People are not really vegetables… even though I have seen IQ scores as a teacher that might say otherwise. But I often use the pun of calling them Human Beans.
Your basic human bean.
Western style beans
Of course, being a Texan means having a healthy appreciation for beans as a staple food. Cowboys used to live off of beans and beef jerky, and if Louis L’Amour is to be believed, they even made tea from mesquite beans. That makes your average cowboy made up of over 50 per cent beans. Of course the rest of him is mostly gas caused by the beans in his diet, whether it comes out as a fart or as a Texas tall tale… And yes, I admit it, I get a lot of my writing ideas from eating beans.
A Boston baked bean
We must also be aware that Texas has no corner on the beans market. We all know Boston baked beans by reputation. They, like the ever-hapless Cubs, had a habit of never winning the World Series. And now, in the last two decades, it has actually been difficult for the other teams to keep them from winning it all. But we shouldn’t mix up beans with baseball metaphors. Baseball is like life. Full of long and boring parts punctuated by intense moments of hitting, scoring, committing errors, and player versus player individual drama. And concession stand food! Beans, however, can taste good in chili draped over the ballpark hot dogs which cost more than a restaurant meal at most reasonable restaurants. And I promise you, you will never hit a home run over the fence by hitting it with a bean.
A Mexican style re-fried bean
And I wish to point out that this last human bean is not a racist cartoon. Beans are not part of the human race. They only have legs in cartoons and would come in last even when racing a snail. And all beans are created equal in the sight of God. Kidney beans, butter beans, navy beans, string beans… all beans are just beans, no matter what the color of their skin is, and no matter how they add flavor to a casserole. All beans are just in it to live life the best they can, and if that’s not enough… they can be planted as seeds to raise the next generation of human beans.
I think a lot of thoroughly thoughtful thuggish thoughts that build and build and build up an idea, and then turn around and knock it all down. Let me demonstrate by knocking down that title right off the bat. Rene DesCartes in the early 1600’s said, “Cogito Ergo Sum”, and he thereby totally disrupted the world as we knew it. Didn’t get that? Let me translate. He said, “Je pense, donc je suis.” Still didn’t help? Okay, here’s the English, “I think, therefore I am.” In other words, the one thing that I know for sure is that I am thinking this particular thought at this particular time. If I am thinking, and I know I am, I must be here and I must be real. So there is one thing I know for certain. But do I know anything else for certain? Uh-oh. How do I know anything? I have to rely on my senses. And my senses lie to me all the time. I am partially color blind, so I don’t see the world the same way you do. I don’t see things in black and white, like Great Grandma Hinckley did in her 90’s, but the colors look different to my eyes than they do to yours and I will never know what things look like to you. Forget politicians and all other people who tell lies, my own eyes lie to me constantly. So can I know anything for sure? Of course not. All I have are firm beliefs based on imperfect senses and best guesses at what is true. So what I am actually talking about is a list of potential essay ideas that I am merely asserting as true based on my imperfect goofy thinking of thoughtful thuggish thoughts.
Idea #1 that I think is certainly possibly maybe true; My brain was taught and I was raised to adulthood by the movies I saw when I was young. I want to talk about this at length in another post. The video is by a guy who was a kid in the 80’s, and he has some really awesome movies to offer as a way to delineate his rise to adulthood.
My list includes the movies of my boyhood seen in the Belmond Theater and on our old black and white Motorola TV. My list of movies that raised me includes Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Sound of Music, Mary Poppins, and The Wizard of Oz.
Idea #2; Animals are people too.
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I mean, as a writer for young adults, I know for a fact that animals are relevant as characters. They have a point of view, feelings, reactions, and complex lives that people rarely pay attention to. I have to write about this some time in the future too.
Idea #3; The worst things that happen to us in our lives, are also the best things that happen. Wow! What a difficult essay topic. But I not only think it, I can prove it… at least to myself. But can I write about it? Time will tell.
Idea #4; Silly thoughts and serious thoughts are two sides of the same coin. And this will be particularly difficult to think about if thoughts are literally coins. That would mean that my head is full of metal, and I know several people who would read that sentence and shout, “I knew it all along!” Fortunately they are all too sensible to read this far in one of my blog posts.
So, at 600 words I still have lots more to say. But people with metal in their heads often talk way too much, so my concluding sentence will be simply; “I promise to shut up for now.”
