Category Archives: philosophy

August 12, 2016 · 4:27 pm

Common Sense

Wally22

I have lived a lifetime with the words, “Well, you are smart, alright, but you don’t have common sense like me.” When they meet me for the first time, other people always know that I am some sort of absent-minded-professor type who solves calculus problems in his head but forgets to wear pants to school. (Sorry, Darrin, for using you as an example of what they assume all geniuses are like.) They always know that their two-plus-two-always-equals-four common sense makes them superior to me. They don’t have to feel intimidated by my smartness because common sense is a universal equalizer.

Common-Sense yield

Bullies have loudly assured me of the truth of this right to my face. Classroom wise-guys and know-it-alls (like the radioactive humanoid yam with a comb-over currently running for president) remind me that anybody can accurately remember sources for points brought up in an argument. And since anybody can do it, if they just take the time to look stuff up, or actually learn it, then it isn’t such a big deal. The guy who can pull the right answer out of the air, the answer that everybody else likes, is the one to listen to. When that guy is a billionaire, then he can always hire someone like me to look stuff up for him.

The REAL Sarah

Notorious common sense advocate Sarah Palin has been campaigning in defense of common sense tea party candidates like Tim Heulskamp because she fears that absent-minded-professor types are going to undo his good work of blocking a path to citizenship for hardworking immigrants who have been here for many years and stand to be deported because their paperwork has expired while Heulscamp automatically votes “NO” on any and all immigration reform. And it is common sense to not raise taxes on the millionaires and billionaires who create jobs even though it seems like a majority of those jobs are created overseas because, after all, workers who don’t demand high pay, or any pay at all, are better for profits. And poor Timmy lost his seat in the House, even after the miracle that is the State of Kansas trickle-down economics experiment. He lost it to a rival in the GOP primary. A rival that will work with “ugh!” Democratic absent-minded professors to actually pass legislation that even Republican voters seem to want… despite common sense. How can you work with people who tolerate smart people with no pants on?

common-sense-1024x682

So, what have I really learned from this rumination about common sense? Nothing, of course, because I am merely smart. I have no common sense. At least, not in the sense that it is always used as a club against me.

But if I were pressed to come up with something, I might be persuaded to say, “Common sense is an oxymoron. It is certainly not common any more. And most of the people invoking it, don’t make very much sense.” Let me just sit here for a while and think about that with no pants on.

4 Comments

Filed under angry rant, clowns, humor, insight, irony, Paffooney, pessimism, philosophy, politics, red States, satire, self pity

Tagged as common sense, humor, paffooney, sarcasm, satire

July 2, 2016 · 4:28 pm

Penguin Proverbs

Penguins

You know how creepy penguins in cartoons can be, right? The Penguins of Madagascar are like a Mission-Impossible Team gone horribly wrong and transformed into penguins. The penguin in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers disguised himself as a chicken to perform acts of pure evil. Cartoonists all know that penguins are inherently creepy and evil.

I recently learned a hard lesson about penguins. You know the joke, “What’s black and white and red all over? A penguin with a sunburn.” I told that joke one too many times. Who knew the Dallas metroplex had so many loose penguins lurking around? They are literally everywhere. One of them overheard me. And apparently they have vowed a sacred penguin vow that no penguin joke goes unpunished.

As I walked the dog this morning, I spotted creepy penguin eyes, about three pairs, looking at me from behind the bank of the creek bed in the park. When I went to retrieve the empty recycle bins from the driveway, there they were again, looking at me over the top of the neighbor’s privacy fence.

“Penguins see the world in black and white,” said one of the Penguins.

“Except for purple ones,” added the purple one.

“Penguins can talk?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.

“Penguins only talk in proverbs,” said one of the penguins.

“But the purple one gives the counterpoint,” said the purple one.

“The wisdom of penguins is always cold and harsh,” said one of the penguins.

“Except on days like this when it’s hot,” said the purple one.

“You should always listen to penguins,” said one of the penguins.

“Of course, people will think you are crazy if you do,” said the purple one.

“People who talk to penguins are headed for a nervous breakdown,” said one of the penguins.

“Unless you are a cartoonist. Then it is probably normal behavior,” said the purple one.

“Is this all real?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.

“Everyone knows that penguins are real,” said one of the penguins.

“But there are no purple penguins in nature,” said the purple one.

So, I sat down to write this post about penguins and their proverbs with a very disturbing thought in my little cartoonist’s head… Why am I really writing about penguins today? I really have nothing profound to say about penguin proverbs. Especially profound penguin proverbs with a counterpoint by a purple penguin. Maybe it is all merely a load of goofy silliness and a waste of my time.

