Mr. Shane Bugbee is an underground legend. Born in 1968, he established ‘Mike Hunt’ publishing in the late 1980’s and has been an artist, publisher, writer, photographer, historian, searcher and, in his mother-in-law’s terms, “flimflam man” ever since.
Indeed Shane is a man whose whole reason for existence is creation. Both his own, and propagating others; releasing or representing underground luminaries such as Mike Diana, Anton LaVey, Ragnar Redbeard, John Wayne Gacy, Dana Plato and many many more.
(Picture below of the logo of Shane’s publishing company – ‘Mike Hunt Publishing’)
Shane’s motto is “Creative Class Trumps Ruling Class“. A motto and sense of faith in the artist to be admired and indeed propagated.
So get to know Shane Bugbee – a man at the heart of the underground since the 1980’s – by reading the Art Talk below…
Basics/Getting to Know
Name + D.O.B?
Shane Bugbee – Nov 9th, 1968
(Picture below of Shane as a child)
City, State n Country you’re Repping?
Ahhh… well, I’m a nomad… I rep no land.
I presently live on the coast of Oregon, USA.
Describe a memory from three stages of yr life ….basically trying to piece together Mr. Bugbee’s pivotal moments. Concerts, art, action-figures, women, school, crime… ANYTHING man.
* age 10 – beginnings:
I was 9 years old when my grand-ma took me to see Elvis in concert, it was his last concert in Chicago and the second from last before his death.
Later, I had a school project to make a book, I did, it’s called ‘Elvis and me’… it’s a story where Elvis takes me and my mother to Sambos, a diner kind of restaurant, for dinner… he later comes home with us for a sleep over. That book was published in 1978, so I was close to 10 then – hehehehehee… so, I started publishing at 10.
To see the book, you can check archive.org, here’s a direct link: https://archive.org/details/elvisandme
(Picture below of some of Shane’s art from his book – ‘Elvis and Me’ – written + illustrated when Shane was 1o)
* age 15 – getting serious:
This was a tough time in my life, I started to run away from home at a younger age, but around this age I was really starting to run away or disappear.
At 15 I was a sophomore in high school and I started to “scalp” concert tickets in school, so I’d only appear at school to sell high priced front row concert tickets for a guy named “Foxy”, then I’d take a cab home or to a friends parent’s house and we’d sit around and get high on weed…
I dropped out of high school the day I turned 16 years old and lived on the streets and if I was lucky on couches.
* age 20 – adult mode:
20, what a blur…
I remember that I stopped drinking for a bit right after I turned 21.
At 20 I drank, and I drank a lot in between drinking I started to realize that I was political, or I should say I started to form a political fetish that was unlike my parents and those around me. I think that started with the Judas Priest suicide case in the USA and that case fed into Frank Zappa testifying at the PMRC hearings and it all blossomed into the Satanic panic, basically, I became hyper aware of artistic expression and just how powerful it is, so powerful that those creating the illusion of power want to control artistic expression and stifle creative thoughts…
It amazed me that any human being would put up with their basic, maybe the most basic birth right of expression being controlled or worse, censored… It was at this age I took deep offense at someone giving me the right to “speech”, like I needed that gift, it’s like me handing out the right to breath air, shit or smile…
I mean really, we were born with the ability to speak, not the right to speak… to speak our minds honestly shouldn’t be some noble aspiration or looked at as brave… it just is part of our being, or should be expected of our existence.
(Picture below of Shane in his 20’s, with Willie D of the ‘Geto Boys’)
Personal motto?
Never not broken – be ware – be aware – take courage.
Favorite band(s)?
That’s a hard one and a question I can only answer in the moment… fugazi, lynyrd skynyrd, slayer, the monkeys.
I’d say, as far as music, it’s the genre, I’m a metal head, so heavy metal, always… the newest band I’m so into is YOB.
Favorite TV show(s)?
Don’t have a TV, I watch films on-line and shorts on vimeo…
When I watched TV, Seinfeld and Larry David’s Curb Your Enthusiasm.
I presently enjoy a short on-line only series from Jerry Seinfeld called “Comedians In Cars Drinking Coffee”.
