HAPPY NEW YEAR!!
Wednesday, December 31, 2008
2009 USPS Stamps
Say the secret word - and get a postage stamps. Folks who grew up as television came of age will delight in a 20-stamp set included in the Postal Service's plans for 2009 recalling early memories of the medium with stamps featuring Lucy and Ethel, Joe Friday and Groucho Marx.http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28423810/from/ET/
Other stamps that are on the USPS schedule marking their debit in 2009 will be:
Alaska Statehood
Lunar New Year: Year of the Ox
Oregon Statehood
Alaska Statehood
Lunar New Year: Year of the Ox
Oregon Statehood
Edgar Allan Poe
Abraham Lincoln-The 200th anniversary of Abraham Lincoln’s (1809-1865) birth will be recognized on four commemorative stamps Feb. 9, in Springfield, IL. The 10 a.m. dedication ceremony takes place at the Old State Capitol Historic Site, Representative Hall, #1 Old State Capitol Plaza, in Springfield.
The stamp art was created by Mark Summers, who is noted for his scratchboard technique, a style distinguished by a dense network of lines etched with exquisite precision. Each stamp features a different aspect of Lincoln’s life. Summers worked under the art direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.
Rail-Splitter
The stamp showing Lincoln as a rail-splitter includes the earliest-known photograph of Lincoln, dated 1846, by N. H. Shepherd, and depicts Lincoln as a youth splitting a log for a rail fence on what was then the American frontier. When he was a candidate for president in 1860, the Republican Party used the image of Lincoln as a “rail-splitter” to enhance his appeal to the workingman.
Lawyer
The stamp featuring Lincoln as a lawyer includes a photograph of Lincoln, dated May 7, 1858, by Abraham Byers, and shows Lincoln in a courtroom in Illinois, the state where he was a practicing attorney for nearly 25 years.
Politician
The stamp of Lincoln as a politician includes a Feb. 27, 1860, photograph of Lincoln by Mathew Brady, and shows Lincoln debating Stephen A. Douglas during their 1858 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.
President
The stamp featuring Lincoln as president, includes a Nov. 8, 1863, photograph of Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, and depicts Lincoln conferring with generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman toward the end of the Civil War. The depiction is based on “The Peacemakers” (1868), a painting by George P. A. Healy.
The stamp art was created by Mark Summers, who is noted for his scratchboard technique, a style distinguished by a dense network of lines etched with exquisite precision. Each stamp features a different aspect of Lincoln’s life. Summers worked under the art direction of Richard Scheaff of Scottsdale, AZ.
Rail-Splitter
The stamp showing Lincoln as a rail-splitter includes the earliest-known photograph of Lincoln, dated 1846, by N. H. Shepherd, and depicts Lincoln as a youth splitting a log for a rail fence on what was then the American frontier. When he was a candidate for president in 1860, the Republican Party used the image of Lincoln as a “rail-splitter” to enhance his appeal to the workingman.
Lawyer
The stamp featuring Lincoln as a lawyer includes a photograph of Lincoln, dated May 7, 1858, by Abraham Byers, and shows Lincoln in a courtroom in Illinois, the state where he was a practicing attorney for nearly 25 years.
Politician
The stamp of Lincoln as a politician includes a Feb. 27, 1860, photograph of Lincoln by Mathew Brady, and shows Lincoln debating Stephen A. Douglas during their 1858 campaign for a U.S. Senate seat from Illinois.
President
The stamp featuring Lincoln as president, includes a Nov. 8, 1863, photograph of Lincoln by Alexander Gardner, and depicts Lincoln conferring with generals Ulysses S. Grant and William T. Sherman toward the end of the Civil War. The depiction is based on “The Peacemakers” (1868), a painting by George P. A. Healy.
Civil Rights Pioneers-This stamp series will include-Mary Church Terrell (1863-1954) Throughout her long life as a writer, activist, and lecturer, she was a powerful advocate for racial justice and women’s rights in America and abroad.
Mary White Ovington (1865-1951) This journalist and social worker believed passionately in racial equality and was a founder of the NAACP.
J. R. Clifford (1848-1933) He was the first black attorney licensed in West Virginia; in two landmark cases before his state’s Supreme Court, he attacked racial discrimination in education.
Joel Elias Spingarn (1875-1939) Because coverage of blacks in the media tended to be negative, he endowed the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, to highlight black achievement.
Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949) He was one of the founders of the NAACP and wrote the “Call” leading to its formation.
Daisy Gatson Bates (1914-1999) She mentored nine black students who enrolled at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957. The students used her home as an organizational hub.
Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) This lawyer and educator was a main architect of the civil rights movement. He believed in using laws to better the lives of underprivileged citizens.
Walter White (1893-1955) Blue eyes and a fair complexion enabled this leader of the NAACP to make daring undercover investigations.
Medgar Evers (1925-1963) He served with distinction as an official of the NAACP in Mississippi until his assassination in 1963.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) She was a Mississippi sharecropper who fought for black voting rights and spoke for many when she said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986) Her lifetime of activism made her a skillful organizer. She encouraged women and young people to assume positions of leadership in the civil rights movement.
Ruby Hurley (1909-1980) As a courageous and capable official with the NAACP, she did difficult, dangerous work in the South.
Mary White Ovington (1865-1951) This journalist and social worker believed passionately in racial equality and was a founder of the NAACP.
J. R. Clifford (1848-1933) He was the first black attorney licensed in West Virginia; in two landmark cases before his state’s Supreme Court, he attacked racial discrimination in education.
Joel Elias Spingarn (1875-1939) Because coverage of blacks in the media tended to be negative, he endowed the prestigious Spingarn Medal, awarded annually since 1915, to highlight black achievement.
Oswald Garrison Villard (1872-1949) He was one of the founders of the NAACP and wrote the “Call” leading to its formation.
Daisy Gatson Bates (1914-1999) She mentored nine black students who enrolled at all-white Central High School in Little Rock, AR, in 1957. The students used her home as an organizational hub.
Charles Hamilton Houston (1895-1950) This lawyer and educator was a main architect of the civil rights movement. He believed in using laws to better the lives of underprivileged citizens.
Walter White (1893-1955) Blue eyes and a fair complexion enabled this leader of the NAACP to make daring undercover investigations.
Medgar Evers (1925-1963) He served with distinction as an official of the NAACP in Mississippi until his assassination in 1963.
Fannie Lou Hamer (1917-1977) She was a Mississippi sharecropper who fought for black voting rights and spoke for many when she said, “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired.”
Ella Baker (1903-1986) Her lifetime of activism made her a skillful organizer. She encouraged women and young people to assume positions of leadership in the civil rights movement.
Ruby Hurley (1909-1980) As a courageous and capable official with the NAACP, she did difficult, dangerous work in the South.
Love: King and Queen of Hearts
Wedding Cake
Wedding Rings
Bob Hope
Anna Julia Cooper (Black Heritage)
Hawai‘i Statehood
Gulf Coast Lighthouses
American Treasures: Edward Hopper
Early TV Memories
Richard Wright
Thanksgiving Day Parade
Gary Cooper (Legends of Hollywood)
United States Supreme Court Justices -The contributions of United States Supreme Court Associate Justices Joseph Story, Louis D. Brandeis, Felix Frankfurter, and William J. Brennan, Jr. will be commemorated next September with the issuance of the United States Supreme Court Justices stamps.
Nature of America: Kelp Forest
PLUS New 2009 Winter Holiday stamps
Monday, December 29, 2008
Poe's 200th Birthday- Philly vs Balti- Jan. 19, 2009
Pick a major U.S. East Coast city at random and you're likely to find a 200th birthday celebration for Edgar Allan Poe.
