Weekly Update, Dec. 27, 205

As part of the changes for the upcoming year, I will be doing a weekly update for the online DCS store. Included will be stuff like the following:

We are making some changes in the retail & wholesale sections of our web site & the order fulfillment end of the business in 2006. In the past year, our sales have grown, as well as the need to focus attention on other things like framing, and auctioning. Currently I am the only one handling sales, and pretty much everything else, and the turnaround time on orders has been slower than years past. The shipping delays in particular have been weighing heavily on me this year, as Jeff & I have come to realize that our little Mom & Pop venture has grown beyond something that just we can do or oversee ourselves. With us doing the design work, printing, all of the shipping in-house, and vending events, we've just been stretched too thin.

We're tired, and getting less and less artistic work done due to the other aspects of the business requiring more & more of our time.

Considering all of this, we've been quietly forging a deal with our trusted friend, Rick Ramirez of Temple Ball Gallery to handle the bulk of our shipping on our retail orders. Many of you already know Rick, and will know why Jeff and I are so happy to be able to work with him in this capacity. Rick is professional, already well-versed in the shipping of collectible prints, and we trust him to package our prints & posters for you. We will make a more formal "Press Release" when we get all of the details worked out. It will take us a month or so to complete the transition, so please be patient with us while we inventory, and get the posters to Rick. Things will still be the same, just most of the shipping will be done from NC instead of GA.

Other items of note:

>When we email invoices to customers, they are sent as PDF files attached to an email. If spam controls are too tight, these may get thrown out by the receiving server. If we do not receive a TIMELY reponse to an email notice, we will attempt to phone the customer. If that fails, the order will be voided.

>We are inventorying all of the prints. We hope to have it done soon, and corrections to the online store finished by the end of January.

>Items not in the online store after the inventory is complete WILL NOT BE AVAILABLE to order online. We will be pulling some posters that we have very few left of to be framed for the gallery at Seppuku Tattoo, vending at festivals, and for custom framing to be auctioned.

>Wholesale orders will not be accepted unless they are done through the store software.

I'm sure there will be more as we work through everything for the New Year, so check back each Monday for the updates!!

Hope everyone had a wonderful Solstice, Hanukah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, Boxing Day, St. Stephen's Day, Yalda, or whatever nondenominational winter holiday you observed this past week.

Independent Music Award Winners Anounced!

Musicians Atlas has anounced the winners of this year's IMA Awards, and we're happy to announce that Drowning Creek's String Cheese Incident Fall Tour '04 has been anounced as the winner in the band/venue poster category. Thanks to the Mucisians Atlas, and this year's judges for choosing ours out of what we're sure were many fabulous posters to have to sift through.

Peace On Earth, People

Allison, Emily, and Kailee H., six, two, & nine respectively

So, I've been sitting here trying to find some sort of Christmas-y jpg to put on our blog, and well, nothing I searched for hit home for me. I looked for holiday images of the Mississippi Coast - none. I looked for Kris Kringle - meh. I looked for Peace images - same old. After exhausting my Google abilities to no real avail, I started thinking; What is it in this world that is important to me, and gives me a reason to want Peace on Earth during my lifetime?

Of course, there is Jeff, all my little creatures that share our home, our families, our friends, music, art, and all the other things that give me a reason to get up in the morning..... and then I remembered that my sis-in-law, Kristen, sent me some photos of my nieces the other day.

I cannot think of a better reason to want Peace on this Earth than for these young humans. And I don't mean just them, even though they are the closest to my heart.... symbolically, they stand for all the children in this world.

Besides all of the well wishing, and Happy Holiday tidings we usually send out, it is our wish to you and yours that you have a Peaceful holiday whatever you are celebrating, and Happy New Year. Thanks to each and every one of you who have touched our lives, worked or hung out with us, bought art from us, shared their thoughts with us, etc.. We're grateful for the time we've shared with you!

