Category Archives: Paffooney

October 11, 2015 · 2:24 pm

The Coat of Many Colors

Denny&Tommy1I am nearing the completion of my novel Snow Babies.  The editor, Jessie Cornwell, sent it back to me with the third read-through completed.  I am now closing in on a completed final draft ready to go to print.  And I am posting this post to acknowledge that the character of the hobo with the quilted jacket for a coat is indeed me.  Well, as close to being me as a fictional character who may or may not be an angel can come.  I admit I am probably not as good as Lucky Catbird Sandman is good.

But I am a man who is basically a Walt Whitman-type poet-y sort of man in a cartoony sort of way.  That is what the Catbird really is.

ragged man

He wears a coat of many colors which is made up of many varicolored patches.  Each patch in the crazy quilt of his coat stands for a memory of the many people he has known and the problems he has solved.  He helps the main character of the story, a small-town Iowa girl named Valerie Clarke, as her little town is besieged by a terrible blizzard.  The Trailways bus is stranded near the town, and on the bus are four orphan boys, running away to nowhere and desperately needing the intervention of the angels to help them escape the lives they’ve left behind.  Catbird spins miracles out of random things and random snatches of Walt Whitman’s poetry.  He carries around a copy of Whitman’s Leaves of Grass, and he quotes from it like a Bible.  So, he is a me-character because he was born in my goofy brain and represents no real person living or dead.  He is more of a literary device than a man… just like me.  And that is notable because all the other players in the story are based on real people that I have known, either in Iowa or Texas, real people who have been a significant part of my real life.

tree time banner

I believe this is why the novel is the most important thing I have ever written.  It is because, if I ever found any real worthy wisdom to spread around like jam on bread, it is to be found in this book.  It is the best thing I have ever written and published.  At least, so far.  And the mysterious stranger character, the man in the coat of many colors, Catbird… is me.  Judge for yourself if I am not like him.

Catbird Me 2

4 Comments

Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, Snow Babies, writing humor

Tagged as , , ,

October 9, 2015 · 2:12 pm

Puzzle Fizzle

Puzzle Fizzle (a poem about pieces)

When life shatters into a potpourri of pieces,

One must pick up possibilities,

And puzzle them back together… into poetry.

20151009_100625

Yesterday was the bottom of the valley of a hard week.  I have to climb another mountain to get out.  And I can’t afford the psychiatrist I need because the health insurance we have gave us strict guidelines to follow for choosing one, and no one in our area fits their requirements.  My car is showing warning lights again, and I am afraid to take it in.  It runs fine.  But I don’t need that warning light giving any of the local mechanics the idea that they can charge me large fees for car parts and service hours when they might not actually be needed.  Money is running out and I do not have the good enough health required to get even a part time job.  I write a lot.  But my writing career at this point is an expense, not an income.  Many shattered pieces to this puzzle.  But I did finish the putting together of the latest grand Paffooney, the portrait of Mary and the Invisible Captain Dettbarn.

Mary and the Captain

So, how will I put everything back together?  My family depends on me doing so.  The old puzzle piecer must never give up and must always keep puzzling, fitting bizarre piece to jagged hole.  You may have noticed that this post is short of the 500-word goal, but a picture is worth a thousand words, and I have created two original pictures for this post.  And there is poetry pieced together by the penultimate alliteration of the proud letter “P”.

7 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 8, 2015 · 1:38 pm

Panic

Centaur1Sometimes the Greek god Pan attacks with darts of fear and suffering.  Sometimes what has happened in the past comes back to bite us in the rear for no other reason than the bulldog of horrible past experiences does not know how to let go once his jaw is clamped tight to the seat of your pants.

Mental illness is not taken seriously enough in American society.  We tend to think that every man, woman, and child ought to always be in control of themselves and never subject to bouts of craziness for which they can not be held responsible.  I joke a lot about being crazy.  I am not normal in any sense of the word.  But my own real mental challenges are no worse than depression caused by diabetes.  I get blue a lot.  But that is nothing compared to what blew up in my face today.  Have you ever seen somebody who is catatonic?  Curled up in a ball and unable sit up and stop shaking?  And what are you supposed to say to that poor sufferer?  What can you do to help?  Especially when they are no longer able to communicate with you, hear what you say, or even look at you.  It is frightening.

