Tag Archives: humor

December 29, 2016 · 4:58 pm

Mortality

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2016 has been a very bad year.  It not only took Princess Leia  away from us, it also took away her mother, the Singing in the Rain lady.

But the deaths of Carrie Fisher and Debbie Reynolds are not the only the dark clouds that have me down.  I was born in 1956, the same year as Carrie Fisher.  My mother who is still living is practically the same age as Debbie Reynolds.  Life does imitate art if you only look at it carefully.  So what does this mean for me?

2016 is not yet over.  And I came down with a case of the flu on Christmas Day and am still throwing up and having fevers.  My bank account is at zero dollars until at least tomorrow.  So I have no money for a doctor’s office copay.  So if my candle is snuffed today, it is not inconceivable that mother, who is also diabetic and in poor health, could follow Debbie Reynolds’ example.

Those are some gol’ dang dark thoughts.

And that is not the way either Carrie or Debbie lived.  Their lives with filled with humor.  Taking dark and difficult things that happened in their lives they turned it into humor and entertaining bursts of wit and energy.  From her Star Wars experiences Carrie Fisher determined that every obituary written for her contain the words .

“I want it reported that I drowned in moonlight, strangled by my own bra.”

and now I have discharged that duty in her honor.  She was a writer just like me, having written books like Wishful Drinking and Postcards from the Edge.

Debbie Reynolds tap-danced with Gene Kelly when she was only 19 in the movie Singing in the Rain.  I could claim that my own mother tap-danced with Gene Kelly too, but that would be lying.  And though, as an author of humorous fiction, I have no trouble with lying, it seems a disservice to her lifelong dedication to being a Registered Nurse.  My mother helped save lives.  Movie star and RN are at least equal in importance.  After all, Debbie Reynolds singing and dancing probably created enough love and laughter in the world to help save a few lives too.

So, I intend to get better and not die before the end of 2016.  Rumors of my death, if you hear them, will hopefully be premature.  But all in all, 2016 was a really rotten year.

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December 27, 2016 · 2:55 pm

Stardusters… Canto 27

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Canto Twenty-Seven – In the Bio-Dome

The delicate creature was four-legged and long-necked.  It looked a lot like Bambi to Alden if Bambi had been a reptilian creature with hexagonal violet-colored scales all over it.  It had large indigo eyes that made it look fawn-like and vulnerable.

“It is called a zhar-doe,” said Sizzahl sadly.  She was standing next to Alden and Gracie with the creature in front of them.  She reached out and stroked the side of its Bambi-like head fondly.  “It is the last of its kind, and when it dies, its species will be extinct.”

“Is Zahr-Doe its name?” Gracie asked.

“It is the species.  Why would you give it a name?  When we had vast herds of them, they were a domesticated food animal.”

“Will you eat this one?” asked Alden.   He still had his hands clamped over his private parts, but he reached out with his left hand to touch the thing’s velvety-soft ear.  It was an exquisitely beautiful creature.

“Only if it is a last resort.  It is too beautiful and precious to be butchered without great need.”  Sizzahl was petting the creature tenderly.  Hard to believe it didn’t have a name already.

“Is there no way the species can be saved?” asked Gracie, stroking the creatures neck with both hands.  Alden had loved Gracie since the moment he had first met her, but now, looking at her standing in the Bio-dome’s artificial forest of dying trees and plants petting the Bambi-thing, he noticed how lovely she looked as a completely nude young girl in the middle of a browning pastoral setting.  He was attracted to her in spite of the fact that her body was now a child’s body, but it was so much more than that.  Gracie’s simple, loving concern for a gentle creature of another world… well, it was looking more directly at what he knew to be Gracie’s soul than he had ever done before.

“I have the cloning technology at my finger tips,” said Sizzahl.  “This place was my parents’ attempt to save our natural world from the predations of the greedy and ruthless creatures that dominated our society.  But, the question becomes, should we save the species by cloning it if we cannot feed it and the new creatures will only starve, suffer, and die?”

