A Five Year Mission...

When I started this blog five years ago I had two simple goals in mind: the first was to promote my book Our Gods Wear Spandex by doing that dreaded "social media" thing so many authors have come to rue. The second was to test-run some material from my manuscript on science fiction films and see how they played in front of an audience. I never would have predicted what came next, how The Secret Sun really took on a life of its own and became a world unto itself.

Five years, two additional books, two spinoff blogs, an extremely active Facebook group, and more podcast appearances, TV and documentary interviews than I can remember, I'm stunned by how much work I put into this blog and how much territory was explored here. It's been a life-changing experience in many ways, and the need to keep my audience's attention inspired me to delve into topics that were only random speculations before.

When I look through the archives here I see several books worth of material presented to my readers in real time, free of charge. And believe me, it's been a full-time job at times. For all the actual writing as you may see online there are hours upon hours of research and outlining and rough drafts; the same process that I'd apply to a book project. That's just the way I operate- I have a very hard time with half-measures. If I do something I need to do it all the way.

But it's been a transformative experience in very many ways. I started off trying to understand where the ideas that make the work I find interesting interesting, where these ideas come from and how they are transmitted.

For all the field trips I took into the various precincts of weirdness, this has always been a pop culture blog, since it's always been through pop culture that I've interfaced with the Signal. Even the weird or paranormal experiences I've had, and it turns out there's quite a few of them are inevitably filtered through the lens of pop culture, or at least those rarified realms of pop culture in which interesting ideas have been or still are transmitted.



It wasn't supposed to work out like this. All along I've had specific plans, plans which were derailed by my health issues, which took a turn for the crazy worse a year before this blog went live†. I've had three doctors now diagnose my Fibromyalgia/Myofascial Pain Syndrome as "severe" or "debilitating", and I think it's just my Irish tenacity (or pig-headedness) that refuses to let it all slow me down.

But even if I didn't plan all of this, I wouldn't trade it for the world. I was working on my art when all my friends were playing in punk bands and by the time I got my own band together there was no real scene where I was for it to matter. So The Secret Sun was like my indie rock period, all the sweeter that it hit during middle age when I could appreciate it.

And the Synchromystic scene- and it was a true, bonafide scene- was very punk rock back in the early days. Or better yet, cyberpunk. In many ways it was something straight out a William Gibson novel- a virtual scene of reality hackers sifting through pop culture garbage heaps for divine alien signals. And woven through it all was one sync after another, like fractal punctuation left by agencies unknown.

And in many ways it's also been an intense period of R&D, particularly this past year with all the wacked-out Kirby stuff. I don't know where all that came from exactly- like so much here it started off as a random observation and ended up blowing my brains out. I'm happy to say a lot of people experienced that same feeling.

And I find myself in an interesting space now, where I don't feel like I have anything to prove. I know what I know and it doesn't matter to me at all if anyone disagrees. Of course it's always irritating to be mocked and ridiculed but I find myself in a strange position where I actually have pity for anyone who would try. I'm also in the position where I can't think of anything more absurd and pointless than arguing on the Internet. About anything, practically. Certainly about intangible qualities such as opinion or taste or belief.

But I've have enough years under my belt to see the arc of ideologies, kind of like seeing the curvature of the Earth from certain vantage points. I've seen the terminus point of so many opposing ideologies and philosophies to know how dead and empty and hopeless so much of what polite company tells us is an acceptable way of thinking.

So much so that I have no problem completely embracing my own unacceptable ways of thinking. I imagine that Alan Moore is much the same way. When he makes sure to let everyone know he considers himself to be a magician no matter what audience he is speaking to, you know he knows. You know he has nothing to prove- he's done the math and doesn't give two fucks if you haven't. He's been there.

As I mentioned before this has been a banner year for The Secret Sun, with more unique visitors than ever before, more members both here and on Facebook, and more attention from the world outside (most recently from James Wolcott, one of my journalistic heroes).



So it's with a tremendous sense of accomplishment and completion that I come to you to let you know that the five-year mission is now complete-- I'm closing shop, breaking up the band.

There are several reasons for this, some of which are external, others not. Foremost among them is that I simply can't continue to put in the kind of work I've put in on this blog considering that fact that it's never produced any kind of real income, other than a few well-appreciated donations from some incredibly wonderful indiviuals.

We all live in a world where those with money have made a religion of trying to destroy the lives of everyone without it out of nothing but sheer spite, so I can't really live off the sense of accomplishment. I have immediate financial obligations to wrestle with and have to put my energy into trying to solve those problems. 

