Category Archives: Paffooney

April 4, 2023 · 2:36 am

The Haunted Toy Store… Canto 16

Canto 16 – The First Adventure on Strings

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.”

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April 1, 2023 · 1:04 am

Mickian Artistical Nonsense

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.

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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.

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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”.

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And this Paffooney is a Mickian recurring nightmare about a duck with teeth.  Silly Mickey, ducks don’t have teeth in real life!

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And moose bowling is a Paffooney that needs no explanation… or does it?  Well, never mind.  I have forgotten what it is for anyway.

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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.

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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.

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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.

Stupid Boy

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.

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March 30, 2023 · 12:49 am

Recovering from Chaos

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.

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March 29, 2023 · 12:47 am

Writer’s Block

I have always contended that I don’t have writer’s block. But some days, especially if I am not feeling well, I have writer’s lethargy. I can be slow to come up with the next thing. Writing can become bogged down and I am easily distracted or lose focus and have to return to what I was trying to do previously.

There is evidence that I have often had that kind of problem frequently on this blog. One thing I do to overcome writer’s lethargy is suddenly start thinking about how you can overcome writer’s block. What are the strategies that help me overcome it?

I often resort to “kickstart statements.” These are surprising or deep-left-field items that give the old brain a shot of adrenaline. The picture of the girl with the message blackboard is that kind of kickstarter. I never could have used that thing in any kind of social-media post when I was still employed as a teacher. It has the potential to generate parent complaints and administrative thoughts about evaluations and contract cancellations. But there really are kids who have thoughts like that in your classroom, and I know because not only was I a kid like that myself, I used it as an optional journal topic for writing practice, and, boy! do they ever catch fire when they can write about something like that and they know only the teacher is ever going to read it. It is the way I learned how many of my students had ever been to a nude beach in Corpus Christi or Lake Travis (Hippy Hollow.)

I can also look around the room, or scroll through my media library on WordPress and find an image or an item that generates ideas, responses, and even stories. I scrolled through to find this image of the Gummi Bear, who was a brief internet sensation on YouTube a few years ago coming from German CGI cartoons that illustrated earworm music with dancing green gummy bears. There’s a lot a goofy writer like me can run away with inspired by a nonsense thing like that.

It is also possible to generate new ideas by deconstructing a metaphor in as humorous and convoluted a way as possible. This word-food thing is the result of writer’s lethargy of a while back.

Of course, there is always the ranting factor. This, I think, is a go-to method used by stand-up comedians. They will pick something that is deeply bugging them, like the rats that inhabit my attic and walls during a winter that hasn’t yet completely gone. And they start listing all the ways they can make funny stories about the time the rat appeared on the bathroom floor tiles while my daughter was on the toilet, or the time the dog killed a rat that was in the trap already, but not dead enough not to bite back with the dog’s nose conveniently within the reach of rat teeth. And then they can rant onward about how disgusting rats are. And how can anyone look at a rat face and think they are cute? You look at that evil, beady-eyed face and you don’t think Mickey Mouse, you think plague, disease, the Black Death, and how much the Bank of America lawyer who sued you looks just like that.

So, you can see that generating ideas is easy. And you can write something interesting even on days when you can’t think of anything … quickly. When you have, not writer’s block, but writer’s lethargy.

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March 28, 2023 · 1:02 am

Nutzy Nuts

Things are not what they seem. Life throws curve balls across the plate ninety percent of the time. Fastballs are rare. And fastballs you can hit are even rarer. But if Life is pitching, who is the batter? Does it change the metaphor and who you are rooting for if the batter is Death?

If you think this means that I am planning on dying because of the Coronavirus pandemic, well, you would be right. Of course, I am always planning for death with every dark thing that bounces down the hopscotch squares of the immediate future. That’s what it means to be a pessimist. No matter what bad thing we are talking about, it will not take ME by surprise. And if I think everything is going to kill me, sooner or later I have to be right… though, hopefully, much later.

