And beware of “helpful experts” who tell you to do certain things to sell your work that your gut tells you isn’t going to work. Far too many of these people are really in the business of making money off of hopeful naive artists who are desperate for advice. It’s no harm to them if the artists who pay them fail from the advice and coaching they sell. They either don’t know that their advice doesn’t work because they’ve never practiced what they preach and/or don’t care. Similarly, there is no shortage of peers who urgently “help” with tactics that are specifically meant to fail and you will fall flat- just from the desire to eliminate their competition or the lust for schadenfreude.

I would add to clarify that I dig a guy who’s into old cars. I love the look of a dude wrenching on a sweet vintage truck or bike to make it run like a clock. I’m just not so into one who has one and does’t know how to look after it. For example, getting ready to go out in the aforementioned guy’s run down Mercedes and it had a flat tire. I find out to my dismay that I had to take off my nice shoes and get my dress dirty changing the tire since a grown ass man didn’t know how (and apparently could not afford to call a tow truck). Or said he didn’t. Didn’t matter. I was out. I don’t do the “f-able mommy substitute” thing.

It reminds me of “A History of Violence” with Viggo Mortensen. I agree that the tired trope of how villains are cast is insulting to our intelligence. At least such movies don’t fall into the pit of portraying men as incompetent buffoons, toxic predators like far too many do now. It’s as if there’s some sort of psyop training going on…

If I wrote a screenplay about a good honest hardworking non-western straight guy winning against a rich woke “Karen” using the might of the State to crush people, it would probably be a fun cathartic story but never get made into a movie. I’ll bet there already are such scripts.

Sometimes an artist creates like an alcoholic drinks- to fill a painful void and escape (temporarily) a terrifying darkness that threatens a lot of addicts. I do say that sometimes making art can be an addiction.I also agree that in such a case, it can be just as debilitating as any other addiction but in some ways that type of all consuming art creation can be passionate as well. Just not in a healthy way. I’ve seen such mass produced work as you describe, made like a factory. I think one of the defining factors of such work is that the reason for creating it is externalized, like to impress others and/or to market it. Even art churned out in the struggling void of addiction is still more relatable to me than “decor” “collectibles”, or status symbols that flood the market.

I remember the alarming thing I would hear from people several times a day when I was doing outdoor art festivals. “I love your art and would love to buy it but we have all our money spent on our house right now.” This started happening about a year and a half before the Great Recession became too obvious for anyone to ignore anymore. People with real wealth tend not to fetishize the showy trappings- those things just naturally become part of their lives and they don’t think much on it. It took me far too long to decide not to date a guy who worshipped his run down older model (insert name of any expensive car here). It wasn’t me being shallow, I just finally figured out that his priorities were skewed to value it and other materialistic stuff he could not afford- over a real human being. Folks like that will throw you under the bus without blinking if it means getting more shiny stuff. Now I realize I’d rather live in a van down by the river (yay fish!) than spend one night in any of the fussy new overpriced, poorly built “people farms” or “human rabbit hutches” being built so fast around here. #priorities #exitthesystem nostr:note1pqs3tf6c0atwng6syjgquuyjnawsrmls53cmrrkep288j56mlvjsuqms4u

Well said! I’m gonna quote this next time anyone says I need to make smaller and cheaper art to sell - and not once has anyone who said this ever bought any smaller and cheaper art that I made. No one has for that matter and I end up throwing all that “more affordable” crap on the burn pile out back.

Go to a local horse show, one that focuses on jumping, like a hunter/jumper show or a 3 day event. Learn a little bit about how to handle a horse without getting killed or looking ignorant. You will literally find dozens of ladies like her. Even better is this- I did such shows for years and you hardly ever see ANY guys. I’d sometimes see a husband or boyfriend dutifully doing support duty but that was rare. It’s not all dykes either. I saw very few of them. Your guy to gal ratio will never be better. You won’t see many club bimbos or e-girls there. But, the girls at a horse show won’t ever be as clean and well groomed as the chick here. You might have to accept that you’ll be second place to the horses in her life, but that’s the trade off. Happy hunting.

When you hear “lets just agree to disagree” or “it’s now a time for healing” or let’s just move on” it’s basically an indicator of the guilty party trying to hide their bad faith actions. nostr:note13m5sdkkywv9qk2hvx0r7haq358c22f43msd7g9lta30p3vg0uapsxhx6tk

Here’s a surprised thanks to fellow Nostriches for the Giggle-Snorts I did while following the #penisbutter meme flood playing out. I can’t remember the last time I giggle-snort-giggled like that. Been way too long.

One thing that concerns me is after all this hoopla dies down and even politicians forget the details on how things go, they will try to use this as a precedent for more robust future bans, hoping people will just go along with it just as she tried to say in this clip. Every little bit of traction she gets with this, no matter how unconstitutional, will give future attempts more power to stick.

I just made my first batch of high octane potent potable out of persimmons and orange/tangerines I grew. It’s now my favorite use of persimmons but orange & persimmon jam is a favorite too

Tiny chicken side eye over in the corner makes it even better.

As if you’d need another reason to do your own- I got a big pack of drumsticks at Rowe’s the other day. Baked them off as I often do but I never saw chicken turn out like this before. Every leg oozed a lot of blood and it coagulated out the top, and a lot of those also had blood shot streaks through the meat. It was awful to think that those birds might not have been dead before being cut up. Even if not, it’s still gross to think that the extra weight paid for was un-drained blood.

It also might be possible for awhile to be a part of a fringe religious group that was big enough and had enough resources to stay off the radar- but as with the Waco thing, really risky if anyone has proclivities like that which would make it impossible for the feds to let go.

If you like that, you’d probably enjoy music by Antti Martikainen and by Two Steps From Hell. I call it soundtracks for speeding tickets.

And if you add a pinch of baking powder, it makes the skin more crispy.

I’ll apply that to my stacks of unused sketchbooks & journals. Sounds better than “lazy.”

So, do any of y’all tech smarties know what really went on with the recent outage of CashApp/Square? There are folks I know who coached me to use CA to acquire Bitcoin so maybe that makes me a bit paranoid when something Bitcoin adjacent goes poof.

The whole album is good

Hydrate with electrolytes! Dehydration from vomiting and diarrhea is one thing that can do you in from food poisoning. If you can’t keep it down or in, you may want to consider going to acute care for IV rehydration.