Now, here is the start of Chapter 3;
Here are the links for previous chapters;
Chapter 1; https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Chapter 2; https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2019/05/04/hidden-kingdom-chapter-2-complete/
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney
Today it is raining in Texas…
It is hard to write when your fingers hurt…
It is hard to play in the rain…
Unless you have totally drip-dry play clothes…
The way nudists do…
And a warm coati mundi to warm your tummy…
But I don’t have those things…
Not anymore…
So, it is hard to play in the rain…
And, it is hard to write when your fingers hurt…
And today it is raining in Texas.
Canto Eighteen – Library Lies
The four young Pirates took the invisible Captain into the Norwall Public Library, into the reading room where all the encyclopedias were kept, along with the piano used for community sing-a-longs after town council meetings. They all took seats around one of the round tables used for meetings and, on rare occasions, students doing homework.
Valerie kept staring at the empty space behind the floating glasses where the Captain’s face actually had to be. If she squinted and stared real hard, she could almost picture a face there, though an older face than the yearbook photo Mary had shown her.
“Uncle Noah,” Mary said, “You have to answer some questions for us now.”
“Well, um, heh-heh… what exactly do you children want to know?”
“How did you become invisible?” Danny demanded. “And can you teach me how to do it too?”
“Why do you want to be invisible?” Valerie asked Danny, while poking him in the ribs with a finger.
“Yeah… well… you see, I could go into the girls’ locker room at school, and…”
“Okay, not that question!” insisted Mary. Pidney beside her was a bright crimson color in the face. “Tell us, Uncle Noah, why you became invisible.”
“Well, that was not a matter of choice. Did you read the log book I sent you?”
“Not all of it, no…” Mary looked at the empty air behind the glasses with a very skeptical expression.
“Well, you see, there was this witchdoctor… also called a juju man… His name was Mangkukulan… He put a curse on me, and made me invisible.”
“Why did he put a curse on you?” Pidney asked.
“Well, uh… you really should read about it in the log book first. It tells the story better than I can here and now… um, before you read it.”
“Just summarize for us,” suggested Mary.
“Well, um… the truth of the matter is… um, I am in need of a… well, a pure sort of… a girl who…”
“What, Uncle Noah?”
“I need a virgin.”
“Cool,” said Danny. “What do you need one of those for?”
“Um, well, I… Mangkukulan needs a virgin to give to the mayap mapali Matuling Lupa.”
“The what?” asked Valerie.
“That wouldn’t be a volcano or something would it?” asked Danny.
“Well, sorta, kinda… the god of volcanoes.”
“And why does Man-coo-coo-man think he needs to get a virgin from you, Captain?” asked Pidney, frowning.
“Because I… well… I sorta… um… spoiled the one he had.”
“You what? And what virgin were you planning to give him in return?” asked Mary, almost loudly and angrily enough to be heard by the librarian in the next room.
“I hate to ask this, Mary dear… but… well… are you still a virgin?”
“What? How can you ask a question like that?” Mary roared.
The librarian, Val’s Aunt Alice, looked into the room just as the Captain hastily pulled the hood of the cloak over his head.
“Is everything all right, Mary dear?” the librarian asked.
“Oh, ah… we are fine. We are just having a friendly little argument.”
“I see…” Aunt Alice frowned at the cloaked and hooded figure slumped down in the chair across the table from Mary. “Call me if you need anything, girls. I have a handy phone on the desk, and there’s a new deputy sheriff in town. We have a deputy who actually lives in Norwall now.”
“That’s good to know, Ms. Stewart. Thank you so much.” Mary smiled grimly at the cloaked Captain.
Captain Dettbarn seemed meek and chastened after that.
“You can’t really believe you can take a girl from your home town and give her to a witch doctor to throw into a volcano?” Mary said quietly through gritted teeth.
“No, I suppose not. But I still might need to know… um, for magical reasons. I do have to solve the problem somehow.”
“You don’t have the right to ask that question,” said Pidney, simmering with anger. “You are talking about a young lady’s honor. She loses something no matter what the answer is.”
“How can she be losing something?” asked Danny, looking thoroughly confused.
“She loses her right to privacy. And besides, if she answers that she is one, the creepy old Captain here may kidnap her and throw her into a volcano.”
