Memories

Yesterday I got a message from a friend from long ago, someone I loved very much but life took us in two different directions and so now we talk online every once in a while. She is married with some beautiful kids. I miss her alot. In the message she sent me a poem she wrote about something from her memories of us, specifically one of my favorite coffee cups. So I wanted to post her poem here because I really loved it and it reminded me of one of those really good times in my life. Enjoy:

MEMORIES IN A CUP
by: Jamie LaGrange

How many times have I tried to tell you that I remember?
To tell you that I will never forget?
Numbers…not enough in the world to count.
Here I sit, reading a book that you will never read.
In the midst of page 55, the memory emerges from the secret folds of my heart.

You had a yellow coffee cup; big purple flower raised on its side.
Your favorite; because it didn’t fit the mold of coffee cups.
Coffee, I brought you in that flowered cup.
The best you’ve ever had, you said to me.
Silly sentiment I thought,
But it still makes me smile.

I sit now, a lifetime away from you and stare at my own coffee cup.
I didn’t need it when I bought it;
But I couldn’t leave the store without it.
Green; Fall leaves raised from its side;
My favorite cup; it doesn’t look like the others in my cabinet.
The leaves feel like a big purple flower in my hand.

They feel like my past, present in my future.
A lifetime of bliss found in a week;
Emotions too big to pin to paper.
A small touch on a textured coffee cup,
A world of awe-defining love, remembered forever.

So, I know I haven’t been posting in a while. I’ve been working on a few things lately mainly booking a tour for my band Rat Babies this April when we will be touring with our buds in VA band Akris. Also I’ve been spending alot of time working with Craig Gum as assistant, costume designer, set design, and some times letting me set up ideas and directing the shoots. It’s been a lot of fun! I will be posting more about this later once I collect all the pictures together, so look out for that… In the mean time here is the Rat Babies/Akris Tour Schedule as it stands now… look for your city and make sure to come out to the show!

Ap 01st- Alexandria VA
Ap 02nd- Richmond VA
Ap 03rd- Raleigh NC
Ap 04th- Wilmington NC
Ap 05th- Savannah GA
Ap 06th- Jacksonville FL
Ap 07th- De Leon Springs FL
Ap 08th- Gainesville FL
Ap 09th- Panama City FL
Ap 10th- Pensacola FL
Ap 12th- Atl GA
Ap 13th- Asheville NC
Ap 15th- Washington DC
Ap 17th- Greensboro NC
Ap 19th- Fountain Inn SC

You can find more about Rat Babies and our tour dates here: www.ratbabies.org

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Whats been going on in my head lately, part 3: “Video Archive”

So I want to start making a video archive of some of the types of things that I write about in this blog, random stuff like what I filmed this morning, and maybe even the occasional skit or interview or whatever like what I filmed for Reecy the other night, which I’m working on this morning too… If you look back on this blog I did some of that with the “Love Bug” short I made in De Leon Springs FL, and I took a bunch of pictures. But I haven’t really had a camera that was mine yet, but I do now. I have an RCA ripoff of an Flip type camera, it takes 4 AAA batteries, which I need to see about getting some rechargeable too… but now I can shoot video anytime I have some batteries. I’m still waiting to see how long a set of batteries lasts for, so far it’s been a long while but they’re going dead. What I really need would be a camera that I could plug up to my computer or the wall to charge it, cause filming only lasts while I have batteries… the rechargeable will be expensive, and then the charger to recharge the rechargeable will cost a lot too.. wait I might have one… [checking]. Anyways, I know I have one somewhere… but I’ll probably never find it now that everything’s in boxes at my dad’s house, tucked away where I can’t even get to it. Oh well, so we’ll see how long this will last, cause I don’t have money for more batteries right now.

But I think I will film as much as possible, maybe using some of it now and then to make short posts here, but the rest of it I’m going to archive. In fact I should set the goal of trying to capture something, big or small, each day and throwing it into the archive to go thru later. I think I might just try that.

At some point I will go thru the archive and figure out what to do with it, maybe make a movie, maybe do a documentary about these adventures (my life in other words… do people want to see this stuff?), hell it might just be for me or someone to look back at one day when I can’t get out of bed cause everything has gone too wrong for too long, lol. Who knows? But most of all, since I can’t have friends with me all the time, this could be just another way to let everyone see I’m ok, or not, and I still get to share stuff I find interesting with everyone who couldn’t be there.

So I’m starting today, well I guess I kind started the other day with filming Reecy’s show, but I’ve decided that that’s my New Years Resolution, to film at least “something” everyday! and I’ll share some of it with you along the way.