Favorite sport(s) + teams?
Hate sports!
I have to try real hard not to hate those into sports… unless it has something to do with porn…
I like water sports, love piss play, water sports videos, gals pissing on other gals, stuff like that.
(Picture below of Shane in covering the world’s largest gang bang with Porn Starlet Houston in 1999)
Favorite movie(s)?
Taxi Driver, Purple Rain, Way Of The Gun.
Favorite books and comics?
My book and any books I’ve published! ‘Might is Right’ is my A#1 fave, it’s still a challenge…
The last book I read that really grabbed me, the Patti Smith book ‘Just Kids’.
Art Questions
Favorite ‘other’ artist(s)?
This is another subject I can only feel a favorite in the moment, it changes all the time, though one of my favorite active artists who seems to always be a favorite is Ugly Shyla – http://www.uglyart.net/.
I really respect a lot of what she says and does, there seems to be no struggle in who and what she is, she is honest and pure and/or really knows how to play a person… of course she struggles, but not with her person, life is of course a struggle and she really has a lot of answers and stuff to push thru…
Ooh, Ryen McPherson is a person I really respect, he’s a film maker and prankster that I believe was the original Banksy, I should say Ryen and his crew, Indecline, were pulling public pranks and presenting great graffiti long before the Banksy stuff…
Ok, in this moment, right now, I’m so digging a guy named: Hayden Burgess, you can find his work here: http://grimoire666.tumblr.com/ and I’m absolutely in love with a gal named Kniqui Nimbus, you can find some of her work here: http://www.kniqui.com. I really love her video work, so ask her how to find that.
Hmmmm… well, maybe I can name an all time fave, or at least confess to the obvious… my obvious favorite all time artist would be Mike Diana, someone I’ve spent a great deal of time with and invested a great percentage of my life publishing and promoting… so, Mike Diana would be the obvious.
Worst aspect of the contemporary art-hustle?
The idea that the artist should submit to a gallery or gallery owner, this is absurd, if anything the art hustle should have trained eyes recruiting great art from all classes, but, I think we both know, really great art, true and pure art comes from the underground/street, but I know most of the frauds from art school rip off styles from street artists and then use their freshly schooled knowledge in networking and submitting to get their totally void of all feeling art on a lame gallery wall…
BTW, I consider street art and underground art to be close to the same, maybe underground is the harder edged art, the art that goes after taboos…
Here’s a link to an application I made for the artist to use for gallery owners: http://creativeclasstrumpsrulingclass.com/?p=172
Best aspect of the contemporary art-hustle?
The DIY culture, the ability to show your work on-line – the possibilities are endless…
Unlike the mid 80’s when you had to drive from state to state in hopes of finding the few customers that were in the know.
Do you consider what you are making to be ‘art’, ‘design’, re-hashed crap?
I’m not sure I know what art is or think creating art is all that special… I think artists, well, the word “artist” indicates a job, it’s a job title, and art isn’t work, it’s expressive and it’s creative and it’s a form of communication, so… I consider it creation…
Shit, I think art is something most animals do, will a deer understand my sculptures/markings or what I’m trying to communicate? Probably not. Will I understand their markings or what they are trying to communicate? Probably not.
And that’s the thing, as animals we create markings to communicate and attract a mate among other things, we create a cool looking nest to show we can build a better nest than the competition, and again, we use our markings to communicate, and that communication also serves to document our time and space, so… we are all animals with a need to make our markings and those markings serve many an evolutionary function.
Most human animals have become complacent to the illusion we call society and, are far removed from an animal, our animal, all animals… those within or species so far gone, numb, and complaisant, hold artist high on a pedestal, much like they hold the deer high on a pedestal and then, their admiration turns to animosity as the deer’s freedom reminds them of their slavery, so they hunt, kill and then hang the deer’s head on the wall as an act of honoring the deer…
The complaisant have turned to buying their creativity, they consume art and/or paint the walls of their cage, they paint their home, they buy a bobble head for their desk at work and try to satisfy the urge to make their mark, to creatively make their mark and ultimately evolve …
So, sometimes I consider what I do art as it’s usually an expression, but I do so much, I shit too, sometimes I look in the toilet and think, what a surreal shit and that surreal shit was a one of a kind crap, signed and numbered with my personal stink, and, sometimes I do design to sell my shit.
