Send away the clowns

 

Gemini Cricket doesn't do clowns, but Artie over at Ideogram does, but most of them bear a striking resemblance to Pennywise the clown from, "It." And it is like putting an intellectual property "Kick Me" sign on your back to run an image of Pennywise. 

Still I can't resist creating clown designs. I'm not sure why. I don't suffer from coulrophobia (the morbid fear of clowns). I don't like clowns but I am not particularly afraid of them either. I'm just not sure why anyone would dress up like one. But the sinister ones Arties creates are pretty fascinating.

I do think carnivals in general are creepy. Though the closest thing we had to a carnival we had when I was growing up was the Western Idaho Fair. It had all of the carnival rides and games that you would expect. And the people who worked them were all pretty creepy. Though I don't remember any clowns. The clowns were part of the Shrine Circus that came to town every year. But it generally played at the Boise State (college at the time but university now) stadium. I seem to recall the clowns were Shriners dressed up, which make sense, because you would need to be a clown to become a Shriner.

According to ChatGPT, though, you had to be a Freemason to become a Shriner. So maybe it is a conspiracy of clowns. I just remember they were usually old, fat and bald guys in fezzes driving golf carts in parades (when they weren't clowns in the Shrine Circus). 

I could never be a Freemason, a Shriner, an Elk, an Oddfellow or a Knight of Columbus. I'm just not a fraternal kind of guy. I am right there with Groucho Marx who once said, "I would never want to be in a club that would have me as a member." I was a cub scout, but I was a pretty piss poor one. It's also probably why I am not into organized religion (other than it is a crock of donkey crap.)

I know this design doesn't make total sense, but I like the idea of a parrot named Pollytheism.

They are colorful if nothing else. 

Over hill, over dale...

 

The hill, of course. I hit that dusty trail a long time ago and crested that hill and I feel like I'm just meandering down the other side. 

Maybe that should be the next design, "I'm over the hill and racing down the other side."  Of course, the over the hill jokes started when I turned 40.  Forty seems incredibly young to me now. It didn't when I was 16 thinking about turning 40 in the late 1990s. It seemed so far away and ancient. I never imagined I would be 66 and hope I can retire by the time I'm 70. 

I'm thinking this is one of those senior center vans.

Sigh.

Faces

 

I got caught up with having Gemini Cricket crank out images of comedy and tragedy masks. And to its credit, it was giving me some real moody ones. I totally related to the bottom one above.  It spoke to me. Well not literally. That is probably the next phase of AI, but this one was very cool and sad at the same time. I get a bit concerned about Gemini Cricket and Google with the images it comes up with. I asked it if the images it was creating were royalty free and it hemmed and hawed around about not know what the code said about copyright.  

What sent up a red flag was when I was asking for Wilhelm Scream images yesterday and it popped up the image of  Edvard Munch's scream. Apparently the image is in the public domain now because it was paint in 1893. So I get a bit paranoid that some of the other images Gemini Cricket "creates" are stuff it finds floating around in the bowels of the Internet.

Still they are pretty striking at times and more artistic than Artie over at Ideogram usually produces.  I paired the image I loved from the other design with the female image above. The seemed like the perfect unhappy couple. 

I really like this one too because it reminds me of me and how I feel. I just couldn't figure out how to use it on a t-shirt. But eventually I will. In the meantime, this design is how I think people perceive me.

Oh well, I feel like this at times too:

No bull.

Why I oughta...

 

Take a good look at this design, because this is the only place you'll see it. I based it on a 1954 Alfred Hitchcock movie called, "Dial 'M' for Murder." And I spent a great deal of time in Photoshop cleaning up Artie's interpretation including putting the cell phone numbers in the right order and amputating a sixth finger from the villain holding the cell phone. Finally I uploaded it to teepublic.com and they flagged it for review. You would think no one would care about a 1954 movie. I am pretty sure all of the people who starred in it are dead and a good portion of the people who saw the film are probably dead as well. But teepublic.com promised one of those quick reviews that they would get back to me on along with the four other designs they flagged months ago for review.

Why I oughta....scream perhaps? Or should I say, "Wilhelm Scream."

Up until today I had no clue that a Wilhelm Scream was a thing. But apparently it is a famous stock sound effect that has been used in more than 400 films and television series. It has become an inside joke for sound designers and film enthusiasts (it may even have been used in "Dial M for Murder" for all I know). 

The scream was first recorded in 1951 in a film called "Distant Drums" when a soldier was bitten by an alligator. The name "Wilhelm Scream" came from a 1953 film "the Charge at Feather River" when a character name Private Wilhelm screams after being shot with an arrow. The rest is history. The scream has been used in the Start Wars and Indiana Jones movie series. 

