It's scrapple time

 

It's National Scrapple Day.  I'm sorry, it pretty much looks like head cheese to me and nothing I want to eat. But it does rhyme with a certain board game that you play with tiles and spell words. So I tried to have fun with it.  It started out looking like the game board of that word game, but I wanted to make sure I wasn't violating any one's intellectual property. We'll see how Zazzle reacts to it. 

It's also National Louisiana Day and Microtia Awareness Day. Neither inspire anything humorous or entertaining to me. I am not happy with the South for rising again to reelect a racist buffoon.  Microtia is a congenital disability of the ear. Even I know that isn't something you put on a t-shirt.

Tomorrow is National Civic Pride Day (which I have none), National Vanilla Cupcake Day (which is low hanging fruit when it comes to humor), National Forget-Me-Not Day (which seems redundant to Veterans and Memorial days) and the birthday of the United States Marine Corps (hoo-ya).

Somehow I will try and create something out of that hodgepodge to tweak Teepublic on Social Media. Then I'll be:

Banging your head into a wall

 

It  is National Harvey Wallbanger Day! And I couldn't resist posting this on X:

Time

@Dizgraceland

·

15h

It's National Harvey Wallbanger Day! #NationalHarveyWallbangerDay https://zazzle.com/national_harvey_wallbanger_day_t_shirt-256063915424864907… Why should you bang your head against a wall? Because you tried selling art on TeePublic

@TeePublic

@TeePublicHelp

@teepublic_usa

Petty yes, but it somehow makes me feel a little better knowing that I may be irritating the people at Teepublic. They never respond. And neither does anyone else, but it feels good to be an annoying gnat to them.

It's almost time for Happy Hula Days!

 

I figured I needed to get some holiday designs up for people to buy for presents. So far Zazzle has been a bust as far as selling any of my designs. Something tells me they don't do much to promote individual storefronts. They leave it up to me to promote my stuff. Maybe now that everyone isn't distracted by the election, they can concentrate on important things like buying clever t-shirt designs.

I wish I was on a tropical island, right now. 

Anything goes

 

This is ChatGPT's interpretation of the phrase "Anything goes." Chatty is a bit more upbeat than I am. I was more thinking along the lines that if we put the lowest form of pond scum into one of the most power executive positions in the world...twice...than we are stating that it doesn't matter what vile things you have done or are going to do, we think you should be our commander in chief. 

I must say, that compared to Trump, there is nothing I have ever done in my life that comes close to being as vile as the stuff he says and does on a regular basis. So on the positive side, I feel better about my lackluster life. 

Conversely I am firmly convinced that Trump being elected for another term as president despite being evil incarnate proves there is no god and more than 50 percent of the population of the United States are barely functioning idiots and are to blame for whatever that madman does in the next four years.

You heard it here first...but probably not last.

There is not a lot to say

 

The early returns are not looking good. It is a sad state our country is in. I was in a restaurant an hour or so ago and listened to a man bemoaning that Americans didn't seem to have any problem voting for a convicted felon and rapist. 

That just about sums it up. But we lived through one term with the idiot and I suppose we can survive another. I also lived through Reagan, and both George Bushes. 

This too shall pass.

Tote that bag

 

Now wouldn't you want to carry this tote bag? I know you could post one design on Teepublic and people could order it as various different things including tote bags, but it seemed like you were putting too much pressure on the buyer to think for themselves and pick things to order. Zazzle forces you to buy specific things. If you want a t-shirt, you just see a t-shirt. If you want playing cards, you just see playing cards. And if you want a tote bag, you just see a tote bag. 

Not that it really seems to matter. I haven't sold a single thing on Zazzle even though I've posted umpteen things. But the holidays are coming up and I imagine millions of my t-shirts, tarot cards, poker cards and now tote bags will go flying out of Zazzle making me a multi-dollernaire.

I can dare to dream.

I voted tonight

 

In addition to voting tonight, I also celebrated National Sandwich Day by surfacing my Submarine Sandwich t-shirt design on X and Instagram. And since X is simply a cesspool of back and forth between Trump Haters and Harris Haters, no one paid any mind to my images of a baguette that can fire torpedoes.

I also created my first set of Tarot cards to sell on Zazzle.

So stick that in your terms and conditions Teepublic. I see failure in the cards for your company. I'm not bitter though. But I do fart in your general direction with my King of Farts playing cards.

Egg on my face

 

It's National Deviled Egg Day. And again, I find it easier just to use designs I've already created rather than just shilling for some National Something proponent. 

Anyway, who needs new yolks.

