July 18, 2023 · 12:53 am

Living in a Fictional World

My title for today has at least a double meaning, if not a triple or fourple one.

“Fourple?” you say.

Yes, four plus the color purple. Purple, after all is the dominant color used in the video game “The Legend of Hoodwink“.

And, of course, the video game is not real. It is the virtual reality video game used in the story as the secret land that the orphans and their mother’s friend flee the authorities to live in after the deaths of the Brown family’s parents.

So, I have been living in the world of Glammis, the imaginary game world inside a mainframe supercomputer. I started this story back in the 1980’s, inspired just a little bit by the Disney movie Tron. Of course there are all kinds of more current technological details to employ to make the story more up to date. The story has been reset to 1999. (I don’t write stories set in the 21st Century. I just don’t. Mark Twain never set one in the 20th.) And one of the ways to create the game-world of the story is to draw pictures of it that I can use as illustrations in the book.

Hoodwink and Babbles (the horse-headed Kelpie) are both game characters that play key roles in the story. They transform from game characters following the script to real people fighting for their lives and honor in the course of the story.

A key setting is the candle-castle called Candlemere, for obvious reasons. The wizard, Milt Morgan, lives there, though he is a real person from Iowa living in Texas as a game designer.

These are the three orphans that Milt Morgan has rescued after the car crash. Mortie Brown, Daisy Brown, and Johnny Brown now live in Glammis after the deaths of their parents, Brom and Stacy Brown.

The three orphans are being pursued in the real world by an FBI agent, a relentless tracker and pursuer named Agent Brent Clarke. What the kids don’t know is that Agent Clarke is trying to find them for their grandparents that they don’t realize are still alive. And Clarke is also their uncle, their mother’s older brother.

In the video game, they are pursued by the evil Daniel Quilp, who is in the video game playing the wicked King Murdstone of the Chelsrod’s Spire. He is not a relative. He is secretly the enemy of their parents and the wizard Milt Morgan.

The servant of Murdstone in the game is Errol of the Devylkind. He is more than he appears to be as well. He is another player character who is also very much acquainted with Daisy in the real world, and has a huge crush on her.

But, at present, I haven’t yet reached that part of the story, the latter half of Act One. Instead, I am today establishing setting further by narrating the visit to BrooglieTown, the home of the chocolate dwarves (literally made of chocolate and not a racist faux pas by any means.)

So, in the middle of writing a novel, I am describing the world-building I have been doing… and drawing… while pretty much living in this made-up game world due to the ongoing pandemic and intense heat of Texas in July. It is a better place to be living for now, though it is soon to heat up too as the plot gets churning and the Devylkind, rather hot-blooded fantasy characters, get further involved.

Leave a comment

Filed under novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as

July 17, 2023 · 2:10 am

The Case for the Clown

The criminal was led into the courtroom in chains and forced to sit in a box made of metal bars so his influence would not reach out and harm anyone by drawing their sympathy in.

“Mr. Prosecutor,” said the learned judge, “what terrible crime has the perpetrator been charged with?”

“The alleged perpetrator!” objected the defense attorney, a mousy old man who looked like a cross between Santa Clause and Robert E.Lee because of his white beard, stern face, and a twinkle in his eye.

“Shut up please, Mr. Badweather. You will have your turn to speak.” The judge banged his gavel smartly to emphasize the shut-up-ness of his overruling.

“Your honor,” said the prosecutor, “Mister Pennysnatcher Goodlaughs stands accused of being a clown.”

“The people of the State of Texas, home of the free, land of the brave, and place where cowboys can hang their hat on the antlers of a moose they shot in Canada, will prove that Mr. Goodlaughs did willfully, and with malice of forethought, commit acts of supposed humor in order to make people laugh. And we will further prove that in a time of very serious things, he intentionally made light of very serious matters and the very serious men who try to turn those serious things to their exclusive… err, sorry, I mean… everyone’s benefit.”

“Your honor,” said the defense attorney, looking like a cross between Mark Twain and Colonel Sanders, “I would like to request a new venue for this trial. My client will not get a fair trial here.”

