It’s true. You have seen these multiple times before. They are some of my favorite drawings , paintings, and pictures.
You may not agree that these are my best work. That isn’t why I included them. These are pictures I simply like, and I could’ve added another hundred or so easily.
The secret to success is having two girls and a goat.
Why is that, you ask?
I have no idea. I do not have two girls and a goat.
I am not remotely successful.
But what matters is not success.
What matters most is what is essential…
The meaning behind everything…
The code that makes us who we are..
.When we write it on the hard drives of our heads and hearts.
What is essential is the number of people living and dead that love you.
What is essential is the blood, sweat, and tears you poured into something… anything that you have determined is important enough… for a lifetime… to the bitter end of everything.
What is essential is pain you have endured for a purpose… success or failure not a part of the equation… because pain proves the truth of what you are suffering for.
What is essential is all the beauty you have observed and collected in your memory in the deepest of places where it changes you for the better.
What is essential is all the ugliness you have observed and confronted with a will to change it and wade into it up to your chin so that you can fight it until it changes you for the better.
What is essential is that you don’t let anyone tell you what is essential because only you can define it for you… and you better realize that time is running out… for us all… and you need it before you can approach the gates of Heaven.
I was a boy back when the milk man still came around in his blue-and-white panel truck delivering bottles of milk with Elsie the Cow on them. I don’t remember clearly because I was only 4 years old back when I first became aware of being a boy in this world instead of being something else living somewhere else.
There were many things I didn’t know or understand back then. But one thing I did know, was that I loved Elsie the Cow. And why would a farm boy love a cartoon cow? There were many not-so-sensible reasons.
For one thing, Elsie the Cow reminded me of June Lockhart, Lassie’s mom and the mom from Lost in Space.
It may be that June Lockhart’s eyes reminded me of Elsie’s eyes, being large, soul-full eyes with large black eye lashes. It may be that she starred in a TV commercial for Borden’s milk in which Elsie winked at me at the end of the commercial.
Or maybe it was because Elsie had calves and was a mom. And June Lockhart was Lassie’s mom and the mom of Will Robinson, so I associated both of them with my mom, and thus with each other.
Elsie gave you milk to drink and was always taking care of you in that way. Milk was good for you, after all. My own mom was a registered nurse. So they were alike in that way too.
And she was constantly defending you against the bulls in your life. She stood up to Elmer to protect her daughter more than once. Of course, her son was usually guilty of whatever he was accused of, but she still loved him and kept Elmer from making his “hamburger” threats a reality.
And you can see in numerous ad illustrations that Elsie’s family were basically nudists. Although she often wore an apron, she was bare otherwise. And though her daughter often wore skirts and her son wore shorts, Elmer was always naked. And that didn’t surprise me, because no cow I knew from the farm wore clothes either. From very early in my life I was always fascinated by nakedness, and I would’ve become a nudist as a youngster if it hadn’t been soundly discouraged by family and society in general.
So there are many reasons why I have always loved Elsie the Cow. And it all boils down to the love of drinking milk and that appealing cartoon character who constantly asked you to drink more.
This nudist camp is entirely fictional. The actual camp in Clear Lake is a Methodist Youth Camp.
I have learned a lot more about nudists in the last few months than I probably ever wanted to know. The book I wrote about a boy being invited to go camping with the family of a girl he liked, and then finding out it was a nudist camp, was written as rough draft back in the late 1980’s about life experiences I had in the early ’80’s. Some things I learned back then have proven to still be true. Some things have changed. The things that have changed, are mostly about me.
Nudist families in touch with nature are beautiful in ways I can’t explain. It’s not the clothes the wear.
Naturists are happier than normal people. They shed a lot of their hang ups and worries with their clothes. Sunshine and cool breezes on bare skin have a healthy psychological effect. I know this from having experimented myself. Socially nudists are able to comfortably “live in their skin”. Their confidence in self translates into sensible nude social behavior. It is not about sex. Sex is private behavior to a nudist, not public. When nudists interact, the conversations occur eye to eye, not eye to somewhere else. And the acceptance of how others look when naked is a critical factor in nude social interaction being beneficial. Most nudists are not beautiful or ugly. They are a spectrum of everything in between. And they don’t talk about body parts or make comparisons. Nudist men talk about sports teams and vehicle repair and politics the same way the guys in overalls at the Nutrena Feed and Farm Store. Nudist women talk about… well, the stuff women talk about in the secret language of women that guys like me don’t understand.
