One small step

 

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. It was a Sunday. I was 11 years old and fascinated by the space program and Apollo. The Lunar Module Eagle landed on the Moon at 2:17 p.m. my time in Idaho.  Armstrong didn't step out until 8:56 p.m. Boise time.  I vaguely remember being at a buffet restaurant in Boise the afternoon of July 20th. It was called the Chuck Wagon and my parents took us their sometimes for a treat on Sundays after church.  As I recall they had a television on at the restaurant showing what was going on with the Moon landing.  Keep in mind, this was 1969 so it wasn't like today when you can go into a sports bar and have big screen televisions on every wall. But everyone was tuned in on that day.

Ironically, the one thing I can remember about the Chuck Wagon Buffet was their motto, "Take all you want, eat all you take." Funny how that was the highlight of the place for me.

Anyway, I do remember them broadcasting images outside of the Lunar Module of the moon. They were in extremely fuzzy black and white, so you had to use your imagination to picture what they were actually seeing. 

Later that night I was glued to the set when Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and stood on one of the Module pads before stepping onto the moon and uttering his first words that would go down in history: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."   Armstrong claims he actually said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Some say the "a" got lost in transmission noise. But I remember Walter Cronkite saying at the time that one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind were kind of the same thing.  It stuck with me that Armstrong potentially flubbed his only opportunity for famous first words.

The important thing is that he actually stepped on the moon, bounced around and brought back lots of rocks. Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the and he simply said, "Beautiful view...magnificent desolation." I always imagined how much it must suck to be the second person to set foot on the moon. I imagine him at parties later in life saying, "I was the second man to walk on the moon" and watching people's eyes glaze over and tell him they needed to get another drink.

I'm just saying that being second doesn't really mean anything to most people. But it was still cool. Just not as cool. 

Oh well. Sometimes I know what Buzz Aldrin must have felt like.

Imaginary friends

 

After many decades pondering friendship and why it comes and goes, I've come to the conclusion that all friends are imaginary friends. I can't say that I've ever really had a long-term friend. People seem to flit in and out of my life based on circumstances.  

Early in life your parents more or less arrange friendships for you. Or you are friends with kids in the neighborhood because...well, they are in the neighborhood.  Then you have friends from school based on who is in your class or in band or walks in the same direction as you do to and from school. School friends come and go based on your level in school. By the time I hit college those friends fade away and I began having work friends. Because college doesn't really lend itself to making or having friends.

Along the way you have girlfriends and you become friends with their girlfriend's boyfriends. Or you get adopted by the girlfriend's family until you break up and then you are just an asshole (even if she broke up with you).  

Back to work friends. They come and go with your jobs. And the higher up in a company you go, the less you have friend friends. You have people who act like they are friends (consultants and subordinates) but if you are smart you realize that they aren't really friends and like your ex-girlfriend's families, they think you are an asshole.

Sometimes I think that even dogs (a man's best friend) only act like they like you to get food. I know that is the case with cats. But most of the time they don't even act like they like you. 

I know this all makes me seem pretty jaded. And I am, but it's based on my experience. And I'll admit that I'm sometimes an asshole and not likeable, but sometimes I'm pretty mellow and charming. So my observations about friendship aren't just because of my personality. 

And BTW, I asked my imaginary friend Harvey and he admitted he only hangs out for the carrots.  So there.

I think I'd be sad to be happy

Almost two years ago to the day I wrote a post called, "I'm so happy to be sad." It was about me listening to the Acoustic Chill playlist on Amazon while weeding the Sisyphean hillside of horsetails behind my house.  Ironically today I was listening to the Acoustic Chill playlist on Amazon while weeding the Sisyphean hillside of horsetails behind my house. And low and behold I had the same feeling that all the songs were about people miserable because they loved somebody, lost somebody, wanted somebody or missed somebody. I was thinking WTF I should blog about it. Then I found I had blogged about it almost two years ago. 

I'm sure it wasn't the first time or will it be the last time. But I feel a bit chagrined that I didn't learn my lesson last time I listened to Acoustic Chill while weeding.  And I basically don't recall writing the fricking post, either. Though I must say it captured exactly the way I felt then and now. You'd think I'd written it...wait, I did. 

Sometimes I'm amazed at how well I write when I don't think about it so hard. Lately I just blather on about t-shirt designs that no one buys. I forget how insightful and wise I can be without knowing it. 

It strikes me that you don't hear too many songs (zero that I know of) written by old men whining about lost love, longing for love or missing love. There comes a point when you pretty much realize that silly love songs (like the ones Paul McCartney wrote about) are just that. For example, one song I heard this afternoon was about a couple who were whining about falling in love when all they really intended to do was hook up to pass the time.  Got news for you, you'll be out there messing around to kill time in no time. 

