Twitter High-Card

As a quick note to anyone who might be reading this in the future, Twitter was something that we did way back in the past to send messages to each other composed of a few score letter entire. It was sort of like a mini-telegraph. Yeah, we were a simple people back then.

But Twitter High-Card. This is a game that I've invented and found it actually makes use of the primary function and purpose of Twitter: marketing. Specifically, taking something innocuous and twisting into a cynical marketing ploy with all the grace and elegance of an oil-covered buzzard trying to steal your wallet.

Remember "High Card"? It's the simpliest game in the world. What you do is draw a card, and hope that it is higher than the card the person you're playing with draws. That's it. If you have the highest card, you win.

OK, now to add the Twitter element. Twitter is used to poach potential consumer-sheep who naively think that Twitter is something which elevates mankind somehow. Whenever you 'tweet' a keyword suggesting you are shopping for something, you start getting 'followed' by marketers on Twitter. Just like you get followed by thugs when you withdraw large sums of money from the ATM.

(For people in the future, "money" was something we had at one time when we had "jobs" that "made things")

So the game is played much the same way as you would with the deck of cards. Only in this case, you put out a tweet, and the person who gathers the most marketing-bot followers wins the game. The strategy is tweeting as many keywords as you can in the Twitter character limit.

For example, you could tweet something like:

"insurance credit cell phone iPod Chevy Pepsi Mastercard"

Actually, if you did that your computer might melt under the torrent of automated marketing hits that you'll generate. Humm. Maybe this game should come with a warning label.

Red and the Black

I currently have two paintings at the Redlands gallery for the "Red and Black" exhibit which will be running for the next month. These are the paintings that I created only using three colors, but now that I've been down there I don't think that was completely necessary. In fact, I'm beginning to think that the 'theme' for the shows are less of a broad guide and more of a mild suggestion. I didn't see anything that was boldly red or black.
But I did see some fantastic glass work, which was a treat. I haven't seen amazing pieces outside of the Tacoma Glass Museum, at least not in CA. But whoever was exhibiting their glass at the Redlands gallery obviously knows the craft. Pretty amazing stuff.

Also, there is a guest artist on exhibit, and I'm planning a prank. Yeah, it's the Yucca Valley guy again, robots and all. I already have my canvas ready....

Gallery Prank

Sorry about the quality of the photos, but this was a rush job.
Let's start with the long story behind this.
When I attended the Route 62 Art Tour, I got a chance to check out a batch of local talent in Yucca Valley. The place is amazing and probably the last destination you'd think of if you wanted to see great art. I'm still not exactly sure what attracts artists to this area, but I'm glad they're here. First you'd think this is just another dusty, conservative town in the middle of the desert. But when you see the art and get to talk to the people, you'll quickly find that there is much going on below the surface. The folks in Yucca Valley are wonderful and their art is beautiful.
But there are some exceptions.
Sure, I know that there is some art that doesn't naturally appeal to me. That doesn't mean that it's bad, or the artist isn't talented, it just means that the type of art they produce isn't my thing. That being said, there is some art that just isn't that good.
One artist stood out in particular for art that wasn't really good. I forget the guys name, but he makes simple acrylic paintings. The paintings are extremely stylized and use very few colors. Pretty good so far, right? Well, when you see the opus of his work, you'll quickly realize that the paintings are mass produced. Each one was made with about 30 seconds of planning and fore site, and cover a very narrow range of subjects. All of them, and I'm not kidding about this, feature a robot holding a heart or sticking out his thumb like he's trying to catch a lift. The robot is standing in a plain desert that shows a blocky cloud overhead. That's it. Some paintings are just the desert with a crack in it, or an explosion, or volcano. These elements are combined in different ways on each painting and are, well, dull. Boring.
I wasn't too impressed.
I especially wasn't impressed with finding out that the artist had somehow managed to grab wall space at the Crossroads Cafe in town. When I stopped in there for a bit to eat on my way to the Palm Springs Film Festival, I had a burger surrounded on all sides by these paintings.
That's when I got an idea.
What if I made a painting using all the elements from this artist, and stuck it on the wall myself. I could paint it in an afternoon, but paint it better than what was displayed. I'd even stick a label on it with an exorbitant price tag, which all the other paintings sported as well. I could just imagine the artists surprise to see a painting in the gallery that looked similar to his, but obviously created by someone else with no attached explanation. Yee Ha! This plan MUST be done!
So I did it.
I vowed not to spend any more time on the painting than necessary because I'm pressed for time as it is. Also, it would stay true to the theme of knocking out these paintings quickly with little thought or skill being tasked.
Again, I apologize for the poor quality of the photograph, but it really isn't worth looking too closely at. True, it's better than what was on display, but I didn't really enjoy painting it. To my surprise, I found that painting a boring scene is an unpleasant process. I thought it would be easily done, but it was a grind towards the end. I tried to improve it in many ways, but finally just gave up. There is only so much you can do when painting something you don't like.
The next time I passed through the cafe, I posted the picture on the wall with the tag and took a quick snap of my handiwork. Not bad at all! It fits right in!
Now I've got to work on getting a real showing at this gallery. The Crossroads Cafe is one of the coolest places I've ever seen and a delight to visit. I'd recommend you stop by if you get a chance, and admire the artwork while you're there. Mine is the one near the bathroom. It's called "What's One More?"

One side note. The original artist has robots or aliens that look friendly or just goofy. Mine looks evil. I didn't intend that, but that's the way it came out and I wasn't going to spend the time changing it. Meh.