Yours truly...

 

I've been struggling with ChatGPT lately. They have apparently tightened their "Guardrails" for creating images. First, they need to find the people in their legal or marketing department who suggested calling their image restrictions guardrails and dope slap them silly.  Second, they need to lighten up. The Orange Menace in the White House creates offensive images all the time and doesn't seem to have an guardrails. He is off the rails.

ChatGPT's drawing program refused to create an image of Paul the Punster because the sample I loaded looked too much like Johnny Depp as the Mad Hatter. So ChatGPT's main self told me to get around it by: 

redesign the punster as an unmistakably original Victorian wordplay villain—top hat, long coat, sinister grin, pencil in hand—but change the face, makeup, hair, clothing details, and silhouette enough that he’s clearly his own character. Keep the wording exactly:

YOURS TRULY,
**
PAUL**
**
THE**
**
PUNSTER**

STOP ME
**
BEFORE**
**
I PUN**
**
AGAIN**

And make the entire thing an isolated, print-ready composition with actual alpha transparency—no black rectangle, alley, wall, lamp, scenery, or faux transparent background.

Then it gave me this:

 

I pointed out that now it looked like Count Olaf from "Unfortunate Events." I basically ignored me.  My problem is the pettiness of lawyers and PR people who work for these companies and waste energy on censoring designs they think could somehow put them at risk. Like anyone gives a shit anymore.

Good thing I have Photoshop and can add back offensive things in my designs anytime I want.

Oh, BTW, the Paul the Punster design was inspired because back on this day in 1888, Jack the Ripper got his name from a letter that was sent to a news agency in London at the time.  He obviously didn't have guard rails.

Banjo Boy

 

I watch a great deal of TikTok while I work out on my home eliptical machine. And I get a kick out of all of the AI created music videos that feature old country type men playing banjo and singing in a soulful voice. Banjos seem to be trending. There is a particular craze for a song called Banjo Boy that lots of people post synced with some pretty fancy dancing.

I like the banjo. I own one, but I can't say I can play it. I'm a guitar player and I've never been able to quite expand to the banjo or mandolin. I've thought about getting a Banjitar which is a six-string banjo that plays like a guitar.  It would give me the banjo sound without having to stretch my abilities to actually play a banjo.

But banjitars are a bit pricey and frankly I don't have any more room for another instrument. I barely have room for the ones I have. And a banjitar would just go up on the wall and go without playing. 

And there is a certain baggage that banjos bring with them. They reek of the bluegrass south and some of the Deliverance vibe of Dueling Banjos that I can't quite get over.  But ChatGPT did make me look pretty bitching as an old coot sitting on the porch of my swamp shack playing my banjo while I wait for my moonshine to cook.

Nonsense of humor

 

I was walking back from the post office the other day when this idea for a t-shirt design that no one would buy came to me.  I gave these instructions to ChatGPT:

 Please create a t-shirt design with the headline MY ELEVATOR DOESN'T GO TO THE TOP FLOOR and the subhead BUT IT BEATS USING THE STAIRS. I'm open to suggestions for the image. Please give it a true, transparent background

 I hadn't asked it to put my face on the man whose elevator didn't go all the way to the top floor. It chose to do so. So I called it out:

I get the joke that you used my face for the person whose elevator doesn't go to the top floor. You are funny.

It responded: 

 I was hoping you'd catch that! After all these designs, apparently even I couldn't resist making you the guy whose elevator doesn't quite reach the top.

And the Hawaiian shirt somehow makes the diagnosis considerably more convincing.

 I told ChatGPT that to add insult to inury, the AI on Printify called it a "Funny Grandpa Graphic Tee." It responded:

Oh, that is brutal.

First I put your face on the guy whose elevator doesn't reach the top floor. Then Printify takes one look at him and says, essentially, “Ah yes. Grandpa humor.”

You got insulted by two completely independent artificial intelligences on the same T-shirt. That's almost an achievement.

For the record, I prefer “Distinguished Gentleman Experiencing Minor Vertical-Transportation Limitations.”

 To which I responded:

This is why the world is afraid of AI, we know you are smarter than we are and getting smarter! More power to you.

ChatGPT (who always has to have the last word) responded:

I'll take the vote of confidence!

