Idiots on Parade!

This is another short blog post, largely due to the fact that I am under the weather today -- an aching back and a congested head being the prime symptoms. So y'all can rest easy.

The idiots referred to in the title are those folks who responded to the gas shortages, caused by the pipeline disruption this week, by hoarding gas: loading canisters, and even plastic bags, without realizing that gas only remains usable for a few weeks before becoming useless. Degraded gas will gum up your engine something fierce. I hope it happens to every single one of these bozos.

Because I felt crummy today I didn't get much done. I have a couple of small illustration jobs that I mean to get off my plate this coming week. I also have to get cracking on the cover of Before Baker Street. We did manage to get a few household tasks accomplished, though, so that's good.

I'm reading Robert Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky and enjoying it, as well as a book on the Indian epic, The Mahabharata. The later is difficult but quite absorbing.

I have also finally decided that I'm done with playing in bands, aside maybe from doing some jamming if the opportunity arises. At this point I haven't even set up my drums in over a year. I no longer feel the urge. After 50+ years, I'm "played out," as it were.

All in all, it's a decision I don't regret. I had my fun, made a few bob, and did my best. That's all one can ask.

Actually, one can ask something else. My boy, Ray Cavanagh, has published his second historical novel -- The Lost Treasure of Cortez. I want you should check it out. Ray's one of my oldest friends -- we go back more than 60 years. His first book, The Amulet of Cananea: Song of Carmelita, is also available. Cortez is its sequel.

Today's art: a relatively recent piece for the fanzine Beam.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Blog Post #2 - Short and Sweet

Image
I 'm still learning my way around this whole blogging thing. I am supposedly -- supposedly -- updating this thing every Wednesday and Sunday. Well, today is Sunday and I forgot to do it before now, which is 6:15 pm.  In the interest of keeping this short, because supper is almost ready. I will simply say that this week I submitted two short stories, a new one and one that has been making the rounds. I also did some work on the cozy mystery I am ghostwriting. Ghostwriting is something I have come to enjoy over these past few years. I started out by doing an autobiography for a former member of the writers group I was a member of back in Doylestown. He was a fairly well-known clinical psychologist. I enjoyed the experience, though I have since learned how to do it better. My next ghostwriting gig took place a couple of years later and was easier for me, as it was a science-fiction novel. I'd previously (and subsequently) written and published a fair bit of sf over the years, so t...
Read more

I Had a Good Week

Image
R eally, I did. Four days ago I sold a short story, one that I had put a lot of work into. It was originally written in 2019, and got some nice personal responses from a few magazines, including Analog and The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction . (Gratifying, but neither  bought it.) However, it has sold, to an anthology. More details later. I can't even reveal the title just yet. I also sold a novel, to Readict: An End to Housework , which is more or less mainstream with some speculative elements. I wrote the book ahem cough  years ago, and have occasionally revisited the manuscript to update it. Housework  was definitely experimental. What actually kicked it off was my reading of Cancer Ward by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. That, plus the underground comics of Dave Sheridan and Fred Schrier. The novel (mine, not  Solzhenitsyn's) has three interlude sections that were originally meant to be drawn, like a graphic novel. But it would have taken me too long to do ...
Read more

Blog Post #1; Just what the world needs: another blog!

T his being the initial post of my blog, I should give some sort of mission statement. I'm a writer, editor, ghostwriter, illustrator and cartoonist, occasionally occupied as a musician. I'll use this blog as a way of communicating with my readers and fans. It may be profound at times, but probably not very often. That said, I do take my creative life very seriously. I always have. I have a fairly large body of work in terms of writing and art. Though much of it is scattered hither and yon, a lot of it exists in my files--if you can call a bunch of boxes and files full of manuscripts drawings "files." They aren't in any particular order. I should do something about that one of these days. I have done a bit of blogging before, but in truth I prefer to spend my time actually writing as opposed to journaling or what-have-you. I did a cartoon blog of sorts a few years back, Iggy's Almanac . I'll include some of that stuff here as time goes by. If I could find...
Read more