Christmas List 2008

Dear Santa,

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know--I'm making out my Xmas List at the last possible minute, but hey! You're a miracle worker and I have absolute faith in your ability to feed my greed even with such short notice.

First, as I do every year, let me remind you of how incredibly good I've been (relatively speaking):

I've fixed no elections, fomented no revolutions, nor have I overthrown any governments this year, despite almost overwhelming temptation to do so. I haven't engaged in mass murder, no serial killings, no random acts of violence, no choke sex (hell, no sex at all!), no waylaying of strangers to harvest their body parts, and only minor, completely excusable corruptions of youth. I've refrained from kidnapping any heiresses, selling any government secrets, or even holding the planet for ransom. I haven't tampered with things man was not meant to know (much) and that annoying human sacrifice thing is now in the dim, dark, distant past. I've limited my stalking activities to the online realm and I haven't propositioned any of my female associates to do that...thing...with the Waring blender and the Shetland pony in quite a while.

We'll conveniently ignore the fact that my being good wasn't entirely by choice; after all, at my age and income level the opportunities to be truly bad are few and far between. Still, we must judge people by their actions and not their thoughts, mustn't we?

Well, whatever.

Books, CDs, and DVDs are always appreciated and I just happen to have an Amazon.com Wishlist set up for your convenience. Keep in mind that the more items you bring, the more I'm distracted from plotting World Domination--a bored G. W. is a dangerous G. W.--and besides, I'm well-armed and I know where you live.

Neighborhood Domination is another matter altogether and I'm figuring that some Catapult, Trebuchet, and Ballista kits would keep me busy, help me protect my backyard from pesky random insurgents and drunken college students, and increase my Coolness Factor by, oh, a lot. Throw in a Rip Saw UGV tank with suitable armament and I'll guarantee you everyone on my street will be good!

Speaking of transportation and the Coolness Factor, there's not much of it when cruising around Richmond in my 2000 Mitsubishi Galant, so I was thinking what I really need is a car that makes a statement, something like the Aston Martin DB9 for tooling around the countryside pretending I'm James Bond or the classic 1955 Lincoln Futura for tooling around town oozing Geeky Goodness, or maybe the greatest of all mechanized memes, Carthedral: "a 1971 Cadillac hearse modified with 1959 Cadillac tailfins. Welded on top is a VW beetle and metal armatures with fiber glass. Carthedral is a rolling Gothic Cathedral complete with flying buttresses, stained glass pointed windows, and gargoyles."

We all recognize the value of Gothic street cred, right?

And speaking of Gothic cred, the apartment could always use a few decorative accents and I'm thinking a nice, comfy electric chair would look great in the corner, especially if there was a Count Dracula casket beside it as a coffee table. May as well throw in a Coffin Clock so I'll know how much time I've wasted perusing Alan Moore's Lost Girls which, uh, I'll be needing a copy of as well.

Well, that's about it for this year. As usual, I'll be leaving a little something for your efforts, only instead of milk, cookies, and Fentanyl I figured you might like a change of pace--you'll be finding a couple of bottles of genuine (and now fully legal in the US!) absinthe on top of the television set: Kubler for you and Lucid for Mrs. Claus, so put on your best Bohemian garb, grab a sugar cube or two, drink up, get nekkid, and see the Green Fairy! Leave the cat alone; he's new and wouldn't understand.

Have a Merry Xmas!

Just Some Random Christmas Stuff

We start with the classic-but-mostly-forgotten Allan Sherman* version of "The Twelve Days of Christmas":



Which, of course, brings to mind "The Twelve Pains of Christmas" by the Bob Rivers Comedy Group. There're a slew of YouTube versions available, but I particularly like the World of Warcraft variant:



And then there's the Futurama episode, "A Tale of Two Santas":



And should you be a follower of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, well, here's how to make your own Xmasified/Winter Solstice version (see a big one here).

But as my late father would often say, it's just not Xmas without "Deck us all with Boston Charlie, Walla Walla, Washington and Kalamazoo..."


Lyrics


*Incidently, Sherman's complete works are available in a set called My Son, The Box. I really should do a post about my adolescent obsession with Allan Sherman songs someday, but for the time being let's just say it was all my friend Steve's fault. Well, him, and his two wonky brothers. And his four attractive sisters. And his flirty mom with her near-chef-like kitchen abilities.

