The Den

Mom

July 26th, 2019

When I was seven years old, I had a Batman Returns-themed birthday party.

Despite the fact that it says everything about who I ended up being as an adult (a dark, superhero-obsessed loser with a fairly self-aware sense of humor), that’s not why I love this recently unearthed photo.

I love it because of what’s behind me.

See, that right there was the hallmark of all of my birthdays. My mom is one of the most humbly creative people I have ever known. She would make all of our Halloween costumes (which I have posted here before), and she would design all of our birthday parties. She is an artist, through and through. Her eye is extraordinary. And she used all of that talent on us, her children.

This particular example here is a “Pin the Umbrella to the Penguin” board. One such board does not exist from Party City, and Party City does not employ my one such mom, so she created her own. She recreated all these characters by hand, before there was the internet. She poured a lot of time and heart into these works, knowing that the only people who would ever appreciate it were a couple of kids.

Well, I do.

It’s taken me years to figure it out, but gosh, do I appreciate it. This is a woman who, under different circumstances, could have been a world class artist, who found expression and an outlet where she was. And by doing so, she nourished my creativity. I saw her do, so I do. She needed no approval, or applause, barely an audience, but most importantly — she needed no permission.

I loved these things, the costumes and the games, when I was a kid. But I didn’t cherish them like I do now. You think a lot about the things you missed out on or the things that were different for you growing up, but you don’t always see the blessings. This was a blessing. Having a bad ass secret ninja artist for a mom helped make me the way I am today, and she was so ninja and low-key bad ass that I didn’t even really think of it that way until recently.

Just wanted to say I love my mom, I guess. And that I’m wondering where my Batmobile is.

The Worst Book > Your Best Idea

July 25th, 2019

The worst book on a shelf is, believe it or not, still better than your best idea.

This is true because the finished book has the virtue of being complete and existing in a sharable form.

“That does not mean a terrible book is better than this amazing movie idea I’ve had in my head for ten years!”

Yes. It does mean that.

Our culture is constantly telling its artists that they could do better. You watch a film and the ending you had in mind was so superior. The character that you would have created had smarter lines, had a deeper emotional hook and actually looked like you a little more. The plot twist you thought up halfway through? It would have BLOWN YOUR MIND.

Except guess what? None of that exists. Because you didn’t create it. And even, at this point, if you did, you would have created it on the legwork and structure that other artists put there before you — for you to consume and digest and discuss and deconstruct and judge and rewrite. But not create.

People ask me how I do it all the time. I do it by doing it. It sounds basic, but that’s how I do everything I’ve ever done. I do it because I absolutely have to. I put my heart and soul and guts and words into things for people to hear and read and see because I am like every other person on the planet: I want to be heard and read into and seen.

You could do it. I encourage everyone I know to create art. A lot — a LOT — of my family and friends talk about creating art. “I should do this.” “I have an idea for this.” “This would be really cool.” “Someday.” “Well, someday.” “I don’t have time right now. But maybe someday.”

I got really bad anxiety from making The Weirdos. Not because it was hurting me to create. No, it was the opposite. I was saying so many things that I wanted to say and I was nervous that something would happen to me before I got everything down on a page. It’s done now, so the stress has simmered, but that’s when you know you’re creating art. When you have something to say and you’re so scared that nobody will hear it. So you make it as loudly as you can.

So do it. Make that bad book. Sing that sad song.

Create. And put yourself out there in the realest, truest way.

Sculpture/Garden

All you gotta do is work, work, work, work, work, work, work, work.

July 23rd, 2019

When asked how he created his sculptural masterpiece David, Michelangelo said — and I’m paraphrasing, because I wasn’t there — that essentially David was always inside that block of marble, and he just had to chip away the parts that weren’t him.

What he actually said was this:

“Every block of stone has a statue inside it and it is the task of the sculptor to discover it.”

And:

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.”

You can do a lot of things in your life that are not you. In fact, you can spend your entire life acting against who you really are on the inside. We wear masks and we tell lies and we cover up truths and we call it being human.

Being a better person just means being a more defined version of what we can already see. By diligently — painstakingly, sometimes — chipping away the little pieces of what we are not, we become closer to being the better shape that has always been living deep inside our marble.

