Cafepress Presidential T-Shirt Meter

Cafepress is showing a running total of t-shirts sold to either support or mock the current selection of candidates running for President. Hillary is starting to catch up with Obama because his sales have fallen.

Of course, what's missing are some of the really fringe candidates, although certainly McCain and Huckabee qualify as fringe if you take normality into consideration. However, there's still time to move something other than the mainstream crazies further up the beansprout. I made some t-shirts and other stuff like buttons and stickers to help out my parties of choice.

There's the Zombie Party because "you can't bribe the undead." Or the Vampire Party who promise to bring honesty back to bloodsucking.

I like to give people choices when they shop at my political store because there's so little to choose from that isn't horrifyingly the same among the candidates offered by both parties.

Cafepress Presidential T-Shirt Meter

Flies On The Wall #31

Flies On The Wall #31

Hey Bill, Go Bake Some Cookies!

We've all dated and/or married someone like Bill Clinton. He's the fun, charming heart breaker that we met at the party and ended up going home with for better or worse...mostly worse. But we don't hold any lingering resentments because that's just who he is, no one will ever change him, blah blah blah. We told ourselves that as we also vowed to never be taken in by him again.

But that being said, his speaking for Hillary is costing him the vote of every woman who had to deal with a husband/partner/date that just wouldn't let her speak completely for herself. He's the guy that calls himself a Feminist and yet interrupts the conversation of every woman he meets. He's the guy who has convinced himself he encourages women's ambitions, dreams, and desires and supports his partner's strengths and differing opinions.

He really believes this, until things start getting out of hand and the neat little ordered pile of delusions comes crashing down. Or when he disagrees over a strategy, idea, emotional reality, or campaign decisions. And then he just can't shut up. He's a veritable fountain of advice, criticisms, suggestions, and good ideas. He tells everyone who listens that yes he supports her, but she needs to do this and that. He goes on and on and doesn't know when to shut the fuck up. People make jokes about where the off button is and mostly they quit listening. He finds himself talking a lot to himself and to people who have perfected the hell-yeah-I'm-hanging-on-every-word facial expression as they mentally put together the grocery list.

Anyone who has spent any time relating to men like Bill will find some buttons pushed over how Bill stepped in and took over Hillary's campaign. Even if his motivation is that he cares so much for her that he doesn't want her to be hurt when someone doesn't vote for her, or he just knows her advisers are advising her wrong, or he has already won a couple elections himself, he just needs to stand silently and supportively beside her and let her run for President with whatever tools she has and with whatever advisers she has chosen for herself. He needs to be a good First Husband and have a killer cookie recipe on hand.

In fact, he needs to start right now, get in that kitchen and practice baking those cookies until they're perfect. Maybe by then women will have forgiven Hillary for letting Bill take over her campaign.

Hey Bill, Go Bake Some Cookies!

Flies On The Wall #30

Flies On The Wall #30

Thank you, Dr. King

As someone who grew up with the dream of equality and remembers the despair over your death I felt as a High School student, I look to Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama as proof it was not all in vain. And one day we won't have to refer to them as the woman candidate and the black candidate anymore. They will be simply candidates.

But until then, in the interest of fairness, I think we should refer to the GOP side of the ticket as those crazy ass white guys.

Thank you, Dr. King

Flies On The Wall #29

Flies On The Wall #29

Gimme Money!

Back in the old days when Dubya's daddy was thieving his way through the presidency, it was a lot easier to just bail out your buddies and stick the tax payers with the bill. Now you have to use a third party, kind of like a pimp or mid-level drug dealer, to deliver your bail out. That's where we, the American people come in.

For weeks now the corporate donors to the Bushies have been whining that not enough people bought their cheap crap from sweat shop labor to make for a successful fleecing of the holiday sheep. Union busting ain't cheap and soon the money's going to have to come from their own pockets and Dubya better start earning his donations.

So what better way to deliver and not have any of it stick? You give people rebates and tell them to go spend spend spend on things they couldn't afford during the holidays. Problem solved.

Gimme Money!

Flies On The Wall #28

Flies On The Wall #28

T-Shirt Worthiness, The Art Of Stalking The News

Those of you who are crazed enough to read this blog over a period of time know that I sell my art and sayings on t-shirts, buttons, and assorted gift items through places like Cafepress, Zazzle, and Printfection. In the last couple years I've sold my designs to people in twelve different countries, every state in the US plus Guam and Puerto Rico, and all the Canadian provinces. And fun as it is, even my insane and twisted mind sometimes draws a blank...literally.

That means I resort to haunting the mainstream media and its Bushie masters for t-shirt worthy sayings and ideas. Considering that most of these newsactors have the cranial capacity of a meatloaf, I only have to worry about finding time to put so many free gifts into a design and onto a t-shirt.

It really is hard to choose sometimes. And at others it is ridiculously easy. Hillary crying was a no-brainer. As a woman I've been living with the dual standard all my life so it was easy to find an appropriate design equating tears with strength.