“Writing about penguins is never a waste of time,” said one of the penguins.

“And if you believe that, I have some choice real estate in the Okefenokee Swamp I need to talk to you about,” added the purple one.

1 Comment

Filed under artwork, birds, cartoons, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, philosophy, surrealism

Tagged as cartoon penguins, cartoons, goofiness, humor, penguins, proverbs

June 7, 2016 · 4:45 pm

The Good Doctor Seuss

Dr.-Seuss1

I’ll say it again while my tongue is not loose,

I did learn to read from the good Doctor Seuss!

Yes, this writer I have chosen to talk about today, this wunderful wubble of werfinsky cartoons and sniggly sayer of savantish snapoons, is, perhaps, the most important literary influence on my life. Back in the early 1960’s my parents bought a subscription to Dr. Seuss books that were written in simple, easy words… but the secret was always in the pictures and the sounds. Yes, the sounds. It’s the sounds that you see which will bollox the ear, and sear into your memory for many a year. Oh, and the rhymes… the rhymes make a memory for many old times. See if you can get that out of your head. I bet you can’t. The rhythm will make you remember instead.

P0pZY_ge1f8cMVvwYv8wiO2MJUo7HJTaQaeOejCdfqM9dvLCcGTdRScLNuNQ33bVbg=w705

The secret is how with picture and word the old master teaches you painlessly how to read. I loved Dr. Seuss as a child. I loved him even more when I was a teacher who often had to teach middle school and high school students belatedly how to read. I can’t tell you how many times I read Dr. Seuss books out loud while students looked at the words. I can’t tell you because it is such a big number that my old teacher-brain swells with the effort to remember and count. And it is not merely the reading skill you learn from this, especially the reading a book like Fox in Socks. Some time in the future when I regain a bit of health, I’ll have to show you on YouTube the tantalizing tongue training I went through with Fox in Socks.

Fox-in-Socks---Dr.--pTRU1-16059685dt

You learn life lessons from Dr. Seuss. He not only made me a reader, he helped shape the sort of man I am.

Screen-Shot-2014-07-18-at-4.41.13-PM2

The Lorax taught us about conservation of resources. The Sneetches teach us not to have foolish prejudices based on surface differences. He inspires us to be better than we are.

Seuss-quotes-1

Seuss-quotes-6

Seuss-quotes-10

So here is the thing that I want to say,

If you read Dr. Seuss, there’s no better way,

To learn about life, and learn how to play,

And be the best you for all of your days.

The Right Words

I discovered a new artist today. I was reading posts in the Facebook writer’s group, 1000 Voices for Compassion. And there in a post by Corinne Rodrigues was a YouTube video by Andrew Peterson. And it was a miracle. I clicked on the video and he sang my soul. Here is the original blog post. And here is the video.

Yesterday I posted a self-reflected goopy bit of nonsense about how I write and draw. Today, I realized I haven’t explained why I write and draw.

521370_599216566772335_1987637317_n

You can capture it in words. You can capture it in pictures. Like Andrew Peterson did, you can capture it in music. It is deep and profound and eternal… and you can’t really explain it, but it is the singularity… the right word… the way to caress the very face of God.

This music from Andrew Peterson is musical poetry that expresses love in terms of romance and religion. Love of the significant other is equal to and intertwined with the love of God. There is a truth in that, and a fundamental reason why despite how religion has let me down, I will never be an atheist again. Through the right words I have come to know God. I speak to him daily. I spent twenty years as a Jehovah’s Witness, even to the point of knocking on doors and sharing the little pamphlets that are supposed to contain the capital “T” Truth. I can’t do that any more, though. The thing is, they believe the chosen of God, the only people who can reach paradise, are the people who all say and do and believe the very same thing, the very same words. Anyone else is left to destruction. No paradise. No life after death. And they clearly tell you what the words are, and you must repeat them like a magic spell. Peterson’s music is forbidden. JW’s don’t want you to listen to anyone’s words but their own. So, since this is Christian music, but not JW Christianity, it is the work of the devil, trying to lead you to destruction. What kind of selfishness is this? And yes, I have repeatedly been shown the words in the Bible that say that this is so. But I have stopped believing that all words in the Bible are the right words. When the Bible speaks of love… those are the right words. When the Bible speaks about what you must hate and who is condemned… those are not.