And the thing about sculpting yourself is that it gives you more educated eyes to see the art in the world around you. You start seeing the more defined sculptures and you gravitate towards them; you also can see a block of untouched clay from a mile away.

So what does this mean for you? It means you will be forever unfinished. And until you can’t lift your fingers anymore, keep chipping. We see you. We can trace every line. And we appreciate you.

Driving Glasses

July 18th, 2019

These are my driving glasses.

They are as much of The Dennis Vogen Story as any other part of me. When I was a young punk, I found these metal monsters in a broken basket at a thrift store. It started as a joke, but I fell in love; these random spectacles just happened to give me perfect vision. So I bought them for $3 and have been wearing them to see ever since. I’ve passed all of my vision tests with them, I’ve watched concerts and movies and American Ninja Warrior through them, I’ve used them for Halloween costumes (Dwight Schrute, anyone?).

Fast forward to this morning, when I visited the eye doctor for the first time in my adult life. I told her about my glasses, and she laughed and said she had never heard a story like that before. Then she asked if we could test my glasses to see how accurate they were.

Can you see where this is going?

They are almost my perfect prescription. The axis was a little off for both eyes, and my left lens had a little more power than I needed, but they were incredibly close.

There’s no way I’m going to take this and turn it into one of my things where I talk about life, right? Well, of course I am.

Always trust your own vision. People will say you look stupid and you’re not doing it right, but in the end, you know what clarity looks like. I love these stupid glasses, and while it’s nice to finally be kind of a grown up and have my first pair made just for me, these say as much about who I am as the words I say or things I do.

So don’t automatically listen to people who say you can’t see. Because more likely than not, you don’t see the world like anybody else.

One More Day

Naps are an essential part of a good day.

July 9th, 2019

My only goal is to put one more good day between me and the person I used to be.

This may sound brutal and typically too honest from me, but sometimes I really understand why Bradley Cooper killed himself at the end of A Star Is Born. To wake up every day with the memories of everything you have ever said and done is heavy. And sometimes it makes you lose sight of the truth that it’s not all you are. You were never always bad. You were never always a burden. You were always more than your worst.

Like Natasha and Clint acknowledge in Endgame, you should never judge or be judged solely by your worst days.

And when you make that decision to burn the soil, to start removing the weeds and pests underneath, you can’t expect to find new grass growing tomorrow. Whenever someone still doubts me or my honesty, my initial reaction is, “Can’t they read my mind? Can’t they see inside my head, and see how honest I’ve been for a long time now?”

Of course they can’t. And it takes humility to understand you put them in that place to begin with.

To anyone who is doing things to change their lives for the better in any way, one day at a time: even though I’ve been at it for a while, the only medallion I keep in my pocket is for 24 hours. Because that’s the most important one. Because that’s all it takes. And I collect each good day and keep it in a place between me and the person I used to be.

The New Normal

It’s normal for your dog to be your best friend and accountant.

June 28th, 2019

What is normal?

I think a better question is: what is normalized, and what should or shouldn’t be? Without even realizing it, a lot of us normalize behaviors in how we interact with people and how we present ourselves online.

I was talking to a friend yesterday, and it made me think about how we don’t always need to point out other’s defects and flaws in order to inspire positive change. For example: calling out a racist for being a racist rarely leads a racist to stop being a racist. However, leading by example — in this case, not participating in or encouraging racist behavior — can be more than enough to affect actual change, even if it’s gradual.

We all have a role in normalizing things that we want to see in the world.

As a straight, white dude, I share a lot about myself that I don’t think society has dictated as normal for straight, white dudes. By doing so, I hope to normalize healthy, “not normal” behaviors.

I’m a recovered alcoholic. I watch and obsess over the television garbage fire known as The Bachelor franchise. My dog is my best friend, and not in a controlled, trained manner. I regularly dress up in costume in my thirties. I am unabashedly passionate about pop culture, and comic books especially, and believe it means more than most people think it does. I very much so try to be an ally for people who are not exactly like me.

These things don’t seem like a big deal when they’re typed out on a list. But by living these behaviors and sharing it daily, we show that not everybody wakes up in the morning, puts on a red MAGA hat and walks out the door.

