It doesn’t come in on cat feet.
That’s probably Chicago you’re thinking of.
It comes in on the sound of screeching tires…
and ambulance sirens…
because of all the idiot drivers…
in their silver-gray WASP rockets…
that don’t know how to slow down…
or turn on their low beams…
for safety in the big, cold city of Dallas…
where the air is yellow…
except in the fog…
and rush, rush, rush…
business never waits…
for a foggy day.
I have been a conspiracy-theory nut for some time. Back in the 1970’s, my father and I went to a movie called Chariots of the Gods. It presented the insane theories of Erich von Daniken as if they were fact. It mentioned the Nazca Lines, Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid, and other ancient wonders and seemed to show depictions of ancient aliens in the art of those cultures. My father and I were convinced by his arguments and thought there really must be something to it. I went to college with a real hunger to learn more.
I was disappointed to learn later that the man was a completely unprofessional, untrained archeologist, and that he may have actually stolen his main thesis for the Chariots book from Carl Sagan and I. S. Shklovskii in their book, Intelligent Life in the Universe. Sagan would go on to say;
“That writing as careless as von Däniken’s, whose principal thesis is that our ancestors were dummies, should be so popular is a sober commentary on the credulousness and despair of our times. I also hope for the continuing popularity of books like Chariots of the Gods? in high school and college logic courses, as object lessons in sloppy thinking. I know of no recent books so riddled with logical and factual errors as the works of von Däniken.”
—Carl Sagan, Foreword to The Space Gods Revealed (quote and citation borrowed from Wikipedia)
So I went through a number of Sagan-influenced years of my life saying that there was no sound reason to believe that out of an infinity of places to visit, interstellar tourists would want to come and visit here. Does a normal, sane tourist want to go to an island full of cannibals? Our movies, after all, always depict us killing, dissecting, or taking advantage of alien visitors.
But then I discovered the whole story of the Roswell, New Mexico crash in 1947. Convinced at one point that the crash really was a Project Mogul weather balloon, I began to discover the work of another alien-visitor-obsessed gentleman by the name of Stanton Friedman. This man is much harder to dismiss. He has a master’s degree in physics and spent fourteen years as a nuclear physicist “for such companies as General Electric (1956–1959), Aerojet General Nucleonics (1959–1963), General Motors (1963–1966), Westinghouse (1966–1968), TRW Systems (1969–1970), and McDonnell Douglas, where he worked on advanced, classified programs on nuclear aircraft, fission and fusion rockets, and compact nuclear power plants for space applications.[2] Since the 1980s, he has done related consultant work in the radon-detection industry. Friedman’s professional affiliations have included the American Nuclear Society, the American Physical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and AFTRA.” (quoted from Wikipedia… I know, I know… but this is all verifiable information, not made up or imaginary like von Däniken’s.) He is also the first civilian to investigate the Roswell crash. He began by interviewing the air-base’s intelligence officer during the incident, Major Jesse Marcel.
More and more I became interested in the phenomenon and the people who research it. I have a pretty good list of liars and clowns who talk about aliens, and I will use some of that in a future post. There is comedy gold in that topic.
But I do believe that aliens are real and have visited our planet. I began researching the topic again for my novel, Catch a Falling Star, because it centers on an alien invasion and a clash between incompetent space travelers and single-minded Midwesterners who can’t possibly believe. There are just too many people surfacing with stories to tell about alien encounters, UFO sightings, and government cover-ups. People like Nick Pope, a former Minister from the British government, Paul Hellyer , a former Defense Minister from Canada, Edgar Mitchell, an Apollo astronaut, and numerous technicians and inventors from McDonnell-Douglas and other aircraft manufacturers are coming forward in legions to testify that things like this are very real.
Filed under artwork, colored pencil, Paffooney, tinfoil hats
The more I looked at the silly simpering grin on my old foolish face, the more I realized it needed a few things added. So I added a few of my dream babies. You know, those characters I have created in cartoons and novels who may have started with my own three kids, or kids I grew up with, or kids I taught over the years, but ended up with a large injection of my own mental DNA in their final, fictional selves. So here is a self portrait that I privately refer to by the title “Goofy Me”.
