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 (and 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."

123123

 

So it is almost officially 2024. And I can't say I have done much today in way of preparation. Oh, I did finally sell this old English Kitchen Cabinet I had bought umpteen years ago at an antique mall. I had it at my Shoreline house and kept dishes in it. It moved with me to two other houses, but I no longer have room for it. So I put it on Facebook Marketplace almost a year ago. But no one wanted to pay me near what it was worth until today.

This nice person sent her young husband by to pick it up. When I opened up the garage to show it to him he asked me if I was okay lifting things and if I could help him put it in his vehicle. I wanted to go pick him up to show him I am old but not totally feeble yet. I swear I'm giving off some senior citizen vibe. I'm still pissed about the guy at Ace Hardware saying, "Hello young man."

So I don't have a lot of hope for 2024 not being the year of ageism directed at my poor old gray head. I'm tempted to grow a ponytail to show them how hip and young I am.

Not going to happen. Growing a ponytail at my age would be falling right in their trap and admitting I'm an old fart trying to keep the Grim Reaper at bay.

Anyway, I wanted to get one last post in before the ball drops (though I believe it already fell in NYC because of the time difference). 

Happy New Year!

Down for the count?

 

I went into an Ace Hardware Store today to kill time before picking my daughter up from an appointment. Normally a hardware store wouldn't be my first choice for a place to kill time, but the Ace Hardware in our community is more of a general store than a hardware store. They pretty much have anything you can imagine in stock.  And I figured I would see what was on sale after Christmas.

Things started going sideways when I walked in and was greeted by the Ace version of a Walmart greeter. It was this nice older gentleman who looked about 20 years older than me. He greeted me with a "Good afternoon, young man, is there anything I can help you find?"

Okay, I know what it means when someone greets a senior citizen with a clever, "hello young man." It's tantamount to asking me to see my AARP card and direct me to where they stock the Depends. 

But I smiled nicely, muttered I was just looking and slipped off to see what was on sale. I found a box of smart lightbulbs marked down, likely because Ace couldn't sell them to the other senior citizens who were still trying to figure out how to send a text message on their flip phones. There were the type of bulbs that you can not only ask Alexa to turn on and off, but also to change colors or dim. I snatched the last box and went off to another aisle. 

I swear that at least three other sales associates asked me if I needed help. This Ace is not that big of a store but they have an army of sales associates. I was starting to get really annoyed because unless I'm in a hardware store looking for a specific part for a toilet, I pretty much want to browse on me own.

I found the tool aisle and picked up a riveting gun set I've been kind of wanting for awhile. Because you never seem to have a rivet gun when you need one and I've got a couple of guitar cases where the handles have broken off.

I made my way to the cashier dodging several more helpful sales associates. The cashier rang up my purchases and I put my debit card in the keypad. It was one of those overly sensitive ones and it kept erroring out if I even looked at the wrong button. I swear the cashier was shaking her head in pity at the poor senior citizen trying to remember their pin number. She gave me my receipt and said a bit too sweetly to me that she "hoped I had a better day." She might as well have patted me on the hand and said, "There, there dear."

I scurried out of the store to my 2006 Hyundai wishing I was driving a Dodge Charger that I could have spun out leaving the parking lot. 

Why do I feel like I'm approaching that stage in life where people are trying to get me to step onto an ice flow and tell me to "Have a nice trip?"

Counting down

 

I've been around the block enough times to know that nothing really changes when the clock strikes midnight on New Year's Eve and it officially becomes a new year. Putting aside all of the different time zones, the artificial nature of calendars, the abstract nature of time in general, a new year means nothing but another countdown to whatever you countdown to in the new year.

So we should just be content to celebrate the dropping of the ball in Times Square (or the obscuring of the Space Needle with firework smoke in Seattle), the kissing of strangers and the opportunity to drink and blow party horns when the clock rolls around to midnight.

Not that most clocks strike or roll anymore. 

Prince was all about partying like it was 1999 because lots of people thought the world would end when it became 2000. For some reason they thought that because of software glitches that somehow didn't account for a new century. But nothing happened. And there were a lot of disappointed people with hangovers.

