On Death and Rebirth - A Goodbye Post from New Orleans

I am currently writing this final post for ATB: Writers in New Orleans, where I am attending the wedding of a friend. It’s been a commemorative and lively celebration of sorts thus far, celebrating in a city very much built to be the life of the party in and of itself. Weddings are events celebrating the fact we are very much alive. A reinforced forging of a bond crafted out of something something broken. There’s something magical to the deconstruction and of the I in the embrace of the WE. A ritual that sees two spirits becoming one in partnership sharing their ideals, hopes, and dreams. Forged in rituals of reaffirmation, marriage feels like a reminder of the ending of one's bachelorhood and the embrace, of a new modality of being, and the priorities that come with it.

Children. Retirement. Savings. Responsibility. Things of interest in the pursuit of fulfilling the needs of not just our happiness, but with that, those of the external other that is your partner. To live for not just your interest but in the joys of being with that someone as well or else you become a lost soul in the sea of the strayed. Which I don’t fully believe yet is something proselytized to no end.

I love the city of New Orleans because it is a city of Life and Death. A place alive with its lively jazz music – an improvised style historically crafted to embrace the feeling of the moment – and sweeping all-spiritual juju, summoned by imbibing in the spirits. The absinthe bottles to ever clear the clairvoyance of our perception that New Orleans has always felt like a place to ramble on absolutely about absolute nothings, which is not unlike what I'm doing right here.

In the short time that I’ve spent in this city, besides getting heinously drunk – or Cahssay’d as the locals have called it – I have now tried all the local cuisine, done the French Quarter tours, and visited many museums, atop checking out a few local hauntings and cursed places. I visited these places out of morbid curiosity and personal interest, coming from a former Goth kid gone Emo turned Scenester, now just shy of middle age for any of these hipstery labels to feel relevant now.

Tomb of still-living actor Nicholas Cage in New Orleans' oldest cemetery.

Adventuring the city included visits to the most popular attractions of the spiritual including a cursed ghost mansion of atrocities, a convent hosting a series of vampires, and the grave of the Voodoo Queen. On our first day, we found a three-hundred-year-old European mirror at an antique store, whose frame was finished about the edges with a pair of dancing Phoenixes. Creatures who in ancient Egypt, depicted rebirth within the flames. It was the death of who we were as people from before. The beginning of something new. And the embrace of the people we were going to be, which is what I was happy about with the newly married couple.

This was sort of the feeling I’ve been having this entire trip with me leaving The Workprint, my little entertainment journalism outlet I helped shape after 6 years, and of course, seeing the end of this Blog right here. I do feel like many chapters of my life are closing at the moment but I also do think this is making room for brand new stories. 

See, I’m at a point in life where I feel connected to something beyond my control.  I have a greater sense of purpose now, which as mentioned in my previous posts after finishing my first comic book, makes me sharper in pursuit of what I want to value within my life. This is good, as I’ve been feeling like I have been needing a change for quite some time. At the moment, I have a new Comic Book I am working on called ‘Dead on The Inside’. It is a different take on the zombie genre equal parts love letter as it is, satire. Atop of this, I am also ghostwriting a book about recruiting, pitching a few stories, and working on a screenplay pilot for a company hoping to get picked up by Netflix. So yes, this year, will be my busiest, and I’m sad I cannot share it here. Though I can promise things are happening for me.

I can’t think of a better place for this new phase to begin than down in New Orleans. A place built upon the abandoned graves of the dead, spawning life anew in the Bayou. When I visited the Tomb in Cemetery #1 of Marie Laveau, a woman of legend whose life inspired not just Voodoo but the city itself and a whole sea of art and music, I couldn’t help but feel like I was meant to make a wish on her spirit.

The sayings tell stories of her being almost like a D'jinn of sorts, etch XXX on the tomb and ask a deal with her soul and the spirits of the Earth for any wish in return. Which I wondered, if it would be worth it, to ask for strength to make something great that’ll stand the test of time.

I realized of course, that despite liking to write about the paranoia of the paranormal – I’m actually, not all that into the practice. Just the ideas behind beliefs. Which, I promise, if you follow me on this next leg of the adventure, is where the magic will be made. Those things will happen soon in my life as a storyteller. 

And the world will feel ineffably changed. 

I’ll leave you with this. In the 13th card in the tarot deck, lies the death card. It is one that I often draw by chance quite often in these ‘psychic’ readings. 13 is also, by coincidence, my lucky number. If you know me personally, I probably have also shared with you that wherever I go, death often seems to follow. So as a result I'm a bit obsessed with death and the beyond. Yet, as dictated in both Boolean logic equations which form the basis of modern computing, and even, the philosophy of Daoism: every iteration of something hosts a concept of NOT that thing in itself. So with every death comes rebirth. The start of life anew. Or as that drunken bar tune goes…

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning’s end.”

So here’s to the end of ATBWriters and the beginnings of something else entirely.

Thank you to Mary Fan for letting me be a part of the club.

This one is for all of you. That we may start the new year with humble beginnings that shake the foundations of our very world -- for the better.

Cheers.

The End of Days and Finishing My First Kickstarter

Variant Cover by Shawn McManus

I am writing this while being fully aware that this will be the second to last post I'll ever make for ATB: Writers, a group that I feel blessed to have joined at the end of 2021. It's strange to me that this is going to be the end given that everything is changing in my life right now. It's the beginning of something new. Something that seems to be happening with this writing career I struggled so hard to pull off.

In the last post, I talked about my awkward launch of a debut as a comics creator. Well, we officially hit our funding a few days back. The next 24 hours are the final moments to support the Kickstarter for The Tomb of Baalberith Volume 2. As the first comic I've ever created, this issue may hold value one day, so I think you should buy it.

My story is illustrated by the talented artist and my creative co-partner Jameson Matunas, along with developed by a stellar anthology of unique talents, as a project meant as a cool collaboration I do think these stories came out fantastic. It's creepy. It's meaningful. It conveys a message and has some pretty great interiors. With a reference page 1 of my comic below. Suffice it to say, I’m excited to see what happens next in terms of where this may go in the next two years.