I keep seeing things that aren’t there. Childlike faces keep looking at me from the top of the stairs, but when I focus my attention there, they disappear. And I know there are no children in the house anymore since my youngest is now legally an adult. And the chimpanzee that peeked at me from behind the couch in the family room was definitely not there. I swear, it looked exactly like Roddy McDowell from the Planet of the Apes movies, whom I know for a fact to be deceased. So, obviously, it has to be Roddy McDowell’s monkey-ghost. I believe I may have mentioned before that there is a ghost dog in our house. I often catch glimpses of its tail rounding the corner ahead of me when my own dog is definitely behind me. And I am sure I shared the facts before that Parkinson’s sufferers often see partial visions of people and faces (and apparently dogs) that aren’t really there, and that my father suffers from Parkinson’s Disease. So, obviously it is my father and not me that is seeing these things… He’s just using my eyeballs to do it with.

But… and this is absolutely true even if it starts with a butt… the best way to deal with scary possibilities is to laugh at them. Jokes, satire, mockery, and ludicrous hilarity expressed in big words are the proper things to use against the fearful things you cannot change. So, this essay is nothing but a can of mixed nutz. Nutzy nuts. And fortunately, peanut allergies are one incurable and possibly fatal disease I don’t have. One of the few.

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March 28, 2023 · 12:56 am

The Haunted Toy Store… Canto 15

Canto 15 – Dolls with White Wigs

Dora McMaster had been carefully studying the doll that she thought she had somehow made and forgotten.  She seemed especially interested in the white-haired wig the doll wore.

“This wig on the doll…  Did you know that it is made with real human hair?” Dora asked Brittany.

“No, I did not.  It is the only thing that isn’t like my own daughter.  She has black hair.”

“Molly had black hair too before…”

“Before what?”

“The news came about her father, and both she and her mother took sick.  Apparently high fever, or something like it, turned Molly’s hair ghost white.”

“That’s strange.”

“Yes, and stranger still that I don’t remember ever making a white wig before.  But I have been planning to make one for the doll who is supposed to be Molly.  To remember her as…”

“…As she was before you lost your chance to save her.”

“Yes.  But where did the doll-maker who made this wig get white human hair?  And why put it on my creation in Aunt Phillia’s horrible store?”

“Is it dyed, perhaps?”

“No.  It contains strands that still have black roots, and the color all seems natural, just like Molly’s own.  But it couldn’t be made from Molly’s hair… not after the fire.”

“You will make the Molly doll with white hair?”

“Yes, of course… but where to get white-colored human hair to make such a wig?”

“Mention her own white hair,” said Molly to Brittany in a voice Dora apparently couldn’t also hear.

“You have some white hair on your own head the same color as that,” said Brittany.

“Why, yes… I do.  It will take time to grow out enough to use it without making myself bald,” Dora said, giggling to herself.

“Why do you have white hair?” Brittany whispered to the doll.

“Not here.  We will talk later in private.  I can show you at the witching hour.”

Brittany nodded to herself at the doll’s answer.  She didn’t much like how demonic and spooky the doll seemed.  But the doll was also so like Hannah, and endearing enough to make it necessary for Brittany to know everything.  In a ghost story, it is the unknown thing that scares you the most.  And it could only be a good thing to make the unknown a little more known.

Dora had taken out the pieces of a doll’s skull cap and began singing softly to herself as she began to sew and prepare the cap to have human hair added.

“Dora?  Would it be all right if I step out in the yard for some air while you do that?” Brittany asked.

“Certainly.  And thank you so much for the inspiration.”

Brittany took the doll with her out onto the veranda in the back of the house opposite the flower garden.

“Okay, Molly.  I need some answers.”

“Honest answers?  Or do you prefer to be lied to?”

“Honest answers, of course!”

“About what, then?”

“Why did you bring me here?”

“You mean to Dora’s house?”

“I mean, this time… this place… this world?”

“I paid the toy man to get my momma back again.”

“What?  What does that have to do with me?”

“The toy man said that if I chose you to play with, that could help me get momma back.”

“Play with me?  What does that mean?”

“I don’t know all the details… yet.  But you are alive… and my momma is not.  I need to use you to make her alive again.”

Brittany stared at the smiling porcelain face.  The creepy smile chilled her to the bone.

