I am nearing the completion of the rewrite of part two of AeroQuest. Part of that is getting all the illustrations I want to include done. So, here are a few more that I have been working on.
For those who might be wondering, AeroQuest 1 and AeroQuest 2 are comic science fiction, and I have chosen to rewrite them with lots of illustrations since it is a work of fiction that I might’ve done as a graphic novel if only I didn’t have arthritis in my hands.
Filed under artwork, comic book heroes, humor, illustrations, novel, novel writing, Paffooney, satire, science fiction
Canto 39 – Slinking Out of Paradise
Gaijin is one of the most beautiful worlds in human space according to those humans who have visited enough of them to compare. Its lush, tropical-sea environment is pleasant always and fully climate-controlled by old Sylvani technology. It has far fewer cold places than an Earth-like world such as Talos III or Martin Faulkner’s Dream. It has more resources than an ocean-world like Dancer or Design where no land masses are present. And its greatest features are the people themselves. They are disciplined by the Bushido code, and beautified by the natural Sylvani grace. It was no surprise, then, that Vince Niell and the crew of the Megadeath did not want to leave.
“I have to go to at least three other worlds,” argued Xavier Tkriashav. “I have important missions to complete. You have the only available spaceship on the planet.”
“Dude, like, we don’t got no orders from Ged boss-man,” said Vince Niell. “This ship is his.”
“Ged is very busy now. I am his friend and agent. I tell you, I have important things to do for Ged Aero!”
“And we tell you, Psion Dude, that we don’t go to space for nobody but Ged Aero.”
Xavier smiled. “Can you call him and ask?”
“Dude, we have commo units on board. Did he take a walkie-talkie or a commo dot?”
“No.”
“Then ain’t no way we’re gonna move from this spot.”
Tkriashav looked at the stubborn rock-and-roll starship pilot. He saw only two angry reflections of himself looking back from Vince’s mirrored sunglasses. The hippie freak had started wearing a pair of red Moko-bird feathers in his hair as if he were some kind of Native American from ancient Earth.
“I am going to go and disturb Ged now, and get him to write a note to let me use this starship while he is training to be Gaijin’s new White Spider.”
“Sounds good to me, Daddy-o.”
Fuming, the turbaned Psion stalked back into the city, making his way swiftly through crowded streets to the Palace of One Thousand Years.
Ged was on the practice field with Junior, teaching martial arts.
“You were impressive in the arena,” Tkriashav said when Ged acknowledged his presence. “Tell me, how is it you already know the martial arts they teach here?”
“It’s not something I’m proud of, but I absorbed it by eating the flesh of the man they called the Black Spider. I inherited the ability to alter myself into the patterns of his finely trained muscles. Muscle memory is the key to absorbing the skill. Just like the instincts I’ve absorbed from animals I’ve eaten.”
“Did you actually eat one of those invisible cat things?”
“It was during an episode of survival training on the planet Samothrace when I was young. I guess I had my powers even then, though I didn’t know it until the last few years.”
“It’s that kind of knowledge I need you to pass on to other Psions, Ged. Do you mind if I use your starship to round up a couple of students for you?”
“I would be honored to serve,” said Ged with a bow. “Teaching seems to come naturally too, though I don’t ever remember eating a teacher.”
Xavier laughed. “I need a note for your crew, Ged. They don’t want to leave this place. They won’t take my word.”
“No problem. Will you revisit Don’t Go Here?”
“Yes. After completing the missions I have in mind.”
“Check on Tara for me. Tell her I miss her. And tell Ham about what’s happened here. I want him to come here and learn about this place too.”
“I would be happy to. You like it here, don’t you?”
“How could I help it? I’m not a monster here. I’m a hero to these people. But I have to say, I don’t understand the praise any more than I understood the fear.” The message was quickly written, and within the hour, the Megadeath roared out of Gaijinese orbit, headed directly into trouble.
Filed under humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, satire, science fiction
What is the use of Kartoon Kops? I mean, why do we possibly need cartoon policemen with rubber whack-bats, squirting ink guns, and face pies? Why, to control cartoon misbehavior, of course.
If I work on the roof of the house because the shingles are weather-damaged, and then I walk off the end of the roof, and I just stand there in the air because I know better than to look down, I am breaking the law of gravity. I deserve a strawberry pie to the face for that crime. (Not blueberry pie, though. I’m allergic to blueberries.)
If I run in place and my legs go faster and faster until they look like blurred leg-colored circles, and then I take off, faster than a speeding bullet, leaving only poofy clouds behind, I am breaking the law of acceleration and inertia. I deserve a blast of black ink in my face for that.
