The skills of my trade

 

It is National Skilled Trades Day. I have mixed feelings about "skilled trades." The definition is a job that requires specialized, hands-on skills learned through focused training rather than a four-year college degree. And thus the great divide. Because as you meander through college studying random things and then reverse engineering your skills after you graduate to try and apply them to jobs people are hiring for, it get complicated. Whereas if you learn a trade like being a plumber, electrician or woodworker, you pretty much know what you are supposed to do.

I always admired people who had hard skills.  I would take my car to the automotive shop and listen to them point, twist things and pull on wires under the hood while I stood by like a baboon looking at a orange inside a mason jar with no idea how to get it out.  But I would nod knowingly because I had four-year college degree that only took me six years to get and the only skills I had to show was how to use the inverted pyramid to write a story. And I had a natural talent for writing headlines. 

Early in my college career my girlfriend's father tried to teach me how to repair vacuum cleaners. He owned a vacuum cleaner sale and repair shop and he wanted me to have a real skill if I was serious about his daughter. As I stripped down Hoover upright vacuums and pulled out worn motor brushes I realized I had neither the inclination nor the aptitude to work with my hands. I picture myself at 50 or 60 repairing vacuum cleaners and my interest in skilled trades and my interest in a long-term life with that particular girlfriend waned dramatically. 

But I still admire people who can fix things. Though my experience with remodelling our house a couple of years ago taught me that skilled trades are also full of not so skilled people who went into a trade because their parents kicked them out of the house and wouldn't let them play video games in the basement anymore. Most the of the plumbers, electricians and tile people who worked on our house seemed as baffled as I was by working with their hands.

So I have come to terms with the skills I do have. How else would I write a blog for more than 20 years and hawk t-shirts with bad puns on the Internet.  Now that is a skilled trade. Or at least a skilled trade-off.

Blame it on Reno

 

I haven't been to Reno in years.  I used to go there quite often. In fact it was the first place I gambled when I turned 21.  Honestly, to a 21 year old from Boise, Reno seemed like the height of sophistication.  It wasn't until I went to Las Vegas for the first time that I realized Reno was blue collar and Vegas was...well Vegas. 

When I started going to Reno it still had lots of the old casinos like the Nevada Club, Harold's, Harrah's and the Sands. Most of the old casinos are long gone. But I still like the old casinos. I never really did much but play slots. Table games stressed me out. I played a bit of Black Jack when I first went there, but I just never like the stress of knowing when to hit or stay. And casino dealers don't have a lot of patience for people who don't move quickly. 

So I sat at the slots with the blue heads and plunked coins in until a cocktail waitress gave me a free watered down drink and rolled her eyes when I didn't tip. 

At one point a college friend of mine moved to Reno and worked in a casino as a slot host so I went to visit at least once a year. He had been the photographer on my college newspaper and was one of the people who taught me how to develop film and print photos. On a couple of trips we drove around taking photos in a series we were going to call the art and architecture of Reno.  It was a joke because at the time Reno was basically a white trash mecca. 

I am a bit embarassed by the photos now because I was going through a pony tail phase. 

This last photo show this great old dive bar called the Zanzibar. I took tons of photos of it. It has long since closed and eventually burnt down.  But I imortalized it with a colorized version of a black and white photo I took when it was still hopping (by Reno standards). I turned it into a mock travel poster playing off it being in the deepest, darkest Reno.

Today I added some of my Reno stuff to my t-shirt shop.

If none of them sell, well, I can blame it on Reno.

I fought the lawn...

 

It is Law Day according to the National Day Day people. I find it ironic to celebrate the law during a time when the Orange Menace and the toadies he appointed to the Supreme Court crap on the law on an almost daily basis.  And thugs in masks ignore laws on a daily basis and haul people away (in addition to killing more than a few). 

But we must have lawn and order...er law and order.   Though the protect and fertilize part seems appropriate. 

It is also National Space Day.  I celebrated it by trying to sell a t-shirt commemorating the French space cat Felicette. I believe she was sent into space by the French in the early 1960s. They thanked her for her service by dissecting her brain when she returned to earth. 