The peripatetic Poe - author of "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other poems and tales of the macabre - was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1809. He was raised largely in Richmond, Va. As an adult, he migrated between Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
Befitting his difficulty establishing roots, Poe will be feted at birthday parties in those five cities in January. Events will continue throughout the year - including new museum exhibits, performances and readings of Poe's work, academic conferences and, in Baltimore, a re-enactment of his funeral that is sure to draw more mourners than the hasty burial itself.
The push to honour Poe dovetails with an escalating debate about the places that were most important to the author's life and work. Fans of Poe, then, can be forgiven if they feel the need to sit and ponder, weak and weary, where best to pay tribute to the author.
"Every city has its claim to fame with Poe," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum in Baltimore.
Baltimore, where Poe died in 1849 under mysterious circumstances, has his grave and a tiny rowhouse he lived in during his mid-20s. There are also houses in Philadelphia, where Poe wrote some of his best-known stories, and New York, where he enjoyed his greatest literary success. Richmond has the definitive Poe museum. Boston doesn't have much besides a plaque near his place of birth, but an enthusiastic English professor thinks the city should - and will - do more.
For promoting Poe, no city can compete with Baltimore, which named its football team the Ravens in his honour. It also has the Poe birthday tradition that fascinates the public - each year, a mysterious visitor leaves a half-full bottle of cognac and three red roses at his original gravesite.
In 1875, Poe's remains were moved to a more prominent spot in the same cemetery, Westminster Burying Ground, alongside his aunt, Maria Clemm. The remains of his wife, Virginia - who was also Maria's daughter - were reburied there ten years later.
There Poe's bones will stay, despite a tongue-in-cheek plea by Philadelphia-based Poe scholar Edward Pettit to dig up the author's remains and rebury them in the City of Brotherly Love, where he wrote many of his best stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."
Pettit's immodest proposal, first aired in a 2007 article in the Philadelphia City Paper, was the opening salvo in what he calls the "Poe Wars."
"I'm not crazy. I've never thought that the actual body of Poe was going to be moved," Pettit said. "But that's the metaphor. Philadelphia deserves the bones of Poe in the sense that it deserves to be the standard-bearer of the Poe legacy."
Whether Poe's bones should be moved is open for debate, of course, and on Jan. 13 at the Philadelphia Free Library, Pettit, Jerome and Paul Lewis, an English professor at Boston College, will do just that. Their scholarly showdown is billed as "The Great Poe Debate."
"I don't really have to prepare," Jerome boasted, noting that Baltimore has been the guardian of Poe's legacy since the 1875 dedication of his new grave, which drew hundreds of people, including Walt Whitman.
Boston's claim on Poe is much shakier - Poe left there when he was a few months old and, as an adult, he despised the city and its literary tradition - but Lewis tries to compensate with rhetorical enthusiasm.
"He is arguably - I'm not saying everyone would accept this - the most influential writer who was ever born in Boston, and we should celebrate it," Lewis said.
New York and Richmond have tried to stay above the fray - but they'll take their shots if asked. Their claims are arguably just as strong.
"The work that he did here in New York kind of stands on its own," said Anthony Green, education director of the Bronx Historical Society, who cited "The Raven," "The Bells" and "The Cask of Amontillado." "We can let the other cities squabble about it. To us, it's not really a competition."
As for Richmond, Poe described himself as a Virginian and lived there longer than anywhere else. Said Katarina M. Spears, executive director of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum: "We kind of arrogantly feel like it's only if you're really insecure about your connection to him that you need to be actively competing."
Nothing can compete, though, with the mystery and intrigue of the man known only as the "Poe Toaster," and while his annual birthday tribute isn't listed among Baltimore's official bicentennial events, it figures to draw hundreds of people who will try - unsuccessfully, if history is any guide - to get a look at him.
Poe's original gravesite can't be seen from the street, and the toaster always shows up when the cemetery is closed, typically in the wee hours of the morning. Jerome will be inside Westminster Hall, the former church adjacent to the cemetery, with a few invited guests. He won't allow the public or the news media into the building.
Jerome insists he doesn't know the toaster's identity and does nothing to aid or abet him. He tries to be respectful of the tribute and he hopes the crowd that typically gathers outside the cemetery will do the same.
"I'm a nervous wreck," he said.
Pettit was part of the crowd last January and caught a fleeting glimpse of the toaster as he entered the cemetery. He did not see how the man left. He expects the toaster to try to dupe the throng by showing up earlier or later than usual.
"I think it's going to be a mob scene there," Pettit said. "I don't know how he's going to get in."
There will be plenty of officially sanctioned events in Baltimore and elsewhere. A three-day birthday celebration is scheduled for Westminster Hall. Among the highlights: A tribute to Poe and his work performed by John Astin, best known as Gomez Addams on the 1960s "Addams Family" TV series.
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond will be open for 24 hours straight on Poe's birthday. In Philadelphia, the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic site will reopen with new exhibits after a renovation. The Bronx County Historical Society plans to host a party on the grounds of the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, N.Y. And at Boston College, Lewis has arranged for lectures by scholars and a screening of a new feature film inspired by Poe's life.
In October, Baltimore will mark the 160th anniversary of the author's death by inviting the public to the Poe House to view a replica of his body. The body will then be taken by horse-drawn carriage to Westminster Hall, giving Poe the proper funeral he never had.
For the diehard Poe enthusiasts, the tributes won't end with the bicentennial year. Jerome insists that Baltimore will continue to take the lead.
"When the bicentennial's over," he said, "all these cities are going to be dropping Poe like an empty bottle of amontillado."
On the Net:
Baltimore: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://poebicentennial.com/&usg=AFQjCNGzHaqocUOsJWFlvBukvyWNdVH2QQ
Baltimore: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nevermore2009.com/&usg=AFQjCNHtREpr3TmhpQxMV7Sv0ElOhpZ8Sg
Boston: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/english/poe2009.html&usg=AFQjCNF2AVRP3AUHS8l_Qz40QTAfL0cxhw
New York: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/&usg=AFQjCNH4fBk8YvTISzI3c7P0aVG4TdrvIA
Philadelphia: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nps.gov/edal/&usg=AFQjCNGHd7hy5s_lkz5F943XgZnm6nz0hw
Richmond: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.poe200th.com/&usg=AFQjCNEr1fVyAVEQAFa3BRwmmj8JAUl4jQ
The peripatetic Poe - author of "The Raven," "The Tell-Tale Heart" and other poems and tales of the macabre - was born in Boston on Jan. 19, 1809. He was raised largely in Richmond, Va. As an adult, he migrated between Richmond, Baltimore, Philadelphia and New York.
Befitting his difficulty establishing roots, Poe will be feted at birthday parties in those five cities in January. Events will continue throughout the year - including new museum exhibits, performances and readings of Poe's work, academic conferences and, in Baltimore, a re-enactment of his funeral that is sure to draw more mourners than the hasty burial itself.
The push to honour Poe dovetails with an escalating debate about the places that were most important to the author's life and work. Fans of Poe, then, can be forgiven if they feel the need to sit and ponder, weak and weary, where best to pay tribute to the author.
"Every city has its claim to fame with Poe," said Jeff Jerome, curator of the Poe House and Museum in Baltimore.
Baltimore, where Poe died in 1849 under mysterious circumstances, has his grave and a tiny rowhouse he lived in during his mid-20s. There are also houses in Philadelphia, where Poe wrote some of his best-known stories, and New York, where he enjoyed his greatest literary success. Richmond has the definitive Poe museum. Boston doesn't have much besides a plaque near his place of birth, but an enthusiastic English professor thinks the city should - and will - do more.
For promoting Poe, no city can compete with Baltimore, which named its football team the Ravens in his honour. It also has the Poe birthday tradition that fascinates the public - each year, a mysterious visitor leaves a half-full bottle of cognac and three red roses at his original gravesite.
In 1875, Poe's remains were moved to a more prominent spot in the same cemetery, Westminster Burying Ground, alongside his aunt, Maria Clemm. The remains of his wife, Virginia - who was also Maria's daughter - were reburied there ten years later.
