Category Archives: humor

May 7, 2021 · 7:30 pm

Time Flies

The old joke goes something like this;

“Slow Joe was anxious about meeting his online girlfriend whom he met in a chat room in 1993. They had been talking back and forth for 28 years. Then, she finally suggested they needed to meet in person. It turned out that she only lived a short way away, on the other side of town. So, they agreed that they would both walk to Fast Charlie’s Fast-food Restaurant. Slow Joe wanted to meet Rosemary so badly that he went to his mother’s bedroom and pulled the wall-clock off the wall. Then as he walked towards Fast Charlie’s place, he kept flinging the wall clock ahead of him like a frisbee, walking to pick it up, and flinging it yet again as he slowly ambled up the street.”

“Joe? Why do you keep flinging that broken clock?” I asked.

“I needed to make time fly,” he answered.

“Ironically, he arrived too late for the date.”

What? I didn’t promise it would be a good joke.

This, then, is the irony on the ironing board of my life. I am stuck waiting for things to happen as things take forever to mature and pull themselves together for whatever the future holds. It is another Friday already. I think I must’ve blinked twice, and doing so, missed the previous Saturday, Sunday , Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,, and Thursday. Where did the time go? It must’ve been in that clock that Slow Joe kept flinging.

Time is passing faster than it ever has in my life. And yet, it seems to crawl along at a snail’s pace. Well, maybe Slow Joe’s pace. I have seen snails pass him like relative speed demons on the racetrack of everyday life.

Maybe I don’t have enough to do. And yet, I am working on three books at once, finishing a short story for Ten Bun’s Holiday in a Nudist Park story collection (proceeds going to charity) just yesterday. I have the AeroQuest 4 book that I work on every Tuesday, the Valerie Clarke sequel called He Rose on a Golden Wing, and the sudden science fiction inspiration, Cissy Moonskipper.

I am three books ahead of schedule too on my quest to read and review 45 books this year for Goodreads (most of those also for Pubby.)

There is danger in that. I read mostly fiction books. And we all know that two many lies in one place can warp reality. That would be a tragedy if Mickey reads too much and opens a black hole somewhere inside his stupid old head.

Anyway, that is probably enough musing for now. I probably lost all my readers at the toxic Dad joke at the beginning of this misbegotten blog post. But that gives me the opportunity to say anything at all, even secret things, Nobody is still reading at this point, so no one will read this secret; I actually don’t have any secrets left to tell.

So, that is where I am at now in life. Time is flying by at an alarming pace, yet each day crawls along as slowly as Slow Joe flings clocks.

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May 6, 2021 · 7:26 pm

Mickey the Decider

Yes, I know, you expect this title to be a joke. When Mickey says “decider,” he must mean he takes cider out of things. As in, “Mickey will decider those bottles of apple cider.” Well, hey, that is a pretty good joke in terms of what Mickey finds humorous in his crazy little super-corny brain. But this essay is about being decisive. You know, that quality about being able to make a decision. Preferably not a horrible decision. But a decision never-the-less.

I have made some pretty firm decisions recently. Hopefully good ones.

For one thing, I have decided I am going to make the trip to Iowa this summer… even if I have to drive the whole seven hundred miles myself… by myself. The rest of the family has jobs to worry about, car-insurance mandates to follow, and other plans. But I haven’t been home in over two years. The pandemic has taken its toll on me, and I have decided not to yield anything more to it. I wasn’t there for Dad’s funeral. I will be there to visit his gravestone and talk to him again.

Another recent good decision was to get fully vaccinated so that I could contemplate doing that very thing. Two doses of the Pfizer vaccine, and protection for my diabetic heart and lungs. I can’t take regular flu vaccine due to complications, but I am not an anti-vaxer. Mickey has beaten Covid.

