Tag Archives: goofiness

August 1, 2025 · 12:41 am

Silly Tyger!

I think I posted this picture once before and told you it was inspired by William Blake’s poem The Tyger! That is still true. I wasn’t telling a lie, at least, I don’t believe I was. So the poem goes like this;

The Tyger

BY WILLIAM BLAKE

Tyger Tyger, burning bright,

In the forests of the night;

What immortal hand or eye,

Could frame thy fearful symmetry?

In what distant deeps or skies.

Burnt the fire of thine eyes?

On what wings dare he aspire?

What the hand, dare seize the fire?

And what shoulder, & what art,

Could twist the sinews of thy heart?

And when thy heart began to beat,

What dread hand? & what dread feet?

What the hammer? what the chain,

In what furnace was thy brain?

What the anvil? what dread grasp,

Dare its deadly terrors clasp!

When the stars threw down their spears

And water’d heaven with their tears:

Did he smile his work to see?

Did he who made the Lamb make thee?

Tyger Tyger burning bright,

In the forests of the night:

What immortal hand or eye,

Dare frame thy fearful symmetry?

The idea is that the Tyger represents some unknowable evil that we must fear and respect because it is beyond our understanding. But the kid in the picture seems to be unafraid. Was that a mistake? Or was I really thinking this?

Apologies to Bill Watterson for stealing his cartoon for this post. I needed a more dangerous-looking Tyger than the one I had.

Leave a comment

Filed under Uncategorized

Tagged as artwork, colored pencil, drawing, goofiness, humor, paffooney, poem, poems, poetry, poetry analysis with cartoons, William Blake

July 13, 2025 · 12:28 am

Penguin Proverbs

Penguins

You know how creepy penguins in cartoons can be, right? The Penguins of Madagascar are like a Mission-Impossible Team gone horribly wrong and transformed into penguins. The penguin in Wallace and Gromit’s The Wrong Trousers disguised himself as a chicken to perform acts of pure evil. Cartoonists all know that penguins are inherently creepy and evil.

I recently learned a hard lesson about penguins. You know the joke, “What’s black and white and red all over? A penguin with a sunburn.” I told that joke one too many times. Who knew the Dallas metroplex had so many loose penguins lurking around? They are literally everywhere. One of them overheard me. And apparently they have vowed a sacred penguin vow that no penguin joke goes unpunished.

As I walked the dog this morning, I spotted creepy penguin eyes, about three pairs, looking at me from behind the bank of the creek bed in the park. When I went to retrieve the empty recycle bins from the driveway, there they were again, looking at me over the top of the neighbor’s privacy fence.

“Penguins see the world in black and white,” said one of the Penguins.

“Except for purple ones,” added the purple one.

“Penguins can talk?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.

“Penguins only talk in proverbs,” said one of the penguins.

“But the purple one gives the counterpoint,” said the purple one.

“The wisdom of penguins is always cold and harsh,” said one of the penguins.

“Except on days like this when it’s hot,” said the purple one.

“You should always listen to penguins,” said one of the penguins.

“Of course, people will think you are crazy if you do,” said the purple one.

“People who talk to penguins are headed for a nervous breakdown,” said one of the penguins.

“Unless you are a cartoonist. Then it is probably normal behavior,” said the purple one.

“Is this all real?” I tried unsuccessfully to ask.

“Everyone knows that penguins are real,” said one of the penguins.

“But there are no purple penguins in nature,” said the purple one.

So, I sat down to write this post about penguins and their proverbs with a very disturbing thought in my little cartoonist’s head… Why am I really writing about penguins today? I really have nothing profound to say about penguin proverbs. Especially profound penguin proverbs with a counterpoint by a purple penguin. Maybe it is all merely a load of goofy silliness and a waste of my time.

“Writing about penguins is never a waste of time,” said one of the penguins.

“And if you believe that, I have some choice real estate in the Okefenokee Swamp I need to talk to you about,” added the purple one.

Leave a comment

Filed under artwork, birds, cartoons, goofy thoughts, humor, Paffooney, philosophy, surrealism

Tagged as bible, cartoon penguins, cartoons, goofiness, humor, jesus, penguins, proverbs, writing

July 7, 2025 · 12:38 am

Lovely Internet Weirdness

funny-gif-chicken-dance-animation

One of the difficulties of being a humorist and trying to connect to people by being funny is that you have to compete for attention. Cartoonists have an advantage in that they can put something together with pictures and just a few words that you can get easily and quickly and then you laugh. So the internet is a nightmare maze of short-quick funnies with exceptional levels of weirdness. I keep track of the weirdness by keeping a weirdo file on my computer and copying things in it that make me go “Whaaaa?” and then laugh. Let me share a little of that with you.

