What the heck is that on her head? A furry giant spider? A super-poofy hairdo? Or is she practicing being a cheerleader with mop heads for pom-poms?
Since I was a child, my world has revolved around telling a story. Whether it is a matter of telling a joke, or telling what happened when the rooster attacked my girl cousin when she was a small child and then the hired man on my uncle’s farm killed that rooster with a shotgun blast that made us all jump and turned the rooster in a cloud of feathers and chicken vapor, or making up stories about the secret underground river we could access through Grandpa and Grandma’s cellar, I was always practicing making other people see in their imagination what was playing in the theater of my little mind.
And long about the time I started going to school, I added to my storytelling an ability to draw pictures of the things I was telling about.
So, now that I am older than the oldest donkey that ever lived, I have to take a moment or two to reflect on where those abilities have taken me.
Well, I am not a millionaire like Stephen King.
In fact, it would take me more than a million dollars to be a millionaire because that’s how debt and credit cards and Bank-o Merricka work.
But I have wealth in other ways.
This is a review on the… well, not the first novel I ever finished, There was that awful pirates-meet-demons-and-fairies thing that is too embarrassing to even talk about. And not the first novel I published. I published Aeroquest, Catch a Falling Star, Star Dancers and Space Lizards, and Snow Babies before it. It’s not the worst novel I ever wrote. And it certainly isn’t my best novel. But it is the first novel about the Norwall Pirates, liats’ club and softball team.
And apparently at least one reader liked it five stars worth.
But it also proves that even what is clearly not my best storytelling work is capable of being read and liked by intelligent readers. That is a kind of treasure.
And this blog is doing well too. This is my 168th straight days with at least one blog post. And before I published this, my blog had 188 views just today, while averaging well over 100 views per day this week.
So, as Mickey writes, he continues to operate under the delusion that he is a good writer. And maybe, just maybe… he’s not the only one who thinks so.
My proudest achievement of my thirty-one year years as a public school teacher was the fact that I survived my whole first year. That doesn’t sound like much to you unless you are a teacher. But it sounds even more amazing if you knew what South Texas junior high schools were like in 1981. I mean, my school, Frank Newman Junior High had practically been destroyed the year before I started teaching there by the seventh graders I would be teaching as eighth graders.
You see some of my favorites in the painting I did during my third year as a teacher. From front to back they are Dottie, Teresa, Ruben, Fabian, and Javier. Of course, in these essays about being a teacher, I usually don’t use real names to protect the privacy of my former students, both the innocent and the guilty. So, I leave it to you to decide whether, even though I love these kids, those aren’t probably their real names. Unless… they are.
But not all Texas eighth graders are loveable people. In fact, they are hard on first-year rookie teachers. Especially the ones with a Midwestern faith that they can step in and change the world with their idealistically pure and golden teaching methods. Those teachers they will try to eat alive.
I followed the seventh grade English teacher in the same classroom with the same kids. They made her scream daily, had classroom fist fights weekly, exploded firecrackers under her chair twice during the year, and made her run away to the San Antonio airport and leave teaching behind forever. As ninth graders, they made their English I teacher leave teaching forever even though she was a three-year veteran. And believe me, they tried to do the same to me.
I foiled them constantly by being an on-your-feet-all-day teacher rather than a sit-behind-the-desk-and-yell teacher like my predecessor. After I had a chance to sit during planning period, I always had to clean thumbtacks, tape, and smeared chocolate bars off the seat of my little wooden teacher chair. Paper airplanes were the least gross things that flew through the air. Boogers, spit-wads, spit-wet pieces of chalk, and brown things you had to hope were chewed chocolate flew constantly whenever you had your back turned to them. And if there was only one kid behind you and you turned on him and asked pointedly, “Who threw that?” The kid, of course, saw nothing, has no idea, you can torture him, and he still won’t know anything because you are a lousy teacher and didn’t make him learn anything.
