The gate leading to the pool was broken.
The pool itself was broken. See all the cracks?
So the city inspector said, “Fix it or else!”
I had some old boards from the fence I took down. And as an Iowa farm boy, I have skills.
So I fixed it. For less than $20 . New hinges and corner brackets, but I used old nails.
Now, to repair the danged pool my own little self.
(From left to right) My green-haired Wish-nik from 1966, my teacher troll from 1990, Poppy, and the wizard troll from 1992 (with the garden gnome in the background)
Okay, here is some bad news for a guy who suffers from hoarding disorder, especially when it comes to things like dolls and toys that he can play with while he’s supposed to be trying to be a writer in his burned-out sick-bed retirement. They are making a movie about Trolls at Dreamworks… and there are dolls already on sale.
The city is after me to repair the house and yard on the outside, especially the cracked swimming pool that now only seems to hold bug-water for brewing the next generation of West Nile and Zika squeetoes to bite me and immediately die from the toxic chemicals already in my sick old blood. I need to do more than just put mosquito poison in the water. They say I must have the filter operating and it must be clear enough to see the drain in the bottom of the deep end. Pool repair guy says the crack repair is in the neighborhood of $14,000, which is $16,000 more than I have to spend right now. I’m already not buying medicine any more for my six incurable diseases. I’m also not going to the doctor any more because he will just yell at me for not taking medication anymore… even though I actually feel better not having taken the blood pressure medicine for over a year now. So the plan is to clean and repair the pool myself. This apparently will satisfy the trolls at the city inspector’s office, at least until I die from the cold and rain we seem to be getting now.
But those aren’t the trolls I meant to write about today. I am writing about the little troll doll named Poppy that I bought for $5 yesterday at Walmart. She’s the pink one in the middle of my photo-paffooney. The one that’s not a nudist like the rest of my remaining troll collection. (My daughter, the Princess, played with my troll collection of over 20 troll dolls when she was smaller and decided they all needed hair cuts and make-overs that completely altered them and eventually murdered them when she learned to cut and melt plastic.)
A troll corpse from the garage, murdered by make-up and partially eaten by rats.
So, the movie will feature a number of different trolls, the corresponding toys for which are already on sale in places where I will not be able to help myself from collecting the entire goofy little crew. And I do not have any place for them to live. I had to remove a section of Booggloopenstein Castle just to display the old trolls for a photo-paffooney. They will take over the house. And I know I should be out working on the pool instead of plotting where to put more trolls. But I just can’t help it. There is something irresistible about collecting ugly and goofy toys.
Yessir, the Cubs have a chance to win their first World Series since 1908 tonight. They have not won the title since Tinker to Evers to Chance was the double-play combo of poetic proportions. They have never won in my lifetime, and I am quite old. So, there is proof positive the world is about to end.
Yes, I can even describe the mechanics of the thing. Donald Trump will be elected President of the United States thanks to Mr. Comey’s timely reveal of more scandalous emails that he has not read and chuckled about yet. You know, the ones that he couldn’t have actually read yet because they come from potential pedophile Anthony Weiner’s computer, and he had to have a separate warrant from a judge to read anything that may have to do with Hillary, even though probably none of them contain nude pictures from Hillary, and she probably didn’t even write those emails. The world had to know about that right before the election, especially members of the Republican House Committee for examining Hillary’s every boo-boo. So, the Donald will win, because nobody is doing any press conferences on the FBI investigation on his ties to the Russian government through the biggest bank in Russia. ‘Taint important, Pogo.
And once the great orange pumpkin-head is our next president, our health care will no longer be under the misguided protection of Obamacare. Instead, it will will be taken care of by “something terrific” that will make high profits for somebody, and make certain that I will never be able to pay another medical bill (since those who are deceased rarely do).
And, of course, President Pompadoodle will be able to declare that we no longer have to believe in the climate change hoax. The result being that we will soon be able to buy beachfront property in Iowa and Missouri, be able to purchase our breathable air in factory-made brick-form, and possibly grow a helpful third eye from the mutating effects of nuclear radiation.
And, lastly, I would like to thank the late great Walt Kelly for illustrating today’s post. One wonders how a cartoonist can look so far ahead from the 1960’s to do such a fine job of illustrating the problems of 2016? Will miracles never cease? I mean, really, we could probably do with a few less of these industrial grade miracles made out of recycled elephant poop.
As a writer, my goal is to create wisdom and new ideas and stuff that makes a reader feel happy, or sad, or angry, or even slightly insane. But thinking is hard when your head hurts and your body aches and your sixtieth birthday is just around the corner. (Yes, this Mickey is nearly 60, but can you believe that that Mickey is going to be 88 on the day after I turn 60?) Sometimes you just want to say, “Never mind that I wanted to post every single day for the past two years. Just curl up in a ball and go to sleep.” But there are ways to get something done even if your mind is full of the Sandman’s leavings and old, rotted dreams.
You can always get by with posting somebody else’s wisdom… somebody else’s thinking. You don’t have to work too hard to paste things together. After all, why else did you have to look at so many cut-and-paste essays over the years in middle school and high school?
