I first posted about "Howling the lugubrious howl" back in December 2016. First I just like the word "lugubrious." And although I can't stand most poetry I think this was some of D.H. Lawrence's best work. Not that he cares (since he is dead.) I don't think most English majors care that I think this is great work either. They are too busy either making espresso drinks or making high school students write essays about the Life of Pi. 

And if I quoted this poem at work I would get a great hew and cry about how calling people idiots isn't very sensitive. They would likely say I am being IQ-ist, smartist (or smart ass-ist), or sanist. But most those comments would likely come from idiots anyway.

Fortunately I am writing this in my blog and don't give a fuck what anyone thinks about such things. Though I am not sure what "give a fuck" really means. It's not like people tend to assign great value to fucking anyway. Maybe I should say I wouldn't give a lot of money for what anyone thinks anyway.

I seem to be swearing more in my blog these days. I must confess it makes me a bit sheepish. Though I'm not sure what sheep have to do with it. Perhaps they swear and bolt randomly. Sheep do that. 

Bolt randomly that is. I'm just conjecturing about the swearing.

But I digress.

Or as I wrote about back in 2016, I should say, "Pause for lugubrious howl."

There are times when I am in work meetings that I would like to howl lugubriously. It would be nice to wear a nice wolf cap like D.H. Lawrence is sporting, too (though I gave it to him). 

I imagine I would really make the sheep nervous then.

Hoooooowl....

A few clowns short of a circus

 

Actually there is no shortage of clowns at the Circus Circus casino in Reno (or Las Vegas for that matter). At least there wasn't the 25 or 30 years ago that I was there. It was kind of like the Denny's of casinos. You didn't really set out to go there. You ended up there. 

The big thing about Circus Circus was there were trapeze acts going on above you in the casino. It was pretty much a waste because most people in casinos never look up. And the down side I image for the performers was all of the cigarette smoke from the casino went straight up. 

I stayed at Circus Circus once because it was cheap. Though considering I really can't stand pink, it wasn't the right choice for me. The place just assaults your eyes.

I remember watching a video promo on the room television bragging that Circus Circus had the certified largest buffet plates in Reno. That, my friends, is one pitiful and telling claim to fame. I ate at the Circus Circus Buffet maybe once. It was disgusting. I remember the bacon looked as if it was ground meat pressed, dyed and cut to look like real bacon. 

There was plenty of it though. And there were plenty of sad looking people (myself included) that piled into onto those certified larges plates in Reno. And many of them would be in their hotel rooms sitting on certified largest toilets in Reno regretting their choice to dine at Circus Circus.

Those were the days. 

Pause for a lugubrious howl.

An explosive combination

 

I read an article just the other day about Preston, Idaho (the place the movie Napoleon Dynamite was filmed on a shoestring budget). The article was about how the movie still prompts tourism in the small rural town. People visit the high school and the tether ball pole Napoleon Dynamite played on.

Granted it has been years since I saw the movie. It was quirky and funny, but not enough so that I'd go out of my way to visit Preston. Ironically I have a half sister who grew up there and still lives there. I wrote about her in a post called Family back in 2018.  So go read about it if you are curious.

Even having a half sister living in Preston doesn't inspire me to visit there. Family or no family, it is still Idaho and I'm not a big fan. 

Regardless, the article helped inspire the above design. And I want to see the movie about Napoleon starring Joaquin  Phoenix.  It looks fascinating, especially since I thought Joaquin was starting to make Gary Busey look sane. Not too many people can play Johnny Cash and Napoleon Bonaparte. 

Anyway, it wasn't a stretch to imagine Napoleon with a stick of dynamite. It just seemed like something he might have done. He was a bit like Gary Busey, too.

All three of them are a few clowns shy of a circus (if you catch my drift).

Duck, duck, chicken

 

I have started waking up around 4 a.m. every morning and laying there thinking of designs. Okay they start as puns and evolve into designs and eventually, potentially (if someone buys them) t-shirts. I have always had a way with word play...okay puns...okay dad jokes. Though I am not sure how they could be dad jokes when you are a teenager. 

But that's where this Chicken Little design came from. God knows why I would think of a chicken saying the sky is falling and a duck states the obvious, "Duck."  Some may not get it, but it makes me chuckle. 

It also reflects the way I feel about economic news since 2020. Not a day seemed to go by that there wasn't a dire prediction that our economy was going to tank and we would have the mother of all recessions. But other than inflation that makes it difficult to go out to dinner without choking at the prices, the economy seemed to ignore the predictions. Now the economic news is all about how everything is peachy. And my 401K seems to be back on track so that gives me a momentary sense of well being.

Until they start predicting doom and gloom again.

Duck.

So far I have uploaded 66 designs to my online store. On one hand it seems excessive, but on the other hand I feel pretty good that I keep cranking them out despite the lack of enthusiasm from anyone but me. But I have practice being enthusiastic since I've been blogging for 20 years with not much to show for it.

I have to tell you though, coming up with design ideas gives me the creative outlet I've been missing for years now. I really look forward to it. I've produced lots of stuff I'm really proud of. 

The sky is the limit. Unless it is falling.

Duck.

