“ZERO! (A Tragic Tale of Tragedy…)” by Richard F. Yates

My first post on Steemit.com (an “introduceyourself” thing) went up on 3 Nov. 2018, and within an hour or so, it had accumulated enough upvotes to reach a staggering $1.00 payout. This was BY FAR the highest valued content I’d ever created in the online world, and I thought to myself, “I’m going to be RICH!” (To me, like $30.00 is a LOT of money, so I thought I’d suddenly struck GOLD!) Unfortunately, however, my next TWELVE posts failed to get enough votes to reach the minimum payout level, which I’ve been told is 2 cents! (And these posts were good content---not GREAT content, but I never claimed to be great! HA!) Not enough votes to make the TWO CENTS required for a payout, so you get NOTHING! ZERO! It’s all there, in black and white! You LOSE, sir! Good day!!! (Ha! You catch what I did there???)

But it’s a learning experience, right? You have to hone your craft… Make sure your artwork is flawless and your stories are coherent and meaningful, right!? (Mine are---at a minimum---well edited. I HATE having punctuation or grammatical errors in my stories. I was an editor for about 8 years, and I TRY to publish material that is polished---even if it’s just polished NONSENSE… Even I don’t catch EVERY mistake, but if I see something, I fix it!!!)

So I looked at how the material I was presenting was being received, made a series of smart business decisions, decided to CHANGE EVERYTHING that I was posting so that it would appeal more to the most…. (Ha! Ha! Haaaaa…. Sorry, I can’t stop giggling as I type this…)

No. I changed nothing. I still draw crappy monsters and ghosts in ink on found paper or cardboard, then I blow the images up so you can see all the flaws in the paper and the places where the ink didn’t cover smoothly, and I color the whole mess with a freeware phone app. I’ve also continued to take pictures of stuff that I find interesting and post the images with some bizarre story attached (most likely wildly embellished, if not completely fabricated), and the art or photo for each post might or might not have anything to do with the story. (Some people call this "juxtaposition," and others call it "lazy." It's up to the viewer to decide which they believe to be closer to the truth.)

I’m inspired by PUNK and DADA (the Swiss version, as well as the current New York community) and Fluxus and graffiti art and outsider art and the Discordians and Sub-Geniuses and Monties-Python and people who are more interested in experimenting and having fun with their creations than in making commercial art or telling Best Seller-styled stories. (It’s not that those things don’t have value---they obviously do---but they’re not what I’m interested in creating…)

Since my first attempt, back in November, I’ve uploaded more than 250 individual posts, according to the SteemitBoard tally… (I believe ‘um.) And of those 250+ posts, 37 have paid out ZERO! (A 38th skunker is about to manifest in just a few days!) Ha! HA! HAAAAAA!!!! Some of my favorite drawings and stories---the ones I’m most proud of---have gotten next to no attention. And then, for no particular reason, a story like the one I posted yesterday (with the same crappy art style I’ve always used and the same snarky, ironic, nonsensical tone that I always write in) will suddenly get over a thousand votes!!! Weird. I’m not even really bothered by the ones that don’t get attention anymore. (I was at first…but now I just roll with it!)

Now that I’m older and so much more mature than I was way back in November, I rationalize the whole thing---the whole POSTING MY “WORK” (snicker) ONLINE experience---as my “OUTLET,” my “SANITY BUFFER.” I write and draw and read and review and photograph and joke and share because I love to do those things. I’ve done ALL of those things for DECADES, long before I had access to the INTERNET. I created my first photocopied zine when I was still in high school, back in 1990. It was just a handful of stories and poems that my girlfriend and I had written, and we typed everything out with my Brother electric typewriter and photocopied the ten or twelve pages about 15 times each, stapled the pages together along the left-hand side, and gave them out to our friends. Sharing!

Even before THAT, I used to draw monsters and cut them out and then tape them up around the neighborhood, places like high up in my favorite climbing tree, to try and scare people that might accidentally come across a heart-stopping ghost or monster with a word balloon coming out of its mouth that said, “Boo!” or “Blud…” (I didn’t know how to spell “blood” when I was eight...) Sharing!

