Tag Archives: Paffoonies

August 26, 2016 · 5:54 pm

Paffoonies Still Working

This is actually a writer’s literary site meant to promote novels, and one day possibly earn money from writing instead of simply filling my closets with prose and old manuscripts (along with the wife’s many, many shoes).  But since I am also an amateur artist of the irradiated subspecies known as “cartoonist”, I also have many visuals to share.  I think in pictures as often as I think in words.  So one of the features of this blog is that I tag artwork with a made-up word I coined myself.  It allows the curious (or those immune to nightmares) to get an almost instant idea of how afflicted I am with cartoon-ism.

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Yes, I tested it out.  If you do a picture search on Google using the words “Beyer Paffooney” you get a free gallery of my artwork, the good, the bad, and the ugly.  You might even find my picture of Clint Eastwood… but beware, he shoots first if you try to “make his day”.  If you are brave… or foolish enough to try it, it should come up something like this;

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So, there you have it.  A cheap and easy 200-word post from a bad idea that’s still out there working.

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July 3, 2016 · 6:41 pm

Butts and Nolts

“Don’t you actually mean nuts and bolts?” someone is surely going to say.  Oh, yes, I misspelled that little item on purpose.  This is another inane post about the writing process and trying to improve my “brand” with my blog.  It is something I have no earthly idea how it works or how to go about it.  So I often have to go back and think about the nuts and bolts of how you put this stuff together and try like heck to figure out what I am doing wrong.

Dumb Luck

Doofy Fuddbugg here is an example of what a “Nolt” is.

So, the problem is, while the blog as a whole has been gaining momentum, my blog traffic is down for this month.  People are not viewing and reading my actual stuff and nonsense as much as they were in the other months besides February.  So I have to look again at what works and why it works.

A lot of my work generates interest from the real world outside of my stupid little head because of the artwork.  I am really probably better at drawing colored pencil Paffooneys than I am at the constant yadda-yadda-yadda of trying to write humor.  Pictures like Mr. Fuddbugg here draw people in better than anything else I can post.  Of course, the artwork I post from my favorite cartoonists and comic artists of the past, like Wally Wood and Rumiko Takahashi draw far more views than my own artwork does.  This is due to the undeniable fact that they are better known and better at it than I am.

And both of those artists are well known for the “butts” that are in their works.  Yes, nudes and naked pictures increase your blog traffic.  Two of my top ten posts of the past two years are Be Naked More (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/12/20/be-naked-more/) and Naked and Nude (https://catchafallingstarbook.net/2015/03/04/naked-and-nude/).  (Sorry for the poor link quality, but my computer is still having brain farts and keeps shrinking stuff and blowing stuff up at random, so I cannot, for the moment, make proper links.)  So, I can probably boost my blog traffic by posting another nude I have never posted before, even though it may make it impossible to share this on Facebook.

Gryphon

This picture is actually a very complicated thing to post.  I have issues with things like sexuality and nudity because I was assaulted as a child.  And some of my nude drawings involve real-life models whose privacy I don’t want to invade.  (Yes, I had a real Gryphon pose nude for this picture.)  But this picture is old, having been created during my wild days as a grad-school college nerd.  Adding the “nude” tag to this post will undoubtedly draw in viewers.  (There really do seem to be a lot of people out there who want to look at naked Gryphons.)  And I am not ashamed at having drawn this pencil-piece.  It brings back lots of grand and glorious memories, though probably not the ones you think I mean.

Finally, I may need to get more aggressively insulting.  It seems to be the thing to do to create political humor with the impending Presidential Election coming up between the Wicked Witch of Wall Street and the Racist Orange King.

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The Orange King is very, very HYUGE! but his hands are small.

But there are difficulties in pulling that one off.  I mean, I spent a lifetime learning how to love the unlovable in the classroom because all students are able to learn and we owe them all, as teachers, the best education we can give them.  (Believe me, you will have a better life because I spent my teaching career trying to iron out the stupid from the laundry basket of Texas education.)  So I will have to settle for a more serene and gentle sort of political wit (if I may be allowed one last oxymoron).  Because I agree with Neal Gaiman on the subject of Political Correctness.

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There’s my two cents, such as it is.  Four cents after inflation.  I have had my say about the Butts and Nolts of this essay.  And if that’s not enough to explain it, then feel free to call me names in the comments and look at some of my other recent posts that nobody is reading so you can see how terrible those are too.  And thank you for actually reading the whole post.