You cannot cleave a ghost in twain with a cast-iron fireplace poker. Throwing snowballs at vampires will not keep your blood from being drained. And bugbears don’t really have an aversion to little girls in pink dresses (except for little Tessie Trueheart of the Green Dale; that little booger has a temper as large as her love for the color pink).
To go adventuring in Mickey the Dungeonmaster’s dungeons, you need the right equipment. Of course, whole books full of weapons and armor and adventuring doodads have been published. Some of the stuff we use in the family games comes from the game books, as exemplified by the items pictured above. The Blue Wood Armor of the Forest Guardian is a collection of items put together from the books published for D&D by Wizards of the Coast Publishing.
My daughter’s favorite weapon is a sentient throwing knife that always flies back to its current master after being thrown. It also never misses, adjusting its own flight to always strike the target for the greatest possible damage. It has a mind and intelligence of its own. It became sentient and alive in the middle of an epic combat with a magical giant golem who hit it with a spell that went disastrously wrong for the caster. This item was created on the spur of the moment in the midst of a published adventure, based on a disasterously low roll of the dice for the monster side of the combat.
Some items in the game are actually treasures from the published adventure scenarios I like to use. Instead of simply selling off items when they are discovered in the cold, dead hands of defeated evil druids whose dreams of conquest and tyrannical rule you have thwarted, you can take them for your own personal use. I have a tendency to embellish what is described in the pages of the adventure with both really good powers and effects, and really insidious concealed curses. The Legendary Black Blades are both demon-laced and deadly. And both, though fatal to your enemies, will eventually darken your own heart and possibly shorten your adventuring life the hard way.
Not all equipment is made of swords and armor. The Evil Heads of Dr. Zorgo are a collection of living zombie heads that can impart wisdom and information (allowing characters to add skills) and can also direct you to places of adventure and great treasure. Of course, they are evil. There is always that little factor to consider. But come on, how can you not be tempted by treasures talked about by the Ghost Elf’s head when you tried to ask her for the time of day in her native land?
So the point of this post is that I am really proud of my drawings of D&D equipment and wanted to show them off. This post is merely an excuse for doing that. I have one more to show you, though I must confess, while I drew this one, it was designed by number one son to be used for his character, though as soon as he got it made, he sold it for lots of gold to use on the next project.
Rogelio found himself looking up at the second-floor balcony of the Zuniga Inn.
“So, you wanna climb up there?” he asked Steven.
“I have now done it countless times in more than a century of practicing this moment over and over again.”
“So, I won’t die if we fall headfirst on our stupid head?”
“You can’t actually die in this reality unless another living human kills you here.”
“And that’s what we’re gonna do to Yesenia when we get up there?” Rogelio felt a bit panicky over having no control over his own body.
“Not here. Not now. I told you I would give you the reasons for why we have to kill her. But those reasons don’t apply to this moment.”
Steven took control of Rogelio’s arms and legs. He began to shinny up one of the columns that supported the balcony on the second floor. Then like a monkey he swung his legs up over the edge of the balcony railing. It was all solid wood, but Rogelio still felt as if it could fall apart at any moment and they would plummet headfirst to the ground. But he found himself standing on both legs outside the first room on the second floor.
“What if the balcony door is locked?” Rogelio asked.
“It’s not. These balcony doors don’t even have locks.”
He reached over and slowly, silently pulled open the balcony door. Quietly, he entered the room. It was a simple, sparsely furnished room in a Spanish inn. The bed was occupied by two skeletons, a large, blue male one and a smaller pink one that looked like it could be Imelda’s mother.
“Don’t say anything with your mouth. You’ll wake them,” said Steven.
“Are they both asleep?” Rogelio asked nervously in his head only.
Then the male snored loudly enough to remove all doubt. The female moaned at the noise, but merely poked her husband and rolled over.
Steven quietly moved them out of the room and closed the door after them.
“So, I was supposed to expect you to sneak into Momma and Poppa’s room?” said Yesenia/Imelda on the next balcony.
Steven grinned sheepishly. Rogelio noticed that the moonlight made the ghost nightgown she was wearing more visible, but you could still see through it to Yesenia’s beautiful naked body underneath.
“Why don’t you try this room instead?”
