Odds and Ends

It's been over a month since my last post and I apologize to my faithful readers for dropping the ball on my weekly blog like I did the past four weeks. I really didn't have much to write about as my pottery work was pretty much on hold due to a series of circumstances. And, in all honesty, I just haven't been inspired to write. But things are finally getting back to normal, and this week's post has some nice odds and ends to follow up on. Here goes:



Bo Obama's dog bowl is out of the kiln! The First Family finally got their dog last month so I was finally able to decorate a few of those blank dog bowls that had been sitting in my studio for many months. For the background on all this, see my post, "I'm on the Obama Dream Team!" Today I'm shipping this minor masterpiece out and my well-placed customer is going to hand it to her well-placed friend who will hopefully personally hand it to The President. I realize that it could blow the surprise for the First Family by posting pics of it on the web right now, so if you are friends with the Obamas, please don't tell them about it, OK?


New topical humor! Along with the presidential dog bowl, I came up with two new designs this week. I couldn't resist doing a swine flu joke, even if that topic is on the wane now. A few months ago, I received some emails from disgruntled Republicans urging me to come up with some jokes slamming the new administration. While this one is a far cry from a "slam", it does take aim at Janet Napolitano, one of the current objects of conservative disgruntledness. I have a very limited number of these available in mugs, plates and bowls in my webstore now, and I'm pretty sure they are destined to be collector's items.


My other new design has much better marketing potential. It's available in mugs only, and I really like the way it could be a joke gift given from a Republican to a Democrat or vice verca. We shipped out a bunch of these to my various accounts today, and I still have a few in stock and available in the webstore. I'm excited about coming up with more new designs later this month, and I should have another firing out in about three weeks.

I'm on the Obama dream team!

I realized this week that I am now a full-fledged member of a new national phenomenon: I want to get famous by getting noticed by President Obama. I say this in all self-deprecating humor because my little pipe dream has about as much chance of coming through as does a ticket to one of those idiotic multi-state Powerball lotteries. But like the people who own the Powerball tickets, I've got my little dream scheme and there's a small chance that it could happen. And I'm not alone. There are hordes of starry-eyed Americans out there with similar dreams and I'm pretty sure that the majority of these fantasies involve dogs and dog related items. As we all know, the very first promise the president elect made after winning the election was to allow his daughters to get a puppy. It was a brilliant political maneuver that made even the staunchest republicans say, "Awwwww... how cute!"

So now we have TV news stories every day showing us some dreamer with a puppy that would be perfect for the first family. My wife and I were out to dinner with a group of friends last week and our friend Mary has a foster puppy named Karma who would be perfect for the job of "First Dog". This pooch even has a blog aimed at pitching himself to the Obama family. And get this: the very next day Mary and Karma were on the local TV news telling the story of how Karma just might have the right karma to wind up with the name Karma Obama. (That name does have a ring to it, I'll admit!)

The Wall Street Journal ran a story last week on how the nation's capitol is besieged with left-wing dreamers and schemers hoping to get the ear of our new president with their various visions and ideas. It's natural that this happens every time we change the guard, but Mr. Obama's "we the people" rhetoric has exacerbated this phenomenon to dizzying heights. My favorite of the group was the guy who drove his schoolbus into town with an organic garden on top to encourage everyone to grow their own food. You gotta wonder what kind of gas mileage he gets on that mobile victory garden, don't you? I love the dark irony of calculating an environmentalist's carbon footprint.

So what's my dream? It's quite simple: a dog dish. I was contacted via email from a well-placed customer with an even better placed friend who will be meeting with the president this year and he wants to give the first family the gift of a hand-painted dog bowl. I realize that I might be totally jinxing it here by talking about it, but I believe in destiny, not jinxes. If I am meant to be, for the rest of my life, "that guy who made the dog bowl for The President" it will either happen or it won't. Odds are that I will get something in the middle. Yes, I will make that amazing presidential dog bowl and yes it will get sent to the White House. But I'm guessing the odds are that it will be just one of a horde of thousands of Obama dog bowls that will end up getting shipped off to a warehouse somewhere deep inside the Smithsonian Institution. Picture in your mind's eye that final scene in "Citizen Kane" where the Rosebud the Sled gets tossed in the furnace. Such is the stuff of dreams...