“Sir, your stupid request is rejected on the grounds that Mr. Goodlaughs cannot get a fair trial anywhere. We are all conservatives, and are therefore incapable of having a sense of humor. Continue, Mr. Prosecutor.”

“We will show numerous instances of Mr. Goodlaughs putting paint on his face to hide his true features or assume the identity of a character not his own. He has repeatedly used false noses, large shoes, and floppy hats to exaggerate his flaws and scare young children. He repeatedly wears polka-dotted clothing to simulate terrible taste and ridiculous lack of fashion-sense. He employs pratfalls and slapstick humor in his performances, things that, if any school-age child would imitate the behavior, might lead to serious injury or even death. And he has even dared to make fun of our glorious leaders, implying that they make mistakes and may even have hurt people. That they act without thinking about anything but their own pocketbooks. In other words, this clown has knowingly made jokes in order to get people to not take things seriously.”

“Your honor, I object to this jury. I object to the fact that it is made up of fifty percent rednecks and fifty percent kangaroos! My client demands a new, more impartial jury!” cried the defense attorney, looking like a cross between Captain Kangaroo and Ronald Reagan.

“Has anybody noticed?” asked the judge, “that this attorney looks like he could influence this jury unfairly? He looks like two people who could lead the two halves of this jury to the wrong conclusion. Bailiff! Take the defense attorney out back and execute him by firing squad.”

After the entire courtroom heard the gunshots go off, the judge then turned to the prisoner.

“It seems, Mr. Goodlaughs, that the defense’s opening statement is now entirely up to you. Do you have anything to say in your own defense?

“I do, your honor. Ladies and gentlemen, kangaroos and Reagan Republicans of the jury, I submit to you that I have never actually been a circus clown, or wore face paint. Not that I wouldn’t if the opportunity presented itself. I merely claim the right to laugh at anything I think is funny… or can be made funny. Whether I am being what you call a clown, a humorist, a cartoonist, a comedian, a fool, a village idiot, or a witty fellow, I believe I have the right to make light of anything. Life is always better when you can laugh. Especially if you can laugh at yourself.”

“I’ve heard enough,” said the judge. “What say you, jury?”

“Guilty!”

“Yes. And I preemptively waive the prisoner’s right to appeal. Sir, you are guilty, and you shall be executed immediately.”

Everyone in the courtroom breathed a long-awaited sigh of relief.

Leave a comment

Filed under clowns, comedians, commentary, foolishness, humor, insight, Paffooney, pessimism

Tagged as

July 16, 2023 · 2:25 am

Being Ignored (the Sequel) Ignorance

Yes, I am leading with a digital cartoon of my imaginary granddaughter. And I know it’s probably concerning that I have an imaginary granddaughter. She’s not a ghost. The child that didn’t carry to term was never really alive. That is the reason she didn’t happen. She’s not a ghost, rather, a pretend friend. And I only write about her now as an exercise in fiction. She’s no more real than any other character I have ever written. No more real than Valerie Clarke, or Devon Martinez, or Oliver Twist, or Atticus Finch…. I know, I know… I didn’t write those last two characters. But I am mostly ignored as an author, and I had a point to make in there somewhere.

This is her. She looks like Bollywood child star Sidra Khan because that’s whose Instagram photo I used as a model. So, what do I name this imaginary little girl? Samantha? Serendipity? Sara? But why do they have to start with S? I tend to use the first letters of real names of people I based a fictional character on, but my granddaughter never had a name. Or even a sex. Sam? Sandy? Norman Nobody?

But why am I obsessing about somebody who never came to be? Am I lonely? Am I unfulfilled? I am talking to nobody, aren’t I? Nobody reads what I write. At least, nobody I will ever know about.

Somebody is reading three of my books on Kindle Unlimited this month. Superchicken, The Baby Werewolf, and Recipes for Gingerbread Children. That somebody is reading in Canada. I know how many total pages. But I have no idea who this person is, or, since there will be no review, what they think about the stories.

Rianna didn’t ignore me. In the 1980s she was in my English class for two years. No, she didn’t fail. She was in my class as a seventh grader, and again as an eighth grader. And she loved me when she was a seventh grader. And the next year she hated me. And as soon as she left my class and moved on to high school, I was her favorite teacher again. She didn’t ignore me, anyway.