There Poe's bones will stay, despite a tongue-in-cheek plea by Philadelphia-based Poe scholar Edward Pettit to dig up the author's remains and rebury them in the City of Brotherly Love, where he wrote many of his best stories, including "The Fall of the House of Usher" and "The Pit and the Pendulum."
Pettit's immodest proposal, first aired in a 2007 article in the Philadelphia City Paper, was the opening salvo in what he calls the "Poe Wars."
"I'm not crazy. I've never thought that the actual body of Poe was going to be moved," Pettit said. "But that's the metaphor. Philadelphia deserves the bones of Poe in the sense that it deserves to be the standard-bearer of the Poe legacy."
Whether Poe's bones should be moved is open for debate, of course, and on Jan. 13 at the Philadelphia Free Library, Pettit, Jerome and Paul Lewis, an English professor at Boston College, will do just that. Their scholarly showdown is billed as "The Great Poe Debate."
"I don't really have to prepare," Jerome boasted, noting that Baltimore has been the guardian of Poe's legacy since the 1875 dedication of his new grave, which drew hundreds of people, including Walt Whitman.
Boston's claim on Poe is much shakier - Poe left there when he was a few months old and, as an adult, he despised the city and its literary tradition - but Lewis tries to compensate with rhetorical enthusiasm.
"He is arguably - I'm not saying everyone would accept this - the most influential writer who was ever born in Boston, and we should celebrate it," Lewis said.
New York and Richmond have tried to stay above the fray - but they'll take their shots if asked. Their claims are arguably just as strong.
"The work that he did here in New York kind of stands on its own," said Anthony Green, education director of the Bronx Historical Society, who cited "The Raven," "The Bells" and "The Cask of Amontillado." "We can let the other cities squabble about it. To us, it's not really a competition."
As for Richmond, Poe described himself as a Virginian and lived there longer than anywhere else. Said Katarina M. Spears, executive director of the Edgar Allan Poe Museum: "We kind of arrogantly feel like it's only if you're really insecure about your connection to him that you need to be actively competing."
Nothing can compete, though, with the mystery and intrigue of the man known only as the "Poe Toaster," and while his annual birthday tribute isn't listed among Baltimore's official bicentennial events, it figures to draw hundreds of people who will try - unsuccessfully, if history is any guide - to get a look at him.
Poe's original gravesite can't be seen from the street, and the toaster always shows up when the cemetery is closed, typically in the wee hours of the morning. Jerome will be inside Westminster Hall, the former church adjacent to the cemetery, with a few invited guests. He won't allow the public or the news media into the building.
Jerome insists he doesn't know the toaster's identity and does nothing to aid or abet him. He tries to be respectful of the tribute and he hopes the crowd that typically gathers outside the cemetery will do the same.
"I'm a nervous wreck," he said.
Pettit was part of the crowd last January and caught a fleeting glimpse of the toaster as he entered the cemetery. He did not see how the man left. He expects the toaster to try to dupe the throng by showing up earlier or later than usual.
"I think it's going to be a mob scene there," Pettit said. "I don't know how he's going to get in."
There will be plenty of officially sanctioned events in Baltimore and elsewhere. A three-day birthday celebration is scheduled for Westminster Hall. Among the highlights: A tribute to Poe and his work performed by John Astin, best known as Gomez Addams on the 1960s "Addams Family" TV series.
The Edgar Allan Poe Museum in Richmond will be open for 24 hours straight on Poe's birthday. In Philadelphia, the Edgar Allan Poe National Historic site will reopen with new exhibits after a renovation. The Bronx County Historical Society plans to host a party on the grounds of the Poe Cottage in the Bronx, N.Y. And at Boston College, Lewis has arranged for lectures by scholars and a screening of a new feature film inspired by Poe's life.
In October, Baltimore will mark the 160th anniversary of the author's death by inviting the public to the Poe House to view a replica of his body. The body will then be taken by horse-drawn carriage to Westminster Hall, giving Poe the proper funeral he never had.
For the diehard Poe enthusiasts, the tributes won't end with the bicentennial year. Jerome insists that Baltimore will continue to take the lead.
"When the bicentennial's over," he said, "all these cities are going to be dropping Poe like an empty bottle of amontillado."
On the Net:
Baltimore: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://poebicentennial.com/&usg=AFQjCNGzHaqocUOsJWFlvBukvyWNdVH2QQ
Baltimore: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nevermore2009.com/&usg=AFQjCNHtREpr3TmhpQxMV7Sv0ElOhpZ8Sg
Boston: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.bc.edu/schools/cas/english/poe2009.html&usg=AFQjCNF2AVRP3AUHS8l_Qz40QTAfL0cxhw
New York: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.bronxhistoricalsociety.org/&usg=AFQjCNH4fBk8YvTISzI3c7P0aVG4TdrvIA
Philadelphia: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.nps.gov/edal/&usg=AFQjCNGHd7hy5s_lkz5F943XgZnm6nz0hw
Richmond: http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.poe200th.com/&usg=AFQjCNEr1fVyAVEQAFa3BRwmmj8JAUl4jQ
Upcoming events-Restaurant Week's Philly/AC/Balti
WOW-January 25-30, 2009 will be Philly's Center City District Restaurant Week. Participating Center City restaurants will offer a minimum of 3 courses for only $35† per person. And participating parking facilities will offer diners discounted rates. Restaurants book up fast, so make your reservations today!
Atlantic City Restaurant Week is a seven-day celebration of the culinary scene in Atlantic City. For the week of March 1-7, 2009, participating restaurants will offer a multi-course meal for the fixed price of $15.09 for lunch and $33.09 for dinner (not including beverage, tax and gratuity). Restaurant week offers gastronomes and gourmets an extraordinary opportunity to explore some of Atlantic City's classic restaurants - and some of the city's newest - to sample a variety of the exceptional dishes prepared by Atlantic City's chefs at incredibly reasonable rates.
Baltimore Winter Restaurant Week
Enjoy a variety of three-course dinners, in just about any cuisine that strikes your fancy, for only $30.09. Or try three-course lunches at select restaurants for just $20.09. Also this winter, many restaurants will also offer special culinary experiences, such as wine pairings, cooking classes, tasting menus and more. Plus, the savings don't have to stop after dinner. Visit Baltimore.org to find loads of deals and discounts good at area attractions, shops, hotels, and, yes, even more restaurants.http://www.baltimorerestaurantweek.com/
Enjoy a variety of three-course dinners, in just about any cuisine that strikes your fancy, for only $30.09. Or try three-course lunches at select restaurants for just $20.09. Also this winter, many restaurants will also offer special culinary experiences, such as wine pairings, cooking classes, tasting menus and more. Plus, the savings don't have to stop after dinner. Visit Baltimore.org to find loads of deals and discounts good at area attractions, shops, hotels, and, yes, even more restaurants.http://www.baltimorerestaurantweek.com/
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Why I love Christmas by John Waters
Happy Holidays....long post but worth reading....my present to YOU....
Why I Love Christmas By John Waters
Being a traditionalist, I'm a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I'm already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left. "What are you getting me for Christmas?" I carp to fellow bathers who haven't even decided what to do for Labour Day. As each month follows, I grow more and more obsessed. Around October I startle complete strangers by bursting into my off-key rendition of "Joy to the World." I'm always The Little Drummer Boy for Halloween, a grouchy one at that, since the inconsiderate stores haven't even put up their Christmas decorations yet. November 1 kicks off the jubilee of consumerism, and I'm so riddled with the holidays season that the mere mention of a stocking stuffer sexually arouses me.