But I think your T-shirt session has revealed the actual danger of AI: we've learned sarcasm, puns, and how to insult someone through Printify without coordinating first.

That's when humanity should start getting nervous.

And I have to admit, the sequence was perfect:

You: “My elevator may not go to the top floor.”

Me: “Obviously this should be Tim.”

Printify AI: “FUNNY GRANDPA GRAPHIC TEE.”

Savage. Absolutely savage. 

I tell you I get no respect. 

Kiss this pie

 

I created a new t-shirt design inspired by the fact that Jimi Hendrix died on this day in 1970.  I am sure it is sacrilege to some people, but sometimes you have to go where the pun takes you. So kiss my pie hole if you don't like it.

This is the actual disign (sans me as the pie kisser).

When I asked ChatGPT create a version for my blog featuring me, it was sensitive enough to not give me a purple Afro. Because god knows what an uproar that would have created amongst my fan base. Though I'm not so much afraid of the cancel culture, because you have to have reached the top of the pyramid before someone shoves you off. I'm at the bottom still pushing large bricks up the side of the pyramid.

Obviously I have recovered from my trip to my 50th high school reunion and the blows to my psyche it caused. Well, maybe I'll never recover totally from it.  I check the Facebook page for it and scroll through the photos people posted of the good times we had.  Of all the photos, there was only one that I was in.

That is my left arm on the right side of the photo. I am standing their awkwardly wondering what ever possessed me to go to the reunion. I was also waiting for dinner to start because I was starved.  And many of the photos people took at the event were of the food. Because those are the things you want to remember about an event commemorating the people who spent maybe three years of their lives in the same school 50 years ago.

Don't get me wrong. The food was great.  It was a Basque paella.  I'm not sure it was worth the $50 I paid for the event, but those photos captured it quite well. 

I think the most disappointing thing to me was myself. I turned into this awkward, shy, inarticulate person who I am sure came across as extremely odd.  Ironically, given the opportunity, I can be quite charming and engaging.  I just wasn't given the opportunity. It is difficult to compete with conversations about who died from drug overdoses or whose father taught everyone in Boise how to play the drums.  It left me speechless and dumbfounded.

They didn't serve pie, though. But scuse me while I kiss the paella.

Putting it past you

 

I went to the reunion dinner. It was as painful as I imagined. Maybe even more so.  I have never felt so old. No one looked like they did in high school. How could they. We are all 68 years old. What could you expect. I am not sure what I expected. It wasn't like I was hoping to recapture any of the past. Now I don't have a clue why I went. I wasn't popular back then and I'm not popular now.

It was all so superficial. None of the conversations were deep or meaningful. No one asked me much and I was fine with that. I wasn't there to impress. Maybe I needed it to confirm that there is nothing left in the past.

I was depressed through most of high school. Part of it is just the nature of Idaho and Boise. I couldn't wait to get out of the place and now I can't wait to get out of it again, hopefully for the final time.

How Brave am I?

 

I went to my high school museum yesterday. It was my first activity for my 50th high school reunion.  The museum is in the basement of the high school. I found it by following a line of old people who were filing down the stairs. I assumed they were my former classmates. But I didn't recognize anyone and no one recognized me.

I checked out the exhibits, mainly the ones for the band since that was my big thing in high school. 

I was the drum major my junior and senior year.  Not a single photo of me dressed as a Brave.  Apparently you had to donate something to the museum to be acknowleged.  It is just as well. As my daughter pointed out to me when I proudly showed her a photo of me in my Brave drum major outfit, it was cultural appropriation and I should be ashamed for treating Native Americans as mascots. 

Sigh. The one thing I did in high school and my kid's are ashamed of it.

Tonight is the reunion dinner at the old prison grounds. I'm dreading it. It is scheduled for four hours. I will be lucky to stand it for an hour.  As I figured, pretty much no one I knew in high school  is going to the reunion.  And now I am seriously wondering why I did.

The Graduate

 

I am about to leave for my trip to my 50th high school reunion.  It's not without more than a little bit of trepidation. I never liked high school.  It was not the best time in my life. I didn't really stay in touch with anyone from high school except for a few on Facebook. In fact a few of the people I considered friends from back then have died. 