The two balcony railings were separated by only about three feet of empty space. Getting up on the railing, it was easy for Steven/Rogelio to step across the gap.
“Gringo, I am surprised that you actually did this. I thought it was just talking.”
“I was talking… to a pretty girl whom I may have fallen in love with at first sight.” Steven was laying it on thick, but Rogelio also knew he was deeply in love with Imelda.
Imelda blushed using Yesenia’s face.
“Come into my room where Momma won’t hear you. If she finds out, she will make Poppa kill you.”
Steven let Imelda take him by the hand and pull him into the bedroom.
“Is what I think is about to happen really going to happen?” Rogelio asked Steven.
“It depends on what you mean by really happen?” he answered by thought alone.
“Have you ever made love to a woman?”
“Only one time in my whole life, but I have relived it more times than I can count on all the fingers in Dallas.”
“And you are going to relive it again now?”
“Yeah… so?”
“In my body? And Imelda in Yesenia’s body?”
“And you are a virgin… huh?”
Then Rogelio saw Imelda pulling them toward the bed. And he began to remember how beautiful Yesenia was in real life. He was about to become a man in the world of the ghosts and skeletons.
*****
“You will come to my quinceañera, Steven?”
“I will. And we will run away together?”
“I will go anywhere with you. I love you, Steven.”
At that moment, a loud banging at the door frightened them both.
“Imelda! LET ME IN! I will kill him!”
“It is my padre! He will kill us both! Get out now!”
Steven scrambled out of the bed and grabbed at his clothing. The ghost materials all slipped through his fingers except for his floppy cowboy hat. He was out over the balcony rail in mere moments. Completely naked… with a hat on his head.
Several splinters pierced his hands, forearms, and thighs as he shinnied down the support column. “You come back here, gringo! You will marry my daughter now, or you will die a horrible death!”
The angry shadow loomed over the street, huge and terrible. It shook a black skeletal fist at Rogelio and Steven as they ran down the street naked, not wearing even ghost clothing. Rogelio’s heart hammered hard enough for two people as they barefooted their way down the dirt street.
I have to because somebody has to control the words.
People are made of words. Their identity, their inner self, their reason for existence… all made of words. The very thoughts in their heads are… words.
If I want to control the words I am made of, then I must be the writer who writes his own story.
I don’t want anyone else to write the words that essentially become me. Do you?
Of course, authors create characters. Even autobiographers create characters. Carl Sandburg could no more make his words into Lincoln than a bird can make its tweets into a cat. Sandburg can, however, help us to understand Lincoln as Carl Sandburg understands the words that are Lincoln.
Lincoln probably did not have the words for “bikini girls” in his head when he wrote those words in the second quote. But somebody thought that the picture would help us understand the words. By all accounts, Lincoln was not a particularly happy man leading a particularly happy life. But he showed us the meaning of his words when he stood firm against the strong winds of harsh words and bad ideas in a terrible time. And he was as happy about it as he made up his mind to be.
I, too, have not lived a particularly happy life. But I was always the “teacher with a sense of humor” in the classroom, and students loved me for it. Funny people are often not happy people. But they make themselves out of funny words because laughter heals pain, and jokes are effective medicine. And so I choose to write comedy novels. Novels that are funny even though they are about hard things like freezing to death, losing loved ones, being humiliated, being molested, and fear of death. Magical purple words can bring light to any darkness. I am the words I choose to write in my own story. The words not only reveal me, they make me who I am. And it is up to me to write those words. Other people might wish to do it for me. But they really can’t. The words are for me alone to write.
And so it is imperative that I write my words in the form of my novels, my essays, and this goofy blog post. I am writing myself to life, even if no one ever reads my writing.
I read a lot of other people’s blogs for a lot of reasons. As an old writing teacher and retired Grammar Nazi, I love to see where writers are on the talent spectrum. I have read everything from the philosophy of Camus and Kant to the beginning writing of ESL kids who are illiterate in two languages. I view it like a vast flower garden of varied posies where even the weeds can be considered beautiful. And like rare species of flower, I notice that many of the best blossoms out there in the blogosphere are consistent with their coloring and patterns. In other words, they have a theme.
