The Return of the Pumpkinhead President is a sequel movie I don’t want to live through again. His victory in November leaves me feeling defeated. Not suicidal, but ready to give up.
There is no choice but to give up being a nudist, though. As much as I was enjoying my late entry into the lifestyle I had longed for over a lifetime, my physical health simply makes it impossible anymore.
I also fear giving up writing. My hands don’t work properly while typing, and the creative flow is slowed by too many obstacles in the stream of consciousness. The river of ideas is slowly damning itself up. I only write two or three original blog posts each week. The rest of the time, I rely on what is already written.
I must also move back to Iowa soon. I need to get out of the big city to maintain my grip on life and be back in the place I think of as home before I die. It will mean leaving my wife behind to finish her teaching career, at least for a couple of years. She will rejoin me if I am still alive when she’s done… maybe.
I will have to part with at least some of my doll collection, and probably most of my personal library as well. I’m sure I have over a thousand books in the house here in Dallas. Some I have even not read yet, though less of those than the ones I’ve read twice.
My whole life has to be simplified as I work towards its ending.
No, that is not a typo. I only meant “gifts” in pun form. Sometimes you don’t feel much like talking and, after all, the “picture can be worth a thousand words”, especially if the picture moves.
As you can see, I am spending the day with the Ghost of Christmases Past. Have a wonderful holiday, however you may celebrate it. I will offer more goofy stuff by Mickey after the Ghost of Christmases Future gets done with me.
On days when I feel sick, like today, I can do things like work on paintable miniature figures for D&D or HO-scale model train layouts at the little table in front of the fake fireplace.
Paints and recent projects.The Toonerville Congregationalist Church receives a snowfall.Weretigers and Disney Princesses and unpainted Tieflings… Oh, my!An aerial view.
I know it isn’t much. But with body aches and sore throat, it was the best I could do.
There was a time when Tarzan was one of the ruling heroes of my boyhood fantasies of power and self-fulfillment. And, while Tarzan was a cartoon show on Saturday morning, comics by Burne Hogarth, movies in the theater in color with Mike Henry, or a weekly series on TV with Ron Ely, he was always Johnny Weissmuller to me. Weissmuller who played both Tarzan and Jungle Jim in the Saturday afternoon black-and-white movies.
I have to admit, I didn’t identify with the character of Tarzan as much as I thought of myself like the character “Boy”, played by Johnny Sheffield in movies like “Tarzan Finds a Son”. It was a significant part of my boyhood to imagine myself being like Boy, free from practically all restraints, able to gad about the dangerous jungle nearly naked with monkey pals and no fear. If I got into trouble by believing my skills were greater than they really were, I would save myself with ingenuity, and, barring that, Tarzan would rescue me. And, believe it or not, sometimes there were fixes that Tarzan got into that he needed me and Cheetah to be creative and get him out of. I knew in my heart that one day real life would be like that, especially once I grew into Tarzan and stopped being just Boy. That idea was in my head so loudly that several times I went to Bingham Park Woods, stripped down, and played Boy in the Jungle.
As in the previous essay about Heroes of Yesteryear, I learned important things from Johnny Weissmuller on Saturday TV. He taught me that all you really needed, even in the darkest jungles of Africa, was confidence and courage. You could stand up to any deadly danger without the protection of any armor, practically naked, in fact, if only you had that heroic goodness of heart. The little boy I was then still believes that whole-heartedly even in the aging body of an old man.
So, Tarzan continues to live in my memory, a part of me, an essential part of my education. He is me and I am he. But only in my mind. Me in a loincloth, swinging on a vine now… and probably going splat like an overripe melon on the jungle floor… well, that is too ridiculous to even imagine being real anymore. Yet he lives on in me. And he battles the metaphorical leopard-people of modern life through me. Unarmored. Confident. And unafraid.
They came in the mail every November in the 1960’s. Particularly important was the Monkey Ward’s catalog because there was a Montgomery Ward Catalog Store in Belmond on Main Street. Mom and Dad could order, pay for, and pick up things there, particularly Christmas and birthday gifts. The four of us; my little brother, my two younger sisters, and I would argue about who would get to look at it next for hours at a time (the catalog, not the store… although the man who ran the store sold tropical fish in the back, so I could look at that for hours).
I, of course, dog-eared different pages than my sisters Nancy and Mary did. And David was eight years younger than me and was into baby toys, blocks, and books.
