I have been getting tired of the tiny screen on my phone where I have been relentlessly drawing like my drawing talent is about to run out… because it is. I finished setting it up today, but I haven’t finished anything else on it. So, today I give you drawings I did on that Lilliputian screen.
This is the first figure drawn on the new Android Tablet.
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Today’s Paffooney is a tribute to a childhood hero, Aquaman. I drew the picture from a comic book inspiration source coming from DC Comics in the 1960’s. Aquaman is a B-level superhero with not nearly so many fans as the big three, Batman, Superman, and Wonder Woman. He was, however, my second favorite after Spiderman. He was more important to me than the Avengers. And this was strange, because I only had the chance to read the sacred comic books in the old barbershop in uptown Rowan. I only remember about two different issues that I was able to read during the long wait for a haircut. (Haircuts on Saturday took forever, because all the bald and crew-cut farmers would take forever getting their hair cut. And they hardly had any hair! I think the barber cut each hair individually.)
Aquaman and Aqualad would journey together in an incredible undersea world of sea monsters, giant fish, scuba divers, villains like Black Manta, and Mera, a real hot underwater babe. Topo the octopus could play comic relief by playing musical instruments or getting drunk on old lost kegs of pirate rum. I became a part of the adventure. I’m not sure whether I imagined myself more as Aquaman himself, or Aqualad. Aqualand was dressed all in red and blue, my favorite colors. I liked his blue swim-trunks. I myself could never wear swim trunks without a fatal case of embarrassment over my knobby knees and hairy legs. I admired Aqualad’s smooth and muscled boy-legs, though not without some shame and embarrassment. Some suggest that the relationship between Aquaman and Aqualad was a homo-erotic thing just like Batman and Robin. But, hey… NO IT WASN’T! It was a hero and sidekick that mirrored the complex relationship between a father and son. My father and I could never talk at any deeper level than Aquaman talked to Aqualad. Yet my father had super-powers for solving my problems and helping me do things and make things. Yes, I think I loved Aquaman because he reminded me of my own father in his quiet competence.
And I had a Captain Action Aquaman costume, a Christmas present and wonderful treasure. I played with it so much that only the broken trident, mask, and swim fins remain. The rest was all broken and unraveled and disintegrated from being played with. The Aquaman in my Captain Action collection has replacement parts in it to make it more complete. Yes, I spent time and money putting that toy back together so that I might play with it yet again.
So why is the super-powered King of the Sea so important to me? After all, his super powers are to breathe underwater and telepathically talk to fish. I think, reading back over this stupid little essay, that the most important theme is the father-son thing. I never owned a single Aquaman comic book as a kid, but I watched him on Saturday morning TV. He was one of the Superfriends. And my father had been in the Navy on Aircraft Carriers. Yes, Aquaman is my favorite because Aquaman is secretly my father.
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Arriving in 1874, Robert was born more Frost than snow,
And yet he made a genius poem of watching snow in fields, you know.
The thing about him and his work, you see,
Is the quiet observation, the detail, the sensibility.
He could look at stone walls badly in need of mending,
And see two neighbors, working together, and sharing a satisfactory ending.
And when two roads in a yellow wood he surmises,
The one less traveled leads to four Pulitzer Prizes.
This is a poet you need to meet before you are dead.
Everyone thrives with a little Frost bestowed on their head.
*Note*
This is a poem about a poet written in couplets, pairs of rhyming lines, the poor man’s building blocks of poetry. Please notice that this poem, written by a pretty terrible poet (hey, at least I’m pretty) is about one of the greatest poets that ever lived. Back in 1969, though Frost was recently no longer living, I had to memorize and recite Frost’s poem, “The Road Not Taken,” I was one of only three seventh graders who did it correctly. Later, as a teacher, I would make speech classes memorize and recite it too, though they only had to get one stanza correct to pass it. Putting yourself in that poem by reading it aloud is a mystical experience that transforms you forever into a more aware and awakened human being.
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Teach me now, oh wise one…
…Because I have to know…
…Where the wide world comes from…
…And where it must surely go.
…Teach us now, oh foolish ones…
What proofs of reason can you show?
Teach them now, old ones…
…With white hair on your heads…
…Teach them now what they must know…
…Before we all are dead!
We all must share our knowledge…
…What little of whatever we know…
…And all of us must become teachers…
Before our last chances all go!
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When you make the mistake of admitting to others that you are a writer, they immediately assume you know things that are kept secret from “normal” people. For instance, they will simply assume that you can tell them where you get your ideas for writing. Well, I am fairly sure that I got the idea for this post from watching a YouTube video in which the Master, Neil Gaiman, says that every author has a joke answer for that one with enough sarcastic wit in it to punish the asker with public humiliation.
