Posted on by michaelwconrad

Two Brief Cases of Note

Like most of you I have social media on multiple platforms. I often consider that one day I will die and I hope that I haven’t done or said anything on these sites that would misrepresent my life. I have a real fascination with peoples final posts, here I have changed/omitted certain names and places in the interest of respecting the privacy of the departed and their loved ones.

CASE 1: 

It was the day after Halloween 7 or so years ago. I was living in a midsize city just North of San Francisco. The city was small enough that it didn’t have a ton of crime, but just big enough so that it wasn’t incredibly uncommon it to be the setting for several murders a year. 

I lived in a duplex, sharing a wall with one of my best friends. The house was in an area we called The Grid which happened to be where the bulk of our friends lived in during that era. Now most of us have been priced out of that county, but at the time every third house would be home to friendly faces. Ours was one of the more frequented spots to hang out, in part due to its centralized location, and in other part due to our rather inviting street facing porch. We would sit on that porch for hours at a time, sometimes with so many of us there that it was standing room only.

Our friend Ian came through that morning, all of us worse for the wear, residual makeup on our faces to punctuate the dark circles under our eyes that resulted from the late night and celebratory libations from the previous evening. Immediately after greeting us Ian told us of a mysterious situation going on a few blocks over on the lawn of the Junior College. He claimed to have seen a body.

“I doubt that. Musta been some drunk kid KO’d over there.” I said with a skeptical sneer, Ian had a level of charming gullibility that made his report a bit less than airtight.

“No dude, he was dead, cops are already swarming over there.”

I hopped up asking the others if they wanted to go check it out, all wisely declining. I’m not the kind of person who typically goes out of his way to see such vestiges of mortality, but a body in the middle of the expansive JC lawn was too compelling for me to resist. It couldn’t have been a murder, the middle of the lawn was not where such an act would be committed and the last place one might think to drop off a corpse. It must have been an overdose or something, while the town had its share of homeless folks, death from exposure was unlikely.

I made my way up the few short blocks to the main street, directly across from it was the lawn, and sure enough, in its middle several members of law enforcement patrolled the area and were actively hanging crime scene tape around what was obviously a body, covered by a pristine white sheet. There were several other community members around speaking in hushed tones. Most remained on the far side of the road near me, afraid they might be barked at by law enforcement should they get too close.

Most seemed clueless looking on, but several from the crowd who had arrived on the scene earlier described a man face down on the lawn. Some described blood, but their tone wasn’t entirely convincing. Oddly the police had failed to cover the feet of the victim, which remained sticking out of the bottom of the sheet. He was wearing very new looking black and red Nike sneakers, they were gaudy and reminded me of the kind of shoes some folks take extreme steps to prevent from getting dirty. These were not the kind of shoes one wears to walk over the soggy lawn on the JC, not when there was a perfectly good sidewalk a few yards away. I couldn’t make sense of what had happened… were the reports of the blood true? The whole scene captured my imagination and as I walked back to the porch I made a note to follow up on the reports of this that were likely to start hitting the internet by later that same day.  

This wasn’t the first murder victim I had ever seen, but the memory of this one was striking, I suspect it was due to the fact that the shoes communicated something about the individual I could relate to. No, I have never been a shoe person, but it seemed to me to be a young person’s interest to indulge in such things. I suspected that the person under the sheet was of similar age to me, and when online news reports started to come in my suspicion was confirmed. 

The reports were limited and vague, as these things tend to be. One thing that was made clear in the articles I found was that this was not a homicide investigation. Various social media comments confirmed (at least in a rumorous way) that there had been a good deal of blood on the scene. No guns were recovered, according to reports, so it seemed to me that this was likely a suicide, with a knife or razor being the means with which the grisley act was committed. All of this was very unscientific, but I was interested in unspooling the narrative of this young man’s final days.

I managed to pull up his Facebook before someone took it down. His privacy settings were almost nonexistent so I had access to all he shared in the years he had kept it active, and what I found was a very troubling story indeed. The young man was convinced that he had stumbled upon a government conspiracy, one that reached all the way to the top. He was calling upon angels to protect him as he exposed the misdeeds of those whom we trust to keep society up and running, hopefully with the interests of the people guiding them as they made choices and passed laws that we were all to adhere to.

His photographs were another story. Yes there were the typical uploads of conspiracy minded types There were images of Masonic origin, hidden symbols in film and tv. There were codes and ciphers that made little sense. There were even images of the World Trade Center complete with breakdowns focused on their rate of collapse and what was portrayed as incongruous math to to bolster the idea that the destruction was not in fact due to the impact of the commercial airlines. Along with these, and other half cocked conspiracies were images of angels, both from the Renaissance masters, as well as newer images put together by someone with Photoshop skills and a penchant for lens flares. These images were far less interesting than the ones of the man himself.

His pictures, mostly solo selfies, showed what appeared to be a happy, well kempt 20 something. His eyes looked deep and meaningful, his hair was always perfectly cut and maintained, and his smile was wide and generous. Many of the pictures had inconsequential settings, the bathroom, seated in front of a computer (clear from the illumination of a screen), and in what I could only imagine was his yard, on the grass. He didn’t express his fears in these pictures. In checking the time stamps, one shot would be uploaded of him grinning like a child at Chuck E. Cheese with a caption saying “Just kinda feelin’ myself lol” and moments later he would post in text “The Illuminati designed DC in the shape of a Luciferian star, look it up, they got no love for us.” 

The warnings were just the start though, often he would lead in with such a thing, and then spiral into more and more dire personal anecdotes until hitting a fever pitch with posts about black cars following him, and feeling like he in danger for getting too close to the truth. The following day, or sometimes even in the midst of a paranoid flurry he would pop in again with a selfie, smiling, “Just got blessed up over at Avenue Barbershop by my boy Chuy!”

It all seemed to start for him maybe a year or two prior, beyond that his Facebook had the usual stuff, pics of food and cars, family photos, a couple memes that struck me as very typical. There was little to indicate that his future was one of great fear, terror so great that he would seek the aid of angelic forces to keep the men that hunted him at bay. 

At the time I worked in the mental health field, so I had some education about this kind of thing. I have never been the type to fully disregard anything as simply delusional thinking, but it was hard not to land on that when reading his posts. I wished that he had found help and that his smiles wouldn’t have been buttressed by concerns for his safety and the dark forces that were undoubtedly taking their toll, real or imagined. I wondered where his network was, noticing that the likes on his pictures and posts had been in steady decline over the past few months. He was alienating everyone with his wild ideas. He was scaring away the people who loved him, or maybe they were turning a blind eye because they were embarrassed about the kind of person he was becoming. We all notice in our own lives that our friends rally when we are on the upswing, when we’re in the struggles it can be a really lonely place… but this guy had almost completely spooked off everyone. 

I noticed that no one had written on his page anything like “Damn, I heard the news about ______, I love you man, Rest In Power.” or some other lightweight remembrance. If he had alienated his people I could understand not showing up pulling out your hair and weeping, but not even a simple “You will be missed.” It really made me wonder. He had a fairly typical number of friends for the site, what had this guy done that was so horrible as to not attract a single mourner?

As I closed my investigation I began to wonder if I had found the right guy, and then in his recent uploads I found undeniable proof that it was him. Unlike his other pictures this one had a lengthy bit of text. It went on at length and how he had found the links he had been looking for, how the secret empire had its claws firmly set in the small city we lived in. He named certain elected officials and members of law enforcement as instruments of this Satanic cabal that ran the world in secret. He cited a number of police shootings and the victims and painted a portrait of suppressed information and police misconduct. He did all this while calling on Michael and Gabriel and a number of other Seraphim to protect him as he continued to pull the veil. He said the Illuminati would eliminate him out for speaking up. He said his days were numbered, and that he was working to make peace with the fact that he would be killed by the police for doing what he was doing. After this lengthy piece of text there was a shot of his new shoes, those black and red Nikes I had seen on the lawn of the JC. The post script stating simply “These the boots yer boy gon be sportin’ when they take me.”

CASE 2: 

I had become a fixture in the Boston punk and hardcore scene in the early 2000’s when I made a hasty retreat from my childhood home 30 minutes North in Southern New Hampshire. I was in bands, played a ton of shows, booked out of state bands, and went to concerts almost nightly. For several years this was my life, music. During this time I made a lot of friends and even more acquaintances that I would see regularly at the same venues and basements that were home to such affairs. It was during this time that I met this guy who I will now call Jon.

Jon was older than me and if I’m being truthful he seemed a bit out of touch. He was into a lot of the same stuff that I was, but his eccentricities forbid me from ever considering him someone I really had an interest in knowing better. He was a weirdo, but he was close with a number of my friends, and seeing him so often we came to engage in friendly terms. He was at many of the parties I attended, always loudly gregarious. At shows he would dance wildly before the crowd was even warmed up, he was a real individual and he literally wore it on his sleeve.

This was a time in hardcore when fashion was moving away from the jockish appearances of the Youth Crew era, and was drawing more from Mod culture than anywhere else. I found myself wearing “girl jeans” and polos, huge faux fur lined parkas, and allowing my dyed black hair to hang to one side in a look that would become more identified with Justin Bieber in a decades time, and become a cartoonish reflection of what I considered hot shit at the dawning of this new millenia.

Jon owed his look more to gutter punk or industrial sensibilities. He would cut his hair into these wacky nonsense styles, half shaved, with a strange patch here and there. He wore a ring in his nose that had to be 00 gauge, lips pierced all over, eyebrows, cheeks, on his body spotty home done tattoos visible through his fishnet tanks. He had sewn bizarre patches in strange places on a rancid military surplus jacket. His boots that seemed comically large and he smelled like a dumpster. He was one of a kind, so unique in fact that I struggle to convey his appearance because any description sounds almost rational, but I assure you it wasn’t. His attitude was similar, Jon didn’t care when the party started or ended, he had his own clock, and at shows if he was enjoying the bands he could give a flying fart if the energy of the room was there, he had his own engine. I have to repeat these bits because everyone has their moments, for Jon it was his default setting.