A pirate eye be

 

Yes, I am a pirate, two hundred years too late

The cannons don't thunder, there's nothin' to plunder

I'm an over-65 victim of fate

Arriving too late, arriving too late

-- A Pirate Looks at Forty, Jimmy Buffett 

Okay, so when Jimmy Buffett wrote the song, it read "I'm an over-40 victim of fate." Forty seems pretty stinking young to me now so I took literary license and changed it to over 65. Though I doubt many pirates lived too much past 40 anyway. My good friend tells me Blackbeard was in his late 30s or early 40s when he was killed. Captain Kidd was hung when he was 55.

I'd say 65 would be a pretty ripe age for a pirate and I doubt I'd be up for much in the way of cannons thundering or doing a lot of plundering anyway.  Wearing an eyepatch is about as much pirating as I think I should be considering anyway. Though I did consider pirating videotapes in my day.

I think it is funny that Jimmy Buffet (why is it I can't seem to refer to him as anything but his full name) wrote a song about being over the hill at 40. I was just getting into my groove at 40. I remember my friends at the time took me to a Hooters to celebrate and a bunch of the Hooter Girls sang me a birthday song and posed for a photo with me.

That was classy.

Still, I wish I looked as good now as I did when I was 40.  

Need I remind you that Elvis died when he was 42. His lifestyle did make him age a bit more than he would have. Him wearing jumpsuits at the end of his career wasn't a pretty sight. 

God knows you won't see me wearing any jumpsuits (or leisure suits) at my age.  I've pretty much resigned myself to jeans and t-shirts.

Speaking of t-shirts, you can buy one with good old one-eyed Captain Tim here. 

You knew I couldn't end a post these days without a shameless plug for my fans to buy my t-shirts. So far it still hasn't generated any sales, but I am persistent. By the time I hit 70 I expect to have sold one to someone besides myself.

Arrrggg.....

Walking the line

 

I have never shied away from approaching the line of poor taste in my blog (or now my highly lucrative storefront that I am the only one who buys things from).  Now some might think it is disrespectful to Johnny Cash to suggest his name be associated with a Porta Potty that doubles as an ATM. But I think it is just potentially a good business idea.

Think about it. Rather than standing out in the elements at a cash machine worrying about criminal elements sneaking up behind you and stealing your pin or your wallet, wouldn't you rather be sitting down in a comfortable porta potty withdrawing cash and doing your business (if you catch my drift). And associating Johnny Cash's name with the product is just a good marketing ploy.

Personally I think Johnny Cash sang like shit (and I mean that in the most respectful manner) and it seems appropriate that people could sit in the John and get some cash. 

But I am too clever by half as I've been told and never forgotten.

As for poor taste, yes, I uploaded a t-shirt design yesterday of an electric chair with a whoopee cushion on it with the phrase, "Die Laughing." 

How was I supposed to know that Alabama was executing someone on the same day using Nitrogen. It was an honest mistake. It's not that I posted it on Twitter X with hashtags #deathpenalty #whoopee cushion.  I'll wait a few weeks (or days) until the controversy dies down. Trending topics on social media blip in and out all of the time.

And it wasn't intended to be in poor taste. Now putting the electric chair in the Jonnie Cash porta potty might have been in poor taste.  Though funny (note to self: t-shirt showing an electric chair in a Jonnie Cash porta potty with the caption, "You'll be shocked what you can do in this crapper."

You just have to have a sense of humor about these things.

A noteworthy idea

 

I know this is pretty obscure unless you have ever studied music. But I'm pretty proud of it anyway. It's the kind of t-shirt someone in high school would wear and get (or get and wear). It started out with just the idea of a "flat" tire. Then the "sharp" turn came to me. But the light bulb really went on when it dawned on me that an "accidental" in music referred to a sharp or flat note that doesn't appear in the key signature. 

I guess you'd have to have spent seven years in band during elementary, junior high and high school to think it's funny. But as with my blog, I specialize in the random in my design storefront.

I sold two more t-shirts today.  

Okay, I bought two more of my own t-shirt designs today. But I really do want to see how they translate from the computer screen to a physical t-shirt. That's the downside of teepublic.com. You don't get feedback about what designs can be printed and which ones are too complicated.

I also wonder if anyone besides artists who post designs on the site actually go there looking for things to buy. The odd thing about the way teepublic.com markets the place is that they inundate anyone who goes or shops there with emails and texts. And they don't seem to draw a distinction between the designers and shoppers. Just going to my own storefront triggers umpteen emails from them asking me if I forgot something.

Something tells me teepublic.com is the t-shirt version of vanity press.

Sigh.

Death be not proud (well, not too proud)

 

I call this one "Brush with death." It is not that I have had a brush with death (literally or figuratively). But maybe on some level when I thought I was having a stroke and ended up in the emergency room and then was diagnosed with Bell's Palsy it was a reminder that death eventually rings all of our door bells.

I am afraid this one is a bid too morbid to sell a lot of t-shirts. Not that I've sold a lot of t-shirts. I've technically sold two. But in reality it is only one that I bought myself. And it was a Dizgraceland t-shirt and they messed up the printing. It was supposed to look like my blog masthead and have the Graceland gates on each side. But apparently that was too complicated for the printer and they just left it off. I complained and teepublic.com said that, although the printer couldn't reprint that one correctly I could pick any shirt I wanted and they would give it to me at no charge. 

