Futurelawyer

Artificial Intelligence Bot And The FutureLawyer - An Artist In The Making?

This is a canvas print of an art piece I created with the assistance of an AI bot. It is a self portrait of the FutureLawyer, in an abstract style. It should fetch a few million at auction, don't you think? :-)

All Saints Day And All Souls Day - Days Of The Dead In Many Cultures.

Day of The Dead. Yesterday, in my tradition, was All Saints Day, on which we honor all good people who we divine were Saints in their lifetime. Today we celebrate as All Souls' Day, which, I suppose, is for the rest of us. My favorite tradition, however, is the Mexican Day of the Dead celebrations, and we collect the skulls and bride and groom images that so often are created for the festivals. I am often accused of being too much involved, in my poetry, with death and dying. However, in the Stoic tradition, being aware of the possibility of our demise at any moment is a certain way to heighten our living by not wasting any moment of life. The tradtition of "Memento Mori", or remembering always of the certainty of death, fixes the mind wonderfully on each moment and each day. I think we are also fascinated and haunted by death because no human living has any idea what is after death, if anything. Every Pope, every Priest, every TV preacher, and every other person who claims to "know'"  there is a God, or who claims to know what "God" days, is either deluded or a liar. We can "believe" whatever we like. If you find joy or comfort in believing that there must be something "after", then that is great. I believe that most of us who are rational animals know what we don't know. There must be a Prime Mover? Okay. But, in every religious tradition there are human beings, just like us, who haven't got a clue what they are talking about. So, call me Anti-Religion, if you want. Nobody has the patent on knowledge of the hereafter. Now, go enjoy whatever tradtion you like. Today, we honor all the souls who have gone before us. And, we decide how we are going to live this one more day we get on the earth. Do good. Be good. You choose.

LawComix - Charles Pugsley Fincher Is The Cartoon Laureate Of Law Practice.

Lawcomix. A blog post about cartoons wouldn't be complete without a mention of my good friend, Charles Pugsley Fincher, whose comics about law and lawyering were discovered by me some years ago, when he was doing a regular column in the American Bar Journal. Since that time, his insights into the humor and frustrations of law practice have put a smile on my face often, and an original work is hanging in my office. Charley is a good friend, and deserves a deep dive from every lawyer in the U.S. who values the benefits of humor in our lives. Thanks, Charley, for making my life better.

Make Your Own Comics Page.

GoComics. News and journalism have migrated to the Internet. With that migration, much of the content we used to get in our local newspapers is available in much broader quantity and quality on the Internet. News aggregators like Google, and other services, can create a curated, personal reading experience for the user who is willing to spend some time aggregating on his or her own. Longtime readers know that some of my blog posts are commentary on comic strips, which have given me respite from daily troubles and stresses since my youth. What began as a fascination with Dick Tracy, became a lifelong love of technology. These days, my favorites are Shoe, Pickles, Dilbert, and Pearls Before Swine. Like all humor, they make us laugh at the same time as they make us think. Thinking is a human activity that is too little done these days, no? So, if you can afford $19.99 a year, go to this website, and choose from hundreds of the best comics in the world. You don't have to rely on local editors to choose what you watch or read anymore. 

Guilty Pleasures - Science Fiction Meets Space Opera Meets The Master Chief.

Halo Comes To Paramount Plus. I have loved science fiction since I was a small boy. The evolution of special effects and storytelling has brought the genre into places that I can go to escape the reality of any current crisis in my life. Kids (and some adults) play video games for the same reasons. While I have never had time to spend on video games, I like the tech, and Halo has been one of the best. The Master Chief, a Mandalorian style warrior gets dropped on a planet overrun by monsters called the Covenant, and he spends his days blowing them away. Basic drama; but, fun. Now, the story comes to Paramount Plus in March, and I will enjoy losing myself for an hour at a time in a fantastic world of good guys versus monsters. At my age, silly guilty pleasures don't seem so silly anymore. Who's with me?

 

Happy Thanksgiving From The FutureLawyer.

Impress Your Significant Other - Buy Them A Book Of Poetry.

Poems For Lovers. Amazon. If you want to show your significant other how you feel, there is no better gift than a book of Poems about life, and love. Show them you care. You, and I, will be glad you did. :-)

 

What Can I Do With PhotoPea?

Without training, I was able to create this meme, using only PhotoPea,  a free tool that is Internet based. With some talent, imagine what you could create.

Osprey - Impression Of Flight.

Poems For Lovers - The Illustrator's Perspective.

Heather Joi, the artist who illustrated my latest poetry collection, "Poems For Lovers" was introduced to me via the Internet, and I became her patron on Patreon. Check out Patreon. It is a great way to support artists. In any event, she posted about doing the illustrations, and I am impressed by her work and insight to my work. I do tend to "snapshot" life moments, together with a "stream of consciousness" that leads to an insight about life. Here is her post:

"The illustrations i have been working on are finished! This was a fun project. I went through Rick's poems, he is a prolific writer, and selected poems that stood out to me for their illustrative quality. After reading and re reading... once i felt i had a good feel for the poems, i set out to create the illustrations. i opted for elegant ink drawings because the poems seemed to have a snapshot feel to them; a sudden moment of inspiration captured by a stream of consciousness. i wanted to create illustrations that reflected this feeling. after deciding on the poems and the style, i set forth to compose. i created thumbnails of each of the poems in order to work out the composition. once i had sorted that out, i set out to ink the drawings. now, the thing that is interesting about simple work is that it actually takes a lot of practice to get the image right. the images have to appear effortless while, in fact, there are hours of work put into them. the analogy i often use to describe this is Matisse. he is a master of creating simple works that take an extraordinary amount of work. for instance, his portrait drawings look incredibly simple... almost like a child drew them. their playfulness is what makes them compelling while one realizes that the whole drawing is an unbroken line, you become astounded. not that i am comparing my drawings to Matisse, by any means ha ha ha, but it is a good way to describe the effort behind simple work. it takes a lot of practice to make something appear effortless. so without further ado, here are the images!