I’ll be the first to admit that I didn’t leave Boston gracefully. I told a lot of people off, feeling like I’d never see them again. I didn’t mind burning a few bridges on the way out. I felt like my move was allowing me to speak truths that the folks I was leaving behind had been wanting to say but couldn’t due to being stuck in the same scene with those who needed to be humbled. Even the folks who would have maintained a friendship with me were met more often with unanswered phone calls and more unanswered internet messages than even the most steadfast could persist in the face of. I didn’t like who I had become in Boston and the move would serve as a soft reset, a means of personal reinvention, and a renewal in my journey to find out who I was.

Years later, things looped around and even some of the folks I was rude to found their way back into my social media circles. Time is the great healer, and a lot of the stones I had thrown were forgiven, many of them having done the same, or at least having developed the worldly quality of knowing that different seasons of life have different weather patterns. I hadn’t done anything too rotten, and nostalgia for the good times and all those shows and all that magic helped heal the wounds I may have caused as a self righteous kid.

It wasn’t as if we spoke all the time, someone would pop up, friend request, chat a second, and now you’re in my feed and I’m in yours. You know all about me that I find fit to share and I know all about the stuff you wish to share. We leave out a good deal, but most of us are pretty open about the good and the bad, and it felt good to see where life had taken my old friends. Most were doing really well, so well in fact that I often wondered what they thought about Boston’s Prodigal Son, who went to sunny California and spent the better part of a decade in some of the deepest depressions he had ever known. I was still doing the same shit, and most of them had nice careers, kids, and had moved on from those old fanciful dreams we shared. Most were contented to live good, wholesome lives and not worry about creation, or late nights and impossible dreams.

I never got a friend request from Jon (naturally) and I had all but forgotten about him until a mutual posted about his death. He has died AT A SHOW. Any idea I had about being the one true lifer dissolved in an instant. Here it was, proof that Jon was the real one and I was a fraud. This was something I had already begun to suspect years earlier when my interest in maintaining social stature by being en vogue began to give way to a mindset less concerned with such things. In shaking such aspirations I was able to reflect more clearly on certain people with queer tastes and understand that these were the real punks, and that all the posturing and posing I had done was quite the opposite.

When I became interested in punk I had very little information about what it all meant. The definition was added to as I went along, and with each new piece of information my prejudices as to what was and was not punk became more and more constrictive and antithetical to what attracted me to the lifestyle. For example, in the beginning I made no delineation between hippies and punks. It seemed to me that it was about counter culture, rebellion against the imposed status quo of the mainstream. When I got word that punks and hippies were in fact diametrically opposed, I threw in with the punks, they had better music. This kind of foolish thinking narrowed my scope to a pin hole. Folks like Jon missed that memo and as a result they were able to skip, what for me was an important part of the identity I had assumed in the name of rebellion. I had to build walls around myself, lock myself into a dogmatism so that I could execute on the greatest skill that punk ever taught me, the one where you initiate the most important rebellion one can undertake. This great revolution is the one that takes place in our own hearts when we realize we have become the bad guy.

I wondered how many other incredible people I had dismissed or alienated with my dumb rules and expectations. I felt ashamed about how vapid and shallow my attitude had been. I had traded in the exclusivity and elitism of my small town’s social cliques and had upgraded to being the one drawing up designs for a brand new caste system. I had become a part of a problem that got me into punk and hardcore in the first place, and now from my imagined place of esteem, I had appointed myself gatekeeper to a counter culture that mirrored all the worst parts of what made the social piece of public education so foul. Jon had apparently been immune to that toxic trap. Maybe if I had access to his perspective I wouldn’t have felt stuck in that old imagined identity, but then I might would have missed out on the important growth that takes place when you burn down your former self like a hated effigy.

Jon was not a drug user and had no diagnosis of heart issues or anything like that, at least as far as I can tell. People have a way of indicating such things, even in brief memorials. He just went to a show, like we had all done so many times, and died, right there on the dancefloor. He wasn’t assaulted or struck by a stagediver. He didn’t OD in the bathroom, and according to all records of the night he hadn’t even seemed unwell, right up until his very end. I don’t know what killed him, an aneurysm? Sudden heart failure? Something mysterious had taken this man and I had so many questions. Again, I would use social media to investigate.

I plumbed the listings on Facebook and I found him. He didn’t have privacy set, so like in the case of ______, the man on the lawn, I had access to a good deal. Unlike the man on the lawn, Jon’s facebook was loaded with mournful friends recounting memories, sharing their grief, and saying all the things they wished they had said to him, or would love to say to him once more. Jon was someone that everyone loved, because there was little to not love. He remained true to himself, something I had scoffed at when I was masquerading as one whose authenticity circumstantially was what everyone else wanted. It felt like such a joke, this guy I hardly knew died knowing who he was and even as I type this I am still peeling away layers of an old facade to find an honest expression of the universe I carry around in between my ears.

When I got to his final post I found myself smiling unconsciously as I read it. Jon really was a great and beautiful enigma and I had missed it. The last post was about the show. Some band from long ago was doing a reunion and he was looking for friends who would like to join him. He recalled a number of previous performances of theirs that he had enjoyed 10-15 years prior before their long pause. He was really excited to see them and to feel that wondrous feeling again, to feel young and to dance and to be free. He closed the post with something brilliantly prophetic.“If I don’t come back from this show it’s because I’ve fallen into the Time Tunnel. I’ll be back in 96’ dancing with myself in the past- forever.” 

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Guilty Bullets

I can’t imagine you will think well of me after what I am about to confess. Truthfully I’m not doing this to clear my conscience, I’ve made peace with the fact that I did some rotten things when I should have known better. I suppose I’m sharing this in an effort to create a more honest representation of my young life after the previous posts. Make no mistake, I was a thoughtful and sensitive child, but I was also a dumb kid capable of doing things that make me cringe in retrospect.

I had a partner in this, an older kid from around the corner. I was 12 at the time which would have made Shawn 15 or so. He was a big, rough kid who would have made a fine addition to our small towns struggling highschool football program, but Shawn had asthma that kept him from most forms of athletics. I was sensitive to this plight and when he would get gassed out I would hang back with him while the other kids in the neighborhood ran around, uncaring about the fact that medically Shawn couldn’t keep up. I say I did this out of empathy, but I was also using this opportunity to win favor with someone who normally would have dismissed me as a potential friend due to my age and nerdy qualities.

Shawn was cool, “wicked cool” as we would say, he was also a royal shithead. He had fought with my older brother, blown up toads with fireworks, taught us all kinds of “facts of life” stuff we had no business knowing, and was generally a bad influence. He was just one of those shitball kids who would later grow into a shitball man. As far as I know he’s still in that same neighborhood, in that same run down house, catching the occasional charge for dope slinging; really taking advantage of the opioid crisis that’s devastating huge portions of Southern New Hampshire. Like many quaint small towns across America without much going on, heroin has become the Great Pastime for once thriving commuter cities not far from major metropolitan areas.

Shawn grew to like me in those younger years, he taught me how to throw and catch, allowed me to look at the pornography in his tree house, he even once invited me to walk to the school to watch a baseball game with him. I became so excited by the idea and the permission granted by my mother (who, frankly seemed relieved that her bookish kid had an interest in something other than dragons) that I ended up not being able to go after all when I started throwing up all over myself. It was nerves. Similarly, not too many years later when I was to attend my first concert I became very anxious thinking that I would surely lose my virginity there. I had all of these strange notions about how life worked due to my sheltered upbringing. My parents exposed me to a lot of stuff, just not the stuff that would end up defining me as an adult, like film, music, and art. I had no idea that baseball games were boring, and that going to a punk show is not how one typically gets laid.

Anyway, Shawn kept coming around, while I was rarely allowed to leave the yard for extended periods this didn’t prevent Shawn from joining us in wiffle ball, or pitching around his Nerf football, one with a tail on it that would allow even an untrained arm to cast out long bombs that would spiral through the air like we knew what we were doing. My little brother, 5 years my junior would even be able to join, and along with him we added my direct neighbor Sammy.

Sammy was a pretty wild kid, foul mouthed and seemingly aware of life beyond his young age. He, like my brother, was barely old enough to be attending elementary school. He was the kind of problematic kid that had a spot with us only for lack of other viable options. There were plenty of kids around, but the aloof qualities that have been cited as the defining characteristic of my generation were already apparent in my local peer group. The other kids had stuff to do indoors that didn’t involve sweat, itchy grass, and hanging with the refuse of the neighborhood. For all I knew these kids had been instructed to stay away from me, perhaps through osmosis I had acquired the same reputation that Shawn was already developing in that little loop of stubby homes on the hill. 

Sammy didn’t have the kind of parenting that might protect him from kids like us. He and his parents lived with his grandmother and grandfather, but we rarely saw them. I had heard rumors that his father had shot a man a few years back. His grandparents seemed kindly enough, but they didn’t want us running on their grass, so my yard became the place we would do our thing. We were fenced in on one side, the backside barrier was a line of impossibly tall pine trees, with a bushy hedge on the other side. This backyard was all boxed in by the house and the garage that housed the hens. It was in many ways a perfect place to play, generally flat and soft enough that if you fell (and you would fall) the grass and soil would absorb much of the impact.

We did have the ongoing issue of fouling the ball off over the fenced side. The fence didn’t exist as part of our yard, it was a town requirement as there was an inground pool in the neighboring yard, owned and maintained by a woman named Michael, just like me. She was ok, but if we popped a foul and jumped the fence to retrieve the ball she would dress us down, admonishing us for trespassing. She rightly feared the lawsuit that would follow one of us falling in the pool and dying, or some other concern that seemed outlandish to us in our youth. She would tell us to knock and have her grab the ball, but if we were to take that approach we would have been at the place constantly. We ended up moving to the other side of the yard, but then the delight of a “homerun” became a collective groan from all as one of us would have to be elected to knock on Michael’s door. Eventually we tried to agree to a “no homers” rule that Shawn refused to follow, saying it was impossible for him to pull his swing, he was just too strong. Really though Shawn was the only one who would have needed to adjust, the rest of us too small and unrefined to hit a homer with any regularity.

