Ring my Bell

 

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

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

But I digress.

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

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

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

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

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

I hope you are happy Alexander.

If it ain't Baroque...

 

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

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

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

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

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

Weeds

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

One small step

 

On July 20, 1969 Neil Armstrong became the first human to walk on the moon. It was a Sunday. I was 11 years old and fascinated by the space program and Apollo. The Lunar Module Eagle landed on the Moon at 2:17 p.m. my time in Idaho.  Armstrong didn't step out until 8:56 p.m. Boise time.  I vaguely remember being at a buffet restaurant in Boise the afternoon of July 20th. It was called the Chuck Wagon and my parents took us their sometimes for a treat on Sundays after church.  As I recall they had a television on at the restaurant showing what was going on with the Moon landing.  Keep in mind, this was 1969 so it wasn't like today when you can go into a sports bar and have big screen televisions on every wall. But everyone was tuned in on that day.

Ironically, the one thing I can remember about the Chuck Wagon Buffet was their motto, "Take all you want, eat all you take." Funny how that was the highlight of the place for me.

Anyway, I do remember them broadcasting images outside of the Lunar Module of the moon. They were in extremely fuzzy black and white, so you had to use your imagination to picture what they were actually seeing. 

Later that night I was glued to the set when Neil Armstrong climbed down the ladder and stood on one of the Module pads before stepping onto the moon and uttering his first words that would go down in history: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind."   Armstrong claims he actually said, "That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind." Some say the "a" got lost in transmission noise. But I remember Walter Cronkite saying at the time that one small step for man and one giant leap for mankind were kind of the same thing.  It stuck with me that Armstrong potentially flubbed his only opportunity for famous first words.

The important thing is that he actually stepped on the moon, bounced around and brought back lots of rocks. Buzz Aldrin was the second man to walk on the and he simply said, "Beautiful view...magnificent desolation." I always imagined how much it must suck to be the second person to set foot on the moon. I imagine him at parties later in life saying, "I was the second man to walk on the moon" and watching people's eyes glaze over and tell him they needed to get another drink.

I'm just saying that being second doesn't really mean anything to most people. But it was still cool. Just not as cool. 

Oh well. Sometimes I know what Buzz Aldrin must have felt like.

Imaginary friends

 

After many decades pondering friendship and why it comes and goes, I've come to the conclusion that all friends are imaginary friends. I can't say that I've ever really had a long-term friend. People seem to flit in and out of my life based on circumstances.  

Early in life your parents more or less arrange friendships for you. Or you are friends with kids in the neighborhood because...well, they are in the neighborhood.  Then you have friends from school based on who is in your class or in band or walks in the same direction as you do to and from school. School friends come and go based on your level in school. By the time I hit college those friends fade away and I began having work friends. Because college doesn't really lend itself to making or having friends.

Along the way you have girlfriends and you become friends with their girlfriend's boyfriends. Or you get adopted by the girlfriend's family until you break up and then you are just an asshole (even if she broke up with you).  

Back to work friends. They come and go with your jobs. And the higher up in a company you go, the less you have friend friends. You have people who act like they are friends (consultants and subordinates) but if you are smart you realize that they aren't really friends and like your ex-girlfriend's families, they think you are an asshole.

Sometimes I think that even dogs (a man's best friend) only act like they like you to get food. I know that is the case with cats. But most of the time they don't even act like they like you. 

I know this all makes me seem pretty jaded. And I am, but it's based on my experience. And I'll admit that I'm sometimes an asshole and not likeable, but sometimes I'm pretty mellow and charming. So my observations about friendship aren't just because of my personality. 

And BTW, I asked my imaginary friend Harvey and he admitted he only hangs out for the carrots.  So there.

I think I'd be sad to be happy

Almost two years ago to the day I wrote a post called, "I'm so happy to be sad." It was about me listening to the Acoustic Chill playlist on Amazon while weeding the Sisyphean hillside of horsetails behind my house.  Ironically today I was listening to the Acoustic Chill playlist on Amazon while weeding the Sisyphean hillside of horsetails behind my house. And low and behold I had the same feeling that all the songs were about people miserable because they loved somebody, lost somebody, wanted somebody or missed somebody. I was thinking WTF I should blog about it. Then I found I had blogged about it almost two years ago. 

I'm sure it wasn't the first time or will it be the last time. But I feel a bit chagrined that I didn't learn my lesson last time I listened to Acoustic Chill while weeding.  And I basically don't recall writing the fricking post, either. Though I must say it captured exactly the way I felt then and now. You'd think I'd written it...wait, I did. 

Sometimes I'm amazed at how well I write when I don't think about it so hard. Lately I just blather on about t-shirt designs that no one buys. I forget how insightful and wise I can be without knowing it. 