1048067_548351245227795_1002178772_o

10404345_10153763612700021_6569234637597575598_n

1003739_558009837595269_90614717_n

10858355_382580568579506_4689007836086750859_n

funny-David-Goliath-angry-birds-art

best-don-bluth-movies-check-out-these-insane-pieces-of-trivia-about-some-of-your-favorite-non-disney-childhood-movies

The miracle that is Don Bluth.

superthumb

funny-Muppet-Cupcakes

little-girl-maze-art

So, therein lies the challenge I face daily. How do you compete with Muppet cupcakes?

Leave a comment

Filed under art criticism, artwork, blog posting, collage, goofiness, humor

Tagged as artwork, goofiness, humor, internet weirdness, weirdo file

June 1, 2025 · 12:01 am

Writing in My Head

I am reposting this old post from 2015 because I am in the same situation of not being able to write 500 words today.

Okay, I am justifying and vilifying today because yesterday I didn’t write 500 words… the first time in 2015… not in my blog, not in my novels, not even counting text messages. I had extenuating circumstances. I went to a movie, Disney’s Inside Out which made me laugh and made me cry like any good Disney/Pixar movie always does. Then I got a message that one of my children went into the hospital in Florida. And I have been down and out with a bad back, so I missed the Florida trip all together… (the child is fine, by the way, thanks for asking that in your head while reading this). But all of that stuff and nonsense is really just an excuse for a dastardly act of cowardice. I didn’t write a full 500 words. How dare I? This writing thing has now become my sacred mission from God. After all, I retired from the first sacred mission because poor health was God’s way of telling me, “MICKEY, IT IS TIME TO BE A WRITER.” Really! He talks to me in all capital letters just like that.

And you have probably noticed already that I am doing stream-of-consciousness writing for today’s post, a useful form of pre-writing that is known for producing lots of garbage to go along with the gemstones-in-the-rough. My mind is still boiling with emotional turmoil and upset and less-than-critical thinking… The reasons for that are understandable… I am guessing. … But I think the point is (if points are possible in this no-win game I am playing, and losing, called Old Age) that I am never really not writing. I have two novels in rough drafting at the same time. Both When the Captain Came Calling and Stardusters and Space Lizards are both on my task bar at this very moment. I add new inspirations for the next canto every time a new light bulb clicks on over my little furry head.

So the ideas are already there for several pieces of writing that I simply have to sit down and knock out on the keyboard. Potentially I have way more than a mere 500 words waiting to blossom and unfold like flowers into paragraphs of purple paisley prose. (Since this is as close as a writer can come to showing how he actually thinks, I guess I have also answered a question that many who try to read my writing have been wondering about… I really do think in loopty-loops with streamers attached and a knot in the tail.) Writing is not something I can ever be accused of not doing because writing and thinking are the same thing… the only difference between the 500 per day and the leventie-leven trillion in my head is your access to it in a form that is written down and edited (well, at least re-read for typos… I kinda like leaving the stuff and nonsense… and moldy bananas… in the final product because I can pass that particular form of goofiness off as humor). (And, yes, it just helped me pass 500 for today.)

Leave a comment

Filed under humor, NOVEL WRITING, Paffooney

Tagged as 500 words, books, colored marker, colored pencil, goofiness, humor, novel writing, Paffoonies, pen and ink, writer, writing, writing process

May 13, 2025 · 12:13 am

Stuff That Works

10501822_1499033517018697_23032178962926005_n

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.

Ima mickey

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, and Norman Rockwell. I go to sites like DeviantArt (Example at this link) and follow artists like James Brown and Shannon Maer on Facebook. I help promote their work by sharing as often as I can. Do I worry about copyright violation with my artwork? No. I am long past the point of making a profitable career as an artist. I like having people see my work and if someone decides to claim they are the artist instead of me, I have the real originals and even some pictures of work in progress. The Big Eyes thing will not happen to me.

big_eyes_2014_movie-1280x960

So sharing pictures seems to matter. I got lots of hits from the monster picture post because I used a lot of monster-movie images that people normally search for on the internet. Pictures of pretty girls work too. It doesn’t seem to matter if I drew them or if they are a picture of a relative, those pictures pull people in too.

