The Spooky World of Chris Ringler
Words, Books, Art, Movies, and Weirdness
Whenever I start a project, writing, or movie, or art, or whatever, I am immediately in love. It’s the rosy red fury of infatuation and the more I work on it the deeper I fall. It’s only when I step back to look at the landscape more clearly that I start to waiver.
I start to ask –
Is this even any good?
That saying can be a blessing and curse, I suppose. King would talk about the Wheel of Ka, a sort of folksy DARK TOWER version of karma, and how it would all come around.
Maybe that’s so.
The good and the bad.
The sin and the blessing.
We, the holy damned.
I chose Flint.
I was a late bloomer, as they like to say, but really I was just scared to death about moving out of my parent’s house. Moving out made me an adult in full and I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.
I am still not sure.
It’s been a very dark and enlightening life, these past seven months. Since losing my job last year I have struggled to keep my head up. There’s a point where you are applying for so many jobs that you never hear from that you wonder if any of it matters at all.
I kept at it but then when the interviews lead to nothing things only get more frustrating.
It’s as if all the other jobs you have had, work you have done, and skills and knowledge you accrued are meaningless unless you fit a narrow mold of what a workplace wants. Then you start to see what some of these places want and it’s crazy.
I think over the years I have been writing in this blog that it’s clear enough that I love conventions. As far as I can figure, Fangoria’s WEEKEND OF HORRORS was my first (and second), with the Motor City Comic Conventions coming after and by then I was hooked. I loved conventions, the WEEKEND more than anything, because it did two things – it brought together all of these misfits that were into the fringe pop culture stuff (horror), and it let us meet the people who inspired and impassioned us. At their best, conventions are a place where dreams and passions come together. At their best they are a place for people to find that they are not alone in their weirdness, in their hobby, and that they can find the best friends they have ever known. At their best, cons give us opportunities to show off our talents, sell our wares, and become the next generation’s inspirations.
In which I talk about heading out to Stoker Con 2019.
Being just shy of forty-five, I have worked a lot of jobs.
A lot of jobs.
I started working when I was a teenager, doing occasional yard work for a neighbor for $5 an hour, which at the time seemed pretty amazing. From there I worked with my sister cleaning a couple offices my dad was connected to and I have worked every since. I grew up a spoiled kid but not one that didn’t appreciate that you had to work in life.
That’s just how the system is.
So, I worked.
