I took the road more travelled

 I was flying all night on Tuesday (and boy are my arms tired). I flew from Seattle to Chicago and then from Chicago to Washington D.C. It is a business trip. I am in my meeting now. I will leave tomorrow early and fly to L.A. and then to Seattle.

Travelling used to be fun. Now I would rather be home in my home office surrounded by my guitars. I suppose I should appreciate this while I still can. I doubt I will travel much when I retire. It is nice to have someone else pay for everything. Though they never really pay for everything.

I've been to D.C. many times. I used to have time to see things when I come here. This time I just seem to have time to come, go to my meeting and then fly home. No site seeing. I've seen all the museums and monuments anyway. It is an odd city.

The hotel is huge but the room is small. Kind of cool though. It is an old building. Most things in D.C. are old. 

Oh well, here's to an 8 hour meeting.

Sigh.

A journey of a thousand miles

 

I always liked this t-shirt. I was disappointed it didn't take off with travelers.  I would wear one. It would be a great beginning of a trip t-shirt. Not so much I'm going home t-shirt. I don't have much of a sense of humor on the return trips. But beginnings are full of promise. You just have to get through security.  

Regardless of how many times I pass through security, I am still anxious. You never know what is going to happen. I've gone through thinking I have nothing to worry about and then find out I forgot to remove a pocket knife when I used my backpack on a camping trip. Fortunately TSA wasn't phased. But they kept the knife.

I just like getting through and sitting down on the other side and putting myself back together for the the trip to the gate. Just getting through security is a relief. 

I suppose if I did wear one of these t-shirts TSA may take offense and I'd end up with that strip search that is on my bucket list. 

Not.

Bodhisattva, come and take me by the hand

 

As I rummage through thrift stores and antique malls, I am drawn to specific types of pieces. Or perhaps they are drawn to me. Guanyin, or Kuan Yin, or Kannon is one of those things I am drawn to. She is a bodhisattva. associated with compassion and and mercy. A bodhisattva is a being who has attained enlightenment but delays entering Nirvana to help others achieve liberation.

As you can see I have begun accumulating several images of Guanyin in her various manifestations. Almost all of them are white, which surprised me when I found the figurine at the top of the page at an antique mall over the weekend. The tag said it was a figure of a Geisha, but I knew the way she was sitting that she was and incarnation of Buddha. 

My desk is full of Buddha figurines. There are weeping Buddhas, reclining Buddhas, laughing Buddhas and simply seated Buddhas. They all give me peace. I believe I have written before about my brief stint as a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. Nichiren Daishonin was a 13th-century Japanese Buddhist monk. The practice centers around chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo and studying the Lotus Sutra. 

I hate to admit it, but the only reason I became a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist was because I was dating an artist who was a Nichiren Shoshu Buddhist. It was during a period of my relative youth that I was searching. I studied Astrology, Quantum Physics and crystals. I dabbled with Tarot cards and went to psychic fairs. Chanting Nam-myoho-renge-kyo didn't seem that far fetched to me at first. 

But unlike other Buddhist teachings, Nichiren Shoshu was a bit controlling and demanding. There were lots of meetings and of course daily chanting. It triggered my rebellious side. I hate being controlled and trapped in anything that reeks of organized religion (or organized anything). I don't like clubs or meetings. I don't like uniforms or standards.  And as I've stated many times over the years, I don't even like making beds or mowing lawns just because you are supposed to. 

I prefer purpose in my rote repetition.

So Buddhism, or at least the way I understand it, doesn't really fall into any standard path to enlightenment. What put me off about Nichiren Shoshu Buddhism is that people would chant for things. The woman I was seeing when I became a Buddhist, chanted for a car. And there were people in the groups I was pressured into attending that chanted for drugs and money. So basically when I stopped dating the artist, I stopped being a Niciren Shoshu Buddhist. I just didn't stop being drawn to Buddhism.

Funny how things come full circle in our lives some times.

Teeing off

 

Having not heard from the legal team at teepublic.com I posted this image on X with text that suggested people think twice before buying or selling on their site. And I gave a brief synopsis of how this design prompted a reprimand about their terms and conditions and when I asked for a explanation they deleted my account. I hashtagged them. 