19252_1208834303891_1319717771_30512468_3124599_n

Pictures of photogenic nieces aid my blogging popularity in a rather noticeable way.

Yes, I do believe I have just intimated that Minnie Mouse is my niece, a daughter of my sister-in-law. Lying is part of blogging. You have to put spin on things and make people understand the things they want to understand more than you need them to see what is really true in the empirical sense.

Jungle Girl

Being able to put the words “nude” or “naked” in titles or in the tags brings in more views too. Those words get lots of hits on search engines and some of the people who visit my blog looking for that actually read what’s posted. Just because an idea is a little bit naughty, it doesn’t mean only perverts and bad people respond to it.

This is a picture of Rowan Atkinson as Mr. Bean. It is NOT a picture of me.

And it doesn’t hurt to be a little funny now and then. Humor is something I look for in the posts of others. I try to be funny in my posts too… though whether they are hah-hah funny or merely eeuw! funny is debatable. Much of my humor is only intended to raise a smirk or half a smile. I am most satisfied when I make you think, “heh, that’s right, isn’t it.”

This is Millis, not me. He was an actual rabbit that was turned humanoid by a scientist’s experiment with alien technology.

So why is this post called Stuff That Works if, as I am claiming, I really don’t know anything about how blogging works? I may have been a little less than truthful when I made claims. Or maybe I was claiming with a little bit of “tongue in cheek”? I hope I have demonstrated that I do know how. The thing I have yet to wrestle with is WHY. So now I have to get busy and work on that.

Leave a comment

Filed under artwork, autobiography, blog posting, commentary, humor, nudes, Paffooney, surrealism

Tagged as artwork, blog, blogging, goofiness, humor, life, nudes, paffooney, philosophy, writing

May 8, 2025 · 12:02 am

Boyhood

newwkid

Fifty-eight years ago, when I was ten, the world was a very different place. Many people long for the time when they were young. They see it as a better, more innocent time. Not me. Childhood was both a blessing and a nightmare for me. I was creative and artistic and full of life. And my family encouraged that. But I was also a victim of a sexual assault and believed I had to keep a terrible secret even from my parents so that the world would not reject me as something horrible. We were on the way to the moon and the future looked bright. But President Kennedy had been assassinated in 1963, and Apollo 1 would end in a fiery tragedy in 1967. I look back with longing at many, many things, but I would never want to go back to that time and place without knowing everything I know now. I am grateful that I survived. But I remember the nightmares as vividly as I do the dreams.

2014-07-29-nrnrnrnrnrnrnrnrnr333333333S400

As a teacher, I learned that childhood and young adulthood defines the adult. And the kid who is coddled and never faces the darkness is the one who becomes a total jerk or a criminal… or Donald Trump. I almost feel that the challenges we faced and the tragedies we overcame in our lives are the very things that made us strong and good and worthy.

When you are a boy growing up, hating girls on the outside and pining to get a look in the girls’ shower room on the inside, you can’t wait to grow up and get away from the horrors of being a child. Except, there are good things too. Tang, of course, wasn’t one of them. We drank it because the astronauts drank it, but it was so sweet and artificial that it tasted bitter in that oxymoronic way that only fake stuff can achieve. Quisp is nasty-tasting stuff too… but we begged for it because, well, the cartoon commercials were cool. I only ever choked down about two boxes of the vile stuff. You went to school a little queasy on mornings when you ate Quisp in milk for breakfast. But one box had a toy inside, and the other had an alien mask on the back that you could cut out, but not actually wear.

556836_458567807502181_392894593_n

But when it comes down to how you end a goofy-times-ten-and-then-squared essay like this one, well, how do you tie a proper knot at the end of the thread? Maybe like this: It is a very hard thing to be a boy and then grow up to be a man. But I did it. And looking back on it, the pie was not my favorite flavor… but, hey! It was pie!