And lessons were mostly about talking over the malevolent tongue-wigglers. They didn’t listen. Not even to each other. One kid would be talking about monster trucks that shoot fire out of their exhaust pipes while the kid next to him was talking at the same time about whether Flipper is properly called a dolphin or a porpoise, or like his older brother says, “a giant penis-fish.” And the girls behind them are actually hearing each other, but only because they are speculating which boy in the classroom has the cutest butt.
I broke up three fights by myself that year, one of which I got slugged in the back of the head by the aggressor during, teaching me to always get between them facing the aggressor and never being wrong about who the aggressor is.
They don’t let you do much teaching at all your first year. They force you to practice discipline by keeping them all seated at the same time with their books open in front of them. “I don’t do literature,” Ernie Lozano told me. Well, to be accurate, none of them actually did literature that year. But they taught me to survive long enough to learn how to actually teach them something.
On the last day of school that year we gave them all extended time on the playground, using the outdoor basketball court to keep them occupied for long enough for a terrible school year to finally run its course. They didn’t set the school on fire that year. They didn’t break into the office that year and steal all the cash. We did well enough at keeping them under control that year that I got rehired and our principal got promoted to high school principal. I had a decision to make that year. Would I keep teaching? Or find another job? Sixty percent of all first-year teachers in Texas in 1982 quit teaching. I only earned $11,000 that year. Did I really want to continue down that dark path for another school year?
Ruben walked up to stand beside me and watch the bigger eighth graders foul each other on the basketball court. “You know, Mr. Beyer, you were my favorite teacher this year.”
“Thank you, Ruben. I needed to hear that.” I bit my lip to keep from crying.
That was when I made the decision. I stuck it out in that same school and district for the next 23 years. I became the head of the Cotulla Middle School English Department. I moved to the Dallas area for family reasons in 2004, but I would teach for eight more years in two more districts and in three more schools. But all of that is Ruben’s fault. Because that was the most important thing anyone ever said to me as a teacher. And I did hear it more than once. But he was the first.
Softball was a summer thing that boys had to do. There really was no choice in the matter. 4-H Clubs were part of how boys became men and girls became ladies in small Iowa farm towns. And, of course, in order for small town like Norwall to have enough members to have their own separate 4-H Club, they needed every boy in the whole town, and all the surrounding farmland to join. And worse, in order to field a softball team, in the 1990’s, you had to let the girls play too.
“Bobby, I’m glad you remembered your glove. You will take right field and we’ll let Blueberry be our bench tonight.” Tom Kellogg was Tim’s Grandpa and the coach of the team. He’d been involved in 4-H for more than 30 years. What he said always goes. And, anyway, right field was where you always played your weakest players. It was the one place Bobby was most suited to be during the game.
“Right coach. Did Blueberry forget her glove?”
“No. She always remembers. I just think it’s your turn to get the playing time this week.”
“Thanks, coach,” he said totally without enthusiasm.
“Hey, Bedwetter Bobby! Good to see you in the line-up again,” Frosty Anderson said with a wicked, sneering laugh. Old Forrest Woodley Anderson played short stop like a pro. He was actually on the Belle City Broncos High School Baseball team too that summer.
“You owe us a home run this season,” said Tim Kellogg. Tim played catcher. He was the leader of the Pirates and basically the boss of every high school and junior high kid in Norwall. He was referring to the fact that last summer, Bobby had let a fly ball drop in front of him and then roll past him out to the road behind the softball field. It had been a home run for Delwyn Marmoody of Clarion, playing for the Lincoln Leaders of the Clarion 4-H Club. And Delwyn was a runty little loser who only played softball as a sport, nothing else, and had only hit that one home run in his whole entire lifetime. That home run.
Bobby was supposed to hit the only home run of his whole entire lifetime this season to make up for it. His error had been the reason for all three runs that the Leaders had beaten the Pirates by in what was supposedly a very important game.
And now Mike Murphy was walking out to the mound where he would pitch his famous “Wicked Windmill” underhanded fastballs and try to make it impossible for the Leaders to hit one out into the right field again this year. Billy Martin was out in the outfield too. And he was good at catching practically anything hit into left or center field. He played both positions in softball. He was the varsity baseball left-fielder for the Belle City Broncos, and definitely good enough to play two positions at once in 4-H.
