Author: Michael D. Griffiths

Michael D. Griffiths is a man who likes to keep busy. He loves camping in the wilds of Arizona and all over the west, playing poker, and debating such topics as mysticism, creativity, anarchy, and punk rock. He was awarded first place in Withersin’s 666 writer’s contest. He has become the Marketing Manager for Sharestorm an online Promotion Company. He is on the staff of The Daily Discord, SFReader, and the Ervice. His Skinjumper Series has been chronicled in M-Brane magazine and has now been released in a new novel. The Living Dead Press has published his series, The Chronicles of Jack Primus and Eternal Aftermath. The first novel in his Warriors of Light series, Dalsala Den, has recently been released by Cyberwizard Publications. Find one of my most popular novels, Skinjumpers, here! https://amzn.to/2Gdu3Be

WildernessPunk Positivity/Negativity

Hello and welcome to this week’s WildernessPunk. I’m going to endeavor to get a new one of these out every weekend this summer. Aren’t you excited? Is doing this a positive accomplishment, or do you dread what sort of depressing negativity I might scrape off the crusted, overused bong our planet is becoming?

I’m not writing today to go into the positives and negatives affecting you and your world. Instead, I seek to discuss the opposing methods which could be used to improve our planet’s current declining condition.

If you are reading this, I assume you care about the health of our world and wish for things to improve, yet what’s the best path for us to pursue to make this happen? I’ve read many articles and books (I’m reading one currently) where the author runs off a laundry list of all the horrible things humans have done to our earth and the reasons why things are just going to get worse in the future.

Is painting the grim picture the best thing we can do to affect a positive change within ourselves and our culture? Sort of a drug rehab philosophy; You must hit rock bottom before you realize you have no further to go and only then can the true healing begin. I’ve worked in drug rehabilitation units, and I can say by personal experience I think this concept is bullshit. The idea that things must get worse before they can get better is false.

Let me give you an addiction analogy. Joe drinks too much. He just lost his job and things are going downhill for him. By AA logic it will somehow help him to lose his housing too and only when he becomes homeless will he be ready for change.

I disagree. Following this AA scenario through, Joe will go to recovery for 28 days and then walk out sober and homeless. He will have to get a job, hold it for three months (at least) while crashing in his car/friend’s sofa/park bench to have a chance to rent a new place. Hmmm, do you think this will be easy? Will Joe feel like a loser and become depressed? Maybe he’ll need a way to relax or just get bored sleeping in his car. Just a sip and he could forget for one night though…

But what if Joe decided to get his act together, or his friends and family helped him, before he reached rock bottom.

Joe doesn’t lose all his things and waste his money starting all over.
Joe will have other methods to entertain himself instead of drinking such as a television, computer, music, books etc.
Joe will have a much easier time finding a new job and keeping it if he has clean clothes and can take a shower each day.
Joe will feel more relaxed and have a better sense of self worth than if he was sleeping outside and this sense of self worth will help give him the strength to know his life just might be worth the effort he’s putting into it.

This is less true when it comes to our environment. Do we need to hit rock bottom before we struggle to improve? Perhaps people will be more interested in making a change by then, but will cutting down all the rain forests before we wake up help us in any way? I’m going to say no. Our goal should be to keep as much alive as possible before we enact change, so we’ll have more left worth saving. If all we have left are cities, corporate farms, and animal factories, personally I’d be inclined to say why bother.

So do we get there with scare tactics (negativity) or with the hope that our motivations and innovations will win the day eventually (positivity).

Let’s break it down.

Negativity: +

Proving the severity of the situation could force people to act.
Scientists can show us what we shouldn’t be doing to our planet.

Negativity: –

When a problem seems insurmountable some might wonder if there is any reason to try.
Depression can lead to stagnation and apathy instead of action.

Positivity: +

Believing we can create a better world leads people to discover how we can make this better world occur.
Having the confidence that we can make a difference helps motivate us to do so and create new innovations which can help save our globe.

Positivity: –

If people think scientists will discover some new tech which will save us all in the end, why worry about our behaviors now?
People could get false virtue flags while they are driving 50 miles a day, eating more meat, and killing all the native plants in their yard but they have earned it because they recycle 15% of their waste.

In the end it will probably be a mix of both camps which will save us. I, however, would prefer to stand with the positivity camp. The more we change, adapt, and innovate the better our chances of survival are. I hate to stand on the shoulders of the myth technology will save us, but still, other than a human ending plague, I think technology and new innovations are this globe’s only chance.

Here are some new ideas on the horizon and in some places some of these have already started to happen.

Biodegradable machines, such as cars can be made from plant fibers.
Meat can be grown/cloned in huge vats and then distributed to grocery stores. (Side note: I did write a novel about this in my Skinjumper series, I guess I should get the William Gibson award for 2013)
We could design a bacterium which could eat all the extra carbon in the oceans.
Governments could use tax money to help fund science instead of making billionaires richer and supporting the military industrial war machine.

