Tag Archives: humor

January 25, 2016 · 4:47 pm

Chicken Soup Time (a twelve-line poem of recovery)

There comes a time when life really stinks,

A day when the life force grows green-brown and sinks,

Yes, I am ill and my every breath kinks,

And I cough and I burp and the end of the nose pinks,

So, I gather together under the covers,

The rotten parts of me over which the fly hovers,

And cook them in heat of the dreams of old lovers,

And fantasy dreams, whose richness discovers…

The stories that make the sum of my life,

And memories of people who’ve hurt me with strife,

And good things and great things and details all mixed,

And stew while I’m sleeping til things are all fixed.

Blue birdsxxx

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January 24, 2016 · 9:39 pm

What You Should Know About Filipino Families

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Not everyone pictured in this post is actually a family member by marriage, but my wife has a big family and everyone who is even remotely related to a Filipino family… or even imagines that they are… is family.

I am about as much of a white-guy WASP-type as you can find in Middle America, having grown up in Iowa and teaching for my entire career in Texas.  But I know a thing or two… or three about other cultures.   I taught in South Texas for 23 years with students who were over 85% Spanish-speaking.  And then, in 1995, I married into the Pinoy culture of the Philippine Islands.

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Me and my Filipino-American familia… circa 2003.

There are some things I have learned about this other culture that you should probably be aware of.

#1.  The United States is being invaded and colonized by the Philippines.  They are coming here in waves, getting jobs in education and medicine that not enough of home-grown America are willing to take up.  My wife came here with a placement company as a teacher.  Three of her group of Filipino teachers landed in our little Cotulla school district.  When she got here, she was met by her cousin and her cousin’s family.  There was a Filipina woman and her young son in the Valley that also took an interest in helping her get settled in Texas.  All of these people… and all of their friends and relatives are still a part of our lives.  My wife’s sister and her family lived in California where dozens of cousins also lived.  They and my wife’s parents have since moved to Texas, along with two other sisters and their families.  You get the idea.  They are taking over.

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

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#2. As you can see, Filipinos love to take pictures.  Above is a picture from class where my niece goes to school back in Floridablanca in the Philippines.  People complain about pictures of food on Facebook.  My Filipino family puts the Food Network to shame.  Sometimes I can’t tell if they are eating another exotic Filipino dish with rice and meat or they’ve been putting firecrackers into fish and exploding them.  And the fish eyes are a delicacy.  Eeuw! My sisters in Iowa won’t even let me talk about the food at Filipino gatherings.  I have to be extremely careful of what I share on Facebook.

1013267_10201161984785458_2113452340_n #3.  To know about Filipino culture, you have to understand what Jollibee is all about.  Jollibee is the Filipino MacDonald’s.  Of course, it is cheaper… and better tasting.  There are a  few of them around the country here.  California has more than Texas.  They are like a giant Filipino magnet.  You go there to find the Filipino community in any American city.  But other people love the food too.  You have to sort the Filipinos from the Hispanics and white folks that are not too proud to eat cheap and delicious.

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Well, those are only about three things that you should probably know about Filipinos and Pinoy culture.  I haven’t even gotten into the thing about Matrilineal social orders or the evils of Karaoke addiction… but enough is enough for one day.  I have no idea how much trouble I am now in for revealing cultural secrets.  It could be a long cold night in the dog house.