It's not like I ever partied big time on New Year's Eve anyway (though you'd think differently looking at the above photo...just a random moment captured out of context...not sure what the context was though). I don't think I ever did kiss a stranger at midnight (at least not on New Year's Eve). Most of my single life was spent thinking I needed to be coupled up (which is the kiss of death if you are trying to meet someone) and when you are married, New Year's Eve generally means trying to stay awake until midnight and mutter, "Whoopee."

I suppose it is better that we don't each have our own countdown clock that tracks how much time we have left. Depending upon your circumstances it could be inspiring, annoying or depressing (especially for procrastinators). But it would put things in perspective and we might be less apt to waste time.

Or not. 

Let the countdown begin!

To know, know, know me...

 

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him 

Just to see him smile, makes my life worthwhile

To know, know, know him is to love, love, love him 

And I do (and I do, and I, and I do, and I, and I do, and I, and I do, and I)

--Song by the The Teddy Bears written by Phil Spector

Part of me wanted to write, "to know, know, know me is to loath, loath, loath me." Or maybe, "to no, no, no me..." 

Ironically, Phil Spector wrote and performed this song with his singing group the Teddy Bears. The song was inspired by a quote on his father's tombstone, "To know him was to love him." His father had committed suicide.

After having the one hit, "To know him is to love him," Spector went on to become a record producer. And to say he was a control freak was being pretty generous. He produced a great deal of successful music but Phil Spector was basically a bona fide nut job. In 2003 he was arrested for putting a pistol in the mouth of an actress visiting his mansion and killing her. 

He denied killing her, but the evidence was pretty overcoming. He showed up to court in a variety of bizarre wigs. He ended up going to prison and died in a prison hospital in 2021. 

So to know, know, know Phil Spector is to pretty much know he was a certified whack job.

Which is a round about way to come to the point of this blog post. In my experience, the more you know, know, know someone or they know, know, know you, the less either of you will really want anything to do with each other.

So thanks, Phil. You produced some pretty great music but you proved that no matter how you crack it, a nut is still a nut (and maybe better off left in its shell.)

Ghosts of Christmas' past

 

This was a photo from Christmas 1974. I'm the half-awake skinny teenager on the left. My brother Dan is in the middle in a robe and my father is on the right. I was 16, my brother was 20 and my dad was almost 60. My mom is likely the one taking the photo and my oldest brother was married by then and would likely be coming over later with his wife to open presents from my parents.

I was wearing a scarf I think was knitted by my  first girlfriend. It was the only reason I was wearing a scarf. Scarves weren't a big thing in our house growing up and I didn't really see the purpose in wearing one. 

We are sitting in front of the tree in our family room which had wood paneling, a Franklin Stove and god-awful orange shag carpeting. The room looked the same up until the house was torn down after my mom died about 38 years later. I imagine we would have had a Christmas dinner later that day when my brother and his now ex-wife came over (she was the first of three wives). I was in high school of course and had just started dating that spring. I don't remember what I got my girlfriend for Christmas that year. I was still trying to figure out the complicated rituals of gifts and girlfriends. No matter what it was, I imagine it was the wrong thing.

I don't remember what else I got for Christmas that year. The 70s were a time of 8-track tapes and polyester shirts. My brother is holding a mug from his burgeoning mug collection. It may have been when he started on the path to being a borderline hoarder that he is now (and I am being kind to refer to him a "borderline" hoarder). I'm not sure when he set out on the path to being a Trump groupie. 

My father was a few years from retiring as a custodian at the local university. He had worked at a hardware warehouse for 25 years before the company closed and laid him off when he was 55. He was a good custodian, though. And he brought home crap he found in the garbage all the time so that may have contributed to my brother's hoarding tendencies, too.

I post this photo, not because it was a particularly memorable Christmas. It is just one of the few photos from that time. And it does capture the spirit of the 1970s and my particular teen spirit.

Santa has a beard

 

As with most things on my blog, I have written about growing a beard many times.  One of the best posts was To shave or not to shave back in 2010. It pretty much captures my history of facial hair.  I've had mustaches, goatees and very occasionally experimental full beards.  The full beards never quite panned out.

