“A.I. or Bust”

With artificial intelligence and a few targeted prompts, anyone can become an armchair cartoonist. This one was inspired by a steakhouse wall that boasted multiple clocks, all bearing important destinations like San Fran, NYC, and Paris. The idea hit that it, instead, could be Fresno and Missoula and Ft. Wayne, as there are so many strata in this wide world of ours. One man’s AmEx “black card” is another man’s Cracker Barrel rewards program. And who’s to say??

P.S.: I love that the dog’s thought bubble is emanating from his ass! That’s also true for most people.

“Marching Marginalia”

If I could draw that well, I wouldn’t need A.I.

Like many, I’m deeply ambivalent about artificial intelligence with all of its countless advantages and dangers, both the known and unknown. A.I. credibly threatens to disappear entire job titles without a clear pathway for their replacement. Human creativity is being actively coopted through unattributed imitation, if not blatant theft. We see the destructive capabilities of unmanned drones and other “smart” weapons on the battlefield. And it has enormous potential to invade our privacy through data aggregation and via hackers who use its awesome computing power, which is not the kind of productivity metric we generally desire. Pretty scary stuff, in total.

On the other hand, A.I. allows someone with limited graphic and artistic skill, such as myself, to realize a creative project in ways not possible without a time-consuming and potentially expensive collaboration. A flash of an idea in the shower can, within minutes, become a satirical cartoon, a mock album cover, or a visualized philosophical concept. Some are evident on these very pages (COVFEFE rules!!), which has been wildly fun and exhilarating. What’s lost, I’m not quite certain. There is the nagging sense that ChatGPT is simply ripping-off someone else’s similar pre-existing idea, such that any victory feels only partial. But in encouraging self-expression, it has been a resounding success. That said, I’ve been reluctant to allow it into the inner sanctum of creative outlets, those being my (mostly doggerel) poetry and (rankly amateur) songwriting. I’m in zero danger of making money in either realm, yet still I worry about the slippery slope of becoming too dependent on A.I. and losing my unique voice. Nick Cave, in his most recent Red Hand Files newsletter, neatly summed up his views on A.I. this way: “Bad for good songwriters, good for bad songwriters.” And fittingly, he gets the last word.

A silly old selfie-photo can become a silly new album cover in no time. Now to write the fake songs in the track listing! You see, creativity can behave like a chain-reaction. Why not let it?

“Now introducing the Class of 86…”

This post is to show the myriad uses of the slang term “86” that is Trump 2.0’s Dada-fascistic basis for a criminal indictment of James Comey. The expression appears to have begun in the 1920’s/30’s restaurant business to indicate that an item is no longer available or that a person is no longer welcome. It is now common usage and generally means to discard, cancel, or remove something or someone from the premises. Allow me to further illustrate with the following, ahh, hypothetical examples:

“DEMAGOGUE Records presents…”

… the complete back catalogue of the incomparable and highly consequential musical artist COVFEFE. The sound of an entire socio-political movement that broke like a category-5 tropical (septic) cyclone. No graphics required. He neither asked permission nor forgiveness. No shits were left to be given — it was all there in the music. The highs (high crimes) and the high-five’s. The power of human connection elevated to heretofore unseen levels of mastery, such as in his seismic collaboration with Kim Jong Un. To be clear, any fallout here is a feature, not a bug!

Powered by an inexhaustible talent, COVFEFE oozed out into a multitude of musical genres and redefined each in turn. But it was the bottomless rapacity of the 1980’s that never really left him. From mob ties to red power ties to becoming the all-powerful cultural Tyrannosaurus Rex! Greed IS good!!

Although COVFEFE was not without his lonely periods. Like Jesus in the desert… or was that Moses? Anyway, there were a few dark days, as happens with any seminal artist ahead of their time. Sad. And very unfair!