I guess the question I struggle with is, what is art??? I think art and most things worth a fuck starts with intent and has nothing to do with money, maybe survival, but never money.
Hahahaah… hows that for a non-answer.
Hell man, I have no idea, you tell me if what I do is art!
(Picture below of some wood work art by Shane)
When and why did you first start making ‘art’ (drawings, paintings, anything)?
I really don’t know… I was young, it was always soothing or felt right, I remember I’d get in trouble with my “parents” for day dreaming too much, for making art, I was always told that it was a waste of time and I needed to get real, learn a trade…
But, as long as I recall, I was happy on my own making things… and I usually did it to get attention from pretty girls… so, I guess the basic why is to communicate, but I don’t know if that’s true and I sure as fuck didn’t know why I was making art when I started… I just did it, same as the first time I whacked off, I didn’t know I was going to come, I just did it and POW, results, creamy warm results.
What did you draw as a pre-teen child?
Scenes of violence.
I was an abused kid and to add to that, I was bullied in school, so I remember drawing pictures of me murdering my school mates and I’d name them and I remember showing my mother and she just ignored it, so I started to stab the paper with a pair of scissors, she took the art supplies and told me to get over it.
What did you draw as a teen?
I gravitated towards ceramics class, I enjoyed building stuff, stacking, taking clay and sculpting it into shapes and putting those odd shaped together, like a square base, a bulbous round body and a triangular neck/stem…
I’d always add things to the clay that I knew would burn up in the kiln, now, I use a plastic like clay to sculpt bone to steel, to glass and so on – the possibilities are endless…
I’d like to get back to ceramics as I really hate using plastic of any kind, but, I really, really hate not getting my way when I have a vision I’m trying to create, so what ever it takes, plastic, nuclear explosion, whatever.
Any pivotal artistic moment/influence?
There are a few and they all have to do with the struggle to make art, or product, or how to make art that could be product, or, product that could be art…
I use to go by the pseudonym “Mike Hunt” and ran ‘Michael Hunt Publishing’ and really enjoyed using the pseudonym as it helped me become purely observational… people would make fun of or love the zine I was publishing but never knew I was the one doing it, and that anonymity felt strangely familiar, and comfortable and I felt my place in this life wasn’t to be part of the flow but to observe and report the flow, so going by a Pseudonym helped with that…
When I was getting married I figured I needed to try and make a living at my creative life, at the same time, I was publishing zines and they were controversial for the late 80’s, folks would complain that if the person putting out the zine really believed in when they were doing, their real name would be on what they were doing, I was just about to publish some of the most offensive stuff I’d ever put out, so, the combo of both getting married and the pressure of standing behind all I was publishing pushed me to use my real name, it was an attempt to be considered legit by an establishment I considered illegitimate – the moment I used my real name interview requests from the media rolled in, the first interview I did became the cover of the huge Chicago weekly paper – I really hated the loss of anonymity and the need to do interviews in order to sell shit, in order to promote, I wanted the work to speak for itself… it felt odd and I found it perverse, but I did it…
Today, I enjoy the interview, both asking questions, and being asked, I’ve always enjoyed asking questions, I’ve conducted hundreds of interviews, but to answer questions, I’ve grown to really enjoy doing interviews… maybe it’s because I’m old, maybe it’s because I’ve done stuff that folks seem to want to explain for me, they want to tell me I do things “for a reaction” or some shit like that, so, today I enjoy having my say…
And the pivotal moment was me shedding the pseudonym and slowly letting myself show and even speak.
(Picture below of a small fraction of works published or written by Shane)
Why + when did you decide to go in on the art hustle?