“We brought you the plants you needed, didn’t we?” Alden asked.

“You did.  I thought being on the space station would protect those plants and I could bring them here to grow new food sources.”

“Is something wrong with the plants?”  Alden shivered, not with the cold of being completely naked in an alien place, but with a sudden fear that he already knew the answer to the question.

“They are all blighted and dying.  I asked he Tellerons to verify it with the instruments, but I’m nearly certain.”  Sizzahl was actually crying.  Alden saw tears in her snake’s eyes.  It was difficult to comprehend a lizard-person crying, but the little-girl alien was so human-like as she was crying…

Gracie, bless her Iowegian heart, wrapped both her arms around Sizzahl and held her in a comforting hug.

“My goodness, girl,” Gracie said, “You are warm and soft to hug.  You are more like us than the Tellerons are.”

“My people are warm-blooded just like yours.  We are not really reptiles, you know.  We are more saurian… like your birds or your dinosaurs on planet Earth.”

“How do you know so much about Earth?” asked Alden.

“Well, I am a genius among my kind.  I have what you would call an I.Q. of about 195 in the terms of your science on Earth.  Besides, the alien visitors that used to come to our world, like the Sylvani or the Zeta Reticulans have brought specimens of your people here for study and to perform certain special tasks that aided in their off-world agendas.”

“Earth people have been to your planet before?” asked Gracie, cuddling the lizard-girl close to her warm heart.

“Oh, yes, and I imagine some of our people have been taken to your world too.  The governments of both our planets have been contacted long, long ago by space-faring races.”

“Really?”  Alden was skeptical.  Walter Cronkite and Bryant Gumbel never said anything about aliens contacting the government.  “Why haven’t we been told about this?”

“Judging by your television broadcasts, I believe your government believes the average person is too stupid and easily upset to comprehend the truth.  Our leaders were like that for many years before your leaders even were told.  There will come a crisis point one day, though, that people will have to find out.  Here it came shortly before we started to destroy ourselves with unending war for profit.”

“You are going to save your planet, aren’t you, Sizzahl?” Gracie asked, suddenly seeming alarmed.

“I don’t know.  Sometimes I think they are not worth saving.  Sometimes a people on a planet can become so self-centered and terrible that they don’t deserve to survive.  The alien visitors gave up on us a few years ago and left.”

“We are alien visitors,” said Alden, “and we aren’t giving up on you yet.”

“You are not afraid I might eat you or take advantage of you?”

“Of course not,” said Gracie.  She patted Sizzahl on the back in a way Alden knew was meant to be reassuring.

“I do want to take advantage of you, though.”

“Oh?” asked Gracie.  “How?”

“Your DNA is somewhat compatible with my own.  Not yours, Grace, because you are a simuloid now, not a real person.  I want some of Alden’s DNA to use to make a fusion race, half Galtorrian, half Earth human.”

“You mean you want me to make babies with you?” Alden gasped.

“Not the way you think.   I want to make them in a sealed jar and grow them in vats.  I will just need samples of your blood and tissues.  It doesn’t even need to hurt.”

Alden felt a bit shaken.  Could he do that?  Or was Sizzahl right to suggest her people deserved to go extinct?  And what did she mean when she suggested Gracie wasn’t real?

At that moment, Davalon and Tanith came in looking sad.  Both were naked.  Both were holding each other’s hands.

“We have bad news,” said Tanith.  “The plants we saved from the space station are all diseased according to the instruments.”

Sizzahl only nodded, then buried her scale-covered face in Gracie’s shoulder to cry more loudly.

*****

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December 26, 2016 · 3:41 pm

A Plethora of Bad Days

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I’m sure you probably are saying to yourself something like, “What the heck is Mickey saying?” or “Why is this gesticulating goombah complaining again?” or definitely, “What the heck does plethora mean?”

