Amazingly, I am still not dead. Even though this invisible virus-monster is totally new to our species and we have zero resistance and no vaccination for it, I am in a position now that, with a lot of hard work and even more good luck, I can continue to survive and stay alive.
Of course, there are evil people out there that would love it if those inconvenient poor people would just die out (people like me who spent their lives doing useless stuff like educating the next couple of generations to be people who can read and write by being a teacher). Poor people cost rich people money.
One wealthy governor has kept his State full of beaches (that benefit economically from things like Spring Break and Easter weekend) fully open for business, thus infecting scores of people that go back to home States like Texas (where I live) to spread potential death to people whose cheap-o health insurance (like mine) won’t pay to save your life because that would cut into profits.
One wealthy President has down-played the seriousness of this pandemic up until now. He has been more concerned with suppressing knowledge of how bad it is going to be (because that could sour people in his base from re-electing him in November) rather than preparing in a way that would allow healthcare workers to adequately protect themselves as they treat waves of the infected and dying, and providing more respirators to save those whose infections are suffocating them (which he simply cannot do without limiting corporate profiteering by his super-rich CEO-type buddies).
Maybe those of us who survive this pandemic should see to it that the rich, evil dudes who made this so much harder to survive lose power and profits, and maybe even go to jail for a change.
Canto 84 – The Lords of the Jungle (the Green Thread)
King Killer returned to consciousness in the midst of an elaborately built tree house. His right arm and shoulder were burning with excruciating pain. His vision was somewhat blurry, but he could make out two smiling faces looking at him, neither of which was familiar in any way. The boy was nearly nude, wearing only some kind of fur loin-cover that really wouldn’t have covered anything if he had had anything to cover. His red hair was wild and uncut, something like a lion’s mane with tangles. The woman was dressed in an expensive leather suit, the kind nobles often wore in order to tour the more dangerous parts of resort planets. She was a beauty with large red lips and liquid brown eyes. Her hair was well kept and perfectly arranged in this steamy jungle.
“Who… are you?” King finally spit out.
“I am the former movie star known as Wicked Wanda,” said the woman. “You may have seen me in the holo-epic AllSpaceways Lead to Galtorr, or the romantic comedy The Corsair’s Wife.”
“Um, no.”
“That’s okay. I know my fame and talent haven’t reached all the way to the frontier, yet.”
King looked around. Hooey and Willie Culver were sitting a short distance away, talking to a man in a black robe with a hood over his head. He wanted to get up and go over there so he could kick Hooey in the head for doing this to him.
“What’s wrong with me? Why can’t I get up from here?”
“You have a terrible infection in the wound from the creature’s carnivorous mouth. I’m a pretty good medic as well as a holo-epic star, so I’ve been trying to treat it without antibiotics.”
King looked at the boy. “I guess I owe you my life,” he said soberly. “Thank you.”
“Me Randy,” said the Jungle Boy, pounding his chest with one fist.
“That’s all he can say,” said Wanda. “He was apparently the only one to survive from his crashed spaceship, and the monkey people of this planet raised him.”
“Monkey people?”
“The Lemurians. They live on several jungle planets, or the jungle parts of medium life-belt planets. They have a whole city here in the trees. They built this place. If Admiral Tang knew they were here and rescuing some of the people he maroons here, he’d probably throw a mechanoid fit.”
“Yes, I owe them too. I have to survive this place to get revenge on Tang.”
Wicked Wanda smiled a sinister smile. “Revenge is not a good enough motivation for most people, but I can tell it fits you perfectly.”
“Yeah, I’m a dangerous man.”
“Sure you are.”
“How smart are these Lemurians?”
“Oh, they are very clever. They can’t talk though, unless Oook means something in monkey-talk.”
“You can’t communicate with them?”
“Oh, we can. Slythinus over there can use some kind of telepathy on them.” She pointed at the man in the robe.
“Slythinus? As in Emperor Slythinus?”
“Yeah, that’s him. Mr. Golly Bigdeal is a prisoner here just like the rest of us.”
“How? I mean, he’s still the Emperor, isn’t he?”