“Oh,” Danny said.
“I really need to know, Mary, honey… because the witch doctor’s magic follows me everywhere. And I am afraid he will try to take you if you are. After all, you are the daughter of my good friend Dagwood Philips, and the witch doctor will know that you are important to me.”
“And what will you do if it turns out that I am one?”
“Well, I can’t do anything about that… but your boyfriend here could.”
“Captain!” Mary was angry again, and Pidney was a glowing red with embarrassment again.
“Is Valerie in any danger?” asked Danny, suddenly panicky.
“This pretty little one?” the Captain asked.
“Of course,” said Mary. “Is she in danger too?”
“Well, I don’t know. She’s obviously not as important to me as you are, Mary… but she’s even more obviously a virgin.”
“Well, that’s disturbing,” said Valerie. “Because I have my doubts that Pidney can solve the problem for both of us.” The notion tickled her insides. The idea was not without its good side. But, still, it made her angry that they all made that particular assumption about her.
“I, um… I better be going now,” said the Captain. “I have put you girls in enough danger already. But… I promise, I will find a solution to this problem. You, however, need to read the log book. If I have any chance of finding the right magical spell to save us all, I’m going to need your help.”
With that, there was a sudden burst of light from flash powder, and the Captain was gone. His cloak remained. As did his clothing and his yachting cap.
“Oh, my gawd!” swore Pidney. “What will we do now?”
“I think we have to do some serious reading,” said Mary. “And we may have to think about some other things that kids like us probably shouldn’t be doing either.”
A thrill ran up Valerie’s spine.
Filed under humor, magic, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
It is now published!!! https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07RKRYWH1/ref=sr_1_3?keywords=michael+beyer+books&qid=1557153283&s=gateway&sr=8-3
These are the links. https://www.amazon.com/dp/1096891867/ref=sr_1_fkmrnull_2?keywords=michael+beyer+books+Fools+and+Their+Toys&qid=1557153522&s=gateway&sr=8-2-fkmrnull
And here is a peek into Chapter One;
Canto One – The Puppet’s Preface
Murray Dawes was sad but silent as the sheriff’s deputies put him in the cell in the county lock-up. Other men would protest their innocence of being a serial murderer and sex offender. Murray was accused of being the infamous “Teddy Bear Killer” who molested and murdered young boys all across the Midwest. Murray was in fact not quite right in the head. Something was off enough to make him constantly silent as the stones on an Iowan hillside in winter. But just because he was silent and mentally unique, it didn’t explain how he could end up accused of terrible crimes when he was totally innocent. He had, in truth, only been guilty of rescuing the last boy-victim of the real killer. And because he wouldn’t answer any questions from anybody, and the boy-victim was in shock and couldn’t talk, he stood a very real chance of taking the whole of the blame. Well, I wasn’t about to stand for it. I would find some way to tell them all the truth. My name is Zearlop. I am Murray’s ventriloquist’s puppet. And I know the truth that’s inside his muddled head.
I also know you will probably say this is totally unbelievable, that an inanimate object… or, rather, a puppet who is animated by others, cannot be the narrator of a story. You are right, of course. I can’t possibly be the author of this tale. I am a modified sock puppet of a zebra with mechanically blinking eyes and mechanically enhanced mouth movements. My head is full of cotton stuffing and old newspapers. But I was cleverly put together by two geniuses, and given life by another.
You have to understand; the human mind is like a great complex Labyrinth where no man has ever mastered every single corridor. Sometimes the most beautifully complex minds become lost or trapped in a dead-end corridor, never to find the light outside again.
But sometimes a special mind that was meant for special things is helped to find the light again… shown a trap door or a secret exit by another who has mastered at least a portion of the great, overly-complex dungeon.
And sometimes it is possible to slip past the Minotaur who guards the secrets of the Labyrinth and keeps us all from unlocking the magic. My story, the story I mean to tell you even if you don’t believe I am capable of telling it because I am a mechanical sock puppet of a zebra, begins with a fool. The fool’s name is Murray Dawes. That’s right, Mumbling Murray Dawes, the feeb, the spaz, the Special-Ed idiot, son of Elmer and Ethel Dawes, the nephew of Harker Dawes, and the only human being in the universe who had more in common with potatoes than he did with other people. Yes, I promise I will explain that last one later in the story.