So let’s get positive people. Remember, worst case scenario, we die off and in a 100 million years from now our house cats will have evolved into bipedal hominids and can give civilization another go. Wait, cats? Maybe we should try mice instead.

You can grab a little of my fiction here

WildernessPunk- Invironment

No, it isn’t a typo. Invironment is a new term to encapsulate a few different ideas you’ve probably heard before and perhaps a few you haven’t. The concept goes something like this, “Nature and culture have grown less distinct and are now part of the same whole. Our species has arrived at a point in human evolution we are close to only letting nature exist where we allow it to do so.”

Some aspects of this theory can strike one as negative or disheartening, such as thinking of national forests as just larger Central Parks surrounded by urbanization and highways. Other aspects might spur on ideas for betterment and hope, such as rooftop gardens and replacing vacant lots with small areas where some wildlife can still exist.

But is the concept a useful one?

If it helps people wrap their heads around humans, other animals, and plants all belonging to the same interrelated system which needs to cooperate to keep our planet healthy, I believe it is. The theory points out that long gone are the days when people can pretend there is a huge world out there and we can barely scratch the surface of the endless wilderness existing beyond our cities. Yes, those days are indeed gone, very long gone. One could easily point out the effect over-harvesting their farmlands by the Sumerians had upon the hundred generations which followed them. Some archaeologists speculate their poor farming practices caused salt to leech into the fields and rendered them lifeless over 5,000 years ago. Currently, the Sumerians, who invented agriculture and the use of wheat, have left their ancestors required to import 1.4 billion dollars of wheat into their country because of this ecological disaster which happened thousands of years before the founding of Athens.

Since humans control how the world is divided and destroyed, we also need to accept the responsibility of managing the Earth and its resources, unless you want to ask a giraffe to do it.

Invironmentalism also asks us to act now, today, and more next weekend. Instead of thinking a politician or scientist will somehow come up with a plan to fix everything, the rain forests will regrow themselves, and cities will magically shrink and create new wetlands, humans should be working with what we have and what we could have in the future.

This might involve hard choices and rethinking your own personal environment. Should you rake up all those leaves which will decompose and provide nutrients to future plants, homes to insects, and replace a natural ground cover with a lawn? I guess it’s okay if you want to go to sleep knowing you did your part to make the earth just a little more dead. We all need to look in the mirror and say to ourselves, “Am I even really trying to be an environmentalist or am I just another criminal putting my needs, social standing, and comfort above the health of my planet and future generations?”

A lot of people claim to be Environmentalists, and I’m certainly not there myself, but the only true Environmentalists I see are the homeless. They might not be perfect, but they are certainly better than you and I. I’m going to toss up a quick list, more to get the point across more than to provide a complete spectrum of non-environmental practices. This is more of a ‘get you to double think,’ your lifestyle.

If you do/have any of these things, you really don’t care about the environment more than yourself and aren’t an environmentalist.

Drive when you could have walked or ridden a bike
Fail to make a garden in your yard if you can do so
Have a lawn on your yard
Order from Amazon more than once a month
Fail to make a compost pile
Order delivery more than twice a month
Throw more than 10% of your food into the landfill
Remove native plants from your yard

The list could obviously continue, but I’m sure you get the idea. Environmental choices aren’t easy and might not make you popular. Things like letting your ‘weeds’ grow might not make your neighbor happy but is ten times better for the environment than his gravel covered, dead yard, which does its fair share to increase global warming. The important thing about Invironment is the concept that, even though things are tough, we humans, animals, plants are in this all together. If technology has given us the ability to destroy so much of what is precious on our planet it’s time to use technology to save animals.

Can we recycle junk which would have produced greenhouse gases in a landfill and instead use it for bird houses? Will my compost pile help some of the little mammals and insects survive in the food desert of my expanding city? We need to embrace the idea of helping animals and plants survive within our cities and industrial areas, because when 2 billion more people are going to be city dwellers by 2050, we’re going to have cities covering a lot more of our planet.

Lastly, our modern farms are really another example of food deserts. We removed all other forms of plants, drained the earth of almost all its nutrients and must replace it with industrial fertilizer. Animals have a hard time surviving on this monolithic landscape and when things like insects try to eat a little of the growth because we have destroyed everything else in the area they used to eat, their reward is being poisoned by the insecticide we spray over the crops.

Again, I’ll end on a positive note. Think of things not as a disaster but as an opportunity for you to be a great citizen of the earth every day. How can you grow your own food? Can you convert an empty lot or the ground around abandoned buildings into community gardens? Can you use something to build homes for urban animals instead of tossing it into the landfill? Will you fix your gear, recycle it, or scavenge supplies instead of buying them new? And overall, the best thing you can do to help is consume less and dispose of as little of your waste as possible.

Maybe one more thing. The next time your see a homeless person thank him or her for being ten times the environmentalist you will ever be.

Grab some Skinjumper-Punk here and help support your friendly WildernessPunker

WildernessPunk- Is Overpopulation a Racist Concept?