“Not really any more…” Wanda looked at him sadly. “There was a coup by some guy called Prince Ali. Slythinus was left here to die while other people took over his empire. I understand the Imperium belongs mostly to Mechanoids and Galtorr-Human Fusions now. That’s how I got here, taking pity on a human leader that had fallen out of favor with his planet. You may have heard of him. You know, Duke Ferrari of the Coventry Sector?”
“I’ve heard the name. Don’t know much about the man, other than the fact that we freed him from a dungeon on the planet White Palm. I guess that’s how Tron’s Pinwheel Corsairs got our behinds handed to us in a basket, payment from the Imperium for freeing the Duke.”
“He’s free? Oh! I love you for that!” Wanda leaned in and planted a big, passionate kiss on King. He was instantly surprised and embarrassed.
“Well, well, well,” said Dr. Hooey. “I see you’ve met your future wife already.”
“I swear, Hooey, I will kill you one day.”
“Oh, no you won’t. I’ve read the proof in one of King Ryan Beowulf’s books about the future.”
“The future?” Wanda was puzzled.
“Oh, yes,” said King sarcastically. “Dr. Hooey here is a Time Knight, and destined to get us all off this planet.”
“Really?” said Wanda, obviously contemplating another thank-you kiss. King found that he hated that idea. “How will we get off?” she asked.
“There’s a certain device hidden in the ruins,” said Hooey.
“What ruins?” asked the robed man, walking up to King also. “I know of none.”
As Slythinus approached, King could see that his Galtorrian lizard eyes were gone. The former Emperor was now blind. “Your monkey friends know,” said Hooey. “Although, I have to wonder why they’ve kept the knowledge from you. It is the way they have gotten from planet to planet, you know.”
Things are not what they seem. Life throws curve balls across the plate ninety percent of the time. Fastballs are rare. And fastballs you can hit are even rarer. But if Life is pitching, who is the batter? Does it change the metaphor and who you are rooting for if the batter is Death?
If you think this means that I am planning on dying because of the Coronavirus pandemic, well, you would be right. Of course, I am always planning for death with every dark thing that bounces down the hopscotch squares of the immediate future. That’s what it means to be a pessimist. No matter what bad thing we are talking about, it will not take ME by surprise. And if I think everything is going to kill me, sooner or later I have to be right… though, hopefully, much later.
I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Childlike faces keep looking at me from the top of the stairs, but when I focus my attention there, they disappear. And I know there are no children in the house anymore since my youngest is now legally an adult. And the chimpanzee that peeked at me from behind the couch in the family room was definitely not there. I swear, it looked exactly like Roddy McDowell from the Planet of the Apes movies, whom I know for a fact to be deceased. So, obviously, it has to be Roddy McDowell’s monkey-ghost. I believe I may have mentioned before that there is a ghost dog in our house. I often catch glimpses of its tail rounding the corner ahead of me when my own dog is definitely behind me. And I am sure I shared the facts before that Parkinson’s sufferers often see partial visions of people and faces (and apparently dogs) that aren’t really there, and that my father suffers from Parkinson’s Disease. So, obviously it is my father and not me that is seeing these things… He’s just using my eyeballs to do it with.
But… and this is absolutely true even if it starts with a butt… the best way to deal with scary possibilities is to laugh at them. Jokes, satire, mockery, and ludicrous hilarity expressed in big words are the proper things to use against the fearful things you cannot change. So, this essay is nothing but a can of mixed nutz. Nutzy nuts. And fortunately, peanut allergies are one incurable and possibly fatal disease I don’t have. One of the few.
This is the updated version of my cover for the novel I am writing. Can you tell? The change is a small one. I have now passed 25,000 words and I’m still chugging along full steam. It is like the story is writing itself. That is usually a good sign. But I reserve the right to be monumentally wrong and fatally stupid. Writing this novel could be a mistake. I never wrote a story with this many naked people in it. And it is not erotica nor pornography. It is about nudists, not sex fiends Like the novel The Baby Werewolf, it talks frankly about nudity and mentions sexuality, but there are no sex scenes in the story. Will readers get the difference? I don’t really know… because I’m stupid sometimes.