It's not that I don't believe in love. I just believe it was something very different in my younger days. And no matter how many times I thought I couldn't live without someone, I discovered I could and they sure as hell weren't wasting time worrying about living without me. Let's face it, romantic love is for the young and naive. 

On that note, I hear those neverending weeds calling my name.

The answer, my friend...

 

Bob Dylan recorded "Blowin' In the Wind" on this day in 1962. The song made him a star despite that his voice sucks and he can't carry a tune in a slop bucket (as my gramma used to say).  Bob Dylan is one of those anomolies to me in music like Johnny Cash, Boy George, Vanilla Ice and Blondie.  They made records even though they couldn't really sing. But what do I know. I don't really like Bruce Springstein's voice either. I do admire his politics, however.

And it isn't that I can sing. My singing career went downhill after my voice changed. But when I was in grade school I was pretty good. I got a Blue ribbon singing Edelweiss in an elementary school music competition. I also sang briefly in the Boise Boys Choir.  But I didn't like the idea of giving up my Saturday mornings to go to choir practice.  So that path to fame was shortlived.  Then, as I mentioned, once my voice changed so did any chance of me becoming a singer.

Now the only one who hears me sing is my dog and she will suffer a great deal in hopes of getting a treat. 

But I digress. Bob Dylan voice baffles me, as does his fame. He doesn't seem to have any stage prescence. He isn't an attractive man. He can play guitar and harmonica, but I never thought he did it particularly well. Yet he is an icon. 

I attribute it all to the "Emperor has no clothes" syndrome. If enough people are told someone is talented then the sheep will nod their heads and follow them. 

This explains influencers and people trending on social media. Most of them have absolutely no talent yet they became famous for getting people to like their shit on TikTok or Instagram.  That used to give me some hope of people recognizing my writing skills and eventually my t-shirt ideas. But after 22 or more years blogging and probably five years trying to get people to like my designs I'm getting the message that I don't even have what it takes to be a five-minute start on social media. 

Oh well, it's a hobby that keeps me focused. It's better than macrame.

There is no body in the family plot

 

I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock on television. He had a show called Alfred Hitchcock Presents that later became the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  I don't remember much about the program, but I remember Alfred Hitchcock's droll British voice and distinct profile.  I think he started every program (after the distinct theme song) with "Good Evening, I'm Alfred Hitchcock."  Then he would introduce that evening's program.

I knew Alfred Hitchcock was a famous director, too. I eventually saw and love Psycho, The Birds, and  Vertigo. One of the things I was always fascinated by was that Alfred Hitchcock always seemed to do a cameo appearance in all of his programs.  He was one of the few directors that seemed to love to be in front of the camera as well as behind it. Narcisism I suppose, but as I branched out in my own career in marketing and shooting commercials I've always enjoyed interjecting myself in them as well.

The reason I put Family Plot in here was not because I thought it was a great film. I don't think I ever saw it. But I remember the promos and Alfred Hitchcock's narration with that distinctive British accent saying, "There is no body in the Family Plot."  It stuck with me all of these years.

The other thing I connect to Alfred Hitchcock about are this books I read when I was in 5th and 6th grade. There was a mystery series called "Alfred Hitchcock Presents the Three Investigators and the Mystery of the..." Alfred Hitchcock was a character in the books and introduced them. I was so into them I convinced three of my grad school friends to form a club called the "Three Investigators." We even put an ad in the grade school newspaper that read simply, "We solve mysteries." It was the motto of the book Three Investigators.  We got razzed unmercifully for the ad and we never encountered a mystery to solve.

The reason I bring up Alfred Hitchcock is that I found this on a Southern California Goodwill eBay auction:

It is obviously a life mask of Alfred Hitchcock but it was listed simply as "Erik Erickson Signed Gold Male Life Mask Sculpture 101/1000 Limited Edition."   It already had 7 bids when I discovered it so I wasn't the only one who recognized it as Alfred Hitchcock.  I didn't have a clue who Erik Erickson was until I did some research. I discovered he was a quirky artist who sold the masks through his web page called House of Masks. I believe he used to work in the film industry as a make up artist and that's how he got access to the molds to create the masks.  I also found out he had a house in Florida that he had turned into a funky funhouse shrine with each room having a different theme. I found a youtube video about him. He introduced his house as an "Intensly themed house." It kind of reminded me of my office. 

Anyway Erik's studeo was in a garage at the house and he his masks became fairly collectible. The house burnt down in the late 2020s and Erik passed on in 2024. So there aren't going to be any new masks produced by him.