Bobby trotted out to the lonely grass of deep right field. Nothing was going to get past him this year. Especially if no one hit it to right field.
And nobody did in the first inning.
Mike whiffed two of the three Lincoln Leaders he faced in the top of the inning. And the other one, Leroy Watson, the blond Apollo of Clarion High School, tried to beat out a bunt, and Dilsey Murphy, Mike’s older sister, and a girl playing third base. threw him out by five feet.
Then it was time for the Pirates to take to the plate. Johnny Miller, a farm kid from the country East of Norwall, but who went to Dows High School instead of Belle City, led off with an out. Dilsey, the third baseman but second hitter, was thrown out at first.
Next, Mike Murphy was up. He took his big blue bat up to the plate. It was a twenty-ounce bat, the heftiest one the Pirates had. And he clubbed it with the same stroke he had used to slay the rat at the Niland place. The ball went out to center field and Mike was on third before the fielders could get it back to the infield.
“Now you’re going to see something!” Frosty Anderson bragged, as he picked up Mike’s blue bat and took several practice swings.
And Frosty was right. He watched Watson get totally rattled by Mike’s hit and throw four straight balls, allowing Frosty to stroll on down to first with a walk and a smirk on his face.
“Alright, Niland. You are up next. I’m gonna save Tim and Billy to see how many we can score if you can get on.”
“But, coach!” Tim Kellogg was livid. He would normally be batting next. And with two men on base!
Bobby was mortified. “Coach, no! Please!”
“Bobby, yes. This will work. The boy is rattled, and you are a smaller strike zone than Tim. He will walk you for sure.”
Grudgingly the Pirates did see the logic in this.
“You can do it, Bobby. I believe in you,” Blueberry said with a pat on his back and an encouraging smile.
Bobby walked to the plate with one of the two lightest bats the Pirates owned. He reached it out to tap the plate as if he knew what the hell he was doing, and then took a semi-awkward stance and glared at Greek-god Watson.
Sure enough, the first pitch was high and outside, a pitch even Bobby couldn’t be fooled into swinging at.
“Way to watch ‘em, Bob! That’s a good eye!” shouted Mr. Kellogg the coach.
“Don’t swing at the next one unless you’re sure you can hit it!” hollered Grandpa Butch from the stands where he was sitting with Dad, Mom, and Shane.
But, that, of course, only served to convince Bobby that he would hit the next one, no matter what.
The pitch came in high and outside, almost precisely the same spot the first pitch had fluttered by. This time, of course, Bobby swung at the ball with home-run-hitting-Casey-at-the-bat confidence. He could see in his mind’s eye where the ball would fly out in a gloriously high arc, all the way to the road, and be the home run that he owed the team.
It was a complete whiff. His bat didn’t come anywhere near the ball, missing by at least two feet.
“Aw, no!” groaned Mike from third base.
“Why’d you swing at that, Bedwetter Bob?” hooted Frosty.
“You’ll get the next one, Bobby!” called out Blueberry.
“I’ll get the next one,” Bobby muttered to himself.
Another outside pitch and another swing brought another miss. More groans and insults came from the Pirate bench.
Bobby choked up on his light bat. In fact, he was strangling it now.
The next one was way low. But with two strikes, you have to protect the plate, right? He swung down below his knees at it, hoping to golf it over the road.
But when he connected, he dribbled a weird bouncer right back to the pitcher. Watson’s eyes bugged out. He saw Mike dashing for the plate. He whipped it to the catcher underhanded to get Mike out.
And he proved how shook-up Clarion’s blond Apollo still was. The ball bounced past the catcher’s sneakers all the way to the backstop. And then it caromed back to the plate where Mike had already scored. Watson caught the ball and threw at Frosty at third. This time it bounced past the third baseman and went past the left end of the backstop into weeds behind the bleachers.
Frosty stepped on home plate and shouted at Bobby who was standing on first.