So I picked another of my designs (the Groovinol Man that has my face on the da Vinci drawing). I want to see if they can print that one correctly before I order any more of my own designs. 

But through this long, complicated dance with the t-shirts my storefront shows I've sold two t-shirts. And apparently no one cares if they were both sold to me, the designer and proprietor of Dizgraceland.

Bottom line, teepublic.com has thousands of designs on their website. And, like my blog, I am just one of those thousands (though in the case of my blog, I am one in millions of blogs. Something tells me I could advertise it on the Super Bowl and still not see an uptick in traffic to my blog or online store.

I find it ironic that I am a professional marketing person and for 20 years I've been unable to promote my blog enough to actual get people to visit it, let alone read it. 

It's enough to give a guy a complex. 

I'm dying out here in blog land. 

Ding dong. Who's there?

Stickin' it to the man

 

I went to an acupuncturist for the first time today. Don't needle me about it (you knew that was coming). I heard that acupuncture could help with the symptoms of Bell's Palsy. So I booked my first session today.

The office was kind of New Age-y. It was shared with a Naturopath. There were a few crystals in the reception area. But nothing over the top. There was also a Keurig coffee machine. I took that as a good sign.

I was on pins and needles waiting for my session (think that's it for the puns...unless I can think of some other ones). He was pretty low key. I'd filled out a pretty extensive questionnaire online before coming so they had lots of background (including the fact that I'm not pregnant or going through menopause). I told the acupuncturist what some of my symptoms were and he told me his recommended plan of several visits (which I think corresponds with the number of visits my insurance will pay for).

When he asked me if I was ready, I told him to stick it (not really...I just thought of that). I laid down on a bed and he inserted several needles into my ear, neck and both hands. Then he attached electrodes to them. I didn't see that one coming, but apparently there is an electro version of acupuncture. 

He flipped on the electricity and left me twitching a bit on the bed in the dark.

It was a bit uncomfortable, but not too bad. I've got a tattoo after all and have felt worse needle pokes. He came back in in 10 minutes and adjusted the charge and left again.  Fifteen minutes after that he came back in and removed the electrodes and needles and said I was done for the day and to make another appointment.

I can't honestly tell you if I feel better or not. My eye had started to droop less anyway and I am speaking more clearly. But the needles did seem to help with the headaches I was having.

I go back tomorrow for another session. I wonder if there will be any side effects.

Don't marsh my mallow

 

I sat through 5 shows of my daughter's high school drama group's performance of Xanadu (the musical). And apprehensive as I was having grown up in the 1980s, I was very entertained. Though I think I was often one of the few people in the audience who go many of the jokes that revolved around 1980s popular culture (or lack thereof). 

I was never a big Oliva Newton John fan and although I think I did see the movie version of Xanadu (a film that most people agree was a major load of crap) the musical theater version is something worth seeing. However, unless your child is part of the cast, I don't recommend sitting through five shows of it. I have the songs  Have you never been mellow and You're an evil woman worming their way through my brain and probably will for weeks now.

The same thing happened after her performances of Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief, Into the Woods, Tuck Everlasting, Anastasia and Mean Girls. Her next show is Titanic, the Musical. I have to admit I have never heard of the musical version of Titanic, but I have a sinking feeling it will be sad. 

But as I told my daughter, make sure you tell everyone to come see Titanic because it is huge!

She doesn't like my dad jokes either.

We all float down here...

 

I'm thinking maybe my teepublic.com storefront should be called Dad Jokes instead of Dizgraceland.  This idea came to me because teepublic.com said you should create designs that are trending. I looked at some of the searches they had recently on the site and "Lost Boys" was trending.  I'm not sure why it is trending. The move came out decades ago when Keifer Sutherland was a young man. It was a teen vampire flick (if you never saw it) with an homage to Peter Pan's lost boys.

Anyway, it's another one I'm kind of proud of. But then again, I could just be fishing for a compliment.

Dad Jokes would make a great storefront name.

Pink Lloyd

 

This one came to me in the wee hours of the morning. It's Christopher Lloyd from Back to the Future. I have to admit that it came to me because I bought a t-shirt a couple of years ago that had Pink Freud on it. I thought that was hilarious. I just hope this isn't too complicated for a t-shirt. 

I now have 40 designs in my storefront on www.teepublic.com. I think that is pretty good for less than two weeks of deciding to try my hand at creating and selling designs. In addition to t-shirts you can have them put on phone covers, magnets, stickers, coffee cups, tote bags and pillows. 

And to think this all used to have to be done by silk screening. 

We've come a long way baby (which used to be the slogan for Virginia Slim cigarettes that were targeted towards women and congratulating them for being able to have their own cigarettes and die from lung cancer just like men). Technically it was "You've come a long way baby."

We have come a long way since they can't advertise cigarettes on television anymore. Not that there is technically any television to advertise on anymore. But you still can't advertise cigarettes on streaming services (that I know of). Not that they need to advertise. Tobacco companies seemed to still cigarettes just fine after their ads were banned. 

