Gadzookes…

Posted on August 18, 2015 by pouringmyartout

All this playing with babies and little kids has inspired me!!! I am now working hard on my next children’s book. I am still basing the character and some of the story on a little purple wizard I invented when I was still a teenager… but I am removing most of the anger and sarcasm. To be honest, the whole comic book… which is only about 6 pages long, and I think I even posted the whole thing on this blog a long time ago… (try typing ‘Gad’ in the search bar and tell me if you can find it)… was a slam against organized religion.

Yes, the name of the little wizard was Gadzookes, but I said that everyone called him Gad… and the whole thing was a thinly-veiled creation myth story that was obviously poking fun at people who take religion too seriously. (Just for the record, I still think those people need to be made fun of, but I have come to realize that trying to sell children’s books that are really just about me venting my anger at other adults might not be a wise career move… see, I am growing up!!!)…

Now my adorable little purple-clad wizard is going back to his full name, and he just wants to make a friend… I think it will be wonderful… as long as I only think about kids while I do some more drawing and watercolor painting… and don’t let adults creep into my thoughts and mess everything up… you know… like adults do…

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We should round up all the people who want to pass anti-gun legislation… and shoot them…

Posted on August 18, 2015 by pouringmyartout

No… not really… I haven’t suddenly decided to run for office as the head of the NRA… this is just another of my silly examples of why we really need a sarcasm font…

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Almost too much cute baby action going on around here…

Posted on August 17, 2015 by pouringmyartout

Pictures coming soon.

Posted in Everything Else | 75 Comments

Today I met a new baby friend…

Posted on August 16, 2015 by pouringmyartout

I sat cross-legged on the grass cradling him on my legs for like 40 minutes, and it was magical… in fact, today was pretty awesome in many ways, and I will have some pictures before too much longer.

Posted in Everything Else | 12 Comments

The first rule of religious club is; we don’t talk about religious club… (or); seriously, why haven’t you all gotten together and put me in charge of this crazy planet yet?

Posted on August 15, 2015 by pouringmyartout

I did it. I solved another of the world’s major problems. You’re welcome.

Religion causes way too many problems. I have been talking it over… with the crack squirrels that live inside my head… and I have a simple solution. As soon as you all decide to let me be in charge, here is what I plan to do;

I am going to ban talking about religion… and this includes all of us that don’t even have a religion. Oh, and one other thing… and this is the thing that makes this such a brilliant solution… it will also be against the rules to either switch your religion or try to convince anyone else to join it. (You can, however, decide to drop your religion… as long as you don’t pick up a new one)…

These deceptively simple changes will make all the difference. There would be absolutely no point in killing people in the name of your religion anymore, or using terrorism to try to scare people into converting to your religion, or going to war to conquer new territories in order to forcibly convert people.  There would be no more arguing and fighting over which religion makes the most sense or which is right or wrong. There would be no more judging people or telling them they are going to hell.

And all my plan requires is for everybody to keep their religion… or lack thereof… inside their own heads… where it belongs…

Posted in thinking about stuff | Tagged , , , , , | 45 Comments

The new book from my action/humor sci-fi series is here!!!

Posted on August 14, 2015 by pouringmyartout

Yes, book three of my series; ‘The Otherwhere Chronicles’ is here. I just got the first copy. I am proofreading it for any last minute errors in formatting, and then it will be available… right over there… on the links you get to when you click on the pictures of my books… in the sidebar… and I know you are all excited… since at least two people bought the second book in the series… sigh..

I guess, technically, it will be available right after a certain blogger buddy of mine helps me with the tech support stuff and it actually shows up in the sidebar with the others… because… you know… I am a computer moron.

