Kickstarter

I heard that pretentious term a few months back and kind of love it.

It has been a month of thinking and writing and rearranging with drawing for the book on hold until the copy is pinned down like some anemic wrestler. Anemic wrestler? See what's been happening? That came to me just now! I'm kidding. I read that somewhere... Somewhere in this update! Totally kidding. 

What does any of this have to do with Back Already?? 

Segway. 

A few cool things going on, you know, to keep you occupied until this book comes out. Been working on some drawings for Echorev again. Here is a sneak peak at that. 

Oh Nancy's "Calamity & Ruin" opened in Brooklyn a few weeks back and was a great success. 

If you haven't been over there yet you still have time!!!! If you want to catch the live performance and eat grilled hotdogs you have one more chance at the closing on March 30th from 3:00-6:00pm. 

And!!! If you are still wondering what in the hell Oh Nancy is after all this time... this interview with myself and the two other directors might illuminate things.

This is another poster from the series for Monkeyrock. Might want to check this out after the closing of "Calamity & Ruin"?

One more thing before the next (still very rough) excerpt from the book. 

Early this month a good friend Kenny Riches launched his own kickstarter for a series of short films. Kenny is a really incredible filmmaker (among many other more impressive things he was responsible for shooting my own kickstarter video) and fantastic human being and the project he is raising money for is an important one. I'm going to leave it to him to explain it. Click here to check out his project.

And now let's get to some documentary fiction. 

Some Back Already? already.

 _______________ 

     When I got home from work my roommates were already there, Ryan making a mess in the kitchen and Trisha watching. It smelled delicious. 

     I said so and hoping for dinner slumped down at the table. Ryan had a kind of magical knack with leftovers. He was in the process of turning the three old potatoes, the last of the salami, half a head of lettuce and a box of shriveled mushrooms into a roast chicken. 

     Trisha kindly handed me a beer from the fridge. "You as tired as you look?" 

     "I'm alright." I lied. I was exhausted. My first week had felt like two. My body ached like my bones were bruised. "I'm glad you aren't cooking calimari." I said. 

     "I was thinking about fish today." Ryan said. Trisha gave me a 'here we go again' kind of look, rolled her neck around and showed me the whites of her eyes. "You know that saying, 'give a man a fish and he'll eat for a day, teach a man to fish and he'll eat for the rest of his life'?"

     I nodded. 

     "Don't you think that saying is a little outdated? Where are you going to fish, the harbor? It's full of god damn poison! So he has to go out to sea. Now you have to either loan the guy a boat or teach him how to build one? Who has that kind of time? Even if he happens to have a boat already, you know how many fucking fishermen go bankrupt each year in the Boston area alone?"

     I shook my head. 

     "Okay fine, say he actually makes a go of it, does okay. Now he is adding to the environmental disaster that is fishing these days. Great, now the planet is dying even faster. Fantastic. Teaching a man to fish is about the worst thing you could do. If you're going to teach a man, don't mislead him with fish. Get him into 3D modeling. Or grifting. Something fucking useful." 

     "Maybe teach him to bread and fry the fish," I suggested, "and then sell it at a competitive price."

     Trisha sighed theatrically and said, "It's not about the fish guys." 

     "There are lots of those dumb sayings," Ryan rushed on, prancing around the stove, checking the contents of various pots and poking at pans as he spoke. "'A bird in the hand is worth two in bush?'" 

     "Trisha, that one is about birds." I said. 

     "It's not about birds Finn." Trisha rested her head on the table top. 

     "Ladies?"

     "It's like, dude?" Ryan yelled. "Why are you holding that fucking bird?" 

     "Pirate?" 

     "Put it back in that bush with it's family where you fucking found it!" 

     "Ryan, you hate birds." Trisha said. She lay down on the floor and covered her eyes with the crook of one arm. 

     "He likes chicken." I pointed out. 

     "I'm picturing them as small birds!" Ryan said. "Like regular small birds." 

     "Song birds?"

     "It doesn't matter." Ryan was already onto the next one. "How about, "Never look a gift horse in the mouth.' What the fuck is a 'gift horse'?" 

     "It's not about the gift horse." I said sagely. Trisha cried faintly and rolled over so she was face down on the tiles. 

     "What. THE fuck. is a fucking gift horse!" Ryan screamed. "Why are we looking into it's mouth?" 