I will admit getting funding was a bit hard. Not just asking from the family and friends angle, but more importantly, landing the attention of that target audience. I'm talking about getting fellow creators, consumers, reviewers, and people who just genuinely like comics, both the ones who are old fans and those hungry to find something new, it all became a massive spam and say-and-pray technique of asking people to pay attention.

I was tired of it by the end but felt like I had to do this… given I don’t have a fanbase yet outside of a few journalism pieces. Posting constantly is tiring. Getting people to see a product stand out is some serious burnout. I think it was best summarized by this little blurb from Humans of New York a cousin shared with me this morning…

I am happy the comic is getting made. Yet, I'm also incredibly tired of trying to promote it, even though, I sort of know it never really stops from here on out. Because after that's finished there'll be the next one. And if not that next project? Then myself to promote. I have to keep the algorithm fed now. This was the point. The debut. The visibility and what it takes to be seen, which I don't want to engage with but do understand its value in an ever-more-so online world.

Anyway, I'm sad ATB: Writers is ending. I liked promoting things, oversharing things, and taking things far too seriously, such as my ever-dying love of Neil Gaiman. Unfortunately, I can't deny that the hurdles aren't there. Overall, blogging seems to be dying in an age of video.

Whatever happens next, I do plan on writing. Being a writer. Telling stories.

You can find me on Google writing for different outlets. I'll eventually also get my website up at www.christianangeles.com

Awkward Debuts: On 'Beautiful' in The Tomb of Baalberith Volume 2

It's really weird for me to do one of these as I'm not really one for self-promotion. Almost everything I do in the journalism space is about someone else's thing, or some company's newest thing, and rarely - if ever - do I feel free to talk about myself openly. Then again, I've never really had a thing I had to promote. Almost every project or accomplishment I've ever worked on was part of a team or a collaboration with that in mind. The Tomb of Baalberith anthology is very much this sort as well, it’s just, still strange to me to see words I wrote turned into imagery. The campaign was created by my good friend and comics veteran Mark McKenna, along with a cohort of writers and friends such as Jad Kaado and Mark's own son Kyle. 

What's cool about this project is we take on a sort of horror comics of the 50s approach. It's Tales from Crypt-styled horror - though never too much or too little in terms of excess. The story that I'd written is called ‘Beautiful’ with thoughtfully stunning artwork from fellow newcomer Jameson Matunas. To be quite honest,  a good reason why I've been missing posts and such lately is our collaboration, as we've been working on this and talking about collaborating on a bunch of projects together in the future. Safe to say, Jameson is my new artistic partner and together, we plan on unveiling stuff that isn't just about his sexy scratchy art style, or my verbose and often turning the trope on its head style of writing - but rather, we strive to make stories that make a difference to today's world. Which is sort of my goal as a writer and ours as creatives.

We want to make art that doesn't just entertain but actually says something. Tells hard-to-listen to truths about the world and brings it to the forefront of the conversation. 

Why? 

Is because although escapism is nice. Entertainment feels overripe with it right now. The world needs to talk about its issues. So I've made a vow to always write about the truths that never get addressed in conversation and in media. Basically showcase, why the world is so full of gray right now - in an era where everyone has become black and white. Us versus Them.

I want to say in my art that life is complicated.

I want us to do something about it, which is why I write the way I do.

To try and change the world. 

For 'Beautiful', the best way I can describe our short is I wanted to make something with a female demon/monster since the original Baalberith was missing a bit of that. Yet, immediately when I had to think about female demons - I couldn't think of many. Sirens. Maybe. A Gorgon. Possibly. Maybe. Definitely? Something with eyes looking into the heart of your soul. As Souls was a big thing in the original comic.

It was then I thought. Ya know. It would be really cool if I could tell a story about my cataract surgery back in 2013. Basically, what it's like being awake while a doctor slices away at your eyeballs. Because I've done that. I've lived that. Most people would be horrified by the kind of melting orange colors you see that is your puss seeping out of your eye lenses. So I originally went with a Gorgon, and to do so, I thought, well, the original story in Perseus looked into Medusa's gaze... This ugly creature who couldn't see herself. 

Which to be honest... then brought me to the idea of tackling a topic on Beauty. Or BEAUTIFUL which is what I called the story so as to not be confused with the BEAUTY comics by Image creator Jeremy Haun (also a great comic btw).

I thought about it for a while. What if I did a story about modern beauty fanatics? How social media is destroying women's personal body images of themselves - particularly on Instagram. Influencers and girls who are obsessed with selling their looks. I also had a beauty influencer friend from high school that I reconnected with in 2022 named, Jessica DeFino. Who'd kinda gotten famous on Substack talking about Beauty Culture and her days working for the Kardashians...  

Anyway, I knew where this story was going but I really wanted to make sure it didn't come across as misogynistic. I needed to stress what I was doing was empowering and not victimizing this person. So I wanted to make a statement about the culture rather than the subject and talk about the toxic nature of chasing fame and having this become everything you wanted... the real-world problems of when you have a be-all-end-all mentality to anything in life.

I realized soon after that The Gorgon wasn't gonna cut it. The pages I'd written for that, contrasted very hard with the plotting of what I wanted to say in this story (it's kinda hard to make a compelling snake woman story where she's hiding from the world and essentially can't look at anyone, else they turn to stone).

But I had this character that I already made for this named, Brandi. A play on the word 'Brand' and also a bit of a valley girl namesake by ending it with an i. I knew the only way this would work was if she obsessed over her pictures and beautiful images - and then throw in a conflict where we take that away.

To build the horror elements, David Cronenberg's body horror movies came to mind almost immediately. But if not a Gorgon then what else could the monster be?

And it became obvious. A Succubus. 

