You put the lime in the coconut

 

I've surpassed 800 designs now and I started thinking I should maybe update some of my earlier designs that I did without Artie's help.  Like the one above for instance.  It's simple and understated but not real compelling. So I asked Artie to give it a try.

Now that's a bit more peppy. But it did make me think about the words to Harry Nilsson's song and did it have any hidden meaning. I mean, he basically repeats the same line over and over after setting it up with "My brother bought a coconut with a dime, my sister had another and she bought a lime. She put the lime in the coconut, she drank 'm bot' up." It doesn't change much after that.

ChatGPT insists there is no deeper meaning to the song. But a Google search finally found another mean that Harry may or may not have intended. Apparently when you ask someone to put the lime in the coconut you are suggesting that you smoke pot. The coconut is the bong and the lime is the weed. 

So I asked Artie to give me a design with a parrot that looked stoned. This is what it gave me:

Okay, now we're talking t-shirt. I half expected the teepublic.com censors to swoop in and tell me I couldn't post an image of a parrot with a pot plant on its hat. But hell, it's legal in Washington State and who is to say it's not just an Aloe Vera plant.

I also updated my original "Walken like an Egyptian" shirt from:

to:

and:

Now I still like my original (I am wearing it as I write this) but the Artie versions are pretty amazing. Granted I had to add Walken's face because Artie doesn't do real well with celebrity faces (I think it is to avoid copyright and trademark issues).

It did do a pretty good Ronald Reagan the other day when I asked for a design featuring Ronnie dressed as a spaceman.

I think that is a pretty damned good likeness of the former (and now dead) President. Not that too many people know who Ronald Reagan is anymore let alone want him on a t-shirt.  I think people want more high brow stuff like:

And I'm proud to say I creative directed Artie to produce this one in one take.

Well maybe two. It got hung up on showing someone being hugged and farting. But that is why AI still needs to the human element to produce true art.

Why buy the cow if the milk is free?

 

Just because something is free, doesn't mean you are getting a good deal. This is kind of my reaction to free hugs. Technically, hugs are supposed to be free. If you charge for them it seems to be a form of prostitution. Though some people hug for free but there is a price. 

One you have to hug them back (technically) or it gets awkward really quick. And it seems to imply a form of intimacy that you may or may not really want.

I have never really been a hugger. You would think that people would realize this by looking at me. I don't think I look approachable let alone like I like to hug. 

Though a guy walked up to me in Goodwill the other day and asked me if he could ask me a question (which always makes me want to reply that they just did...but this generally complicates the conversation and makes it last longer than I generally care it to). Then he proceeded to show me what appeared to be a Colman Cooler and asked me if I thought it was worth $10.  I was standing in the Knick Knack section trying to find things I could buy and flip so I'm not sure why he thought I would be an expert on coolers. 

I said, "Sure, I think that is a good price. It is a big cooler."  In reality I thought $10 for anything at Goodwill is pushing it. They get the shit for free and their goal is to move merchandize to make way for more merchandize. But I didn't want to disappoint the guy since he seemed enamored with the cooler and I didn't want to get into the merits or shortcomings of buying a cooler from Goodwill knowing someone was getting rid of it for a reason.  

He seemed happy that I thought it was a good deal and then pointed at my t-shirt and said, "It's Saturday." I realized I was wearing my "WHAT DAY IS IT?" t-shirt and people think it is hilarious to tell me what day it is when I wear it. I find it annoying and put it in the same category as stupid small talk. But then I remind myself that I am the one wearing a t-shirt that says, "What Day Is It?"

But boy am I digressing. The guy finally walked away when I started staring at paperweights and glass figurines.

At least the guy didn't try and hug me. 

Anyway, if people greet me and seem like they are huggers but don't read my body language that I am not a hugger, I usually say, "I'm not really a hugger."  You would think this would be a pretty clear signal that I don't want a hug, free or with strings attached. But there are just times where someone starts hugging and peer pressure kicks in. Before you know it you are hugging everyone in the group. 

