Category Archives: satire

August 20, 2020 · 7:52 pm

Love Among the Trolls

Once upon a time in a magical land there was a Troll named Timothy Trollhammer. He was big and ugly and surly and liked to call people names in the Internet.

So, he was busy this one time, this Oncepponna Time, arguing with his friends in the Internet Cafe. (We all know what that is. It’s a huge Orc bar kept by a fat old Orc named Juicy Burgher who foolishly built his cafe in the middle of a Giant’s fishing net.) And he wasn’t just arguing with his friends, he was insulting them, suggesting their Democrat stupidity would get them toasted in dragonfire for the sheer idiocy of their communist ideas, and swearing to visit their homes and poop on their dinner tables.

And then, Dixie Tinytroll suggested the unthinkable.

“Timothy, you are so dumb and ugly, you will die alone and never be married.”

Timothy immediately killed him with his magic hammer, the one that could pound any nail in one stroke, provided it landed at least in the general vicinity of the nail.

“Cripes, Tim! You done killed Dixie. Drove him right through the floor like a railroad spike!” shouted Dimbulb Orcpuddles. And you is only supposed to kill a troll with fire, according to the Dungeonmaster’s Handbook.”

“Well, he wasn’t supposed to think that!” Tim insisted defensively.

“Since it is against the law to hammer trolls into the floor without management’s consent, you will have to prove that what he said was the opposite of true,” Judge Mental Phoole said with authority.

“How am I gonna do that if the thing was true?” moaned Timothy.

“Well, the Barefoot Princess comes by here every day being chased by some princely suitor. Go marry her.”

“How will I do that?” asked Tim.

“Well, that magic hammer of yours started the problem… so…”

So, Timothy Trollhammer marched out into the street with his magic hammer.

Out there, the Barefoot Princess was once again being accosted by the Son of Duke Poofter-Doofus from the kingdom of Poofter-Doofus’s Swamp. One swing of the hammer nailed Prince Spritely Poofter-Doofus, and the Barefoot Princess swooned into his free arm, the one without the hammer in it.

“That’s assault with a deadly weapon, and harassment of a Princess,” said Fontaine Fox, a potential eyewitness.

“I fear the Troll may nail us as hostile witnesses,” moaned Deefenbarger Duck, a second potential witness.

“You two come with me,” said Timothy. “I’m getting married, and I am in need of witnesses.”

And then Tim had Judge Mental Phoole perform the ceremony, only having to threaten to nail him on the head with a magic hammer three times. It was a lovely ceremony. Most of the trolls at the wedding couldn’t refrain from making rude comments, so they got hammered (with wedding-celebration booze, of course. What did you think I meant?)

And after the honeymoon the Barefoot Princess woke up. She was grateful for being rescued from the Poofter-Doofus. But they did not live happily ever after. After all, they had three kids. And the kids were all trolls.

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August 18, 2020 · 1:09 pm

AeroQuest 4… Canto 108

Canto 108 – The Lost Child

Things had been chaotic in and around Outpost for an Earth-time week.   Tron and Maggie were both dragging from one conference and administrative nightmare to the next.

Elvis and King Killer found them sagging in their seats at the conference table in the Outpost control center. 

“Boss, it’s not that bad.  Nobody died in a training accident today,” said Elvis the Cruel.

“Really?” said Tron with a snort.  “Two of those Triceratops starship-thingies locked horns and tore the bridge section off of one of them.”

“But nobody died,” reaffirmed King.

“Well, that’s something,” said Maggie, blowing a stray red hair out of her eyes.

“The problem with those things is that they have a mind  of their own.  It’s hard enough to learn starship combat from complete scratch like these maroonies and alien squid-men have to, without having to learn to accept interference from your own starship at the same time.”  King had offered the same complaint a hundred times already, but it didn’t hurt for Tron to hear it again.

At that moment, Artran, the adult version, wandered into the conference room having heard everything that was said.

“You know these things are shaped like dinosaurs for a reason, right?” Artran asked with a grin.

“Yeah.  A Flintstones reason,” griped King.