By December , I'm deep in Xmas psychosis, and only then do I allow myself the luxury of daydreaming my favourite childhood memory: dashing through the snow, laughing all the way (ha-ha-ha) to Grandma's house to find the fully decorated tree has fallen over and pinned her underneath. My candy-coloured memories have run through the projector of my mind so many times that they are almost in 3-D. That awful pause before my parents rushed to free her, my own stunned silence as I dared not ask if Granny's gifts to us had been damaged, and the wondrous, glories sight of the snow semi-crooked tree, with balls broken, being begrudgingly hoisted back to its proper position of adoration. "O Christmas tree! O Christmas tree!" I started shrieking at the top of my lungs in an insane fit of childhood hyperventilation before being silenced by a glare from my parents that could have stopped a train. This tableau was never mentioned again, and my family pretended it never happened. But I remember—boy, do I remember!
If you don't have yourself a merry little Christmas, you might as well kill yourself. Every waking second should be spent in Christmas compulsion: career, love affairs, marriages, and all the other clutter of daily life must take a backseat to this holiday of holidays. As December 25 fast approaches, the anxiety and pressure to experience "happiness" are all part of the ritual. If you can't maintain the spirit, you're either a rotten Communist or badly in need of a psychiatrist. No wonder you don't have any friends.
Of course, You-know-who was supposed to have been born on Christmas, but the real Holy Trinity is God the Father, the Son and the Holy Santa Claus. You don't see fake Josephs and Marys in department stores asking kids what they want, do you? Face it, mangers are downwardly mobile. True, swiping a sheep or a wise man for your apartment from a local church is always good for a cheap thrill and invariably gets you in the paper the next day. And Madalyn Murray O'Hair (the publicity-crazed atheist saint) always gets a rise by successfully demanding in court the removal of Nativity scenes from her state capital on Christmas Eve. But we all know who the real God is, don't we? That's right, the Supreme One, Santa Claus.
But if you think about it, Santa Claus is directly responsible for heroin addiction. Innocent children are brainwashed into believing the first big lie their parents ever tell them, and when the truth finally hits, they never believe them again. All the stern warnings on the perils of drugs carry the same credibility as flying reindeer or fat men in your chimney. But I love Santa Claus anyway: All legends have feet of clay. Besides, he's a boon to the unemployed. where else can drunks and fat people get temporary work?
Of course, to many, Santa is an erotic figure, and fore these lucky revelers, the Christmas season is a smorgasbord of raw sex. Some people just go for a man in a uniform. Inventive entrepreneurs should open a leather bar called the Pole where dominant wrinkle fetishists could dress like old St. Nick and passive gerontophiliacs could get on all fours and take the whip like good reindeer. Inhaling poppers and climbing down mock chimneys or opening sticks 'n' stones from the red-felt master could complete the sex-drenched atmosphere of the first S&M Xmas bar.
You could even get fancy about it. Why hasn't Bloomingdale's or Tiffany's tried a fancy Santa. Deathly pale, this never-too-thin-or-too-rich Kris Kringle, dressed in head-to-toe unstructured, over-size Armani, could pose on a throne, bored and elegant, and every so often deign to let a rich little brat sit near his lap before dismissing his wishes with a condescending "Oh, darling, you don't really want that, do you?"
Santa has always been the ultimate movie star. Forget White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life and all the other hackneyed trash. Go for the classics: Silent Night, Bloody Night, Black Christmas or the best seasonal film of all time Christmas Evil ("He'll sleigh you"). This true cinematic masterpiece only played theatrically for a few seconds, but it's now available on videocassette and no holiday family get-together is complete without it. I t's about a man completely consumed by Christmas. His neurosis first rears its ugly head as he applies shaving cream to his face, looks in the mirror, hallucinates a white beard and begins to imagine that he is Santa Claus. He gets a job in a toy factory, starts snooping and spying on the neighbourhood children and then rushes home to feverishly make notes in his big red book: "Jimmy was a good boy today," or "Peggy was a bad little girl." He starts cross-dressing as Claus and lurks around people's roots ready to take the plunge. Finally, he actually gets stick in a nearby chimney and awakens the family in his struggle. Mom and Dad go insane when they find a fat lunatic in their fireplace, but the kids are wild with glee. Santa has no choice but to kill these Scroogelike parents with the razor-sharp star decorating the top of their tree. As he flees a neighbourhood lynch mob, the children come to his rescue and defy their distraught parents by forming a human ring of protection around him. Finally, pushed to the limits of Clausmania, he leaps into his van/sleigh and it takes off flying over the moon as he psychotically and happily shrieks, "On Dancer! On Prancer! On Donner and Vixen!" I wish I had kids. I'd make them watch it every year and if they didn't like it, they'd be punished.
Preholiday activities are the foreplay of Christmas. Naturally, Christmas cards are you first duty and you must send one (with a personal, handwritten message) to every single person you ever met, no matter how briefly. If this common courtesy is not reciprocated, never speak to the person again. Keep computerized records of violators and hold the grudge forever; don't even attend their funeral.
Of course, you must make your own cards by hand. "I don't have time" you may whine, but since the whole purpose of life is Christmas, you'd better make time, buster. We Christmas zealots are rather demanding when it comes to the basic requirements of holiday behaviour. "But I can't think of anything . . . ." is usually the next excuse, but cut those people off in mid-sentence. It's easy to be creative at Christmastime. One year I had a real cute idea that was easy to design. I bought a cheap generic card of Joseph and Mary holiday the Baby Jesus and superimposed Charles Manson's face in the place of the homeless infant's. Inside I kept the message "He is born". Everybody told me they loved it and some even said they saved it. (For the record, I'm against donating your cards to nursing homes after Christmas. One would think that after all these years on earth, senior citizens would have had a chance to make a friend or two on their own. Don't do it!) This season, I'm dying to produce my dream card that I've wanted for years. I'll be sitting in a Norman Rockwell-style Christmas scene, dressed in robe and slippers, opening my gifts moments before I notice a freak fire that has begun in the tissue paper and is licking and spreading to the tree.
Go deeply in debt over Christmas shopping. Always spend in exact correlation to how much you like the recipient. Aunt Mary I love about $6.50 worth; Uncle Jim—well, at least he got his teeth fixed—$8. If your Christmas comes and goes without declaring bankruptcy, I feel sorry for you—you are a person with not enough love inside.
You can never buy too many presents. If you said "Excuse me" to me on a transit bus, you're on my list. I wrap gifts for nonexistent people in case somebody I barely know hands me a present and I'm unprepared to return this gesture. Even though I'm the type who infuriates others by saying "Oh, I finished my shopping months ago," as they frantically try to make last-minute decisions. I like to go into the stores at the height of Christmasmania. Everyone is in a horrid mood, and you can see the overburdened, underpaid temporary help having nervous breakdowns. I always write down their badge numbers and report them for being grumpy.
If you're a criminal, Christmas is an extra-special time for you and your family. Shoplifting is easier and cars in parking lots are loaded with presents for your children. Since everyone steals the checks you must leave for the mailman and garbagemen, I like to leave little novelty items, like letter bombs. Luckily, I live in a bad neighbourhood, so I don't have to worry; the muggers live in my building and go to the rich neighbourhoods to rob. If you're quick, you can even steal the muggers' loot as they unload the car. Every child in my district seems to get rollerskates for Christmas, and it's music to my ears to hear the sudden roar of an approaching gang on skates, tossing back and forth like a hot potato a purse they've just snatched.
"Santa Claus Is a Black Man" is my favourite Christmas carol, but I also like The Chipmunks' Christmas Album, the Barking Dogs' "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman" by the Ronettes. If you're so filled with holiday cheer you can't stand it, try calling your friends and going caroling yourself. Especially if you're old, a drug addict, an alcoholic or obviously homosexual and have a lot of effeminate friends. Go In packs. If you are black, go to a prissy white neighbourhood. Ring doorbells, and when the Father Knows Best-type family answers, start screeching hostilely your favourite carol. Watch their faces. There's nothing they can do. It's not illegal. Maybe they'll give you a present.
Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can't go wrong. Be the type who's impossible to buy for so that they have to get what you want. Here was my 1985 list and I had checked it twice; the long-out-of-print paperback The Indiana Torture Slaying, the one-sheet for the film I Hate Your Guts and the subscription to Corrections Today, the trade paper for prison wardens. If you owe someone money, now is the time to pay him back, mentioning at the same time a perfect gift suggestion. If you expect to be receiving a Christmas stocking as a forerunner to a present, tell the giver right off the bat that you don't go for razor blades, deodorants or any of the other common little sundries but anticipate stocking stuffers that are original, esoteric and perfectly suited to you and you alone.
It helps to be a collector, so the precedent is set on what to expect as a gift. For years friends have treated me to the toy annually selected by the Consumer Affairs Committee of Americans for Democratic Action as the "worst toy" to give your child at Christmastime. "Gobbles, the Garbage-Eating Goat" started my collection. "That crazy eating goat" reads the delightful package, and in small print, "Contains: One realistic goat with head that goes up and down. Comes complete with seven pieces of pretend garbage." This Kenner Discovery Time toy's instructions are priceless. "Gobbles loves to eat garbage when he's hungry, and he's ALWAYS hungry. (1) Hold Gobbles mouth open by the beard. Stuff a piece of pretend garbage straight into his mouth and (2) pump the tail until the garbage disappears." It ends with an ominous warning, "Feed Gobbles only the garbage that comes with the toy," and in even smaller print "If you need additional garbage, we will, as a service, send it to you direct. For 14 pieces of garbage send $1 (check or money order; sorry, no C.O.D.) to . . . . " I can't tell you the hours of fun I've had with Gobbles. Sometimes when I'm very bored, Gobbles and I get naked and play-play.
Over the years my collection has grown. There's "My Puppy Puddles" ("You can make him drink water, wet in his tray and kiss you"). "Baby Cry and Dry" about whom the watchdog group warned: "Take her out of the box and she smells, the odor won't go away" and "Baby Cry for You." ("The tears don't just drop out, they whoosh out in a three-foot stream.") Of course, I still cover the winner of the first annual prize (before my collection began)—a guillotine for dolls. "Take that, Barbie." "Off with your head, Betsy Wetsy!"
No matter what you think of your presents, each must be answered with an immediate thank you note. Thinking of what to write can be tricky, especially for distant relatives who send you a card with two crisp $1 bills inside. Be honest in your reply—"Dear Uncle Walt. Thank you for the $2. I bought a pack of Kools and then put the change in an especially disgusting peep show, it was fun!" or "Dear Aunt Lulu, I was thrilled to receive your kind gift of $5. I immediately bought some PCP with it. Unfortunately, I had a bad reaction, stabbed my sister, set the house on fire and got taken to the hospital for the criminally insane. Maybe you could come visit me? Love, Your nephew."
I always have an "office party" every year and invite my old friends, business associates and any snappy criminals who have been recently paroled. I reinforce all my chairs, since for some reason many of my guests are very fat, and after a few splintered antiques, I've learned my lesson. I used to throw the party on Christmas Eve, but so many guests complained of hideous hangovers I had to move up the date. No more moaning and dry heaving under their parents' tree the next day as their brothers and sisters give them dirty looks for prematurely ejaculating the Christmas spirit.
I usually invite about a hundred people and the guest know I expect each to get everyone else a present. Ten thousand gifts! When they're ripped open at midnight, you can see Christmas dementia at its height. One thing that pushes me off the deep end is party crashers. I've solved the problem by hiring a door many who pistol-whips anyone without an invitation, but in the old days, crashers actually got inside. How rude! At Christmas, of all times, when visions of sugarplums are dancing orgiastically through my head. One even brought her mother—how touching. "GET OUT!" I snarled after snatching out of her hand the bottle of liquor that she falsely assumed would gain her (and her goddamn mother) entry.
I always show a film in one room: Wedding Trough (about a man who falls in love with a pig and then eats it) or Kitten with a Whip (Ann-Margret and John Forsythe) or What Sex Am I? (a clinical documentary about a sex-change operation). When it's finally time for the guests to leave, I blatantly get in bed and go to sleep; they know they better get home. Santa is on his way.
Christmas day is like an orgasm that never stops. Happiness and good cheer should be throbbing in your veins. Swilling eggnog, scarfing turkey and wildly ripping open presents with your family, one must pause to savor the feeling of inner peace. Once it's over, you can fall apart.
Now is the time for suicide if you are so inclined. All sorts of neuroses are permitted. Depression and feelings that it somehow wasn't good enough would be expected. There's nothing to do! Go to a bad movie? You can't leave the house between now and January 1 because it's unsafe; the national highways are filled with drunks unwinding and frantically trying to get away from their families. Returning gifts is not only rude but psychologically dangerous—if you're not careful you might glimpse the scum of the earth, cheap bastards who shop at after-Christmas sales to save a few bucks. What can you look forward to? January 1, the Feat of the Circumcision, perhaps the most unappetizing High Holiday in the Catholic Church? Cleaning up that dirty, dead, expensive Christmas tree that is now an instant out-of-season fire hazard? There is only one escape from post-Christmas depression—the thought that in four short weeks it's time to start all over again. What're ya gonna get me?
Why I Love Christmas By John Waters
Being a traditionalist, I'm a rabid sucker for Christmas. In July, I'm already worried that there are only 146 shopping days left. "What are you getting me for Christmas?" I carp to fellow bathers who haven't even decided what to do for Labour Day. As each month follows, I grow more and more obsessed. Around October I startle complete strangers by bursting into my off-key rendition of "Joy to the World." I'm always The Little Drummer Boy for Halloween, a grouchy one at that, since the inconsiderate stores haven't even put up their Christmas decorations yet. November 1 kicks off the jubilee of consumerism, and I'm so riddled with the holidays season that the mere mention of a stocking stuffer sexually arouses me.
By December , I'm deep in Xmas psychosis, and only then do I allow myself the luxury of daydreaming my favourite childhood memory: dashing through the snow, laughing all the way (ha-ha-ha) to Grandma's house to find the fully decorated tree has fallen over and pinned her underneath. My candy-coloured memories have run through the projector of my mind so many times that they are almost in 3-D. That awful pause before my parents rushed to free her, my own stunned silence as I dared not ask if Granny's gifts to us had been damaged, and the wondrous, glories sight of the snow semi-crooked tree, with balls broken, being begrudgingly hoisted back to its proper position of adoration. "O Christmas tree! O Christmas tree!" I started shrieking at the top of my lungs in an insane fit of childhood hyperventilation before being silenced by a glare from my parents that could have stopped a train. This tableau was never mentioned again, and my family pretended it never happened. But I remember—boy, do I remember!
If you don't have yourself a merry little Christmas, you might as well kill yourself. Every waking second should be spent in Christmas compulsion: career, love affairs, marriages, and all the other clutter of daily life must take a backseat to this holiday of holidays. As December 25 fast approaches, the anxiety and pressure to experience "happiness" are all part of the ritual. If you can't maintain the spirit, you're either a rotten Communist or badly in need of a psychiatrist. No wonder you don't have any friends.
Of course, You-know-who was supposed to have been born on Christmas, but the real Holy Trinity is God the Father, the Son and the Holy Santa Claus. You don't see fake Josephs and Marys in department stores asking kids what they want, do you? Face it, mangers are downwardly mobile. True, swiping a sheep or a wise man for your apartment from a local church is always good for a cheap thrill and invariably gets you in the paper the next day. And Madalyn Murray O'Hair (the publicity-crazed atheist saint) always gets a rise by successfully demanding in court the removal of Nativity scenes from her state capital on Christmas Eve. But we all know who the real God is, don't we? That's right, the Supreme One, Santa Claus.