There's got to be a lesson in there somewhere.

Though I don't think Felicette had much choice in becoming a space cat.  One minute she was eating fish in Paris and the next things she knew she was stuck in a rocket and fired into space and then killed and dissected when she landed.  All in the name of progress.  

I think I know how she feels.

What's up, doc?

 

It is National Bugs Bunny Day and I hopped on board with a few of my old (and new) rabbit designs. Because Bugs Bunny is trademarked and copyrighted right up the ying yang.  So let those bastards at Teepublic fight with Warner Brothers over Intellectual Property.  My Hare Apparent design seem like a good fit for National Hairstylist Appreciation Day (though the hare doesn't try to upsale you on hair products). 

It is also National Raisin Day and anyone who has ever had a rabbit or been around a rabbit will understand this design.

I'm sure the raisin promoters won't be thrilled by my t-shirts or stickers.  But if you poke a bear, you better be ready for a bear who has been poked...wait, that would make a great t-shirt.

It is also National Oatmeal Cookie Day so I was able to work in my Cookie Grumbles products:

Of course I could have tried selling this one instead:

It is a bit too sophisticated for most people. 

Finally it is National Honesty Day and honestly, I couldn't help shilling my t-shirt shop one more time as having honestly great t-shirts.  

I'm not sure how I sleep at night.

Zip it

 

It is National Zipper Day and though the first thing I think of when I think of mimes (other than a desire to get away from them as quickly as possible) is a design I created a year or so ago:

I was quite proud of it, though I realize it is a bit extreme.  But in my experience, so is most people's distaste for mimes.  But National Zipper Day did inspire this one:

It is actually the only thing that inspired me because all that was left was National Peace Rose Day, National Shrimp Scampi Day and Stop Food Waste Day. Though I was tempted to create a design suggesting making Shrimp Scampi was a food waste in itself.  However, heating up anything with leftover shrimp in it in the employee lounge always makes me feel good.  But while writing this, I did come up with a compost bin idea and went for it.

It was this or an image of a compost bin looking a bit like Marlon Brando in On the Waterfront with the caption, "I could have Bin, somebody." But no one under 60 would have got it. 

Guess which bin that idea went into?

Who arted?

 

I have always had this not so secret desire to be thought of as an artist. I've endured being around (and dating a few) artists who were...well, pretty convinced that the world owed them homage because they had artistic talent. One has only to point out Vincent Van Gogh to realize talent means nothing if it isn't recognized. Vincent just got screwed because his genius wasn't recognized until he was dead. 

Isn't that ironic?

I realize that my blog had never been recognized for burning wisdom or genius.  And obviously I have turned to t-shirt art as an outlet for both my genius at dad jokes and absurd artistic humor. And also, obviously I have encountered Vincent Van Gogh's lack of recognition.  But it isn't for lack of trying. 

I scroll through my store chock full of t-shirt designs that I would by and wear if I could afford all of them. And I have started getting regular likes of my social media posts blatently promoting my t-shirts, but no one buys the friggin things. It isn't that I need the money. But come on, look at the shit you see promoted on Facebook that people buy. 

AI assisted or not, someone has to recognize that some of my t-shirt designs are funny? Clever? Annoying? 

This one's for you Vincent!

The Devil, you say...

 

It is National Devil Dog Day.  And technically a Devil Dog is a Devil's Food Cake bun sliced in half with cream filling. And though they say every dog has his day, I'm not sure this one deserves it's own day.

Though they claim Devil Dogs is what German soldiers starting calling U.S. Marines during World War I. I'm inclined to think that is just a load of Devil Dog crapola used on propaganda posters to recruit young men who liked the idea of being called a Devil Dog. I'm not following how a cream filled cake bun enhanced that image, however.

I didn't feel like creating a Devil Dog t-shirt design so I repurposed one of my Cryptid designs for a Jersey Devil.  Because Devil Dog...Jersey Devil...eh, who cares.

