Yesterday I kinda suggested that the world was doomed and I didn’t care.
In my defense, I have been undergoing an onslaught of misfortune and the endless persecutions of getting older and less healthy. I got bit by a spider and didn’t even get spider strength or any other super powers.
But I am not a double-dark downer by nature. In fact, from early on I was always a creature defined by positivity. I know that seems like an oxymoron, Mickey the Positive, since I am a dedicated pessimist.
But pessimism is only a pragmatic method of always being prepared for anything. Like being a Boy Scout.
I am happy with life.
I am fine.
The world is fine.
The world is mine.
Unfurled with swine
Wait! What?
I guess I am still being positive in spite of flag-wrapped pigs. Because I unrolled them and set them free. Metaphors can be happy, good things too.
I was a school teacher for 31 years. It was a job I loved because I loved the kids they gave me every year to teach. It was a fulfilling and life-affirming job. So what if I never got rich or famous? I lived a good life. I did good things. I have nothing to regret. Well, maybe I regret having to give it up for health reasons. I know teachers who taught for 40+ years. And some of them hated kids.
But, in my considered opinion, life on this planet is a good thing. I am glad I got to partake of the experience. And even if we do all die from climate change, it is a very good thing that intelligent life developed on the planet Earth. It is a part of the soul of the universe. And the universe having a soul is a very good thing..
The fact is, even though we face many terrible things in the near future, there are ways to overcome it. We can turn to solar power, wind power, and nuclear power to transform the way we live and maybe save life on Earth. There are good people out there trying to do that I know that for a fact because I taught some of them. You can always take what’s bad in life, and with a bit of work, you can make it come out better.
My mother is having a bad day health-wise today. But she is still alive. And the last two days have been good for her.
And after two days of rain in Texas, the sun is shining again. Life is good. Mickey the Non-negative.
Last night my family and I went to the new Disney movie Jungle Book directed by John Favreau. It was the movie version I have been waiting for all my life.
The amazing thing about this movie is the way it took the book and layered its themes and central idea on top of the classic 60’s Disney cartoon. The music is still there and intact, though mostly moved to the end credits. The kid is still cute and mostly vulnerable, at least until the conclusion. And they have still given the Disneyesque comedic touch to the character of Baloo the bear, voiced by comedian Bill Murray in the this incarnation. But this is a live action movie and the kid-friendly Bowdlerization of the original story is a thing no longer.
A classic book illustration by E.J. Detmold
Fortunately for the young actor, Neel Sethi, they don’t require him to play the entire movie naked as would be required by a strictly by-the-book approach. They allow him the Disney-dignity of the cartoon red loin cover. But the sense of a human child facing the violence of the jungle naked, armed only with his creature-appropriate natural defenses, has been put back into the story. This version literally has teeth and claws. We see the boy’s body wounded and scarred during the course of his life in the jungle. And at a time of crucial confrontation, Mowgli takes the defense stolen from man village, a torch of the feared red flower, and throws it away into the water, facing the terrible tiger with only his wits and the abilities of his fangless, clawless human body. Thus, an essential theme I loved about the book when I was twelve is restored. Man has a place in the natural world even without the protections of civilization.
The story-telling is rich and nuanced, with multiple minor characters added. Gray Brother has been restored to Mowgli’s family. The fierce power of Mowgli’s wolf mother has been written back into the screenplay. And the character of Akela is given far more importance in the story than the cartoon could even contemplate. Although his role in aiding Mowgli to kill the tiger Shere Khan has been taken away from him, Akels’s death becomes the central motivation bringing Mowgli and Shere Khan together for the final inevitable confrontation. And this movie does not shy away from the reality of death as the cartoon did, resurrecting Baloo at the end and Kaa’s attempts to eat Mowgli being turned into a joke (though I would like to note if you have never read the book, Kaa is not supposed to be a villain. He was Mowgli’s wise and powerful friend in the book). Even the tiger survives in the cartoon version. This is no longer a cute cartoon story with a Disney sugared-up ending.
I will always treasure the 1960’s cartoon version. I saw it at the Cecil Theater in Mason City, Iowa when I was ten. I saw it with my mother and father and sisters and little brother. It was my favorite Disney movie of all time at that point in my life. I read and loved the book two years after that, a paperback copy that I bought with my own money from Scholastic book club back in 1968, in Mrs. Reitz’s sixth grade classroom. That copy is dog-eared, but still in my library. But this movie is the best thing that could possibly happen to bring all of that love of the story together and package it in a stunning visual experience.
Here;s something undeniably true; Astrology is NOT science.
That being true, it is also true that there is a certain untestable validity to the ideas of someone gifted with a semi-accurate intuitive foresight I find Nostradamus endlessly fascinating. But I don’t rely on any of his so-called predictions. It is uncanny that his quatrains can be interpreted as having come true after the fact. I remember Orson Welles narrating a documentary on old Nosty back in the 1980’s offering a possible prediction for the near future. in which the third antichrist arises in the Middle East and sends destruction through the air to the New City.