Though again, I didn't want this to be outright naughty for the sake of selling copies. A lot of people do that in the industry and I don't want to be like other people necessarily - so I needed the story to stand out. The idea was something sexy in terms of imagery but with no nudity. In fact, what if... and bear with me.... what if we did a succubus story without any actual sex involved? Would that even be possible and how could it tie to the mythos established within Volume 1 of this story?

The result is what I ended up writing. However, I can't help but feel uneasy about the launching of this. As I am slowly realizing this is the beginning of a very long journey I've been prepping for a long time. 

I can't deny that I'm a bit fazed. A bit flabbergasted. A bit all over the place regarding the launch. 

Anyway, please do support my first breakthrough into comics. Click the Kickstarter. Pledge a few dollars. Buy a copy, a bottle opener, and a T-shirt. And more importantly: watch our video.

Because I scripted that too.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/markinker/the-tomb-of-baalberith-v2

Always Pressed for Time

It is 3 weeks away from the next Comic-Con in NYC and I've overbooked yet again on appointments. The plan is to focus exclusively on comics this time given the writer's strike (comics don't have a union). Though there are ongoing talks at this very moment that the strike might actually end today.

I'm not sure what the plan will be anymore. I haven't since January of this year. 

I am trying to organize how to go about doing everything between my comics work, some book work, and some conventions. However lately, I'm feeling overwhelmed. Nothing seems to be working out as planned. Everything feels like it's not really doing okay despite on the surface level seeming peachy keen. 

We've got layoffs and higher prices on goods of everything, gas prices on the rise, a housing market that's high in interest rates, and an even higher cost of ownership. Debt up the wazoo. Government shutdowns. Multiple recessions across countries such as China, Canada, Germany, and just about all of Europe. Plus food shortages in the UK. These are supposed to be better times... It certainly doesn't feel like it.

I'm genuinely worried about the near future and that anxiety never went away this year. It got me thinking about the nature of time recently. In college, I was a large supporter of humanistic psychology. My mentor at the time was a proponent of Martin Heidegger's 'Being in Time', though I won't focus on that as much given Heidegger's association with the Nazi party. 

What was important was this idea Heidegger had called 'Dasein'. 

Being and Time. The experience being reflective there within capable of experience at this moment. How we are always in a perpetual flux of being in relationship to our objective reality and how that dynamic within this moment influences who we are right now. Thus it reflects who we become later and see ourselves then. Time is reflective. Time is... short. Time seems to be the one thing no amount of money can ever recapture. And our memories, the one thing we have that makes someone themselves - are mostly nothing but frozen moments of time. 

I worry because I think I am almost out of time. 

Before you know it... there it goes. A lifetime,

Passes you right by.

Launching a New Podcast: Monomythic

Hey everyone!

Sorry for the lack of posts lately. I've been juggling a lot of creative projects atop the usual journalism work and so have fallen behind on staying on top of these.

One of the biggest of my projects lately has been this new podcast I just launched. It's named after my company MONOMYTHIC (my writing LLC I made for projects and creative work) and in it, I interview authors, creatives, and people working in the industry about their own hero's journey and what they're promoting.

First, starting with a few comics folks like my buddy Trevor Fernandes-Lenkiewicz about his latest indie comic, then with Fantagraphics creator Natalie Norris, and then horror writer and Marvel Unlimited published author Clay McLeod Chapman (whom you may remember from my interview with him from before.

Then, of course, I brought on fellow ATB: Writer and wonderful author Mary Fan as we talked about her superheroic origin story. Followed by another comics interview with comics legend Mark McKenna, an original member of John Romita Sr.'s Romita's Raiders and my current boss for my first indie project!

Yes, that's right. I have my first big comics publication to come soon hopefully. We're planning to launch a Kickstarter real soon this Fall. All-in-all I've been busy. But I'm still here. Still shooting stories. Still supporting in spreading the news of fellow creatives. 

If you want to be a guest on the podcast, give me a shoutout. I'd love to promote your book and talk stories. You can check out the podcast (link below) to listen to what I do, and if you enjoy it, please like and subscribe. I'll be interviewing lots of creatives in the future and this will be my own private flagship to give you the experience of getting to know fellow creatives. All with a person-centered approach to interviewing. Questions? Yes. But about the artist. About the journey of making things.

And most importantly: About actual people. 

(Click here to head to it in case the embedded episode doesn't work below)

This Awesome Podcast with Mary Fan! Thanks again Mary!

Google Search... I'd Rather Not

So for this post, I was supposed to do a Google Search topic but I don't really want to do that because to me that feels like work, and work, is the whole reason I haven't been able to keep up with these posts most of this year. Also, I'm a little tired of Google search and I'm going to make a one-minute case of why you should be too. 

As someone who's done SEO work and brought in over a million users on places like CultureSlate.com, I know about the magic of Google. I can tell you all about content strategy and how places used Google search to drive keyword traffic. Try to rank at the top of a search result for questions like 'Which place in Miami has the best Tapas' or 'Why do I feel so dead inside in 2023' because if you could rank in the top 10 answers within the search results, you could 'theoretically' bring in foot traffic with the hopes of capitalism click-to-orders of your books, products, or brand.

I can also tell you why Google has effectively become the backbone of the internet itself. How it is that every top (insert blah here) listicle is constructed, was since the days of Buzzfeed, a means of bringing in even more search traffic results. 

Having worked for companies whose entire business model was click-farms, all of this has little to do with presenting anything of actual value so much as it is really old marketing techniques from 10 years ago that's slowly going the way of Dinosaur status. Dead, gone, and repurposed for fuel. This is where we're sort of entering the world as of late and I firmly believe that people don't actually want the truth. Especially from a search. In fact, I'd go out of my way that I really do believe most just want things that confirm their own beliefs. And ergo proxy, their own biases.

It's strange when you think about it. How much has to do with the utilization of smartphone technology. That despite all bullshit promises, expertise, and authority, this really isn't what ranks for top results in a world where we generally don't care about specialization of knowledge. Nor labor. Double-so with the ongoing AI boom where most of the technology, media, and finance spaces, the premiums largest companies anyway such as your Microsofts and Googles, are heading in terms of direction.