I generally just defaulted to goatees. Even during the pandemic I resisted the trend to grow a COVID beard. But recently I started letting my beard grow again and I have to say I like it. Here's an actual photo sans the social media filters.

The one drawback I've found with having a full beard is the amount of product you need to keep it from looking like you just rolled out of a refrigerator box on the sidewalk. This includes beard wash, beard conditioner, beard oil and beard balm (brought to you with no little expense by companies with cool names like Grave Before Shave). And you need a beard brush and a beard comb to work those products through your beard. But be prepared that your teenage son will like take a shine to both your beard brush and beard comb for god knows why and use them instead of the four or five combs and brushes you provide him for his long hair.

I am particularly pleased that my new, longer beard does indeed hide my old and ever expanding double chin. It also makes my face appear longer, adding to the illusion that I am getting slimmer as I age (at least in my face).

I also think the full beard makes me look even more like my great, great, great grandfather George Knox who had a pretty bitchin' beard if I do say so myself.

This prepares me join thousands of people who each year join in to inexplicably reinact battles of the civil war. My great, great, great grandfather was in fact in the civil war and received a pension including compensation for suffering chronic diarrhea.

I don't think it had anything to do with his beard, though. But I have big footsteps to follow in.

What's so funny?

 

I have always thought my best attribute is my sense of humor. I've always enjoyed making people laugh. And I've always enjoyed laughing. 

But you know, it is another thing that I feel like I'm losing with old age. Or more correctly, it is another thing I am seriously (pun intended) doubting as I get older. 

I've blogged about this before. But what haven't I blogged about before? Though in all fairness to me, I have blogged about thinking I am funny instead of about having a sense of humor. I suppose they aren't the same thing.

Doubt has set in on both fronts again. A week or so ago I was supposed to make a presentation to my staff meeting at work. I was the facilitator and the facilitator at our meetings is required to make a presentation about anything they want. It definitely doesn't have to be work related. Some people present about trips they have been on, or hobbies. Some even present about themselves.

So I thought it would be funny to do an entire presentation about me and how I came to be where I am in life. I started from the beginning and worked my way from being a baby, though kindergarten, grade school, junior high, high school, college finally work. I thought I was making it clever, entertaining and informative. It was also an opportunity to show photos of myself before I was old with white hair a beard and a very tired face.

Before the presentation I had slides running of my series of Mindless Thoughts from my YouTube channel. I wanted them to see how clever I could be. No one even noticed them.

I started the slide show with a clever photo:

No one cracked a smile. All of my awkward childhood photos and stories fell flat. And I kept going. I showed a video of me in my late 20s when I thought I looked pretty damned handsome. Not a single gasp or comment.  Finally I reached the end and realized I had taken up way more time then I intended and hadn't managed to endear myself to anyone.

I wanted to crawl under a rock. I had shared photos of myself no one had ever seen and told stories I assumed were entertaining. And I finally had the revelation that none of them cared. No one gave a rip. And I also realized that it was highly likely that the stuff I had shared would never be seen again by anyone (except for the random photo or two I post here). 

You see, the difference between someone who is famous and the rest of us is that people want to know everything thing about them and especially love to see photos from when they were young and attractive so they could marvel at how much they have aged and let themselves go. I fooled myself into thinking I was famous in my tiny little microcosm of life. 

But no one but me saw it that way. They barely even humored me let alone found humor in what I had shared. So it put things into perspective for me. First it confirmed that the people I work with are just that. For the most part they aren't friends. Secondly it taught me something I should have learned (or relearned) a long time ago. I'm not nearly as funny as I think I am. The more I stop and think about what I am going to say when I am about to try and be clever, the better. 

I know this all sounds like one more trip to the punchline bowl at the pity party, but it actually helps me to put my life in perspective. It reminds me of this barfly I ran into at a bar in St. Thomas years ago. He told me to never forget seven words to live by: Never forget how great you really are.

I can't help but edit those a bit for my slide show experience: Never forget how great you really aren't.