So, do I have an over-all theme for my blog? It isn’t purely poetical like some of the poetry blogs I like to read. I really only write comically bad poetry. It has photos in it, but it isn’t anything like some of the photography blogs I follow. They actually know how to photograph stuff and make it look perfect and pretty. It is not strictly an art blog. I do a lot of drawing and cartooning and inflict it upon you in this blog. But I am not a professional artist and can’t hold a candle to some of the painters and artists I follow and sometimes even post about. I enjoy calling Trump President Pumpkinhead, but I can’t say that my blog is a political humor blog, or that I am even passable as a humorous political commentator.
One thing that I can definitely say is that I was once a teacher. I was one of those organizers and explainers who stand in front of diverse groups of kids five days a week for six shows a day and try to make them understand a little something. Something wise. Something wonderful. Something new. Look at the video above if you haven’t already watched it. Not only does it give you a sense of the power of holding the big pencil, it teaches you something you probably didn’t realize before with so much more than mere words.
But can I say this is an education blog? No. It is far too silly and pointless to be that. If you want a real education blog, you have to look for someone like Diane Ravitch’s blog. Education is a more serious and sober topic than Mickey.
By the way, were you worried about the poor bunny in that first cartoon getting eaten by the fox and the bear? Well, maybe this point from that conversation can put your mind at ease.
Mickey is tricky and gets good mileage out of his cartoons.
You may have gotten the idea that I like Bobby McFerrin by this point in my post. It is true. Pure genius and raw creative talent fascinate me. Is that the end point of my journey to an answer about what the heck this blog is about? Perhaps. As good an answer as any. But I think the question is still open for debate. It is the journey from thought through many thoughts to theme that make it all fun. And I don’t anticipate that journey actually ending anytime soon.
This is an old re-purposed post from 2016 to kill some time so that this blog doesn’t kill me.
Life is hard here in the Kingdom of Paffoon where you labor hard at a labor of love and try to give birth to something eternal that ends up going nowhere… stacks of old writing litter my closets, and the prospects of being published grow dimmer and dimmer. My book Snow Babieshas a contract with a publisher, but, apparently they are not going to be able to publish it after all. I am at the very least going to have to find another publisher for the rest of my books, both finished manuscripts and works in progress.
I do intend to follow through and get published, though. I can no longer teach, but I feel a powerful force pushing me towards the sheer precipice of authordom. One way or another I am going to make it over the edge and plummet to the bottom of that cliff. I am compelled by the need to tell stories, and I have a captive audience every school day no longer.
I used to tell my classes that doing impossible things was like trying to pull chicken teeth with pliers. You know, impossible things like getting a book published or teaching a mostly Spanish-speaking student how to read in English… every-day-sort-of impossible things.
“But, Mr. B, chickens don’t have teeth,” some bright-eyed student would say after realizing that “chicken” was the English word for “pollo”.
“Exactly!” I would say. “That’s what makes it so challenging!”
And now I must put on my chicken-catching socks, find my tooth-pulling pliers, and get ready to make more novels happen. After a brief bout of consternation and depression, I actually feel a bit better about the whole fiasco. There are other publishers, and publishers seem to like my writing, even if they can’t publish it. And I have waited two years to get Snow Babies published, all apparently for nothing. It is time to stop wasting time. And maybe to stop repeating repetitions too.
I would like to here note that I now have 21 books published, all but one of which is self-published on Amazon and fully under my control. My other book, the award-winning novel from I-Universe, Catch a Falling Star, continues to be little-purchased and less read, though I discovered they pay all my royalties to my wife’s bank account. That was unexpected. Chicken teeth where they can’t be reached by me.
The marionette that was now Shandra and the marionette that was actually Mark were both standing on a stage made for marionettes. It was small, but ornate, with a woodland scene draped behind them.
“You are now Hansel and Gretel,” said Mr. Mephisto.
Shandra looked up at the puppeteer holding her control stick above her, and the female puppeteer holding the control stick for Mark. “And who are these dummies that seem to think they gonna make us do stuff with them strings they got attached to us?”
“Oh, they aren’t there to control the two of you. Trog and Trogina are the real puppets. They will just hold the strings to convince the audience that you two are puppets.”
“So, we can move and do whatever we want?” Shandra put her marionette hands on her hips and frowned at Mephisto while Trog moved the correct strings to fake that he was doing the controlling.