And I can’t even tell more than this.  The way we view this kind of problem in our society is a problem in itself.  Depression and irrational fear can destroy the entire day for everyone involved.  And the persons involved are shamed by what has happened.  The solutions to this kind of problem always involve talking about it and discussion.  But our society does not want to talk about these things.  We are all afraid of slipping into the horror of the Oregon shooter, even though that is not even remotely connected to the problem and the things that happened today.  The stigma is crippling.  People don’t tend to face this kind of problem until it happens to them or to somebody they love.

The word panic is derived from the Greek god Pan.  In mythology, Pan was a god of the forest and wild things, especially herd animals.  He was generally a jovial and fun-loving sort, but if you happened on him while he was sleeping, he would awake with a sudden shout, and that shout caused forest animals to stampede.  Thus the Greek word “panikon” meaning sudden fear became the word panic.  Apparently I stumbled on Pan today and suffered the consequences.  I am feeling trampled at present.  Don’t worry, though.  I have survived.  And things that don;t kill us make us stronger.  That is what convinced me that I am really Superman, and have only forgotten that fact because of some unfortunate kryptonite exposure.

Poem Is

4 Comments

Filed under medical issues, mental health, Paffooney

Tagged as , , ,

October 7, 2015 · 1:57 pm

Possibly Progress

Well, I almost got a ticket in a school zone this morning.  The sun was in my eyes and I was driving a steady 31 miles an hour in a twenty mile per hour zone.  Fortunately the young officer apparently was fooled by my decrepit old man act (which I do incredibly well because I have had arthritis for forty years and I look like death warmed over in the morning… and I am not actually acting).  I was let off with a warning and threats of a beating next time.  Portents of bad times continue.  I have another oil change warning light on my dashboard even though I just had the old Ford Fiesta at the dealer last week, having the engine put back in because Walmart blew it up.  The conspiracy theorist in me was noticing particularly odd-shaped contrails in the skies over Garland and East Dallas.  I have been told by fellow conspiracy theorists that the guvvamint is spraying nano-particles in the upper atmosphere to fix global warming so they don’t have to admit it exists and was caused by aliens.  And I can believe these tinfoil hatters because they showed me proof that the CIA has altered their DNA with fluoridated water.  Nobody could have that pointy of a pin-head without guvvamint help. So life continues to treat me the way Bugs Bunny treats Elmer Fudd.  And I feel slapped silly.

But here’s the important thing;

20151004_172507

Followed by;

20151005_084533

And then;

20151006_205042

So you can see that I haven’t given up yet.  My flower petals burst with color.  And the seeds that I have planted continue to grow and blossom anew.

5 Comments

Filed under artwork, humor, Paffooney

Tagged as , , , ,

October 6, 2015 · 1:51 pm

A Sense of Wonder

Flower val memeI have told you repeatedly (if you are foolish enough to read more of my blog than is probably healthy for normal people) that I am a pessimist.  Like Benjamin Franklin, I believe it is best to always prepare for the worst that can happen and actually expect it.  With current gun laws in this nation, and the way corrupt politicians and businessmen continue to profit off the suffering of the rest of us, and people’s basic selfishness and cruelty to others in word, thought, and deed, we rarely get a glimpse of anything but the worst of human nature.  We are never disappointed when we expect the worst to happen.  And yet, since I am never taken by surprise by bad things, only by unexpected good things, all that is surprising is wonderful and made up of very good things.  Human beings are capable of amazing goodness and works of wonder, not in spite of their many failings, but because of them.  The miracle of life is how the lowly worm turns into a beautiful butterfly.  How the tiny brown seed becomes the brightly colored blossom in a vast field of other flowers.