Now the Wilhelm Scream has been used in Dizgraceland Records. And it makes a pretty screaming good t-shirt design if I do say so myself. It makes up for the "Text 'M' for Murder" debacle.  I will have to say that I think the teepublic.com legal team is a few rocks shy of a quarry.

The stoners will love this one.

Butt who nose

 One of the things I struggle with as I age out of existence is this sense of who I am. I used to have a pretty good grasp on who I thought I was. The emphasis there is who I "thought" I was. It was a self image based on how I thought people perceived me and my work...my art...my personality. I've raged for years on the loss of friends for no apparent reason. And I've tried to rationalize that it is what happens. People don't stay connected. 

Underlying it all was this sense that I was likable. I could go to work and joke with people thinking that they liked me and appreciated my teasing and personae. I took comfort in this sense that I was funny and likable and people appreciated my humor. 

Of course, deep down I knew that the ad agencies and consultants that I managed just acted like they liked me and thought I was funny because that is what you do with clients. At times I tried to tell myself that I was different. I was one of them. They could relate to me. I was the good client. But I'd change contracts and all of the people I thought liked me no longer gave me the time of day. The new agency or consultant would step up and stroke my ego and I'd try to let it go. 

At work I rose to a management level that gave me some power, but I tried to think it didn't matter. I was down to earth and people liked me. They weren't just smiling and laughing at my jokes because I was a director, they appreciated my wit and charm. 

Then the pandemic hit and I tried to be that comforting strong leader who bolstered people's morale. I wrote folksy e-mails each Friday trying to keep people's spirits up. I posted funny images and jokes. And I met with everyone monthly and thought I was being appreciated and looked at as a good person.

But as we began to come out of the pandemic and some people returned to work and some stayed remote it became harder to keep up the cadence of "we're in this together."  And more and more I began to sense that I wasn't that great of a leader or well liked. We'd have these opportunities at meetings to give kudos to each other and I swear I never got a single kudo. I began to sense that people were laughing a little too much at my jokes and rolling their eyes. 

And there was that dreadful staff meeting where I was the facilitator and shared what I thought was a "fun" retrospect of my career with the sense that people would gain a new appreciation of me and the things I had accomplished. Instead it was an embarrassing and awkward failure that I regret deeply.

But still, I thought some people liked me and appreciated my humor. Then today I saw a photo posted on Instagram of one of my employees and two other people who have worked for me in the past. They were having lunch in the town I live in north of Seattle. And the caption read, "Having lunch with two of my favorite people from (my company) in (my home town)."  They were people who laughed at my jokes and I thought liked me. But they didn't like me enough to want to invite me to lunch in the same town I live.

So it drove home this reality that you shouldn't fool yourself into believing your own personae. I have always dreaded being this character who people laughed at behind their back and I fear I've become him, or have always been him. 

Even as I crank out my t-shirt designs at a record pace, I catch myself not wanting to say anything to anyone about them because I've come to the conclusion that they really won't care. No one will think they are as clever as I do or understand my sense of humor. So even when I sell a shirt or sticker, I resist the urge to say anything to anyone because I hate that distracted look on people's face when they are trying to be polite but truly don't give a shit. 

Still, I come here and post this crap knowing that it could potentially be read by millions of people. But I know it isn't. It's as private here as it would be written in a journal and locked away in a safe. No one will really read it or care. 

But still I was prolific today with my random designs.

I didn't even need AI to crank out that one. But Gemini Cricket did step up for this one.

And who knows. I may pop back into my unread blog tomorrow and delete yet another whiny post expressing self pity and replace it with my usual sarcasm.

Or I may let it ride like a hundred bucks on red. You never know. Or more appropriately...

Run, run, run as fast as you can

 I created this design more in my response to running in general than in response to the craziness that is going on at the national level with the Presidential campaigns and people running for president. I don't generally address current affairs in my blog because by the time anyone reads this, it won't be current. In fact, years will likely have passed before someone reads this. But I do think it is important to note that Joe Biden has withdrawn his candidacy for President of the United States and endorsed his Vice President Kamala Harris. This rarely happens. The only time that I can recall is when Lyndon Johnson backed out and made a speech on television in 1968. He said, "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your President."

I don't know what Biden said. But it has through the country into even more chaos than it was after Biden tanked big time in his debate with Donald the chump Trump.  For awhile it seemed like Trump being elected was inevitable. Now with Harris in the race, I'm hoping the powers of good will overcome the narcissistic gasbag and his hordes of mindless rabble. 

But t-shirt designs must go on (as must t-shirts). I was too busy today hacking at horsetails on my hillside jungle with a machete (horsetails the weed, not horsetails attached to horses) to do many designs. And let me say that I kind of sympathized with Biden while I was doing yardwork and thinking "I'm too old for this shit."

