Suldog

5 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:13:00 +0000

Yesterday, I said, "I will soon return to my usual mix of stale jokes, non sequiturs, overly romanticized tales of my childhood, and occasional rotten photographs."

This qualifies as at least one of those things (and if you can't figure out which two, you deserve all four.)

This is the sort of list that lends itself to instant criticism. That's because it's so easy to think of someone as a no-good selfish bastard just because "cure cancer" isn't at the top of his list. Well, the cure for cancer probably won't be found by somebody lounging in his recliner eating fried chicken while watching a ball game, so I'm probably not going to be the guy who does it. I know my limitations.

(Yeah, wise guy, it's possible that some brilliant renegade scientist, on the run from hired gunmen of a major pharmaceutical company because he found that eating four pieces of Extra Crispy during a Patriots game cures lymphoma, may have hidden his notes in my KFC bucket. However, it's highly improbable. Anyway, the notes would be all greasy and stuff. Yuck!)

You also don't want to set the bar too high. For instance, what if I did say "cure cancer"? Then whatever followed (for instance, winning a lottery so humongous that I'd be able to spend the rest of my life blowing my nose on hundred dollar bills) would seem frivolous by comparison.

So, having said all of the above for no apparent reason other than to fill space, here are 5 Things I'd Like To Do Before I Die.

1 - Become Emperor Of The Known Universe

This has been a goal of mine for many years, actually. And I've done little or nothing to make it become reality, so I don't know why you'd believe that this might change in the near future. Maybe you don't believe it will change. And that's why I'm a miserable failure. You have no faith in me! You've ruined my life, you domineering bitch! You suck! You suck! You suck!

Whoa! Freudian slip! I meant to say, "Pass the gravy, please."

(That's the punch line to a really good joke - unless you've never heard it, in which case it's not very good at all. And now I've ruined it for you. That's what you get. Why? I don't know, but that's what you get. Am I making any sense here? I sure hope not, because if I am I won't be able to use this as evidence of temporary insanity at my trial.)

Now, where was I? More important, who was I? And, while we're at it, why are there gophers in my pocket?

2 - Become Emperor Of The Known Universe

This has been a goal of mine for many years, actually. First, though, I want to win a championship in softball. What sort of emperor plays ball for forty years and can't win one friggin' championship? Do I want people going around saying, "Emperor Suldog? Oh, don't even talk to me about that bum! Yeah, sure, he cured cancer his first day on the job, but did he ever win a championship in softball? Please! Hey, pass the Extra Crispy, will you?"

3 - Become Emperor Of The Known Universe

This has been a goal of mine for many years, actually. First, though, I'd like to buy a house. What kind of emperor doesn't own his own house? Do you know any emperors who rent? Of course you don't! Hey, what the hell is this greasy piece of paper at the bottom of my KFC bucket? Yuck!

4 - Become Emperor Of The Known Universe

This has been a goal of mine for many years, although I'd like to own a waffle house first. Who wouldn't want a house made of waffles, with butter and syrup melting down over the roof? Yum! But no gophers - they get in my shorts. Excuse me - I have to blow my nose. *BLAT* Sorry about that. Hey, do you want a hundred bucks? No? Hey! Who put this piece of chicken in my bucket full of greasy notes?

5 - Become Emperor Of The Known Universe

Actually, I am, but I have to keep it a secret until the Extra Crispy gophers eat their waffles. You sure you don't want a hundred bucks? How about a piece of chicken? It cures softball, you know.

Uh-oh. Here comes the nurse with my meds. Shhhh! Don't say anything. See you Monday (or a reasonable facsimile thereof.)

Soon, with more better stuff (but fewer gophers, as if that's any consolation for your loss of time.)

Jon Stewart on Ron Paul

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:40:00 +0000

I promise you that I am NOT turning this into a political blog. I will soon return to my usual mix of stale jokes, non sequiturs, overly romanticized tales of my childhood, and occasional rotten photographs. But, as MY WIFE can all too readily inform you, every four years I must let this stuff out or else there is a very real possibility of my blowing a gasket and taking an axe to someone.

(If you think you've got it bad, it's nothing compared to the stuff I spout off about at home. MY WIFE has the patience of a saint. While I am a Libertarian Republican, she is fairly much a Socialist. That we will be married 20 years come February 29th is proof positive that love trumps politics.)

Anyway, the following may be old news to some of you, but it is new to me, and it is, by far, the best commentary I've seen on the media manipulation of the Republican nomination.

Thank you, Jon Stewart.

Soon, with stuff, but not much better than this, that's for damn sure.

Told You So

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 14:29:00 +0000

[L to R: Santorum, Romney, Gingrich, Paul]

Told you so. Sort of.

Before South Carolina's primary, it seemed that most major media pundits were expecting Mitt Romney to cruise to the Republican presidential nomination. Meanwhile, I said it was far from over. Gingrich won South Carolina convincingly, and now many are saying that whoever wins Florida (the next primary contest) will almost have a lock on the nomination.

Do I have to go through the math again? Maybe not for you, but perhaps somebody has Googled "politics, primary, Romney" and decided to visit the 557th listing that came up.

(I have no idea if I'm the 557th listing. That's probably an optimistic estimate.)

According to CNN, here are the numbers of delegates won, through the three primaries contested thus far:

Gingrich - 25

Romney - 14

Paul - 10

Santorum - 7

Those figures do not include unpledged RNC delegates, of which there are 123 who become delegates automatically. When those attached to a candidate are included, the numbers become:

Romney - 31

Gincrich - 26

Paul - 10

Santorum - 8

So, what do these figures tell us? If you don't hear them screaming "It's far from over!", then you aren't listening.

As of now, no candidate has accrued 50% of the total delegates available to have been won. The fact remains that it takes a majority, or 1,144 delegates to clinch the nomination (there are 2,287 delegates to be had, total.) Whichever delegate count you use, the frontrunner now has around 2.5% of the total needed to win. Florida has 50 delegates at stake. Assign those 50 to any one of the four candidates. It still leaves the frontrunner with only about 7% of the number he'll need.

Whichever way you look at it, if you truly believe this thing is near to over, you're an idiot (and I mean that in the kindest way.) Since lots of other dopes are making predictions, I may as well. I predict that there will be no clear winner and there will be a brokered convention. That is, deals will be made, between those candidates having accrued delegates, until such time as one emerges with a majority. And that means that anyone with meaningful hope of securing more delegates along the way, even if not enough to garner the nomination, may wield some bit of significant power come August.

Meanwhile, many in the media are still trying to sell us a bill of goods. The last two debates (one prior to voting in South Carolina, the other the first debate in Florida) have featured Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich front and center on the stage, with Rick Santorum and Ron Paul pushed toward the wings. The questions from the moderators and panelists have been overwhelmingly directed towards the center of the stage. In many instances, Paul and Santorum have been excluded from even being allowed to answer those questions or offer rebuttal to the answers given by the other two candidates. In South Carolina, there was an instance where moderator John King (of CNN) did not give Ron Paul the opportunity to speak until the crowd voiced its collective displeasure at such a tactic.

The arrogance of the media is stunning.

Are Gingrich and Romney the leading candidates at this point? Yes, obviously. Will the eventual leader in delegate count be one of those two men? Probably so. Is it the debate moderator's job to decide that those two candidates will receive, say, 50% more speaking time than the other two candidates? By no means. What that is, is a dereliction of duty. It is not the moderator's job to influence the vote, but that is what is being accomplished when any candidate is marginalized. And the people willing to pay attention to these debates, and thus the best informed voters, deserve moderators and panelists without agendas, with no preconceived notions concerning viability of any candidates, and with more sense of fair play.

Do I have any real hope of seeing such? About as much as I have for the Boston Celtics winning the NBA Championship this year, which is to say it's a possibility but not one I'd be willing to bet on at less than 25 to 1.

And now, having discussed both sports and politics, with much of it done via math, I trust I've bored the hell out of the great majority of you and I'll go away.

Soon, with more better stuff.

The Disgraceful State Of American Politics, Among Other Things

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 13:50:00 +0000

This is where I thank someone, and give you a personal update. But, before I get to any of that, here's all you need to know about the pitiful state of American politics.

When I logged onto AOL this morning, to get my e-mail, their lead news flash said that Newt Gingrich's second wife had given a "bombshell" interview, saying some damning things about the former Speaker of the House. Perusing further down the front page, the fourth story listed, in type about one-quarter as large, informed me that Rick Santorum actually beat Mitt Romney in Iowa, rather than the other way around.

So, to sum up, the frontrunner in the race actually has won only one of the two states thus far contested in the primaries, and the media played up those supposed two wins, for the past two weeks or so, portraying his candidacy as an unstoppable juggernaut, basically making it one in the process. Meanwhile, the ex-wife of the guy who, of the remaining five candidates in the race, is currently dead last in actual delegate count, dissed him. What should we have expected? That she would be fellating him at a press conference?

Thank you, American radio, TV, and press! You certainly do make things clear for the voters! The next time you wring your hands, deploring voter turnout at some all-time low, please don't act as though you don't know why that's the case. Instead, look in the mirror. And then, would you please be gracious enough to offer us all an apology? Those of us still paying attention would appreciate it greatly.

