Becoming a Killjoy

Since the election - in addition to the very incendiary post - I have been posting a lot of articles that are pretty negative. On one level it is an angry response; we have done a terrible thing and we are going to face it! At the same time, I know people who find it all stressful and who aren't really to blame.

I don't feel good about that, but it still feels necessary to face this situation with clarity. That requires information, which for this situation is dire. So it occurred to me one day that I have really become a killjoy, but then I remembered that I had examples for that.

I have written a lot about The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys, and the music inextricably entwined with the comic, and their part in my creative reawakening. The "Ugliness" post may have been the most important. It's not even about something that happened in the comic, just in the arc of its creation.

http://sporkful.blogspot.com/2015/08/leaving-room-for-ugliness.html

Even if there is no Mike Milligram or blank cassette tape in the comic, the underlying issues are still there. And it all still relates.

Yes, we need to be able to be dirty. We need to be able to disrupt. We need to be able to face things as they are, especially when it's hard. We need art.

If I must be a Killjoy then I can only try and be fabulous.

Maybe I won't be emulating the characters, because you have people who are just ready to fight without it being for anything, and maybe one who is so anxious not to fight that he lets worse things happen, but somehow it feels like it fits.

I'm not even sure what being fabulous means for me, but maybe it works that this year is the first time I cosplayed, and this is the year that I accidentally dyed my hair coppery red when I was only going for kind of chestnut.

This has been the year of no good news. How's your job? I got laid off. How's your Mom? Her memory keeps degrading. How are you? So stressed I broke out in hives that seem to have no intention of leaving.

And now "How's your country?"

So be it. This is also the year of facing every weakness and learning what it's really all about. I'll face it and I'll have a soundtrack.

Art is the weapon.