Renegade Bard: Exploring The Who, What, and Why.

If you have found yourself on this page, congrats! Welcome to my little slice of the internet. This is Renegade Bard. You may be wondering to yourself, what exactly is Renegade Bard and why should you care? Not to worry, in this first article on the blog, I’ll be dishing out information on who I am, the purpose of this blog, and what you can expect to get out of it.

Starting With Who

The first of the classic W’s we will be talking about is the who. I am the Renegade Bard, or Ren for short. I’m an amateur writer of long form prose, poems, plays, and table top roleplaying game campaigns. I also have years of acting in plays, musicals, and random videos for friend’s class projects. To top it all off, I have explored the deep depths of improv comedy, a dark trench that few feel confident enough to venture down.

Stories are my Bread and Butter

There is a common thread to my extensive theatre kid resume: storytelling. I love stories and am fascinated with what they can do. Stories can make us laugh, cry, or inspired. Storytelling is one of the oldest art forms in the world, with the first story supposedly dating back to 30,000 years ago! Humans are wired to be enthralled by stories as often times they were told as learning devices, passed down in the oral tradition, before eventually we started writing stuff down. Eventually, we got to where we are today: fanfiction to feature films, stories are easier to make and consume than ever.

Now to the What

The question I am sure you had as soon as you clicked on this article. What is Renegade Bard? A very good question. Renegade Bard isn’t just my cool alias. It is an idea, a name given to the collective desire to explore the stories of today in all their forms. Before I get into the nitty-gritty, let’s break down the text book definitions so everyone is on the same page. For that, lets ask our good friends Miriam and Webster.

• Renegade: ren·​e·​gade. def: an individual who rejects lawful or conventional behavior.

Sounds pretty metal doesn’t it? Now in this context I would focus more on that second part. We are gonna be doing some deep dives in unconventional ways to explore out stories.

• Bard: def: a composer, singer, or declaimer of epic or heroic verse

Yup, that is pretty much it. Basically, a bard is more or less just a particular title for a story teller. The idea of being a bard is thousands of years old. Bards were telling the stories of Homer back when they were hot off the presses. William Shakespeare’s nickname was the Bard of Avon. Also, bards are the best class in Dungeons and Dragons and you can fight me on that.

Where Renegade Bard and Storytelling Meet

Now that everyone is on the up-and-up about my fun choice of name, let’s clarify about what I’ll be doing here. My goal with Renegade Bard is to look at stories many people are familiar with and give a fresh take on them. For example, I have some insights about Seinfeld that has nothing to do with the series finale, but instead about a deeper idea I feel the show explores whether intentional or not.

It isn’t just stories we will be exploring. I might choose a song to explore, a writing topic or trope, maybe even some trending topics. From time to time, I will also explore my improv past and dish out some tips and advice on public speaking and quick thinking. After all, as the local bard, I want to teach the masses anything I can. If anyone has any particular stories, whether from history, film and television, video games, or books, or want to learn about a certain topic, please leave a comment and I will dig into it if I feel it is fitting.

Why Read Renegade Bard?

This is a question that I can only hope to answer. There are many movie and book critics out there. I am of course not marketing myself as a critic, but there may be times when I will take a critical eye to topics. There are certainly many public speaking blogs out there. However, what I can tell you is that the people I want to reach are the ones with the weird views of life. Maybe you have a completely out there view on a movie or think, like me, that Citizen Kane doesn’t really feel like it should be the number one movie ever.

There is another reason for coming along on this journey. I wasn’t born good at anything of the things I described and in fact I am still learning all I can. I started from just ideas in my head and put in hours to make things happen. This blog is for the people who are trying, who are doing their best to get those ideas out there.

Make no mistake though, at the end of the day, all are welcomed here at Renegade Bard. I’ve learned that in life, the conventional isn’t always the most fulfilling path. So lets get unconventional and let me blow your mind with some insane thoughts about the stories you thought you had a complete grasp of.

Let’s go renegade

Photo by Peter Pryharski on Unsplash