“About the P.E.W. – Heading into 2018”

As of December 25th, The Primitive Entertainment Workshop went PREMIUM! That means, for the first time since I started this thing back in December of 2012, we are PAYING to be online. It costs about $100.00 for a year of FANCINESS, but it was an essential move, because we ran out of room for NEW STUFF.

primitiveentertainment.com

We are now, OFFICIALLY, a DOT COM! Holy Glagnar!!! I don’t even know what fancy thing to do first!!!

If you are a regular reader of the site (and even the artwork has a literary dimension to it---if you don’t believe it let me know, and I’ll write you a PROOF that my doodles are actually thrilling works of fiction in visual form---even the abstracts!)… If you are a regular reader of the site, then you know we post A LOT. We have several regular contributors, and a few “once in a whilers,” and besides that, I’m a compulsive doodler and word compiler. And with the exciting digital technology that my wife keeps acquiring for me, it’s become extremely easy for me to scribble on a napkin or a receipt or a hunk of cardboard, then snap a high rez photo and color the heck out of it with those magical electro-devices and share them with all the humans and A.I. in the digital world! I draw all the time, and I write just about every day (mostly on scraps of paper or old bits of junk---and then I tape everything into my notebooks.) And, of course, a lot of what I create ends up on the P.E.W.!

But after 5 years of compiling stories and poems and photos and drawings and book reviews and all that jazz, we ran out of room. 5,700+ posts in five years. IMPOSSIBLE, now, to read everything we have posted. We needed to EXPAND---to GO PRO, if you will. So we did.

Now for most people, a hundred bucks is probably not that big of a deal. For ME, it’s a serious chunk of cash. Now that I’m PAYING to make this site, I’ve got to focus on trying to make that investment BACK before December of 2018 so that I can re-up for the next year. It’s only going to take me a few weeks to go over the “free” allotted space on this site, so I won’t be able to go BACK to the old plan without causing weird and potentially catastrophic things to happen.

And that’s where you folks come in. I’m going to be working pretty hard over the next year to try and make $101.00 to pay for the next years’ bill. (It only costs $96.00 for the plan, but I figure making an extra five bucks will help pay for the TIME I’ve invested.) If you believe in free expression, in helping the underdogs, in pushing punk creativity and Dada spirit and underground attitude in the MAKING OF THINGS (Richard Brautigan style---unpublished/self-published type stuff), then consider patronizing our PURCHASABLE sections: Books You Can Buy, the Primitive Image Emporium, Postcards from Paradise, and so on. We could sure use your help! It will keep the creativity rolling along, and we’ll be able to keep doing all the wacky things we do: posting new stories and art and poems, self-publishing our books, promoting creative expression in “outsider types” (like most of us at the Workshop), and KEEPING THOSE CONNECTIONS ALIVE! 

I’ve had tons of contributors who have helped sweeten the pot here at the Workshop over the years, and I’m extremely grateful to all of them for their efforts. One of these days, I should force myself to look through all the POSTS (a Herculean effort at this point) and write up a contributors’ list, just to make sure everyone gets credit! (But I think that’s a project for a different day.)

One of the BEST things about creating artwork and writing is the SHARING! The collaborations, the art parties, the bouncing off of each other’s ideas… These are the things that I love about this life. OBVIOUSLY, I’m not making any money at this, but I’ve made friends, some I’ve met in person, some that I’ve only ever talked with online. I’ve been influenced by the stories and artwork I’ve seen others make, and I’ve heard people say that I inspired them. (Comments like, “If he can sell THAT shit, anybody can do it!” are pretty common. Good to know I’m helping people understand that ANYONE can do this!) Sitting in the front yard with a bunch of drawings and paints scattered around, during the summer, and selling a $10 drawing to someone is wonderful, and getting to talk to them about how we (as a family) came up with the ideas for doing all this stuff, is even better! There’s also the thrill of seeing someone SMILE when they get one of my visual puns or when they work out the weird little joke I’ve got hidden in some three sentence story---these are great moments. These are worth it.

