My COVID 19 test came back completely negative.
Yes, I drew the Fred in black and white to celebrate, but I used the kids’ frame from the cereal box to do it.
Pontification
Yes, I am guilty. Yes, I will probably do a lot of it in this essay. Do I make stuff up out of thin air to support my pontifications? Well, I try not to… most of the time.
That bit of pontification I just shared is not mine. It’s Vonnegut’s. But it is pontification never-the-less.
To be fair, this manner of delivering information, founded on the basis of revealed Divine authority (as if I were the Pope) is not an evil thing… if it is not misused to propagate misinformation and lies. It is often used to convey moral imperatives and Christian values. And to be fair to me, I rarely pontificate unless I am joking and don’t mean to be taken seriously.
Never-the-less I am often told that my fiction is didactic and my essays tend to hold forth with my convictions and conclusions as if they were revealed to me in a visitation from a burning bush or something.
From my humble perspective, however, I wish to point out that I have, through years of teaching experience and encounters with grave issues that affect health and wealth and happiness, learned a few things the hard way that count as wisdom. I would offer the defense that, in spite of what my wife would tell you, I am NOT always wrong about everything. (I am maybe only wrong about most things.) And as such, my opinions, backed up with facts and anecdotes, are sometimes worth listening to.
As I am probably not going to overcome my habit of pontificating any time soon, I should probably warn you about some of the things I have been thinking about of late that I am likely to pontificate about in upcoming blogs. Here are just a few;
- Bad things that happen to Good People are what actually turn them into Good People.
- The reverse is not always true. Good things happening to Bad People can worsen them, but they become Bad People when the good thing we are talking about is getting away with doing something bad.
- The world is coming to its end. Of course, it is always coming to its end, until it reaches its endpoint at which it probably won’t end and then the prophets of doom will have to pick a new Doomsday that probably won’t end it either… though it might.
- The St. Louis Blues hockey team gets to be Stanley Cup Champions for two years in a row because of the pandemic. COVID 19 was only 99% a bad thing.
- If you are a three-inch tall fairy warrior, a rabbit as your faithful steed is better than riding rooster-back. That’s because if the spell wears off your mighty steed, the rabbit won’t mistake you for a bug and eat you. (But never disguise yourself as a carrot to hide from humans while riding rabbit-back.)
So, I admit to having bouts of rabid pontification. But I would argue that it is a very natural bad habit for a retired school teacher to have. Up until my retirement I regularly delivered the Word of God (as filtered through the Texas State Board of Education) to kids in a classroom.
They would often respond, “Oh, God! Not again!”
To which I would answer, “I am not God. If I were, there would be lightning right now.”
Filed under angry rant, humor, strange and wonderful ideas about life
2016 Lost Art
This is in no way a political post, even though I consider 2016 as a bad year for political reasons. This is an art post. It contains artwork originally posted in 2016 that I haven’t displayed enough since.
The pictures, of course represent at least one from each month of posting in 2016. They are in reverse order, starting with December and going back in time to January.
Filed under Uncategorized
This is Me!
There is a bit of the circus freak in all of us… and a lot of it in me.
But I am who I am supposed to be.
I sit here writing this in the state of Texas, in the midst of the worst pandemic in this country in 100 years, possibly headed towards the worst pandemic ever.
My father in Iowa is in hospice care under strict quarantine. My mother can’t even visit him. She’s afraid to go see him through the window because he is dying from late-stage Parkinson’s Disease. He doesn’t remember who she is some of the time, and her presence makes him agitated. He doesn’t understand what’s going on anymore.
And I have been forbidden from trying to go see her because of the threat to my health and her health that COVID 19 represents. We are both diabetics. Both capable of being blown away by the next cold breeze, or uncovered sneeze
So, here I am. I am a prisoner of circumstances. I can no longer be a teacher, something I was born to do. I can’t go out and do anything because the disease has reshaped the world.
But I am here, I can write, I am free…
I am who I’m meant to be…
This is me.
I always wanted to start a day’s lesson by singing. I never had the perfect song. But when I did sing in the classroom, or play the harmonica, it always got a rise out of that batch of other people’s children.
And now I have the perfect song… from the musical The Greatest Showman. And I am no longer a teacher. I missed my shot.
Wouldn’t it be a kick to sing to them, and even get them to sing along?
You think it would be a silly waste of time? A foolish thing to do and a total mistake that risks getting me fired?
Ah, you don’t know kids very well, do you.
It would be glorious. They wouldn’t learn about me. They would learn about themselves. And it would be a lesson worth more gold than the world has to pay with.