We can oppose things by being what we believe in, and by encouraging people who believe in the same things.

If you want what we have, normalize it. And if you want change in your world, then be it.

A Meditation On Worry

June 25th, 2019

I heard a wonderful concept today: if you can worry, then you can meditate, because worrying is just meditating about all the wrong things.

Hell, yeah, it is.

Instead of finding my inner peace and shit, I repeat things like, “I am such an awkward loser” in my head until I believe it to be the truth. I replay things I didn’t do right today until the needle on my memory record is worn out. What if I just replace those words and ideas with better ones?

It seems simple, and that’s because it is. We’re the ones who complicate them. So while my meditation may never be sitting on a pillow shaped like a whale and moaning like a monk, I think I can get in the habit of thinking things like: “Well, nothing today caught on fire in my life, so I would consider that a success.”

And the day something does catch on fire, I hope my moments of meditation will give me the strength to put it out.

“The Most Boringest Ride Ever”

June 24th, 2019

“I do not want to go on the most boringest ride ever.”

My dad didn’t let me live this one down for a while.

We were at Disney World, which, in my young heart, was the most perfect place a person could imagine. Heaven was a distant and possibly fictional second. I had always wanted to be an animator and a writer and I was obsessed with everything Disney (and am, to a much more controlled extent, still today). There were so many things I wanted to do, and so little time, and my dad stood right in the way of that:

“I want to take you on the studio tour.” It was a slow-moving train that traveled behind-the-scenes of the park, and normally I would have been really excited but there were just SO MANY OTHER THINGS I REALLY WANTED TO DO. I said no. My dad insisted.

I bitched and moaned the entire time in line, and even though my parents are deaf, it spared them little. I was adamant that I did not want to go on “the most boringest ride ever” (my words, because I was as dumb a kid as I am an adult).

We finally got on and I was SO RIGHT. IT WAS SO BORING. IT WAS — wait, something was happening. We were brought to an area that was allegedly an old part of an Indiana Jones set. It had been inactive for a long time when all of a sudden boulders started rolling from the sky, with high waves and hot flames and I legitimately thought I was going to die. And my parents, those lovely, kindly folks, knew to take this photo at this exact time.

I was wrong. It was not the most boringest ride ever. It ended up being one of our favorite stories from the trip, and like I said, not one I lived down any time soon.

So don’t assume. Don’t assume today is going to be lame or dumb or boring. Because a lot of life feels like a backlot tour, and you never know when you’re going to find the adventure of your life during it.

Check Your Intent

June 20th, 2019

I don’t have my strong point of view because I think I’m always right.

I’m not. I’m just doing my best with the rest of you.

No, I have a strong point of view because if you want to read something bland or vague or generically inspirational, there are a million other places I could point you. I reread some of the things I write, and I ask myself, “Am I being too harsh? If a person isn’t hearing this the way that I’m saying it in my head, or the way that I feel it and mean it, is it discouraging or too sharp?”

Ultimately, I don’t think so. I really don’t hope so. I try to let one thing guide every decision I make: am I making this choice with love? Because if I am, then I can’t be wrong. I’ll explain why.

Did you know that selfies aren’t necessarily gifts of ego? It’s true. In my studies last week, we were digging deep into intent. Ultimately, I don’t think that everyone who posts a picture of themselves do it out of narcissism. In fact, I don’t think a lot of people do at all. I think sometimes you want to show instead of just tell. You want someone to see that awesome thrift store find you came across. You want them to feel that crazy cold morning with you. You want them to see the garden you put long hours into, not just because you’re proud of the work, but because your garden makes you happy, and you share it because maybe it will make other people happy, too.

It’s all about intent.

And my motto is Always Love. Even when I miss the mark. Especially when I miss the mark, because that’s my bullseye, that is my constant.

So just know that my intent is to always share my experiences and observations, and never to judge people whose ideas differ from mine. I get things wrong, and I learn, and hopefully we grow together through it.

I stand on my tippy toes for things because it feels like humanity is too often always sitting down. Not fully asleep, but not ready to run, either.

Always love, Squirrels. And check your intent.