swallowtail

When I tell others that I believe that people are basically good and that I believe all students can learn, I often get an argument.  Mass shooters like we had last week and wars and terrorists crop up by the multitudes in order to refute my belief.  People who think I am an atheist tell me i’m being a hypocrite to think we should operate our lives around facts and proof and then hold a difficult-to-prove belief like this.  Maybe it is an act of faith… but an act of faith that my theocratic friends call a belief in humanism, which they prefer to see as something from Satan.  Well, I do believe in God.  I just don’t believe in a god who waves a magic wand and intervenes.  I believe that God Jehovah (or possibly Allah or the godhead or whatever you want to name Him) made us like the flower seed, meant to grow and transform, and to be winnowed like grain by the winds and rains of life experience.  Not all flowers blossom.  But more of them do when you water and weed and nurture them.  And what is true for flowers is true for men and women.  What can I say more about human beings to convince you that I am not wrong to be in awe of them… even the weedy ones?  Probably nothing.  If you are not open to such ideas, you haven’t read this far.  But whether you read this far or not, I am fascinated by you, and will always want to know more.  And I am not going to start a new church or something.  I am merely going to continue to watch and to wonder.

Not Alone

6 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, philosophy

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 5, 2015 · 2:46 pm

The Sky is Red

20151005_071555Today is a this-and-that post because I am juggling so many things with at least one hand tied behind my back.  And because this morning, (as you can see in my sunrise photo) the sky is red.  You don’t believe in signs and portents, you say?  Well, neither do I.  Still, the old saying is, “red sky in morning, sailors take warning.”  Are there rough times directly ahead?  Rough seas?  Hard sailing?  I wonder.

101212-mlb-action-OB-G10_20121013021856700_600_400

250021_10151185182712298_1774974703_nMy favorite sports teams, the St. Louis Baseball Cardinals and the Arizona Football Cardinals have both been the best in the business in the really-recent past.  The baseball team has won 100 games and goes into the World Series playoffs expected by many to win it all.  Yet, they ended the season on a three-game losing streak with two of their best pitchers taking losses.  The football team, along with my all-time favorite football player, Larry Fitzgerald, had been cruising along undefeated at a totally dominating pace.  Yesterday they lost by two point to the St. Louis Rams.  Both teams are still sitting pretty in enviable positions in their respective sports.  Yet there are portents of doom.

My home continues to crumble and my own personal health is up and down and super-iffy.  The city gave us notice of a program to help with repairs and maintenance, but we make too much money to qualify.  And we still don’t have any money in the bank thanks to health-related expenses.  My body aches and my head spins frequently, but I am going to have to get back up on the ladder and finish painting the house.

So, what shall I do about it all?  Grim omens scare me and slow me down, but I grit my teeth and pitch in.  I have repainted the four shutters for the back of the house and re-hung two of them yesterday.  I can still paint and do work on the house.  Amazing things can be accomplished a little bit at a time.  After all, I put up new siding on the back of the house last year at this time working with only my sons and my daughter to help.  I managed to do it all before the city’s deadline and threatened thousand-dollar fine (because it only makes sense to fine people that much when they have no money to fix the outside of the house.)  I will beat whatever new deadlines they give me too.  But it is a good sign that they want to help and haven’t hit me with any new deadlines yet.

And I will double down on writing work.  I sent Snow Babies back to the editor Saturday, and I am closing in on getting that book in print.  I am getting back to work on the prequel, When the Captain Came Calling, and I even started a new character illustration, depicting Mary Philips and the invisible sea captain.  Here is the pen and ink drawing;

20151004_172507

And here is the first of the color I have completed;

20151005_084533

So maybe portents are not always bad things.  Maybe the sky is red because it is the color of cardinals, and things are looking up for the boys wearing red.  Cardinals are the little red birds that sing sweetly and never fly away when the winter comes.  We cardinals take on all comers and maybe we will win it all for the 12th time… or the 1st time since the 1950’s… or the first time ever.  After all, the sky is red.

4 Comments

Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as , , , , , ,

October 3, 2015 · 2:48 pm

Lazy Plugs for Small Holes

Snowies

I have been working on final edits for my novel Snow Babies.  I have also been struggling with diabetes, arthritis, and COPD.  At the same time, I have been writing up a storm on my blog and posting all kinds of incredibly goofy and somewhat creative stuff.  So today is a break without leaving a hole in my goal of posting a blog post every single day of 2015.  I have to go all the way to Balch Springs, Texas today for a flag football game.  So, if you are disappointed with this meager post, go back and look at any of the other recent posts you may have missed.  I’m not saying they are worth the effort, but wasting your time is what I do.

