The times we live in dictate that now we will call just trying to make some money a fundraiser as if we were a charity rather than a business. However, these are weird times indeed and we are far from doing our normal business. So we are back with another takeout food night, rebranded as Takeout Tuesday. Order from our menu for pickup at Art Boutiki. Beer and wine are also available (wine by the bottle only).

To order from our online menu click HERE.

When last we spoke I was regaling you with the tale of my trying to get the Murder Hornets T-Shirt listed on Amazon. They had misclassified the shirt as a pesticide and were not allowing me to sell it despite the fact that the word T-SHIRT is in the name of the product.

I kept getting standard canned responses from whatever AI is running things at Amazon insisting that the problem was mine for wanting to sell in a restricted category. So I decided to try another phone call (these usually don’t result in any real results, but I figured why not try.

So I get someone on the phone who is clearly in one of Amazon’s call-centers in India, which deflated me because I know that they really can’t do anything because they need to kick it up to someone else somewhere else who can actually LOOK at the details of the listing.

The young man on the other end of the phone was reading the email thread on the ticket back to me when he paused and said “so, this is a t-shirt?” Why yes indeed it is I replied. He said that more than likely there was a a single word or a keyword I put in that flagged the listing and that if I was willing to wait on hold for up to five minutes he would call someone to see if they would let him handle it on his own :because I see you are getting nothing but responses generated by the algorithm.”

I tried not to get my hopes up. I waited a little less than five minutes and the guy came back, told me he was authorized to handle this on his own, read through the description and told me that it was all written fine and that if I wanted to wait a little longer he would try and activate the skus for the product. As I waited he explained to me that he was in a band in his home town and was totally shut down from performing because of Covid-19, but based on the shirt he thinks he would like The Murder Hornets.

I explained that the Murder Hornets were not a real band, that I had made it up based on recent news.

“That’s so metal” he said, which I actually don’t really agree with, but hey this guy in short order got the shirts up and available for sale on Amazon. So let’s celebrate the notion of one person stepping up and going above and beyond to get something done!

To honor this occasion we have turned the Murder Hornets shirt into a poster. We are also releasing a NEW Art Boutiki design, the Plague Doctor.

And watch this space for a new announcement regarding this month’s Drink and Draw, which DJ Carlos is going to livestream on Twitch with new coloring book pages by Alca!

Thanks again for all of your support.