“Lady Godiva”
“Young Mickey in the Forest”
Essential Sorting
The internet is a golden treasure chest with an attached bag of holding for me. In other words, a lot of the writing I do depends heavily on a resource that didn’t really exist until I was almost 40 years old. I save stuff from my eclectic surfing forays in computer files that tend to become amazingly complex garbage dumps. So today, I decided to sort one of them to go through stuff I thought might make an interesting blog post.
So, let me show you some of the treasures I have found that could become upcoming blog posts. I will go through the sorted files from July of 2018.
The Dragon Prince
This is a funny, fascinating, D&D-type adventure series from Netflix and the creators of Avatar, the Last Air Bender.
I have recently watched the entire first season, and love this show enough to write a gushing love-review.
Fresh Off the Boat
This is a show on regular TV, the ABC network. It is about an immigrant family originally from China. I think I am married to the spiritual twin of the lead female character, an obsessively controlling Asian wife who has to have her fingers in every single pie in the neighborhood.
It is chocked full of little things that are both bizarre and funny about Asian cultures being assimilated in this country. And the kids are cute and extremely talented.
Gene Colan
Gene Colan was one of my favorite comic book artists in the 70’s and 80’s. I will probably do a more in-depth biography post on him in the future because he really helped me learn to draw in pen and ink. I copied his work from Daredevil, Howard the Duck, and Tomb of Dracula. But all of the work I will show you is done not by me, but by Gene.
Miscellany
This is the stuff that didn’t need its own folder.
Twitter Nudists
This is one I might not be able to use and still maintain a mild R-rating. But I am, in fact, a member of the online nudist community.
Theodore Roethke
This one was already turned into a good blog post.
Lovely bliss quotes Theodore Roethke Quotes
PhotoLiaison.com
The Wizard of Ozz
It goes without saying, nobody can have too many Wizard of Oz pictures.
Filed under blog posting, collage, photos
Advertising on E-Bay Ignorantly
You are probably not going to believe this, but there are certain things you simply cannot safely sell on E-Bay. My first good novel, Catch a Falling Star, took years to write. The research, interviews with survivors, fighting off remaining alien invaders left behind when the Telleron invasion failed, and clean-up of sites and inconvenient witnesses took at least from 1990 to 2012. And then, as part of my marketing-by-blogging strategy for the book, I took a box of leftover skortch pistols and listed them for sale on E-Bay. They turned out to be a very popular item. It took the first skortch ray almost a year to sell for a measly five dollars. It was bought by a woman with a very annoying husband. She apparently bought the item as a joke, thinking it would not actually work as a molecular disintegration weapon. But after she surprised her husband with it and then posted the surprising results on Facebook, I quickly sold out the rest of the 26 pistols in the box and made almost $800. I am told by concerned investigative reporters that crotchety old men, ugly wives, and particularly Dennis-the-Menace-like kids were disappearing all across the Midwest. I also learned that one skortch ray pistol came into the hands of a Republican political operative before the election in 2016. That fact may have accounted for the disappearances of large numbers of registered Democrats in both Michigan and Pennsylvania in the weeks before the election.
I wanted to inform you that I may have done something stupid on E-Bay. Therefore I am re-posting the drawing I did of Studpopper the Telleron demonstrating the firing of an example skortch pistol created by Zillokahsitter Industries on Telleri Prime with Sylvani technology. If you should see one of these in the hands of a spouse that thinks you are grumpy too much of the time, I would suggest an almost instantaneous program of self-improvement. And if you see one in the hands of someone in a red MAGA baseball cap, immediately put on your own red hat and say something inordinately stupid so they will assume you are one of them, and hope they skortch themselves by accident before they get around to skortching you.
Sorry about that. I should’ve thought this whole thing through more carefully beforehand.
Filed under aliens, humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
Digitize Me, Digital Maniac
Filed under Uncategorized
Character References, Part 3
When choosing whose picture to publish of all the many made-up people that live in my head and my fiction, I often wonder, do I have an accurate sense of who is important and who is merely minor? I offer now some characters I don’t feel comfortable leaving out.
Mazie Haire
One of the Haire Sisters, rumored to be a witch, and proud to prove it to you, Mazie is a severe and highly focused individual with a knack for seeing and convincing you of the truth. So, maybe she really is a witch.
She appears in;
Snow Babies
When the Captain Came Calling
Milton John Morgan (Milt)
I can’t tell you about the witch without mentioning the wizard. Milt Morgan is the Merlin of the Norwall Pirates (an adventuring gang and 4-H softball team).
He is one of the founders of the gang and the one who got them into the most trouble in the 1970’s.
He appears in;
Superchicken
The Baby Werewolf
The Boy… Forever!
The Wizard in his Keep
Torrie Brownfield
Torrie is the hair-everywhere boy with hypertrichosis, the werewolf-hair disease. He was genetically doomed to life looking like a werewolf. He was discovered living in hiding in Norwall by the Pirates’ gang who decided they simply had to make him a member.