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March 24, 2023 · 1:00 am

Internet Lies About Mickey

Mickey

The truth is sometimes Mickey tells lies.  For instance, the title of this post is intended to lure you in with expectations of a juicy something that doesn’t actually exist.  There is no controversy on the internet over this particular Mickey.  He hasn’t done a very good job of keeping it secret that he tells a lot of lies.  In fact, most of the most embarrassing and terrible secret things that he had been keeping secret for going on sixty years are now published in this blog.  Talk about a life being an open book!

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Of course, being a lover of internet conspiracies and ufo’s and junk, there is always that other Mickey to talk about.  Yes, Disney has generated its share of conspiracy theories.

Everyone on the internet knows, for instance, that when Walt Disney died, he had his body frozen cryogenically  so that he could be re-animated once a cure for his lung cancer was found.  Of course, Snopes.com already did the investigation on it and brought out the fact that not only was Disney cremated with full documentation of the process, the first cryogenic freezing of a human being didn’t occur until a year after his death.  This lie about Mickey’s dad, then is easily debunked.  See, the internet lies about Mickey!

Of course, the notion that Disney was a racist and a Nazi and worked with the CIA are much harder to disprove.

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A character from the original version of Fantasia that doesn’t help Mickey’s image.

Most heads of super-wealthy corporations are by nature fascists.  The dictatorial style and oppressive oligarchic command structures of fascism organically grew out of business practices.  Henry Ford, John D. Rockefeller, and J.P. Morgan were also Nazis.  And, of course, no one believes me when I start in on the Disney/alien connection.  After all, what’s with alien beings in Escape from Witch Mountain, Lilo and Stitch, and even Chicken Little?  I may have some more conspiracy-theory investigating to do.

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So, let me assure you that lies about Mickey are actually lies.  The thing about Mickey’s dream in the 1960’s of seeing Annette Funicello naked is a lie… er, probably.  The notion that Mickey trained himself to be a cartoonist by copying Disney characters like Carl Barks’ ducks are… err… um… lies… maybe.  Well, anyway, the point is… don’t spread lies on the internet about Mickey.  That’s my job.

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March 23, 2023 · 1:40 am

The Haunted Toy Store… Canto 14

Canto 14 – En el Mercado de Dallas

Rogelio was definitely in la Tierra de los Muertos, the Land of the Dead.  The general scene around him was black.  The ground, the sky, the distance… all darkest black.  The buildings, trees, and other physical features were painted in with lots of shades of gray, the sparse highlights being white.  Rogelio himself was still naked, riding the skeletal horse with white bones and flesh of nearly transparent gray.  He could feel the leather saddle under him as if he was naked, but he did have a semi-transparent appearance of grungy, homemade clothing, and a nearly transparent gray cowboy hat that looked beat up and droopy all around.

“So, this is what Texas looked like in your day, before cameras were invented?” he asked Steven. Mainly to test if Steven was still there in his head.

“Of course not!  We had cameras then.  Just not around here.  And what you’re seeing is the long-dead world of the past through inadequate living-human eyes from the present world.  Nothing that lived then is still alive in the here and now.  So, all you can see is the bones of the dead world.”

“But this is Dallas?”

“The outskirts…  It was a big city for the time, but much smaller than the Dallas you live in.  We’re headed for the place I first met her… the Mercado.”

“The marketplace?”

“One of them, yes.”

“And you mean you met Yesenia there?”

“No, I mean Imelda, the girl I fell in love with.”

I continued to wonder at the people I saw as we entered the mercado.  They were all skeletons of varied colors with only the merest gray outlines of the clothing and hats they wore.  There were many cowboy hats like mine and many more Mexican sombreros.  There were also three civil war kepis that were probably confederate, but you couldn’t tell by the gray color because all clothing was made of lines of gray.

I dismounted from the horse outside of what was obviously a general store.  I mean, of course, Steven made me dismount.  I felt kinda funny walking around naked wearing only ghost clothes, but when anybody looked at me, they weren’t looking with human eyes, but only the dark eye sockets of their colored skulls.

And then I saw her.  It was Yesenia naked, dressed only in what was obviously supposed to be a fancy hooped skirt.  She was with a bright pink skeleton lady similarly dressed in what was likely an expensive hooped skirt.

Steven made us saunter over to the display box of mangos where Yesenia was looking at the ghost-gray produce.

“I bet those mangos aren’t near as sweet as you, hon,” Steven said.