COVFEFE became the “IT act” in each and every decade since the 1950’s. Outselling Elvis and The Beatles (at least in his hotel gift shops where the others weren’t on offer) and earning the moniker of “The John Wayne Gacy of the Pop Charts”. If you want to know where the loser acts are buried, check under the floor boards!

The hardest working man in showbusiness changed our entire cultural lexicon. He took a hammer to our norms and traditions. He brought a new and untethered ethos to our nation, proudly declaring truth, justice and morality things of the past. Can I get an “Amen“?!

In the 1960’s, COVFEFE followed the trends first into Bossa Nova and then to the “Ameriachi” sound of Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass. Never one to borrow with attribution, he later claimed to have invented both genres and was once quoted as saying, “I basically invented all music.” Now that’s TRUTH!!

With haunting ideas and shocking images, COVFEFE came on like those post-atomic sci-fi films of the 1950’s. This was an alien invasion from within our body politic, the proverbial phone call coming from INSIDE the house, and just in the nick of time!

Along the way, there were occasional nods to trail-blazing predecessors like H. Ross Perot, but much of what we got was sui generis. There will never (hopefully) be another quite like him!

Sure, he had other influences ranging from Al Capone and Edward G. Robinson… to Joseph McCarthy, Roy Cohn and Larry “Lonesome” Rhodes… George Wallace and Richard Nixon… David Duke and Pat Buchanan… Michael Milken and Gordon Gekko… Newt Gingrich and Stephen Miller… Viktor Orbán and Vladimir Putin… but mostly what’s borrowed is from the tradition of blustering thug-rappers, like Snoop Dogg and Biggie Smalls. COVFEFE likes it COLD and he likes it muthafuckin’ GOLD!! Word…

A new DELUXE box-set will soon be available, including actual locks from that famous cotton-candy hairdo (made from goat fur and rayon). There will also be a LEGO edition of the (inevitably failed) plans for transforming Washington, DC with his own (ultra-tacky lack of) style… like nobody’s ever seen before!

And nobody can claim that COVFEFE isn’t a platinum-level Christian. He and Jesus are 1A and 1B in the God-game — choose your own pecking order. The man’s a walking miracle. Miracle (small) hands. Miracle (absurd) hair. Miracle (unnatural) tan. Critics say he’s never read The Bible (though he sells them for $99.99 apiece), but that’s only because it was memorized from birth! COVFEFE is also known to heal AIDS since he’s never found within a mile of it (ask Roy Cohn), and he single-handedly cured COVID. Duh!

Liberace, eat your heart out! Never veering far from androgyny, COVFEFE transcends gender as a cultivator of all things “really, really pretty good… great, actually”… and looks quite striking in pink! It is said that those infamous heel spurs — the ones that inadvertently excluded him from all the unpleasantness in Vietnam — actually came from his wearing women’s heels!

But a pivot back to country music made that genre safe again for those foundational national pastimes: bigotry, bullying, sexism, homophobia, and hypocrisy! He’s simply impossible to pigeonhole. Some are even calling for a reprise live album from Folsom Prison. Ride on, hombre!!

The parallels between his song themes and the paranoiac ideas of the Nixon administration are undeniable. One critic said, “If you started with Richard Nixon, took away the intellect, stripped him of his piano skills, gave him regular doses of LSD, and put him in solitary confinement for a year with intermittent shocks to his genitals, BANG, you’ve got COVFEFE.” He’s certainly the person (of interest) for our times. Right on, man!!

In the immortal words of Douglas MacArthur, “Old soldiers never die; they just fade away.” The same can be said of (draft-dodging) non-soldiers, of course. And drawing from his own personal experience with cognitive decline, COVFEFE pioneered the novel genre of “dementia music,” including songs and tone-poems done both by, and for, people with late-life decline. A spokesman for the Alzheimer’s Association noted that the goal of their music program is to smooth the edges of unresolved conflict, to lessen the existential fear of the unknown, and to soften the bitterness of lingering resentments. Peace, comfort and quietude is what we all seek in the end. Can I get an “Amen“??