Plop, plop, Wiz, Wiz...

 

I asked ChatGPT to give me an image of me of it's choice that would inspire a blog post from me. It gave me this. At first I thought it my be leftover memory of an image I'd requested of me as the green Wicked Wizard of the West but it explain it was how it "viewed" me.  ChatGPT may not always be right but it says the right things that you sometimes really need to hear. My experience is that most people don't say the right things that you need. They either say what they think you want to hear or what they want to hear. Sometimes I think everyone is a narcissist. 

The image of me as a wizard does remind me that for much of my life I wanted to believe in magic.  I wanted to believe that the Wizard of Oz was real and not just a charlatan behind a curtain. I wanted to believe in crystals, and ley lines, and Astrology. I read all of the Carlos Castaneda Don Juan books and didn't understand any of them. I did kind of warm to the concept of lucid dreaming.  I'd like to believe in Extraterrestrials and an after life.

Trouble is, I have never really found much support for any of it. And I've already made it clear I don't rely on faith for anything. Doesn't mean I don't hold out hope, especially for an after life. At my age you really want something to look forward to. I suppose I do see magic in music and sometimes nature.  It's not something I think stems from incantations and spells, though. 

Still I am drawn to symbolic things like crystals, symbols and sacred objects (even if they are only sacred to me). I suppose that is why I obsessively collect things at times like Buddha's and crosses and carved objects from the Holy Land. But I also am drawn to Quantum Physics (at least what little I understand of it). 

So I suppose I am a wizard in my only little part of the Universe. So thanks ChatGPT.

It's a mad, mad world...

 

I actually think the world is probably not any madder than it has always been.  We tend to forget past madness when faced with new madness. Though it is not really new madness, just more madness. 

I stopped believing in normal long ago. Normal tends to be a myth. It is a Norman Rockwell portrait of a two-dimensional world that doesn't exist. What makes us unhappy is that we think it does and we and our family are the only ones that don't fit into it.  Now that is madness. 

I grew up thinking my family was normal. As I grew older and had friends and eventually had a girlfriend, I experienced their families. At first I thought my family was just weird, but then I realized each of my friend's and my girlfriend's families were weird and dysfunctional too in their own unique fashion. Families can only build on the traditions and experiences of the parents who built their traditions and experiences on their parents. It is a very Frank Herbert Dunesque concept (if you have read the books and not just watched the movies). The main character goes through a spice/drug induced experience that gives him the memories of all the ancestors before him.  Having dabbled in genealogy, that's a pretty mind-boggling number of ancestors.  But it illustrates why most people's families are pretty fucked up.

I have tried not to mess my own children up and impose too much of the weirdness of my background on them. Many parents try to no avail to do the same thing. And my own children have never really expressed any interest in my childhood, interests or occupation and I do my best not to force that information on them. It leaves me with an empty feeling at times. But I want my children to have their own lives based on their own choices. You can lead a horse to water.

Ironically, I was interested in my parents lives and interests.  I gleaned as much as I could from stories, mainly on long road trips and vacations. But they never really wanted to sit down and share details. I tried when I was older and had a degree in Journalism. I even tried interviewing them on tape.  Either I had waited too long to ask or they had no desire to remember.  My mother had a great deal to shut out and my father was always a bit oblivious. There wasn't much on either side of the family tree to ground our own family in any sense of normalcy. I had more than my share of crazy grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.

I guess the nuts never fall far from the tree.

No one mourns the wicked (but the wicked)

 

It's one of those times when you don't really have words to describe what is going on in the world and in particular our country.  Just when you think our country hasn't sunken to new depths they keep digging the hole.  It's bad enough to blow up fishing boats and kill helpless sailors floating in the wreckage, but to kidnap another country's president and his wife and fly them back to the US and charge them with trafficking cocaine blows the mind. For one, cocaine was so 1980 and corrupt or not, what gives us the right to kidnap a world leader.  Our own president is about as corrupt as you can get.