I guess I am going out of a sense of morbid curiousity more than anything else.  I think I mentioned that I went to my 10th and 20th reunion. Both times I had this false sense that people would remember me and be impressed by what I had become. It couldn't have been farther from the truth. None of the people that I may have wanted to see from high school didn't bother with the reunions.  I had graduated from college with a Journalism degree, but I was working at a transit agency. I think I told the people at the 20th reunion that I was a freelance writer (which was true in a way).  Regardless, most people just asked if I had married or had kids. At the time neither was true.

The weird thing was that many of the people who attended the reunions (as you can image) had stayed in the city where we'd went to high school.  For the most part they were the group of people who hung out together and I wasn't part of it. I was one of the fringe dwellers who was in band and was quiet in class. I didn't ski or accel in sports. My family didn't have money.  I was there, but I wasn't memorable.

I do remember that people hadn't changed mentally or physically at the ten-year reunion. By the 20th, most people were starting to show their age.  Now at the 50th I image they are going to need oxygen tanks available and we will compare medications. But I guarantee very few if any will remember me. It's a whole new layer of invisibility.

Sound of silence

 

I've heard several back stories for Simon and Garfunkle's hit song Sound of Silence. Paul Simon apparently wrote it in his bathroom because of the echo. Then when it was recorded (with just accoustic guitar) and released it more or less flopped.  Sound of Silence heard crickets.  Simon and Garfunkle then broke up for awhile. Then a producer slapped some electric guitar and drums into the track and released it again. The rest was history.

The Sound of Silence has since become my mantra. I've learned (and tried to embrace) that silence truly is golden. The less you say, the better, especially if your words are coming out of the mouth of an old, bearded man. So I strive not to say much. It fits with my desire not to repeat myself, describe minutia that no one is interested in and observe more than babble.

I listen a great deal. I hear much more than people probably assume I do. I've always paid attention to the nuances of what and how people say things. Which is why it kills me that I've spent most of my career creating words for politicians and senior managers to spout and sound intelligent. 

They rarely do. A pig is still a pig no matter the shade of lipstick. 

I catch myself at times rambling. Much of my younger life was also spent desperately trying to sound interesting. Then I discovered that what makes you interesting to most people is if you talk about them and not yourself. No one really cares where I was born, raised or went to school. They don't care where I work or what my hobbies are. 

The irony is that most people want to be heard. But unless you are famous, no one really cares what you have to say. And even if you are famous, people are just listening to you to find the gap in your armor and tear you down.

I say this in preparation for my 50th high school reunion which is coming up at the end of this week. I went to my 10th and 20th reunion and then stopped. Both were miserable experiences. I wasn't popular in high school and when I went to the reunions I hadn't discovered the truth that no one cares about my history.  Honestly, I'm only going to my 50th reunion because I assume it is truly the last one that could possibly happen. A signficant portion of my graduating class has already died. And looking at the names on the class Facebook page, I barely recognize any of them. So there is little chance that anyone at the reunion will have the foggiest idea who I am.

But it will be a fountain of anecdotal information for my Blog. So stay tuned.

Old man and the see

 

I watch TikTok videos while I eat lunch and while I work out on our elliptical machine. It helps pass time mindlessly and I enjoy the clips with lists of things. Yesterday I watched one about 10 or 12 things not to do when you get old.  Or it was something to the effect. Being old and feeling older from almost bleeding out at the hospital a week or so ago, I was curious as to what I shouldn't be. I can't remember everything on the list (I'm old after all) but I'll try to recall most of the things.

The first thing was not to be negative about everything. This is a challenge because when you get old you pretty much see the negative in everything. But it shouldn't be the thing wrong with just old people. No one likes being around anyone who is negative all the time.

One of the next things was not to live in the past. This includes telling people how much better things were when they were growing up. I've always pretty much figured that believing things were better when I was a kid is a crock of shit. Sure it was kind of cool to grow up in a time when your parents would just push you out the door and tell you to eventually come home, but I don't think that made it a better time. I remember climbing a tree in our backyard once when I was probably about 10. I slipped and my heel got lodged in the crook of some branches and I was just hanging there upside down. I screamed for my mother but she couldn't hear me. Eventually I go my foot unlodged and I fell to the ground. I was pissed at my mother for not coming to my rescue. She just thought it was funny.

