Tag Archives: cartoons

February 22, 2016 · 4:36 pm

Life Inside

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There is a certain amount of frustration that comes with age and arthritis and limited ability to move. A good share of the time I am stuck within my bedroom/studio. Bad weather and weather changes, as well as the strains of housework, stiffen my back into immobility. So, I am stuck exploring not the outside world, but the inner world of stories, pictures, and my own imagination.

new girlfriends4_o

Of course, one has to beware of a life lived in imagination and isolation. Some of it can be kinda wicked and dangerous. Okay, maybe not, but definitely in danger of overwhelming goofiness. As you can see, I take a bit of my artwork and use photo-shop to make even goofier arty things. I experiment and stick stuff together just for the heck of it.

I suppose this is probably evidence a good psychiatrist could use to keep me locked up for a while. But I’m kinda stuck anyway in my little room.

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Filed under autobiography, cartoony Paffooney, goofiness, humor, Paffooney Posts, philosophy

Tagged as arthritis, artwork, cartoons, colored pencil, humor, inner life, limitations, limited mobility, pen and ink, studio

January 28, 2016 · 4:42 pm

Exploring the Mind of Mickey

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One really weird thing that teachers do is think about thinking. I mean, how can a person actually teach someone else how to think and how to learn if they don’t themselves understand the underlying processes? Now that I have retired from teaching and spend all my time feeling sorry for myself, I thought I would try thinking about thinking one more time at least. Hey, just because I am retired, it doesn’t mean I can’t still do some of the weird things I used to do as a teacher, right?

This time I made a map to aid me in my quest to follow the twists and turns of how Mickey thinks and how Mickey learns. Don’t worry, though. I didn’t actually cut Mickey’s head in half to be able to make this map. I used the magical tool of imagination. Some folks might call it story-telling… or bald-face lying.

Now, a brain surgeon would be concerned that my brain maps out in boxes. He would identify it as a seriously deformed brain. It is not supposed to be all rectangular spaces and stairs. It probably indicates a severe medical need for corrective surgery… or possibly complete amputation. But we are not going to concern ourselves with trying to save Mickey from himself right now. That is far too complex a topic to tackle in a 500-word daily post. We are just discussing the basics of operation.

You see the three little guys in the control room? They are an indication that not only did I steal an idea from the Disney/Pixar Movie Inside Out, but I apparently have too few guys doing the job up there compared to the movie version. (It probably makes sense though that a young girl like the one in the movie has a much more sensible configuration in her brain than someone who was a middle school teacher for 24 years. Seriously, that job can do a bit of damage.) The three little guys are not actually Moe, Curly, and Larry, though that wouldn’t be far from descriptive accuracy. They are Impulsive Ignatz, currently in the driver’s seat (or else I wouldn’t be writing this), Proper Percy the Planner, and Pompositous Felixian Checkerbob, the fact-checker and perfectionist (also labeled the inner nerd… I am told not everyone has one of these). They are the three little guys that run around in frantic circles in my head trying to deal with a constant flow of input and output, trying to make sense of everything, and routinely failing miserably.

I shouldn’t forget the other two little guys in my head, Sleepytime Tim in the Dream Center, and little Batty up in the attic. I have no earthly idea how either of them function, or what in the heck they are supposed to do. But there they are. The other three run up and down stairs all day, locating magic mushrooms and random knowledge in the many file cabinets, record collections, book stacks, and odd greasy containers that are stored all around in the many nooks and crannies of Mickey’s mind. They collect stuff through the eyes and ears, and it is also their responsibility to chuck things out through the stupidity broadcaster at various inopportune times. It is also a good idea for them to avoid the lizard brain of the limbic system in the basement. It is easily angered and might eat them.

So now you should be able to fully understand how Mickey thinks. (Or not… a qualifier I was forced to put in by Checkerbob.)

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Filed under humor, insight, mental health, Paffooney, Uncategorized

Tagged as cartoons, goofiness, humor, idea maps, mental maps, Metacognition, thinking about thinking

January 8, 2016 · 7:40 pm

Squint Beastwood and his Action Heroes of the 70’s Face the Here and Now

Yesterday I happened upon Squint Beastwood sitting in a park in the North Dallas area. He had an empty lawn chair next to him, and he appeared to be deeply into a conversation with it.

