Updated my about page…

Being that I don’t usually note the artistic tools I use, I have added that to my about page and updated the ongoing feature section. If anyone is curious about what I use for my drawings, the bird series from 2021 was primarily hand-drawn with traditional tools then boosted digitally with an app called Comica. For the most part, I don’t draw anything using a stylus in a digital drawing program. Honestly, I am pretty old school. I also like to manipulate my photography using an app called Mirror Lab in conjunction with a photo editing app called Snap Seed to create my digital art.

can be accessed here for people that only read posts in reader: https://aprolificpotpourri.art/what-is-a-prolific-potpourri-and-who-is-matt-snyder/

Short Story Saturday: Brother’s Campfire Presents: Northwich Chapter 10: Moving Forward & Looking Back…

And now another chapter in the ongoing Northwich by Benjamin Thiel copyright 2019.

https://anchor.fm/matt-david-snyder/episodes/Brothers-Campfire-Presents-Northwich-Chapter-10-Moving-Forward–Looking-Back-e16a7s3

The Beloved Gift of God (Matthew David) & Another Year Gone By…

WELL, HERE WE ARE AGAIN. THE END OF ANOTHER FAR FROM NORMAL YEAR.

My wife and I managed to do a tiny bit more this year than in 2020. More films were seen in the theater, more live shows, two vacations, a few day trips, more time spent with family, a newer car for my wife, and a medical anomaly for myself. The two films my wife and I saw in the theater were ? Uestlove’s Documentary The Summer of Soul and a retro showing of Cooley High. We streamed both F9 & Shang Chi. The remaining few films I saw by myself were The Conjuring: The Devil made me do it, Halloween Kills, The French Dispatch & Spider-Man: No Way Home.

January: Because my brother had Covid we ended up seeing him and Earl (his partner), Lucas (their adopted son) & Mocha (a lovable Pittbull-Lab) as a Christmas get-together for food and conversation.

February: My wife and I make Valentine’s cards for each and just celebrate on the down-low with dinner at home.

March: I premiered my Podcast; Short Story Saturday as a weekly show utilizing an incredible pool of talented writers that I have either followed or befriended on WordPress. Got vaccinated with both doses and months later would also get the booster. Because I quit the gym in 2020, I invested in a punching bag which I literally used for maybe a month.

April: Happily Celebrated 51(unlike my 50th suffering from Covid) with two dinners; one with my wife, one with my brother. We celebrated my wife’s 39th with each other and with her family. In the online world, I was interviewed by Shout Out SOCAL and found myself published in an actual book called The Sound of Brilliance, which featured three of my poems. My friend Raphel is sadly still in prison going on year number four, he and I do remain in contact via email and phone calls.

May: Our day trip was an outing to admire & take a few photos of the animals at The Lehigh Valley Zoo. Our weekend trip to celebrate 8 years married was a trip to Rehoboth Beach in Delaware. A piece of my art from my Noir series graces the wall of a dear friend from Scotland, I guest post on the Zimbabwe Blog “Becoming the Muse” with a review of a local Zimbabwean restaurant here in the States. In personal news, my dear friend of 22 years divorces his wife and moves into a rat trap apartment falling into a deep depression and financial debt. A few months down the line I would offer my charity and pay off one of his bills.

June: We celebrated Donnie & Earl’s birthdays with what became a nearly once a month, dinner & a movie of my choice that I own at their house. We either did take out or my brother, Earl, and I alternated making dinner & my wife would make dessert. Our inaugural movie was Encounter with the unknown (1972). I have my second online interview at “Found ya blog”, I win the Amused Poetry Contest again, and have a photo published online and in print for a publication called Flora Fiction. We visited one of three art museums we regularly visit, this being The Allentown Art Museum (The other two being The Michener in Doylestown Pa & The Delaware Art Museum in Wilmington De.

July: We ate dinner & watched The Deathmaster (1972) with my brother and his family, we skipped the 4th (with all the racial unrest as of late I wasn’t feeling so festive), we attended the PA SHAKESPEARE FEST and saw August Wilson’s “How I learned what I learned” with the incredible Tony Todd & an experimental teen theater version of Shakespeare’s Love’s Labors Lost which wasn’t that good. We celebrate my friend Mark’s 50th and make some new friends at the party. On July 5th we visit the incredible NJ Sculpture Garden.

August: We start the month watching my newly acquired copy of my brother’s and my favorite John Waters film “Female Trouble”. Unfortunately because of the humorous take on extreme subject matter like Homosexuality, Incest, Rape, Child Abuse, Drug Abuse, and Murder it is a traumatic experience for my wife and lands me in the dog house big time. That Monday I would sell my copy of the film to a coworker. After getting blood work done in 2017 for low testosterone, I change GP’s and go for additional testing. Instead of sweeping it under the rug like the last doctor, my GP wants to get the bottom of it. She eventually sets me up for further evaluation with an endocrinologist.

September: We take a day trip to drop off some photos for an exhibit and enjoy some art on display at The Banana Factory Arts Center. I am informed by Lehigh University Art Gallery that one of my drawings from my Noir Series was chosen out of 150 community artists to be on display on the South Bethlehem Greenway from October 1st to December 31st. Definitely a milestone in my over 30 years as an exhibiting artist. My wife and I and a few friends catch a performance of a Billy Joel tribute band at Steel Stacks.