Fortunately I am savvy enough to make sure my hugs short and sweet. If you linger while hugging someone because of peer pressure, people think you are creepy. So I always make sure the hug is quick and not too tight. If it is a guy I have to hug, I throw in the two-handed back slap to protect our masculinity while trying for a sensitive guy vibe.

Not having to hug people is one of the things I miss about social distancing and the pandemic. 

I threw this one together because pugs rhymes with hugs. I threw in the "THE" so it actually reads "Free the Pugs." I wanted an out in case someone literally thought the person wearing it was giving away free pugs.  Trust me, after all of my years in advertising and marketing I've learned that there are always assholes who will take clever copy literally. 

And finally, I created an inspirational design today based on one I saw on another site that had a picture of a tropical drink in a coconut. It read simply "Sit on a beach, drink from a coconut."

Still want to hug me?

My business is funny business

 

I promised to show you the finished design after cleaning it up in Photoshop.  If I was better with type I'd just ask AI for the art and plug in type myself. I've done it a bit, but I lack confidence that I will pick the right font. Not that most people can tell the difference.

I did load two designs for the "Jokes on You" non-existent joke and trick store.

I like the larger teeth. But it doesn't have the chattering teeth gag look I was going for.  I think both designs look good on t-shirts but there is no real reason for anyone to buy one since the store is fictional. But they are unique.

I was on a roll after fixing the joke store logo and decided to play with a combination coffee shop and crematorium called "Final Roast."

I really like the tag line, "How about a little cremation with your coffee?" Dark humor. I'd wear this t-shirt. Though it is a bit close to home. I get regular junk mail from the Neptune Society trying to sell me cremation services.  Nothing like opening up a letter to find an offer to sell you cremation before you are dead.  Apparently I am their target market. I'm willing to bet AARP sold my name to them.

I was on a roll this morning and cranked out 13 new designs. Ideogram, my Art AI service seems to be edging towards monetizing its services. You can now only get 20 free ideas during a 12 hour period. It was 25. And they are hard selling the paid subscriptions that give you unlimited, priority access and the option of loading your own images. 

Eventually I may go that route, but only if my designs start flying off the virtual shelves. I'm fast approaching having 800 designs on teepublic.com and I have actually sold a hand full of shirts. But not near enough to justify subscribing to Ideogram.

My ebay sales are up, though. I'm getting a bit more discerning at Goodwill when it comes to what stuff I pick up for resale. But I have been surprised by the success on some stuff. Part of the trick is finding things that not everyone one is listing on ebay. It's kind of a catch 22 though. If no one is selling an item it may be because no one wants it or they are just scarce. The challenge is pricing. If no one is selling it, it is hard to know how much to charge. Case in point this thing:

I couldn't find anything like it. It didn't have any markings on it and I couldn't even figure out what it was made of. I picked it up for almost nothing at Goodwill. I finally listed it as a mystery item that could be a rook from a medieval chess set. I slapped a vulgar price tag on it and I'll be damned if it didn't get snapped up in about a week.

This could mean someone liked the mystery aspect or they knew what it was and what it was worth.  Regardless I flipped it for a major profit and it restored my faith in my experiment.

I also flipped a Starbuck's "Your are here" coffee cup from England for a nice penny. So there is money in them thar hills. But it is a crap shoot and a mixed blessing.

Praise the lord and pass the flowers and ammunition

 

This is an idea I had years ago for a funny business name. Artie helped me bring it to life. I posted it on teepublic.com but I didn't list it under Guns and Roses. I called it Blooms and Booms. Because I bet you dollars to doughnuts that if I had used Guns and Roses as a key phrase for people to search for the intellectual property police would have been kicking down my virtual door squealing like a stuck defunct hard rock band pig.

Let's see how long it takes before they find it and take it down.  So what if they are "Guns N' Roses" and this isn't a real business we are talking about. It's a friggin' t-shirt. I toyed with just calling it Blooms and Booms, but it loses the joke.

Humor is serious business. 

Which reminds me of a joke and magic store that used to be located on First Avenue in Pioneer Square in downtown Seattle at least 35 years ago. I don't even remember what it was called, but they had an old reader board in the window that read "Our Business is Funny Business."  It just triggered an idea for another non-existent business logo.  I plugged it into Art AI and here's an example of what I got (un-touched up so you have an idea what I work with when I have Artie help me with designs).

