Am I blue?

 

Well, Blue Sky hasn't made me famous yet either. I had one like for my Make America Grate Again post. Perhaps I just don't understand how social media works or doesn't work. 

And in case you are wondering, this image of a fairly graphic Blue Moon was and image I tried creating on Ideogram a few months ago but I never tried making it into a t-shirt. It didn't quite meet even my standards (which aren't that high). But I needed something to go along with Blue Sky and "Am I blue?"

Butt who knows if it would have sold.

I am tempted to post it on Blue Sky.

Making America Grate Again

 

I just joined Blue Sky. And this is one of my first posts. I truly think it is something Trump can achieve.

It's odd, but Blue Sky looks just like Twitter used to look like before Elon Muskrat fouled it. I hear millions are leaving X and migrating to Blue Sky. We'll see how long it lasts before it becomes grate again. 

Take a hike

 

This is an oldy but a goody. And it seemed perfect for National Take a Hike Day. So I posted it on X with this text: It's National Take A Hike Day! #NationalTakeAHikeDay https://zazzle.com/horribly_lost_t_shirt-256371782651329327… And take a hike is exactly what

@TeePublic

@teepublic_usa

will tell you to do if you are an artist and don't navigate their incomprehensible terms and conditions correctly.

I won't stop until Teepublic apologizes to me. 

So obviously I won't stop.

 It's also National Homemade Bread Day. I didn't slam Teepublic, but I did use the design on a potholder you can own. https://www.zazzle.com/yeast_mode_pot_holder-256717093258680906

After all, the design is too hot to handle.

Ornamental, My Dear Watson

 

I know what you've been wondering, "How can I get a Christmas ornament that promotes Dizgraceland Records, a non-existent record company that has not records and is really a blog and part-time t-shirt, clock, playing card and now Christmas ornament designer.  Well, obviously it is your lucky day because I figured out how to sell Christmas ornaments on Zazzle. Because nothing says Christmas like a Dizgraceland Records ornament.

Well how about this.

It's my way of promoting a Blue Christmas without poking the Intellectual Property police. 

I think that now that I am selling t-shirts, playing cards, tote bags, clocks, dog dishes, Christmas stockings, phone cases and Christmas ornaments, the world is my oyster. 

The trick will be if someone actually buys any of it.

Time on my hands

 

Zazzle has another thing that Teepublic doesn't offer. You can create clocks. So I turned this record that doesn't exist from a record company that doesn't exist by a singer that doesn't exist into a clock. You can also buy this one.

I do love my hair in this one. And it makes a great clock, too.  Or you can just buy a clock that had my non-existent record label on it.

It's about time.

Matchmaker, matchmaker...

 I discovered you can sell custom matchboxes on Zazzle which are horrendously over priced but you get 50 or so of them. And I am absolutely positive no one will buy them, but I could resist creating a design and trying to sell it on match boxes. And of course Zazzle flags the design for review because they know the millions of people who are going to flock on board and buy match boxes I have designed will get them in deep doo with some intellectual police Nazi. Like anyone owns "A match made in heaven."  I suppose it is because I started out attempting to sell this:

Then I got all paranoid that they were going to go all "Fiddler on the roof" with me and scream I was violating the rights of a 60-year old musical. So I didn't post it and went with the match made in heaven and a National Matchmaker Day design.

I'll be damned if they didn't flag that for review, too. I get all paranoid and think that shit lawyers at Teepublic contacted the shit lawyers at Zazzle and warned them that I am a rabble rouser.  They are matchboxes for Christ sakes. Who even uses matches these days.

I could be because I posted this for National Pickle Day:

I posted it on X with this text: It's National Pickle Day! #NationalPickleDay https://zazzle.com/bit_of_a_pickle_t_shirt-256886997674890774…

And a pickle is what you'll be in if you are an independent artist trying to sell on

@TeePublic

@teepublic_usa

and trying to figure out their terms and conditions.

I did get one like from Donna's Pickle Beer. So I've got that going for me. But don't you like the way I wove that slam on Teepublic in there seamlessly. I don't even think they know what hit them.

But if they do, I have a match for them: My butt and their face.

I'm going to put that on a match box and it will probably fly through with no problem.

Proof is in the pudding

 

This image was inspired by National Indian Pudding Day (which didn't get a single post on Instagram until I posted one).  Ever wonder where the phrase, "The proof is in the pudding" comes from? Well, even if you haven't, the phrase "the proof is in the pudding" is a shortened version of the original proverb, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating." This older saying, which dates back to at least the 14th century in England, means that the true value or quality of something can only be judged by putting it to the test. In other words, you have to experience or try something out to truly understand its worth or effectiveness.

In medieval times, "pudding" referred to a type of sausage filled with meat and other ingredients, often risky to eat if not properly prepared. Hence, "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" meant that you could only tell if the pudding was safe and good by tasting it.

Over time, the phrase was shortened to "the proof is in the pudding," though this newer version is less literal and sometimes misunderstood. Today, it’s used to convey that results are what ultimately demonstrate the quality or truth of something.

The moral of this is that making pudding that is actually sausage is not pretty. Nor is blogging.

