Yes, I am a wizard. That is a complicated thing to say. It is complicated because a wizard has to be a wise man, and wisdom has to begin with the idea that you know practically nothing about anything… but you can find out. So one version of me has to be my wizard D&D character, the wizard Eli Tragedy. This is because I know practically nothing about anything… but I am willing to not be stupid and look stuff up before I tell you anything and pretend it is a wise thing to say.
I have been thinking about who I am because I want to re-do my About the Author page. And that leads to the difficulty of explaining who Mickey actually is. You see, I am actually lots of different people in my head. Mickey is the cartoonist, the humorist, the clown. He is not the every-day me. He is the goofy and foofy and lovey-to-drawie part of me. And yes, I know some of those are not real words. Mickey is like that. He speaks Mickian Goof Speak. I have no control over that part of him. I am not certain where this Mickey-part of my soul originated, but it may be the result of too much TV when I was a kid.
And of course there is the Teacher-Me, Reluctant Rabbit, the person who stood in front of groups of twelve-thirteen-and-fourteen-year-olds for three decades and tap-danced, told stories, stood on my head, and begged them to internalize at least a lesson or two of what I tried to teach them.
And the wizard part of me was just barely wise enough to realize that a teacher can open doors, but you can’t shove a kid through. They have to take the critical learning step themselves. They have to want to learn something. But even though they actually do the learning themselves, they will come back to me in later years saying, “Oh, thank you, you taught me so much!” when really all I did was be a guide on the side and stayed out of their way.
And, of course, there is the Cowboy Me. I live in Texas. I was a Belmond Bronco in high school, but I became a Cotulla Cowboy for 24 years of my teaching career. I ended up as a Naaman Forest Ranger. I have worn the hat a lot in my life, being as much of a straight shooter as the Shakiest Gun In The West can be, always trying to shoot the six-guns out of the bad guy’s hands rather than shoot people.
So how do I explain a thing like that? Probably the way I just did it (ironically). I should use Paffoonies I have created over time and waffle about stupid stuff that might make people laugh when they realize how self-contradictory it is. And I should say it like I mean it… because I probably do.
Catch a Falling Star 
Naked Innocence
To be clear, I will have to write a post called Naked Experience to go with this post. It is a William Blake style of thing. You know, that English Romantic Poet guy who was into drawing naked people even more than me? The writer of Songs of Innocence and Experience? You know, this stuff;
Well, maybe you don’t know. But Blake gave the world the metaphor of the innocent lamb and the tyger of experience (tyger is his spelling, not mine, and it didn’t blow up the spell checker, even though it made the thing unhappy with me again). There is a certain something I have learned about nakedness that I mean to innocently convey. I learned it from anatomy drawing class and spending time with nudists. Naked is not evil. Naked is not pornography. Nakedness, itself, is a very good thing.
At this point the avid clothing-wearers among you are probably saying to yourself, “This guy is nuts! If God had wanted us to be nude, then we wouldn’t have been born with clothes on.” And I must admit, I cannot argue with logic like that.
But on a more serious note, I believe nudity is a fundamentally essential part of the nature of art. After all, pictures of naked people are a central part of what people have been drawing since they first started etching them with charcoal on cavern walls. And all art, including this blog, is about the human experience. What it means to be human. What it feels like to be alive on this Earth and able to feel.
And there is nothing sinister and immoral in drawing nudes to portray that fact. I am trying to show metaphorically the music of existence, the pace, the symmetry, the musical score… It isn’t focused on the private bits, what some call the naughty parts, even when those things are present in the picture. “How dare that naughty Mickey show the naked back end of that butterfly! It ought to have pants on at least!” Yes, I am making a mockery of that outrage itself. I am not a pornographer. These pictures were not created to engender any prurient interests. These pictures are part of Blake’s lamb. They will not bite you. Though blue-nosed people who wish to control what others think may very well bite me for daring to say so.
I have posted a lot of writing and artwork on this blog that I held for the longest time to be completely private and personal. I hardly ever showed any of it to anybody before I posted it here. But I am old. I no longer have secrets. I am capable of telling you everything even though I have never met most of you in real life. And I have no shame. I have become comfortable with emotional and intellectual nudity. And when I am dead, the body I have kept hidden from the world for so long will be no more. It’s just a thought. It’s a naked thought. And it is completely innocent.
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Filed under artists I admire, artwork, commentary, humor, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as nudes, William Blake