That doesn't really bolster the ad industry, now, does it. 

And do people still smoke? I get the sense that it was replaced with vaping which is still bad for you but doesn't stink quite as bad. 

Not that any of this has anything to doe with Christopher Lloyd, pink or not. I don't think he is a smoker. 

But I digress.

Which could make a pretty good t-shirt slogan.

Damn I'm good.

Or I think I am.

I'm Walken here...

 

Okay, tell me this isn't funny! Christopher Walken seems to be okay to spoof on t-shirts. At least there are several versions on teepublic.com. I hesitate to post this on Twitter X or Instagram for fear someone will narc on me. And so far, I think this is some of my best work.

I think more and more I should have become and artist instead of a writer. Neither profession leads to major riches, but at least art makes you feel a bit more like you created something than writing (at least my kind of writing). I've always enjoyed creating Photoshop stuff more than the writing part. 

Again, I would probably buy this t-shirt. I want to see how my Dizgraceland t-shirt turns out though, before I spend anymore money. 

Last night I went to bed feeling like I'd run out of ideas for the storefront. Then once again I woke up at 4 or 5 a.m. and ideas started popping in my head. I published five in the store today. I think that is pretty good.

Still, I'll never get rich even producing topnotch content like this. I think it may be a pyramid scheme.

Get it?

I do crack myself up.

Tiki mugs and Tiki bars

I woke up  at 4 a.m. with all of these ideas for t-shirt designs including this "mug" shot of a Tiki mug (which I am pretty proud of).  I'd probably buy one if they weren't a bit on the pricey side when you tack on the delivery fees. 

I think it is pretty damned funny. But I tend to think a lot of my puns are funny and after almost 20 years doing this blog I've learned not to trust my judgement a great deal when it comes to what is funny and what is not. 

I still think this is funny. Though I have been obsessed with Tiki mugs for the past several years. I have to remind myself that they are really not an investment (you would think all of those years buying Elvis shit would have taught me a lesson). 

I had never even heard of teepublic.com until I was looking for Lisa Marie stuff for a shadow box I was putting together with an autography I bought of her years ago thinking she would eventually be as famous as her father. I found these Lisa Marie stickers on teepublic.com and purchased a couple. I'm not sure how the person who created those got away with selling them without the Elvis Presley Enterprises police crawling up their butt the way HBO did mine for the whole White Walker fiasco. I guess they just didn't post anything on Twitter X to draw attention to them.

Which is ironically what you would do if you actually wanted sell anything. Not that Twitter X has done much for me other than get me on HBO's naughty list. I still haven't sold anything. 

I am having fun though. I like the creative outlet. Nothing like one more area of creativity that I can spew my talents on and be ignored by the world.

Note to self: figure out a way to turn invisibility into a t-shirt. Considering I'm already good at being invisible you'd think coming up with a t-shirt about it should be a walk in the park. 

Just not a White Walker walk in the park.

F-you HBO.

Olde Salt of the earth

I'd like to tell you that my merchandizing business has taken off like gang busters and cash is flowing in hand over fist. But other than the $1 I've technically earned from buying one of my own t-shirts, nothing has sold. 

Truth be told, I have already had one of my designs removed from the site because HBO complained I was infringing on some of their intellectual property. It was my "Yes, I'm Frozen...And no I don't want to build a snowman" design. I'm pretty sure it was because I created the image of me using a filter on Snapchat a few years ago that turned me into a White Walker. Then I super modified it to create the t-shirt. 

Apparently I am perceived as an intellectual threat to HBO. It has been a long time since I've been perceived as an intellectual threat to anyone. So I suppose I should be oddly flattered. They were obviously afraid that I was going to take a bite out of the merchandizing dollars Game of Thrones brings in.

I think my mistake was posting the damned thing on Twitter X. God knows those millions of people were about to swarm teepublic.com looking for the design of me as a White Walker (which is coincidently what the neighbors call me when I walk the dog with my son each day).

I posted another image of me playing guitar on the same stage as Elvis in Memphis and it got the attention of a young woman who expressed interest in having a free chat with me and sharing some photos. Jokes on her. I would have chatted with her for free anyway.

The only other time I had a run in with intellectual property was when I tried selling a Richard Prior press kit I had received as a college arts and entertainment editor back in the 1980s.  The press kit was for a really bad movie he did called Some Kind of Hero. It included a press release and some stills. There was nothing intellectual about it and for some reason I thought when he signed the movie deal he gave up the rights to the movie promotional stuff as his property.  Also I think when he died, he probably lost interest in owning it (but apparently his family didn't want me to profit off from the press kit) so they complained to eBay and it was removed from the site.

I am finding it very difficult making a profit off from my keen entrepreneurial skills and creative talent. 

For the record, the above image has nothing to with any known pirate franchises. And if the corporations can start stealing puns from hardworking people like me, then what has this world come to? 

Next thing you are going to tell me is that it is okay for a former president to violate laws from here to next Tuesday and not be held accountable for his vile actions.

Post no cards

 

When was the last time you sent someone a postcard? Do they even sell them anymore? I used to buy them when I travelled just to have a record of places I'd been. It was more like buying a shot glass or souvenir spoon then getting something to send somebody. 