But I am thinking way overmuch about the Coronavirus too. Like everybody else sequestered in their homes, manacled by worry, and absorbed in Netflix and Disney Plus.
I am definitely watching too much of the news broadcasts from basements and family rooms as even newscasters, Stephen Colbert, and Jimmy Kimmel are staying at home and social distancing.
It has led me to believe that critical things will happen because of what stupid people will do next. Mardi Gras and Spring Break partiers who refused to listen to recommendations from responsible officials are all bringing viral infections back home to infect their loved ones, and their grand parents whom they must no longer love. The Governor of Florida is refusing to lock down his state, and the Lieutenant Governor of Texas is recommending we open up the economy and let old people like me sacrifice their lives so the stock market goes back up.
The solution will be simple too. Stupid and racist people voted Trump into office. He will get them all into churches for Easter. They will all infect each other, and most of them will die. Trump will not get re-elected because stupidity killed his voting base.
But what do I know? I am sometimes very stupid too.
One of the main things I have been focusing on in my art work is the art of illustration. For example, this is a character illustration for the book The Boy… Forever.
This illustration is also from the book The Boy… Forever. It is a pen-and-ink illustration of a moment in the story when Anita Jones and Sherry Cobble are being held prisoner through mind control by the evil vampire/dragon, Tian Long.
The boy is Tanis, a living mummy from ancient Egypt, kept alive by a horrible process the villain is intending to use on at least one of the imprisoned girls.
This illustration is part of the exposition from my comedy science fiction novel, AeroQuest 3 ; Juggling Planets. It explains about the residents of the planet Djinnistan being genetically engineered humans with bizarre characteristics.
The evil Dr. Havir Bludlust has created these humanoid mutants to aid the human star empire known as the Imperium to make excessive profits from the people they supposedly govern, but actually enslave.
A heroine from AeroQuest 3 One of the dragons from The Boy… Forever.A late-for-class illustration from The Boy… ForeverAnother novel I am working on at present with many illustrations is A Field Guide to Fauns.The rest of these illustrations will be from A Field Guide to Fauns.
The novel takes place in a nudist park where the main characters are mostly year-around residents, it is also the reason why they appear nude in a majority of the illustrations. It is not a book of pornography, however, just as being in a nudist park is about living a sensual, nature-filled life, and not about people having sex. I will not categorize this as a young-adult novel, though it will be tame enough for kids to read.
Devon, the main character, loves to draw. Hence, the illustrations are drawn by him.
This is Devon Martinez’s self-portrait. He tends to draw people as mythological creatures like fauns, satyrs, and nymphs.
He tells the story in first-person narrative. He doesn’t start out as a nudist. But he is thrust into the middle of it because he is forced by a tragedy to move in with his father, stepmother, and twin stepsisters.
They are full-time residents of a nudist park. To live there, he has to get comfortable being naked.
Part of what the story does is define what Devon thinks a faun is and how they should be treated. Hence, the central metaphor introduced in the title.Devon at his job as a handy-man’s assistant.A faun and his stepsister as a nymph.Jose, an example of a satyr. Devon wearing a suit. It is not a 100% nude novel.
Well, I have now paid property taxes for 2019, exhausting all the money I have earned by substitute teaching this school year. I am not broke exactly, but all the money I still have is now already spent. There are more days in almost every month than I have funds to actually pay for them. I am not broke, but I am breaking.
And Washington is debating giving us money to help us make it through trying times. But I don’t anticipate “us” actually includes “me”. “Us” is mostly a matter of rich folks when they use that word in Washington.
But I have been busy. I continue to write away on A Field Guide to Fauns which is basically a book about naked people… specifically about sad naked people and the happy naked people who try to cheer them up. It is about nudists in a nudist park in Texas, I have also been walking the dog, which means bagging poop and yanking on the leash whenever she wants to run out in front of cars and Bubba-trucks and get squished under Bubba’s tires. And I have been talking by phone with relatives in Iowa and Missouri.