I'm not the kind of person who naturally craves attention- I was on the internet for 15 years before doing anything of this scale. In fact I've spent the lion's share of my time on the 'Net in silence, and only ever posted on a handful of forums over the years. It doesn't fit the profile of a writer, I realize, but I often think writing is simply a tool to help reach other goals.

I actually want to get back to being able to do the kind of reading and research I did before The Secret Sun, where everything wasn't about getting material ready for posts. But my primary goal is getting back to my drawing and eventually getting back into creating material for comics, where my ultimate passion still lies. It's funny that this all ended up diving so deeply into the ouevre of Jack Kirby and finding an echo of everything I'd written about in the years preceding, especially considering that I'd never read a lot of the stories I talked about this past year before.

I think what finally made up my mind for me- even though I had no true, conscious sense of it at the time- were the articles on the film Hanna and the laundry list of parallels with the unproduced screenplay Snow I had stupidly posted on the 'Net some years back (though in my defense, it was because an editor had asked me to).

I'd been down that road before but for some reason this really hurt. Possibly because a lot of what I was writing about in Snow (as well as my first graphic novel, which is a whole other story) came from a very dark place, in that I was exorcising some old demons that seriously fucked up my life at a very early age and to see someone else capitalize on my suffering was almost intolerable.

But sometimes you need a rude awakening. I've been ripped off often enough to know I have good ideas. And maybe like Ryan Reynolds in The Nines, these characters trapped inside my head- or on my hard-drive- want to live. But if I want to give them life, I have a hell of a lot of work to do. On top of everything else, like keeping the lights on.

But I feel as if the past five year's work have given me insight and power that I needed, that I didn't have before. Whatever happens in the future, the work done here was irreplaceable. I understand things that once confused me. I feel as if I found something rare and elusive that I had only ever glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, and now I understand and more importantly know how it works.

But if I won't be doing the kind of articles I've been doing over the past five years I very much plan to continue with The Secret Sun Radio Mystery Hour. 

In fact, just today I was messing around in GarageBand, working up some atmospheres for possible backing tracks* (I'm a Joe Frank geek to the end). There are a lot of people I want to talk to and pick the brains of. There also seems to be a rote set of questions you're allowed to ask certain guests and I want the Mystery Hour to be about challenging those rules. But as it stands the Mystery Hour will be on hold until 2013.

In the meantime, The Secret Sun Facebook group is open for business and more active than ever before. If you're OG Synchromystic and miss that 2008-style give and take, then the FB is for you. That feeling of a scene is in effect 24/7. There are some very interesting and intelligent people over there, people not only with a sense of the weird but with common sense as well. If FB gets too hinky with its new guidelines, there are plans to evacuate and start a standalone site for Secret Sun fans. Watch this space for any further developments.

So thank you all for reading and please join us over at Facebook. Please take time to dig into the voluminous archives here (you can use the topic index in the right-hand column). Keep the Sun bookmarked for news and further developments (any new material I have to share I will crosspost here). Keep an eye out for the return of The Secret Sun Radio Mystery Hour. A very special thanks for all of my regular commenters- to this day, the best on the Web- and most especially to everyone who contributed financially. Believe me, every dollar helped a lot.

 Thanks to the other sites who've supported the Sun over the years, especially The Anomalist, The Daily Grail,  The Debris Field, Hidden Experience, and Synchromystic Blogspotters. Please support the blogs listed in the side column- they are all handpicked and deserve your immediate attention.

I see an opportunity arising to fill a role that others cannot. But that window of opportunity won't stay open forever so I will be very, very busy in the months to come. But we'll all be in touch and things will be heating up here again next year, only it will be a different kind of fire burning. Stay in touch, write if you get work and thank you very much again for putting up with all of my nonsense these past five years.

Signing off (for now)...CLK








† Specifically the problem is that I can't sit and draw at a drawing board for very long without experiencing mind-shattering pain (I would literally come home from job as an artist in New York every night in tears the pain would be so bad), a potentially catastrophic setback for someone who started freelancing in high school. I had wondered why my drawing skills seemed to hit the wall (and later actually move backwards) in my early 20s and the issue was that not only was I working too quickly to avoid spending too much time putting myself in pain, but I also believe that the pain was impacting my coordination skills. 

Luckily I have no problem with a computer, provided the setup is ergonomically correct, and happily the software has finally gotten to a point in which you can get the same results digitally that you can on paper.
 
* I'm still interested in hearing from other musicians, but only if they want to share their music. I can do without the attitude. Do quite well without it.