Fish and Cherries Productions

What’s on my mind this week? Ohhhhhhhhhh… a LOT!

First of the two big announcements. My Zootopia Reel Snippet got republished on Culture Sonar! That’s right, my signal is spreading wider and I owe it to all of you (though my dad gets special mention for reaching out). Click here, read it again, and give these folks some traffic.

Next… drum roll please… I’ve taken to Indiegogo to help fund a children’s book that I wrote! And it made its goal in two days!

Let me back up and explain. For the past year, my friend and I have been collaborating on a children’s book called The Fire Truck Who Got Lost. I wrote the story and my friend did the artwork. We finally got it to a good place and we’re ready to work on production and distribution. Since both of us are kinda broke, though, we decided to take to crowdfunding — the modern American way of business.

We set a modest goal of $2000 — just enough to get layout done and print a few copies — but lo and behold, we got so much support that we made it on the second day of our 45-day campaign. We were positively gobstruck, but now we’re coming back swinging with a stretch goal. We’re hoping that donors will help us get past $4,000 so we can donate some copies to children’s libraries or possibly the kid’s section of my hometown’s local fire truck museum.

If you have some free time, please follow this link to the Indiegogo page. It would be really great if my fans could donate even a little bit so we can spread this book farther and farther. If you can’t donate, that’s okay. You can play a part by sending it around to friends and families, particularly those that have toddlers, and get the word out.

This has been a really big couple of weeks. Everything’s coming up Colin! Here’s hoping for even more good news.

Hey, everypeoples. It’s that time again where I boost the signal for a crowdfunding campaign. This time, though, it’s different. I’m not pushing for a celebrity or creator that has influenced my childhood. I’m trying to support an artist that I know personally that has some mad musical chops. Ladies, gents, and everyone in-between, I introduce you to Flight of Fire.

The lead vocalist, who goes by Maverick (which is her actual last name, not an awesome pseudonym), lived down the hall from me in the dorms of UC Santa Cruz and while we didn’t always hang out, we had some good times when we did. After Santa Cruz, I lost touch with her, only to find that she started her own all-girl rock band called Flight of Fire. I’ve got to say, from what I’ve heard, I’m impressed. They’ve got a sound that harkens back to the classic rock era, when your Rushes, Led Zeppelins, and Dios ruled the world. It’s a refreshing sound to have back and I think they deserve more attention.

That’s where we come in. As of now, they’ve gone to Kickstarter to help fund their new concept album, Path of the Phoenix. (Yeah, if it wasn’t obvious, Phoenix is kind of their motif.) The whole thing is said to be a story of the rise, fall, and rebirth of an aspiring artist, making it almost like a rock opera. Now there’s something that has sadly been absent from the mainstream as of late. They want to make the album and perform it live in Boston, but they need our help to do it. Check out their Kickstarter page here for more information. If you want to know more about them, check out their website and their Soundcloud and see these up and coming rock artists in their prime.

And now, the moment you’ve been waiting for. You cried. You raged. You demanded your money back. And now I’m lighting the fires of war one last time. Without further ado, my Top 9 Worst Movies of 2015.

So a lot of you were probably quite surprised that last week, I just… disappeared with no warning. I’d like to say that it was just because of the holidays and spending time with family, but that’s not really true.

The truth is that I had a mental breakdown. It was a combination of stress and guilt over recent actions, so I had to be rushed down to Southern California to be with family and recover. I’d rather not talk about the recent actions, but I will say that it wasn’t Hitler-bad and I’m doing my bit to fix things. As for my mental health, I’m nearly back at 100%, hence why I’m back to work again.

This may be a bit distressing for some of you to read, but know that these things happen. Asperger’s Syndrome has a lot of these challenges and even with all my training and methods of functioning, I have no doubt that there will be episodes like this in the future. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t still dragging the past events with me and thinking about what they mean for the future. But time passes and all things heal. Some just may take longer than others.

Moving on from that, let’s talk Fish and Cherries business. That’s two months in a row that I’ve missed a Ronin Reads and unfortunately, I don’t have a hard date of when I’m getting it out. Lord knows that the subject isn’t as topical as it was last month, but I still might be able to get some mileage out of it. That said, there’s another upcoming work that you guys might like. 2015 is behind us and if you’ve been a fan since last year, you may remember me coming out with a list of my best movies of 2014. Well, I’m happy to say that I’ll be doing the same with 2015… plus some extra.

See, I’ve had to become a lot less picky with what movies I see to show that I’m more professional and more likely to get picked up, so unlike last year, I’ve seen enough bad movies this year to warrant a list of worst movies. I’ll be coming out with the worst first, since I like to end things on a positive note, but just be prepared for some truly deserved bile spewing and venting towards the past year’s garbage. It’ll be a bit since I want to catch that last few 2015 films before they leave theaters.

Here’s hoping that everyone is having a Happy New Year.