Hotels and motels used to stock them in the desks in hotel rooms. It was always one of the first things I took when I checked in. Of course they were also some of the first things I trashed when I cleaned out my drawers at home years after taking trips and glomming onto all of the postcards and stationary from the room.

I never took towels, though. I rarely stayed anyplace nice enough to want their towel.

Now they give you squat at hotels. You are lucky if you get those little bars of soap or a shoeshine cloth. I still snag the pens and pencils, though. You used to get matches.

When was the last time you saw a book of matches, either.

We've become a digital world with nothing to be nostalgic about except for things we used to pilfer from hotels when we stayed at them.

I also miss those paper bands they used to put on the toilet seats that said, "Sanitized for your protection." Or was that the paper things they put drinking glasses in.

Something tells me they used to sanitize the drinking glasses by dipping them in the the toilet.

Those were the days.

I sing the body electric

 

I sing the body electric,

The armies of those I love engirth me and I engirth them,

They will not let me off till I go with them, respond to them, 

And discorrupt them, and charge them full with the charge of the soul.

Was it doubted that those who corrupt their own bodies conceal themselves? 

And if those who defile the living are as bad as they who defile the dead 

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul? 

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

--Walt Whitman 

I'm not sure about the whole engirthing thing. I don't even like to be hugged, so engirthing sounds pretty annoying. But I like the line, "I sing the body electric." and I like the line, "And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?"

Other than that, the poem is too damned long. Most of Whitman's poems were too damned long. And I don't like poetry. I know I've said that before, but it bears repeating (which is pretty much what getting old is all about).

I when off on this digression because of the above photograph which is a random Snapchat filter. It kind of reflects how I feel right now after several days of feeling like half of my face has checked out without a forwarding address. 

I feel like I should be wearing one of those hoods like the Elephant Man with my good eye peering out. I could mumble, "I'm a man, not an animal" to the store clerks. But they still would avoid looking at me and probably not understand me or get the reference if they do. 

It's times like this that I'm grateful for the cloak of invisibility being old wraps around me.

I'm frozen (and no, I don't want to build a snowman)

 

It's been freezing here for several days now (ironic considering half my face is literally frozen by Bell's Palsy). And I hate the cold. We've weatherproofed as much as we thought to, but yesterday the outlet from out tankless water heater to the outside froze and water was pooling in our garage. I don't even know why there is a plastic pipe from the tankless hot water heater that occasionally trickles water onto our driveway. But apparently it is necessary.

So I thawed it out with a hairdryer and space heater and then trudged to Home Depot to pick up an odd assortment of foam and insulation to cover the pipes. I am not a handyman. I am an artist. 

At least that is what I tell myself. But I artistically patched together an overcoat for the pipes and it seemed to work. Though I'm pissed the plumber didn't think of this when he put the damned thing in. Apparently he was an artist and not a handyman either.

Fortunately the rest of the house seems warm and toasty (as will I be when I pay the gas and electricity bill). 

Although I am a winter when it comes to my color palette, I am more of a tropical beach kind of guy (though my skin is as about as pale as it can get and I burn like bacon in the son). I would love to retire to some tropical place like the Caribbean or Mexico. A former co-worker posts moved to Mexico when he retires and he is always posting photos of him and his spouse drinking tropical drinks on their rooftop.

My recent trip to the ER to determine why my face started to look like Quasimodo, made me rethink whether being somewhere that didn't have easy access to medical care was a good idea at my age. 

Once again I think we should spend our youth retired and work when we get to what is now retirement age. 

Life just seems so backassward.

Getting something off my chest

 

You should know by now that I am not above shamelessly promoting myself. I found a website that you can upload your own designs and they'll print and fulfill products for you and hopefully pay more than Medium.com pays for my writing (I made four cents last month).  It's called teepublic.com. You can visit my storefront here.  Or click on the t-shirt above.

I've uploaded some of my mindless thoughts that never quite took off on YouTube or Facebook. But I figured I just wasn't reaching the right audience. 

Shoot, I even created some Dizgraceland t-shirts. So you could technically become a walking billboard for my blog.

I've actually discovered (by buying one of my own t-shirts) that I made a $1 off a $16 t-shirt (that costs about $6.50) to ship. 

Who knows, between the Medium.com, selling t-shirts and reselling stuff on eBay, I may make enough to buy a can of cat food. 

Things like that give me comfort in my old age.

A King Trumps a former asshole president

 

I read a click bait article today about Stephen King posting on Twitter (or X) telling Trump to stop being an asshole. He was commenting on Trumps tirade speaking during closing arguments for his fraud trial and blasting the judge, the legal system and everyone else who treats him unfairly because he is a lying sack of horse crap.

Of course the article replaced most of the letters in the word asshole because you can't say asshole in the mainstream press. I'm not sure you can say asshole on X since Elon Musk bought Twitter. If you can't say asshole on X, it's because Elon Musk is also an asshole.

I like that I can say asshole on blogger.

But Stephen King telling Trump not to be an asshole is like telling a dog in heat to stop humping your leg. The dog doesn't really care and won't stop unless you kick it (or he finishes humping your leg). 