And I would write stupid stories and put on plays, sometimes tape recording all the dialog on a borrowed tape-deck so I wouldn’t forget how the story went and then acting out the action (usually wearing a mask or costume of some kind) for the two or three family members or friends that I could get to attend my performances. And I even managed to talk one of my teachers, I think this was in fifth or sixth grade (somewhere around 1982 or 1983), into letting me write a play for the entire class to perform, and everyone got to make their own masks, and I made sure everyone in class got a part in the play, (even the two kids who were even less popular than I was), and then we performed my stupid script…for, like, the teacher and maybe one or two other people. I still don’t know how I managed to wangle that one… Sharing!!! (Almost forgot that I was ending paragraphs with "Sharing!" for a second there...)

But that need to SHARE my creations---that’s always been inside me, for as long as I can remember being alive (this time.)

Truth be told, this whole internet posting thing is, ultimately, a SELFISH project for me. I love MAKING junk---BAD junk, SILLY junk, WEIRD junk, stories that no sane person would want to publish, drawings that a six-year-old would be ashamed to show their friends, and ideas so odd, so nonsensical and pointless (often INTENTIONALLY so) that they’ll be admissible as evidence in my eventual, inevitable sanity hearing. (I carry a small scrap of paper in my wallet, it’s been in there for years, that says, “The Squirrels are Gathering!” I’m sure it will help my case…)

My art and my words are, first and foremost, created to make ME happy (and sometimes my wife---my kids aren’t very interested), and my creations DO make me happy! If other folks (who are fundamentally NOT me) are in any way amused, too, that’s great! If I make 20 cents or a buck in upvotes, in addition to the fun I had making my stuff, now that’s a flat-out BONUS! And yet, I’ve somehow managed to nickel and dime my way to 448 Steem Power in just a bit over six months---no BID BOTS or SELF VOTING---by just making what amuses me and sharing it with all my potential victims on Steemit and WordPress and Ello and Instagram and Twitter and Faceboot (mostly my family and friends from the physical world on there) and blah blah blah…

MAKE STUFF and SHARE IT! MAKE MORE STUFF and SHARE IT… Rinse, lather, repeat!

To be fair, I also do a lot of reading and viewing and upvoting on social media platforms, along with the constant sharing of content, and I even comment every now and then, if I think I have something funny or relevant to contribute…

It’s all pretty neat, really. I would TECHNICALLY fit the definition of an OUTSIDER artist (no art training, working mostly in isolation, plugging away for years on creations that most folks don’t give a fig about)---only without all the fame that outsiders seem to be getting now-o-days---but thanks to the various social media outlets I’ve discovered, I have a means of sharing my weirdo materials BEFORE I drop dead and someone finds the hundreds of paintings and drawings and notebooks full of absurd poetry and half-finished stories and sketch pads and other junk I have stacked neck-high in my closets and garage. (Poor Henry Darger…)

So REALLY, I’m just happy that I have a place to share, and I’m excited that, on occasion, some folks think what I’ve written or drawn was worth looking at. Sorry. This ended up being a lot longer post than I thought it was going to be---so if you’re ready to move on, go for it. The next bit is just obsessive-compulsive, neurotic list-making…

Below, you will find a list of ALL the posts that I’ve uploaded that ended with a ZERO value! (Some of these were pretty dang good, too, but I always think my stuff is funny or I wouldn’t finish it! But you know how it is with your babies---you’re always blind to their faults… Ha!) Here we GO!