Sammy desperately wanted to be respected so he was constantly jockeying for position, mostly by picking at my little brother Steven. He knew he couldn’t get away with much if he were to come at his older, bigger, playmates like Shawn and I, so Steve became his target. During football he would get rough with him, he would cuss him out, and at times get bold enough to try his hand at Steve in fisticuffs. Steve didn’t need anyone to defend him, already significantly bigger than Sammy (Steve now stands at 6’7” and had a beard fit for the Viking warship) and handy with the fists from having two brothers who would periodically test him in martial combat. But, being that this was my brother and that Sammy was just some shitbird kid that we hung out with out of some compulsory need to round out teams; I didn’t cut any slack and would often end up whooping on Sammy to remind him of his role in our backyard hierarchy. Shawn seemed to really enjoy such moments, egging on both sides equally until it became physical (usually briefly, with wrestling and choking being the primary violent engagement) and Sammy either retreated home or would cool his jets.

We all knew that Sammy, like Shawn was asthmatic. While Shawn got by with a couple puffs off of his inhaler, Sammy had this whole mask situation he had to do a couple times a day it seemed. It looked like an oxygen mask from TV and would puff out thick, milky, plumes of vapor. He needed to wear it for several minutes and more than once we left him behind, youthful impatience not allowing even a few moments delay once plans were set. If we did go out we would have to scamper off home by the time the streetlights came on, so time was a commodity we couldn’t spare, even if it meant leaving Sammy out entirely.

I don’t recall Sammy ever losing his wind like Shawn would, maybe that mask was something Shawn really could have used too, or maybe Sammy was just so damned determined to find his place in the pack that he refused to ever allow us to see such a thing. Sammy was actually kind of a bad ass now that I look back on it, a real turd maybe, but he was tough as hell.

One day he and Steve were starting to get into it and uncharacteristically Shawn broke up a scrum between the two. Incredibly he said was sick of the violence. He had something else in mind, a more gentlemanly way to settle the dispute. 

“We’re gonna do a decathlon.” Shawn said, like we were all supposed to know what that meant. I was vaguely familiar with the term, but I didn’t actually know what events comprised such a thing. “10 challenges, 10 tests of strength, endurance, and agility. Winner take all.” What the winner would take was never questioned and would remain unidentified. It was actually a brilliant way to end the fight because suddenly the three of us were all so enthralled at the idea of a decathlon that the dispute became unimportant.

“I’m gonna be Sammy’s coach and Mike is gonna be Steve’s.” Even then I hated being called “Mike” but whatever- DECATHLON!

“We go to 10, each one is worth 1 point. Who ever wins more events is the… winner.” Shawn continued, we were all glad that he was being thorough, it seemed like he knew exactly what he was talking about and we were glad to have someone so worldly in our clique.

“Now, before we start I need a coaches meeting, you guys start stretching out, we will be right with you.” Shawn said authoritatively, then grabbed me around the shoulder and pulled me along to the side yard by the oak tree that was a haven for the hated and reviled gypsy moth caterpillars.

“I’m gonna make sure Steve wins.” Shawn said with a wry grin, quietly so the guys couldn’t hear.

“How ya gonna do that?” I said. I didn’t think Steve needed any unfair advantage, but I was all ears.

“I’m gonna wear his ass out. His asthma will get him, it’ll be cake!” Shawn said devilishly, I just smiled back, unsure of what the plan was still but not wanting to look like I wasn’t keeping up.

We returned to our competitors. I didn’t know what to do so I just had Steve stretch out, meanwhile Sammy was kicking out burpees while Shawn, as his coach barked encouragement. The burpee is essentially a form of torture, if you’ve ever had the misfortune of doing them, you too will know the torment and toll it takes. After a couple sets of burpees Shawn saw fit to initiate the first round of the decathlon, a sprint to the end of the yard and back.

Sammy was visibly sucking wind already as he lined up against Steve, and the pair took completely untrained three point positions at the imaginary starting like. Shawn counted down from 3 and they took off.

Being bigger was a disadvantage in this event, but Steve was able to trounce Sammy without issue in what may have otherwise been a pretty close race. Back at the start Steve was awarded his first point and Sammy was commanded to do a set of 50 jumping jacks.

“You’re just not warmed up yet, now beat your face!” Shawn shouted, echoing something he had heard at football tryouts. In this case “beating your face” amounted to push-ups, it was a new term for me. Once Sammy could do no more, it was on to the next part of the decathlon which was the long jump. After Steve made short work of him in that one it was immediately followed by the triple jump, and again the already exhausted Sammy came up short, in one part due to having all the gas sucked from his tank, in other part simply by being physically smaller than my brother.

The events continued on and eventually the coaching sessions became even more intense, at times with all three of us shouting at him to do more and more strenuous prep work between events. To his credit Sammy was keeping up with the demands. Sammy didn’t win a single event, and as we celebrated Steve’s gold medal, Sammy slumped under that gnarly old oak tree panting like a dog, his face blotchy with reddened cheeks, and a very pale hue elsewhere. His lips were purple and he said very little. Sammy was right there on the edge of a significant asthma attack.

I don’t feel good about this, this is just one of those things that dumb kids do prior to the development of a well defined moral compass. At the time I felt no remorse, but looking back on it this was incredibly cruel. The very thing that enabled me to forge a kind of friendship with Shawn was being taken advantage of and I was unable to see how heartless and stupid I had been to allow such a thing to happen. Sammy recovered without a major medical issue, but it did take some time for him to rise and find his legs again. 

We continued to play and Sammy, being as young as he was, never realized how he had worked over by a couple of idiots. He was happy to have been coached by the oldest and coolest among us, and that is the way of kids. We just want to be seen, and in Sammy’s case I don’t know that he got a lot of that from his father. 

I didn’t learn anything from this situation at the time, there is no great moral victory here, and on the scale of bad things I’ve done it doesn’t really rank, all’s well that ends well right? Sammy didn’t get killed by the neighborhood kids… but this is one of those memories that pops up every once in awhile and chills me in the same way a close call with a bad car accident might haunt you, a dodged bullet.

This was not the last time I would be the bullet.

Posted on by michaelwconrad · 2 Comments

Dewey(?)

I hid it in my closet. I promised myself I wouldn’t look at it anymore. 

My memory is such now that I can’t even say for certain that it even existed and I wouldn’t even know where to begin with a Google search for proof of it actually being a real thing. I’m pretty sure my brother wouldn’t remember it so that’s a dead end too. In reality it doesn’t matter if it ever existed anyway, memories serve the purpose of informing future choices, and nothing- even a revelation that it was an item I simply imagined- could undo the idea of it. This is the kind of thing that comes to mind when it is idle, or at the precipice of sleep, times when the mire of the subconscious rises and floods over manufactured ideations of the self. This is fundamental now, it’s veracity is no longer relevant.

It was a coloring book, a cheaply produced and easily purchased means of keeping the kids tied up, even for a few fleeting moments so that my mother could have a second to attend to the other pressing matters of keeping the home. The book had a high gloss, color cover and ragged newsprint interior, the perfect vector for the broken assembly of crayons we kept in a snap-lid tupperware container. This book was a Huey, Dewey, and Louie theme, and it haunted my young life.

Crayons were a big part of my youth, and remain a medium that interests me. I love the chaos they bring to the table, and their versatility. These are especially valuable when you’re young because they’re cheap and don’t require much to keep them in use. One might use the plastic sharpener affixed to the large collections, the ones with the coveted metallic hues, but most of us didn’t have that did we? Upkeep requires only that you peel the paper sleeve back if they get too short, and some of us would remove those entirely. I’m pretty sure that the kids that removed the paper all the way are among those most likely to have sociopathic tendencies, or the types who buy cases of single use plastic water bottles, the ones full of water stolen from municipal sources and redistributed to wealthy. The removal of the paper was at times unavoidable, but to willfully do so (without intention of broadside fill applications of course) seemed sinful to me. Many of the cheap crayons I used would slide from their paper in their own rebellion, and this always caused me some dismay. I would make an effort to ensure that they remained paired, which was often impossible, as they would again escape the sleeve in the jostling of their container.

Melting crayons on a hot lightbulb was a whole other matter. Yes it was wasteful, but it was 1 part science and 2 parts art to my brother and I. The act was taboo in the Conrad house, but we couldn’t stop. The evidence was impossible to obscure, between the smells and the dripping stains left on the bulbs, we always got caught. I don’t recall any heroic efforts made by my parents to prevent such actions, but we must have been dressed down a time or two for our indiscretions, I simply cannot remember those reprisals.

  We had filled out a number of the pages, my brother being a couple years my senior, was able to stay in the lines and even incorporate advanced shading techniques. I emulated his touch, but often in an effort to complete the piece I would leave streaks of darkness where I had applied too much pressure, run fills of the wrong color on elements, and of course find my crayon dancing its way outside of the line art in ways that revealed my lack of fine motor skills. My mother was always supportive, and was bold enough to let me know that when I colored I could use any color palate I desired, and to remind me that the lines were mostly a suggestion. She was very kind, and while we weren’t exactly the “hang it on the fridge and give this boy a bow” kind of family, her support of the arts was as genuine as a tired mother of 2 (soon to be 3) could muster. 

I made a discovery though, one day, one that would require me to hide this book away and hope to never see it again.

I have been called many things in my now 40 years of life to shame me for my empathy. New England remains a bastion for machismo and gender bias, and while it wasn’t the hot topic then that it has become in today’s world, this too was something that my mother protected me from. She had her reductive moments, but when I would cry she would console me. When the other kids called me a “cry baby” or take shots at my sensitive nature, she would always remind me that the world needs more heart, and that I should never be ashamed to express my sadness.

Even with my mothers support I kept some of these expressions to myself. I knew that understanding had limits and that there were going to be times in life I had to march forward with the stoic knowledge that our existence is defined by pain and suffering. I was 5 years old and already learning unavoidable truths that stood like monoliths in my developing world view. I had become aware of death. I knew that when a baby was born there would be blood, and pain, and tears of both the mother and her child. I knew that this would be reflected in the end, having seen hardened adults weep at the loss of a loved one. I was beginning to see that while tragedy and sadness at times summoned tears, sometimes we cry for reasons mysterious to the world, and these tears often called for explanation.

I had to hide the book because it had made me cry and I didn’t believe that my expression of grief would be understood or accepted. I had to tuck it away under winter clothes and sundry storage items because I knew I would be unable to find the words to validate my cry baby showing. The book was hidden now and I would never have to look at it again.

