Category Archives: humor
Making Faces for Art Day
Dear Daddy, Don’t Die!
Two weeks ago I let my car drift too near the curb of the street. I hit a curb-corner at the edge of a driveway and something there punctured the passenger-side tire. It was a financial setback. I had to buy a new tire.
But what it really cost me, was the confidence of all three of my children that I can still take care of myself. They were united in threatening to take away my driver’s license and treat me like an invalid.
It was a bit of an over-reaction to what actually happened. But God has it in for me. The challenges to my continued survival seem to never stop coming. At this writing I have six incurable diseases. Diabetes, hypertension, COPD, arthritis, psoriasis, and an enlarged prostate. On top of that, I am a cancer survivor. Skin cancer, 1983. My father has Parkinson’s and it is severely slowing him down. It is also a disease I am beginning to show symptoms of. God hasn’t killed me yet, but not for a lack of trying.
Personally, I am worried about my own frequent bouts of stupidity more than anything else.
Sure, I have diabetes and not enough income to get insulin thanks to pharmaceutical profiteers (another term for blood-thirsty pirates) But I have learned since 2000 to battle it with proper diet. It has been working. And it still does.
But I can be stupid, too. I hate being left out of restaurant trips to SpringCreek Barbecue or Chili’s. But the temptations to eat myself into a coma is always there right in front of me. My wife always eats food that will kill me and even offers me some. (She is not trying to kill me for my money, though. She knows I am bankrupt. That’s why she has to pay for these little family outings that she invites me to. And there are no huge insurance checks in her future if the mashed potatoes get the better of me.)
Arthritis is hard to live with too. My kids worry that my gas-pedal knee will seize up when I am going 55, or my break-pedal leg will fail to move when I need it to when the inevitable Dallas-area killer grandma is driving beside me in the next lane in her black BMW, thinking seriously about how to kill me and make it look like my fault on the insurance claim. I learned long ago to drive with extreme defensiveness in Texas. But still I can be stupid too. Like when I don’t watch the lane’s squiggles and curves hawkishly like I didn’t do two Sunday nights ago.
So, I have to be less stupid for more of the time. If not… if I die on the road some god-forsaken night, my sons are going to kill me. Even if they have to dig me up again to do it.
AeroQuest 3… Canto 77
Canto 77– Dome Invasion (The Blood-Red Thread)
The arc-welder burned a gaping hole through the lowest level of the underwater dome on Farwind. Water began gushing in before the trooper had finished cutting the hole.
“Won’t this flood the dome?” Ferrari asked through the metal commo dot attached inside his underwater helmet. “Shouldn’t we be finding another way inside?”
“Don’t worry, Commander,” said a trooper in his yellow and blue battle armor, “We will only flood the ground floor to the level of our waists. We’ve successfully done this operation before.”
“Before? You’ve invaded this dome before?”
“Yes, during the last insurrection. It isn’t our fault the civilian government couldn’t hold out against Brona Tang.”
The trooper’s words inspired absolutely no confidence in any of us. We were in this thing way over our heads, and I don’t mean just because we were at the bottom of the sea.
As water rushed inside the dome, the gaping hole was suddenly big enough for armored men to walk through. This we did, single file. The Commander led the way, followed by Duke Ferrari, Ham Aero, six troopers, and then me. The rest of the troops were guarding the rear.
Inside the dome, water was gushing like a series of water-park fountains splashing amok. It looked to me like the water really could rush in and fill the entire dome.
The Commander took off the helmet he wore and pitched it aside. “Tac-Officer! Give me a readout on the enemy positions. Do they have a scan-lock on us yet?”
The man in the suit with all the wires and antennas took off his helmet and began studying a monitor that popped out of his armored chest-plate.
Ferrari stepped forward to consult. “Commander, I think we should find the control room and try to capture this place from its top.”
“You are not a military man. Leave this to us,” snapped the Commander.
“Uh, sir…” The Tac-Officer was pale. “We have a problem.”
The Commander frowned at him. He opened his mouth to say something cruel in the way commanding officers usually do when they hear things they don’t like. Suddenly, we heard ominous sounds all around us. Guns were being cocked and plasma weapons began to hum. Above us, a ring of troopers in black combat armor stood up, training at least a hundred different weapons on our exposed position.
“Does this seem bad to you?” I asked Ham.
Ham had just taken off his diving helmet and now he smiled at the deadly arsenal arrayed against us. “This comes under the general heading of not good, yes.” I noticed he was strikingly handsome when he smiled.
“You gentlemen must surrender immediately,” said one of the black figures surrounding us. “We have orders to kill you all and leave no member of your group alive.”
“It is troublesome how the military mind usually works,” I said. “I suppose this is the end for me.”
“Yes…” said Ham, no longer smiling. “This is not good at all!”
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction, self portrait
Story-Telling for Art Day
Filed under artwork, drawing, humor, illustrations, imagination, Paffooney
The Difference a Day Makes
A second straight half-day of subbing at a middle school has smoothed out my ruffled feathers and damaged teacher-ego. It was, first of all, a different middle school. Blalack has better stewardship and more carefully worked-out standard practices. They handle misbehavior far better and the actual teachers are respected far more. I do not blame yesterday’s teachers or assistant principals. They were doing their jobs as best they could.
