IF I knew what I was doing THEN...

This one from The Promise, the first story in the book...

This one, and the next, from Daughters, the second story.

This one revised a bit into the last image...

I've never even brushed over the thought of building an ad. Just not something that ever broke the horizon. I kind of talked myself into publishing Jurati Amos in the first place, rationalized it under a what a what the hell why not mode of thought. I really thought advertising was something the publisher did to make their nickel. Apparently not when you're just starting out. So, the question becomes what kind of things will light a curiosity in a perfect stranger? I really don't have a clue, I am stone cold at square one. But... on a second look... I think I'm gonna get back in the Photopaint on the second image with Bev, the dark one... and narrow her eyes a bit. Just enough to show her very, very justified anger. The idea is curiosity, if they noticed the first image I want the second just enough different to ping against the check sum functions of memory... is that the same picture? Cost? Thirty minutes. Value? Who knows. I damn sure don't. Later gang.

Thirty minutes post-post: better? Or not different enough to notice?

All the Beautiful Boys.. or, Down on the Farm Part 2

For the ladies sake I hope
he loves more than just his horse. 

I’ve been an amateur artist for a long time. I’ll paint surrealisms, figure nudes, landscapes, occasionally take a swing at comic book style graphics. Of course artists need models, and one of the larger problems for me has been finding good male models from which to paint/draw.

You wouldn’t think that would be a problem in this day and age, accept of course it bumps square into an ongoing and only slightly private investigation of mine I’ve had going on for some time now: using myself as deliberate bait to analyze how the chum-chum stuffers and head fuckers of the internet advertising/government spy folk are using and misusing the abilities of the internet to further their most questionable causes.

As I’ve mentioned in the last couple of weeks I’ve now got a paw down on Zuckerberg’s farm and equally now have a presence among the Bird bunch who only sing a few words at a time, aka, the Tw*tter crew (insert vowel of preference, I usually use an “a”). Where the farm has turned out to be more or less what I expected the bird bunch have shown out as far more predatory than I expected, far more so than anything on the farm. Predatory, and invasive. When I haven’t clicked the “upload” button on a three meg image I created and yet they have an instant copy of that image? My connection is not that fast, they had to be snooping the system indexing functions looking for the last image created in that format to have snagged it in advance. Sloppy work, guys. Hell, it didn’t take Neo, I saw it. Anyway.

The Bird bunch are brain strainers, there’s no doubt of that. Since I’ve been very slow to add any content beyond snippets of poetry as advertisers for the book or this blog their chum-chum stuffers have been throwing the rainbow at me trying to get a handle on what kind of a person I am. I’m not being at all helpful to them, hell no, I heard about the “on hover” event as a trigger for a function call a long, long time ago. Yea, that’s how it works. Hover your mouse pointer over an add and advertise that you’re looking at it. Believe me, they’ll know. Which brings me back to the subject of the beautiful boys from a different tangent.

The Bird bunch tossed a three day run of LGTQ adds at me a few days in, which in my world is to offer an insult demanding a blood apology if that insult is accepted. Just because I’ll write in verse is no reason to make such an assumption, it TOTALLY pissed me off. If (huge little word that one is!) I could connect worl with the parties responsible I’d call it fair justice to saddle up a good quarter horse and run them all about twice around the block with a weed eater in one hand and a big bore magnum in the other. Which is why downloading images of the boys from which to paint is now even more taboo than before. If they’re snooping the index functions then they’ll be trying their dead level best to snoop the download registers that live down in that part of the hard drive Windows tells you to stay out of. No need to add fuel to the fire that’s burning the restraints on my temper. If those should burn through I’ll be saying goodbye and canceling all internet connections.

Beware the Bird bunch. I’m becoming ever more certain they are in their essence quite dishonorable. Gonna be interesting to see if anything changes after posting this. As usual, catch ya’ll later, if I don’t get shot first.

Prologue to a Lady

Coming soon to an eReader near you...
this first volume six stories from
the first forty years of a life without a name.

Sundown Quiet St. Marie is not her given name, of course. None know her true identity. The ladies birth name is not only her greatest secret, it is virtually her only secret, and yet the inner nature of the woman is as great a mystery as any on earth. It is rumored she is high born, daughter of a foreign family of status and impressive means. No one knows what motivates her, what she takes for herself. Many with wealth offer great sums for her services and are denied while others pass through her life and depart ignorant of the value received. She moves through all levels of humanity searching for those she will bring into her sphere for a day or a week or a month, as equally at ease in the world of the simple and sincere as those who proclaim themselves from pinnacles of fame.

One hardly need say she is a consummate actress, wearing personas as other's wear clothing. Some see her a stunning beauty, a goddess come to earth. To others she will appear almost homely, a shy woman home to an inner fire that if ever released consumes all falsehood in its path. Fools will pursue her as the ultimate conquest only to discover she has been naught but the bait in a trap of their own building; gentler, wiser souls will remember her as an angel of the earth or an agent of God's love. Each guise is tailored to the moment, to be retired when unneeded and never worn for another.

To know her is not without risk, hers is a dangerous medicine. Not all survive the inner landscapes of the soul she delights most in traversing. There is no predicting who will be the focus of her strange calling, man or woman, rich or poor, villain or victim. Only one thing can be said of her with certainty. Each and every life she chooses to touch is changed. Many are healed, others brought to justice from within or without. But none are left unchanged. These are but a few of the stories that might be told of her.

Mirror Mirror on the Ball who's the Meanest of them All...

Shnarflephucks. It snuck up on me. It’s f’ing football season again. Drat and dangnations, the first game of the season is here. And it’s here in town. Have no idea who the local boys are playing, usually it’s arranged for the first game or two to be against lesser powers of the gridiron, just a chance for those who play for the major schools to shake out the bugs and get in a good warm up before the first serious challenge shows up.

The funny thing is I really don’t mind the game, not a bad game as such things go. Come the end of the season, when everyone is beat to splinters and it’s heroes and dead men out on the field I’ll even watch a game or two to see the rookies who step up to fill the cleats of the fallen, and pull it off… see the teamwork and the dedication to defending momma’s honor and glory to the triumphant… or bitter… end. Those “on any given Saturday” kind of games where the bookies don’t make any more money than those placing the bets.

I’ll watch a few of those. But what I won’t do is try and live on reflected glory like the idiotic fans. I’ve never done that, never have never will. The days of mandatory pep rallies while incarcerated in the halls of indoctrination (aka, High School) pretty well showed that up for what it’s worth, which is nada. Sorry Mr. Establishment mirror man, no sale.

Lock of Ages

Every now and then I realize just how delicately balanced our world is across the boundaries between this convention or its' opposite other: the pious balance the profane, the prudish balance the libertine, the liberals the conservatives, the cruel balance the kind. Any one of those elements will point at the other as the opposition, the enemy, the prey, and yet by the endurance of the competition it may be deduced each must be protecting the other, must be: it is so easy to see how many different ways any of them might utterly destroy the other, common sense demands the conclusion they secretly safeguard each others well being. After all, without the excesses of the debauched what point of comparison to show up the purity of the pious? Clearly, one defines the other, they are equally dependent on each other for their very existence. It is uncanny how closely the behavior of these collective entities mimics the behavior of the young teenagers just discovering the nuances of gossip and plot. Perhaps in some manner they are of comparable age?