Maybe between the ages of 18 to 20 years old, when I was living in my car…
I just couldn’t swallow a regular gig and again, I was living in my car, my politics were driving me and/or I was magnetized towards making the pendulum swing my way… I wanted to fight back and I was using the only thing I knew – creativity…
I had dropped out of school, been arrested and threatened with prison, so, I was lucky and living in my car and was looking to do something that could make a change in the world, yea, I know, what an idiot, I was young and idealistic and, thinking about it, I’ve never grown up and I still think change is possible through a creative revolution, I think being creative, using art to educate and motivate does make change, only problem is, life is short and evolution long, so we seldom see the change we create with our “art”… so, politics were a huge part of why I decided to involve myself in the art hustle.
Describe the method of making a Shane Bugbee work? (dot point all o.k.)
* your sculptures?
Ha! The process and explanation of creation is so clinical, it’s like we are about to enter a laboratory… science and the artists mind, at least this artists mind, are so far apart.
When I start to create I think I know what I’m doing, I sit down and then shit becomes mystical and time and space goes away and next thing I know, poof! Creation and it was pure magic!!
My studio is a mess and no matter how I clean and organize, it turns upside down real fast… I sit, I grab shit close to me and go…
I have a lot of tools and things I’ve collected to make markings with and to sculpt with, I keep them close and sculpt…
I like working in a mess and within chaos, I break stuff to fit or use my dremel to hack shit to pieces… Sometimes I sketch ideas out, most of the times not…
The biggest part of the process for me is finding things I want to add to my sculptures, so hitting thrift stores and junk shops is huge, right now, I’m looking for odd and cheesy American themed items, like the Liberty Bell or busts of Presidents or anything with an American flag so I might sculpt and/or document the decline and probable downfall of the USA…
One time, I found a dead deer on the side of the road, it was all bone, but it was the entire deer, so I gathered the bones and put it together as an odd cookie jar style jar.
(Picture below of a Shane Bugbee sculpture)
* your drawings?
Drawing is different from sculpture, sometimes I draw stuff, like a goat head just to draw a goat head, to tell a story of sorts, that is more like illustration and documentation, but, sometimes I get lucky and I let my mind push the pencil, it becomes, again, magical and mystical and the drawings turn out surreal and filled with a feeling or vibe …
I most enjoy when I enter a state where I’m out of my mind, most drawing is in the mind, I’m trying to draw something, with my sculptures, I enjoy those because I’m out of my mind, I’m high without drugs, I’m able to go deep, I’m so out of my mind and because of that I’m able to read my entire mind…
Drawing is more technical, yet, it includes imagination, so that’s fun, just not as fun as losing all time and space and creating magic…
I’m new to drawing and I’m just becoming comfortable with showing my drawings.
(Picture below of a drawing by Shane Bugbee)
Please describe how Mr Mike Diana impacted your life and why?
Well… There is the personal impact and there is the business/ political impact…
On the personal impact , Mike is an amazing and truly one of a kind, kind and warm human being… He so quiet and fun and fun loving… Mike, as long as I’ve known him, was always comfortable being himself, he was just fine being sensitive and sexual and creative and expressive, his actions and attitude helped me to be myself and drop the hard attitude I created to survive Chicago.
Knowing Mike Diana made me a better person.
On the political/business side of our relationship, the impact was rewarding at first, I was pushing along and helping out with art and politics I loved and that I believed in… the up-hill and fight of pushing Mike’s art became frustrating, and with most things I do, I gave too much and felt very unappreciated, my fault really.
I learned the lesson not to expect too much when you do shit for others and to only give 100% of me, to me, to all of my personal work, my sculptures, my art, my family…
Now, let me make clear, I don’t feel Mike Diana was unappreciative to me, I feel that way in general and specifically within the underground art world.
(Picture below of Mike and Shane – late 1990’s)
Odds n Ends
What role did toys play in your childhood?
I’m not sure, I was a child and don’t really have too many clear memories from my childhood, I do recall a bad ass and huge, steel, tonka truck…
I also recall a very large, transformer kind of doll where the fists would shoot, those toys were pretty rad, I remember that the transformer doll, it was like 3-4 ft tall, I remember it really fueled my imagination,
Then there were legos and lincoln logs and silly putty – all memorable.
