-a poem written by Mickey and pasted on a picture.
Aeroquest… Canto 11
Canto 11 – Planet of the Cave Man
The planet itself was smaller than Earth, but possessed a lot more land space. Its oceans were limited to five vast and separate land-locked lakes. Vegetation was remarkably sparse, but what grew was tenacious and very much alive. What truly shocked the brothers, though, were the scan signs of over nine billion humans living on the surface and in vast caverns. This was a frontier planet with no record of being developed by the Galtorr Imperium or any of its predecessors. So how did they get there?
“Are we detected yet?” asked Ham nervously.
Ged looked over the scan and signal data on the commo screen. “I get no scans, beams, or even radar from them. There’s electricity of a sort, but nothing to indicate tracking or weapons ability. It’s low tech.”
“Are we sure they are human?”
“Definitely human, but Nebulons register as humans too.” Ged looked over at the Nebulon Princess as she sat looking admiringly at Ham.
“I think I moight know where they be from,” said Sinbadh.
“Oh,” said Ged sarcastically. “What do you know?”
“They be marooned ones from Stardog raids. It’s been a right while, it has, but this planet used to get lots of use from them Stardogs. Treasure buried here too, I’ll wager.”
“You can’t tell me the Stardog Corsairs captured that many ships!” Ged was on the verge of anger.
“Nay. But they was men, women, an’ children got left here. They’d no choice but to colonize.”
“Where do you want to set down, Ged?” Ham asked.
“Out of sight of the nearest community, I’d say,” Ged answered. He didn’t fancy being met by an angry mob, or even a worshipful mob. Mob was not a good word for planet arrival.
“Okay, I have the spot.” Ham settled the sleek safari craft down in a clearing amongst the strange gray trees that made up the brittle and somewhat spiky jungle. Ged put on a light set of harsh environment armor and dismounted through the underbelly portal in the nose of the Leaping Shadowcat.
Sinbadh picked up a set of laser pistols and headed out after Ged. Ham brought up the rear with the Princess and her small son right on his heel. He normally took the back on a hunting expedition, but he wasn’t used to this kind of attention from a pretty humanoid female.
Ged’s nose changed imperceptibly as he started tracking. The tingling he felt there meant he was transforming it into something akin to Sinbadh’s nose. The scent pictures it was taking in began to appear in Ged’s inner eye.
“We are on a strange trail,” Ged announced. “Two humans and a Dion-raptor.”
“How could there be a Dionysus dinosaur out here?” asked Ham. “I hated those things back on the jungle safaris to Dionysus. I don’t want to tangle with them here!”
“Well,” chided Ged. “It’s here plain enough. You’ll just have to be prepared to scream like a little girl again and work on your tree-climbing.”
Sinbadh laughed his growly canine laugh at Ged’s slammer. Ged smiled at the wolfman for the first time.
Over the next rise, they came upon the trio Ged had scented. It was a young human male with no clothing but a fake fur loin cover and an even younger human female with a fake fur bikini and plastic bone in her hair. They were riding on the back of a large dinosaur predator, perfectly at ease riding bareback on their meat-eating friend.
Ged knew the raptor species well. He had hunted them on the jungle planet of Dionysus. They lived there in a loose symbiotic relationship with the humans and the dinosaurian humanoids called the Dions that populated that jungle world. These creatures were smart enough to operate machinery and even communicate in a limited sort of sign language. They also turned rogue fairly easily and developed a taste for Dion flesh or even man flesh.
“Do we hail?” asked Ham in sign.
“Yes,” said Ged. He stood up from where he had been crouching behind a bush. “Hey! You there! Can we talk to you?”
The boy and the girl both looked at Ged and smiled. The raptor licked its toothy smile with a snaky tongue.
“My name is Fred3576 Flintstone,” said the boy. “This is my girlfriend Wilma456. And this is our dog, Dino6478. We’ve never seen anyone that wasn’t from Bedrock before!”