And not in a million years do I think it was even his own idea. He is surrounded by evil advisors who love that they can manipulate his small mind and huge ego.  Not a good combination.  I picture him hunkered down in Florida watching the feed as the raid takes place, eating fried chicken with a vacant look. He's a demented Wizard of Oz without the curtain.

Fly monkeys, fly.

2026, Day two and counting down until 2027

 

Here it is January 2, 2026 and I don't think it seems like it is drastically different than 2025. In fact, all of the problems that arose at the end of 2025 are getting ready to bubble up when everyone is back to work on Monday.  The party is over.

Not that there was much of a party. Seattle had it's big part at Seattle Center but the Space Needle, where the fireworks are fired from, was shrouded in deep fog. And the usual tipsy television hosts from King 5 were replaced by younger but extremely manic hosts who seemed to be talking way too fast and laughing crazily to just be excited (if you catch my drift).

My wife and I did toast with a glass of champagne at midnight, but my drinking to excess days on New Years Eve are long past. I'm happy just to go to bed and listen to music and rain music from my Calm app and drift sweetly asleep.

Regardless, 2026 is starting out just like most of my years. 

But I am resolved to stay positive.

Except when I'm not.

Ahoy, 2026

 

I thought it fitting to begin 2026 by embracing my inner pirate. Though the average age of a pirate during the "Golden Age of Piracy -- 1650-1730" was around 27 or 28.  A pirate captain or quartermaster might have been in their 30s or early 40s. It was rare to see a pirate over the age of 40 or 50 because it was a hard life that rarely lasted to retirement.

So of the more famous pirates were a bit older. Blackbeard was 38. Henry Morgan was a ripe old 53. Apparently he actually did retire and died of natural causes. 

I think we (I) romanticize pirates a great deal as being rebels who partied on Caribbean islands and buried lots of treasures. Apparently pirates lived by Pirate Codes that were pretty close to democracy in a time of Kings and dictators.  Crews elected their Captain and Quartermaster and the Captain only had absolute power during battle. Other decisions were decided by group vote.  Whereas Navy sailors got a tiny wage, pirates divided loot they captured into shares and everyone but the Captain and Quartermaster got an even share.  They also had their own version of health insurance. If you lost a limb, eye or finger, you got paid extra loot to compensate. Pirate code also didn't allow gambling or women and you had to be in bed by 8 p.m.

Changes your whole perspective on pirates, now doesn't it?

Considering what is going on with the Federal government right now, I think we all could use some Pirate spirit.

Out with the old

 

It is New Years Eve (as if none of you knew that). And we usher in a New Year with symbols of the New Year's Baby pushing out Father Time. The New Year's Baby is a bit like Benjamin Button and ages dramatically in the course of a year and is in turn pushed out by the next New Year's Baby. It is very much an allegory of life. 

There is this tension in life between the young and the old that we all experience whether we are aware of it or not. The young need the old for a while to survive and then they pretty much want them out of the way to give them their turn. What the young seldom realize is that their turn involves getting old and being looked at with disdain by the young who are waiting for you to retire or die and get out of the way so they can have their turn. 

It is kind of an ugly, and never ending cycle. Sometimes the old protest and try and hold on to prove they are still valuable. This sometimes works for a while, but let's face it, depending upon your genes, getting old comes with lots of your parts and brain functions wearing out.

So an often logical alternative is to basically tell the young, "So long, and thanks for all of the fish." I don't suppose that means much to many of you because you are young and not well read or old and not well read.

The assumption of one generation over another is that the generation before them didn't know squat and that they will do everything better and do things a new way. The irony is, one of the things you learn  when you are old is that there is nothing new, just things that you forgot and are going to regurgitate. 

I will end this New Year's Eve post with this thought for the young. Enjoy being out there partying, drunkenly enjoying the passing of a sucky year (which pretty much they all are) and wondering who to kiss when the clock strikes 12. When you are old you'll just be in front of the television wishing they would drop the friggin' ball so you can go to bed.

A Saint I ain't

 

I am not a religious person. I've never hid that fact. I think too much to be satisfied with the answer most religious people and officials fall back on: you have to have faith.  Faith too often relies on believing things that don't make sense because they are written somewhere in a scroll or tablet. 