Sherry Cobble at the Sunshine Club
So those things about the nudist community have not changed over time. True in the 1960’s is true today. The thing most of you don’t realize is that there are lot more nudists in the world than you are reasonably ready to admit. And the nudist community has a lot more old naturists than you probably thought possible. Naked wrinkles and beer bellies are a thing.
What I have learned about myself by joining the nudist community (though only once at only one of the several nudist camps available in sunny Texas) is that the nakedness and thoughts about nakedness in my novels is there for a reason, and it will not go away. I am trying to be a Young Adult novelist, which means my novels are basically aimed at a junior high and high school audience. I have to dance a carefully straight line between the need to be honest with naked reality and Amazon’s prohibition of adult content in YA novels. Sherry Cobble luring young boys into going camping naked with her family is on that borderline. It is not sexual content. But it is naked content and the barriers have been physically set aside. The humor caused by sexual tension can’t cross the line into bawdy or lewd or pornographic. Nor would I want it to.
But people who write fiction do it not because it’s fun. It is necessary. We have lived lives that leave us damaged in ways that can only be fixed through fiction. The world has to be reshaped in words by people who can’t live with the world the way it was. The truth is, I was sexually assaulted when I was a child, one traumatic event that clouded and warped my self-confidence, my sex life, and my self-concept. Healing has been a life-long process. In fiction, it means characters having to deal with the naked truth and make peace with it. This I believe I have done in so many different ways as a teacher, a husband, a father, and a story-teller, that it simply has to be shared. I will publish Superchicken on Amazon soon, and hopefully Edward-Andrew’s nudist adventure will pass the Amazon test. I have some nutty nudist notions in my nerdy old noodle, but in a novel, they can all be made new.
This post was originally published in November of 2017.
Filed under artwork, humor, insight, novel plans, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Yes, this is an old post from 2017 that is ironically about going back and rereading old posts. Sorry about that. But it made me laugh when I reread it.
I often go back and re-read old posts, particularly when I discover that someone else has read them. It is amazing to me how differently I perceive things from when I actually wrote the post. As you write, squeezing huge, boulder-sized portions of hot, magma-like burning ideas and passions out through writing orifices not nearly big enough to accommodate, you usually hate what you wrote and are still writhing in pain from the creation of it as you try to edit it, trim it and brush its unruly hair. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor to make you cringe?) But given time and distance, you can really appreciate what you wrote more than ever before. Things that you thought were the stupidest idea a man ever put in words suddenly have the power to make you laugh, or make you cry. You are able to feel the things the writing was intended to make you feel. You begin to think things like, “Maybe you are not the worst writer that ever lived, and maybe that’s not why nobody ever reads your books.” But then, of course, your sister reads the post and tells you that you write like a really old, really crabby, really ancient old man. And you use the word “really” too much too. I know I deserve that, Sis. Especially the “really” part.
Here’s a post that I reread and liked today about Bob Ross.
This is the thing about happiness; It is elusive and rare as a real-life blue bird. But capturing it for a moment is not impossible. And as long as you don’t try to salt its tail and keep it prisoner, you can encourage it to sing for you. (Much better metaphor this time, don’t you think?) 
When I am accused of being gloomy, old, and boring, I can happily admit it and make it into something funny. I am something of a conspiracy nut, but not so serious that I believe all my own assertions. For those people who took offense at this conspiracy theory of mine; Coca-Cola Mind Control, I would like to point out that “Hey, I was joking. I actually like clowns.” Even though there is a serious side to everything and there can’t be laughter without some tears, I am basically happy with the way things are.
I started listening to “Live Happy Radio” on Sunday mornings on KLUV in Dallas. They point out on their program of endlessly droning happy-talk that happiness is something that you can work at. Like humor writing in blogs, it takes practice and practice and time. They even asked me to share the word about their happy magazine and products, so I am doing exactly that right here. Sometimes you simply have to put your cynicism in a jar on the shelf next to the lock box where you keep depression and self-loathing. So you can find their Live-Happy folderol right here.
So I am bird-watching again with an eye out for the bluebird. You know the one. It is out there somewhere. And I need to hear that song one more time.