“You can go anywhere on stage as long as you are attached to the strings. If you mention something that you need in the story, it will appear on stage as if by the magic of a Troglet handing it to you or changing the scenery like a good stage manager.”
“And what if we say something that’s not on the script?” asked Mark, his voice sounding nervous with apparent stage fright.
“Oh, we are not using a script, Hansel, my boy. You will just make up the story as you go. You do basically know the story of Hansel and Gretel, right?”
“I gotta story to tell alright,” said Shandra, frowning even harder with her string-attached eyebrows.
“Good girl. That’s what we do here. Improv. And it all works out in the end one way or another.”
The theater was in a library on Webb Chapel Road. When Mr. Mephisto pulled back the curtains you could see the shelves of books, and the wooden chairs lined up in front of the puppet theater, and the space right down front that quickly filled up with snotty little brats that were younger than Shandra and Mark by a bit. Shandra grinned evilly.
Mr. Mephisto came over the speaker and said, “The Kids on Strings now present their version of Hansel and Gretel.”
“ Well, Hansel, we are kicked outta our home by an evil stepfather and have to find a way to feed our own selves.”
“Um, yeah, Gretel…” Mark answered tentatively.
“So, you know that old witch that has the house made of gingerbread and candy? The one who eats kids like us?”
“Uh, well… yes.”
“Let’s go eat her damn house. I like gingerbread, and I’m really very hungry.”
“Well, yeah. But what if the witch catches us?”
“You know how this story goes. We kill her evil backside… and her frontside too.”
The kids in the audience all laughed. The adults, however, were looking rather frowny.
The scenery changed. The Troglet dropped in the gingerbread witch house, which was actually made of cardboard and papier mache. Shandra winked at the crowd, smiled even bigger, and proceeded to chew the scenery to pieces with her wooden teeth.
Mark helped her make the house-eating scene look real as he greedily chewed up the witch’s house beside Shandra.
“Oh, no! Look out for the witch!” cried several kids in the audience. The witch puppet showed up on stage armed with what appeared to be a magic wand.
Shandra grinned at the witch as she said aloud, “Troglet, where is that goddam oven we get to bake her in?”
The oven appeared as if by magic, stage right.
The witch puppet seemed to be looking at Shandra imploringly, fear featured prominently in her bulging, round eyes.
Shandra boldly strode over to the witch, hoisted the villain over her puppet head, and gave Mark a sharp command. “Open that danged oven, so I can throw this witch in there!”
“Oh, no!” cried the witch, having already dropped her wand.
Shandra marched over and threw the puppet witch into what appeared to be a real fire. The witch broke free of her strings and started to crisp in the oven’s hot flames.
Immediately Shandra formed a new plan. She reached down and picked up the witch’s wand. She pointed it at the oven.
“I don’t want no gingerbread witch. I want to turn the witch into a statue of pure gold. Not puppet-show gold, but real, honest-to-god gold.”
The oven disappeared in a puff of smoke, leaving behind a golden statue of the witch. And, as the spotlight caused the golden statue to glitter, it appeared to be real gold.
The kids all laughed. The adults mostly applauded.
“That is real gold over there,” said Shandra, grinning at the crowd. “And I wanna use it to hire a hit man.”
“To kill somebody for real?” asked a black man in the back of the audience.
“Yes. You, any of you, know Poppa Dark?”
“The con man that maybe killed his stepdaughter?”
“That would be the one. Guilty as sin. He killed poor lovely Shandra and deserves to die. The statue, whatever the gold is worth, goes to anybody who can successfully make him dead.”
“Boy howdy, I don’t know about this!” said a white parent, grabbing her two kids from the front row.
“That is definitely not how the story goes,” someone else said.
“Won’t you all come back for our next show?” Shandra said with a grin. “It will be called How Poppa Dark Got What’s Coming to Him.”
The part of the library where the puppet show was located quickly emptied, and Mr. Mephisto drew the curtains closed.
Then the old devil man was standing in front of Shandra and Mark with a smile on his face.
“So, now you gonna punish us kids?”
“No, Shandra. That was perfect, just as it was.”
“You mean we didn’t mess up your evil little plans?”
“Of course not. That was precisely the introduction we needed in this case. Somebody will be getting the message soon.”