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Filed under artwork, blog posting, feeling sorry for myself, finding love, humor, nudes, Paffooney, politics, writing humor

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May 29, 2016 · 4:54 pm

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!

Jade girl

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.

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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!  ************

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

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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!

 

 

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May 19, 2016 · 6:27 pm

Point by Point

Wally22

I was enumerating yesterday all the bad things that make my life exactly the way I expect it to be as a total pessimist.  Of course, I left out that I am fully expecting Donald Trump to be the next president of this country.  Yes, I expect the worst to happen.  Hillary Clinton will not beat Trump either because of her toxic unfavorability or because the email thing will bring down an indictment to nullify her eligibility to be president.  And all my conservative friends who love Trump will continue to dance happy dances and sing about me being a hopeless “lib-tard” who doesn’t really know anything about anything as Trump continues to rob them and make their lives more miserable with the help of the government he will control from the inside.

Yes, one of the biggest downers about being too smart for your own good is, you see past the lies everyone tells themselves, and perceive the darkest of the truths that lurk behind them.

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I got this meme from a high school friend who served in the Navy and became a firefighter… an honorable public servant no matter how you look at it.

In the meme to the right, I am characterized as a self-centered numb-noggin who thinks his opinion is more important than the realities of this person’s life.  It makes me sad that my childhood friend believes this is true about my political beliefs.  But I am not claiming to be oppressed.  Well, maybe by Trump once he does away with the healthcare law that guarantees insurance companies will cover me despite six pre-existing conditions.  This is a straw man argument that sets up liberals as unreasonable norks that want the law to dictate that everything should be the way liberals want them to be.  That is not the way I see being a liberal.

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I choose rather to look at what people are saying on all sides and make decisions based on my hopefully broad and enlightened mind.  I would never advise someone to have an abortion.  But I do care what happens to children once they are born.  Are we limiting their suffering when they are not wanted by anyone?  When they are born into poverty?  When they drink lead-contaminated water and are subjected to brain damage and death because the conservative government decided saving money was worth the risk?  I believe all people are deserving of respect and all people have value.  I have gay friends and former students.  Their existence in this world enriches it, and I am not ashamed to know them.  I would never ask one of my conservative friends to marry another man… or marry anybody.  I have a wife who is from a foreign country and her road to citizenship is still not traversed.  Could we be making that road harder than it needs to be?

I am a liberal.  But I would not call myself a tax-and-spend liberal.  I would rather see the money we already pay in taxes go for better public schools, better roads and bridges and public works, less expensive, or even FREE college education for my struggling children, rather than tax breaks and corporate wellfare for GE, Pfizer, and Exxon.  Is it too much to ask that our taxes be spent on us rather than enhancing corporate profit margins?  And couldn’t millionaires and billionaires afford to pay the same percentage of taxes that I do?  Maybe even more because they have more?  Why does believing these things make me evil?  Or stupid?  Or any of the other things that my conservative friends tell me that I am because I am a liberal?  I would rather reason things out than simply insult others, something the other side of this argument doesn’t make a habit of doing.

I have no problem saying, “Black lives matter.”  They do matter.  And they have not been treated fairly.  Not Trayvon Martin.  Not Michael Brown.  Especially not Tamir Rice, the twelve year old shot to death for having a toy gun.  These are children who are not to blame for their own deaths.  So I am not burdened to add “…All lives matter” because it goes without saying.  White and Asian lives have not been snuffed out in Walmart’s toy section for handling an air rifle.  I guess I must be a reverse-racist for saying this like I have been told on Facebook.

I am a liberal.  So shoot me.  Er… rather, don’t shoot me.  But be patient with my fact-heavy and logic-heavy arguments.  If you are a Christian, then weigh my arguments against what you know in your heart Jesus actually would do.  I know scripture.  I have read the entire Bible more than once.  I am confident my wanting government to do what helps the greatest number and harms no one will stand the test.  And I am preparing to deal with a President Donald Trump who probably won’t see it that way.

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April 13, 2016 · 2:55 pm

Pen and Ink

4th Dimension

Simple lines and line-drawn figures can contain the wisdom of the world.  It is a simple faith that can turn one into a cartoonist, a comic book artist, or an illustrator.  It is an almost god-like power.  You can make fools and geeks and little girls with fourth dimensional hoola-hoops come to life.