It is just random enough that it might appeal to someone.  Though when I was first creating the Jersey Devil design back when Teepublic crapped all over my t-shirt empire (may they go to a place where Devil Dogs and Jersey Devils show them the business end of a pitchfork), one of my AI friends first suggested this:

I felt White Devil was a bit too racially charged for a t-shirt. I think I told the AI app to created an image of the Jersey Devil working in a place like White Castle.  It made the leap to White Devil from there. So I converted it to simply the Jersey Devil Drive-In.  If you aren't going to sell a t-shirt design anyway, who cares if it makes sense.

The devil made me do it.

Tut, tut...unearthing some interest

 

I have always had an interest in ancient Egypt. Well, always technically began when I was going into 7th grade and discovered a paperback book about Howard Carter discovering King Tut's tomb in the early 1920s.  For awhile I was convinced I was going to be an Egyptologist.  As with most things, my 13 year old self romanticized what being an archeologist would be like. Unlike Howard Carter who capitalized on the British system of finding a rich sponsor and then paying local people to do all of the grunt work of digging and moving dirt and sand, I understand most archeologists spend a lot of time researching and sifting through dirt and cataloging.

Before discovering King Tut, I spent years uncovering the past in my grandmother's drawers and closets. She lived next door to us growing up and she never minded my fascination and grubbing through things and asking questions. I loved old photo albums and boxes of papers.  It was all treasure to me.  

I've related before that my father was obsessed with finding lost treasures of the old west. He would take me along on trips to old ghost towns where he would run his metal detector over old outhouses and cabin walls.  We never found anything much but horseshoes and railroad spikes.  

My father would also take me to flea markets and I loved walking by table after table of country antiques: oil lamps, tools, dishes and other junk people had dug out of old barns or rescued from estate sales.  I loved the unique and unusual.  My bedroom as a kid was filled with various curiosities like bird's nests, wasp nests, rocks, marbles and old toys.

Ironically, my mother was a minimalist having grown up in the depression with 11 brothers and sisters and very little possessions. My father had grown up in the same house my grandmother lived and was an only child. He liked his stuff.  So it was one of those points of tension between my parents that she eventually just tolerated.

I kept my habit of going to flea markets, thrift stores, antique malls and auctions as I became and adult.  When I lived alone, it was entertainment and I'll admit I accumulated a great deal of stuff just for the sake of having it. When I got married much of the stuff went back home to the same thrift stores I sourced them from but some of my treasures that I could give up ended up in plastic bins that moved with me to two new homes and habitatted the garage for years. 

When the pandemic hit I decided to go through the treasures and that's when I truly began an eBay seller.  AI hadn't been created yet so the research and drafting listing and setting prices was all up to me. And slowly I emptied the bins. Things that didn't sell eventually made it back to Goodwill. 

As the pandemic winded slowly down my interest in thrifting picked up again.  I gained a home office and was excited about stocking it with treasures.  But when it looked like I was going to cross over the line into "too much stuff" territory, I started selling again and realized it was the best of both worlds. I could go to thrift stores and antique malls (which I love) and acquire as long as I kept a steady flow heading out the door via eBay. Dizgraceland Collectibles took form.

I have to admit it is more fulfilling than the career I'm in (marketing) that is finally winding down. But I'm able to use my marketing savvy and apply it to retail. And of course I have my AI friends who are like the Egyptian locals who helped Carter move dirt and sand. They do the heavy work and I have the fun of finding and figuring out what the things are, where they came from and where they should go.

I'll admit it is still difficult at times part with really cool things at times. I still have my collections and interests. So far the lack of space caps those collections and  I have been able to stop acquiring things I don't have room for.  Also, as I age, my forays through thrift stores have taught me that many of those stores are the great mother ship that all things come from and return to eventually.  And the reality is that same will be true for my precious treasure. 

And a one, and ado...

 

It is National Talk Like Shakespeare Day. And before you doth protest too much,  let me say that it really isn't that different than Talk Like a Pirate Day.  There are just a few less "Arrrrs" and "Swabs" and "Avast yee's."