I have also decided that I will become a member of the AANR (American Association for Nude Recreation,) Yes, Mickey has decided 64 years of trying to resist becoming a nudist is at an end. I have been in the closet about having a naturist’s heart for too long. It’s time to come out of the closet. Of course it may never again mean getting my old carcass out to a nudist park or a nude bike ride. Those things are too far away for the most part, and I am not in good health. But Mickey has decided to admit what other people have known all along. Mickey is a nudist. And it will lend some credibility to my novels about being a nudist.

It is good to be decisive, even if it makes Mickey sound a bit unsound of mind. Make up your mind, follow your plan, and be a decider. But, remember, those bottles of apple cider are not good for your diabetes. The doctor said, “No fruit juice ever again,” didn’t he? You better decide to listen, Mickey.

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May 6, 2021 · 4:39 pm

The Wolf in My Dreams

wolfgirl

Rosemary Hood was a bright, blond seventh grader who entered my seventh-grade Gifted English class in September of 1998.  She introduced herself to me before the first bell of her first day.

“I am definitely on your class list because my Mom says I belong in gifted classes.”

“Your name is Rosemary, right?”

“Definitely.  Rosemary Bell Hood, related to the Civil War general John Bell Hood.”

“Um, I don’t see your name on my list.”

“Well, I’m supposed to be there, so check with the attendance secretary.  And I will be making A’s all year because I’m a werewolf and I could eat you during the full moon if you make me mad at you.”

I laughed, thinking that she had a bizarre sense of humor.  I let her enter my class and issued her copies of the books we were reading.  Later I called the office to ask about her enrollment.

“Well, Mr. Beyer,” said the secretary nervously, “the principal is out right now with an animal bite that got infected.  But I can assure you that we must change her schedule and put her in your gifted class.  The principal would really like you to give her A’s too.”

So, I had a good chuckle about that.  I never gave students A’s.  Grades had to be earned.  And one of the first rules of being a good teacher is, “Ignore what the principal says you should do in every situation.”

But I did give her A’s because she was a very bright and creative student (also very blond, but that has nothing to do with being a good student).  She had a good work ethic and a marvelous sense of humor.

She developed a crush on Jose Tannenbaum who sat in the seat across from her in the next row.  He was a football player, as well as an A student.  And by October she was telling him daily, “You need to take to me to the Harvest Festival Dance because I am a werewolf, and if you don’t, I will eat you at the next full moon.”

All the members of the class got a good chuckle out of it.  And it was assumed that he would. of course, take her to the dance because she was the prettiest blond girl in class and he obviously kinda liked her.  But the week of the dance we did find out, to our surprise, that he asked Natasha Garcia to the dance instead.

I didn’t think anything more about it until, the day after the next full moon, Jose didn’t show up for class.  I called the attendance secretary and asked about it.

“Jose is missing, Mr. Beyer,” the attendance secretary said.  “The Sherrif’s office has search parties out looking for him.”  That concerned me because he had a writing project due that day, and I thought he might’ve skipped school because he somehow failed to finish it.  When I saw Rosemary in class, though, I asked her if, by any chance, she knew why Jose wasn’t in class.

“Of course I do,” she said simply.  “I ate him last night.”

“Oh.  Bones and all?”

“Bone marrow is the best-tasting part.”

So, that turned out to be one rough school year.  Silver bullets are extremely expensive for a teacher’s salary.  And I did lose a part of my left ear before the year ended.  But it also taught me valuable lessons about being a teacher.  Truthfully, you can’t be a good teacher if you can’t accept and teach anyone who comes through your door, no matter what kind of unique qualities they bring with them into your classroom.

 

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May 4, 2021 · 4:03 pm

AeroQuest 4… Canto 138

Canto 138 – The Throckpod Speaks

The designated Throckpod lumbered into Ged Aero-sensei’s camp with a sort of thorny swagger that made the students of the White Spider rather uneasy.  A flower-creature like that should’ve been more humbly worried about entering an enemy’s camp than this one was.

The Throckpod that Mai Ling introduced to Ged was a daisy-headed being with disturbingly human-looking eyes.  Its petals were yellow.  The center of the blossom where the eyes peered out was green.