Ah, but let's move on to happier stuff, shall we?

Clare Dunn is an artist, a marvelous painter, and she held a giveaway on her blog, xoxoxocd. Yes, that's more or less the name of it, although I think it's more formal name is Alldunn by XOXOXO CD, but either way it's fun to type! Be that as it may - and I think it is - the giveaway was of one of her original works of art. And I was the winner!

The title of the painting is Dunes II, and I love it. It will be framed and given a place of honor in our home. Thank you again, Clare!

(Some of her other pieces - either the originals or prints - are for sale. Please check them out. If you make Clare fabulously famous, my painting will become worth millions. I would never sell it, but I could then borrow against its value and never have to write again, thus making the world a better place. So, do your bit for humanity and buy Clare's artwork!)

Finally, some of you are no doubt wondering how I fared on the Jeopardy test. Unfortunately, I don't have a definitive answer. They don't tell your score, or even whether or not you passed or failed. However, I have some knowledge of the score needed to pass, and I'm fairly certain I did. Unlike the media in the case of Mitt Romney and Iowa, I won't proclaim it a certainty. I'll only find out for sure if the producers call me and arrange for an in-person test and interview. If and when they do, I'll be certain to crow about it.

And that wraps it up here at Suldog this morning. The final tally shows one rant, one sincere thank you, and one uncertain game show future. I thank you for reading, and you can now feel free to go see what hideous things Newt's wife had to say about him.

Soon, with more better stuff.

Possibly Putting Myself In Jeopardy

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 13:25:00 +0000

[Long damn post, but that's OK.
You've read it before, anyway.
And that sentence rhymes, so here's one more!
I won't take the credit, if you find it a bore.
If you do, here's who to bitch at.
It's all Craig's fault (who I don't want to snitch at),
but he inspired me (yes, he did)
to re-post this stuff about me as a kid.
So, go to his place and tell him to stop it,
'cause you're tired of tales about me as a moppet
(although, truth be told, that's not the point,
but you won't find it out 'til the end of this joint.)]

[Yeah, that was pretty bad, but it's the only new material you'll find here today, so don't expect it to get any better. Here comes the old stuff!]

Writing as I’m about to do has the potential to set me up for a fall. Every grammatical error will seem an indictment, and God help me if I misspell anything. Should my memory be faulty, someone might jump on me with both feet. I also have to be careful to keep my sense of humor, not letting my ego overrun everything. I'll need to throw in a joke or two, to keep it light.

I’m going to write about my being intelligent.

(No, wise guy, that wasn’t the first joke.)

There has rarely been a time in my life when I haven't felt that I was more intelligent than most of the people with whom I’ve been involved. That isn’t to say I’ve always been THE most intelligent person in a particular group, nor does it mean that I'm one of the smartest people on the planet. One look at me standing in the rain without a jacket, on a 40 degree day, smoking a cigarette, would be enough to tell you I'm not Einstein's successor. It's just that, when all factors are taken into consideration, I don't usually feel the need to take a back seat to too many folks in any crowd of which I'm a part.

Does that sound amazingly egotistical? I suppose it might. It’s true, though. I’ve always been in possession of more brainpower than most of those with whom I’ve associated.

(If you're a long-time friend or business associate, and you're wondering if I'm saying that I'm smarter than you, the answer is no. I'm talking about all of my other friends and business associates, not you. You're a genius!)

I suppose now would be a good time for me to trot out the proofs, if I had any. However, my best pieces of evidence aren’t available for scrutiny. You’ll have to take my word concerning them (and I'd say that your doing so would say a lot about your own innate intelligence and character, but that would be too blatant an attempt at flattery to sway someone of your obvious discernment.)

When I was an infant, my mother kept a small journal about me. It was within the pages of a how-not-to-kill-your-baby book published by Good Housekeeping. There was a section in the back for recording your child’s height, weight, accomplishments (reaching for things was one, so the bar wasn’t set very high), and so forth. There was also a section reserved for recording the diagnoses and/or pronouncements of doctors and other health professionals. My Mom recorded, in one of those sections, that some pediatrician had proclaimed me "... slightly more intelligent than most other children" after he had me perform some tests. Perhaps I was having a particularly good day reaching for things. Well, I've always been pissed about the "slightly" part of that statement, but I'll take the rest of it.

As I grew up, I found myself in situations that offered further proof concerning my general mental superiority. For instance, in grade school, I was always the best reader in my class. When the teacher called upon us to read aloud, I knew I could do it more easily, and with fewer stumbles (that is to say, none), than all of my classmates. I was good at it because of help from my mother, father, and other relatives. My mother taught me the basics of reading before I entered kindergarten. My other relatives - somewhat to my outer embarrassment, but very much to my inner pride – would have me read aloud from newspapers, almanacs, magazines, encyclopedias, and so on, every time I visited them. They always heaped inordinate amounts of praise upon me for being able to get through all passages, of whatever difficulty, smoothly. I owe my current job of voice-over professional to them (and you probably owe them your difficulty in plowing through some of my more painful constructions, since I glide through most anything and thus don't edit as neatly as I probably should.) Back in grade school, however, I was so much better at reading than any of my classmates, I would actually stumble ON PURPOSE once in a while. I was so self-conscious of my superiority that I didn’t want the other kids to be mad at me for making them look bad.

I was a voracious reader as I grew up. I read newspapers cover-to-cover; every bit of magazines, even the publisher's statement and copyright notices; encyclopedias were a constant source of amusement; and nothing could keep me so thoroughly entertained, for as long and with as much joy, as an almanac (but, you knew this already.)

As good parents would, My Mom and Dad fed this desire to learn. Whenever we went on a shopping trip to a department store, they'd allow me to roam off on my own to the book section. There, I'd pick one and they'd buy it for me. My Mom would often come home from work with some sort of interesting science or history book she had purchased for me. I was a frequent patron of our local public library, and I belonged to various book-buying clubs sponsored by the Gilbert Stuart, my elementary school.

For the fourth grade, when I was 8, I was taken from that elementary school and assigned to an advanced school in another neighborhood in Boston. Being smart doesn't always equate to emotional maturity, though, and I cried and wailed and made a general nuisance of myself for the two weeks or so I was there. I wanted to be back in my own neighborhood school with all of my friends. So, my parents, being good folks who valued their child's happiness over some abstract future earning potential, re-enrolled me in the Gilbert Stuart. I was happy as a clam when they did so. However, being assigned to the advanced classes was an ego boost, even if I hated being at that school. I was now more firmly convinced than ever that I was a 'smaht kid', as we'd say in Dorchester.

While in the 6th grade, I took the test for admittance to Boston Latin, the only 6-year high school in Boston. It was (and arguably is) the most prestigious secondary school in the country. It was founded a year before Harvard, and Benjamin Franklin was a dropout from the place. Imagine the graduates! Well, I passed the exam and entered the school for the 7th grade.

And now comes the moment when I humble myself. I flunked, miserably. Whereas I had been a straight A student in my neighborhood school, I was straining to attain passing grades at Latin. The main problem was that everything had always come easily to me before, but now I was being asked to apply myself. I did only as much work as I thought I needed to do to keep my parents and teachers off of my back. Because my travel time to and from Latin was 60 to 90 minutes each way, I was constantly more tired than I had ever previously been in school. And being an 11-year-old in a school with kids as big and old as 18 or 19 was not much fun; it was standard for the upper classmen to pick on the "sixies" as we were known. I truly hated most of my time in that school.

It appeared I might have to repeat the 7th grade. Talk about having your illusions concerning your intelligence smashed to rubble!

I was saved from being kept back by dint of the fact that Latin was such an amazingly hard school. Had I stayed there, I would have had to repeat the year. However, if I transferred back to my local junior high school for the next year, I would still be promoted. Although there was some argument between Mom and Dad concerning which course of action to take, I was finally transferred, much to my relief, and I was promoted to the 8th grade.

My parents and I didn't necessarily learn a lesson from my first stint at Latin. I once again took the entrance examination for 9th grade (as well as being a 6-year school, students could enter for a more-usual 4-year high school course.) This time around, I lasted half as long as I had the first time. I did so miserably in my classes that I transferred back to my local school midway through the year. Once back at 'The Woody' (Woodrow Wilson Junior High, the neighborhood school) I resumed my coasting, in the relatively relaxed atmosphere, and graduated easily.

I took another entrance exam, this time for the second-best high school in the city, Boston Technical. I passed it. And I graduated from there, too, although it was a closer call than it ever should have been. By the time I got there, I detested going to school. Whereas before, during my pre-teen years, I found school an alright place to be with my friends - not that I was overjoyed, but I didn't dread it - now all I wanted to get out of school was me. I was high half the time, didn't care at all, and I passed barely enough classes to graduate - after I made up one class in summer school.

Heck of a way for a kid who tested out at a 136 IQ to finish his schooling.

The shame of it is that I loved learning. It was school that I hated. I used to play hooky from high school because I abhorred being in those buildings and being graded, but do you know where I went when I played hooky? Most guys went to a ballpark or to a movie or did something normal. I went to the Boston Public Library and spent my day reading.

