Why Pandora matters

There was a time period in the early 90s when deep down inside, I knew we weren’t going to make it musically.

We started playing for less people.

The groupies became less in numbers.

And I didn’t see anyone from the music industry show up at our shows.

My pal Bart, the guy who got me into Substack, started running a highly successful spoken word show called “Postcards from the Edge” and it took off like wildfire. It got so big they toured with Lollapalooza one year.

I noticed they attracted a lot of cute girls with 110+ IQs too, my kind of girls.

So, I started working on a comedy act and when I visited Mom in Texas, he let me read at his show. I used the audience as guinea pigs, to see what hits and what flops.

One of my routines was a fake political campaign where you hire some guys to have your opponent’s bumper sticker on their cars. And they drive around, cutting people off and flipping off everyone. So everyone thinks “wow! The people who vote for that guy are all fucking assholes!”

Of course, don’t do this people! It’s a joke.

But despite it being a joke, Silicon Valley picked up a similar concept.

Last time I worked in Silicon Valley, I heard a lot of “white people have no culture” and “America has no culture of its own. They only get it from immigrants.”

Both of course are bullshit. But they’re designed to demoralize.

Then, there was the huge trans push. Since according to Silicon Valley, white males were at the top of the food chain, it’s only fair they cut their balls off and became women.

I was shocked to see how many of my co-workers did just that. You’d see Bob come into work. Then the next week, Bob’s wearing a dress and has a weave. And he changes his name to Barbara.

Then he’s gone for a while and when he returns, he’s using the woman’s bathroom.

Now all that said, I can’t prove this part. But I’m sure there’s a third element at play here.

I think a lot of these “based accounts” are really hardcore leftists who are doing the old bumper sticker thing. Pretend to be based, then demoralize. Remind everyone that their culture is dead. Say things like “there’s no good art today” or “why can’t they build buildings like this anymore?”

Or, whenever a man shows signs of being a straight male, mock him. Heavily.

For instance, reply to one of his straight male notes with a closeup picture of a man’s dick. Punish him for being a straight male. But, call yourself “based.” Use religion as your disguise.

Demoralize.

And this, my friends, is what we’re up against.

Hollywood and Silicon Valley are in cahoots. You’ll notice how they’re intentionally killing off all our heroes. Or making them either retarded or useless.

Indiana Jones. John Connor (who saved the world in the Terminator). Dr Who. Luke Skywalker. Heck, 007 is now a woman and James Bond dies.

This is all intentional. And Silicon Valley fudges the numbers, trying to make it look like this is what people want. They made up the term “modern audiences” as their excuse.

Heck. Look what they did to Snow White.

No. This ain’t what people want and there’s a huge backlash against this.

At first, YouTube tried hard to fudge the numbers. That’s why they hid the dislikes. (Remember when YouTube used to show dislikes?)

Then they tried to alter the algorithm so these videos showing how much we hate the new Hollywood won’t show up. But you can only alter an algorithm so far before people keep hitting like and subscribe and watching the videos.

So Silicon Valley failed with both their fake marketing and their censorship (via altering the algorithm) campaigns. Because the numbers simply overwhelmed.

A lot of these woke movies died at the box office. They of course blamed everyone but themselves. “It’s racist, sexist bigots holding us down!”

Nah man. Your movie just sucks.

So that’s my 2c. And yes, I was there right in the middle of it.

I’m now blacklisted from several of those Silicon Valley companies but fuck it. There are more important things than money. Like Truth for instance.

Pandora

So you’ll notice I take figures from Greek and Roman mythology and also Biblical characters and show you how Artists interpreted them.

These are our cultural histories.

The Greeks gave us our beauty standards. And they were amazing sculptors and architects.

The Romans eventually conquered them but realized “hey, these people are smart.” So the Romans adopted a lot of Greek culture rather than the other way around.