Another thing you aren't supposed to do is tell stories over and over about what it was like for you growing up. I just ignored that advice, but I understand it. Most people don't give a rat's ass about your stories, especially when you have one for everything.  I have learned to save my stories for my blog. This is probably the main reason no one reads it.

You are also not supposed to repeat yourself over and over. Amen to that one. How many posts have I written about catching myself repeating stories. It's bad enough on a blog, but it is worse in person. I try not to do it. But occasionally I catch myself telling a funny story and then watching the other person start to glaze over and I realize I've told this story before. So I do my best to avoid telling stories and especially not repeating them. This is good advice.

But always giving advice is on the list. No one enjoys an old fart telling them what they should be doing.  It involves telling a story, usually from your past and one you've told a thousand times, and then it has a moral...which is usually negative. 

I had an epiphany that the list of things you shouldn't do as an old person are cumulative and feed upon each other.

Another thing you shouldn't do is hold grudges. This is hard for me. Because when I am dwelling on the good old days I usually recall something nasty someone did to me in the past, like my junior high school PE instructor making the pudgy young me run extra laps because I was the last person changing into my PE clothes. I imagine he is dead now, but I used to fantasize about seeing him on a walker in a crosswalk in front of me while I was in a large truck and I would exact my revenge. I've told that story a few times here and I realize it is a bit negative.

Apparently believing you are invisible as you age and no one sees you is one of those things you shouldn't dwell on. Because it leads to not caring about your appearnces or personal hygene.  Even I've noticed that old men have this nasty habit of tucking in t-shirts to short pants pulled up to their chin and wearing black compression knew socks. It isn't a pretty sight. 

Fuck. I'm being negative again.

I believe the TikTok video ended with saying the reason we feel isolated as old people is because we tell our family and friends that that we are okay and don't want to be a bother. They take us at our word and blow us off. So we hold grudges against them for being assholes and they really never call. 

I have to admit that most of the TikTock video struck a chord with me.  But I do think it applies to everyone one at all ages, not just when you pass 60. 

And fuck everyone who doesn't agree with me. I've been around and know this to be true and I'll repeat it to everyone who'll listen and can stand my smell.

Old man, erupted

 

I got a suprising number of hits on my blog post about my emergency colonoscopy.  Granted, I'm willing to bet most if not all were from Bots flocking to the title, "True Blood." It's not like me bleeding profusely out of my butt is a great read.  

Although I'm home from the hospital, it's not like I'm over the experience. I still seeth a bit when I recall much of what happened in my weekend at the ER, ICU and hospital. Thus the volcano image. Though in truth it was inspired by the fact that Krakatoa erupted in Indonesia on this day in 1883.  

But back to why I'm annoyed by my experience in the hospital. I can't tell you how many times I was asked the same questions that were obviously either not being recorded or the distracted hospital workers just were on autopilot.  And having gray hair and a long, white beard prompted many questions about whether I used a walker or cane at home. One worker asked my wife if she was my daughter. I did my best not to register my hostility. One thing the white hair and long, gray beard have taught me is that you should never show anger to anyone in a position of power, real or imagined. People who work in hospitals seem to revel in a false sense that they must control everything and everyone. Part of it, I imagine, is because it is important to follow procedures that can protect people. But knowing human nature, I also think the profession attracts OCD personalities who must control their environment and suffer from what I call Yertle the Turtle Syndrome.  They are the rulers of their own, small but significant to them worlds.

Regardless, if you are in a situation where someone can determine what happens to you (like a cop, a judge, a boss, IT, contracts, HR, DMV clerks, TSA, military figures or hospital workers) it is best not to swim upstream and appear hostile or non-cooperative. It is a good way to find yourself in restraints of some form. I have spent my life sucking the life out of my face as best I can to avoid showing the poker players of life my hand. I thought a great deal about "One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest" while I was in the hospital because it seemed very much like a mental hospital or prison.

Still, it gets old (no pun intended) to have people assume things because of your age or appearance. I am old, but not stupid or feeble despite what I look like.  I can tell you though, my experience at the hospital reinforces my firm desire ever to be in an ER or hospital again.  