Leave a comment

Filed under battling depression, feeling sorry for myself, finding love, goofy thoughts, happiness, healing, humor, Paffooney, Uncategorized

Tagged as 1960's, artwork, boyhood, family, goofiness, health, humor, nostalgia, paffooney, satire, writing

May 6, 2025 · 12:24 am

Critiques in Color

20151104_shawn

I recently posted about being synesthetic and discovering how I am different from normal people. Here is the post if you are interested.. Then I discovered that Kanye West is also synesthetic as he gushed some southern-fried crappie-doo about how wonderful he is as an artist because he sees the colors of his music. Well, now I don’t want that mental affliction any more. I don’t wish to be anything like him. Of course, it has to be incurable, doesn’t it.

20150910_122142

Now I am wasting today’s post on another metacognative thinking-about-thinking style of paragraph pile when I could be rhapsodizing about the humor of Dave Barry or the wisdom of Robert Fulghum, the author of

All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.

Here it is on Amazon.

I could be shamelessly promoting the work of artists whose works I love instead of examining the random filing cabinets in the back rooms of my stupid old head. But I can’t because I now need to explain myself to myself again. Self doubt and self examination are features of being an artist. We reach a point where we have to think about how we do what we do, because if you don’t know where the magic comes from, you might not be able to call on it the next time you need it.

That Night in Saqqara 1

I am a self-taught artist. I have had art classes in high school and college, but never professional art training. I know how to manipulate the rule of thirds, directional composition, movement, perspective, and lots of other artsy-craftsy techniques, but it is all a matter of trial and error and an instinct for repeating what works. I have had a good deal more professional training as a writer. But I do that mostly by instinct as well. Trained instinct. I have reached a point where my art is very complex and detailed. And I don’t mean to suggest there are no flaws. In fact, I am capable enough to see huge, glaring mistakes that really skew my original intent and make me feel hopelessly incompetent. But others who see it and don’t know the inner workings of the process can look past those mistakes and not even see them. Given enough time to look at my own work with new eyes, I am able to see at least some of what they see.

the Clarkes

Now that I have totally wasted 500-plus words on goofy talking-to-myself, what have I really accomplished beyond boring you to death? What’s that you say? You are not dead yet? Well, that’s probably only because you looked at the pictures and didn’t read any of my sugar-noodle brain-scrapings in loosely paragraph-like form. And if you did read this awful post by a colorblind artist who doubts his own abilities, you probably didn’t learn anything from it. But that’s not the point. The point is, I care about doing this, and I need to do it right. And I managed to learn something… how to ramble and meander and make something that is either a hot mess… or something that vaguely resembles self-reflective art.

Leave a comment

Filed under art criticism, artwork, autobiography, colored pencil, coloring, feeling sorry for myself, humor, magic, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life, Uncategorized

Tagged as art, artwork, goofiness, humor, life, paffooney, writing

May 4, 2025 · 12:05 am

A Thing That I Know…

You probably guessed it just from the title. I started this post without any idea at all what I was going to write about. And so I had to rummage around in the back rooms of my silly old brain looking for stuff to put out there that wasn’t too moldy, but definitely had been thoroughly cooked and stored away for a while.

11866489_726981264112650_6334395938908440480_n

So here is something I know… If you want to make someone pay attention to you, make a joke. You can do that by surprising people with something that they immediately recognize and realize that it is totally backwards to what they saw before. In other words, when I say or write things that make people wrinkle their noses at me, I am not merely being weird. I am being a humorist.

wallpaper-1443020107

Here is something else I know… If you want to have an idea that is worth having, you need to look at things from a totally different angle. If I want to know myself better, I need to reflect on how Charles Schultz would draw me. I would be half Linus and half Charlie Brown because I am most profound when I have my blanket to comfort me, but things constantly go wrong for me and I see myself as a loser… but I have people who love me, and a dog that battles the Red Baron.

10511236_10152167299899649_1159856724695188042_n

Another thing I know… If you want to make something, you have to follow the rules, and only occasionally break them. This post began with a simple enough rule. It had to have simple statements of things I have learned over the course of my life, and the pictures all had to come from a randomly selected picture file on my laptop. I save all kinds of weirdly chosen and goofy things in my art and memes files. So how dangerous can that rule be? Of course, I also want to put up a bit of my own artwork, and this file that I chose doesn’t seem to have any in it. So, I have to break the rule… but only this one last time.

rubber gun duel

Now, I know you will probably look at this and think to yourself, “What the hell is wrong with you, Mickey?” Or maybe you will say it out loud in your most disgusted voice. But I do know this… If you are old and you have lived long enough to have learned a thing or two… or possibly three, you can simply start writing and the ideas will be there. And it might turn out to be something you will be glad you wrote and shared. This is simply a thing that I know.