     "Is dinner ready?" Trisha said, her words smushed by the floor. Ryan began scrapping a pot of rice he had made from stale bread onto plates. "I want to make a book where all of those sayings make sense. 'Don't fuck with horses mouths.' 'Don't steal birds from bushes.' 'Build a man a website and he'll be psyched but then the next year when he want's to update it and you've moved to Rio he's fucked. Teach a man to program instead, he won't enjoy it but then he won't have to try and track your ass down in fucking Brazil!"

     "Junior moved back to Brazil?" 

     "He got deported." 

     "Geez." I said, "That sucks for your online portfolio."

____________

Longest update ever?

See you next month.

With drawings.

f

It has been months since my last update (perhaps you hadn't noticed? You are very popular!) and in that time which of the following three life changing events occurred?

A.  My wife and I moved to Sydney Australia.

B.  A massive meteor hit Russia.

C.  My wife and I adopted a dog.

All three? Correct! Coincidence? You tell me. And other things have been going on as well! It's eerie.

I have been designing posters for a series of events put on by Monkeyrock at Rockwood Music Hall in NYC. I have been contracted to make four of them and I am having lots of fun making them. If you are in or around NYC you should go! The events are really fun, with great music/people/etc... and free.

That one already happened but details for the next one will be up on my blog (here) in the next week or so.

Another thing. I was interviewed for a website that profiles creative people a few months back and it has just gone up online. While most of the interview is about my gallery work there are a few questions in there about Back Already?. If you'd like to check that out click here.

A third thing (perhaps the coolest most immediate thing) is that the latest installment of Oh Nancy Project is debuting in NY this week. The show, entitled Calamity & Ruin, opens this coming Saturday, March 9th from 6:00pm - 9:00pm at Project 722 in Brooklyn. Again, if you are in NY (or within driving distance) it should be fantastic. The work is really strong and from 6:30 - 7:30 there will be a live performance involving a grill and free food.  

And what of Back Already? you say? It is moving full steam ahead. "Full steam ahead" used to mean "super fast"! Now it means something like "as fast as it can go." That's how I mean it. This project is truckin' along! Steam truckin'!

That drawing is a contender for one of the comic/short stories. The following is an excerpt from chapter three that I thought you might like. Also it doesn't give too much away. Please excuse grammar/spelling/etc... it is still on the chopping block.

_____________________

     Before I worked at Promo Shirt Inc. I worked for a short time at a toy store called A-ringa-ding-ding!. It was just down the street from where I was living in Jamaica Plain. The place was owned by thin woman named Patricia with short blonde hair, parted perfectly to reveal that ghostly white line of scalp that older people sometimes have. She looked like a pruney emaciated Ellen DeGeneres. Took maintain that look she adhered to a rigorous yoga regiment in her office. If you entered unannounced you would catch her ordering inventory in downward dog or paying bills like a pretzel.

     If there was one main thing about her it was that Patricia cared about children. That's why she had started the toy store. She was always saying it, "I care about children. That's why I do it." She had been a school teacher for thirty seven years before deciding to explore the stress of business as a retiree. She saw her role as retailer as another way to dip her knobby fingers into child development and promote kinesthetic learning "without all that bureaucracy". Every item in the place had some dual purpose, a rattle/abacus, a fire engine/shape sorter, a board game called Ahoy! that tried its very best to combine pirate adventures with family planning. Staff were required to learn and master every one of these educational tools so that we could pass them off as fun.

     Fun was a very serious thing at A-ringa-ding-ding! The mandatory game nights were Orwellian. Each activity was rated on the "fun-o-meter" and discussed as if Apples to Apples or Janga was the topic of our collective dissertation; "What felt the most spontaneous?" "Where did you employ the most creativity?" "When did you laugh most and why?" "How did the laughter make you feel?" At the end of the night as we filled out our "anonymous" questionnaires (there were only five of us) we had pizza. I always ate as much pizza as I possibly could. I felt I deserved it. 

     That could have been one reason Patricia didn't like me much; eating all the pizza (I did it quickly and obviously, like a kid worried about a seconds/thirds/fourths/etc. at a birthday party). There were other things though and slowly our relationship began to fray at the edges. She didn't like that I had greasy hair and wore threadbare clothes. I explained as best I could that the hair was a result of poor hygiene and the latter was why I worked for her. Her reply to that was a dress code (she could do nothing about the hair short of washing me herself). She had florescent yellow shirts made, A-ringa-ding-ding! printed boldly across the breast. Each employee received three shirts. The yellow made us all look sickly, working with their florescent cousins overhead to highlight blotchy skin, acne and tired purple slugs under each eye. 

     Really though, that was a fair response to my crappy clothes. 

