…So I commit these thoughts to mental calligraphy, awaiting the opportunity to purge. Barely a day into this thing, and I have yet to recognize the extent of what I’ve done. In a drunken whirlwind, not thinking the subject over too clearly, I declared the creation of a new book via international press release called “THE BIG SHINY PRISON.” In it, I tell the world that I now travel America for a year straight, drifting town to town, interviewing bands and the personalities thereof, penetrating music scenes as I ping-pong across the country totally D.I.Y. I have no energy, I have no publisher. I have no game plan, I have no structure. All I possess is a backpack, a duffel-bag, and an old-school cassette recorder. And I have no money except for the $1200 I saved up in December which is to last me until the end of March…

The money itself does not cover any kind of motel or rent arrangement. It barely covers the fares of Greyhounds to destinations still vaporous and unbooked. I have no real idea where I’m going for certain except a loosely constructed list of bands, pr men, zine proprietors and promoters that have no idea I’m crashing their way. I rely totally on the willingness of those parties I can drag into this thing. None of that really matters though for I have Myspace, the thunder of the gods…

The book I have espoused is not the book which will be printed. I have been bored to the point of hammering nails through my face by the shoddy journalism of heavy metal. The only well-known books available on the subject are ultimately handcrafted from some hack writer making dozens of phone calls and typing away his conversations into a paint-by-numbers expose in which we hear all too often the word “brutal” to describe everything…

No, this isn’t my realm. I am not interested in what guitar strings they use. I am not interested in their perceptions of rumbling Drop D noise. I don’t care what patches are sewn onto their sleeveless denim vests. To even call it a book about music is misleading. What I seek is the soul. Character studies, their environments, their dreams, hopes and aspirations -- a total sociological unearthing. The very substance and inertia of their war and poetry. What are they fighting for and against? And most importantly, how alone in my views am I? What is the common thread? Does the magical world I once looked upon in magazines and onstage when I was 17 even exist? And in the end, what do I hope to find? …

So I fall into this cocoon, my physical body screaming in constant pain from a jigsaw skeleton of pinched nerves. No chiropractor, no therapy, no respite. One full year of road with no stopping, my last sacrifice to journalism before I can walk away, form a new band somewhere, discover my queen and live a real life. This book will be just as much about the artists and freaks I encounter as it is the hard reality of trying to write this book. This isn’t a Kerouac rip-off. This isn’t Hunter S. Thompson. This is akin to Christian Bale wandering the earth in Batman Begins for seven years, recreating himself in steel. It is just as much about me as it is all of them, because our struggle is unanimous…

Surely, I will be sued. I will be misconstrued. I will be laughed at by dunderheads who think so small that the intensity and mission of such a project will fly miles above their heads. Yet it does not detour me. Some will ignore, some will offer sanctuary. No matter the situation I find myself in I will play by the rules I am confined by and weave in and out of these complex undergrounds by stealth, and if all else fails, keep them amused by whacky anecdotes before the clock runs out and I can jump back into the safety that is the Greyhound purgatory…

The plan is to avoid big bands unless they seek me out or are right there waiting to go. It is not my job to promote those already promoted. Instead I seek the unknown, the struggling, the fringe and depraved. I am out to prove the point that no answer is ever the answer, and that reality is only in the eye of the beholder. I will hunt down the most extreme of personalities from the right to the left. I will let the recorder roll in front of views as confrontational as possible. From pagan militants to Christian rockers. From “Goth Idols” to street-dwelling crust punks. From neo-nazis to flaming homosexuals. Every monster possibility in America, every inch of its seedy underbelly thrust into the spotlight…

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(FYI) DEATH OF THE ROAD; FINAL DATE; OCT 13TH 2007

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"THE BIG SHINY PRISON:" one man, one tape recorder, one vision, no budget. THE NEW BOOK BY RYAN BARTEK, FALL 2008