Well, the results of 2016 I truly did not love.

Saturday my football Cardinals got a measure of revenge.  They were leading the hated Seahawks by a score of 31 to 18 in the second half.  Then, like God was cheating in their favor or something, the doofy Seahawks made a couple of long scoring plays and should have been able to kick the winning point after touchdown with less than two minutes left in the game.  Miraculously, the kicker shanked it wide left.  Tie score, 31 to 31.  So then, karma finally kicked in and the Cardinals got down into fieldgoal range on a pass to David Johnson, the miracle running back who ran for over 100 yards in his 15th consecutive game.  The game ended with a successful Cardinals’ field goal that gave them the unlikely win.

So, why am I not happy with a win like that?  Because it was practically the only one.  The Cardinals had a talented team this year that was predicted to win the Superbowl at the beginning of the year.  But they kept losing games.  Eight of them, as a matter of fact.  They were out of the playoff picture before Saturday’s game.  And the last time they played these skanky wanky Seahawks, they scored first in overtime, but still only got a tie out of the game.  And these same Seahawks made it into the playoffs as the winner of the Cardinals’ division.  Football life is really unfair sometimes.

And besides that, the Cubs won the World Series.  Donald Trump is going to be President in 2017.  The world is ending (at least within 100 years).  I am dying (at least within ten years).  And I am no closer now to being a successful novelist than I was on the day I was born.  Oh, and I have a viral infection that makes me cough and may kill me.  Life is all dark brown and dumbly glum right now.

So “plethora” means a whole gol dang lot of something.  And somewhere, somehow, someone owes me a good day or two.

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December 20, 2016 · 4:42 pm

Stardusters… Canto 26

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Canto Twenty-Six – On the Moon Gundahl

Farbick and Starbright sat together on the bench outside the fat Galtorrian’s office in the moon base where the Tellerons were now prisoners.  Biznap was inside arguing vehemently about something.  The two lizard-men, apparently the only lizard-men on the entire moon, were arguing from a position of strength and superiority, though Farbick could plainly see that the Telleron landing party out-numbered them, seemed smarter than them, and definitely had better and more capable technology.

“Do you think Commander Biznap will secure our freedom?” Starbright asked guilelessly.  Her large green eyes were shimmering with tremulous female uncertainty.  She was attractive in ways no other female had ever seemed to Farbick before.

“He’s the best officer and negotiator we have in Xiar’s entire fleet,” Farbick answered, “so, no… probably not.  We are not very competent when it comes to things like this.”

“We are doomed?  Will they eat us?”

“Well, Biznap couldn’t bargain his way out of a paper sack,” said Farbick.  “Especially in view of the fact that we can’t really let these cannibal lizards get their claws on high tech devices like cloaking fields, invisibility cloaks, and skortch rays… certainly not star drives for space ships.  But a paper sack is made of paper, after all.  We could punch our way out.”

“What do you mean?”

“These lizard men are not very smart.  They are not very well armed, as long as they don’t acquire and learn how to use our weapons.  They seem tough on the outside, but I think we could beat them in a fight.”

Starbright looked at him skeptically.  “You think so?”

“We need to take the initiative.  I’m sure if the three of us, as Tellerons, worked together and eliminated the little warrior-guy, the fat one would surrender easily.  He doesn’t appear to be the kind who fights his own battles.”

“You are very brave and haves been through lots of difficult situations, but I’m a poor, frail female with skills I learned in the egg, but no practical experience.  I would end up causing you and brave Commander Biznap to die needlessly.  It would be a terrible thing.”

“We are not going to give up and be beaten so easily,” said Farbick.  “If I learned one thing in my time as a captive among Earther primates, it is that every individual has inner resources that they may not even know they have.  Together we are more formidable than we have ever let ourselves believe.”

“You really think so?”