But if you think about it, Santa Claus is directly responsible for heroin addiction. Innocent children are brainwashed into believing the first big lie their parents ever tell them, and when the truth finally hits, they never believe them again. All the stern warnings on the perils of drugs carry the same credibility as flying reindeer or fat men in your chimney. But I love Santa Claus anyway: All legends have feet of clay. Besides, he's a boon to the unemployed. where else can drunks and fat people get temporary work?
Of course, to many, Santa is an erotic figure, and fore these lucky revelers, the Christmas season is a smorgasbord of raw sex. Some people just go for a man in a uniform. Inventive entrepreneurs should open a leather bar called the Pole where dominant wrinkle fetishists could dress like old St. Nick and passive gerontophiliacs could get on all fours and take the whip like good reindeer. Inhaling poppers and climbing down mock chimneys or opening sticks 'n' stones from the red-felt master could complete the sex-drenched atmosphere of the first S&M Xmas bar.
You could even get fancy about it. Why hasn't Bloomingdale's or Tiffany's tried a fancy Santa. Deathly pale, this never-too-thin-or-too-rich Kris Kringle, dressed in head-to-toe unstructured, over-size Armani, could pose on a throne, bored and elegant, and every so often deign to let a rich little brat sit near his lap before dismissing his wishes with a condescending "Oh, darling, you don't really want that, do you?"
Santa has always been the ultimate movie star. Forget White Christmas, It's a Wonderful Life and all the other hackneyed trash. Go for the classics: Silent Night, Bloody Night, Black Christmas or the best seasonal film of all time Christmas Evil ("He'll sleigh you"). This true cinematic masterpiece only played theatrically for a few seconds, but it's now available on videocassette and no holiday family get-together is complete without it. I t's about a man completely consumed by Christmas. His neurosis first rears its ugly head as he applies shaving cream to his face, looks in the mirror, hallucinates a white beard and begins to imagine that he is Santa Claus. He gets a job in a toy factory, starts snooping and spying on the neighbourhood children and then rushes home to feverishly make notes in his big red book: "Jimmy was a good boy today," or "Peggy was a bad little girl." He starts cross-dressing as Claus and lurks around people's roots ready to take the plunge. Finally, he actually gets stick in a nearby chimney and awakens the family in his struggle. Mom and Dad go insane when they find a fat lunatic in their fireplace, but the kids are wild with glee. Santa has no choice but to kill these Scroogelike parents with the razor-sharp star decorating the top of their tree. As he flees a neighbourhood lynch mob, the children come to his rescue and defy their distraught parents by forming a human ring of protection around him. Finally, pushed to the limits of Clausmania, he leaps into his van/sleigh and it takes off flying over the moon as he psychotically and happily shrieks, "On Dancer! On Prancer! On Donner and Vixen!" I wish I had kids. I'd make them watch it every year and if they didn't like it, they'd be punished.
Preholiday activities are the foreplay of Christmas. Naturally, Christmas cards are you first duty and you must send one (with a personal, handwritten message) to every single person you ever met, no matter how briefly. If this common courtesy is not reciprocated, never speak to the person again. Keep computerized records of violators and hold the grudge forever; don't even attend their funeral.
Of course, you must make your own cards by hand. "I don't have time" you may whine, but since the whole purpose of life is Christmas, you'd better make time, buster. We Christmas zealots are rather demanding when it comes to the basic requirements of holiday behaviour. "But I can't think of anything . . . ." is usually the next excuse, but cut those people off in mid-sentence. It's easy to be creative at Christmastime. One year I had a real cute idea that was easy to design. I bought a cheap generic card of Joseph and Mary holiday the Baby Jesus and superimposed Charles Manson's face in the place of the homeless infant's. Inside I kept the message "He is born". Everybody told me they loved it and some even said they saved it. (For the record, I'm against donating your cards to nursing homes after Christmas. One would think that after all these years on earth, senior citizens would have had a chance to make a friend or two on their own. Don't do it!) This season, I'm dying to produce my dream card that I've wanted for years. I'll be sitting in a Norman Rockwell-style Christmas scene, dressed in robe and slippers, opening my gifts moments before I notice a freak fire that has begun in the tissue paper and is licking and spreading to the tree.
Go deeply in debt over Christmas shopping. Always spend in exact correlation to how much you like the recipient. Aunt Mary I love about $6.50 worth; Uncle Jim—well, at least he got his teeth fixed—$8. If your Christmas comes and goes without declaring bankruptcy, I feel sorry for you—you are a person with not enough love inside.
You can never buy too many presents. If you said "Excuse me" to me on a transit bus, you're on my list. I wrap gifts for nonexistent people in case somebody I barely know hands me a present and I'm unprepared to return this gesture. Even though I'm the type who infuriates others by saying "Oh, I finished my shopping months ago," as they frantically try to make last-minute decisions. I like to go into the stores at the height of Christmasmania. Everyone is in a horrid mood, and you can see the overburdened, underpaid temporary help having nervous breakdowns. I always write down their badge numbers and report them for being grumpy.
If you're a criminal, Christmas is an extra-special time for you and your family. Shoplifting is easier and cars in parking lots are loaded with presents for your children. Since everyone steals the checks you must leave for the mailman and garbagemen, I like to leave little novelty items, like letter bombs. Luckily, I live in a bad neighbourhood, so I don't have to worry; the muggers live in my building and go to the rich neighbourhoods to rob. If you're quick, you can even steal the muggers' loot as they unload the car. Every child in my district seems to get rollerskates for Christmas, and it's music to my ears to hear the sudden roar of an approaching gang on skates, tossing back and forth like a hot potato a purse they've just snatched.
"Santa Claus Is a Black Man" is my favourite Christmas carol, but I also like The Chipmunks' Christmas Album, the Barking Dogs' "Jingle Bells" and "Frosty the Snowman" by the Ronettes. If you're so filled with holiday cheer you can't stand it, try calling your friends and going caroling yourself. Especially if you're old, a drug addict, an alcoholic or obviously homosexual and have a lot of effeminate friends. Go In packs. If you are black, go to a prissy white neighbourhood. Ring doorbells, and when the Father Knows Best-type family answers, start screeching hostilely your favourite carol. Watch their faces. There's nothing they can do. It's not illegal. Maybe they'll give you a present.
Always be prepared if someone asks you what you want for Christmas. Give brand names, the store that sells the merchandise and, if possible, exact model numbers so they can't go wrong. Be the type who's impossible to buy for so that they have to get what you want. Here was my 1985 list and I had checked it twice; the long-out-of-print paperback The Indiana Torture Slaying, the one-sheet for the film I Hate Your Guts and the subscription to Corrections Today, the trade paper for prison wardens. If you owe someone money, now is the time to pay him back, mentioning at the same time a perfect gift suggestion. If you expect to be receiving a Christmas stocking as a forerunner to a present, tell the giver right off the bat that you don't go for razor blades, deodorants or any of the other common little sundries but anticipate stocking stuffers that are original, esoteric and perfectly suited to you and you alone.
It helps to be a collector, so the precedent is set on what to expect as a gift. For years friends have treated me to the toy annually selected by the Consumer Affairs Committee of Americans for Democratic Action as the "worst toy" to give your child at Christmastime. "Gobbles, the Garbage-Eating Goat" started my collection. "That crazy eating goat" reads the delightful package, and in small print, "Contains: One realistic goat with head that goes up and down. Comes complete with seven pieces of pretend garbage." This Kenner Discovery Time toy's instructions are priceless. "Gobbles loves to eat garbage when he's hungry, and he's ALWAYS hungry. (1) Hold Gobbles mouth open by the beard. Stuff a piece of pretend garbage straight into his mouth and (2) pump the tail until the garbage disappears." It ends with an ominous warning, "Feed Gobbles only the garbage that comes with the toy," and in even smaller print "If you need additional garbage, we will, as a service, send it to you direct. For 14 pieces of garbage send $1 (check or money order; sorry, no C.O.D.) to . . . . " I can't tell you the hours of fun I've had with Gobbles. Sometimes when I'm very bored, Gobbles and I get naked and play-play.
