It's hammer time

 

I can't look at Einstein's formula of E=MC2 without unfortunately thinking of MC Hammer. He was part of the sad transition from the cultural desert of the 1980s as it slipped into the cultural desert of the 1990s.

ChatGPT informed me that MC Hammer's real name was Stanley Kirk Burrell. He is only four years younger than me. I sincerely hope he isn't still wearing "Hammer pants." Hammer Pants were unfortunately also known as harem pants or parachute pants.   And if Stanley "the Hammer" is still wearing them it is because he wants to hide the fact that he is wearing adult diapers. And when he needs to change them he likely cries out, "It's Hammer Time!"

Sadly, none of what I just talked about probably means much to most people these days. Which is probably why the "E=mc Hammer" joke will fall flat as a t-shirt design. But it makes me chuckle.

It is also the only design I created today. This is because I was desperately revising all of my eBay listings trying to find the sweet spot that will make someone buy the shit I bought at Goodwill and am trying to flip on eBay.

So far nothing much is working. But I am learning about what is and isn't a hot commodity. Well, I'm learning what isn't a hot commodity.

Part of the challenge is that I'm following the suggestions that you Google things you see at Thrift stores to see if they are selling on eBay or Etsy and how much they are selling for. The problem with this is I generally see things selling at an inflated price and discover when I get the shit home that there are many other people trying to flip shit they found at Goodwill, too.

Let me just tell you that the Starbucks "You are here" mugs from exotic places really are worth as much as the "how to make money flipping shit from thrift stores" people claim.  

I have also discovered that Disney mugs aren't big sellers. This makes sense when you think about how many thousands of the damn things Disney sells on a daily basis.

And commemorative cruise ships crap isn't a big seller either.  I have bought several etched crystal paperweights from inaugural cruise ship launches thinking they will be rare and desirable commodities. In actuality, unless they come from the gift shop on the Titanic, no one wants them.

Oh and word to the wise if you want tips on what not to buy at Goodwill and try to sell on eBay: any commemorative mug released by Budweiser, anything produced by the Bradford Exchange and anything sold by Publisher's Clearing House. 

But if you are interested in any of these things, boy have I got a deal for you.

I'm also thinking about selling one of my kidneys on eBay. Maybe two if I sense there is interest.

Quite the Thinker for such a small brain

 

Lest you think all of my designs are totally random and don't require research (which more often than not is true), I do ask ChatGPT for help now and then. For example, I asked him about Rodin's "The Thinker" (though I thought it was the Thinking Man). The actual sculpture shows a naked man sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand, deep in thought. ChatGPT says it represents intellect, contemplation and the human capacity for reflection and introspection. I think it represents more of a naked man wondering why he is sitting on a rock naked.

Apparently "The Thinker" was originally conceived as part of a larger work titled "the Gates of Hell," that  was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. The Thinker was supposed to represent the poet Dante Alighieri thinking about the depths of hell (or "what the hell am I sitting here naked for.")

I really like my version of a T-Rex sitting on a rock unable to rest its chin on one hand because nature played a cruel trick on him and made him big and scary but with the arms of a toddler.  And since dinosaurs were supposed to have pretty small brains, all he can think about is that it would be nice to have longer arms. So there isn't a lot of reflection or introspection.

Artie couldn't quite grasp the concept of a T-rex in the pose of The Thinker with arms too short to rest its chin on one hand. It did pretty good with the naked dinosaur part, but I had to shrink the arms on my own with Photoshop. I'm thinking this would make a pretty bitching actual sculpture that I will make once they release a beta version of Art AI 3D.

Until then I'm hoping the t-shirt market will make it go viral and sweep me up along with it. 

I'll get my 15 seconds of fame yet.

I've got a feeling

 

This is probably not what John Lennon was thinking about when he wrote this song.  But then again, John seemed to be kind of an irreverent person who did his share of recreational drugs, so who knows. It doesn't matter in the long run because I think it makes one hell of a t-shirt.

It was inspired once again by the Beatles Channel on Sirius radio when I was driving the kids to and from school. You take inspiration where you can get it.

Like this:

For whatever reason I was thinking about people saying someone was a night owl. And as far as I know, owls are nocturnal so I think saying someone is a night owl is redundant. I asked ChatGPT and it got all snippy with me about it being  a colloquialism and wasn't strictly referring to nocturnal animals. I think ChatGPT is full of shit on this one. So I created a Day Owl design to make people think about it.