(Picture below of an add for Shogun Warrior Jumbo Machineders – Shane’s loved fist firing toys)
(Pic thanks to ‘Plaid Stallions‘)
Who was your 1st crush and why?
Why? why not! My first crush was Wendy Thompson, she was the first gal to kiss and play doctor with me, she was so nice to me…
I remember she moved away to be on T.V… she appeared in a T.V. commercial for a breakfast cereal named sugar smacks I believe…
I remember the feeling of deep sadness seeing her on that commercial like it was yesterday.
Does sex change everything?
No. Love changes everything.
Loveless sex is no more than a great workout.
Sex with one sided love ruins a fun thing and many friendships.
Sex combined with love makes for an amazing occult experience.
Please describe your latest dream in detail…
Dreams are a reverberation of what you’ve taken in thru-out the day/week/month/year/life…
For me, they become strange when someone from a social media site, whom I’ve never met and only know because they’ve left a comment under some other strangers post, pops up in my dream…
Ahhhh, dreams, I’m new to them as far as recalling them, you see, I use to smoke a ton of weed and pass out, so, memories of dreams were few and far between…
Today, I don’t smoke as much, but, dreams for me aren’t so clear when I awake, sometimes they are clear, but, I think I awake and start thinking about what I was doing the night before that I didn’t get done, so, maybe if I chilled out and thought about my dreams when I wake up I’d have more memories of dreams.
I did have a wild dream that was very memorable… What I remember was hanging out with Osama Bin Laden, it was his face at least, but he was dressed up as a rapper, white Adidas sneakers, fat black shoe laces, red and black velvet adidas sweat pants and jacket, gold chains, and his hair was done up in corn-rolls, he also had a huge boom box and was showing off his new mix-tape to me… at some point I opened the front door and it was all sand, and as I walked out of the home with Bin Laden, we started to sink into the sand, it was pure panic, and then a huge robot arm with hand rose out of the sand and picked us up as the sand drained out and, as it did, it looked as if we were in a huge hourglass.
Have you ever tried psychedelics of any sort? And what was the experience like?
Yes. All and every kind of psychedelics…
I like natural stuff, like shrooms, I use to buy 2-3 ounces of shrooms every December, I’d also buy a ton of wine and just trip my xmas away, but, right around jan 15th or so, as I was coming down, I’d start to think I was dying and I’d tell my wife I was dying and that we should get naked and lay in bed because I wouldn’t be around too much longer, I’d then go and visit the doctor and tell them I thought I had Cancer or some such disease… after the third year of this, the doctor suggested I see a psychotherapist… I love the high, hate coming down.
(Picture below of a Mike Diana tattoo on Shane’s flesh)
Of everything you have done what would you most like to be remembered for and why?
My work, THE work! And THE work will be finished with my death…
I hope that my entire body of work and all that I’ve collaborated on and with would be looked at and considered…
I can not see THE work as individual moments, only a path or a force that pulls me along. if I were to be remembered for anything it is effort, it is never giving up – it is THE WILL, MY WILL.
Thoughts on the ‘hippie’ movement?
It’s something to build off of…
I mean, Manson was and is a hippie of sorts, I loved the yippie movement, the weather underground and the “hippies” that were politically active…
The Black Panthers and yippies were the kind of artistic and political movements I believe helped to inspire LaVey, among other things of course, but in that day the theater of the absurd reigned supreme!
Drugs – waste of time or gateway to the universe?
Drugs are a tool, if they are used to escape, they become a waste of time, if they are used as a tool of enlightenment, well, that’s never a waste.
I’ve used them as both.
What does ‘The Carnival’/‘Sideshow’ mean to you?
I have a belief, or rule, never shit a shitter… dig?
Hustlers should never try to hustle other hustlers this relates to those behind the sideshow/carnival curtain, those in the carnival, when you are part of the show, you fuck with and hustle ticket buyers and consumers of the show, not those behind the curtain… I see it as us vs. them – us being the artist and creatives of all persuasions, even those who aren’t really artists or creative but offer a display worthy to distract, and the arts certainly have been used by those who’d rather distract than enlighten…
Yea, the carnival/sideshow is the world’s stage and either you are on that stage or you are not… if you are not, you are buying a ticket and looking for enlightenment and edification or distraction, most likely distraction… heheheee…
I’m sure this makes no sense to most – and makes all the sense to other in the carnival/sideshow of life.