Filed under aliens, humor, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction
Leftovers in January
You reach a point after a hard month has lingered long where you have to eat the leftovers and accept what is. I face challenges in the new year at least as large as the challenges of 2017. When faced with such a situation, I need pie.
So here are some of the things left in my January file for use in this blog. The only reason they are here is because I haven’t used them yet and the ideas have not been knitted together for any rational purpose.
This will be a crazy quilt blog post. But crazy quilts keep you just as warm in winter as any other kind.
My newest Facebook friend is the daughter of my wife’s cousin. I have only known her as the sweet-faced little smiler at Filipino-American family gatherings who sometimes gets my attention by squirting me in the ear with a water gun. Her father is from Greece and teaches Math in San Antonio. Her mother, like my wife, is from the Philippines. I won’t tell you her real name, but we used to call her “Sweetie” because of her resemblance to the little pink Tweety-bird character from Tiny Toons Adventures.
I have also spent considerable time writing to and for nudists I have connected with through their various websites and on Twitter. These two lovely works of nude art were shared with me on Twitter. I have collected a number of nude pictures from Twitter nudists that I can’t use on WordPress because I am still entirely too modest to be the unrestrained naked person that some nudists are. I can’t really claim to be a complete nudist myself. But I do have stories to tell about naked people, and I have been working on them diligently.
Of course, I still miss being a teacher. I was a teacher of English for 31 years. I taught reading and writing in English to over 2,000 kids. I also learned how to stare in Klingon. It is a useful skill for keeping students in line and keeping them from becoming a disappointment to the empire. I miss teaching kids, especially talkative kids. Far fewer people talk to me during a day of retirement than used to talk to me in a single class at school. Those interactions were precious.
And several things are just too confusing for my old brain to explain.
But I do like this picture I found on Facebook of Tom Baker, the 4th Doctor, playing with multiple kittens. I don’t know why, but it makes me happier.
Filed under artwork, blog posting, Dr. Who, feeling sorry for myself, foolishness, goofy thoughts, humor, nudes
Ice Cream in Winter with Propaganda Sprinkles
The Cheeto-in-Chief has now given us something we needed as much as anyone could possibly need an ice cream cone in the middle of a blizzard. He has shut down the government. And, I mean, we need a break from this Republican Clown-Horror Show in the worst way. But the government shutdown is positively the worst way.
The government is actively undermining everything of value to the common man in America. It is deconstructing American school systems from the top down, the EPA is now encouraging polluters and removing all regulations and barriers, taxes are reduced for everybody… who has immense wealth, and we are assigning debt to our children that will take centuries to pay off.
And the problem isn’t that the government is run by profiteering criminals, which it most certainly is, but that no matter what they say and do, no consequences are suffered for it. They can literally do anything to anybody and get away with it because Republicans now hold all the winning cards. Pundits say they are facing a blue wave of change in the 2018 midterms, but then again, probably not. They control the mechanisms of government. They can cheat to win and get away with it. If we disagree, we are looking at a Revolution in which the armed forces are all on the other side.
The government is shut down now because the President hates immigrants, even the legal ones. He unilaterally brought an end to the DACA Dreamers program, shutting the door on immigrant children who have only known life as an American. Everybody in both parties want the issue settled with heart, in favor of the Dreamers. They deserve to be here. But when the issue was almost settled with a compromise that would’ve allowed the government to move forward, suddenly the CHIPS, Children’s Health Program is subject to negotiation and being held hostage to the Republican desire to punish Americans just for needing the government to stay open and functioning.
My conservative friends in Iowa, Texas, and elsewhere continue to back Trump and his policies even when they themselves are hurt by them. They do this because he has appealed to their fears and hatreds. He promises to punish those they are afraid of, and he hates the same groups that they hate. One of the groups they hate are liberal Democrats like me, though none of them say they hate me personally. Fox News has taught them to think of the labels and the people who wear those labels as different things. Killing Muslims in Afghanistan doesn’t bother them because they are taught not to remember that the Mother of All Bombs was dropped on Muslim women and Muslim children too. I try to remember they are friends and family, and I still love and care about them, even though they support things I find unconscionable.