I kind of miss us NOT knowing the answer from Google search results. Or better so, NOT knowing the answer WE WANT to confirm our own biases. These search results catered to the user's experience and click-rate probability matrix. Which is heavily connected to data-tracking software trends and queries. 

I stress this all because we're seeing more and more that AI? Often gets things wrong. The facts are not the facts it's just what you want to see. All according to a little probability.

I can't speak for the rest of you but I am hopelessly longing for a pre-search engine day a little. Before the internet answered all of your questions for you. Better yet, when the use of a library still felt like something real. 

There was a sense of wonder in a world where we didn't have all the answers at our fingertips. Biases and all. So. Yeah. I'm done with Google-Search questions. Because if you're in any way shape or form a minority in a subcategory? 

This robot doesn't give a shit about your authority on a subject. 

Nor will it. 

Again, AI is driven by traffic results. Not the truth (And having worked at multiple outlets whose only real 'authority' on a subject was in being an old website or getting traffic through the door, it's let's be clear, the same way someone like, say Joe Rogan gets traffic through a door, sure). 

The cherry on top? Studies have shown time and time again, AI is kinda sorta almost always, racist. 

So yeah. I'm not super into Google search anymore. 

On The Origins of May The Fourth Be With You

Happy May the 4th my fellow Star Wars fanatics and friends!

For those who don't know, I'm actually a pretty big Star Wars fan. The movies meant so much to me as a kid and I even wore Darth Vader as my sixth-grade elementary school costume. Which was something important to me back then. Those long-lasting elementary school friendships were established through a mutual love of Star Wars. 

I remember those days playing tag. Where we would waste away recess at the blacktop parking lot of St. Matthews, pew-pew-pewing away at each other as Tie fighters and X-Wings. Star Wars was the thing that made it so easy to bond with others as a kid. I think those movies, and the message behind Star Wars: of good winning against evil, was why the property lasted so long in the hearts and minds of fans.

In fact, the reason that I'm even on ATBWriters was that during the thick of the Pandemic, back in the times of 2020, Mary, Victor, Karissa and I did a bunch of Star Wars marathons on Twitter. Every single movie from the original to the new trilogy, with even some rogue one on the side. It was a fun time filled with memes and gifs and jokes and commentary. Good people that got us by during tough times. The rest of it became sort of history, as times changed, and life reopened. Though lasting friendships were formed.

As most fans know, May the Fourth is also a play on "May the force be with you."

Some reports claim that the United Kingdom hosted the first instance of 'May the 4th Be With You' as it marked the date when Margaret Thatcher was announced via the papers as Prime Minister of England. The London Evening News even had the "May the Fourth Be With You, Maggie. Congratulations" slogan plastered at every stand and visible place at the table. I do find it fitting, given that it was a different empire celebrating, well, the empire quite ironically unintended. Especially, as it's been revealed that high-ranking Imperials were in fact made to sound like Imperial Brits, as director Irvine Kershner meant in The Empire Strikes Back.

Still, there are some that believe it actually predated even this incident. Another origin story, came from a Randy Thom, director of sound design at Skywalker Sound. The man claims that it was actually the staff came up with the idea when in California shooting for Endor scenes in Return of the Jedi. How it was on May 4, 1982, when people on set kept stating the phrase 'May the Fourth be With You' rather jokingly, hence starting the trend.

Though all of that celebration of May the Fourth lead to the inevitable Revenge of The Fifth. Whose origins came to be a play on the original celebration - though often, in favor of the Empire. Especially, as Revenge of the Sith became the inevitable Episode 3 title. It's funny because about a year ago I got to cover Cinco De Mayo. Now, I guess I'm doing the fourth. If next year I get assigned May 3rd, I'll talk about Solar Eclipses.

On Aging and Figuring Out What's Next

On my 32nd birthday, I celebrated with a large group of friends at my favorite bar. I was so convinced that my 30s would be my decade. 

Then the pandemic arrived two weeks later.

I tell you this because the reason I missed my last post was that I just turned 35. And though this birthday I kept it simple, I really wasn't handling it as well as I'd liked. The truth is that the past three years have been loss-after-loss, so much of which had piled on top of itself that I kind of just stopped celebrating my birthday altogether. 

I stopped wanting to grow. I sought more than anything to get away from myself, and in doing so, lost what the point of it all was regarding my writing journey. I think that in the mess of things, I somehow lost my voice and the very things that made me want to write in the first place. I'd done so mostly out of survival - though that now, has ultimately changed.

There's this game of politics more or less, just like in any sort of career, that sort of comes with the territory. It's hit me pretty recently as a journalist. And I think with Chat GPT, and really, just how everything has changed regarding stances in what I'm calling "truth by convenience" (basically, news that only counts for the person so long as it fits a particular viewpoint regardless of actual facts; methods 100% driven to generate traffic/wealth) sort of has become most of the industry.

This was what I am seeing a lot lately. Friends more-or-less betraying friends, not realizing the daggers were already raised behind them, in this silly game of group hugs, just as the layoffs keep happening across the board. I don't think I want to take part in this anymore. I'm tired of living in a real-life Game of Thrones, and kind of, just want to do the things I like while not worrying about the rest... mainly, being stabbed in the back as many of my cohorts seem to be doing behind closed doors.

For context, I left the mental health field five years ago for this exact same reason. Honestly, I was tired of selling lies to people who deserved better. One of my last, very haunting memories, was calming a hostile client down at a doctor's office because they were de-compensating for the first time. They trusted my reassurance that things would be alright, and even, get better - as I got them the help they needed.

That help? Was lying to them about how we would consider looking into their situation (which was, to be honest, a delusion that they were experiencing that was completely not at all what was happening in reality). It was all in a quick-thinking do-it-or-die moment where I'd de-escalated the situation but did so pretty much by breaking their trust. And they went back to square one regarding their progress in our program. 