But I am still me. I write and draw silly pictures. And I make books that nobody really reads… except for nudists, and other teachers, and random Twitter followers… all who seem to like my stories.
Maybe I can’t ever be a teacher again. But I was one. It was glorious.
And, retired now, in my 60’s, it may all be coming to an end. I’m waiting at the moment for my COVID Test results.
And I still have a voice even now, through words like this… strung together on a page.
I make no apology,
This is who I’m meant to be.
This is me.
Filed under autobiography, Paffooney
Other People’s Children
Today I am seriously missing teaching again. I reposted this old thing that I am unjustifiably proud of. It makes me feel a little bit better, even though it is only about being a substitute.
I was a substitute teacher for seventh graders on Monday. And I experienced a bit of the time-warp sensation that becomes a big part of the lives of old people… especially crazy old coots like me.
My whole-day sub job was definitely happening on the 3rd day of February, 2020. And yet it took me back to 1988, 1996, and 2002 all in the space of three 50-minute periods.
I was visited by three former students from the past. They looked almost the same as I remembered them. They definitely acted exactly the same. And they had exactly the same kind of classroom behavior as they did before. And what was equally confounding, they were all in the seventh grade yet again and in the year 2020, apparently inhabiting new bodies with new names attached and attending school again at Dan F. Long Middle School in Carrollton.
Raul was a…
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Filed under Uncategorized
Tingly Time
I have now seriously started The Wizard in his Keep. It is most likely to be the next novel I publish. Though AeroQuest 4 and Hidden Kingdom are both in the running. But I have already gotten the tingles from this new work in progress. It is beginning to feel like a good story. It is rolling out of the word processor as easy as pouring hot molasses from a glass jar. And it smells just as sweet. (Wait, do novels have smells? I think they must. This one is green apple, caramel, and molasses.)
I already wrote about the three main characters in the above illustration. So, you should probably already know that they are Mortie, Daisy, and Johnny Brown, the orphaned children of the late Stacy and Brom Brown.
The two characters in the new illustration at the start of this post are Hoodwink and Babbles. They are not so much real people as they are non-player characters in a virtual-reality video game. The program behind the game has slightly too much intelligence for a computer thingy. But that’s what makes it ripe for an unexpected intrusion of fairy magic and the wizardry of the game master, Milt Morgan. It results in a boy named Hoodwink and a Kelpie named Babbles that are a little bit more than merely human.
I could tell you more, but I actually need to save it for the rough draft. This story has a tingly feeling about it that it shares with my best work.
Filed under fairies, humor, novel, novel writing, Paffooney
Dreams of Forgetting
I don’t wish to forget anything… ever. But increasingly I can no longer call things to mind as swiftly as I could when I was younger. I constantly now find myself unable to recall names of old movie stars I loved as a boy, dates of Civil War battles that I studied at length in the ’90s, the names of former school teachers that I had when I was a boy, and those I worked with as a colleague in the 1980’s. I fear reaching the point my father is now at, not being able to remember my own children.
Last night I had a nightmare about being a substitute teacher. I remember in the dream finishing a first-period class that was not the teacher I was covering for, because the sub-coordinator does that during the teacher’s planning period, using you in classrooms where no sub showed up. And I left that classroom feeling good about the class, but suddenly not able to remember where the classroom was that I was supposed to be teaching in next. I remember going into the office, one unlike any school office I have ever been in. The secretary behind the front desk recognized me by name. Then she asked me why I forgot to sign in that morning. I couldn’t remember. She asked me who I was subbing for. I had forgotten. I didn’t know her name or recognize her face either, something that never happens in a school you work at even for a single day. Secretaries actually run schools telling both teachers and principals what to do and where to go. The secretary was beginning to get irritated with me. I told her I must be having a bad spell. And then I woke up in a sweat.
That dream will probably never come true. I will probably never walk into a classroom as the teacher again, even as a sub, thanks to this horrid pandemic.
But I am having anxiety about forgetting in a very telling way.
I must confess that every illustration for this post was chosen because I saw the picture in my media gallery for this site and realized I did not remember posting these or even making the one at the start of this essay which is two different drawings put together with photoshop.
But I do have one small ace up my sleeve for dealing with serious forgetfulness. I have seven years worth of posts to look back on. That should help me remember a thing or two about… wait, what was this post about?
Filed under autobiography, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, Paffooney, teaching
AeroQuest 4… Canto 103
Canto 103 – Star Command
“So, Grand Admiral Cloudstalker, how does it feel to be in command of an entire Space Navy?” Tron asked, only half in jest.