It strikes me that you don't hear too many songs (zero that I know of) written by old men whining about lost love, longing for love or missing love. There comes a point when you pretty much realize that silly love songs (like the ones Paul McCartney wrote about) are just that. For example, one song I heard this afternoon was about a couple who were whining about falling in love when all they really intended to do was hook up to pass the time.  Got news for you, you'll be out there messing around to kill time in no time. 

It's not that I don't believe in love. I just believe it was something very different in my younger days. And no matter how many times I thought I couldn't live without someone, I discovered I could and they sure as hell weren't wasting time worrying about living without me. Let's face it, romantic love is for the young and naive. 

On that note, I hear those neverending weeds calling my name.

The answer, my friend...

 

Bob Dylan recorded "Blowin' In the Wind" on this day in 1962. The song made him a star despite that his voice sucks and he can't carry a tune in a slop bucket (as my gramma used to say).  Bob Dylan is one of those anomolies to me in music like Johnny Cash, Boy George, Vanilla Ice and Blondie.  They made records even though they couldn't really sing. But what do I know. I don't really like Bruce Springstein's voice either. I do admire his politics, however.

And it isn't that I can sing. My singing career went downhill after my voice changed. But when I was in grade school I was pretty good. I got a Blue ribbon singing Edelweiss in an elementary school music competition. I also sang briefly in the Boise Boys Choir.  But I didn't like the idea of giving up my Saturday mornings to go to choir practice.  So that path to fame was shortlived.  Then, as I mentioned, once my voice changed so did any chance of me becoming a singer.

Now the only one who hears me sing is my dog and she will suffer a great deal in hopes of getting a treat. 

But I digress. Bob Dylan voice baffles me, as does his fame. He doesn't seem to have any stage prescence. He isn't an attractive man. He can play guitar and harmonica, but I never thought he did it particularly well. Yet he is an icon. 

I attribute it all to the "Emperor has no clothes" syndrome. If enough people are told someone is talented then the sheep will nod their heads and follow them. 

This explains influencers and people trending on social media. Most of them have absolutely no talent yet they became famous for getting people to like their shit on TikTok or Instagram.  That used to give me some hope of people recognizing my writing skills and eventually my t-shirt ideas. But after 22 or more years blogging and probably five years trying to get people to like my designs I'm getting the message that I don't even have what it takes to be a five-minute start on social media. 

Oh well, it's a hobby that keeps me focused. It's better than macrame.

There is no body in the family plot

 

I grew up watching Alfred Hitchcock on television. He had a show called Alfred Hitchcock Presents that later became the Alfred Hitchcock Hour.  I don't remember much about the program, but I remember Alfred Hitchcock's droll British voice and distinct profile.  I think he started every program (after the distinct theme song) with "Good Evening, I'm Alfred Hitchcock."  Then he would introduce that evening's program.

I knew Alfred Hitchcock was a famous director, too. I eventually saw and love Psycho, The Birds, and  Vertigo. One of the things I was always fascinated by was that Alfred Hitchcock always seemed to do a cameo appearance in all of his programs.  He was one of the few directors that seemed to love to be in front of the camera as well as behind it. Narcisism I suppose, but as I branched out in my own career in marketing and shooting commercials I've always enjoyed interjecting myself in them as well.

The reason I put Family Plot in here was not because I thought it was a great film. I don't think I ever saw it. But I remember the promos and Alfred Hitchcock's narration with that distinctive British accent saying, "There is no body in the Family Plot."  It stuck with me all of these years.

The other thing I connect to Alfred Hitchcock about are this books I read when I was in 5th and 6th grade. There was a mystery series called "Alfred Hitchcock Presents the Three Investigators and the Mystery of the..." Alfred Hitchcock was a character in the books and introduced them. I was so into them I convinced three of my grad school friends to form a club called the "Three Investigators." We even put an ad in the grade school newspaper that read simply, "We solve mysteries." It was the motto of the book Three Investigators.  We got razzed unmercifully for the ad and we never encountered a mystery to solve.

The reason I bring up Alfred Hitchcock is that I found this on a Southern California Goodwill eBay auction:

It is obviously a life mask of Alfred Hitchcock but it was listed simply as "Erik Erickson Signed Gold Male Life Mask Sculpture 101/1000 Limited Edition."   It already had 7 bids when I discovered it so I wasn't the only one who recognized it as Alfred Hitchcock.  I didn't have a clue who Erik Erickson was until I did some research. I discovered he was a quirky artist who sold the masks through his web page called House of Masks. I believe he used to work in the film industry as a make up artist and that's how he got access to the molds to create the masks.  I also found out he had a house in Florida that he had turned into a funky funhouse shrine with each room having a different theme. I found a youtube video about him. He introduced his house as an "Intensly themed house." It kind of reminded me of my office. 