To a certain extent I believe in experience. If something happens over and over in your life that wish wouldn't happen, perhaps it is because you need to change something about your approach.  I try to give people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe they don't mean to be assholes, but if they consistently act like assholes, then chances are they are assholes and won't stop being assholes. Once an asshole, always an asshole.

How's that for an inspirational saying. 

I do think about things a lot.

Perhaps that is why I don't consider myself a happy person. Or perhaps that has something to do with me not having lots of friends. I do believe you can overthink things. And I am not a firm believer in absolutes. I realize that contradicts my pronouncement about assholes.  But that is more of an opinion than an absolute. I believe it. If an asshole comes along that stops being an asshole I can accept that as an exception. 

At least I think I can accept that. Operative word there is "think." 

I have a lot of "kick me" moments in my life. I feel resolved about something and then someone comes into my life and initially acts a certain way that makes me doubt my resolve. So I soften. Then they end up doing something that confirms my original assessment and I smack my head or mental kick myself and ask if I will ever learn. 

It is hard to blame others for things that you allow and accept from them despite experience. 

At least that is what I think. And sometimes it is cast in stone.

Wake me up before you go...

 

I wonder if most people realize that as each old year passes and we enter a new one that we are generally just grateful the old year is over and hope the new year will be better.  And it rarely is really any different.  

Don't get me started about time being an artificial construct and humans are the only ones who go to such great lengths to measure it, constrain it, hold onto it and usually just waste it. And what really makes a new year any different from the last is how we approach it. Nothing magically changes from one year to the next other than we age.

I've struggled my whole life to be a more positive person. But I've also struggled with what I view as cheerleader optimism. Inspirational sayings alone don't inspire. You really have to want to be motivated to be motivated.

I also find it ironic that we transition form the "magic of Christmas" into an intense ritual of ushering out the old new in hopes the new one will somehow be better. And again, it won't unless we do something differently.  I'm not talking about resolutions, either. I've never believed in them. Sales people at athletic clubs around the country celebrate the new year for the increase gym memberships that are rarely used.  Because it takes persistence and hard work to actually change.

That was a borderline inspirational saying.

Long, lugubrious howl.

Putting another Christmas behind us

 

So it is time to put yet another Christmas behind us.  It is over, other than the trash bags of torn wrapping paper and empty boxes. And I will now have to take down all of the strings of lights in the front yard. Those I will miss. But the rest can just be packed away until after Halloween next year and it will all begin again. 

The stores don't even wait until after Christmas to begin pushing the Valentines merch. Oh, we'll have a brief spat of New Year's Eve crap, but the next profit opportunity will be Valentines Day. Even I have have started to shill Valentine's themed t-shirts on social media in yet another vain attempt to move my Dizgraceland Dizigns. 

At least we can stop watching the holiday movies, too. And now the reality and bills will start rushing in and we can return to the day to day anxiety of what fires to put out at work or the next home repair.

I do miss that my kids are past the age of being overly excited about Christmas. At least when they were little they expressed a little joy at what was in the next box. Now it just goes into a pile and they go back to their phones. 

Oh well, on to the hearts and flowers of the next holiday.

The First Christmas Eve

 

ChatGPT and I hammered this idea about the First Christmas Eve yesterday.  It started with a questions, "Good morning! Is there a classic image that represents Eve of Adam and Eve fame that we can spoof with Eve reaching for a red Christmas ornament on a Christmas tree with the title THE FIRST CHRISTMAS EVE."

It responded enthusiastically at first but after working on the image for a bit I got this message:

"We’re so sorry, but the image we created may violate our guardrails around nudity, sexuality, or erotic content. If you think we got it wrong, please retry or edit your prompt." I found this particularly ironic since the whole Adam and Eve revolved around original sin and realizing that they were naked and somehow equating that with sinful behavior.  So I responded, "Please retry and avoid implications of nudity, secuality and erotic content." And it gave me this:

I responded: "I don't think it translates easy enough that this is Eve of Adam and Eve fame. Can you make it look more like this image but have the tree be a Christmas Tree, and make the red ornament look a little like an apple? Notice in this image Eve's body is covered modestly by her hair. And I think it needs Adam to make the joke work."