“Run god-dobbit! Run you bouncy-ball smacker!” Whatever it was Frosty intended to say, what he did say had the effect of making Bobby take off to second base. And then as both the third baseman and the short stop searched for the ball in the weeds, Bobby realized he could make third. And as he got to third, the short stop fired the ball over the head of Delwyn Marmoody, the second baseman into right-centerfield. Bobby could’ve walked home. Instead, he slid into home, causing a painful abrasion to his right wrist.
It was Blueberry Bates who pulled him to his feet with the biggest, goofiest grin he had ever seen on her pretty face. And it was Mike Murphy who caught Bobby under the armpits and lifted him into the air.
“A three-run home run!” crowed Mike.
“More like a three-run triple-error!” said Frosty, who was also grinning and patting Bobby on the back. Bobby knew that Frosty was more right than Mike, but it was a feeling he had never had before. Well, except maybe in daydreams and his imagination. All those pretend home runs he had hit for the Minnesota Twins in his backyard fantasies had finally paid off.
Buckminster Fuller is an intellectual hero of mine. As he said in the video, if you bothered to watch it, “I was told I had to get a job and make money, but would you rather be making money, or making sense?” Bucky was always a little bit to the left of center, and basically in the farthest corner of the outfield. That’s why we depend so much on him in times like these when the ball is being hit to the warning track. (I know the world doesn’t really work on baseball metaphors any more, but my life has always been about metaphors from 1964 with the St. Louis Cardinals playing and beating the New York Yankees. Mantle was on their side, but Maris was playing for us.) You have to live in the world that fits into your own mental map of reality. And if you’ve been whacked on the side of the head one too many times… it changes the way you think. You begin to think differently.
If you don’t know who Bucky is, as you probably don’t because he revolutionized the world in the 60’s and died in the 1980’s, Richard Buckminster “Bucky” Fuller was an American architect, systems theorist, author, designer, and inventor. He is credited with the invention of the Geodesic Dome. But he was so much more than that. He wanted to build things that made better sense, in a practical sort of way, than the way we actually do them. He built geodesic homes because he felt a home should maximize space and use of materials and minimize costs and amounts of materials as well as environmental impacts. He is the one who popularized the notion of “Spaceship Earth”. He wrote and published more than thirty books, and gave us a variety of truly wise insights. He promoted the concept of synergy. He said, “Don’t fight forces, use them.” He also pointed out, “Ninety per cent of who you are is invisible and untouchable.” He was a man full of quotes useful for internet memes.
So, lets consider an example from the mixed up mind of Mickey;
Here are three dolls from the Planet of the Apes part of my doll collection. (Two different movies are represented here, the 1968 original, and the Tim Burton 2001 remake.)
The world we now live in is increasingly like the movie, The Planet of the Apes. In that film the world the astronauts set down upon is ruled by talking apes. The human beings in that film are relegated to the fields and forests where they are no more than speechless animals. Much like the Republican Party and the wealthy ruling elite of this day and age, the apes control everything and, led by Dr. Zaius (seen on the far right) reject science and evidence as a way to explain things. They rely on the rules set down by the Lawgiver in much the same way that modern day Republicans swear by the U.S. Constitution to determine the truth of all things.
Here we see the apes capturing and enslaving Marky Mark… er… Mark Wahlberg rather than Chuck Heston from the original movie.
In the original set of movies, Charleton Heston, playing the astronaut Taylor, discovers that through hatred and warring, the human beings of Earth have bombed themselves back into the stone age and enabled the evolved apes to take over. How does Mr. Heston deal with that problem? He discovers an old doomsday device and blows up the world. Chuck Heston has always approved Second Amendment solutions to modern problems, so it is no wonder that he lays waste to everything, the good and the bad. I think we can see that old orangutan-man, Donald Trump doing exactly the same things now as he runs for President, or Great Ape, or whatever…
In both the previous series, and the current remake, salvation from the rule of the monkey people comes in the form of a leader among the apes. Caesar, whether he be played by Roddy MacDowell or by Andy Serkis, is able to solve the problems of apes and men by reaching out to those of the other species, assigning them value, and ultimately doing what helps everyone to survive and live together. Diversity is power and provides a workable solution through cooperation. The forces of hatred and fear are the things that must be overcome and threaten the existence of everyone. Donald Trump needs to learn from the lesson of The Planet of the Apes, and be less like General Ursus. We need Bernie Sanders to embrace the role of Caesar and show us how we can get along with our Muslim brothers… after all, they are more like us than the apes are, and Caesar builds bridges between apes and men.