The world doesn’t ignore me if I owe taxes. It doesn’t ignore me when the pool cracks and can’t hold water anymore, and the city forces me in court to have the pool removed, and I ended up in the hospital with heart issues, and I went bankrupt. Medical bills and Bank of America certainly didn’t ignore me. Lawsuits over money are not about ignoring somebody.

But I am the author of 21 books with 3 more that may get finished before I croak. I mean, curl up my toes and go permanently bye-bye, not that I am turning into a bullfrog (though I do suspect a curse on me somewhere in the mix.)

There are numerous best-seller lists that I am not on for any of my books, even the best ones. And book promoters have increasingly been calling me. Of course, they want me to spend money on their marketing and publishing services. They are not promising to help me sell anything. They haven’t read any of my books. They are only promising to take my money. But the joke’s on them. I don’t have any money.

But let them ignore me. I wrote those books and this post. So what if everybody ignores all of it? They exist. I am a writer. And you can’t disprove it.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 16, 2023 · 1:02 am

Being Ignored

I have never been an attention-seeker. In the Elysian Fields of modern society, I have never really been the honeybee. I have always been the flower. I had a reputation in high school for being the quiet nerd who ends up surprising you immensely in speech class, at the science fair, or at the art show. I was the one they all turned to when everybody in the conversation had already had their chance to strut and pontificate and say dumb things, and they were finally ready to get the solution to the problem being discussed, or the best suggestion on where to begin to find it.

When I became the teacher of the class instead of the student, I had to make major changes. I had to go from being patient, quiet, and shy to being the fearless presenter, forceful, sharp as an imparter of knowledge, and able to be easily understood, even by the kids whom you couldn’t legally call stupid, but were less than smart, and not in a pleasant Forrest Gump sort of way.

Shyness is only ever overcome by determination and practice. The standard advice given is to picture your audience naked so that you are not intimidated by them. But if your audience is seventh graders, you have to be extra careful about that. They are metaphorically naked all the time, ready at a moment’s notice to explode out of any metaphorical clothing they have learned to wear to cover the things that they wish to keep to themselves about themselves. And while you want them to open up and talk to you, you don’t want the emotional nakedness of having them sobbing in front of the entire class, or throwing things at you in the throes of a mega-tantrum over their love-life and the resulting soap operas of betrayal and revenge. And you definitely don’t want any literal nakedness in your classroom. (Please put your sweat pants back on, Keesha. Those shorts are not within the limits of the dress code.) Calling attention to yourself and what you have to say, because you are being paid to do so, is a critical, yet tricky thing to do. You want them looking at you, and actually thinking about what you are saying (preferably without imagining you naked, which they will do at any sort of unintentional slip or accidental prompting.) The ones who ignore you are a problem that has to be remedied individually and can eat up the majority of your teaching time.

I trained myself to be fairly good at commanding the attention of the room.

But now that I am retired, things have changed. I can still command attention in the room, which I proved to myself by being a successful substitute teacher last year. But I no longer have a captive audience that I can speak to five days a week in a classroom. Now my audience is whoever happens to see this blog and is intrigued enough by the title and pictures to read my words.

Now that I am retired and only speaking to the world at large through writing, I am ignored more than ever before. Being ignored is, perhaps, the only thing I do anymore. It is the new definition of Mickey. Mickey means, “He who must be ignored. Not partially, but wholly… and with malice.”

I put my blog posts on Facebook and Twitter where I know for a fact that there are people who know me and would read them and like them if they knew that they were there. But the malevolent algorithms on those social media sites guarantee that none of my dozens of cousins, old school friends, and former students will see them. Only the single ladies from Kazakhstan and members of the Butchers Union of Cleveland see my posts. Why is this? I do not know. Facebook and Twitter ignore me when I ask.

My books, though liked by everybody who has actually read and responded to them, are lost in a vast ocean of self-published books, most of which are not very good and give a black eye to self-published authors in general. I recently got another call from I-Universe/Penguin Books publishers about Catch a Falling Star, the one book I still have with them. They are concerned that my book, which is on their Editor’s Choice list, is not performing as well as their marketing people think it should. But to promote it, I would have to pay four hundred dollars towards the marketing campaign, even though they are already subsidizing it by fifty percent. They tell me they believe in my book. But apparently not enough to pay for 100% of the promotion.