But today’s 8th grade Reading Classes were smaller. Twelve to fifteen students rather than almost thirty. They were given routines to follow every day in class that maximized their time on reading tasks and left students with little or no time to think of evil misbehaviors or acting out.
The differences in race, socioeconomic backgrounds, and cultures are practically non-existent. The kids I had a good time teaching today were no different then the ones I hated dealing with yesterday. The differences were all in how each set of kids are treated and managed every day.
So, we had a good day. Practically no student was involved in a reading-related death. No skulls of non-readers collected at the reading-raptor’s feet. Today teaching was fun.
Novel Number Fourteen
Novel #14 is now complete and published. The Norwall Pirates, softball team and liars club, take on an ancient undead Chinese wizard. All of it takes place in small Iowa farm towns during the Bicentennial summer of 1976. But some of the major players in this life-or-death struggle are immortal, and most of them are only high school freshmen, fifteen-years-old and still quite awkward in the face of a dangerous and arcane world full of the difficult problems of growing up.
The novel is called The Boy… Forever. Icarus Jones is a main character like Peter Pan, faced with the possibility of living forever, but never growing older than ten.
For now, I haven’t settled on the next one. But Number 14 is done.
Filed under humor, novel, Paffooney, publishing
AeroQuest 3… Canto 76
Canto 76 –Practicing Practical Practices
Ged had begun to feel at ease with the strange ninja powers he had absorbed by eating the Black Spider Leader while in the form of a dinosaur. He was a master of The Discipline now. Back on Earth in the time before travel between the stars, this Discipline had been known as K’ung Fu. The Black Spider Leader had mastered the jump-kicks of WuShu and the graceful, swift hand-to-hand combat known as Wing Chung. Because the skill had been trained into The Black Spider Leader’s muscle memory, Ged had absorbed it whole, even if he did not have the philosophies that were supposed to go with it. One thing he liked about it, though, was that it allowed him to defeat and overpower an opponent without doing permanent damage. Ged had never loved killing the way Trav Dalgoda loved it. He always preferred the bloodless victory, whether over man or beast. The prey was always to be honored and respected. And the prey was not to be stalked if it was not capable of self-defense.
In the heart of the Celestial Dragon was a large, gym-like room that was perfect for giving students lessons in the art of the Discipline. It had a soft, forgiving floor, plenty of room, and a pair of bathing pools that provided purified water for drinking or bathing. It was in this room which Ged now called the Practice Center that he was trying to impart his skills to Shu Kwai, Junior, Billy Iowa, and Rocket Rogers. The Phoenix and Hassan Parker sat at the side, both cross-legged, watching with great interest.
“The simplest form of this move is a shield, making it an effective block to the offensive strikes I have shown you,” said Ged, demonstrating an arc of the right arm in a circle to his right side.
“You know,” said Phoenix, “Master Bres taught Alec and me a very similar stroke, but it led to a killing strike to the neck or groin.”
Ged looked grimly at the red-haired boy. “I prefer not to attach that sort of thing to this move, if you don’t mind.”
“Oh, I don’t mind. I think I prefer your way,” said Phoenix with a smug grin. “It will prolong the battle and make things much closer. You know, more challenging.”
“It allows you to protect yourself without killing,” reminded Ged. The other boys all looked at him with questioning faces.
“If Alec were here, he’d say it protects you better to end it quickly. Bres would say that the kill is the only worthy goal.”
“I would rather not be compared to Bres, if you don’t mind.”
Phoenix smiled a more genuine smile. “You don’t have to convince me, sensei. You are much better at this than the new Black Spider Leader. It is because your motives are so much purer than his, I think.”
“Thank you.”
Ged allowed Billy Iowa to try an offensive strike. Four times he deflected it easily. The move worked.
“Practice with your partner,” said Ged.
Shu Kwai paired himself with Rocket. Junior squared off with Billy. All four of them were dressed simply in loin covers and tabai boots. Rocket also wore his ever-present cowboy hat. Ged watched bare arms and legs flashing as they worked on the technique. All four boys were distinctly different from each other. Shu’s skin was yellow-orange in the Gaijinese manner. Rocket was a pale peach color like Ged himself. Billy was Indian bronze, while Junior was blue. Still, Ged couldn’t help but marvel at how they meshed together whenever they tried to accomplish the same goal.
“You know,” said Ged, “It is our differences that make us strong as a whole. We are blessed by being different, complementing each other.”
Phoenix laughed. “Is that wisdom, sensei?”
“I hope it is,” said Ged, somewhat sheepishly. It wasn’t easy to tell if he’d really won Phoenix over or not. The boy was more dangerous than the others, his Galtorrian lizard eyes so much harder to read.
Suddenly there was a loud fwooping noise. Two more students appeared in the Practice Center. They were both naked and connected to each other in the most embarrassing way possible. It was a deeply blushing Alec Songh with a writhing, moaning Jadalaqstbr held in his arms.
Ged was a little shocked, to say the least.