157005_594048837289108_1893634297_n

You may have noticed that I have obsessively searched out and shared this Andrew Peterson music. I do that when I find the right words… good words… I obsessively want to find more and more. I did that once with butterflies. When I was a boy, I chased them down with nets and collected them. But you have to put butterflies in killing jars and then mount them on pins and Styrofoam boards to collect them. I realized too late that this was not the right way to treat them. You have to let them flutter in the sunshine and float on the breeze. You have to let them live. And so must you do with the right words when you find them. You must use them and share them and let them live.

swallowtail

Yes, the reason I write is because my life has been lived and it is coming to an end. But it is a good life. A life filled with wisdom and love and the very best of those words I have collected in butterfly nets over time. And I must share those very right words… and let them live because they are beautiful and true… and it is simply who I have to be.

564563_600923953268263_719337370_n

2 Comments

Filed under artwork, insight, inspiration, Paffooney, philosophy, religion, strange and wonderful ideas about life, Uncategorized

Tagged as Jehovah's Witnesses, paffooney, philosophy, religion, words

May 9, 2016 · 6:31 pm

The Surrealist

Yes, I admit it. I am a Surrealist. I also hope that it is not too terrible a thing to be. Because I truly think that everyone who was raised by television, and lived through the revolution where computers took over human life, is one too.

definition from Merriam-Webster;

Simple Definition of surrealism;

a 20th-century art form in which an artist or writer combines unrelated images or events in a very strange and dreamlike way

Full Definition of surrealism;

the principles, ideals, or practice of producing fantastic or incongruous imagery or effects in art, literature, film, or theater by means of unnatural or irrational juxtapositions and combinations

There is a certain satisfaction to be had in knowing for certain how to define oneself. I learned about Surrealism in high school art class back in the early 70’s. I saw and admired the works of Salvador Dali, Rene Magritte, and Max Ernst. And I realized that everything I wanted to do in the Realm of Art, whether it was weird paintings, cartoons, comic book art, or bizarre puppet shows… fantasy, science fiction, or humor… it was ALL Surrealism. Surrealism saturates out culture and our very thinking. We are drawn to watch baseball by the antics of a giant pantomime chicken. Our food choices are influenced by a happy red, yellow, and white clown who battles a blobby purple monster and a hamburglar over shakes and French fries. It is only natural then, that I would want to draw bug-sized fairies who would saddle and ride a red rooster. I have embraced surrealism as a way of life.
I have no trouble writing a poem about the difficulties of life by writing about a game of bowling where you have to roll a moose down the alley into the pins.
Surrealism is all about creating things by lumping all kinds of disparate goodies into the same pot and cooking it up as a stew. It is important that the stew tastes good in the end, so the mixture has to have large doses of reality and realism in it. Dali painted melting watches and boneless soft-sculpture people with almost photographic realism. I am compelled to do that too.
And what is humor, after all, if not lumping strange things together into a reality sandwich that makes you laugh because it takes you by surprise? I don’t shy away from weirdness. I embrace it. It makes life all the funnier.
And why did I put bullet points on everything in this post? Because it allows me to mash bits of wit and wisdom together in a weird way that only seems to have no connection, one to the other, and only seems to make no sense.
Sometimes we just have to look at things sideways.
I was recently accused of being eclectic in my posting topics by one regular commentator. I could wear that word like a badge of honor.
Definition from the Urban Dictionary;
eclectic

This describes a combination of many different individual elements of styles, themes, mediums or inspirations pooled from many sources. It can refer to musical tastes, dress sense, interior design…many things.

She has an ecletic sense of style, today she wears biker boots, pink fishnet stockings, a pencil skirt, a military jacket, a baseball hat, a my little pony t-shirt and a dunlop bag covered in badges from all her favourite bands from ABBA to Kooks

by Ezmerelda August 28, 2005
So, if I am going to make sense of this whole mess of words and ideas and bizarre images, let me do it with a picture that I think is surreal.

3 Comments

Filed under art criticism, artwork, humor, insight, Paffooney, philosophy, surrealism, Uncategorized

Tagged as humor, juxtaposition, Mickey, Moose Bowling, paffooney, surrealism

May 1, 2016 · 3:21 pm

The Doorway Straight Ahead

DSCN4680

I just finished watching the last episode of the ABC dramatic television series, Lost. I watched every single episode of every single season they ever made of that show. And here’s a major spoiler. Everybody dies. Yes. No one gets through that TV series, or through life itself, without facing death at least once. And everybody has a last encounter with it where they don’t win. Except they do.