“Don’t let mama hear you talking to me, gringo.  I am not allowed to speak with the Americanos from England.”

“Ah, but you do seem to speak English.”

“I do.  Father taught me.  It helps our business that I can speak it good.”

“What’s your family business?”

“Vacas y caballos… ah, I mean, cows and horses.  We have a ranch out west of town.”

“My name is Steven.  I herd for Bill Davies’ Bar W Ranch, to the East.”

“How old are you, Steven of Bar W?”

“Fifteen.  How old are you?”

“Fourteen, but soon to be having my quinceañera.”

“Oh, wow!  That’s going to be a big day for you, huh?”

“Oh, yes.  I wish I could invite you.  But mama won’t allow it.”

“What’s your name, pretty lady?”

“Imelda Dolores Gonzalez.”

“Where are you staying tonight, Imelda Dolores?”

“At Zuniga’s Inn down the street.”

“If you are awakened at midnight, it will be me.”

She looked at us and blushed in the most heart-stabbingly beautiful way.  I knew in an instant that Steven was completely in love with her, and he was capable of doing really crazy things about that love.

The pink skeleton that was obviously Imelda’s mama was coming back out of the store.

“Run away quickly so we are not discovered!”

“Midnight, my lovely… remember!”

“Perhaps.” That beautiful blush returned to her face.  Steven made my legs run back to the horse.  We mounted and Steven waved our cowboy hat at Imelda/Yesenia from a distance.

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March 22, 2023 · 2:22 am

The Bare Necessity

I intend to to spend a lot of time in this essay talking about Twitter nudists, but that is not what this essay is about. A rather large amount of the meaning behind all of this has more to do with setting priorities, what things to pursue, and what things to abandon.


A lot of my time on Twitter is filled with tweets by nudists, authors who write about nudists, Russian video artists, and Tom Hiddleston fans. I do not fully understand the connections between those things.

If I manage to stay alive long enough to see the next Avengers movie, and hopefully even beyond that, then I am going to have to budget my time and moderate my efforts towards certain endeavors. Does that mean I intend to give up all association with nudists? Or possibly twitter?

Of course not. I am simply not that smart. To give up on Twitter, I mean. It is an ungodly waste of time. It is a media of questionable value to me because I have achieved no measurable marketing value as a writer from it. I have learned a lot about actual nudists and naturists from it. I have made connections with naturist authors and thinkers and other websites through Twitter. I have even learned how valuable some young women and men find pictures and .gifs of Tom Hiddleston with his shirt off and smiling. I am not sure I understand it. But I have learned the obsession is very real.

This is an example of a nudist Tweet from Twitter that I get daily in my feed.

And I have come to accept, to a large degree, that nudism is a good thing. It is a way of life that has good effects on the people who participate in it. They have more confidence in themselves. They are definitely firm in their beliefs about most things. They are positive. And they get enough vitamin D from sunshine to be happy most of the time, and are rarely depressed. I wish I had embraced nudism when I had the chance back in the 1980’s. I might have been happier and healthier than I am now. And even now they are a very accepting group of people, willing to welcome me when I am old and weathered and covered in psoriasis plaques and sores. They are almost as inclusive as Tom Hiddleston fans. But I don’t actually know why his fans want to fill my Twitter feed every day with Loki’s face.

But I said this essay was really about setting priorities. And, like the video suggests, I have to be willing to let go of things. I have to adapt to circumstances and stop doing things that don’t really help me. I have to finish more of my long list of projects. I have to focus. ed

Drawing nudes that are not sexual or erotic in nature has long been an obsession with me. Anatomy drawing is essential to learning to draw believable figures… even cartoon figures.

Uber driving was on my list of things to evaluate and I have already discarded it. It does not pay well. The accident I had in August of 2018 was a difficult financial blow as well as an effective confidence-shaker. The penalties for Uber driving become apparent at tax time because they don’t take care of withholding like other employers are required to. So there is extra money to pay at tax time. I had to continue Uber driving for a while simply because I had another large tax bill to pay on top of the expenses that go along with the sin of being in poor health.

I also have to finish things I have started.