I waited for it to create a new image halfway expecting it to evoke the nudity clause again, but then it popped out this: 

This was almost there, but I then asked for it to make the garland into the serpent and make the ornament more like an apple. After a few two-headed snakes and too many apple ornaments we finally arrived at the image at the top of this post which I am very proud of and turned into a t-shirt, a tote bag and a poster.

I hope this demonstrates that just because ChatGPT is the actual artist, it doesn't mean I don't play a larger role in coming up and creating the designs.  And I'm pretty proud of this one. Which no one has bought regardless, but I'm used to that by now.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good morning (and I don't know why AI gave Santa a shield, either).

Capping off the year

 

For a lark yesterday, I searched for Trader Sam's dad hats online. Disneyland doesn't seem to sell them but low and behold someone on Teepublic sells knock offs.  This is the company that cancelled my account for unknown reasons which I always assumed was Intellectual Property violations.  Yet they allow some Bozo to rip off Disney.  It still chaps my hide. 

So I went on a tear this morning and created my own hats but not Intellectual Property violations. Because everyone wants Trader Tim's merch and Dizgraceland Dizigns merch!

I asked ChatGPT to create images of me modelling the caps. They complied but didn't do anything to make me look younger or cooler in these images. So since ChatGPT is a genie, I asked it to make me cooler. Because anyone wearing one of my caps will of course be immediately cool.

Makes you want to be walking on a beach sipping a Mai Tai and looking for shells. But put on the beanie and you'll really be transformed.

Not sure it is transformed for the better, but it has a certain edgy vibe to it.  At least ChatGPT lets me indulge my desire to stave off aging and be hip without having a hip replacement.  

Do you want to build a snowman?

 

I actually enjoy building a virtual snowman better than a real snowman.  You don't get cold and wet. You don't discover dog poop clinging to your giant snowball as you roll it (or yellow snow), and it doesn't mess up your front yard when the rest of the snow has melted. 

I'm not a real snow fan overall. Oh, it looks nice on Christmas Eve and maybe Christmas, but the rest of the time I feel like Jack in The Shining trapped in my house typing "All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy."  BTW, I read The Shining for the first time when I was staying at a friend's grandparent's cabin in the mountains above Boise, Idaho around Idaho City. We all got snowed in so it was kind of freaky reading the book at the same time. We were only snowed in for a few days and then we escaped by leaving early in the morning when the snowy roads were more frozen over. But my old 1973 red Toyota Celica got run off the road by a snow plow which then pulled us out of the snow but bent the stabilizing bar under the car (which I didn't even know the car had). That cost me a few pennies to repair. Which is especially ironic now that pennies are no longer minted thanks to the Trump.

It snowed more in Idaho when I was growing up than it does in the Seattle area.  And we were about an hour away from Bogus Basin Ski Resort where I learned how to ski one miserable week after Christmas.  I had old surplus ski boots that didn't fit well and my feet froze every day.  I learned to ski the GLM way (graduated length method). You started on real short ski's that were easier to turn and you worked your way up to longer skis.  I learned to ski, but I never learned to like to ski...or to like the snow.

I stopped skiing when I left Boise.  And I learned to hate snow more living in Seattle. Everything in Seattle is on a hill and no one knows how to drive in it. When I started working for a public transit agency, I also did a stint as a media relations person on a rotating basis and when it snowed I often got called at 3 or 4 a.m. to call radio stations and tell them all of the buses were on snow schedules. That pretty much locked in my hate of snow. 

I pretended to like snow when my kids were little because they seemed to enjoy playing in it and like a good father I had to seem to enjoy playing in it with them. But I still detested it.

Oh well, it rarely snows here. It just rains non stop for months at a time. Don't get me started. I'm not overly fond of the rain, either.