Pizza my mind

 

It's National Pizza with the Works Except Anchovies Day.  And in addition to having too long of a National Day title for a #tag on social media, it garnered maybe 900 posts. I think my social posts probably get that much play and that isn't saying anything. I think people overestimate the power of the National Day impact. 

It is also National French Dip Day. At first I asked ChatGPT to generate an image of a crazy looking French person wearing a beret and it gave me this:

I think it is a striking image, but it looks a bit too much like Johnny Depp playing the Mad Hatter in the Tim Burton "Alice in Wonderland" film. I also thought by labeling this a "French Dip" I'd get some back lash (not that anything gets backlash in these days of Trumps and Roses). And I didn't think anyone would buy a t-shirt with this image on it.

So I asked Gemini to generate and image of a French Poodle being dipped in a wash tub (Gemini can't handle images of people for free yet).

Now that is a design some French Poodle owner might buy. But the "National French Dip Day" people didn't bother with X knowing it isn't a forum for civil marketing. So I posted it on Instagram and saw there were also only a couple hundred posts. 

Finally, to experience the trifecta of National Day t-shirt designs I created this for National Chicken Soup for the Soul Day (which is kind of a chicken shit National Day if you ask me).

Again, although it was a thing on X and Instagram, there were not even a thousand posts.

I'm at a loss where to market my stuff. Again, I haven't sold a single thing on Zazzle. So as much as I hate Teepublic, at least they were aggressive marketers. They just have a shitty legal team.

Oh well. Viva La French Dip!

What the heck is that anyway?

 

Not all things I find in thrift stores are easy to identify. Take this thing:

When I first found it, I thought it was some kind of sculpture. It looked like it could be an arm or leg of a statute. It was made out of stone or concrete. This was reinforced by the tag I found with it that I assumed belonged to it, but it wasn't attached so I was making a leap of faith.

I went to Kheops International's web page. They were still in business, but there wasn't anything that resembled this. So I wrote their customer service and sent them some photos of the thing.

In the meantime I kept using Google Lens to try and identify it. If you haven't used Google Lens, it is an option to have Google search for an image you upload to try and find similar things. Some times it is spot on. Other times it is random. But after a few searches, I thought I found something that resembled the weird stone arm or leg.

It came up several places looking like a traditional Indonesian pestle called an ulek-ulek. It is typically used together with a mortar called a cobek to grind and crush spices, herbs, and other ingredients into pastes and sambals (chili sauces) that are essential to Indonesian cuisine. The ulek-ulek is usually made from stone or wood, and its shape allows for an effective grinding motion to release the flavors of ingredients such as chilies, garlic, shallots, and ginger.

Sure enough, the customer service people at Kheops International confirmed that it was indeed a traditional Indonesian pestle sans its mortar.

Go figure. I search Goodwill the next few days hoping to find the cobek to my ulek. But alas, either someone had snagged it or it got broken or tossed by the original owners and they threw the ulek into the Goodwill donation pile. Thing is, together, the traditional Indonesian Mortar and Pestle would be worth about $150. Who knows what a lonely ulek is worth? I figured it had to be worth at least a fourth of what a mortar and pestle would cost together and listed it on eBay for $45.  Maybe there is someone out there with a cobek just dying to find an ulek.

You never know.

I dig thrift store archeology

 

I hit two Goodwills, Value Village and a couple of antique malls this weekend.  I had some pretty amazing finds.

This one was a super cool Zen Buddha sculpture that I'm not sure I want to sell.

And speaking of Buddhas, I also found this one (that I'm also not sure I want to sell).

Talk about enlightenment. But to give the Christians some love, I found these items.

There is just something about a Crucifix I can't resist. Maybe it is because the church I was raised in didn't have any symbols other than the cross and the crown. 

Now this one was truly an anomaly. It was an odd reproduction of the Great Chalice of Antioch from the 1970s that was sold as a candle holder. 

No I knew nothing of the Great Chalice. So ChatGPT enlightened me. 

"The Great Chalice of Antioch is a notable silver chalice that was initially believed to date back to the early days of Christianity, possibly around the 1st century AD, and was thought to have been used in early Christian rituals. When it was discovered in the 1910s in Antioch (modern-day Turkey), it stirred significant interest due to the belief that it might even be the legendary Holy Grail.

However, after extensive scholarly research, it was concluded that the chalice was likely created in the 6th century, making it a later artifact than initially thought. Despite this, the Great Chalice of Antioch remains an impressive example of ancient Christian liturgical art and is now housed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, where it is considered a valuable historical and artistic treasure."

 Today I took my daughter to a nearby town called Snohomish. It has several antique malls. Here was my haul.

I was truly enthralled by this Bakelite ash tray from the iconic Cunard Line steamship company.

I Found this Chinese figure in a booth that was selling everything 50 percent off. 

And this amazing African wood carving was in one little booth for $2. 

It was right next to this interesting wood carving of Moses and the tablets. The staff is supposed to be the one that changed into a snake. 

And at another mall I found these two reverse painting Mexican trays. 

I love being a thrift store archeologist. 

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.