I asked the dog if she knew any jokes like that which I could use to prepare for someone asking me that question in public. She said, “You could tell them that your family dog tells you what to write every day.”
“No,” I said, “people would never believe it.”
“Well, it is supposed to be a joke. But you are right. No one would ever think you were actually smart enough to write down what a dog tells you.”
“Yes, it’s a good thing for me that you know how to speak in English. I could never translate and transcribe Barkinese.”
So, I began thinking of where some of my best ideas came from.
Some of my stories come directly from dreams that I had. The nightmare about being chased down a street in Rowan at midnight by a large black dog with red eyes was an actual dream I had in the 1970s. So was the nightmare of the werewolf climbing out of the TV during a late-night viewing of Lon Chaney in The Wolfman.
Those two dreams together were the start of the story that became my recently published novel, The Baby Werewolf. Both dreams visit the protagonist in the story I wrote almost as if they were his dreams and not actually mine.
Snow Babies, the best novel I have ever written, was based on two different blizzards I experienced, first as a child in the 1960’s, and then again as a high school kid in the 1970s. Each blizzard involved being snowed in for a week at someone else’s house. As a child, I was stuck at Grandpa’s farm place until the snow plows could finally do their work and open the gravel roads. As a teen, I was stuck in Great Grandma’s retirement apartment near the high school in Belmond.
That novel also is based on the next source of ideas;
I can’t think of any story I have written that isn’t based on real people I have known in one way or another. Valerie in the novel above is based on three different girls I have known or taught. One of those three is my own daughter. The four orphans on the bus in that story are all boys from my junior high classes in the 1980s.
Lucky Catbird Sandman, the hobo who wears the quilted coat of many colors, is based on the poet Walt Whitman, whom I knew well in a past life, and my own shiftless, storyteller self. Some characters are just so key to a story idea that they themselves are the reason for a book to exist.
In conclusion, the dog doesn’t really know what she’s talking about. None of these things are really where I get my ideas. But I am out of time. I will have to write about the bottle imp another day. No, really. A magical imp trapped in a bottle. You can make one of those give you ideas for novels with only a slight risk to your life and soul.
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Mr. McFlaggen, the History teacher and basketball coach, was talking to Mr. Malkin, the Art teacher, in the cafeteria while they watched over the seventh-grade monkeys as they wolfed down their nearly inedible pizza slices.
McFlaggen; What do you know about that girl Cindy Hootch? The kinda ugly one that is so quiet and never sits with anybody else at lunch?
Malkin; It doesn’t help to think of her as ugly, Flag. You should see her watercolors on newsprint. She has a beautiful soul. She’s very smart. And she won’t talk to you in front of the class, but one-on-one, she’s got a real way with words.
McFlaggen; The important thing is how smart is she? Can she tutor Math? Could she help my star point guard get at least a C in old Krautmeyer’s Math class?
Malkin; How do you see Claussen’s intelligence? Is your point guard capable of understanding her if she tried to teach him how to multiply fractions?
McFlaggen; Frankie is dumb as a rock. He really needs a way to cheat on tests so that he can stay eligible to play all basketball season.
Malkin: Stephanie won’t cheat. She’s smart and gets good grades. But she has had a good moral upbringing. Have you met her parents? They are church people, and good parents to their five kids as far as I can see. If you ask her, she will probably tutor him willingly. But success is not only up to her. Your basketball player will have to put in the work.
McFlaggen; Well, the problem is, there are really only two kinds of kids. There are the dumb lumps like Frankie that no matter what you do, you cannot get those kids to do anything to help themselves, even in matters of life or death. And then there are some kids you can force to accomplish anything if you just push them hard enough in the right direction. Kids like your little painter, Miss Hootch.
Malkin; I think you will find, coach, that there are definitely two kinds of teachers too. You have the kind who are convinced that all kids are basically bad and need to be shaped like a stone-cutter would, grinding away the parts that make them bad, and if the process fails, you throw the unfortunate kid on the worthless pile and leave them to their fates.
McFlaggen; Do you mean, Gray, that there is another kind of teacher? Aren’t we all like that?
Malkin: Ah, Don, there is another kind. Some teachers, rare I grant you, see all kids as good, the seeds of what they are destined to become. We only need to plant them in fertile surroundings, give them the attention they need, and allow them to bloom in the way nature intended. That’s what makes Stephanie Hootch such a beautiful blossom.
McFlaggen; You are such an Art teacher, Gray. A real romantic filled entirely with dog poop.