Farbick looked at her lovely round face and earnest expression.  He thought about the kissing thing.  He had seen Alden and Gracie Morrell do it.  He had seen Harmony Castille and Commander Biznap do it.  It was a strange Earther thing, but if he turned his face just a little to the right, he could…

“What are you… mmmph… doing?”  She looked shocked.

“It is an Earther custom, expressing respect and admiration.”

“Oh… it is?”

“And love.”

Her eyes lit up at the Earther human concept that had seemingly been the only thing to thwart the invasion of Earth.  He could see she was intrigued.  Old reruns of I Love Lucy and Bewitched were part of every Telleron tadpole’s how-to-be-like-an-Earther training, programmed directly into their developing brains while in their amniotic egg-sacks.  Tellerons were gestated in eggs and programmed with learning programs until they were the equivalent of an Earther eight-year-old, at which point they were all saturated with the kissing thing poured directly into embryonic brains, and ready to be born.

“Like Darren and Samantha?  In Bewitched?” she asked.

“Yes.”

She leaned in and repeated the gesture.  She improved on it.  It lasted a very long time and Farbick felt that she liked it nearly as much as he did.  They could make tadpoles together… even if he did have inferior Fmoogish blood in his veins.

At that moment they were interrupted by Commander Biznap.

“Good news!  I have secured our release, Farbick!”

“What did you promise them?” asked Farbick.

“That we would strip the entire available tech out of the wing and leave it here, along with Starbright to teach them how to use it all.”

“And how do we get Starbright back?”

“Oh, uh… we don’t.  When they are finished learning how to use the technology, they will eat her.”

*****

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Starbright

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December 18, 2016 · 5:14 pm

The Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge

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The Ixcanixian Cultural Ambassador from the Squeelix Sector of the Planet Ixcanix sent me an e-mail about his planet’s newest idea for a cultural exchange.  He calls it the “Ixcanixian Spleegle Gorn Vorpaloop” which translates to the “Ixcanixian Interstellar Bad Poetry Challenge”.  At least, it does if I am conjugating the verb “Vorpaloop” correctly.  It is difficult because you have to drop the silent “y” before adding the “aloop” without causing it to explode.  I know it is probably a very bad idea to present it here on this planet, but he talked me into it by promising to promote my novel Catch a Falling Star on his homeworld and at least two other planets in the Bugeye Federation.

Here are the rules for the alien poetry contest;

  1. Entries can only come from planets in the Orion Spur of the Sagittarius  Spiral Arm of the Milky Way Galaxy.  (So, for you non-astronomers out there, we on Earth do qualify.)
  2. All poets must be less intelligent than the Mud-Eaters of Paralaxos IV as they will be employed as judges of what poetry is truly bad.  (Again, Earth qualifies as we have recently elected Trump and also allow Nigel Farage of Great Britain to continue to exist.)
  3. Entries must not be so long that the total weight of letters exceed critical mass and form black holes in the intergalactic servers when uploaded.
  4. Vogons need not apply.  Their poetry is so bad, they would automatically win, causing the death of trillions of bad poetry readers in the galaxy.
  5. Entries must not cause thermonuclear reactions with cesium.
  6. Please refrain from confusing good poetry with bad poetry.  The Vornloos of Talos XII are looking for poetry they can weaponize, and no one wants a poetry contest winner to suddenly create World Peace on Talos XII.  That would be bad for the galaxy as a whole in ways that are very difficult to explain.

A sample of interstellar bad poetry is included here to inspire the kind of poetry we seek.

Ratzen Bargle’s Bisketoon  (a love poem by Touperary Kloob, Poet Laureate of Antares VI)

Ratzen Bargle was a Doofus,

From the planet Rufus-Ploofiss,

And he had a lovely bride,

With a head not tall, but twice as wide.

She had three eyes and two were green.

She had the loveliest fleen you’ve ever seen.

And as they sat ‘neath a wayward moon,

He kissed his lovely bisketoon.

Immediately before naught was said,

She bit off his tiny three-eyed head.