2 Comments

Filed under NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, writing humor

Tagged as , ,

October 2, 2015 · 2:01 pm

I Can’t Believe I Did That

I was a teacher, once upon a time.  I learned to do the job correctly.  I think I earned the pay they gave me.  I think I choose to believe at least a few of those kids who told me, “Mr. B, you were the best teacher I ever had.”  I’m not full of myself and conceited or anything.  But the world needs good teachers.  And I think I answered the call.

But I had to give it up.  I am not well enough to even be a substitute teacher.  I can’t breathe very well.  My body is wracked with arthritis pain.  I am subject to bouts of depression brought on by chronic pain.  And I am worried that it is a job which has become so very much harder to do.  Politics and people’s opinions of teachers and the sacrifices you have to make in pay for your work are all making teaching an impossibly hard job.  I fear that more and more it is being populated not by the best and brightest, the ones who love teaching kids, rather it is a place for losers.  A job held by people that were trapped by mistakes they made or lack of real choices.  A job that they don’t take up as “holy mission from God”, but as a way to get by.  Too many people are taking up teaching so they can fake it and pick up a paycheck.  They hate the job.  They hate the kids.  And there is no joy in Mudville.

20150807_135323

So here is the best thing that I can say or do to try to help this problem.  Read this plea and seriously think about doing it.  Become a teacher!  It is the most important thing you could ever do.  And who, exactly am I talking to?  Well, you made the mistake of reading this far, didn’t you?  If you are young and have your life ahead of you, especially if you are brilliant enough to be reading my obscure little posts on my obscure little blog, you have to realize that becoming a teacher is about more than building your own personal career castle.  It is about guiding future generations in the pouring of concrete, the shoring up with strong wooden and stone pillars, and the laying of strong foundations for their own castles.  The castle you build will never be as grand as the castles you will help others to build.

Neuschwanstein castle will look like a sandcastle next to those.  I can testify that there is no more satisfying experience than seeing a child you taught grow and thrive and become a worthy citizen of the world.

And I know some of you are smugly thinking that, “He’s not talking to me.  He’s just talking to those young goobers headed to college or not sure what they want to do with their lives.”  Not at all.  I am talking to you too.  No adult is immune to the needs of the young.  Every act of every day can be used to show the way.  Read to a kid.  Tell them that story about that time your Uncle Everett learned the hard way that raising chinchillas was not the road to riches and easy money, that it came with numerous foul-tempered rodent bites. Spend time with them.  Get to know them.  And if you are like me and have lost your good health and your access to kids other than your own, then write it all down in your blog, all the stuff that you know.  It will help them and heal them and give them wisdom to grow.  If that sounds like Dr. Seuss stuff… well, that’s because it is.  Dr. Seuss was one of the best teachers I ever had.

I can’t believe I did that.  I can’t believe I just told you all to be teachers.  I am alone during the school day, feeling ill and feeling depressed.  I strut and fret my hour upon the stage (of the front of the classroom) no more.  But what can I do about it?  I just did it.  And I feel better!

2 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, teaching

Tagged as , , , , , , ,

October 1, 2015 · 2:26 pm

The History of Government as I See It

Raygun RonnyIn the beginning, God made men naked and helpless.  He made women naked and in charge.  And then he tossed an apple to the women and said, “let there be evil and monsters and such.”  So, naked people began to huddle together in caves to get out of the storm.  They began to kill and eat other animals that didn’t eat them.  They began to wear the fur of whatever they killed and ate.  And then because Cain had a you-like-him-better-than-me fit, they began to kill (and hopefully not eat) each other.