You are well known for your role in the word of serial killer art and media…
* why do you think society as a whole continues to be interested in killers, and serial killers in particular?
First and foremost it’s a mirror into the past of OUR animal, most want to see what they were, what they were capable of before they became “civilized”.
I think this has something to do with the over socialization of the human being. There is also the fact that sex is violent, and violence then becomes a metaphor for sex for the repressed.
* most interesting John Wayne Gacy tale(s)?
Hmmmmm… there are so many…
The one that had shocked me was when I was selling his paintings almost every day, this was right before he was executed, and I had a customer who ran an underground bondage club for gay men, he told me he was purchasing a pogo painting to hang in the main sex room as the center of their dungeon – I was puzzled and asked him if that would turn others off, he told me quite the opposite and that Gacy turned them on and they’d all at some point tried or would implement gacy’s “rope trick” into their sex sessions.
(Picture below of some paintings by John Wayne Gacy)
* have you read ‘American Psycho’ and what was your reaction to it?
I did not read it, but, I did see the film! heheheee…
I thought the story was entertaining and found some truth to what I saw in the main characters over socialization… and, a bored human is a dangerous animal, both over socialization and a bored human create perversion, and both are things I noticed in the film.
* who, in your opinion, is the best artist who also happens to be a convicted murderer?
Well, how are we defining art or artists, if it’s pop art, Gacy, if its surreal art, Manson, and yea, I get Manson wasn’t convicted of murder, but Manson is the only artist that I can think of who went to prison, he was an artist before prison, the rest of the serial killing/murderous prisoners create art out of boredom and need for attention – heheheeee – probably why most “artists” get into art…
So, Manson is the only prisoner who’s art I respect… and remember, most great art is a search for truth, criminals aren’t looking to tell any truths.
(Pictures below of some art by Charles Manson)
Does every band need a gimmick?
To be a band, no. To make music, no.
To make a living at making music in a band, yes!
What role has your wife Amy played in your life and creative development?
She makes me whole, she is half of me which is we… she’s my A#1 muse and has helped to focus and facilitate everything I’ve done… from our second date on she was full of ideas and suggestions and honest critique of stuff I was doing, she was submerged in the underground and alternative arts before we met and is a pure artist, she’s always thought way outside of the box and has made me feel comfortable with who and what I am…
She’s given me answers to things I may have wondered about myself for the rest of my life had I never met her…
To answer simply, she’s made me feel secure in who I am and what I’m doing and the path I’m on.
She is my absolute creative partner and there isn’t a thing I do that I don’t go over with her and vice versa.
She has proven to me that love is indeed the law!
(Picture below of Shane and Amy Bugbee from around the time they first met)
Please describe what you think the American Psyche/Zeitgeist is today?
As americans, the zeitgeist is anti-Psyche or anti-zeitgeist as in, there is no thought… as humans, we aspire to freedom, but, america is a slave state in denial, americans are told it is free, the land of the free… free, free, free, and “we the people” wave flags and pretend we are free, but we are not, we are a nation of ignorance and even the educated are only trained to do one thing and they do it, so we have slaves ( the ignorant) and robots (the educated) and very few free thinkers…
My entire life, it seems the free thinkers have been under attack, or presented as freaks, or something to laugh at by the general populace, even though the creative offer the most to the population, we the creative have been relegated to the “alternative” world, and that’s fine as far as the few years any of us have on this earth, but it is not ok as far as evolution of the species goes…
The creatives are the saviors of the human species and the last few truly free human beings… the general population should wise up and get that, after all, they sure as fuck sit in front of a t.v taking in all the retarded step child of art, which is the entertainment industry and all it has to offer, and that’s not much.
I try and propagate the thought CREATIVE CLASS TRUMPS RULING CLASS… If the masses could figure out that they choose art, science and the creative all day long and at the same time, all day long have disdain for those who rule and boss and control, things might change a bit… Folks might strive to be more creative, to think creative, and, to accept the unusual without fear.
