1.  I Hate Stupidity

My Redbubble is full of designs that never sell.  It begs the question, who's your target audience, man?  The answer is simple.  I am my own target audience.  I am a target audience of one.

2.  Reservoir Cats

Personally, I would very much like to own a shirt emblazoned with a declaration of loathing for stupidity, or that tonight is, indeed, a fun night for a nun fight.  I'd never wear anything with my own face on it; I did it once in NYC, and only made it around the block.  I had to come back to the apartment and change my shirt.  I was only wearing the cartoon stencil likeness I use as a logo, and not a photorealistic rendering of the cartographic contours of my weathered, rockabilly visage.  But still it was too much.  I was self-conscious and embarrassed beyond all recognition.  Someone could have pointed at my shirt and said, it almost looks like you, without the embarrassment and visible desire to implode.  It was horrible.  There was no way I could possibly proceed into the New York City fray wearing a spiritual corrosive as powerful and destructive as an image of myself.  I've seen people pull it off.  Celebrated millionaires, usually.

To date, it isn't me.

3.  I Am Not An Onion

But the image of a dove, with the phrase "Forever Like a Dove" in Spanish underneath, is exactly the kind of thing that I would wear.  Or, perhaps, the observation in Spanish that "I am not an onion," captioned underneath a running horse.  The word "horse" is remarkably similar to the word "onion" in Spanish, and back when my Spanish was more remedial, the guy at the vegetable shop was abundantly amused by my query as to the price of the horses on display, next to the tomatoes.  I'm not fluent, but I do know the difference between an onion and a horse.  I may be a gringo, but I'm not stupid.

4.  El Futuro

One of my favorites is the depiction of the future as a crow, descending on the world to pluck its eyes out.  The phrase "the future is coming now" is spelled out in Spanish (as usual), except the words are fractured like a self-hating society, shattered into pieces.  It's as though the letters are running for their lives, and have decided to abandon the social cohesion inherent in the words.  Words which spell out a warning (or did), a warning the letters haven't heeded.  The letters are now terrified of the consequences of their self-righteous indifference and dismissal of this warning, apparently unaware that their dismissive indifference is in fact the reason that the words spelled out by their own decisions are in fact a warning.  But it's too late.  They're not going to make it.  Individual letters will perhaps repent, but the words themselves are doomed.

It is perhaps my favorite design of mine.  Unfortunately, the mail system in Mexico is still dependent on a system of onions and mules, a network of vegetables and pack animals by which messages can be transported from one town to another.  Bags of horses arrive with letters which have traveled over many centuries to reach their destination.  Ordering a T-shirt from the future, to be delivered via mule in a crate of pre-Columbian onions, is an inefficient system.  I have never seen a mailman in Mexico.  So, unfortunately, I can't order any of my designs for myself.

Instead, I have been reduced to wearing them vicariously, through videos like this:

5.  Jesús es el Jefe

My disenfranchisement from American culture is such that most of the text-based designs on my Redbubble are in Spanish.  I have no white- or America guilt, but it is ridiculously apropos to my sense of disenfranchisement that a song called "Eat Your Joy" would get so many negative comments.  "So many" meaning, two.  That's how much love there is in Gringoland for independent artists.  No positive comments (tho, 16 likes to date), but 2 hateful or uselessly-critical comments on a song with a chorus that literally states, "if you love me, man, you'll let me destroy your peace of mind and eat your joy."  Does the commenter really want the song to be about him?  Cuz he made it about him.  The complete vacuum of self-awareness in which the comment-section generation resides is enough to drive a reasonable person across a dangerous international border to escape it, in search of peace and harmony.  I would literally rather deal with a narco cop than a Karen; having dealt with both, I truly believe the latter is more dangerous.  The narco cop just wants money, but the Karen actually believes she's improving the world by haranguing you.  To be clear, the narco cop is not a joke, and can ruin your day like nobody's business.  But the Karen is a volatile mix of sanctimony and loathing that is infernal beyond reason.