But something strange happened and I did look again. In fact it became a bit of a preoccupation to sneak off to the bedroom, pop open the closet, dig deep for it and look at it, but only when I was alone and wouldn’t have to explain why I was crying. I didn’t enjoy the crying, and I’m not entirely sure what it was all about or why I insisted on revisiting this private pain, sometimes multiple times in a day. At times it felt like a compulsion, but it wasn’t as if I feared some malady if I didn’t look, or felt incomplete if I didn’t conduct the ritual. I think I was trying to make sense of what I was seeing and trying to conquer the empathy, or at the very least define it.

I guess I liken it to pulling out love letters from a former partner, or gazing at a picture of a departed loved one. Aside from rolling around in memories for comfort, this process seems to me a brave act of confronting pain rather that keeping it tucked away in the folds of a wounded heart. I have never been the kind of person who indulges in such activities routinely, but this situation with the Huey, Dewey, and Louie coloring book might have been my young version of such an act.

The cover was hard for me to look at.

We must have had that particular book for awhile before I noticed it, but when I did it bothered me in an exquisite way that I hadn’t felt in my short life prior to that. You see, we were a poor family, my mother would later tell me that we were not poor, we were just “upper-lower-middle class” which in a town of straight up middle-upper class folks felt poor. She was a writer, so her language was well honed and able to reframe our economic status in a way that felt less dire, but we were poor. We ate, we went to the doctors (sometimes) and were clothed and housed, but otherwise the struggle was there. We lived on a fixed budget, even food was, at times a commodity that proved limited toward the end of the week as my father awaited his paycheck. It was tight enough that I remember my brother getting chewed out for hiding a few slices of salami under his pillow- this stuff was for lunch, but he was hungry and only the mealy apples were to be used for snacking. We eventually got put on the free lunch voucher system at school to the ignorant ridicule of our peers, which only added to our hunger. We often opted not to use the vouchers for fear of harassment from our schoolmates who knew no better. It may have been this economic limitation that was contributing to my tears, but I suspect I was too young to understand all that. I just understood toys. If a toy became broken or lost it would be gone forever, there would be no replacement- maybe the tears were about death after all?

The cover showed the duck brothers playing with Matchbox cars. Having launched the cars off of a ramp two of the cars had collided, resulting in one becoming broken in the process. Two of the brothers laughed and smiled while the third Dewey(?) looked on in dismay at the destruction of his toy. He had a single tear squirting from his avian eye, a look and a tear that informed me that he would be left out as the other boys continued to play with their cars. That’s all. Was I crying over the idea of the loss of a material thing, something that in my adult life I have made an effort to not place too much stock in? Was I somehow preparing myself for the loss of my material goods? Feeling left out? Poverty? Death? Empathy? Sadness over the great truth that while some suffer others continue to laugh a play? Cruelty? The end? Lack of control? Why did I keep returning to this  painful meditation on losing something you love?

In a way it now feels silly to confess. While I say I was poor, I was taken care of. I wasn’t being raised in a dirty field under a corrugated tin roof, drinking befouled water from the creases left behind by a machine of war. I wasn’t watching friends and family get erased from existence by explosions and gunfire, or diseases long thought conquered by the developed world. I wasn’t scrabbling for government cheese, wearing shirts printed for the losing team of the Super Bowl. I was upper-lower-middle class, white, American, male, I had it easy by almost every metric of comparison, maybe I just didn’t know that yet. I had a coloring book hidden in my closet.

NOTE- So I did it with remarkable ease. I found the book in question in a single Google search and was surprised to find that Dewey(?) is in fact, not crying. I wonder now if that was an addition that my brother made, or worse, I may have been the one to do so. I could have added that and felt shame over what I did, which would only add to the bizarre quality of the whole situation. It’s entirely possible that over the years I tagged it on in my remembrance to give some context to my interpretation of what was going on with that cover to explain to myself why the book lingers on in my thoughts some 35 years on. 35 years of remembering SOMETHING, some pain I have never fully identified and reconciled. 35 years of self pity, or sympathy, or guilt, or fear. 

I don’t know what ever happened to the book. I suspect in time I grew tired of the routine, or my mother tossed it when the seasons changed and the winter clothes were moved to our drawers. Most likely it was trashed when my little brother was born and I moved to the basement, room was needed for the new member of the family and that seems to make sense to me.

When my brother was born I was 5, around the time of the coloring book and my secret crying sessions. I remember being woken early in the morning, night really, and being taken to my parents friends house not far from where my mother would go into labor. I barely remember the events of that morning, but I do remember speaking to my mother on the phone when my father came back to tell us that we had a new brother. I was able to call her before visiting the hospital later that day. I asked her if her tummy hurt. A picture once existed of me in my pyjamas, standing in some strange kitchen on a hardline phone holding my stomach as I spoke to her. She told me she was ok. She told me my brother was ok. I don’t remember ever seeing that book again after we all came home later that day.

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Dead Rabbits

One Easter when I was quite young, my brother and I were surprised with two pet rabbits. They were sisters, and while I cannot recall their true given names I don’t think that Honey and Clover are bad guesses. They were full grown and lively, much different than what I expected from bunnies. Their ears stood tall, erect, unlike the floppy things we had grown to expect from a solid diet of the Saturday Morning Cartoon Express and Cabury commercials. They were lean and brown like dead grass and would use their deceivingly strong hind legs and their little claws to scratch at you furiously of you held them for prolonged periods.

Clover and Honey would live in the chicken coop, along with the hens, all named Martha after our developmentally delayed elementary school custodian. They all seemed to get on fine, as we had expected, the “coop” was actually a hastily renovated back shed area of our single car garage and it provided both insulation against the fickle New England weather as well as plenty of room for all.

My brother and I were responsible for feeding the animals, clumps of alfalfa and bitter pellets for the rabbits, and a coarse cornmeal from a large aluminum trash can for the hens. The animals had free reign of the yard during daylight hours, and while our yard had no fences these deceptively brilliant little beings seemed aware of the boundaries of the yard for the most part, and would come running for the coop at dusk. They were easy pets, all of them, rarely needing much, always giving more than they took.

Turns out one of the rabbits was in fact male. We never identified which one, but I seem to recall my father postulating that the slightly smaller one, Clover, may have been male based solely on that clue. The big gender reveal came in the form of several squirming beings nooked away in a bundle of straw in the corner of the coop.

I don’t recall much of the young bunnies early days, I may have been afraid to look at them. We must have brought them in and put them under a heat lamp, safe from the predation of the Martha’s, or have sequestered an area in the coop where Honey would be able to care for them naturally. The bunnies became rabbits in no time, three of them, again I cannot recall their names because none of them lived long lives and the resulting pain seems to have cast shadows over those memories.

While I’m pretty certain we started with more than three, I don’t remember any loss of life until after the bunnies were large enough to join their parents in the yard. At first they bobbled and struggled to find agency over their limbs, but in short order the little ones were just as fast and wiley and independent as Clover and Honey.

I killed the first one.

It was winter and the rabbits spent most of the time in the coop. The snowfall in New Hampshire was intense that year, and the show in unplowed/untended areas rose several feet. The top of the drifts a brutal crust of ice, the show so cold it wouldn’t even stick to itself, try as I might to construct snowballs and castle walls, the snow would crumble between my clumsy gloved fingers. It was cold, it was real cold on the morning I was tasked to run out to the coop and feed the “ladies” as my mother called them, I would correct her sometimes, reminding her of Clover.

I threw on those ugly tan and brown rubber boots that defined my aesthetic as a young boy and decided to forego the jacket, I would be quick, and get back to more pressing matters like Lego and Atari, and another endless day of indoor activity. In youth the days last forever, a great lamentation of my adulthood is that now the days live in tight margins, over just when I feel like I’m about to get to the good part. 

Rushing, I swung the door open and closed to prevent the escape of any of the ladies, but I should have known better. The Martha’s sat on their perches and in their laying boxes, their mottled feathers puffed out, plumed balls trying to mitigate heat loss, and make the most of the lazy days of winter. The rabbits huddled in the corner on the other side of a partition that marked off their area and the hens seemed to respect that their roommates needed their own area. I didn’t count them off, I simply shovelled the meal into the Marthas trough, and I checked to make sure that their water was full, clean, and free of ice. I had no way of knowing that one of the yearlings was up and exploring the confines of the coop.

As I crossed the cement of the shed toward the hay covered rabbit area with a large scoop full of pellets I felt something irregular under my boot, followed by a sound that haunts me into my 40th year. 

The bunny squirmed and bucked, its head kicked to one side unnaturally, a small siren of agony and shock emitted from it, from it’s once wiggly, sniffy nose, now ran a crimson trickle. I had never heard a rabbit make any noise, much less one so plaintive and pathetic. It was loud, filling the coop with a squeaking swirl of pain. The hens cocked their heads from the trough, the other rabbits, it’s family, ran anxious circles in the straw, they had never heard such a thing either.

I ran from the coop to the house with tears streaming from my face, blubbering I could barely explain what had happened, but “something’s wrong with the bunny!” Both parents sprung into action, so automatic they failed to notice that I was following. My father peeked into the coop then dashed over to the garage returning with a pillowcase. Returning to the garage from the coop with the pillowcase bundled close to his chest. What followed were two sharp strikes, hammer against the cement floor of the garage. The siren stopped wailing. 

Father returned from the garage, visibly shaken, I don’t think he cried, but he pushed up his glasses and pinched his brow at one point while my mother held me and told me it wasn’t my fault. The standing rule of thumb to follow was that when you were in the coop to make sure to shuffle your feet. Years later after all the animals were long dead I found myself in the “coop” now a storage area for our bicycles and I realized I was still shuffling.

I didn’t kill the second one.

One sunny spring day my brother and I returned from a bike ride, I don’t know where we kept them in those days. We lived in a conveniently shaped neighborhood that allowed us to loop endlessly passing the house as we did skids in the sand left from the salting of our roads in the winter. My mother would have been tending the yard, getting her bulbs in and removing dead matter from the flowerbeds that lined the house. We would have been waving to her every time we passed, each time she would smile and wave back. I don’t remember these moments well, but this is what would have been happening.

