Retired doesn’t mean “tired again,” or you are moved backward into a rocking chair on the porch. Retired means you have a new set of wheels on your go machine and many new places to go.
**You should note, this portrait was done entirely with digital tools. The background had AI assistance, but my hand drew the picture of “Retired Guy” entirely.
The AI Mirror version would have looked something like this;
This book is my most popular seller once again. Somebody bought another paperback copy with color pictures in it.
I’m going to miss him. I’m really going to miss him. I know he suffered from Alzheimer’s and hadn’t really done anything new and exciting in a while, but still, I always knew that he was still there. He was still Gene Wilder. Not only that, he was still Willy Wonka, still the Waco Kid from Blazing Saddles, still Dr. Frankenstein from Young Frankenstein, which he not only starred in, but wrote.
He was also Gilda Radner’s husband. The great love of his life, gone too as a victim of cancer back in 1989.
The first time I ever saw him on screen was in college, in film class. We watched Mel Brooks’ The Producers on the classroom projector.
We studied the movie in class as evidence that comedy films are difficult to make, but have a potential to be truly great film achievements. That same year, both Blazing Saddles and Young Frankenstein hit the big screens in Ames, Iowa. I saw and loved them both. Of course, I had watched the televised version of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factoryon Grandma Beyer’s color TV sometime before that.
Gene Wilder helped me see that I could live in a world of pure imagination. And that I could be whatever I truly wished to be.
Walking for heart and joint health, I take off every morning at about 7:00 a.m. In this part of Texas at this time of year, it is the time when the sun is just coming up.
A new day. A new dawn. As with the beginning of your life, it should be entered into completely naked, completely open, and immersed in the great wide world. Of course, if I try to walk in our park nude, I will get arrested almost immediately. There is an elementary school on the other side of the stand of trees on the right. Besides, I am old and vulnerable to the cold and too much direct sunlight. So, I took the picture with my phone and later made it into a cartoon. Poppy and Dewey are my imaginary walking partners. They can be naked the whole way because I alone can see them.
I am a dedicated nudist. I love to be naked in nature, though my days of being nude are much more limited than I would like. Health problems and other peoples’ ideas of nudism prevent me.
Every new dawn is a celebration. It is an unexpected gift. And each one I collect now, at this age, is precious and priceless. It is a gift I have somehow earned. As the turtle told the panda, “That is why it is called the Present.”
I admit it. Even though I collect pictures of sunrises to glory in the fact that I still have another day of life in this world, I rarely snap a picture of the cloudless sunrise. It is very possible that this has something to do with what ultimately gives life value and makes it worthwhile to live one more day.
If there is no pattern, no color-changes, no contrast, no variation… then why bother? And this doesn’t only apply to living your life. It applies to taking pictures of the sky too. Solid blue or solid yellow are about as interesting as a minimalist painting. (Have you ever seen the big beige squares and red squares that fill entire walls of the Dallas Art Museum? Like a picture of a polar bear in a fierce blizzard or an extreme close-up of the side of a tomato.)
Yes, sunshine and happiness are all well and good… but you don’t get a satisfactory skyscape without some clouds in it. In fact, rain clouds provide the most fascinating patterns and colors. What would the picture be without a little drama splashed here and there to make a center of interest or a counterpoint to the happy ending? They say that variety is the spice of life. And when they say that they probably mean cayenne pepper rather than parsley or oregano. If that’s not what they mean, then why the hell did we bring food into the discussion?
So, I am thinking, there have to be clouds. (Notice, I said “clouds”, not “clowns”, because… according to the song, there “oughtto be clowns”, not “have to be clowns”.)
It is true that clouds can mean sadness… that the rain is coming, that your vision is obscured, that something has come between you and God’s eye. But without clouds, the sky would be plain and boring. Better to burn bright and explode in a short amount of time than to linger over a plain pale blue.
When learning to write, you have to learn the rules. And then you start writing, and you learn that you have to break all the rules to do it well. But what do I know? You have to be pretty desperate to get your writing advice from a Mickey. After all, it’s not like Mickey was a writing teacher for over thirty years… oh, wait a minute… yes, he was.
Okay, so I decided to write today about the K.I.S.S. rule of writing. That’s right, Keep It Simple, Stupid. Other writing teachers tell me it should be, Keep It Simple, Sweetie, because you can’t say “stupid” to a kid. Okay, that’s mostly true. But I use “stupid” when I use the rule myself. I’m talking to Mickey after all.
So, I better stop “bird-walking” in the middle of this essay, because “bird-walking”, drifting off topic for no purpose, is the opposite of keeping it simple.
I try to write posts of no more than 500 words. I write an introduction that says something stupid or inane that speaks to the theme I want to talk about. Then I pile in a few sentences that talk more about the theme and do a good job of irritating the reader to the point that they can’t wait to get to the conclusion. Finally I finish up with a really pithy and wonderful bit of wisdom to tie a knot in the bow of my essay. I save that bit for the end as a sort of revenge for all the readers who don’t read all the way to the end, even on a short post like this one. Of course, I could be wrong about how wonderful and pithy it is. What does “pithy” even mean? It can be like the soup in the bottom of the chili pot, thicker and spicier than what came before… or possibly overcooked with burned beans.
That was another bit of “bird-walking”, wasn’t it? See, you have to break the rules to make it work better.
So, in order to keep it simple, I guess I need to end here for today. Simple can be the same thing as short, but more often you are trying to achieve “simple and elegant” and pack a lot of meaning and resonance into a few lines. And I, of course, am totally incapable of doing that with my purple paisley prose. And there’s the knot in that bow.
A sudden shift in the lighting of the house occurred as everyone was about to settle in for a night’s sleep. Without warning a ball of bright light began to manifest in the center of the room.