"THE BIG SHINY PRISON" features definitive interviews and appearances by… DWARVES. BARACK OBAMA. SID HAIG. DARK FUNERAL. JOB FOR A COWBOY. MILLIONS OF DEAD COPS. PSYOPUS. THE ACCUSED. PIG DESTROYER. HIMSA. FOXY SHAZAM. DOWNTOWN BROWN. STALAGGH. KYLESA. SCORCHED EARTH. CEPHALIC CARNAGE. ABYSMAL DAWN. OCTAGON. LUDICRA. INTRONAUT. KETTLE CADAVER. LESBIAN. REPULSION. ALTERNATIVE TENTACLES HQ. SEVERED SAVIOR. BILL MOSELEY. MERLE ALLIN. SOL EVIL, OTESANEK. IN MEMORIUM. DEATHLIST 5. RATT. FRIENDS OF DENNIS WILSON. PEPPERMINT CREEPS. ZEKE. SOLGER. TOM SAVINI. PSYCHOSTICK. IMPALED. THE ANGELIC PROCESS. DREAMING DEAD. SCREAMING MECHANICAL BRAIN. PHOBIA, KANE HODDER. QUINTA ESSENTIA. SUICIDE HOLIDAY. VINLAND WINDS. DUFFS BROOKLYN. VENDLUS RECORDS. BEEFCAKE IN CHAINS. MY UNCLE THE WOLF. WHOREHOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. 7000 DYING RATS. BIOLICH. ENSLAVED. SNOTROKITZ. KEN FOREE. EXITIUM. VILE. BLOOD STAINED DUSK. DIVERJE. LIGHT THIS CITY. ALCHEMICAL BURN. GENGHIS TRON. COBRA//GROUP, CREMATORIUM. FRE-NE-TIK. THE CRASHING FALCON. VERTIGO VENUS. SASQUATCH AGNOSTIC, and others soon TBA + endless local legends from the breadth of Amerika…

WWW.MYSPACE.COM/BIGSHINYPRISON

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PRAISE FOR RYAN BARTEK’S “THE SILENT BURNING” (2005)

“One of the most interesting, and perhaps honest, books of the last decade…" -- 1340MAG.com

“This deeply personal memoir, one of many, as well as his views on racism, abortion, and drugs speak volumes about Bartek’s ability to analyze society from the perspective of someone who isn’t from the privileged class. From his disadvantageous upbringing, he has developed a brutal style of analysis, buttressed by an in-depth knowledge about innumerable subjects, qualifying him to speak for his generation… An opus that would send Freud to the asylum, if not straight to hell...” –The Satanic Inquisition

“In many ways, ‘The Silent Burning’ reads like a counter-culture manifesto, an underground guide to the rebellion. Paranoia, anger and self-preservation guide Ryan Barteks decrees, which he operates in the same clobbering, sarcastic vein of Kerouac as he does Chuck D. Ryan Bartek rants to his hearts content, and his heart is blackened like the underbelly of hell…” - PIT Magazine

“The reader is a visitor at his or her own risk; Bartek slams you upon entering and like the ball in a pinball machine you are flicked aggressively from heartrending childhood story to barely coherent hate filled manifesto to disjointed poem to intelligently articulated commentary… This book is for those who are simmering with the anger of repression and persecution, and for those who want to understand them without judging. It also touches those of us who maintain a less hostile attitude towards society, but are just as disgusted with the mainstream version of reality.” –Clamor Magazine

“Bartek’s voice isn’t gentle, easy, or subtle. ‘The Silent Burning’ is a postmodern polemic, a schizophrenic society, and an hyper charged imagination reflected in a funhouse mirror, populated by a narrator looking for something approaching understanding, but finding a head-on-collision with the world instead. ‘The Silent Burning’ is what you’d get if you had a literary cage grudge match to the death between Henry Miller, Lautremont, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, and Kathy Acker. You’re left with blood on the floor and screams ringing in your ears- but also a great deal of truth, if you can stand to look at it…” –JAM RAG

“I was incredibly moved by this work. A very brave piece on Bartek’s part, as it attacks the mass media and our society in such an honest and straight forward fashion, that it would be practically impossible for any major publishing house to push the book without cutting half of it completely out… His words swell like flames on the underbelly of the American lie… Hands down, this is one of the most important readings of the 21st Century. Practically functioning as a bi-polar survival guide for anyone that operates outside of the ‘norm,’ and a must-have for all that find themselves active in the underground.” –Solution13.net

“Bartek’s writing is like a welding of Alan Ginsberg and Bukowski... Inflammatory...” – Outsight Radio

“Written from a bi-polar viewpoint, ‘The Silent Burning’ encompasses everything we as a society find obscene, distasteful and just plain wrong. Follow me here - a book written during the height of a manic depressives worst battles, a book written at the lowest point of one mans bipolar syndrome, a book written during the recovery process -- all put in words and written as self-therapy…” –TVTRANZMISSION.com

“Comprised largely of fragments written in a variety of different styles, Bartek’s predominant form is the rant – the preferred mode of lunatics, psychotics, drug fiends, and confused angsty teens. He aims his gun at the usual targets – television, racism, organized religion, conservatives, liberals, rednecks, freaks, junkies, yuppies, rapists, pro-lifers and losers – beneath sectional subheadings such as ‘Bob Saget Raping the Olson Twins on PCP;’ a ranting that is by its very nature as inconsistent as it is somehow endearing in its callousness… While there is a lot wrong with this book, not the least of which is the author’s self-diagnosis masquerading as a climax – a bit too pathetically American for my tastes – what pisses me off most of all is the fact that it’s barely available…” -The Prague Literary Journal

”A Misanthropik Monument of Hatred, Pain, and Disgust.” –STALAGGH