And if I put an extremely hot towel on my face, and Bugs Bunny is my barber, my face will come off in the towel and leave the space on the front of my head blank. I will be breaking the law of… of… well, keeping my face on in public. Rubber whack-bat bruises are in my future for that.
“But, Mickey!” you say to me, “The real world doesn’t work that way!”
“Well, duh! Didn’t I tell you this was about cartoons from the start?”
If you were fool enough to become a fan of my political humor, then you probably noticed that there has been very little of that in this blog for some time. And have you sensed the reason why yet?
Basically the problem is, politics is no longer funny. It is soul-suckingly horrible and robbing me of my ability to laugh. The idiotic moron criminal with tiny hands that we elected President is transparently corrupt and obviously guilty of numerous crimes, especially the obstruction of justice.
The idiotic moron criminal continues to get away with everything he does. He has packed the courts with appointees that don’t have the qualifications to do the job. They were chosen based on their stated agreement with the erroneous and criminal beliefs of the idiotic moron criminal. He depends on them to stay in power and rule his way.
He fires, pursues, and undermines the people who are supposed to protect us from lawbreakers so they won’t accuse and incarcerate him.
He doesn’t understand the first thing about foreign policy. And so, the idiotic criminal morons who are in charge of other countries can take advantage of their stupid little American brother-in-dictatorship.
And nobody is capable of changing anything, especially not minds. All the decent Republicans are resigning and leaving the corpse of the GOP to whatever Frankensteinian uses the idiotic moron criminal has for it. There seems to be no one left to turn to.
And so, I will proceed without pursuing political humor anymore. I am tired of scratching through piles of political chicken-poop to find anything worthy of real satire. The idiotic moron criminal always seems to win, no matter how much clever irony I throw at his orange head.
And I know there are readers out there who will say I am a hypocrite because I say I don’t like insult-humor, yet I routinely call the idiotic moron criminal an idiotic moron criminal. What else am I going to do? Call him a criminally moronic idiot? Respect needs to be earned in this world. And to earn it, he needs to pay me, and all the other American voters, reparations.
I wish to thank all the cartoonists represented in this blog whose work I blatantly stole for the purposes of illustrating this blog. I hope they can forgive me. I cannot pay out anything through lawsuits because the idiotic moron criminal with tiny hands has stolen all my money and left me bankrupt.
Filed under angry rant, cartoon review, cartoons, feeling sorry for myself, humor, politics, satire
For example, take a name like Justin Timberlake.
If you call him Timber Just-in-the-lake, everyone still knows who you mean.
Yes, I’m talking about Laker Timberjust, that singer who used to be famous when he sang with that group Out O’ Sink. You know, that guy named Joozin Mimbolake who caused Joanie Jackelson’s wardrobe malfunction in the Superbowl. Muffin Limbersnake… you know, that guy.
Well, there’s this other actor named Ving Rhames.
Okay, that’s too scary to contemplate. Well, there’s always Kenderbick Bumbersnatch! He’s always good for a name-mangling good joke.
Very astute literary allusion delivered with Sherlockian poise, Benickle Bumberbatch!
I can think of a number of name mangles that make me laugh. Bumbershoot Bandersnatch, or Bimbleroot Snoodersnatch, or Smogthedragon Paddlebatch. What mangled names can you think of for the Mangled Name Game? You can put your bubbling genius-type answers to that question in the comments. For these guys, or any other mangle-able celebrity names you can think of.
Filed under humor, satire, word games, wordplay
Suppose being grumpy was a super power, and we could, as a grumpy old brotherhood of geezers, coots, and conservative uncles, could change things just by complaining about them.
No woman would ever leave a toilet seat down again. The Dunkin’ Donuts on Frankford Road would magically reopen and never run out of donuts again. And liver spots and wrinkles would suddenly be attractive to beautiful young women whether they were linked to fortunes or not.
But what if, in order to make better use of this unexplainable super power, we start telling old coots like the fool in the picture that they have to prove they will use this super power only for good, or we will raise their taxes? Or we would forbid them from ever eating bacon again? Either of those things would definitely motivate them.