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January 23, 2016 · 8:53 pm

Dumb Luck

Dumb Luck

Sometimes life is just a flip of the coin.  Heads for the good things.  Tails for the bad.  But because of the nature of random chance, even though the opportunities for good luck or bad luck are equal, tails twenty-seven times in a row can happen.  Before my book is able to be published, my publisher is on the brink of shutting down.  Their own roll of the dice has come up snake-eyes a few too many times.  I and the other authors at PDMI are trying to rally around each other and do what we can to help.  But the business is, for the moment, on hold.  Good things can happen too, though.  My novel, Magical Miss Morgan, is still in the running for the Rossetti Award from Chanticleer Book Reviews.  That might turn out to be a real good heads up and help me with my publication goals.  My blogging is going well.  For some reason I seem to be scoring 60+ views on a single day at least one day a week for the last six weeks.  I am now averaging 30 views a day instead of the old rate of 20.  My blogging is being read by more actual readers than ever before.  That’s a good thing, but also the result of dumb luck.  There is no formula for success making it happen.  I have to keep trying and trust that sometimes things will accidentally happen in my favor.  I admit to being a little tired of things that accidentally cause me harm.  Do I believe that God has a plan, and things work out the way they should?  Of course I do.  But I am not vain enough to think that I am important enough to the over-all plan to effect even a single flip of the coin of fate.

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January 22, 2016 · 4:19 pm

Top This!

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“Dad?” asked the Princess, “I heard a funny word in school today.  What does Fuddy-Duddy mean?”

“Oh, that’s a good word,” I said.  “It means an old fogey… a stick-in-the-mud.”

“A what?”

“A fussy old guy who likes to have everything his way.  Like, if you accuse your father of being one… which you often do… he’s a fuddy-duddy daddy.”

“Ooh!  I get it!” said Henry, chiming in.  “And if your father is evil, then he’s a fuddy-duddy baddie daddy!”

“Yes,” I said, “and if it makes him sad to be evil, he’s a fuddy-duddy saddie baddie daddy!”

“If you are not sure he’s really your father,” said the Princess adding a one-up, “he’s a fuddy-duddy saddie baddie maybe daddy!”

“Yeah!” said Henry.  “And if you suspect he may have fallen into a time machine and been turned back into an infant, he’s a fuddy-duddy saddie baddie maybe baby daddy!”

“Now that he’s a baby again he will surely want to watch his favorite TV show again,” I said with a tear of nostalgia in my eye, “he’ll be a fuddy-duddy saddie baddie maybe baby Howdy Doody daddy!”

“What’s Howdy Doody, Daddy?” asked the Princess.

“No,” said Henry, “now you’ve spoiled it.  It just ain’t funny any more.”

“Yes it is!  He’s become a funny bunny fuddy-duddy hoo-dad doo-dad saddie baddie maybe rabies hoo-dah doo-dah…”

“Just stop,” said Henry.  “You always carry things too far.”

“Right you are!” I said.  “See this grin?  It means I win!”

“AW, Daaad!” they both said at the same time.

 

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January 21, 2016 · 4:38 pm

How to Be Offended by Practically Everything

I have recently been told that I am too easily offended.  In fact, I have been repeatedly told that.  Apparently I overreact to things that should not upset me or should not be taken personally.   Apparently my humor is too flippant and insensitive.  I am told that I should not have an issue with people using the Confederate Flag on Facebook posts, even when they are insisting that their rights are being violated if they can’t fly that flag next to the U.S. Flag on Veterans’ Day… even though they are from Iowa and their ancestors fought and died for the Union.  I am told that I should not be upset that Donald Trump wants to deport almost all of my former ESL students because he thinks they are rapists and drug dealers.  He hasn’t met them.  And he even admitted that he “assumed some are good people”.  But he is going to protect us by eliminating all foreigners from our society.  No more of this “anchor baby” stuff with children being born here only so that their parents can stay.  People don’t deserve to live here if their ancestors weren’t born here.  And I shouldn’t let my foolish attachment to these interlopers, based on years worth of getting to know them so I could do my job as a teacher properly, color my response to the perceptions and pronouncements of “real Americans”.

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The Daily Edge’s photo.

I recently shared this movie poster on Facebook because I am disgusted and offended by the immigration policies of both of these “real Americans”.  I thought it was clever, and it made me chuckle, even though I am quite well aware that Jim Carrey might be livid about having his face replaced by Sarah Palin’s.  She does, after all say funnier and more nonsensical things than he does.