And from that reading, and from my devouring of encyclopedias and almanacs and dictionaries when I was a kid, I've acquired great storehouses of haphazard knowledge, most of it useless except for my own entertainment and with just enough unfilled gaps to get me into trouble. Which brings us to the present time and my fourth attempt to get onto the television show Jeopardy. This evening, I will be attempting to qualify for the show via an on-line test. I'll let you know how it turns out, of course (unless I make an absolute ass of myself, in which case I'll probably tell you about it in two or three parts, because why waste the opportunity to publicly display my utter humiliation and shame all at once?)

Wish me luck. I obviously need it.

Soon, with more better stuff.

Sometimes They Buy What You're Selling, Sometimes They Don't

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 12 Jan 2012 14:21:00 +0000

Recently, I had a couple of op-eds published by the nice folks over at The Boston Herald. One concerned the commercialization of Christmas, while the other was a (somewhat) tongue-in-cheek list of New Year resolutions. I'm happy to have had them published (and even happier to have received payment.)

Yesterday, I decided to see if they were interested in something of a political nature. I wrote an analysis of what had thus far transpired during the Republican primaries. I sent it off to the editor who had bought my previous submissions.

Her response?

"Thanks, but I'll take a pass on this one."

Fair enough. I didn't expect her to buy every bit of writing I sent her way, and I figured selling this one to her might have been a bit more of a longshot than the others. The previous were benign; one was an opinion that few would have an argument with, and the other was a decent laugh. This was serious, political, and it treads upon ground that The Herald may not want trodden. They've already endorsed Mitt Romney, and my piece centered on not automatically buying into those opinions, from some analysts, that Romney has the nomination locked up. Expecting an editor to purchase a piece that somewhat goes against the paper's stated political preference is expecting a bit much. I gave it a shot, though, figuring that if it didn't sell, I could always turn it into a good read here.

And so I have, you lucky dogs! Enjoy my political punditry!

************************************************************

We've Barely Begun

I have a question for those of you who may like to consider yourselves politically astute: Do you know how many delegates are currently pledged to each of the Republican presidential contenders?

You might know the answer, but the odds are against it. Precious little has been said about it in most media outlets. And that’s a shame, as it is the most important part of the entire primary election process.

While some pundits have already declared Mitt Romney the eventual nominee, it should be noted that committed delegates – those won via the processes in Iowa and New Hampshire – amount to approximately 1.7% of the total amount of delegates available. Even if unpledged RNC delegates are counted (that is, those Republican National Committee members who do not have to indicate a candidate preference, but a majority of whom are elected just like pledged delegates) the number of delegates for all of the contenders now comes to only 2.2% of the total.

To declare Romney the winner, at this point, is a bit like predicting the outcome of a baseball game after two outs in the top of the first inning. There’s a long, long way to go. And much can happen during that time.

It takes 1,144 delegates to win the nomination. Here are the numbers of pledged delegates, thus far:

Mitt Romney – 14

Ron Paul – 10

Rick Santorum – 7

Newt Gingrich, Jon Huntsman, and Rick Perry – 2 each

If we include the number of unpledged RNC delegates, Romney rises to 25. Paul stays in second place, at 10. Santorum moves up a bit, to 8. The other three have a total of 9 between them.

In either scenario, the numbers thus far secured are miniscule. More important to note is that Romney has less than half the total of the small number thus far accounted for. And, since the nomination cannot be won without a majority, that means this thing is still way up in the air, no matter how much some may not want it to be.

Now, I’m not saying that Romney doesn’t have a significantly good start. Perception is mighty important heading into South Carolina and Florida, and the simple fact is that many voters will cast a vote for that candidate they think can win, rather than basing a vote purely on how much they like the stands and opinions of any other. Having won the first two contests, Romney will be perceived by many as the only candidate who has a real chance. But the fact is, he isn’t.

South Carolina will not be a slam dunk, and it is less important, overall, than it has been in years past. Due to the wrangling of certain states, in moving up their primary dates, South Carolina and Florida have had their delegate totals halved from previous years, a penalty imposed by the RNC for their actions. There are only 25 delegates at stake in SC, 11 of which go to the statewide winner and 14 proportioned from the state’s congressional districts. It’s quite possible that the attacks being made on Romney now, from most all of the other candidates (Paul being the lone curious exception) will come home to roost in South Carolina. If so, despite his frontrunner status, Mitt may find himself in a true battle. Some polls show his lead at a rather low 3%, fairly much a statistical tie. If the former Massachusetts governor absorbs a few more Bain body blows over the next week, who knows?

As Damon Runyon once said, “The race may not always be to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.” So, if you make your living via political predictions, it makes sense to tout Romney, the frontrunner, as the eventual victor. However, he hasn’t even won 50% of the delegates thus far available to have been won. We’d all do well to keep that in mind the next time we hear any predictions.

(Jim Sullivan is a former state chair of the Massachusetts Libertarian Party.
To his credit, he now is not, and may be reached at suldog@aol.com)

*************************************************************

Soon, with more better stuff.

Dorothy & The Handwriting On The Wall

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 14:48:00 +0000

I paid a visit to My Cousin Dorothy last night.

Since she first went to the nursing facility to live, I've visited her once a week. I missed a couple of opportunities during holiday weeks, due to the hectic nature of those times and the need to get other things accomplished, but other than that, it's been every Tuesday.

It's a pleasant routine, for the most part. Aside from the visit itself, which is always a nice conversation filled with family tales, the ride to and from the facility has also become something of a treat. I now know the route well enough to go on autopilot for the greater part of the 50 minutes or so, and, since I don't often find myself just sitting down and listening to music these days, the ride affords me that pleasure. Last night, it was Led Zeppelin IV on the way there, and Aerosmith's first album on the ride home. I recommend both, if you've never heard them (and, if you've never heard them, how old are you and what planet do you come from?)

On the return trip, I also stop and get something interesting to eat. Since I go straight from work at 5pm, and it's usually between 7:30 and 8:00 when I leave Dorothy, I'm pretty hungry by the time I'm headed back, not having eaten most of the day. I've tried a few different fast food places I never would have if not for these trips. I've discovered, for instance, that Five Guys burgers and fries are both magnificent and habit forming.

Well, that stuff is really neither here nor there, unless you're looking at my expanding waistline or you were driving next to a guy who appeared to be singing along to "Movin' Out" yesterday evening. The real point of this is to tell you a little story that Dorothy told me.

It seems that she and her family had moved to a new place to live, sometime during her teen years, and among the many chores that needed doing, to make the place habitable, was wallpapering.

[Dorothy, in her teens]

I realize that there are nowhere near as many papered walls these days as there once were. Wallpapering seems to be considered much less stylish than it was at one time. If you're in the habit of watching shows about home buying or selling, such as those shown on HGTV, the general reaction, when prospective buyers see wallpapered walls, is "Oh, this room needs updating!"

(MY WIFE and I, just for kicks someday, want to go to an open house and say the exact opposite of everything that is usually said on House Hunters. While the realtor shows us around, we'll exclaim, "Ugh! TWO sinks in the bathroom? We would much rather have just one. And why isn't there any carpeting? We hate hardwood floors! Also, this open floor plan makes us very uncomfortable. Is there some way you could put up three or four extra walls, so we could see what that looks like? Oh, and before we forget, the kitchen is way too modern. We prefer linoleum, knotty pine, and white appliances. And... Oh, My God! Is that a walk-in closet? There's no way in hell we could live here!")

Anyway, when people papered the walls, it presented an opportunity to write whatever graffiti one wished on the wall to be covered. Nobody would see it until the paper was removed.

Dorothy, then as now, was a learned person with a mischievous streak, which is a dangerous combination. While most young people presented with such an opportunity might scrawl their name, or a date, or perhaps (if particularly rebellious) some obscenity, Dorothy decided that wasn't good enough.

She wrote...

Mene, Mene, Tekel u-Pharsin

If you're as confused as I was when she told me this, go here:

Mene, Mene

Yup, she left behind a Hebrew warning from God taken from the biblical book of Daniel. The fact that this was a good fifty years before anyone would be able to Google such a thing, and find out what in hell it meant, didn't faze her in the least. She figured it would be a good joke for those who had the knowledge, a total mystery for those who didn't, and maybe a trip to the local library for some; a teaching moment for future generations. And that's why my visits to Dorothy are something to which I look forward. I not only get to listen to good music and eat great fattening food, I also get esoteric laughs and might actually learn something.

As usual, Dorothy sends her warmest "Thank You!" for the cards, letters, and whatever else you've been able to send her. As explained in other entries here, her eyesight is no longer good enough to reply via mail to each of you, but she truly loves each and every piece of mail she receives, and the staff get a great kick out of reading them to her. Since she's now bedridden most of the time (her osteoporosis is so pronounced, she can't stand on her own, let alone walk) mail delivery is a precious way to break up the monotony.

If you have the time, her address remains...

Dorothy Luff, Room 103
c/o Milford Care & Rehabilitation
10 Veterans Memorial Drive
Milford, MA 01757-2900

When I first started writing about Dorothy's move to this facility, I talked about how the prognosis was not good. She has osteoporosis, macular degeneration, arthritis, a bad heart, cancer, and weighs about 80 pounds. Her condition has changed little over the time she's been there, and that's a good thing considering all of her troubles. I firmly believe that your love, via gifts and letters - and your prayers - provide Dorothy with an invaluable uplift. You have truly made her life more pleasant, and have probably given her more days than she might have originally been allotted. For that, I thank you, deeply and sincerely.