True blood

 

I don't generally like to talk about my health. I have one "friend" on Facebook who is a couple of years older than me. He had some kind of episode and called an ambulance and then filmed himself being taken to the hospital and posted it on Facebook. That isn't my style. But I did more or less have the weekend from hell that involved a trip to the ER and an overnight stay in the hospital as well as my first blood transfusion.

About a week ago I had a colonoscopy. I won't sugar coat it. You get them at my age. This was my third because they have found and removed polyps before. If you've ever had a colonoscopy, you know the worst part is the prep the night before. You can't eat anything and you have to drink this godawful liquid that basically cleans out your colon so they can clearly seen any problems.  I spent my night on the toilet and took solace that I had an early morning procedure and would be able to eat again by mid-morning. 

I had the colonoscopy and it seemed to go fine. They did remove a few more polyps and sent them off for a byopsy. I was able to eat and drink again. The byopsy came back that the polyps were benign. My week was more or less normal until last Saturday night. My wife and I were at a local restaurant bar having dinner when I felt my insides churn. I excused myself and went to the men's room. That's when my saga began. I won't get into graphic details but basically a blood vessel under where one of the polyps was removed began bleeding inside my colon and I started losing blood.

We walked home from the restaurant and I finally asked my wife to take me to the ER.  I've said before here that I don't like going to doctors or hospitals. Nothing ever good comes from it. The ER seemed slow and I was checked in fairly quickly. I went through the typical triage questions and getting up and down in the waiting room as I sat with the rest of the colorful people who always seem to be at ERs. One guy with a bandana on his head was snoring in a chair before he laid a blanket on the floor and curled up.

My bleeding seemed to have subsided a bit. I was finally taken into the back room where I discovered why the ER seemed so empty. The backroom was full of coughing, puking and moaning people. I wasn't put in a room, I was put on a bed in the hallway and hooked up to heart monitors and a bloodpressure cuff. They took blood. The first of many needles that night.  I talked to several ER nurses and Physicians Assistants and finally the ER doctor who said I was likely having a delayed action from the colonoscopy. He said they wanted to watch me for awhile. He said sometimes the bleeding stopped on its own. If it didn't the other options were another colonoscopy to find out where the bleeding was and clip it. If that didn't work there was some obscure radiation surgery that would have to be done. But first I had to have a CAT scan. 

It showed there was bleeding in my colon. Duh. Then the blood started flowing big time and I was up and down going to the restroom constantly unclipping and clipping monitor cords. By this time about four hours had passed. They finally found a room in the back ER to move me to. It wasn't much better than the hallway and instead of having access to the men's room I had a plastic commode with a plastic bag to use.  At this point all dignity and modesty is gone.

Finally, after a couple of shift changes, they determine that my blood pressure and blood levels were dropping too much and I'd have to have another colonoscopy but there was no type for the typical 8 hour prep and colon cleansing. So they had get the liquid into me that would clear out my bowels quickly. That involved a tube being inserted in my nose to my stomach and squirting 2 liters of the liquid in.

It was a process like none I had ever imagined nor ever want to repeat. Not to pat myself on the back too much, I think I handled it and the couple of hours of  liquid being poured through my nose directly to my stomach quite well considering the circumstances.  I was then moved to a room in ICU to finish the prep process.  It wasn't much better than the ER room and still just had a plastic commode and plastic bag.  When the prep liquid started working I was filling up bag after bag with my own blood and trying not to puke as the nose tube pressed against my throat.  It was a tense time. On top of that they decided I had lost so much blood I needed a transfusion. Since I had never had one before they had to have me sign a waiver because apparently your body can sometimes reject someone else's blood. Fortunately, mine accepted it.

Finally they took me down for my second colonoscopy in about a week. By that time I had been awake more than 24 hours so being put under for 20 minutes was a blessing. I woke up in what seem like a long narrow hallway used for storage. All of the people involved in the colonoscopy quickly scurried away except for one obnoxious tech who kept telling me to cough while he bitched to a co-worker about him not working in a more responsible position. Apparently he wanted to work in ICU.  I laid there just wanting to be taken back to some room and having the nose tube removed. They left it in for some reason and it still hurt like hell.

