction that the thing was haphazardly banned for a moment. He wanted to make a sensation and did. He made a movie so cinematic and ridiculous (and well made, he is an awfully competent director) that people really thought it was this abomination that would fog minds and stain the culture.

Yet…

It’s a joke.

The entire thing.

This film is meant as a lampoon of his original film. It plays in a way that is similar to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre Part 2, a film that had nothing new to say so it said the same thing as a joke. And that is why I liked HC2. Because sure, he is still going to make a third film (though it’d be funnier if he were always working on it but never releasing it), but there never needed to be more than one. And he knew it. I would never claim HC2 is art but it is surely not the trash people purport it to be. It’s essentially one long, dirty joke that people will either have a taste for or not. This film does not re-define horror, does not endanger society, and i t surely doesn’t pee all over cinema. This is a movie, nothing more, nothing less, and the more weight people ascribe to it only serves to prove out the point of the film, that we get too darned uptight about movies. That sometimes a movie is just a movie, and doesn’t need to be more, do more, or say more.

   Sure, you don’t have to like the film, you don’t have to even see the film, but people need to get it into their heads that, well, it IS just a film after all. And one that isn’t medically accurate. It even says as much.

Art, the great Art that people will talk about for ages, is around us, all the time around us, and it isn’t for us to decide what will last the test of time and what will be Great and impactful to the people generations ahead of us, but let’s let them decide if this film is great Art, great Trash, or just a pretty fun movie. We have better things to worry about, like how the heck you can make a fifty person centipede. My mind boggles at that one.

…c…

(I write stuffs other than blogs. Honest! www.meepsheep.com)

Reign It In

There’s a lesson you need to learn, and learn quickly, as you go out and start doing art shows, book shows, conventions, or get involved in putting together events – the need to reign it in.

What you find, in all of those scenarios, is that you are entering a world that while new to you has existed for a while, and because you are entering it you are suddenly disrupting things.  This doesn’t mean you are trying to do anything bad, or wrong, or will ill intent, but that in all of these areas there is a lot of passion, a lot of investment (personal and financial) and a lot of time has been spent to establish these things and people so as soon as you start joining the party it creates a ripple effect.  And some people will welcome you and others won’t, and you just have to roll with it and understand – the quicker the better – that any poor reception to you and what you do may be simply because you’re new, and not because you are You.  The Arts are very volatile, and things have gotten very compacted.  People don’t look to a great variety of the Arts for entertainment right now and there is not much funding for it so it makes things difficult to find places to sell, promote, and to connect.  You joining the party just makes it that much more compacted.  So there are bound to be some colored feelings towards what you are doing.

The thing is though, people need to get over it.

No one owns the Arts, or any arm thereof. There needs to be new artists, writers, conventions, art shows, movies, music, everything. We need the inspiration and outlet.  We need to keep pushing our universe outward.  An example is that a lot of traditional writers hate/d e-books.  They’re a perversion of the Art.  Well, the market changed.  Tech changed.  People’s needs changed.  And unless we’re willing to let literature and stories disappear we all need to accept that the Times change and we need to evolve with them.  The wise writers stopped fighting and the rest, well, the rest are waiting for the asteroid to finish them off with the rest of the dinosaurs.

With so many of us using social networking to promote, sell, and connect it also makes things much more pressurized because comments are instantaneous, feedback is immediate, and grudges can form and become arguments and spin out of control in a matter of moments.  The temptation to return fire when someone starts calling your work, your professionalism, and what you are doing into question is too strong sometimes to resist.  And once you respond you can easily forget that you’re online, that what you are saying is being seen by the world, and that what may have been a mere disagreement or misunderstanding can suddenly become a caustic war that damages both sides. You get so wrapped up in the pettiness that you lose sight of the bigger picture and that is your reputation.