Man, is that ever goofy!
Filed under artwork, cartoons, drawing, self portrait
I have had to report racing heartbeats every night since I’ve been wearing the monitor. It has been recording things that I have missed. But do I really have to worry? No. The doctor hasn’t called to say go to the emergency room. I am now waking up every day with more confidence. Yay! I am still not dead! Every day is a blessing. And there is treatment to help non-lethal tachycardia. I have reason to believe I won’t be dead tomorrow too. So I will keep on writing and living and living to write, and to honor that resolution I will share the happy-doodle Paffooney that I doodled this morning after waking up not-dead.
Here’s what’s left in my camera from school white boards and lessons.
There you have it, the results of 31 years of doodling on the chalkboard (which became the dry erase board). And yes, I did tell them the cartoon fairy drew all the pictures. Especially when they were in my class for the second or third year when they asked, “Who does all the pictures on the board?” And yes, I started doing this back in dinosaur days in white chalk on a green blackboard, followed by colored chalk, which later became a gray marker-board for washable marker, and finally became dry erase white board. And I really bought my own chalk and markers too. Teachers do that, you know.
Here are a few more chalkboard drawings (actually white board drawings).
At the end of the school year, I let kiddos do their own self portraits along with my drawing of Black Timothy the Pirate.
I admit it. I was a goofy teacher. Kids never knew for sure whether I was serious, joking, or halfway in-between. I worked for hours sometimes preparing the chalkboard, or later, white board, for the days lesson, putting key points and reminders up in cartoon form. I used characters, symbols, jokes, pokes, and silliness to get the idea across. Principals and others who evaluated my teaching always wondered why my classroom sounded so raucous and wild from outside the door with kids laughing, music playing, and sometimes desks being shuffled and shoved around the room. The perfect-classroom-is-a-quiet-classroom crowd always hated my teaching style. But the ones who came in and participated, got involved in paying attention and watching the kids interact with the content loved it. I am not bragging. My lesson plans were a mess filled with booby traps, explosions waiting to happen, un-intended consequences (also called teachable moments), and brainstorms that threatened at any moment to electrocute somebody with lightning. Teaching is a dangerous business. But the point is, there is an art to teaching that brings out the artist in you. I offer the following evidence;
I am certainly not bragging. I have a too-vivid imagination, and sometimes lose track of what is real and what is fantasy. In my current novel-in-progress, I just wrote about kids believing they have used fairy magic to turn a favorite teacher into a swan. (I told you I would work that German Schwan thing into my book.) So here is a brief Canto to show you how that went.
Canto Twenty-Six – In Miss Schwanneke’s Music Class
Miss Swan was busy in the gym, so it was no surprise to Blueberry and the other Norwall kids in her first period class that she was running late. Blueberry decided to use the time to work on the goal of making students believe in fairies. She was armed with a folder filled with colored pencil drawings of fairies. She had carefully crafted them from the descriptions Garriss had given her during those long nights when she was too excited to sleep anyway. Working on the fairy project helped take her mind off the terrible conflict brewing with Tim Kellogg. He had been so mean since his best friend, Tommy Bircher, had moved to Chicago. She was sure the only reason he was being that way was because she was so deeply in love with Mike Murphy, and Mike was Tim’s replacement best friend.
“Those are neat pictures, Blue,” said Bobby Niland, a Norwall farm kid.
“Thanks. Share them around. It will help people believe in fairies.”
“Aw, you Pirates have such weird ideas. Nobody is gonna believe in dumb old fairies!”
“Bobby, you are a Pirate, and you’ve seen Garriss, the fire wisp. How can you not believe in fairies?”