So, there you have it, my attempt to build a new model based on an old movie… or on the remake… whichever you prefer. And if that doesn’t work, well, there’s always…
I love Marvel Comics, and, as a result, I am also falling in love with the Marvel Superhero movies. I spent this morning drooling over the Flash TV series which has that wonderful comic book wiseacre flavor. And I decided that Dallas needs its own superhero.
So, using the toxic pollution in the city air and the natural ability of the human body to adapt to anything, Muck Man is born. Yes, Muck Man, the toxic hero who smells so bad that bad guys don’t have a chance. Severe odor is his super power. He can remove his shoes and take down a regiment of evil villain minions with a wave of foot-fungus incredo-stink. He can radiate infected ear-wax smells through the earwax antennas on his helmet. And, of course, he can go fully nuclear with a Muck Man power fart.
The Magnificent Muck Man has a secret identity too. He is a mild-mannered retired school teacher by day, pursuing a mundane and forgettable career as a writer until the city is threatened by a super villain. And he is coming.
Behold, the Angry Orange King. He is tramping toward us in Angry Tramp Boots looking to tramp all over the basic human rights of people he doesn’t like. Especially poor people he doesn’t like. He gives rude finger gestures to the masses with the fingers of his tiny, tiny hands. And he likes to build gigantic things and make other people pay for them. He has recently defeated the homegrown lizard-man super villain that represents our state. He used his super villain power to hang insulting nicknames on people, and we all know that nicknames can be fatal, especially to lizard-people. Many would argue that the Angry Orange King hasn’t won total victory yet. He still has to defeat one more opponent before the frightened nation turns the keys to the kingdom over to him. But there is no guarantee that he will be beaten, as no other contender has beaten him yet, despite everything the wise monkeys claim to be true.
So the confrontation is set to happen. Blow-hard insult master against the world’s greatest source of stinky justice. Who will win? Nobody knows for sure. But for me, I tend to side with goodness over evil.
I just got the first review for the last book I’ve published. Cissy Moonskipper’s Travels, book #20, a science fiction novella, has actually been read and evaluated by somebody who wasn’t me. I am tickled blue to get a good review. I don’t see any reason mentioned why it was given four stars and not five. But four is a good review, and I am not totally convinced that I am the second coming of Saul Bellow… not totally convinced. Maybe I shouldn’t be arbitrarily lumped into the same star-category as Faulkner and Hemingway, F. Scott Fitzgerald and Mark Twain. But I have noticed that a lot of not-so-great reviews are heavily influenced in their judgements by whatever the first reviewer said, and the number of stars they bedazzled me with.
As an Indie author with self-published books, I realize the importance of having people read and respond to your books. Especially when you can’t get a beta-reader you know to look at a manuscript before publication. My sisters don’t read my novels even after I publish them (and give them a gift copy and ask them specifically to read them.) And my wife is a fellow English teacher, so she wants to dissolve the book conversations into arguments about spelling and usage and points where my ideas diverge from her fundamentalist religious beliefs. So, I rely on strangers, some of them apparently semi-literate but highly opinionated, to tell me how they received my books. My source of validation for what I spend so much time doing is dependent wholly upon Amazon, Goodreads, and Pubby reviews. (Pubby is an authors’ review exchange where I earn reviews from other authors in return for my own books being reviewed by them through giving them the best reviews I can muster on their sometimes brilliant but often awful works of literature.)
It is all a matter of opinions. I give them my onions. They give me theirs. And, no, that isn’t a spelling or word-choice error in spite of what my wife probably is going to tell you when she tracks you down for reading this article.
The thing about putting Onions in the stew of reviews, is the way they can easily overpower the entire flavor. You must have a recipe, rules for the use of Onions in the stew.