October: LUAG Noir is live on the trail. My wife and I see Annie Live at 19th Street Theater in Allentown and later that evening see The Weeklings (a Beatles cover band) at Zoellner Arts Center. My wife and I celebrate 11 years a couple and visit Massachusetts for a weekend trip, including time at the beach, a pirate museum, and the Edward Gorey House. I make ghost cupcakes for a Halloween baking contest at my job. We eat dinner & watch Blackula with Donnie & Earl. I have a horrible experience with Stripe.com and Anchor.Fm and unfortunately drop making a profit off my podcast. I am paid the measly $6 accrued and can no longer participate in ad revenue. I also do an at-home colonoscopy with cologuard.

November: My wife and I see Million Dollar Quartet Live at the Zoellner Arts Center and do Ham Thanksgiving with her parents. I see an endocrinologist who does further blood work on me and it turns out that I have Klinefelter’s Syndrome (extremely low testosterone) which turns muscles into fat which explains after 26 years of lifting weights I don’t look like someone who does that) man boobs form, smaller sex organs, inability to grow hair in multiple places, your bones become brittle, you never fully mature (which explains a lot). I am told I could begin Testosterone replacement therapy as long as I don’t have sleep apnea. Otherwise, there is no hope for me 😑😕😔😒🙁😟🥺🤬!!!!!! I take an at-home sleep study in February of 2022.

December: My wife gets sick and is swabbed twice for Covid and Once for the flu, she has neither but we miss seeing A Christmas Carol Live (the theater offers me credit for a future show 😁). We also decide to do Christmas in January again with my brother and Christmas day with her family, We had originally planned to celebrate NYE with party Band the Sofa Kings but with Omicron having hit the area I am just taking it as a loss/my wife paid me half the ticket price. Our NYE will be food delivery and the NYE romantic comedy Nick & Nora’s Infinite Playlist.

OKay, so 51 was an incredible year for me, despite regaining weight. Here is to 2022. Thanks again for viewing all of my art/music/poetry and general musings. Y’all rock !

2022 brings more drawings, paintings, photography , music, food for thought and Series topics such as The Art of Sports, The Art of Jazz Dance, Noir #2, Cat Toons & Sensuality for starters.

LGBTQIA (Will this soon encompass the entire alphabet? A perspective on sexuality & labels)…

**Controversial Opinion**

A little history on me. In my early teens, I experimented sexually with both boys and girls. As I got older, I found myself emotionally attached to a few guy friends and a bit of sexual attraction as well. I never truly acted on my feelings, although I did once use the name “Thew” for a phone dating service but chickened out when the one guy who answered said he’d meet me with his posse. It was a gut feeling of becoming a potential victim of a hate crime that deterred me. My Dad was never cool with anything I said or did straight or otherwise, but my Mom always said everyone had a little gay in them, hell she had an affair with a woman when I was 15. I am surprised my Dad stuck around for 17 more years.

I came out initially as bicurious and eventually as bisexual. Coming out in the ’90s meant a loss of a few old friends and the gains of quite a few gay and bisexual friends of both sexes. I flirted a lot, I danced in gay bars but I exclusively dated women. My brother was married to a woman for 7 years, got divorced had a civil ceremony with Earl (prior to legalization) and they have been together for almost 24 years with an adopted son.

In my 30’s I took an acting class and was paired off with my friend Mark, because I suggested we act as lovers he assumed I was gay (6 years later he’d come out to me). I remember telling a friend I was bisexual but she was adamant to believe it because in her mind it meant you had to have sex (although I know quite a few virgins on both sides of the spectrum who know in their heart who they are attracted to) and I didn’t. I was also told once by a lesbian that bisexuality is bullshit. That it’s a term for closeted homosexuals who refuse to truly be who they are. I can’t agree with that. I’m attracted to both sexes, period.

So in this crazy mixed-up world of the all-inclusive in the 21st Century, here is why you cannot lump everyone together. The only people that deserve equal rights are Gays & Lesbians. That long line of LGBTQI should primarily just be LG. Other people in the LG community agree with me.

Because bisexuals can live as straight people either some or all of the time, how would we remotely qualify?

T for Transexual, the trans community has become all the rage of late. I will never truly understand this situation. I can accept it but I don’t agree with it. On a warped morality scale I have an easier time accepting who someone can be in love with as opposed to someone who was born with the wrong soul. I honestly feel that gender dysphoria is a mental illness. Although I will say I don’t have an issue with Trans people using the bathroom they want to use even without gender reassessment surgery, because no one is any the wiser if you are using the toilet. Showering or changing on the other hand is another story.

Q is someone questioning (younger generations have also adopted the once derisive Queer as a positive label)

I or Intersex (which is inclusive to someone like me with an extra chromosome or a hermaphrodite with both sex organs)

And finally, A which stands for Ally ??? Come on really, adding this letter basically means straight people should be included…it doesn’t make any sense. Each of these letters is not intertwined, nor remotely the same, and shouldn’t be lumped together.

But this is just my opinion.

A straight and slightly bent opinion 🏳️‍🌈😉

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