I told Artie to develop a logo for a practical joke and trick store called, "Jokes on you --Practical Jokes and Tricks" with a slogan under it that reads "Our business is funny business." Then I asked to use an image of fake wind-up chattering teeth. Artie doesn't understand wind-up toys very well and tends to create things out of a steampunk nightmare. I kind of like this one, but notice the weird inability to take type exactly as I give it.  

I spend a great deal of time redoing type. But hey, it is still a far cry from Googling images and stitching them together in Photoshop. 

I'll let you know how the final design turns out.

SMDH

 

Well, I don't care if it rains or freezes   

Long as I have my plastic Jesus 

Riding on the dashboard of my car

 

Through my trials and tribulations 

And my travels through the nation 

With my plastic Jesus I'll go far

--Ed Rush and George Cromarty 

I don't have a plastic Jesus in my car or on my desk. I do have a plastic Pope Francis on my desk. He is a tiny bobblehead Pope Francis that I found in Goodwill and have listed on ebay in hopes of selling him since I am not Catholic or particularly a fan of Pope Francis, especially since his Bishops claim he used a derogatory Italian name for gay men saying he didn't want them becoming priests.

He apparently doesn't have the same aversion to pedophiles becoming priests. 

I do not that the bobblehead Pope Francis looks a bit like a gray haired Donald Trump if he ever smiled and wore a pope outfit.

That being said, I think the value of my Pope Francis bobblehead took a hit when he trashed gays to his Bishops. They ran and told the press. Apparently there is no honor among bishops.

This could be why Plastic Jesu is SMDH.

Things I'd rather do than think about Trump

 

Although this design could have been inspired by the thought of hearing anything else about Donald Trump, it was more inspired by those mundane t-shirts like "I'd rather be sailing" or "I'd rather be golfing." So I naturally thought of things people would really not be rather doing like getting a root canal.

Though modern root canals aren't nearly as painful as they were 45 years ago when I had my first one. I swear the endodontist that did mine had moved to the US from Brazil where he relocated after the Third Reich collapsed.  I wouldn't have been surprised if he kept asking me "Is it safe?" after digging around in my tooth.

I don't suppose that means much to most of you. It is a line from the movie "Marathon Man" starring Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier and Roy Scheider. It was released in 1976. Olivier was a dentist and an ex-Nazi who had worked in concentration camps.

I imagine you can guess now why I related it to my root canal.

But speaking of Trump, the bastard was convicted of fraud for lying about having sex with porn star, paying her off before the 2016 to avoid it coming out and embarrassing him. 

Like you could embarrass Trump.

But now he is technically a convicted felony as well as a rapist and crazy as bedbug on crack at a Motel Six in Rock Springs, Wyoming.

The Rock Springs reference is another one that would take way to long to explain.

The important thing to me is that Trump didn't get acquitted and use that in his campaign to try and make everything think he is just a misunderstood narcissist that is out to rule the world. At least not he can just protest that he is innocent and was framed like every other felon in every prison in the world.

On that note I want to throw a bone to any endodontists that I may have offended earlier in this post (I know there are hordes of you reading this).

I figured it wouldn't hurt to pander to the potential endodontist market who just may be shopping for t-shirts to improve their image.

I hope there is a caboose to this train of thought

 

I used to work with a guy that made me think of this statement every time he opened his mouth. And that was often. He was another manager at the time and he had managed the function I managed at the time at another agency. So he had lots of opinions on how the work should be done. 

Need I remind you about opinions and assholes?

Anyway, this person was also not the brightest bulb in the socket. But he thought he was. At some level he knew I thought he was a moron (or actually knew he was). And he was dangerous in that way stupid people are when they know you know they are stupid. It's like turning over a rattle snake and it isn't happy that it has been exposed. So he did his best to undermine me. 

He was, however, too stupid to be successful. I believe I am pretty much the only one who can successfully undermine me. And occasionally I am quite successful.