“If they were actual living riding beasts, you would have to learn to ride them differently.  You can’t control them so much as you have to guide them.  Think of it like leading them with a tug on the reins.”  Artran’s reasoning was actually quite eye-opening.  The starships shaped like dinosaurs were created by an artificial alien intelligence that came to them by way of the inscrutable Ancients.  It was a superior race that created them from the highest level of technology that living beings had ever known.  If they acted and reacted in contrary ways, it had to be because the lesser beings flying them didn’t understand their ways.

“How did you get so wise since you were a little boy just a couple of months ago?” Maggie asked her son who had suddenly become a man, seemingly overnight.

“Spent the last twenty years in the past with the Star Nomads, exploring unknown space and learning more than I ever could’ve learned from tutor robots on Outpost.”

Actual tears flowed down Maggie’s cheeks.  “I miss the little boy you were.  I feel like your Nomads have robbed me of precious time with my young son.”

“I don’t regret the things I have learned,” Artran said sympathetically.  “And soon you will have another little boy to play mommy with.”

“Really?  How do you know it will be a boy?”

“Star Nomads travel in ways that bend time.  I have seen Starchart in my past and your future.  He’s a great kid.”

“Really?  I won’t lose him the same way I lost you?”

“I guarantee it, Mom.  And you haven’t lost me.  I’m here now.  And I will help you win the upcoming war.”

“So, what are we supposed to be doing differently with these dinosaur-shaped starships?” King scoffed with a note of resignation in his voice.

“Train them to let their Triceratops riding beasts run like a herd.  In life, herds of horned herbivores would stampede together at the enemy as a way to overwhelm and trample their tormentors.  Herds of bison once did the same thing.  If there were enough time, I’d take you back in time to show you.”

Tron grinned.  “And I’d go with you too.  But I have the idea already from what you have told us.  King, can you train them to do what Artran is suggesting?”

“With starships?”

“Maybe you start thinking of them as riding beasts.”

“Yeah.  I could definitely do that.  But I have never flown a bison before, or anything like that.”

That made everybody laugh.  But King had a sense in the pit of his old stomach that the Lost Boy maybe had just solved a major training problem.

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August 4, 2020 · 1:38 pm

AeroQuest 4… Canto 107

Canto 107 – A Group of Space Goons is Called a Goon-o-plex

The situation on Rimbaud Memorial Outstation began with a single Space Goon, as they all almost always do.  Infestations, I mean.  Space Goons reproduce asexually like microscopic amoebas do, by splitting into three parts after eating something.  And then each part split off from the original grows into a new Goon.  First you have one.  It eats a cat.  Then you have three.  They eat another cat, a plate of unattended Italian meatballs, and a decorative plant.  Then you have nine.  Six of those get into the food pantry.  One finds the last living cat on the outstation. And two more eat a small gambler who lost everything playing deep-space poker and drank himself into a coma with gargleblasters.  Then you quickly reach eighty-one.  You get the alarming idea, right?

“Mon dieu!” cried Banzai. “They will consume everything edible on my entire station!  Please, friends, you must help me round them up and herd them out an airlock.”

“But isn’t that too cruel to do to a sentient creature?” asked Dana Cole, still shivering and naked at Trav’s command.

“They are not even as smart as Goofy Dalgoda,” said Ham Aero.

“That’s right!” cried Trav “Goofy” Dalgoda.  “We must space them because they are too stupid to live.”

“No, they are able to live fine in space without space suits,” I told them all, calling upon my scientific acumen and nearly omniscient memory.  “They will just float happily out there with nothing to eat, at least until they collide with a planet or asteroid, or some other place with gravity.”

“Do I recall correctly when I remember that in a feeding frenzy, a hundred Space Goons start eating people… at least those made of flesh and blood?” asked Duke Ferrari, showing something more than just mild concern.

“Naw, I think that’s just a spacer myth told because Space Goons come from unknown space and not enough is known about them,” suggested Ham.

At that same moment, a Space Nudist serving girl disappeared in a goon-o-plex of a hundred and three Goons.  Muffled cries were heard, followed by munching sounds, and then no more serving girl was to be seen.

“How do we get them off the outstation?” asked Banzai.

“I has some middlin’ experience with Space Goon cat-nip recipes, I has,” volunteered Sinbadh, offering his cooking skills.

“What did he say?” asked Banzai.