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Squint (speaking as his character the Man with No Name); You see, chair, I have a gun. It’s a really, really big gun. And I know how to use it. I can shoot the eyes out of a peckerwood at 100 yards. (I was confused about whether he actually meant to say “woodpecker”, but his gun was so big I was afraid to ask.)

chair (speaking as itself); …

Squint (still as the Man with No Name); I just don’t get this whole second amendment thing. I mean, do I really have to have somebody’s permission to have a gun? I don’t think so. Lots of dudes have come up to me and said, “give me your gun, Josey Whales.” And I don’t have to even shoot them to keep my gun. I just squint my eyes real hard at them and chomp down on the toothpick in my mouth and say, “Are you sure you want to be asking me that? I can draw my gun and shoot so fast that you can’t blink before you’d be deader than a cold stone that died from stone cancer.” And they would just get this confused look on their faces and drop their own guns. Of course, then I would shoot them stone cold deader than a cold stone that died from stone cancer. You know what I mean?”

chair (still speaking as itself); …

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Squint (suddenly speaking as the rogue cop anti-hero Hurty Barry); Now they are pestering me about the rights of the perpetrator. They say things to me like, “Barry, you can’t just go around shooting somebody just because they were jaywalking or playing with a toy gun while making the mistake of being black.” But I don’t get that. There are no crimes committed around me because I just look at the perpetrator and say, “I know you are thinking about committing a crime, criminal. But you gotta ask yourself, can he really shoot me before I can dial 911 on a cell phone? You’ve been texting a lot, and have lots of practice, and probably think you can snap a picture of me and text Hurty Barry just violated my civil rights before I can shoot you in the head and make you stone cold deader than a cold stone that died of stone cancer. So, do ya feel lucky, punk?”

And then I shoot them in the head. The world is suddenly a safer place. Why would anybody assume that somebody who is thinking of committing a crime has a right to a fair trial to determine if they actually committed a crime or not? You just don’t know people the way I know people. They are all criminals, rapists, murderers… and some, I assume are good people, but I think we should just shoot them stone cold deader than a cold stone that died of stone cancer and let God sort them out on judgement day.

chair (still speaking as itself)…

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Buck Cheston, former leader of the NPA (National Pistol Association) and star of movies like Planet of the Grapes wanders up and speaks as himself instead of one of his numerous movie characters; Squint, old man, I see you have been talking to chairs again. And you are afraid that Obama and his jack-booted government thugs are going to take away your guns.

Squint (still speaking as Hurty Barry); No, Buck. Nobody takes away my guns. I am just upset that society seems to think we should talk about our problems and find peaceful solutions, instead of solving problems with violence.

Buck (still speaking as leader of the NPA… even though he is actually dead now); I agree with you that we can never solve this country’s problems as long as liberals and government types want to take away our guns. Whether it is a matter of going to war with Iran, or keeping peace on the streets of Baltimore, the solution is not to take guns out of the hands of good guys with a gun. We have to be able to shoot bad guys with a gun, and shoot to kill. They will never get my guns until they pry them from my cold dead hands.

Squint (suddenly shifting back to being the Man With No Name); But, Buck, aren’t you dead of old age already?

Buck (speaking now as a dead man who is deader than a cold stone that died of stone cancer); Yes, I am afraid that is so.

Squint (still speaking as the Man with No Name); Well, don’t worry, Buck. I’m still alive and I still have my gun, and if I can’t kill the bad guy, then he must be immortal.

Buck (still speaking as a dead man); You know, Squint, you haven’t been talking to anyone who is actually alive for this entire conversation.

Squint (finally speaking as himself); I will definitely have to kill somebody for that. Somebody needs to die.

The chair began shivering uncontrollably.

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Filed under cartoons, gun control, humor, Paffooney

Tagged as cartoons, gun control, old men with big guns, paffooney, prejudice, satire, Squint Beastwood

January 3, 2016 · 4:47 pm

Monkey-Wild About “Peanuts”

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Yesterday the Peanuts Movie came to the dollar movie theater in Carrollton. And my two kids at home and me went to it. I invited my wife, but with the righteous indignation of a Jehovah’s Witness unshakable in her beliefs, she said, “Why would I want to go to a Christmas movie?” She associated it not with the beloved comic strip in the newspapers, but with the old Christmas special. And she would not be talked into it. It is a matter of faith, after all. Celebrating Christmas, naturally, loses you the chance to live happily ever after on a paradise Earth… after Jehovah God smites all the wicked people and all the deluded people who never worshiped him properly using his proper name, and also that rude postman my wife doesn’t particularly like. Of course, it is not a Christmas movie. The only Christmas part it has in it is a brief Christmas carol from the old TV special that Snoopy ruins. So God didn’t punish us for enjoying this movie… at least, not yet.

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We unrepentantly enjoyed the movie. I enjoyed it as a culmination of more than 50 years of reading and laughing at Charles
Schulz’s satire of the uncertainties of childhood as they affect the whole of our adult lives. My kids loved it because it is an excellent cartoon that is filled with hilarious moments that trace directly back to the comic strip.

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The central story is about Charlie Brown’s self doubts mixed with his never-ending crush on the little red-haired girl. In his own hesitant, hide-behind-the-bushes style, Charlie pursues her and plans how he might win her heart. In the comics, it never worked out. He always failed. He was always the lovable loser, and the red-haired girl never noticed.

I was inspired to write a poem about it because I could so deeply identify with his crisis of confidence. Here is that sappy poem;

Little Red-Haired Girl