Blarney

 

Blarney sounds like an Irish rip off of the purple dinosaur we all used to hate. But Blarney is loosely translated as the Irish gift of charming gab. Legend holds you could get that skill by kissing the Blarney Stone which was used to build Blarney Castle in...you guessed it...Ireland six hundred years ago. 

The photo of a much younger me with an unfortunate ponytail above shows me pointing at a portion of the Blarney Stone that was in the wall outside of Fitzgerald's Casino in Reno back in the 1990s. It was always one of my stops when I'd visit my friend from college who lived in Reno and worked as a Slot Supervisor at Harrah's in Reno. We'd always swing by the Fitz, rub the Blarney Stone for good luck (there was no way I was kissing a rock on a building in downtown Reno) and go through what we called the Lucky Grotto inside the casino. It was one of the casino scams to draw in tourists. You when by displays of lucky charms like Buddha's belly, the Blarney Stone and leprechauns to give a spin on a wheel of fortune.  Although I technically you could win cash, we almost always just got a Leprechaun keychain, a four-leaf clover keychain or a pen. I think we once also got a Fitz trucker hat.

We never really minded winning cheezy things on the wheel of fortune at the Fitz because it was all part of the fun. Unless you were pretty stupid or a degenerate gambler, you didn't go to Reno to get rich. You went to drink, gamble a little and forget your day to day mundane existence. 

I have pointed out before that Reno was the blue collar version of Las Vegas. It was low key and low rent. Oh, they had bright lights and lots of slot machines, but it never pretended to be classy. And while Las Vegas bragged about what happened there stayed there, Reno pretty much didn't give a shit one way or another. That's why I liked it.

So why am I waxing poetic about Reno? I was at a Goodwill store a few weeks ago browsing the bric a brac and I found an ashtray from the Sands Casino/Hotel in downtown Reno. It reminded me of all of the ashtrays I used to pocket from various Reno casinos in my day even though I don't smoke. It was my way of sticking it to the man. I think at one point I was walking around with eight ashtrays in my pockets.

The ashtrays have long since gone the way of many of my obsessive collections from my younger days. I found them in a blue plastic bin I had stored in our garage for 20 or so years. I purged most of the stuff during the pandemic by either selling the stuff on eBay or donating it to Goodwill. I think that's where all the ashtrays ended up. 

Ironic, don't you think? Because now, when pretty much no one smokes or goes to Reno, the casino ashtrays have become trendy "trinket trays."  

On this day in history (of my blog...well this day tomorrow) 2010

 Since daylight savings time is still plaguing us and went into effect last weekend, this post seems particularly relevant even though it is 13 years old. Now granted I don't have to change as many clocks because Alex and Apple take care of most of that, I still have to figure out how to change the clock in my car while not deleting any bluetooth settings or letting the air out of my tires. My kids are no longer small but try explaining daylight savings time to two cats and a dog who trust their body clock more than the government. But so do I. Anyway let's fall back to this post:

Making a withdrawal from my daylights savings

I'm not a big fan of Daylight Savings Time. For one, it means I have to figure out how to change the time on 40 clocks and appliances scattered about my house. And I have to figure out how to change the clock in my car with one hand while driving because I never seem to notice the clock until I'm on the road and trying to get somewhere.

I also don't like the government arbitrarily messing with my body clock. Because just because they theoretically give your hour back in the fall after ripping it away from you, your body never really catches up. This is especially true if you have small children in the house. Setting your clocks back in the fall has absolutely no meaning to them and they will now get up when their body clock says it is time to get up.

I think the clock read 5:30 a.m. this last Sunday when my two-year old son sat up and declared he wanted to watch Tickerbell and the Lost Treasure. He then proceeded to sing the theme song from Little Einsteins while slapping out the drum beat on my back. This was followed by repeatedly putting a pillow over my face and pulling off and crying, "boo." My four-year old daughter quickly joined in the fun. My extra hour slipped out of the room along with the cat, both being chased by toddlers.

Dante has a level of hell just for whoever came up with Daylight Savings Time.

Personally, I like walking to the train in the morning in the dark. It is peaceful. And this is Seattle. Even if the sun is out in the morning, its behind a cloud, so giving me an extra hour of daylight means absolutely nothing.