I honestly don’t expect every reviewer to follow the recipe I use. That’s why I offer these rules only as a guide to how I do a book review.
Rule #1
I always look to give the book the best possible rating I can justify giving it. Therefore, there will always be a reason or multiple reasons given for how I rate the book.
Rule #2
Spelling errors or other minor proofreading or editing errors don’t lower the rating unless they make critical parts or lines in the book incomprehensible. (A five-star book may have such errors noted in the review even if it is otherwise perfect.)
Rule #3
I will not reveal important plot points or cause any spoilers to appear in the review, though I will talk about character-creation, world-building, inconsistencies of plot or character development, or other factors the author got wrong which mess up reader comprehension or basic interest in the story.
Rule #4
Comments are limited to praise or constructive criticisms. I have no wish to ruin the author’s perception of himself or herself even if they are literally a bad writer. Books too foul to do that with, I simply do not review. (And, unfortunately some of those do exist.)
I wish every “honest” reviewer would use these same rules. But they don’t. One Pubby reviewer reviewed my book Recipes for Gingerbread Children, a book about an old German woman who survived the Holocaust and dealt with it by telling fairy stories to children in Iowa in the 1970’s, and said about it, “This book has some really great recipes.”
The bum earned points for a five-star review on a book he not only didn’t read, he didn’t even look at the description on the Amazon page he had to go to to leave a review. Amazon has since removed that review.
Here’s what a good fiction book has to do to get a five-star review from me;
The lead sentences and paragraphs need to grab my attention, and hold it by telling me who this story is about, what they want or are pursuing, and what they fear most will halt them or harm them.
The characters have to be well-developed. I must like them even if they are bad people in some ways, and it is up to the author to make me like them.
The story must be well-paced, moving me forward through it because I want to read it, not because I have to read it. Surprises that make sense help. But the story can’t become boring.
The ending must be satisfying in some way. It can leave me hanging, but there has to be an identifiable conclusion. The book needs to feel like it has reached an end.
The reality behind all this blathering about rules I will never get all reviewers to adhere to is that I, as a retired English teacher, am not only a teacher, I am a writing teacher. I will be one even after I die and become a ghost writer. So, deal with it.
So, how do you follow up a thing like starting a new religion like Quackatoonity? Should you follow it up?
I mean, this is Art Day. And I need a theme for Art Day. How about, “Art with no ducks in it?” Well, Ducks are always watching from somewhere. So, I guess that’s a no-go.
Of course, I could always try to prove the “toon” part is real. I am a cartoonist. I do do cartoons. (Haha! He said, “doodoo!” Shows you the level of humor he will sink to.)
This cartoon is a bit creepy and definitely surreal. This was done more than a decade before I even met my wife. But the two boys seem to be four years apart in age, just like my real-life sons. They do not, however, have visible horns on their heads. This is supposed to be surreal, not photographic.
So, there’s a weird cartoon story for today’s Art Day post on a New Day. And nowhere in sight will you find a duck in it… OH, NO! THERE’S A DUCK IN IT!!! How does Donald do that?
Yes, the universe was not formed in a big bang. It hatched from an egg. And God is the Ultimate Mallard.
Anatidaephobia (pronounced anna-tidy-phobia) is a pervasive and irrational fear that you are being watched by a duck. A person with this rare phobia fears that somehow, somewhere a duck is watching their every move.
This phobia about being watched by a duck may seem like a strange basis for forming a new religion. But I may have had an epiphany as a child when a goose at Deer Farm Zoo stuck his neck, head, and beak of retribution out through a hole in his chicken-wire cage and nearly nipped me in my five-year-old neck. That epiphany led to recurring nightmares about being chased by a duck with large white teeth that looked like he had bad human dentures in his bill.
This I tended to interpret as a sign that I was facing a big decision about what I would attempt to do with my young life, and would do it wrong.
Ducks in the farmyard, you see, are temperamental, often impulsive, and randomly violent. They will punish you for sins you did not know you were committing.