I’m going to go work on two short films from some stuff I have now, well maybe three shorts…

Bus Cookbook Recipes: “Bus Brunswick Stew”

Well I concocted yet another delicious dish that I would like to add to the Lyme Basturd Cookbook, and this time it is Brunswick Stew, or well, my version of Brunswick stew. If you’ve ever seen my Bus recipes before you’ll know what to expect, which is a dish made from caned food. The reason I do this is that If you’re living like I do pretty much you’re use to eating from cans and you may be looking for something different that you can make that is tasty, filling, and yes… comes out of cans. I don’t have a fridge on the bus so the only way to keep food from going bad is to stock up on can foods, I like to have a staple list of can foods always on hand like: Corn, Green Beans, Pasta Sauce, and more recently I discovered the variety of meats that are canned as well, like Chicken, which is what this one calls for… So here’s what I am actually eating right now, I cooked it in a pot on an electric eye, but it could just as easily be cooked over a fire. Oh and those Giant sized tin cans that restaurants like pizza shops throw out after making pizza sauce each day make great cooking pots if you don’t have a pot to cook in. Ok here’s the recipe:

Bus Brunswick Stew

3/4 – Jar of Pasta Sauce (your favorite red sauce)
1 – Can of Chicken
1 – Can of Sweet Corn (undrained)
1 – Can of Green Bean (drained and smashed up first)
2 – Tablespoons of Nutritional Yeast
Dash of Teriyaki Sauce
Dash of Vinegar
Seasoned with Salt & Pepper to taste

enjoy

Bag of bones, and other great stuff found at the J&J Flea Market

Well I had an awesome time yesterday morning going out to the J&J’s Flea Market with Craig. I’ve been working on a project with him for the last few weeks, making costumes and props and setting up backgrounds for some photo shoots he’s been doing. We’ve got this new “theme” idea that we’ve been exploring, similar in nature to the Steam-Punk style but different (I can’t say what it is until we are done but it’s cool). So I made some calls a week ago to some local Taxidermist trying to find some cheap or free bones and antlers. I managed to reach two different guys, the first was a guy we meet at J&J’s a week ago named Curtis McCurley, who from what I understand has a huge track of land that he lives, hunts, and works on. Curtis was selling all kinds of hand made Indian tools like Knives, blow guns, spears, and he even worked with squirrels posing them into funny scenes and stuff like that, so when we met him I got his number and told him we’d be in touch, and when I was making calls to taxidermists I call him first. The other guy I called was Rick Carter with Carter Taxidermy… Rick told me over the phone that he had some deer antlers I could have if I just came and got them, so me and Craig headed over there right away to pick them up and ended up hanging out for a while talking about what he did, which was everything from taxidermy to body painting to sculpting and photography. He was a pretty cool guy.

So up until yesterday we’ve only had deer antlers (and a few costumes worked up from stuff Craig had on hand) to work with in the photo shoot, but then Curtis called back and left a message telling us to come back by the flea market cause he had a Bag of Bones for me!!

On the way to the flea market we stopped at a gas station for drinks and I got some of that fake weed stuff… I had to ask because they don’t advertise that they carry the stuff, but I find that if the store is run by Indian-Americans they usually carry some form of it… I got one called Green Giant that had a blurred out picture of Shrek on it, lol. Then, once we got to the flea market and we walked around glancing at table after table we passed on our way to see Curtis, and we ended up finding all kinds of great stuff. A table with very old antique surgical tools! A weird decorated box! An old-timey 3d view port, an old accordion, and much more… but the thing that made it great was that I was in the mood to haggle so I ended up getting: The weird decorated box ($3), a cardboard box full of nicknacks ($3, included a white ceramic mask which is what I wanted, plus a ceramic rose, ceramic figurines, a glass box, some champagne glasses from 2000, a glass candle holder, and some weird object I can’t figure out what it is), a bag of bones from Curtis ($0), and then I found a deserted box of huge metal gears ($0), some crappy costume jewelry ($2)… and after it was all done I only spent $8!!! It was a good day at the flea market, I almost wish we would have stayed longer cause I was finding deals left and right, but the longer I stay there the more depressed I get that I don’t have any money to spend… Hell that $8 put a huge dent into my budget already! I still have to go buy some beads and clay from Hobby Lobby today, and I’m out of money.

I’m just hoping that we make some money off of some of these photo shoots so I can replenish my funds a little, otherwise I’m going to have to go work with Cris again. I thinking that I might even be able to sell these props for a little money too, but only once we’re done with the photo shoots.

