being true to thine own self

Weren't there some armed demonstrators at the Republican convention?  I seem to recall that the police asked them to disarm themselves and they did, but what if they had refused?  What kind of open carry is it if the police can tell you not to do it?

I wouldn't have thought that brandish had anything to do with menacing, I thought it meant like to display proudly.  Strange how we get to know words, it's not like we are formally introduced to them, it's more like they are people in a bar or a school, or some other kind of social institution, you go from a time where you didn't know them to a time when they are your friend but you don't remember ever meeting them. 

Ever have one of those new-word-a-day calendars?  Me neither, but it would be interesting to see how it would effect your life.  You would be striking up all these casual conversations and trying to maneuver the subject around to where you could brandish your new word.  People would think you were strange, but maybe some would find you interesting.  I wonder if it would help in the picking up of chicks.


I'm not sure what I mean by this whole promoting your art, monetizing your hobby thing.  It's just kind of a vague thing, like a beach ball, that I want to toss around for a bit and then leave resting in the sand.

I was thinking of another thing.  That Amy Winehouse documentary.  What she really wanted to be was like a jazz singer, you know something arty, something that would bring respect among a small but avid group of fans.  But then she hit it big, and fell for the big shtick and then she was competing with the likes of Taylor Swift and Beyonce who are really just businesses with a trifling concern with art, and she crashed and burned.

Well maybe she would have crashed and burned anyway, but I think that once you get into that big pop thing, that you have kind of lost your soul.

Whatever the hell that means.  Whatever the hell 'better person' means.  Am I a better person for spending the morning painting with all my pretensions, or might I just as well be watching tv reruns or smoking crack?  As far as the betterment of the human condition and society are concerned it is the same difference.

But why should I care what other people think?  Should I not to my own self be true?  But aren't the guys watching the reruns and smoking all the crack also being true to themselves?  But then it all sort of works out.  Obviously I don't think much of the tv watcher or the crack smoker, but why should they care what I think?  Aren't they being true to themselves anyway?

It's not money.  There is a woman in the building who gives art talks and she talks about this and that artist and how everybody thought he was nuts but then, and here she pauses, his paintings now sell for gazillions of bucks, and the crowd gasps. But so what?  What does that have to do with art?  What does the price of a Honus Wagner baseball card have to do with baseball?

I'm kind of sorry I brought this whole subject up because the more that I think about it the less I know what I am talking about.


In the shining new socialist world of public trans you wouldn't have those accessibility problems.  Since everybody would be taking public trans the trains would be running way more often and they would be running everywhere.


Actually Old Dog you made two brush holders and one I use at home and the other is my travel brush holder.  We watercolorists are constantly complaining about our palettes, they don't have enough sections for the paint, or space in the middle for mixing colors, and everyone of us would like a different kind of palette.  Oh if only somebody with a 3d printer could make individual palettes. 

There would be a monetization of a hobby, but then Old Dog would have to spend a lot of time dealing with fussy and scatterbrained watercolorists so I don't know.


Alright then.  Another weekend, another chance for me to locate that box with the report cards and check out what kind of things would earn you a checkmark.  And time to look into that thingiverse thing.  Well I just did, and I got to the Sears Tower thing, but I am wondering if there is a place to go to see all of Old Dogs contraptions in one place.