Category Archives: Uncategorized

Number One Son is the Marine on the left.

No, I didn’t get back to Iowa for the holiday break.  Weather, health, and work prevented that.  But my son the Marine made it home for a two week leave.  And, since my wife is still a dedicated Jehovah’s Witness, we still don’t celebrate the Christmas holiday.  But it is nice to be home with family.

We did get to the movies last night, and we did get to see Rogue One in 3-D.

We loved the movie.  It made me cry.  I will probably also cry every time I re-watch it from here to infinity… and beyond.  But this is not a movie review post.  I will hold onto that idea for later.  This was about family time together.  It was a very good time.

Rumors of my death are premature, and probably all my fault.  Chest pains, with my family history of heart attacks, always make me think dark thoughts of mortality and impending doom.  Today, however, it was merely cold air in my lungs and continuing to remember Trump will soon be President.  I need to forget about the greedy old orangutan for a while, and let my heart and imagination soar again.  I drew this colored pencil Pegasus in 1980, before I became a teacher and planned on saving the world.  Back then I thought anything was possible since I was young and bright and talented.  But looking back on old artwork like this helps me remember too that once the future seemed bright.  And the days can be bright again even if the Cubs won the Series and the world has ended. Vicks Vapo-Rub and balancing my bloodsugar, combined with rest, put me back in the pink… even if it is still a rather pale pink.  Number two  son was not perfect either, but he got up and showered, and then, being tough-minded, went to school for the afternoon.  Some days are a little harder than others.   Sometimes you have to wonder when the last day will come.  But I am not dead yet.  And there is a lot more to do.  And somewhere, somehow, horses really can fly, right?

There are days when things just don’t go the way you planned.  My chest is hurting, most likely from COPD meets cold air.  But my son will be home on leave tonight around midnight, back from his Marine base in Virginia.  My number two son has missed two days of school with a low-grade fever and general inability to get out of bed.  I don’t have time or money, for a doctor’s visit today, but may need two of them.  It is hard to soar when you can’t even take off from the ground.  It will get better, one way or another, but sometimes, life just sucks beans.

Yes, this is actually an art-post from a previous December.  Once again today as I was finishing up an essay that I hadn’t backed up, the computer suddenly highlighted the entire thing and deleted it, pictures and all, in spite of the fact that I did nothing that I know of to make it do that.  And the WordPress editor, naturally, saved the deletion-changes before I could even blink.  It was gone, with no way to retrieve it, ever.  The save function in my brain gave out long ago.  So, let me post this instead.  I am still posting every single day this month.  And I did actually write my 500-word minimum for the day.

Recipes for Gingerbread Children

Yes, I finished the illustration.  No, you didn’t see it wrong.  Sherry Cobble, sitting between Todd Niland and Sandy Wickham is stark naked.  She and her twin sister Shelly are dedicated naturists and go clothing-free whenever possible.  That is just another bizarre detail in the life of a surrealist.  At any moment you can encounter naked people.  And not just when they are not wearing any clothes.  Sometimes you see their bare souls through multiple layers of clothing.

And looking back over the last two years of posting every single day, I have to say it looks quite like I am not the only idiot who sometimes sees through clothing to the center of the person as if I were Superman with x-ray vision.  (Come on, you always knew that Superman could tell you what color underwear the girls were wearing at any given moment.)    My most popular post, Be Naked More, was written in December of 2015 and has been viewed 306 times in the last year.  That’s almost once a day!  I believe that proves that I am not the only pervert out there who can’t stop worrying about naked people.

Speaking of naked people, I just got the manuscript for Magical Miss Morgan back from the editor.  It is a story based on the naked details of my teaching career.  They want to change the title to Magical Ms. Morgan for some reason.  I may have to argue that one a bit.  But it also means I am well on my way to having another book published and in print.  I will very probably be one of those writers who only loses money over being a writer.  But I can accept that.  Holding a copy of my own book in my hands is a worthy enough accomplishment for a Midwestern brick-brained cornfield philosopher like me.

My second most popular post is Maxfield Parrish Pictures which I wrote in 2014, but the one gaining the fastest is What You Should Know About Filipino Families at only 102 views.  I wrote this because I have been married to a Filipina for 20 years, and I have learned a lot of laughable things about Pinoy culture that are worth sharing.  102 views suggests that not all of my Filipino relatives have seen it yet… not by a long-shot.   But they generally have a good sense of humor and are far better at laughing at themselves than their current leader in the Philippines, the Pinoy Trump.

So how much longer can Mickian monkey-headed-ness continue on a daily basis?  I don’t really know.  I am in poor enough health to drop dead at any moment.  I never imagined I could do every day for two straight years.  But who knows?  It is possible that writing regularly is what keeps me alive.