And you can rely on the work you have already done collecting computer files full of colorful crap and stuff you like enough to steal to complete your cut-and-paste scrapbook post. You don’t have to feel like you erred and are about to have your head cut off by an angry Groo.
And you know you can get a lot of cheap likes on Facebook with some of the stuff you have available to put in this post. You have been working at the “Be funny!” thing for a long time, and have gotten almost good enough at it to be funny on the fly. And when you’ve gotten more than halfway to the goal, you can rest a bit. Take a nap. Regenerate the crazy things in your head so you can do this all again another day.
And if you can have a laugh before you are finished, even if no one else in the world gets the joke… well, at least you will feel a little bit better yourself.
Today I had to deliver my daughter, the Princess, to her high school in the rain. It is hard enough make the circuitous trip to the west in order to go south and then east again through all the construction and roadwork going on with stupid people who are somehow allowed to drive a car and carry a gun in Texas even though they don’t know what a turn signal is for or that a speed limit sign shows the maximum rather than the minimum speed you should go at every red stoplight and corner without there being rain to obscure vision and make the mangled pavement slick. You have to be able to concentrate and perform like a virtuoso while driving to make it there alive. I would simply not be able to do it without the car radio.
Driving the family car in Texas
The radio keeps me calm and gives my brain the power it needs to overcome obstacles. The jump across the river with the man-eating fish in it alone requires an energized brain and a cool head. I listen to oldies on the radio with KLUV in the mornings. It is how my children have come to love Don Henley and the Eagles as much as I do.
For the last seven years of my teaching career, I had to learn the hard way that music is critical to driving well, and driving well is the only way to stay alive on the mean streets of Dallas. I had a morning commute of 40 minutes, 30 miles, and 45 stoplights one way to my teaching job in Garland. I drove it starting at six in the morning to avoid traffic. But after school, I often had to labor for three hours through rush hour traffic on the way back home. I learned to switch the station to 101.1, the classical music station. Listening to Mozart and Beethoven not only makes you smarter, it makes you calmer. Calm enough not to get out of your car at the stop light and beat the guy in the car ahead of you with the detached bumper of your car that he knocked off while cutting in front of you because he was in the wrong lane to make the turn he needed to make and didn’t realize until 15 minutes into the wait for the red light to change enough times that our cars actually had a chance to make it through the intersection. Yes, that is a run-on sentence about road rage. And road rage is real. But in real life I didn’t beat him to death because of Mendelssohn playing on the car radio. It only played out that way in my head while the radio soothed my brain and prevented my hair from catching fire.
I owe my life and sanity to the car radio many times over. And I am resigned to the notion that I will probably need it many times more before the curtain closes the last time.
Filed under angry rant, classical music, feeling sorry for myself, grumpiness, humor, mental health, Paffooney
What is a pirate? A privateer? A buccaneer?
There are people in this world who are driven by greed and a sense that they have nothing to lose by risking everything to take what belongs to you. They swoop in on their fast pirate ships, swing on board your little boat, hurt you, steal what you have, and eventually kill you. Movies romanticize swashbucklers as somebody who takes from the rich and the villainous as a sort of cosmic comeuppance. But the reality is they are criminals and murderers.
But they don’t carry swords any more.
They are the CEOs of banks.
Bank-o’ Merricka is an excellent example who sailed their Jolly Roger right up to the gunwales of my little boat. I underwent a debt reduction program because of five hospital stays in five years that drained my personal treasury. $35,000 in credit card debt reduced and paid off in three years. But Bank-o’ Merricka, after they learned I would not be able to pay all the interest I owed, immediately stopped calling. The debt disappeared from my account. They had sold the debt to a debt collector and quietly sat on the bill as I paid everything else off. Then, they filed a lawsuit for the entire amount I owed, plus interest, and plus legal fees. If I hadn’t hired a lawyer and fought the lawsuit, they would’ve won the entire amount by default. That’s how they clean out most of their victims and prey, because people generally surrender to pirates who come over the rails with swords in their teeth and burning cannon fuses in their beards.
I may still lose the battle in this boarding action, but at least I haven’t simply surrendered. But there are other pirate ships circling my little boat as well. My evil health insurance company are also buccaneers, and they demand higher and higher premiums and co-pays, and routinely deny all claims. Diabetic supply people keep calling me and offering free meters and stuff the health insurance pirates are supposed to cover one hundred per cent. I just paid them $260 dollars of a $500 dollar scam bill that hit my little boat like a cannon shot.
So, the pirates are out there. I am still fighting off the boarders. But I think my little boat is sinking.
Filed under angry rant, autobiography, conspiracy theory, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney, Pirates
I really appreciate the opportunity Netflix gives me to use television shows to fill the lonely hours of sick-in-my-bed time. It has almost pushed out reading as a favorite pastime. Too sick to write or do housework or even draw, I can still live alternate lives in my head by fighting crime with Luke Cage and Sheriff Walt Longmire, or experience the miracles of magic and story-telling with the fairy-tale characters of Once Upon a Time.