So, this weekend, Trump gave us an ice cream cone laced with propaganda sprinkles, some of which are made of pure horse poop. And he shoved it in an orifice where you least want to receive a cold ice cream cone… in mid winter. And I am willing to admit, maybe we need a little ice cream right now, a cold-but-loving treat of looking honestly at the current situation that has to be dealt with. But couldn’t we have ice cream without the poop sprinkles, the hate sprinkles, and mind-blowing sprinkles? Let’s take the radioactivity out of our confections for a change.
Filed under angry rant, feeling sorry for myself, grumpiness, humor, metaphor, pessimism, politics
Making Metal Miniatures
Being a sort of amateur artist with extremely artistical tendencies, I naturally love to paint. My daughter also likes to paint. So one way to combine our love for sloshing colors on stuff with paint brushes with our love for playing nerdy role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons is to buy and paint our own miniatures to play with in the game. I used to do this a lot when I was a single goofer with time and money on my hands, so I have boxes and boxes of painted little people and little critters made out of lead or pewter or plastic.
When doing these dastardly deeds of nerdling paintery to little metal people, we have to choose how we are going to go about it. Different paints work in different ways. I like to use brightly colored enamels like the Testors stuff I have used since the 1960’s. The Princess prefers acrylic because it is less permanently messy. Once you laminate your fingertips with enamel, you have to wear blue and green and brown on your hands in school for most of a week as it wears off. Acrylic is less socially mortifying, in that it is removed more easily as a water-based paint. Even after it dries on your hands, it still comes off with a little scrubbing and you don’t have to use turpentine.
Finding new figures to paint is not as easy as it once was. You used to be able to locate such things easily in the nearest comic book shop or game shop. Hobby Lobby and Michael’s used to have sections where you could find the figures as well as the paints. Now that those things are becoming extinct and increasingly rare, you have to take advantage of serendipity. We discovered a magically preserved and timeless game shop in a dying mall next to the movie theater where we recently went to watch Jumanji. I bought the elves above in that shop from the young elf running the place all by himself. An elf bard with a fiddle and bow, and another elf with a crossbow. I also found two exquisite sculpts of children which I haven’t even removed from the card yet. All that is left to do now is argue over who is going to paint what. And that can be a difficult thing. I am older and cannier than her, but she outweighs me by ten pounds. The decision has not been made yet.
I am finishing this essay on painting nerdling painter-deeds with a look at two finished works from my glorious nerd-painting past. Ganser the Wizard of Gansdorf is actually painted in acrylic, while Anya the Amazon is painted in enamel. I did them both in the 1980’s. We shall soon see if I can still do as good as I used to do. And if the Princess can match me or surpass me. It is not actually a contest, but I still hope I win.
Filed under action figures, artwork, Dungeons and Dragons, heroes, homely art, humor, old art
Down Time
Family flu weeks make it difficult to think and difficult to write. But I am a writer. I believe I remember that clearly. In fact, one could argue that I am a published author. I found this pile of books laying around in my sick room that may actually count as evidence. But it’s hard to think. It’s hard to write. I have been working on gingerbread writing. At least, I still have the recipes in my stupid old aching head.
These two gingerbread novels are nearing completion. I mean, I have written the entire second draft of Recipes, and I am closing in on the end of the final draft of Baby Werewolf. They are two interlaced novels, each with a different focus, and each with a different style, one a humorous Gothic horror story, the other a fairy tale with Nazis and naked girls in it. But both happen at the same time to basically the same characters, though the shared scenes have to be reinterpreted through different viewpoints in each book. See, now, that’s entirely too complicated to think about with a headache.