“So, I understand that you are the spokesman for the Throckpods,” Ged said.

“No.  I am all Throckpods.  We are all linked by our glorious leader.  We are all one.”

“I see.”

“You do have eyes, yes.  You may have noticed that I have eyes too.  Not photon-sensitive seed pods, but real eyes.  A gift from our glorious master who unites us all.”

“You serve the Grainmaster, then?”

“Our glorious master gave us our true sight and our ability to know what all Throckpods know, shared knowledge throughout the hive mind.”

“But do you serve the Grainmaster?”

“We serve all of the planet.  Through the Grainmaster we serve, yes.”

“We have come to ask you about the treatment of the other plant people.  We have come to understand that the common plant people are bullied by the Throckpods and forced to give everything they have to the Grainmaster.  We wish to discuss other, more-equitable forms of governing with the Grainmaster.”

“Listen, King Monkey, we of the Throckpod legions come specifically to destroy you.  We intend to eliminate all such inferior creatures from the ecospheres of all nearby planets.”

The vicious Throckpod detached three thorns from it’s arm-branches glistening with rather obvious poisons.

Shu, Mai Ling, and Taffy King each intercepted one of the thorns as it was thrown and buried the projectiles deeply into the Throckpod’s stem, near the walking-roots, thus shriveling up the flower-warrior’s only means of getting away.

“Now you have declared war on all of the plants of the sacred master.  We all see through my eyes.  All Throckpods now know of your treachery.  I do all I can now to slay all your little monkey-kind.  You will regret your treachery.  The Throckpods now descend upon you!”

Of course, the Throckpod by himself had very little power to make good on his threats himself.  He flung a flurry of thorns at Ged’s students and Shu, Mai Ling, and Taffy threw them all right back.

Soon the Throckpod was mostly shredded, limp and swiftly turning brown on the ground.

Luigi the Onion Guy was apparently beside himself with upset and anger.  “YoU iS no knOwing hoW bad YoU haS made thiNgs now!”

“We are doing our best,” Ged answered impatiently.  “You don’t expect me to just stand by and let these Throckpod monsters slay my students, do you?”

“He is only warning you that the Throckpods will now seek vengeance on us all and we may all be doomed,” explained the more reasonable Carrot-man.

At that moment Gyro and Billy came crashing down from the sky on a dragonfly-looking grav bike,  the two boys tumbling and losing their cowboy hats into the center of the camp.

“Are you two all right?” gasped Sara the healer.

“Nothing that you can’t fix,” said Billy, rubbing his raw, scraped knee.

“We do have a problem, though.  Thousands of Throckpods are headed this way to kill us.”  Gyro’s little blue face was completely serious for once.

“Yes, we will definitely have to deal with that problem now… somehow,” said Ged Aero-sensei.

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May 3, 2021 · 7:00 pm

Comic Book Heroes Who are Older Than Me

I don’t know if you know this, but I am in reality older than Spiderman. I am also older than the Fantastic Four. All of the Avengers except for Captain America are younger than me. Well, you could argue that Thor and Hercules were around longer than me. And the Sub Mariner, And the original Human Torch, the one that Ultron would eventually turn into the Vision. But I am turning 65 this year, and only the Golden Age comic-book characters are actually older than me.

Superman, from the date of his actual creation, not first publication, is turning 88 this year. Schuster and Seigal drew the first Superman strips in 1933.

At the beginnning of June, 2021 the Spirit will be 81 years old. Created by Will Eisner in 1940 the Spirit got an entire full-color page in more than 20 newspapers with a total circulation of more than 5 million copies nationwide. Denny Colt got his super crime-fighting powers by basically being a ghost, back from the dead to punish his killers and other criminals every Sunday until 1952.

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Sheena, Queen of the Jungle is turning 83 this year, being created in 1938 by Jerry Iger working with Will Eisner, among others. She looks pretty good for her age. But, consider this, she is based on the character Rima the Jungle Girl from William Henry Hudson’s 1904 novel Green Mansions. Rima, if she had become a comic book character too would be 117 this year.