But back to his pontificating at meetings. It was painful. You could almost see his brain struggling to herd all of his cat-like thoughts meandering around. So I would hope that his maddingly long train of thought eventually had a caboose.

Eventually it did and the caboose was generally full of cobwebs. 

So I really like this design. But Artie had difficulty with it for some reason. I would specifically ask for it to show a train entering one ear and exit the other. Artie could not grasp that abstract concept. Some of the drafts had a train bursting out of the side of a man's face.

It wasn't the effect I was looking for. 

Artie also kept putting the stupid man in suits (which gives you an idea of how Artie feels about corporate types). 

I finally settled on these two designs.  I think they convey the concept pretty well. And neither really resemble the stupid person I used to work with. He took his train to another agency and convinced them he was brilliant for awhile until they discovered what was in the caboose to his train of thought.

I think he has since retired.

Agreeing to disagree

 

Agreeing to disagree is kind of stupid to me. You are saying you don't have enough faith in your convictions and your beliefs to argue about it. So you say let's just agree we can't agree (even though I don't agree with you).  

Basically you should just say, "you're an asshole" and leave it at that. But I can compromise with agreeing that the other person is disagreeable. Thus the design.

Not sure it will mean anything to anyone. But I tend to think people who don't agree with me are stupid. But they are entitled to their stupid opinions. Which is why Trump has supporters.

Trump supporters are too stupid to know they are stupid and Trump put the the bat shit in bat shit crazy. But they will never agree with me because they are stupid and disagreeable.

I don't think they are even smart enough to agree to disagree.

Oh well. There needs to be a caboose to this train of thought somewhere.

If I had a hammer

 

I kind of like the sentiment of this quote. It works on many different levels. It was pretty much my father's approach to fixing things. But he didn't necessarily use a hammer.

I especially enjoyed how he used to adjust our old television set. He'd walk up to it and smack it on the side to get the picture to straighten out. Ironically it seemed to work much of the time.

My father never used a computer in his life. Or a cell phone. He died in the early 1990s. Computers existed but he was obliviously to them. Cell phones were still a novelty that looked like a giant walkie talkie. 

He was just fine with an old television and two or three channels. 

My mother was pretty much the same way though she died after 2010. Her only concession to technology was an answering machine. And she barely tolerated it.

I doubt either of them would have understood my relationship with Artificial Intelligence or my designs. My dad died before blogging was a thing. In fact, the Internet had barely peeked its ugly little head out. According to ChatGPT, the first website went live in 1991.

I think my father would have appreciated the Web. I have mentioned in the past how he was obsessed with lost treasures and spent much time (in front of the television) doing research and taking notes in countless notebooks. Although education wasn't his strong point, he was the one who introduced me to libraries and research. He would have loved Google and adored ChatGPT.

I don't think either of them would have taken a shine to Alexa. My mother was too soft spoken and my dad would have got into screaming matches with her. And the more times she said, "I'm having trouble understanding you" the more he would have yelled at her.

Come to think of it, it would be quite entertaining to see my father interacting with AI.

 

Buy the ticket, take the ride

 

I was in a Hunter S. Thompson kind of mood today. I kind of like the sentiment of buying your ticket and taking your ride. It can be interpreted as inspirational. Or it can be interpreted as being self indulgent and justifying your excess. 

I was never into weird for weird sakes. I like the eclectic, but I am conventional enough not to like bat shit crazy just for the hell of it. I sense Hunter was that way. 

Personally I think it was the drugs and alcohol. But as he said, they always worked for him.  

Until they didn't. I think that's when he opted to get off the ride.

On a totally unrelated topic, my sales are picking up a bit on ebay.

I have been plagued with the low ballers who offer me ridiculously low amounts for some item that is clearly worth twice that.  And in theory I shouldn't care because I buy most of the crap at Goodwill and don't have a big investment. But I have never had patience for people who just offer you $5 for something have listed for $48.  It's just not worth my time to wrap, it and pack it to make less than I make on a t-shirt sale at teepublic.com. 