Anyways, as good as things were yesterday morning, last night sucked!!! I ended up getting a head ache (plus my teeth have been hurting pretty bad too) so bad that I was curled up in a ball in my bed holding my head screaming and crying from the pressure and pain, it actually felt like my head was going to explode! and I’m not exaggerating! But, I have no idea what caused it, but it was pure hell so I kept popping pills (much more then the recommended amount) trying to make it go away, finally I popped some nighttime Tylenol which helped a little and I was able to fall asleep.

Today I begin working on some costumes with that bone (deer bones, ribs, backbone, leg bones, etc), which is going to be fun!

What’s been going on in my head lately, part 2: “Stage Design” & “Janitorial Services”

As I mentioned in the last post, I’ve been thinking of what might possibly be “Next” for me in my adventures, which for the most part has me grounded in Athens, dug in for the winter… Honestly I don’t know why I’m blaming it on the weather, but it pretty much comes down to not having a reason other then I’m stalled here, contemplating life and what road I will take to traverse it. What’s been going on in my head lately, the whole reason behind the last two posts and the ones to come, has been influenced slightly by a few other options that have recently come open to me as well, through knowing my friend Craig Gum.

Craig Gum is a photographer out of Athens GA who has a very stylized look to his work, something very recognizably his own. I started becoming friends with him when he organized a photo shoot for Rage Saloon here in Athens, and then again when we had the chance to work together on a photo shoot I organized for the Carnivale of Black Hearts troupe so that we could have a set of awesome photos of each of the characters in the show (Mr Blank, Needless the Clown, Madame Surayyah, etc). I worked out a deal with Craig where we traded work for work, He agreed to take our pictures for me and I agreed to paint a mural on his wall (Which I actually just finished and will be posting pictures of asap). Since then and while I sent time working on the mural I have had more chance to get to know him and discuss ideas back and forth with him, which has made us better friends, and which has also spawned a few choices for me in the most immediate timeline to come because we have in fact begun working on a few ideas actually.

I’m going to talk about Stage Design in a sec, because I want to mention the Janitorial Services idea first because I’ve been thinking about it longer… The idea spawns in this case from a business that Craig already runs, which supports him in his endeavors for the most part. The business involves some minor work for some pretty good payout, but it’s not something I ready care about even though I wouldn’t mind doing it. Some light and specialized cleaning services provided to upscale clients who are looking for good service, plus consistency, which is very easily provided by me and or a crew I hire to do the work for me. The payout is pretty substantial and would easily allow me to make money working part time as if I was working full time, which would in turn allow me the time to do what I wanted as far as all my other creative projects are concerned. And, in the end even though the business is not something I normally would care about, a cleaning service, it would be my own business that gives me the freedom I want and need. So this is an option that has opened to me that sits at the very top of my “To do” list of ideas, in fact I’m pretty sure I will be taking steps over the next month or so to put things in motion so that in a short time this business could be catching momentum that would carry me onward!

The Second option that has recently opened up to me thru Craig is something more enjoyable to me, something I have long long dreamed of doing… maybe not in the exact sense that I would be doing it, but pretty damn close and that’s, Stage Design. In this sense I am speaking of designing and building a stage set up to be used in a photo shoot, first off for Craig’s upcoming shoots, but possibly this could be something that I take further on my own. This is also something that I could make enough money off of to support myself, although not near as much money as the previous idea, and with considerable more work involved even thought it would be work I truly enjoy and find very rewarding because it is a career in “Art”. But a would be an “Art Whore” in a way because I would be doing the art based on other people’s ideas, and for money. I don’t mind the idea of doing art for money, but I don’t want to fall into doing someone else’s ideas instead of my own.

Today actually saw me working on some ideas for an upcoming photo shoot that me and Craig are working on together. The ideas have been something that we’ve hashed out over the last few days of hanging out, and is turning into something very involving and extremely fun to me, because I am getting to work out some really crazy spontaneous ideas I’ve been having. It involved creating props, clothing design, and more. Today I worked on a few background pieces that I’m not sure how happy I am about the final outcome, but we’ll see how things look in the morning once everything’s dry. Also today we took a ride out to Monroe to meet with a Taxidermist who I called looking for some supplies… we ended up hanging out swapping techniques and some idea, plus he gave me 6 sets of deer antlers, which is part of what I was on the phone calling taxidermist all morning for… but I was blown away that he actually gave them to me for free!!! I thought I was going to have to pay more then I could afford for what I was looking for, but we ended up getting some of it for free, lol. Good day! I’m not going to go into much detail about what I’m designing right now, you’ll have to wait until I post some pictures… but there’s a chance that me and Craig have one of those ideas that shake the fashion world from the underground, an idea almost as big as the whole Steampunk surge recently, lol… we’ll see. But pretty much this is something that I could do on a regular basis with Craig, and something I would get paid to do, but most importantly it’s something I would love to do!!! I’ve also got a few other design ideas up my sleeve that Craig likes so I think I will have regular work like this as long as I just keep working on it, thinking about it, researching ideas, and looking for items and supplies to use.