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The Shadow, too, is pretty damn old. He celebrates his 91st birthday this year if you consider his pulp fiction origin in 1930. He was also the narrator of a radio show before actually becoming a comic book hero. The old man of this essay was a billionaire who could become invisible thanks to his mind-control powers. And he also had peerless martial arts prowess. He is an obvious inspiration to Bob Kane’s Batman.

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Batman and Robin, as understudies to the Shadow are virtually the same age. Batman was created in 1939 in Detective Comics, and Robin would appear for the first time before the year was out. That makes them both 82 years old this year.

The first time they appeared in their own title was in 1940, so that makes the Joker, Alfred Pennyworth, and Catwoman 81 years old.

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Alex Raymond’s imitation Buck Rodgers comic, Flash Gordon, first appeared in newspapers in 1934. That makes Flash, Dale Arden, and Dr. Zarkov all celebrate their 87th birthday this year.

The Green Hornet is 85 years old.

Wonder Woman is 80 years old.

So, even though I am old and creaky, reading comics with the older superheroes in them makes me feel like a kid again. An old, creaky kid.

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May 1, 2021 · 7:17 pm

Pen and Ink Storytelling

Today’s Art Day post is about using pen and ink to tell at least a part of a story. Narrative can indeed occur in black and white images.
After a lifetime of studying the works of other pen and ink masters, I can copy many styles and I make as much of it a part of my own style as possible.
I know I probably draw nude figures too often. I get unfollowed by prudes and pious people on Twitter practically every day.
And nudes can attract the wrong sorts of followers too. But they usually don’t follow very long when they begin to notice my drawings never contain what they are actually looking for.
I am not a racist. I do identify with rabbit people, but I recognize that wolves are people too. And you have to appreciate diversity as a strength of humanity. Otherwise rabbit people would be persecuted too.
Some of my art contains portraits of people I have known.
And sometimes it is the illustration of characters in one of my books that help me recognize who those characters really are based on. “Hello, Sofie.”
And sometimes the story the picture tells is funny.
And sometimes it is simply silly.
Sometimes it is a story we all know already.
And sometimes the story is entirely original and new.

But however you look at it, pen and ink is fun.

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April 30, 2021 · 4:39 pm

I Sweetpotato What I Sweetpotato

If you are as goofy and cartoon-obsessed as me, you may remember that Popeye the sailor was known for the catchphrase, “I yam what I yam”. And if you do remember that, it will not surprise you that, when told a yam is another name for sweet potato, Popeye was furious. “It cannot be!” he argued. “I would not say I sweet potato what I sweet potato! That’s ridicumess!”

Well he has a point.

But I would like to talk today about the things that I sweet potato, and why I sweet potato those things.

First of all, I yam a humorist.

I yam this thing not because I am funny. You may think I yam funny because I say really goofy things for no apparent reason, and then keep on talking long enough to convince you that I did have a point to make, but my brain leans so far to the left that I am hardly right about anything.

And I make bad puns a lot.

You see, I have to use humor constantly to deal with all the hard things in life, because being too serious in the face of the world’s basic uncaring cruelty only leads to depression and taking a beating from life. In fact, I can think of any number of situations in my past where I avoided a beating only because I made a joke that made the bully laugh.

So, being a humorist is a survival tactic. Humor keeps you alive.

You see someone like me has to face all the pain and heartache and cruelty the world has to offer by using humor. The real reason is that, when faced with a bad situation, if the humor gland can’t empty itself of all the jokes it produces, it will begin to swell. The humor gland is located either in the brain or maybe in the behind (I am not medically qualified to tell you which it really is), and it can only swell to a certain point, and then it will explode. This is very bad thing for you, if you survive it, and certainly unpleasant for anybody nearby.

But the joke, properly launched at the target, will make somebody laugh, even if it is only the humorist himself. And laughter is the best medicine. Unless it kills you. You have to be careful not to die laughing. The angels will be offended, and the demons will all laugh too.