Soon, with more better stuff.

Tebow 3:16

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:00:00 +0000

Tim Tebow is my favorite athlete. And I don't mean just right now. I mean ever.

I grew up with the eventually-tragic Tony Conigliaro as my sports hero. I've had others whom I liked, a lot: Babe Parilli, Larry Siegfried, John Havlicek, Murray Oliver, Steve DeBerg, Dunc Wilson, Rajon Rondo, Doug Flutie, and Tim Wakefield, to name those that come immediately to mind, have all had a special place in my heart, for various reasons I won't go into here. Tebow, though, is something entirely different and special.

There's a lot to like about him as a football player, of course. He's a fearless runner, with a fair amount of speed, and defenses have to plan to contain him in that regard. He's not a stumblebum when it comes to passing, despite what some critics of his would have you believe. He may not have the most beautiful throwing motion, but if you give him the opportunity to drive a stake through your heart, by showing him open receivers, he'll kill you just as effectively as any of the more highly touted quarterbacks in the league.

However, it's more than performance that makes him my favorite. He's also intelligent, personable, gracious, and humble. He always defers to his teammates and coaches, never pointing toward himself with a "Me! Me! Me!" as so many football players and other professional athletes do. He's a fantastic role model for kids, a non-drinking, non-drugging, non-womanizing college graduate. And he's just plain fun to watch.

And it's also undeniably tasty to see people who criticize him floundering about whenever he wins.

The biggest problem that some people have with Tebow is that he's a Christian, and a very vocal Christian at that. When a microphone is thrust in his face, he first takes that opportunity to thank Jesus Christ. He then answers whatever questions are asked of him, in a polite manner, usually praising his teammates, coaches, parents, or whomever else he feels like showering with love at the moment. And, as I say, some folks have a problem with this.

Why? I'm not truly sure. It seems like a waste of energy to me. But Tebow engenders absolute hatred from some corners. And the people who hate on him come off as the sort who would kick a puppy. Tebow does absolutely nothing to deserve such treatment, other than declaring his religious values in public. I can understand where it might become tiresome to hear him say such things, but the viciousness of some commentary is amazingly vitriolic. And that puts it over the top for me. I'm a sucker for almost any underdog, and Tim being batted around in the media, in on-line commentary, and kicked around by blowhard pundits, just makes him all the more loveable to me as a fan.

Here's the kind of kid he is. Your reaction to the following says a lot about you.

Chicago Bears linebacker, Brian Urlacher, following Chicago's loss to Denver, was asked what he thought of Tebow's play. He said:

"He's a good running back. He does a good job running for them."

(Tebow is a quarterback, not a running back, so that's what you'd call damning with faint praise. If you don't understand that, you don't understand football.)

Tebow's response?

"Coming from a really good player, that means a lot."

He could have gotten righteously indignant. He had, after all, just completed EIGHTEEN passes against Urlacher's team, in the fourth quarter alone. Instead, he was gracious in victory.

Even better was his response to the Detroit Lions.

The Lions croaked Denver. Demolished them. It was not a pretty game for Tebow or his teammates. During play, one of the Detroit players, following a sack of Tebow, got down on a knee and mocked Tebow's now famous posture of prayer. Asked about it in the locker after the game, Tebow said:

"He was just celebrating, having fun with his teammates, and I don't take offense to that."

Do you really want to denigrate a guy who says stuff like this? Really? You may not agree with his religion, or his way of displaying it, but I think the world would be a much better place, overall, if more people had the attitude that Tim Tebow displays. And if your mileage varies, that's truly sad for you.

The best thing about Tebow, though, the absolute best thing, is when a stunning coincidence occurs, such as happened yesterday when Denver beat Pittsburgh in the playoffs.

The winning play came in overtime, an 80-yard Tebow touchdown pass to teammate DeMaryius Thomas. With that completion, Tebow ended with a total of 316 passing yards. Now, if you don't immediately get why this is so delicious, consider this photo from Tebow's college days...

Notice the inscription on Tebow's eye black? While at Florida, he often would write such messages, touting one scriptural passage or another, knowing that the cameras would be on him. A favorite was John 3:16, which reads...

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

Following Tebow's team winning the national collegiate championship, during which he displayed that message on his eye black during the telecast, there were over 94,000,000 hits on Google for "John 3:16". It pays to advertise!

He can't write such messages while in the National Football League, as they prohibit that sort of thing. But yesterday, on the biggest stage he's thus far been given, during a playoff game, his final winning pass brought his total yardage to 316.

Do I believe this is a message from God? To be truthful, I heard the number and didn't think anything of it. However, a whole bunch of folks in the media have latched onto it, and I suppose, if God really did care about sending messages via football games, that would be a pretty dandy way to do it.

(If you want more fun, tell a hater that the very first shot on TV, after those of the players celebrating, was of JOHN Elway, Broncos legend and current executive. Get it? John? 316? It's all too marvelous for words, really.)

Anyway, it's just great to hear the venom spewing from so many folks this morning. There was a fun article about the 316 yards and Tebow, written by a Boston blogger. Find it HERE. Good read, just fun stuff. But scroll down and read the comments. Yikes! You'd think this guy had just pissed on somebody's mother, by the tone of some of them. And every time I watch Tebow, and see him do something well, I know that there are thousands and thousands of these angry and miserable people pulling their hair out and gnashing their teeth.

You can't get entertainment value like that from any other athlete in the world.

God bless you, Tim Tebow (well, He does already, Tim, but you know what I mean.)

Soon, with more better stuff.

P.S. Yesterday's win by Denver brings them to play my New England Patriots next Saturday. Only one of them can win and move on, of course, and I'm a bit torn. I suppose, in the end, I'll be rooting for the Patriots, and I do see them winning rather handily over Denver. If Tebow pulls off another improbable win, though, I won't be heartbroken (or totally surprised.)

Little Christmas Stories (2012)

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 13:28:00 +0000

[The title has a year included because some of this prose is being recycled from a similarly-named piece in 2011. Not all of it is old, though, and the photos are new, so you can't just skip to the end and say, "I saw this last year, you slug!"]

[Well, you could, but then I'd know you were the shallow sort of person who doesn't actually read all of my carefully-chosen words, poring over them for hidden meanings and universal truths.]

[I'll let you know, however, that there aren't any hidden meanings in this piece. It's just my usual murdering of the language. There may be a universal truth or two, but they probably snuck in without paying.]

[And now that I've satisfied my compulsive need to preface the obvious with superfluous explanatory parentheticals, here we go!]

[The Very Lovely Silver Tree]

Yes, this is The Very Lovely Silver Tree I told you about, but did not have a photo of, way back when. As usual, my photography does not do my subject justice. I truly think it's the most beautiful Christmas tree I have ever seen. MY WIFE bought it this Christmas as a present for me. She did exceedingly well in doing so.

She also bought a spinning color wheel that throws lights of varying shades onto The Very Lovely Silver Tree. Due to my ineptitude with a camera, you probably can't see much of that effect. That's OK. The Very Lovely Silver Tree is still damn nice. Here's the spinning color wheel, though.

As I’ve mentioned in years past, MY WIFE and I celebrate Little Christmas. That is, while we have our allotment of standard-issue Christmas merriment with relatives and friends during the traditional December holidays, we wait until January 6th to exchange presents with each other.

Some of you may wonder why we do this. That’s certainly understandable, given that January 6th receives little play from the merchants and media. As far as those people are concerned, the Christmas holiday is over at midnight on December 25th and it then becomes time to push Valentine’s Day candy out onto the shelves. January 6th, however, is The Feast of the Epiphany on the Roman Catholic liturgical calendar. It is sometimes known as The Feast of the Magi (the "Three Kings" of Christmas carol fame) or, by some, as Little Christmas. It is the date when, according to tradition, the wise men visited Jesus and bestowed upon Him the gifts of Gold, Frankincense, and Myrrh.

Are you one of those people who wondered why there were twelve days of over-the-top gift giving in the song "The Twelve Days Of Christmas"? Well, the actual Christmas season, at least in some European civilizations, runs from December 25th until January 6th. This being the case, it can reasonably be argued that the 6th of January is a more correct time to exchange presents in honor of The Lord’s nativity.

MY WIFE and I decided years ago that it made eminent sense to delay our own gift giving until that 12th day of Christmas. In that way, we would eliminate much of the stress associated with what should be a joy-filled celebration with friends and family. We would concentrate on others, during the more secularly-traditional Thanksgiving through December 25th time period, and then devote our efforts to each other during the 12 days following.

(This is, of course, another one of the reasons why I get so amazingly pissed off when Christmas advertising and holiday music begin in late October or very early November. Not only does it do a disservice to the wonderful American celebration of Thanksgiving [which occurs on the fourth Thursday of November]; it also utterly ignores the rightful 12 days of festivity that occur at the end of December and beginning of January. My Christmas runs through January 6th, so if I acquiesce to their greedy mercantile demands, I’ll be singing a stretched out and thinned-to-absurdity Hallelujah over perhaps a 75-day period. That’s far too much water in anybody’s holiday soup.)