1. “Blue Monster and Fanged Bird” (3 Nov. 2018)
2. “MISSION STATEMENT” (4 Nov. 2018)
3. “Rivers of America (Covered in Glowing Fog)” (4 Nov. 2018)
4. “So Many Questions” (4 Nov. 2018)
5. “So Much for the Normal Life…” (CPTC – STM1 – 1) (5 Nov. 2018)
6. “Digital Creep” (5 Nov. 2018)
7. “Get Poor, Slowly…” (7 Nov. 2018)
8. “No Hitchhikers!” (CPTC – STM1 – 2) (8 Nov. 2018)
9. “Slip Slidin’ Away” (9 Nov. 2018)
10. “Behind the Worry Wall” (Drawing from DADA.nyc) (10 Nov. 2018)
11. “Tourists (Enjoying the Sights)” (CPTC – STM1 – 3) (11 Nov. 2018)
12. “Barney Has Problems” (12 Nov. 2018)
13. “Solar Sam” (25 Nov. 2018)
14. “The Crash – The Cash – The Cache” (27 Nov. 2018)
15. “Read a Damn Book – 123: Fifty-One Tales” (27 Nov. 2018)
16. “Werewolf” (29 Nov. 2018)
17. “Float On” (30 Nov. 2018)
18. “Spotted Snake” (7 Jan. 2019)
19. “Read a Damn Book – 009: The Willows” (9 Jan. 2019)
20. “Read a Damn Book – 011: The Crying of Lot 49” (10 Jan. 2019)
21. “Read a Damn Book – 018: We Must Remain Focused When Waiting for Thunder” (22 Jan. 2019)
22. “Library Book Sale!” (25 Jan. 2019)
23. “No Time For Hot Feelings” (31 Jan. 2019)
24. “Lincoln…” (2 Feb. 2019)
25. “Mortimer the Monster” (11 Feb. 2019)
26. “The Proof is in the Pudding…” (12 Feb. 2019)
27. “Patches – The Adventure Pinata” (4 Mar. 2019)
28. “Civic Center, Longview, Washington, U.S.A.” (5 Mar. 2019) [This one surprised me. I thought it was an interesting, detailed look at a city trying to define itself---but no one seemed to give a hoot! Ha! Folks on my Faceboot page, who live in this area, really seemed to like it…]
29. “Go To…” (8 Mar. 2019)
30. “An Unpleasant Scene” (16 Mar. 2019)
31. “STAND and DELIVER!” (18 Mar. 2019)
32. “Clunky Modem Comics” (30 Mar. 2019)
33. “Untitled (‘Stand and Deliver!’ Remix)” by Mark Counts (3 Apr. 2019)
34. “I’M A FRAUD! WHO’S WITH ME???” (24 Apr. 2019)
35. “THE GREAT WORK” (Put a Frame Around It!) (28 Apr. 2019) [This one was a disappointment---because although the trashy collage seemed funny to me, the IMPORTANT element was the written piece. I think society---in the U.S., at the very least---misunderstands the role and the importance of ART (in its various forms) to the human mind, and I went to what I considered an interesting place with the writing in this piece. I DISCOVERED something in my writing that rang true to me---but people didn’t get it or even READ it, I’d wager…probably because they just saw the bad collage and kept scrolling. I acknowledge that the collage is BAD, but that’s what I think is funny about it. Kurt Schwitters and Rauschenberg and Kienholz all enjoyed making trashy collages---but they had REPUTATIONS to back up their trash-piles, and I’ve only got about 80 followers, HA!, so I didn’t have the STAR POWER to draw people in with my garbage, and instead of clicking to see if there was MAYBE something interesting written with the piece, they just saw the trash (which ITSELF had a specific point) and scrolled right on by! Happens to me all the time. I’m not a great artist…not even GOOD, really…but I DO know how to write. Unfortunately, the art is the LEAD, the DRAW POINT, for most people---and the solid writing gets passed by if the artwork doesn’t inspire people to “click for more!” Bummer… Never judge a post by its cover?]
36. “Ruckus (Hypothetically)” (6 May 2019)
37. “Deregulation! (Duck-Bear’s Cry Echoes Through The Forest)” (8 May 2019)
38. “Crawling from the Page…” (15 May 2019) [Technically, this piece hasn’t received a ZERO pay-out, yet, but it’s currently sitting at $0.00, with no sign that it’s going to move up any time soon. Ha! It might, somehow, limp out of the ZERO pay-out rut in the next five days, but I ain’t holdin’ my breath. It’s okay, though… I still think this is a pretty funny drawing even if it doesn’t impress anybody else! Wooooo!!!]

So, out of 252 posts, I’ve had 37 that had ZERO pay-out. That’s about a 14 percent SKUNK rate, and a majority of those came from my early days---although, I’ve also had several in just the last few weeks that didn’t click with folks, as well. Whatever…

Have I learned my lesson? Not a chance. I’ll keep writing my nonsense and drawing my snakes and bunnies and monsters and ghosts, and hiding my deep, philosophical investigations in pseudo-sci-fi, schlock, B-Movie, late-night trash theatre horror stories, peppered with the occasional book review… (I don’t read very quickly, so it takes a while for me to finish reading a book, otherwise, I’d write a book review every day!!!) If I keep slowly eking my way up the Steem Power Path, perhaps (in a few years) I’ll reach DIGITAL ENLIGHTENMENT. If not, at least I’m enjoying the journey!

---Richard F. Yates
(Primitive Thoughtician and Holy Fool)

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