And then she ate him bones and all

With sauce that really becomes the fall.

And so it is on Rufus-Ploofiss,

That  males all die with one last roof-kiss.

Because they sit under wayward moons

With their lovely, hungry bisketoons.
 

 

Should you have the unfortunate urge to participate in this senseless and probably suicidal poetry contest, you are welcome to offer four-line poems in the comment section, or email longer poems to Mickey at mbeyer51@gmail.com.  I will attempt to transmit the worst offers to the Ixcanixians as soon as I get my interstellar flooglebeeder transmitting again.  I will also post winners in a future alien poetry blog.

I have been warned that prizes range from instant execution by the Lizard Lords of Galtorr Prime to a beat up copy of Mickey’s 2012 novel Catch a Falling Star.  So, good luck with the bad poetry.

 

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December 17, 2016 · 4:48 pm

“It’s a Hard-Knock Life… for Us”

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Yes, this is another in a series of reviews from the Uncritical Critic where I gush endlessly and almost mindlessly about movies, TV, books, and other sorts of stories that I love.  And just like other reviews that I have done, writing mainly to myself, this will probably bore you to the point of having to sandpaper  your tush just to stay conscious through it.  But I do, in fact, have a social conscience.  I do care about things moral and ethical.  That’s why I’m not going to talk about this Annie;

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I want to talk about this one;

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I am not sure how any of my white, conservative friends can work up such an angry fizzyblackengrrr about the remake of the musical using black actors as the principles.  I am not saying I don’t see color and I don’t notice the changes in the basic story to make it fit a more different-race-friendly cultural magnetism.  I am saying I love the changes.

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Quvenzhane Wallis is one of those little girls that, if she were actually an orphan, would be adopted in record time.  She sings, dances, and exudes a personal charisma to a degree that is not only perfect for this particular musical, but is not an act.  It is obviously her real, perky, upbeat self.  I would adopt her instantly even though I don’t have the finances, energy, or good health necessary to make that kind of commitment any more.  And the changes made to the songs, setting, and themes of the basic story I think are not only brilliant, but so very appropriate to our times.  The story of an orphan connecting to a lonely, power-hungry billionaire is transformed by the idea of finding the best way to connect the family that you not only want, but desperately need.  The Daddy Warbucks character, played brilliantly by Jamie Foxx, is able to realize his connection to his own lost father as he transforms himself into the father figure that Annie needs.  Songs are added and dialogue is changed in ways to bring out these complex themes of love and need.  It is a very different story from the one found in the Aileen Quinn/Carol Burnett film of the 1980’s.  And it is a story that needs to be told.

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“You are never fully dressed without a smile!” is an important theme for any person of color, or any outsider in our American society today.  The troubles and strife related to race tension, violence, and the American struggle to rid itself of racism are best faced with a kind of confident optimism that this musical was always intended to be a vehicle for.

It is a statement about the basic goodness of human beings.  This version of the musical even redeems the vile Miss Hannigan, leaving her at the end with a change of heart and a Hispanic boyfriend.  So, I really think that anyone who has a problem with this remake of a beloved musical made by Jay-Z, Will and Jada Pinkett Smith ought to examine the real reasons they feel troubled by it.  I think they really ought to let go of all baggage, especially the alligator-skin bags of racism, and just immerse themselves in this wonderful movie full of singy and dancy stuff.

 

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December 15, 2016 · 4:24 pm

Crazy Head-Bashing List-Making

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Sometimes I have to stop and think where ideas for posts come from.  Yes, and that is usually the point at which my head is empty and I am out of ideas.  I spent years teaching the writing process and I advocated many different pre-writing idea-generating strategies.  I should be able to come up with something to write about without resorting to bashing my right temple with a hand-held blunt object.  After all, those ideas come out kinda wobbly and full of strangely-colored stars.  So, let me find a broom in the upstairs broom closet in the empty hallways of my mind and sweep together all the possible ideas I have in one pile to look at, grimace, and compare.