Other times ideas appear as mystical gifts of nonsense that just beg to be dragged into a paint chamber and transformed into wearable absurdity that will make sense for about five minutes, and then die away as one of those strange memories that will be reborn in some thrift store in a few years. Like the moment when I heard a talking head on TV in the other room say "Kucinich...he's a feisty little dude."

I was indifferent to the UFO stuff because 10,000 designers were on it the minute he uttered the words "I saw a UFO." But feisty? That's this weeks' favorite. No matter what people remember about Kucinich in that thrift shop a year or two from now, that feisty little dude will get another moment in their lives.

Or the other one I heard: subprime nation. That just seemed like a really polite and backstabbing way of calling America a banana republic. It begged to become a t-shirt. So I obeyed.

And then there's days when every one of the candidates feels the need to promote God/Jesus/Easter Bunny as their personal savior and running mate. For those days I just add something to my anti-religion shop at Wild Shirt World. I always feel the world is a lot smarter than it appears on the surface when someone feels the same way and buys a shirt or a sticker for their cars from that shop.

But that doesn't mean I don't have a soft spot in my heart for those who bought this shirt.

Let's just say we understand each other on some very deep levels.

T-Shirt Worthiness, The Art Of Stalking The News

Flies On The Wall #27

Flies On The Wall #27

Crying For Some Respect Here

I've always had mixed feelings about Hillary because of my reluctance to embrace any kind of war machine, especially one funded by a DEMOCRATIC Congress to enable a madman to continue his lunacy. I hold Senator Clinton and all the other Democrats who gave and continue to give Bush/Cheney money for an illegal and immoral war, equally responsible for every single death that resulted. They signed that money away with other people's blood.

But I'm not naive enough to believe the money to run for President comes from thin air. Yes, people like me donate to several candidates online, but let's face it--the presidency is a bought and paid for position. We the people can never match in financial strength they the corporations. In the end what we decide is which group of lobbyists is least offensive to us and we vote for whom they bought. And if Hillary had voted to cut off Dubya the dumb shit, I'm sure there are some deep pockets that would have moved over to someone else whose ethics weren't so entrenched.

That being said, I probably fall somewhere in the undecided right now. I really like the optimism that Obama brings to the presidential derby. I really believe that electing him would score points in the symbolic act column in the eyes of the world. And I have a soft spot for children of immigrants, being one myself. I know what his family had to go through to adjust to this country and I know a lot about some of the reasons they did so. If Obama shares even a fraction of those qualities, he will be an excellent and compassionate leader.

But if the election were held today I can guarantee you that I would have voted for Hillary after two things that slapped me in the face I turn toward the news. The first one was trying to turn Hillary's tears into a Dean Scream event by the media. I'm not surprised they tried, but I am surprised at the mean-spirited attacks that went far beyond what their masters demanded they deliver.

These attacks came from the same talking heads that wouldn't shut up about how cold and unemotional she was for how many years now? I felt like that young woman I was in the 70's who was afraid to show my anger and despair over having my work plagiarized by my boss and called his own because it would prove I wasn't "man enough" for the job.

I wanted to slap the sneers off their prissy little male faces and I wanted to shake some strength into the obedient little women who went along with the tirade for endless newscast upon endless newscast. And more than anything I wanted to vote for Hillary just to piss them off.

But it took the morons demanding that she iron their shirts that literally took my own tears away and turned it into a rage that barely saved my television from turning into a pile of debris reduced to gravel by my trusty old-fashioned iron. Where did they find these dinosaurs? Under what fundamentalist whacko rock did they unearth these cretins? And did they even have a clue that women who didn't even consider themselves Feminists were mentally ticking off a vote for Hillary in their heads?

And in the middle of all this crazy turmoil that sent women in America and some other parts of the world back into the emotional rage of the Feminist stone age, I have just one question. When did Karl Rove start working for Hillary's campaign????

Crying For Some Respect Here

Flies On The Wall #26

Flies On The Wall #26

Primary Madness, a commerical enterprise

There's lots of money being thrown around with all these primaries, and with the Writer's Strike making a mess of the usual mind-numbing crap offerings, there's no one happier than the state run media networks. No one needs any scripts because people messed all that up by showing up to vote in large numbers, so they have to improvise their obligatory Bushie ass-kissing.

And they can break into scheduled programming with something other than a terror alert being raised from yellow to holy fuck look at Dubya's sinking poll numbers, but still retain that same breathless tone of voice that makes old people's hearts beat a little faster and hopefully stay so terrifyingly elevated they'll all vote Republican.

But there's a variable among the polished turds that can't quite be swept under the rug and that's the glaring fact that most of the GOP candidates are loonier than shit. They hear voices telling them the end is near and we should all abandon our trailers and head for the big RV park in the sky with Jesus. If they were standing on a street corner in dirty, urine-stained clothes spouting this madness, we would shake our head and murmur about all the crazies on the street. But because they're dressed in suits and have corporate donors, all of a sudden they are not crazy, but instead are trans morphed into values-driven god fearing,bible thumping, flag lapel wearing presidential candidates.