I did manage to produce the Jason-esque image above and this one:

Gemini Cricket supplied the bones of the design before wandering off saying it couldn't draw people very well and was damn sure it wouldn't give me anything better than this one. I had kind of just wanted so big white type on a black background that read, "Are my eyes open?" I pictured it would be like my "What day is it?" t-shirt. But Gemini got all esoteric on me and pumped out this big question mark in the sky.  I was too tire to try something else. 

Oh well, I'll close because I think my answer right now is, "No, my eyes aren't open."

Passing gasbags

 

If you don't know what a gasbag is, ChatGPT tells me it is a derogatory term used to describe a person who talks a lot, especially in a pompous, verbose, or tiresome manner. It suggests that the person's speech is full of hot air and lacks substance or value. I would have thought a gasbag was akin to a blowhard, but apparently a blowhard talks more about their own achievements than a gasbag. A gasbag just passes verbal gas.

I have to say that Gemini Cricket nailed a gas bag with this image. It's very Pink Floyd-ish "The Wall" or Dr. Who. The British are obsessed with gas masks because of the World Wars. This shouldn't be a surprise since the British haven't mired themselves in a good war since. Or there was a brief skirmish over the Falkland Islands, but that was akin to America's invasion of Grenada in the Caribbean in 1983. Both were basically farts in the wind as wars go. Though the U.S. invasion of Grenada was good for a bad Clint Eastwood movie called "Heartbreak Ridge." 

I'm digressing. 

Though I did actually go to Grenada on a cruise ship in the late 1990s. I was more or less highjacked by a young Grenadian who gave me an island tour I didn't want, tried to sell me pot and then menaced me for a tip. Other than that I don't remember much about Grenada. I don't even think I bought a t-shirt there. Though it probably would have been something about "I invaded Grenada and I'll I got was this stupid t-shirt."

Now that would have been a cool t-shirt. This is too.

God I hope I'm not becoming one.

Drivel servants

 

For a man who made his living with words for so many years, they do annoy me. Or rather the people who blather on with meaningless words annoy me. And there are so many different ways to describe spouting gibberish -- nonsense, balderdash, drivel, babble, twaddle, blather, jabber, mumbo jumbo, gobbledygook, poppycock, hogwash, malarkey, flapdoodle, claptrap and bunk. 

Gemini Cricket seemed to get into giving me images of various made up creatures who like to spout small talk and other vile forms of trivial communication. I took those images and turned them into a series of  "Big Mouths, Small Talk" designs.

Throw in the Drivel Servant and you could wear a different small but stupid talk t-shirt each work day to express how you feel about your co-workers and committees.  Of course, you will likely be pulled aside by HR and told that your attire is creating a hostile environment for the claptrap speaking babblers who don't like to be called out on their mindless nonsense.

Blatherskites. 

Gemini Cricket couldn't come up with a decent image of Blatherskites. It kept showing me images of birds. Gemini Cricket is a few  Al Gores short of an algorithm if you ask me. You would think Google, with access to all knowledge there is on the Internet could figure out an image for a Blatherskite.

Maybe it has a virus.

I love it when pigs fly.

It could have been a contender

 

All the way back at the beginning of April I posted a design with a boxing raccoon (actually three different boxing raccoons) who happened to be called Rocky Raccoon. I half way expected them to be pulled because of the crap weasel intellectual property police but I figured if they did get pulled it would because of Paul McCartney's "Rocky Raccoon" falling into the room only to find Rocky Balboa. But the designs have stayed up all of this time until a couple of days ago when MGM complained and teepublic.com yanked them down. I would like to think it was because I'd been selling hundreds of them but nary a one flew off my virtual shelf. So MGM was just being spiteful. And come on, they are images of boxing raccoons named Rocky. It seems to be a stretch that they would threaten the Rocky Balboa franchise.

But, I am learning to get knocked down and get up again.

So I repurposed my fighting raccoons. Because screw MGM. They may own Rocky, but they don't own boxing raccoons.

Not that there is a big market for t-shirts with boxing raccoons on them, but when there is, I'm ready. And you know why I won't quit even when the intellectual property pigs come oinking at my door? Because I'm a wiener.

These are collaborations with Gemini Cricket who can spit out a mean wiener but can't fathom how to create an image of a person. I realize that "spit out a mean wiener" might be misconstrued by some, but I am not talking about wholesome meat wieners made with real lips and spleens and other animal parts people won't eat unless they are ground up and packaged properly.