Before our "Little Christmas", though, there is time with family on the 25th. Here are the only photos I took worth publishing.

(I actually shot about 35 of them. That there are only six [including The Very Lovely Silver Tree already seen] that I feel are worthy of publication should tell you all you need to know about my mad photographic skillz. Remember, these are the good ones.)

That's My Mom on the left, and my stepfather, Bill, on the right. Notice the somewhat doubtful expression on My Mom's face? That's the general look of trepidation that everybody in my family gets when I drag out the camera. They know that, more often than not, their reputations will not be done any favors by my photography.

The shot was taken at my Uncle Rick's house. All shots, except for The Very Lovely Silver Tree, are from there. Not only am I a crummy photographer, but I am also a forgetful one. I didn't take a single photo of any of the festivities which took place with MY WIFE's side of the family at our home. I exclaimed "D'Oh!" about four hours after everybody had gone home. Truly a shame, too, as it was a fun time with wonderful people, and even if the photos would have been as ridiculously inept as most of mine eventually end up being, I still would have liked to have had some for my personal recollection of the events.

My Mom and Uncle Rick.

This was the first Christmas since My Grandma (aged 105) passed away. She lived in that house for quite a bit more than sixty years, I believe. Uncle Rick did a magnificent job of decorating the place and making it a warm and wonderful home to be in for the holiday. I truly wish I could have captured that on film. Unfortunately, most of the shots I took are similar to this one...

... in which we see Uncle Rick's lovely tree destroyed by my tendency to not focus before clicking.

Honestly, I do try. I think I'm doing it correctly at the time. It's only when I see the shots, after the fact, that I realize a chimp on meth could have done better.

Speaking of chimps on meth...

This photo is decent because I'm in it. Not that I'm stunningly adorable or anything, but me being in the picture guarantees that I'm not the one taking the picture.

I'm a huge fan of Fred Rogers, as many of you are aware. I love the shirt. However, can you imagine my mug coming at you, wearing a shirt that says "Won't You Be my Neighbor?" Property values would dive as quickly as have Rick Perry's hope of becoming our next president.

This shot, of Bill opening a present, probably gives the best overall sense of how nice a place Uncle Rick's was that day. It looks comfy and friendly, doesn't it? Well, it was. Uncle Rick is sitting next to Bill, while my Cousin Scott and his lovely wife, Andrea (two of my favorite people, and that would be even if they weren't related to me) are in the background.

Finally, we have this...

MY WIFE despises having her picture taken. Surprisingly, it is not just when I'm the one behind the camera. In her lifetime, she has acknowledged, I believe, one good photo of herself (and, personally, I think she looks like she was just released from Dachau in that one, but I digress.) Anyway, in deference to her desire not to be shown on this blog, I have cleverly disguised her here. You probably can't even tell which one is her, and I hope she appreciates my hard work.

Merry Little Christmas, my friends. See you (relatively) soon with more better stuff.

Toot

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Sat, 31 Dec 2011 13:07:00 +0000

Toot.

That's the sound of me blowing my own horn again.

(This was the first instance.)

I've been published in The Boston Herald for a second time. God bless them for being such poor judges of talent that I was able to bamboozle them once more!

This time around, the horn I am tootling is a New Year's Eve party horn. Go, read, enjoy (or, at least, pretend to do so, by leaving a comment that lets them know they have discovered the most spectacular writing talent since Mark Twain fathered Ernest Hemingway.)

(I suppose I should let you know that Mark Twain didn't actually father Ernest Hemingway. I figure if you're gullible enough to buy into the notion that I'm a writer worth paying, you probably need to have such things made unambiguously clear.)

HERE is where you should go to read my latest desecration of the language. My byline will be there someplace.

(However, if you'd like to learn how to draw things, such as the horn at the top of this page which I stole, go to How To Draw Cartoons Online! All in all, I'd say that would be a better use of your time.)

Soon, with a brand new year of idiocy!

(And I'll be back writing some more stuff, too.)

Roddy's Christmas Miracle

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 15:52:00 +0000

[Roddy The Wondercar]

It was a small puddle.

And Green.

A small green puddle. Under my car.

Every morning.

A small green puddle under my car every morning. For the last month.

It was a small green puddle under my car every morning for the last month.

I noticed it, and MY WIFE noticed it. It bothered me a little. It bothered MY WIFE a lot.

"Daddy doesn't care about you, Roddy", she would say, as she got in on the passenger side.

"I check his fluids every day", I would reply, "And I only have to add water once or twice a week."

To which, she would query, "Well, do you remember the story of The Boy Who Didn't Get His Radiator Repaired?"

"Yes", I would say, shamefaced, because I did.

Back in 1995, we owned a different car. It was a Chevy Cavalier with a leaky radiator. I checked the fluids and kept adding water. Then MY WIFE's Father died. While driving to his wake, the leaky Cavalier died, too.

(I believe the car was only acting in solidarity. During the previous twelve months, my father died, MY WIFE's mother died, and now her father had passed away. The Cavalier was just trying to be one of the family.)

The engine seized on the Southeast Expressway. As a result, we ended up driving her father's pick-up truck to his funeral. It had a bumper sticker that said, "Follow me to Bub's Barbecue!", which was humiliating enough to MY WIFE, she being a woman who doesn't eat anything with her fingers, let alone having everyone else in her family know she was married to a doofus who could have saved about $2,500 if he had only brought his car in for a simple check of the radiator for leaks.

Anyway, we had to have the engine replaced. It was either that or buy a new car. Since I was still paying off the Cavalier, I decided I'd rather send off two payments a month for a car we still had, as opposed to sending $350 a month into the ether for a car that was living in a junkyard.

And now, let us return to the present day (more or less.)

It is December 24th. We are preparing to drive to Weymouth, in order to celebrate Christmas with my mother's side of the family. It is a drive of some 25 or 30 miles each way. As we get in the car, Roddy has his usual small green puddle underneath him. MY WIFE says something about getting him into the shop to be checked out. I say something about it will happen in a couple of weeks, don't worry, I've checked the fluids, etc., and she says, "A stitch in time...", etc., which I know she is right about, but it's Christmas Eve, for goodness' sakes, and I really don't want to think about that sort of stuff right now.

Then, as we are on Route 128, still about 20 miles from Weymouth, the "check engine" light comes on.

(You should know something about Roddy [aside from the fact that Roddy is his name, and if your car doesn't have a name, then one of you has no soul, and it ain't the car.] His instrument panel does not function. It hasn't for about six months. I could get it replaced, but it isn't a necessity. The odometer and trip meter still function, being mechanical rather than electrical, so I can always tell if I need gas. I can judge speed fairly well, so I don't really have to have the speedometer. And I check the fluids regularly, so most of those idiot lights aren't needed. Anyway, a car doesn't need a functioning instrument panel to pass inspection, and if I get a different one, it will not have the true mileage reading for Roddy. I'm not at all sure why this matters to me, since I am never planning on selling Roddy, but it does. So there you go.)

When the "check engine" light comes on, I am amazed. NOTHING on the instrument panel has functioned for six months, but now the "check engine" light flashes on? On Christmas Eve? Just after I've told MY WIFE, for the umpteenth time, not to worry?

Now I'm worried.

If Roddy's engine seizes, I may just as well hop out of the car and commit hari-kari in the breakdown lane. It would be a financial tragedy, but, more important, it would also mean that I never again would have any chance of convincing MY WIFE that I knew, in any way, shape, or form, what I was talking about. The be-all and end-all of any argument would be, "Do you remember The Story Of The Boy Who TWICE Ignored Green Puddles?"

So, having no better option as I drove, I said a prayer. I said, "Dear God, please get us to Weymouth. And then to church tonight. And then home again. And then to Brookline on Christmas. And home again. And I absolutely promise I will take Roddy in for a check-up on Tuesday morning."

(It was probably a bit much to ask for five successful trips, rather than just one safe arrival to our current destination, but I knew we would have to make all five. Those were the plans, and too many people were counting on us, and getting repairs on Christmas Eve or Christmas would have been near-impossible anyway.)

We made it to Weymouth. We had a wonderful time. We made it to church that evening. It was a beautiful service. We made it home, uneventfully. Then, when we were on our way to Brookline on Christmas Day, Roddy gave up the ghost.

Of his "check engine" light, I mean. It went out. And, lo, the driver (me) was mightily relieved. And thankful. And he said, "Thank you, God. I am still most definitely bringing Roddy in for a check-up on Tuesday, though, as promised!"

Fast forward to Tuesday. As usual, there is a small green puddle under Roddy. I am feeling a bit lazy, though, so I say to myself, "Self, the check engine light went out of it's own accord. I know Roddy has enough fluids. I'll definitely bring him in for a check-up, but maybe next week."

And I get into the car, put the key in the ignition, and start it up.

But Roddy doesn't start. He cranks, but sputters. I try a couple more times. No go. There is power, but it appears to be diminishing steadily with each attempt. I know I am going nowhere. I know I need to call AAA, to get a tow to the repair facility. Whether I like it or not, I am being made to keep my promise.

God will do that sometimes.

And I have nothing to say, other than "Thanks, God!"