 

It has been said by some who’ve seen my line drawings, my pen-and-ink cartoons, that I am good at it.  But what do they know?  I’ve shown you in this blog some of the real greats.  Wally Wood and Milt Caniff and Cliff Sterret and George Herriman and Charles Shultz are all better than I am.  But I am at least smart enough to have learned things from them.

Elf on Patrol

Black and white lines and shapes can convey feeling in almost the same way that words can.  You can express feelings of melancholy, fatigue, or joy.  You can create a sense of adventure, or make someone laugh with a clever reversal of expectations.

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So there you have it.  I am not really that good… not a master of the art.  But I know it.  I can appreciate it when I see it.  And there are things I can use it to accomplish.

MickeyX22

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April 1, 2016 · 2:44 pm

Feeling a Little Loony

Some days I feel loony… April first comes to mind

Loonies

And I can be quite cartoony… It really helps to unwind

little Toy Trio

So I’ll make some Paffooney… and draw it while blind

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And grow really prunie… old wrinkles unwind

Eli Tragedy

And magic up some moony… to leave all worry behind.

Dumb Luck

April Fools! from an old fool.

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March 1, 2016 · 3:47 pm

When I Was Twelve

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There comes a time when a mind turns inward and begins to learn that self is as complicated and in need of exploration as any African jungle or surface of a distant planet.

The Paffoonies today all come from my sixth grade school notebook.  When that school year ended I owned one book of my own, Rudyard Kipling’s First Jungle Book, the paperback version.  I kept my colored pencil drawings in my school notebook, and I kept the notebook in my bedroom to continue to fill it with drawings on notebook paper.

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As you can see, the notebook is age-worn and falling apart, but I still have it.  It still contains my twelve-year-old artistic visions, the beginnings of who I am as a thinking, drawing, story-telling human being.

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At one point I even had a package of pink notebook paper.

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So I admit it.  I was a dorky, weird child.  And I drew a lot of weird pictures at twelve.  Now you have some of the evidence.

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February 12, 2016 · 4:37 pm

A Conspiracy of Doody-Heads

Dumb Luck

I enjoy talking about, reading about, promoting, and debunking conspiracy theories of all sorts.  It reaches a point that any time the topic comes up… Elvis faking his own death, the Roswell crash, lizard-men from the center of the hollow Earth… you know, all that good stuff… my kids roll their eyes and attempt to change the subject before I can get on a roll.  Okay, I get that.  Other people like to see history as a static, unchangeable thing set in stone.  It makes them comfortable to believe the same things others believe about what is ultimately true.  It makes them uncomfortable to think about how what they know might not be grounded in fact, especially if it is not grounded in fact because someone they have always trusted intentionally misrepresented or altered the facts.

I have always laughed about Elvis being sighted eating chili in a Wendy’s somewhere in Michigan.  It is a joke that people are ever swayed by the spurious journalism of National Enquirer and such trashy fluff.  And yet, there are questions out there that haven’t been fully resolved.  People are right to wonder and demand investigation, even into silly things.  There are anomalies that real investigative journalists have uncovered surrounding Elvis’ apparent demise.  For instance, why does the autopsy DNA not match the tissue sample from the liver biopsy performed on Elvis in 1975?  Why does all the evidence put forward by researchers only indicate that his 1977 death was faked, and nothing debunkers uncover actually disproves that?  This controversy has entertainment value, and people will constantly make jokes about it and continue to clamor for more proof.  Myself, as a conspiracy aficionado,  I believe there is good reason to believe he did fake his death, and may still be alive.  However, I also think that if he was driven to such extremes that he had to fake his own death, we should give him the peace he seeks and leave him alone.  Jokes about Elvis’ love children with space aliens are much funnier when you don’t have to worry that Elvis will overhear and be offended.

Senator Tedhkruzh

Alien lizard men from the center of the Earth are another matter.  Have you never heard that the Queen of England, the Clintons, and other important world leaders are actually shape-shifting reptoid aliens intent on taking over planet Earth to feed on its human population?  If you haven’t, it is not because David Icke hasn’t been working hard to promote the idea and introduce it to you.  This former soccer player and broadcaster makes a mint on his conspiracy-theory lectures and programs.  He is very much the same kind of huckster and con man that once sold snake-oil cure-alls across this country.  I have found this particular conspiracy theory easy to debunk.  It does have entertainment value and makes for some very interesting humor.  But it also puts lot of money in the pockets of people who are intentionally misleading others into thinking this absurdist science fiction is somehow based on facts.  And it makes people distrust world leaders for all the wrong reasons.  We should vote Ted Cruz out of office for his despicable policies, not because he is a lizard man from the center of the Earth.