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There is a letter with a Martian stamp on it.  Inside it proposes I hold an aliens-only poetry writing contest and put the worst possible results into a post.  That could be worth a few chuckles, and possible a gazorpingwallow or two.  At least, that’s what the letter suggests.  It is from some Ixcanixian from the spinward edge of the Sagittarius Spiral Arm of the Milky Way.  20160508_113700

 

I have several ongoing cartoon projects.  I could be adding another page to the Hidden Kingdom graphic novel I have been working on for thirty years.  I could also do more action-figure comics to rationalize all the time I spend playing with dolls.  And I like to do novel illustrations to go along with the many bizarre and mentally warped novels I have created.

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Of course we have recently received the kind of political Christmas gift that most of us would like to track Santa down to his lair for and return back inside the reindeer butt that it came out of.  Insulting the new orangutan king is an easy source of insult-based humor that I don’t have to work too hard at or feel too guilty about.  But too much of that is like getting drunk on cough syrup.  You intended to cure the problem, but you have only managed to add new problems and a hangover headache to top it all off.blue-and-mike-in-color

I still have to fix the cracked and leaky swimming pool before next spring, so that should yield some cementing-your-feet-into-the-pool-wall stories later on.  And there are the numerous frustrations of living life with six incurable diseases to write about.  I can probably make the flaking off of all the skin on the back of my neck from psoriasis sound pretty funny if I try hard enough.  The family dog is still producing dog poop at Guiness-Book-of-World-Records rates… and, oh, yeah, I am still a long way from being done telling you about the bad jokes from more than a quarter of a century of classroom cut-ups.

You know, I think the way to deal with the problem is to simply make a list of ideas.  I can throw darts at the list if I still can’s decide.

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December 13, 2016 · 3:56 pm

Stardusters… Canto 25

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Canto Twenty-Five – Inside the Bio-dome

As Davalon, Tanith, and both of the Morrells scurried into the airlock of the Bio-dome, Brekka, Menolly, and George Jetson, already naked, were merely standing around watching them.  There was a lizard girl covered in green and yellow scales, more human-looking than any Telleron, completely naked too, and only about the size of an eight-year-old human.

“Why aren’t you running?” cried Alden Morrell.

“Take off your clothes,” said the lizard girl, “and then you don’t have to worry either.”

“What?  Why?”

Alden had gone all red in the face, a look that Davalon had come to know as embarrassment.

“The guardian machine-man reads anything artificial as signs of a scabby.”  The lizard girl seemed no more embarrassed by her nudity than were the tadpoles.  “It looks for manufactured goods like clothing or weapons to determine a target.  Naked you become part of the flora and fauna that it guards.”

Davalon and Tanith quickly stripped down and the Morrells were forced to follow suit.  When the machine-man came into the chamber, all clothing, skortch rays, monitors, computers, and tracking devices that the tadpole expedition had brought with them lay in a pile in a corner by the door.  The artificial man wandered over to the pile, examined it, picked up a few items, and then put them down again.  Davalon wondered at Alden, all red in the face, hands clamped over his genital area.  Gracie, it seemed, was far more comfortable being nude and did not display the same behaviors.

“When can we get dressed again?” asked Alden immediately after the machine-man left.

“Never,” said the lizard girl.  “I have a number of still-functioning machine-men guarding this place and all the bio-forms in it.   You are only safe as long as you remain completely natural and bear no artificial clothing or gear.”

“We have to be naked as long as we’re here?”  Poor Alden seemed distressed.

“It’s all right, Alden,” said Gracie with a huge grin.  “You haven’t looked this good naked in a number of years.  You need to let go and learn to love your new body.  I certainly think you are handsome!”