“He says he’ll cook up some Goon-bait to put in the airlock,” I translated.  “If the smell is right, they will all follow the bait out into space and reproduce out there.”

“But Oi will needs sum special Goon grub to make it with!” announced Sinbadh.

“What do you need?”  Banzai was desperate.

“Ol’ shoe-leather, some turpentine, Samothracian onions, a dash o’ me own special sauce, and all the bar soap you can muster from every fresher on the whole outstation, me buck-o!”

Swiftly the star-dog cook got to his business.  Banzai kept the ravenous Space goons, now over a thousand strong, occupied by throwing them a few non-paying customers and one or two of his ugliest serving girls.

Then Sinbadh returned from the kitchen with a pot of extremely smelly stew.  He ran past the Space Goons to an emergency airlock, grabbed hold of a support beam with one hand, opened the air lock with his foot, and while Space Goons, outstation staff, and customers alike were sucked out into space, threw the pot of smelly goo out too.  All of the Space Goons followed it out.  As Sinbadh closed the airlock again, we could see that only about fifty percent of the people in the area the Space Goons had infested were lost to the void.  None of those who were in our party failed to secure themselves against being sucked out of the station into space.  So, the ploy was at least slightly successful.

“How did you fools manage to survive this?” cried Sorcerer 15, standing near the concourse doorway with an angry look on his white, Synthezoid face.

“You again?” Trav cried, pulling out of his hidden super-pocket that held items in an interdimensional bubble, his latest acquisition, a brand-new super-illegal Skortch ray gun.

“I’m ready for you this time Dalgoda!” said Sorcerer, pulling out a mirror-shield.

Trav shot Sorcerer 15 in the feet.  As his artificial feet disintegrated, he dropped and broke the mirror-shield.

Trav then shot him in the torso and disintegrated the rest of him.

“I hate to admit it, Trav, but your obsessions prove useful at times,” Ham said.

“You will now politely give me the illegal weapon,” said Banzai Joe. “Be careful not to accidentally put a hole in the outstation that will kill us all…”

Trav grinned.  First, he pointed the weapon at Banzai’s midsection. Then he handed it carefully to the outstation’s manager.  “Of course.  I will get it back before I leave, though.  That weapon of massive destruction belongs to me.  And you owe it to me to give it back.  After all, I heroically saved your entire station.”

“Yes, yes… But only when you leave.  I actually owe the star-dog much, much more.”

That little soiree was not the first time I had nearly lost my life to a Space Goon infestation.  And it wouldn’t be the last.  But it was easily one of the fastest and most ironically amusing.

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July 14, 2020 · 4:08 pm

AeroQuest 4… Canto 104

104 – The Arrival of Goofy Dalgoda

  The many hours of time separating the arrival of the Leaping Shadowcat and the much later arrival of the First Half-Century was something no one really wanted to probe too deeply for causes.  Sometimes it is nice to be able to keep that one particularly “special” friend at more than arms’ length.

Trav “Goofy” Dalgoda was such a friend.

“First Officer Cole!  Can you explain why it took us a whole extra day to reach this Outstation?”

“No, Captain Trav… Honeypot… I have no idea why.”

Dana Cole had been working overtime trying to keep the Goofy one’s mind on romance rather than that evil Ancient artifact, the Tesserah, that he had become so obsessed with.  The device was constantly percolating with menacing alien sounds and radiating oddly unsettling colors while making everybody but Trav wonder what the evil thing was thinking about.  Trav Dalgoda was much more concerned with what he could get the thing to do.  Specifically, what he could get the thing to blow up or otherwise destroy.

“Ham, the old jester, will be wondering what happened to us.  He arrived at least twenty-three hours ahead of us.  You know I can’t leave my one truest friend alone for that long.  What if he needs me to blow something or someone up?”

“You know, Trav… beloved… we could take another shower together… or have some wine to celebrate arriving here.”

“Nonsense.  Who put you up to trying to slow me down with your evil ways?  Was it Ged Aero?  I know it wasn’t Ham.  The robot T-Bop maybe?”

T-Bop was a maintenance Metalloid.  Dana had no idea why Trav might have brought the thing up.

“Shall we take the recommended docking port?” asked a crewman on the bridge.

