I don’t need to tell you what I really think about Trump, because I don’t use language that bad in public, and because cartoons capture what I think better than anything else does (except maybe the Mueller investigation… hopefully that captures Trump’s antics better.
It is really hard to believe all the fascist Shiite that is going on.
Filed under angry rant, cartoon review, cartoons, feeling sorry for myself, humor, politics
Adagio 2 – Nebulons
I am one of the few Scientist/Historians ever to make a thorough examination of Nebulon physiology and culture. It helped that I lived with some of them for a while, even helping to raise a couple of very young ones. And unlike the cross-bred lizard-Russian-Galtorrian-Human idiots who were the superior authority and dominant race of the Galtorr Imperium, I didn’t try to belittle them as mere “Space Smurfs” and take their existence as a joke. As a participant in the destruction of the Galtorr Imperium and the rise of the New Star League, I, Googol Marou, can speak with some authority on the subject of Nebulons.
Suffice it to say, the present shape of the Milky Way Civilization in the Orion Spur owes much to the nature of Space Smurfs. They were critical to the Imperial defeat and the unification of the New Stars. You will see more of that in this history, well, unless I inadvertently forget to tell you that part. I have been known to get a bit absent-minded when my mind is on superior matters of science, or the baking of pies. But I have to admit to my great shame, that I, like most Imperials, was prejudiced against the Nebulons at the start. We thought them in many ways inferior because of their living technologies and small stature. What we didn’t realize is that their neotyny, their child-like physical make-up, was evidence that they were indeed more advanced than we in an evolutionary sense. They were also environmentally friendly, living in symbiotic peace with their living technology. Instead of exploiting worlds, as the humans and Galtorrians had done, they created new living environments.
Now, my genetic inquiries proved that Nebulons were practically identical to Earthers. They were capable of interbreeding with us without genetic manipulations. That makes them more like us than a Galtorrian, even a crossbred Galtorrian/Human fusion. They also possessed a few advantages we didn’t have. The copper-sulfate-based pigments in their skins were originally caused by diet and exposure to nebula radiation. It gave them immunity to radiation that was deadly to any other humanoid. The bright yellow hair was apparently also due to exotic radiation exposure over centuries. I formed a theory that Nebulons may have originated on Earth and evolved as they explored deep space, beyond the known stars of the Thousand Worlds.
Now, as to their culture, they center it around living organisms that function symbiotically. Their spaceships are the Great Nebula Space Whales, those strange fish-shaped balloon-beings that apparently bred in the depths of mighty gas giant planets and migrated to the gaseous clouds of nebula space. They are much the same size as an Imperial Dreadnaught, and can easily support 500,000 Nebulons in their oxygenated inner chambers. They even have spaces in their heads where the Nebulon pilots can live and function, tickling nerve endings to get the space behemoths to fold space and jump light years in an instant. Manipulating jump space is the same whether you do it with a massive photon drive, or the natural glands of a space whale. It is a matter of using gravity to fold space at a weak point in the fabric of space, making a worm-hole to another part of space, usually no more than six parsecs distant (for those who are math-challenged, that means about nineteen and a half light years), and coming out of jump space at the end of a spider web-like trail that litters space with the cobwebs of interstellar travel.
Nebulons also make clothing of living tissue that keeps the body it surrounds at the proper temperature, and absorbs and digests all dirt, sweat, and dead skin cells. Nebulon clothing is self-cleaning! It also grows with the young to avoid the need for ever changing it. I can’t wear Nebulon cloth without cringing, because I know what it really is, but I am told that if you get used to it, it is like a perfect second skin.
Nebulons exhibit a child-like love for life, treasuring each others’ presence and having fun almost all the time. I have come to find them truly endearing. They rarely go to war with each other, and have to be seriously goaded into fighting by any potential enemy. It turns out that it is a sad thing that we can’t all be more like Nebulons. And to think we wasted all those centuries despising them for their differences!
Mickey, you iz now Sixtity-Won. You iz lookin’ kinder old an tired. Mebbe you iz needin’ to take a nap!’