Now here’s where some problems come in… first off I can’t do the Stage Design work while on the road, I need some studio space to work in. Craig might let me use his space temporarily but I will need my own space shortly if this is something I want to continue doing. So If were to do this regularly it might take away from touring time, and it might even mean finding another space to rent to work out of which would anchor me down more, maybe. The Janitorial Services business on the other hand could actually lead me to touring more due to the fact that it is a business with clients all over the USA and I could tour for business, to do the job, while also scheduling gigs along the way so that I could do both at the same time. But again, the Janitorial Service is not something I will find great joy in doing like I would the Stage Design work, it would simply be a way to fund other projects/ideas that I don’t seem to reap much benefit from sometimes as far as money is concerned, lol.

So my goal is to maybe find a way to do both… I could do the Janitorial Service business on a small scale, while touring, and those times I am back in Athens or I find myself anywhere I have space to work with where I could dedicate time to designing Stage pieces (Props, backgrounds, costuming, etc) for Craig to use… I do that as well, part time. And I still hold on to the freedom I seek in life, creativity, and business… doing what I want and love.

What’s been going on in my head lately, part 1: “America’s Got Talent”

So I didn’t really plan on starting with this topic, but it’s big, so why not? So recently it all started when I got an email the other week from one of the Casting Associates of the TV show America’s Got Talent. I haven’t had access to a TV regularly enough to have ever seen the show myself… until a few minutes ago when I watched a few highlights on YouTube. So, the email was to ask me if I would like to come out to New Orleans by Nov 13th, two days after I was having a huge festival of my own in Athens GA called the Moonlight Gypsy Market… This was our second year of doing the fest, and I had a pretty good selection of artists setting up tables and performers booked coming from all around, and we got some press in the Red & Black and the Flagpole Magazine…So with an email they were offering me an private audition with the producers of the show!!

A year ago this happen to me too! Yeah, twice in a row, lol. Now you may be wondering many things right now… But the most important question you could ask is: Why aren’t you famous yet if you were offered this last year too? Well the answer is that I lost the call back number when I accidentally erased the message from my voice mail before I could call them back, or write the number down. DAMN, that sucked!!! A once in a lifetime chance at being on TV and I screwed it up, lol.

But now, fast forward to now, after I’ve been doing so much over this last couple years, thinking I’d never get another chance like that… Now they are inviting me again, and wouldn’t you know it – it’s fucking two days after this huge show I’m putting on already… and so, there’s no way I can do it! So I had to turn them down cause I couldn’t afford to get there, and I didn’t have enough time to plan for something like that… Unless, maybe, there was somewhere, somewhere closer that we could do the audition?? So… Instead of turning them down I wrote them back and asked if there was another time we could re-schedule the audition for??? And they replied: “Sure, how about March 25th in Atlanta GA?”

Hell yeah!!!

Lately, I’ve been starting to think about what’s coming next in my life, what I might want to do, where I might want to go, what projects I want to do or drop, and which projects I want to promote and work on more. I have a few choices in front of me that I have to weed through and see which I want to do most, what can be put on the back burner, and what I could even start anew. One of those things is the one I mentioned above… performing for America’s Got Talent!!! Something that could take me far, possibly. If I even got to be one of the ones seen in the show it would be worth the PR because I could forever say something stupid like “Featured on… Hit TV series, blah blah blah.” that might make it easier down the road somewhere to get whatever it is I’m trying to get, whether it’s a free drink at a bar, more money for performing a show, or hell it could even get me laid, lol. Even if I’m thrown off the show right away, I’d be happy cause that’s the best I would expect.

So anyways, I’ve started contacting a few people who helped get the Carnivale of Black Hearts started, and a few performers who I worked with along the way, all the performers who have helped get things to where they are now. I want to see what we can all come up with, something amazing! But then of course I want to audition as Dirty Harriette the Bearded Lady too, lol!!!

I have until March to finalize a plan for this opportunity, so I’m getting started now so that I can be sure to be ready by then… after watching some highlights from the show online though, I’m worried I WON’T be able to freak them out enough to hate me, or what I have to do won’t be good enough to make them fall in love with me over some ghetto kid dance squad! I’m just a crazy guy living in a bus with a rag tag group of co-performers who only put in half the effort some times because life keeps getting in the way. Will we even be able to come up with something to present at the audition? Will it be worth my time? Am I good enough? Do I want to use or be used? Would my time be better spent on somewhere or something else???

