Creative Collaborative Cagebreakers - Rhino Ravendove (best life changing books .TXT) 📗

CREATIVE

COLLABORATIVE

CAGEBREAKERS

A PROJECT of RHINO RAVENDOVE RIFFS

BY

Ran ‘Rhino’ Klarin and Adwin David Brown, ‘The Ravendove’

©2011 by Rhino Ravendove Riffs, Angel City, CA
For info on workshops, salons, performances, and coaching go to www.cagebreakers.tumblr.com
All rights reserved. No part of this publication can be reproduced by any means without permission in writing from the publisher.
Cover art from an original drawing by Adwin David Brown, Contemplating Freedom ©2010
Section drawings by Adwin David Brown ©2011
ISBN: 1456523023


TABLE of CONTENTS

Section I: Introduction 3
What the Hell Is This? 4
Why Am I Doing This?
The Ravendove 5
The Rhino 6

Section II: What Is It to Be Creative? 7
The Rhino
Intro to Piece One 8
Kooks and Creativity 9
Intro to Piece Two 11
Poetry and Communication 12
The Ravendove
Intro to Piece One 15
The Creative Tryst: Finding Time to Flow 16
Intro to Piece Two 19
Comparison Kills 20

Section III: The Creations 23
The Ravendove
Intro to Opposable from Flowdowg: 24
Opposable from Flowdowg: 24
The Rhino
Intro to Lust, Love, & Loss 31
Lust: Freedom In the Bush 32
Love: She Gives It To Me 33
Loss: Telling the Truth That Sets Me Free 35
Epilogue: Another Stranger In the Fair of Promise 37

Section IV: In the End Was the Beginning 39
The Rhino
Inspiration, Collaboration, then Dissemination 40
The Ravendove
Most Portem 44

Suggested Media 46

Biographies
Ran ‘Rhino’ Klarin 47
Adwin David Brown, ‘the Ravendove’ 48

Giving Thanks and Praise
Adwin David Brown, ‘the Ravendove’ 49
Ran ‘Rhino’ Klarin 50


SECTION 1:
Introduction or What the Hell Is This?

Sunfence 1

Three artists walk into a coffee bar...
Our plan was simple enough. Meet up, sit down, and not only create, but explore/discover/investigate how to share and distribute our creative projects in the emerging, ever changing social media and the dynamic gig economy. We decided the best way to do this was to take a hands-on route; collaborate and create an ebook for online and print on-demand distribution as well as gain direct experience marketing and monetizing our art. Initially, we dubbed ourselves the Creative Collective, set-up our laptops and entered the vast digital world. Just like Lewis and Clark, Henson and Byrd, Kirk and Spock, Hillary and Norgay, we trekked, traversed, traumatized and returned with the boon.

How This Book is Structured

To maximize your reading experience we’ve arrange the project in a that way that (hopefully) helps you get into our heads, hearts, and feelings on this journey and the creative process in general. Each individual piece is introduced by the writer, followed by a poem, short story, or essay by each Cagebreaker with an intro explaining his experience. The book concludes with a short commentary on each of our personal insights, lessons, and gains from this project. A suggested media list of the materials that inspired us in this journey into creativity is also included. Get ready for a wild ride into unfettered creativity. Enjoy!!


Why Am I Doing This?

The Ravendove

Why? ‘Cause completion scares the @%&*! out of me. I hang a lot of stuff on completing a project: the experimentation is over, the thrill of creating in the moment’s gone, and so on. I like potential and most likely I’m a novelty junkie. Another barrier to completion is the fear of being judged. Better to keep the ‘works’ in the closet and be thought of as a ‘master’ than to show it to the world and remove all doubt. Yet, I’m committed to creativity as a practice that helps me embrace fear, shake off unhealthy narcissism, and simply share! I have enough self awareness to know I need a fellowship to complete things. Hence, my creative conspirators: the Rhino and -- initially-- the TechnoMystic.


The Rhino

In a cool cafe’, diggin’ some bebop jazz on the sound system. It is mid-day in Santa Monica. About 71 degrees and sunny outside and I have no mandatory appointments today. My routine is in place, I am at my table with my netbook and writing. I am discovering, learning, and grounding my lifestyle and identity as a writer/ teacher/ coach of the Creative. I write to explore and share my soul’s story and that is why I am in the Creative Collective; association, community, expression, distribution, upliftment of the human race. My vision on this project is to solidify my practice of writing and then to stretch by coming out of the creative closet and sharing my words to with the non-friend, non-family, non-acquaintance public. This vehicle of on-line publishing and internet social network schemes is an outreach to my tribe. Using this medium and collective to spread my message, challenges me to face down the technologies and to maintain accountability with myself and community. I am here to stop kicking the can of writing down the road and express and share it now. I am living the dream deferred.


SECTION TWO:
What It Is to Be Creative?


Gato 1

The Rhino: Piece 1

Uncovering my long hidden creative medium (writing) after all of my traditional self affirming structures have disappeared (job retirement, relationship striving and dying, investment responsibilities sold, and a tennis injury), has exposed my always incipient fear of failing. Once I developed interest in various artistic forms, I became aware of creativity all over the place. One day I heard about the Cardiff Kook and his costumes. The longevity his costumes are short (at most a few days), the form was uninhibited (any costume may emerge), and the location at a surf beach was rife with irony (surfing has a very steep learning curve and its culture is not kind to ‘kooks’). For me, the image is iconic of the creative life and its inherent chronic failing that may lead to a few moments of flow with one’s muse. Surfing illustrates the necessity to keep getting up (try to catch a wave sometime), to withstand the cacophonous doubters (locals overtly harass kooks and strangers), and the ephemeral nature of bliss (a good day of surfing may result in 60 seconds on a wave).


Kooks and Creativity

Last week at a well known southern California surf spot, a new costume was draped on a local statue. The statue is of a surfer riding a wave. The overnight prank was to build a papier-mâché shark’s mouth engulfing the surfer. The statue is in a pose that is inimical for a good surfer and was originally mocked by locals. Then not long after being erected a few years ago a series of such pranks were perpetrated on this community hub. The statue, known locally as the Cardiff Kook ago, has been draped in costumes from clown to female stripper.

Kook is surfer slang usually used as the ultimate putdown. Writer and surfer, Peter Heller wears that label proudly and states, “Being a kook is a way of life. It’s about being willing to learn something new, to make a fool of yourself and just go for it.” What I gleaned from the Cardiff Kook pranks is to be free to try on different personae and just go for it in public. It regularly gets attention from local media with praise from passersby and surfers alike. It is not viewed as a problem but entertaining and fun. Being a kook is fun for the community.

Some lessons about creativity can be gleaned from this oddity. As a novice creative expresser, I noted my tendency to resist trying the new, out of type activity. Holding back or worse giving half effort short circuits the fun of creativity. And as an older beginning artist it is easy for me