So, the need for government came about as a matter of survival.  Cavemen put their thick heads together and decided that some guys were bigger and tougher and got more girls than the rest.  And some guys knew how to use their heads for something more than a place to keep their animal-skin hats.  So, when all the heads were put together, the smartest ones realized that if they made weapons for the big guys to kill other guys with more efficiently, then the big guys could protect all of “us” and kill all of “them” and we would all be safer and live better lives.  Of course, the big strong guys wanted to keep all the better girls and all the stuff they took from others, and they expected everyone they protected to give them more stuff.  Thus, taxes were born.  And when you had to count stuff and plan stuff and figure stuff out (like managing taxes and keeping track of who you need to hit because they haven’t paid) that task went to the scrawny guys with the big heads.  And so, Kings were born.  And queens were mostly the kings’ sisters, because, after all, the big guys still got all the best girls.  And as time went on, we had kings and their big guys and all the other “common” people.  But you couldn’t just kill (and hopefully not eat) all the “common” people, because they were useful too.  You could put them to work so they could pay more taxes and make more stuff for you and it made your life better if you had a lot of them working for you.  But some old king named Louie discovered you had to make the “common” people a little bit happy too because they outnumber you by a lot.  Unfortunately for Louie, he didn’t discover this until they cut his head off… some argument about eating cake or something.  So, some other smart guys with big heads got together and decided to make a new government.  It was really still the old government.  They just had the brilliant idea of re-naming everything and lying to the people.  Now, instead of kings and their big guys who got all the good girls, you had “elected representatives” who were actually the kings of old.  They just figured out how to lie to people and make them believe they worked for the “common man”.  And the big guys were re-named the “Military Industrial Complex”, or maybe it’s the Illuminati.  I’m not sure.  And then there’s a Pope, and possibly some alien beings from Roswell, and… okay, maybe I need to save the rest for the Tinfoil Hat Club when we meet every Wednesday evening and plot how we are going to “wake up, sheeple” and take over the world.  (Dues are fifty cents.  We are meeting again on Sunday because we think the world ends next Tuesday… or something.)

5 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, satire

Tagged as , , , , ,

September 25, 2015 · 2:07 pm

Weirdie Poetry

Mr. R RabbitThe Man Who Had Bird Knees

I once knew a man…

Who had knees…

That bent backwards, like a bird’s…

And this man…

Could only walk…

Like a limping, lame old duck.

The children all laughed…

And pointed at him…

When he passed them in the park…

And it made him smile…

And laugh to himself…

That his handicap made them happy.

Every single night…

He oiled his weary knees…

And tried to fight the pain…

And every single day…

He used his silly legs…

To do the Chicken Dance for kids.

And then there came a day…

When the bird legs came no more…

To be noticed by kids at the park…

And the parents all learned…

That the poor man had died…

And the whole world brought him flowers.

The next day in Heaven…

St. Peter saw a man…

Whose knees bent backwards like a bird’s…

And all of Heaven laughed…

As he did the Chicken Dance…

While angels clapped in Heaven.

dorin 001

dorin 002dorin 003

The thing I find to be most witlessly true about both poetry and life is that things can be funny, and make you laugh, and at the same time make you cry on the inside.  Humor is hard to write because it can be both happy and sad at the same exact moment.  How do you define that quality?  The bitter-sweet nature of nature?  That’s saying it in a way that is both contradictory and odd.  It can give you a wry smile at the same moment it both confounds and confuses you.  So better just to shrug your shoulders and tell yourself you know it when you see it… and this either is or isn’t it.  Sorry if I made you think too hard, cause I know that sometimes thinking hurts.

Mickey at the Wishing Well of Souls

I found a country well, and I thought I had a quarter,

But I fished in pockets hard, and found nothing for the warter,

And since I had to warp a line to make the poem rhyme,

I figured I would just look in, because I had the time.

I looked into the warty water which sat there still and deep,

And could not see the bottom, and I began to weep.

The water was clear and dark and black,

And the only thing I saw… was Mickey looking back.

And nothing of the wishing well, its magic could I see,

For only there just staring back, the secret thing was me.

Kops

I apologize for inflicting poetry on you when you probably came here looking for goofy stuff to laugh at.  But my poetry is just like all my word-mangling and picture-crayoning.  It tends to be goofy and weird and walking a tightrope over a shark tank between chuckle-inducing and tear-jerking.  You probably can’t even tell which is the poetry and which are the burbled brain-farts of commentary that pad this thing out to five hundred words.  Four hundred and ninety six, actually.

mANDY

3 Comments

Filed under humor, Paffooney, poetry

Tagged as , , , , , , , , , ,