But I got blow-back.  An Iowegian Facebook friend, whom I remember as a sweet-natured little six-year-old that I held on my lap in the 1970’s, told me, “Just wait, you will be sorry” in the comments.  Now, you should probably know that Tommy grew up to be an illiterate jack of all trades who loves guns and hunting and is planning to vote for Donald Trump because he passionately hates the “Mexicans” that moved into Iowa to do the farm work that practically no one else is doing any more.  He is not above acting out his belief in Trump with a gun in his hands.  Will he hurt me over a Facebook post?  Probably not.  He’s not a genius, but he still remembers me fondly as the older boy that befriended him when he lived with his grandma in the house on the other side of our back yard.  I played card games and monopoly with him and his brothers, and often let him win.  But apparently, hatred of Mexicans and other “job-takers” Trumps hearts in the card game of life.

So I am left wondering if the people telling me that I am too easily offended aren’t actually the ones getting offended for the wrong reasons.

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I try to listen whenever Willy Wonka pops up on Facebook to smugly tell me how to live my life.  He is right when he says that you have to honestly consider the viewpoint of others and not be so completely convinced of the rightness and righteousness of your own point of view.

But those getting mad at me for being offended are offending me by saying and posting and doing hate-filled things that don’t treat others as people… just because their skin color and country of origin is slightly different than our own.  They post insults aimed at “welfare queens” and suggest those people deserve what they get out of life because they are lazy and take advantage of government programs.  Never mind that most of the suffering and poverty in this country is endured by the growing number of people with minimum-wage jobs.  And those people are always working hard when I see them at work.  Some of the people that offend me by suggesting we shouldn’t be generous to others are people that I know have no more wealth to draw upon than the people they are criticizing, and take some of the same assistance programs they are complaining about.  Maybe it is actually to everyone’s benefit to be offended by the kind of hurtful things and ideas that go around this country prompted by Republican Presidential candidates and Fox News.  Maybe I am not being offended enough?

We will have to wait and see.  I’m sure that sooner or later Willy Wonka will pop up on Facebook with the answer.  I do love that movie, and that is probably why his internet meme ideas always sway me.  (It is possible that this essay may not be exhibiting Mr. Spock levels of logic, but Mickey can only think like a Mickey always thinks.)

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January 20, 2016 · 4:44 pm

RumikoTakahashi

This is an art exercise, making a drawing imitating the manga style of Rumiko Takahashi, the greatest female comics artist of all time.
This is a second shameless plagiarism and imitation of Rumiko Takahashi by Mickey the Manga Wannabee.

Yesterday I used a Paffooney I had stolen to illustrate my gymnasium adventures, and in the caption I gave credit to the wonderful comic artist I shamelessly copied it from.  The second imitation Takahashi that I did yesterday is now displayed next to it above.  I am now compelled to explain about my goofy, sideways obsession with Anime and Manga, the cartoons from Japan.  I love the art style.  I have since I fell in love with Astroboy Anime as a child in Iowa.  Rumiko Takahashi is almost exactly one year younger than me.  As a cartoonist she is light years more successful than me.  She has been crafting pen and ink masterpieces of goofy story-telling longer than I have been a teacher.

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Her artwork is a primary reason I have been so overly-enamored of the Japanese Manga-cartoon style.  I love the big eyes, the child-like features of even adult characters, the weird poses and still-weirder comic art conventions of this culture from practically a different planet.  She has created comic series that are immensely popular in Japan, and have even put down sturdy roots in this country, especially with young adults since the 80’s.  She is the world’s number one best-selling female comics artist.