Alden grimaced uncomfortably.  Davalon agreed with Gracie.  His foster father’s child-like form was not at all unpleasant to look at.  In fact, he was beautiful to a Telleron tadpole who loved him for all the sacrifices he had made to be here with his foster son of another world.  He had given up life in Iowa.  He had given up his home and all his possessions.  He had given up his former identity as Alden Morrell, Iowa farmer.  And he had even given up his adult body to return to the body he had inhabited as a child so he could be the same age as his wife in her new simuloid body.

“You are Sizzahl?” Davalon asked the little naked lizard girl.

“Yes.  I brought you here.  Hopefully your cart is full of plants, seeds, and spores that I can use to save this world.  I might need samples of your flesh and blood as well.”

“You brought us here to eat us?” squealed Brekka.

“Of course not, stupid frog-girl.  I just mean I might have use for your froggy DNA.”

Davalon noticed how human-like she was.  Sizzahl had no hair.  She had a bony ridge on the centerline of the top of her head, and she was covered in soft-looking hexagonal scales, but otherwise she looked very human.  Her body proportions were the same as an Earther primate.  Her eyes had vertically-slitted pupils, but her face was human-shaped.  Even her pre-pubescent breasts and genitals looked more human than Telleron-like.

“Why would you need our DNA?” asked Tanith.

“Haven’t you noticed?  The biosphere of this planet is dying.  The stupid politicians, warriors, and industrialists killed it by over-using and abusing all of its natural resources.  And besides, boneheads like Senator Tedhkruhz poisoned what was left to bring his enemies down without realizing he would kill himself too.”

“How will you do that kind of restorative science without artificial devices?” asked George Jetson.

“There is plenty of tech built into this place that we can use without ever having to carry any of it with us and reveal ourselves to the machine-men.”

“How does that protect us from the scabbies?” Davalon asked.

“The scabbies are like the creatures in your Earther zombie movies.  They carry whatever they were wearing or carrying in life.  They don’t have enough brains left to get naked and put down their weapons.  The few that wander in here naked are fairly easy for me to kill by myself.  I assume that will be even easier now that you are all here to help me.”

“Who said we were willing to help you?” asked George Jetson.

“Will you not help me?” asked Sizzahl.  Her eyes, though snake-like, seemed almost to beg.  All tadpole eyes turned toward Davalon.

“I don’t see any reason not to,” Davalon said.

*****

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December 10, 2016 · 4:25 pm

Really Bad Jokes

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If you have the bad habit of reading this particular blog more than once, then you are probably aware that I used to be a public school teacher.  Even worse, I used to be a middle school English teacher.  Aagh!  Seventh graders!  It explains a lot about how life has warped my intelligence, personality, and world view.  It also explains somewhat where I found such a fountain-like source for some of the worst jokes you ever heard.

Now, as to the question of why I have chosen in my retirement early-onset senility to become a humor-blogger… well, that is simply not something I can answer in one post… or even a thousand.  But kids are the source of my goofball clown-brain joking around.

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Kid-humor, you see, is stunted and warped in weird ways by the time period you are talking about.  The eighties, nineties, two thousands, and the tens are all very different.  And those are the various sets of students that I attempted to learn moose bowling from by teaching them English.

Still, there are certain universal constants.

Potty humor really kills.  If you want to make a thirteen-year-old crack up with laughter, roll around on the floor, and maybe wet his or her pants, then you only need to work the “poop” word, or the “nickname for Richard” word, or the “Biblical word for donkey” word into the conversation.  Of course the actual words, even though we all know what they actually are, are magical words.  If you actually say them to kids in school as their teacher, those words can actually make you magically and permanently disappear from the front of the classroom.  All kids are big fans of George Carlin and his seven words, even though most of them have never heard of him.