Osama Bin Laden’s attack on the World Trade Center Towers in 2001 is a scary coincidence. But it is no more of a useful prediction of the future than Nosty’s predictions of the first and second antichrists, Napoleon and Hitler. Did anyone know about any of these three predictions at a time when they would’ve benefitted anybody?
The Coming End of the World
My most recent Christian faith system was, unfortunately, the Jehovah’s Witnesses. They are an eschatological faith that believes Jehovah God will soon destroy “This wicked system of things” and the bad people will all be done away with before all the newly “perfect people” take over and turn this world into a paradise. I am doomed. I have knocked on doors and shared the “Good News from God’s Word the Bible” with all the potential “other sheep.” But that’s not good enough to punch my ticket to paradise. I don’t keep the right words in my heart.
But my wife and other Witnesses are now eagerly waiting for “tribulation” to wipe out the rest of us so that the good times can begin. Wow. Jehovah can wipe you out just for touching the Ark of the Covenant with the wrong hands. He’s a rather angry, vindictive sort of God.
And yet, the world does seem to be ending. Actual climate scientists are presenting evidence in their latest report that it is a problem that will overwhelm us faster than I am ready for. And corruption in the world governments, prompted by the fossil fuels industry, continue to ignore the problem in favor of short-term profits. Talk about “having the wrong words written on their hearts!”
It does actually look like we are all gonna die. Not an A+ outcome.
Predictions and Solutions
So, what predictions does an amateur wizard like Mickey of the Goofy Grin have to offer about living under unlucky stars?
Well, here’s one I know will very likely prove true; If the world is ending tomorrow, I will be among the first to die. Seriously, my health is poor enough that a hot wind can easily blow out my candle. When the zombie apocalypse begins, I have warned my children to make good use of the time they gain to get away while the zombies are picnicking on my gray matter. I believe my brain should be pretty tasty.
But even though I and many many other people just like me will fold up and die at the beginning of the coming dark times, that doesn’t mean everyone is doomed. Humanity has shown remarkable resilience against war, famine, disease and that boney guy on the fourth horse. They may yet come up with a magic-bullet solution that allows life on earth to continue. Even if it becomes the planet of the cockroaches. And probably lawyers. I’m sure there is a legal maneuver that gets around not having air to breathe. From a God’s-eye perspective, there is still an entire universe to play with. We could go get reincarnated somewhere else in the galaxy. Maybe there are people out there who are smarter than us. There are ways to heal the ecosphere if we just have the will to do it.
It’s been two weeks, and no spider sense or webbing shooting out of my wrists has happened yet.
My beard glows in the dark (if I use the flashlight properly.)
But no verifiable stuff that might get me an invitation to join the Avengers.
How do I know that it was a spider bite that has caused two weeks worth of painful spider-wound? Well, this is the second time I have been bitten by a brown recluse spider in Texas. The previous time was in 1982 in South Texas. I had to go to the doctor with a temperature of 103 degrees, a necrotic wound in my right armpit. And I needed sulfa drugs to keep from getting worse and possibly dying.
This time around I didn’t go to the doctor. Not only was it a much smaller wound, only causing a slight fever and a moderate wound infection, but going to the doctor brings with it an added chance of catching and dying from the Covid Delta variant. I am vaccinated. But I also have three of the serious conditions that have caused the only Delta deaths among the vaccinated people with breakthrough infections.
I bought myself a new Moana doll from Walmart to make myself feel better about being bit by a spider with no resultant super powers. But it is a reminder too that my mother, the doll-maker, is dying.
The spider that bit me this time around must’ve been a smaller one than the one that bit me in South Texas. That one caused a wound that was larger than a quarter. This time it was smaller than a penny. The wound itself is caused because the spider’s venom dissolves flesh into a juice the spider can suck out of the victim. The biggest danger it causes is an infection that turns into gangrene. I avoided that outcome by repeatedly cleaning the wound with soap and water.
So, this spider bite is not going to kill me. It is sore, but not deadly. Like the first time, I never felt the bite happen, nor saw the little spider. But I have no desire to be bit a third time in my life.
And, unfortunately, I do not get to be Glowbeard the newest Avenger.
The A&W drive-in in Belle City was the place to go after a game, especially if you lost and needed consoling. The A&W, known for its root beer in frosty mugs, had once had car-hops on roller skates, and delivered the food to your car on trays they hung on your window. But too many trays got spilled, definitely too many spilled into the window of the car directly on the customers, and a few unfortunate falls, and a couple of broken legs, had eventually transformed the place into a sit-down fast-food restaurant on the model of McDonald’s, Wendy’s, and Burger King.
