I forgot to add to that last post that my book of essays, Laughing Blue, is still free to own until tomorrow midnight.
It now has four five-star reviews. Wow! 20 whole stars! I must not have gotten everything wrong.
Brief by Accident
I have just now recovered from a computer crash. So, this post will have to be brief. I am still restoring programs with passwords I may have forgotten.
Yesterday Amazon delivered my first copy of The Wizard in his Keep. The novel was written almost entirely during the time I had to struggle with a computer that is breaking down more and more frequently.
Filed under announcement
Divining Rods, Ouija Boards, and Making Up My Own Danged Mind
How do you foretell the future? Simply put, you don’t. But if you approach each new day, each new week, or each new set of circumstances without a plan and a rough idea of the near future, you are even more of a hopeless fool than Mickey is.
While it is true that a crystal-ball connection to the future would be really handy for figuring out what to do next with our little lives, it is also provably true that crystal balls, Ouija boards, and divining rods don’t actually work. Statistically even the best users of these fortune-telling devices are no better at foretelling the future than are well-informed guessers.
Ghosts are not provably real. You cannot actually talk to them. Not even in a graveyard at midnight with a dead cat to throw at the devil.
Oh, and that reminds me, the devil is not provably real either.
But I admit to talking to the dead.
My Grandma Beyer was one of the wisest people I knew in my childhood. She advised my Dad who was her son. She was a guide for the Beyer side of the family. And I talk to her a lot when I have a tough decision to make.
In 2017 I irrationally made a commitment to write for a nudist website. The article assigned was to go to a nudist park or resort and write about my first-time experience there. Of course, getting my wife to go along with her RV camper was out of the question. She was a Jehovah’s Witness in good standing then, and was sure that nakedness in a group was a terrible sin. But I had known nudists back in the 1980s when a previous girlfriend’s sister was living in a clothing-optional apartment complex in Austin, Texas. We visited there a number of weekends. I never actually stayed there or got nude while visiting. I saw naked people there, male, female, and children. And after my eyes popped out on the first visit, I picked them up, put them back in, and learned a lot about nudists while at the same time turning down all invitations… which I could do because my parents were living nearby, and I could stay with them and keep all my clothes on. But the nudist website assignment weighed heavily on me. Grandma Beyer had been the one that threatened to spank me before I was supposed to take a bath at her house because I wanted to run around the house naked rather than get in the tub with my sister. I was five at the time, not in high school… honest. So, she was the one I consulted when it came time to decide if I would actually go to a nudist park and be naked in front of other people just because I had made a commitment to a writing assignment.
Of course, she had been among the no-longer-living for fifteen years when I asked her about it.
The thing is, however, that I knew my grandmother well enough to know what she would say as I basically discussed it with her memory rather than her ghost. I even saw what facial expressions she used as she explained that it was more important to keep my word than it was to be a little bit embarrassed. And besides, it was not like I was going to an orgy or anything. Nudists are merely ordinary people who are dedicated to the belief that getting your vitamin D directly from the sun without any clothes between you and nature was good for you.
So, I made the visit, got naked, and wrote the article, as well as articles on this blog that were used on other nudist websites as well. It is how I came to be a member of the nudist writing community on Twitter. And that has helped me promote my books whether there were nudists in them or not.
Even with consulting a Ouija Board you are not really talking to ghosts. You get an answer from somebody with their fingers on the piece of plastic that picks the letters and is accessing their unconscious mind, or even their conscious mind if they are a bit of a dershenbugle (a word which doesn’t mean anything at all, just like the answer they picked.)
I often use a coin-flip to make decisions, adding an element of total chance to the decision I am making. (I admit, that’s how the decision to accept the writing assignment from the nudist blog was made.) If either answer to the question being asked is acceptable, but one causes a bit of anxiety, I flip a coin. Not just one coin. I throw three. Yes is three heads. No is three tails. Ten straight no decisions is indication not to decide at that time. In truth, this only works for me because it forces me to take an arbitrary amount of time to think about the decision. And often, I toss three heads when I have already decided to say no. And then I go with no.
So, divining the future is silly superstition, and I don’t do superstition. But that is not to say I don’t try to divine the obstacles ahead and prepare for them. And what looks like Mickey being an idiot about consulting coins or other signs, is really only Mickey being only slightly an idiot as he makes up his own danged mind.
Filed under humor, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
What Dreams May Come?
Lately I have been having problems with passing out during low blood-sugar moments in the middle morning, early afternoon, and shortly after supper, usually when I have already had a snack and my sugars haven’t balanced yet. When I pass out, perchance… I dream. Vivid dreams. So, for art day, I will post images I have made based on dreams I have had.
This one has shadows on everything. I exhausted three pens drawing shadows. Yet, there are no shadows on the child-figures. In the dream, they were glowing white ghosts.
Snowboy is one of the main villains in The Bicycle-wheel Genius. But the boy-robot made entirely of snow, ice, and circuitry first appeared in a 1978 dream that happened while I had a fever from the flu.