“Grand Admiral? Really? Aren’t we being a touch pretentious here?”
“Arkin, we started a rebellion against the Imperial Order. We have to have a new order ready in case we actually have to run an interstellar empire.”
Arkin was wearing a white cowboy hat from his Pan Galactican days. It was pulled forward and down enough to make him look angry when he glared directly into your eyes. Or, rather, one real eye and one prosthetic. Tron blinked his real eye.
“I have every confidence in you, my friend. You started the Lady Knights from scratch. You designed and built the first White Sword Corsairs. You recruited all the best female star pilots that the stupid Imperium wouldn’t even look at. You fought the Faceless Horde for a decade and never really lost a battle.”
“We didn’t lose because when we didn’t have overwhelming odds in our favor, we ran away like cowards.”
“You were a privateer, for gawd’s sakes,” swore Tron with a rather lame swear. “You never swore an oath to die in battle for old Tang when all you stood to get out of it was what money and tech you could loot from the enemy. And those Faceless Scondians didn’t have anything we could use once we looted it.”
“You didn’t swear an oath either Tron, and you lost an eye and nearly lost your beloved Maggie. Razor Conn lost his entire goddam home planet, along with all of his family.”
“But you do have to admit, we were all space warriors from birth. We did it because it was what we were born to do. Scondians and Imperials be damned!”
“Yeah, I suppose you have a point. You designed and created Pinwheel Corsairs, and old Razor made the first Blackhawks.”
“We put together some really fine fighting forces, didn’t we? You with Apache Scout and Tabitha Blue -Arrow, me with King Killer, Elvis the Cruel, and Scheherazade.”
“Now, right there is one of the things that worries me most. We were in the middle of a life-and-death fight when we picked out the cream of the cream. These alien rookie-things that are supposed to fill our new fleets… I mean, can King possibly train them in simulators to a point where they will survive a first battle with the fleets of the Imperium when we face Admiral Tang?”
“You know I believe in King Killer.”
“But these green alien troops? Rock men? Squid men? Goofy-looking, big-finger men?”
“Well, if humans can do it…”
“But these alien pilots can’t. They do fine in the simulators, but then they get into a starship made with Ancient technology, and the first thing they do is crash into each other, blow up the ships, and die a horrible death.”
“Well, the humans from Don’t Go Here…”
“…Can’t fly worth snergle poop either!”
“But the original crew of Megadeath…”
“Have you talked to those morons in person, Tron? They are the dumbest collection of numb-noggins in the universe! And that Vince Niell! He is a pilot only because his ship does most of the hard flying for him.”
“So, what you are saying is… our rookies are all too smart to be piloting these Ancient-tech starships? We need to be training them to be dumber and let the ships do the hard parts?”
“Hmm… now that you mention it, that is sorta the one thing we haven’t tried yet. We need to train them to empty their minds and not overthink things. Let the starship do its own thing?”
Both Tron and Arkin stared at each other in horror at the revelation. They had been going about it totally wrong. Pick dumber guys as pilots. Tell them to think less and let the ship itself do more. Could it really be that simple?
Of course not! Are you dense, dear reader? They merely thought it was that simple.
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction
Character Developments
If I am ever going to sound at all like an author talking about his craft, then I guess there is really no better place to start than with character development.
One of the most important factors in starting a new novel is how you put together the jigsaw-puzzle pieces that are the characters. I have had the characters in my head since about 1974. Daisy Brown and her two younger brothers, Johnny and little Mortie (short for Mortimer Snerdly Brown, named after his Great Grandpa Mortie and his Grand Uncle Snerdly) are the three characters that the story starts with on the night of the car accident.
Notice that the plot throws the three children above directly into a conflict right from the start. They were all in the back seat of the car. Their parents were in the front. Dad (who’s name is Brom, short for Bromley Mortimer Brown) has a bad reputation for reckless driving and being an alcoholic. He is driving. But he is sober. Mom (who’s name is Stacey Clarke Brown) is in the front passenger-side seat. Both of them are killed in the wreck. (Ironically the young man who hit them also dies, but he is the one guilty of drinking and driving on the night of the accident.) Some of those details come out in the first two chapters. Some of those details never actually come out in the course of the story. That’s the thing about characters, the author must have an idea of all the important details of their lives from early on in the creation process. But many of those details are not necessary to use in the story. You just need them so that you sound like you know them as you write about them.