I'm pretty proud of this one because Gemini Cricket may have come up with the wiener in a chef hat image, but I added my own text and turned it into a pretty bitchin' spoof of "Frankenstein." Now watch the intellectual property bastards come after me for ripping off "Frankenstein" or try to accuse me of violating Tim Curry's Frank-N-Furter from "Rocky Horror Picture Show."

That sounded pretty disgusting too, but stick a fork it it and get your mind out of the bun.

If we're all Bozos, how can we send in the clowns?

 

I'm finding coaxing designs out of Gemini cricket takes just a bit more work than it did to coax them out Artie. It doesn't seem quite as intuitive as Artie, which is ironic considering they are both AI and theoretical don't think or intuit anything. They have no soul.

I do find that Gemini Cricket is much more serious than Artie and its designs seem much less whimsical and more dark. Sometimes that matches my mood. 

I didn't even know what to do with this one.  It was an alternative to the image above it with the headline I added about a soul devoid of life and substance. It was Gemini Cricket's take on a soul devoid of life and substance. Kind of freaks me out.

Oh well. It's deeper than my usual gibberish.

Who knows what evil lurks?

 

I didn't intend this image to refer to any video game, book or movie. I just asked Gemini Cricket to produce an image based on the name "Shadow Man." It had failed me a few minutes before when I asked for a spoof of the movie "Dances with Wolves" but called "Dances with Cats." I think being a Google product it shies away from any intellectual property or copyright disputes. So I briefly gave Artie another try and it pretended it hadn't shut me out yesterday.

I think Artie did a pretty decent job of a "Dances with Wolves" spoof.  But still I went back to Gemini Cricket and asked for the Shadow Man image. Again I had to add my own text but I do like the moodiness of what it provided. So I asked for more.

This one had more of a boogeyman quality to it that I also liked. Who knows whether it is something Gemini Cricket conjured from a video game. It is still pretty cool and spooky. Gemini Cricket seems to be more artsy and less cartoony than Artie. Still a nice change of pace. The Shadow Man reminds me of the first Clef Dweller image Gemini Cricket produced for me.

Thing is, people don't seem to buy the artsy designs. Though I have had success with my "In-a-gadda-da-vida" Iron Butterfly design and have sold several including another one last night. I do think it comes down to what people are searching for. So if you are an Iron Butterfly fan you'd find my design. Not so much Shadow Man unless you know the video game or book and randomly search for it. 

I'd probably be more successful if people just when to my storefront and browsed through the hundreds of designs. But then again it can be intimidating. Even I get a bit overwhelmed at the shear volume of designs I've produced (with my Art AI buddies). 

Just me and my shadows.

1000 connections to Bacon

 

I surpassed 1000 t-shirt designs today despite a rebellion on the part of ideogram.ai and my former Art AI friend Artie. Like all things on the internet they lured me into their Artificial Intelligence Art world with the promise of free designs with no strings attached. And Artie gave me some doozies despite it's horrendous spelling and inability to capture a realistic image of a dog crapping on a grass field (among other anomalies).  But the greedy bastards started reducing the number of designs you could ask for in a day. Then they had a slow cue they put you in that TSA and Disney would have been proud of. Finally they just cut me off at ten slug-like inquiries a day and then tried to extort money out of me to speed up rendering of my designs with a lump sum annual payment.

The Kevin Bacon images were some of the last designs I eeked out before ideogram went south. And I post them here quickly because I'm figuring teepublic.com will be getting a request soon by the intellectual property Nazi's screaming foul (even though they should be screaming  Suidae(which ChatGPT tells me is a generic word for animals of the pig family). And Kevin Bacon should be screaming for putting Macaulay Culin's screaming mouth on his face. 

Then ideogram got greedy on me just as I was two designs away from 1000 designs. So I went elsewhere. I found Google's AI circus called gemini.googl.com. It is kind of a combination of ChaptGPT and ArtAI. And they let you load your own images (but then refuse to use them claiming copyright issues even though I loaded an image I'd taken years ago). Still I was able to coax a few more designs out of Gemini. 

The first ones were quite nice and gave me hope that I won't be back to searching Google for image parts to Frankenstein together into my own designs. 

So far Gemini (I think I'll call it Gemini Cricket from now on) seems pretty artsy fartsy compared to Artie. But I like it. It even gave me a "If you meet the Buddha by the side of the road" design.

Gemini Cricket can't spell worth shit either so I ended up just adding my own headlines. And Gemini Cricket doesn't take direction very well either. 

I can't tell you how many times I asked it for a complete guitar image of a 12-string guitar and it gave me a six-string guitar with seven pegs to hold the strings and wouldn't show me the next or head of the guitar.

Oh well, at least Gemini Cricket gives me more options even if there are strings attached. 

You could see that one coming, couldn't you?