I am pasting a screenshot of the negative comment in the final section below.  It is the pinned comment for the "Eat Your Joy" video, which is comprised of Jim Morrison's Super 8 footage of Pamela Courson, with my song playing over it.  You can watch it HERE, and also HERE.  I'm not sharing the comment to "argue" with it, or even to cut it down.  I'm sharing the comment (and my response to it) because it's not only a great example of the spirit that has inspired me to make most of my text-based designs in Spanish, it also inadvertently glorifies God.  Since my latest design declares that "Jesus is the Jefe," and the Lord Himself has seen fit to bless me with an opportunity to prove it, I figured why not shoehorn the comment into an article about Spanish-language merch.

Because, to my own surprise, the hateful comment made my day.  I really needed it.  It's been a rough couple days.  This guy telling me that I "ain't goin' nowhere" put some real wind in my sails.  It really lifted me.  Not because I'm a masochist, but because it was an opportunity to "bless them that curse you," an entreaty which is repeated several times throughout the Bible.  And I'm telling you, it works.  I've been in a rocky mood for a couple days, and throwing love and blessing at this guy's comment, while giving it the full Isaiah 54:17 treatment, completely turned my heart around.  What was intended to hurt me, actually has given me a sense of peace that I really, really needed.  By the grace of God, at the moment, I am actually happy.  Jesus really is the Jefe.  

So, if you want to eat my joy, God bless you.  Thanks for showing me that it actually isn't possible for you to eat my joy, and that by attempting to destroy my peace of mind and eat my joy, you are in fact eating your own hate.  My joy comes from the Lord, and is therefore unassailable.  I will pray that you repent, and join me in this newfound place of peace you have inadvertently led me to.  But if you won't, have at it buddy:

6.  Eat Your Hate

I haven't figured out how to say, "God led me out of the U.S." w/o making it sound like it's somehow important that it's ME who's gone, when really, it's the favor and blessing of God that are gone.  God just pulled me off the railroad tracks before the train hits, is all.

I submit this comment by @user-et2fj8xm5l as a perfect example of everything that's wrong with American society, problems which are terminal, and which will not be solved in a voting booth, in a classroom, or at a concert.  They are the people who have forgotten the difference in DISSENT and being CONTRARY.  The problem is ubiquitous in Gringoland.  If this guy was aware that the paradox of Christianity is that the more resistance you get from self-righteous demoniacs, the more likely it is that you're on the right path, he would, well, REPENT.  To flow downstream with these people is to take a high-speed Slip n' Slide ride to the gates of hell itself.  If you know this guy, lose him as an associate.  He hates you almost as much as he hates himself.

That said, God bless you, @user-et2fj8xm5l.  Thanks for the paradoxical encouragement; to have your blessing would be a curse of immeasurable destructiveness.  While you may be too self-righteous and hateful to ever repent, may your comment shine as a luminescent example of the mediocrity of evil, and the hateful spirit that runs rampant in the English-speaking world today.  It will be my sincere prayer until the day I die or am raptured that you see the light before it's too late; NOTHING is beyond forgiveness, but we need to humble ourselves and repent.  I thank Jesus for this opportunity to shine a light on death and hell and the sanctimony that fuels it.  It's been a rough couple days, and I genuinely needed the encouragement.

Unfortunately for your father the devil, you're too late.  I'm already gone.  If it's my career you're talking about, I'm not insecure about my work.  The lack of independent songwriters with household-name independence in your culture is a red flag for YOU, not me.  I'm just the canary in the coal mine.  Me, and at least several thousand others, who are all OD'd on Fentanyl, or working as baristas, or changing your oil.  It's you who have condemned yourself, and who continue to condemn yourselves by making comments like this.  You don't have the kind of power over me that permits you to decide where God takes me, any more than I have that power over you.  The only power you have is over yourself.  Allow me to suggest using it in a less self-destructive way.

So God bless you.  Thanks again.  I needed the encouragement.  As they say in Spanish, "To God,"