Written in the cards

 

I discovered that in addition to t-shirts (which no one is buying so far on Zazzle), I can sell playing cards like this one of Opossums Playing Poker while Playing Opossum (which I think is genius if I do say so myself). So I now have a whole collection of various creatures playing poker on actual playing cards.  How cool is that?

So pick a card, any card!

Ding dong

 

Okay, it's Halloween, but more important it National Doorbell Day. And guess who is calling? It's the Grim Reaper moonlighting as a Fuller Brush Salesperson. It's a brush with death.

Happy Halloween!

Buzz kill...

 I have always kind of felt sorry for Buzz Aldrin. Neil Armstrong will always be the first person to set foot on the moon. Buzz Aldrin will always be the second person to set foot on the moon.  It's like, people meet him at a party and he tells them, "I was the second man to walk on the moon." They reply, "What was Neil Armstrong like? He is so brave to be the first person to walk on the moon."

But today I saw that Buzz endorsed Trump. So I don't feel sorry for him any more. I just think he is a loser and will always be the second man to walk on the moon.

You disappoint me Buzz. 

They seldom come out of their shell

 Yes, it is National Hermit Day.  And why someone would think to create such a day goes on my list of more things I don't understand, like why anyone would voter for Trump.  Regardless, I was inspired enough to create some new artwork and post it on Zazzle, pitch it on X and on Instagram.  And I resisted trying to turn it into an attack on TeePublic. I will get back at them another day. 

It is also National Cat Day.

I Zazzled my Cats Playing Poker design and posted it on X as well. I should be giving Elon Muskrat a run for his money as one of the richest men in the world soon. All I have to do is sell about 4 or 5 billion t-shirts.

Dare to dream.

Show me Dizgraceland

 I asked Gemini and ChatGPT to generate an image that illustrates Dizgraceland. Here's what they gave me.

I asked Gemini why it chose this image. Here's its response:

I chose the cyberpunk image for "Dizgraceland" because it aligns with the concept of a futuristic, technologically advanced, and perhaps slightly dystopian city. The neon lights, flying cars, and overall futuristic aesthetic create a visually striking and imaginative representation of the term.

The other options, while valid interpretations, didn't quite capture the same level of futuristic and slightly chaotic energy that I associated with the term "Dizgraceland."

I asked ChatGPT why it chose this image and here's what it said:

I combined Disneyland and Graceland because "Dizgraceland" sounds like a playful blend of the two iconic places, merging the names and the cultural vibes they represent—one associated with fantasy and amusement parks (Disneyland) and the other with Elvis Presley and musical history (Graceland). It seemed like a natural interpretation of "Dizgraceland" as a whimsical, surreal fusion of these themes.

Okay that was interesting. Two AI programs and two very different takes on what they see as Dizgraceland. I would have thought they would search the web and come up with something but both images surprised me. I kind of like them both. Gemini's is dark. And ChaptGPT's is light and fun. I had never thought of Dizgraceland as a combination of Disneyland and Graceland. Both places are kind of obsessions of mine.

And dystopian? Okay, I kind of like that two.

I love AI.

A bitter taste

 

I still haven't been able to let go of my resentment of Teepublic for deleting my account. I know I should just let it go, but my entire life I've had this issue with injustice.  I realize life is not fair. And just because I think something isn't fair doesn't change it. But the hypocrisy of Teepublic and their constant litany of how important customer service just blows my mind. I tolerated being bombarded with constant marketing emails and texts even though I was creating designs and not interested in buying someone else's designs.  Even their emails about removing some of my designs because someone had complained about intellectual property violations implied that they understood it was difficult.  So I accepted the BS.

But the sudden and seemingly randomness of them telling me I had violated their terms and conditions and them deleting my account without an explanation was just too much. That was months of work. And they profited off from it. I barely made $200 in four or five months. It wasn't like I was in it for the money. 

I can't believe there aren't other artists who have had the same experience. Yet none of my posts on social media have garnered even a peep from anyone, even Teepublic. It just adds insult to injury that they don't feel it is necessary to explain . Bottomline, is they are a big business and they don't have to explain. Their are thousands of other artists dutifully posting designs and looking for validation.

I've been on the other side in my own job. I've had to be nice about complaints that have no validity and treat people with respect who don't return the favor. But I work for government. Before Trump you respected that you were paid by taxpayers and needed to treat them with some respect. Businesses don't seem to have that same code. 

So every now and then I'll post something to remind the world that even though life isn't fair we shouldn't have to blindly accept every insult.

Just spitting in the wind. 

The gibbering

 

As I slowly make my way through all of my designs, I am learning that when you create more than 1500 designs in a relatively short amount of time as I did with teepublic, you start forgetting what you've done. I am in the "b's" alphabetically loading things on Zazzle. This is "The Gibbering" which fell under the "Blah, Blah, blah" folder. 