Luke Cage from Marvel Studios brings to life a comic book hero that I have followed since the 70’s. It is a bullet-proof fantasy of how a super hero who is invulnerable handles a world full violent evil and fragile people he desires to protect. I have already watched all thirteen episodes, and may well watch it a second time. It is, in my uncritical opinion, just as wonderful as Daredevil. It provides catharsis and relief from a world full of troubles and pain.
Longmire is a cowboy sheriff show that presents both a murder-case per episode and a larger jigsaw puzzle of personal secrets and hard life events that have to be faced no matter how reluctantly. It brings back the flavor of the westerns like Gunsmoke that I watched weekly in the 60’s when I was a mere boy.
And finally, I also find myself hooked by the sappy Disney-princess show Once Upon a Time. Literally hooked. Hook is my favorite character. And the reason he is my favorite is the something different behind the storytelling in this show. No villain is unredeemable in this show. Hook is transformed from heartless villain into an unqualified selfless hero. The same thing happens with major villains Rumpelstiltskin and Regina the evil queen. It is sappy and cartoonish, I know. But the show makes me feel something, and look at things in a new way.
So, for now, that is basically my world. I have to recover and grow stronger, and binging on Netflix goes a long way towards helping me do that.
Filed under being alone, feeling sorry for myself, humor, illness, TV review
Yes, we are out of the playoffs. Even though we won the last game of the year against the evil Pirates, we fell one game short. The evil San Francisco Giants beat the hapless Dodgers. No, that’s not quite right. The EVIL San Francisco Bullies With a Glandular Problem beat the worthless Dodgers whom you can never depend on when you need them to win! And so, believe it or not, I must now root for the Cubs to win it all in the National League. Yes, the Cubs, even though they took the Cardinals out of the playoffs last year during the Cards’ 100-win dominant season, are the least detestable team still in the playoff hunt for the World Series. Donald Trump may be the next president of the U.S. The Fukushima nuclear plant has irradiated the entire Pacific Ocean. Global warming is out of control. And the Cubs might win the World Series. Humanity is doomed.
But it gets worse. I am also a loyal Arizona Cardinals fan (a condition I have suffered since they were the St. Louis Cardinals, before evil billionaire Birdy Bidwill moved them to Arizona in a petulant fit about stadiums and sky-boxes).
Last year the Cardinals were poised to be Super Bowl contenders. Even though they lost last year to the Panthers, they were favored to be one of the teams in the big game this year. But then they lost a squeaker to New England in the first game of the season. They lost last week to a suddenly potent Buffalo defense. And yesterday, the EVIL Rams not only snatched victory away in the 4th quarter, they wounded Carson Palmer again, this time with a possible concussion. At one win and three losses, this will have to be a come-back season… if it is not lost already. Maybe the world needs to end to put me out of my misery.
Filed under baseball, baseball fan, cardinals, feeling sorry for myself, humor, sports, St. Louis
Today, in view of ill health and brain pain, I will share with you some of the more picture-intensive thinking going on in my sick old artsy-fartsy brain. Less words equals less headache.
The subject today is Toonerville, the little town that once existed on my HO model train layout, and now lives on my bookshelves and even more-so in my imagination. I have a file of photos I made of it intending to composite them into backgrounds and details in photo-shopped cartoons.
Notice how one building from different angles can look like many different places.
And details can be cropped out so that a building can be placed over a background in a composite image.
Thus a lighted model becomes Bill Freen’s house in Toonerville.
And I have many of these buildings to experiment with.
Sometimes this blithering nonsense can actually be quite fun and productive.
Honestly, I built these things from kits or painted and repainted them decades ago… but they are a part of a place that I still live in.
Catch a Falling Star 
A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Future
…Except it ain’t zactly funny. Somehow we let the orangutan take over the zoo.
I did tell you the world would end because the Cubs won the series. Now we have to pay for our excesses and mistakes.
No more Obamacare. The monkey vowed to repeal it. And I have six pre-existing conditions, four of which may cost me any and all health insurance.
No more Paris climate agreement. The monkey likes to burn coal and pollute the air with carbons because it makes money and his monkey friends like it. Global warming turns the Earth into Venus.
No more nuclear agreement with Iran. The monkey promised to tear it up. He hates Iran’s particular flavor of invisible sky-friend. He believes it gives him the right to kill them, kill their families, and take their stuff. He is an aggressive and thoughtless monkey.
And I saw this all coming. My Bubba friends all kinda like this monkey because he says all the things they want to say and get away with… even in polite company. There are a lot of Bubba friends in this country. Some of them are not even angry all the time. Some of them are not even white.
And now that the dust has settled from massive monkey tricks, voter suppression in southern states, lies from Fox News, and Comey’s “Oh-one-more-reminder-about-emails”, the White House will become the Monkey House. I doubt this essay will get me thrown in prison. The monkey doesn’t read… except for Twitter. And he doesn’t understand metaphors. And I never used his real name in this post.
But everything that’s bad in life gets worse… and then you die. So I have a little while yet to live and love and make the best of life. But the monkey wins in the end.
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Filed under angry rant, battling depression, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, grumpiness, humor, monsters, Paffooney, politics, rants, red States, self pity
Tagged as 2016 Election, orangutan presidents, politics