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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.

The Mayans predicted the world would end in 2012.  But they apparently didn’t realize that the Cubs would win the World Series and Donald Trump would be elected U.S. President in 2016.    The world as I knew it ended on November 8th.  So now that the four horsemen are riding and the world is coming to a close, I have to plan what it is I will do with my remaining days.

I do so love to draw pictures and tell stories.  I plan to be doing that when the Grim Reaper rides in on his pale pink horse.  (I do realize that the Bible only says it is a pale horse, but Death has a sense of humor, or Trump wouldn’t be president for the End of Days.)

I know old Lucifer isn’t really red, but let’s just call him “Lucy”, shall we?

I am writing a novel about a war between good and evil, a surrealist fantasy novel called Recipes for Gingerbread Children.  It is a novel about an old German Grandma (Like Great Aunt Selma, for those in my family that remember her).  It has Nazis, and evil fairies, and teenage nudists, and magical gingerbread cookies in it.

It isn’t a true story, but the characters in it are based on real people, and like all surrealism, it is presented as true even though it truly cannot be.

Oh, and there’s a werewolf in it.  And if I finish it, I will start another called The Baby Werewolf that shares many of the same characters and reveals a parallel story line that takes place simultaneously.

Torrie and Macey Brownfield.

I like the word “simultaneously”.  It is a very good word.  When I say it out loud, it sounds really snappy and makes me sound way smarter than I actually am.   And I like the idea of stories that tell the same things over again, but from a different perspective or a different point of view.    I am fascinated by the idea.  Oh, and “perspective” and “fascinated” are both very good words too.  “Fascinated” almost makes me sound like Mr. Spock when I say it out loud.

And if I live long enough to complete that literary goal, then I shall surely start another pair.

You see, I don’t expect the world to end for everybody.  In fact, I suspect the cold wind blowing in from the future right now is really only for me.  I am in poor health and life’s stresses are taking a daily toll.  It is true that President Elect Trump thinks climate change being man-made is a Chinese hoax, and that belief is probably going to spell the doom of all life on the planet.  But that won’t actually happen for quite a while yet.  Neither I nor Trump himself will probably live long enough to see the world reap the whirlwind that he has sown.  And I don’t expect my writing and publishing nonsense to amount to anything before the world ends, but it is the world to me.  So I grin and continue.  Such is the way the world turns.

After eight years of George W. and eight more years of Obama, we have gone through highs and lows that either prove that government can do a few good things, or a lot of bad things.  And we all suffer a little, or gain a little, or both no matter who is President of the United States.  There are many on my side of the question that fear this new one is going to be an orange-colored Hitler.  But really, Adolf Hitler was the only Hitler, and he was actually born with the last name Schicklegruber.  This new job and responsibility may change him.  Look how gray it made Obama.  Look how less smiley it made Jimmy Carter.  Look how much like a rodeo clown it made George W. look… um, okay, that one didn’t really change.  And Ronny Reagan was mostly preservative the whole time anyway.  But, anyway, the new job will change the Donald in some significant way.  And Steven Colbert is right.  We have to come together.  We have to hug a Republican here and there.  We have a mutual interest in getting along.

Maybe we need to look a little harder.

I have friends who voted for Trump.  They are probably only still speaking to me because their candidate won.  But losing is not the end.  They are at least still speaking to me.  And whether making fun of me or not, laughter cures all ills.

The Chicago Cubs beat the Cleveland Indians to win the World Series.  They blew a 5 to 1 lead and had to squeak out a one point win in 10 innings… with a rain delay in the extra inning… but they won!  No, they WON!!!!!!!!

But wait, Mickey, didn’t you say the world would end if the Cubs won?  Didn’t you predict they wouldn’t win for another 108 years?  Aren’t you a gol danged Cardinals’ fan?

You got that right.  The Cubs won.  The world will now end.  And I still live and die by the Cardinals’ fortunes.  But it is a case of the universe unfolding as it should.  After all, baseball is life.

You see, rooting for the underdog and being loyal forever, like a true Cubs’ fan, is something God expects in every day life from all of us… at the very least, from the best of us.  We need to feel a part of something bigger than ourselves.  And what is bigger than battling a baseball curse that has lasted for 108 years and overcoming it in the end?

How do you get Chicago Cubs to do the popcorn dance?  Either heat the field up to 250 degrees and burn their feet, or allow them to win the 7th game of the World Series.

The Billy Goat’s Curse began in 1945 during the World Series between the Cubs and the Detroit Tigers.  It was the result of Billy Goat Tavern owner William Sianis having his pet goat Murphy banned from the ball park because of pungent smells and possible talent at making hay farts out of eating too many Cracker Jacks, box and all.