Crickets. But that seems to be their business model -- ignore criticism. I was careful not to get into name calling or any thing they could libelous. But with their incomprehensible terms and conditions, who knows. Big companies have the resources to threaten and assume you'll cave because who wants to waste money on a legal battle. And considering I made less than $200 after months of work why would I waste money on a legal battle. 

Pisses me off that they know they don't really have to do anything. I'm like a fly on their horse's ass. 

Pun intended. 

But I have never like injustice and I really think they are in the wrong here. I think I'll just keep posting my T design to tick them off.

How do you like them terms and conditions?

Dumbo for Gumbo

 

It's National Gumbo Day so I dug out this design. I believe I actually sold one of these t-shirts. I'm surprised the cracked legal team at teepublic.com allowed it to stay on my store before they deleted it. I still haven't heard a word. I'm resigning myself to the fact that the store is gone along with my 1500 designs, good and bad.

I suppose if I do rebuild I should be more decerning.

On the Thrift Store archeology front I have recovered from eBay removing my Soviet leader nesting dolls. I have found some pretty cool stuff lately. Like this:

The Ye Olde Hostel of God-Begot, also known as God-Begot House, has a history as a lodging establishment in Winchester. Originally established as a sanctuary for lawbreakers during the Middle Ages, it evolved into a public house and hotel over the years. The building is Tudor in style and has stood on the site of an ancient manor that dates back to 1052​. In the early 20th century, it functioned as a pub, and it continued to serve as a hotel until it closed around 2010.

How cool is that. 

I also found this:

This is a replica of a marker found in Ecuador that marks the location of the Equator. It is called Mitad del Mundo monument, located just north of the capital, Quito. This monument marks a calculated position of the equatorial line, though modern GPS measurements place the true equator slightly away from it. I just love finding things I've never heard of and learning from them. Because it never occurred to me that Ecuador  is named Ecuador because the Equator passes through it. 

Trouble is, when I find cool things like this, I hate to sell them. But if I don't I'll be buried in cool stuff. So It takes discipline to just enjoy them until they sell.

Is it really Squirrel Month or am I nuts?

 

Apparently October is Squirrel Month according to the National Day people. It used to be Squirrel Awareness Month, but I assume they did some focus groups and determined that Squirrel Month plays better with potential squirrel fans in the 18-46 demographic. 

I would have created a new design about Squirrel Month and posted it on my storefront at teepublicsucks.com but as you recall they cancelled my account. And the crack legal team they have at teepublicbites.com  have yet to respond to my challenge as to why they cancelled my account for violating their terms and conditions without telling me exactly what terms and conditions I violated. 

But let's face it, if you are part of the legal team for a company that sells other people's t-shirt designs and sends out 10-20 marketing texts and e-mails a day to the people who are trying to sell their designs, you probably aren't a graduate of Harvard Law. In fact, their legal team may in fact be ChatGPT

And something tells me if their are actual people on teepublicisuseless.com's legal team I doubt if they have law degrees. If they do, I wouldn't be surprised if they bought them online. But I still imagine ChatGPT wrote their terms and conditions but included a disclaimer that it wasn't always accurate and didn't, in fact, understand the terms and conditions either.

Just a wild guess. 

Hey, teepubliccanrotinhell.com, look! Squirrel!

Zazzle them

 I have tried building a store at https://www.zazzle.com/store/dizgraceland/.  But rebuilding a storefront that once had more than 1500 designs is a daunting task. And I hate to admit it, but zazzle.com doesn't have the most user friendly environment to load designs. I guess I was just used to teepublic.com. And as scummy as their incomprehensible terms and conditions were, it was easy to build a store and load designs. Plus there wasn't a delay in seeing the designs appear in the store. I've loaded a dozen or so and only a handful are showing up. Plus the profit margin is even less than teepublic.