Malkin; Maybe so. But in the long run you will see who’s right about kids.
McFlaggen; So, where’s this Hootch girl now? I need to push her into tutoring my player.
Malkin: She’s there, blooming next to Vice Principal Wiggan.
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It has been brought to my attention by family members, friends, and even some readers that my current use of the AI Mirror program to edit my artwork is really overwhelming my personal style with its anime filter. The smiling anime face on the cheerleader is a good example. The eyes are bigger than I would have chosen to make them in a colored-pencil rendering. The nose is too small, and if I highlight it on the previous layer it makes it show up in the final, but still too small. What I like about it is the way it makes the highlights and shadows on her flesh and her clothes so much more accurate to the light source than I can do even with the digital stylus. But I am noticing more and more that the AI tends to do what it wants to the picture more than it does what I want. Even though I layered my drawing over a photo and traced it before coloring, the AI made changes that were not needed. I get that I leave openings on the face for interpretation because I am not trying to make an identifiable portrait. But it even makes the logo on the top of the uniform into something far more unreadable than the “Iowa” that was there. I get that it refuses to copy logos and copyrighted stuff, but that isn’t really the case in this picture. I realize I am trading some of my control as an artist for the good things the AI can do to correct the problems my arthritis makes. But I am really no happier with the situation than some of my critics. I only rely on the AI because it allows me to draw more and more frequently than I can with pencils, pen, and paper. This Devil’s bargain allows me to still draw every day.
This is what the AI does with old drawings I have done years ago. This one, Filch the burglar and entertainer from a D & D game in the early 1990s, shows how the AI can interpret my older and better drawings almost the way I would have done it myself. Almost… but you can plainly see the work I had to do on the hands. AI art programs have difficulty with hands. The left hand confused it because three fingers actually go off the page and I highlighted the top of the palm. The program broke the little finger and tried to bend a sixth finger across the top of the palm. The right hand is nearer to correct, though my glaucoma-hampered eyes still see the fingers as too long. That, however, could also be said of the original drawing.
So, as an artist, I do battle daily. Not only with the arthritis in my hands, but also some Artificial Unintelligence. They should call it AU rather than AI. It’s too dumb to get offended by that.
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Tomorrow is not promised…
…In fact, I have not yet survived today…
But before I fold my wings and die…
I promise I will have my say.
Look into the future and you will plainly see….
A time when planet Earth will tend to be so hot
That fire will bloom in every field, and death hangs from a tree,
With stupid people all around soon to feel the knot.
There was a former President with a pumpkin for a head.
He tried to wreck the government for profit and for pride.
And damage done may turn our world to a place where most are dead.
Those who kill our fragile world will take their gold and hide.
Pain and chaos confront us now and badness lies ahead.
And yet we’re standing in the queue not ready to avoid this ride.
Foresight’s the thing most useful to us now to keep ourselves alive
But Nostradamus I am not. I know not how to thrive.
Editor’s Note***
A Sonnet, like those masterfully written by whoever Shakespeare really was, is a fourteen-line poem, each line written in iambic pentameter, with a rhyme scheme often symbolized as ABAB CDCD EFEF GG. If you look closely at this evil poem, it is clearly not a Sonnet. At least, not a correctly written one. And it is more of a gloom and doom poem like the quatrains of Nostradamus rather than a courtly love poem or celebration as written by Shakespeare or Petrarch. More evidence of evil incompetence, then.
For teenaged girls who probably should not be reading evil poetry, you can look Sonnets up on Google and find out how to write one. I know that this would be the only reason you are reading here.
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The clown stumbled to the center of the stage,
Into the spotlight for a tinker’s age,
“I’m guessing that I now must talk,
Since I am no longer allowed to walk,
And I cannot claim I am a mime,
So, now I have to deal in rhyme.”
The seats were empty, so no one cheered,
But that also meant that no one jeered.
The Silent Orchestra of the Universe
“Poetry is Music,” the clown said, “And there is music in the stars,
Silent music, of course, made of light and novas, asteroids. and comets,
Dancing through the cosmos, and not stopping in at bars.”
Then he burped the alcohol inside him with a face portending vomits.
“Words are music, rhythm, rhyme, and melody.
We make our way from day to day upon the primrose path they lay.
I speak now, fulfill my part, and so, I speak my soliloquy…
As my very instrument, in the universal orchestra, I play.”
A ghostly moan in the empty seats was nearly really heard
And the clown, he gawked and stared about in every spin-necked way.
“I do not believe I find relief in this absent throng… with words
That come from no one nowhere… so, I’ll be on my way.”
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Catch a Falling Star 