Roddy could have crapped out on any number of highways. If so, our Christmas celebrations would have taken a hideous hit. So, also, would my wallet. Had Roddy died on the road, it no doubt would have been because of something far more hideous than a belt tensioner and a dead battery, which is what turned out to be the case once Roddy was inspected by someone who knew a bit more about his workings than whether or not he had enough water. As for the radiator leak, it wasn't a radiator leak at all. It was only a loose clamp on a hose. All in all, the repair bill came to under $300, which I consider a major victory any time a car goes into a garage.

Roddy failed to start in the best possible place, his own garage at home, and the only inconvenience I got out of it was making a call to AAA and missing about one hour of work. And this morning, no green puddle, and I drove with peace of mind and a knowledge that God likes me enough to have allowed me to get through the celebration of His Son's birth with no true inconvenience, even though I was The Boy Who Hadn't Learned His Lesson, Twice, But Now I Am (I Think.)

Soon, with more better stuff.

The Gift

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 20 Dec 2011 13:35:00 +0000

[Christmas, 1965 or thereabouts]

The boy was very young; perhaps 7 or 8 years old. He loved everything about Christmas - the lights, the music, Santa Claus, the trees covered in tinsel and shiny ornaments - but especially the snow. For as long as he could remember (which wasn't very long, but it was a lifetime) there was always snow at Christmas. The whole thing was magical.

He walked down the street, on his way to a store near his home, and it was beginning to snow again. There was already an inch or two on the ground from yesterday and it was shiny, bright, white, and made everything it covered pretty. He opened his mouth and turned his face to the sky, trying to catch a couple of snowflakes on his tongue. He thought he succeeded, but it was hard to tell because snow melted as soon as it hit your tongue, so you couldn't collect a mouthful of it to prove that you caught some. He jingled a couple of nickels in his pocket, sliding his green rubber boots along in the snow as he walked with his face to the sky.

He was on his way to the store to buy a gift. He enjoyed receiving presents, of course; what child doesn't? However, he also very much enjoyed giving them to others. He loved to see people's faces when they opened their gifts. It was another magical thing about this time of year. He rarely saw anyone unhappy around Christmas and he never saw anyone unhappy when they opened a present.

Being very young, the boy didn't have much money. He received an allowance, but only one dollar. He had already bought presents for his mother and father. For his mother, it was some cheap perfume. For his father, it was some cheap cigars.

(Realize that when I say "cheap", I don't mean to imply that the boy had gone out of his way to buy inexpensive and shoddy presents. He hadn't. He had lovingly picked them out, albeit within his modest budget. The cigars and perfume were cheap, though. Being a young boy, he had no appreciation of perfume and thought they all smelled pretty much alike - stinky. He also had no idea that some cigars, when lit, smell like innertubes burning. However, these had come in a package with a big white owl on the front, and he did know that his dad liked owls.)

He had ten cents leftover from his original dollar, which will give you an idea of the value of the cigars and perfume. In any case, he now wanted to buy a present for his aunt.

His aunt was the older relative closest in age to the boy. She was around 19 or 20. She had lived with the boy and his parents for a short while when the boy was much younger. They had grown very close during this time. She was close enough in age to have been the boy's older sister and, in some ways, that's what the boy thought of her as.

The boy reached the main street. The store was on the other side, so he pressed the button that made the light red to stop the traffic. He loved how even the traffic lights joined in with the season, flashing red and green and yellow just like the lights on a Christmas tree. He looked both ways and then crossed the street.

He walked through the parking lot of the store, again noticing how people were so much happier this time of year. Everybody had a cheery "Hello!" for the people they met. As he entered the store through the automatic door (how did it know?) he heard Christmas music playing over the store's speakers.

He felt great. He was in love with the world.

Now he had to find a present for his aunt. He hadn't really given thought about this part of the task. He just assumed that he'd be able to find something nice. After all, a dime would buy a comic book, or two candy bars, or even twenty of those 2-for-1 Mint Julep candies. Certainly he'd be able to find something his aunt would love.

What sorts of thoughts go through the mind of a small boy? Many and varied, of course, but some are unfathomable. As he was walking down one of the aisles, he spotted something very colorful and pretty. He had always liked how these things looked. They were useful, too. And, when he checked the price, it was ten cents - just right! This is what he would get his aunt for Christmas.

He brought the gift up to the checkout and paid for it. Now there was nothing to jingle in his pockets, but that was OK. His Christmas shopping was done.

He made his way back home, enjoying the big colored lights that were on just about every house in the neighborhood, again catching (or trying to catch) snowflakes in his mouth.

*****************************************************************

When he got home, he took off his boots (which was always troublesome – he always seemed to leave one sock inside of a boot) and then ran upstairs to his room, to wrap this newest gift.

He was an only child. He spent many hours by himself, in his room, and he very much enjoyed that privacy. He didn’t dislike other people - far from it, in fact - but he did enjoy dreaming and using his imagination. He discovered early on that it’s almost impossible to dream when someone else is in your room. Someone else almost always wants to talk, and you can’t carry on a decent conversation with someone else and dream at the same time. Anyway, as a result of spending much time alone, he became fairly self-sufficient.

(Whenever anyone asked him if he wouldn’t rather have a brother or sister, he would firmly say, “No!” and he hoped that the people asking him these questions would see to it that the proper authorities – whoever was in charge of bringing brothers and sisters – did not make any deliveries to his house.)

Being such a self-sufficient boy, he mostly wrapped his own presents. He had already wrapped all of his other gifts for family. Many of his relatives got handmade gifts of one sort or another. For instance, every year since he was able to handle crayons, he had made his grandfather a hand-drawn calendar, which his grandfather treasured receiving. Now, he wrapped the gift for his aunt in colorful paper, once again admiring how colorful the gift was, too.

**********************************************************************

That night, Christmas Eve, he did what most Christian boys and girls try to do. Almost immediately after dinner, he went to bed. He tried to go to sleep at an abnormally early hour, hoping to thus wake up sooner and make Christmas come quicker. Before going to bed, he hung his stocking on his bedroom door (since there were no chimney or fireplace in his house.) He turned on the little transistor radio he had received as a gift on his last birthday and searched out a station playing Christmas music. In those days of his youth, it seemed the only time they ever played Christmas music on the radio was starting on Christmas Eve and he loved hearing all of the songs he heard (and loved) a year ago. His favorite was “Silver Bells”, and they played it not long after he lay down, much to his delight. Slowly, to the strains of “Do You Hear What I Hear?”, he drifted off to sleep.

(A curious thing about being a boy is that sometimes you can will yourself to dream what you want to dream. Not always, of course, but sometimes. You might think it an odd thing to dream, but the boy had dreamed of Yogi Bear and Huckleberry Hound every Christmas Eve [that is, every one in the memory of his short life] and he hoped that he’d have that same dream again this night, as it was great fun running around with cartoon characters. He did.)

Since he had gone to bed so early, he awoke at 3 am. He got up to go to the bathroom, but when he opened his door, he felt the heaviness of a full stocking on the other side of it, so thoughts of peeing suddenly took a backseat to seeing what Santa had left. He gently took out the tack that was holding the stocking to the door, making doubly sure he had a firm grip on the stocking and it wouldn’t fall on the hall floor (in case there was anything in it that might break) and he took it back to his bed, flipping on the bedroom light switch as he did so.

He wasn’t a greedy sort of a boy and so he didn’t just dump everything out on the bed in one fell swoop. Instead, he took the items out one at a time and carefully, lovingly, examined them. There were candy cigarettes with little bits of red food coloring on the ends to simulate their being lit; a set of jacks with a small rubber ball; a wind-up dog that did backflips until there wasn’t enough wind-up left (so then it landed on its head); a pinkie ball (great for three-flies-out on the front steps); one of those puzzles that you have to move around the pieces until you get it to read 1 through 15 in order; and a pencil with his very own name engraved on it! He attempted to solve the puzzle for a little bit, but then he remembered that he had to pee, so he did.

(He went to the bathroom to do so.)

After washing his hands and brushing his teeth, he went downstairs and plugged in the Christmas tree. He considered a Christmas tree the most beautiful thing on earth, and this one was filled with enormous colored lights, ornaments of all shapes and sizes, big handfuls of tinsel on every branch, and a long garland of popcorn (which he and his mother had strung one evening last week.) Topping it off was a white star with a red bulb inside it. He sat down on the floor and just stared at the tree for ten minutes, bathing in its warmth, both real (from the gigantic lights) and metaphysical.

He probably would have stared at it a bit longer, but his cat came along and started playing with one of the low-hanging ornaments and that broke him out of his reverie. He loved the cat very much and he loved watching her play - even more than he liked looking at the tree. After she failed to defeat the ornament - it still hung on the branch and she now wriggled on her back, enjoying the pine needles that had fallen - he went out to the kitchen and opened a can of cat food. Hearing the opener whirr, she came running like a shot - for a cat will take food over ornaments, every time (thus proving, once again, their innate intelligence.)

The boy poured himself a glass of milk and added some chocolate to it. He then took this back upstairs, drank it while eating a candy cigarette, and went back to sleep, listening to “The Little Drummer Boy” and imagining himself a poor boy playing drums for Jesus. The cat came upstairs and joined him in sleep, though what she dreamed of remains a mystery.

