Aeroquest… Canto 36
Canto 36 – Aerobase Frieda
Frieda began to enjoy lots of company both from the planet Don’t Go Here and from the Imperium beyond. Tron Blastarr had shared Frieda’s location as an open port to all his merchant and corsair friends. Arkin Cloudstalker’s Lady Knights were frequent visitors and one of them, Tabitha Blue Arrow, opened an inn and entertainment center at the starport. Don’t Go Here Downport began producing merchant ships of a superior kind designed by Frieda with no input from anyone else. The controls were so high-tech and simple that even cave children from Don’t Go Here could fly them.
Frieda found herself entirely too limited with the spaceport as her only body. She needed a more humanoid-friendly interface, and began work on a human-shaped robot body. She scanned Tara Salongi as her model, but improved upon the design by making the body out of gleaming, chromium-alloy high tech metal with black adamant metal for the hair. She made the body anatomically correct and even designed for herself modest black synth-leather attire.
It was during a high-activity business day that the Monopoly Brigade came to visit. Fez Amin docked three Brigade Corsairs at the starport with a password that Frieda would later determine came from a tortured prisoner, a captured Pinwheel Corsair.
Trouble began at the administration desk at the center of Aerobase 1. Fez Amin and two tattooed cohorts started an argument there with the Dion girl who was working the desk for the Salongi family.
“I don’t show any of my documents to a Scaly who isn’t even a Galtorrian,” said Ox, the Monopoly Brigade Lieutenant who wore snake tattoos all over his naked chest and arms.
“Yeah,” said Fez Amin. “How does a low-level Scaly like you get such a job? They must really be raking the bottom of the barrel at this world.”
The girl was a brown-skinned Dion. She was as naked and as vulnerable as the day she hatched from her egg, but you really couldn’t tell by looking at her. She could have been wearing a dino-skin swimsuit as far as her outward appearance went. She had no hair, as with all Dions, male and female alike. Her shapely brown tail switched nervously back and forth as she stared at the tattooed men before her.
“All right! What’s the problem here?” asked Bam-Bam Salongi, approaching the desk.
“No problem, Alley Oop. We just don’t want our papers examined by a Scaly witch like this one,” growled Ox.
Mustapha Aga, the third Brigade Commander, added, “She’s been staring at our human beauty with those ugly snake eyes of hers.” He flexed a bicep with a tattoo of a woman on it.
“Let me see your documents,” said Bam-Bam coolly.
“Look at this,” said Mustapha Aga. He pulled out a laser pistol and shot it. Bam-Bam was wearing a leather administrator’s suit, more protection than his old Fredsuits would’ve afforded, but the ray burned right through his chest, killing him instantly.
The Dion girl began screaming. Ox grabbed her and put a gun to her head. Everyone in the spaceport office froze with fear and indecision.
Tara came storming into the room, livid with the offenses against her people, and shocked with the suddenness of her father’s death. A spear of raging hatred lanced out of her mind and turned Aga’s brain into boiled peanut butter. The tattooed pirate fell dead in writhing agony that lingered for ten minutes.
“Well, well. Some of the cave people have some real fight in them.” Fez Amin folded his arms and grinned at Tara, daring her to try the same on him.
“Let Taquira go, pirate!” Tara ordered.
“Make us,” said Amin, putting a booted foot on the back of Mustapha’s corpse. “I dare you.”
Tara didn’t waste a heartbeat with her deep probe. Most men would’ve crumbled before her powerful mental attack, but Fez Amin radiated a powerful mental shield. He was not a telepath, but no stronger mind could be found among non-telepaths. She tried to probe and take control of Ox instead, but he had some sort of metal plate in his head that reflected Psion energy.
“What do I have to do to make you release the girl and go away?” asked Tara.
“I like you,” said Amin. “You have spunk. Take the Scaly’s place and come with us. Your life for hers.”
“You will leave this planet alone?”
“You have my word as a gentleman bandit.”
Frieda’s robot self had arrived in the office and stood looking at Amin with expressionless silver eyes. “Don’t do it, Tara. You are more valuable than the Dion. I can destroy him and his ship if I don’t have to worry about you being on board.”
“My, my! What a testy little toaster you are,” said Amin. “Go away and leave this between the girl and me.”