Over the years my collection has grown. There's "My Puppy Puddles" ("You can make him drink water, wet in his tray and kiss you"). "Baby Cry and Dry" about whom the watchdog group warned: "Take her out of the box and she smells, the odor won't go away" and "Baby Cry for You." ("The tears don't just drop out, they whoosh out in a three-foot stream.") Of course, I still cover the winner of the first annual prize (before my collection began)—a guillotine for dolls. "Take that, Barbie." "Off with your head, Betsy Wetsy!"
No matter what you think of your presents, each must be answered with an immediate thank you note. Thinking of what to write can be tricky, especially for distant relatives who send you a card with two crisp $1 bills inside. Be honest in your reply—"Dear Uncle Walt. Thank you for the $2. I bought a pack of Kools and then put the change in an especially disgusting peep show, it was fun!" or "Dear Aunt Lulu, I was thrilled to receive your kind gift of $5. I immediately bought some PCP with it. Unfortunately, I had a bad reaction, stabbed my sister, set the house on fire and got taken to the hospital for the criminally insane. Maybe you could come visit me? Love, Your nephew."
I always have an "office party" every year and invite my old friends, business associates and any snappy criminals who have been recently paroled. I reinforce all my chairs, since for some reason many of my guests are very fat, and after a few splintered antiques, I've learned my lesson. I used to throw the party on Christmas Eve, but so many guests complained of hideous hangovers I had to move up the date. No more moaning and dry heaving under their parents' tree the next day as their brothers and sisters give them dirty looks for prematurely ejaculating the Christmas spirit.
I usually invite about a hundred people and the guest know I expect each to get everyone else a present. Ten thousand gifts! When they're ripped open at midnight, you can see Christmas dementia at its height. One thing that pushes me off the deep end is party crashers. I've solved the problem by hiring a door many who pistol-whips anyone without an invitation, but in the old days, crashers actually got inside. How rude! At Christmas, of all times, when visions of sugarplums are dancing orgiastically through my head. One even brought her mother—how touching. "GET OUT!" I snarled after snatching out of her hand the bottle of liquor that she falsely assumed would gain her (and her goddamn mother) entry.
I always show a film in one room: Wedding Trough (about a man who falls in love with a pig and then eats it) or Kitten with a Whip (Ann-Margret and John Forsythe) or What Sex Am I? (a clinical documentary about a sex-change operation). When it's finally time for the guests to leave, I blatantly get in bed and go to sleep; they know they better get home. Santa is on his way.
Christmas day is like an orgasm that never stops. Happiness and good cheer should be throbbing in your veins. Swilling eggnog, scarfing turkey and wildly ripping open presents with your family, one must pause to savor the feeling of inner peace. Once it's over, you can fall apart.
Now is the time for suicide if you are so inclined. All sorts of neuroses are permitted. Depression and feelings that it somehow wasn't good enough would be expected. There's nothing to do! Go to a bad movie? You can't leave the house between now and January 1 because it's unsafe; the national highways are filled with drunks unwinding and frantically trying to get away from their families. Returning gifts is not only rude but psychologically dangerous—if you're not careful you might glimpse the scum of the earth, cheap bastards who shop at after-Christmas sales to save a few bucks. What can you look forward to? January 1, the Feat of the Circumcision, perhaps the most unappetizing High Holiday in the Catholic Church? Cleaning up that dirty, dead, expensive Christmas tree that is now an instant out-of-season fire hazard? There is only one escape from post-Christmas depression—the thought that in four short weeks it's time to start all over again. What're ya gonna get me?
Monday, December 22, 2008
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
The L Word-Fin Photo's
The L Word's
group promo pictures for the sixth and final season are in....to view more check out this link:
Sunday, December 14, 2008
Breaking News...Size 10 shoes thrown at President Bush
From BBC News....A surprise visit by US President George Bush to Iraq has been overshadowed by an incident in which two shoes were thrown at him during a news conference.
An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
The soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture.
During the trip, Mr Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki signed the new security agreement between their countries.
The pact calls for US troops to leave Iraq in 2011 - eight years after the 2003 invasion that has in part defined the Bush presidency.
Speaking just over five weeks before he hands over power to Barack Obama, Mr Bush also said the war in Iraq was not over and more work remained to be done.
His previously unannounced visit came a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told US troops the Iraq mission was in its "endgame".
'Size 10'
In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.
An Iraqi journalist was wrestled to the floor by security guards after he called Mr Bush "a dog" and threw his footwear, just missing the president.
The soles of shoes are considered the ultimate insult in Arab culture.
During the trip, Mr Bush and Iraqi PM Nouri Maliki signed the new security agreement between their countries.
The pact calls for US troops to leave Iraq in 2011 - eight years after the 2003 invasion that has in part defined the Bush presidency.
Speaking just over five weeks before he hands over power to Barack Obama, Mr Bush also said the war in Iraq was not over and more work remained to be done.
His previously unannounced visit came a day after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates told US troops the Iraq mission was in its "endgame".
'Size 10'
In the middle of the news conference with Mr Maliki, a reporter stood up and shouted "this is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog," before hurtling his shoes at Mr Bush, narrowly missing him.
Classic Bush-duck and cover
Those shoes would freakin' hurt if they had made contact with Mr. Bush.
Press Secretary Dana P. has a black eye, from the melee that followed and was hit in the eye with a microphone.
Something New for Plum St. Lancaster PA
OHHH, something new in my 'hood just down the block....., located across from Quip's pub at the intersection of N. Plum street and New Holland Ave.=FRANK'S Place.
Pizza, Wings and More, all of the major food groups right there. Yeah! I have no idea when this Pizza parlor is set to open, the sign was just put up.
Sunday, December 7, 2008
LBC News
I'm catching up on my reading today and caught Woody's column in ALE street news and found out about Lancaster Brewing Company's (LBC) Limited Shoo-Fly Porter coming out and a Belgian Tripple available now. A lot of my friends and myself included, celebrate the day Baltic Porter is released. We love it and it helps brighten the dark long winter months and we are excitingly awaiting it's release from LBC. Woody reports that this Shoo-Fly Porter was suggested at a meet-up @ GABF by Matt Capone of Capone's in Norristown, PA, that a beer made with molasses might work. Can't wait to try it. LBC has started Trivia in the bar on Tuesday nights @ 8pm.
Saturday, December 6, 2008
75 Years Ago, misc. thoughts
Oh, I have a slight hangover from celebrating REPEAL DAY; 75 years ago, yesterday, Dec. 5th 1933, the 21st amendment was ratified and went into effect eliminating the 13 year experiment of the 18th amendment. PROHIBITION ENDED. PARTY ON DUDE.
Not too many people, who were out last night were aware of this fact but were happy and drinking away. I believe REPEAL DAY should have a more national prominence in the American Drinking Holidays. It's part of our Constitution!! Remember civics's class!
I spent last night @ Iron Hill Brewery in Lancaster, of course. It was a mug club party to release two brews, Brewmaster Paul Rutherford, has produced:
#1 Permanent Midnight is a dark, strong farmhouse ale. This special holiday beer is brewed with two different Belgian yeast strains, 9 different types of grains, and some secret assorted spices in the boil. The beer has a very complex layer of flavors that include dark fruits, toffee, spice, and black licorice, and it weighs in at 9% .
#2 Imperial Coffee Porter, Iron Hill’s 1st ever beer brewed with coffee.To make this beer, they took their Pig Iron Porter recipe and basically doubled it. Then we got 35lbs of a custom-roasted blend of Sumatra and Nicaraguan coffee beans, cold steeped the beans for three days, and then pumped the resulting extract into the beer.The finished beer weighs in at 9.5%, bursting with chocolate, roast, and coffee flavors. It will be served on nitro, and yes, it does contain caffeine.
There's Paul's Gold medal for the 2009 GABF!! I loved this beer. It was so so good.