So, I’m open to suggestions. What would you do if you were me? Or better yet, what would you like to see done on America’s Got Talent, lol???

Been out of it for a while

I haven’t been around an internet connection in a while, I spent about 10 days working a job down near Savannah GA with Needless, making in back in time for Thanksgiving which was spent (2 weeks) at my Dad’s house… the whole time I either didn’t have the time, drive, or connection to get online and post a blog. So even though I don’t have much to talk about I figured I’d post something tonight to catch you up to where I am right now.

For the next week I am back in Athens GA (my home) spending some time at a friends house painting a mural on his wall. I’m about half way thru with the mural which was started months ago, and which will finally be finished this week. While I’m here I will be discussing some business plans for a possible future endeavor that I might undertake over the next year to support my travels. Then… well I don’t know what I’ll do next, we’ll see what happens. Also while I’m back here in Athens I plan on connecting back with the other half of my band the Rat Babies to practice and write some new songs… I have been working on a couple new pieces that we’ll have the flesh out and see what we can do with it. I’m pretty hard up right now, I just went up to the grocery store for this weeks groceries (can foods, bread, peanut butter, crackers, ramen, and some pasta sauce) and now I’m back to having about $2 to my name. I checked my p.o.box today when I got into town, expecting to see that I had food stamps waiting for me (applied online a few weeks ago) but there was nothing. So I had to spend my last few dollars on hopefully enough food to carry me through the week or until I get my last check from Needless for the work we did a few weeks ago, I should still be getting about $120 coming my way. My bus insurance is paid up for the next 6 months, which was the whole reason for taking that job, and now I’m at a dead end.

At this point I have no idea what I’m doing next. I have no shows booked, no touring planned, no idea what to do next, no prospects even… but I’m feeling ok (except for not having any weed to get me through the depression, stress, etc) for now. I’m even thinking of taking the rest of the year off, or maybe working another job with Needless for a little bit just to get something to live off of for a short while.

My plans of staying on the road have been sidetracked slightly due to a few things, mainly the holidays, cold weather, and lack of money… plus I think I just need to take some time to think about a few things, like what I want to do next. I have a few options, so we’ll see what happens, I’ll go into more about it all soon, but here’s a list of things I’m thinking about:

- Rat Babies tour in Feb’12
- Getting back on the road even if there’s no plan
- Starting a business to fund my travels
- Writing/practicing new songs
- Planning for my America’s Got Talent audition in March
- Worrying about some family/friends who aren’t doing so good
- Living in the bus through the winter without freezing to death/starving
- Working a little
- Where my life is going

I’ll write more later… I’m going to watch some more tv and get caught up on my stories…

Stress levels rising

Ugh, I’m sick to my stomach over the stress of living this, my life. Before I started living the life I live now I use to stress over that past life, now that I’m living a different life the stress is still there, but over different things. I don’t seem to ever win. Not in life, not in love, not in anything it seems these days.

So the last couple weeks have been full of me not really doing much at all. But at the same time I feel a bit overwhelmed at times with everything that I got going on. I’ve been parked at the Chase Warehouse parking lot, where I know just about everyone here, I practice with my band here, I hang out with my friends, in fact I’ve been keeping a friend company while they’ve been stressing over their own issues. I’ve been promoting the fest I have happening tonight downtown, which I mentioned last post, I’ve been getting stuff together to sell at the fest, I’ve been helping my friend here and there with stuff that she needed moved, I cleaned up the practice space so that we could actually move around in here, I met with a few people for interviews, photoshots, planning meeting, and so much more it seems but when I sit here and worry about worry I start feeling like everything I am doing could have been done in a lot shorter period of time then it has taken me… I procrastinate sometimes, I get depressed other times, and so a lot of times I end up sitting here doing nothing because that’s all I’m able to get the energy up to do… and it all just piles up on me, weighing me down, stressing me out… I have no money and nothing I do seems to help, ever. So, I’m just talking out of frustration right now.

