Favorite Designs!

Nothing new and exciting to report, so I thought I would just share some of my favorite designs currently for sale at the Barry's World on-line store. Enjoy!

Home of the $100 T-Shirt!

So, anyway.... Last week I was reading an article in the Boston Globe about Boston's Newbury Street and the wide range of prices for t-shirts at the various stores there. On the low end you could find shirts for as little as $9.90. On the polar opposite end of the spectrum, however, were shirts selling for a whopping $955! Were these shirts made of golden thread and encrusted with precious gems? Nope. Just ordinary t-shirts with surrealistic art designs on them. Designs not all that different from the ones in my own Barry's World on-line store, as a matter of fact. No, what apparently makes these shirts so "valuable" is the fact that they just cost a lot of money, and once you get people like Mick Jagger and Elton John willing to fork out almost $1000 for a shirt everybody else thinks they must be worth it. Or something like that. I would dearly love to sell my t-shirts for $1000 a pop, but something tells me it just isn't going to happen anytime soon.

And then, just the other day, I read an ABC News Article about a restaurant down in Florida that has started selling $100 hamburgers. Yes, that's right -- a hamburger for $100. I'm sure it's a very tasty hamburger, and at 20 ounces nobody is going to be asking, "Where's the Beef," but still, $100? Once again, it comes down to the fact that people are willing to pay ridiculous amounts of money for the feeling that they are members of an exclusive club. Maybe you can't be a rock star or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company, but you can at least feel like one (or perhaps you can at least make other people think you are one).

Well, after giving it some thought, I thought I could combine both of these trends together and came up with my very own $100 T-shirt. I thought for a brief cynical moment that the shirt should just be plain white with simple black text stating, "This shirt cost $100," but my artistic integrity got the better of me and I decided to make it look nice. I mean, it still actually states, "This shirt cost $100," but instead of plain letters I created a faux gold and diamond-encrusted "bling bling" look to it.

So.... What do you think? If people will pay $955 for a t-shirt just because it is sold in a swanky shop frequented by rock stars and $100 for a hamburger because it's served in a swanky restaurant where rich businessmen go to dine, will anybody pay $100 for a t-shirt designed by yours truly and sold online?

Probably not. But you never know....

Are we smiling yet?

Is there any symbol more ubiquitous, more engraved into the very fabric of the collective consciousness, than the simple smiley face? For people of my generation, it has simply been around forever. It adorns t-shirts, mugs, bumper stickers and a seemingly infinite array of other merchandise. Variations of the smiley face (or "smiley") run rampant throughout the Internet, whether it be on message boards, in e-mails, or what have you. It is, in short, everywhere.

Among the many, many companies that have incorporated the smiley face into their advertising and logos is mega retailer Wal-Mart. But surely they know that they can't actually claim any sort of ownership to the symbol, right? I mean, it's not like their version of the smiley face is even particularly different from every other version out there.

And yet, according to a recent article in the Contra Costa Times, this is exactly what Wal-Mart is attempting to do. They claim their lawsuit is in response to a French gentleman who claims to have invented the symbol back in 1968 and who has supposedly gotten a trademark on the symbol in numerous countries outside of the U.S. I'm not sure how valid a claim this gentleman has (I always thought the smiley face was invented by a Massachusetts graphic artist back in 1963), but if anybody has a valid claim of ownership it sure as heck isn't Wal-Mart. The whole point of having a logo is to distinguish yourself from the competition. That's why logo trademarks are protected so fiercely by corporations in the first place. But you just don't select the world's most common symbol, call it your logo, and expect anybody to respect your "exclusive rights" to use that logo.

No Lawns for Oil!

So anyway, my wife and I have started the painful process of looking for our next home. There's no immediate rush, but our son is now 16 months old and the town where we currently live doesn't have a particularly good school system. In fact, it has a truly awful school system.

The hard part, of course, is finding a house that meets all of our current "needs": affordable, in a good school system, and a convenient commute for both my wife and me. I've been browsing the Interet real estate ads and finally found what I thought might be a great candidate. My wife nixed it, though, because it had a large front lawn. You see, she doesn't want to spend the money to hire somebody to cut it, and she apparently doesn't trust me when I say I would be willing and able to cut it myself. After much discussion, I think I finally convinced her that I'm up to the task.

It did get me thinking, though....

If we were to buy a house with a large front lawn and I decided I really didn't want to mow it, I'd need a pretty darn impressive excuse to weasel out of my promised husbandly duties. And then it hit me -- the high price of gas! I'm not lazy, I'll tell her, I'm just doing my part to conserve gasoline in this time of crisis.

Hmmmmm.... Think she'll buy it?

Leading By Example

All right, so the latest hullabaloo on imigration reform has to do with whether or not the National Anthem should only be allowed to be sung in English or not. Apparently, a Spanish language version of the national anthem was recently released by a British (!) music producer who said he wanted to honor America's immigrants.

To be honest, I don't really care if the anthem is being sung in English, Spanish, or Swahili, although I do think it's important that the translation be as true to the original version as possible, poetic license aside. I mean, the National Anthem is the national Anthem because of what the words say, not because of the tune (which is actually based on an old English drinking song called "To Anacreon in Heaven" in case you didn't know), so care should definitely be taken when doing the translation. But as long as people are declaring their allegience to the good old U.S. of A., I don't think it really matters in what language they do so. It's the thought that counts, you know?

What cracks me up about all this, though, is when President Bush comes out and says that the National Anthem should only be sung in English because, "People who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English..." Oh really? Funny, I've always wondered whether President Bush himself really had a grasp on the basics of the language. Or maybe I've just been misunderestimating him all this time....

Why veto when you can just ignore?