“If I assume I’m somehow superior to the rest of my people, then I am no better than he is,” said Tara. She looked at Frieda with a hard set to her jaw. “Tell Ged Aero that I love him, and I will come back to him as soon as I can.”
“How can I help you now?”
“Keep this world safe for me. Don’t let any more creeps like this in if you can stop it. Goodbye, Frieda!”
Tara dropped her guard and let Ox take her. Taquira the Dion girl ran to Frieda as soon as Amin let her loose. Tabitha had also shown up to see the end of the exchange. She ran to the body of Bam-Bam Salongi and cradled his head in her lap. Fez smiled like the fox that just ate the fattest hen in the coup. He and Ox backed away toward their ships with their prize.
“I can ready my corsair and go after them, Frieda,” offered Tabitha Blue Arrow.
“We cannot put Mistress Tara’s life at risk,” said Frieda. “Trust that the girl is clever and powerful enough to find her own means of escape. I don’t believe we’ve seen the last of either one of those two people, the Princess or the Bastard.”
Taquira, the Dion girl, cried on Frieda’s cool metal shoulder. Frieda petted her comfortingly with a metalloid hand.
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction
Playing With the Scanner
I have been making more art out of my portfolio and the new scanner. I took a series of scans like this;
Into Art like this;
And I also got to scan some other, easier-to-scan works like these;
Filed under art editing, artwork
Stuff That Works
Time has passed and I still don’t know what I am doing as a blogger, so I re-posted this list of stuff I like to do for no good reason. Make of it what you will,
What makes people visit your blog and maybe even click “like”? I should tell you up front, I have no idea how best to navigate the crazy internet. I want to. I have a book to promote. I have ideas and experiences to share. I am a writer and I would like to make something more than excessive heartache out of being one. But how you actually go about it is still a mystery.
I know what I surf the internet for. I like artwork, especially original artwork. That is why I try to post as much of my own stuff as I can. I am an amateur artist, self-taught with a little bit of college art classes, contact with real artists, and a lot of TV Bob Ross. I surf to find other artists whose stuff catches my eye. I post about artists like Loish, Maxfield Parrish, Paul Detlafsen…
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September 3, 2018 · 3:21 pm
Strawberries For Breakfast
Today’s post should probably be titled with “raspberries” rather than “strawberries” because of the alternative meaning of strawberries being a red abrasion or scrape instead of the double meaning I actually need. But I had strawberries from Walmart to serve for breakfast, not raspberries, so that totally ruined the potential metaphor.
I tend to like to watch the news while I cook breakfast for the kids. Hence the need for raspberries. I mean, the angry orangutan in charge of my news-related happiness or horror is on a real tear about now because he can feel the law and the news media zeroing in on every crime and criminal thought he has been playing with for decades, intending to prosecute both him and those who support him. Like several of the speakers at Senator John McCain’s funeral, I have no need to directly blow raspberries at him. The oblique and carefully worded ones will do fine. But I do have nothing but raspberries for him. The things he is doing to health care, education, the environment, and international relationships have either undone the good the government has previously done or made the made the matter much worse.
Of course, the Pumpkinhead in Chief is not the only evil, bloodsucking monster in the news that makes me blow raspberries at the TV screen during breakfast. I will specifically try to sort out my voter registration problems so that I can register a vote against Grandpa Munster… err… I mean, the Zodiac Killer… err… well, you know, that guy whose name I do not wish to invoke at the moment to protect my children and virgins everywhere. It is a problem because I let my voter registration lapse as a Jehovah’s Witness, and now the State of Texas won’t let me renew it by mail. I have to find the proper registration office to sit in for hours being glared at by Republican officials who see on the paperwork that I was a registered Democrat more than two decades ago.
I also blow raspberries at Republican hard-heartedness that still hasn’t reunited children with their immigrant asylum-seeking parents out of fear of letting too many brown people into their “white” country. Raspberries also for conservatives that talk about Democrats being violent and chaotic people as they post threats of shooting deaths for liberals on social media.
I’m sure you have probably already concluded that having the TV on during breakfast makes for rather rootie-tootie-fruity breakfasts around our house. And you wouldn’t be wrong.