But I yam not only a humorist. I yam also a teacher.

I began to realize that I might be a teacher when, in graduate school to get a remedial master’s degree to help with the fact that plain English majors all starve to death, I discovered I had a talent for explaining things in simple terms. And then, immediately afterwards, I discovered I had an even greater talent for being ignored while the people I was explaining to made the mistakes they wouldn’t have made if only they had listened to me, before they failed spectacularly, and then realized how the solution I had explained would’ve made them succeed instead. There is apparently no better way to learn an important lesson.

Teaching is, of course, a pretty cool job. You tend to have the summers off. And you get paid for summer because they split the amount of money you earn for the year (which considering what a babysitter makes on average per child and per hour is far too little for the hours you put in) into twelve monthly pittances.

Of course you are expected to have a university degree (although no teacher college in the world can teach you what you really need to know in order to face that many little monsters… err, darlings… every day) and preferably some grad school, and a certification to teach in your chosen subject, and an additional certification if you are going to teach more than one subject (and ESL and Speech and Journalism, all of which I was expected to teach, are separate certifications) and you have to take hours of additional training every single year, and you have to get re-certified every five years, and… Well, you have to be basically smarter and much better-educated than Bill Gates… But the school janitor will probably be making more money per month than you do.

Anyway, it’s a job you just gotta love. I yam a teacher.

And really, there are a whole lotta yams in my basket yet that I could tell you about. I yam a Red Skelton fan. I yam sometimes a nudist (when I don’t have to put on clothes to keep myself from scratching all my psoriasis-plagued skin off). I yam also an artist (of the type known as a cartoonist). I yam pig-headed sometimes, and I yam Grumpy sometimes (so I go from being Porky to one of the Seven Dwarfs.) I yam a lotta things. And my sweet-potato basket is large.

But I can’t talk about all of my yams today. Too many yams are bad for my diabetes.

But here’s one last yam. I yam a storyteller. And I have a free Kindle e-book promotion this weekend. The book is the first in my series of AeroQuest books. It is a science fiction story with a humorous bent. And I mean, it is seriously bent in some places.

So, click on the link and get yourself a copy. It’s funny. And I will save the other sweet potatoes for another day.

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April 30, 2021 · 2:30 pm

The Making of a Paffooney

There is a certain amount of worry now in Mickeytown. My hands have begun to tremble. I see things that aren’t there. I have become excessively forgetful. Possibly Parkinson’s… but not diagnosed by a doctor yet.

Maybe it’s only paranoia… but that’s a Parkinson’s symptom too.

And it worries me because I need to be able to draw new Paffoonies. But it is definitely becoming harder.

Yesterday, when my computer was breaking down again, the scanner miraculously reconnected itself and began to work.

I scanned this old pen-and-ink drawing.

Do I know why I drew it, or what it is supposed to be about?

I do not.

But I can still swirl colored pencils and color within the lines, at least as well as I did when I was nine.

You may remember this one from yesterday,

Of course, forgetful me, I couldn’t remember where I had stored my best art pencils. I had to crack open the bag of old school pencils that I still have from my last hurrah as a Texas pedagogue (a word that means a teacher of children, not that other thing that the evil-minded ones among you were probably thinking.)

So, now I have a colored picture of a young-girl space traveler. What to do with it?

Like any old mad god who makes a girl come to life like this (old mad god of colored pencils, a little “g” god, not a blasphemous big “G” one,) I needed to name her and give her a story, a purpose in life.

So, I called her Cissy Moonskipper (a suitably satirical and comic sort of name playing off of Luke Skywalker.)

And I stranded her on a family-owned free-trader starship, alone in deep space. Her family is gone permanently. The ship has everything she needs to survive. She is a sole-survivor on a deserted island in deep space in an unexplored star system. And all she has is a starship owner’s manual and a copy of the novel Robinson Crusoe.