Nancy owned the three on the left.
I was nutty about model trains… and so was Dad.
I am amazed at how cheap things were back then compared to now. Of course, things were more easily destroyed because of the cheaper plastics and simpler ingredients and materials common in the 1960’s. So, it is truly amazing how many of those toys I still have. And how many survived me only to be destroyed by my own children.
And it often wasn’t enough to look at just the Monkey Ward’s catalog. (Grandpa Aldrich always called it “Monkey” instead of “Montgomery”, a pretty standard old-farmer joke in the 60’s). Grandpa and Grandma Aldrich always got a copy of the Sears catalog. And we would pour over that to find treasures that Monkey Ward’s didn’t have. That was inconvenient for Mom and Dad. The nearest Sears store was in Mason City, 50 miles northeast.
I was 10 years old in ’66.
Mary Poppins was a 60’s Disney hit.
Just the mention of Christmas catalogs of old when discussing with sisters flashes me back to the time when I was in grade school and Christmas time was all about being good for Santa because… well, toys.
And old Christmas catalogs still fascinate me. I love to look back through ten-year-old Mickey-eyes at a simpler, kinder time. Although, if I’m honest with myself, it probably wasn’t really any better than now. I just choose to believe that it was.
This morning, I was cleaning out a closet when I came across a familiar magic lamp. I rubbed it with a clean cloth, and blue smoke billowed out of the fire spout.
“Ah, hello again, Master Mickey.”
“Gene? You should not still be here. I already used my wishes.”
“That is true, Master Mickey, but I find myself back in your possession again.”
“How did that happen?”
“Well, the first new master I found did not wish nearly as wisely as you.”
“Oh, how so?”
“Well, apparently old Smedley Pinchpenny wanted to be extremely wealthy. So, he wished it would be possible for Donald Trump to be President again.”
“So, you made it possible.”
“Yes, I did. And then he wished that it was possible for gold coins to rain from above right where Smedley was at that moment… In his kitchen.”
“So, you made that possible too.”
“Yes. And when he didn’t see anything happening, he asked why. I told him that he only made the wish for it to be possible. He didn’t actually wish for it to happen. So, he got mad and wished for the kitchen to be filled with gold coins.”
“So, it rained coins on his head and that killed him.”
“Well, you know that the kitchen held more than two tons of gold. It kinda squished him before he realized what was happening. When his wife opened the kitchen door, the magic lamp flowed out on top of the gold coins. She was happy as soon as I explained about the three new wishes. She wished for all the gold to be transferred into her bank account. I explained it would have to be transformed into numbers to be wired into her bank account. She told me to count every single coin and put that all in the bank. So, I counted them as I made each one disappear and placed a penny in her account for each one. It was a tidy little sum of cash.”
“She was upset when she checked her account, wasn’t she?”
“Extremely. She said for her final two wishes that she wanted two million dollars and a handsome man to replace her pancake of a husband.”
“So, how did she die?”
“The handsome bankrobber skidded to a stop in his getaway car right in front of her house. He tossed her the satchel with the two million in it and told her he needed her to be his human shield. She could share in the loot if they survived. The police skidded to a stop and returned fire when the robber tried to shoot his way out of trouble.”
“So, who got the lamp?”
“The couple’s twelve-year-old son got home from school at that moment. I explained about the three wishes. He wished his parents alive again.”
“So, what did the zombies do?”
“They started out eating the cops… you know, their brains. Then when they came for the boy to eat his brain, he wished loudly that no one had made any bad wishes that day.”
“So, the zombies became parents again and the robber and the cops disappeared?”
“That’s right. The only good wish of the day… up to that point.”
“What was the third wish?”
“He wished the lamp would go back where it came from.”
“Ah, I see…”
“Mickey, you do make good wishes, but you can’t use the same three as before. What are your new three wishes?”
I knew right away how careful I needed to be. But I didn’t waste any time.
“I wish you would make it possible for as many of us as feasable to survive the climate crisis with perseverence and creativity. I wish it will be possible for as many of us as is reasonable to survive Trump’s second administration without suffering too much. And I wish you and your family have a nice Christmas in the Bahamas.”
“Mickey, you are a good wish-maker.” He disappeared with his lamp in a puff of blue smoke.