I went to bed last night thinking today was going to be an awesome day, but I got woke up by cops beating on my door because some nosey neighbor couldn’t mind his own business and he called the landlord of the place I was parked in front of (where I’ve been parked to help out my friend who lives there, and so I have permission) to tell him I was “stealing power” out of his building!! I had a drop cord plugged in last night running to my Bus’s engine block because it was supposed to be freezing temperatures. All anyone would of had to do is come talk to me and I could have explained it all to them, why I was here and what I was doing, even though it wasn’t their business in the first place. These guys are real haters towards people like me, people like me who are the lifeline of their business, if it wasn’t for people like me they would have never had a chance here, but now these rich douches are buying up all this “cool, hip” property and moving in to drive away the people who made this place great! In fact we just got notes on the doors of our practice spaces about our noise levels, a place that’s been here longer then any of the other businesses here and now that these assholes are moving in we have to change the way we do business to suit their needs… what about our needs? This is our BUSINESS, we work here, we strive for the same thing as everyone else: to build a successful business that will support us, but these “new guys” are moving in knowing full and well what we do here, but they think they have the right to curtail our business practices because it is hindering their business somehow. You would think that they would have thought about this before moving in. This is a warehouse full of artists and studios and artistic businesses and the such, but these guys are only thinking money, they think that I’m a nuisance, that I’m a criminal, that I’m low life that they have to sweep away by calling the cops to get them to escort me off the property!

And so, this is my stress… I have no where to go, no where to be me, no money. I wish it would be possible to live on my own deserted island far away from these assholes, but they probably come and take that from me too, lol.

The Moonlight Gypsy Market has me painting again.

So for the last few weeks or so I have been working hard on organizing a festival I call the “Moonlight Gypsy Market”. It’s a festival that I’m putting together each year, this is the second year, here in Athens that brings together Artists, Crafters, Unique Junk Collectors, Musicians, and Performers of all kinds. Originally this started when a friend of mine mentioned that she had problems with the average craft fair because her stuff involved drawn erotic images of nude women. She always got funny looks and was made to feel like she didn’t fit in with the normal craft fair even though she really loved that sort of event. I was already doing the Carnivale of Black Hearts shows and she mentioned that it might be nice to put an event together that brought the two ideas together. But that’s not actually where the idea first came from though, that’s just when I put the gears into motion cause I saw a niche that wasn’t being filled. Years ago, I couldn’t remember how many now so I looked it up… this was back in 1997, I bought a comic book called “Stardust” written by Neil Gaiman (he also wrote: Sandman, Neverwhere… two others of my favorites by him), and in that story there was mention of a festival called “The Open Air Faerie Market”, which if you saw the movie you know was an amazing fair of gypsy types from every corner of the world, some real, some imagined, selling strange and unusual items, crafts, and art… As I read about the market I couldn’t help but wish I could put something like that together myself… fast forward to last year, and with the idea being pushed and reignited in me by my friend, I finally made it happen.

And now we’re into the second year of the event… and I’m hoping it is going to be as good as the first, also maybe this year I will actually get some stuff ready to sell myself, lol. But first I have to promote it!! I sent out the info to a couple different newspapers here in town (Flagpole, Red n Black, etc) and I’ve got at least one interview to do, which actually I should have done today but I was busy working on the other part of the promotions: The Poster!

Lately over the last year or so I’ve been thinking about how when I was younger I used to paint more often (we didn’t have Photoshop back then kids, lol), but lately I’ve been creating only digital art, so I wanted to start doing more painting and I thought that I would start doing most of my posters as paintings first, scan them in and add the info with Photoshop, so that way I’d still be painting and still be doing digital art as well… and so far I’ve done some really cool posters (see below). The latest poster/painting was for this years Moonlight Gypsy Market and it has become my most favorite yet! I worked thru a couple of sketches over a day or so and finally decided on the design I ended up painting. I wanted there to be a moon, which would be one of the “O”s in the word “Moonlight”, but the moon would also look like it was the head of a skeleton that was holding up two scrolls with all the info for the fest on them. When I first thought of the idea in my head it didn’t look this good, but I am very very very happy with the outcome… this is what I ended up doing:

Moonlight Gypsy Market 2011 Poster

The painting was hand done by me on canvas 11″x17″, sketched in pen, then painted by brush with acrylic paints… once the picture was done, I scanned it into the computer (which had to be done in three different scans and pieced together in the computer cause my scanner doesn’t scan 11×17), then I added the information/text using Photoshop CS5, the fancy lettering work was done by using an already pretty cool font, but then using the “Edit>Transform>Warp” function to stretch out the letters the way I wanted them to go, in fact if you look at the different fonts on the poster carefully enough you will actually notice that everything on the poster is really the same font… I just played around with sizes and placement plus a little Warp, Then finally I saved it as a PDF. Now all I have to do is get it printed up and put up all around town. lol.

Some other ideas I was originally working on was a skeleton leaning against the side holding the moon up, there was another idea that had bats holding up a banner, and then before I decided just to do a torso I was thinking of a full sized skeleton, but in the end I’m happy I did what I did. Here’s some sketches I did while working out ideas:

Sketches

Here’s some other posters that I have painted over the last year or so:

Moonlight Gypsy Market 2010 Poster

Rat Babies 2009 Tour Poster

Carnivale of Black Hearts 10-2009 Poster

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LINKS:

Moonlight Gypsy Market

Stardust

I’m pennyless… hopefully that’s going to get me motivated now.