The Princess and I, while delivering the tax payment to the drop-box, noticed that Braums’ Ice Cream store had their dining room open for a number of patrons. Most of the food businesses are doing drive-up orders only. But, apparently, somebody has to feed the stupid people of Texas. After all, how else are they gonna spread viruses and kill off all those danged kale-eating liberals and old people?
You have to get rid of us somehow, right? And that “us” definitely includes me, even though I hate kale.
But there is no “normal life” anymore. Was there ever any? I am legitimately asking. I was a teacher my whole life, so I had to get used to “abnormal” and “chaotic” long ago.
We have been isolated and quarantined for 12 days now, and the world around us continues to get weirder and weirder. The dog killed a squirrel in the yard two days ago. We are running out of bread and meat and potatoes thanks to hoarders, and we may need to find alternatives to toilet paper. But as long as we have love, not unlike the dog and cat in the illustration above, we will be alright.
One has to wonder, though, what they are using all that toilet paper for, those hoarders who are apparently eating it in massive quantities to give them more fiber in their diet.
Or, maybe, they know something about the virus that we don’t. Maybe it causes loose bowels and the toilet-paper-consuming condition of Montezuma’s Revenge.
Or maybe there are lots of toilet-paper mummies now roaming the nights looking for pretty girls who resemble dead Egyptian princesses?
Oh, NO!!!!
But with the virus lurking out there, waiting to pounce on me and my weak, diabetes-ravaged immune system, there are some good things about being home-bound and fortified with solitude. For one thing, the girl who had to go see the nurse during that last substitute-teaching job I had did not turn out to have Coronavirus. In fact, it is now past the date by more than two weeks that I would’ve come down with the type of flu she did test positive for. So I don’t have that either.
This is not the girl with the virus. This is a random picture from Twitter.
Since the four of us are basically confined to our rooms for the majority of the day, it is a great time for reading in the nude. I benefit from that because I have psoriasis in places that itch less if kept dry, naked, and in front of the fan, but aren’t exactly safe for public places. And I don’t even have to offend my family with my naked self to do it. I am also pretty sure you are grateful that I didn’t use my own picture to illustrate this goofy notion.
… And by that I mean, of course, a picture of me reading naked.
We have done things together as a family too. Making masked visits to the grocery store or Walmart only to find there is still no toilet paper is one. Using up the gingerbread house kit that didn’t get used at Christmas is another.
And, of course, eating the gingerbread house was also something we did together. The Princess and Number Two Son both ate lion’s shares in order to save me from being weak and eating too much of it myself with my miserable diabetes. I say, “miserable diabetes” not because it is out of control and making me ill or susceptible to comas, but because I get to eat less of things like gingerbread houses, and that makes me miserable.
But the evil, moron, criminal president says that too much quarantine time will make us kill ourselves. So, he intends to end our time in isolation by Easter. We have to go out of the house, spend more money that could end up in his pockets, and get back to work to make the economy stronger so he can be re-elected on a strong economy. Even if we have to sacrifice our lives to the virus to do it. After all, what’s more important? Staying alive longer? Or helping an evil, moron, criminal president get re-elected?
Canto 83 – Star Nomads Revealed (The Silver Thread)
Artran Blastarr, the eight-year-old son of space pirates, and Tiki Astro, the robot-boy, stood holding hands on the docking bay floor next to the somewhat unreliable yet amazingly effective Bill the Postman (Scarpigo Snarcs in his current secret identity).
From the portal opposite, on the far side of the docking bay, three gigantic humanoid figures dressed in metallic armor of some kind emerged.
“Who… who are those?” gasped Artran.
“Those are Star Nomads. If I don’t miss my best guess, it is the Black Knight, the Dark Traveler, and the Magnificent Wanderer,” said Bill.
They slowly approached, each a massive figure in armor that completely covered their entire bodies, completely obscuring even their faces, no matter what race or configuration they actually represented. The Black Knight was all in gleaming black armor with a razor-edged hook for a crest on his faceless helmet. The Dark Traveler was all decked out in metallic green armor. And the Magnificent Wanderer, as Bill pointed out, was armored entirely in gleaming silver.