So anyway, there I was, minding my own business, not hurting anybody, when I read something mind bogglingly disturbing in the Boston Globe.... Did you know that President Bush has been in office longer than any president since Thomas Jefferson without having vetoed a single bill? By itself, this isn't that big a deal I suppose. Keep in mind, though, that when the President vetoes a bill it goes back to Congress so that they have the chance to override the veto by approving the bill with at least a 2/3 majority. Once they override the veto, the President is Constitutionally bound to enforce it in his role as the Chief Executive.

No, the fact that Bush never vetoes anything isn't what disturbs me to the core of my being. The thing that sends the little screaming heebie-jeebies running down my spine is the fact that Bush has been busy appending "signing statements" to many of the bills he has ostensibly approved (more than 750 in total, which represents about 1 in every 10 bills he has signed). And just what is a "signing statement" you may ask? Well, apparently it's a statement of Bush's own interpretation of the bill he is signing along with, in many cases, his indication that he has no intention to follow or enforce the bill since it violates his personal interpretation of the Constitution.

Yes, All Presidents take an oath to "uphold the Constitution". But the Constitution grants Congress the power to draft laws and clearly charges the President with the duty "to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." It doesn't say the President should enforce only those laws which he personally thinks are Constitutional. That's what the Supreme Court is for. Bush, however, apparently thinks that he alone should be the one to decide what is, or is not, "Constitutional", which is a clear violation of the separation of powers among the various branches of Government.

That's assuming he really thinks this, of course. Personally, I think he (or at least his advisors) knows full well that he does not have such power. But this argument gives him an excuse to ignore any law that he finds personally inconvenient. As long as he ignores the law on "constitutional grounds" it's OK, right?

Ah, it's good to be King President, isn't it?

Warped Earth Designs

Sometimes, as an artist, I feel the need to express myself on a slightly larger canvas. And what could be larger than the entire world? Maybe it's the megalomania that is inherent in all creative people, but something about warping the Earth to my own desires just makes me giggle like a little schoolgirl.

I didn't set out to create a whole section of "Warped Earth" designs, of course. My first experiment in Earth warping was my Christian Earth design, which I created for a Worth1000 contest entitled "Religious Shapes" (the point was to change the shape of something in a picture to that of a religious icon).

Next came my World Peas design, which was also done for a Worth1000 contest (this time for one called "Visual puns").

The rest of the designs, however, were not done for any particular purpose and just struck my fancy at the time. At the moment, in addition to "Christian Earth" and "World Peas", I've got Canned Earth (which I talked about earlier), Peace on Earth and Earth Cubed. Something tells me I'll be adding more designs in the near future, as I just can't resist the occasional temptation to play God....

More Chest Bursters!

All right, the response to my recent "Tongue Burster" design (see below) has been so positive that I've decided to create variations on the basic theme and have officially opened a "Chest Burster Designs" section at my Barry's World store (click the image on the left to visit the new section).

What can I say? I saw the original "Alien" at the tender age of 12 (ayup, I went to see it with my mother, but in her defense it was on the recommendation of a friend and neither of us knew it was R-rated until it was too late), and I have been a fan of the series ever since. The first movie was a terrifically (or should that be "terrorifically"?) effective scary movie. Granted, the special effects are a bit dated and it suffers a bit upon repeat viewing (especially when you can freeze-frame the DVD player), but it still ranks up there as one of the scariest movies in my book. [As an aside, the recently released "Directors Cut" that came out on DVD is a marked improvement, if for no other reason than the fact that many of the scenes with sub-par special effects were trimmed to the bare bones.]

The second movie, "Aliens" wasn't quite as scary, but it was a rip-snorting action adventure story the likes of which hadn't been seen very often before. Real adrenaline-pumping stuff there, no doubt!

The third film, "Alien3," has a pretty bad reputation among fans, but I have to admit that I quite liked it. I felt it really returned to the basic themes explored in the first film (primarily the fact that a bunch of unarmed people had to go up against a hideous unstoppable monster), and was therefore a lot scarier than the second film. Sure, I was upset that two of survivors of the second movie didn't make it into the third movie, but that didn't ruin the film for me.

As for "Alien Resurrection", well, it had excellent production values, great special effects and really good acting. Sadly, there was just way too much silliness (breath-opened doors?) and logical inconsistencies for me to enjoy it as much as the other three films. Of course, that hasn't stopped me from watching it 3 or 4 more times on DVD since I first saw it in the theater...

Happy Earth Day!

In honor of Earth Day 2006, allow me to present my latest "Surreality" design, called "Canned Earth."

Wouldn't it be nice if Earth came in a can and we could get a new one when we've finished ruining the one we've got? Sadly, there's only one Earth, so it's important to take care of it.

Of course, it's easy enough to say, but a lot harder to actually do. And, unfortunately, we really need a world-wide concerted effort to really make a difference. And that's not going to happen until we start thinking like a global community and not just a bunch of independent sovereign states.

*sigh*

Somebody really needs to invent a clean, renewable and cheap energy source that all the developing countries can quickly start using so they can avoid the mistakes the currently industrialized nations have made.

Hey -- a guy can dream, can't he?

No, I don't need a reason....

Lately, I've been coming up with a variety of designs for my Barry's World Store that are targeted at specific audiences and, to be honest, are just attempts to sell something [anything!]. Every once in a while, though, I just can't resist the urge to create something wacky and surreal for no other reason than the fact that the idea makes me giggle. Hence my latest creation, which I lovingly refer to as the "Tongue Burster" design.

Does it serve any socially relevant purpose? Does it have any particular meaning? Is anybody likely to actually buy it on a t-shirt, hat or mug? No, no, and probably not. But when it comes right down to it, none of that really matters. I create art primarily to amuse myself, and actually selling my art (while certainly nice) is an afterthought. Fortunately, I'm not doing this for a living, as I certainly would have starved to death years ago...