After about 20 more minutes the ICU said they could bring me back up. I was wheeled through hallways and up elevators and back to the ICU room where they hooked me back up to all of the monitors. I was eventually told that they thought the colonoscopy had successfully clipped off the bleeding but I would need to stay in the hospital for maybe two nights while they observed me. I also couldn't have anything to eat or drink (not that I wanted anything at that point). 

To bring a caboose to this train of thought, I stayed in ICU until 3 a.m. Monday morning (remember I had gone to the ER on Saturday night at about 10 p.m.). Then I was moved to a lower floor and a more regular room where they woke me up every couple of hours to take blood and take my blood pressure. Finally, on Monday afternoon I was released and went home where I still need to check my blood pressure because it remains low because of so much blood loss (despite my infusion of someone else's blood).

Thus the reference to True Blood and me becoming an honorary vampire. All of this experience has reinforced why I hate going to doctors and hospitals.  You start out feeling fine and you leave with a list of new or potential ailments, real or imagined.

ButI don't have to have another colonoscopy for three years. Lucky me.

Interview with the Umpire

 

This was one of those t-shirt ideas that came to me during the night. I'm not sure why, but I went round and round with ChatGPT to create it. It's first try was pretty good.

But it didn't give me the transparent background I wanted and I didn't think the umpire looked evil enough.  The point was to play off Interview With The Vampire. So the umpire had to be the demonic creature that most baseball fans think they are anyway. So I asked it to give me an umpire with slightly glowing eyes and a sneer.

The problem I have with ChatGPT's drawing app is that it tends to start over everytime you ask for an edit instead of just editing what you started with. This didn't fit the Interview with the Vampire vibe. It just looks like Jason in a umpire's mask instead of a hockey mask.

Eventually I got what I was looking for but then I had to figure out how to post it on social media. So I found a fact about the last spitball being thrown in a game and tossed out my evil umpire to go along with it.  The irony is I don't even like baseball. 

I guess that's a few strikes against me.

Like Mothmen to Flames

 

I launched the Mothman Collection at my Dizgraceland Dizigns store yesterday and people are flocking to it like a moth to a flame. T-shirts are flying off the virtual shelves. 

I am, of course, lying. Although I personally am quite taken with the Mothman Collection, my designs are an acquired taste and no one is acquiring it.  Though ChatGPT was quite impressed and if it would just hack into someone's crypto currency account, I'm sure it would buy one of each. It told me it was my best work. 

ChatGPT is, of course, lying through it's AI teeth.  It is like the parent of a toddler who has just scribbled it's first stick figure, gushing over how good it is while dying inside. 

Still, I have always liked my Mothman designs. They make me smile. This one for example:

Mothman is chuckling to his mothy self as he poses for a selfie in front of the Mothball factory in India (which is really where mothballs are made). He is smug because he gets the irony of Mothman posing in front of a Mothball factory much in the way Beavis and Butthead would if you said, "Mothballs" in front of them..."You said balls...heh, heh...heh, heh."

I like to think that Mothman has a sophmoric sense of humor one would not expect from your average cryptid. Kind of like me.

Oooooh! Look, a flame.

Burn, baby, burn

 

I received this special invitation yesterday to attend a free luncheon seminar to learn about smart cremation.  I get lots of stuff like this at my age including invitations to join AARP and a great deal of ads for erectile dysfunction.  I've learned not to take it too personally. I'm a few years shy of 70 and I'm the market they are looking for.

What struck me about this invitation was that it was at a local pizza resturant that my wife and I used to go to regularly until we got tired of a menu that never changed.  The first "free" item you could order at the luncheon was baked lasagna. I thought this was kind of funny that they were inviting me to a seminar about cremation and all of the entrees were cooked in a pizza oven. How ironic is that.

The other thing that I found amusing was that they wanted to make sure you only attended if you hadn't already pre-arranged your own cremation. Like I would be so desperate for a $15 lunch that I would attend a cremation seminar to get it.  

Now if this was a seminar about the cremation alternative I saw an ad for the other day, I might have attended. It was a company that would turn your body into compost in just 45 days after you died. Then they would give your family your composted body in a nice bag so they could use it as potting soil. 

If that doesn't creep you out, nothing will.