     She also didn't like that I spent most of my time drawing pictures of myself riding unicorns on the chalkboard behind the register. She didn't appreciate how funny it was when I used the helium to record a new store voicemail. She thought it was gross when I informed staff of my impending bowel movements. And she was not amazed later when I was able to crawl up through the drop ceiling from atop the toilet and hoot like an owl at customers below. 

     Really though, all of her complaints were completely reasonable. Except for one. 

     She could not understand why I would not, (no matter how many "heart-to-hearts" we had in her office while she sat in some impossible Reed Richard's pose), why I flat out refused (despite talks from inexplicably concerned coworkers), why under no foreseeable circumstance (in the face of several written warnings) would I answer the phone with, "A-ringa-ding-ding?" 

     I just couldn't do it. Not in my fluorescent yellow shirt. Not even in private. Not without my spirit breaking into a thousand pieces. 

     I didn't want to be there. Incidents added up and eventually she began trimming my schedule until I was working only a handful of hours. When I inquired about it she told me that people just bought fewer toys than they used to and she couldn't afford to pay me. I think that was probably true. 

     Toy stores are in the same flimsy boat as newspapers, social security and the natural world. I tried working for an NGO one time, raising awareness about global warming. I lasted two days. I trained the first day and went door to door on the second. I met a lot of people who didn't believe in global warming, some of them literally laughed in my face. It's going to feel like a really poor I told you so when the remaining polar ice caps melt and we all drown. 

     I really only told them so the one afternoon. 

     Then I quit.

_____________________

That's that! 

Hope you are well! Hope that little cough cleared up, that hung on for a while didn't it? Hope you figured out what that bouganvilla needed. Was it more sun? More water? Should they be outside in this weather? 

Anyway, I'm glad it's sorted. 

More soon! 

-fm

It has been such a wonderful and productive year and I want to thank you for supporting me and this project.

Expect more updates and (if applicable) to be bothered about getting me a mailing address in the near future.

If you do not celebrate Merry-C please feel free to substitute in a Merry-Anything-you-prefer. 

The point is that you're the best. 

And thanks.

f

Congratulations America! 

I have some news of my own. Good news and then bad (kind of but not really bad) and then good news again.

The (first) good news is that I have been spending a great deal of time writing, rewriting and improving the stories that will be in Back Already?. I really think you are really going to like them. 

And now I think you are going to like them so much more than you would have before when I thought you would.

Seriously, things are looking up. 

And now for the bad news (if you really want to be that way about it). With all of these changes and improvements I I feel I must postpone the next recording for a bit, probably a month or two. I want them to be perfect for you. That's not so bad is it? 

Let's not dwell on that. Maybe think about how we won't be seeing Romney much anymore. Let that cleanse the palette.

And now I have some drawings to show you (that's the other good news). I am feeling good about some of the drawings in the comics portion of Back Already?.

Especially excited about drawing more mirrors in the near future.

Before I say adios for another little while I want to mention a few other projects. I have a drawing up in a fun show in Austin Texas at Domy Books (up through Nov 27th with some great people) and I just completed the cover for KCNB's album, Entertainment Worldwide (it's such a great album, I will pass on the details when I have them).

Perhaps most importantly I have grown a mustache. Actually that is neither here nor there. It is on my upper lip.

I want you to know that that joke is not indicative of the kind of humor you can expect from Back Already?. As I mentioned before, I think you will like it.

And that's all the news I have.

Until next time.

Best,

fionn

And it seems to me like time travel. Let me fill you in on the few days since we last spoke. 

I have been learning how to draw myself (something everyone should learn how to do, it's really fun... I mean, not just me, but themselves... "you know what I mean?"). 

And translate some of my stories and characters into comics. 

I have also been looking at lots of different book layouts, fonts, paper types, bindings, sizes and other important things that make up the formal aspects of Back Already?. The trouble is that there are many beautiful books in the world and many are fashioned in frustratingly different ways. I found a wonderful book in Berlin (yes I was in Berlin, more about that later) called Noise that makes unique use of its dust jacket. 

This one book becomes two...  

I thought this design especially intriguing because of the duality of Back Already?: One section is comprised of (mostly) true stories and the other section is a little more fantastic, kind of its mythological counterpoint. 

Interesting. We'll see though, there are still many months left for layouts to change before this book heads off to the printer to make its July 2013 debut. 

The next Audio recording is on its way and I will post some drawings for/from some of the actual comics in the next few weeks. 

And now, before I leave you once again, I mentioned that I was in Berlin. My wife and I were there for a full month and during that time we made a video that documents my meteoric rise to fame in the underground ping pong scene in germany. It's just a little thing but I thought you might dig it. 

Best,

f