So I won the auction and bought the mask. But my personality being fairly obsessive when it comes to collections I began looking for other masks. Then I bought this one:

It is of course, Marlon Brando as the Godfather.  I had lots of interaction with Microsoft Copilot about both masks and it assured me they were both highly sought after by collectors. And now I put an offer on this one:

This is Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. All three are signed by Erik Erickson and are limited editions and numbered. I haven't heard back about Frankenstein but I am fairly confident I'll win it. The challenge is where to put them in my office. Between swords, guitars and tiki mugs, I don't have much space left. 

But I always find a way.

God bless it...

 

It is, of course, the Fourth of July and what would a Fourth of July be without a Fourth of July parade (other than a bit more enjoyable).  I become more and more baffled as to the point of such parades as I grow older. I haven't been patriotic since I was about 11 years old and believed all of the propaganda I was fed at school about how great our country is because it was founded upon freedom.  Growing up in Boise it was easy to believe that the founding fathers were great people who only cared about the American people and democracy.  Years of working with government agencies and politicians has taughter me that very little of that is true.  America was built by rich white people (predominately rich white men) looking at ways to get richer and prevent anyone else from doing so.

So attending parades with lots of flag waving, candy throwing, advertising and politicians running for office just doesn't do much for me.  I was surrounded by greedy little kids screaming for candy from bored teenagers roped into marching for schools, clubs, teams and churches. I was handed a small American flag by a geriatric veteran who probably spent three years in the army and 40 years hanging out at the veterans of foreign wars putting back beer and pretzils. 

I was pleasantly suprised by a new entry in my small city's parade this year. A hearse from a new funeral home trying to drum up business.

It was a sharp contrast to the fire trucks, garbage trucks and tow trucks vying for their market share from the red, white and blue crowd.  

All of this seemed par for course in a time when the Orange Menace rules in Washington D.C. and craps all over democracy.  On that note, I did have ChatGPT create a new image for me today. I posted it on social media suggesting this is what he would have worn if he had been invited to Taylor Swift's wedding.

I don't imagine I'll get any responses to it.  I also posted one Fourth of July t-shirt design for the fun of it, too.

It seemed appropriate since things in this country just don't smell right anymore.

Burning down the house

 

The Globe Theatre, famous for being the venue where Shakespeare performed his plays, burnt down during a performance of "Henry VIII" on this day in 1613.  Apparently they fired off cannons on stage and they ignited the blaze.  I can't confirm whether or not this was the inspiration for David Byrne's song, "Burning down the house."

I thought about turning this image into a t-shirt, but even I think it may be to obscure of a fact to sell a t-shirt. And I doubt it could compete with such gems as my designs for National Darts Day or National Waffle Iron Day:

Though initially when I asked for the chicken and waffle image, ChatGPT was still fixated on Young Frankenstein and produced this gem:

I just love the new image generator and it's lack of the ability to pivot from one design to another. Not that it matters. I'm still batting 0 for 0 with t-shirt sales despite my brilliant marketing efforts to sell the absurd designs.  Irony is, they are the types of designs I'd buy in an instant. 

And  I'm the only one who has.

Walk his way

 

It is Mel Brooks' 100th birthday today.  Mel Brooks is responsible for some of the most iconic comedy films made like "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein," and "Space Balls."   I'd say he is the father of dad jokes because his movies were full of puns and off color humor.   Who can forget Marty Feldman as Igor telling Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein to "walk this way" and Gene Wilder imitates his hobbling walk.  It was an old vadeville joke. And apparently it spired Aerosmith's song title Walk this Way. 

I can't even imagine being 100 years old. I have difficulty enough imagining being the age I am.  But I salute Mel Brooks for lasting this long.  I imagine his work will survive long after he has "walked this way" into the light. 

Thanks for the laughs Mel!

Birth of an Alien

 

I posted this t-shirt design on Blue Sky and it was flagged as adult content for nudity. It is based on Botecelli's Birth of Venus for Christ sakes. And the alien is very modest. I do think you can see a nipple on the woman to the left, but give me a break. I've appealed, but I'm betting they'll be as responsive as Teepublic was when I appealed them cancelling me account without reason.

So much for Blue Sky being the answer to those of us looking for a voice of reason on Social Media. I'm not sure it has a huge following. I post tons of content and get very little interaction. I post on Instagram and Facebook and don't get that much either.  As I've whined about many times, I haven't made a single sale from my Printify t-shirt store. 

Now that's obscene.

Shameless

 

I have officially become the Vern Fonk of t-shirt vendors. I got the idea to go all low-brow with my advertising yesterday when I drove by a local brewery that had one of those inflatable tube men. I discovered they are officially called Air Dancers.  So I turned to my best friend and worst enemy ChatGPT to help me create my own.  