When we passed and saw she was no longer in tending the soil, I do clearly remember her buckled over in agony with a shoebox in her hands. She was in the grass now, wearing all white, pristine, the box in her hands, weeping. My brother and I made it up the driveway before dumping our bikes in a violent pair of crashes and we ran to her side.

“The fucking cat! He killed my baby!” She wept, in the box one of the yearlings, on its side on a bed of tissue paper. Still breathing with great labor, puff-puff-puff. The other animals unaware this time, it was dying without sound, just my mother softly weeping. I was in such shock I just stared at the pathetic last moments of the bunny for what seemed like an eternity. I was in a tunnel, I remember touching my mother between her shoulder blades, feeling her heart through her back. A broken heart is easy to feel, it shakes the whole body, a priest beating the pulpit in a vain attempt to get the attention of an absentee savior. I thought it would never stop. It’s not going to stop. It wouldn’t stop, the death would just last and last.

My brother took the box away, he wasn’t much older than, my senior by only 3 years, I guess this would make him 9 or 10, doing the work my father struggled to do as a grown man. Remember how my father may have cried? Remember how even in generational stoicism he had shown the pain? Dad had finished off the rabbit in the garage, a man who had killed deer as a lifelong hunter. In that same garage I would see him lay our broken boxes and string deer up from the rafters, split from their loins to their throat, their swollen tongues pushed out between their teeth, eyes wide still from the shock of the slugs impact. They would drip onto the boxes. They would hang above the boxes and no one wept.

From that garage I heard a clumsy wack. Several others to follow. My brother weeping. Later he would come out, my mother would hold him, then he would go inside, into the bathroom and emerge with a new expression, one that he shows at times today. This look was one of knowledge of the world. It’s the expression of Adam exiting the garden, it’s the look of a man, not a boy, his mind alit by Apollo, a fire that I would see again when my brother returned from the room occupied by mother’s body after her passing. I didn’t look upon my mother’s body. I just wept then as I did when we lost the second rabbit.

I only wept later when the third rabbit died.

I never saw the body of the third rabbit. He had a problem and we couldn’t help it. A couple months dissolved into summer and toward the end of the spring we knew something wasn’t right. It’s face was swollen and hot to the touch. 

Maybe a year before my toe had been jammed and became painfully infected. It was nearly twice it’s size, the skin drawn thin and if prodded it would split oozing out an ochre fluid, rank smelling stuff of infection. My parents had been really concerned and helped me clean it twice daily, speaking maybe a bit too freely among themselves about the dire nature of the infection and their fears of gangrene, amputation, and a variety of other horrors that would feed fuel to my budding sleep issues. The infection persisted until we made it to the ocean, I shit you not when I say the sea water did what all the medication and antibiotics had failed to accomplish.

My father had made a decision, the last baby rabbit had to go, and so, we all got in his truck and drove to the river for which my town was named. Deep in the surrounding woods we set the last one free, I remember father telling me that it would live in the woods and the woods would make it better. “This is where he wants to be. They all want to be free, but they let us live with them.” Those are his words, I remember that bit like it was yesterday. “They let us live with them.” I wonder if he did that on purpose or what? I would ask him what it meant but I’m sure that the memory has faded.

Even with this idea in my head I did get the feeling that the rabbit was out of sorts when placed on the forest floor. Blinking at us over his abscess he just sat there in frightened stillness. He didn’t bolt to freedom. I think I even said something about it not wanting to go and my brother clapped me on the shoulder and said something about it saying goodbye. My brother was crying.

I don’t recall what happened to the older rabbits, we didn’t have them much longer and the Martha’s met their own fate at the hands of a skunk while we were camping (a story I still question at times) but I think we brought the other rabbits to a farm. To a farm? As I type that it feels unlikely, but that’s all I have to offer. I was young. I knew better than to ask a lot of questions.

We never had rabbits again, but on a walk through the woods with my father we found a tiny black bunny, just out there in the open. My father was concerned for it, a lot of people have these ideas of hunters being callous alcoholic killers, but I have never met a man who was such compassion for animals. His relationship with other species is one of a bygone era, as I am vegan it’s complicated but I feel in many ways his engagement with the animals we share the world with has a level of purity lost on me. I once watched my father swim half a mile into the violent Atlantic Ocean to save a dying bird, but this is a story about rabbits, I’ll tell you about the birds another time. 

My father said it was a domestic bunny and would die in the wild (the ugly truth about the fate of rabbit three now apparently no longer taboo) and we would bring it home. Unlike the other rabbits who had a more feral quality this rabbit was indeed, clearly domestic. Its “fur” something unreal like a synthetic Claire’s Boutique fur boa, almost otherworldly in it’s whisper softness. This was not a wild thing. This was an animal specially bred by man to be cute, to meet some imagined standard of petness, impossibly alive and yet- there it was.

We only had it for a few hours and it was gone. It slipped from the enclosure we had made for it in the living room and wasn’t seen again for nearly a decade. We looked all over for it, but it had completely disappeared without a trace. We left out food and water hoping it would eventually emerge from whatever nook it may have escaped to and become part of the family again, but it never did. My mother, who had never seen the bunny laughed it off and said that it must have slipped out the door when we had left the house for supplies, but I knew it must be around somewhere.

My father has a handy quality I have long admired and been envious of. I have seen the man swap gas tanks on his truck, put a new roof on our house, knock down walls and rework the wiring, the man has a depth of understanding of such things that continues to impress me. A big one was when fate dealt us a poor hand and our furnace shit the bed in the depths of yet another cold winter. It took days to replace the thing, I helped as much as I could, I was much older now, but a bit too young to help haul the corpse of the dead furnace from the basement. Dad must have bribed an uncle into helping with the backbreaking task, I was on hand to “move shit out of the way” and to collect some pieces he would hand out from the secret places behind the beast as he disconnected it from the rest of the home’s central nervous system. One by one nuts and bolt and obtuse elements and connective tissue were handed out to me, I carefully collected them, a surgical assistant to the task. When my father emerged laughing, covered in dust and grit from the spot behind the furnace he met with my uncle who laughed as well. My father held the petrified remains of a small bunny, it must have slipped into the ventilation (under the sink… the spot missing its grate) all those years ago mistaking it for it’s genetic memory of a warren it had never inhabited. It died in quiet solitude. I didn’t understand the laughter, gallows humor being a foreign concept at the time. I collected the remains and buried them under the pines in the backyard while they hauled the furnace through the bulkhead. Neither asked me to return to help with the task, I don’t know if it was out of sensitivity or of simply being able to do the task easier without some broken kid around to get underfoot.

The furnace kept us warm until we left the house one by one, first my older brother, then me, then my mother, my little brother, and finally my father. When I visit I drive by to see what became of the house and see the yard has been fenced in, they have chickens. The garage has been remodeled, I wonder if the coop area still smells like alfalfa. I wonder about what else has gone on in the car port of the garage. I wonder about a lot of things these days. 

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Keep Running.

The past few days have consisted of a bunch of work, work- as you know- is both a symptom of, and the seed of HOPE for freelancers. It’s brutally hard to thrust yourself into the fire when there isn’t much going on and I suspect this willingness is truly what separates those who will succeed from those who continue to wish instead. At my best, I’m the warrior, at my worst I’m immobilized and frozen. It goes without saying that I strive to the former, the diligent worker rather than the milky eyes dilettante with a head full of ideas that find no concrete expression.

I suppose it’s important to once again redefine success. In many ways I am already successful, depending of course on the metric we go by. I have been paid to work for the big ones, and I have earned my pay. I have created successful work, Mirriam and Webster could tell you as much. But, while I do identify as a writer I have the all too human tendency of ignoring conventional definitions and fostering new ones entirely. Sometimes my definitions appear in harsh contrast to those approved by the masses as rote and inherent. In the case of “success” it’s fluid and ever changing, which I suspect is true not just for me, but is instead the REAL definition that the dictionary finds hard to whittle down. Success as a concept demands multitudes of essays and books and TED Talks and podcasts and films and deeper levels of understanding. Success for me is a thing I doubt I have the capacity to attain because I suspect it requires some sense of finality. With invisible goals there is rarely a ribbon to run through at the end, it just recedes into the horizon and we keep pumping on, and that’s where the fear comes in. 

So if success is unattainable, why bother defining it? Well, I would say that in its evolution we can find mile markers of where we are and where we’ve been. With careful meditation one can turn their head in that neverending marathon and see that progress is in fact being made. It’s hard to do because we have to keep our eye on that goal if we are to keep up the pursuit, but if we don’t check the rearview periodically the outcome would surely be madness.  

Right now I have to keep pressing forward and ignore the progress I made in 2019. In the moments when I have reflected too much I have found myself fearful that I won’t have a 2020 that feels more accomplished than the year prior. A great anxiety of mine is that I will slip back down a bit, while this is natural, it’s also something that I hate to consider. I have to keep telling myself that this isn’t a competition (even against myself) without losing my edge. It’s a sad state of affairs when fear and pain are the only gas for the tank.

I’m doing what I love. I have told young folks for years that if you want to be a (insert creative profession here) that you become one by doing it. I’m terrible at taking my own advice, even in the rare instance that it is good or true, so here I am again typing to rewrite the neural pathways that keep me pitching dark clouds up over everything. I love the struggle. The struggle is my choice. I thrive in the struggle. The struggle defines me. The struggle is success.

But I digress… over the past few days the struggle has taken on a different shade. I’m in the process of selling another graphic novel, I’m working on several secret projects with a legend of the comics industry, as well as several other creative pursuits that have promise of coming to life. I’m so much better off today than I have been in years prior, social media has a way of reminding me of this with that “On This Day” function. It used to be that the only potential I had was created strictly by my own grit and financial sacrifice, it’s wild that now I expect money for something that I was doing/would do regardless.

Another big step that I have taken is that I have gotten much better at listening to critique, gleaning information, and not getting a hair up my ass about stuff that might sting a bit. I had a lovely conversation just the other day in which several of my precious little ideas for stories were cast off like befouled wet socks. As recent as 6 months ago I might have packed it in and shut down the whole affair. I would have defended my work with a sad vigor reserved for the hopeless. I would have reminded myself that people can’t understand my genius because they fail to see nuance and subtlety… this is an important skill, but equally important is to remember that most of the time that is weakness and bullshit. I have found refuge in knowing that where these darlings came from are a lot more, and that like ants attempting to cross a stream, these will do so on the backs of their fallen kin. This is a huge step for me.