Did I mention I don't like small talk? And I tend to think many people specialize in spouting gibberish. And gibberish, the word, is one of my favorites. It is right up there with lugubrious. Which makes me think I should create a t-shirt design for lugubrious.

What else did I post on Zazzle today?

Ain't that the truth.

Zazzle them with bullshit

 

I've been binge posting t-shirt designs on my new storefront at Zazzle. I started with "A" on my portable drive that has all my designs on it and I'm working my way through it. But I am being very careful not to post designs that I think will poke the "terms and conditions" beast on Zazzle. And it pains me.

For example, I didn't post this:

Because we don't want to offend the Spam company or be mistaken for a Lin-Manuel Miranda musical.

It is difficult to know what is forbidden with Zazzle after the debacle over Albert Camoo. 

Because this one could bring Lewis Carroll back from the dead to sue me for copyright infringement.

I'm sure this design would bug him. It just pains me that I have to censor myself. 

Full of Boglona

 

It is National Bologna Day! To honor it, I posted this image on X and Instagram and tagged my good friends at Teepublic knowing they wouldn't respond. I do believe that is their business model. They don't respond to direct questions to their legal team and they won't respond on social media. So I'm not optimistic that they would at least ask me what my problem is.

My response would be that I simply want an explanation that didn't involve reviewing their terms and conditions and trying to guess which one or ones they think I violated. Ironically I could go on their site right now and find tons of designs that I believe blatantly violate other people's intellectual property rights. 

All I can surmise is that I pissed them off when I questioned why a design they removed was violating anything. This is the problem with corporate power. They don't have to prove anything. They just need to hide behind their incomprehensible rules.

Petty little minds

 

I couldn't help posting another dig at TeePublic on X. I suggested that before people buy or sell on TeePublic they consider that they randomly censor independent artists without explanation.  I realize they don't really care about me being disgruntled. But they do so pride themselves on customer service. And ironically I still get two or three emails from them a day trying to get me to buy things on TeePublic. 

Hell hasn't froze over yet. 

I'm not even sure what I hope to accomplish. Even if they offered to restore my account, I have lost all interest in being part of their grand scheme to cheat artists out of their work and profits. I doubt if they could even restore all of my designs anyway. 

Meanwhile I struggle with Zazzle. I could live with the fact that their web site sucks and is difficult to load products into. But when they pulled my Camoo images for the potential of them being violations of some copyright, I lost any trust of it being a permanent site for my work.

And I still haven't sold a single t-shirt.

Damn you TeePublic. 

Show me your nuts

 

It is National Nut Day. And again, I go to my archives because I don't feel like creating a whole new design for a day dedicated to nuts. It drives me nuts and makes me feel squirrely.

Then I feel mean.

I can certainly bet that this design wouldn't pass the Zazzle.com terms and conditions test so I'm not even going to try and post it. It makes me sad that I have to censor myself because of the small legal minds at these print on demand parasites. Ironically Teepublic had no problem with this one. 

Nuts to them.

I don't suppose this blog doesn't mean anything to you

 

I received an email today that all three of these design were removed:

"Dear Dizgraceland,

Thank you for your interest in Zazzle.com, and thank you for publishing products on Zazzle.

Unfortunately, it appears that your product, Absurdism: But that's meaningless to you, contains content that is in conflict with one or more of our content guidelines.

We will be removing this product from the Zazzle Marketplace shortly.

The details of the product being removed are listed below:

Product Title:	Absurdism: But that's meaningless to you
Product Type:	T-Shirt
Product ID:	256245728698675765
Result:	Not Approved
Policy Notes:	Your design contains an image or text that may be subject to copyright. This may be due to the actual design of the product, description or search tags that are associated to your product. Please feel free to submit a new design to our Marketplace from original elements
Image:	View the Image

We apologize for the inconvenience. A detailed description of the policies is located here.

You may redesign and republish your products following our content guidelines. Please be aware that continued violations of Zazzle's User Agreement and Acceptable Content Guidelines may result in termination of your account.

If you have any questions or concerns about the review of your product, please email us at content_review@zazzle.com and we'll be happy to provide you with additional support."

It was nicer than Teepublic, but it still it suggests I can redesign and republish my designs be they will very likely terminate my account. 

Jesus. Since when is a cow named Albert Camoo whose only resemblance to Albert Camus is a that he is smoking a cigarette, a violation of anyone's intellectual property? The Intellectual Police at Teepublic didn't even have a problem with Albert Camoo. I didn't quote Camus. I didn't use his image. He doesn't own the concept of Absurdism. 

There seems to be No Exit from this dilemma.

But I suppose that doesn't mean anything to you.