*****************************************************************

When he awoke again, it was 7am and his mother and father were also awake. They all went downstairs and opened presents, enjoying some cocoa while they did so. The boy received wonderful presents of games and toys, as well as a couple of shirts and such that he knew he should be more thankful for than he was. The cat received a catnip mouse (from Sandy Claws) and was very thankful for it. The parents exchanged gifts with each other and were thankful for those, and they received the stinky perfume and the smelly cigars with warmth at the thought behind them.

Now it was time for mass, after which the family would head over to the aunt’s to exchange gifts, before heading off to the house of the boy's grandparents.

Mass was as mass usually is – something which cats are thankful not to have to attend. It wasn’t that the boy didn’t want to wish Jesus a happy birthday and all – he really loved the bible stories very much, and he admired to no end someone who would lay down his own life for that of his friends – but the priest saying the mass this morning just went on and on and on and on. Even though he had slept close to ten hours, the boy could feel his eyes drooping as the interminable homily crept, s-l-o-w-l-y, towards a conclusion that had stopped being meaningful to all but the most die-hard some ten minutes before. Finally, after the homily died its excruciating death and communion was served, and after everyone had sung a rousing “Joy To The World”, it was time to get on the road and go exchange presents with other family members. After a 15-minute drive, the boy and his parents arrived at the aunt’s house.

They went inside to a warm welcome from the aunt and the rest of her family gathered there, which included a few other adults and a couple of infants, the boy's cousins. After a few minutes of small talk (mostly complaints from the boy’s father concerning the length of the homily at mass) it was time to open presents.

The boy watched with delight as everybody opened packages and smiled. Here was the magic again. Everyone oohed and aahed in the appropriate places as they received the presents that others had purchased for them. And now, his aunt had his gift in her hands and she carefully removed the wrapping paper, revealing the gift for all to see.

There were some smiles. Not that the boy noticed, but there were also a couple of glances exchanged by the grown-ups with some muffled laughter included. The aunt regarded her gift and looked lovingly at the boy. He looked back at her with love in his heart.

She said, “Oh, Jimmy, they’re just what I needed! Thank you, darling!”

She reached over and kissed him. He blushed and said, “You’re welcome.”

Never before had a package of red and green kitchen sponges brought such joy to two people.

******************************************************************

True story.

My Auntie Ba could have laughed at such a ridiculous gift. Some of the other adults might have joined in and then I would have been mortified. Instead, she taught me a marvelous lesson that Christmas, and she did so just by being her wonderful loving self. She taught me that there is no such thing as a bad gift, so long as there is love behind the giving of it.

My Christmas wish for all of you is that the gifts you give, whether large or small or precious or ludicrous (like sponges) be received as lovingly. My Christmas request to all of you is that you receive with love every gift given you. You never know how profoundly your love might affect someone.

My Auntie Ba is gone now, and I miss her, but her spirit lives on with me every Christmas because of the love she showed a well-meaning boy and his silly gift.

Merry Christmas!

Uncle Jim's Christmas Stocking

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 16:53:00 +0000

Grand Uncle Jim

First things first: This is a story about an Irish family. While my name is Jim, and I’m an uncle, I also have an Uncle Jim of my own. There is an Uncle Jim mentioned in this story, but he’s not that Uncle Jim, although that Uncle Jim is the one who told me this tale of the other Uncle Jim. Actually, he’s Uncle Jim’s Uncle Jim, making him my Grand Uncle Jim (and some folks prefer the title 'Great Uncle', but let’s not open that can of worms.) It’s very confusing to the uninitiated, I suppose, so if it will keep you from getting a headache, feel free to think of the main character herein as Uncle Aloysius.

Anyway, when my father was very young – five or six - his Uncle Jim taught him a very valuable lesson.

My father had hung his stocking on Christmas Eve, as did all of the family. This included the older relatives, and that group included his Uncle Jim. Come Christmas morning, everybody took down their stockings and looked inside to see what Santa Claus had brought them.

The usual things were found inside the stockings - little toys, tasty candies, and other such trifles. Nice, of course, but nothing unusual. That is, until Uncle Jim inspected the contents of his stocking. He turned it upside down, and out rolled a lump of coal and an onion.

While good little boys and girls receive toys and candies, a lump of coal and an onion are, by tradition, what bad boys and girls receive. Seeing those things come from Uncle Jim’s stocking, my father laughed and laughed. Uncle Jim was a bad boy! He got a lump of coal and an onion!

While my father was laughing, Uncle Jim said, "Oh! This is wonderful! A lump of coal and an onion? These are just what I needed!"

My father thought his Uncle Jim had gone round the bend. How could someone be happy to have received a lump of coal and an onion in his Christmas stocking?

Uncle Jim picked up the lump of coal, then took my father’s hand and led him to the basement. They stopped at the furnace. Uncle Jim said, "It’s so cold today, this lump of coal is the perfect gift. I can put it in the furnace and we’ll be nice and warm all day!"

Uncle Jim then led my amazed father back upstairs. They returned to the family parlor, where Uncle Jim now picked up his Christmas onion. He led my father into the kitchen. While my father sat and watched, Uncle Jim chopped up the onion, and then mixed it with celery, bread, and spices. During all of this, he went on rapturously about how his stuffing for the turkey would have been no good whatsoever without an onion.

Later on, as my father sat in a warm house eating delicious stuffing with his Christmas dinner, the lesson was permanently burned into his memory: It doesn’t matter what you’re given. It’s what you do with it that matters.

Soon, with more better stuff.

Commercial Christmas

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 20:30:00 +0000

[From Amazon. As you'll hear later, I underestimated the price.]

I've set it to music (or a reasonable facsimile thereof.)

Hmmmmmmm. Some of you seem puzzled. Oh! You're asking me what I've set to music. Why, this, of course!

Commercial Christmas

Up your bum with sugar plums
It's November, when Santa comes!
He's bringing you a credit card
And he wants you to charge it hard
It's Christmas
It's Commercial Christmas
Jesus Christ got nothin' to do with this

Friday's black, they're on attack
At Wal-Mart, Costco, and Radio Shack
They won't stop until you've bled
They need your green to get out of the red
It's Christmas!
It's Commercial Christmas!
Jesus Christ got nothin' to do with this

It's Veterans Day! Put up your tree!
Slide on down the chimney with me!
We'll go on a spending spree!
Bend over nine times, the tenth one's free!

(lots of stuff - crummy solo, spoken words, etc.)

Hey, hey, Rudolph! Whaddayasay?
Are you all set to pull that sleigh?
I'll drink until my nose gets redder
Then we can light up the sky togedder
It's Christmas!
It's Commercial Christmas!
Poor old Christ, up on his cross
His eyes bulge out, He's at a loss
He remembers bein' in the manger
But He can't remember anything stranger
Than Christmas
Commercial Christmas
It seems He died for your revolving credit account!

Yes, it's a good old fashioned Christmas Carol. You can hear it in all it's putrid glory, if you click this here thing.

Tell all your friends. In the true spirit of the commercial season, I want to see this thing go viral and make me a million bucks. I'm not quite sure how it will do so, but I expect the cash will just flow into my pockets magically in some way. Isn't that how things work on teh intertubes?

Soon, with more better stuff.

P.S. Some production notes for those who care (I think they may be the same people who stand in line at midnight on Thanksgiving waiting for Target to open, but...)

My partner in this production was Dan Nelson (who, considering his reputation in our industry as a really fine producer, is probably pissed that I'm doing him the disservice of attaching his name to this, but that's just the kind of guy I am.)

All instruments were made to produce their noises by me. It is a fine example of what happens when a bass player is left alone in a studio with guitars that have more than four strings. The lone exception are the drums. I didn't play them. I did, however, string them together in such a way as to make them sound they way they do, so there.

Finally, I would like to dedicate this tune to whatever greedy bastard decided that making a replica of Charlie Brown's Christmas Tree, and selling it, would be in keeping with the "Christmas is too commercialized" message of that show. Way to go! You are, without a doubt, the person who didn't get it most of all (and you no doubt would like to figure some way to sue me over this song, and I can't say that most folks who have listened to it would blame you.)

O, Christmas Trees!

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 14:29:00 +0000

MY WIFE bought me a Christmas tree. It is silver and shiny and I love it.

There will be a photo later. Be patient. In the meantime, here are a few of the Christmas trees I've known and loved.

This is not my new shiny silver tree. This is a really old shiny silver tree. It belonged to my Grandma and Grandpa, on my Mother's side, and the first time I saw it, I thought they had both lost their marbles. My eight-year-old brain could not process the idea of a tree that wasn't green, smelling of pine, and otherwise real and traditional. I was a staunchly conservative eight-year-old. Anyway, there it was in their living room, with the only lights on it coming from one of those spinning disks of color (which is not seen in that photo, but here's one, anyway...)

(MY WIFE also bought one of these for use with my shiny new silver tree. You'll see the whole shebang later, I promise.)

Well, once I got used to my grandparent's weird aluminum tree, it was kind of cool and I looked forward to seeing it each year. Having such a thing in a house full of people who love you - and give you presents - will tend to make you like it more, I think. I've had fond memories of it for many years, but the last remaining vestige of the thing is the photo I showed you. The tree itself is long gone.