Posted in Stories of my life | Tagged , , , , , | 12 Comments

My blog… the gift that keeps on giving…

Posted on August 13, 2015 by pouringmyartout

a 1 a 51

Posted in My art, Pictures of me, stuff about blogging | Tagged , , , , , , , | 14 Comments

Dang it… I mentioned Nazis again… so here is a picture of me petting a horse and also a bunch of pretty flowers to take your minds off… you know… those guys…

Posted on August 12, 2015 by pouringmyartout

That last post was supposed to clear your mind of… those two earlier posts… but I talked about them again… so to make up for it, here are a few of the pictures Mollie and I took in the lovely little town in the valley below Neuschwanstein castle…

a 1a 2a 3a 4a 5a 6a 7a 8a 9a 10a 11a 12

Posted in dogs and other animals, flowers, My travels, Pictures of me, Stories of my life | Tagged , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

And now, a fairy-tale castle and some beautiful scenery… you know… to get the taste of Nazi concentration camps out of our skulls…

Posted on August 12, 2015 by pouringmyartout

a 1Our very last day-trip in Germany, on our very last full day in Europe, was to visit Neuschwanstein castle…

a 2We drove out from Munich for a few hours and Mollie finally got to see the Alps… which you have to at least see if you go to Europe, right?

a 3I spent a lot of time, after our trip to Dachau, thinking about how warm and friendly and nice and kind most Germans are. Maybe that is what makes the whole mess with Hitler so strange and terrible… that he could make ordinary people do the things they did. That is the lesson from history that we need to remember.

a 4Oooh… I think I see the castle… that little white thing on the side of that mountain way over there…

a 5That is a cruel sign to put on a barn in a field right where the cows can see it.

a 6The drive through the countryside was spectacular.

a 7And the castle kept growing ever nearer.

a 8It was a lovely day.

a 9The air was crisp and clean, the temperature mild.

a 10I took a lot of pictures on this little excursion… please Google Neuschwanstein castle… it is too interesting to not know about, and too much work to explain here.

a 11It is said to be the castle that Walt Disney modeled Cinderella’s castle in Disneyland after.

a 12The town below the castle is freekin’ charming.

a 13Did you spot my mom’s head at the bottom of that picture? HA!

a 14Also, this place was built under orders from the Mad King… Ludwig… (pronounced: Loodvig, if you in Germany)… so how can you not want to Google it now???

Posted in My travels, Stories of my life | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 8 Comments

Dachau… part 2… I think my face pretty much says it all…

Posted on August 12, 2015 by pouringmyartout

a 1Are there words to explain a place like this?

a 2Words don’t do it justice.

a 3The windows in the top of that little tower make it look harmless and commonplace… when there aren’t machineguns sticking out of them…

a 4The sky is still blue, the grass is still green, just as it was back when this place was operating.

a 5And then you pass out of a little gate and find the ovens…

a 6Ovens not for baking bread but burning human beings.

a 7And it kicks you right in the stomach…

a 8And for some weird reason, the fact that there were no fresh flowers in the ovens struck me even harder… they were there the last time I was at Dachau, nearly ten years before…

a 9Those are the shower blocks. They were all set up to be used. You can see where the gas canisters would have been placed. But the Nazis decided it was more efficient to just work and starve and torture people at this particular camp.

a 11Our tour walked back across the huge field, past the rows and rows of spaces where the barracks once stood…

a 12There are now two monuments to commemorate what took place here.

a 13This one symbolizes the people who gave in to despair and walked towards the barbed wire. Once they were inside the death zone, the guards could shoot them… or just let them die on the electrified fence.

a 15There was one thing missing that is more heartbreaking than the missing flowers in the ovens. See those triangles? The prisoners all had triangular patches sewed on the sleeves of their striped uniforms. The patches came in different colors. One color meant a political dissident. One meant the prisoner was Jewish or Gypsy. One color meant they were a criminal. One color stood for prisoners of war… there were Russian POW’s held here towards the end of the war. And pink triangles meant the prisoner was a homosexual. If you look closely, some of the triangles in the memorial above are empty. That is because there are two colors missing from the memorial. The green… for professional criminals… and pink… for homosexuals are both missing.

In their infinite wisdom, the people who put this memorial together decide that criminals might have been executed by the state anyway, so they shouldn’t be honored on the memorial… and homosexuality was a criminal offense… so there is no green glass and there is no pink glass.

The artist left a few triangles empty to show what he felt about this oversight.

a 16It says; ‘never again’… but it is placed right beside the memorial with the missing pink glass…

a 17What part of ‘never again’ do we not understand?

Posted in My travels, Pictures of me, Stories of my life, thinking about stuff | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 48 Comments