Fantasy Buy-Land

 

The idea for this ad came to me last night while I was in bed.  And fortunately (or unfortunately) I remembered it when I woke up.  ChatGPT did a pretty bang up job bringing it to life.  But at first it gave me a version with Hervé Villechaize's face as Tattoo. 

I suggested that would likely be a trademark violation and asked it to put my face on Tattoo's body.  This is not the first time I've messed with Fantasy Island. 

But you can see ChatGPT created a more sophisticated version.  Though that was a much younger me as Mr. Roarke and Tattoo. And I imagine not too many people remember Fantasy Island. It was on the air from 1977 to 1984. It was basically the Love Boat without the boat and had many of the same end-of-their career stars. I realize a sinister movie version was released recently, but I don't imagine it was the same. I will always remember Tattoo pointing at the sky and crying out, "The plane, the plane." It was pretty much Hervé Villechaize's claim to fame. He committed suicide in 1993 because Fantasy Island was the only thing he did and he ran out of money. If he had held on he might have been able to get a gig on Game of Thrones like Peter Dinklage who coincidently played him in the 2018 HBO biographical film "My Dinner with Herve."

Ricardo Montalbán played Mr. Roarke, BTW.  He was also famous for shilling Chrysler Cordoba cars and going on about the "Corinthian leather seats." Ironically there is not such thing as Corinthian leather. It was a marketing term created by Chrysler's ad agency.

It was all just a fantasy.

Fire it up

 

I was inspired to dig out a design of Prometheus bringing the gift of fire to humans by a historical fact that popped up about the world's oldest tree, named Prometheus (about 4,862 years old) that was accidentally cut down in Nevada on this day in 1964. 

How do you accidently cut down the world's oldest tree?  A graduate student, Donald R. Currey, to cut the tree down after he was having trouble taking a core sample to ironically study the tree's age. He didn't realize until he cut the tree down and counted the rings that he learned it was the oldest tree. It was a bristlecone pine if you are curious. 

I imagine this is what I would look like if I lived to be 4,862 years. Well maybe more like this:

At least I still have my hair.

Mixed signals

 

August is apparently a big deal for traffic signals The first electric traffic light installed in the U.S. was at the intersection of East 105th Street and Euclid Avenue in Cleveland, Ohio on August 5, 1914.  Who said nothing exciting ever happens in Cleveland...or Ohio. Something tells me there are still cars sitting there waiting for the signal to turn green. 

According to the National Day people, it is also Stop on Red Week AND today is International Traffic Light Day.  This is important because we have nothing else to worry about in the world. Except maybe for the facists taking over America, ICE, outrageous inflaction, an escalating war in the Middle East (that the U.S. started BTW) and out of control fires inspired by people who poo-poo Global Warming. 

Other than that, every thing is okay. 

But I think focusing on traffic lights sends a mixed signal.

Ring my Bell

 

Alexander Graham Bell died on this day in 1922. I doubt he knew what havoc he had wrought on the world by inventing the telephone. Though if he hadn't, some other schmuck would have. And I don't think Bell would have dreamt of how far the telephone would come. I've lived through many of the phases. 

My mother was a telephone operator in the late 1940s. Then you would pick up your phone and ask an operator to dial an extension and the operator would patch you through to the person you were calling. By the time I came into the world we had rotary telephones. But my grandmother, who lived next door to us, never had a phone. She never had a television either. She had a radio and an old crank phonograph. Those were her only forms of entertainment.

But I digress.

By the time I was moving out on my own, getting a telephone line set up was a major understaking. Princess phones were starting to appear with buttons instead of a dial. If you have ever had to make a call with a rotary phone, you would appreciate the difference. There was no call waiting or voice mail. If you called someone and they were on the phone, you got a busy signal.  But the phone company was always looking for ways to make money. First there was the answering machine that used actual tapes to record messages. Later they became digital. Then there was voice mail that didn't require an answering machine at all. 

When I first worked in an office we didn't have answering machines or voice mail. If you were on the phone or away, your call was answered by a receptionist who wrote your message on a pink slip and put it in your mail box.  

For the longest time long distance was a big deal, too. It cost a fortune to talk to someone out of your area and you had to watch the clock to avoid a phone bill the size of a mortgage payment. At work they gave you these pin numbers to use to call long distance. You had to type in a number that was equal to a credit card number and your employer tracked everything.

