Tag Archives: paffooney

Doodle-Bop!

Sometimes the only thing you really want out of life is just to get by. You get tired of always having to climb the danged highest mountain.  You get tired of trying to swim the danged deepest sea.

16750_102844509741181_100000468961606_71393_6278100_nSometimes all you want to do is doodle-bop!…  To draw in pen and ink and post your derfiest doofenwacky doodles so you can just make your way through another danged day.

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You aim a lot for different, and undeniably original… because no one thinks like you… certainly no one who is real and has a real brain.  You are gifted with an “other-ness”, a sing-songy simpering something that makes you want to doodle and do what no man has done before.  (Does that sentence exist anywhere else in all of literature?  Even if there is some alternate dimension with infinite monkeys typing on infinite typewriters?  What’s a typewriter, you say?  Danged millennials!)

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I really can’t help it, you know.  I was a middle school teacher for 24 years.  That sort of thing has mental health consequences.  And if you wring the sponges in your stupid old brain hard enough and long enough… doodle-bop! comes out.

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Turtle boy’s magic iron of irony!!!

And you have to wonder why some of the stuff that is in your stupid old head is even in there.  Why is it that sometimes the words “Argyle socks are filled with rocks” are drifting through the vast empty spaces in the logic centers of your brain?  There has to be a reason for everything, doesn’t there?

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I do believe I have made myself chuckle at least a dozen chuck-tacular times in the chuck-a-tational crafting of this cheddar-cheesy post.  But it only really counts if I can make you girlishly giggle or guy-like guffaw with my word-munching and cartoony paffoonies.

Wild Ride

The terror-filled cartoon car chase that is life as usual.

You may have noticed that everything is black and white, even though it doesn’t have to be.  Good versus evil, hot versus cold, everything can be divided up simplistically… but the really profound part of simplicity is vibrating reverberations of complexity that lie just underneath.  Words have meaning, even though they are just a bunch of crooked squiggles marked on a page.  (Yes, I know… “or typed on a computer screen”.  Danged millennials!)

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And so, this is my doodle-bop!  Probably not the doodliest or the boppiest doodle-bop! I could have bopped… but there it is.  I have made it through another sorta creative post without losing my mind…  Honest!  I did not lose it.  It is merely temporarily misplaced for a moment.  It will be back in its proper place tomorrow… probably.

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Filed under blog posting, cartoony Paffooney, goofy thoughts, humor, imagination, irony, mental health, metaphor, Paffooney cartoony, pen and ink, pen and ink paffoonies, strange and wonderful ideas about life, wordplay

Spotted Trains

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I have had a practically life-long fascination with trains.  Where did that come from?  It came from a Methodist minister who once upon a time saved my life.

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Reverend Louis Aiken (in the cowboy hat) was a lover of HO model trains, as well as country music… and, of course, God.

My best friend growing up was a PK, a preacher’s kid.  And as we hung out and played games and got into imaginatively horrible trouble, we invariably wound up in the basement of the parsonage where his father kept his HO train layout.   I learned lessons of life in that basement in more than one way.  I have to explain all of that somewhere down line.  But for now, I have to limit the topic to what I learned about trains.  They are a link to our past.  They are everywhere. And they do far more for us than merely make us cuss while sitting and endlessly waiting at the railroad crossing.

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When visiting Dows, we absolutely had to stop and take pictures at the train station.

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This is, by my best guess, an SD40 locomotive parked at the restored train station in Dows, Iowa.

Spotting trains to take pictures of, gawk at, and totally make cow-eyes over has become a way of life to me.  When visiting Iowa, especially Mason City, Iowa, we always have to stop at the engine on display in East Park.

When I was a kid, this old iron horse was not fenced in to protect it from kids, weather, and other destructive forces.  Now, however, it is fully restored and given its own roof.  This is a 2-8-2 steam engine with two little wheels in front, eight big wheels in the middle, and two little wheels at the back (not counting wheels on the coal tender).  I have ridden on trains pulled by such a behemoth.  I love to watch the monkey gears grind on the sides of the wheels forcing steam power into the surge down the tracks.  And I can’t help being a total train nut.  Of course I don’t deny being more than one kind of nut.  But being a mixed nut is another post for another day.