Anyway Erik's studeo was in a garage at the house and he his masks became fairly collectible. The house burnt down in the late 2020s and Erik passed on in 2024. So there aren't going to be any new masks produced by him.

So I won the auction and bought the mask. But my personality being fairly obsessive when it comes to collections I began looking for other masks. Then I bought this one:

It is of course, Marlon Brando as the Godfather.  I had lots of interaction with Microsoft Copilot about both masks and it assured me they were both highly sought after by collectors. And now I put an offer on this one:

This is Boris Karloff as the Frankenstein monster. All three are signed by Erik Erickson and are limited editions and numbered. I haven't heard back about Frankenstein but I am fairly confident I'll win it. The challenge is where to put them in my office. Between swords, guitars and tiki mugs, I don't have much space left. 

But I always find a way.

God bless it...

 

It is, of course, the Fourth of July and what would a Fourth of July be without a Fourth of July parade (other than a bit more enjoyable).  I become more and more baffled as to the point of such parades as I grow older. I haven't been patriotic since I was about 11 years old and believed all of the propaganda I was fed at school about how great our country is because it was founded upon freedom.  Growing up in Boise it was easy to believe that the founding fathers were great people who only cared about the American people and democracy.  Years of working with government agencies and politicians has taughter me that very little of that is true.  America was built by rich white people (predominately rich white men) looking at ways to get richer and prevent anyone else from doing so.

So attending parades with lots of flag waving, candy throwing, advertising and politicians running for office just doesn't do much for me.  I was surrounded by greedy little kids screaming for candy from bored teenagers roped into marching for schools, clubs, teams and churches. I was handed a small American flag by a geriatric veteran who probably spent three years in the army and 40 years hanging out at the veterans of foreign wars putting back beer and pretzils. 

I was pleasantly suprised by a new entry in my small city's parade this year. A hearse from a new funeral home trying to drum up business.

It was a sharp contrast to the fire trucks, garbage trucks and tow trucks vying for their market share from the red, white and blue crowd.  

All of this seemed par for course in a time when the Orange Menace rules in Washington D.C. and craps all over democracy.  On that note, I did have ChatGPT create a new image for me today. I posted it on social media suggesting this is what he would have worn if he had been invited to Taylor Swift's wedding.

I don't imagine I'll get any responses to it.  I also posted one Fourth of July t-shirt design for the fun of it, too.

It seemed appropriate since things in this country just don't smell right anymore.

Burning down the house

 

The Globe Theatre, famous for being the venue where Shakespeare performed his plays, burnt down during a performance of "Henry VIII" on this day in 1613.  Apparently they fired off cannons on stage and they ignited the blaze.  I can't confirm whether or not this was the inspiration for David Byrne's song, "Burning down the house."

I thought about turning this image into a t-shirt, but even I think it may be to obscure of a fact to sell a t-shirt. And I doubt it could compete with such gems as my designs for National Darts Day or National Waffle Iron Day:

Though initially when I asked for the chicken and waffle image, ChatGPT was still fixated on Young Frankenstein and produced this gem:

I just love the new image generator and it's lack of the ability to pivot from one design to another. Not that it matters. I'm still batting 0 for 0 with t-shirt sales despite my brilliant marketing efforts to sell the absurd designs.  Irony is, they are the types of designs I'd buy in an instant. 

And  I'm the only one who has.

Walk his way

 

It is Mel Brooks' 100th birthday today.  Mel Brooks is responsible for some of the most iconic comedy films made like "Blazing Saddles," "Young Frankenstein," and "Space Balls."   I'd say he is the father of dad jokes because his movies were full of puns and off color humor.   Who can forget Marty Feldman as Igor telling Gene Wilder as Dr. Frankenstein to "walk this way" and Gene Wilder imitates his hobbling walk.  It was an old vadeville joke. And apparently it spired Aerosmith's song title Walk this Way. 

I can't even imagine being 100 years old. I have difficulty enough imagining being the age I am.  But I salute Mel Brooks for lasting this long.  I imagine his work will survive long after he has "walked this way" into the light. 

Thanks for the laughs Mel!

Birth of an Alien

 

I posted this t-shirt design on Blue Sky and it was flagged as adult content for nudity. It is based on Botecelli's Birth of Venus for Christ sakes. And the alien is very modest. I do think you can see a nipple on the woman to the left, but give me a break. I've appealed, but I'm betting they'll be as responsive as Teepublic was when I appealed them cancelling me account without reason.

So much for Blue Sky being the answer to those of us looking for a voice of reason on Social Media. I'm not sure it has a huge following. I post tons of content and get very little interaction. I post on Instagram and Facebook and don't get that much either.  As I've whined about many times, I haven't made a single sale from my Printify t-shirt store. 

Now that's obscene.