Drawing close enough to speak, the Magnificent Wanderer’s voice boomed out like a thunderclap on a rainy planet. “So, you have brought us the chosen one, Scarpigo Snarcs.”
“Yes, oh Magnificent One. But please refrain from using my real name in front of those who might not be stupid enough to misremember it.”
“I will never fully understand why demi-humans like this one insist on their comic prevarications the way this one does,” said the Dark Traveler.
“Indeed,” said the Wanderer. The Black Knight remained silent.
“Who is this chosen one?” asked Tiki Astro meekly.
“The human child born on the planet known as Outpost.” The Traveler nodded at Artran.
“Me?” squeaked Artran.
“Of course, you,” said the Wanderer. “We need an authentic discoverer of worlds for our purpose.”
“…And you know the boy thinks that’s the silliest thing he ever heard,” said Bill.
“Of course, he does. We pulled him out of the time stream well before he was ready to set foot on his first planet. Who better to use for the purpose, than the one fated to it?”
“Yes, you are right,” admitted Bill quickly. “You are always right.” Bill rolled his eyes when the Wanderer’s featureless face was turned away.
“So, Tiki and I are supposed to be here? This wasn’t just an accident?”
“The robotic child-construct is fated to be elsewhere. You alone are the chosen one, Artran Blastarr.” The Wanderer pointed his armored finger at Artran’s breastbone.
“No! I won’t go anywhere without my friend Tiki!” Artran began to leak emotion-induced wetness from his childish eyes. Of course, the Star Nomads would never give in to any such emotional nonsense.
“The Metaloid boy belongs to the White Spider,” said the Black Knight in what can only be described as a dark black voice. “He must be there when the critical time comes. The universe decrees it.”
“You can count on me,” said Bill, not actually adding, “because I must be some sort of human abacus.”
“You are not actually human,” said the Wanderer, apparently answering Scarpigo’s thoughts.
“What if I don’t agree to go to this White Spider?” asked Tiki.
“Then we invoke protocol alpha in your programming,” said the Wanderer.
“Oh. Sorry, Artran. I have to be going. It’s a robot thing.”
By this time Artran was beside himself with misery. “Bye, Tiki. I love you.”
The real boy and the robot boy briefly hugged before Bill (Scarpigo) the Postman led Tiki Astro back to the X-boat.
Artran looked up at the Wanderer with tear-filled eyes.
“So, are you gonna eat me now?” he said in a fully resigned voice.
“We no longer consume food of any sort. We will now take you to civilized planets that you will learn about and then give to the newly-formed alliance that is to become the New Star League.”
The Coronavirus Isolation has put a lot of new limitations on our lives. But, I happened to have an unused Gingerbread House kit. So, for Art Day, the Princess and I decided to put it all together with supplies we already had on hand. Here, then, is the Beyer Family Gingerbread House 2020.
The unopened kit that was just sitting in storage.The surprise inside was that the house was already assembled with concrete-like frosting before we even opened it. This is the first Gingerbread House that we have done without having to use tape and Elmer’s Glue.The Princess decided the box did not make a good hat, but the smell inside it was worth the experiment. Most of the supplies were old and not creamy enough for easy spreading.Some of the frosting went on dry and chunky. But some of the piping frosting was the opposite, more runny than a marathon. Mmm… bad pun.
But, it wasn’t a total disaster. We can use our inherent craftiness to rescue it at least a little bit from total wicked-witch-housiness. Though I am sure Hansel and Gretel would still eat it.
And the other side was a little better.And, as always, the leftovers are edible, though not diabetes-friendly.Now, all that’s is left to do is have the artists eat the artwork in very small bites over a lot of time.
Adagio 14 – The Battle of Farwind (the Blood-red Thread)
It was amazing to me how few casualties actually occurred in the capture of a planet like Farwind by a handful of commandos led by a traitor. The Battle of Farwind cost the Imperial Defense Force one traitorous commando commander, six unwilling Imperial loyalists, and fifty-two insanely-programmed Mechanoids. Our side lost no one at all. Ninety-two percent of the Imperial forces on the planet switched sides, preferring the command of the charismatic and humble Duke Han Ferrari to the iron-fisted rule of the maniacal Mechanoid Admiral Brona Tang.