He is, of course, the main character of;
The Baby Werewolf
And also appears in;
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
Harker Dawes
Harker is a clown-character based on a real person living in the real town of Norwall. He buys the local hardware store and runs the business into bankruptcy. He is not only a ne’er-do-well, but he also is a truly loveable fool.
He plays a key role in;
Snow Babies
He is also in the upcoming novel;
Fools and Their Toys
Dilsey Murphy
Dilsey is Mike’s slightly older sister who seems to be in a lot of my stories. She is a tomboy and a Daddy’s girl. She is also beloved by her irascible Grampy, Cudgel Murphy. Mike Murphy both hates her and loves her, but mostly just depends on her.
She is in;
Magical Miss Morgan
The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
and a large number of upcoming stories
Sean “Cudgel” Murphy
Grampy of the Murphy Clan, Cudgel is the meanest old man you’d ever want to meet. He is excellently suited to the job of teaching kids to swear. And he only drives his Austin Hereford, “The finest car made anywhere in the whole goddam world in 1954!”
He appears in;
Snow Babies
The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
Francois Martin
Francois, the French orphan, is the main character in my novel,
Sing Sad Songs.
He paints his face in clown paint and sings beautifully enough to save his Uncle’s business. I am halfway finished with this new novel.
So, now I feel like I have exhausted myself in character introductions and will probably eschew a “Part 4”. But with Mickey, there are no guarantees.
Filed under characters, humor, novel plans, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
A Character Reference, Part 2
Yesterday an inconvenient internet outage interrupted my fountain of character gushing. So let me splash a couple more on here.
Tim Kellogg
Tim is a school teacher’s son who is sorta, kinda, based on my own oldest son… and maybe a little bit on me. He’s clever, creative, a natural leader, and only slightly evil part of the time.
Tim is a main character in;
Catch a Falling Star
The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
Magical Miss Morgan
Grandma Gretel Stein
Gretel is a German survivor of the concentration camps who sees and talks to fairies on a regular basis. She also bakes magically delicious gingerbread cookies. And loves to tell stories to those who eat her cookies.
She is a main character in;
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
She is an important character in;
Superchicken
The Baby Werewolf
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
The Primary Cast of Recipes for Gingerbread Children (left to right) Grandma Gretel, the cookie baker, Todd Niland, handsome young farm boy and cookie-eater, Sherry Cobble, nudist and junior high cheerleader, and Sandy Wickham, cookie-eater and Todd Niland’s crush.
Farbick
He’s the alien Telleron pilot and good guy aboard Xiar’s spaceship who gets shot during the failed invasion of Iowa and helps save the planet in the near future. He’s a main character in;
Catch a Falling Star
Stardusters and Space Lizards
Davalon (re-named David by the couple who adopts him)
Dav is the alien boy accidentally lost on Earth in Catch a Falling Star, and leader of the young explorers in Stardusters and Space Lizards.
Edward-Andrew Campbell, the Superchicken
It is possible E-A is really me. He bears my high school nickname. He is a boy trying to cope with being the new kid in a tightly-knit little Iowa farm town.
He is the main character in;
Superchicken
I fear I am still a long way from done with referring to characters in my books. But more waits for another day.
Filed under aliens, characters, humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney
A Character Reference
Millis
He was once an ordinary pet rabbit, transformed through an accident involving a time-traveler’s alien-created mechanical carrot.
He is a character in;
The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
Mike Murphy and Blueberry Bates (his girlfriend) (She forced me to write that last thing, Mike.)
Mike is a member of the Murphy clan who resides in Murphy Mansion with many other Murphys. Blueberry is the girl who chased him until she caught him and turned him into her boyfriend.
Seen in the novels;
The Bicycle Wheel Genius
Magical Miss Morgan
Catch a Falling Star (only Mike is in that one) (He forced me to write that, Blue)
The Necromancer’s Apprentice (Mainly Blueberry in this one. Mike is only comic relief.)
Valerie Clarke
Valerie is a young Iowan farmgirl who lost her father far too soon. She loves skateboards, 80’s music, and boys, especially boys who can sing.
She is a main character in;
Snow Babies
Sing Sad Songs
She is also an important character in;
The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
Sherry Cobble
Sherry and her twin sister, Shelly, look almost exactly alike. They are, with both of their parents, practicing nudists. They love being nude at home on the farm, at the Sunshine Club in Clear Lake, and at school when they can get away with it (which is mostly a matter of girls’ locker rooms.)
Sherry and her twin are important characters in;
Superchicken
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
The Baby Werewolf
The Boy… Forever
A Field Guide for Fauns
Orben Wallace, bicycle engineer
Orben came to Norwall after a tragic fire in his home and laboratory killed his family. He switched from physics to bicycle engineering and opened a new lab where it is rumored that he also created sentient robots, time travel machines, supercomputers, and had relationships with aliens and time travelers. Of course the only physical proof of anything are the bicycles he made.