So, why do I associate myself at all with conspiracy theories?  Well, why do some comedians like Stephen Colbert whose politics are obviously liberal associate themselves with conservative politicians and focus so much on that side of the political debate?  It is a source of great humor, and it actually adds meaningfully to the over-all debate.  Conspiracies do exist.  We have been lied to about important things like the death of JFK, the events of 9-11, and possibly, the Roswell crash.  The truth matters to me.  It matters almost as much as the ability to make fun Elvis sightings and lizard people like Texas Senator Ted Cruz (pictured above in his natural form).

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February 10, 2016 · 7:50 pm

Stupid Is Lovable

Stupid Boy

One does not have to be smart in order to be lovable.   In fact, I think, based on my years as a teacher and reputed smart person, being smart is actually a handicap to being loved by others.  Some of the sweetest, most lovable students I ever met were the the special-education students who were mentally handicapped.   I worked with them at times as a substitute teacher in 2006 and 2007.  I also encountered them routinely doing hallway duty at Naaman Forest High School.  They always said hello.  They always smiled.  Though they rarely knew my name.  Some of them went out of their way to shake hands with me and ask me how my day was.  I discovered along the way that teachers who worked with them on a daily basis tended to be nicer, more welcoming and friendly than other teachers.  That simple enthusiasm and likability is obviously contagious.

I promise, doing the things that happy but somewhat stupid people do works when you have to deal with others on a daily basis.  I know because I tried it.  It took me several years to work past the foolish teacher-notion that you have be the boss and you have to be mean to get students to learn.  You start trying to iron out bad behaviors by calling them out and shouting them down, which only leads to threats that have to be carried out, students sitting in misery in the principal’s office, parents calling with concerns or trying to boss and bully you, and more trips to the store for antacids and headache pills.

sweet thing

What actually works better is meeting the students at the door with a stupid grin on my face before class ever starts.  “Good morning,” I say.  “You are looking smarter than usual today.  You must be ready to learn the most important lessons anyone ever learned.”

“Are we doing something in class today?” they always say.

“Of course we are,” I answer with my stupid grin, “wonderful things!”

When the lessons start and the class clown puts wasted sticky-notes on his eyelids and ears and tongue, I don’t get mad and tell him to straighten up or else.  I tell him, “Something is different about the way you look today.  Did you try a new hair gel or something?”  When the others break up in giggles, I tell him, “Whatever it is, it makes you look good.  You should wear it that way for every lesson you do.”

Sometimes you have to stop a serious consideration of themes in the Kurt Vonnegut short story from the Literature Book to take a serious wiggle-break.  Students need to stand up and shake apart whatever stiff dead-parts they may have grown from sitting too long in one spot.  Most of them shake their behinds.  You know, the part they use for thinking most of the time.

You do these stupid things, and the students begin to love your class.  They begin to love what they are reading.  It is a simple, stupid thing… but so very necessary.

Of course you can’t cure all the dead-brains, jerks, and snarks this way.  Some will never buy in.  But it works with most.  Kids will behave well for you if you love the stupid parts they all have in them.  They will love you because you let them be stupid without serious consequences.

Now, I know there are many… some of them principals and teacher-evaluators who will be offended by me talking about kids being stupid.  Some will mistakenly think I am insulting them.  But I am not.  I often need to make a distinction between the kind of stupid I am talking about here and the angry, hurtful kind that I prefer to call ignorance.  That kind of stupid is the kind that makes Donald Trump, a person who actually knows better, call Mexican immigrants rapists.  It is a different thing to do something stupid because you are unintentionally wrong about something, or impaired somehow (like me when my blood sugar is low), or valuing silly over accurate.  Stupidity often can’t be helped.  but when you demonize Muslims because you want to make political points with people who are angry and fearful and honestly don’t know anything about Muslims they haven’t heard from ignorant people, then ignorance means ignoring what you probably know is true anyway to do something that intentionally chooses not to make use of whatever useful intelligence you have.

So forgive me for writing a stupid essay about stupid being lovable.  I can’t help it.  I am just stupid sometimes.

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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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