I am indeed 61 today. I was born in a blizzard in Mason City Iowa’s Mercy Hospital on a cold November night when Ike was the president. I saw the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show on Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich’s black and white TV in the 1960’s. I also saw John Kennedy’s funeral procession in 1963 on the same TV. I saw the first man to step on the Moon in the Summer of 1969 on our old Motorola black and white TV at home in Rowan, Iowa even though we had to basically stay up all night to do it. Practically no one I knew got any sleep at all that night. I started seventh grade that fall. The first time I ever kissed a girl was behind the Rowan Grade School building. I won’t embarrass her by telling you her name. I think she avoided me for the rest of the time we were in school, and maybe even hated me. But I still remember her fondly even though that whole thing did not go as planned.
This isn’t her.
I played football for the Belmond Broncos in high school. I got my brains knocked out as a sophomore and quit football my junior year. I fell short of earning a letter jacket by one year’s worth of sports participation. I graduated in 1975. We had an outdoor ceremony planned for graduation. As I walking Julie F. out to the football stadium in our caps and gowns (paired by height… what can I say? I was short.) it started to rain. Not mere sprinkles, but a downpour, a run-for-your-life, drown-your-uncle-under-the-bleachers sort of downpour. We had to shift the ceremony to the auditorium. My grand parents had to watch on a video feed in the library with all the other soaked relatives. Our parents smelled like a herd of wet cats in the auditorium.
This isn’t her either.
I went to Iowa State University (Cow College, so named for the beauty of the women there) in the middle seventies. I got to draw seven different naked women there. (It was an anatomy drawing class and I also had to draw naked young men, though I think there were less of them, but I wasn’t keeping count). I voted for the first time, helping to elect Jimmy Carter as President in 1976. At the bicentennial parade in Rowan, the first girl I ever kissed was on the other side of the street, but somehow our eyes never met. In 1979 I graduated with honors and a degree in English. Rather than becoming an unemployable bum, I went to graduate school in Iowa City at the University of Iowa. I drew a couple more nude women there and got a remedial Master’s degree in English Education along with a teaching certificate.
My parents moved to Texas while I was in Iowa City. I found out where they moved to near Austin, and went to get a teaching job in Texas.
Ruben, Fabian, Javier, Emmit, Sonia, and Teresa, in case you were wondering.
I found a job teaching 8th graders in Cotulla, Texas. I had my life threatened once the first year and nearly quit. I decided I would not leave in defeat. So I stuck it out and taught there for 23 years. I was teaching the day we learned the Challenger blew up and NASA killed the first teacher in space. I was also teaching there the day we found out about the events of 9-11. But not everything about teaching was a disaster. I learned an awful lot. I fell in love with a lot of students (but only in the legal sense). I shared my love of Mark Twain, William Shakespeare, and the writing process with them. At least one or two of them actually listened during 31 years of teaching.
I got married to another teacher in 1995. My oldest son was born later that year. All three of my kids were born while we were teaching in Cotulla.
We moved to the Dallas area in 2004. I lost my first city teaching job because the Wicked Witch of Creek Valley wanted to protect education from fools like me. (I was rated as a master teacher both before and after that year by many different principals. That year I got zeros on my evaluation from only one principal. I must have only been stupid and incompetent for one year.) I went on to teach Reading and then English to English Language Learners in high school in the Garland district until I retired in 2014.
Now I am a writer and an Uber driver, neither of which conditions has proven to be fatal so far. So, I guess, in 61 years of life I have managed to earn every gray hair on my head. I have lived a good life. Robin Williams only got 61 years of life. I can’t claim to deserve more than him. But if it all ends tomorrow, I have no regrets. Happy birthday to me.
“Nappy berfday! Old Mickey! You iz reelie, reelie old! And der storry of yer life iz reelie, reelie boooring!”
Sorry. I guess I’ll have to do better in the next life.
Filed under artwork, autobiography, humor, Paffooney
And God said, “This world I have created is good. It is very good. In fact, it is too good. We must balance the good with evil.”
Then God took a ball of elephant dung and created Republicans.
“You see, beloved ones, if the world is too good,” said God, “Then when I get full of wrath, there will be no one to smite. You don’t want me too full of wrath. I may pop like an overfilled balloon. So someone needs to get struck by lightning to let off some of the pressure that has built up through the hard work of being God.”