Until Trump goes to prison, I'm pretty sure he won't stop humping legs. Even then I'm pretty sure he'll figure out a way to keep being an asshole and turn it to his advantage (which might have a whole new meaning in prison).

Regardless, I'm pretty sure Trump doesn't care what Stephen King thinks. But he probably has one of his staff write his name down in his book of people he's going to screw over if he gets to be president again. Because Trump is very much like many of the bully characters Stephen King always seems to write into his horror novels. Let's just hope he ends up the same way as most of those characters eventually do in Mr. King's books.

He does belong in the sewer with the rest of the assholes.

Arrr...thar be rapids ahead!

 

Okay, the hat and most of the bear and mustache aren't mine, but the eyepatch is.  So is the pirate grimace of a smile. I'm slowly adjusting to what I hope is a temporary nasty looking face. But the online information says Bell's Palsy can last three to six months.

Goody.

The worst part is eating and drinking. Talking isn't so great either. But then, either is sleeping with one eye taped shut and covered by a patch to keep the droopy eye from drying out. Okay, taking six horse pills a day ain't no piece of cake either.

Bell's Palsy is a stroke of luck though compared to what it could have been (I crack myself up). 

Wish I had a hook though. 

For whomj the bell tolls

 

I was in a video meeting yesterday morning and the person I was talking to said something funny and I laughed. Or I tried to laugh. I suddenly felt like half of my mouth had just come back from the dentist after Novocaine.  I was a bit startled but pushed it aside.

Later, I looked in the mirror and noticed when I tried smiling it looked like a lopsided pirate sneer. And my right eye was drooping.  I tried not to panic.

I was in another meeting later that day and had a little trouble speaking.  I am not sure anyone noticed but me. I checked the mirror and the drooping eye and right side of my mouth was pretty noticeable. And yes, it did occur to me that this could have been signs of a stroke. But as you may or may not know, I hate going to doctors and I hate trips to the ER more than just a trip to the doctor.  I also reasoned that it was only my face and if it was a stroke I would feel it in at least one arm and leg.

So I splashed cold water in my face and acted like nothing was wrong.

My wife went out to dinner that night and she commented that my eye looked swollen (we were eating in a dark tavern). I said I was just having trouble with my eye because one of the nose pieces had popped off my glasses and it was throwing off my bifocal vision. Meanwhile I discovered it was kind of difficult to eat and drink. It was very much like being numb from the dentist and trying to have a normal meal.

I went to bed and meditated as usual and drifted off. Occasionally I would wake up and wonder if it was better. But I realized I couldn't make my right eye shut tight the way my left one would. I woke early because I was supposed to go into the city for a mandatory department meeting.  I looked into the mirror and realized something was terribly wrong. I brushed my teeth and water squirted out of my mouth when I tried rinsing. I went upstairs and my wife took one look at me and said we needed to got to the hospital. I agreed.

Three heads are better than one?

Okay, I now have three monitors on my desk. And as cool as that sounded, it is kind of stressing me out because Windows seems kind of wonky to me about setting up multiple monitors and I can't quite figure out how to navigate from one to the other intuitively. Right now I have to pull my mouse through the left side to get to the right monitor and to the right to get left. 

I spent all morning trying to sort it out and then I just said, "WTF." I'll spend weeks now with everything in a bizarre world where right is left and left is right. 

But at least I don't have to open and close multiple tabs all the time.  And it looks kind of cool.

That's what is important after all. 

Here doggie, doggie, here doggie, doggie...

Blogger's note: After many frustrating hours scrolling right to get left and left to get right, I mentioned my dilemma to my teenaged son. I clicked around for two minutes and said, "There," and walked away. Right is now right and left is left. 

My son is a genius. The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Happy birthday Tupelo-E!

 

Elvis Presley, the "King of Rock and Roll," was born on January 8, 1935, in Tupelo, Mississippi, USA. If you believe he is still alive, he would be 89 years old (and there would likely be a whole lot of shakin' going on). If you believe he actually died in 1977, he would still be 42 in whatever place we go after we "die."

Metaphysics aside, I visited Elvis' birthplace in Tupelo back in 2019 on my second visit to Graceland in Memphis. My first stop was Tupelo Hardware where Elvis bought his first guitar. Well, actually, he came to the store to buy a bicycle but quickly gravitated towards a 22-caliber rifle (Elvis always did like guns). According to a sign on the hardware store, Elvis' mother compromised (because she thought he would shoot his or someone else's eye out) and bought him a guitar. Personally, I think a compromise between a bicycle and a rifle would probably have been roller skates. But that would have changed history dramatically.

Today (or actually today in 2019), Tupelo Hardware looked a lot like it did when Elvis shopped there except for all of the Elvis souvenirs and more variety of cleaning products. 

There is also a large selection of acoustic guitars for sale in case you want to brag that you bought a guitar at the same place Elvis did. I did not buy a guitar. I did buy a couple of t-shirts and a pretty ugly baseball hat that said Tupelo Hardware.

Shuffling off the Buffalo

My post about morons wearing buffalo horned hats to storm the Capitol Building on January 6, 2020 made me think about Buffalo (the city). I visited there back in the early 1980s in January (so you can only imagine the weather). I was on a business trip to explore rail tunnels they had built. I was probably around 26 years old. 