 

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Filed under autobiography, humor, photo paffoonies, Trains

Islands of Identity

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Who am I?

Why do I do the things that I do?

No man is an island.  John Donne the English poet stated that.  And Ernest Hemingway quoted it… and wove it into his stories as a major theme… and proceeded to try to disprove it.  We need other people.  I married an island girl from the island of Luzon in the Philippines.  She may have actually needed me too, though she will never admit it.

Gilligans Island

When I was a young junior high school teacher in the early eighties, they called me Mr. Gilligan.  My classroom was known as Gilligan’s Island.  This came about because a goofball student in the very first class on the very first day said, “You look like Gilligan’s Island!”  By which he meant I reminded him of Bob Denver, the actor that played Gilligan.  But as he said it, he was actually accusing me of being an island.  And no man is an island.  Thank you, Fabian, you were sorta dumb, but I loved you for it.

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You see, being Gilligan on Gilligan’s Island was not a bad thing to be.  It was who I was as a teacher.  Nerdy, awkward, telling stories about when I was young, and my doofy friends like Skinny Mulligan.  Being a teacher gave me an identity.  And Gilligan was stranded on the Island with two beautiful single women, Mary Ann and Ginger.  Not a bad thing to be.  And I loved teaching and telling stories to kids who would later be the doofy students in new stories.

But we go through life searching for who we are and why we are here.  Now that I am retired, and no longer a teacher… who am I now?  We never really find the answer.  Answers change over time.  And so do I.

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Filed under artwork, being alone, feeling sorry for myself, finding love, humor, insight, Paffooney, strange and wonderful ideas about life

What Do Martians Look Like?

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As Catch a Falling Star was a science-fictiony sort of comedy, one of the questions that I have pursued in internet research is the one I have presented here in the title of this picture-and-Paffooney-filled post.  Seriously, the image search of Google’s answer to that question is enough to make you snort milk through the old nostrils as you sort through them while stupidly drinking a glass of milk.  The milky nose-snorts are the reason I have not sited picture sources on this post.  Cleaning the computer screen took too long.  I have merely randomly snatched and pirated pictures.  The only picture of a Martian presented here created by me are these two;

I admit to being surprised by my actual research into the whole question of whether or not we have ever been visited by intelligent life from the stars beyond the sky.  While I have not found proof that aliens exist, I have discovered there is actual proof that the government, and NASA in particular, have covered something up.  And it goes beyond Area 51 defense research.  But now that I have got the attention of the NSA and the Men in Black, this post is only filled with a collage of the unreal, made-up, and mostly silly.

Malevolent Martians;

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Martians Who Make the Mistake of Liking Us;

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Inexplicably Goofy Martians;

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Probably the only REAL Martians… from the future;

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Filed under aliens, cartoons, collage, comic book heroes, foolishness, humor, illustrations, science fiction

Nerds and Dragons

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I have been a D&D nerd since the early 1980’s.  I have played the game with  brothers and sisters, kids I taught from middle school and high school, and my own three kids.  It was a chance to be a story-teller as the game master, the plotter of plots, the maker of tales.  It gave me a focus for things to draw and books to buy.  Then, I got old, and my kids grew up and didn’t have time to play any more.  So, I end up a sad old nerd with a vast collection of game books and D&D drawings.  So what do I do?  I use them for posts on my blog, naturally.

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Filed under Dungeons and Dragons, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney

Aunty Entropy Moves In

Mother Nature’s sister is one of those rich relatives you don’t really like, but have to endure.  She tends to take charge of everything and ruin all your plans.  Yes, we do not throw a party when Aunt Entropy comes to visit.  Well, at least not the happy kind of party where everybody has fun.  Aunt Entropy has come to stay for a while and take things apart.