Just as we Westerners have to accept numerous ridiculous things to appreciate the stories told in American comics (for instance, brawny heroes running around in tights with their underwear on the outside of their pants, nearly naked ladies with super powers diving into battle next to men encased in armored suits, and talking animals), the Manga-minded must also practice a bizarre form of the willing suspension of disbelief.  In Ranma 1/2, the main character is a boy marshal artist who turns into a girl when splashed with cold water.  Much of the romantic comedy of that work revolves around boys and old men finding themselves in the bath house next to naked young girls.  For some reason that sort of naked surprise causes the boys to spout fountain-like nosebleeds.  In Inu-Yasha the whole thing is about fighting demons with swords.  Inu-Yasha himself is part demon.  Apparently part-demon is a good thing to be.  Japanese villains are spectacularly susceptible to fits of crying rage and tantrums.  And everybody looks more like American white people than orientals.  Oh, and there are talking animals.

Rumiko is a master of pen and ink.  Here is a sample of of her black and white work.

And she does color well too.

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The little people are a special style of Manga character called a Chibi, and all regular Manga characters can turn into one at any moment.

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And, of course, to read actual Manga you have to master reading backwards.  Americans read left to right.  The Japanese read right to left.  You have to open a Japanese book in a manner that seems both backwards and upside down.

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This illustration shows how American publishers flip Japanese comics to make them more accessible to American audiences.

So now, by uncovering the fact that I am addicted to and seriously affected by Japanese cartoons, you have one more bit of evidence to present to a jury in case you decide Mickey needs to be locked up and medicated for a while.  Japanese comics are a world of great beauty, but also a world unto themselves.  It is an acquired taste that has to be considered carefully.  And of all the many marvelous Manga makers, Rumiko Takahashi is the one I love the best.

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January 19, 2016 · 3:39 pm

Exercise For Life

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This is an art exercise, making a drawing imitating the manga style of Rumiko Takahashi, the greatest female comics artist of all time.

Yes, I need to exercise.  I have six incurable diseases and I am a cancer survivor since 1983.  But exercise may soon kill me deader than the proverbial door nail.  Does that make sense?  Can you be any more dead than a thing that was never alive?  I think you can.  It comes when death is achieved through extreme pain and suffering.

If you hadn’t figured it out already, my family joined a gym on a trial-membership basis.  But, of course, we can’t afford a personal trainer, so the only way was to get me in and exercising without consulting the professionals about my health challenges.  Diabetes and arthritis and COPD?  They would instantly be worrying about sudden death on the gym floor and the lovely attendant lawsuits that would probably go with that.  And my wife probably will try to sue them when the exercise machines kill me.  She is a smart woman when it comes to making money out of the cracks in the system.

The gym has personal trainers and professionals to deal with problems like mine, and they were around and visible while I was there exercising for the first time.  Signs on all the machines admonish the user to take a break if they become light-headed or feel faint.  They are at least aware that I might be killing myself.  But while I did the twenty-five-minute trudge on the treadmill all tomato-faced and gasping for breath, no one bothered to even check on me to make sure I wasn’t idiot enough to torture myself to death on the cruel march-to-oblivion machines that are all lined up there in neat little rows facing television sets blaring Fox News Channel.  You might know that the last voice I will ever hear is Bill O’Reilly declaring what an idiot-communist-threat-to-democracy Bernie Sanders is.  What a way to die!

But my wife is determined to exercise me enough to make me healthy and more like Dwayne “the Rock” Johnson than it is possible for me to be.  Or kill me.  I think she might be looking forward to that too.  She told me when we went in that we only had to stay as long as I wanted to.  But that was a lie.  The gym has a pool.  She and the Princess made a bee-line there and I didn’t see them again until closing time.  To be fair, they had a free class to attend with pool exercises led by a trainer.  But still, as I suffered and dried myself out on the walkways of death, they were splashing happily.  In a pool!  In winter!  …But it was indoors.

So, I didn’t die.  And I have done this sort of thing before enough to know how far I can push myself on arthritic knees with impaired lungs.  I didn’t really come out of there with any more aches and pains than I went in with.  And, though I really hate to admit it, the day after leaves me feeling somewhat… better.

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January 18, 2016 · 3:37 pm

On the Highway (a quick poem about going faster)

The Road Home

I painted this oil painting looking West on Highway 3. My home town in Iowa is just beyond the next hill.