That was a good save by the nameless crewman in the red uniform.  Dana did not know them all by name.  After all, many of them were probably going to die in service to Goofy Dalgoda.  But she did appreciate any effort anybody could make to distract Trav from the Tesserah.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go take that shower together?” Dana offered yet again.

“Do you know where all the waste water in the fresher goes?” Trav asked, switching his eyepatch from the right eye to the left eye, which made no sense, since there was nothing wrong with either eye.

“It goes back to the molecular processors for the ship’s main material synthesizer units.”

“Exactly.  We use it to make the clothes we wear and the food we eat.  Do you know what that means?”

“No.  What does it mean?”

“It means our food is made from poo.  And our clothes we put on every day are made from poop too.  Isn’t that an icky thought?”

The Tesserah seemed to like that observation, changing its internal lighting to make it look more like a large, electrified turd.

“Oh, yuck,” said a crewman on the bridge.  Dana briefly thought about gutting him with a knife for being unhelpful, but then remembered the red uniform and took pity on the doomed young man.

“Captain Dalgoda, as First Officer, I request we dock at the designated docking bay.  We could all stand time away from the ship.”

“I am reluctant to leave my beautiful Tesserah.  But I do need to see Ham Aero again, the old jester.”

“Crewmen, please make it so,” said Dana to the doomed.

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July 7, 2020 · 4:18 pm

AeroQuest 4… Adagio 19

Adagio 19 – The Last War Before Now

If you actually read that last Canto instead of skipping it to get to the good parts, especially the naked-girl parts of which I am not promising you any, like most readers do, you may have noticed that both Tron Blastarr and Arkin Cloudstalker were veterans of a war that happened in the Imperium’s Pan Galactican Rim, Space Cowboy country.  The Imperium had for two hundred and thirty-six years been expanding unimpeded and colonizing empty system after empty system.  The problem, of course, is that the systems weren’t exactly empty.  They had merely been cleansed of sentient and intelligent life by an unknown alien presence that came to be known as the Faceless Horde.

Battles took place, and planets would become empty of intelligent creatures like dolphins, whales, apes, Earthers, Nebulons, Galtorrians, Fusions, and other aliens capable of speech, culture, and organized militaries.

And the strangest thing was, the planets were simply empty after the battle.  No bodies of defenders.  No evidence of attackers.  Rumors began that the enemy ate the dead from both sides.  Of course, this was not based on the remains of cannibal cook-outs.  While there were a few of those sites with long-dead skulls and fire-pits for making barbequed people, they were all created by the usual Galtorrian and Dion cannibal cults that had been eating their own as well as other sentients since the Imperium was formed.

But then, finally, captured study specimens, mostly Earther-humans were released by the Horde to return and tell us what they knew.  The Scondians were literally faceless.  They were a race of black, eyeless, faceless creatures that lived entirely on soaked-up starlight, or more groundedly, sunlight.

I got a lot of first-hand information about them because one of Ged Aero’s most prized Psion Teenage Mutant Space Ninjas, Billy Iowa, was one of those captive study specimens returned to the Imperium. 

It was discovered that the Horde War was mostly a matter of misunderstanding.  The creatures did not need to eat because they were made mostly of coherent light energy.  Their bodies were primarily containment constructs to carry beings made mostly of low-temperature thermo-nuclear plasma.  Once killed, they simply dissolved into the air.  The Imperial forces had slaughtered billions, but didn’t know it because the bodies were gone by the time living observers were there to see them.  And Imperials didn’t find any Humanoid or allied alien bodies because the Scondian Faceless Horde were fascinated by them, needing to study them to discover why they didn’t dissolve when deceased.

Billy told me that he was only able to communicate with them when a Scondian who went by the name Rahotep invented a translation device that turned their clicks and popping sounds into Galactic English.  Nothing in Scondian society actually had a name.  “Scondian” and “Rahotep” were simply randomly chosen designations from the computer’s Galanglic database.

So, once the two very different kinds of intelligence could communicate, the misunderstanding of what the two sides each were, and what their goals were, the war ended in a flash.  The differences were great enough that no one actually was interfering with anyone else’s way of life.  Co-existence became easy.

