Canto 8 – Hammer Plans
Trav Dalgoda was busy with research. He had discovered that Frieda could answer practically any question his evil little brain could ask, and so, allowed him to feed his avarice and greed until they became obese and bloated. Where most men had two little angels on their shoulders, one good and one evil, to debate with, Trav had only these two little fat things that he actually called Greed and Avarice when he talked to them. They were discussing now how he could obtain the so-called Hammer of God.
“Ummm! Frieda says the Hammer is a building device and it is on the planet below. I have got to have it,” said Goofy to himself.
“Ged will distrust it, and he won’t let you use it,” said Avarice.
Greed scratched his fat red behind with his pitchfork. “We have to get there before Ged,” he said lazily.
“I can go down to the planet in my new star ship,” said Goofy.
“Yes, and blow something up with it on the way!” said Avarice.
“Explosions in space are so pretty!” cooed Greed.
“No,” said Goofy. “I can’t let myself get carried away. Ham always says, “Don’t blow things up, Goofy.””
“Not even a little something?” asked Avarice sadly, feeling the sharpness of his left horn with a fat finger.
“Well…” said Goofy, almost relenting.
It was then that the manic spacer was interrupted from his internal dialogue by the sweet-faced blue Princess. She had entered the room from behind him. They were all alone, just Trav, the Princess, and Frieda. She was as naked as the day she was born. She walked up to him, took his gloved hand, and put it sadly on her breast.
“Oh! No, girl!” insisted Trav, turning bright red under his eye patch. “Nobody asked for that!”
She pointed sadly at the slave tattoo on her right shoulder. She looked down at the deck beneath her feet.
“No, I mean it!” said Trav. “You don’t have to do that for me. I am not your master!”
“Maybe I can help,” suggested Frieda.
“How?” asked Trav.
“Tagasserah nah, po choi freem koohballa Marjarac Inoijuc.”
The blue princess was suddenly transformed into the happiest creature Trav had ever seen. She kissed the Goof on the end of his nose and left the control room clapping her hands together gleefully.
“What was that about?” asked Trav, puzzled.
“I explained to her that you wanted her to be free so she could be your friend. I explained that she owed you a debt of honor for releasing her from her servitude.”
“Really? All of that, huh?”
“Yes.”
“So what can you tell me and my two little friends about the planet below?” asked Trav.
“First you must put the Crown of All Stars upon your own head,” said Frieda.
“But won’t that melt my brain?”
“Oh, it might. But from what I’ve observed of you, I don’t think your circuits are complex enough to be in danger.”
“Oh, thanks,” said Trav. “Say, by the way, old Jester, can you teach the lovely Princess to speak our language?”
“Khomparuc sah, Trav. It shall be done.”
Trav Dalgoda, a goof for all seasons.
Catch a Falling Star 
Naked Innocence
To be clear, I will have to write a post called Naked Experience to go with this post. It is a William Blake style of thing. You know, that English Romantic Poet guy who was into drawing naked people even more than me? The writer of Songs of Innocence and Experience? You know, this stuff;
Well, maybe you don’t know. But Blake gave the world the metaphor of the innocent lamb and the tyger of experience (tyger is his spelling, not mine, and it didn’t blow up the spell checker, even though it made the thing unhappy with me again). There is a certain something I have learned about nakedness that I mean to innocently convey. I learned it from anatomy drawing class and spending time with nudists. Naked is not evil. Naked is not pornography. Nakedness, itself, is a very good thing.
At this point the avid clothing-wearers among you are probably saying to yourself, “This guy is nuts! If God had wanted us to be nude, then we wouldn’t have been born with clothes on.” And I must admit, I cannot argue with logic like that.
But on a more serious note, I believe nudity is a fundamentally essential part of the nature of art. After all, pictures of naked people are a central part of what people have been drawing since they first started etching them with charcoal on cavern walls. And all art, including this blog, is about the human experience. What it means to be human. What it feels like to be alive on this Earth and able to feel.
And there is nothing sinister and immoral in drawing nudes to portray that fact. I am trying to show metaphorically the music of existence, the pace, the symmetry, the musical score… It isn’t focused on the private bits, what some call the naughty parts, even when those things are present in the picture. “How dare that naughty Mickey show the naked back end of that butterfly! It ought to have pants on at least!” Yes, I am making a mockery of that outrage itself. I am not a pornographer. These pictures were not created to engender any prurient interests. These pictures are part of Blake’s lamb. They will not bite you. Though blue-nosed people who wish to control what others think may very well bite me for daring to say so.
I have posted a lot of writing and artwork on this blog that I held for the longest time to be completely private and personal. I hardly ever showed any of it to anybody before I posted it here. But I am old. I no longer have secrets. I am capable of telling you everything even though I have never met most of you in real life. And I have no shame. I have become comfortable with emotional and intellectual nudity. And when I am dead, the body I have kept hidden from the world for so long will be no more. It’s just a thought. It’s a naked thought. And it is completely innocent.
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Filed under artists I admire, artwork, commentary, humor, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as nudes, William Blake