Turns out ChatGPT doesn't do video or animation, but it gave me a storyboard for my very own Dizgraceland Dizigns Air Dancer.

Then it pointed me to a video AI site called Vidu (an AI version of "I've got a guy".) They provided five free tries at creating my Air Dancer video.  Then ChatGPT walked me through adding text and I got my first primative commercial.

I posted that last night along with one attempt at animating one of my new t-shirt designs celebrating National Vanilla Milkshake Day. 

I'm just a one-stop guerilla advertising machine (or in my case, gorilla advertising).  My problem is that I'm quite proficient at cranking out content, I just having figured out how to get it to bring in people to my t-shirt of collectibles shop. I realize part of the problem is that I only post on Blue Sky, Instagram and sort of Facebook. Apparently TikTok is where you generate true sales. It just seems so complicated to post on TikTok because you have to use your phone and I'm an old school desktop guy.

I'm on a mission though.  My next idea is to animate an Alien sign spinner. 

Maybe I'll have it dressed like a mattress.

People are strange

 

I got on a Dr. Stranglove kick yesterday and asked ChatGPT to create an image of me as a Dr. Strangelove character.  So first it kicks out an image of me as the George C. Scott character of a general in the War Room during the 60s Cold War. 

I told it that was good but I was thinking more of the Peter Seller's role of Dr. Strangelove and I even loaded a photo.

Then it gave me this:

I felt that this one simply looked like it had slapped a beard on Peter Sellers so I told it to give me an image with my face. Then it gave me this:

I found the image of me without a beard worse than simply slapping a beard on Peter Sellers so I aske for my face with a bear, Dr. Strangelove's sunglasses, hair and cigarette. So it gave me the first image I posted above.

Finally I asked for an image of me as the Slim Pickens character riding a nuclear bomb down to earth and it pretty much got it first thing:

I realize that none of these images mean anything to people unless they have seen the movie Dr. Strangelove or How I learned to stop worrying and love the bomb.  But I don't particularly want to associate with anyone who hasn't seen it and appreciate it as an iconic film. 

I decided to turn a couple of the images into ads for my t-shirt shop and perhaps break the dry spell I've had in selling t-shirts. Actually it is more than a dry spell but I'm not sure what you call it when you haven't sold a single freaking t-shirt in what now seems more than a year.  Here was my first ad:

I posted it yesterday and...crickets. 

I did create this second ad that I'm going to post in a few days. I am still afraid people won't get the Dr. Strangelove reference, but still...it kind of grabs your attention:

If nothing else, I've learned that I never want to wear my hair like this.

Mine eyes have seen the glory

 

Today would have been Newt Gingrich's 83rd birthday.  I first posted my "Eye of Newt" concept back in January of 2024 when he was still alive. He has since passed on to whereever nasty conservative Republicans pass on to. So to a certain extent me creating an Eye of Newt t-shirt and promoting it on Blue Sky is in poor taste. But it is not like anyone is actually going to buy the shirt or that anyone knows or cares who Newt Gingrich was. 

As for poor taste, that's what comedy is all about. Saturday Night Live has been around for 50 years or so capitalizing on poor taste. So I am in good company. 

Yesterday I posted on Blue Sky about it being the anniversary of the death of George Reeves, the actor who played Superman on television back in the 1950s. He reportedly took his own life by shooting himself in the head. My post made a point of saying that apparently he wasn't really faster than a speeding bullet. I also posted a link to one of my hero sandwich t-shirts.

Again, another example of questionable taste. But you have got to admit that the bullet joke was funny (and a bit morbid). I'm just trying to get attention in an ocean of endless social media posts.  

A couple of days ago was National Megalodon Day and I posted this:

I didn't think it was so much in poor taste as a spot on depiction of the Orange Menace. But all I got in response was crickets. Apparently there isn't much about Trump that you post anymore that gets a reaction. The irony was that ChatGPT had no problem creating the image, but when I asked for it to add the Maga-low-don headline it started declaring it would violate it's policies.  AI hypocracy is becoming tiresome. 

I imagine the people who do see my posts on social media think I am desperated for cash because I hawk three or four t-shirts a day and occasionally try to push people to my ebay store.  I will go on record that I don't try to sell t-shirts because I think it will make me rich. I try to sell t-shirts because I've become to think of them as my primary creative outlet. I'm a Dad Joke Bad Pun machine and I want to be acknowleged for it. Writing this blog for more than twenty years hasn't got me the attention I think I deserve. So I've resort to producing hundreds of funny (and not so funny) t-shirts to get my Horton-Hears-A-Who-like attention in the universe. 

I will prevail.

Or not. But I'll leave behind hundreds of bad t-shirt designs to baffle generations to come.