The truth, which is something that the field was pretty bad at addressing, was that these people were the ones likely to forever stay in the cycle of the system. Unfortunately, the people that make it out okay and recover... were usually people that came from high means and good wealth. 

What I learned early was that social work was a service... but not a cure. And most of my clients, users with addictions and severe mental health disorders were many, well, hopeless cases. People whom, in many ways, all I did was keep people off the streets. 

What a therapist hates to tell you is that they're almost always a band-aid on a flesh wound. A part of a system as dysfunctional as the education is in this country, in that things only seem to be getting worse the further we cut budgets. 

Nowadays, I write to process the many things that I felt the world wouldn't be ready for in handling. To tell them a story in an easier and more digestible way of understanding. 

But I was wrong. 

Or at least, I think the way that I've been going about writing was wrong. Let alone, my philosophy about living. Something has changed in me. Recently. I kind of fixed some of my own trauma and as a result, the very thing I feared for so long happened in that... I don't really feel the desire to write anymore. 

The problems are still there in my life, as are the hurdles I know that I need to fix but I just, genuinely don't seem to care. 

I guess I lost hope as to why stories matter... And by proxy, I've lost a sense of why I matter. I'm not sure why I'm doing this anymore. 

So I'm going away. 

I'm going to work on things I still have just a spark of passion about. Maybe, it's time to get away and unplug from so many things that make me - just sad. 

It's mostly all in the fields of media but also, just so much of life in general now - as I'm seeing news all the time about jobs being reduced, mid-level screenwriters finding it impossible to find work, and to top it all off: Chat GPT. Sort of making news writing a bit of a redundant skill.

More than anything, I really want to find an authentic way to keep doing this. Something that doesn't feel so fake. Because at this rate... I'm repeating my past mistakes in struggling to keep a dying thing moving in a broken system that's at a complete pivot point.

And... I just... I guess I don't know anymore. 

I knew once why I wrote. 

I just can't figure out why I write now.

I'm Thinking of Ending Things: On How AI Has Made Me Re-Evaluate My Process

Yesterday, Microsoft announced that they integrated ChatGPT into search, which I know is not how you expected this article to begin... but here we are. It's been a topic I've been following for some time given that so much of what I've developed in terms of skillset, has been utilizing search engine optimization best methods and practices. 

I use this not just for the website I manage, but also, for other ones I've helped move forward and grow. It's a process that's far from rocket science, and is more or less, just optimizing user interface to present the best possible user experience. For instance, instead of an empty sidebar on a website, you put an ad or a best-of list. Things you missed! Top Featured Articles of the week! Look at all these things you must read! Stuff to commodify your attention with clicky-dos all for a fraction of a penny in ad revenue. 

Modern SEO based on UI is a method that's picked up in popularity as of late thanks to a multitude of applications that have come and grown these past few years. It's also become popular because of video games - a space where UI has become essential thanks to the multitudes of releases that have to feel and interact differently from one another (think Playstation controller versus a mouse and keyboard) but also, because of how available mobile games have grown...  along with the ad revenue they bring with it.

From Candy Crush to Pokemon Go... so much of that industry was just... fun ways of laying out a system. Stuff to efficiently organize and grab people's attention via click-methods and menus. It was kind of like organizing an attache case in the original Resident Evil games. Or, for those more meticulously minded, getting your thrills by checking off digital to-do lists. 

This new form of AI more-or-less is changing how internet searches will work. 

Previously, much of this space relied on a clean interface and organizable data for a bot to crawl and index, and understand. But now? It's a lot less about what a robot finds and presents for a user to pick up, as much as it is, about what you do to engage with the robot, with it taking from these spaces, and delivering a presentation to the user based on language models and what the AI finds as popular talking points. Not necessarily factual, mind you, but definitely clickable... which is sort of the BuzzFeed style of digital journalism popularized this past decade.

Journalism will change. A lot of the query-driven searches (so... all of journalism) will no longer drive traffic compared to actually having unique stories and news. Having a voice,  and better yet an actual diverse team of writers, will help because the stories will become more about the people writing it, if not equally than in as much as, it is about the actual subject material. 

Marketing, will focus less on keywords and search queries, compared to having already bits of data ready for an AI to absorb and recount later to a user. Search is no longer about the person now. It's about what data an AI can deliver to your doorstep. It's about what's most addictive about the language culture of today to get you to stay on board with a product.

The thing most places are too afraid to tell you is that a large chunk of these layoffs are partially inspired by this new reality. 

Yes, there were redundant and over-hired sections of the job market today for certain, all for promises of growth that never came to pass, but the part that I think most of us see in terms of the writing on the wall: is that the AI bot can push out this addictive clickbait content drivel faster than any human can. 

And while it's got a slew of fact-check problems... what you're witnessing now is only the beginning. Machine learning? Well, that's something I think most people are taking for granted - the idea that it's learning and will get better and make a lot of these types of writing and coding, the basics becoming more or less, redundant.

I dated a mathematician in 2018. She switched out of her Master's program to move into finance before moving away. She sort of warned me this reality was incoming. How machine learning, and by proxy AI, would dominate the market and change everything very soon. That this isn't the type of thing to ignore by a long shot... 

Marketing, coding, journalism, and media. We let so much of this side of the industry be dictated by google search and web-based traffic. Everything from your social media hits to your search engine queries is codified and authenticated by a mixture of how many people visit a page, but also, how much engagement it hits on social media. This analysis. This data analytics... which for a while, was sort of the crux of modern web-based industries... will I think, be analyzed and organized using these new AI tools - effectively replacing a lot of how the algorithm worked for the sake of attempting to create a better user experience... by which I mean, what's more addictive and sticky. The kinds of creative content that keep you engaged in an ever-glutenous attention economy. 

What you're seeing here is the death of something that's dominated how we've done things for the past 10-plus years. And a new methodology of doing something far better... or far worse...

There was this movie written by Andy Kaufman, one of my favorite screenwriters. It's called... "I'm thinking of Ending Things." 