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One thing Aunt Entropy likes about Texas is its utter dedication to fracking and oil money.    High profit motives have continued to force oil companies to pump toxic liquids into the underground to break apart shale and push out the oil.  We have fracking to thank for lower gas prices and Fox News talking points about no longer being dependent on evil ookie-icky foreign oil.  We also have it to thank for the current condition of the foundation of my little house.  Alternating years of flooding and drought have expanded and contracted the small hill the house sits on so much that the front end of the house has all but cracked off.  The frequent Dallas area earthquakes have no doubt helped this process.  Auntie Entropy clucks her tongue at it.  “Insurance doesn’t have to pay for this because you should have invested in foundation repair long ago.  It isn’t earthquake damage, it is neglect!”  Of course, my healthcare costs over the last decade have completely prevented any notion of paying out for foundation repair.  No one would loan a deadbeat former teacher money for household repairs just because he is old and broke and decrepit.  Lovely caring woman, that Aunt Entropy.

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The fracking related sinkhole under Wink, Texas… those lines around it are roads and highways.

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The Grandbury, Texas parking lot sinkhole which formed after heavy rain and a long history of fracking.

Aunt Entropy is, after all the personification of the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics in the science of physics.  To put it simply, Entropy is a process by which matter and energy progress from a beginning state all the way to a final state.  In the case of our universe, the process goes from the Big Bang of creation to the final star winking out at the end of the universe as we now know it.  Entropy means the progress we are making towards the ultimate ends of death and decay.  Every action we take leads to a consequence and a further action until we are dead.  Not just me.   Not even just you and me.  But all of us, everywhere in the universe.  This is why the little things where our lives break down make Auntie Entropy smile when nothing else will.

Here are some things that make Auntie Entropy smile;

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The Orange King with golden crown and tiny hands may be our next president.

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The hatred and self-aggrandizement that he campaigns on have taken root in the fertile soil of fear and hatred that Fox News and conservative leaders have tilled and toiled over for so long.  They are beginning to bud with flowers… if you can call weeds flowers.  And they are bound to produce poisonous fruits.

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Mickey’s car is breaking down again because of heat.  After paying over a thousand dollars to get pot-hole damage to the front tire and rim repaired, the coolant pump gave out and had to be replaced.  Now the overheating warning light comes on daily and we are forecast to have dangerous levels of heat in Texas weather for the next few days.  I am going to have to decide whether to spring for more car repair, or go see the doctor about the pain in my extremities.  I won’t be able to afford both.  Oh, my aching bank account!

My wife is overseas in the Philippines spending a month with her family after the death of her father.  But she left her green card here.  I had to express mail it to her for a large amount of postage cost and risk losing it along the way in the mail.  She might never be able to return to this country.  Well, I do see that as a bad thing, after all.

So while Aunt Entropy is visiting… or rather living here permanently, and feeding us her bad-luck salad made with equal parts misery, misfortune, and mayonnaise, we must learn to endure her wicked sense of humor and micro-managing ways.

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Filed under angry rant, commentary, feeling sorry for myself, humor, Paffooney, pessimism, self pity

Follow-Ups

Unfinished Stag

Remember this picture that I said was unfinished?  It was supposed to be a picture called The Stag in Snow.  But I was always reluctant to dab the snowflakes on over top of the picture I basically felt was good the way it was.  So, I have experimented with art editing programs to the point of putting snow flakes into the picture without risking spoiling the original with blobs of white paint.

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I successfully added snowflakes to the blue background.  I couldn’t help but feel like it is a starry night in the background rather than snowfall.  And so I saved this product separately before continuing to experiment.

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The final product faithfully carried out my original plan.  And it does look like a rather mechanical snowfall.  But I don’t like it as much as I like the starry background step.  It makes me truly glad that I did not put white paint on the original.  I would be happy to have your opinion in the comments.  Of course that is also a tricky way to make you reveal whether you are actually reading the words of this post or just looking at the pictures.

There is a link above to a book of essays that takes some pains to describe life as a writer, artist, and all-around far-too-creative idiot.