“What is going on here?” asked Shu Kwai, immediately incensed at what he saw. Rocket and Billy couldn’t help but giggle. Junior looked on with fascination.
“Ooops!” said Alec. “I guess it’s pretty obvious what is going on.” He pulled away from the girl, trying to cover his embarrassment with his hands. “What I’m wondering is how we ended up here?”
As young Jackie came to her senses again, she couldn’t help but blush deeply also. “I guess I lost control of my power. I’m so sorry, Alec.”
“Hmm,” said Ged. “I believe this is a breakthrough, although I would’ve preferred to find it out a different way.”
“What do you mean, sensei?” asked Shu Kwai.
“Well, we did not know before it was possible for a Psion like Jackie to teleport two people,” said Ged. “We need to know if it can be done again.”
“I’m sorry, sensei,” said Jadalaqstbr. “I was so overpowered by a new experience that I didn’t know what I was doing. My inner eye activated almost by itself.”
“Can you teleport back to the room you were in, get your clothes on, and both come back here again?”
“I don’t know,” said the embarrassed girl. “Do you think we have to be doing the same thing on the way back?”
“Yes!” said Rocket. “Try that again!”
Jackie blushed.
“No,” said Ged. “Hold onto him and try to take him with you.”
The girl gingerly took hold of Alec’s arms again. The fwooping sounded again and the two students were gone as suddenly as they had come.
“Should you have let them go like that?” asked Shu Kwai. “Don’t you think they need to be punished for what they were doing?”
Ged shook his head. Perhaps Shu was right. Still, who was Ged to judge the guilt of others in this area? “We cannot punish them for being humanoid. I will talk with Alec about it, but it is really a thing between their consciences and themselves.”
In a few more moments, the two children reappeared, this time fully clothed from head to toe. It was obvious they had felt quite mortified by their experience. Jadalaqstbr had demonstrated before that teleporting with clothes on was not difficult.
“Before the lectures begin,” said Alec with a frown, “I want to tell you, sensei, that I love her. I am not just defying you. And, Shu, it’s none of your frakking business what Jackie and I do.”
“I love him too, sensei,” said Jadalaqstbr. “He didn’t make me do anything I didn’t want to do.”
Ged nodded. “We need to have a private discussion. This class is dismissed for now.”
The boys all filed away, Alec and Jackie staying behind to face the music. Alec had a look of determined defiance on his face. The music would have to be about birds and bees, and right and wrong. Ged knew what a parent and teacher would have to say in this situation, his mother had once had this discussion with Ham and Ged. It wasn’t going to make things any easier for any of them, though, especially Ged.
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, novel writing, Paffooney
After the Last Novel
I finished a novel this last week. But my health is poor, and there is definitely no guarantee that I will have a chance to complete another. So, what if that was my last novel?
To be clear, I’m okay with whatever comes next. I am not afraid to die. I don’t regret anything I have ever done in my life. And if I have a stroke or a heart attack (myocardial infarction is too funny of a phrase to use here, so don’t read inside the parentheses) tomorrow, I will be satisfied that my life is complete. I have written good books, and I have done good work.
But I do still have novels written in my head. One of the oldest completes the character arc of Milt Morgan (See portrait on the left, and you are allowed to read inside these parentheses.) The story is called The Wizard in his Keep.
It is the story of Milt as an adult, a lonely, unmarried, and unloved man, taking the newly orphaned kids of his childhood friend’s sister and spiriting them away to a secret world, and his friend, Brent Clarke, the FBI agent, Tracking him down to retrieve the Clarke’s kin.
There is also a novel in me about the grown-up adventures of Sherry Cobble-Clarke. It completes her story. She is trying to connect with her new stepson while having to bring her new husband together with her two twin daughters, Tandy and Mandy Clarke.
It is a novel called A Field Guide to Fauns. And it is set entirely in a nudist park.
I am also underway with the third book in the re-write of my sci-fi comedy novel AeroQuest.
But whatever else I can get completed is gravy on the meatloaf that is my literary legacy. Who even knows if anyone cares? But I will do what I can do, and then the best that I can do will be did and done.
Filed under humor, novel, novel plans
Taking to the Air (Saturday Art Post)
Filed under artwork, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney
Hawking Books
My book advertised here is the best book I have that hasn’t gotten a single reader yet. I am trying to promote it by giving out free Kindle e-book copies for free this weekend. That tactic is supposed to generate readers and reviews. So far, two days in, only one free book has been selected by anybody on Facebook, Twitter, or here on WordPress. I mean, even clicking on a free book and then never reading it helps me as a marketer. But I am not getting any of that.
I did better with Recipes for Gingerbread Children, especially the first two days. But I admit, even though it shares a time, parts of a plot, and characters with The Baby Werewolf, it is a better book.
But tying the two books together has no visible effect.
I will, however, keep trying. I have other good books to promote as well as this one. Perhaps people are too afraid of werewolves to buy it, even for free.
Click on this if you’d like a free e-book. Every single one clicked on helps.
Filed under horror writing, humor, novel, novel plans, Paffooney, publishing, Uncategorized
Catch a Falling Star 