I have decided to invest in a review service that will cost me about twenty dollars a month. But my confidence is not high. The last time I paid somebody to review a book, they reviewed a book with the same title as mine from a different author. That service still owes me money.

But the only reason it is a problem that I am being thoroughly ignored these days is that an author needs to be read to fulfill his purpose in life. Maybe pictures of pretty girls in this post will help. But, even if they don’t, well, I had their attention once upon a time. And since my purpose as a teacher is already fulfilled, perhaps that will be enough for one lifetime.

Leave a comment

Filed under artwork, autobiography, education, humor, Paffooney, publishing, teaching

July 15, 2023 · 2:39 am

Heal Thyself

Mai Ling is a sci-fi ninja gunslinger. She’s a fast draw and a dead shot. She can take care of herself.

But no man is an island. One needs a community to survive.

Still, it never hurts to know how to take care of yourself.

Mickey was a child who suffered a secret trauma that he wouldn’t even let himself know about and remember. It was a strongly repressed memory. And it made Mickey hurt himself constantly… on purpose. He burned himself on his lower back and the back of his legs purposely to tamp down thoughts about sex and sexual urges. He refused to be seen naked by non-family members. Except that, starting in fifth grade, he had to take showers with other boys after PE classes. And he was even afraid to go into a school bathroom during class because he might be caught in there alone by a bigger and older boy… while alone and defenseless.

The coach noticed athletic skills in Mickey during PE class and talked him into going out for football in the ninth grade. This Mickey did. He learned how to hit and be hit and survive with minimal injuries. He learned how to tackle, to take and give blows. He developed some power and skill at physical confrontation. He only ever got into two fights. The one where Danny knocked him off his bike from behind, he lost, because that was before the trauma and before football. But when stupid, angry Dickie attacked him after freshman year, he won that fight, throwing Dickie to the ground without hurting him about three times. Dickie gave up from embarrassment more than injury.

A boy and his imaginary tiger can overcome anything with enough confidence and stupidity.

So, how does a Mickey heal himself when he won’t even admit to himself what the matter really was?

Well, being physically fit doesn’t hurt. But you can’t solve every problem by throwing it to the ground. And hating yourself and hurting yourself does not go away by throwing yourself on the ground. Mickey knows this because he tried.

You have to learn to talk to real people. And it didn’t hurt that Mickey practiced a lot by talking to imaginary people. There was a faun. There was an imaginary girlfriend from Canada who communicated in dreams and by psychic messages delivered through telepathy.

But there came an incident in PE class that might’ve resulted in a Mickey meltdown. The boys were supposed to be watching a wrestling demonstration, gathered around the champion lightweight wrestler and a hapless sacrificial opponent in the center of the circle on the wrestling mat. The girls were sitting in the bleachers listening to the girls coach talk about girls’ stuff.

You know what happened. A bully, one of many in the boys’ class, sneaked up behind Mickey, grabbed the legs of Mickey’s gym shorts, and pulled them down. It revealed all. And girls were watching. Mickey should’ve died right there and then. But he didn’t. He smiled at the girls who were giggling, gave them a little wave, and only then did he pull the shorts back on.

The coach caught the perp. And the bully was far more embarrassed than his victim.

That is when Mickey learned that humor is good medicine.

And facts are also good for healing terrible ills. Truly, the sex education Mickey got from the Methodist minister helped save his life. And later in college he learned more about sex and battling depression and overcoming trauma that helped him solve the problems of self hatred, self harm, and guilt. And what his friend told him over the phone that Saturday when he was actually contemplating suicide, that his friend thought Mickey was a good person, not bad… That was a fact that allowed Mickey to be here now writing these words.

So, the truth is, there are things you can do to help yourself even if your illness is depression, self hatred, suicidal ideation, or PTSD.

Humor helps.

Talking about it with someone who cares helps more.

Eat something chocolate.

Eating healthy for an extended period of time helps even more.

Get a good night’s sleep without sleeping too much.

Remember that LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL and you deserve to live it. Nobody has the right to take that away from you.

If Mickey can do it… anybody can.

