Yesterday, as I was reviewing a movie that is almost as old as I am (in December, 1961 I was 5), I couldn’t help but think like a teacher. If I were going to teach this movie as a piece of literature (and movies ARE literature! Don’t argue with me!!!), I would start with an anticipation guide… or I could call it a lesson focus. I would tell the students a little bit about why this movie is important to me. I would give the background information about how Walt Disney wanted to make a musical picture like The Wizard of Oz, and even bought the rights to Oz books by Frank L. Baum to make it happen. It was supposed to be a starring vehicle for his popular Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers, and ended up starring Annette Funicello (and I would never mention anything about my childhood desire…
Some wonderful driver ran over the relay box in the neihhbor’s yard. So no Internet today. Since posting from my phone is difficult with arthritic fingers, I will simply show you a photo of the toy I bought to make myself feel better.
One of the most important things about my blog has been that I can share my artwork. I have always been capable of a reasonably high level of drawing ability. I can also paint and create artistically original photographs. I have that artist’s eye that sees creatively. If you follow directions in this first Paffooney, you will see a wider variety of the kind of Paffoonies I post than I will post here. This will be, however, a picture post. I intend to share a bunch of my artwork here, both old and new. Take a gander. (And while you hold on to that male goose, look at some of my pictures, too.)
You have to admit that I am clearly not an artist like Van Gogh or Picasso… certainly nothing like Andrew Wyeth or Winslow Homer. I am more of an illustrator, or … worse, a cartoonist.
Looking for stuff to organize into a post today led me to realize that I currently exist swimming in a tidal wave of goofy images that I myself have created.
So, lazy and goofy old me will now show you some of these things.
I don’t even remember why I drew some of these things.
Some of it, is obviously because I was a teacher.
But some of it is merely wacky.
Though some might be considered inspirational.
While some of it is just meant to be appealing.
But all of it provides me with an easy post that you can read fast, but still get plenty to think about from. It is even good for a re-post if I add something newer.
Xanthophobia (from Greek xanthos, “yellow”) is fear of the color yellow. In China the color yellow was feared, specifically receiving the yellow scarf, which was an imperial order to commit suicide.
Yes, “xanthophobia” is a word I have never used in my life before now. I have no doubt that I will never need that word again in my life. You, dear reader, will probably never need that word either. But the derfy space-ranger part of my brain thinks it is neat that I was able to correctly answer a trivia question about the meaning of “xanthophobia”simply because my background as an artist who has shopped for exotic oil colors in artist supply stores helped me to recognize that the “xantho” part of the word meant yellow.
Are there other totally useless words that my space-ranger brain thinks are cool to know? Of course…
The most important part of a novel is how it ends. It is the ending of the story that does the most to establish the theme, make the points the author wants to make, or gives you the all-important feeling that the story is complete.
I have written nine good novels and ended the story nine times. I have reason to believe they are good books. Two of them were contest finalists. I have gotten no bad reviews (of the minimal number of times someone besides me has actually read one of these books). And even experienced editors have told me that my books are competent and good enough to be potential best sellers. But, of course, they have little chance of ever reaching a wider audience. I am an Indie author and have either published through pay-to-publish publishing companies or the free Amazon/Kindle publishing services. The way the story of me being a published author will end, though, is not a story of success and wealth and critical acclaim. I am dissolving into abject poverty and fatal ill health. I will not last to see my books hit the big time. And when I croak and become worm food, my books will be forgotten and mostly ignored, even by my family who look at it as a pie-in-the-sky dream rather than reality. Reality, unfortunately, really sucks.
The fact is, all the greatest and most worthwhile people that ever lived have suffered terribly and they were forced to endure much. Greed, villainy, injustice, inequality, bullying, rape, murder, and income taxes prevail in an unbalanced and unjust world. If Guy McPherson in the opening video is to be believed (if you haven’t already watched it, I suggest you don’t. Hearing that message from a credible climate scientist like him is very depressing.) then greedy, rich, and powerful people made the decision to murder us all decades ago, and there is nothing we can do about it.
So, here is how my story ends; I will continue to tell stories and write essays like this one until the very end. And, for me, that will come any day now. It is the only thing worth doing for me at this point in my life. I also hope that you will take heed of my example and endeavor to be the author of your own story’s end. And I am not suggesting you commit suicide or hole up in a bunker somewhere. I suggest you spend every day as if it is your last one on Earth. Cherish your loved ones. Do what pleases you to do. And, most of all, be the author of how your own story ends… plotted out with grace, theme, and meaning. A tribute to how you lived. And maybe you will be able to tell me sometime in the next life about what a colossal fool I was when I wrote this essay.
When last we left the Captain Action Hero Team, they were busy trying to rescue Mickey’s beloved X-Box with the EA Sports Baseball ’04 game that Mickey loves. The Evil Doctor Evil had taken over the library and turned it into an evil lair for his evil minions of Evil. But Captain Carl Action had led his team into the fray and clobbered the Agent in Red with a kiss and the Grammar Nazis with bad grammar. Dr. Evil was feeling foiled.
The pretty Barbie doll (whose name was really City-Style Christie) was captured and at the mercy of Evil Doctor Evil.
Dr. Mindbender had an evil talent for bending minds. He possessed considerable talents of ESP (which here stands for Extremely Stupid Puddlebrains). The poor captive doll was bent to Dr. Evil’s evil will.
Suddenly Mickey’s blog stood on the verge of losing its PG rating (which was already…
In the last episode of Expelling Evil, Grammar Nazis, we saw the Captain Action Hero-Action-Guy Team move into Mickey’s Library with the speed of a Republican in Congress when there is legislation to be passed. The heroes were prepared to battle Dr. Evil and evil Dr. Evil’s evil minions. Captain Carl Action had encountered and pacified the evil minion known as the Agent in Red. He found ways to capture and interrogate her that, while not the least bit effective, were something that he really, really enjoyed.
So Carl, taking his time… an entire week if you can believe it! decided to extend his interrogation even longer, in spite of chapped lips and the total absence of lip balm. It was then that Colonel Komma and his evil Grammar Nazis decided to move in and attack the foolish hero-guy with Blitzkrieg word war.
Do you remember when Dr. Evil took over Mickey’s Library with his evil minions and Grammar Nazi’s? No? Well, the Action-Hero-Guy team charged with protecting the library didn’t either… until finally today one of the Barbies complained that Dr. Evil was totally monopolizing the X-Box. So now, incensed by Dr. Evil’s audacity… and unwillingness to share…the Captain Action Alliance of Action-Hero-Guys are taking action.
So, lead by Captain Carl P.M. Action, the heroes sneak inside the library door ready for action.
It did not take the heroes long to realize that they were not alone.
You know that given a choice, true action heroes always choose action like bopping someone on the head (assuming they are not allowed to kill them with big explosions and lots of blood, thus leading to an R-rating so the…
Yesterday, as I was reviewing a movie that is almost as old as I am (in December, 1961 I was 5), I couldn’t help but think like a teacher. If I were going to teach this movie as a piece of literature (and movies ARE literature! Don’t argue with me!!!), I would start with an anticipation guide… or I could call it a lesson focus. I would tell the students a little bit about why this movie is important to me. I would give the background information about how Walt Disney wanted to make a musical picture like The Wizard of Oz, and even bought the rights to Oz books by Frank L. Baum to make it happen. It was supposed to be a starring vehicle for his popular Mickey Mouse Club Mouseketeers, and ended up starring Annette Funicello (and I would never mention anything about my childhood desire…
My attempt to draw “synesthesia” 