People pay far more attention to petty squabbles than we think.  Our minor wars that we may get over in a matter hours or days will leave a stain that lasts far longer.  So for the price of our frustration, for the price of letting someone get to us, or for our own hubris in thinking we have the right to attack others we have damaged our own cause.  Perhaps fatally wounding it and all the work you’d done.  And that is what people forget – that the good things we do last but that the bad things seem to last forever.  At least as far as forever can last in this digital age.  Mounting a campaign of hate on someone, what they do, who they are, or what you think they are saying about you will only lead to damaging your own credibility and all of the work you’ve been doing.

Reign it in.

You have to.

The internet and social networking is not the place for vendettas, grudges, or romantic drama. It can’t be because our social networks are our new faces to the world.  That’s why we post happy things, happy pictures, and all of the great things we do in our lives and not the struggles we have, the sadness, the sorrow, and the frustrations.  Sure, some of us are less filtered than others but even then we must be aware of what we’re putting out there.  And that is even more important when it comes to professional work.  A loved one or friend may forgive our temporary madness but the world often will not.  So we must reign it in and always remember that in business of any sort, even in the Arts, you have to treat everyone better than they treat you because you never know when you’ll need a friend, a favor, a job, or a new client.

It’s hard.

It sucks.

But if you can’t keep control of your temper and cannot watch what you put online and out to the world when you are upset then maybe the focus needs to be more on that, and less on what dream projects you may have stirring within.

…c…

BOOKS!

(e-books only .99 cents!)

www.meepsheep.com

Knowing When to Say When

I think one of the harder things to do not just as an arty person but as a person in general is to know to say ‘when’ and to back away from a project. Most of us hate to admit defeat and we hate the idea that something can get the better of us but we have to be willing to move past our ego, past the short view and to keep our eye on the horizon. Failure happens and life is soaked in it. It’s the successful people, the happier people, who are willing to let the failures happen and understand that they don’t define the rest of your life. It’s when you let the failures overpower your vision, your dreams, and the long view of life that you begin to falter.

I have gotten a long, hard look at failure recently and it truly shakes you to your core when its something you’re deeply passionate about but there’s nothing to do but to move on. You can’t be willing to give up but you must be willing to adapt, to evolve, and to move on.

Failure happens.

We screw up.

Others screw up.

Time, place, and circumstance all play a part in things.

But you must be strong enough, must learn to be strong enough to move on. To more forward. To let those failures go.

Those traits are what define your passion.

Those are the traits that define a life.

My I Don’t Consider It A Fan Page – Page

If you’re on the Facebook and happen to be bored and curious as to my doings -

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Chris-Ringler-writer-artist-semi-professional-weirdo/174544945917426

There ya go.

Books?

www.meepsheep.com

Dangerous Arts

There is something that we tend to forget in our modern world of safe, mass consumptive art.  Our world of art for the masses.  We forget that art is dangerous.  That at its heart, art is barely restrained chaos.  Is a thing with teeth that, while usually tamed, can bite.

I need to bring up the wilder modern art such as works like ‘Piss Christ’ when you can look at something as simple as the work of street artist Banksy, who lays claim to public space that are owned but taken for granted by the average passer-by.  Banksy stakes out these spaces and creates art that is as clever as it is challenging.  Rubbing your shoulder as it slaps your face.  And these are but two examples of what could be hundreds, hundreds to counter the thousands of pieces of art that are ‘safe’ in comparison.

But is any art safe?

Not really.

Even the most mass produced art can find its way to controversy.  We forget so easily how something as simple as the rock and roll of Elvis was considered lewd and overtly sexual.  Or the controversy of a song as silly as ‘Louie-Louie’.  What we may not find offensive or intrusive can be quite the opposite to someone else.  Me, I fancy horror art, which would turn the stomachs and haunt some people because the images are too grotesque and macabre.  Or heck, take the world of Thomas Kincaid, who is a household name, a rarity among artists.  He is literally hated though by many artists because of how popular and how measured and deliberate his art is. He is a professional artist, and one who makes quite a living creating art that is for sale.  Not something many higher thinking artists appreciate.