That's how I've been feeling lately. I just want to end things, now. Not in a cry for help so to say as much as it is, I think we need to stop. Or at least, I need to stop... Stop feeling plugged in and sort of dying, the more I realize, things will never get better in the world. Sort of take control of what's right in front of me and let go.

Anyway, I really wanted to see this film when it came out. 

I didn't have a chance to because I was busy improving my website's SEO during the heart of the pandemic. 

The past five years have been chasing this stability that never felt stable in this kind of writing, doing what everyone asked of me, and trying to chase a thing that never felt genuine. 

I think that this is it. 

I want to end things. 

I want to write stuff that feels genuine. 

I want to be okay just being me and sharing with you my truth:

That I think we're all fucked. But we don't have to be...

Anyway, I'm tired of this and am breaking up with the old process. Old me. We're done now. And I'm moving on to something new. Let's go new me and find a new way of doing things. 

The robots are here to stay, either way.

Every Story Is A Moment In Time

I am writing this after having just watched Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. For those who haven't seen it yet, this is arguably one of the best films of last year. One of those once-in-a-lifetime movies that defies everything that's "supposed to be a story". 

It's a nonsensical tale that begins as a family drama, then becomes a sci-fi/martial arts story about failure, existentialism, and family feuding, as Everything Everywhere sees a multidimensional black hole unraveling at the center of the multiverse. Though the hows, whys, and who's after it, all center around the family drama.

Told from the perspective of Evelyn, an Asian mother and the movie's unlikely heroine, one fateful day, while having to pay back money owed to the IRS for the Wang family laundromat business, Evelyn's reality fragments mid-meeting, with her husband from another reality arriving essentially revealing that she's the chosen one meant to bring balance to the universe.

Alternate reality Evelyns can range from being a successful martial artist actress, to a teppanyaki chef, and then, hot dog-fingered lesbian. Getting to synch with an ability means tapping into improbability, making it pretty out there as a film, with lots of funny acted moments, but also, a lot of heartfelt diatribes. For every moral lesson of finding happiness in the beauty of the now, there is also a dildo-slapping butt-plug-bearing scene of battle-ready stupidity. Which is kind of the point of everything everywhere all at once.

I spent a long time avoiding this movie because I knew whenever I finished it... I'd be forever changed.

The best way I can describe the movie is that it's about learning how to be okay with yourself in the now, which I was not super ready to handle.

Acknowledging this as someone who's likewise, felt like he never lived up to his own potential, I think what works so well about the movie is how most of it is framed into little chunks of time.

Histories, moments, and missteps frame every alternate's characterization and abilities. All focused on moments of Evelyn's life defined by her relationship with her family. 

I relate to this a little too much... I think most audience members do.

See, when I was younger I was really into superheroes. This idea of right and wrong, saving the day and making everyone happy. I liked to pretend to be an adult, and what that meant to young, dufus, Christian, was that you had to expose yourself to traumatic things.

I was particularly into Batman the animated series as a child. My older cousins really liked how 'adult' and 'grown' up the Dark Knight was, and the movie: Batman Returns, was one of the first VHS tapes I think most of my extended family members bought in the late 80s and early 90s. A first purchase owned by every first-generation Filipino American parent...

The first big superhero... for everyone.

Then, in college, I read a lot about existentialism. Superheroes, while a childlike interest, were less of a concern to me as I'd begun the journey of discovering who I was supposed to be in life. I'd begun with cognitive psychology, but soon after, moved into personality theory and abnormal psychology. Where Martin Heidegger's Being In Time became sort of this template of what exactly that meant to be in the moment...

Philosophy was something I obsessed over into my early 20s. A passion that oddly, came back into superhero comics once I began reading Neil Gaiman's Sandman... though that's a story I've already shared here. Soon after, I sort of studied more about writing and became obsessed with the hero's journey, which is, by all means, is rooted in almost every superhero story.

All of these moments. Ideas that the surrounding worlds of experience, the things that built and shaped you into the continuously experiencing being. The I, that in turn experiences the world in this exact moment in time, making decisions, influenced by culture, reflecting and reacting and engaging in an endless dance of what it means... to just be.

Culture changes. Narratives shift. The classics of today's reform become rehashed stories told a million times over. Every movie is just Star Wars. Your influences will disappoint you. Who would have thought J.K. Rowling would turn out to be such a horrible person? Or that my own cinema hero in my 20s, Woody Allen - whose works I obsessed over and studied religiously as they implemented existential psychology, would likewise prove to be a horrible human.

They say never meet your heroes...

I say these things not to be cruel but to adapt. To stress all of these weird little moments. These changes. Things that were important then and the things that have become important now... Like family, and friends, and living a balanced life.

Every story of finding yourself is a piece of that time of the here and now. Moments encapsulated forever in the art that the words, ideals, and beliefs of the person come out to be.

It's Everything. Everywhere. All at once.

And that's a beautifully tragic thing.

Growing Up with Mariah Carey: All I Want for Christmas Is You, The Never Ending Story Edition

There are a few things that you can count on with yearly certainty. 

People will surprise you. The government will collect its taxes. And Mariah Carey's "All I want for Christmas is You" will play, incessantly, this holiday season. 

It's every retail holiday worker's bane of existence on repeat. This call for wanton consumerism during Christmas. A decorum, Holiday-themed, of polite seasons greetings dressed in hues of red, green, and gold. The synonymous colors of December's incentivization to spend money. The void of consumption asking to be filled with presents, candy cane-flavored schnapps, and the decking of some halls with holly.

Six. I was six years old when Mariah first bellowed her first invocation. Her call for Christmas and Holiday cheer. An event now repeated every decade with timeless Grammy awards and sudden comeback playlists of the top 100. Despite the fact that somehow, this many years later, "All I Want for Christmas" is now 28 years old. Yet still breaking the airwave records.