I’m intentionally choosing Pandora as she’s the first human woman in Greek mythology. The Christian equivalent is Eve. (Yes, I am a Christian but of course I study the Greeks. All Artists who want to be taken seriously need to).

The Gods were pissed Prometheus stole fire and gave it to man. So as punishment, Zeus gives Pandora a jar containing all the world’s evils, plagues, and diseases and tells her not to open it.

But you know how women are. Curiosity got the better of her and she opens it.

Disease, War, and Sorrow escape but she quickly closes the lid before Hope could get out.

Now, someone who knows more about Greek than I do can explain why Artists always paint it as a box instead of a jar. I think it was a mistranslation. But I don’t know Greek, besides Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, etc.

In my not so humble opinion, the best paintings of Pandora were painted from the 19th century up until WWI. So that’s what I’ll show today because I think every single one of these paintings below is a masterpiece.

I don’t really like any of the Renaissance or Baroque paintings of Pandora.

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Side note - if you are a Creative, read what I’m about to say very carefully and take it seriously.

Nobody knows what from today will be around 100+ years from now. It may be something YOU write or paint. We don’t know.

“But that’s only a 1% chance of happening.”

1%? Are you kidding me?

That means DO IT even more!

Imagine if you had a 1% chance of winning the lottery, which let’s just say is at $100 million right now. You can bet your ass I’m buying a ticket.

Let’s just say hypothetically I was single and Monica Bellucci in her prime and I are in the same bar. And I have a 1% chance of her saying “yes.” You can bet your ass I’ll approach her.

Do it!

Write that song. Or that poem. Or that book.

Draw that picture. Or paint that painting.

Just do it!

AT LEAST one person reading this right now will be remembered 100 years from now. I’m hoping that number is more like four or five.

The whole point of his Pandora article is to inspire you to look at the Ancient Greeks for inspiration if you’re not sure what to write about/paint.

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John William Waterhouse

I’ll start with my favorite Artist of all time.

This is his 1896 painting with Muriel Foster as his model. She’s a natural redhead and I have no idea why he painted her with dark hair.

He captures her curiosity perfectly. And I love her dress. Waterhouse had a way with colors.

Thomas Benjamin Kennington

Kennington painted Pandora in 1908 holding the box in deep regret. She now knows she shouldn’t have opened it. And she knows what she released - everything bad. But Hope is still in the box.

And if you’re wondering if there are subliminal images in the painting, you’d be right. You’ll have to look closely to see them.

Ernest Normand

Normand in 1899 did something completely different.

He painted the “oh shit!” moment where Pandora covers up as everything evil escapes.

Now, apologies for the crappy image but this is all I have. I’m sure the real painting looks much better than this.

William Adolphe Bouguereau

As we speak, I’m taking lessons how to paint like this guy. What threw me off is he used blue in the skin color and my first attempts, I had to throw in the garbage because she looked like a zombie.

But I’m finally starting to get it.

I argue from a pure aesthetics standpoint, Bouguereau is the best there ever was.

But you can see he focuses way more on aesthetics than story. If you don’t like this painting, I understand. (I happen to love it, but I still understand why you don’t like it).

Walter Crane

Crane painted this painting in 1885 in watercolors and it’s the only painting in this list that isn’t oils.

He went for the “what the fuck have I done?” feeling and I think he did a spectacular job with it. Notice the storm in the background.

Charles Edward Perugini

This is the weirdest in the bunch. Because every other painting, there’s a feeling in it.

This one has a complete nonchalance. Like she’s opening it just to open it. Not a curiosity (curiosity killed the cat). Not a rebellious “you told me not to so I’m going to open it anyways!”

Just a complete nonchalance about opening the box. Perugini painted it in 1893.

What I didn’t include

Dante Gabriel Rossetti and Lawrence Alma-Tadema are two of my favorite Artists all-time but I didn’t like either of their renditions of Pandora.

It’s like when your favorite band releases a new album and every single song on the album is excellent except for the 8th song and you skip that one.

So do you have a favorite or favorites?