He is a main character in; The Bicycle-Wheel Genius
He is also an important character in; Catch a Falling Star
Anneliese Stein
Anneliese is a gingerbread cookie brought back to life through the magical baking skills of her human mother, Grandma Gretel Stein. She was also a human girl in the 1930s and early 1940s who also had, unfortunately, a Jewish father. Okay, I know… I will explain better later.
She is an important character in;
Recipes for Gingerbread Children
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
This will have to be finished another day. I have too many more characters to show you, and my Internet is giving out.
Filed under Uncategorized
K.I.S.S.
When learning to write, you have to learn the rules. And then you start writing, and you learn that you have to break all the rules to do it well. But what do I know? You have to be pretty desperate to get your writing advice from a Mickey. After all, it’s not like Mickey was a writing teacher for over thirty years… oh, wait a minute… yes, he was.
Okay, so I decided to write today about the K.I.S.S. rule of writing. That’s right, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Other writing teachers tell me it should be, Keep It Simple, Sweetie, because you can’t say “stupid” to a kid. Okay, that’s mostly true. But I use “stupid” when I use the rule myself. I’m talking to Mickey after all.
So, I better stop “bird-walking” in the middle of this essay, because “bird-walking”, drifting off topic for no purpose, is the opposite of keeping it simple.
I try to write posts of no more than 500 words. I write an introduction that says something stupid or inane that speaks to the theme I want to talk about. Then I pile in a few sentences that talk more about the theme and do a good job of irritating the reader to the point that they can’t wait to get to the conclusion. Finally I finish up with a really pithy and wonderful bit of wisdom to tie a knot in the bow of my essay. I save that bit for the end as a sort of revenge for all the readers who don’t read all the way to the end, even on a short post like this one. Of course, I could be wrong about how wonderful and pithy it is. What does “pithy” even mean? It can be like the soup in the bottom of the chili pot, thicker and spicier than what came before… or possibly overcooked with burned beans.
That was another bit of “bird-walking”, wasn’t it? See, you have to break the rules to make it work better.
So, in order to keep it simple, I guess I need to end here for today. Simple can be the same thing as short, but more often you are trying to achieve “simple and elegant” and pack a lot of meaning and resonance into a few lines. And I, of course, am totally incapable of doing that with my purple paisley prose. And there’s the knot in that bow.
Art is Life… err… Life is Art
More pictures of my Filipina relatives. (From left to right;) Sesspartoolie Malloopy, her sister, Doonaloolie Malloopy, my daughter in the back, Maninalootie Beyronoopie, Christmas Cookie Danoolie (in front with a dog I don’t know,) Grandma Eiloloopu Malloopy. and Nickolooni Danoolie (and I don’t know that dog either.)
Mickey copies a classic Cupid by William Adolphe Bouguereau.
Ariel, my largest and most important doll, holding her favorite doll.
Zorah the SeaWitch takes her pirate fleet out to do some pillaging and pirate stuff.
Filed under Uncategorized
Catch a Falling Star 
Get Up and Do!
It is daunting when bad fortune comes in waves, drowning us in debt, suffering, disabling illness, financial reversals, and so many more things I have been through this last year personally, so that we want to lie down and never get up.
But, I am not dead yet… and there is poetry to be lived.
I say that as one of the world’s fifty worst poets who ever lived. (In my defense, I am a humorist, and I write bad poetry on purpose.) My inspiration for the living of poetry comes from reading and living good poetry. I live because there is poetry by Walt Whitman. Of course, also Shakespeare… whoever he really was. And I understand that much of what I have learned in my brief and stupidly-lived 61 years comes from the poetry of the visionary poet I pictured above. Do you know him? If you have never read his poetry, you haven’t truly lived the poetry you need to live.
This poet taught me that “Being, not doing, is my first love.” Of course, if I am satisfied with just sitting on my bed and “being” through most of my day, I will starve to death and not “be” anymore. But he has taught me that what is essential is already within me. There is wisdom and power in Uncle Ted’s poetry. (Yes, I know I am not really related to him, but that’s only physical and overlooks the spiritual.) I must partake of it to live.
If you are bored by poetry about plants in a greenhouse under bright lights, or you can never understand what the poet means when he says, “My father was a fish”, then you need to practice reading poetry more. You don’t truly understand what poetry is, and what it is for… yet.
And I am sure you have probably concluded from all of this that I am a fool and a bad poet and I have no right to try to tell you who and what a truly great poet is. But, fool that I am, I know it when I see it. It is there in the verse, the hideous and horrible… the beautiful and the true. And if I know anything at all worth telling about the subject, it is this; Ted Roethke is a great American poet. And he writes poetry that you need to read… and not only read but live.
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Filed under artists I admire, commentary, insight, inspiration, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as living poetry, poetry, Theodore Roethke