I also have raspberries to give the Chicago Cubs this time of year as they try to beat my Cardinals out of the playoffs once again. They deserve lots of fruit. Particularly pineapples thrown at their prissy blue helmets during late innings of games they are winning.
But, fear not. My dietary health is safe for now. I am getting fresh fruits. I am fortified with vitamin C. It happens that we are eating STRAWBERRIES, not raspberries for breakfast. And strawberries are good for you, even if the morning news is not.
Hidden Kingdom(updated)
So, there you have the weekly update of work on this graphic novel. I intend to extend it further next week as I work on the scanning and the putting pieces together to get a clear and well-reproduced comic product. I will re-post these pages and the added pages each Saturday as I work towards completing this unfinished work.
Filed under artwork, comic strips, fairies, heroes, Hidden Kingdom, humor, Paffooney, pen and ink
Naked Innocence
So the time came to make the planned return trip to the nudist park in Alvord, Texas. I was going to finally get to make my second visit to the place for the Labor Day holiday weekend. But once again it was not to be. My daughter caught a virus during her first week of school. She gave it to me and her brother. Of course, neither of them were planning to go along, and their mother would sooner find another husband than be naked in a place where other people would see. They all think I am nuts for wanting to go spend time with other naturists gadding about naked in the hot Texas sunshine. My wife wants me to get my head examined. She thinks all the stories about aliens from outer space may have gotten my head artificially replaced by the Men in Black.
And she may be totally correct in her assessment. She is a school teacher, after all. I, probably just like you, was carefully taught to never be seen naked in public because it is probably a sin, and it is definitely against the law, and it is very likely something only crazy people do on purpose. Never-the-less, I did it once as a writing assignment for a nudist website that told me the review was wonderful and they were definitely going to publish it, and as of this writing, over a year later, they still haven’t done so (though a rival website reblogged one of my nudist posts from this blog).
I have come to the idiotic conclusion, though, that nudism isn’t sinful if practiced around like-minded people who are also comfortably nude. I met and talked to nudists last year who were .very easy to get to know. They were likable and no prettier in the buff than I am myself (and with my psoriasis pink leopard spots I am pretty horrible to look at naked.) And the nudist park is not a place for sexual goings-on and sinful behavior. It is a family environment where some people bring their naked kids.
I remember enjoying being naked as a kid even though I had been taught that Jesus is ashamed by seeing my nudity even though he is always watching over me, even when I am in the bathtub. I remember one time when I was a pre-teen that I took my bicycle to the Bingham Park woods and rode it up and down the trails there completely naked. And even though I had been carefully taught how evil that was, the cool wind on my skin felt good, and it was glorious to listen to the birds sing in a green wood almost as if it were the Garden of Eden and I was Adam, the first man. (Hence the illustration of the bare bike boy.)
It seems to me, now that I am old, retired, and probably at least a little bit senile, that nakedness is really a form of innocence. I can tell you for a fact from being a parent and having, at one point, worked in a daycare center for ages five and below, that it is actually far easier to get a kid to go completely starkers than it is to get them to put on and comfortably wear clothes. Nakedness is natural. And if God had really wanted us to be naked all the time, then we wouldn’t have been born with a full suit of clothes on… er, wait… what? Nakedness is innocent. Anything bad that comes from it happens because of the things we have been taught about it as children. A more enlightened society would probably be naked more than we are, especially inside temperature-controlled sealed environments… like houses, cars, and even spaceships. Ah, yes, back to the Men in Black and possible head-switching again. Aliens in their saucers are apparently often naked. I wonder if Jesus is ashamed by their nudity too?
Anyway, I once again have failed to manage the planned nakedness I had been looking forward to. I have to settle for the indoor, sealed-environment form of nudity as I am too sick to get to the nudist park, and would promptly be arrested if I tried to walk around the neighborhood like that. But the failed evil plan did give me something to write about that at least makes me laugh. And it is an innocent laugh, not an evil one.
Filed under aliens, goofy thoughts, health, humor, nudes, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Wizarding Ain’t Easy
Timely thoughts about wisdom that I think all the time.
A wizard selfie taken at Mad Ludwig’s Castle in Bavaria.