So God took up a ball of old chicken guts and created Democrats.
“Why do you always seem to let the evil ones get away with lying and deceit?” a prophet dared to ask. “They cheat and steal and become wealthy, and then use that wealth to cover over their crimes, yet you do not smite them with lightning bolts?”
God threw a bolt of lightning and incinerated the prophet.
“I did say in the Bible somewhere that God helps those who help themselves. I’m sure I remembered to put that in there somewhere. God doesn’t make mistakes. Or if He does, they are perfect mistakes.”
“So you authorize the wealthy, who became wealthy by exploiting others, to commit further acts of exploitation until they virtually control the government and say that any crime is not a crime because they are now in charge of making the laws and deciding the consequences?” asked another brave but stupid prophet.
God immediately sent a plague of locusts to eat the prophet’s flesh down to the bone.
“The Bible says that all governments are put in place by God. No government exists except with my approval. If I don’t like them, I will remove them. So if the government of the United States is to be run by my evil Republican creations, I merely have to create a lot of very stupid citizens who will vote to give everything to the rich and exploit everyone else, including those who basically voted against their own best interests.”
Another rather stupid prophet got up to ask a question of God. He raised one finger, opened his mouth, and was immediately turned into a pillar of salt.
“I have anticipated your question. I do have a plan for mankind. Remember the Greek myth of Sisyphus? That old Greek idiot who has to labor for eternity rolling a heavy rock up a hill, and just as he almost reaches the top, it rolls back down on top of him and he has to start over at the bottom of the hill? That is a metaphor for all human life and accomplishment. Income inequality becomes a heavier and heavier burden as you near the goal of getting rid of it. You have a Great Depression, then FDR comes along to fix things and help common people. Then Reagan takes over with “trickle-down economics” and rolls you all back to the bottom of the hill. It ends in Junior Bush’s Great Recession of ’08. Obama comes along to fix that. Then, in a sudden political reversal, the party of pure evil takes over again. Back to the bottom of the hill we go.”
And so, no further prophet got up to speak. It was not because prophets had gotten any smarter. No, it was because there were no prophets left.
Filed under angry rant, cartoons, feeling sorry for myself, humor, irony, metaphor, politics, satire, villains
I like to think that I am different than other readers, that the quirky, insane way I practice reading makes me somehow unique and individual. But if you have read very much of my goofy little blog, you probably realize already that I am a deeply deluded idiot most of the time. So let me explain a little about how I go about reading.
I only spend about an hour a day reading this novel, but I am totally immersed in it. I am living inside that book, remembering the characters as real people and talking to them like old friends. I tried to read that book before and couldn’t make progress because I like so much to listen to Keillor tell stories on A Prairie Home Companion on the radio and it just wasn’t the same entirely in print. When he tells a story, he pauses a lot. In fact, that moment when he stops to let you reflect on what he just said is critical to the humor because you have to stop and savor the delicious irony of the scene. His pauses are funnier than the words. Man, if he just stood there and didn’t talk at all, you would probably die laughing from it. So, in order to get into the book, I had to read it with Garrison’s voice in my head, pausing frequently the way he does. Now the stories of Clarence Bunsen and Pastor Inqvist break me up all over again. I will soon acquire and read everything he has ever written. I truly love Garrison Keillor.
So there is a description of how strange a practicing reader I am. Think about how you read. Is the NSA watching you too? Do you ever read two books at the same time? Do you read everything and anything in front of you? If you are self-reflective at all, even if you are not pathological about it the way Mickey is, you may well decide that as strange as my reading habits are, they are probably normal compared to yours.
Canto 3 – A Game of “Bridge”
When Ged and Trav reached the bridge of the Leaping Shadowcat, Tron’s angry face already filled the view screen. Next to him stood the flame-haired beauty known as Maggie the Knife with one hand protectively shielding their small son, Artran.
“So! Ged and Ham both? How could you both be so stupid as to take up with that worthless clown?” growled Tron in a gravelly voice. His somewhat handsome face was marred not only by anger, but by a hideous laser scar that ran from the top of the left side of his forehead, through the eye socket of his artificial left eye, down to the left side of his lantern jaw.