The list can go on and on and all it does is show how anything, everything can have an edge.  Can be a blade.  We forget how dangerous it is because we prefer to surround ourselves with things that please us, that comfort us, that make us feel good, which makes good sense.  Why would you surround yourself with things that upset you.  But there’s the rub, while the art we love soothes us, it doesn’t challenge us.  It doesn’t force us to examine and re-examine our views, the views of others, and issues we sometimes choose not to face  That is the power of art – to make us see issues we otherwise overlook.  Even the simplest image can have layers to it, hidden at first but there to be found, for those willing to look.  And that is why art is so important, and dangerous – because it challenges us, and that is dangerous.

We cannot control art.

We cannot contain art.

We cannot confine art.

And when it comes to the art of other people, we can never hope to love or appreciate all of it.

And that is where we get so many problems – taste.

We are all so different, our tastes, our interests, and our thresholds and when someone impinges on our space we get angry.  We don’t like someone pushing in on us and forcing us to see and do things we don’t like.  The thing is though that if you are going to love art, accept art, and advocate for it you need to do it with open arms and an open mind.  You won’t love it all but you have to respect it all, at least the passion behind it.  This isn’t easy.  It won’t be easy.  But if you are asking someone to accept your passions then you need to do the same.

In saying that though you need to understand the power of what you are doing and creating.  Even the simplest and silliest thing can have an impact, both negative and positive.  I know this first hand from when some people decided to target an indie art show some friends and I put together when they took offense to our use of the term ‘guerilla’ to describe our show.  Instead of speaking to anyone they invaded the show dressed as zombies and disrupted the art, the artists, and the patrons and almost started a fight.  While I can appreciate their intention it was their actions that bothered me because none of them cared about the art they bumped into and knocked over, or the people they bumped into, or the chaos they created, no, their message was too important.  And that’s something that can’t happen.  The message is never more important than the people in front of and behind it.  Life is not a message.  The world is not a message.  And we are never fully aware of every side to the story, whatever it may be.  It is one thing to be passionate, but another to wield that passion as a weapon and to use it against people.

Sometimes we get so caught up in our vision and passion that we forget that what we do may impact other people.  We feel so right in what we’re doing, what we’re trying to say, that we disregard any feelings of empathy for other people who will have to deal with the art.

And it’s all a shame.  As artists we are underfunded, misconstrued, and are often put into boxes that don’t quite fit us and that’s why we need to band together and work together and support one another as much as we are able to.  It won’t always work that we can, that we have the same vision.  I am not naive.  Yet, we can work together more than we do, and when we do things to simply be outrageous, to shock people, with no further meaning, it starts to alienate both artists and patrons of the arts.  And if outrage is what we’re after then by god we need to own it, to revel in it, and to try to explain why we want it. Because if you don’t know why you’re doing what you’re doing, from something as base as wanting to paint a pretty picture to something as lofty as trying to examine the roots of poverty then how the heck will anyone else take us seriously?

There is a divide in art and between its artists because art is dangerous, and it thank goodness for that.  It is this dangerousness that challenges us, that challenges the public and forces all of us to look at the world in new ways.  While we may prefer the comfort of art when we pick it for our homes and public spaces, we must never shrink from the power of art and the danger of it, we must just always be mindful of what it is we’re trying to say and why, because if we don’t know, how will anyone else.  And that’s not dangerous, that’s just waste.

c

Own Your Dream

There is a scary trend that seems to be creeping into the Arts, and into life in general and that is the Get Rich Quick mentality of dreams.  There is a sense that one’s dream is SO important that others should want to make it come true and that it should supersede the dreams of others.  Witness the rise of the Fund Me sites out there.  Everyone under the sun now feels as if THEIR dream should be funded over the dreams of others. FUND ME! They cry, most giving little reason why you should, outside of friendship.