So, in this Quackatoon faith in judgmental ducks who are constantly watching our every move, thought, and deed, we should be taking Saint Donald Duck as our role-model and guide. When we see sin and wrongness in the world we are watching, we must dissolve in incoherent rage. Point your finger. Shout things that no one understands. Get the world’s attention. Confuse them completely. And get them to wonder what they did to make you so rage-filled and dangerously aggravated.
Then, hopefully, they will realize their sin and immediately mend their ways. Or at least, rearrange their feathers.
Or we can rely on the incompetent vengeful wrath of Saint Daffy Duck to see the unrighteousness in the rabbits of the world around us, posting Rabbit Season signs everywhere, and getting his duckbill blown off via the shotgun of a nearby Elmer who has been tricked into thinking ducks are rabbits.
Well, that might not be the most efficient prosecution of God’s will on Earth. But at least it will leave us laughing. And who can sin who is laughing that hard?
At this point in trying to establish this new religion, I should probably be talking about financial matters. Where you can send donations to the Church of Perpetual Quackers? Will there be t-shirts with religious slogans like, “You’re Driving Me Quackers!?” Do we still bring deviled eggs to church socials?
But I can’t talk about that right now… a duck is probably watching.
I spent a good deal of my time as a game master for the Star Wars role-playing game in creating alien characters that fit the movies, the books I read in the Star Wars series, and the game materials. In this post, I will give you a mini-gallery of the aliens I drew for the game.
Chee Mobok was a space trader who had a problem with his own ego. He believed that he was a genius at language and could speak any language he had heard a handful of words from.
The Galactic Common speakers were always laughing at the things he said.
Huttese speakers like Jabba the Hutt were always trying to kill him for say precisely the wrong thing.
Hethiss was the Jedi Master when my son’s Jedi character was still a padawan learner.
He was wise, but unable to keep his student from doing things in violent ways when a diplomatic solution was called for.
Merv was a potential terrorist and a suspect in a series of murders on a water planet. He was, however, the good badguy character. You know, the villain who has a heart of gold and whose actions redeem him in the end… As opposed to a bad goodguy who seems to be a hero and ends up betraying everyone.
Fisonna was a street kid from the same planet and same race as Hethiss the Jedi master. He had the potential to become a padawan learner. But he also used his Force skills to pull pranks on serious adults.
Odo-Ki was a Gotal with the ultra-sensitive cones on his head. He had a limited ability to see behind walls and predict the near future.
Nadin Paal was an actual pirate and terrorist with no redeeming qualities at all. The best thing about him was, that when the time came, he blew up really nicely. A colorful fireball.
Kehlor was a Herglic, one of the whale people who required specially built extra-large space ships and accommodations. He was also a gifted pilot. You can see that he wears the uniform of the Trade Authority.
And finally, Klis Joo was a Duro and a Jedi, a gray alien with considerable Force powers.
There were many more drawings like this as well. But these are some of the best ones.
Where we now stand, if you are going by the picture, is out in the Texas sunshine and heat. We should be standing, if we were smart, under the shade of the mushrooms that grew up quickly as a result of so much unseasonable rain. Of course, that would be assuming that Mickey is currently a pixie with dragonfly wings, which he probably is not… at least, not right at this moment. Climate change is turning Texas into a giant pressure-cooker with enough leftover hurricane moisture in it to reach an explosive boil by the end of July.
We are being manipulated now by the crafty, vile servants of the deposed idiot-king, treating the righteously-installed successor as an illegitimate usurper.
We are hearing now the testimony of the castle guards as they detail the failed assault of orcs and other monstrosities as they tried to dethrone the legitimate ruler. And one wonders why there are not more beheadings going on in the currently secure castle courtyard. The villains apparently have gained more rights than they deserve.
Still, in a kingdom beset by many ill omens and partisan Republicans, there are good things happening too in the sunshine.
Mickey’s latest free-book promotion only gave away two e-book copies of The Boy… Forever. But one of those resulted in a positive review.
And my mother, still in the hospital, is stabilized and getting the treatments she needs for her old heart.
So, we stand together tentatively now, worried about what tomorrow and the next election may bring. But holding the high ground, a good defensive position.
Catch a Falling Star 