To close the conversation this mentor gave me something to work with that is more valuable than placating my fragile ego would have ever been. In this instance Senpai told me I was holding back my weirdness and that I was doing myself a disservice by not leaning into that. I had been trying to make stories and build pitches that felt familiar and safe, an error, and an affront to my aspirations to live authentically.

I don’t know when I started to fear my weirdness- I suspect it came during an important pitch on a project that actually happened. I was told that the story was strange, and that it might be hard to sell. At the time I took great pride in this, but it rotted away like an old tooth exposed too only the sweet candies of self assurance and became an infected abcess. I feared my pitches failing because they were too “me” and I’m cursed shine like a mysterious star that no one else can understand- right? Wrong. Ever hear a sad breakup song at the right/wrong time that is almost too painful to listen to because it captures your heartache a little too perfectly? How often did the lyrics-all the lyrics-echo your situation completely? I would guess “rarely” as this has been my experience. The thing that connected me to the artist during these times was a shared humanity. Our worldviews, experiences, values, etc. can be wildly different, but the song itself reverberates off of our longing to feel understood. The magick was in hearing elements of truth in someone else’s engagement with pain, especially when it was an abstraction of my own. I needed to hear that universality isn’t born of being able to speak for the masses, it’s born of sharing the thing about myself that is unique to me that others identify with on their own terms.

So what does this mean for my writing? Well, it doesn’t mean that I won’t consider my audience, but it does mean that relationship will become more healthy. I promise to lean into my own personhood and I promise not to be sad if you don’t see yourself there- but if you do… firstly, condolences, but more importantly I have a lot to share.

Let’s get bizarre in 2020.  

Posted on by michaelwconrad · 2 Comments

A Meditation.

Well, a lot has happened… in many ways it feels like my year is over. Doom Patrol came out and did really well, much better than I could have even imagined really. It seems like our meta love letter was just what the doctor ordered! This fills me with an incredible amount of pride because I know fans of Doom Patrol are outspoken and would have let us know if we made a misstep, but in this case it has left a passionate group calling for more. I know that it’s kind of a long shot, but I’d love to continue to tell stories in this little pocket of the DCU.

Additionally Tremor Dose came out and frankly I had no idea that the book would make the kind of noise it has! As I write this it remains a top seller, and is currently on sale through comiXology for $2.99… which is insanely cheap for 130+ pages… not to mention it’s free to members of Prime, as well as members of comiXology/Kindle Unlimited. If you’re taking the time to read this I would hope that you have read Tremor Dose, as it is the comic that has really defined 2019 for me, and has allowed me to focus on comics full time.

So these things, along with a couple zines, my Tomb of Dracula story at Marvel, and a new online store have all happened leaving me with the obvious question of “What now?”

A few months ago I had strong ideas of what was next. I had tentative work lined up on some incredible projects but one by one these things have dried up. Emails have been slow in coming or altogether unresponded to. I have found myself spending a lot of time wondering if the success has been imagined and I’m just a fucking fraud. I had never heard of imposter syndrome until this year, and even then I had really only heard people use it in the self congratulatory, “Oh my gawd, I’m doing something incredible: IMPOSTER SYNDROME!” kind of way. For me it has been a very real thing, I feel like I can’t trust the positive responses because they haven’t seemed to make anything easier!

That said, at this years North Carolina Comic Con, a show I attended last year, I felt like a proper comics pro. I was able to sign some copies, and for maybe the first time ever feel like I had a voice among the creators we spent evenings with. I felt like my true identity, that of a peer, was acknowledged and that felt wonderful. This is a big thing for me, I don’t know if it’s from years of struggle, not only in comics but in creativity in general I’ve always felt like the odd man out. Feeling like I’m finally getting somewhere is outrageous because I’m so hardwired to expect so little.

I spent a few days after the show laying on the couch. I didn’t know what to do, and then one day I just started typing. I wasn’t exactly churning it out, but I was back in the fight and beginning the process that I have known was the only move… to write and write and write and expect nothing. I’m rebuilding, that little success proved toxic in a way, but now I’ve learned that a bit of success isn’t a magic wand and that I am still in the trenches. I suspect that some who have been following me over the course of 2019 have this idea that I’m a Made Man now and that I can call up DC and say “Hey, I have an Animal Man story that is gonna light the world on fire!” but that just isn’t the case for most freelancers. I have to strap myself to the desk and grind and do what I’ve always done best, which is to make the things that get me off and be pissed.

Being pissed doesn’t require blame. I don’t blame those editors who haven’t written back, or those polite rejections. These are busy people who need to be really careful with what they get behind, a safe bet succeeding or failing in the marketplace isn’t what I can offer. I will always tell stories that are outside of the norm, and to take something like that on and to have it fail can really sink things for an editor who is under a lot of pressure. I understand that as much as some of them would like to take risks, those risks will be reserved for folks who have earned that kind of privilege and I am a loooooong way from that.

Being pissed doesn’t mean kicking the dog, being a cold partner, being mean to yourself, none of that; it means arming yourself and going to war with those bullshit ideations of ego and self loathing. It means not feeling like you’re owed a fucking email, or that you deserve not to get one. It just means that you have to accept that this is part of the war, and it’s how you perform on each battlefield that will determine your longevity, your growth, and maybe even your legacy. Being pissed is what gets you back on your bike and pushing when the hills are many.

So those good things don’t count right now. The bad things are imagined, because in truth things are better today than they were yesterday. I get to sit down to write knowing that I have proven some things to myself that I once doubted, good medicine for someone who has used “imposter syndrome” in a very clinical sense. It means I can take myself seriously and know that if I fail it is not because I lack the fundamental skills, it’s because I haven’t done THE WORK.

Right now THE WORK is to continue to put myself out there, and most importantly to work on things without great expectations. I’m 25 pages into a longform story with my Tremor Dose collaborator Noah Bailey, and I’m loving it. What I’m writing is something that if you told me I would be working on even 2 weeks ago I would have laughed you out of the room. We’re taking a giant swing for the fences without any deal in place, no safety nets, no publisher signed on- just like when we started Tremor Dose. The big difference now is that we have been here before. We have faced this fear and we have learned the mantra. 

“I must not fear.

Fear is the mind-killer.

Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration.

I will face my fear.

I will permit it to pass over me and through me.

And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.

Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. 

Only I will remain.”

Really though it’s more like the immortal quote of Miyamoto Mushashi “If you know the way broadly you will see it in everything.” In this case the way is simple, accept that there is a ton of work to be done and that is the way of the creator. We are all pushing that stone up the same imagined hill thinking that we are gonna have it easier next time, and perhaps it should be because our metaphorical bodies are becoming hardened to the rigors of the task. But, we keep lumping more and more expectations and fail to notice that in doing so our stone gets bigger and the hill remains steep and full of obstacles. The obstacle we have the greatest control over is our own inner voice chanting insults and self doubt and entitlement. We’ve gotta kill that voice as much as we have to make sure to do the other stuff to secure work and development.

Wow, this has been a rambling one, I guess it’s more of a meditation than a blog post this time around. I don’t know if any of this served the common good, but it’s been important for me to continue to work this stuff out. Come tomorrow I may not even agree with huge portions of what I’ve committed here, but for now this is my truth. These ideas are what’s getting me going again and keeping me motivated to make 2020 a productive and positive year. I look forward to the coming year and it’s great mysteries in part because in that uncertainty is a depth of potential that wasn’t present when I had confounded myself into buying into an illusory idea of what the hell I would be up to.

Live in the mystery.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M 

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Brave Fools

I spent the last two weeks in the UK with Becky exploring ruins, doing comic related things, and looking for giants in some of the most beautiful areas of Scotland. During that time I had a pitch I was pretty excited about die on the vine and faced the depression that accompanies a project nearing completion. It’s pretty messed up to be bummed while having the opportunity to do something I have long dreamed of doing, with the person I love.

Creativity has a way of making everything else melt away. I’m at my best when I’m chipping away and making headway, and now I am in the uncanny position of figuring out what comes next. 

Bizarre Adventures came out and people seemed really stoked on our Tomb Of Dracula story. I am so happy that my Marvel debut wasn’t a flop, but really, I knew it wouldn’t be with Becky on art, the same can be said for Doom Patrol which comes out in about a week. I know that it’s going to do well, because Becky is almost incapable of doing something that doesn’t connect with a big audience. In two days time a real test stands before me.

Tremor Dose, my 100+ page graphic novel with artist Noah Bailey drops as part of the comiXology Originals line. Noah and I worked on this book for 3 long years. It started as a small zine and just grew and grew and grew. I always knew the story I wanted to tell, but I just plain didn’t think I would be able to convince Noah to put so much time and energy into such a long form endeavor. When Chip Mosher and Ivan Salazar stuck their necks out for us and got us a contract all of that changed.

Our little boutique idea was suddenly so much more. We had a lot to finish and it was scary, and exhilarating, and supremely stressful. Prior to the contract we picked away at it, like most creators do with their passion projects. We found time to knock out a page here and there, and as such we had a lot of room to micromanage and make sure everything was just right. This set the bar incredibly high, so when it became funded we both had a lot of anxiety about being able to maintain that level of quality under deadline. There were intense moments, but we did it and I couldn’t be more pleased with the results.

Now it’s done. We have PR people doing their thing, and we are of course doing what we can to spread the word. We know that we’re nobodies, and that only a small handful of folks will pick up the books on the power of our social reach, and know that this book will live and die by a number of factors well outside of our control. 

It’s fucking terrifying and sad.

The fear is normal, it exists because we care, and we have had our neural pathways written to expect failure. We are absolutely “dark cloud” kind of people, trying desperately to manifest goodness and success through positive thinking, but for guys like us that is abnormal and strange. The sadness comes from uncertainty. When we were working on Tremor Dose we were so incredibly hyped we began to dream. We dreamed of the book making a huge splash, throwing a giant boot right through the doors to our dream house, a place in which we would set up residence. We would chain ourselves to the radiators and keep it up until someone had enough of us and lit the structure ablaze. Even in fantasy sequences it would end, but the fact that there would be a moment of ease where we would be able to explore greenlights and less traffic on our creative path was what kept the cogs of the machine turning.