And violent humor is popular with kids from all decades.  The most common punch line in the boys’ bathroom is, “… and then he kicked him in the Biblical word for donkey!” followed closely in second place by, “… and then she kicked him in the Biblical word for donkey!”  I am told (for I don’t actually go in such scary places myself) that in the girls’ bathroom the most popular punch line is, “…so I kicked him right in the soccer balls, and he deserved it!”   Why girls are apparently obsessed with soccer, I don’t know… or particularly care.sweet-thing

So my education in humor began with bad-word jokes, slapstick humor, put-downs, and rude noises coming from unfortunate places.  Humor in the classroom is actually a metaphorical mine field laced with tiger traps, dead-falls that end with an anvil hitting you on the head, or being challenged to a life-or-death game of moose bowling.  (Don’t know what moose bowling is?  Moose bowling is a very difficult game that, in order to knock down all the pins and win, you have to learn to roll a moose down the alley.)  Sounds like I spend too much time watching cartoons and playing video games, doesn’t it?  Well, there’s more.  And it gets worse from here.  But I will spare you that until the next time I am foolish enough to try making excuses for my really bad jokes.

 

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Filed under autobiography, humor, irony, kids, satire, strange and wonderful ideas about life, teaching, word games, wordplay, writing humor

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December 7, 2016 · 4:24 pm

Mickey’s Red-State Blues

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I often struggle with depression.  Every member of my family has battled it at some point.  And it is a dangerous disease.  It can kill you.  I don’t like spending quaking, fearful hours in the emergency room.  I have had to do exactly that three times already.  And now Trump has attacked my most cherished issue… public schools.  I gave my life to them for 31 years.  There is not enough chocolate in the house.

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It is ironic.  I was already attempting to commit suicide by not taking my daily medication any more because of high drug prices that health insurance does not help with.  But that suicide attempt has actually failed already.  After two years of not taking blood pressure medication, a thing the doctor feared would kill me, I am now detoxified and actually feeling quite a lot better.  My blood pressure has not been high since 2001.

So, if I am compelled to end it all over the rise of Education Czar Betsy DeVos, I will have to use some of that creative problem-solving that we have not really been allowed to teach since the George W. Bush administration.  Something involving massive amounts of sugar water and thousands of man-eating butterflies would be appropriate, I think.

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If I had to teach this class, I would be tempted to flunk the orange-skinned kid in the middle just on principle, but that would be discriminating against a rich guy, which is against everything this new administration stands for.

Privatizing schools, another way of saying the “school choice” thing that Republicans love to promote, will mean you get exactly what you pay for in education.  Unfortunately, that means you have to be rich to get proper schooling.  Since governmental entities will be shedding the burdens of paying for schools, the good schools will only be able to pay for their resources by charging high tuition and fees, something that limited school vouchers will never be able to fund.  A majority of kids whose families cannot afford anything more than the vouchers will pay for will end up in underfunded discipline mills that will be far worse than the public schools we have now.  Those schools will be set up to prepare students for their future employment making license plates in State prisons even more so than public schools are now.

My Republican friends in Texas (and my birth State of Iowa too, for that matter) like to tell me that, “You can’t solve education’s problems by throwing money at them.”  But I would like to know what studies they base that conclusion on.  When in American history have we thrown money at schools?  Other nations that get better education results do spend more, especially on paying teachers better.  And they are not forced to teach Creationism in Science class to get those funds.

So, managing depression has not been easy since the recent election.  Recount efforts and rumors that the Electoral College may do what they were designed for and vote for the candidate that actually won the popular vote are just pipe dreams, and won’t actually amount to anything.  Betsy DeVos will be the next Secretary of Education.  Maybe I will try bucket-loads of stinky, sharp cheddar cheese and a lighter for setting off explosive cheese farts.  It would be a painful way to go, but the results might also be colorfully amazing.

P.S. – I would never actually commit suicide, and as someone who has spent time in the ER fretting for someone else, I would never really advocate that.  But I am certainly not above using it as a bit of hyperbole to discuss important issues that I really do see as life-or-death.

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Filed under angry rant, Depression, feeling sorry for myself, humor, politics, red States, teaching

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