Let me start by describing the development of my protagonist, Daisy Stacey Brown. She has been the protagonist of this tale since 1974. She was originally based on the younger of my two younger sisters. That is where the adventurous spirit comes from. And the slightly ditsy quality of her highly-imaginative inner monologue comes basically from my sister’s daughter who was born about 1993-ish (and the story, of course, happens in 1996, so it is based more on the present form of my niece shoe-horned into Daisy’s fifteen-year-old skinny body). Daisy is followed as the focus-character in a third-person-limited-point-of-view narrative. Here is a sample of that described in the story’s opening and filtered through Daisy’s unique brain;
The sound of the ambulance siren was raucous behind the car, like someone trying to play an AC/DC medley with a circus air-horn. And a clown playing it who was drunk on too many pre-show hits from the gin bottle in the straw at the bottom of the lion cage.
It kinda made Daisy smile to think of that analogy. She needed something like that to get her mind off what had happened that horrible night, a mere half an hour before.
I haven’t given any physical descriptions of Daisy in the first chapter of the story. Those things are slipped in later in nearly unnoticeable bits and drops. The fact that she has strawberry-red curly hair doesn’t get said until well after the reader sees it in the black-and-white illustration. Her skinniness, pale coloring, and awkwardness will be in descriptions that happen later in separate and isolated spots.
Far more important is the way her mind works, which I try to show rather than tell. She is one of those people who is both innocent without being ignorant, and imaginative without being merely random.
Other characters will be established too with an eye on what they are like at the beginning, and a mindfulness of what they will become as the plot changes them over time.
Johnny is a sad-sack introvert who blossoms as he overcomes problems associated with the initial tragedy. He grows as he proves to himself that he is neither a coward nor a fool.
Mortie is unflappable from beginning to end in the way small children often are. He possesses a powerful sense of wonder that overwhelms fear and sadness over his losses.
That is probably enough of an insight into how I am shaping these characters for now. If you look inside this process too closely, and compare it to my last post, I run the risk of letting you see how I may be using this story to process my own upcoming loss of a parent. The pandemic and my father’s Parkinson’s disease ironically is hitting this story with enough irony to iron out more than just the wrinkles. It may well iron me flat.
Filed under characters, humor, illustrations, novel writing, Paffooney, work in progress, writing, writing teacher
Catch a Falling Star 
Why I’m Never Alone
There are voices in my stupid old head. But don’t worry. They are not dog voices telling me brunettes need to be shot with a .44. They are echoing voices. Voices of loved ones, voices of students, voices of random amusing people I have known and how they talk, the many voices of Robin Williams, and, of course, the singing voice of Roy Rogers.
I really don’t know how many times I traveled down dark and dangerous pathways with, “Happy trails to you…” echoing in my stupid head. It helped me through surgery. It helped me through hospitalization for a “That EKG could mean you are having a heart attack right now.” It wasn’t a heart attack. It helped me with the meeting with a judge for my Chapter 13 bankruptcy… which was caused by the coulda-been heart attack.
I hear the voices of departed relatives too. My sweet old Reagan-Republican Grandma Beyer comes back to me talking about magazine ads in “Look” magazine in the early seventies.
“Now, those children are positively up to no good. Look at the expressions on their evil little faces. Do you really believe they are merely going to eat that food? Or are they going to make someone wear it, scare it, or underwear it?
“And look at the neon-blue eyes those youngsters have! Do you suppose that orange juice is radioactive or something? It certainly doesn’t look like its doing them any good health-wise to be drinking that much. They look wired!”
Or when she saw TV Guide’s picture from the mini-series “V” in the 80’s.
“Land Sakes! That’s one pretty awful skin condition that poor man has. I certainly wouldn’t want to get infected with that!”
And there’s always the voice of Mark Twain lurking in the back of my brain watching for a chance to remark on something and make me laugh.
“I don’t like to commit myself about Heaven and Hell… You see, I have friends in both places.”
“Anger is an acid that can do more harm to any vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
“The two most important days in your life are the day you were born and the day you find out why.”
“No amount of evidence will ever persuade an idiot.”
“Okay, you can shut up now, Mark, before I laugh myself to death,” I replied.
And then there’s all those imaginary people that my own demented psyche gave birth to and now live in my fiction. They follow me around everywhere too, making comments, encouraging me, sometimes discouraging me, and always making me forget that I am actually talking to myself. I write down a lot of what they say. It becomes the basis for another book or two, or possibly twenty.
So, you see, I am rarely lonely. My mind is never quiet. And there’s always a conversation going on, no matter that I am completely alone and no one is saying anything at all out loud.
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Filed under autobiography, being alone, commentary, humor, imagination, Mark Twain, strange and wonderful ideas about life