31/10/2022 How Ted Cruz Accidentally Got Caught Up in a Publicity Stunt for an Adult-Themed NFT

Cruz fans wanted to know, "Who is that sitting behind him?"

Senator Ted Cruz and the NFTmotel logoLeft: U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) addresses the Faith and Freedom Coalition's Road to Majority Policy Conference. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images); right: the logo for NFTmotel.io.

Remember that time Ted Cruzaccidentally likedan adult-video Tweet? The incident was somewhat swept from sight when Cruz’s officeblamedthe incident on a rogue staffer. But the internet remembers, and there’s a reason people might be recirculatingall the gifsfrom that incident now.

The Republican senatorfinds himself once again entangled with adult entertainment. This time, NFTs are involved.

It all began at a Yankees game last week, where the jumbotron panned to Cruz in the crowd and he was metwith a chorus of boos. The ballgame visit was brought up on his podcast—yes, Ted Cruz has his own podcast called “Verdict with Ted Cruz,” and I listen to it religiously—andthe conversationturned to a scantily-clad woman behind him at the game.

Co-host Ben Ferguson, who was not at the Yankees-Astros match-up, explained that the woman was a hot topic in the Cruz-overse during the game: “everybody’s tweeting me or texting me going, ‘Who is that sitting behind him?’”

As for Cruz himself, he explained. “My buddy Jeff leaning next to me, he sort of leans over and tells me, ‘Okay, she’s behind you. ‘She’s selling an NFT.’ So she had some sign and she’s selling it and she has—to use theMonty Python phrase, ‘She has great tracts of land.'” (He meant she has large breasts.)

He then remembered, “she was actually very nice—she and I took a selfie.”

Cruz, who once actuallysaidthat his life goal was to star in a “teen tit film,” talked about the enormous act of will it took not to stare at the woman’s bosom, which was printed with the pink text “NFT,” fearing that the image would be caught on camera and used to embarrass him.

The senator’s comments on the NFT model drewa lotof attentionthis week. But who was the mystery woman? And what was the NFT project she was promoting? Some kind of Bored Ape thing? Was it World of Women? Was it art?

Some internet sleuthing determined that the woman’s shirt said either “NFT Hotel” or “NFT Hotel.” And sure enough,on Instagramwe discovered an obscure NFT project called NFTmotel.io. The account was ecstatic for the attention that their model, who goes byPippin DDD, had received by her proximity to Cruz.

What, you may wonder, isNFTmotel.io(besides a really bad idea for a motel)?

As it turns out, it is a start-up that promises to be an NFT-powered version of OnlyFans. “With never-before-seen blockchain technology,” itboasts, “NFTmotel.io is bringing Web3 Adult Entertainment to the next level, allowing customers to experience their favourite stars and models up close and personal like never before.”

Its “Pink Paper” mentions being able to use the MOTEL token to enter private online rooms and “Peep Shows,” and teases something called “Project XXX,” which will be “[b]eyond webcam shows, beyond a girlfriend ‘experience,’ beyond your wildest imagination.”

Kevin O'Leary

“Check it out—it’s entrepreneurial!” says Kevin O’Leary of Shark Tank in a pitch for NFTmotel featured on the project website.

Weirdly, the website also highlights video endorsements from twoShark Tankjudges, Kevin “Mr. Wonderful” O’Leary and For Us By Us businessman Daymond John. In their shout-out to NFTmotel, neither man mentions the adult content part of the business. Both seem to think that they are endorsing an NFT experience that somehow supports “military families.”

So, on top of being an adult NFT, Cruz seems to have entered into an unwitting flirtation with a crypto-project of an at least mildly scammy nature.

The irony here comes from the fact that Cruz himself actually is a fanatical crypto booster. The senator made headlines when he introducedlegislationthat would limit the Federal Government’s ability to regulate digital currency. “I want Texas to betheoasis on planet Earth for bitcoin and crypto,” hesaidearlier this year.