Filed under announcement, humor, novel, Paffooney, publishing
Here is the link to the complete Chapter 1https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney
I was born an artist. It has to be developed and nurtured and practiced over time to become what it can truly be, but artistic talent is something you are born with, and there is a genetic aspect to it. Great Aunt Viola could draw and paint. She produced impressive art during her lifetime. My father can draw. He has demonstrated ability a number of times, though he never developed it. Both my brother and I can draw and have done a lot of it. All three of my children can draw and paint. My daughter, the Princess, even wants to pursue a career in graphic design and animation.
One of the factors that weighs heavily on a career in art is the starving artist factor. To be a serious artist, you have to study art in great detail. You need lots of practice, developing not only pencil-pushing prowess, but having an artist’s eyeball, that way of seeing that twists and turns the artist’s subject to find the most novel and interesting angle. It takes a great deal of time. And if you are doing this alone, you are responsible also for building your own following and marketing your own work and creating your own brand. You need to be three people in one and do this while potentially not being able to make any money at all for it. I have taught myself to do the art part, but I paid the bills with something else I loved to do, teaching English to hormone-crazed middle-schoolers.
An important part of art is what you have to sacrifice to do it.
Many artists become alcoholics, drug users, or suicidal manic-depressives. There is an artistic sort of PTSD. Doing real art costs a lot because it alters your lifestyle, your mental geography, and your spiritual equilibrium. Depending on how much of yourself you put into it, it can use you up, leaving no “you” left within you.
I am not trying to leave you with the impression that I mean to scare you into not wanting to be an artist. For many reasons it is a great thing to be. But it is a lot like whether you are born gay or straight… or somewhere in between. The choice is not entirely up to you. You can only control what you do with the awful gift of art once it is given to you. And that is a serious choice to make. Me, I have to draw. I have to tell stories. My life and well-being depend on it. It is the only way I can be me.
Today, being ill, I resorted to doodling in bed to make myself feel better. No, I said doodling, meaning drawing things without a plan for where the pencil goes next. Get your mind on better things. I ended up with a nightmare of a school bus. And I inked it, scanned it in four pieces, puzzled it together, and posted it, cussing at the computer for every glitch that interrupted my work. And now I give you Dullwhittler’s Skool Bus. I hope it doesn’t disgust you to the point that you have to scour your eyeballs with unwashed sweat socks to get the offensiveness out of your mind’s eye. But I acknowledge that it might. Forgive me, but I have ridden on school buses with students who were very similar to these.
Filed under doodle, humor, Paffooney, Uncategorized
Here is a link to Chapter 1 if you haven’t seen it, or don’t remember it. https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2018/11/24/hidden-kingdom-chapter-1-complete/
Filed under comic strips, fairies, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney
Canto Sixteen – Uncle Dash
Mom loved to cook. She could do wondrous things with a casserole. In fact, her Tater Tot casserole was such a hit that it had spread to households all over the county and people from as far away as Illinois were writing her letters to get the secret recipe. It wasn’t such a secret. Browned and loose ground beef, Campbell’s Cream of Mushroom soup, Tater Tots from Ore-Ida, and real cheddar cheese went into her magical casserole. But friends of friends and family were practically rabid about wanting to get their hands on the special secret recipe. They didn’t realize until she told them that the recipe came from the label of a Campbell’s soup can to begin with.
So the house smelled wonderful because Uncle Dash and Valerie’s cousin Stacey were coming to dinner.
Stacy was college age now, and Valerie looked up to her. She was smart and independent, and she knew how to dress up like a fashion model whenever there was an excuse to do it. As Val and Stacy set the table, the two had a brief moment or two to catch up on cousin stuff.
“I hear the Pirates are re-forming,” Stacy said. “And they tell me you are going to be one of them?”
“Well, yeah… so?”
“Don’t bring it up tonight. Daddy will get mad. I mean, more mad than he already is.”