Why this is, should be most concerning. How despite the present offerings, stocking, and threats of mistletoe, the very weapon that took down the invulnerable Balder himself, Mariah arises. Like a Phoenix not of Ash... but of Snow. Singing. Celebrating. Waiting. Asking you for one thing and one thing alone. 

Has it ever occurred to anyone to ask the question? Have you ever wondered why it was that all she wanted for Christmas was... 

Well, it was clear to me back in 2004. Ten years after its first debut. There was a chance that 'All I want for Christmas' is a siren's song. Clear signs, that to me anyway, how despite a decade having past, the ravenous beast was still hungry... 

Mariah emerges. Like her predecessor, Pennywise. To beckon her next unsuspecting victim. How despite the bribery with boundless presents. Nothing will stop her from attaining her goal this holiday season:

YOU.

I loved this song when it first debuted. Though I always found it strange how it lived on the decade after. Then the nearly almost decade after that. 

I think. That until she gets what she wants... the song shall forever continue.

Mariah Carey, in the never-ending story, written by Christian Angeles, edition...

Will never be satisfied until she consumes us all.

Google Search: Halloween

I don't have much to say this time around. 

At first, I was wondering if I should do a google search about google search, to basically explain what's changed regarding search and search engine optimization. How so many businesses depend on it more than ever, and how the algorithm landscape has changed as Google's become even more dominant than ever before. 

Then, I realized, I don't think people super care about that.  Halloween is just around the horizon. And I should probably be focusing on that instead...

I should stress that Halloween is one of my favorite holidays. Yet this year, I'm not entirely thrilled or in the spooky mood for Halloween. I think the world has become a bit of a scary enough place on its own. I'm also not seeing too many great Halloween-themed series. Minus some TV series such as Dahmer, and I guess if we're going there, The Midnight Club (though I think Midnight Mass was infinitely better). 

I'm at a bit of an end regarding what to say. Because I was assigned a google search, and so I figured, why not just see what shows up on my first five search trends, as a way of fulfilling that I did something posted on here regarding google search, while also, having celebrated the spooky scaries. 

So here goes.

Halloween Ends:    

The newest and final horror movie in the Halloween series. I don't really know what happens, but also... I don't really care? I do find it strange that Mike Myers has failed to kill his teenage sister 50 almost fifty years later. I also find it strange, given how many times he's been shot and stabbed and blown up to kingdom come, that he doesn't have some sort of arthritis or health problems? He doesn't seem like a person who's in good health given he probably has, for likely the entirety of his life, chased a singular idea. So I can't imagine he's too good up there.  

Halloween Costumes:

I've actually never really bought costumes before as an adult. I sort of stopped in my childhood and in college and didn't really attend as many Halloween parties because I was mostly focused on school. I did, however, buy one for comic-con recently, where Mary Fan and I dressed up as Boba Fett and Fennec. Which was neat.

Halloween Date:

I don't have one but I do plan on being at DerpyCon, which will be my last convention of this year. I also haven't told most people yet but there's a pretty good chance it's my last convention for a while, as I'm sort of doing a life change pretty soon.

Halloween Kills:

Is another Halloween movie that came out, I believe, just last year? Whereas 2021 made sense given everyone's reluctance to be a person again, 2022 is completely different in that I think everyone is mostly all for going back to normal. Besides that, I just know of it as yet another Halloween sequel in the series.

Halloween Movies:  

There are a couple of good ones out right now such as Smile, Nope, Werewolf by Night, The Watcher, Bodies, Bodies, Bodies, and Prey (technically a horror movie). In terms of revenue, horror is absolutely slaying it as the low-cost and high-profit margins make it a pretty solid genre, despite the lack of accolades. Still... I wonder when we'll get a real true horror movie that wins an Oscar again. 

And that's all I have. I'll try and do something stuffier for Thanksgiving.

 

 

 

Interview: Clay McLeod Chapman on Writing, Horror, Ghost Eaters, and Wendell and Wild

Halloween and the month of October is upon us! So, for ATB Writers, I figured, why not try to bring on a spooky-themed guest to talk about writing along with their work.

 

And wow, did I find someone pretty epic to interview… 

 

Author Clay McLeod Chapman has been writing some of the most terrifying stories for the past two decades. A horror aficionado by every measurable standard you can literarily (yes, that’s a word) think of, Clay’s longstanding career writing shorts, plays, comics, and novels, has made for one hell of a writing resume.

 

His live-action The Pumpkin Pie Show was once called a brilliant hypderliterary thriller by Timeout NY. He’s also been published at Marvel comics, with his most recent run in Devil’s Reign: Villains for Hire, having released just earlier this year. 

 

In October, Clay has a movie coming out on Netflix called Wendell and Wilde, an adaptation of an unreleased novel co-written by both Clay and legendary filmmaker, Henry Selick (The Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline). Early reviews of the movie rave about the reuniting of comedy duo Key and Peele, With Variety magazine, even calling the film a forerunner for best-animated picture. 

 

Just days ago, Clay also released his long-anticipated book Ghost Eaters. A story about loss, drugs, and… well, check out our interview below to learn more.

 

 

First, you have a tremendous body of work that you’ve released but the one thing I see that almost always resonates is horror. Can you tell us what it is you love about the horror genre and why it resonates so well in your writing?

Clay: Horror has always been there for me, you know? Ever since I was a frightened little child… I’ve always been afraid of the world and that has translated itself into the stories that I want to tell.

You’ve had an illustrious career having written screenplays, books, comics, short films,

and stage plays. How do you healthily balance so many writing projects?

“Healthy” is a bit subjective… I’d almost posit my writing habit is nearly the opposite.

I’m kidding, but still. The way that I maintain any sense of stability—mentally, physically, emotionally, or otherwise—is to rotate my writing. I work on something, obsess over it for a draft, then volley it out to the powers-that-be, whether that’s an editor or beta reader or whomever. From there, I rotate to the next project, obsess over it, then volley that one out.

Usually, by the time I’ve volleyed one project out, I’m ready to receive feedback on the previous project and the cycle continues anew.

Oh! No sleep… That’s another part of the process.