The thing about dreams though is that they don’t come easy, and they don’t come cheap. Not the ones that matter, anyway.  And I can say this from experience.

My first book is a story collection entitled BACK FROM NOTHING.  This was a book that I had put together and shopped for a good while to no avail.  I was not yet 20 and was shopping my first book and had no understanding that this sort of stuff doesn’t just take years but takes luck as well.  Along the way I came across a company that was interested in publishing the book…for a cost.  It was called subsidy publishing and was similar to what we have now with self-publishing.  I would pay all the costs to create and produce the book and they would release it, market it, and distribute it.  It wasn’t ideal but it was my only option.  I was a kid with little money so what money I could I put into it and the rest my family bankrolled.  They believed in my dream enough to support me financially and it’s a debt greater than I can ever repay.  A debt beyond money.

So I got the book published but as soon as I did the company went out of business and we had to pay shipping to get the books delivered to my house or they’d be scrapped.  So much for dreams.  Since that day I have been selling, promoting, and distributing the books myself.  What I learned out of it all was that, even when I had the dream, of being published, it wasn’t what I thought it was.  To really feel as if I had earned anything, had gotten anywhere, I would have to work at it.  I had to believe in it enough to get my money together, to get my ideas together, and to do it myself.  I had to go to conventions, I had to put out chapbooks, I had to keep figuring how to promote myself, how to sell my work, how to better my writing.  It took a lot of things, a lot of time, but ten years after that first book I found a way to get another book out, self publishing, and again, it wasn’t ideal, but you make work what is available, so I did.  And I did it, with a lot of help, but I did it myself.  And it meant so much more.  I love that first book, and I always will, but it wasn’t MINE.  I had to put the time and work into make that happen.

Another example from my own life is the convention I do with some friends. It’s been a dream for years and years to bring a convention into downtown Flint.  Since I love the horror genre it made sense to focus on a horror con.  I had been putting together indie art shows in Flint for years so I had a feel for what needed to be done, it just…needed to be done.  So I got friends together and we did it.  As for the funding, I left that up to me, to great degrees, because it was my dream.  I didn’t have a lot of money but I was willing to put a chunk on the line so we could do this.  And it was my willingness to do this, my belief in it, that sold my friends, and when they were sold, our vendors and guests were sold, and when they were sold we found another funding source…because we put the work in.  We were willing to do what had to be done to make it happen.

And that is what is missing in so many dreams these days.

We miss that even if you are given an opportunity you need to work to make it successful.

It is YOUR responsibility to make it come to life.

And so many dreams CAN be funded ourselves.  Not easily maybe, but they can be.  I hate seeing people essentially pan-handling for tips, for funding, and for support on something they are not convincing me is worth my investment, or anyone’s.  I want all manner of things, on the business side and personally but those are for me to figure out.  I can’t imagine going to people with my hand out and a little boy lost look on my face to get money.

You need to work for your dream.

You need to find ways to fund yourself that are not begging, that isn’t guilt, and that shows the value of your dream.  You need to make your funders feel as if they are PART of that dream and are investing in not just a dream but a goal.  You need to open your arms and embrace other people’s ideas, thoughts, and THEIR dreams that’s the way you show how important YOURS is.  Otherwise you need to find your own funding.

Which is fine.

Some dreams are not meant to be shared.

Some dreams are so personal, so etched into who you are that to change them takes away what you loved in the first place.  And if that is the case you need to be willing to sacrifice to make those dreams come true.  You have to be willing to do what you have to to make it happen.

We are becoming a culture of Artists who do more whining about how we can’t do things than ones who find ways to do them.  We need to close our hands into fists and start fighting for the things we want.  And it is in that fighting where our dreams don’t just become real but become valuable, become necessary, and lead into new dreams.

Our dreams are our own and it’s time we started owning them.

Until we are willing to share our dreams, to grow them, evolve them, and to let other people’s dreams merge with them and change them, we need to stop asking for hand outs and find ways to make them come true on our own.

c