This dream is a mental-disturber caused again by fever. Here the two gigantic toys play with the little girl. I was not actually in this dream. I was an observer floating above. I think the bear was inspired by a Care-Bear.
This picture has all the elements of the actual dream, the candle, the line of glowing pixies, the sleeping princess, and Prince Charming. But nothing here looks like it did in the dream. The prince and the princess were both young teens that I did not know in real life. The fairies were larger and a lot more obviously nude.
I actually passed out while writing this post. It happened right here, before I could post this dream of living colors. All the colors were in motion in the dream, something I couldn’t really represent here.
I knew when I dreamed this dream that the Bambi-kin in this dream were members of my family, but at the time I dreamt it I had not met my wife yet, let alone had three kids of my own. Yet I knew that it was not my family at the time of the dream because one of my sisters was not there.
This is from a dream I had in college at Iowa City. I made an entire cartoon out of it called Babysitters Hate My House, It is about a babysitter having a horrible time with my two sons as she loses control when they show her the man in the basement that, “Daddy built out of a kit.”
And, finally, this dream featured not only the spirit stag and the medicine man, but the bolt of lightning in the background. The Dakotah people say having a dream with lightning in it makes you a “lightning dreamer”, a magic man, or a shaman. So, I guess that qualifies me to be one.
Having Friday Free
Don’t get me wrong. Now that I am retired (and probably dying from one or more of my six incurable diseases, or the return of cancer, because I can’t afford to see the doctor anymore) I don’t have anything on my schedule all week that I didn’t put there myself. But I just finished a novel and published it. And all my bills are paid for the month. And I voted against the pumpkinhead and the rest of the Republicans too just for being elephants first and human beings second. So, I have today free to do whatever I want.
And not only that, I am giving away my book of essays for free from today until Tuesday midnight. It is made up of essays, most of which appeared on this blog sometime in the years since I started it in 2013.
Laughing Blue contains essays about what it is like to be a middle school English teacher who doesn’t have enough sense to hate kids. It is also about many other things you don’t often think about. Like what it feels like to resist becoming a nudist for most of your life and failing once you retire. And the love-life of the little sofa in Aunt Minnie’s TV room. And the Intergalactic Bad Poetry Contest, including some notable examples from aliens living in exile here on Earth.
You might really consider clicking on the link and getting yourself a copy. There are at least a few chuckles in that book. I know for a fact because I hunted them down, trapped them, and pasted them in there myself.
But those are the most important reasons that I have Friday Free. I got no worries… for the rest of my… week. So, I’m gonna have some fun.
Filed under announcement
Up and Over the Hard Hill
I made it there. I voted. I am a pessimist and fully expect the pumpkin-head prexydink to win reelection and then succeed in dooming planet Earth. But I got my one little vote against him cast and counted. I no longer have to feel like our collective ultimate doom is all my fault. And I probably didn’t even catch COVID.
The polling precinct I was assigned to is in the middle of white-racist suburbia where threatening Ilhan Omar with deportation or death is a favorite sport watched nightly on Fox News. I fully expected an hours-long wait to vote, since there are black and Hispanic voters not far from here that have to take a day of work (if they are lucky enough to still have a job) to wait seven to eleven hours just to get in the door. And last time Trump supporters were riotous and jubilant in voting en mass, intent on sticking it to Hillary. It was crowded.
This time… no lines and very subdued. I voted in less than ten minutes after arriving.
I wonder. Are they ashamed to vote for him again? Or are they all on ventilators after the last Trump rally?
I am not gloating. I fully expect to lose again. Nothing gets you a political victory faster than corruptly giving the keys to the kingdom to your rich donors with unlimited dark money. But it is important to be on the right side even if you are doomed to lose the war.
Anyway, I did it. As hard as it was to climb that hill and vote at the top, it was a pleasant stroll on the way back home.
Filed under horror writing, humor, politics
To Have the Power…
I have been struggling with my goals for this week. I wanted to publish my novel, The Wizard in His Keep. I also wanted to go get my vote in at an early-voting polling place. But I had to get my phone repaired because the battery was failing. I needed a reliable phone if I had to wait in a long voting line, which it seems we are actually having. My health has been poor. I didn’t want to pass out in line and cause an emergency without a working phone. I had to get battery power to pull this off.
Last weekend my computer crashed and it turns out my Google account may have been hacked… again. I had to recover the account and change a ton of passwords. I have had to check accounts repeatedly without using my computer. But, even though it delayed my final edit and publication by a couple of days, I got the manuscript and cover submitted last night. The e-book is already live on Amazon. The paperback will also be available soon.
I managed to order and receive a new phone battery online before the computer crash. But I discovered that my arthritic fingers couldn’t handle the battery installation.
So…
I was able to get the phone working by taking it to the nearest AT&T Store. The guy behind the counter put the battery in my phone for free.
And then today, as I was planning to go vote, I passed out about five times after breakfast. I took what medication I have that is relevant. Early voting is every weekday until the 30th of October. I will have to wait for a better day when I have more physical power to do it.