The city of Buffalo has nothing to do with Buffalo (the animals or idiots who storm the national Capitol). The city of Buffalo in New York is named after Buffalo Creek, which was itself named by early French explorers.  One theory suggests that the name Buffalo comes from the French word "beau fleuve," meaning "beautiful river." Early French explorers in the region may have used this term to describe Buffalo Creek or the nearby Niagara River.

 While on the airplane to Buffalo we flew through Chicago and were stuck on an airplane with the entire New York Rangers hockey team who were playing a game that night in Buffalo. They were quite animated (especially since the average age of them was 18 and they were predominately Canadians who had never been on an airplane). I remember the goalies name was Rocky and he had no front teeth (don't ask me why I remember this). 

While sitting on the airplane watching the hocky players harass the flight attendants and climb over seats, one of my work travel companions struck up a conversation about what there was to do in Buffalo. He suggested going to the Anchor Bar where Buffalo Wings were supposedly invented.

The credit for inventing Buffalo wings is often given to Teressa Bellissimo, owner of the Anchor Bar in Buffalo. The story goes that Buffalo wings were created as a late-night snack for her son and his friends.

The specific details of the creation vary, but the most widely accepted version is that in 1964, Teressa Bellissimo deep-fried chicken wings and tossed them in a sauce made with a combination of hot sauce and butter. This sauce gave the wings a spicy and tangy flavor, which became an instant hit.

The Anchor Bar's Buffalo wings gained popularity locally and eventually became known nationally. Today, Buffalo wings are a staple in American cuisine, often served with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing on the side. They are enjoyed in various variations, with different levels of spiciness and an array of sauce options.

Long story short, while the Rangers were playing their hockey game we went to the Anchor Bar and I sampled Buffalo wings for the first time. Traditionally they are served with celery sticks and blue cheese dressing. I have no idea why.

I don't remember much else about Buffalo, New York other than there was lots of snow and I had only brought dress shoes and a thin overcoat. 

Again I was only about 26 years old. You live and learn.

Buffalo turds won't you come out tonight

 

It's January 6th and it is difficult not to acknowledge one of the most pitiful moments in recent American history when Trump incited his followers to storm the Capitol Building and prevent Biden from being certified as the winner of the 2020 Presidential election. 

And who can forget the self-proclaimed Shaman (more like Shameman) wearing buffalo horns (trimmed inexplicably with what look like raccoon tails) and carrying a spear with the United States flag attached to it.  The moron was arrested, convicted and received four years in federal prison. I don't think he served it all, but apparently he is now running for Congress on the Libertarian ticket in Arizona.

You can't make up this kind of shit.

What is particularly sad and criminal to me is that Trump, who started the whole thing, is still free and running for President again. Oh he has been charged, but he and his lawyers are playing the same games he has played his entire life and denying any wrong doing, playing the martyr and pointing fingers at everyone else including Bigfoot for his crimes.

He has been charged with essentially treason, fraud, rape, and using classified documents to wipe his rump. And still the morons who follow him think he is the second coming.

Scary thing is that if he does get convicted and goes to jail (which I seriously doubt will happen), his minions will chalk it up to liberal persecution and very likely will start a civil war.

Let's just hope they are just as incompetent as when they stormed the Capitol Building.

Eye of Newt

 

“Fillet of a fenny snake, In the cauldron boil and bake; Eye of newt and toe of frog, Wool of bat and tongue of dog, Adder's fork and blind-worm's sting, Lizard's leg and owlet's wing, For a charm of powerful trouble, Like a hell-broth boil and bubble.”

--Shakespeare, Macbeth 

I am proud to have worked eye of Newt in here somehow. Though I don't imagine many people under 60 remember Newt Gingrich anyway. He was the 50th Speaker of the House, an asshole Republican and one of the political figures who used to irritate the hell out of most liberals until Trump lowered the bar.

 His name was actual Newton (though he is quite reptilian). He tried running for President in 2012 but lost the nomination to Mitt Romney. He was (an is) one of Trump's toadies. 

Oh and he is from Georgia.  'Nuff said.

 Anyway Newt would fit well in a witch's cauldron of foul smelling things along with most of the other conservative scum gibbering away in Congress and worshiping Trump's orange butt. 

I'm glad to slunk off into obscurity with the rest of the lizard's Newt. Hope you are boiling and bubbling somewhere warm.

No newts is good newts

 

I bought my daughter a new iPhone for Christmas and Apple offered me three months of free Apple news. I figured what the hell. I get frustrated all of the time because news stories pop up and I click on them and find out I can't read them because I don't subscribe to Apple news.  So now when a headline pops up that Trump was kicked out of a restaurant 20 years ago because he smelled I can read the entire article.

So I have been binging on sensational news articles and have realized that most of them are click bait written in many cases by my new best friend ChatGPT and designed to expose you to as many pop up ads as possible in a limited time and space. And so far I haven't really felt I am more informed than I was before just reading the headlines.

This made me think of the phrase "No news is good news." That made me think of "No newts is good newts." You get the picture.

Get it?