Not so easy came the acceptance of the peace by those like Tron Blastarr, The Degenerate, Arkin Cloudstalker, Razor Conn, and Fez Amin.  They had experienced a myriad of impossible battles against the Scondian Scorpion ships, and came to deeply despise an enemy that had inflicted so much damage and pain with no apparent pay-back.

That’s when the veterans of the Horde War began moving to the border with unknown space to lick their wounds, build new fleets, and turn the act of privateering into complete and illegal piracy.

Many scientists, myself included, felt that the peace settled upon at the end of the Horde War was a mistake.  The Scondian Horde did not offer any cultural exchange or opportunity to cooperate in shared space.  They simply returned the Pan Galactican planets and properties and outstations they had cleansed of people and forbade further colonization in their portion of the Orion Spur.  That was bound to cause trouble sooner or later.  I mean, how can a greedy, acquisitive race of sentient beings like the Earthers, or the lizard-like Galtorrians, or the Human/Galtorr Fusions ever be satisfied that sentient beings with planets and a culture of their own not only forbid profiting from trade and commerce with them, basically in order to take advantage of them, or, even more galling, deny them planets, stars, and property to steal from its rightful owners?  They can’t be satisfied.  Piracy, after all, is what moves history forward.   But then came the massive influx of Nebulons in their Space Whale Cruisers, moving into Imperial range for no apparent reason.  By the billions, the little blue Space Smurfs were invading with a culture no more easily understandable than that of the Scondian Horde.  A new enemy to go to war with and exploit in any way possible made the Imperial navy and Admiral Tang forget all about the Faceless Scondian Horde.

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June 23, 2020 · 5:05 pm

AeroQuest 4… Canto 102

Canto 102- How to Fly a Dinosaur

Things were a bit crazy on the surface of Outpost as the airless planet began preparing for the coming space battle with Admiral Tang and the Imperial Fleet.  But King Killer was certain it had to be like eating cake and ice cream down there compared to what he had to do up in orbit.

He paced back and forth in front of the ten pilots he had lined up on the flight deck of his command ship.

“You men are the cream of the crop of new pilots.  You are already designated as wing commanders.  And the ranks of ship captains and vice admirals above you are completely empty and waiting to be filled.  And yet, between the ten of you, you have already crashed twenty ships.  And you are lucky those were these bulky Triceratops cruisers.  Their Ancient tech makes them practically indestructible and easy to repair. Every pilot who has crashed a Pterosaur fighter so far, all two hundred and fifty-three of them, are dead.  And their ships are destroyed.”

All five cavemen from Don’t Go Here, and all three M’uduai from what King was calling Squidworld, and the idiot from Geogenesis, and the rockman from Dekastria nodded their stupid heads at the same time.

“Do you actually understand me?  Or do your heads just do that because you see the others do it?”

“Yes, Admiral Killer, Sir!” they chimed in unison.

“Zukkuua. Kuakuua Killer, Kua!” shouted the rockman who didn’t know Galactic English yet.

“You mean, yes, you understand me?  Or, yes, you are just imitating the others?”

“We understand you, Admiral Killer, sir!”

“Slikka ku Kikk kik?” said the rockman.  Then he appeared to be thinking about it.  “Zukkuua, Kuakuua Killer, Kua!”

“What did he say?” King asked.

“He said he understands, but wonders if you understand him?” said the caveman in the thick reading glasses.

“Teach him Galactic English, dammit!”

“Uh, yessir!  Admiral Killer, sir!”

“Okay, now, these men will be your teachers, as they are some of the finest pilots anywhere on the frontier.”

King indicated the three pilots standing behind him.

“Elvis the Cruel has more kills in battle than any other pilot I have ever heard about.  With the Pinwheel Corsairs he has killed more than nine hundred space ships and more than a thousand ground targets.”

Elvis stepped forward, gave a jaunty salute, and then said, with a cigarette stub hanging off his lip, “Thank ya, thank ya very much.”

All ten pilots clapped.

“Apache Scout has been the number-two pilot in the Lady Knights Corsair Band for fifteen years.  He was one of the most effective fighters in the First Battle of White Palm.  He also helped plan the overall battle plan for that invasion.”

The huge, well-muscled descendant of old Earth Apaches stepped forward and saluted with a stern face.