“You guys get me all worked up, talking to the empty air, and I start to see things that aren’t really there. Tim just made up the little fire guy. You know he is always making up all kinds of elaborate lies, and making us believe them.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
“Hey! I like this one with the pretty naked lady with the white wings!” Bobby showed the drawing to its creator.
“Garriss says that one is a storybook named Odette. She’s an immortal fairy princess because of the tale of the Swan Princess.”
“Huh?”
“The story of a princess cursed to turn into a swan by day, and can only be a woman at night.”
“Oh, that’s a neat story. Too bad it isn’t true. I’d like to see a naked lady turn into a swan.”
“Well… Garriss did teach me Odette’s spell. He claims it can turn somebody into a swan.”
“Oh, neat! Who can we change?”
“But, Bobby, you don’t believe in the fairy stuff. You just said so.”
“Yeah, well… How about Miss Swan? Her name makes her perfect for the spell!”
It was obvious that Bobby was hot to see Miss Swan naked. He was secretly in love with her, but he drooled over her so openly that everyone from Norwall who really knew him, knew that secret too.
“You know her name is actually Schwanneke, right? Swan is just a nickname.”
“Ah, come on. You said you want me to believe.”
“Well, I don’t want to hurt Miss Swan or anything. She’s a nice teacher.”
There was general restless talking in the classroom. No one was trying to sing any of the pieces they had been learning in class. And no one was paying attention to Bobby and Blue. Blue pulled out the white feather.
“What’s that?” asked Bobby. “Is that part of the spell?”
“It’s the focus item. You have to give it to her and say, Möchten Sie einen Schwan zu werden?”
“What’s that? Pig Latin?”
“German, I think,” Blue answered. “The fairies seem to use German more than other languages.”
“Cool.”
Bobby made Blueberry teach him the words again and again until he could say them correctly. In the meantime, Miss Swan came in with something of a cold. She was sniffling and sneezing. Bobby, excited beyond measure, ran up to her, holding out the white feather.
“Möchten Sie einen Schwan zu werden?” he chanted.
“What?” Miss Schwanneke, the vocal music teacher, took the feather. She suddenly looked ill, as if a cold wind had blown in and frozen her very soul. She put a hand over her mouth and ran out of the room.
Everyone began asking each other what was happening, and of course, nobody knew. But two Norwall kids, Bobby Niland and Blueberry Bates, stood staring at each other with white faces. Thirty minutes of rampant speculation, rumors of the teacher’s death in the bathroom, and the eventual arrival in the classroom of a substitute had Bobby looking whiter than a ghost. Blue didn’t feel very well herself.
“Well, class, the period is almost shot,” said Mrs. Thompson the all-purpose substitute teacher. “We will just kinda sit here and wait for the bell. Sit down and be good for a few minutes more. At about that time, they began to hear a ticking sound at the window. Meghan Baumgartner was the first to see it.
“Miss, miss! There’s a big white bird pecking at the window wanting to get in out of the snow!”
Blueberry and Bobby looked at the same moment. It was a huge, white… swan.
Bobby’s pants were immediately soaked, and he, too ran out of the room.
*****
Filed under artwork, colored pencil, drawing, humor, irony, Pegasus, strange and wonderful ideas about life
http://disneyparks.disney.go.com/
Mickey Mouse was born on November 18, 1928 in the film “Steamboat Willie”. Yesterday was his 86th 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 31 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 two novels, Aeroquest and Catch a Falling Star. I have one more novel that I signed a contract with PDMI Publishing for, Snow Babies. It is the best story I ever wrote. I have a finished manuscript, The Bicycle-Wheel Genius, that I am polishing to submit to the publisher in the spring. I submitted a finished novel, Superchicken, that I am still waiting for word on, whether they will publish it, pass on it, or burn it and wave chicken feet over the ashes. So I potentially have four books that could be in print soon. I am feverishly trying to finish my novel The Magical Miss Morgan in draft form. Why am I so feverishly trying to turn four books into five? And then maybe five into six? It is a question of time. How much time do I really have left? I confess to having at least twelve 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.
Catch a Falling Star 