Duke Ferrari quickly established a temporarily-appointed government of both like-minded intellectuals and professionals, and highly intelligent and motivated members of the political opposition. Massive elections were planned and were quickly carried out, but Ferrari rode a wave of popular acclaim into office where they would’ve made him Emperor if he chose, just as George Washington of Earth and Toakenn Ailiannaim of Samothrace had done before him. He took the office of Farwind Executive Prime, and made the popular alien entertainer William Bugbright his Executive Second. Bugbright was not a human-born entertainer of aliens, mind you, but a Kritiian, an insectoid alien, that had the head of a giant praying mantis, four chitinous arms, and could play two ukuleles at once while singing popular human songs in a particularly humorous off-key voice. It is little wonder he was the most popular living entertainer on holographic videos since the Galtorrians first discovered I Love Lucy reruns being broadcast on old-time television signals from the nearby planet Earth. Galtorrians, and even Galtorrian-human fusions, as you probably already know, love the comedy stylings of Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz more than anything else ever used for entertainment on a thousand worlds. Incidentally, did you know that the first Galtorrians to land on Earth were surprised to learn that everything on the planet was not colored only in black and white and shades of gray? They knew about movies and television on their own, but they never actually discovered black and white. Choosing an entertainer as Executive Second was probably the canniest move that Duke Ferrari made in selecting his new rebel government. The Galtorrians and the Galtorrian-Human fusions were all enthralled and easily swayed by entertainers, especially those who could handle humor well. Teachers would never have conquered the Galtorrian Imperium if it hadn’t been for that one factor, humor, and the power of those who are funny.
So, you can see, the conquest of the planet Farwind was easily one of the most confoundingly absurd and easy conquests in recorded history. It was more amazing than Cortez conquering the Aztec civilization because Cortez lost men and had no visible sense of humor in any form that I can see, and I have been there via time machine, though only to watch from the bushes.
Catch a Falling Star 
Nutzy Nuts
Things are not what they seem. Life throws curve balls across the plate ninety percent of the time. Fastballs are rare. And fastballs you can hit are even rarer. But if Life is pitching, who is the batter? Does it change the metaphor and who you are rooting for if the batter is Death?
If you think this means that I am planning on dying because of the Coronavirus pandemic, well, you would be right. Of course, I am always planning for death with every dark thing that bounces down the hopscotch squares of the immediate future. That’s what it means to be a pessimist. No matter what bad thing we are talking about, it will not take ME by surprise. And if I think everything is going to kill me, sooner or later I have to be right… though, hopefully, much later.
I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Childlike faces keep looking at me from the top of the stairs, but when I focus my attention there, they disappear. And I know there are no children in the house anymore since my youngest is now legally an adult. And the chimpanzee that peeked at me from behind the couch in the family room was definitely not there. I swear, it looked exactly like Roddy McDowell from the Planet of the Apes movies, whom I know for a fact to be deceased. So, obviously, it has to be Roddy McDowell’s monkey-ghost. I believe I may have mentioned before that there is a ghost dog in our house. I often catch glimpses of its tail rounding the corner ahead of me when my own dog is definitely behind me. And I am sure I shared the facts before that Parkinson’s sufferers often see partial visions of people and faces (and apparently dogs) that aren’t really there, and that my father suffers from Parkinson’s Disease. So, obviously it is my father and not me that is seeing these things… He’s just using my eyeballs to do it with.
But… and this is absolutely true even if it starts with a butt… the best way to deal with scary possibilities is to laugh at them. Jokes, satire, mockery, and ludicrous hilarity expressed in big words are the proper things to use against the fearful things you cannot change. So, this essay is nothing but a can of mixed nutz. Nutzy nuts. And fortunately, peanut allergies are one incurable and possibly fatal disease I don’t have. One of the few.
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