So, I added a background and now I have started a new book idea. That is essentially what a Paffooney is. Words and pictures by little ol’ me.

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April 29, 2021 · 7:30 pm

Cissy Moonskipper

She scrambled over the railing and made it hurriedly to her brother’s side. She scraped her right knee in the effort. He was lying where he fell in the middle of the arboretum. The sky portal was still open to the stars, especially Veda 257, the star whose system the ship was now a temporary part of. Bright starlight streamed in to nourish the food plants and her late mother’s flowers.

But when she reached Wosely Moonskipper, he was no longer alive. The Lupin’s slug-thrower had penetrated his energy shield and hit him in his stupid melon of a head.

“How could you do that to me, Wose? How could you leave your baby sister all alone aboard a starship going nowhere in an unexplored star system?”

Of course, the dummy didn’t answer. This was, however, the first time he had an actual good excuse for it.

She looked over at the smoking pile of debris that was all the derfbag Lupin space-werewolf left behind as Wosely had disintegrated him. Stupid Stardog pirate! He got what he deserved.

But, wait! The pirate had brought his vehicle aboard in order to try to get ahold of the Moonskipper family spacecraft.

She lamely spent a dozen extra minutes trying to get Wose to raise himself from the dead. But 53rd Century medicine didn’t work like that. Full resurrections had to be carefully planned ahead of time. Wose hadn’t planned in the early morning hours to accidentally allow a dog-headed alien pirate to come aboard and murder him. At least he had the good sense to shoot back before he went down. No telling what would’ve become of twelve-year-old Cissy if he hadn’t.

Then she went to inspect the Lupin’s remaining possessions. In the docking bay she found the little two-man space skiff, an anti-gravity pod with a sub-light engine. A wonderful thing to have if she hadn’t lost Wose. the only one who could drive the thing. That was the good thing about old Wose. At thirty-five he knew how to build, fix, or repair practically anything that could travel in space.

That was the next problem to think about. She was alone on the starship now. Since Mom died and her father went so crazy with grief that Wose had to maroon him on that jungle moon seven months ago to prevent him from flying the ship into the heart of the nearby star, they had simply wandered. Nobody remaining on board knew how to navigate other than randomly drifting from star system to star system by line of sight.

Food was no problem. The arboretum produced all the organic matter they needed to create food from the replicator. And Wose had taught her how to scoop fuel from the outer levels of the clouds in a gas-giant. But how was she going to pilot the thing? And what would she do when something broke down?

She was moping about in the bridge when she happened to open the right storage drawer in the captain’s table. There were two books inside that immediately caught her eye.

She grinned to herself. She still had to see to Wose’s funeral. But she was grateful that Mom had taught her to read. She now possessed the ship’s owner’s manual that explained enough about everything to make life on a starship possible, and a copy of Daniel Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe.

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April 28, 2021 · 7:11 pm

Magical Thinking

People accused of doing magical thinking are basically being accused of doing something awful. Like Republicans telling us that if we cut taxes for millionaires and billionaires, working class and middle class citizens will prosper because of it. Of course, they actually know better. So, it isn’t really magical thinking. It is really evil magical thinking.

But when I am actually guilty of magical thinking, it is more along the lines of me pinning my hopes on an intuition brought about by calculations in my overcrowded imagination that are probably horribly miscalculated but that I need to turn out to be accurate and miraculously pull me out of my current difficulty. And then, because I intuit really, really hard… it turns out all right.

Magic is after all, merely what we call science and situations where something amazing is created, but we have no idea at all how and why.

Our movies nowadays are really quite chock full of magical thinking. Wish-fulfillment, fantasy, and violence-laden revenge stories are what fill the cinema with seekers of escapism and relaxation. That is magical thinking of an epic sort. Go see the Black Panther movie and “Wakanda forever” solves racism.

So, what is the point of this little essay? What am I actually thinking about the subject of magical thinking? Well, I needed a topic today to keep my every-day-in-April posting goal alive. And magically…

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