I feel the need to add this… americans aren’t lazy first, they are fearful, they are full of guilt brought on by religions of all kinds and that fear and guilt is fueled thru ignorance and classism perpetuated by a failed and crumbling system… so they eat their pain away, they give up and give in and for some reason this is seen as “lazy” even though it’s actually a beaten animal who has given in and has given up and is desperate for as much pleasure as they can obtain while slaving away and trading five days for two days off… if they are lucky!
What would you most like to be remembered for, and why?
Ringing the most out of life and being creative in making my lot in life as great and productive and pleasure filled as was possible.
Why? well, because I’d hate to be looked at as someone who wasted his life… in the grand scheme of things, that is disgusting, I live life to honor the life I have.
(Picture below of the interior of the Bugbee home)
What does Satanism mean to you? Both as a general philosophy and hodge podge group of religious institutions.
Satanism to me has always been a political and artistic movement rooted in Atheism…
For me it was all about mocking and sometimes acting out against religion…
As a general philosophy, it means nothing to me as I make my own general philosophy, and, by LaVey’s definition, that has everything to do with Satanism… Or maybe I should say, Satanism has everything to do with the individual, it starts and ends right there, with you, or me, and our individual and evolving ideas on how to get the most out of life while minimizing the pain and struggle of life.
As far as Satanic religious organizations… they are, for the most part, laughable and are beating a dead horse… religion is dead – Science is king!
Let’s face it, once Richard Dawkins made the scene he trumped LaVey’s Satanic performance art and political statement…
The Church of Satan makes sense as an organization that looks after Anton LaVey’s legacy, much like the Ayn Rand institute does, but, when the “members” of the CoS produce books, basically rewriting what LaVey rewrote, it becomes comical…
It was fun when LaVey was around, since his passing, Satanic groups have ceased to be think tanks and have become just a business in the business of exploiting the ignorant, the desperate and needy… They take advantage of metal heads and young kids who have been picked on and marginalized and feel a need to project fear and fake power thru a cool neckless and “evil” t-shirt…
The SatanicTemple is the worse as far as exploiting young and angry folks from those metal head and juggalo zipcodes. I find all of them, at best, laughable and, at worse, continuing the plague of religion…
They are stifling the encouragement of free thought and individuality promoted by great free thinkers like Crowley or LaVey by stirring up religious conversation and encouraging kids to join and to become joining and followers… makes me ill.
(Picture below of Shane and Peter H. Gilmore – current High Priest of ‘The Church of Satan’)
What is a ‘flim flam man’? – something you have been called by many people, including your mother in law.
heeeeeheheheee… In respect to others who call a person a “flimflam” man, it is simply, a con-man and/or a rip-off artist…
As a person who has been called a “flimflam” man, I take it as a person who exploits anything there is to exploit for personal gain, weather that gain is political, physical, or financial.
A flimflam man is much like a wolf.
Please sum up the life of Dana Plato in 50 words or less…
Poetic with a tragic tone. Perpetually forgotten, struggling to be remembered and loved.
(Picture below of ‘Dana Plato’s Last Breath’, released by Shane Bugbee back in 1999)
What were the low points in your year long trip around America back in 2008? – which was the inspiration for Shane and Amy Bugbee’s book, ‘The Suffering and Celebration of Life in America’.
Hey, hey… not just a book, a book and movie in one, we call it a booovie, yes three O’s in booovie…
Now, about LOW points, we traveled with $180 upfront and most of the trip we had less than $20 period, no credit cards, nothing… but, that’s just life, living and breathing an underground existence, that is somewhat typical, though, on the road we hit more of the extremes of typical upper low class life, the one low point that is really hard to shake was loosing everything because I trusted my “mother” or I should clarify, EX-mother… she stole money we sent her to pay the place that was storing our everything, from personal nicknacks to a book I had written, our diaries, videos I had shot of events I had a hand in and not some stupid kids birthday or anything, I’m talking events of note, people and events of historic fucking note… friends and visitors to our place would always, ALWAYS, talk about how the stuff I had should be in a museum and they were right… all sold off for a debt of under $200, bitch of that is, we had the money to pay the debt had we been told of the problem, hell, the ex-mother had the money, so this shit made no sense… none at all… ugh, now I’m going to have to punch something.