I may have to go back for more today. Paul told me he doesn't even drink coffee but oh can he brew some beer!
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Brooklyn Pennant Ale '55
What I am drinking right now. I picked up a six pack of Brooklyn Pennant Ale '55 from Brooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn, NY - USA on Sunday and I am trying one right now.
Info. from Brooklyn Brewery Web site:
As Brooklynites, we revere the memory of the 1955 World Champion Dodgers baseball team, so we had to name a beer in their honor. Brooklyn Pennant Ale is a honey-colored pale ale with a brisk malt palate and finely balanced hop character. Pennant is a traditional English-style pale ale. The pale ale style developed in the early 19th century and was called pale because it appeared so in comparison to the darker ale styles of the day. Brooklyn Pennant Ale is brewed from Scottish Maris Otter malt, which is justly prized for its toasty, biscuity flavor and the round smoothness it imparts to beer.
Brooklyn Pennant Ale is great with pizaa, roasted and grilled meats, burgers, barbeque, robust fish, shellfish, falafel, crab cakes and spicy food. Caramel malts lend it the ability to work nicely with steaks, but just as well with grilled vegetables.
Malts Used: Scottish Floor-malted Maris Otter Malt, Belgian Aromatic malt, British Crystal Malt from East Anglican.
Hops Used:Hallertauer Perle, Willamette, American Fuggle, Cascade.
Info. from Brooklyn Brewery Web site:
As Brooklynites, we revere the memory of the 1955 World Champion Dodgers baseball team, so we had to name a beer in their honor. Brooklyn Pennant Ale is a honey-colored pale ale with a brisk malt palate and finely balanced hop character. Pennant is a traditional English-style pale ale. The pale ale style developed in the early 19th century and was called pale because it appeared so in comparison to the darker ale styles of the day. Brooklyn Pennant Ale is brewed from Scottish Maris Otter malt, which is justly prized for its toasty, biscuity flavor and the round smoothness it imparts to beer.
Brooklyn Pennant Ale is great with pizaa, roasted and grilled meats, burgers, barbeque, robust fish, shellfish, falafel, crab cakes and spicy food. Caramel malts lend it the ability to work nicely with steaks, but just as well with grilled vegetables.
Malts Used: Scottish Floor-malted Maris Otter Malt, Belgian Aromatic malt, British Crystal Malt from East Anglican.
Hops Used:Hallertauer Perle, Willamette, American Fuggle, Cascade.
25 freakin years REM MURMUR
REISSUED in a deluxe edition MURMUR by REM was 1st released 25 freakin years ago. Man am I gettin old! Some say this album invented "alternative rock" but all I know is that I loved it and I continue to love REM and their music. Murmur is the debut album by R.E.M., released in 1983 on I.R.S. Records. Murmur drew critical acclaim upon its release for its sound, defined by singer Michael Stipe's cryptic lyrics and guitarist Peter Buck's jangly guitar style.
TRACKS
1."Radio Free Europe"
2."Pilgrimage"
3."Laughing"
4."Talk About the Passion"
5."Moral Kiosk"
6."Perfect Circle"
7."Catapult"
8."Sitting Still"
9."9-9"
10."Shaking Through"
11."We Walk"
12."West of the Fields"
1."Radio Free Europe"
2."Pilgrimage"
3."Laughing"
4."Talk About the Passion"
5."Moral Kiosk"
6."Perfect Circle"
7."Catapult"
8."Sitting Still"
9."9-9"
10."Shaking Through"
11."We Walk"
12."West of the Fields"
In 1989, it was rated number eight on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 100 greatest albums of the 1980s. In 2003, the album was ranked number 197 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest albums of all time. Also in 2003, the TV network VH1 named Murmur the 92nd greatest album of all time. Pitchfork Media named Murmur the fifth best album of the 1980s.
SPACE BEER
TOKYO - Space beer, the result of a five-month mission to boldly grow, where almost no one has grown barley before, has landed in Japan.
The beverage, brewed from barley cultivated in the International Space Station in 2006, has splashed down courtesy of the Russian Academy of Science, a Japanese university and beer giant Sapporo.
But the 100 liters of the 5.5 percent alcoholic brew are not for sale, although tastings are being offered to some earthlings as Sapporo tries to push its brand into a new orbit. "There's really no beer like it because it uses 100 percent barley. Our top seller is the Black Label brand, using additional ingredients such as rice. This one doesn't, and is really a special beer," Junichi Ichikawa, managing directory for strategy at Sapporo breweries, told a news conference on Tuesday.
Cosmonaut Boris Morukov, who spent 11 days in space himself, says barley joins wheat, lettuce and peas as space station produce, noting potatoes may take root in future studies, although not to make an equally famous Russian beverage.
"I think we would try to grow potatoes as food, not for vodka production," Morukov said.
Beer sales have been falling in Japan and has generally been off space menus because of its alcohol and gas content.
With explorers now eyeing longer trips to Mars, that menu may change, with Japan's Okayama University Professor Manabu Sugimoto advising astronauts not to rule out space rice wine in future. By Dan Sloan for Reuters.
The beverage, brewed from barley cultivated in the International Space Station in 2006, has splashed down courtesy of the Russian Academy of Science, a Japanese university and beer giant Sapporo.
But the 100 liters of the 5.5 percent alcoholic brew are not for sale, although tastings are being offered to some earthlings as Sapporo tries to push its brand into a new orbit. "There's really no beer like it because it uses 100 percent barley. Our top seller is the Black Label brand, using additional ingredients such as rice. This one doesn't, and is really a special beer," Junichi Ichikawa, managing directory for strategy at Sapporo breweries, told a news conference on Tuesday.
Cosmonaut Boris Morukov, who spent 11 days in space himself, says barley joins wheat, lettuce and peas as space station produce, noting potatoes may take root in future studies, although not to make an equally famous Russian beverage.
"I think we would try to grow potatoes as food, not for vodka production," Morukov said.
Beer sales have been falling in Japan and has generally been off space menus because of its alcohol and gas content.
With explorers now eyeing longer trips to Mars, that menu may change, with Japan's Okayama University Professor Manabu Sugimoto advising astronauts not to rule out space rice wine in future. By Dan Sloan for Reuters.
new brews @ Iron Hill Lancaster, PA
Yes, another MUG CLUB party @ Iron Hill Brewery, Lancaster, PA this Friday, 12/5/08=FIRST FRIDAY BASH....Special Release Party Friday, December 5th, 5-9pm
They are releasing two new winter seasonals for the holidays this week.
Permanent Midnight is a dark, strong farmhouse ale. This special holiday beer is brewed with two different Belgian yeast strains, 9 different types of grains, and some secret assorted spices in the boil. The beer has a very complex layer of flavors that include dark fruits, toffee, spice, and black licorice, and it weighs in at 9% .
Permanent Midnight is a dark, strong farmhouse ale. This special holiday beer is brewed with two different Belgian yeast strains, 9 different types of grains, and some secret assorted spices in the boil. The beer has a very complex layer of flavors that include dark fruits, toffee, spice, and black licorice, and it weighs in at 9% .
The second special release is our Imperial Coffee Porter, Iron Hill’s 1st ever beer brewed with coffee.
To make this beer, they took our Pig Iron Porter recipe and basically doubled it. Then we got 35lbs of a custom-roasted blend of Sumatra and Nicaraguan coffee beans, cold steeped the beans for three days, and then pumped the resulting extract into the beer.
The finished beer weighs in at 9.5%, bursting with chocolate, roast, and coffee flavors. It will be served on nitro, and yes, it does contain caffeine.
So come out and join Ryan and PAUL, this Friday and enjoy some of these fun new holiday seasonals.
Cheers!! IS IT FRIDAY YET?
Photo is Paul Rutherford
Head Brewer
Iron Hill Brewery & Restaurant
Lancaster,PA
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