But I am temporarily fritzed out in the brain department. I don’t even know how I am writing this. I guess the autopilot is driving the word-mincing machine.
So I will hopefully be writing more coherently and publishing more books in the near future. But for now, we are ill. I don’t have a fever, yet. But they do. And I need a bit of rest.
Filed under Uncategorized
The Doctor’s Bill Comes Due
I am in the middle of a family health meltdown. In this time when the yearly flu epidemic is turning deadly, my two kids living at home and still in high school are both home sick. And I am finding it difficult to pay for illnesses. My recent trip to the hospital for a faux heart attack has left me staring down an incoming tidal wave of doctor and hospital bills. I have been paying more for health insurance than ever before. The lovely caring government has been mucking about with health care issues to the point that, even though I am paying thousands of dollars more per year for health insurance than I did ten years ago, I have huge medical bills that, due to higher deductables, leave more for me to pay as my portion than ever before. I am paying twice as much for a three day stay in the hospital than I did five years ago when I had pneumonia, and was hospitalized for five days. The Princess’s doctor visit yesterday cost me $77 dollars. Number two son goes to the doctor this afternoon, and I have to hope it won’t cost more than that, because I am running out of Uber money for the month.
Gone are the days when I could afford to be sick. Now, bankrupt and with no credit left to my name, I am going further into the dark lake of debt, hoping for the mercy of lawyers and credit collection agencies. They may as well grind my bones to make their bread. I have little else to give them.
If this sounds like a complaint rather than the humor I usually shoot for, well, that’s because that’s what it is. I am sick and tired of always being sick and tired. But I have to do my part to help the American economy. It is really booming right now. Probably because people like me are investing so much in health care, right before we die because we can’t afford to pay for the medicine the doctor prescribes.
My thanks go out to the ghost of Norman Rockwell for providing the illustrations for this post. The pictures make me long for the good old days when doctors actually cared, and weren’t just making lots of money. Of course, it isn’t the doctors who are making most of the money off piratical health-insurance schemes. Whoever those people are, we never actually see their faces, and the voices we argue with over the insurance help lines are just their employees. Anyway, I am not myself sick yet. That probably comes later. So I will hunker down and burrow my way through a potentially terrible week.
Filed under angry rant, art my Grandpa loved, artists I admire, artwork, feeling sorry for myself, health, humor, illness, pessimism
A Sick Day
Influenza 2018. The Princess went to the doctor today. No kid from this household went to school today. Flu and headaches, cough and diarrhea, we needed a day off, I guess. We are quarantined. See you tomorrow or the next day, maybe.
Filed under Uncategorized
Aeroquest… Canto 10
Canto 10 – Planetfall
Once back at the docking port on Frieda, Ged noticed that the new space ship Goofy had asked Frieda to make was gone. His concern spiked like an EKG from a surviving victim of electrocution.
“Calm down, Ged,” soothed Ham. “Goofy is unpredictable, but he hasn’t gotten me killed yet.”
“You know what he’s doing, don’t you?”
“What?”
“He’s going after those artifacts the alien computer was talking about.”
“So?”
“Ham! Ancient devices with unfathomable powers? In the hands of a pyromaniac and lunatic? Don’t you see what comes next?”
“Well,” said Ham, looking down at his spaceship controls, “I do kinda see a disaster looming, if that’s what you mean.”
“Exactly what I mean!”
“Oi believes ye need to track yer shipmate down, what?” offered Sinbadh.
In minutes the Leaping Shadowcat was docked and the three teammates were aboard Frieda. In the main control room, they found the Nebulon Princess in a red jumpsuit, her small son sitting on the floor at her feet. She smiled beautifully at Ham as the two brothers entered the room.
“I… am… free…” she announced in halting, yet clear Galactic English.
“Ah… Good,” said Ged. “Goofy at least started the task I set him.”
“I… am… love…” added the Princess cryptically, moving directly toward Ham.
“Err… What?” stammered Ham.