Hello, welcome back if this isn’t your first time, and let me quickly state, I’m not usually like most writers. During the pandemic lock down, some took time to finish novels and brought their writing to a new level. Pah, why be so predictable. Me, I wrote less and spent more time with my kids, but since the pandemic is over(ish) I guess it is time to pick up my pen and laptop and dive into the meat of these seriously messed up times we are living in. Where to start right? But instead of reviewing subjects which have been reviewed a thousand times before, I will endeavor to focus on one concept at a time and here goes.

Recently, I was having a conversation with a gentleman, and I causally brought up the issue of overpopulation. He told me there is no overpopulation and bringing it up was racist. Let’s break this down to his two points 1. There is no overpopulation of humans. 2, To mention there is overpopulation is a racist thing to do.

Overpopulation

What would too many humans on the planet look like?

Resources are being used more quickly than they can be replenished.
Animals are being overharvested for food and going extinct due to the destruction of their environment.
Humans are occupying more than their fair share of the planet we share with millions of animals and a multitude of plant life.
The quality of human life is decreasing.

There are obviously more issues which could be discussed but this isn’t a term paper.

Resources:

Humans began to irreversibly change our environment long before the current era. Before the raise of Rome, much of what we now consider the Middle East was overgrazed by human’s nomadic herd animals and turned grasslands, which once sported a wide variety of animals, into near lifeless deserts which have only grown over the past four thousand years. While traveling through Tunisia in North Africa, I was told by a local guide that the country had killed off almost all the non-domesticated animals which once lived there three thousand years in the past.

Between 2002 and 2012 the Earth lost 880,000 square miles of forest (High Resolution Maps of the 21^st Century Forest Cover Change. Science 15 November 2013) Our planet’s wilderness areas have dropped from covering 100% percent of the Earth to merely 22% percent. Also, only 11% of our photosynthesis takes place in these wild areas. (Erle Ellis and Navin Ramankutty, “Putting people in the map: anthropogenic biomes of the world.” 2009)

Lastly the amount of land required to exclusively feed all of humanity, which remember was once zero, had grown from nothing to – in our lifetimes.

In my opinion, does humanities growing use of resources indicate our species has an overpopulation problem?

Yes

Overharvesting

It is clear the oceans are being overharvested. The number of fishing vessels increased from less than a million to 4,000,000 since 1970 yet even with this increase the yield of fish has dropped two thirds. (Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Rome 2012) One might argue if we plant crops how can we be overharvesting them? However, human crops are now covering over 40% of the Earth’s surface (James Owen, Farming Claims Almost Half Earth’s Land,” Published December 8, 2005). How many resources are being using for just one species and the animals we’ve domesticated for our uses? 200 years ago humans and our animals were 1 percent of the biomass of mammals on this planet, but currently we are over 90% (Christian Schwagerl “The Anthropocene,” 2014). Personally, I think if we must clear cut forests and destroy hundreds of animals and their homes forever, this counts as overharvesting. If you don’t think ruining the planet for other life forms so you can have a cheeseburger is not a system of overharvesting, I think we should have a long talk.

Are Humans overharvesting the Earth?

Yes

Human Occupation

10,000 years ago 100% of the Earth remained in its natural environment, today only 22% of the Earth’s land has retained its natural environment. We are approaching having over 50% of this planet’s lands covered in human farms. I think this sums it up, moving on.

Is the increase in the lands humans occupy a sign over Overpopulation?

Yes

Quality of Human Life

This is a tougher one because look, we have a computer in our pocket now and door dash and… five roommates. Yes, in many ways the quality of human life has improved. There is less poverty than ever before and over all human’s life expectancy is increasing, (except in the USA).

However, is living in a city better than the country? This is hard to gauge, but as rent and real estate costs roars through the roof, for many, the dream of having their own place is just that… a dream. For others, they can only afford to live in tiny apartments with extra roommates and family. They are the lucky ones compared to the growing numbers of homeless and with rentals the way they are, coming up with 3000$ to move into a new place while you are living in a car or park might be one level below impossible. Some people, myself included, have been ‘blacklisted’ (if this term has its roots in some racist BS please forgive me) by the corporations which own most of the rentals currently and will refuse to rent to people who might not have settled some old debt with a landlord who evicted them years ago. These people, myself included, remain unable to rent a place no matter how much cash they have in their wallet.

I guess it comes down what improves the quality of a person’s life. Are younger folks spending time on their phones because it is better than hiking, or because the hiking trail was paved over, and they can’t afford a car to drive to a different one? Would a couple like to observe animals in the wild, but they can now only see them on YouTube, so they stay home and relax on the sofa. Another couple dreamed of moving into the country, but they are required to stay in the city because their whole family lives with them.

In the end, quality of life is more ambiguous. Who had it better, a settler who had forty acres to spread over but dies at 51, or the dude who works at JiffyLube but enjoys his cable package up into his 80s?