When Grandpa Butch invited the whole family to go there, he specifically extended the invitation to Mike and Blueberry as well. Not the usual thing. And it required two cars to get everybody there. But Grandpa was paying, and so it was up to him. Dad and Mom and Bobby and Shane went in the Niland minivan while Grandpa drove Mike and Blueberry in his red Toyota pickup.
They were fortunate to find a booth with room for four and a smaller table with chairs next to it, so that it was kinda like they were seated all together in a fairly crowded Saturday evening gathering place.
“Now, Mike, we don’t want you to hold back on ordering what you and your pretty girlfriend need to eat,” said Grandpa Butch. “We know the legends about the appetites of the Murphy boys, and we have actually watched Danny eat before. That was an amazing spectacle at the Wright County fair when he must’ve had at least ten chili dogs in a row. And we have enough money to cover anything your amazing Murphy appetite can inhale.”
Grandpa was joking and exaggerating like he always did. And Mike and Blue both knew it. But the ten-chili-dog thing was actually true, which made the comment all the funnier.
“Why did you want to bring Blue and me here, anyway?” Mike asked/
“Well, we really wanted to thank the two of you for the way you stood up for Bobby after the game. It takes a special kind of friend to defend someone from bullies that way,” said Dad with a smile.
“Oh, he woulda done it no matter what, Mr. Niland,” said Blueberry. “Bobby is my good friend. And Mike does everything he can to please me. And he looks after all the Pirates the same way.”
“Yes, we know he does. He’s practically the leader of the Pirates,” said Mom, also smiling.
“Oh, no! Tim Kellogg is the leader of the Pirates. I am more like his Sir Lancelot, doing all the sword-fighting and stuff,” said Mike, sounding a little upset.
“Yes, we know about the Pirates’ fearless leader,” said Dad. “He’s like a sort of Genghis Kahn or Attila the Hun sort of leader. In my day, when Brent Clarke was the leader of the Pirates, we thought of him as being a sort of King Arthur. A ruler, but not one that ever cut anybody’s head off.”
“Oh, Tim is like King Arthur more than Shmengis Kone or Atlas the Hunter,” said Blueberry. “He’s Mike’s best friend.”
“Grandpa Butch laughed. “Yes, I’m sure you truly believe that, dear. And Tim probably thinks it too.”
“But, Blueberry, honey, he wasn’t very nice to you over your little gender problem, was he?” Bobby’s mom was putting it delicately. Everybody in Norwall knew that Blueberry had been born a boy with boy parts, but was a girl in her mind from the very start. And they all knew it because Tim found out and spread the girl’s personal information everywhere.
“Tim knows I’m a girl now, though…” Blueberry frowned at the table in front of her. “The doctors x-rayed and scanned me, and they found my ovaries on the inside. My problem was just like a birth defect on the outside.
Bobby didn’t like his parents bringing this thing up when Blueberry and Mike were his guests. Blue was definitely a girl. And it wasn’t right to bring up the old scandal thing. Bobby and Mike didn’t want to hear about it all over again. And it was embarrassing to Blue, Bobby thought.
“She’s definitely all girl,” said Mike, apparently willing to talk about it more. “Mom knew it even before the doctor revealed the whole x-ray thing.”
“Yes, and if your mother, Mary Murphy herself, believes it’s so, then it most certainly is,” said Grandpa Butch. “Even I am afraid to ever argue with her about God’s truth about anything.”
Everyone laughed, and then the topic was apparently forgotten. And that made Bobby even more happy.
“Bobby was telling Mike and me about Horatio T. Dogg’s war with the barn rats,” said Blueberry as Grandpa started a list of what everyone wanted to order. Mike had him put down three chili-dogs, two for him and one for Blue. Mike was not in Danny Murphy’s hot-dog-eating league by any means.
“That’s what his grandpa was telling us too,” said Dad. “Apparently Horatio can talk now, and solve rat-crimes like a dog version of Sherlock Holmes.”
“Well, of course he can,” said Blue. “If Bobby said it, it has to be true.”
“Did you ever hear Horatio talk with your own two ears?” asked Shane, looking somewhat sly.
Grandpa wrote down burgers for himself, Dad, Mom, and Shane.
“But I want a chili-dog like Mike and Blue,” said Bobby.
“Sure thing. And root beer for everybody?”
Everyone nodded, and Grandpa took the order to the counter.
“We all know Horatio is a very smart dog. And it can almost seem like he’s smart enough to talk,” said Dad.
“But he does talk! It’s just that only I can hear him.”
“Bobby, you actually thought that you and Blueberry had turned the music teacher into a swan!” said Mike.
“Yes, and we both turned ourselves into young swans and went flying to Belle City to find her and remove the curse,” said Blueberry earnestly.