It's not the money, its the principle of if. I'd rather give it back to Goodwill than sell it for an insultingly low price to some twit who thinks haggling is offering a tenth of what you ask for something. Life is to short for:

I am the lizard king

 

Far out! I was enjoying exploring random lines and lyrics that very few people under 60 will recognize. Though I'd like to think Jim Morrison is pretty iconic. "I am the Lizard King" was a line in Morrison's poem "Celebration of the Lizard" which was also incorporated in the Doors' song, "Not to Touch the Earth" in 1968 (when I was 10). 

Morrison was a bit of a whack job. But I mean that in the most respectful way possible. He is a good example of a person being in the right place and the right time to utter gibberish and have it quoted for decades because Jim Morrison was famous. 

He died in Paris at the age of 27. So maybe dying young also helps cement your place in posterity.

I toyed with making Elvis the Lizard King as well.

This image kind of reminds me of a scene with Johnny Depp portraying Hunter S. Thompson with a giant lizard tail in "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas."  Johnny Depp and Hunter S. Thompson are both pretty much whack jobs as well.

But this image of Elvis as the Lizard King is also kind of symbolic of him turning into a Lounge Lizard in Las Vegas in the 70s. And that wasn't even my intention. 

BTW, Hunter S. Thompson offed himself at the age of 67 at his home in Woody Creek, Colorado. So I don't know what that does to my theory of dying young and securing your place in posterity.  Though I don't think too many people can quote Hunter S. Thompson these days. Though I was always fond of "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."

Thompson also said, "Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming 'Wow! What a ride!'"

I think that explains him killing himself. He was just ready to get off the ride.

Which leads to another of his quotes: "Buy the ticket, take the ride."

There is a t-shirt there in one or all of those quotes.

On that note, I'll say good knight.

Glass onion

 

I used to explain to people (back in the day when there was a group of people who regularly read my blog) that the secret to Photoshop was in the layers. It more or less still is. It is just much easier to now.

Maybe it is because I'm used to the layers. 

But layers are pretty much what life is all about. You peel them away to get at the truth only to discover the truth was really in the collective layers, not what is under them. So perhaps the onion was really the thing Adam and Even weren't supposed to eat from the "tree of knowledge of good and evil." The Bible never actually said it was an apple. It is possible that the apple got maligned because the Latin word for "malus" can mean both "apple" and "evil."  I'm putting my money on it actually being and onion even though onions don't grow on trees. 

But it is all a metaphor anyway.

My daughter just shakes her head when she hears the song "Glass Onion" from the Beatle's White Album because it just seems like nonsense to her. Unlike the lyrics of "Come Together."

I'm in the school of believing that John Lennon didn't really intend any deep meaning when he wrote such songs and was essentially fucking with us. 

John has always been my favorite Beatle. 

I have to say I didn't really associate a gumboot with rubber boots until I asked ChatGPT (and it got over its copyright paranoia and would actually talk about the lyrics. 

Not that ChatGPT actually talks yet. I imagine that is next. I just hope it does a better job than Alexa and doesn't nag me about enunciating and not understanding me. 

I suppose when they do give AI a voice for the masses, it will truly eliminate the need to actually interact with a real person. I have to admit talking to an AI entity sounds a lot less annoying that talking to people. Or it least it will be if its algorithm doesn't require it to correct you every time you use the wrong pronoun or say something that offends. I'd be perfectly happy talking to an AI that doesn't give a shit about shit like that. It does wear me down in real life.

On a sort of related topic, this is my 145 post this year. It breaks my record of 144 posts in a year back in 2007. Now all I have to do is post more than 292 times this year and I'll break my all time record for posting back in 2006 when I was ironically at the height of my popularity in the relatively new blog world and worry about entertaining or offending people.

Obviously I didn't do enough entertaining and probably way too much offending since there are maybe two people who now read my blog on a relatively regular basis. But you know, I'm actually pretty okay with that because I don't feel like I worry too much about entertaining or offending anyone any more. I have my t-shirt designs to do that for me and since I don't need the money or affirmation I don't really give a fuck if anyone is entertained or offended by them. 