But then again I was never doing it for the money. I was doing it to get some sense of validation that my designs were good enough for someone want to buy them. I had sold more than 80 before everything went to hell and teepublic cancelled my account.  I have to say, the worst part about it is not having a clue why. I could see if I had been trying to pull a fast one over someone and turn a quick buck, but all of the designs were my ideas, even the ones that stepped on the toes of some corporations intellectual property.

The irony was that they simply told me that I had violated their terms and conditions and I should review them to figure out how. But they are written in obscure legalese that is incomprehensible to me. I just wanted them to say in plain language what it was that I did that violated their terms. 

At this point I don't really care about them reinstating my store. I would just like to know why it was deleted so I can go on about my business despising their company and trash it in social media.

That will show them.

Kick me while I'm down

 

I got this message from eBay this morning:

We had to remove your listing because it didn’t follow our Offensive material policy. Listings that promote or glorify hatred, violence, or discrimination aren’t allowed.

What activity didn't follow the policy

At eBay, we have a strict policy against items that promote or glorify hatred or violence to ensure our platform remains a safe, trusted and inclusive environment for our global community of sellers and buyers. Consequently merchandise that may indicate support of Vladimir Putin is prohibited on eBay.

I had found these nesting dolls at Goodwill a few weeks ago and listed them on eBay. I didn't think anything of it. They are former Soviet leaders and the smallest one is Putin. So apparently trying to sell it indicates support of Vladimir Putin and is prohibited.

I'm not doing so well with my online ventures. First teepublic.com deletes my account for some unknown reason and now eBay accuses me of being a Putin supporter because I tried selling Soviet leader nesting dolls. I must say that it seems farfetched that these nesting dolls promote or glorify hatred or violence. I'm willing to bet they aren't removing any Trump items on eBay and if anyone glorifies hatred or violence it would be Trump.

But what can I do? It's me against a faceless corporation.

I'm still reeling from the teepublic debacle. Part of every day for me was cranking out some new designs and posting them on my teepublic.com store. I'm at a loss. I suppose I could still crank them out and post them here, but what good would that do? The two or three people who read my blog would see them, but I would right where I was when I started posting on teepublic.com in the first place. I wanted people to see my work.

And now it is essentially gone.

Lowering the bar

 So I get this email from teepublic.com this morning:

Dear Dizgraceland,

This is to notify you that, as a result of a violation of our terms and conditions, we have removed or disabled access to the material that appeared at www.teepublic.com/user/Dizgraceland and have deleted your account.

Please note that our removal of the aforementioned material and our deleting your account may result in the interruption or cancellation of previous processed orders involving your submissions to TeePublic.

If you believe that your work has been removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, you are welcome to contact us and we will consider the matter. However, nothing herein shall be construed as an agreement or course of dealing by us to in the future take any action or refrain from taking any action, and TeePublic reserves all rights.

That was it. They deleted my account and more than 1500 designs I've worked months on. And you may be smarter than me, but can you understand from that email how I violated their terms and conditions?  And don't you think they owe me an explanation? I responded asking what I had done to violate their terms and conditions and they sent me this:

Hi there,

It appears your account was flagged for violating our terms and conditions. Please make sure to check out our Terms and Conditions here: https://www.teepublic.com/terms

After reading these in full, if you still feel this was done in error, please fill out the form on the following page: https://teepublic.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/requests/new?ticket_form_id=7138964965783

Under the drop-down labeled "Please select the option that best describes your issue". select the "I am a designer and there is a problem with my account." option.

This form will ask you for information about your account as well as for any attachment that can verify the authenticity of your work. This could be PSD files, AI files, or any other documentation that shows you are the creator and owner of the works you uploaded to TeePublic.

Due to the high volume of designer accounts, we are unable to respond to every inquiry, however, we do read every response to this form and you will hear from us if your account is reinstated.

Best,

So I filled out the form and I am pretty sure I will never hear from teepublic.com again. Something makes me think it had nothing to do with anything I posted in my teepublic.com store. I think it was stuff I posted here about how ridiculous it was that they kept pulling things they said were violating intellectual property rights. And then when the pulled the "This is a t-shirt design" that was just a big "T" on the front of a shirt and I questioned them both here and in an email response to them, they just took the low road and deleted my account. 