Why is Ariel dressed in armor? Well, the American people reelected the malevolent and vengeful Pumpkinhead. He plans to hurt us all deeply for giggles and profits. Honestly, he was merely a corrupt criminal leader in his first administration. And then he committed treason and we failed to execute him, so he merely stewed for four years. The number of deeply racist, angry, and evil poor folks have also been stewing and becoming worse, ready to anoint him and back him as he visits cruelty and death on everybody they hate. The near future is not Disneyland.
I pixelated this 80’s style of a computerized portrait of Ariel using AI Mirror.
So, Ariel is the only one I can depend on not to change for the worse. Things will become horrible financially, and socially, and we may even starve to death. Climate change will devastate civilization. The Pumpkinhead will loot and pillage, blame and punish, and make our lives Hell as the world crashes to an end.
Ariel, of course, is made of plastic. (I did not cut her hair. I gave her a ponytail with a scrunchy.) That is why she will not change until the world burns down. I am not superstitious and tempted to believe the Bible’s Armageddon prophecy is coming true. Because I do not believe in salvation and an afterlife. We get the life we need and deserve, and then the universe is done with us, and our part in the greater story is done. But I take comfort in the fact that the book does not close. The story goes on without me. Therein lies eternity.
The facts are depressing, but it will be quite an experience. And the Pumpkinhead does not live forever, either.
I respond to dreaming in ways that make sense in my stupid head, though the responses probably seem crazy to others.
The picture above was painted in oils in the early 1990’s before I met my wife. It was in response to a Bambi dream that seemed to be about my family as a family of deer. This was not about my family from childhood. It was, at the time, about my family in the future. Somehow I got it right. Two boys and a girl. Together for 30 years next month.
This picture is called, “The Boy Who Saw the Colors”,
Some pictures are dream images that can only be interpreted metaphorically. This one is about me being creative and artistical… or autistical as the case may be. It is also about being a synesthete with pronounced synesthesia.
This dream was a dream about being a Native American during a thunderstorm. It is called “the Magic-Man’s Daughter” because the Dakota Sioux tribe held the belief that dreams about lightning reveal you as a Shaman or Magic Man. Wakȟáŋ Tȟáŋka is the Lakotah word for “the Great Mystery”. That was a dream that sent me to the library to look things up.
I have dreams with clowns in them that are not nightmares. Here the clown known as Mr. Disney is encouraging me to sing sad songs.
I wrote an entire novel about that whopper of a dream.
This dream had me trapped in a tomb with a Mummy who wouldn’t stay in his nice warm sarcophagus.
It is not uncommon to dream about death and mortality. More than once I have dreamed about my own death. None of them have yet proved prophetic, but you never know.
I dreamed about my eldest son 14 years before he was born.
I think dreams can be prophetic because they are not bound by our perceptions of time in the physical universe. You can look ahead in a dream to that which has not yet happened. You can also look backward into the past beyond the boundary of your own birth. I often think some of my most vivid dreams are about peering into past lives and a very different me.
I know I sound crazy when I talk about my dreams. But they are a significant source for my artwork and creative endeavors. And dreams have a logic that doesn’t work by the rules of the world we know. Rather, it is a world of wonder.
This year has been different than practically any other year I have lived through. 2016 was a little bit like now, but then the Pumpkinhead hadn’t applied the infected screws to our collective rumps before. This time it is not a mystery how bad it could get. Liberals and people who have empathy for people other than their own families and close friends are all depressed. Hope for the future is fading.
And this is supposed to be the happiest time of the year. Well, hatred and loathing of “others” is what they voted inB. Revenge and retribution is what the Pumpkinhead is hot for. So, don’t expect me to be jolly and cooperative. Kill me if you must, but you will not make me call him President anymore.
But they can not take my joy and love away. Most of the happiness in my life comes from memories of the past. I hope to outlive the Pumpkinhead. It will add to my happiness to read his obituary, especially if it contains even more felony convictions. I may not have any grandchildren, and my wife doesn’t celebrate Christmas for religious reasons. But I do still look forward to time and laughs with family.
Both of the Paffooneys in this post are mere practice doodles. Being an artist, though not a professional one, keeps me going when everything else brings gloom.
Catch a Falling Star 
Short and Sweet
No, I am not talking about a midget girlfriend today.
I am talking about brevity.
Some of the best writing gets directly to the point.
You have to know how to say exactly what you want to say.
Then say it.
Like, “Tootie is a Cutie.”
And once said, the point made is…
Sheer poetry.
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