Out of the 4 measures I used to determine whether overpopulation was real, 3 were a strong yes and the last might be considered a tie at best. So given this, I’m going to conclude overpopulation is a real issue and it certainly wouldn’t be out of hand to state we are in an overpopulation crisis. However, we still have another claim to investigate.

Is Claiming there is an Overpopulation Problem Racist?

I see where this concept is probably coming from. “Oh no, the brown people are overpopulating their countries, using up all their resources, and now trying to come here and take ours.” Yep, that would be racist. Or if we take more of a fascist view, “Those other type of people are having too many babies.”

Part of me wonders if this is some shield, used by the left, to help them avoid the root causes of almost all our troubles we currently face on this planet. “Wow, overpopulation, that’s a problem almost impossible to solve, but if I just think racists are concerned with it, I can just ignore it, because to admit it is an issue would make me a racist.”

Many on the Right tend to ignore any problem which would decrease their cash flow and profit remains more important than nature, so we shouldn’t expect much help from them on this issue. They may complain about it and perhaps it can dip into racist rhetoric, but is the Left going to do any better steering their policies away from confronting the negative effects of overpopulation and shying away from this reality by categorizing overpopulation discussions as a boogie man which will associate themselves with a racist paradigm?

Is being concerned about our oceans being overfished racist? Is demanding lumbering companies attempt to replant the forests they cut down racist? Is trying to eat a healthy diet and create less waste racist? Is trying our best to think of ways plants, animals, and humans can continue to live on this planet safely racist?

Neither the Left or the Right has any excuse not to do everything in their power to make this planet better for their grandchildren and preserve every form of life we can. And I wish to end on a positive note for people who have made it this far. I’m not trying to be a gloomer/doomer, I want things to improve and if you want to help here are the 3 top things you can do without too much effort to help our planet.

Attempt to limit your food waste as much as possible. Discarded food is the leading cause of unnecessary pollution in the USA.
Create a compost, grow a garden as big as possible, and recycle water as much as you can.
Consume less.

Thanks again for making it this far and welcome back to WildernessPunk. You’ll be seeing more of me.

Grab a little of my fiction here

Dusk to Dusk

Here’s a piece of flash fiction I entered into a contest. Warning it is a little Woo, but is something which I experienced around August 5 2016.

Placing down his pack with a sigh, Danial looked at his deflated tent with little enthusiasm. His hurried flight from his former home left him missing many of the supplies which would have helped him survive in the autumn forest. Tent poles proved to be the foremost on this list.

Opening a can of ale, Danial gazed to the west. The sun had already dropped behind the swaying juniper and darkness ebbed over the forest surrounding Walnut Canyon.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and tried to stop reliving his day.

Then he moved back with an unexpected jerk.

Ahead of him a grey haze formed. Starting small, it stretched into an undulating circle wider than he stood tall. This remained strange enough, but a feeling of dread built within him unbidden. Fear crept into Danial with icy hooks, like a physical wave, it hit. It left him almost unable to move but he did force his hand toward the slip knife which hung from his belt.

He felt his eyes grow wide when a moving, handless, arm began to form and attach itself to a torso. It appeared humanoid if you didn’t count it missing a head and most of a body.

It thrashed its one arm like a punker in a mosh pit. Whatever it could be, it appeared aggressive and continued to solidify. A cold terror owned him, and Danial prepared himself.

And then it left.

Like a flipped coin, the image loomed before him, and a second later it vanished. His building dread also melted into an unexpected wave of acceptance.

Looking west there remained no sign or hint the event had occurred.

Running his fingers through his hair, he thought about all his stress and wondered if it could have brought on his experience. Then his mind went in a different direction.

Where he prepared to camp lay only a couple of miles from the Walnut Canyon cliff dwellings, and it stayed illegal to be where he was year-round. No evidence of camping occurred anywhere near his tent.

Camping here remained rare, yet here he stood, and despite his horrid day at least something had accepted him.

If you’d like to explore one of my novels, you can do so here.

The Headless Hessian or the 13th Best Superstition Mountains Documentary

Hi folks, I know I haven’t posted on here for a while. Here is just another example of what one can do in the wilderness which doesn’t involve using extra gas or killing animals. Enjoy and have fun…

Alright, how do I put this. I think Les Moore started it. We’d always had trouble with funding. I mean we can’t even afford a donate button and we’ll never make enough money to fund a Start Me Up program. So, since we live all over Arizona the obviously answer was to met in the center of the state, enter the most hostile lands in the lower 48, and find the Legendary Lost Dutchmen mine. No more hitting up Winslow, Stu, and even Zano for funding. This ship would sail itself.

Or so we thought.

Instead Zano had his own ideas. He took is into the heart of the Superstition’s paranormal vortex. A vortex not all of us would escape from. Some just lost their sanity. Others paid a heavier price.

So look on, if you dare, and gaze into the minds of men as we struggle for gold only to have it slip through our fingers almost as fast as our sanity.