I do take umbrage to the intellectual property Gestapo who periodically complain to teepublic.com and get my designs removed.  I do take solace in the fact that their job is looking for violators of their particular corporate asshole's intellectual property rights because they don't have talent to create any intellectual property of their own.

Surpassing 144 posts for the year has obviously made me feisty. 

Or maybe it is another byproduct of getting old.

Time Waits but Rust doesn't

 

Now if I did make a record of "Take the 'T' out of 'Trust'" this would be a pretty great album cover. I realize creating the album cover when you don't actually have a record, a finished song or any way to produce it is putting the cart way before the horse. 

But this is my fantasy world. 

Artie is pretty good with rusty trucks and even rusty old men. But it can't deal with words, spelling, syntax or grammar worth crap. This is even when you tell it exactly what the headline should be.

Not sure what that is all about, but I tell you Artificial Intelligent Art or not I still have to do a lot of work to get a finished product. 

This is the other version where I look a bit like I'm wearing a Phil Spector wig. But I'm kind of rocking that wild gray hair. And again, I love the old truck sitting out there on the desert.  Makes me nostalgic for the desert around where I grew up in Idaho.

Not.

Every now and then I can still smell sagebrush and feel the nasty heat.

I do think I should be wearing beat up old cowboy boots. But I didn't specify that to Artie. So he gave me trendy loafers. I guess it is new old country.

It all makes me wish I could carry a tune (other than in a shit bucket).

Oh well, if wishes were horses.

I think there is a t-shirt in there.

Rusting away

 I may never have actually recorded this song (or put music with it for that matter), but I'll be damned if it doesn't make a fine t-shirt. I'm also working on a record album cover for Time Waits' release of the song.

Though Time Waits doesn't exist. He does look a bit like me with a bad Phil Spector wig.

I can live with that.

If I have an imaginary record label it might as well feature an imaginary version of me as a singer/songwriter. Who knows, maybe one day I'll finish "Take the T out of Trust" and record it.

In the meantime, I'm digging these rusty old pick-up trucks. 

I did create some Time Waits concert posters some time ago for an album called "Lugubrious Howl" (sound familiar)?

This looks like the "I is another" I'd like to look like. This Time Waits is pretty damned cool looking and edgy. This is a guy you'd sit in a smoky tavern and listen to. 

This is the kind of guy you would expect to be recording on a label called "Dizgraceland Records." 

At least that is my spin on my rich fantasy life.

I is another

 

I always get Rimbaud and Baudelaire confused. They were both French and they were both poets so I suppose it doesn't matter.  I do like Rimbaud's work a bit more than Baudelaire's. And Rimbaud wrote most of his work between the ages of 16 and 21. So I'm not sure what the hell he actually had to write about.

But he did say, "Je est un autre" which translates poorly into "I is another."  It is a statement about identity and self (something your average 21-year old can barely comprehend). So I give Rimbaud credit. A few years later Rimbaud just stopped writing and spent the rest of his life traveling.

Not a bad idea if I think about it.

Baudelaire seemed to focus more on getting drunk (literally and symbolically). 

I'm guessing he chose wine more often than not. He liked decadence and art. Work, not so much. But he did like flirting with the devil.

Ah, the devil you say.  Here's to the dead French poets!

I don't give a hoot

 

I had all of my Middle Aged in Middle-Earth designs pulled today by Warner Brothers. That was a new record. Apparently "Middle-Earth" is copyrighted. I hate to break it to them, I don't think Lord of the Rings is going to make a comeback. So I don't see how a t-shirt with a middle aged Orc or Hobbit should be a threat. 

Geez.

I toyed with changing the "Middle-Earth" to "Middle-Girth" and making the Orc blue instead of green but then I just figured what the hell. I actually think my designs would have benefited them more than threatened them. God knows they don't want to lose that $2-$4 I would make from the designs. It's not like they would have been issuing a Middle-Earth Middle Aged line of anything anyway.

The whole intellectual property bullshit is a ridiculous. What happens when we run out of "new" ideas? I've pointed out before it is next to impossible to come up with anything anymore that you can't Google and find out someone has already done it.