In my Paffooney above, the door straight ahead is the doorway home. This Paffooney oil painting is called Poppa Comes Home. I am hoping that is how it will be for me. I painted this picture before I had a wife and three kids. So how did I know? Or did I simply make it come true? Is that what the final doorway is all about? You make it be the doorway you want it to be? The truth is, I will probably find out before long. I retired from teaching in rather spectacularly poor health. I’m not sure I really expected to last this long. And I may live another twenty years. But probably not. The thing is, when the door is finally directly in front of me, I will fear not. I will simply open it and pass through. I am at peace. I have lived a good life. I was a teacher. I touched more than 2000 separate lives through my various classrooms over the course of 31 years. I succeeded some, I failed some, I cried some, and I laughed a lot. It all means a lot to me.

20160424_181218

As I write this now, I have spent most of the day sealed up in my room, on my bed with my laptop, suffering quite a lot with arthritis pain. Most of my days since retirement have been very much the same. My body, especially my joints, is wearing out. But endurance brings wisdom. Overcoming pain and the depression caused by pain provides me a deep, abiding faith and confidence in myself. I don’t know if I believe in Heaven, but I am sure there is no hell. God does not punish for a life completed, no matter how badly you may have lived it. And if I die, if the human race goes extinct, if our planet is destroyed, even if our entire galaxy winks out in the never-ending darkness of eternity, we have all accomplished a miracle just by the fact of our existence. The final doorway is the door home. I have no doubt.

1 Comment

Filed under autobiography, Paffooney, philosophy

Tagged as artwork, facing death, faith, paffooney, philosophy

April 7, 2016 · 3:03 pm

Apple Blossoms Return to Texas

appleblossomval

There are certain things that keep me going when my connection to the mortal coil begins to chafe and itch. Apple blossoms are one of those things. The apple blossoms have bloomed in our two Texas apple trees in April of 2016. As I was raking endless live oak leaves out of my yard, making it harder for myself to breathe and continue living because I am allergic to live oak… and most of the rest of Texas to boot, I saw that the apple blossoms had burst forth from their buds. Between coughs and gasps for breathe, it made me smile. I ended the raking of endless live oak leaves after only thirty minutes and one sack of leaves. I am laboring in the face of impending doom, but I am not stupid. I needed to live to rake another day. Otherwise I’ll never get it done.

But apple blossoms are worth the heartache and pain and toil of life. They are not only something to remind me why I keep going. They are a reason for being. So I used my phone camera to take a picture of an open blossom. Then I photo-shopped in a picture of my novel character, Valerie Clarke, the character I created as an amalgam of my lovely daughter and the pretty little girl in my third grade class that I fell madly in love with when I was a little boy. Like most artists, I am quite capable of slapping beautiful things and ideas together haphazardly to make something that is either a huge pile of kitschy crap, or even more beautiful. And like most artists, I am entirely too close to the feelings and memories and realities that make up this work of art to ever know for sure which of the two things it really is. Forgive me if I chose the opposite one that you did. I try not to offend with my Paffoonies. I try not to be a creep or a bore or a Philistine… but those things are not always possible to avoid. But there are apple blossoms, and sunrises, and a number of other things as well that, in the end, balance out the equations quite nicely.

Skyscape

20160323_110630

It is difficult to look at the sky and not feel that the power of Heaven is real. As I approach the halfway point of my sixtieth year, and the darkness of the future draws ever nearer, I am forced to think about what I really believe. Being smarter than the average bear has its drawbacks. I understand why most of the writers I most admire were atheists, and all of the philosophers I have read and found agreement with are decidedly atheist. Science, rationality, and reason all suggest that there is nothing beyond the physical realm. Should that matter? Faith, according to Mark Twain, is fervently believing in your heart what your mind tells you ain’t so. In fact, Hebrews 11:1 says, “Faith is the assured expectation of things hoped for, the evident demonstration of realities though not beheld.” Even the Bible is saying you have to believe it even though you shouldn’t believe it.

So, will I go to Heaven when I die? For me, the question is meaningless. I look up at the miracle of a blue sky on a partly cloudy day and see the life-giving sun. I am alive… here and now… and nothing else is really relevant. I am a part of the great, vast universe of reality. My existence is real and cannot be unmade… even by God, if He were inclined to do such a thing. I am a small, insignificant part of reality, and I can be gone in the next instant like a puff of smoke in the wind. But I am here and I am alive and I took the Paffooney picture that I used to illustrate this post. And I face whatever comes with a smile on my face. I am alive… and life is good.