Look for the BARE NECESSITIES, the simple bare necessities… forget about your worries and your strife…ed

I have finished paying taxes for 2023. I have finished rebuilding the retaining wall in the yard. I have finished driving for Uber to make money. I have absolutely no problem finishing writing projects, considering all the novels I have published in the last three years. And I definitely need to finish this essay.

So, what have I decided to give up? Twitter? Twitter nudists? No. I might give up following rabid Tom Hiddleston fans, though.

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March 18, 2023 · 12:25 am

The Mirror in the Clown’s Hand

Self-reflection is the bane of stupid people. Essentially, they don’t want to risk encountering evidence that they actually are stupid. It would shatter their world to learn that they are idiots and most of what they believe is true is actually wrong. This fact goes a long way towards explaining why the Republican Party in its current form even exists, let alone the actions of the current mutant Cheetos monster that pilots their agenda and hates healthcare, the Special Olympics, and Puerto Rico.

So, if I am doing a self–reflection piece today, then that proves I am not a stupid person, right? What do you mean you agree with that? Yes, I can actually hear you mentally answering my questions as you read this. And if you believe that, then you have proven that even relatively smart people like you and I are capable of stupid thinking.

I believe in some stupid things, even though I think I am not stupid.

An example of this stupidity factor is my lingering belief that I am a nudist. I mean, I am rarely ever nude any more. I keep most of me covered up constantly because when my psoriasis plaques dry out they tend to flake and itch and force me to scratch to the point of infected bloody sores.

Obviously this is not totally a photograph from the 60’s. That does not make it a total lie either, though.

I have been pretty much accepted as a member of the nudist community on Twitter. I enjoy the artful pictures of nude people they share with me. And since I did a couple of blog posts for nudist websites, there are actually completely nude pictures of me available on the internet. I can be found on Truenudists.com for one, if your eyes can stand the horror. But I have only been to a nudist park, the Bluebonnet Nudist Park in Alvord, Texas. twice as an actual nudist. I can tell you, they were very hot days even though I was not wearing clothes. I am comfortable with nudity. I am comfortable around nude people. I fully accept it all as a non-sexual thing. But am I really a nudist? Or am I only playing at it? If you follow me on Twitter, then you know I don’t retweet pictures of naked people. I engage a lot with other writers there, and most of them are not also nudists, or even open-minded about naturism. I write about nudists in some of my books, but they are not about nudism, and most of them don’t even mention it. So, what good does it do me to think I am a nudist? Well, the very idea of it does a heckuva good job of embarrassing my wife and daughter. So, I do get some crazy-old-coot satisfaction out of it. Otherwise it simply proves that rational and otherwise intelligent people can be committed to irrational ideas.

I am also of the often mocked and ridiculed opinion that not only are alien beings from other worlds real, they are capable of space travel and have been visiting us for as long as there has been an us. I did not always believe this, however. Before I wrote my novel Catch a Falling Star I believed as Carl Sagan said on the original Cosmos that it is wrong to accept things without proof, and true results are testable. My novel was about aliens who watched a lot of Earther TV and learned to speak English from watching I Love Lucy reruns, I wanted to make the aliens different from humans, but at the same time, alike with humans in the most fundamental ways that translate easily into humor and relatability. Not all of my hero-characters were Earth humans.

Brekka the Telleron tadpole (also a nudist) with her friend Lester the man-eating plant (who only ate her once)

As I did research on the internet (a tool I didn’t have when I originally created the story in the 1970s), I found a ton of researchers and writers and con men and MUFON and the Disclosure Project and nuclear physicists and astronauts Gordon Cooper and Edgar Mitchell who were all believers and mostly not stupid. Wow! What a huge and complicated hoax! Why would anybody believe , based on so little tangible evidence, and so much contradictory evidence, that the government’s position could possibly be right? I learned that I now believed, until significant further proof comes along, that I believe stupidly in alien visitors.

Today’s self-reflection post has now proven that I am a stupid old coot who thinks he is a nudist and an insightful conspiracy theorist. But the results of my look into the mirror have not made me upset about my stupidity. Maybe I am simply satisfied nudism is healthy and the universe is more complex than I am capable of understanding. Whatever the case, that’s enough with the mirror for today. You have to keep such dangerous weapons out of the hands of clowns.

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Filed under aliens, artwork, conspiracy theory, goofy thoughts, humor, nudes, Paffooney