1 Comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 15, 2023 · 1:09 am

Saturday Is Art Day… Again

I draw things as illustrations to stories. Take, for example, the protagonist and hero of Catch a Falling Star.

Dorin Dobbs is boy from Iowa. That tells you some terrible things about him right there.

He was ten in 1990.

He hated girls.

He met some pretty green-skinned girls from outer space, amphibianoid frog-girls with fins on their heads. He danced with them to Mickey Mouse Club music while he was their prisoner on a sectet base on the planet Mars. They were dancing naked in the nutrient bath that all Telleron tadpoles use daily.

Brekka and Menolly are two of the Telleron frog girls with fins on their heads. They love Earth music in the 1990’s. They are background characters in Catch a Falling Star. They are main characters in the book Stardusters and Space Lizards, where they help Davalon and Tanith to conquer the dying planet of Galtorr Prime after the Telleron invasion of Earth failed in the previous book.

Tanith and Davalon (the Telleron boy in front)
Sizzahl of Galtorr Prime, Ecologist and Lizard Girl

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

…..

”””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””””

Galtorr Prime is undergoing drastic climate change and environmental collapse and ends up being saved by superior Telleron technology and the lizard-girl heroine, Sizzahl, who has a plan for fixing the atmosphere and saving fundamental eco-systems. Of course, this is all science fiction-y stuff based entirely on fantasy and imagination and has nothing to do with the real world we now live in.

Millis, transformed from pet rabbit to near-human

Of course, not all characters I illustrate are people or aliens.

Millis, Tommy Bircher’s pet rabbit, is an ordinary albino bunny who eats a piece of alien technology that evolves him into a talking, walking-on-two-legs, near-human form.

He becomes the chef (who cooks only vegetable dishes) for Norwall, Iowa’s own mad scientist, Orben Wallace, in the book The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.

Orben Wallace, and his favorite bicycle, The Happiness Machine

I think I have now given out far more spoilers for stories than I have any right to do. But the thing about character illustrations is that your get to know the characters at a glance. And to know them is to love them.

Leave a comment

Filed under aliens, artwork, characters, illustrations, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as , ,

July 14, 2023 · 1:06 am

Today an Angel Stood By Me

This digital angel was drawn after the painting by William Adolphe Bouguereau

Today I had to return to the dermatologist to see if the skin cancer she treated three weeks ago would have to be biopsied for malignancy. It turns out that the treatment, freezing the cancerous cells, worked perfectly. The threat was completely gone.

But going to the doctor for cancer treatment got a scammer off my back. They do all sorts of things to rob you by phone, or by deceptive emails representing what seem to be real companies I deal with daily. Telling a scammer I have to go and get cancer treatment tends to shut them up quicker. And I wasn’t even lying.

I continue taking and trying to adjust to four new meds. Two for diabetes. One for cholesterol. And one for blood pressure control.

The chance for future improved health is looking good.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 14, 2023 · 12:46 am

Generations Gone Before

Of the people in the school picture from Rowan Rural School #4 (a one-room schoolhouse from Midwestern history and lore) all the ones who survive are octogenarians. Three of the survivors were at our family reunion for Great Grandma Hinckley’s descendants. My mother and uncle were there. Their cousin was also there. The school house stood on the Aldrich corner, near the house where my Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich lived, the farm house of a farm that’s been in the family for over a hundred years. My mother and Uncle Don and Uncle Larry could easily walk there. The rest came from country miles around by horse-drawn wagon.

This is not a school-bus wagon, but rather, an oat-seed spreader. So, almost the same.

Uncle Larry is now gone, but they have survived from the time of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to the time of Criminal President Doofenschmertz Jehosephat Trumpennoodle. Things have changed. The house I now sit in was, back then, a place with a windmill and hand-pump for water, an outhouse for bathroom chores, and a radio for entertainment.

If they hadn’t endured through World War Two, and Joe McCarthy’s Red Scare, and the assassination of JFK, we wouldn’t even be here. We are the children of hardship, endurance, and conviction of the rightness of life on Earth.

