pleasing the muckety mucks

This whole 'brandishing' thing is new to me.  Off to the google machine.  Apparently Michigan had an anti brandishing law on the books and people wondered if that would negate open carry, but in the end they decided that open carrying was not the same as brandishing.  But then what is brandishing?
http://www.mlive.com/news/kalamazoo/index.ssf/2014/05/open_carry.html  There was some drunk outside a laundromat in Kalamazoo.  That's almost a song isn't it

I got drunk with my rifle in Kalamazoo
Thought I'd brandish it a bit and get my duds sudsed too.

Open-carry rights came under the spotlight in Kalamazoo last Sunday, after police got calls about a man carrying a rifle on a city sidewalk outside a Cork Street laundromat.

The man, who didn't have a sling for the rifle and was shifting it from shoulder to shoulder, unleashed a string of obscenities toward Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety officers who responded. Officers ended up seizing the rifle, but returning it the next day and ultimately police decided no laws had been broken.

Assistant Chief Donald Webster said the department decided not to forward the case to the prosecutor for a misdemeanor charge of brandishing a firearm in public because even though the man was said to be “fidgeting” with the rifle, it was not evident that he was "brandishing" it.

So I guess fidgeting is fine, but don't let it cross the line to brandishing.  So those terrorists on the Mackinac Bridge Walk would be well advised to limit their handling of the semi automatics to fidgeting.

You know the reason these guys want to pack heat is so that they can protect themselves, and who needs more protection than a drunk?  They ought to hand out handguns to everybody leaving the bar at closing time.



You're right Beagles, even though I live in the Hog Butcher of the World, I would not consider butchering a hog as a fun activity.

At one point when I was subbing and collecting social security I was just getting by.  Well not actually getting by, I was coming out a little short at the end of every month and I thought gee, if I could just sell like maybe three paintings a month, i would be getting by.  But I never did achieve that level of success.

But you get to thinking.  Right now I just paint whatever I am in the mood to do, basically whatever is fun.  I don't even care that much whether or not it is pretty as long as it is interesting to paint.  Well it's not just fun, well it is fun, but it's like serious fun, like i do a lot of thinking about it.  I formulate and discard theories, if it devolves that I will have to paint a thousand windows to depict a cityscape, well that is just what I will have to do, tedious as that might sound, though once I get to doing it, it is never all that boring.  As much as I detest that flowery talk about art, I am following my path and i am true to it.

But if I had to sell, why things would be different.  Nobody wants to buy muffins from a baker who is true to his own path.  They want to buy muffins from the guy who tries to bakes them just the way everybody likes them. 

I suppose I could try to paint the way I thought everybody wanted, but the high art muckety mucks would look down their noses at me.  I would be selling out.  They don't want to eat the same muffin every morning, they want something new and different, they want to learn something.  You can tell when somebody is just trying to please and when somebody is following their own path, and somebody who is following their own path is always more interesting because you don't know where it is going to go, but somebody who is trying to please everybody, you always know where that guy is going.

And you're right, it is more fun when you are going your own way, and more work when you are just doing it to please somebody.  I'm trying to work out an analogy to hog butchering, but I just can't.  But anyway if would be a job if I was trying to please everybody.

But maybe I would be into it for the money, so what is wrong with that?  But you know if i was really into it for the money, for the big money, which you can only get if you please the muckety mucks, the thing to do would be to paint in such a way that it looked like I was following my own path, but what I would subtly be doing is figuring out what would please the muckety mucks.

And maybe that is what art is all about.  Generally you don't see the art of guys who weren't trying to promote themselves in those big fancy books, only the art of those who not only promoted themselves, but did it well.

So maybe that is part of art, not only following your path, but appealing subtly to the muckety mucks as well, maybe that is what it is all about.  What do you think Gentlemen.  And speaking of gentlemen, where is Old Dog?