5 Comments

Filed under insight, inspiration, philosophy, photo paffoonies, Uncategorized

Tagged as artwork, belief, clouds, Hebrews 11:1, philosophy, photo Paffooney, skyscapes

March 10, 2016 · 4:16 pm

Spring Break Colored Blue

This week has been Spring Break for our little family. But as Spring Breaks go, this one leaves a lot to be desired. Rain. Thunderstorms and tornadoes did damage to the north of us in The Colony and Frisco, Texas. More rain. Gray skies, flood warnings, tornado watches… the sun is supposed to come out on Sunday, the last day of Spring Break. I want a do-over.

But it is all about the focus. We have done some house cleaning. My son took the water-damaged carpet out of his bedroom with a carpet knife and discovered an old linoleum floor under it, complete with a sincerely ugly 1960’s style pattern. And my daughter and I baked cookies.

10553417_902414259877997_4455689281927417122_n

The bedroom with its mustard yellow linoleum with brown snowflakes in the pattern.

The cookies were Halloween candy-corn cookies bought for a sale price at Aldi’s in an after-Christmas sale. (I think I paid less than a dollar for them.) We mixed the two colors of dough up with butter and tried to make cookies with a swirl design as described on the box. It didn’t work. We made spectacular splashes of red and yellow all over the cookies. The cookies looked radioactive as they baked. No wonder they were cheap.

My share of the cookies (limited for the sake of blood sugar stability).

But they were delicious. Probably more because we made them together and laughed about the goofy outcomes. I ate my two cookies (the limit reasonably suited to proper blood sugar levels) with a tall glass of Diet Coke and milk.

So, Spring Break has been a bit of a bummer. But misfortune does not rule our lives unless we let it. Sometimes you have to simply reject the glooms and just be happy.

2 Comments

Filed under humor, inspiration, philosophy, photo paffoonies

Tagged as Be Happy, Bobby McFerrin, fighting depression, humor, rain, Spring Break, tornadoes

March 8, 2016 · 4:41 pm

The Beasts of Armeggedon

Today may very well be the last day on Earth. I laugh when I write that, but it could literally be true. There is an asteroid approaching the earth and it is supposed to pass within 11,000 miles of Earth. That is close enough for a minor math oops to fool us into not panicking about an extinction event. The Dallas Fort-Worth area is being soaked in thunderstorms and potential high winds as I write this in a house that has foundation cracks made worse by a high number of fracking-induced earthquakes the last couple of years. I woke up with chest pains this morning, and I have a family history of heart trouble. (Although the last time I panicked and had the chest pains checked it was apparently arthritis in my rib cage… and the weather does make my arthritis worse.) So, in very many ways, this really could be the last day. And as I reminded everybody yesterday, I am a pessimist in all things.

So, I am girding up in armor as a pessimist always does, preparing for the worst. If I am not going to be here tomorrow, then I need to prepare by counting my blessings today. Number one, I have completed a successful 31-year career as a teacher. I touched over 2,000 lives, made a difference in a lot of them, and screwed up only a handful of them. I taught some kids to read, and I taught a lot of kids to write. I was a good writing teacher. I know how to build a theme and I can teach others to do the same. I have lived a life of service, and though I have not been made money-rich by my efforts, I have wealth greater than Croesus (I know you don’t really know who that is, but I didn’t want that sentiment spoiled by using a name like Trump or the Walmart heirs.)

Senator Tedhkruzh, the lizard-man from the doomed planet Galtorr Prime.

Number two, I am a survivor who has seen an amazing amount of history roll past without ever being crushed under its wheels. I was alive for John Kennedy’s Presidency and assassination. I watched Neil Armstrong step foot on the moon. I taught the day the Challenger exploded with the first teacher in space on board. I also taught the day the twin towers fell on 9-11. I have seen how the world was changed, and I, like most people, experienced the changes necessary to adapting to a new world. As a pessimist, I am already planning for life under President Ted Cruz. It will be the worst possible outcome for our nation of the election of 2016. We really should not elect a Reptilian as our leader. But I survived the Ronny Ray-Gun revolution, and eight long years under the Cowboy of Very Little Brain, so if I live to see it, I will adapt. And so will you. We have only rarely ever been truly free and prosperous, but in our minds, no one, no matter how tyrannical, can ever truly deprive us of our freedom.

Dansegawd 4

So, if these are the last words I ever write, then know that I am at peace with the world. If the big space rock does us all in today, then at least we have to consolation that humankind has had its chance to live and love and laugh, and we didn’t do everything wrong.