You can bet our ancestors didn't try messing with time. I'm sure they dragged out of their caves as soon as the sun came out and scrambled back in as soon as it when down. They didn't need the village elders to decide they could save firewood by going out an hour earlier in the spring or an hour later in the fall.  The carnivores waiting outside in the dark dictated strict adherence to nature's clock.

Oh, I am sure there is a federal agency somewhere with the sole responsibility for defending Daylight Savings Time with a vast arsenal of charts and graphs showing us how much energy and money we save each year. Honestly, I don't care whether they are right or wrong. I just want them to leave my body clock alone. Go regulated plastic bags and bottles and leave my freakin' clocks alone.

On this day in the history (of my blog) in 2005

 

This one is truly a golden oldie from the past. I haven't worn a tie for almost a year. But 18 years ago it was still an occasional obligation as part of the work day. Since the pandemic, ties have pretty much gone the way of powdered wigs. Come to think of it, so has wearing pants. So something good did come from the whole mess. Anyway, tie this one on for size:

Tie one on

I've had to wear a tie two days in a row now because I was sitting on an interview panel at work and it is making me more than a little cranky. I am not a tie person. Its status as a symbol of conformity doesn't rest easy with me. And besides, the damned things are like wearing a noose around your neck.

And why do we wear ties? Blame it on the Croatians. Apparently in 1635, a group of Craotian mercenaries came to Paris to give their support to King Louis XIII and Cardinal Richelieu. And the distinquishing article of clothing that made the Croats stand out amongst the usual dandies of Paris was a scarve around their neck tied in a distinctive "Croatian style" previously unknown in Europe. The fashionable expression, ’a la croate’, soon evolved into a new French word: la cravate. Thus the cravate or necktie was born.

I'm not a Croatian. I'm not in the Court of King Louis XII, yet almost four Centuries later, I'm walking around with a bit of silk around my neck like a dog on a frilly leash.

Well, this dog don't hunt, he just howls.

Other than serving as a personal garrote, the tie really serves no practical purpose than emphasizing your beer belly. And the fashion dictators add insult to injury by varying the width of the tie you should be wearing at any given time. Just before we moved in August, I must have tossed out 50 ties ranging in one to five inches in width.

I suppose wearing a tie is a right of passion all men must endure. After I graduated from clip-on's my father taught me to tie a tie. But that was only after he got tired of tying them for me and slipping them around my neck. Not that my father wore ties very often. He was a foreman in a warehouse and had the blue collar luxury of only donning the yoke of oppression for church and funerals.

But I had to go to college. Every time I think I need to look professional, I button that top button and slip the noose around my neck.

It could have been worse though. The Croatians could have thought it was cool to wear dead fish around their neck and we could have adopted that fashion. The higher you are on the food chain, the bigger fish you'd have to wear.

"Honey, have you seen my Blue Marlin?"

"It's in the closet next to the Mackeral."

Yes, there could have been worse customs we adopted from the Croatians. Though I think I would have looked pretty good wearing a Salmon.

The commute from hell

 

I don't commute as much since the "end" of the pandemic, but I was riding the train home last night from downtown Seattle and snapped these photos of one of my fellow passengers.

Now granted, it was Halloween and more than likely this was someone who dressed up for an office party.  But the "person" stood on the platform waiting for the train wearing the mask, a hood and holding onto a scyth. They boarded and sat down and began scrolling through their phone (which confirms there is cell service in hell...I'm willing to bet Boost Mobile is the provider).

It did give me pause because you don't really want to see the Grim Reaper on your train barreling along at 60 miles an hour on tracks that are prone to mud slides. And yes, it was Halloween, but what better time for death to relax and not worry about being noticed as they head home for the evening.

Funny thing about it was that no one seemed to notice that the Grim Reaper was sitting on the train going through their phone (maybe checking their "to do" list). Even I tried to act like it was nothing and snapped my photos discretely. I suppose it wasn't like people would be jumping up and yelling, "There's Death!" and asking for a selfie.

Though it would have been cool.

Fortunately nothing happened. I got off at my stop (which wasn't the "last" stop) and headed home without incident. 

I can't speak for the rest of the trip.