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Filed under art editing, artwork, humor, illustrations, oil painting, old art, Paffooney

Imaginary People

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It pretty much goes without saying that, since I am an author of fiction, determined to be a storyteller, I spend most of my time talking to people who exist only inside my goofy old head.  Sure, most of the imaginary people I create to keep me company are at least loosely based on real people that I either once knew, or still know.  You can tell that about Millis, the rabbit-man, pictured here on the right, can’t you?  Sure.  I had a New Zealand White pet rabbit that I raised as a 4-H project.  His name was Ember-eyes… because, well, yeah… red eyes.  It just happens that my goofy old memory transformed him into an evolution-enhanced science experiment in my unpublished novel, The Bicycle-Wheel Genius.  But he was a real person once… ’cause rabbits are people too, right?

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Anita Jones, a character from my unpublished novel, Superchicken, is based on a real person too.  I admit, there was a girl in my class from grades K through 6 that I secretly adored and would’ve done anything to be near, though every significant event I remember from my life that involved an encounter with her, involved red-faced embarrassment for me.  That’s why I remember her as having auburn-colored hair.  Charley Brown’s Little Red-Haired Girl… duh!  I would’ve died sooner than tell her how I really felt, even now, but by making her into one of a multitude of imaginary people who inhabit my life, I can be so close to her that sometimes I am actually inside her mind.  There’s a sort of creepy voyeurism-squared sort of thing.

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Dorin Dobbs, the main human character of my published novel, Catch a Falling Star, is an imaginary character based mostly on my eldest son, though, in fact, I started writing that novel five years before he was born.  Like most of the imaginary people in my life, I talk to Dorin repeatedly even when the real Dorin is half a world away in the Marine Corps.  And even though the Dorin I am talking to is not the real Dorin, he is still constantly using language that is extra-salty far beyond his years, and is often defiant of my fatherly wisdom, and always argues for the exact opposite of any opinion I express.  That’s just how it is to be the father of an imaginary son.

Realistically, I have to admit that even the flesh-and-blood people in my life are imaginary.  No one ever actually inhabits another person’s head except through the magic of imagination.  Even though I am talking to you at this moment, you are only an imaginary person to me.  I don’t even know your name as I write this.  And I am the same to you.  You may have read my writing enough to think you know something about me… but you really only know the Mickey in your mind that I have worked at putting there with my words.  And I really have no idea what that imaginary Mickey you have in your head is like.  He is probably really the opposite of who I think I am.

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I am, after all, married to this girl panda, Mandy Panda from the Pandalore Islands, and my three children are all Halfasian part-panda-people.  Yes, this is the imaginary person who is my real-life wife.  The secret is, we only ever know the imaginary people we have in our goofy little heads.  We don’t know the real person behind anyone in our lives, because it is simply not possible to really know how anybody else thinks or feels, even if they write out their lengthy treatise about how all people are imaginary people.  That stuff is just too goofy-dippy to be real.

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Filed under artwork, autobiography, characters, goofiness, humor, imagination, Paffooney, rabbit people, strange and wonderful ideas about life

Avoiding the Tiger Traps of a Humorous Life

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In point of fact, using humor in the classroom is one of the easiest ways I know to become a beloved and effective teacher.  But it requires skill.  It is like dancing barefoot in a mine field that is littered with pit traps for trapping tigers.  See how I linked the title to my opening paragraph there?  Kids in the classroom don’t… unless you make it funny.  Sometimes they want you to fall in the tiger trap on purpose even though there are punji sticks at the bottom.  They want to see what the consequences of the mistake really are so they are not surprised when they immediately make that same mistake.

So, let me tell you about a few of those tiger traps and how to navigate through them.