Sianis got so mad that he sent a telegram to Cubs’ owner, Philip Wrigley saying, “You are going to lose this World Series and you are never going to win another World Series again. You are never going to win a World Series again because you insulted my goat.”

And I’ll be danged if that curse didn’t work for at least 71 years.  The Tigers beat the Cubs in 1945 and then didn’t make it back to the World Series again until 2016.  Murphy was one danged powerful goat full of mojo.   Where besides baseball do you get stories with high-octane low-calorie bull-puckey like that?

So now, the world will end.  There is nothing left to overcome.  The spirits of Ernie Banks, Ron Santo, Ferguson Jenkins, and Billy Williams can now be at peace whether they are dead or not.

But wait!  The Indians themselves haven’t won since 1948.  And have you heard of the Rocky Colavito Curse?  Maybe there is reason to live still.  And, who knows, the Cardinals may be about due to win World Series number 12 next season.  I guess I can’t die just yet.

This is Marta the Cat-Girl.  She is a denizen of the jungles of my imagination.

I had this post prepared ahead of time in case today was just too much with things I must accomplish, meetings, deliveries, and not feeling well to boot.  It helps me keep my vow to publish every day on this blog until November 30th, the completion date of two years of daily posting.

Some songs are so beautiful and so true, that I cannot listen without tears in my eyes and burning fire in my heart.

“I did my best, it wasn’t much

I couldn‘t feel, so I tried to touch

I’ve told the truth, I didn’t come to fool you

And even though it all went wrong

I’ll stand before the lord of song

With nothing on my tongue but hallelujah”

lyrics from “Hallelujah” by Leonard Cohen

You see, I believe in God… but my God is a bit bigger than most people’s God.  In fact, most of the people who come closest to what I believe are atheists.  My God is all of existence, the good and the bad both.  He is above my understanding, but it is my place to constantly try to reach for Him and know Him and, sometimes, even be Him.  Things that are impossible to accomplish, and yet we all do it on a daily basis.

My God does not punish sin.  My God does not reward faith.  My God does not ask anything of me beyond being.  But since I exist, and since I believe that love and beauty are good things, if I want the universe around me to manifest love and beauty, then I must make it so.  I must live as a loving person and a singer of beautiful songs… even if I can only sing silently in words on a page.

However did someone as dopey as me come up with something as dopey as this?  Let me tell you a story.

When I was ten, an older boy, a neighbor, trapped me, de-pants me, and abused me.  It was not love in any way.  It was sexualized torture.  He made me feel pain.  He took away my sense of well-being.  He made me afraid to touch or be touched by others.  He made me believe my own physical urges were a terrible thing that God would punish me for.  I wet my pants in school more than once, because I feared the boys’ bathroom at school.  I no longer tried so hard to make the other kids laugh.  I sank into depression.  And ultimately, I thought about ending myself in painful ways, ways I felt I deserved.

Reverend Aiken is the one in the cowboy hat.  His son, Mark, was my childhood best friend.

But I was blessed.  My best friend’s father was the minister of the Methodist Church and, eventually, both churches in our little town.  And in the late 60’s, the Methodists decided to be very progressive on matters of human sexuality.  When I was twelve, he taught all the kids in my age group about sex using a blackboard and a willingness to frankly discuss anything we needed to know.  Of course, he never quite figured out what my terrible secret was, in fact, I couldn’t have told him about it if I wanted to, the memory was repressed and I couldn’t call it up until that day in college when it all came back to me at age 22.  But he knew it was there.  He is the one that taught me that faith in God is about love.  It is not about punishment, especially not punishment for biological urges and physical needs.  People need love, and should never be castigated or humiliated because they seek it.  And he told me that I was not to blame for the acts of others.  The notion of original sin, that we are all born despicable because Adam goofed, is nonsense.  All people, even the bad ones, are God’s children and worthy of love.  People can be redeemed from anything.  And it is the job of worthy people to be the love that informs the universe.  We must do good deeds and love, honor, and, most of all, render aid to others.  Because that fills the universe with goodness and light.

Both the good Reverend Aiken and my abuser are dead now.  I deeply love one, and I forgive the other.  And it’s because that’s what God is… love and forgiveness.  It has to be so.

Did you listen to that song from YouTube?  If you made it this far through this rather difficult ramble without listening to it, I recommend you click on it and give it a try.  It is about King David sinning with Bathsheba, and repenting his sin before God.  And in the end, there was no punishment for him.  So, I, too stand before the lord of song with nothing on my tongue but Hallelujah.