 

On The Highway

Leave dirt roads behind…

On the highway you go faster.

Pavement gives you ease to speed.

In fact, why use that two-lane road?

The Interstate is faster.

Limited access off and on…

The legal limit goes up to 70…

Or even 75…

85 with no cops around.

Straight over the horizon…

Into the mist-blue distance…

You are not really going anywhere…

But you will get there faster!

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January 16, 2016 · 5:35 pm

Game Day

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Yes, I am an Arizona Cardinals fan.  I have been rooting for the Cardinals since the days of Jim Hart, Mel Gray, Otis Anderson, Terry Metcalf, and Jackie Smith.  My team has ALWAYS been the underdog.  They won the NFL Championship as the Chicago Cardinals before I was born.  They never won it all in all the time they were in St. Louis.  In 2008 they played in the Superbowl and led late in the 4th quarter.  The Steelers beat them in last second heroic fashion.  I still hope for wins and glory.  Tonight they are actually favored to beat the Green Bay Packers.  That has always been the kiss of death for my team.  When they are favored, they lose.  But you never know.  This could be the year I’ve waited so long for.

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January 14, 2016 · 4:34 pm

Werewolf Inspirations

Having lived through a horror story recently, I now must work more on mine.  I have a werewolf story that I have been writing since the 1970’s.  I have been calling it The Baby Werewolf for forty-two years.  And that may have to change.  It is a story of a boy with hypertrichosis (werewolf excessive hair disease, a genetic disorder) and the family that is ashamed of him and tries to hide him forever in the attic.  Of course, if you know anything about me, you probably realize I am going to clown it up one side and down the other, because writing serious stuff is not my style… at least not without a “hefty helping of our hospitality”.  I am doing serious research now, which translated from ManicMickian means, “I am watching old werewolf movies on YouTube.”

 

I know you don’t believe I can pull off a YA novel that is a comedy about murder, wolves, and lycanthropes, with naked girls thrown in for good measure.  But watch me.  I am nothing if not willing to do practically anything to be creative.

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The Baby Werewolf

A Gothic Novel by Michael Beyer

 

 

 

Opus One – Of Wolves and Men

Canto One : “Homo Homini Lupus”

 

      Dad doesn’t like it when I watch horror movies.  He says they will give me nightmares.  They will keep me from getting a good night’s sleep.  And a farm kid needs his sleep because he has to get up early in the morning to check on the pigs, give them feed, and milk the cows.  We only have five cows.  Just enough to give the Niland family the milk it needs.  We can process it ourselves because we once had a lot of milk cows.  Not so much anymore.  Things are changing in the 1970’s.  But there I was that night watching The Wolfman on Grave’s End Manor the horror movie show that comes on CBS every week on Saturday… midnight.

I don’t always do exactly what Dad says.  Fathers don’t really know everything.  Well, not… everything, everything.  So, I have this story now to tell you, and it’s a… well, horror story.  It’s about werewolves.  Little ones.  And naked girls.  And me being almost fourteen already, I have to get this story told while I can still remember every little detail.  I just won’t show it to Dad.  And if they make it into a movie, I will tell him not to go.

I was all by myself that night.  The farmhouse was dark.  Mom and Dad had taken my little brother Nathaniel to Grandma’s house and they were in Rochester, Minnesota for some medical thing.  I was supposed to look after the farm and the pigs and the cows.  Our big thirty-six-inch TV was capable of doing full color, but the horror movie on Saturday nights was almost always a black and white movie anyway.  I was almost naked while watching it.  I only had on my Fruit of the Looms and an old silver crucifix on a chain around my neck.  It was something Great Aunt Hannah Foxworth had given Mom when she died.  Hey, it was a werewolf movie after all.

Lon Chaney Jr. was the star of the movie, and he looked more like old Elmer Dawes from Norwall, Iowa than your usual movie star.  But he was great in monster movies.

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