My quest to become a wizard began when I was but a kid reading comic books. It got a boost when I became a middle school English teacher and realized the fundamental truth of the universe, human beings know practically nothing at all… about anything. The only path to wisdom is the way of the fool.
So, I embraced it. It made it so much easier to teach and manage a classroom full of teenybumpers to realize the only thing that works when they laugh at you and make fun of you, is to be able to laugh at yourself and make fun of them right back.
I learned along the way that things that hurt you and make you suffer cause wisdom to happen. You walk under a ladder and the painter accidentally drops a paint bucket on your…
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The Benefits of Having a Virus
To be perfectly honest, I can’t think of a single recommended use for a virus, either the computer kind or the kind I have right now that floored me for the past five days. The computer kind damages expensive hardware and ruins expensive software, and serves no purpose I can fathom beyond usefulness in acts of evil. And I do not recommend getting sick with a virus. Every viral illness I have gotten over the past two decades has been, for me being a diabetic, potentially fatal.
But the book that Raggedy Clown and Baby Clown are displaying here in a vain attempt at marketing was written during a continuing siege of virally-induced bronchitis… Six times in four years. Writing benefitted from lost work time and extended usage of sick days from my teaching job. Some of my most creative work has happened because of bizarre dreams dreamed while having a fever.
Idiotically I leaped out of bed with a feverish inspiration in the middle of a mostly sleepless night to write down a song, as if I had any business trying to be a songwriter. I had listened earlier in the evening to a compilation of sad songs on YouTube obtained by typing the words “sad songs of the 80’s” into the search box. I listened to a totally gawd-awful mess of weepers because in the book I am now writing, Sing Sad Songs, the main character Francois sings almost exclusively only sad songs. That listening session must have caused just enough brain damage to make me think I could somehow compose a worthy sad song of my own to horrify readers with as an original song written by the character in the book. Clever idea. Impossible to carry out with my croaking toad-like musical abilities. I can probably polish up the poetry to an acceptably awful level, but the tune half-heard in my dream is now completely lost and inapplicable.
So, on the whole, I would have to say I have been decidedly unwell. But, overall, it has not proved to be a barrier to my creative work. It has really only served to make the strange little imaginary realm I live in a little bit stranger.
This is, of course, not a medical dissertation, or any sort of health and wellness advice that I am not qualified to give. But it would be ironic if lots of people suddenly re-posted this essay and it ended up going viral like my post on visiting a nudist park did.
Catch a Falling Star 
Get Up and Do!
It is daunting when bad fortune comes in waves, drowning us in debt, suffering, disabling illness, financial reversals, and so many more things I have been through this last year personally, so that we want to lie down and never get up.
But, I am not dead yet… and there is poetry to be lived.
I say that as one of the world’s fifty worst poets who ever lived. (In my defense, I am a humorist, and I write bad poetry on purpose.) My inspiration for the living of poetry comes from reading and living good poetry. I live because there is poetry by Walt Whitman. Of course, also Shakespeare… whoever he really was. And I understand that much of what I have learned in my brief and stupidly-lived 61 years comes from the poetry of the visionary poet I pictured above. Do you know him? If you have never read his poetry, you haven’t truly lived the poetry you need to live.
This poet taught me that “Being, not doing, is my first love.” Of course, if I am satisfied with just sitting on my bed and “being” through most of my day, I will starve to death and not “be” anymore. But he has taught me that what is essential is already within me. There is wisdom and power in Uncle Ted’s poetry. (Yes, I know I am not really related to him, but that’s only physical and overlooks the spiritual.) I must partake of it to live.
If you are bored by poetry about plants in a greenhouse under bright lights, or you can never understand what the poet means when he says, “My father was a fish”, then you need to practice reading poetry more. You don’t truly understand what poetry is, and what it is for… yet.
And I am sure you have probably concluded from all of this that I am a fool and a bad poet and I have no right to try to tell you who and what a truly great poet is. But, fool that I am, I know it when I see it. It is there in the verse, the hideous and horrible… the beautiful and the true. And if I know anything at all worth telling about the subject, it is this; Ted Roethke is a great American poet. And he writes poetry that you need to read… and not only read but live.
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Filed under artists I admire, commentary, insight, inspiration, poetry, strange and wonderful ideas about life
Tagged as living poetry, poetry, Theodore Roethke