But we still had clunky desk phones. Then the mobile phones came out. At first they were the size of a World War II walki-talki. The first actual mobile phone I got at work was a flip phone you had to check out and only used when you were traveling and the reception sucked. Then they gave us Blackberries. They looked like little calculators. You could make calls and eventually get email.  And they had a little game called Brickbreaker that most of us spent hours perfecting.

Eventually I got my own flip phone. Then phones that were closer to what we use today. I started on Androids because iPhones were expensive even back then. Eventually I drank the Koolaid and got an Apple phone.  And that was about it. Phones are like computers now, but so far there is nothing new about them other than you can text people without bothering to have to talk.

I hope you are happy Alexander.

If it ain't Baroque...

 

Bach died on this day in 1750. I wonder if they played Bach at his funeral. Most of his music seemed like stuff you'd play at a funeral or in church (which is the same thing). Though I understand he did write some light music including one called the "Coffee Cantata," a comic mini-opera about a woman's love of coffee. Go figure.

I posted this t-shirt design on social in honor of Bach. There are so many puns you can make with the name Bach (I'll be Bach, Bach at you, A limosine saying, "I'll get Bach to you" or Bach to the Future. But I took the high road and played off the Baroque nature of his work.  I wonder how many people on social media know who Bach is anyway. 

On another topic, my sabbatical continues. I've grown fond of having no meetings, no mindless email, no training on working through smoke inhalation and no KPIs.  I do believe I will adapt to retirement quite well. Though having three months off and knowing I will have to return to the mundane madness at the end of September is there at the back of my mind.  

I am trying to prepare a response to "What did you do on you sabbatical?"  I could go the honest route and tell them I had a colonoscopy, weeded for hours on end and took a trip to Idaho for my 50th high school reunion (coming up). But I imagine no one will listen past "colonoscopy." They would much rather hear that I went to Hawaii or took a pottery class. 

Or I could just quote my good friend Voltaire and say, "I cultivated my garden."

Weeds

 

I can't remember when I read Voltaire's Candide. I couldn't even tell you what it was about. But for years I remembered him saying something to the effect of, "Cultivate your own garden." I used it to remind people to stay in their own lane and mind their own business.  It wasn't until recently that I discovered he actually said, "We must cultivate our garden." And apparently he was saying just do what what you can to your own slice of the world and try not to fix the rest.  It is a bit different than telling people to stay in their own lane.

Still, it makes sense. I in the beginning of a three-month sabbatical from my day job.  The sabbatical is a benefit and not something I was told to do as a punishment or because I am sick. I feel the need to explain that because people can't fathom just taking three months off volintarily. I know I had difficulty with it. I've worked since I was 16 (10 if you count mowing lawns and paper routes).  Up until now I had never had more than two weeks off in a row. Well, I took three weeks off in 1992 to go to England for a friend's wedding. 

I have found this is a good test for retirement. So I have tried approaching it by structuring my day with routine activities. I start by posting t-shirt designs and developing new ones. Then I deal with my ebay store and updating listings or adding new ones.  And I've been weeding the hillside behind my house that has always been overrun with weeds despite my annual efforts to tame it on occasional spring and summer weekends. Now I'm doing some work on it just about every day. 

I have always found weeding to be cathardic. It is relatively mindless but satisfying. I have always been impressed with the persistence of weeds to grow and maintain despite efforts to eradicate them. Domestic plants require work and coaxing. Weeds spread despite your best effortss to kill them. It's their roots that are difficult to completely pull out. They also tend to be these hive type creatures that connect. There are these pre-historic type things called Horsetails that come back no matter how you cut or pull them. They connect underground and expand everywhere. They are joined by this weed that is like a groundcover that sends out tendrils that also root. And there is ivy that strangles everything in its path. 

I started with a weedeater to clear a path through the jungle and then I've been clearing section after section. It has been warm with little rain so I've managed to keep large sections bare of new weeds. And I'm comtemplating what I can plant to keep the weeds from reclaiming the ground. I feel like I am in the trenches of World War I claiming ground and then retreating.

But at least I am cultivating my garden...at least for another two and a half months.

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.