So, I have overcome all of my goals except for voting. I did it by marshaling power. Battery power by buying a battery. Finger power by relying on the empathy in an AT&T employee for an arthritic old man whose fingers fumble. And I will overcome the voting issue with healing power and will power.
Filed under artwork, health, humor, novel plans, Paffooney, publishing
William-Adolphe Bouguereau, Forgotten Master
Here’s a closer look at an old forgotten master.
I came to an awareness of Bouguereau in the San Antonio museum of art. In the 1990’s they had one of Bouguereau’s most famous works on display upstairs in an alcove at the head of the stairway. I walked up the stairs and this painting, called Admiration hit me right between the eyes.
Admiration 1897
He was a master of figure painting in the late 1800’s. He worked in oils from live models, and may-or-may-not have used optical mirrors to transfer images onto canvas, although that sort of cheating does not account for his mastery of color, shape, composition, and form. In my humble opinion, having tried to do what he has done, he is as great a painter as Van Gogh, Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Donatello. His figures are alive. Their skin looks absolutely real. Even the facial expressions suggest that the character is about to speak.
Of course…
View original post 192 more words
Filed under Uncategorized
AeroQuest 4… Nocturne 10
Nocturne 10 – A Little Routine Engineering
Dana Cole held Trav Dalgoda’s severed head in her hands. The head stared back with lifeless eyes. The crown on the head was pulsating with sickly green lights.
“How could you do this?” she said to the head.
“The evil power of the Tesserah,” the head answered.
“You can still talk. Are you alive or something?”
“Trav Dalgoda’s life spark is still in here,” said the head, “preserved by the power of the crown.”
Dana’s heart turned over in her chest. “You mean he could be brought back?”
“Yes. We possess the power.”
The feelings that poured through her ample bosom were a terrible, painful mix. She hated the stupidity of the man and all the death and suffering he had caused on Coventry. She felt like the fool deserved what he had gotten out of the adventure. Still, she loved him. There was something oddly attractive about the goofy-sweet fool with the charm of a naughty little boy.
“How can I do this awful thing?” she asked the head.
“As long as we remain attached to the head,” said the crown, “we can speak to you and direct you, as well as keep the life spark alive. We will help you to build an artificial body to allow the man to return to full mobility and control over his life functions.”
“He’ll be a Mechanoid?”
“Not in the sense of the crude beings your own people make of dead bodies. He will actually be alive. Everything but his head will be artificial, but we can make him better than he was.”
Dana couldn’t help but imagine Trav naked with the body of a Greek god. He could be enhanced in that special area… Well, yes. She would do this for her Goofy man.
“How do I go about it? Especially the penis…”
The crown gave her hours of instruction. She took extensive notes, filling three note-computers. She diagrammed the whole thing out holographically. She then located the best materials available on the ruined warship. Assembly took her a week while the rest of the surviving crew worked to restore the ship to flying trim without the specific parts she needed for her project.
When the task was done, Trav stood before her, looking at her with sensory enhancements in his goofy brown eyes. She had replaced his Donald Duck hat with a more manly-looking cowboy hat. He was buff and handsome in ways he hadn’t been before.
Dana Cole leaned over and kissed her resurrected fool. “I love you, Trav. Welcome back.”
“Thanks, old Dana Jester,” he said. “Now how about we make me two more arms? One will have a built-in machine gun, and the other a flame thrower.” Dana smiled. She definitely had her Goofy back.
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, satire, science fiction
Time and Destiny
He sat down to write something for the day. He rolled a fresh sheet of typing paper into the typewriter. Then he sat back to look at it. It was a totally horrifying stretch of cold, blank nothingness. There was nothing there. It left him feeling completely and hopelessly alone.
How do you connect with that person who is going to pick up and read the final copy of this thing once it is finished? His brain hurt thinking about it.
He knew that he needed to get started. And he wanted to start with something colorful.
So, he typed a word; RED.
“Well, that’s a start, at least…” he said, talking foolishly to the inanimate typewriter. “But what do I really mean by saying RED?”
Well, of course, red means emotional things, anger, love, shed blood, tomato sauce on Chicago-style pizza…
…But how do you make an actual idea out of that? It needs to be stretched some and pulled a lot. Bent out of shape, maybe even smashed by a hammer.
The typewriter became concerned and alarmed at the mention of the hammer.
But the writer was only thinking about the hammer. And the typewriter didn’t read minds. Heck, it wasn’t even electric yet. It was a typewriter that the writer’s grandmother bought in the 1940s. And writer loved it because it reminded him of her. And it reminded him of her letting him type his very first story on it when he was six years old. He wrote a story about a skeleton chasing a dog. And when the skeleton caught up to the dog, the dog ate him. Because he was bones. It was a short story. Very short. Less than a page. Because grandma only had one page of typing paper left on her desk.
And the story wasn’t red. So, why was he even thinking about it now?
Well, it was read. By his grandmother. And she laughed.
And he hadn’t thought about it until right now. But it was the moment he knew he wanted to be a writer some day.
And, so… Right now… This very moment… He realized… The real story is ready to begin,
Filed under humor, irony, Paffooney, surrealism, writing, writing humor
Catch a Falling Star 