“Oi thinks ye have an admirer, me bucko!” said Sinbadh helpfully.
The Princess reached up to touch one of Ham’s blond curls. “Nebulonin?” she cooed.
“Wha…? No. Human! Definitely Earther. I just have yellow hair.” Ham pinched the skin on the back of his right hand. “See, no blue!”
“Yes, blue…” she said smiling.
“Oh, what does that mean?” Ham blushed furiously.
“Your Nebulon slave girl has been set free by Trav,” supplied Frieda. “She means she is grateful. Your on-board library suggests she suffers from something called Stockholm Syndrome. She believes she is in love with you because you were her captors, but have been nice to her. She was apparently violated numerous times by those who held her hostage in the Imperium.”
“Erm, thank you, Frieda.” Ham said.
“Frieda,” said Ged, as if he had at that moment realized something, “Where did Trav Dalgoda go?”
“I supplied him with coordinates to find the Hammer on the surface of the planet. He went down there to find it.”
“I knew it!” swore Ged. “We have to beat him to the thing! Come on, guys! We go now!”
“Can we leave the Princess here?” asked Ham nervously as the Nebulon girl looked at him lovingly.
“Sinbadh? Can we trust that your corsair friends won’t come back?”
“Nah. Them buccaneers is moighty unpredictable like.”
“Everybody goes aboard the Shadowcat, then,” said Ged.
“Dang!” swore Ham as the Nebulon Princess took one hand, and her little boy took hold of the other.
Filed under aliens, heroes, novel, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney, science fiction, Uncategorized
Another Brick in the Wall
I sincerely hope I never appeared in any way to be like the teacher in the video of Pink Floyd’s rock opera The Wall. That teacher represents everything wrong about education and everything that looms over us as a coming darkness if the conservative privatization movement continues to move forward with their evil sausage-factory plans.
In the video you see the teacher making fun of a student for writing poetry instead of participating in the rote recitation about math that the class is engaged in. The school is portrayed as a factory that puts masks on the students, makes them march in a line, and eventually pitch forward, face first into the sausage grinder.
The song was written by Pink Floyd’s bassist, Roger Waters. It was written in the long ago 70’s as a protest against rigid education systems in general, and British boarding schools in particular. But old problems can come back to haunt us.
Here’s the evil being protested. Schools should never be used to suppress creative thinking and enforce conformity. While it is true corporate America is hot for education that treats educating students like baking bricks, with attention to precise shapes and uniform size and color, that is not how kids learn. They have to be treasured for what they are, unique individuals, no two alike, and all possessed of varied strengths, skills, and talents. The idea of education is to help them add to what they are born with, use what they are born with, and fit into the jigsaw puzzle of working with and getting along with others. We cannot teach them by pressing them into molds with standardized high-stakes tests, or taking their individual faces away by always trudging through the same low level thinking skills year after year just because a textbook written in conservative Texas says so. Learning in the classroom needs to be through guided discussions, activities, and interactions. Not through filling in all the blanks on a worksheet.
My own children, for the most part, have been cheated by the public education system in Texas. They are bright kids, but have humongous school troubles stalking them like monsters, boredom, disengagement, and feeling like the young poet betrayed by the teacher in the video. While I always, in my teaching, fought to creatively present learning opportunities, I found good teaching to be a rare thing in Texas. It was sometimes actively discouraged. And it is getting rarer. The people who think teaching English means diagramming sentences and circling the adverbs are winning the battle for young minds. I am left at a point of futility where the only thing I can do about the brick-making is write rants like this one about it.
Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos should be pleased with themselves. The sausage factories in our schools are turning out sausages. Sausages don’t think for themselves. Sausages are easy to control. And when the time comes, some corporate fat cat will eat them and become fatter (hopefully only in the metaphorical sense). And I am guessing here, but I’ll bet sausages make up most of the Republican voting public.
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Filed under angry rant, commentary, education, feeling sorry for myself, rants, red States, teaching