...and to all our friends who have new babies this year, we hope you have the best "first" Christmas ever!

Poster Release Today around 5pm & General Online Store Update

We will add the last posters of the year to the web site this afternoon around 5pm. Included in the release will be the Cannabis Cup posters, and YMSB posters. This will be the final release of 2005, and we will do our best to get all orders shipped by Friday for Christmas.

Also, we will be upgrading the web site and store in January, hopefully making the ordering process a bit easier, and the content more concise. We will be adjusting the shipping calculator to reflect a more accurate shipping charge on orders. We've been just adding a flat fee of $7.00 most of the time, and absorbing any additional costs including the shipping supplies. After running cost assessments on our shipping, it's become apparent that we need to do an overhaul on that method, and raise the shipping cost for heavier packages, and packages that need more insurance.

When we update the store, we will be removing some posters from the sales section forever. There are quite a few posters that we have very limited quantity available, and we will be pulling some of them to be framed for our gallery, and some to be packaged for vending at festivals. I don't know exactly which ones yet, and won't until we do a physical inventory. After they are pulled from the store, they will not be available online unless they show up in an auction.

2006 DCS Subscriptions Coming!!

Well, it's time for Subscription planning again. We've still one package left to ship on those in January, but we're putting the wheels in motion for the 2006 subscriptions now.

This past year we offered 20 subscriptions at the cost of $899.99, and with payments broken into 4 payments as an option. We will be offering 10 additional subs this year for a total of 30, and will keep the price at $900 with payment options available. Of course our 1-20 subscribers will have a chance to renew their subscriptions, and we will wait until we have heard from all of them before we set up a sale date for the open sets.

I will update this post as more details are added. If there are any questions, send me an email and I will post the question and answer here on the blog.

Cheers!

12/20.06 Edit: We still are waiting to get together the info on how many subs will be available. It may be after the holidays, so stay tuned....

Git-R-Done? OK...

Just read an open letter form David Cross, of Mr. Show fame to Larry "The Cable Guy". Thought I would share.

Anyway...

Out of morbid curiosity Judy and I purchased a Larry The cable Guy DVD one day to see what he was all about. Within the first five minutes I had this guy pegged. He was playing to the "Trailer Trash Pride" crowd that seems to find pleasure in their place in life. So be it. It's America. Make a buck. Fart jokes, I get it. There's a place in the world for every level of comedy for every genre of people and level of education. But...He seems to taken offense to some things David said in a Rolling Stone article about the "caliber" of his fans and the saga ensues. Great reading.

** Not to be biased, I hold a special place for David and Mr Show because when I first bought the equipment for Drowning Creek I went through some trials and tribulations in my life. My first job on the press was a Mr Show Tour poster handled by Chris Bilheimer,(Thanks Chris!) It saved our butts and allowed us to move forward. So yes David holds a special place in my heart and he's a Georgia boy too. Working the Comedy Clubs in Atlanta when I was in College there I have watched him through the years. He gave a whole new meaning to Chicken Pot Pie. But the real reason I like him is because David is David and he's real, not some guy playing a role.

Larry's humor rubs me since it stereotypes southern folks as ignorant. Most of us don't fit that mold. True, many do, but hey...There's a whole lot of us out here that made through OK. Trust me, On any given night the local Wal-Mart would be the perfect place to the cast roles of the Deliverance remake and with plenty to spare. I grew up in Appalachia, I've lived it from Fundamentalist Christian upbringing to seeing the Racist South in the 60's. Hey Larry...There's no glory in being a stereotype but there sure is money isn't there?

The bottom line Larry revels in redneck ignorance and hey, This is America after all, right? I say live and let live. I don't have to watch it. Have at it! But don't be a hypocrite about your character and your style of humor either.

David calls him on it and the result is quite humorous. It's a Comedian Slap Down, Have Fun!

http://www.bobanddavid.com/david.asp?artId=183