Of course, the biggest problem with geezers, old coots, and conservative uncles that no one wants to sit next to at Thanksgiving is that they don’t generally get smarter and nicer with age. It is probably not wise to give them a super power that can alter reality. Yes, they are generally quite literally mean-spirited and unqualifiably dumb. And it isn’t really a matter of whether they could ever actually have a super power like that. The real problem is that they already have it. They proved it in 2016 when they elected a gigantic orange-faced Pillsbury Doughboy with mental flatulence to lead our government. And it wasn’t the dumb part that did it. It was the literally mean part. Trump is a walking, talking old coot-complaint given to us by mean old men to tell us, “We are unhappy geezers, coots, and conservative uncles who would rather blow up the government than lift a single tax dollar (especially from a rich dude) to try and fix it”.
What we truly need to do is harness a bit of that grumpy-old-man complaining power, a truly misunderstood and misused super power, to tackle problems like making public schools better, cleaning the environment, and electing smarter leaders (not the stupid ones who actually represent the majority of us). But of course, we will first have to turn off the spigots in the brewery of prejudice and ignorance that is Fox News, and brand all the greedy and stupid people with a red letter “R” for Trumpian Republican. That way, knowing who to vote for to make things better will become easier to the point that even us geezers, old coots, and conservative uncles can do it right.
Filed under angry rant, commentary, goofy thoughts, humor, oldies, Paffooney, satire
What Stupid People Think About
Let me begin by reminding you that the only head I have to explore as an example of what I am talking about in this essay is my own stupid head.
So, this is not an insult post. This is self-deprecating humor. And therefore, the contents of your own stupid head are completely safe.
Now, there is considerable evidence in the books already that Mickey is not, and has not been, particularly stupid for a large portion of his time on earth. He got college scholarships based on his ACT and SAT scores to get his undergraduate degree for free (in the 1970’s when it was significantly cheaper than now). And he has been both a teacher in a gifted program and the middle-school coordinator of that same gifted program. So, Mickey has effectively fooled everybody into thinking he is not stupid. But consider for a moment where the laughs come from when watching Stephen Urkel on TV, or the four nerds from Big Bang Theory. Smart people do stupid things and are very awkward at times, proving that, no matter how smart they are, smart people are capable of being quite stupid.
What, then, is the stupid thinking in Mickey’s stupid head?
Well, there are a number of things. Mickey is, as you may know if you read any of his nudity blogs, obsessed with nakedness. He was assaulted as a child in a way that caused him to be afraid of nudity and slow-developing in sexuality. As he grew older, he had to compensate for this lack of natural development. So, he has reached an age where his brain stupidly rejects guard-rails when talking about nudity and sex. He has convinced himself that he wants to be a nudist, and writes about nudity constantly, as evidenced by this very paragraph. When Mark Twain was in his seventies, he did leave the house without remembering to wear clothes more than once. The neighbors did not compliment him for doing that. That and worse is probably in Mickey’s near future.
And sex, as a subject sloshing around in a brain awash with hormones and other nightmare chemical imbalances, leads to a rash of stupid decisions. Of course, Mickey is old and has had chronic prostatitis long enough to eliminate the possibility of making a stupid decision about infidelity since those body parts don’t actually work anymore, but it leads to buying numerous things sold by marketers using sex as a way to sell things. Cabinets full of hair gel and cologne and Herbalife products that can never be used up is the result. And the wife is frustrated with the foods Mickey is constantly addicted to. “Why so much chips and salsa, Mickey?” Chips and salsa? Hubba hubba!
And Mickey’s old brain, full of a vast quantity of useless trivia-type knowledge, random wisdom floating around in a disconnected fashion, and prejudices formed by a bizarre obsession with things like nudism, Disney movies, comic books, model trains, and doll-collecting, becomes strangely creative. He begins to believe weird things.
For example, he thinks rabbits, if they were suddenly transformed into people, would make better people than people ever do. They are mostly quiet most of the time. They eat an all-vegetable, healthy diet. And they don’t vote Republican.
He obsessively also thinks about how his mind is working and how thinking about thinking is likely to improve thinking. He even realizes that the map of his head, provided above, doesn’t accurately reflect the many branching corridors and dead-end hallways of his actually-complicated-yet-stupid mind. He thinks that thinking too much about thinking makes you stupid.
And finally, Mickey is left with a sense of wonder about how it is entirely possible that everybody is stupid at least part of the time. And he wonders what possible things that you, dear reader, are thinking about that you consider at least somewhat stupid? You are welcome to tell him in the comments. But remember, this post is about stupid thoughts in Mickey’s head. You are perfectly free not to worry about your own stupidity.
Leave a comment
Filed under artwork, autobiography, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, foolishness, goofy thoughts, humor, Mickey, Paffooney, satire, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as Metacognition