“Tron,” said Ged as diplomatically as he could manage, “You know me. You know I would never take up with a swindler and a pirate like Trav willingly. You must also know that I have troubles of my own about now. If you leave us in peace, I can promise Trav’s presence aboard this ship will result in banishment for him. You will never see his face in Imperial Space again.”
“Ged, I respect you more than any other space man I know. Your word is good, and you never lie. I wish your worthless brother and I both had your integrity. We’d be kings among men. But Goofy stole a priceless treasure from us and both Slimeball Harris and Blue Death Jones just died trying to get it back. Both of their corsairs were destroyed by that rotten space barge Goofy was flying.”
“You’re moaning about Slimeball and Old Blue?” asked Trav in an incredulous voice.
“Well, those corsair ships were very valuable!” growled Tron.
“Oh,” replied Trav. “Sorry.”
“What if we give you the treasure, Tron?” asked Ham.
“No!” cried Trav. “You have to let me explain that to you in private, first!”
“Yes,” growled Tron. “Give me the blue metal box and the Nebulon slave girl. You can keep the rest. And you can keep Goofy forever, for all I care.”
“Now, wait!” interrupted Ged. “Slavery is just plain wrong.”
“Yes,” said Tron, “but this one is a princess among the Space Smurfs. She is the first daughter to the Sinjarac Warlord, whatever that means. We’re not just talking slave here, but a potentially valuable hostage for the Imperial Space Navy. They would pay well to get their hands on her.”
“Why a hostage?” asked Ham.
“You didn’t see the Imperial Scout Data we intercepted,” said Maggie softly in a musical voice. “A coreward border war has erupted between a huge convoy of Nebulons in their Space-Whale Cruisers and the Galtorr Imperium. Nobody in the Imperium seems to know why, but there is a massive migration of Space Smurfs going on just beyond the Imperial Border.”
“You can’t have the girl,” said Ged. “I’d be happy to give you the box, though.”
“No!” protested Trav. “You don’t know what’s in it!”
“What is in it?” Ged asked Trav. His eyes narrowed.
Trav blushed furiously.
“You have to give us what we want.” Tron seemed too confident. “We have corsairs blocking every jump route back into known space. Soon we’ll have a hundred of them here ready to board your crappy little safari ship.”
“Yes,” said Maggie prettily. “We will take the treasure anyway and you’ll all be skinned alive with a dull knife.”
“Oh, great,” said Ged.
“Are you ready with our little surprise?” Trav asked Ham.
“It’s plotted in the nav computer,” Ham answered.
“It’s time to hit it, then.”
Ham leaped into the pilot’s seat and slammed down on the jump button. The jump into lightspeed-plus was jarring. Space began to fold around the ship. The surprised faces of Tron and Maggie the Knife faded away into white static, soon replaced by a red-and-blue-shifting starfield in jump space.
“What have you done?” Ged asked Ham with shock on his face.
“You didn’t think I would start this leap of faith without at least one jump already planned and programmed?”
“Trav?” asked Ged.
“Oh, yes. I plotted a course to a planet almost nobody has ever heard of. It’s a place with the silly name of Don’t Go Here.”
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, pen and ink paffoonies, science fiction
I often go back and re-read old posts, particularly when I discover that someone else has read them. It is amazing to me how differently I perceive things from when I actually wrote the post. As you write, squeezing huge, boulder-sized portions of hot, magma-like burning ideas and passions out through writing orifices not nearly big enough to accommodate, you usually hate what you wrote and are still writhing in pain from the creation of it as you try to edit it, trim it and brush its unruly hair. (How’s that for a mixed metaphor to make you cringe?) But given time and distance, you can really appreciate what you wrote more than ever before. Things that you thought were the stupidest idea a man ever put in words suddenly have the power to make you laugh, or make you cry. You are able to feel the things the writing was intended to make you feel. You begin to think things like, “Maybe you are not the worst writer that ever lived, and maybe that’s not why nobody ever reads your books.” But then, of course, your sister reads the post and tells you that you write like a really old, really crabby, really ancient old man. And you use the word “really” too much too. I know I deserve that, Sis. Especially the “really” part.
Here’s a post that I reread and liked today about Bob Ross.