I'm just the eternal optimist.
 

The shape of the universe

 

I tried reading some article today about what was the shape of the universe. The headline was something bait and switching like "The shape of the universe is like a hall of mirrors." My eyes glazed over after about two paragraphs and I never did find out what the shape of the universe was or why I should care.

ChatGPT tells me there are three options: flat, positively curved or spherical and negatively curved or hyperbolic. I decided to ask Artie to give me a design where the universe was in the shape of an easy chair and have a headline expressing a bit of disappointment that it wasn't something bigger and grander.

The design cracks me up because I'm not sure I totally get why I asked for a universe shaped like an easy chair and I doubt anyone will get it. But temere ineptia, right?

I still don't know what good it would do to know the shape of the universe or whether it was expanding or contracting. I file it under "why should I care." I feel that way about most news I read these days. It all seems to be a crock of shit.

This is another one of those obscure sayings that I doubt most people under 65 will have heard. I like the way it sounds though: "He don't know shee-eye-it from Shinola." Most people writing news these days fall into that category.

They don't have the benefit of the fast experience people of my generation have to draw upon.

This is true. 

Don't get me started about Slip and Slides.

Don't badger me

 

I now remember that in addition to ticks and rattle snakes creating anxiety in my young life growing up in the wilds of Idaho, I was also taught to beware of badgers. They are not friendly animals as this photo would imply. They dig holes and live in dens underground and don't like visitors. I imagine they have the reputation of being persistent (i.e. don't keep badgering me) because if they come after you, they don't want to stop. 

My oldest brother killed one in the desert after it came after him (or so he claimed) when he was out hunting for something less aggressive like a pheasant. He blew it's head off with a shotgun. I think it may have just popped out of its den and both of them were surprised. And my brother was in a macho stage of his life when he just like shooting things. So the badger was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Badgers do have lots of teeth though and I wouldn't want to surprise one. They also don't see too well since they are nocturnal animals and are better in low light situations. So my brother did have the advantage over the badger in broad daylight of being able to see it coming. He also had the advantage of the shotgun. 

Animals rarely have the advantage when you come to think about it. And my brother was the one tromping around on top of the badgers home turf. So ironically my brother was the one badgering the badger.

Life is full of twists like that.

What? The sun doesn't revolve around me?

 

I had another one of those damned epiphanies (or ongoing realizations) today at a meeting ironically about designs for a company store that would sell, among other things, t-shirts. As you may or may not know, I work in public transportation. And we are trying to merchandize products that appeal to what the industry affectionately call transit enthusiasts. 

I, however, have been in the business too long to affectionately call anyone an enthusiast who gets overexcited when they see a train. I call them a foamer. I believe I shared my Trainbie design some time ago with an undead person with a train engineer cap on eating a locomotive. I thought it was quite amusing. 

So as I looked at the tame and boring t-shirt designs that were being shared with me for transit enthusiasts I couldn't help but pop my Trainbie design into the meeting chat thinking once again everyone would appreciate how very clever I am.

The only comment I got was "Terrifying." 

Once again I realized that what I thought should have elicited laughter and appreciation for my creative talents was met with more or less "crickets." 

Part of me was thinking that I was dealing with designers and my experience with designers over the year is that they tend to act like they are the only ones who hold the secret to what is aesthetic and appealing visually. So my Trainbie design wasn't what they would consider good design.

After all, I had created it before I found Art AI. And I had crudely put it together with various images via Google. 

So I deleted the design from the meeting chat and later this evening I asked Artie to create a Trainbie design for me.

Here was the one I created:

And here was one that Artie created with my direction:

Okay, I admit Artie brought in a bit more details, but I still think the essence of what I was trying convey about transit enthusiasts was the same.

Then I had another epiphany. The reason why I felt the t-shirt designs I was being shone at the meeting were boring and lackluster was that they were created by a designer without any direction. They created what they thought was a good design from a designers point of view.

I believe that what really makes a good design is starting with a good idea. There needs to be a Creative Director orchestrating things. And regardless of whether or not anyone appreciated my foamer design, I think it was a good idea. And when I asked Artie to riff on it, my friend AI artist did so without the hinderance of ego or making it what a designer would want. 

It was my vision. And I think it was a good one.

Now if only others would have that epiphany. 

Nervous tick

 

When I was a kid and we went camping a lot, there were two bugaboos my mother would always freak us out about -- ticks and rattle snakes.  I don't recall having any encounters with rattle snakes, but ticks were another story. I think I had them burrow into me on two occasions. One was on my ear lobe and the other time one was in my belly button. 