Today I am 60.  Yes, the day before Mickey Mouse celebrates his 88^th birthday, this Mickey turned 60.  I have got the gray hair to prove it… or prove I was actually a public school teacher anyway.  But one would think that 60 years of survival on this goofy planet ought to provide me with some wisdom as well.

What wisdom do I have to share?  Hmm… let me think;

1. I know for danged certain that teaching is an extraordinarily hard job.
2. I know that kids are worth it… no matter what color they are, what language they speak, or where they come from. (I have always been partial to the blue ones from the Crab Nebula.)
   

   Ain’t I pretty at 60?

3. I know that I have to be a Democrat for politics. I believe in a government that builds things for all people to use, protects people from profit-hungry predators with laws, treats all people as equal, and respects every person and every person’s rights… you know, all the things that make me a dangerous radical to my Republican friends.
4. I also know that the Democratic Party is a vast tepid poop farm where you have to choose which poop to make a government out of. I try to find the really hot poop.  Hillary wasn’t hot enough.
5. I know I have the Republicans in Iowa and Texas to thank for the gift of Donald Trump as president. I hope you Republicans and your new president will be very happy with each other.  I know you deserve each other.
6. I know that Ted Cruz is actually the Zodiac Killer… if by “actually” you mean in some impossible way he is metaphorically and comically the Zodiac Killer. It still sounds right to me though.
   

   The Trump administration is choosing cabinet posts to put its best people in.

7. I know there is no actual proof of aliens held prisoner in Area 51, but I believe in them anyway.
8. I know that with six incurable diseases and being a cancer survivor I should never have reached 60, but here I am anyway.
9. I know that Mickey Mouse loves Minnie, and Popeye loves Olive Oyl, but neither couple will ever get married. And that’s okay.
   

   
10. I know that all people are naked under their clothes… but I try not to think about that too much. I blush far too easily.
11. I know I will never write the Great American Novel I have somewhere inside me… but somebody will… someday… and then the world will end the next day.
12. I know that smiling and laughing make you live longer than frowning and being mad, but it is really hard to say which way is harder to manage on a daily basis. I fear frowning is easier.
13. I know that I cannot end this list on the number 13.
14. I know that I have had many ups and downs in life, probably twice as many downs, but I have no regrets. I have done good things.  I have been a good person.  I hope I still am.
15. I know I have passed 500 words and should probably shut up now.

“You know, Mickey, that none of these things are actually what you could call true wisdom, don’t you?”

“Oh, yes, but knowing that makes me wiser than most men.”

I never really explained the picture I have been drawing since the election mess began.  I’m not sure I could have before now.  It was a place to escape to.  I have been having health troubles that make me fear the end is near.  Will it be a stroke?  An infarction?  But I am hoping for stroke, though only if it is a stroke of genius.  Infarction is too silly a word for heart-goes-boom.  Not that I am immune to silly.  And what’s with the phrase, “Mickey Doo” in the titles?

If Mickey draws Scooby Doo, is that a Mickey Doo?

The drawing started out with the character of the Telleron boy from the novel Stardusters and Space Lizards.  The frog-like humanoid aliens in that story, the Tellerons, have been living in my imagination since I was a boy.  Either that or they really did invade Iowa when I was a boy… my friend Robert testifies that he remembers the invasion… but he was kind of a gullible kid that believed anything I told him.  Davalon the Telleron tadpole was a main character in the novel Catch a Falling Star.  Once I drew him, I felt I had to add another novel character.  Anneliese is a living gingerbread girl, brought to life by a fairy spell.  So she is literally one tough cookie.  “Literally” because she is a literary character in the novel I am currently working on, Recipes for Gingerbread Children.  She was created by Grandma Gretel, a holocaust survivor with magical baking skills, for the express purpose of helping the good fairies that live in Iowa to defeat the evil ones, some of whom acquired their evil spirits from the Nazis in Germany.  And finally I included Francois, the singing boy from the novel Sing Sad Songs.  He is an orphan from France that comes to live with the dysfunctional family of his nearest relatives after losing his own family in a traffic accident.  He manages to charm the whole Iowa town with his musical ability and put a serious dent in the loneliness and isolation that his family has fallen into.  So, in a way, these three characters represent the eccentric way I go about fighting the war between good and evil.  I depend on happy accidents, magic, and music… things that don’t exist without love.  And it is all because I doodle when I’m hurting and things haven’t gone my way.  Turning hurt into artwork is a strategy that has helped me for 60 years.

The fact of the recent election fiascoes is that one side, the side in favor of big money interests, cheats.  Here is a very good video that explains how they do it.

Those of you who sincerely believe that I am only talking out of hurt feelings and misguided wishes need to refute this information point by point.  I was a Republican once upon a time.  I know many people who are still proud to be one despite all the things that happened over time.  But I think we really need to look at the facts.