So I’m back in Athens. I have no idea whats going to happen now but I’ve been back for a few days and have been spending time catching up with everyone I can… I have a bunch of stuff coming up over the next month here in town that I have to take care of (Moonlight Gypsy Market, a couple of performances for Dirty Harriette at the GO Bar, and even a Rat Babies show for Holly’s birthday party…) but I want to take some time off and enjoy just hanging out getting stoned with some friends. Problem is that, just like when I was on the road, I’m pennyless!!! But being home and pennyless seems harder to deal with then if I was out on the road. I guess cause this place holds no wonderment with me anymore since I know this place so well… but I need some way of making some money while I’m here, without having to go back to work because work just seems like a huge waste of time for some reason. A couple of ways I made money on the road so far:

Shows. Shows were always my mainstay while out there cause if I have a show I pretty much could guarantee that I would have a little bit of money coming in, even if it was $20. But I can’t really do shows here in Athens and expect enough people to come out, I do have a few shows booked as I mentioned above, but the MGM is a free event cause vendors pay a table fee to pay for flyers and stuff like that, and I’ve already borrowed money from that fund to pay for part of the sideshow tour. I have a show at a friends b-day party so of course there’s no money with that show either, then there’s two Dirty Harriette the Bearded Lady shows coming up both of which will be at the GO Bar, still no money. So right now I don’t have any shows pulling money in.

Open Mics. While on the road this was one of the main ways I promoted my show. I would show up for an open mic night at a venue where no one knew me or what I was going to do. I would perform my Dirty Harriette act (bearded lady themed jokes, then a song, some times a trick or two) at the open mic nights because it is a stand alone act, it’s funny, and people could get a sense of how crazy I could be on stage because my act was something they had never seen before… and I liked that. I’ve done the open mic nights here in Athens, but I think I could stand to do them here in town again, but there are only some on Monday and Wednesday.

Merch. I didn’t make much money off of merch because I only had random crap I bought at the dollar store and re-packaged into merch, like the eyeball pops, the skeleton necklaces, bags of popcorn, buttons, etc. I do have some other merch that I have to go pick up from a friend, who made some stuffed animals for me to sell, I still need to make t-shirts for the Carnivale of Black Hearts and shirts for the Weird & Wandering Sideshow, hell I could even make another Rat Babies t-shirt design… but still I don’t think I will sell too many, not really enough to live off of that’s for sure…. but it’s something I do need to get done. Honestly here in town the best way I have found to make money selling merch is selling Game Day Buttons on the home games!! I need to look up and see how long till the next home game cause I could stand to make a good $50+ selling those!

Busking. I didn’t really do much busking this tour because I didn’t have anyone to go out there with, and I just didn’t have enough drive to make me do it by myself. But then again, if your busking with someone you have to share the take, and if it’s not very much then it’s even more disappointing to have to split it! So I don’t know… I should probably do it anyways alone or with someone else… Madame Surayyah said she wants to go out there with me, she needs money too.

Donations. I did have a few friends who pitched in money to help me make it Needless sent me $100 at one point even though he could never make it back to catch up with me while I was on the road, CG gave me $200, three other people (CW, LT, DB) sent me money via paypal to the total of about $50, Glenda handed me a $20 twice, and then I borrowed about $70 from the MGM fund which I have to pay back by making some kickass home made flyers and get the put up everywhere… thing is that there isn’t anywhere else I can see getting any donations from anyone, I don’t feel comfortable taking money from people to start with, but then when people who are already struggling themselves are sending me money it really makes it hard to accept it… but at the same time I wouldn’t be back here in Athens had it not been for those people. So that’s about $350 I got from donations so far… I have thought about starting a Kickstarter page to fund these adventures, but I don’t think I have enough people/fans to make it worth the while yet so I’m still holding off from asking anyone for more money. I pretty much planned to start up a Kickstarter page once I can put into words what I’m trying to do, and why I’m doing it, and then I planned on bugging everyone I know or have ever met for as much as I can because at that point I will have something to give back… although I have also already planned on making all the people who donated to me something special like a painting or something crafty, something just to show them how much I appreciated the help, the same as if the donated to the Kickstarter fund or something. Then again I have been thinking of doing my own version of the Kickstarter thing, but on my own site, and you would be sending in money to me and I would send you something cool in return, without using the Kickstarter system, just using Paypal’s donation button and an explanation on the site as to what sort of benefit/care package you get back from me for the donation. This way I could use the money as I get it and now have to wait for a lump sum.