The thing about ticks is that you don't want to pull them off when they have attached themselves to you because if you pull off the body and leave the head, it can get infected. So the way we were taught to get the off was to heat up a needle and hold it at the base of where the tick had attached itself and they would back out on their own because of the heat of the needle. 

Thus my latest pun, Nervous Tick. Artie took awhile before it got the tick to look the way I wanted it to. But I was please with this one.

My other pun of the day came after see something about "Blessed are the peacemakers for they will be called children of God." It is one of the Beatitudes from Jesus' Sermon on the Mount. There was a time in my youth where, in addition to knowing how to detach a tick, I knew all of the Beatitudes and the Commandments. 

Anyway, I saw a t-shirt that said, "Blessed are the peacemakers" and I immediately thought of this:

It is sacrilegious I know, but at my age, although I don't have a pacemaker, I respect that they are available.

I'm figuring the over 60 market will buy this design in a heartbeat.

Tim keeps on slipping, slipping into the future

 I heard "Fly Like an Eagle," by the Steve Miller Band today. It was released in 1976 which coincidently was when I was released from high school. So time does keep slipping, slipping into the future. I did two versions of this design. One had a "Time keeps on slipping, slipping past into the future." I figured that was different enough to slip by the Intellectual Property Police. 

We'll see. 

I toyed with changing it to Tim keeps on slipping, slipping into the future, but I figured the market was pretty narrow for that one. Besides, since my middle initial is E, I fancy my name is Time sometimes.

I did produce this one for the Tim's in the world:

If you are a Monty Python fan (and you probably shouldn't be reading my blog if you aren't), you'll probably recognize this as a line the Enchanter Tim said in Monty Python and the Search for the Holy Grail.  John Cleese played the part and warned King Arthur about the vicious Rabbit of Caerbannog that had a nasty tendency to bite knights heads off.

I didn't make the connection when I had Artie create this design with a rabbit running with scissors. But it dawned on me as I was putting this together that Tim the Enchanter was associated with a killer rabbit. Coincidence? I think not.

But then again, I also created this design today:

Other than Goo-Goo-Ga-Joob, I can't think of how it relates to time slipping into the future, Tim the Enchanter or a rabbit running with scissors. 

Come to think of it I was listening to the Beatles channel on Sirius in the car, too. That would help explain this design, too:

Hopefully you are a Beatles fan and understand these last two references. If not, the Long and Winding Toad I created a few days ago must really confuse you.

Oh well...

And the worms ate into his brain

 

Robert Kennedy Jr. claims to have had a brain worm some time back that caused him some cognitive issues (as one might suspect a brain worm would). But he now claims he could eat another five brain worms and still win a debate with Biden and Trump.

No one can confirm whether Bobby Jr. actually had a brain worm (since they are actually a parasitic worm known as a pork tapeworm). But the man's dogs don't all seem to be barking. It is a shame that the son of a great man like Robert Kennedy could produce a know like Bobby Jr.  Because in this case the nut did fall a bit far from the tree.

Oh well, he did inspire a t-shirt design.

I wasn't too prolific today. Maybe it is because the sun is wigging out and sending odd magnetic waves through the earth's atmosphere. I was just out on my deck with my wife and daughter trying to figure out whether we were seeing the northern lights or not.  If we were, I am a bit disappointed because I thought they would be a bit more colorful. 

Part of me just thinks the world is ending. Hopefully it doesn't end until I post a thousand designs on teepublic.com. I think it would be ironic if I did finally start trending with my designs and then the world ended.  How fucked up would that be. Especially if my final design was something like this:

It took awhile to convince Artie my AI art friend to produce this tower of pancakes design. I made the mistake of telling it to make it look like the Leaning Tower of Pisa and it kept making it a building and not a stack of pancakes. I finally had to say just give me a huge stack of pancakes that was leaning and it gave me this. It stuck the American flag in the top. I didn't ask for it. I'm not big on waving the American flag around these days.

Flags won't matter anyway if it is indeed the end of the world.

Rather be Dead...

 

I was never a Grateful Dead fan. It's not that I have anything against them. I just never listened to them. I couldn't tell you a single Grateful Dead song. That didn't stop me from creating a Jerry Calavera design (don't tell anyone, but Jerry is kind of Jerry Garcia).