What were your major influences in your youth? Was there a specific moment that

pushed you to pursue writing? 

So many, but right off the top of my head…

I found Stephen King’s short stories in middle school. Night Shift and Skeleton Crew were pretty fundamental texts. The poet Ai. Her work was absolutely essential. Poe. Katherine Dunn’s Geek Love. The Tin Drum. Eric Bogosian and Spalding Gray. The Story of the Eye. David Cronenberg. Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark.

What are your beliefs on the notion of having heroes versus being your own? Do you think your writing appeals to a specific reader of sorts, and if they could take away a message from your art, what do you think that would be? 

Ooof. That’s a toughie because I think I’m still struggling to seek out my readers. I may end up dead before I ever find out what might be appealing to my work for others… I wish I knew, because then perhaps I could focus on it. Harness it.

I used to be enamored with the idea of eliciting sympathy for the devil. That one could create empathy for monsters or monstrous people. I’m not certain I do that with my writing anymore, but that was a guiding principle in the beginning.

Now it’s just… I don’t know. Can I tell a story that resonates? That lingers? What’s the kind of story that I can write that someone will want to tell someone else?

Ghost stories often contain elements about something left behind. A past forgotten. An abandoned geography. Can you talk about how important locations, and specifically, history are to your work?

Well, I’m a southern boy. Born in the Blue Ridge and raised in Richmond, Virginia. Growing up, I was always intensely aware of the fact that I was always walking on history.

Somebody was buried below my feet at nearly every step. The South defines itself by its past and yet can’t seem to rectify it. Come to grips with itself. It’s a haunted corner of the country, you know?

That really sank into my psyche as a child and I think it still resonates. Ghost have always been the metaphor—the spoonful of sugar—to address those lingering faults in an engaging way.

You’ve been in the game for a long time. What do you think has changed over the years in the industry and do you have any words of wisdom for anyone starting out today? 

Survive. Survive any way you can. Protect yourself and your work. Say yes to every opportunity that comes your way, no matter how out there it may be, and learn how to do it as quickly as you can. The only real success I’ve had is longevity. I’m not a bestseller or an award-winner, but I get to tell the stories I want to tell.

The long haul is a hell of a lot different than what we constitute as success. You just put in the time. Your work might not be a million people’s favorite thing… but what if it’s a thousand people’s favorite thing? A hundred? Ten? Is it still worth it to you?

You’ve got to be honest with yourself in regards to what’s your personal definition of success because it might be different than what the industry dictates.

Alright, specific work questions! You’ve worked on Carnage, Edge of Spider-Verse, and Venomverse. These are some very beloved comic book titles. What’s it like working with Marvel and how’d you break into writing comics?

It’s absurd, but my origin story is this: I taught a playwriting workshop eons ago for high school students and Ellie Pyle was one of the writers in the class. She eventually when to college, graduated, got an internship at Marvel Comics, worked her way up the ranks until she herself became an editor… and then, like, ten years later, she reached out to me and asked if I wanted to write for Spider-Man.

It was an absolute dream come true. You just never know who you’re going to meet and at what point in your life you’re going to meet them, so just be nice to Everybody. Working with Marvel is wonderful because they invite you to play in their sandbox with all their toys. They have the coolest action figures. You wanna play with Deadpool? Here’s Deadpool… Scream? Here’s Scream.

It’s scary. It’s indie. And the New York horror scene really seems to love it. Can you describe what the “Pumpkin Pie Show” is to someone who has never seen it? How are you so good at these creepy live-reading performances?!

Ha! Oh, man… That’s my band. I was always that guy who wanted to be a musician but could never play an instrument or carry a tune to save his life, so I took the elements of a live punk rock concert and insinuated them into a theatrical-performance-storytelling-thingy and that became the Pumpkin Pie Show. It’s just a set list of Poe-infused diatribes. 

Imagine a roster of monologues where the performers directly address the audience and things get a little sweaty.

You just released a book called ‘Ghost Eaters’. Can you tell us what it’s about, its psychedelic angle, and most importantly, where people can find a copy? 

Ghost Eaters is about a haunted drug. Pop a pill, see the dead. It’s about grief and addiction and the past not being entirely through with us. It’s about losing someone we loved and not being able to let go of them. It’s about ghosts. Lots and lots of ghosts. So many ghosts.

If you’re going to write a book about a hallucinogenic that allows you to see spirits, you damn well better bring your psychedelic A-game… Things get pretty trippy. And gloopy. It’s a doozy. You can find Ghost Eaters wherever you buy your books from… Support your local bookstore!

Finally, early reviews from Toronto were absolutely raving this month. Can you tell us about the upcoming Netflix movie Wendell and Wilde? What was it like writing with Nightmare Before Christmas and Coraline stop-motion savant, Henry Selick?

Henry’s a visionary. People are going to love this story. It’s bonkers. He really throws the kitchen sink into the mix. There’s going to be a limited theatrical release on October 21st , then it’ll hit Netflix for everyone on October 28th. A perfect way to usher in Halloween with the fam.

Seriously, it’s a project with both Henry Selick and comedy masterminds, Key and Peele. How are you not letting all of this get to your head? Have any advice on staying humble and working hard for any of us that’s awestruck, such as myself?

Work comes and goes. You just got to keep focusing on the next story, the next project.

You’re attending NYCC as well. Can you do a shout-out promoting the panel you’re participating in?

Yes! I’m so excited… I’ll be on the Spooks, Shivers and Shrieks horror panel alongside Princess Weekes (The MarySue), Rachel Harrison (Such Sharp Teeth), Eric LaRocca (Things Have Gotten Worse Since We Last Spoke), Katrina Monroe (They Drown our Daughters), and Vincent Tirado (Burn Down, Rise Up)… Saturday, October 8 th at 2 PM. Hall 1B02. See you there!

------

Thanks again to Clay McLeod Chapman for doing this! You can get a copy of Ghost Eaters wherever books are sold or check him out at NYCC.