THE CONNECTIONS! However brief, however seemingly insubstantial, the connections that I make are the reason I keep doing this. It’s also the reason that EVERYONE should be MAKING THINGS THEMSELVES. You don’t have to be a trained artist to love to draw or paint. You don’t have to be a college graduate to write a story or a poem. You just have to be a human. And then to SHARE that work with others, that’s WHY we are alive. It’s not about making money (although now I HAVE to make money to keep the game rolling…), it’s about CONNECTING. Keep making, keep doing, keep connecting, and I’ll keep going, too, until I CAN’T anymore…

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Grand Hoohaa of The P.E.W.)

https://primitiveentertainment.com/
http://readadamnbookwithrfy.blogspot.com
https://primitiveentertainment.threadless.com/
https://www.redbubble.com/people/richardfyates/shop
https://www.facebook.com/richard.f.yates/

“Extrospection (What Kind of Art Guy am I?)” by Richard F. Yates

[Warning*** Whiskey content…]

For the last four years (give or take some off-planet experiences) I've run The Primitive Entertainment Workshop, and I've posted (on average) 3 or 4 posts per day since early 2013. (Sometimes I skip a day or two, sometimes I go crazy and post 20 or 30 things in one day...) The P.E.W. includes drawings, sketches, abstract art, cartoons, digitally manipulated photos, flash fiction, gloomy-slow fiction, poetry, political commentaries, diary entries, quips, non-jokes, art theory, fake news, book reviews, travel posts, guest contributions, rants, homemade religions, satire, serialized stories, mini-dramas, manifestos, postal art, zines, requests for money, LOTS of nonsense, and even some opportunities to purchase SWAG… We’ve produced four books, created stickers and t-shirts based on artwork first published here, and linked to several sites (Zizzle / Redboodle / D.V. Ant Art / Faceboot…) where humans can buy junk with Primitive Artwork plastered all over it---and I’ve produced the majority of this STUFF myself (although I certainly do have a cadre of interesting contributors, to whom I am ETERNALLY grateful.*) [*”eternally” is not a legally binding phrase…] AND, we are fast approaching the 5,000th post.

Sheeeeeit…

That’s a lot of nonsense…

Anyway, I’ve begun to wonder: What Kind of ART GUY am I??? (I made a short video asking that very question…)

Does it matter? Is it important to specialize? Should I be CONCERNED that I don’t have an official title or definition?

I mean, I’ve been drawing and writing and making up stupid songs and poems since I was old enough to hold a crayon… I will undoubtedly keep doing those things until I die (and perhaps for a few more years after that---I haven’t decided for sure.) It’s a compulsion, a NEED. I’m happiest when I’m writing or drawings or painting or eating sugar or making up nonsense songs... I LOVE the nonsense, because I think it BEST relays how I feel about the world. You can laugh or you can cry---or you can draw a snake with a halo above his head and say that he’s worried that his accountant might be an alien…who isn’t very good at doing taxes… I, of course, go with the third option.

Definitions are nice though, especially when people ask you questions like, “So what do you do?” I usually say, “I’m a writer!” or “I’m an artist!” depending on how I feel and whether or not I like the person I’m talking to. (Sometimes I lie, and say things like, “I’m a hypnotist!” or “I can’t tell you---it’s classified…” For about three years, I had my wife convinced that I was a Cult Leader---that’s how I won her heart. From there, it’s just been the hypnosis and help from my government contacts that have KEPT her with me, at least since my cult all committed suicide… But I’ve digressed.)

So I’m thinking about making the leap to Patreon. It doesn’t hurt anything to try it (economically speaking), and I have this idea about running it like a Secret Society or an old-fashioned fan club, with Certificates of Membership, and I.D. cards, and a regular (actually mailed to you) newsletter, and fancy “members only” t-shirts, and secret handshakes, and funny little cars that we drive in parades, and covert meetings where we discuss our plans to take over the world (for the “higher paying” patrons, of course…) Maybe something like the Church of the Subgenius meets the Mickey Mouse Club. That sounds like fun, doesn’t it??? The real point of the Patreon element would be to help pay for online expenses (I’m a little more than 75 percent of the way through my WeirdPress free media allotment, which means we aren’t too far from either having to pay for more space or start dropping old stuff off the site---the latter being a REPELENT concept, in my opinion.) Plus, we could do stuff like print more books and artwork and make new t-shirts and stickers, and I’ve always harbored the desire to have a big ART SHOW, like rent the expo-center here in town and have a bunch of framed artwork and tables where contributors were signing books and giving talks, maybe even have a bunch of KIDS draw stuff and bring it in, and then have a panel of judges award prizes to kids in various age groups---you know, to help encourage the YOUTH to stay creative and make things themselves… I’ve got some ideas...

Anyway, what do you people think?  Is it worth going the Patreon route? Do you peeps like the idea of becoming OFFICIAL MEMBERS OF THE PRIMITIVE PANORAMA and getting a bunch of fun stuff mailed directly to your door? Seems like good times to me.

---Richard F. Yates, Hypnotist in Chief of the P.E.W.