Weekly Update – February 4, 2025
The Great Rock & Roll Time Trip Tour is almost finished! My cover artist Tricia just has to put a few finishing details on the cover art and we’re good to go!
But I’m going to spend my time this week offering what I hope will be words of encouragement for creatives struggling to keep going amidst what is, frankly, the biggest governmental shitshow I’ve ever seen in my life — a shitshow that is targeting women, people of color, queer people, and immigrants especially.
I get it. It’s tough to tap your creative soul when it feels like it’s being crushed by outside forces you have no control over. You might be wondering what the point of making art is right now. It feels frivolous, self-indulgent, unimportant, maybe even callous. Here you are, making art, while people are suffering.
When people are suffering is the most important time to make art. That’s when we need it most.
People need to be distracted from the real world right now — and distraction from the world is not the same as ignoring the world, FYI. Distraction is taking a break from the stress of reality to let the body, mind, heart, and soul rest and recover so we can get back up and keep on going. It’s reminding people there is still love and beauty and fun and kindness out there, despite the actions of a maniacal wannabe dictator and his band of enablers, apologists, and loyalists — namely Elon Musk, who might as well be wearing a full Gestapo outfit on a daily basis.
(Yeah, I’m calling him a Nazi. If you take issue with that, you might as well stop reading right now. We’re never going to be friends.)
Artists have long been part of the resistance in the broadest sense of that term. They’re the ones mocking those abusing their power and taking the wind out of their sails. They’re the ones worming their way into people’s brains by slipping messages into their work — sometimes overt, sometimes subtle, but those messages are in there, quietly educating people and making them question their dedication to those who seek to do evil if they’re on the wrong side of history, and/or reminding them that they’re the heroes of the story of their lives and giving them the will to keep fighting if they’re on the right side.
And yes, sometimes you’re simply playing the clown to break through whatever miserable walls are building up around people and reminding them to laugh — and that it’s okay to laugh.
Creatives, you are needed. You are necessary. You are important. Now more than ever.
So keep writing, making art, music, theater, whatever it is you do. Put the messages out there, whether that message is “I love you” or “fuck those guys all the way into the sun.”
Woody Guthrie once had a guitar famously emblazoned with the slogan, “This machine kills fascists.”
Today, creatives, you are that machine.
WRITING PROJECTS
Action Figures – Legacies: Edited, awaiting cover art. Set for release in early 2025.
Action Figures – Untitled sequel to Legacies – Third draft completed.
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – A Wanton Criminal: Fourth draft complete.
The Adventures of Strongarm & Lightfoot – untitled book nine: First draft underway.
The Great Rock & Roll Time Trip Tour – Edited, awaiting cover art. Tentative February 2025 release date.
APPEARANCES & EVENTS
Nothing currently scheduled.
MISC.
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