I actually like Shakespeare.  I particularly like Hamlet. To a lesser extent I sort of like Romeo and Juliet and Midsummer's Night Dream. Most of my exposure has been through having to read the plays in high school, college and then again when my children had to read those plays in high school. Funny how I have to relive things you have to read in high school. I can't tell you how many times I've had to read The Things They Carried.  Though in all fairness I didn't read it in high school since I was in high school during the time of the Vietnam war which is where the book was set.

But I digress. Back to Shakespeare. Here is one of the first riffs on Shakespeare I made years ago. I thought it would be a pretty funny name for a Dry Cleaners.

Then there was another riff on Hamlet with this one:

Oh well.  I'm no Shakespeare.

D. B. Cooperstown

 

See the image of me that I thought looked like D.B. Cooper made me think if creating this design of D.B. Cooperstown (which I assume could be an alias of D.B. Cooper while he played minor league baseball). Not that there is any evidence that D.B. Cooper ever played minor league baseball.  It is just a whimsy of mine that ChatGPT helps me indulge.  Chat seems to think this idea is a true winner and I will finally sell a t-shirt.  I lack it's enthusiasm. I have a whole Printify storefront chock full of clever t-shirts that no one seems to think are clever enough to actually order one.

Who knows? Maybe D.B. Cooper will see this design and order a baseball. But considering he skyjacked a Norwest Orient flight in 1971 (55 years ago), he would likely be in his 80s now. So he probably wouldn't be afraid anyone would see the resemblance in the FBI sketch anyway, even with a baseball shirt and cap.

I thought this D.B. Cooper design would have been a hot seller, too.  No. Not even when I when all Andy Warhol with the design.

I can only assume that not too many people recognize good 'ol D.B. anymore.  So yet another t-shirt design strikes out.

Fog

 

I feel like the Dos Equis most interesting man in the world when I say, I don't always get sick, but when I do, I really do. And I feel like I am in a very dense fog. This image is an updated version of a post I made years ago, ripping off a movie poster for John Carpenter's Fog. I created it myself using Photoshop.

I just asked ChatGPT to update it. I like the way it merges my current white beard into the fog. Though I don't think it is that much better than the version I created with Photoshop. But I wasn't sick when I created the original. At least I don't think I was. It's all kind of a fog.

Having grown up a Christian Scientist as a kid, being sick was never an experience filled with comfort and sympathy from my mother.  Being sick meant more shame than anything else. When other kids got thermometers, aspirin, and cool wash clothes, I got disappointed looks and passages from the bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  So I never faked being sick to get out of school like other kids.

Now I hate staying home as well as long as I can stand up.  Fortunately I don't get sick often.  But I get the same disappointed (and often dirty looks) if I show up at the office coughing. Since Covid, people prefer silent suffering.

This is another random image I created years ago for St. Patrick's Day (obviously ripping off Silence of the Lambs). Here's ChatGPT's version.

I like to think of it as an ode to the moment when I discovered through DNA tests that I wasn't Irish. It also looks a bit like a police sketch of DB Cooper. 

Or an agent from Men in Black.  My mind does wander. I blame it on the fog.

Running up some bloody hill

 

It is National Exercise Day and I do like a good day of exercise. Actually my main forms of exercise are exercises in futility. Unfortunately, those exercises don't help you to lose weight or increase cardio health. They don't even help you lose wait.

I have exercised off and on most of my life. I was never an athletic person. I was a straight A student until until 7th grade PE and got a C because I never could climb a rope or do a hundred sit-ups. And I learned in 7th grade to hate running with a passion. 

I have gone through many phases in my life of being overweight and losing weight. It truly does seem to be a Sisyphean type activity. Now that I am in my late 60s I have started to question the point of worrying about my weight. I have a doctor's appointment in May and if she says I should lose weight I am tempted to ask her if losing weight would keep me from ultimately dying anyway. But I imagine she would just shake her head and write something in my chart. Or she could say no, but it could help me live longer. But if living longer means I have to cut out all of the things I enjoy, I'm not sure what the point is.

Regardless, I posted three new t-shirt designs that ChatGPT assures me will be a hit with people who do exercise. But something tells me it is merely another exercise in futility. 

I'm getting pretty good at that exercise.