Now it’s about to happen and the reality of the matter is right there for us to sniff at and check it’s pulse. Reality is a grim prospect when you are done with a project, the dreams don’t last unless you tell someone about them, but that feels like bragging or pandering. So you kind of shut down and realize how hopeless it could really be… we could have done all that work to build a monument to our creative partnership only to have it swallowed up by the ivy of indifference. So you start to look at the next thing and transpose all your goodwill into it.

This is part of why people keep making things, because that sucking void at the end is too much and we have to drop anchor on another safer shore, a more mysterious place that hasn’t been spoiled by reality. 

I’m trying something different this time. I’m sticking around, prepared to go down with the ship. I think she’s sturdy and I think that she’s seaworthy enough to make it through. Tremor Dose is fucking good, it’s great, and I was part of it. Yes, as a freelancer I have to be looking for more work, but so often when something is done I have already taken off sprinting in the other direction to distance myself from whatever praise or critique or worse, indifference is earned. This time it’s different, this book is too much of my soul, I can’t leave.

I’ve done some awesome stuff you’ve never seen. I didn’t bounce out of the back of a turnip truck with comics in hand, I’ve been making things for years. I have made some things that I’ve felt were on par and better than some of your favorite books, I mean that! I have also made absolute shit, that I’m glad to have had avoid your radar. Like I say the Marvel and DC work has been carefully couched in the security of major publishers, multiple editors, and the Cloonan Midas Touch… Tremor Dose is different. Tremor Dose is the product of two men walking out of the wilderness with an offering of some obscure, esoteric origin. This alien thing that I struggle to explain plainly is about as much “me” as anything I have done, and that, dear reader, is the real horror. If this book is so much “me” and I cannot explain it, then who the fuck am I.

Does this post feel like a therapy session? Does any of it ring true to you? Am I the on on the couch or am I the one holding the clipboard? I think the answer is we are all in this thing together. We roam the labyrinth of our comically short lives seeking some validation and when we apply some totemic quality to what we have done it’s both brave and foolish. I have never claimed bravery, but I’m quite comfortable playing the fool.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M.

***Tremor Dose is available on comiXology on October 30 2019.

Posted on by michaelwconrad

24 Hour Comics!

I recently did a 24 Hour comic. For those of you unfamiliar with the challenge it was levied by the great comic creator/scholar Scott Mcloud. Here are the rules:

Create a 24 page comic in 24 continuous hours. That means everything: Story, finished art, lettering, color (if applicable), paste-up, everything. Once pen hits paper, the clock starts ticking. 24 hours later, the pen lifts off the paper, never to descend again. Even proofreading has to occur in the 24 hour period. (Computer-generated comics are fine of course, the same principles apply).

No sketches, designs, plot summaries or any other kind of direct preparation can precede the 24 hour period. Indirect preparation such as assembling tools, reference materials, food, music etc. is fine.

Your pages can be any size, any material. Carve them in stone, print them with rubber stamps, draw them on your kitchen walls with a magic marker. Whatever you makes you happy.

The 24 hours are continuous. You can take a nap, but the clock keeps ticking. If you get to 24 hours and you’re not done, either end it there (“the Gaiman Variation”) or keep going until you’re done (“the Eastman Variation”). I consider both of these “Noble Failure” Variants and true 24 hour comics in spirit; but you must sincerely intend to do the 24 pages in 24 hours at the outset.

I’m proud to say that I was successful in my efforts. Starting at noon on September 19 2019, ending at around 9am September 20. My partner in this affair was the young and talented artist Noah Bailey. Noah created something far more beautiful than I, but he was unable to complete his comic. I say this not as a self-celebration, I only bring it up because the challenge is impossibly hard. Noah approached it as a serious challenge but when he needed a nap he took a nap. When Noah needed to stretch, or eat, or not be buggered down by the thing he allowed himself a few moments. He also took time to make sure that his comic was representative of his high skill level, I was not so precious. 

This is just how I am. When I take something on I put myself into a place where I cannot fail. Call it foolish pride, but I wouldn’t have been able to face myself if I failed to complete the task at hand (or at least give it all I had). I didn’t eat much, didn’t take breaks, didn’t chat much, my only real moments of distraction came in effort to document the event with some live Instagram videos (you can find me on IG @michaelwconrad). I just plain had to complete the task.

I learned a lot about the challenge in this, my first effort, but before I get to those lets do a list of numbers… that’s fun right?

3- G pen nibs (swapped to save time cleaning)

1- panel cut out and taped over a ruined panel

2- refill cartridges for a Pentel brush pen

2- pots of coffee

1- vegan burger

2- oatmeal/peanut butter balls

3- cans of pamplemousse La Croix

1- brief stretch to go hit a Pokestop (lest I lose my streak)

2- hours of a terrible audio book I will not name

1- major spill (Noah poured an energy drink all over his completed pages)

1- lovely spouse who cheered me on (critical)

½- bottle of ink

0- thumbnails (I spent the first hour trying, decided to go without)

Next time I do this challenge I’ll take the following steps to make life easier:

-create templates for the pages I use

-create thumbnail pages ready to fill, in case I decide to use them next time 

-do not use a quill, thick tech pens

-more water/less coffee

-do it alone or with many (so I can wear headphones/not feel like I have to be a host)

-have enough space to hang my work or lay it out as I go for continuity

-improve my pace so I can stretch more, my back STILL hurts

-do not schedule it directly following a convention (MondoCon in this case)

-do better

In the lead up to doing this a lot of people had advice, good and bad alike. I would suggest that you don’t listen to that, each of us have to find our own path. It was really cool to hear others war stories, but I’m not like other people, so some of the stuff they cautioned me against or advocated for proved to only distract me from pursuing my own truth. Hell, I had a few people tell me it was dumb, a waste of time, and even reductive! In my case, the 24 Hour Comics Challenge did exactly what it was meant to do: It pushed me to my limit and gave me an opportunity to remember that I am capable of accomplishing difficult tasks. Were I to have not been able to complete the challenge I would have taken pride in my effort and it would have given me another reminder that I have limitations. 

I look forward to doing it all again next year and schedule permitting, I will do it on the actual day that has been established as the official challenge date… this year it falls on Saturday the 5th of October… Will you take the challenge? Surely if I can do it you can too!

Epilogue: After a brief rest of about 3 hours, I got a call from a major publisher about potentially working on a dream job. While the two things are not connected, I feel this is a reward from the universe for having made a sacrifice. 

How badly do you want your dream? Are you willing to do the impossible?

More: I’m currently setting up my 24 Hour Comic for print. I’ll just go to Kinko’s and make a small run of them. I have been making comics this way for years and I take pride in the fact that I will never stop being that guy. If you’re interested in purchasing a copy I will be sure to follow up with a link (likely after I return from the UK in a few weeks).

Most Important: Bizarre Adventures comes out on October 2, 2019… this is tomorrow at the time I write this. In the pages of the aforementioned book I make my mainstream debut with a Tomb Of Dracula story I am very proud of. Marvel fucking Comics… who woulda thought! I hope you pick it up and let me know what you think.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M

Posted on by michaelwconrad

Loosely Interpreted Social Testimonials

Lately I’ve had a number of people reach out to me in congratulations regarding my recent accomplishments in writing. Their information largely coming directly from me via my various social media platforms. In a way, this means that I am doing a fine job representing myself as someone who is moving forward, grabbing at that Big Dream and making it happen. In other ways it feels like I have been a bit disingenuous. Allow me to explain in list form! I have no interest in making anyone feel like they aren’t witnessing a success story (for my own ego as well as for the sake of potentially inspiring others) but I do wish to contextualize the whole thing a bit better.

Before I really dip in, give me just a moment to say that I feel like a success. I feel like I’m edging ever closer to being able to look in the mirror and see someone who I am proud to be. Right now I see someone who, in honest self appraisal could stand to work harder, even though I know I am working very hard. I see someone who could stand to slow down and be reasonable, even though I know I have been relatively reasonable. I see someone who can push harder, even though I know I’m breaking my back even as we speak. I’m a work in progress, thank you very much.

THE GRAPHIC NOVEL- I’ve kind of teased this graphic novel online but I remain unable to speak much about it due to contractual agreements. I’ve shared pictures of stacks of paper, roughs, letters, and little unidentified images. I’ve hopefully shared just enough to let you know something’s cooking. What doesn’t get seen is the THREE YEARS of effort toward the goal. I don’t show myself welling with tears in frustration over my lack of ability. I don’t show the spats I’ve shared with the artist, and the neutered agony of having to call in my partner to help format things. I haven’t shown the embarrassing stumbles on the way, the anxiety associated with the project, and the horrific pitching process (which couldn’t have been better really, I’m just really bad at salesmanship). I haven’t shown this stuff because… that’s comics.

TOMB OF DRACULA- This one was pretty easy, and it’ll be the first thing that I’ve written for a major publisher. This was done in collaboration with Becky Cloonan, my aforementioned heroic partner. 

If you want to test the strength of a relationship I suggest you give collaborating passionately on a project with your lover. The result of ours is that you’ll get an AWESOME short featuring everyone’s favorite bloodsucker and you won’t be burdened with the ups and downs that come with the creative process. We made something incredible, but the process reminded us of that old adage about how you have to “kill your babies”.  The story is better than expected in part because some of my favorite moments hit the cutting room floor. You won’t see that pain, you won’t know it unless you do something like this. It’s not glamorous, and you feel like a real diaper baby when you’re dying to squeeze in that one critical line and it ultimately is decided to be superfluous.

This will be in BIZARRE ADVENTURES #1 out October 2, 2019 from Marvel Comics.

HEY, AMATEUR!- Kickstarter is scary. Before I get to that, let me explain how I fought my way into this book… well maybe that’s hyperbolic, but I did send a lot of emails. I jocked this project so hard because it meant I would get to know Shelly (see my first post). Bless her for letting me in, it remains a huge honor. 

