Diamond Lake Creative

Category: Non-Daily Updates About Nothing in Particular, Unless it’s About Something in Particular

Non-Daily Updates About Nothing in Particular, Unless it’s About Something in Particular

It’s coming along

The site is coming together and I take partial credit, like in high school when you 1/2-assed a homework assignment and the teacher said:

Well, it’s better than nothing, which isn’t saying much, but you gave it a shot, though not a very good shot, in fact if it was a basketball, the ball would have never left your hands… actually, nobody would have passed you the ball in the first place so you wouldn’t even be in the position to consider a shot, unless you were considering somebody else taking a shot, which is maybe what happened here – you got to thinking about your classmate’s doing their homework assignment and figured that because they were going to do a great job you didn’t need to create more work for me, given I already know all about the subject and because you have no immediate plans to work for NASA after graduation. And for that consideration, I thank you, and give you an 8/57. If you put your name on your paper, next time, I’ll add a couple tree points.

So anyway, six photo galleries are up, new ones will pop up occasionally, blog posts will continue regularly and unscheduled and never on time, and never being content, I’ll continuously update content in the off chance that anyone visits the site more than once. I’m thinking about how I want to run the “store” piece of this site. Once that’s ironed out, photographs will be available for purchase via whichever service I’ve latched on to. And finally, the donations page will be up and running soon. Monetary donations and art supplies (new &/or good condition used) will be directed towards Public Schools, Community Centers, Senior Centers, and Services for individuals experiencing mental and/or physical health conditions. I’m also trying to get my head around a gift option. Something where people can make a donation in exchange for a gift for a person, place, animal, etc. Nothing huge, no giant loon sculptures or 6’x12′ oil on canvas but a small piece of art – 1 of 1, maybe a bookmark, a painted notecard, a Thank You note, etc. etc. If you have ideas, let me know.
For my part, 8/57 is pretty ok, I do better on the art homework. Hope to see you soon.
And a huge Thanks to Nate for all the work and expertise you’ve provided – Happy Trails

May 2, 2025
T-Shirt Ideas for Toddlers

Hey! Everybody… Fuck You I Won’t do what you tell me

Fuck off & Die

you can take your peek-a-fucking-boo & your goochie fucking goo & go fuck yourself

if you don’t stop, I’ll kidney punch you until you piss blood

No! I’m not tired, I’m not sick, and I’m not hungry, I just hate you!

Will you please do me a favor and shut the fuck-up!

Hey, fucker, that’s my fucking cupcake, get your grubby fucking paws off it!

pinch my cheeks, lose a fucking finger

Blow it out your ass, like I do:

Fuck pants & fuck you!

I’ve been screaming for 13 fucking seconds, where the fuck are you? Don’t be mad, just get me a fucking snack, STAT!

I love you, you love me, If you don’t quiet down RIGHT NOW, I’m gonna piss on your head

I don’t give a fuck who you are, back the fuck up

Drop it like it’s hot, no, not me, asshole

Yes, I’m eating sugar from the bag, fuck off

April 27, 2025
A Lawnmower Long Story, Short:

That fucking guy was supposed to come by at 11:00 to pick up the lawnmower he said he wanted to buy; sum-bitch didn’t show up til 2:45, piss drunk, talkin’ bout he got lost on the way — he lives 3 fuckin blocks from me — and then he asked me to load it up in his truck because he was too drunk to pick it up; and then, after I get the fuckin’ thing in his truck he asks me to tie it down – it’s a fucking lawnmower, it Ain’t fuckin goin anywhere – so I pushed it up tight to the cab and put a couple bricks behind the wheels. He said thanks and started to climb in his truck and I said, Hey, you gonna pay me? And he said, “I already did”. And I said, The hell you did. And he said, “oh yeah, I paid the beer store”. How much you want fer it, he asked? I told him we’d agreed on $25 and he said it wasn’t worth half that. And I said, I don’t recall you mentioning anything about what it was worth, only that you’d give me $25 for it. And he said, Well, I was probably drunk when I said that. So I said, that’s fine, I’ll just unload it and you can find another fuckin’ mower. He didn’t like that so he started diggin around in his pockets, pullin’ out coins and a few singles, a couple rocks, six lottery tickets, a pocket knife, several receipts, five .22 shell casings, a church key, a rabbit’s foot, a small coil of copper wire, some coupons for Subway, and a green and yellow friendship bracelet. And then he said, “between the cash and coins and lottery tickets and Subway coupons, I’ve got about $9 and .43 cents, can I bring the rest by tomorrow?” By that point I was so irate, because he didn’t have the cash and I was crying from laughing so hard – that friendship bracelet musta been a gift from his mom, she loves her some Jordan Love and the Packers but he’s a die hard Vikings fan, swears their gonna win the super bowl, every fucking year, and after 5 games he changes his tune and starts talkin’ bout the draft, that poor fucker, he ain’t got shit in his life that’s worth a fuck, aside from his sister and those 3 cats, they’re the only thing standing between him and a life of failed criminal ventures. So anyway, I started to feel bad for him, and I know he’s a good guy, if aggravating, and there’s no need for me to keep the mower, I don’t need it no more, turned my whole yard into a zen garden so I can meditate in a place that allows me to tune everything else out. I told him he could take the mower and I’d take the Subway coupons and we’d call it even. That may not have been as good an idea as I first thought, given his obsession with Subway sandwiches, he thought I was trying to pull a fast one on him, started to ask what kind of piece of shit mower I was trying to unload on him and that just one of those two dollars off a foot long coupons was worth 10 times what that mower’s worth and that he wouldn’t take that mower if I gave it to him. It was at that point that I decided I was done, I turned my ass around and headed to the house, wasn’t worth the time to argue. That pissed him off even more, he was cursing me and the mower and my neighbors sprinkler that was shooting water on him every 15 seconds and had been since he got out of the truck. He attempted to grab the mower out of the truck but couldn’t get any leverage so he opened the gate and tried to climb in – he nearly got one knee up when his other foot slipped on the wet clay – his reaction time, which ain’t great when he aint drinkin, was really slow. His nose was the first part of his body to stop falling, followed by the rest of his face – he’s a bleeder, that’s for certain. If he wouldn’t a crashed his truck six times on the way to the hospital, I woulda let him drive; but I knew he was in no shape to keep his eyes open and his brain alert, so I helped him into the shotgun seat and drove him to the ER. After they wheeled him in, I drove his truck back to his place, unloaded the mower & put it in his pole shed. 3 days later he called me up & told me that was the best damn mower he ever had & he’d a happily paid $50 instead of $35. I didn’t bother telling him anything, just said glad ya like it. That was last Thursday, I ain’t seen him since, he typically drives by here at least 8-10 times a day, running here there and the next place but nothin’. I hope he didn’t fall in a well.

April 4, 2025
Diamond Lake – Where’s That?

Have you ever been to Baton Rouge? Nice place, a little warm most months, for my taste, but in January it’s just about the right temperature. Diamond Lake is nowhere near Baton Rouge, unless you’re reading this on the space station. Anyway, if you head due North from Baton Rouge and make a hard left when you get to Cadott, Wisconsin, you can take Highway 29 West and it’ll dump you off onto 94 Westbound and that’ll bring you right into Minneapolis. From there, just ask somebody, if they don’t know, ask somebody else, you’ll find it eventually.

Well, now that you know how to get here, don’t go fallin’ in love with the State, especially Minneapolis & St. Paul, you’ll hate the taxes (ask a Republican), you’ll hate the winters (ask a Southerner), you’ll hate the passive-aggressive communication style (ask a Minnesotan)and you’ll hate that the Packers fans will talk shit regardless of how bad they may be in a given year because they have a lot of titles (a baker’s dozen to be exact) and the Vikings (which is really a much better name for a football team) have less than 13 – , 13 less, to be exact. Packer fans will also remind them they have the mecca of professional sports home fields, Lambeau. The Metrodome was really nice, like an oversized air-dome that you might find on a private school’s campus so the students can play hockey in the summer, but with beer. It replaced The Met (Metropolitan Stadium) – not the home of the Mets, but home of the Purple People Eaters, Twins, Kicks and eventually the biggest mall in the U.S., after it was demolished. Now they have U.S. Bank Stadium (talk about great names, said no one ever) and they like to think of it as a Viking Ship, a Viking Ship that has an uncanny ability to kill birds without firing a shot. But I digress. I’m here to tell you about this place, Diamond Lake Creative.

