Fresh to Death

"Can I please say my piece / If y'all fresh to death, then I'm deceased" – Kanye West

Kinda-sorta-maybe I should be embarrassed to admit this, but I really enjoy the hell out of the things that I write.

Take One Hundred Fingers of Death for example. It was originally a piece planned for KFG5, but I decided against using it, wanting that issue to be broader in scope with its subject matter. This particular piece was a really good one, though, and I thought that I should try to come up with another use for it. Maybe as a really long blog post.

For years, I've had it in my head that I wanted to make a really cheap zine that I could just give away. KFG4 was/is indeed a freebie issue, but (at 28 pages) isn't really as 'cheap' as desired. The difficulty has always been distilling my ideas down into somethin' simple enough to pack into 16 – or fewer – pages. It was challenge enough breaking down KFG4 as far as I did.

From the very first issue of KFG, I aimed for the ballpark's back wall. I saw the back wall as 56 pages, mainly due to the number of ideas that I had in my head at the time of inception. And with each issue since the first, I've continued to have enough ideas to fill every page. With KFG5, I actually had more material than vacant pages. But it still worked out after all.

Today, I finally accomplished my goal of a really cheap give away. "The One Hundred Fingers of Death" text was turned into a cool 8-pager. It's kind of a promo for Kung Fu Grip!, but also stands on its own as a singular work. In fact, its only on the back that I connect it to the KFG universe by placing an actual ad for the zine there.

Five Fingers of Death and Ten Fingers of Death are two classic kung fu movies. A few months ago I did a digital collage that I called "Thirty Fingers of Death." I wanted to expand that idea even further, and eventually came up with something that I would soon describe as the "One-Hundred Fingers of Death Martial Arts Movie-Watching Master List."

One-Hundred Fingers of Death explains how that list came about, and then provides the titles of one-hundred martial arts movies that I've actually watched. (I didn't wanna give that bit away here, but everything can't be a surprise.) Anyway, one the best things about this baby is that it's something I can stick in an envelope and mail off with a single stamp.

Truth be told, this piece is gonna ruffle some feathers, but it's also going to entertain. I mean, I wrote it and I still laugh out loud while I'm reading it, as if it's all completely new to me. I don't know if that's a sign of a good writer, a simple mind, or someone who's just too very taken with himself. But whatever it means, I'll take it. Life is too short (or too long) to go through it not loving what you do.