“Uncle Dash is mad?” Valerie was slightly taken by surprise. Uncle Dash was the kind of guy who was always laughing, always joking. Valerie had relied on his sense of humor and mature wisdom her whole life long. She believed he was even wiser than Daddy Kyle. He was a farmer. He had the wisdom of the Earth.
“Your Uncle Dash is mad at me,” said Stacey.
“Why would he be mad at you?”
“I told him a secret today. One I have to tell everybody sooner or later.”
“Really? Tell me.”
Stacey was obviously biting her own lower lip for some reason. Why would she do that? It didn’t really make sense to Val. There were tears in her cousin’s eyes.
“I mean it, Stacey. I love you. You can tell me.”
“Well, I…” Before Stacey could spill it, the adults came into the room.
“Really,” Uncle Dash said with a frown on his face, “We could sell that sixty acres southwest of town and the big pasture along the Iowa River. That would give us enough money to at least bargain for more time… maybe another growing season.”
“But, Dash, that’s all your land. This is my debt. I can’t let you sacrifice from your share. It should be some of my land.” Kyle sat down at the head of the table with a defeated-seeming kerplunk. Valerie knew her dad’s basic onomatopoeias, the sound-words of his soul, and kerplunk was definitely not a good one.
“But it is some of the less-valuable land I am offering to sell. All of your land is better, and we should be trying to keep all of it.”
“Yeah, well… I still don’t want you to make sacrifices to pay my debts.”
Uncle Dash took the seat next to Daddy Kyle where Valerie would’ve sat if they didn’t have company.
Mom came in carrying a big casserole dish full of steaming-hot tater-tot casserole. She proudly set her work of art down in the middle of the dining room table. “Stacey, will you help me get the peas and the mashed potatoes?” Mom said. Then she dashed back out to the kitchen.
“You’re my brother, Kyle. You have to let me help you. And it is all family land. We have to work together, even though we divided the farms when Dad died. It is all one large farm, really.”
“Well, yeah, but…”
That conversation died too as Mom and Stacey brought the rest of the supper to the table, and Mom insisted that everybody sit down and eat. Valerie said Grace and food was passed all around. Everybody at the table had a farmer’s healthy appetite, and soon mouths were too full to talk. Conversation was suspended for the more important thing… at least until all were stuffed and satisfied.
“It’s a shame that Patricia couldn’t come with you this evening, Dash,” Mom said.
“She was sorry to miss it, but she really wasn’t feeling well. She needed to take some medicine and go to bed. Which reminds me… Stacey has some new she needs to share with everyone in the family.”
Stacey looked at her father with a distinctly angry expression.
“Well, you may as well tell them.”
Stacey’s glare at Uncle Dash made Valerie suddenly worried for her cousin. What could be wrong?
“I’m… not going to college anymore.”
“Oh, Stacey!” Mom said. “Why not?”
“Well, I’m…”
The pause was unbearable.
“I’m pregnant.”
Stunned silence followed. Uncle Dash’s face was so sad it almost made Valerie burst into tears. Stacey did cry, and that was almost worse.
“How, I mean… who?” Daddy didn’t know what to say. He was kinda tongue-tied, right up until the answer hit him square in the memory. “Not the Toad! Oh, Stacey!”
“His name is Brom, not Toad. I don’t know why everyone needs to call him that.” Stacey’s tears were replaced almost instantly with fury.
“It’s the way he drives. He reminds everyone of Toad in the Disney movie Wind in the Willows. You know how recklessly he roars about in that yellow Ford Mustang of his.” Uncle Dash was very direct and soft-spoken. It was an argument Valerie had overheard before.
“He also has a big mouth like a frog,” said Valerie timidly.
“Oh, Val…” Stacey shot her a wounded look. Whose side was she supposed to be on, anyway?
“Well, I have to say, it isn’t such a big surprise. You have been in love with that boy for a while now, haven’t you, Stacey?” Daddy Kyle said.
“Yes, I love him with all of my heart.”
“Is he going to do the right thing by you?” Mom asked.
“He’s willing to marry me… if Daddy doesn’t forbid it.”
“Dash, you can’t forbid it,” said Daddy Kyle. “That’s no way to start off a life… for Stacey or Brom either one.”
“You would take their side, wouldn’t you,” Uncle Dash said harshly. “You know, as my little brother, it wouldn’t kill you to take my side once in a while.”