What I didn’t know was that Kickstarter is the kind of thing that eats your heart unless you hit funding right away. For a month I checked the site multiple times a day and each time I felt sick. For most of the campaign it looked like funding might not happen. While Google told me the final 48 hours were the determining value of a Kickstarter I had already developed an ulcer about the whole thing. I didn’t want to fail, I didn’t want Shelly to fail, fuck failing. Failing sucks, I know it all too well. I’ll have giant blog posts in the future about them, I could write volumes on the matter. I didn’t want that old familiar thing in my life, not this time. 

We ended up making the funding goal (and then some) and I’m happy to say my script has been served and approved. Don’t look behind the curtain at the man sweating and clicking refresh on the page for an entire month. He doesn’t exist anywhere but here and in my memory.

HEY, AMATEUR! Will be delivered in 2020 from Black Crown Publishing

DOOM PATROL #5- Yay, it’s coming out in November 2019! Did you know the story sold about 2 years ago? I wrote it right away and was ready to rip but delays started and seemed like it might be over several times. Did you know that I had given up on it, renewed my faith, given up again, and again, and again, for years? Did you know it had 3 editors and with each editor I feared that SOMEONE was going to say “Who the hell is this guy and why should I give him any ink?” Did you know that when the initial announcements were made I was scared that I would be forgotten or left out even though I had poured his soul into a thing and would likely not even get to enjoy a moment of shine for the troubles? Thankfully the folks at DC were kind, the editors believed in me, Gerard and Jeremy supported me, and again my partner Becky had my back because she knew that we were worth it… even when I began to question. Becky has since revealed that she too had those same concerns, but in her damn near angelic way suppressed those fears and was strong for both of us.

DOOM PATROL #6 will be out November 6, 2019 from DC Comics

THE INVISIBLE MONSTERS- They are legion. These are the ones that couldn’t make it. They exist as files, Google Docs, unfinished work, pitches, outlines, and the worst… unanswered emails. It’s the ones you don’t see that will kill you like a disease, more deadly than a man with a knife. I have learned to keep my damn mouth shut about potential projects (I still tease some of these on twitter… but I get EXCITED) because talking about it scares them away. I’ve had some real close calls with INCREDIBLE opportunities. These encounters far outnumber the mini celebrations of the self I trot out every now and then on social media.

I don’t tell you about those emails that never came back. I don’t tell you about what a fucking tool you feel like when you feel ready to dunk and come up with a whiff of rank nothingness. I avoid painting a picture of myself waiting for a ride that will never come because it’s a bad look. I share this now so that you will understand that these great strides are being committed by someone who is well accustomed to the practice of dusting himself off.

There’s plenty of other stuff, but what the hell, that will do, I need to hang on to some stuff for future blogs anyway. As I typed that last bit I chuckled to myself, I don’t need to hang on to any stories of hardship and failure, I have plenty more ahead of me.

So why do I share the sunny stuff? Why do I congratulate myself publically and hope you feel good about seeing a normal guy get his? Well shit, I hope I’ve earned it, and haven’t lost myself in the process. My steps have been small, but to me it’s been what has kept me feeling like one day that mirror is going to reflect the way I wish to see myself.

So let it be written, let it be done.

M

Oh yeah I turned 40, and I don’t feel a day over 100. Thanks for all the kind Birthday wishes.

Posted on by michaelwconrad · 1 Comment

Labour Intensive

I would like to start this entry with a thank you to those who have taken the time to check out the Hey, Amateur! Kickstarter I wrote about in my first entry. We are well on our way to getting funding, but I encourage you to consider supporting me and my fellow creators in backing the project. It’s really appreciated, and I guarantee you will be pleased with what we are up to.

Over the past week my sleep has been poor, I have a major deadline looming and I’d be lying if I said part of the issue hasn’t been stress. All my life I have dreamed about writing comics for a living and here I am, doing it, and it is the hardest thing I have ever done. No, I’m not sweating in the summer sun digging trenches, or dealing with a careless public in a corporate setting, hell, I don’t even need to wear pants! The hard part is in the uncertainty.

For years I have said (often in jest) that I like to “live in the mystery” a term I stole from somewhere long forgotten. I use this phrase to describe my lack of long term planning. It isn’t a good thing by Western standards I’ll wager, worthy of scorn from those who would feel it their role to impart some unsolicited wisdom. The “mystery” remains one of the few ways I have been able to reconcile the hopelessness I know in my heart to be central to the truth. Maybe it’s a self fulfilling prophecy to live like my days are numbered, but it is a prophecy that will absolutely be proven true given enough time.

While I live in the mystery, I have never been one to allow myself to fear financially. I have always gotten up early and gone to work, stayed late, pulled OT hours, in short, I’ve done what it takes. Even on a meager salary I’ve always made sure that I can cover my bills and not have to constantly check my account. I wish to continue on this way until I drop dead at my desk, but as a freelance writer the most gripping fear is that there will be no reason to even be at that desk!

My brother Steven is a killer photographer. Like many troglodytes I have at times thought that photography was a lesser art, more reliant on the tool than the hand and eye. I have had this feeling rightly driven from my mind by watching what he does and knowing full well, that the tools aren’t the magic. We all laugh when some bum asks a great illustrator what kind of pencil they have used, like it’s a magic wand that will impart a lifetime at the drawing board to anyone willing to drop 7.99 on that soft graphite. It isn’t the tools, you know this right? The tools can be a handy excuse for procrastination, or something to foreshorten the suffering involved in a process, but it’s the head and heart of the creator that makes the magic.

But I digress, back to my brother and I. When I went freelance my brother had some great wisdom for me. Having been a freelancer for many years himself, abandoning the safety of an hourly wage he would know. His advice was to allow myself to relax. He explained that during his years as a freelancer he was never off the clock, always hustling to find more work. He gave up video games (a passion of his) and barely watched television. He wouldn’t go out with friends because, while he had some money, he didn’t know if another job would manifest before his next billing cycle. He wasn’t really living, until he sat himself down and gave himself the very advice he sought to impart to me.

I had already found that trap by the time he got to me. I wasn’t ever allowing myself to turn off, and in many ways that is still where I’m at. To the casual observer I have plenty of idle time. I can be found reading, listening to podcasts with a glazed expression, baking bread leisurely with that same glaze, but during these times I’m churning. It’s not just the freelance way, it’s the writers way.

I was out recently with my friend Evan Narcisse, an immense talent and freelance writer (if you haven’t read Rise of the Black Panther Marvel has been goodly enough to collect it in a beautiful trade- do get it, you’ll become an instant fan of Evan’s) and we were commiserating on how while a writer can knock out enough words in a day to feel accomplished, the real work is ALWAYS going on. Everything is an education, everything is potential, part of us always unable to be completely in the moment because there’s an internal court reporter clacking away in hopes of finding the next thing. But that’s only part of it, right?

The other part is the feeling that you’re constantly bothering editors. The “hey did you get my email” message can only be reworded so many times, and a human being can only deal with so much silent rejection without it taking a major toll. Sometimes you’ll find yourself in a creative holding pattern because all of your hope and financial stability lives in a single, dusty, unanswered email that has been filed away in a digital waste bin without so much as “nice try kid” to show for it. After a few weeks it has be counted as a loss and let go of, soon you learn that if this thing is gonna work you’re going to have to count on NOTHING until a contract has been signed, and even then the future is not certain.

That’s how it goes, if you’re lucky you didn’t confide in a friend about this great potential project only to later have to explain that editors went another way, almost always freelance code for “I don’t know what the fuck happened and I’m still mortally wounded by it.” I have learned to keep my mouth shut, and for anyone who really knows me, this can be really hard. I’m not a braggart, I think I just desperately want to be excited and to share that excitement. Remember fatalistic stuff from earlier in this rambling diatribe? I’m hustling to find joy. Some of us carry a darkness that is only lit when we have found an outlet, a safe place to feel pride (had to look that word up) and give ourselves a break from that shitty voice in our head telling us we will die without having shared the very thing that may redeem us for our consumption.

Some mornings I wake up and feel like I could Kool-Aid Man my way through a wall. I’ll rise and attack the process, sometimes for no reason clear to me. Other days I get up and putter around, I go to the bad place, the place where I want to walk away. Who am I kidding, this is common, it’s the theme, the throughline of the thing. The default of every freelancer I know is the fear. We all fight it off in different ways, the ones who do best in that battle seem to have careers, the others fade away. 

Writing is less about being good at telling stories than it is about all the other stuff. Here are a couple to consider.

  • Slay the Nemean Lion- write everyday, even w/o assignment
  • Slay the Nine Headed Lernaean Hydra- know most of it will be garbage
  • Capture the Ceryneian Hind- stay up to date on what’s working in the industry
  • Capture the Erymanthian Boar- realize that other people tricks won’t work for you
  • Clean the Augean stables in a single day- edit/rewrite that shit
  • Slay the Stymphalian Birds- deal with missed opportunities/rejection
  • Capture the Cretan Bull- equally hard, deal with success on the rare day it happens
  • Steal the Mares of Diomedes- watch your babies get killed by editors and understand that they ALWAYS know better than you
  • Obtain the girdle of Hippolyta- make sure you move your body and eat right
  • Obtain the cattle of the monster Geryon- be working on the next thing before you get too comfortable with that tiny success you had
  • Steal the apples of the Hesperides- make sure you speak of yourself in a positive way, others will be sure to speak poorly of you, you don’t need to put them out of the job.
  • Capture and bring back Cerberus- know that your goal will never be obtained, the finish line is moving, always moving, just as fast or faster than you

Just a note for clarity, there are far more than 12 Labours… that’s just a couple, and it’s not intended for educational purposes as much as it is as a reminder to myself. A lot of these are going to potentially feel contradictory, or not true in all circumstances, and that’s because the rules change, always… we are gonna experience ups and downs, and during the ebb and flow of the process elements of this will be void or highlighted.

I think I’ll put a pin in it there. In many ways this has been an exercise in procrastination and that deadline is still there. Thankfully I have a deadline… I better also spend some time today working toward the next one… no video games for me today I’m afraid, gonna have to order a pizza and pull an all nighter…

Damn, it’s happening again.

So let it be written, so let it be done.

M

Below is the link to the Hey, Amateur! Kickstarter! Be a friend to the cause (and to me) and support the book! https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/sxbond/hey-amateur