This is the thing about happiness; It is elusive and rare as a real-life blue bird. But capturing it for a moment is not impossible. And as long as you don’t try to salt its tail and keep it prisoner, you can encourage it to sing for you. (Much better metaphor this time, don’t you think?) 
When I am accused of being gloomy, old, and boring, I can happily admit it and make it into something funny. I am something of a conspiracy nut, but not so serious that I believe all my own assertions. For those people who took offense at this conspiracy theory of mine; Coca-Cola Mind Control, I would like to point out that “Hey, I was joking. I actually like clowns.” Even though there is a serious side to everything and there can’t be laughter without some tears, I am basically happy with the way things are.
I started listening to “Live Happy Radio” on Sunday mornings on KLUV in Dallas. They point out on their program of endlessly droning happy-talk that happiness is something that you can work at. Like humor writing in blogs, it takes practice and practice and time. They even asked me to share the word about their happy magazine and products, so I am doing exactly that right here. Sometimes you simply have to put your cynicism in a jar on the shelf next to the lock box where you keep depression and self-loathing. So you can find their Live-Happy folderol right here.
So I am bird-watching again with an eye out for the bluebird. You know the one. It is out there somewhere. And I need to hear that song one more time.
Filed under artwork, goofy thoughts, happiness, humor, insight, inspiration, irony, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Part of the Traveller Role-Playing Game is dealing with alien races. So, as a game master for the Traveller Adventures back in the 1980’s, I had the opportunity to create alien races of my own. Truthfully, the alien Telleron race that I created for the novel Catch a Falling Star already existed in my cartoons and fiction stories before I began playing the role-playing game. The Nebulon Race, however, was invented entirely for the game. Only later did they become a part of my fiction.
So, what are Nebulons? Gyro Sinjarac on the left in the picture is an example from Aeroquest of a Nebulon. They are aliens who are human in every respect except for their blue skin. Interestingly they can even successfully interbreed with Earther humans. This is apparently due to either the evolution of Nebulons from Earther explorers, or, more likely, the galaxy being seeded with Earth humans and Earther DNA by the mysterious alien race known only as “the Ancients”. What is not debatable is that Nebulons have unique skin. The blue skin with high levels of natural copper sulfate in it has evolved as a protection from interstellar nebula radiation. No one who has learned their language and studied their culture has ever identified a planet of origin. Instead, the Nebulons have been a space-born race since humans first encountered them, travelling in their symbiotic space-whale space cruisers. They are a mysterious deep-space race of alien beings who use organic symbiotes, in other words, living creatures, as their pervasive technology.
Junior Aero makes an excellent example to use to explain what Nebulons are. You can see by this picture that not only does he possess the Nebulon blue skin, but also the bright yellow hair, the red heat-transfer cheek organs, and the small stature that makes them easily satirized as “Space Smurfs” in honor of Peyo’s beloved blue comic characters.
The Nebulons as a race are often cited as evidence of the evolutionary trend of intelligent races towards neoteny, the retention of childlike features into maturity and adulthood. Even the oldest and the most physically fit of the adult Nebulon population resemble children and young teenagers rather than Arnold-Schwarzenegger-like humans. But believing them to be soft and weak like children is a mistake that often yields tragedy for those who contend against them, especially in battle. The Nebulons have often fought in space wars like the 5th Unification War, both for and against the human-led Imperium.
But the Nebulons are not automatically at odds with humanoid races in any way. They are generally happy in demeanor and temperament, easily befriending other races, even the snake-eyed Galtorrian humans that tend to dominate the Imperium. They seem to be particularly fond of Pan-Galactican Space Cowboys, having helped them during the border conflicts with the mysterious race known as the Faceless Horde.
So, there is a glop of information about an alien race from my science-fiction comedy writing that you can sort out as you like, and can probably learn from as a science fiction writer yourself. They are probably an excellent example of what not to do when creating a science-fiction-style alien race of your own.
Filed under aliens, Dungeons and Dragons, humor, illustrations, Paffooney, science fiction
If you are wondering, “How in the Heck can Mickey write nonsense like that essay he wrote yesterday?”, then please be aware that Mickey is pondering that same question.