Perhaps I shouldn't have said I hate lawyers.  But I do  hate lawyers. The canned emails they sent me were obviously written by low functioning lawyers.  What in the hell does, "Nothing herein shall be construed as an agreement or course of dealing by us in the future take any action or refrain from taking any action and TeePublic reserves all rights" mean?  It's not even a complete sentence.

ChatGPT says, "The sentence is clarifying that TeePublic is not making any commitments or promises to act (or not act) in a certain way in the future, and they retain full control over their actions and legal rights. It's a way of ensuring that they are not bound by any unintentional interpretations of the document."

Regardless of whether they reinstate my account or not, I'm simply looking for other options. But I have to tell you, the thought of reloading 1500 designs on a new site doesn't appeal to me. Obviously, I should be more discerning, but even so, it is months of work that was negated by teepublic.com without any explanation.  

In the meantime I'm trying https://www.zazzle.com/store/dizgraceland. Sigh.

No guts, no glory

 

It's what's inside that counts, right? ChattyGPT helped me with this one. It's got a lot of heart for an AI program.  And I didn't have the heart to ask it to help generate a design for National Trigeminal Neuralgia Awareness Day.

Today was also National Propane Day. I was tempted to create something about National Propane Day Gives Me Gas, but I just recycled something I'd already done for propane some time ago.

For some reason, I haven't sold any of these. That stinks. As you recall, I shared my version of "Propane" written to the tune of Eric Clapton's "Cocaine" with Cynch, the company that delivers propane tanks to your door. They never thanked me. That stinks, too.

Oh well, Happy National Chocolate Covered Pretzel Day and National LED Light Day, too.

Orange you glad you don't drink orange wine

 

It is National Orange Wine Day and I actually thought someone made wine from oranges, but it turns out that orange wine is actually a type of white wine made from white wine grapes. It is called orange wine because it has an orange hue. Still, it sounds gross. And I'm not sure it warrants its own national day. So although I had ChattyGPT create a National Orange Wine Day image, I am not going to load it on teepublic.com.

I did, however, load this image.

I was in downtown Edmonds this afternoon with my wife and daughter and a photographer taking her senior pictures and we we were outside the Edmonds Opera House - Masonic Temple. So I took this photo with the idea that it would make an interesting t-shirt.

And it does. Now will anyone buy it? According to this British guy who writes a blog about making t-shirt designs (teepublic.com suggested I read him), the print-to-order technology allows designers to capture niche audiences because you don't have to worry about minimum orders and masses of people actually wanting your designs. I think there is a modicum of truth in that. I've sold two or three of these:

And I'd say this is pretty niche. Though I'm pretty proud of it because I did it without the help of any AI Art program. I colored a black and white image myself.  Apparently there are fans of obscure urban legendary cafes in Boise, Idaho out there.

Who am I to judge? After all, I created the design.

Orange you glad I did?

We all shine on

 

I was listening to the Beatles channel on Sirius Radio today and they were playing all of this tribute music to John Lennon for his birthday. So I figured it was his birthday. But it isn't until October 9th. He was born in 1940. He was only 40 years old when he died. If he had lived he would be 84 years old. It is hard to imagine what he would be doing. Paul McCartney and Ringo Starr are still performing. I am not sure John would have been. He never seemed to like being a trained monkey.

John was always my favorite Beatle. I really like Paul McCartney's work and his voice, but John just had this edge to him that I was fascinated with. Sad thing is that I really didn't like much of his music after the Beatles. I love the stuff Paul did with Wings, but John's solo career never seemed to click except for a few songs. And anything he did musically with Yoko was just wrong. Yoko may be a good person, but she should never be allowed near a recording studio. 

Still John loved her (which is why he probably never thought her voice was as bad as it was).  I have never understood why that piece of shit Mark David Chapman killed John. What had the man ever done but deliver genius music to the world. And ironically Chapman is still alive. He was only 25 years old when he killed one of the greatest musically geniuses of all time. Who knows what John would have gone on to do if Chapman hadn't have ended his life. If there is a hell, I hope Chapman ends up there.