Daddy stared straight at his plate. His mouth was a tense and very straight line. “Stacey would be good for Brom. As Mrs. Brown, she’s bound to settle him down at least a little bit. Like the way Julie settled me down. You remember what a wild kid I was, right?”
“We haven’t decided how it’s going to be, yet,” Dash said calmly. “There is a lot to be decided yet.”
“You really can’t decide for her, you know,” Daddy Kyle said.
Uncle Dash got angry at that. “How would you feel if it were Valerie in this situation? Maybe with somebody like that Murphy kid… or Richard Martin’s little rag boy?”
“It’s not the same. Valerie is still too young to be a mother.”
“And Stacey isn’t?”
“Kyle, Dash, please!” said Mom, “don’t discuss this in front of the girls. They can hear everything, and I don’t think it helps anybody to hear you two argue about this.”
It was quiet for a few moments, but a very tense quiet.
“Julie is right, Dash,” Daddy said. “Why don’t you and I go for a drive in your pickup, and the girls can spend some time together here.”
“We have a lot to talk about, Kyle. But it won’t do a lick of good if you don’t listen more than you talk.”
The two brothers glared at each other. But they were family, and too much alike not to smash heads together like a couple of rams in springtime. So they both went out and got in Uncle Dash’s Chevy pickup and drove on into town.
“Headed for Martin’s Bar and Grill,” said Stacey, blowing a stray hair out of her eyes to show disgust.
Valerie wordlessly snaked her thin young arms around her beloved cousin and gave her a distressed and tearful squeeze.
“It will all get worked out for the best,” said Mom in her most comforting voice.
“I hope so,” Stacey said. Then after a long pause she repeated, “I hope so.”
Filed under family, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
The Ending Inevitable
Wednesday night, I got to see the musical Hamilton as it was playing in Dallas at Fair Park. I am not sure how I actually got to see it. Tickets are reputedly astronomically expensive. I myself am bankrupt because of medical bills. My wife, however, is not bankrupt, a thing accomplished by separating our finances over disagreements about feeding the credit card monster. Bankruptcy court is helping me escape from the vampire powers of predatory banks. My wife, however, has apparently not heeded my advice about finances. As a Jehovah’s Witness, she is sure the Bible prophecies about the end of the world will rescue her from the credit card monster. Armageddon will happen any day now, and the credit card monster will not get to eat her. I hate to disagree with her about matters of religion. Her faith is sincere, if self-serving. But I think I know the inevitable ending.
Hamilton, the musical, ends with the inevitable death of Alexander Hamilton, firing his dueling pistol into the sky as Aaron Burr kills him.
Sorry about the spoiler, but it has been a recorded outcome for over 200 years. It was in Hamilton’s very nature that he would end his career and life in that way. It was inevitable.
I also took my two younger kids to see the Avengers Endgame yesterday after the Princess’s doctor appointment. Don’t worry. I won’t spoil anything. You already know somebody will die at the end of this movie. And I am not talking about this movie in terms of plot or outcomes. It is, rather, a pivotal point in my own endgame. A couple of years ago, when I knew my fate was sealed by poor health and even poorer affordable healthcare and health insurance, I resolved that I would somehow manage to survive at least until I had seen this movie which brings closure to Marvel Universe stories that I have been invested in practically my whole comic-book reading and movie-watching life. Now I have seen it. Technically that means that I am now free to die without regrets. I have, in fact, been at peace with the idea of my life’s inevitable ending for a long time now.
But if you are worried that I will now just give up and die, don’t be. It is not in my nature. I will continue to fight on. I am on the verge of self-publishing Fools and Their Toys, a critical novel that was one of the stories I most needed to tell before my life is over. But it is far from the last story I have within me. And the fact that nobody is reading my books is not going to deter me. They simply have to exist.
And the third movie in the newest Star Wars trilogy is due to open in December. I feel I am owed at least one more Christmas. So the battle continues. And I may win the war with my final act like you see in the movies. That would be a good and noble thing. I think I have to live longer now. There are just too many goals to be reached before time runs out.
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Filed under autobiography, Avengers, comic book heroes, commentary, humor, illness, insight, Paffooney, philosophy