I was very careful not to try and focus too much on this being a Grateful Dead inspired design. Because even though Jerry is dead, that doesn't stop the intellectual property police who will claim he told them through a Ouija Board that he doesn't want anyone to profit off of his name or image but his legal representatives. 

Ouija is a trademarked term, btw.

On the subject of designs being reviewed, teepublic.com finally released my "Chain Reaction" designs. They didn't mention why they were being reviewed or why they were no longer suspect. The chain designs are now ironically unfettered.

As you can see, I am on a Calavera kick. This gnome was done in tribute to the real Day of the Dead garden gnome I hand painted years ago. It was pretty cool, but the acrylic paints I used couldn't withstand the elements and the little guy doesn't look good these days. But this design does.

As does this one:

I swear Artie, the AI app, reads my mind when it cranks out these interpretations of my design instructions.  It even took this stretch of an idea about Archimedes and turned it into something kind of interesting.

I should have had him saying something like, "Do you want fries as part of that equation?"

 I don't suppose that would mean much to anyone.  But hey:

Get it?

Potato Calavera

 

Growing up in Idaho, I became very sensitive to living in a state where your license plate proudly proclaimed "Famous Potatoes." I never really gave it much thought as to why Idaho potatoes were famous. It was an example of marketing to the extreme by the Idaho Potato Commission trying to promote potato farmers. 

I believe Idaho actual produces more sugar beets than potatoes. The sugar beet just didn't have the right PR firm backing it or the license plates would have read "Famous Sugar Beets."

That would have really sucked.

I don't remember eating potatoes growing up anymore than other people. Though fried potatoes and baloney was one of the few dishes my father could cook. And it tasted just about as bad as it sounds.

Potato Calavera was the only design I created today because I was having Artie create Mother's Day Card designs for me. I have been making my own greeting cards for several years now. I just don't see the point in going to Hallmark and buying a card someone else came up with and giving it to someone and hoping they would be impressed by how thoughtful you were to go to all of the trouble of browsing cards and then plunking down several dollars for some pretty lame greeting cards.

Beyond implying that I am cheap, making my own greeting cards shows that I care enough to take the time to make a customize one.

I tell you though, using AI to create them is a whole lot quicker and they look a whole lot better. I just wish Artie could spell worth shit. I for the life of me don't understand how you can give it exactly what you want it to say and it will inevitably drop words or add extra ones. And often I don't notice until I've posted the design on teepublic.com.

Apparently knowing how to spell isn't part of the AI algorithm. Oh well, potato, potahto.

Running with the clowns

I seem to be focused on clowns a lot lately. It is not that I like clowns. I'm not particularly afraid of them like some people, either. Perhaps it is my subconscious sending in the clowns. But that is part of the absurdity of how I feel at times. 

Remember temere ineptia. 

I do like the absurdity of clowns replacing the bulls in the "encierro" or running of the bulls. If you run in front of the clowns though I suppose the risk is greatly reduced over running in front of bulls who can overtake and trample you. What is a clown going to do you (unless it is a Stephen King story)?

Ahhh....the oxymoron of a being a sad clown. Artie, my Art AI friend seems to lean towards images of Pennywise the clown from IT when you ask for clowns (even the sad ones).

I guess "Sad Clown" isn't that far away from being "Bad Clown" after all.

I did experiment with some designs today that I haven't uploaded on teepublic.com. I was interested in trying to create something in a traditional Japanese Ukiyo-e style. Ukiyo-e literally means "pictures of the floating world." I am more familiar with the woodblock prints done in this style. I just couldn't think of a subject that would be unique as a Ukiyo-e design. I tried asking for a Japanese version of Grant Wood's "American Gothic." I want to call it "Japanese Gothic." Here are a couple of the results:

Both are super cool, but honestly not quite t-shirt material. They would make great posters, however.

Then I envisioned an Ukiyo-e version of Neil Armstrong standing on the moon. I didn't give this one a title. I suppose it could have been something like "Samurai Moon" or "One small step for a Samurai" but I kind of liked them without a title.

Again, they don't quite seem to be something you'd put on a t-shirt, but still I am intrigued. I am a bit hesitant to do too many in this style for fear of being accused of cultural appropriation. But then again I don't really give a shit what someone wants to label it. 

This kind of gives you an idea of the process I go through coming up with ideas. I find it very gratifying in the sense that Artie allows me to experiment without having to waste too much time on ideas that just don't pan out. 

In that vein, I did produced this one that I kind of like:

Now that is one hell of a t-shirt design.