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Sometimes life gets a bit tough when you are old and diabetic and grumpy all the time… and your kids are still teenagers… and you have to spend four hours a day driving them to two different schools in two different Dallas suburbs… and it rains one day and swelters you in Texas heat the next… and the drive home occurs during rush hour… and you just can’t think beyond loud thoughts like; “Why does that stop light turn red right before I get there?” and “Why can’t somebody teach teenagers how to drive in a high school parking lot?!” and “Why is the sun so bright and in my eyes going BOTH DIRECTIONS?!?” and “Why is the worst driver in Texas always the one right in front of me?!?!!!”

And then you realize, you can’t think any more to make a decent post for your blog.  You are dead…

It will probably be clear that I am writing this post because I am currently reading 1941 daily strips from Al Capp’s Li’l Abner.

But I am definitely going to talk about corny jokes, not cheesy jokes, because I grew up in Iowa, not Wisconsin.

And, yes, that is example number one.

There is a certain way of telling a joke or tall tale that is unique to the farmyard.   And it does not contain chicken poop, but rather, corn.

Of course, as you can see by this corn-colored definition of what corny means according to Collins Online Dictionary, the word is supposed to be an insult to corniness in jokery.  That doesn’t sit well with the people of Iowa, where the tall corn grows.  We are also obvious, sentimental, and not at all original.  And we are proud of it.  

To tell a corny joke right, you…

The Ixcanixian Cultural Ambassador from the Squeelix Sector of the Planet Ixcanix sent me an e-mail about his planet’s newest idea for a cultural exchange.  He calls it the “Ixcanixian Spleegle Gorn Vorpaloop” which translates to the “Ixcanixian Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge”.  At least, it does if I am conjugating the verb “Vorpaloop” correctly.  It is difficult because you have to drop the silent “y” before adding the “aloop” without causing it to explode.  I know it is probably a very bad idea to present it here on this planet, but he talked me into it by promising to promote my novel Catch a Falling Star on his homeworld and at least two other planets in the Bugeye Federation.

Here are the rules for the alien poetry contest;

1. Entries can only come from planets in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius  Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.  (So, for…

I have been steadily chipping away at my science fiction novel about planet-saving in a world crashing with biological and political disaster.  It is a comedy about the end of the world… though it is set on a distant planet that is not our world.  It is not the Earth.  It is the fictionalized world of David Icke’s reptilian aliens (for those of you crazy enough to follow loony-tunes tinfoil hat conspiracies with the same ironic gusto that I do).  I call this novel Stardusters and Space Lizards.  The world of the novel is accidentally being invaded by the Telleron aliens who starred in my novel Catch a Falling Star.   They find there a world that is undergoing massive biological crises caused by war using weapons of mass destruction and injudicious exploitation of the environment for the enrichment of the elite.  I know that sounds totally like Earth…

I have been doing an edit on a completed novel called The Bicycle-Wheel Genius, and I have discovered that I have grown quite a bit as a writer since I first began practicing the craft.  This particular story has been rattling around in my brain since 1977.  The mad scientist who is the title character, Orben Wallace, is based loosely on me.  It is also to some degree a favorite science teacher from high school mixed up with a rather eccentric college professor whose bizarre nature led, apparently, to some really profound insights about the scientific reasoning process and how a person thinks rationally.  From this character recipe I have learned the scientific method of experimenting, observing, theorizing, and testing theories works in all areas of life, including the complex mess that is our social life and relationship muddle.  Order can be imposed on chaos, and even when chaos is…

Grumpy (a poem about Grumpy life)

Dang it, you old grumpy man!

You annoy me as only a grumpy man can.

You grouse and growl and sometimes howl,

And pace the house like a cat on the prowl.

You worry me, weary me, and generally nasty be,

And of course you are… yes, you are… naturally me.

So why do you worry me, weary me, moan and make bother,

Now that you’re old, and you sound like your father?

Because you are cranky now, creaky with age,

And know you now, soon, the book’s turning its page.

And, though you complain, you do love your life,

And, loathe you will leave it, and your sweet-smiling wife.

*Footnote*  I was in a foul mood when I wrote this poem, but my favorite team, the Cardinals, won a football game with a last second interception by Tony Jefferson in the end zone.