My AI friends are going to be at a loss if they can't mention anything that someone doesn't own the intellectual property to. You can't get ChatGPT to give you song lyrics already. Not sure how that violates anyone's rights.

It's time to throw off the yoke of intellectual oppression.

I think the Oxen will be glad of that one, too.

Middle aged in Middle-Earth

 

I was feeling invisible again today. Not like I don't feel invisible most of the time, but today was worse for some reason. I was attending 6th showing of my daughter's latest play, "Titanic the Musical." It is quite entertaining and emotional. But it lasts about two hours and 45 minutes.  I think the Titanic sank quicker than that.

I have been attending all of my daughter's performances for years and I feel like I know the kids she performs with because I've seen them in so many different shows. But although I've met some of them (and their parents) no one ever seems to remember me. So after the show when I tell someone they did a great job, they kind of look through me and nod.

It's that invisible thing.

I suppose it isn't really a middle aged thing. I have felt invisible off and on most of my life. It's a good thing I am a writer and now a t-shirt designer because it doesn't really matter if you are invisible as long as your work is out there.

But as you know I sometimes feel like it is invisible as well. 

Though I have to say I've sold more t-shirts than I ever did of anything I ever wrote. I pretty much stopped posting my writing on the Medium because making  three cents for your writing doesn't exactly instill you with confidence. At least the t-shirts pay $2 to $4 and I have the satisfaction that somewhere out there people are wearing something I created.

It makes this old middle aged Orc feel less invisible.

It's hammer time

 

I can't look at Einstein's formula of E=MC2 without unfortunately thinking of MC Hammer. He was part of the sad transition from the cultural desert of the 1980s as it slipped into the cultural desert of the 1990s.

ChatGPT informed me that MC Hammer's real name was Stanley Kirk Burrell. He is only four years younger than me. I sincerely hope he isn't still wearing "Hammer pants." Hammer Pants were unfortunately also known as harem pants or parachute pants.   And if Stanley "the Hammer" is still wearing them it is because he wants to hide the fact that he is wearing adult diapers. And when he needs to change them he likely cries out, "It's Hammer Time!"

Sadly, none of what I just talked about probably means much to most people these days. Which is probably why the "E=mc Hammer" joke will fall flat as a t-shirt design. But it makes me chuckle.

It is also the only design I created today. This is because I was desperately revising all of my eBay listings trying to find the sweet spot that will make someone buy the shit I bought at Goodwill and am trying to flip on eBay.

So far nothing much is working. But I am learning about what is and isn't a hot commodity. Well, I'm learning what isn't a hot commodity.

Part of the challenge is that I'm following the suggestions that you Google things you see at Thrift stores to see if they are selling on eBay or Etsy and how much they are selling for. The problem with this is I generally see things selling at an inflated price and discover when I get the shit home that there are many other people trying to flip shit they found at Goodwill, too.

Let me just tell you that the Starbucks "You are here" mugs from exotic places really are worth as much as the "how to make money flipping shit from thrift stores" people claim.  

I have also discovered that Disney mugs aren't big sellers. This makes sense when you think about how many thousands of the damn things Disney sells on a daily basis.

And commemorative cruise ships crap isn't a big seller either.  I have bought several etched crystal paperweights from inaugural cruise ship launches thinking they will be rare and desirable commodities. In actuality, unless they come from the gift shop on the Titanic, no one wants them.

Oh and word to the wise if you want tips on what not to buy at Goodwill and try to sell on eBay: any commemorative mug released by Budweiser, anything produced by the Bradford Exchange and anything sold by Publisher's Clearing House. 

But if you are interested in any of these things, boy have I got a deal for you.

I'm also thinking about selling one of my kidneys on eBay. Maybe two if I sense there is interest.

Quite the Thinker for such a small brain

 

Lest you think all of my designs are totally random and don't require research (which more often than not is true), I do ask ChatGPT for help now and then. For example, I asked him about Rodin's "The Thinker" (though I thought it was the Thinking Man). The actual sculpture shows a naked man sitting on a rock with his chin resting on one hand, deep in thought. ChatGPT says it represents intellect, contemplation and the human capacity for reflection and introspection. I think it represents more of a naked man wondering why he is sitting on a rock naked.