“This is not normal, is it? Shactuhrac sah?” asked Suki.
“Abeck nah!” said Taro. Cissy didn’t have to ask if that meant no.
The light resolved itself vaguely into the form of a Humaniti male holding a small crocodile. Something was making him entirely funky looking.
“Crocodile Guy?” asked Cissy, shocked. “How did you get here?”
“Ah, Captain Cissy! I finally made it. I have been communicating with space whales. Their nervous systems are almost electronic in nature. There are data streams so full of visual and auditory data that it took me forever to sort my way here. Space whales have amazing brains and communication methods. And they were entirely pleased to let me knock about through their works till I found ya.”
Crocodile Guy was unable to delineate himself in anything but black and white. And yet, he was fully there in the digital flesh.
“Iz youz here ta reskooz us?” asked Friday.
“I am here to start planning and thinking about it. The space whales told me that you are doomed to be whale food, and the idea upsets them greatly, but they don’t have any suggestions. And the starship is definitely stuck in the middle of Nebulon security forces.”
“But we do at least have options now that we didn’t have before,” said Cissy resolutely. “We can start thinking about how to escape. We have two Earther days left to figure it out.”
“We have to remember that Taro’s family will be killed if we escape. We would be sacrificing innocent lives to help ourselves,” reminded Suki.
“We need a plan that also saves them.” Cissy folded her arms as the others had often seen her do when her mind was made up.
“Someone’s coming!” warned Wylo.
It was then that Princess Verumi Vorranac entered the home of Taro, Sonno, and their children.
“Tahracurrac, Suki. Nah suurrhac sharanna hourcka. Kampuhrac nah sah!”
“What did she say?” Cissy asked timidly. Whoever this was, she sounded angry.
“She says it is unbelievable, Cousin Suki, that you have gotten yourself into this mess. Princess Verumi and I grew up together. She’s the daughter of the current Vorranac Warlord.”
‘Twas my intention to the next chapter done today. But only the work on the illustration happened. I have been sick on the weekend and slowed to excess. I am in poor health and writing no longer happens as fast as once it did. You can see I did not get the red cheeks spots added to the illustration. I made it from an old role-playing game illustration of one of the characters I am now using in the story.
I didn’t get the AI Crocodile Guy done either.
I tried to draw him by tracing the photo on the Digital Drawing Pad with a regular stylus. But the AI messed up my rendering of the eyes of both Steve and the croc. Bummeroo… I mean, Crikey! So, the chapter will hopefully be done and published tomorrow… a day late.
I am back on top now. My blood pressure is under control, having finally leveled off due to the newest medication the doctor put me on. I still have pain and symptoms to worry about, but I feel far better now than yesterday.
My balloon is now rising again. New ideas. New hopes for the future.
But how do you tell a story like that?
How do you describe the balloon going up? How do you mimic the lift of firing up the burner to heat the air and truly rise? How do you explain that the girl in the white bikini looks like she is only wearing underwear? And she isn’t even your girlfriend, and you will never ever kiss her. But you are happy to have her there? And it’s a good thing?
You give it time. The words will come. Not just the right words.
Well… so far, no heart attack or stroke. I guess I am still alive. I am still free to draw, paint, and make a mess. However, using a touch-screen datapad and a stylus does not even make as much mess as colored pencils.
Today was a high blood pressure day. I was within 8 points on the systolic number and 17 points on the diastolic number of needing to go to the emergency room. I am the age now that my grandfather was when he had his second heart attack. And almost the same age as my great-aunt was when she had her first stroke. So, I have been resting and eating carefully today, thinking about being dead from either of those possibilities. I took my blood pressure medicine this morning before the problem started. And I had pressing business to attend to today that will now have to be done next week. Today’s Paffooney is of me as a boy sea ghost in honor of my morbid thoughts. It was drawn with digital art tools, a previous drawing of a sunken ship, and a little bit of AI Mirror. My last BP reading for today was 152 over 81, still high, but much less concerning than before.
This one has ghosts in it too, but they are snow ghosts.
Catch a Falling Star 
Skyscapes of the Cloudy Mind
I admit it. Even though I collect pictures of sunrises to glory in the fact that I still have another day of life in this world, I rarely snap a picture of the cloudless sunrise. It is very possible that this has something to do with what ultimately gives life value and makes it worthwhile to live one more day.
If there is no pattern, no color-changes, no contrast, no variation… then why bother? And this doesn’t only apply to living your life. It applies to taking pictures of the sky too. Solid blue or solid yellow are about as interesting as a minimalist painting. (Have you ever seen the big beige squares and red squares that fill entire walls of the Dallas Art Museum? Like a picture of a polar bear in a fierce blizzard or an extreme close-up of the side of a tomato.)
Yes, sunshine and happiness are all well and good… but you don’t get a satisfactory skyscape without some clouds in it. In fact, rain clouds provide the most fascinating patterns and colors. What would the picture be without a little drama splashed here and there to make a center of interest or a counterpoint to the happy ending? They say that variety is the spice of life. And when they say that they probably mean cayenne pepper rather than parsley or oregano. If that’s not what they mean, then why the hell did we bring food into the discussion?
So, I am thinking, there have to be clouds. (Notice, I said “clouds”, not “clowns”, because… according to the song, there “ought to be clowns”, not “have to be clowns”.)
It is true that clouds can mean sadness… that the rain is coming, that your vision is obscured, that something has come between you and God’s eye. But without clouds, the sky would be plain and boring. Better to burn bright and explode in a short amount of time than to linger over a plain pale blue.
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Filed under clowns, commentary, foolishness, humor, photo paffoonies
Tagged as clouds, humor, metaphor, sunrises