The pilots all saluted back and then clapped.

“And I hope the third trainer, Vince Niell will be the most help to you.  He started as a rookie pilot from Don’t Go Here.  He took up piloting aboard the first starship designed by Ancient technology, the Megadeath.  He has swiftly become a peerless pilot, maneuvering that ship in ways I have never seen done before.”

Vince, still wearing his mirrored sunglasses inside the spaceship’s fighter flight deck, stepped forward and saluted.

They all saluted back and clapped.

“Perhaps, Admiral Vince, you can tell us a little bit about how you learned to pilot your ship in combat?”

“Um… yeah, well, you see, sir…  um… Actually, the ship kinda taught me herself.  I kinda developed a close working relationship with my baby and she sorta does whatever I can picture in my head for her to do.”

“Wait a minute!”  King’s head was suddenly swimming in a sea of shock.  “You mean your ship is telepathic?”

“Um, yeah.  I think it’s kinda a feature of all these Ancient starships.  The Triceratops I tried out after Tron first brought them here seemed to read my mind as easily as the Megadeath does.”

King Killer hit his own forehead with his gloved fist.  Why was he just now hearing this?  He had a sudden urge to punch Dr. Hooey in the face again.  Too bad the stupid Time Knight was not present. And too bad the problem wasn’t really his fault.

“Willy!  Willy Culver!  Get out here this instant!”

The man who wasn’t supposed to survive the imprisonment on the planet Stanley came out of the tool room obediently.  King punched him in the eye and knocked him out cold.  King knew there was a good reason he had saved that man’s life.

“Okay.  You all heard Admiral Niell’s advice.  The next time you fly, think at your stupid starship until the damned thing thinks back!”   

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June 9, 2020 · 6:49 pm

Novel Transitions

The re-write of AeroQuest 3 is now complete. I just need to finish proof-reading and final edits before self-publishing on Amazon along with the other two books.

The Duo-ilogy will now be pushed into a trilogy.

And then rewriting and reworking begins on part 4 to turn the trilogy into a fourple-ilogy.

Four books? Did I say fourple-ilogy? That isn’t going to be the end if the Coronavirus doesn’t cut me short. What’s left will become a five-book thingy. What do you call that? A fiveple-ilogy? A nickelilogy? It can’t be a nickelology. That would be the study of five-cent coins.

Book one, subtitled Stars and Stones, tells how the two Aero brothers flee the Imperium because Ged faces persecution as a space-werewolf, a thing he is really not. What he really is is a Psion Shape-changer, able to rearrange the cells of his body according to the DNA of other creatures he has come in contact with and analyzed, mostly by tasting their flesh.

They come to an unknown planet where billions of people have been marooned by space pirates, corsairs, and stardogs. This planet, called Don’t Go Here has developed an entire stone-age culture based entirely on old holovids of the cartoon show The Flintstones.

The second book of the Teachers in Space Nickel-ilogy is subtitled Planet of the White Spider.

In it, Ged Aero learns for the first time that he is the prophesied return of the White Spider, a great teacher that will help Psions learn to overcome prejudice against them to use their powers to help make life better for everyone and build an empire of new stars and star-systems.

While Ged is busy learning to be a teacher and how to have some class, his brother Ham Aero is joining pirates, corsairs, smugglers, and various marginalized alien races as they rebel against Admiral Tang and the empire of half-lizard, half-human Galtorrian/Human Fusions.

In the third book, subtitled Juggling Planets, the characters learn the hard way that some of them are going to have to become leaders while others will have to be teachers. Numerous planets join in the rebellion. Some serious losses occur, as well as some significant gains. Some serious people get made fun of. Some not-so-serious people do some of the hardest work… or have the best dumb luck. And there are weird aliens, wacky technology, goofy people and strange planets, and things undreamed of in Horatio’s philosophy. If you haven’t guessed yet, these books are science-fiction comedies.

Next week, I start the rewrite of book 4, subtitled The Amazing Aero Brothers.

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April 29, 2020 · 7:39 pm

From an Alternative Point of View

These are not my two sons. The picture was drawn fifteen and ninteen years before they were born. Yet they were my two sons in the cartoon story this picture was lifted from.