Thanks for your support and you can visit some of us at the Discord wing of the Winkleman Pych Ward.

More of our fun can be found here.

The Mime Versus Alien Chronicles

Yes, dear friends, this may not be in the same vein of some of my survivalist, Wildernesspunking. Nor is it psychological rant delving into political or environmental insanity. No this is just for fun and smiles.

Many experts on aging and mental health say as one grows older they should try new projects/hobbies. A few years ago I started gardening in earnest. We’ve been doing these vids for almost a decade now, but when changes in my life started me down the WildernessPunk road, the Video projects were sidelined. We lost a couple of team members and all moved further away from each other, but most of us are still in AZ, so Tony Ballz and I picked up the Mantel. After editing our last video, Tiny Hands, which took place with the majority of the original team, we got most of the original team back together, and despite geographic challenges, we have jump-started the Daily Discord/Search Truth Quest project.

With two of our four person team both living in Tucson, Ballz and I took a greater role with the tech and production side of the fence. Although, in line with Covid high fashion, all four of us try to Zoom once a week. So with all this being said, please give yourself a break and take a few minutes to enjoy our newest creation.

(There is even a science fiction fight scene at the end!)

You can Grab More of our Videos Here

Also Like, Share, and please please Subscribe, we only need 928 more followers to be a real boy.

I would happily trade some PR through my Sharestorm Promotion company if you’re interested.

I Get Interviewed

Author’s Note:

Hi folks. I was interviewed this week in regards to my experience being an author. It will later be published @Two Blue Stockings, but I figured I’d also throw it on here, just for fun. It is a little gloomy in regards to giving a spark of inspiration to new authors, but if you want un-realism watch a Disney Special or listen to a Trump Speech.

Enjoy

Author Interview

Do you try more to be original or to deliver to readers what they want?

Doing what readers want is for authors with large audiences. I have been reviewing other author’s novels for over ten years now and there are perhaps writing trends such as dialog over description, but human taste varies and trying to find a key which would open the interest of the swirling masses of people seems a fool’s quest.

I use an approach to writing which Robert E Howard spoke of. I write like the characters are standing over my shoulders and telling me their story. In a sense writing the novel is similar to reading a book to me.

What’s your favorite under-appreciated novel?

This is harder for me to answer for I have read dozens of indie books which have impressed me, but no one has even heard a hint of. If pressed I would pick Escapology by, Ren Waron. This is an amazing novel. Waron’s writing style is beyond compare. She paints a vibrate world that both compels you and wants you to flee screaming. Her prose is colorful and yet dark. The characters are strong and move together to interact in a cyberpunk setting of malice and cynicism

What advice do you have for writers?

Volunteer and get involved with other writers and publishers. In life, you get what you put in. If you support other authors, they might end up supporting you. Being involved in a writing community makes it more fun and people will also be more open to publishing a person they know. In this world of the infinitive internet quality is better than quantity. If you think your twitter account with 3000 followers will get you more sales than being in a book club, in most cases I would say you are very wrong. Going at the publishing business cold is rough and the author will just find themselves another of the millions of people with a laptop who thinks everyone’s heads need to snap to attention because they wrote a book.

Do you view writing as a kind of spiritual practice?

In the sense it relaxes me and helps my mental health, yes. I focus on the Jungian archetypes which appear throughout most cultures and religions. Figures like the grey-haired leader, the trickster, the young adult in danger, and the wise woman appear throughout history. I feel these images and ideas strike a chord with people. Then the idea is to turn the concepts on their head and deal out a few surprises to the reader. However, I do have a blog where I have several hundred spiritual/motivational poems. You can get to that here. Mystic Archetypes

What is your favorite childhood book?

I enjoyed fairy tales and legends as a child. My grandmother read most of the Grimm Fairy Tales to me. My favorite book was D’Aulaires’ Book of Greek Myths.

Where do you get your ideas?

I am a storyteller. If I am not writing fiction, I am keeping the oral tradition alive by recounting the adventures of myself, and friends both known and unknown. For me, the ideas are already there. Some of my novels share complex magical systems I have used through multiple series. I also have novels which veer in a totally different direction. I never experience writer’s block, the only thing which blocks me is lack of time.

What does literary success look like to you?

I have published novels and at one time this was much more than I imagined I would ever get. I have some comedy vids on YouTube I wrote. I have a blog, WildernessPunk, which explores environmental and psychological issues from a fact-based perspective which is mixed into wilderness exploration and survival. I think enjoying myself and making a few people happy is great with me.

Have you read anything that made you think differently about fiction?

James Silke wrote the Gath of Baal, Death Dealer books. I found it a powerful series of novels. He wrote, “The night was as dark as a buried stick.” I like the image.

A few links;

Dalsala Den https://amzn.to/2KVUf7H

Skinjumpers https://amzn.to/3hwr47y

You can check out my main blog here. https://michaeldgriffiths.wordpress.com/

Thanks for making it this far.