Poo-Poo Jokes

Yes, one of the unfortunate truths about humor in the classroom is that nothing is funnier to middle school and high school kids than references to sticky brown stuff.  (If that last statement made you snicker, then you know that it even goes beyond school.)   And it can be a devastating thing on fragile, fledgling egos in a school environment where boys will invariably stick a half-eaten chocolate bar in a back pocket on a hot day even though they are wearing khaki-colored jeans.  Over-reacting to a sudden fragrance from one of a number of volatile digestive systems packed into the same small classroom can completely empty the room and imperil the teacher’s job.  (Principals don’t appreciate unauthorized leaving of the classroom… so teachers need to quickly learn how to calm-and-continue in an unusually gassy environment.)  Of course, the girl leading the lemming rush out of the classroom under gas attack is usually the one who dealt it.  But you can’t point that out without crushing some young flower’s petals of self-image.  It is necessary to lay down fences of regulation at the beginning of the school year to regulate exactly how brown and sticky a bathroom joke can actually be before it traps you in eternal detention.

Hurt-y Humor

There is the kind of humor that numerous comedians use as their fall-back style, that Don Rickles-esque “Your mama’s so fat that satellites can see her from space”sort of humor.  It is also a highly tiger-trappy sort of humor to use in the classroom.  Students don’t perform well after being the butt of slappy-face-style put-downs.  You don’t want to remind the kid in the back row of how he mixed up the words “pied” and “peed” in last week’s read-aloud right before taking the State science test that will determine his educational future and your next evaluation.  So how do you resist the urge to tell the snooty little cheerleader that just told you her mom is going to get you fired that she’s got a tail of toilet paper hanging down from the back of her skirt… when she actually does… and the football player she most idolizes is watching every move she makes with that big, tart and trippy tongue of hers?  You take pity on them, and remember that if you break them down into tears in front of their peers you are doing the same thing to them that Bully Bob Beegshout did to you back in high school.  Self-deprecating humor is far more effective at defusing a confrontation.  You get them to laugh at themselves by making them see themselves in the story you just told on yourself.  You can often make them laugh themselves right out of the bad behavior that way.  (Oh, and I didn’t point out the toilet paper, but you can wait until someone else inevitably does and karma can balance the universe in that way.)

So, now that I have rolled well past the 500-word goal and still haven’t used up the whole list of tiger traps, I suppose it is time to reveal there will be a follow-up to this post.

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Filed under education, empathy, humor, Paffooney, teaching

Norwall

rowan schoolThe little Iowa town where all my hometown novels are set is based on the little town where I grew up and spent all of my school years from Kindergarten to Senior Year of High School.  I call it Norwall.  It has all the same letters in it as the town of Rowan, the real town behind all my farm-boy fantasies.  I also added an “L” for love and an “L” for laughter.  All these stories, whether written already or still percolating in my demented bean, are set in this little town.

The school building where I went to learn through the sixth grade was gone after the 1980’s.  But the gymnasium with its theater built in still stands and is used as a community center to this day.  It was here where I had my first crush, where I first saw a girl naked who was not my relative, where I was deeply embarrassed during the square-dancing lessons in Miss Molton’s Music Class, and where I told such big black hoo-haw lies that I truly got the proper training I needed to be a story-teller.

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This isn’t what Main Street really looked like to me.  I saw it in the 1960’s and 70’s.  This is the 1950’s, when the artist who created this blanket was in high school.  But It contains the world I knew.  The water tower is missing, but the fire station and post office are there at the far end of the street on your left.  The grocery store, the cafeteria with its George’s Malt Shop sign, the Brenton Bank building, and the hardware store are there on the left.  The town hall and V.F.W. is on the right hidden by the trees.  You can just see the steeple of the old Congregational Church that was torn down and moved to a new location during some of my earliest memories of the street.

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This is what it looks like now that the hardware store is gone.  The bank and the cafeteria have been updated and changed.    The water tower has changed from silver to blue.

The Methodist Church, built in the thirties and torn down in the eighties, was an important part of my boyhood.  It was a place where my faith in God was nurtured and reinforced to the point that my highly active and existential mind could never truly turn to atheism and doubt.  It was also the place where a Methodist minister took the time to explain the facts of life to me and helped me overcome the terrible secret I kept inside me about being molested when I was ten.  In more than one way, my life was saved in this building.  I miss the place terribly.

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So, here it is, the town that made me who I am and provides the background for the most important thinking and writing that I will ever be able to do.

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June 6, 2024 · 12:02 am