Am I literally able to fortell the future? Of course not. But as an overly-sensitive artistical type one could argue that there is evidence in my art and writings that my reality now was at least partially embedded in my consciousness many years ago.

Estellia the Demoness

And truthfully, looking at the truth of things based on empirical evidence is what this point-of-view post is all about. We cannot always rely on the traditional concepts of good and evil as they have been taught to us. Sometimes you have to look at how the evidence stacks up properly, and just plain intuit a new way of seeing the whole picture. Yes, this is a portrait of a fifteen-year-old former student of mine. And she was definitely evil and difficult to deal with. But she went into nursing after high school. She works in the ER where her decisive ways and ferocious insistence on having things work out in her favor because that’s the way the established rules say it must be done turn into positive qualities that are probably saving lives in a Texas hospital as we speak. It is all in how you perceive the truth of a situation and then apply it.

Comedy, of course, depends greatly on rearranging your point of view. If you are going to make a joke about something, you have to re-mix and un-match the details in ways that still make a sort of sense to the reader or the hearer of the joke. I have taught at schools like Dudwhittler’s. If you are a teacher, you recognize that that school bus carries not only that which is funny, but also that which is very true. The teacher driving the bus is a tin man who easily rusts and cries too much, thus rusting further, but you can see he has earned his heart, even if he has to drive the bus on top of teaching so he will have enough money to buy food.

But probably the most anticipated thing from a new perspective that you were expecting since reading the title is a new perspective on the Coronavirus shut-down and economic depression. That alternative take is simply this… the pandemic, though extremely hard and painful, is a good thing that happened at the right time.

I am willing to say this, even though the way the virus has been mishandled in this country is going to very likely be the death of me, because there are benefits that we simply don’t recognize without a thorough punch to the gut and another to loose teeth.

It is a good thing because it will make it harder for Herr Fuhrer Pumpkinhead to win the next election, and he will probably take a number of corrupt Republicans down to the bottom of the sea with him.

It is a good thing because it is proving to us that we can survive on less and still make our way out of the bad situation.

It is a good thing because kids get extra time off from school, and probably also the chance to spend more time with the people who really teach them things we need them to know… like parents, grandparents on Zoom, teachers who don’t fear distance-learning technology, and trolls on the internet (Yes, I know that last one is risky and mainly learning the hard way, but it is also true from before the virus hit).

It is a good thing because the air is cleaner. And we have proven that we can make radical adjustments when it is a matter of life and death. And the environmental crisis is actually a matter of life and death.

So, now I’ve had my twisted say about my pretzel-minded perspective. And so you can now trash it, or possibly learn to like pretzels.

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Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, goofy thoughts, grumpiness, humor, Paffooney, satire

April 1, 2020 · 5:50 pm

Never Say Die

Amazingly, I am still not dead. Even though this invisible virus-monster is totally new to our species and we have zero resistance and no vaccination for it, I am in a position now that, with a lot of hard work and even more good luck, I can continue to survive and stay alive.

Of course, there are evil people out there that would love it if those inconvenient poor people would just die out (people like me who spent their lives doing useless stuff like educating the next couple of generations to be people who can read and write by being a teacher). Poor people cost rich people money.

One wealthy governor has kept his State full of beaches (that benefit economically from things like Spring Break and Easter weekend) fully open for business, thus infecting scores of people that go back to home States like Texas (where I live) to spread potential death to people whose cheap-o health insurance (like mine) won’t pay to save your life because that would cut into profits.

One wealthy President has down-played the seriousness of this pandemic up until now. He has been more concerned with suppressing knowledge of how bad it is going to be (because that could sour people in his base from re-electing him in November) rather than preparing in a way that would allow healthcare workers to adequately protect themselves as they treat waves of the infected and dying, and providing more respirators to save those whose infections are suffocating them (which he simply cannot do without limiting corporate profiteering by his super-rich CEO-type buddies).

Maybe those of us who survive this pandemic should see to it that the rich, evil dudes who made this so much harder to survive lose power and profits, and maybe even go to jail for a change.

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Filed under angry rant, battling depression, feeling sorry for myself, health, humor, Paffooney, satire

March 30, 2020 · 5:11 pm

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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