It’s not a huge facility, maybe big enough to fit a couple baby elephants, 4 or 5 Honey Badgers and 8-10 Bearcats, but that’s big enough for now.

Regionally, we’re at the far end of North, which is the extreme South of Northmore and is right smack dab in the middle of the chain of lakes commonly referred to as North of Normal. People sometimes assume they can get here simply by heading North by North but that’s only true if your starting point is along a line that runs approximately from 93.3° W +/- 0.3° – about Iowa, Louisiana up past Carpenter, Iowa. That said, if you head in a generally northerly direction, unless you’re in Canada, you’ll probably find your way sooner or later. And remember, if you get completely turned around and keep driving past the same wheat field in Kansas, contact a local realtor and start meeting the people you’re going to call neighbors – you were meant to be there.

April 1, 2025
Welcome to Diamond lake

Let me tell you somethin’ about this joint – it ain’t a tent revival for the wretched of the earth, we don’t need no tent for our revivals; it ain’t a place to wrestle with your investment portfolio and plans for a lovely low-fucking-key retirement in Fiji; an’ it ain’t a dad-gum fire-station turned nightclub with too many speakers and too few barkeeps. We don’t sell crepes and we don’t allow the smoking of electronic shit – if you wanna smoke, get a lighter and a pack of Marlboro’s or P-funks or Newports or Virginia Slims if you’re of a certain age . We’ve got: flowers by the bushel – fresh cut, dried, potted, & planted; popcorn and peanuts in paper bags; salamander saliva comin’ out our ears; and we play a mean game of Sheepshead. Our squirrels dance the two-step and our dogs bark on 2 & 4. We’ve no way of knowing how long we’ve been here and we don’t really know that our existence herein wasn’t always so. We’ll paint your toenails with a Sharpie and your knee-pits with vinegar and oil. The last person who tried to keep us from singing our songs ended up in tar pit, on Mercury. If you got a story to tell, we’re all ears. Ya got somethin’ to sell, not here (un’ ess you’ve got some peanut butter and chocolate chip cookies). The bar in Diamond Lake Bistro opens at 06:00 E.S.T. and closes at 05:00 C. S. T. The bistro’s kitchen is open 24/7 but ticket times run long between 17:30 – 22:00 and again between 02:00 – 07:00. If you need a bath, we got a pool in Diamond Lake Gardens, out back. If you need a therapist, we’ve got 3 honest-to-god bartenders and a bar-back who doubles as the bouncer. If you need someone to hit you upside the head with a cast iron pan, Tommie ‘ll come out the kitchen and see you. She don’t cook steaks past rare and she don’t put up with no shit from the clientele; and if you look her way with the slightest “you don’t scare me” attitude, you damn sure won’t be the first s.o.b. to find your nose closer to your ear than it was before you met Tommie. At Diamond Lake Creative, we make art, lots of art, all different kinds in all different fashions and we don’t give a shit whether you like it or eat it or talk about it like it’s a god-damn masterpiece gone awry and could easily be mistaken for a bag of flaming hammered-dog-shit on Mitch McConnell’s front porch. We make art for people who live life without pretensions and who don’t have overt ostentatious oligarchic tendencies. We make art for the people who Rock It, every fucking day, in pajamas on their couch or in the corporate office surrounded by a culture of stupidity that’s overshadowed by a mission to maximize wealth accumulation and grovel to shareholder concerns. We make art for those who don’t have art made for them – the beat-down who get up every single time they’re knocked to the ground, the quiet souls who rage against the garrulous assholes who are completely unintelligible but still find their way up the ladder of dumbfuckery. We make art for us, the one’s who know when we’re being sold a bill of goods and raise our middle fingers to salute the ass-a-nati from whom we buy our days old bread. Do take some time to peruse our site and see if anything tickles your fancy, or maybe irritates it. And if you have any questions, concerns, complaints, observations, or recommendations, you’ll find contact information on the page that has contact information. Thanks for stoppin’ by, watch your head, the doorways were installed in the 1850s.

January 21, 2025