There's people like McCain who was trashed by the very party he embraces as some traitor instead of the war hero that he was. But he continues to support and kiss their asses like some mindless automaton.

Of course, someone like Huckabee is the perfect candidate for those who don't think McCain is loony enough. Look for him to be marching around with his REPENT sign to a street corner near you very soon.

But of all the whole crazy ass stew that the GOP is offering its poor, bewildered supporters, none is more insane than Rudy "The Ghoul" Giuliani. Now there's a man who has no qualms about scaring little old ladies and the mentally deficient. One can only suspect from such behavior that he grew up practicing it on the same people for "late" payments on shady loans. If he ever comes close to winning a primary, maybe he should make his campaign slogan something catchy like "Vote for me or I'll break your fucking arm." And he could back it up by sending his VP who already has years of experience torturing people: Dick Cheney.

Just this short list of candidates is enough to make anyone holler in disbelief: "Republicans have the nerve to call Kucinich crazy????"

Primary Madness, a commerical enterprise

Flies On The Wall #25

Flies On The Wall #25

Selling Us A President

America is a nation of merchants. Our education system prepares us for a lifetime of trying to sell ideas, people, and proposals to those whose pockets we wish to pick. As a result of this, we know no other way of being, so when it comes time to pick a mate, a religion, a place to live, or a President, the process is exactly the same.

First comes the slimy creature from some shit-based think tank with a handful of greasy bills ready to be traded for favors. Uncle Bubba's dimwit son now has a job polishing the thumbprints off black limos for the district representative. The process was the same as going up to the slimy guy that runs the night shift at the local greasy spoon, and slipping him a couple bucks to put cousin Doofus's idiot daughter to work in the kitchen.

Every worthless endeavor is made more valuable by the appropriate advertising. It starts off nice enough. Cousin Doofus's idiot daughter has something going for her other than an extreme lack of cranial capacity. It turns out her previous job swinging from poles left her with a small but devoted fan base, so she is chosen to make the commercial for the greasy spoon that turns the dining spot into an overnight success.

Meanwhile, Uncle Bubba's dimwit son has now accumulated a warehouse full of secrets from spying on what really goes on inside black limos. Powerful people begin to both fear what he knows about them and they use him to learn what he knows about their competition. He's invited to important parties to gather information and at one of them he meets Cousin Doofus's idiot daughter who is there as the date of the local (married) representative.

Recognizing each other in the way only two predators with little intelligence to go along with their cut-throat survival skills can, they form a life-long partnership based on who they know and who they blow. And as fate and a good amount of greasy bill swapping would have it, they end up running against each other for President.

And lucky us. We get to choose which one we want representing us to the rest of the world.

Selling Us A President

Flies On The Wall #24

Flies On The Wall #24

When You Sell Your Party To The Devil...

My Republican neighbor is horrified that Huckabee won. Mumbled something about that's what happens when you court the religious crazies and it being the end of the Republican party, etc etc mumble mumble and that if he really is the nominee then he's going to vote for everyone but President...or stay home. He hasn't decided yet.

I have to admit I'm enjoying his misery over a rightwingnut potentially being the representative of his party. His misery last week was coming to terms with the painful reality that his favorite candidate belongs to a cult. (his description of Romney) Who knows what next week will bring? All I know is that the only excitement I feel is over the potential designs for t-shirts and bumper stickers this group inspires in me--left,right, middle, dem, repug, certifiably crazy....it's going to be fun for me the next few weeks. :-))))

And I do like Obama. I think Obama/Edwards has a nice ring to it. I also like Hillary but I don't think she gets it that Iraq is far more important to me than she seems to understand. I wouldn't want that same indifference applied to someplace like Iran or somewhere else in the world that is sitting on "our" oil. I'm kind of attached to this planet and would prefer it remain in one piece.

I also like Kucinich but people just aren't ready for him. And I really don't think it's because he sees UFOs and admits it. After all, he could draw a good many of McCain voters to him because most of them seem like they were badly alien probed at some time in their lives.

When You Sell Your Party To The Devil...

Flies On The Wall #23

Flies On The Wall #23

Happy New Year

2008 started off in the Pacific Northwest with the blue screen of erectile dysfunction when a software glitch caused the fireworks show at the Seattle space needle to put on a pathetic display of the classic difference between a feature and a bug. Maybe they should pass out t-shirts.

Probably the most amusing part of it all is the inevitable whining and complaining that accompanies such a disappointing display of wasted manhood. It's just so Seattle to whine insignificantly about things. I tend more toward it was a sucky year for a lot of people and as 2007 skulked away in shame, 2008 is still appalled at how bad things were for so many that it's reluctant to step in and take over properly.

And speaking of skulking away in shame, if they were capable of such a human emotion, only twelve more months until Bush and Cheney leave the residences they have permanently soiled. They'll probably sneak out in the middle of the night like the thieves they are and history will remember them as.

A computer "glitch" brought them into power and another one will herald the year of their departure.

Happy New Year

Flies On The Wall #22

Flies On The Wall #22