We saw progress through the creation of Disneyland, landing the first man on the surface of the moon, Bugs Bunny cartoons, Scooby Doo, and the Pink Panther… Nixon and his Watergate break-in, Hee Haw and Lawrence Welk, Laugh-in… President Ford falling down stairs, Saturday Night Live, the Peanut-farmer President, Reaganomics… the Iranian hostage crisis… Saved by the Bell, Ghostbusters, Indiana Jones… The invasion of Panama… Operation Desert Storm… the second war in Iraq… the downfall of Saddam Hussein… Thundercats, Jerry Seinfeld, Friends, the Wonder Years…

I am especially impressed that they lived through all those Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethons. And Leisure Suits… Aagh!

Mother’s entryway table with pictures of Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich in the back

And their time is not completely up. Mother and Dad and Uncle Don still move on and go to reunions and bury loved ones… and tend to the needs of grandkids and great-grandkids… And pass on the good things to the next generation… and the next. So it goes, towards times not yet dreamed of.

Leave a comment

Filed under autobiography, family, humor, Iowa, kids, photos

July 13, 2023 · 2:16 am

Down Days and Downer Nights

I have been enjoying my time playing with digital art tools. I bought a stylus to use on my Chromebook computer with the touch screen. My daughter downloaded a Krita digital art program. And my Chromebook summarily broke down. So, everything I am doing now has to be done on my HP laptop with no touch screen. The stylus works on the mouse pad, but not well. And I found another program that will take a drawing that I have done and photographed or scanned and turn that into digital art, refining the lines, color blending, and detail work. I like it, but it is like rolling the dice to get the percentages right for the danged AI painter in the program to accurately recognize anything in my picture.

The AI made her cross-eyed and I couldn’t fix it.

But the computer art thing is a good thing. There are more than enough bad things this week to fill my baggage. I am alone with the dog at home while the rest of the family is in San Antonio. Grandma (my mother-in-law) was very ill, almost went into hospice care, and then recovered well enough to return home, out of the hospital. They are all visiting her. But I’m not in good enough health to make that trip.

Arthritis, diabetes, and my doctor’s appointment tomorrow for potential skin cancer made it impossible for me to ride in a car in which five people were already travelling. And no room for the dog who loves grandma too, but is not welcome in a car travelling that far.

I have had time to write too, which has been difficult to do with hot weather and arthritis pain in the way. But that hasn’t helped my readership. Viewing of WordPress posts is way down this summer. I have had an uptick in selling e-books, but I am still earning less than ten dollars a month in royalties.

And I have been sleeping poorly at night due to pain and heat. Imaginary granddaughters playing guitar music is not enough to help since it is entirely imaginary.

Does this one look like Shirley Temple? I tried. But not quite.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

July 13, 2023 · 1:17 am

How to Talk to Real People

While visiting in Iowa, I ran into an old high school friend at a local eatery. I remember how in high school and junior high, I played basketball on the same team with him, I listened to his exaggerations about a probably non-existent sex life, and helped him on one or two occasions to get answers on Math homework (even then the teacher in me wouldn’t let me just give him the answers, I always made him work out the answers step by step).

Now he is a judgmental and basically crabby old coot. He is a Trump supporter, hater of immigrants who take American jobs, and an unpleasant arguer of politics. And the sorest point about his intractable coot-i-ness is the fact that, as a classmate, he is the same age as me and I am, therefore, just as intractably coot-y as he is.

So, how exactly do you talk to a mean old coot?

Well, you have to begin by realizing that it is not like the dialogue in a novel or TV show. This is a real person I was talking to. So, I had to proceed by accepting that he thinks I am an idiot and anything I say and think is wrong. Not merely wrong, but “That’s un-American and will lead to a communist takeover of our beloved country!” sort of wrong. I can then laugh off numerous Neo-Nazi assertions by him, make snarky comments about his praises for the criminal president, and generally get along with him like old friends almost always do. I play my part just as furiously as he plays his, and we both enjoy the heck out of it.

We are both of us crazy old coots, likely to say just about anything to get the other one’s goat. Getting goats is apparently vital to the conversations of real people. But we have more in common than we have as differences. We don’t keep score in our world-shaking debates, nor do we count how many goats we get. And that is how you talk to real people.

Leave a comment

Filed under characters, humor, insight, oldies, Paffooney