MDG

7 Ways to Shoot Comedy Videos with Sparse Money and Talent

Author’s Note:

I know this isn’t WildernessPunk in the Classic sense. But These videos were a fun part of my existence before my life crashed into WildernessPunk in 2016. It took 3 years for us to shoot one again, but now things are better. My life is about a 100 times better. My kids live with me full time and yes, we have started up our videos again, much to the disappointment of You Tube and the general public, so sit back and enjoy…

Before you and I start down this road, let me state I am certainly not the most qualified or popular guy working with a team to shoot comedy videos for the web. However, if you aren’t either, this discussion could be more useful to you than to some internet celeb who has already quit his day job. Also, a lot of the technics my team and I will discuss would help in any sort of smaller video project such as a book promotion video or a ‘How To’ piece.

7. Focus more on Ideas than Dialog

Face it, we aren’t working with Brad Pitt and Meryl Streep here. Most of your crew might have a hard time remembering a long series of lines, and even if they can, they could have a hard time saying them naturally. Sure if you found some good one liners keep those in your head, but if you focus on the outline of the joke and go through it with your own words and voice it will come out better than forcing yourself through 6 takes to get some cardboard line out which might not have fit your character anyway.

6. Let your Props Create a Joke Instead of the Other Way Around.

We may need to acquire and make props, but instead of thinking about what you don’t have and then using time and money to bring it to a shoot, look around at your house, the local area, and your team’s homes. Most of us have odd items laying around. How can they be used to spark your creativity and make their way into a video? Can a Viking drinking horn become an 1830s hearing aid? Perhaps the hair you just brushed off your dog could be a fake mustache.

5. Be Creative with Scenery

Instead of filming a bunch of scenes in your living room try to never shoot in the same place twice. The world is full of chaotic and interesting places and most of them are free. Don’t worry about getting the A+ places into your videos either, since they are more likely places some people may have seen. I also say a B- place no one has found beats an A+ place everyone knows about which is full of people when you arrive.

4. Give Your Friends and Allies Small Roles

People will either want to be part of your team or be camera shy, but we are shooting for something in the middle. Get a pal or two to fill in a brief role. Maybe a non-speaking part works for some folks. Others might like the idea of speaking off camera better. They don’t need to have a reoccurring character, but an extra…er, extra in every video is going to help more than many would think. Also, you could use our trick and put them behind a mask or in a costume and just run after you growling.

3. Keep the Same Characters

Of course, you can always do what you wish, but this isn’t Saturday Night Live and many of us don’t have a wide span of acting skills. Also, with the glut of millions of videos and people competing with you, it might be better to focus on a certain theme or thread. Since getting well known is beyond difficult, in my opinion, you increase the chance to have a following by having running characters and some sort concept. With the pure chaos of the internet already in effect, creating more yourself could just get you completely lost in the entropy.

2. Use Voice Overs

Voice overs are a lot easier to get right than remembering a paragraph of dialog and nailing it. They can be great for adding extra jokes or connecting the plot to the footage. Voice overs also tie in odd ideas and help them make sense within your tale.

1. Write to People’s Strengths

Face it, if ‘acting’, and I use the term loosely, is someone’s 5^th most important project, they probably have more on screen weaknesses than strengths. Common issues could include not remembering lines, stiff acting, not talking loud enough, and the list continues.

Focusing on their weaknesses isn’t going to help things, so focus on what they can do whenever possible. Could the guy who can’t remember lines be good with expressions? Is the soft talker great with voice overs? What about the guy who falls down a lot but can’t pronounce things? Use what you have going for you and try to ignore the rest. If this isn’t someone’s career or life passion, they aren’t going to be good at everything.

The Takeaway

We find ourselves living in a time where more people than ever can be in videos, bands, write novels, and other creative pursuits. This means there is more competition than ever before. If you are going into making comedies or really any other creative project, it might be better to look at it as a hobby with perks more than a profession or a revenue earner. If you are just going at it to have fun, then you will be happy when you achieve such a goal. If you are trying to compete against the endless masses, become famous, or turn a buck, well, good luck, but don’t come around me to spill your sour grapes, because my friends and I just made some wine.

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WildernessPunk Quarantine

Friday the 13^th

It evolved slowly, much as a virus does, this split goal of mine. Could I prep for the incoming C-Virus in manner which of course would help keep me and mine safe, but also perform a test of sorts. While I protect my kids, lover, family, and friends from at least being contaminated by me, I would also try to quarantine myself and my boys to the best of our abilities. I heard the signs of sickness appear within 6-8 days. So 8 to go just to be safe.

Backgrounds and Baselines

I couldn’t start before Friday the 13^th because the kids were still in school.
I’m not a doomsday prepper, but I keep backup 2 weeks of food and water on hand.
My Lady and I did 3 trips to the store before we began.
I’m pulling the quarantine trigger at 2:25 when I pick my oldest son up as school.