Apparently "The Thinker" was originally conceived as part of a larger work titled "the Gates of Hell," that  was inspired by Dante's Divine Comedy. The Thinker was supposed to represent the poet Dante Alighieri thinking about the depths of hell (or "what the hell am I sitting here naked for.")

I really like my version of a T-Rex sitting on a rock unable to rest its chin on one hand because nature played a cruel trick on him and made him big and scary but with the arms of a toddler.  And since dinosaurs were supposed to have pretty small brains, all he can think about is that it would be nice to have longer arms. So there isn't a lot of reflection or introspection.

Artie couldn't quite grasp the concept of a T-rex in the pose of The Thinker with arms too short to rest its chin on one hand. It did pretty good with the naked dinosaur part, but I had to shrink the arms on my own with Photoshop. I'm thinking this would make a pretty bitching actual sculpture that I will make once they release a beta version of Art AI 3D.

Until then I'm hoping the t-shirt market will make it go viral and sweep me up along with it. 

I'll get my 15 seconds of fame yet.

I've got a feeling

 

This is probably not what John Lennon was thinking about when he wrote this song.  But then again, John seemed to be kind of an irreverent person who did his share of recreational drugs, so who knows. It doesn't matter in the long run because I think it makes one hell of a t-shirt.

It was inspired once again by the Beatles Channel on Sirius radio when I was driving the kids to and from school. You take inspiration where you can get it.

Like this:

For whatever reason I was thinking about people saying someone was a night owl. And as far as I know, owls are nocturnal so I think saying someone is a night owl is redundant. I asked ChatGPT and it got all snippy with me about it being  a colloquialism and wasn't strictly referring to nocturnal animals. I think ChatGPT is full of shit on this one. So I created a Day Owl design to make people think about it.

I'm just the eternal optimist.
 

The shape of the universe

 

I tried reading some article today about what was the shape of the universe. The headline was something bait and switching like "The shape of the universe is like a hall of mirrors." My eyes glazed over after about two paragraphs and I never did find out what the shape of the universe was or why I should care.

ChatGPT tells me there are three options: flat, positively curved or spherical and negatively curved or hyperbolic. I decided to ask Artie to give me a design where the universe was in the shape of an easy chair and have a headline expressing a bit of disappointment that it wasn't something bigger and grander.

The design cracks me up because I'm not sure I totally get why I asked for a universe shaped like an easy chair and I doubt anyone will get it. But temere ineptia, right?

I still don't know what good it would do to know the shape of the universe or whether it was expanding or contracting. I file it under "why should I care." I feel that way about most news I read these days. It all seems to be a crock of shit.

This is another one of those obscure sayings that I doubt most people under 65 will have heard. I like the way it sounds though: "He don't know shee-eye-it from Shinola." Most people writing news these days fall into that category.

They don't have the benefit of the fast experience people of my generation have to draw upon.

This is true. 

Don't get me started about Slip and Slides.

Don't badger me

 

I now remember that in addition to ticks and rattle snakes creating anxiety in my young life growing up in the wilds of Idaho, I was also taught to beware of badgers. They are not friendly animals as this photo would imply. They dig holes and live in dens underground and don't like visitors. I imagine they have the reputation of being persistent (i.e. don't keep badgering me) because if they come after you, they don't want to stop. 

My oldest brother killed one in the desert after it came after him (or so he claimed) when he was out hunting for something less aggressive like a pheasant. He blew it's head off with a shotgun. I think it may have just popped out of its den and both of them were surprised. And my brother was in a macho stage of his life when he just like shooting things. So the badger was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Badgers do have lots of teeth though and I wouldn't want to surprise one. They also don't see too well since they are nocturnal animals and are better in low light situations. So my brother did have the advantage over the badger in broad daylight of being able to see it coming. He also had the advantage of the shotgun. 

Animals rarely have the advantage when you come to think about it. And my brother was the one tromping around on top of the badgers home turf. So ironically my brother was the one badgering the badger.

Life is full of twists like that.