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So anyways, I did ok while out on the road for these past three months, I managed to make/get enough money to actually make it back into town, Athens, in my bus, with my health and sanity somewhat still in place. I didn’t get arrested, I didn’t have to get the bus towed, I never even really had to beg for much help. I did good, got home, and now I kinda feel stuck again, with no way (but going to work a “real” job) to make money. I’ve been thinking about going up and spending a few months couch surfing at a friends apt in Canton (about 2 hrs away) to have a chance to “think” and work on a few small projects, but right now I have to stay here in Athens for a few weeks cause I’ve got stuff to do (although none of it is making me any money). So right now I have to figure out how to make a few extra bucks to spend on food over the next few weeks while I take care of everything else that needs to be done here… I might just have to start waking up in time to go to the soup kitchens here in town or something.

Oh and I just looked, good news, there’s going to be three home games in the next month!!! Funny how “home games” are good news to me now, lol! So I guess I’ll be able to get by this next month off selling buttons for that, if I can get by until then.

You know, I really thought I would have done better on the road though when I started. Of course those original plans involved having a support team with me, everyone working together to make the promotions/shows happen, and people to bounce ideas off of while we tried out different ways of making money on the road… but in the end there wasn’t anyone who could take the chance by coming with me to give it a “try” and to see if we could make it work… I ended up starting over with the planning while I was on the road solo and I figured out a little bit, but I think I still need more time out there… cause this 3 months felt almost like a “vacation”, not quite a “lifestyle change” yet. I’ve been living like that now for 2 years, homeless and scraping by… but to live a life truly by your wits only I think you have to get to the point where you have no choice but to figure out a way to make things work out without having any sort of safety net…

Now that I’m home though I have been finding that some of the safety nets I thought I had in place aren’t too structurally sound, they’re not nets to rely on, in fact some of the nets are gone… for example, when I am in town I am usually parked around the Chase Warehouse area because Chodd’s practice space, the one we share for Rat Babies, is here and that is where I spend most of my time… but I’m getting r-u-n-n-o-f-t from here now. The owner of Pigpen told me not to park over here (cause those kids I had with me left such a mess last time), so when I got back into town I parked on the other side of the building and got run off from there for no other reason then the guy didn’t like the bus parked by his business cause he felt it hurt his business’ image somehow… so now I have to watch where I park, and the places I can go here in town are disappearing. So that safety net is almost gone. Of course having a “real” job waiting for me is another safety net, one that I’m trying to ignore, but the reality is that that net might not be there either, who knows. I’m trying to NOT go back to work because I feel that it’s more a waste of time, taking time and effort away from what could be spent on my own projects/business… I figure if I spend as much time on my own stuff that I spent working for someone else, I’d probably have a bigger chance of making it a success, problem is I get lazy and I’m a homebody unless I am forced to go out, so now I’m forced to force myself to go get things done, and sometimes that doesn’t work out cause the laziness and depression wins out, lol.

I’ve been talking to Needless about another plan. We’ve been talking about how great it would be to find a warehouse/house that we could all go together on and rent out as a place to live/studio/practice/house-show space… so we’re looking now! The thought is that if we could find something like that, and we can afford it, then that would give us all a place to base our projects out of, a safety net for all of us to depend on. Needless could have his clown kids come over to visit with their dad, I would have a place to park my bus, and we’d have somewhere to store/use all our art supplies and equipment to practice. So that’s what I’ve been thinking of making my main concern right now because if I had a place to call my home it would give me a lot less to worry about… and I could still hit the road when ever I wanted.

A place like that would allow us to do more things that we would like to do like: band practice and recording space, enough area to create in, place to store junk, a place to have a studio where we can screen print, do crafts, or build props… and of course a place to sleep. I know one guys who wants to start a screen printing business, another who wants to start a button making business, I’ve always had an idea of creating a DIY studio/shop where we would do a lot of art type projects that would make us money to pay the bills but also be a space for friends to come to if they needed a space to work/practice in temporarily, I think Chodd wants another place to have his studio in other then here at Pigpen, a place for out of town bands to crash for the night, we want to organize house shows like I used to when I ran “Your Mom’s House”, and then we even have friends who we want to move into town with us too!!! It makes since to have a place, whether its a warehouse space (which I think would be best) or a house with enough rooms… cause we have so many projects and things we could do if only we had the room to do them.

So like I said at the beginning of this post, I have no idea where things are headed… but I think we have a plan coming together as long as everyone sticks with it (unlike has ever happened with the groups of people I knew before)… So we’ll see.