I toyed briefly with using a headline that read, "Eye of news, toe of frog" (which I personally think is a pretty damned intriguing headline, but maybe not quite as relevant).  So I went with No newts is good newts (which was an actual headline in England at one time when endangered newts were preventing some developers from building condos or something.

Gruuvinol' Man

 

My good friend ChatGPT describes Leonardo Da Vinci's Vitruvian Man this way:

The Vitruvian Man is a famous drawing created by the Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci around the year 1490. It is a representation of the ideal proportions of the human body, based on the work of the ancient Roman architect Vitruvius.

The drawing depicts a man standing in two superimposed positions with his arms and legs apart inside both a square and a circle. The square represents the proportional perfection of the human body, while the circle symbolizes the divine and cosmic significance. The Vitruvian Man is often associated with the concept of symmetry and the idea that the human body can be harmoniously inscribed within geometric shapes.

Leonardo da Vinci's illustration is a testament to his interest in anatomy, proportion, and the intersection of art and science during the Renaissance period. The Vitruvian Man has become an iconic symbol of the Renaissance and is widely recognized as a representation of the balance and symmetry found in the human form.

I also asked ChatGPT to describe "Guuvinol' Man." It was basically speechless.  This is probably because it is a word I made up to describe my riff on Vitruvian Man. I consider it a more realistic homage to the human body (well...my human body) than Da Vinci's. And I took the liberty of adding pants and a bitchin' Aloha shirt to preserve my modesty and protect the world from the "perfection" of my body.

I do seriously doubt that Da Vinci would have drawn his groovy old man body instead of the lean, mean one he drew. I somehow think body shaming isn't a new development and he didn't want the blow back on Instagram.

I started this odd journey because I mistakenly believed the Vitruvian Man drawing had been placed on the Golden Record that was sent on Voyager 1 and 2 back in 1977 (which was a year after I graduated from high school). The Golden Record was a metal phonograph record containing images and sounds that were supposed to convey what life was like on Earth. 

I can only imagine aliens finding one of the Voyagers and the Golden Record, being kind of pissed and saying, "What? Where are the CDs?" 

Anyway, I thought they included an image of the Vitruvian Man so I was going to post my Groovyol' Man with some commentary about my blog being like Voyager and people in the future would discover it and think WTF?

I imagine that may still happen in the not too distant future.

Resolution revolution

 I sort of had this idea that it would be cool if I resolved to write a post a day in 2024. But my track record with resolutions and doing anything because I have to isn't really great. I did have a great idea for a post today, but it  has required a lot more Photoshop work than I anticipated and I have had to postpone it until tomorrow.

Still, I felt compelled to try and post for at least the second day in a row for 2024 even it is a lame post about maybe resolving to post every day (which I am pretty damned sure I won't achieve). It's not that I couldn't do it. It is just squeezing time in between the nasty commitments of work and chores and eating and going to the bathroom and playing with my dog.

Oh and I like surfing eBay. 

But who knows. This may be the record year of unread blog posts instead of unwritten blog posts.

It could happen.

Author's note: I checked in with ChatGPT and apparently:

"Resolution Revolution" emphasizes a significant leap forward in the ability to visualize and capture details, whether in the realm of biological research or in the digital imaging and display technologies that have become integral parts of our daily lives.

Rest assured that, despite the random image above, Resolution Revolution had (or has) nothing to do with this blog post. If you came here looking for information about it, I can honestly say I was just wasting your time.

Reflections 2024

 

I did a version of this Escher sketch (I wonder if Escher ever used an Etch-a-sketch) years ago and thought it was time to reprise and update it. In the sphere of things it is a fascinating image (I do loves me my puns). It is a man (in this case me...cisgender even though it isn't cool). The interesting thing about this image is that you never really know where the drawing begins and the man ends (or visa versa).

That was a great deal of paranthetical sentences in one paragraph.

I actual don't do a lot of literal reflecting on myself in reality. I don't like mirrors or photos because too often it is like starting at a stranger. I do reflect a great deal on my inner self (whatever that is). It is why I am convinced I have never been overly successful as a blogger/writer. People don't care about what makes another person tick (unless that person is famous...and in particularly flawed). People care about themselves even when they are acting all benevolent and self-effacing. 

I read something the other day someone posted on Facebook (sorry). I think it was an Ann Landers quote. She said people worry about what people think when they are young, stop caring when they are older and then finally discover no one actually thinks about you at all. We all just think about ourselves.

It resonated.

It kind of goes with that blog post I made a few weeks ago about the Powerpoint presentation I made to my work team that was just about me thinking they would be fascinated and then discovering that no one cared or thought I was nearly as interesting as I assumed they thought. 

It is a sobering realization to realize your own insignificance (It's a Wonderful Life be damned).

Trump has obviously never come to that realization (nor do all of the insignificant lampreys that attach themselves to his orange ass).

I have always tried to laugh off my insignificance and harbor this hope that somewhere deep down, people really do think I'm amazing. But the older you get, the more you discover there is nothing further from the truth. 

This is not self pity. Nor do I think it is a bad thing. There is something freeing to discover you don't really matter. You don't have to write, look or act any particular way to keep an image alive if you have no image. It is part of that invisibility I ponder so often. 

It gives a whole new meaning to the phrase, "see right through me."