3 bar cans

Saturday the 14^th

Fortifying our choice, three social engagements we were involved with fell like dominos in graveyard. Digging in, the boys and I plant chili peppers, broccoli and tomatoes. They won’t be providing food any time soon, but just in chase this lasts longer, I’ll have more things to add to my rows of lettuce growing in the front.

Sunday the 15^th

Some plans can’t be broken, and my sweet lady heads off to the little artist town of Bisbee, with her best friend. This leaves me alone with two boys, I’m sure this will be easy. Oh did they just take all the blankets, pillows, and sheets off the bed to make a mound of blankets in the middle of the room to jump into?

3 Bar Quarintine fun

Monday the 16^th

Yep that was a lot of laundry to wash. Going through our food a little but no issues yet. Hell, I still even have snacks for the boys, but if I run out, will they turn on me?

Saint Patrick’s Day

Can you say stir crazy? Not me, but the boys. I decide a germ free desert hike should help things and I have a full tank of gas. My lady is due back today. She’s a nurse, so I know she takes these things seriously.

Desert Kids

Kinda weird to have such a non-social holiday, but I’m happy to see my lady back safe and happy.

Wednesday the 18^th

The CDC states the average incubation for the C-Virus is 5.5 days and one can be considered in the clear if they fail to develop systems within 12 days of potential exposure. So with me and the boys having roughly the same level of exposure now, odds are, if none of us show signs by tomorrow, we’ll be clear…just in time for me to go to the grocery store before we take off.

Thursday the 19^th

The local Safeway turns out to be a strange and haunted place at 7am. Masked individuals mix with wild eyed shoppers. All of us amazed to see an absence of most of the things we’re accustomed to in this country. No prepared meat, the vegetables were nearly gone. Pasta and cans gone. Although I did get the last four cans of chili the store had to offer. Normal cheese, nope, but fancy cheese yep. I guess we’ll have a little luxury while camping.

3 bar east

5 hours later, I’m pulling up to the site, but after my new ride’s first off-road test, I have to pull the plug 200 yards short of my goal. The road itself has become a wash and a series of boulders leave me thinking perhaps having my little family allowed more privacy is better than bottoming out and cracking my oil pan on a rock. I have better ways to spend my afternoon.

I meet a new friend after lugging my gear uphill and my boys are happy to burn off the energy of six days of isolation.

Friday the 20^th

It has been a week since the schools have closed and I have done my best to keep the boys safe. Sure hope the plague doesn’t show up here. Ha ha, just kidding, ah… no I’m not.

A little about this area, the wonder we call 3-Bar. The usual sounds of the waterfall crashing into the wading pool is, this time, a torrent of raging foam as the snow run off mixes with the results of the recent rains.

3 bar waterfall

Another phenomenon I’ve rarely experienced has also occurred. All around us springs of clear water have opened out of the ground. Within just a few feet of our camp, I count five. Every hillside has pools and moving water like the entire mountainside has become huge sponges leaking water. Not the type of thing you see too often in the desert.

Saturday the 21^st

It appears reasonable to assume the two older hermits I am sharing this campout with have avoided the C-Virus as well, so this trip has taken social distancing to the a new extreme. “Don’t let anyone within 6 miles of you.”

Kids fire

Self-isolation is an unusual thing for some, but just a normal day for others. It’s odd to see the stranger as an ‘enemy,’ but this is what they could become if they are the one to spread a virus to you which could damage your lungs or risk your parent’s lives.

In the end, the hoarding and lack of food could become more of a concern than the virus itself, at least for some of us. The virus has in some ways done us a favor by exposing the frail deck of cards our lives sit at the top of. Few of us can live off the land or have the means to support our needs for food. We all depend on a huge web of supply to insure we have goods on the selves. It is the virus threatening us this time. But the next time could be gasoline or the power grind. All it takes is one dirty bomb to kill a city for generations.

Things like my garden help, but are not a solution. Hoarding can help, but we’re still playing within the rules of this house of cards. Cans don’t multiply if left alone in the dark. So what is the solution? There are too many of us to all buy 40 acres and become farmers. Things like this virus could lower those numbers, but no one wants to see their loved ones perish before their time.

3 bar mountian mount

However back to the now, we have to get over this C-Virus hurdle first. Part of me wonders how effective I’m being for my family. Sure I’ve keep my boys clear enough to be about 92% certain none of us have the virus, FOR NOW. How much use is this in the long term? Our lying president says it is due to last until perhaps August and since he downplays everything which makes him look bad… So am I going to all this trouble for my boys, saying, “Hey we quarantined ourselves long enough to be sure we don’t have it, just to get it later from the ice cream man?” I’m being careful now, but will I get sloppy in May and just have us all get it anyway?

We’ve been told to ‘flatten the curve’ of infection. So I guess we’re doing our part, but again will this matter if the lack of food becomes the real problem? Perhaps I’ll have to head up here again and try to live off the land. It might work as long as I can still get gas. Hopefully the cell towers will work too so I can get these guys out here again as well. I’m probably catastrophizing, but I guess we’ll see. And remember if I’m not, you heard it here first. Be safe out there and kick this Virus in the ass!!