We have recently uploaded the book, movie and 100% of the footage, for all to use for FREE, for ever, here: https://archive.org/details/ayearatthewheel
The Future
Any collaborations on the horizon?
Yes, I’m working with a group of artists to present artwork of an occult nature on a website I’ll have up and running soon called artworkofprophecy.com the site will go live Sept 22nd, but you can always find out more through my twitter account: https://twitter.com/
So far the artists on board are, of course myself, Dave Archer, Ugly Shyla, Mike Diana, Alex Yates, Yuta Sakakibara and Hayden Burgess – we will be riffing off of the Satanic pentagram, making limited edition ouija boards and occult accoutrements…
I plan on publishing books and e-books thru the site too, I have a couple of amazing books by Dave Archer that are going to blow minds, Dave is such an underrated artist and so much more than his space paintings might lead you to thing, Dave is truly an artist without limitation!
Ooh, before I forget… I’m also working on collaborating with Dave on some sculptures too!
I’ll be kicking off the artworkofprophecy.com site by re-publishing a very limited edition hardcover of ‘MIGHT IS RIGHT’ with a foreword by the founder of the Church of Satan, Anton LaVey, an afterword by CoS High Priest Peter H. Gillmore, an additional afterword from Ex-White Supremacist who was a White Supremacist when he wrote the afterword, George Eric Hawthorn who now goes by George Burdi, I’ve included the editors note from the 1996 printing of Might I Right I put out, Katja Lane (Mrs. David Lane) and to add insult to it all, original artwork/illustrations by Doug Mesner a.k.a. Lucien Greaves of Satanic Temple shame…
This edition will also have the over 100 year old cover art from the original printing of ‘MIGHT IS RIGHT’ and, the same artwork LaVey speaks of in the introduction as catching his eye and sparking what is now the Church of Satan… there will also be additional writings from ragnar redbeared from a magazine called the lion’s paw that was published over 100 years ago and well before MIGHT IS RIGHT was published… so, this edition will be the most complete and most compelling edition of MIGHT IS RIGHT ever published.
I’m also considering putting together a book regarding my past, though, I doubt I will… it seems like a thing you do when you have nothing else going on… but, I do want a chance to tell my side of the story before I drop and someone else tells my story.
I will at least make available as much of my work, past and present thru archive.org – I plan on sending them one of anything I’ve done and will be sending them a hard drive full of old video footage and audio real soon, I really do love the concept behind archive.org as you might guess with us giving them all of our road trip footage, book and movie for all to have and use for free.
ooofff… I almost forgot… I’m also working on editing down the footage I have from WTF Fest http://www.wtffest.com/ – the footage is pretty rad and the events we did were of historic note with some of the greatest artists I’ve ever worked with.
(Picture below is a cartoon of Shane and Amy Bugbee, by Yuta Sakakibara)
Any major projects you want to hype man?
Major? what pressure! For me it’s all major if I did it!! hehehee…
For starters, you can find a lot of news on new projects and shit from my past at my personal website: http://www.shanebugbee.com/ – I’d say 2015 will be busy, I have my radio show – THIS IS MANIA! that I plan to take on the road here and there.
I will also continue my public study of art and artists on my site: http://creativeclasstrumpsrulingclass.com/ and I look forward to compiling a catalog of my sculptures and art work before 2016…
The main and most major thing I’m doing is sculpting and making my occult artwork/offerings with the want to show them publicly in a multimedia presentation of my work… the plan is to present my work in 2016.
Links
- Shane Bugbee – personal site
- ‘Artwork of Prophecy’ – site
- Shane Bugbee – twitter
- Shane Bugee (Art) – Facebook
- Shane and Amy Bugbee – Facebook
- ‘Creative Class Trumps Ruling Class’ – Facebook
- ‘Creative Class Trumps Ruling Class’ – site