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/
Mickey Mouse was born on November 18, 1928 in the film “Steamboat Willie”. This month will be his 96th Birthday. He’s still pretty spry for such an old guy. My own father is pretty close to the same age, born in about 1932.
And I… I was born in a blizzard in 1956, on November 17th, the day before his 28th birthday. Don’t do the math. I don’t really want to know how old I am. I have six incurable diseases, and I may be adding a seventh to that, depending on what my cardiologist finds out. I survived malignant melanoma in 1983. I am deeply grateful for every day of the 41 years I have lived since.
This post started out as something about birthdays. Mickey’s and mine (who am also Mickey)… But I think it is really about numbers. There are still important numbers to consider. I have published twenty novels, two books of short essays, a book-length essay on nudism, and a book of poetry. Aeroquest and Catch a Falling Star are the first two books I published. But I have since turned Aeroquest into four novels with a planned fifth and possible sixth book. This was done because Publish America was a criminal publishing scheme and held my book hostage for seven years. Snow Babies is the best story I ever wrote. I have written a number of hometown stories about the little town in Iowa in which I grew up. The Bicycle-Wheel Genius, Superchicken, The Baby Werewolf, Recipes for Gingerbread Children, Sing Sad Songs, and The Boy… Forever are a few of these. The Magical Miss Morgan is the last book I published with a pay-to-publish publishing scheme. From here on I only publish for free with Amazon. Even the literary agents that call me only want to charge me money to promote my books. So, I want to write and publish more for free. People are reading my books and I am having precious little success as a mostly-unknown author. How much time do I really have left? I confess to having at least five novel-length stories that are only written in my head and outlined on paper. The clock is ticking. I want to share all of these stories, but I know I probably do not have 86+ years. I truly believe that both this Mickey and that Mickey are capable of speaking to the ages, but it can only happen if I get my words shared so that somebody I do not know will read them, smile a little, laugh a little, maybe cry a little, and understand what I tried to say.
So here’s a self-portrait of what Mickey once looked like (before the beard and long hair) along with Valerie Clarke, the main character of Snow Babies, and the most beautiful little girl ever born in Norwall, Iowa.
You know how creepy penguins in cartoons can be, right? The Penguins of Madagascar are like a Mission-Impossible Team gone horribly wrong and transformed into penguins. The penguin in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers disguised himself as a chicken to perform acts of pure evil. Cartoonists all know that penguins are inherently creepy and evil.
I recently learned a hard lesson about penguins. You know the joke, “What’s black and white and red all over? A penguin with a sunburn.” I told that joke one too many times. Who knew the Dallas metroplex had so many loose penguins lurking around? They are literally everywhere. One of them overheard me. And apparently they have vowed a sacred penguin vow that no penguin joke goes unpunished.
As I walked the dog this morning, I spotted creepy penguin eyes, about three pairs, looking at me from behind the bank of the creek bed in the park. When I went to retrieve the empty recycle bins from the driveway, there they were again, looking at me over the top of the neighbor’s privacy fence.
“Penguins see the world in black and white,” said one of the Penguins.
“Except for purple ones,” added the purple one.
“Penguins can talk?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.
“Penguins only talk in proverbs,” said one of the penguins.
“But the purple one gives the counterpoint,” said the purple one.
“The wisdom of penguins is always cold and harsh,” said one of the penguins.
“Except on days like this when it’s hot,” said the purple one.
“You should always listen to penguins,” said one of the penguins.
“Of course, people will think you are crazy if you do,” said the purple one.
“People who talk to penguins are headed for a nervous breakdown,” said one of the penguins.
“Unless you are a cartoonist. Then it is probably normal behavior,” said the purple one.
“Is this all real?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.
“Everyone knows that penguins are real,” said one of the penguins.
“But there are no purple penguins in nature,” said the purple one.
So, I sat down to write this post about penguins and their proverbs with a very disturbing thought in my little cartoonist’s head… Why am I really writing about penguins today? I really have nothing profound to say about penguin proverbs. Especially profound penguin proverbs with a counterpoint by a purple penguin. Maybe it is all merely a load of goofy silliness and a waste of my time.
“Writing about penguins is never a waste of time,” said one of the penguins.