Arts

https://news.artnet.com/art-world/ted-cruz-nft-model-nftmotel-2200646

Interesting NFTs
Reflection
#XCOPY #GIF #screen #time #mirror
Poem by Dainagon Tsunenobu, from the series One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, Explained by the Nurse
Katsushika Hokusai (1760-1849) Poem by Dainagon Tsunenobu, from the series One Hundred Poems by One Hundred Poets, Explained by the Nurse late 1830s - Japan
Alex in Wonderland
A figure, Alex, stands mostly naked in the midst of a physical and psychological maelstrom. He is clad only in nostalgic 80’s era socks, on a tenuous island between active waters and a variety of shark denizens. Sharks on the right side of the image are all beached, including a shark with a quartz crystal snout, an orange shark wrapped in a life buoy, and a shark further in the distance wearing an 80’s style shirt with the number “88”. On the left side is the largest shark, wearing bright glossy red lipstick and brandishing prominent teeth with braces. She is cordoned off from the figure by a roped float divider, and within her thought bubble is a warning symbol. Behind the figure, hovering in the air, are Grey aliens emerging from the distance, out of a series of elliptical UFO shaped interdimensional membranes. The Greys take on the visual form of spermazoa ostensibly impregnating the interdimensional thresholds. As is typical, these Greys inhabit a zone just behind the unconscious topology of Alex’s dissociative mind. Though Alex’s bottom half is representative, his top half mutates into a psychological cornucopia. In a manner akin to “Auto-Erotic Sphinx”, a predecessor work, the figure has self suctioned—an act of sensual infatuation, enjoyment, and exploration. Upward exists the figure’s primary conscious eye, adorned with a revolutionary beret emblazoned with a Bitcoin badge. The figure’s summit features the nose of a fighter jet facing off against video game Bullet Bills, one of whom is marked by a communist North Korean star. A cropped section of a UFO observes the contest. Alex’s mind branches both left and right. To the left is more singular embodied consciousness, manifesting two eyes and a Ganesh trunk grasping crayons. The right branch dissociates upward diagonally, emerging into an array of eyes, faces, teeth, tail, a unicorn horn, and much more—all of which participate in expressing his unconscious being; a democracy of psychic factions representing thought impressions and associations. All illumination and darkness– fernal, infernal, high consciousness and corporeal underbelly–reside in this realm. In the distance are relatively languid, light clouds, and against the firmament hovers a colossal distant eye peering over the scene and far beyond. This painting possesses underlying genetic traits with previous works such as “Auto-Erotic Sphinx with Toys”, “Dionysus”, and “Fuku-Shiva”. The work serves also as a nod to an earlier period of art inspiration during late teens and early twenties— born out of the nakedness, vulnerability, curiosity, and wonder inherent to coming of age and all subsequent psychedelic revelation.
The Harvest
An anthropomorphic figure stands, wide eyed, staring at the viewer; its body masculine, muscular, and humanoid. Its “mind” dissociates into a conglomerate of structures resembling feathers, grain, teeth–as well as a radial flower “node”, casting linear rays throughout the composition. To his left, a vat of bodies gesture and writhe in a kind of amniotic soup, attended by a video game robot. The bot's red display reads “uWu”. Behind the robot and filling the left side of the composition is an archaic figure composed of a variety of vintage objects and symbols. Among them are a hardbound book with ancient cuneiform scripts, indicating barley, beer, bread, ox, house, and sky, behind which is a grimacing, salivating jagged toothed maw; and an old Commodore floppy drive. The figure’s head tilts toward an illuminated crescent moon, suggesting the Egyptian Sacred Bull. The archaic figure is composed of a variety of mutating cells, which shift in color, and pattern; eventually breaking free into an ephemeral broadcast of bubbles which move across the background. The work came into being against a psychological introspection, which included associations to pop culture such as alien abduction and pod people, as well as quite a bit of reflection on grains as a symbol of civilization, agriculture, sustenance, life, and imbibing (mainly whiskies).
CryptoKitties
Aloha! I'm Kitty #408608. I enjoy eating until I loathe myself, sitting on your computer, and watching Stranger Things. I once loved a rooster. I don't like to talk about it. I can't wait to wake you up at 4am for seemingly no reason.