Some of my non-seasonal Allan Sherman favorites:
"The Ballad of Harry Lewis"
"Eight Foot Two"
"Shake Hands With Your Uncle Max"

'Tis The Season (Alternative Xmas)

Two years ago my friend Sarah commented on my (seldom-used MySpace) entry "For Your Christmas Reading Pleasure,"

"yes! i know it's officially christmas when you post "the junky's christmas".

"now all i've got to do is find the cd of the alternative rock christmas songs, listen to it on repeat, spend time listening to my senile mother (and cassie) talk to my dog about the christmas tree, and get a "it's a wonderful life" speech from everyone who's known me for over five years and thinks i'm suicidal because i didn't go to college. then it'll really feel like christmas..."

Well, Sarah; it's officially Christmas!

The Junky's Christmas by William S. "Uncle Bill" Burroughs

Note that this year I'm linking to a more legible version instead of that godawful, semi-psychedelic, seizure-inducing webpage to which I normally direct you. Hell, I'll even make it easy on you and embed the YouTube video versions:

Part 1


Part 2



Additional readings:

As Harlan Ellison pointed out ever-so-long-ago (see "The Deadly Nackles Affair" in Slippage), Santa Claus implies Anti-Claus: "Nackles" by Donald E. Westlake

And lest I be thought of as a Scrooge, one of my favorite stories of all time is "A Christmas Memory" by Truman Capote (also available here in one continuous scroll).

Get alternatively festive, people!

The Xmas Orgy Begins

Well, I managed to survive Black Friday by the simple expedient of not leaving the apartment even once (I took the day off from work). I'm not big on shopping anyway and the whole concept of Black Friday gives me a severe case of the howling fantods, so I was glad to get a little validation via Gizmodo: "10 Reasons We're Doomed: Black Friday Edition" (I see the Wal*Mart Experience reached new lows as well).

I'm all for shopping online where the only person I'm in competition with is Sid the Cat (Sid believes my lap, chair, keyboard, and computer mouse--screw the overpriced catnip-filled dingus under the sofa--are his exclusive playthings and will run roughshod over me to get at 'em); unfortunately, when it comes to certain people I lack inspiration (and fundage).

Enter Boing Boing--A Directory of Wonderful Things and their Holiday Gift Guide:

"Well, it's coming up to the holidays and I've started to make my list and fill it in. As a starting point, I went through all the books and DVDs and gadgets I'd reviewed on Boing Boing since last November and looked at what had been the best-sellers among BB's readership, figuring you folks have pretty good taste! As I was taking a walk down old review lane, I realized that many of you would probably be interested in seeing these lists too, so I've turned them into a series of blog-posts that I'll be sticking up, one per day, for the next week or so."

Things I wouldn't know about otherwise, some overlap among categories, and heavy on the bookish side (but that's a good thing as far as I'm concerned!).

Part One: Kids (less for kids, more for 'tweens 'n' teens)
Part Two: Fiction
Part Three: Gadgets and Stuff
Part Four: Comics
Part Five: Nonfiction

Some highlights:
Baby's First Mythos, "an ABC/123 picture book for kids that uses the mad, horrific imagery of HP Lovecraft to help you bring up your littlun right."

Gloom: The Game of Inauspicious Incidents and Grave Consequences: "The really interesting thing about Gloom is the story-telling aspect of game play. Though not required, when you play an event card such as "Terrified by Topiary," you may explain how this event occurs. Each character develops as more and more event cards are placed on it, so the character’s life story becomes increasingly unfortunate and, well, abnormal."

Laika: "Nick Abadzis's graphic novel "Laika" is a haunting, sweet biography of Laika, the first dog in space, who died five hours after she was launched on Sputnik II."

St. Trinian's: The Entire Appalling Business: "Before St Trinians was a (ho-hum with some bright moments) big-screen movie, it was a series of Charles Addams-esque cartoons by Ronald Searle."

Magic and Showmanship: A Handbook For Conjurers: "I discovered the book thanks to James D Macdonald, who uses it as a teaching aid in the Viable Paradise science fiction writing workshop, held annually on Martha's Vineyard.."

Uranium Ore. One of those WTF? moments. For an entertaining evening read the comments on Amazon.com:

Despite the fact it comes in a can
It is not cat food.

Does anyone know if there's a cure for sudden tentacles? The cat's huge and well, doesn't really look much like a cat anymore. She still answers to Muffin though. However, if she rubs against my bare leg one more time her new name will be calamari.

Needless to say, there'll be more later.