“No, Blue, you and Brainiac Bobby just got carried away with imaginary stuff during Miss Morgan’s lessons for that Hobbit novel we were reading in her class. It was all idiot-imagining,” said Mike, distaste for the subject plainly showing on his face.
“You saw the fairies too, didn’t you? And the magic spells?” Bobby was trying hard to make Mike remember what he clearly saw when everybody else saw it.
“I saw the drawings Blue made about it. I heard the stories. And I did the lessons. But Tim was lying about there being little people everywhere. And you two did not fly to Belle City in winter wearing only feathers! You both made that up and fixed your imaginations on it too much.”
“Mike has a point,” said Mom. “You know you get carried away with imagination.”
Bobby, looked at the table downhearted. He almost felt like crying. That moment of flight through the crisp, cold winter air was so bracing. And flying above the snow-covered farms had seemed so real. How could he ever accept that it was not a real thing?
“Sometimes, imagination is a good thing. It can solve problems that you couldn’t figure out any other way. And besides, daydreaming and a creative imagination are a sign of intelligence,” said Dad as Grandpa sat the food down on the table in front of him.
“I always thought of imagination like this, it’s the sum of things I can use my mind to take control of,” said Grandpa Butch. “I mean, the things I most need to happen, the conclusions and solutions I need to come to… well, I use the bowl of electrified noodles in my old head to stir up an answer I create for myself. The things I need to happen, I make happen with my imagination. Now, the things that fail, the things I don’t control… well, that’s the universe using its facts and reality to make happen what it needs to happen. I can’t control that. Except maybe later I can use my imagination again to rewrite what really happened so I have memories of it that I can live with.”
“Yeah, that’s the way to look it. Imagination is a good thing if you never use it for evil,” said Dad.
Well, everybody seemed to accept that as the end of the discussion. Mike wrinkled his nose up like he didn’t understand, or maybe wanted to argue more. But the food was there. And Bobby was almost certain that the chili dogs were what kept Mike from saying anything more. After all, you can’t eat and talk at the same time.
My views on WordPress have been blowing up. Last week I had over 2,000 views for the first time ever in a single week. The primary culprit, a post about nudists called Nudist Notions. It had 465 views last week, almost a quarter of the total, although it got nary a single like.
Here’s a link if you’re interested in seeing what awful thing is in it that anonymous viewers are drawn to like flies.
I am not particularly worried about anyone using my post to do evil with it. The three pictures contain nothing that is lewd or pornographic. Two of the pictures are my own artwork containing an altered photograph and colored-pencil nudes that don’t show any body parts that would be considered completely private. The photo of a real nudist family making a sand-castle on the beach does not show their privates either.
The essay is basically about the publication of my book Superchicken which has nudist characters in it and recently got a five-star review from one of my nudist friends from Twitter. Neither the book or the post say anything particularly negative about nudists or nudism, so the viewing explosion is probably not due to nudists as they would like or comment as they have in the past. And if it’s a brewing backlash, I have no idea about what they are backlashing against
So, what do I have to worry about? Is it the Russians again, threatening to blackmail me by telling my wife that I am a nudist? She wasn’t happy about it the last time they called, even though she knew about my nudist tendencies from long ago. She just doesn’t like being called by Russians. Is it chickens planning to assassinate me for revealing the existence of Chicken-dance-Fu, the chosen combat style of chicken ninjas that think I was talking about them instead of the kind of chicken that has no feathers? Over 400 chickens were looking at my blog last week? Or maybe just the ones working for the FBI?
I suppose I should simply be happy that I am getting more views and as much as six cents of ad revenue per day on my blog. Jeez, the pennies are just rolling in.
Today I got the news I didn’t want to hear. My mother, who will be 87 in October, is no longer going to be able to keep going. Her kidneys are failing. So is her heart. If she goes on dialysis for her kidney function, her heart will give out. If we have her heart get the procedures she needs, her kidneys will do her in.
I do not fear death. Personally, I am at peace with the past, present, and the future. There is no reason to welcome death, but it is not a matter of grave concern to me.
I will not get a chance to be by my mother’s side when death comes for her. Like my father last year, she is slipping into a condition where she doesn’t know who or where she is, or who anybody around her is. So, I have to be able to live with my last words said to her that she understood were all in my goodbye when we left Iowa to come back to Texas back in July.
My own health is questionable.. It is a travel of more than 700 miles with both ends of the journey in States where Delta Coronavirus is raging out of control. So, just like my father a year ago, I may not even be able to attend her funeral.
But love is stronger than death. I may not get to tell her I love her and have her understand me before she is gone. But she already knows. We all know where our heart is and where it came from. And mine came from hers.
Yes, I know this is supposed to be a Saturday Art Day Post, but you can make art in many different ways. That can include pictures made with a camera while I play with dolls… er… action figures and try horrifically to be funny. There is an art to that, right? Maybe?
Catch a Falling Star 