“And if you believe that, I have some choice real estate in the Okefenokee Swamp I need to talk to you about,” added the purple one.
Filed under artwork, birds, cartoons, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, philosophy, surrealism
It is not an easy thing to explain. Artists don’t see things using only their eyes. The brain intrudes in the process. For instance, you are welcome to interpret the picture above any way you like. But the way I see it will be nothing like what you thought this picture is about. You probably see two very different girls here. There is actually only one. I know because, as the artist who drew both parts of this picture, I actually know where the ideas came from. There is only one girl in the picture. Dilsey Murphy, in front and wearing her Carl Eller Minnesota Vikings’ jersey, is based about 33% on the older of my two sisters. On the outside she is pragmatic, no-nonsense, and focused on living a family life that is as normal as possible. But the inner Dilsey is the African leopard-princess. She dreams of going on Tarzan adventures in the movie-jungles of the mind with a handsome male hero. She is fierce, loyal, and completely independent, not even needing the hero she adventures with. In fact, she often saves him.
This picture is about the idyllic parts of my childhood. The mother figure is doing a ritual dance. She is in tune with the music of daily life. She is closely attuned also to her responsibilities of stewardship in her society. Both children are nude. I cropped this picture so that it is not rude and showing Smiling Boy’s penis. But both children are bathed in nature and sunshine, not just because I am pro-nudism personally, but because clothing covers up innocence and joy.
This one is easier to interpret. I was an ESL teacher. I had students who spoke Spanish as their first language and students who learned to speak Mandarin Chinese as their first language. It makes for a classroom that becomes a cultural mixing bowl. You have to learn how to deal with people who are very different than you,, but are benefitting from learning English together.
Every picture the artist draws or paints has its own weirdness embedded inside it. The way the artist sees it is probably never the same as how the viewer thinks about it. And that is as it should be. But as a viewer of art, it is hoped that you will at least try to think about what the artist means to say..
Filed under artwork, colored pencil, coloring, commentary, Paffooney
Yes, I survived all the Bible-belt monster hunters who came after me for writing my first naked middle school post. And I am no wiser for the experience. I mean to tell you why I would really like to do my whole teaching career over again in a middle school where mandatory nudity is the dress code. And if that makes me insane and somehow dangerous, remember, this is a humor blog, and we like to laugh at mentally warped individuals like me and their strange behavior.
Although this essay’s argument is totally facetious and farcical, that doesn’t mean it lacks truth. Some things would obviously be easier for teachers if the school opted for a totally nude dress code. For instance, no gang colors could be worn in school. And Bloods, Crips, Ambros, Latin Kings, and future Skinheads would all be bare with their tattoos covered by the appropriate flesh-colored Band-Aids. Cell phones could be concealed in pockets only by students who had undergone painful plastic surgery to create kangaroo pouches in their thighs, and even then, they would be readily visible whenever the students stood up from desks. There would be no jealousy over expensive fashions for the rich kids or embarrassment for the poor kids with ratty clothes from Goodwill and smelly underwear that never gets washed in anything but quarter-hungry washeterias. School uniforms would be free unless you counted the expense of the original birthday suit. Textile coverings required by the outside world would remain in lockers all day along with all social media devices used for creating depression in others and suicidal thoughts in yourself. And AR-15s and pistols and other weapons would have to be left in parents’ cars for after-school Texas-style social interactions. All of these consternations and nightmares would no longer be things the teacher had to worry about.
Teachers would not have to worry about how they dress either. First, teachers would not necessarily be required to be nude. If you had an unmarried male teacher in a classroom by himself with lots of naked young ladies in all his classes, that could lead to things we hear too much about in the news already when the schools are full of textile-wearing people. If the teachers are dressed in the usual frumpy-dumpy suits and dresses from Walmart, they will not be the object of hormonal fantasies from students, as there are so many other naked targets to be fascinated by. And if the faculty decides that the only way to be fair to the students is to be nude in school too, perhaps that is an area where two teachers for every class is an optimal idea, one male and one female in every class to serve as a check on each other. Hence, both sexes have the appropriate adult role model. One English teacher and one Science/Math teacher to provide the learning guidance necessary for a truly intellectual, discovery-method curriculum where they would learn problem-solving in depth. Students would become accustomed to seeing their friends, enemies, and teachers nude and it wouldn’t take long for everyone to be desensitized to the sexual aspects of everybody being naked. Of course, there would have to be detailed “no-touching” rules enforced constantly by teachers, administrators, and fellow students. It is an opportunity to master behaviors that students don’t really get detailed instruction in during their real lives, either at home or in school.