Leave a comment

Filed under artwork, goofiness, humor, memes, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wisdom

Tagged as blogging, comedy, free-writing, goofiness, humor, life, paffooney, writing

May 2, 2025 · 12:14 am

Dog Thoughts

Jade Monster1

Now that she regularly steals people food from the pantry, Jade the dog is becoming more and more like the human race she wants to be a member of. Recently she was reading my blog and got the idea that she could write poetry. So, I was searching for an idea for today’s post and decided I would let her give it a try. So all of this poetry today will be written by the family dog.

Introducing Dog Thoughts

Woof! Grumph-hak-borph-borph… Rrrr.

Did you get that? Or do I have to translate everything into your language?

Boofa-Rrrrr. Bork bork grumph…. okay, we’ll do it your way.

But every time I need to add a tail wag,

Ima gonna go “*************” where each “*” is one wag.

Got it now? People are so dumb!

The family dog after eating enough potato chips to become all people-y…

It Is a Stinky World!

Ooowow! I go outside and I can smell dog poop in the park!

The rabbit that lives in the hedge leaves those little round brown things!

I want to put my nose in a pile of those *********!

I like to eat cat droppings, but you have to dig them up *******

And I am deathly afraid of the white cat… it kills and eats rats!

And it’s almost as big as I am

With breath that smells like dead rats

It is a stinky world! *******

Isn’t that great! ********

family dog2

Queen of the Couch

Why do you not understand

That the couch is mine all morning and all afternoon?

I will get off when it’s time to eat

And I will get off when it’s time to go outside

But the rest of the time the couch is mine

So don’t disturb me

Or I’ll pee in your shoes!

Dingledum dog .

Rats Are NOT Our Friends

I smell them more than see them

With rank and nasty sewer smells

And I never, ever catch them

They don’t come ringing bells

And my master puts out poison

Which they eat with garbage sauce

But it only makes them poison-proof

And I am at a loss…

All I do is bark at them

When I smell them in the walls

And my family’s mad at ME

When all the blame and curses fall.

20151224_190445

The Beg-Eye

Do you really not see me here? *****

Here right by your knee? ******

I know you’re eating bacon! *******

I can smell every bite disappearing! ********

Look into my eyes! *********

My big, sad dog eyes! **********

Don’t you want to give me some? **********

I mean, it’s BACON! ************

**************************************!!!

dogwalk1

I Do Love My Family

I take my beloved family members for walks

Four or five times a day

It keeps them healthy

With cold, wet noses

And shiny coats of fur

And I always make sure they are on the other end of the leash

How else can I guide them, and keep them safe?

From passing cars?

And other dogs?

But I wish they would be patient

When I stop to sniff all the tree trunks and posts

Where I check the messages from boy dogs

Written in pee

Some of them sure do have healthy bladders! **************!

Leave a comment

Filed under autobiography, family dog, humor, Paffooney cartoony, poetry

Tagged as animals, dog, Dog poop, dogs, family, goofiness, humor, Paffoonies, pets, poems written by a dog, satire

May 1, 2025 · 12:41 am

Appreciating Minions

Okay, I had accidentally stumbled across the un-shrink button on my computer for the last two posts, and then, somehow, my thumb accidentally found the shrink button again. I am trying to write this post on a microscopically small screen and squinting fiercely at the teeny-tiny letters all the while. So what do I do to avoid total mental meltdown? I call upon my minions. I have a picture file on my computer devoted entirely to minions. So I ought to be able to make a decent collage out of that;

. 539647_613721251982680_662825579_n

598522_615338645154274_1909155451_n

561311_600735719947900_1705274768_n

944584_621651921189613_988304255_n

behold-mighty-minion-avengers-fan-art-384673

behold-mighty-minion-avengers-fan-art-384679

behold-mighty-minion-avengers-fan-art-384683

behold-mighty-minion-avengers-fan-art-384685

Okay, I reached a point where I had to punch random buttons without any response and my computer finally enlarged everything again. Ultron is obviously in the system though anti-virus software doesn’t detect him. I guess I am going to have think about a new computer. Meanwhile, a few more minions;