Seriously, why would a writer publish personal thoughts and allude to personal tragedies? Especially when they are about things that once upon a time nearly killed him? (Please note that when Mickey starts a sentence with “Seriously” it is probably about to lead to a joke, the same way as when Trump says, “Believe me” we should assume he is telling a lie and knows it.)
The answer is simply, writers write stuff. They have to. If they didn’t, they wouldn’t be writers.
It is really not something to do to earn fame and fortune. Fame and fortune happen to rare individuals like J. K. Rowling and Steven King… and even Stephanie Meyer, to prove that it is totally random and not based on actual writing talent… except for sometimes.
You write to get your head right about bad things that happen in life. You find that factor in Mark Twain whose infant son died, as well as most of the rest of his family, before him, forcing him to face survivor’s guilt and the notion that life is random and death does not come for you based on any kind of merit system. Charles Dickens wrote about the foibles of his father, on whom he based the David Copperfield character Wilkins Micawber, a man who was overly optimistic and constantly landing in debtor’s prison because of it. He also wrote in his stories about the women he truly loved (who were not, it seems, his wife) one of whom died in his arms while yet a teenager. Dickens’ amused take on the innate foolishness of mankind gave him a chance to powerfully depict great tragedies both large (as in a Tale of Two Cities) and small (as in Oliver Twist). I wrote yesterday’s post based on the connection between the nudity I write about in novels and my own traumatic assault when I was only ten.
You write because you have wisdom, an inner personal truth, that you are convinced needs to be crystallized in words and written down on paper. It isn’t necessarily real truth. Lots of idiots write things and post them in newspapers, blogs, and even books. And it is often true that their inner personal truth is complete hogwash. (But, hey, at least the hogs are cleaner that way.) Still, your wisdom is your own, and it is true for you even if some idiot like Mickey reads it and thinks it is only fit for cleaning hogs.
And you truly do have to write. If I did not write my stupid, worthless novels, all the hundreds of characters in my head would get mad and start kicking the pillars that hold up the structures in my head. I do have structures in my head. My mind is organized in boxes that contain specifically sorted ideas and stories and notions. It is not a festering stew pot where everything is mixed together and either bubbling or boiling with hot places or coagulating in the cold corners. (That is how I picture Donald Trump’s mind. It is certainly not an empty desert like many people think, because deserts don’t explode all over Twitter early in the morning like the stew pot metaphor obviously would.)
And so, I have done it again. I have set down my 500+ words for today and made a complete fool of myself. And why do I do it? Because Mickey is a writer, and so, Mickey writes stuff.
Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, humor, insight, irony, Mark Twain, Mickey, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom, writing humor
Catch a Falling Star 
I Love to Laugh
“Mickey, why can’t you be more serious the way smart people are?”
“Well, now, my dear, I think I take humor very seriously.”
“How can you say that? You never seem to be serious for more than a few seconds in a row.”
“I can say it in a high, squeaky, falsetto voice so I sound like Mickey Mouse.”
“You know that’s not what I mean.”
“I can also burp it… well, maybe not so much since I was in junior high.”
“I distinctly remember getting in trouble in Mrs. Mennenga’s third grade class in school for pantomiming pulling my beating heart out of my chest and accidentally dropping it on the floor. She lectured me about being more studious. But I made Alicia sitting in the row beside me laugh. It was all worth it. And the teacher was right. I don’t remember anything from the lesson on adding fractions we were supposed to be doing. But I remember that laugh. It is one precious piece of the golden treasure I put in the treasure chest of memories I keep stored in my heart.”
“I always listened to the words Groucho Marx was saying, even though he said them awfully fast and sneaky-like. I listened to the words. Other characters didn’t seem to listen to him. He didn’t seem to listen to them. Yet, how could he respond like he did if he really wasn’t listening? In his answers were always golden bits of wisdom. Other people laughed at his jokes when the laugh track told them to. I laughed when I understood the wisdom.”
“Laughing is a way of showing understanding. Laughing is a way of making yourself feel good. Laughing is good for your brain and your heart and your soul. So, I want to laugh more. I need to laugh more. I love to laugh.”
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Filed under autobiography, comedians, commentary, goofiness, goofy thoughts, humor, irony, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom
Tagged as Ed Wynn, Groucho Marx, Moe Howard