3 bar river

Thanks for Listening

3 bar damn it

You can check out my own grim vision of a future where we lose control here!

bone tunnel

WildernessPunk: Self Control or The Next Time I See Them I’m Gonna…

There are times in everyone’s life when one is tempted to allow oneself to become overloaded with frustrations. There are many people who don’t cling to positive values, but instead embrace negative paradigms such as racism, narcissism, hate, and greed and I’m not just talking about our president. In 2017 I wrote a WildernessPunk article which reviews this situation entitled 1 in 3 which outlines how reasonable people can expect their logic and goodwill to be thwarted by, on average, every third person they encounter. ( http://bit.ly/2PQolKq ) But this article is not focused on others. Together we’re going to look inward and review how sane people attempt to progress within an insane world.

1 in 3

First off, if you believe everything you experience is normal and reasonable, you are dead wrong. Our current lifestyle is the result of billions of random occurrences which have floated together to create our current understanding of reality so we should be careful before we choose to get on some big high horse fighting to prove what we think is right. Just a simple example to set the stage: Cars. We all think of them as A+ normal even though we have only enjoyed being able to work more than two miles from where we live, get ambulance drives, and allow the elderly to have a chance to meet their needs independently for about .000025% of our existence. I’m not trying to go off on a tangent, I only seek to remind people the things we take for granted are here only through random chaos and our current normal will be almost unimaginable by your children’s grandchildren. I bring this up to point out most arguments we engage in couldn’t have happened a hundred years ago and probably won’t be applicable a hundred years from now, so it probably isn’t too important, and despite what people try to tell you, their opinion will most likely be proved wrong.

Back to the idea of self-control. I think we’ve all gotten so frustrated we feel like we might lose our cool and let anger take over the discourse. Most of us have lost this control, some more than others. While a smaller percentage let their own anger and self-righteousness rule their lives. Only they are right and everyone else is wrong.

The above is obvious, let’s look deeper. What about all those times you have felt the anger, perhaps quite justified, rise up, but you still kept yourself under control and behaved civilly. You might have verbally gutted someone like a fish or let your actions do so, but you did it all without a snarl or raising your voice. Where does this ability come from and why do we, or at least some of us, possess it?

Looking back to more basic times we could see the advantage of a hunter and gatherer becoming quick to anger. It would protect them and theirs. Still, if you are part of a tribe which needed to be strong to insure everyone remained fed and another tribe doesn’t steal your daughters, becoming quick to anger with your own tribal members could have dire consequences.

Lillies 8.19.jpg

We could theorize having self-control is an advanced social and evolutionary trait. It helps humans live side by side and keeps things from being an explosion of violent chaos on every street corner. In the USA violent crime has lessened in direct relationship to our improving technology and more people receiving a higher education. There could be a correlation to this or maybe there’s simply less human interaction because a greater percentage of people just malinger at home allowing Netflix and video games to steal their health and lives one sedentary evening at a time.

On a personal level, I do feel more advanced when I let logic, dignity, and facts fight my battles instead of violence, screaming, and curses. I view people who jump to anger and violence as more primitive. They don’t have the intelligence to rise above the base animal state of fight, flight, or freeze. In other words, they use the reptile part of their brain to solve conflicts. Yeah, let’s not be like them.

King Kong

Others could argue that turning our backs on our aggression is what allows us to become sheep for the state, but this does appear to be true currently for the under educated rural workers who are easily brainwashed into being foot soldiers by the ultra-rich, while the cities tend to focus on more equitable goals and strive to live in greater fairness and harmony.

Could it be higher population centers foster the need for greater control? If you lived in New York City and had to fight everyone who pissed you off, you’d never make it to work. While in smaller ponds, people are more likely to share more values, so an outside idea will be looked at with hostility and they would try to wipe it off the map before it could contaminate their homogeneity.

Some of these questions might remain unanswered and are up to you to decide for yourself. In the real world we have choices to make. Are you going to risk a huge fine or maybe jail time yelling at some Police Officer and cursing about how unfair the system is? Or will you suck it up for ten minutes and have the best possible long term outcome? Who really wins—the cop who thinks he’s dominated you with his power or you who proved smart enough to manipulate him and the outcome? This is the old Loki/Thor debate.

loki-red

Having self-control is obviously the better end game because it gives you options. Hell, you can always choose to throw a punch if you like. Sometimes it is also appropriate to meet violence with violence when we have no choice. Letting some meat head kick your ass isn’t helping your day get better. However being the one starting with anger usually means you’re the loser who is in the wrong and can’t come up with anything reasonable to say.

Yes anger is energy and a tool we all possess, but we need to control it and not let it control us. A modern individual should have more options than fight, flight, or freeze and as we move into a more crowded world we need to continue to evolve our ability to use self-control or soon we might not have a world to call our own.

Thanks for Listening

You can check out my own grim vision of a future where we lose control here!

banosword