In real-world middle schools where everybody wears clothes and conceals the truth and gets lots of practice at lies and prevarications, students are metaphorically naked all the time. They reveal inappropriate details about their lives at inappropriate times daily. And if the teacher tries to ignore it, they will reveal it much louder and with more inappropriate words.
Nude students, on the other hand, are more open to sharing intimate ideas and feelings in more positive discussions where everyone is equally vulnerable, and can be trained to be equally sensitive to the feelings and needs of others. It is the appropriate place to learn things like proper consent, permission, respect, safe spaces, personal spaces, and appropriate sharing of things that might’ve been too personal to consider discussing in a world hidden beneath clothing. Naked people are more vulnerable and therefore more aware of the world around them and their relationships to everyone and everything. So, I am actually saying literally naked kids are easier to teach than kids who are only metaphorically naked.
Again, naked schools are not a thing in the real world of public education. This essay is only foolish speculation and idea mangling. But I really do think that a nude school is worth studying experimentally. When you come to my house after midnight again spurred onward by the religious fervor of the Westboro Baptists, remember, I will be the one laughing loudly as I flee full speed for my very life.
Catch a Falling Star 
Why Mickey Writes
If you are wondering, “How in the Heck can Mickey write nonsense like that essay he wrote yesterday?”, then please be aware that Mickey is pondering that same question.
Seriously, why would a writer publish personal thoughts and allude to personal tragedies? Especially when they are about things that once upon a time nearly killed him? (Please note that when Mickey starts a sentence with “Seriously” it is probably about to lead to a joke, the same way as when Trump says, “Believe me” we should assume he is telling a lie and knows it.)
The answer is simply, writers write stuff. They have to. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be writers.
It is really not something to do to earn fame and fortune. Fame and fortune happen to rare individuals like J. K. Rowling and Steven King… and even Stephanie Meyer, to prove that it is totally random and not based on actual writing talent… except for sometimes.
You write to get your head right about bad things that happen in life. You find that factor in Mark Twain whose infant son died, as well as most of the rest of his family, before him, forcing him to face survivor’s guilt and the notion that life is random and death does not come for you based on any kind of merit system. Charles Dickens wrote about the foibles of his father, on whom he based the David Copperfield character Wilkins Micawber, a man who was overly optimistic and constantly landing in debtor’s prison because of it. He also wrote in his stories about the women he truly loved (who were not, it seems, his wife) one of whom died in his arms while yet a teenager. Dickens’ amused take on the innate foolishness of mankind gave him a chance to powerfully depict great tragedies both large (as in a Tale of Two Cities) and small (as in Oliver Twist). I wrote yesterday’s post based on the connection between the nudity I write about in novels and my own traumatic assault when I was only ten.
You write because you have wisdom, an inner personal truth, that you are convinced needs to be crystallized in words and written down on paper. It isn’t necessarily real truth. Lots of idiots write things and post them in newspapers, blogs, and even books. And it is often true that their inner personal truth is complete hogwash. (But, hey, at least the hogs are cleaner that way.) Still, your wisdom is your own, and it is true for you even if some idiot like Mickey reads it and thinks it is only fit for cleaning hogs.
And you truly do have to write. If I did not write my stupid, worthless novels, all the hundreds of characters in my head would get mad and start kicking the pillars that hold up the structures in my head. I do have structures in my head. My mind is organized in boxes that contain specifically sorted ideas and stories and notions. It is not a festering stew pot where everything is mixed together and either bubbling or boiling with hot places or coagulating in the cold corners. (That is how I picture Donald Trump’s mind. It is certainly not an empty desert like many people think, because deserts don’t explode all over Twitter early in the morning like the stew pot metaphor obviously would.)
And so, I have done it again. I have set down my 500+ words for today and made a complete fool of myself. And why do I do it? Because Mickey is a writer, and so, Mickey writes stuff.
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Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, humor, insight, irony, Mark Twain, Mickey, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom, writing humor
Tagged as goofy thoughts on writing