The word for it is Paffooney. I know that is not a real word. It is a Mickian word. Kinda like the word “Mickian”. It is entirely made up gibberish, made up by Mickey, and used to mean an artwork made by the hand of Mickey. So I can’t really explain it. I have to show you what it basically is.
This is a Paffooney. It is inspired by the incredibly unbelievable time in Mickey’s life when they let Mickey be a teacher in Texas. It has no other relationship to reality. Chinese girls in Texas generally do not have manga eyes and blue hair, and while Hispanic girls have been known to eat pencils, they never bring their own notebook paper to class. They always borrow. So there is the basic formula. Colored-pencil nonsense drawn by Mickey and attached somehow to a story.
This Paffooney has a self-explanatory story embedded in it. It is obvious this is the story of an average family car trip in Texas. Notice how they demonstrate the Texas State highway motto of, “Drive friendly”.
And this Paffooney is a Mickian recurring nightmare about a duck with teeth. Silly Mickey, ducks don’t have teeth in real life!
And moose bowling is a Paffooney that needs no explanation… or does it? Well, never mind. I have forgotten what it is for anyway.
And this oil-painting Paffooney speaks volumes about a philosophy of life. See the pilot giving the viewer a thumbs up? And that isn’t a parachute on his back. They didn’t have parachutes in World War I. It is a message pouch with German war plans in it. I even painted it with a bratwurst sandwich inside for the pilot’s lunch. Don’t I do great detail work? But he will have to eat it quickly before he reaches the ground.
And this is me teaching an ESL class. When you teach English to non-English speakers in Texas, you get to hold the big pencil. And it helps to be a big white rabbit.
And this is a science fiction Paffooney, although the science is questionable. Don’t doubt that the flower-people of the planet Cornucopia are real, though. And Mai Ling, the psionic space ninja really can elongate her arm to get maximum thrust into her left-handed karate chops.
And we end for today with the Paffooney of a stupid boy. He’s not really me. Not really. And I don’t even know who gave him the black eye. So it can’t be me. So maybe he is not so stupid. You can’t say that about somebody you don’t know and is not even you.
So, now do you know what a Paffooney is? No? Me neither. But if you Google images with the words “Beyer Paffooney” you can see a lot more of them. Nobody else uses that word but little ol’ me.
I was forced to retire from my career as a teacher by ill health, caused by years of juggling the chaos of a classroom (24 years of it in the middle-school monkey house. Aargh! Seventh graders!) I went into a school in 1981 as a rookie teacher for $11,000 a year. I was expected to take over a class that chased the previous teacher out of teaching permanently with firecrackers under her chair and nearly destroyed the school. The principal and half the teachers were new that year at Frank Newman Junior High. And I was on my own with discipline that year as everybody was scrambling to do their own jobs. The other English teacher was also a rookie.
As a group, we organized an effective faculty. Most of us were there for years as we stabilized the chaos. I personally broke up more than 35 fist fights in my teaching career, more than half of them at that middle school, and more than half of those by myself. I got punched in the back of the head twice, faced down a kid with actual razor-sharp throwing stars as a concealed weapon, and had my car tires slashed twice and car window broken once all because I was a teacher who wanted them to learn how to read and write better.
I built the English department, writing curriculum for three different grade levels to respond to three different State Tests. I was the department head for eight years, in charge of the gifted and talented program, and I helped us achieve a commendation for writing skills on the TAAS Test in the late 90’s. Of course, what I built was torn down and rebuilt more than twice because, well, Education is all about managing chaos.
A typical Texas school bus.
People often say that teachers don”t really earn their pay.because all they do is talk to kids all day and then get three months off in the summer. But I never heard a fellow teacher make that claim.
So, now I am retired, working hard at just staying alive. Retirement is supposed to be a quiet, calm, and restful time of life. But in my now-going-on eight year retirement, I have had a heart problem complete with a week in the hospital with no diagnosis, a five-year Chapter Thirteen Bankruptcy which I finished paying off in November of 2021, a two-year-going-on-three-year Covid 19 pandemic, the loss of both of my parents (neither one because of the pandemic,) and now, a war in Ukraine that could turn into nuclear Armageddon.
So, what am I supposed to do to recover from the chaos?
Maybe stuff hollyhocks in my checkerboard baggy pants. Or maybe just be satisfied with fictional worlds and living in my head.
Catch a Falling Star 