(But, I have a shiny NEW tree of silver, AND a color wheel! Hang on, pardner! We'll get to it.)

The person standing next to this somewhat odd-looking bush is Aunt Pat, my great aunt, sister of my grandfather on my father's side, a.k.a. Aunt Agnes to some others in the family. You may ask why she was Aunt Pat to me and Aunt Agnes to others. It seems that she did not actually care for the name Agnes, and had decided that she would prefer Patricia. I never knew she had the name "Agnes" until I was a teenager, so she was apparently pretty successful in convincing me that her name was Pat.

(Aunt Pat had an outstanding physical characteristic that I found utterly fascinating as a child - one of her eyes was a milky sort of light blue, while the other was hazel or brown. This came about via an accident at the eye doctor. He mistakenly put ether into her eye and she was immediately blinded on that side, permanently. To show you the non-litigious nature of things in those days, she did not immediately sue him for everything he owned, which she no doubt would have had a chance at if she had sued, but instead just chalked it up to a human mistake and went on with her life. Can you imagine that happening now? No, neither can I, not even at Christmas.)

This Christmas tree was at my paternal grandparent's apartment in Roslindale. From the curtains, the wallpaper, and the date on the back of the photo, I'd say it was 1961.

One of the things I always liked about the Sullivan side of my family is that they were mostly not sticklers for symmetry. Whatever branches the tree came with would likely remain with the tree for the duration. Also, if a bigger clump of tinsel was on one of the branches than was on any of the others, so what? Live and let live (and if you don't like it, drink until you do) was the motto. Notice the clump of branches hanging over the doorway. Waste not, want not (especially when it comes to the drinks) was another motto.

(I don't want to leave you with the impression that they were a bunch of total drunken inebriates. They weren't. They were wonderful people whom I dearly loved. Many of them did enjoy their alcoholic beverages, though, and that sort of thing does tend to bring out the beauty in sparkly things and perhaps lead to pinning up the trimmings over the door frame. For what it's worth, I think it's a lovely tree, and I'm disgustingly sober at the moment.)

From my childhood in Dorchester comes this photo of the best use for any tree, as a giant toy for a cat to play with. Another shot of the same thing...

I could watch that sort of action hours at a time when I was a kid. Heck, I'd love it now. I'm still easily amused.

A tree of more recent vintage, perhaps 1995. You'll notice that I took the classic Sullivan approach to things like trimming off branches and distributing the tinsel evenly.

Actually, I did prune this tree a bit. When I got it home, I discovered that it was too tall for our room. I had to cut about six inches off of the trunk. The problem was, the only tool I had to work with was a coping saw. If you're not familiar with what a coping saw looks like, here's a photo of one.

Notice the very thin blade. A coping saw is used to make intricate cuts in mostly thinner pieces of wood. It is not meant to take the place of a rip or crosscut saw, the types usually used to tackle such things as logs, which is basically what I was cutting. Also, a coping saw blade builds up heat very quickly and snaps very easily because of it.

It took me a good 45 minutes and I went through four blades. I think I lost two pounds in sweat and five years off of my life due to the aggravation. My hands were covered in pine resin and as sore as if I were a 112-year-old arthritic. Of course, I could have hopped down to the hardware store and bought a big cheap saw for about ten bucks, saving myself a half-hour, but what's the fun in that?

This was the year that we used Pointy The Poinsettia as our Christmas tree.

Some of you may be wondering why I haven't re-run that story yet, as is my wont, and instead only gave a link to it here. I hate to break the news this way to those of you who may be fans of Pointy and who hadn't yet heard the news, but Pointy, alas, is no longer with us. He went to poinsettia heaven, a couple of years back, due to a case of root rot. I had been so successful in anthropomorphizing him, even to myself, that I actually cried when I put his remains out for the trash pickup. Anyway, it just seems wrong to re-run the story, with its happy ending, since I know he's gone. What can I say? I'm a sentimental goof.

My office manager, Kim, knew how I felt and she gifted me with the altogether wonderful replacement, Simon Peter Poinsettia...

... who is, I'm happy to report, still living (but will not be the Christmas tree this year since I have a SHINY NEW SILVER TREE, which, yes, sooner or later I'll get to here.)

Last year's bunch o' tree. And here are a couple of previous incarnations...

MY WIFE once worked in retail. She had an opportunity to snag five trees of varying heights that had been in window displays. For most of the past ten years, we've used those five trees (or random combinations of them) for our Christmas tree. But now, I've got a SHINY NEW SILVER TREE!!! and I guess it's about time I showed it to you, so here it is!

Sorry... My shiny old silver digital camera bit the dust somehow over the past few days. Even though I've scoured the manual, I can't figure it out. It won't take a charge, it won't do anything at all. It flashed an error message once, but before I could read it, it conked out completely. So, no photo. But now you know something you could get me for Christmas, if you feel the desire, so this whole thing was worthwhile, I suppose.

(I would have preferred ending with that sorry excuse for a joke, but I have the sinking feeling that, if I leave you with that last line, one or two of you might actually go out and buy me a camera, or maybe send me one you have lying around. While I would certainly appreciate that generous gesture, please don't do it. With my utter lack of skill as a photographer, it would be similar to sending sheet music to Roseanne Barr. I don't want that sort of pressure for future ignominy.)

Soon, with more better stuff.

P.S. I almost forgot! Inspiration for this post came from Growing Up In Waldron and Down Silly Rabbit's Hole. So there.

A Christmas Carol

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 01 Dec 2011 15:45:00 +0000

This is a Christmas carol I wrote this morning. These are just the words, but I think you can imagine the music, an up-tempo blues rock sort of thing. Hope you like it!

Up your bum with sugar plums
It's November, when Santa comes!
He's bringing you a credit card
And he wants you to charge it hard
It's Christmas
It's Commercial Christmas
Jesus Christ got nothin' to do with this

Friday's black, they're on attack
At Wal-Mart, Target, and Radio Shack
They need your green to get out of the red
And they won't stop until you've bled
It's Christmas!
It's Commercial Christmas!
Jesus Christ got nothin' to do with this

It's Veterans Day! Put up your tree!
And we'll go on a spending spree!
Slide on down the chimney with me!
Bend over nine times, the tenth one's free!

(yackety sax solo)

[spoken, over steady beat]

Hey, there's Charlie Brown! I love that pathetic little tree! I sure wish I could buy one just like it...

I can? And only $10.00? Excellent!

Hey, why is Linus spouting that shit about shepherds? What the fuck does THAT have to do with Christmas?!?

(guitar solo)

Hey, hey, Rudolph! Whaddayasay?
Are you all set to pull that sleigh?
I'll drink until my nose gets redder
Then we can light up the sky togedder
It's Christmas!
It's Commercial Christmas!
Poor old Christ, up on his cross
His eyes bulge out, He's at a loss
He remembers bein' in the manger
But He can't recall anything stranger
Than Christmas
Commercial Christmas
It seems He died for your revolving credit account!

(glockenspiel solo, and fade)

Soon, with more better stuff

Those Things For Which I Am Thankful

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 14:35:00 +0000

1 - My wonderful relatives and friends.

2 - The ability to use this space as a device for copping out.

During the 6+ year run of this blog, I have had many wonderful people leave comments, or send me e-mail, or even write me via old-fashioned snail mail; send me nice little gifts, or, in some instances, send me rather large and expensive gifts; favor me with artwork of their own invention, including photos, drawings, and original musical recordings; contribute to causes I asked them to contribute to, with some going to considerable expense in doing so; and otherwise make my life a joy by going out of their way to do nice things for me.

In return, I have been a slug.

Not always, of course. It's possible you may be in possession of an actual writing of some sort from me, wherein I said "Thanks!" for whatever it was you did. If so, lucky you! However, if I have NOT thanked you for some kind deed you've done for me, I have been the aforementioned slimy creature from the garden. Please let me take this opportunity to assure you that I have not only received whatever it was you sent, but I have reveled in it.

I mean it. There has not been a comment, letter, gift, kindness, or other good deed done, that hasn't made me smile. I live for that stuff, and if you've contributed to the great pile of it, I adore you.

3 - I have my health. At least, my spleen appears to be working rather well.

4 - Really, I always fully intend to reply to everyone who comments or otherwise writes in response to something I've written, but sometimes I have something else come up and I forget. That's not a good excuse, but it's the only one I have at the moment. And I hope, if you've ever felt slighted in any way by my lack of reply, that you'll accept this as an apology and forgive me.

Of course, the possibility exists that I pissed you off so much by not replying to your heartfelt message that you stopped reading me ages ago and, if so, you aren't seeing this at all and I'm wasting my time writing it. Oh, well. I deserve to have my time wasted if I received something wonderful from someone and I didn't thank that person.

5 - Thus far, I have not been trod upon by an elephant.

6 - You see, sometimes I just plain lose an e-mail, or misplace an address, or otherwise lose the ability to give thanks in return for your kindnesses. And I really feel bad about it, too. Another thing to consider is that I have an actual full time job and I have to at least appear to be doing it full time or else I won't get paid, so I can't spend all day at work (since I don't have internet at home) replying to every damn thing that comes to me via e-mail.

(Well, I don't mean "DAMN thing that comes to me via e-mail", as though you've ruined my day by writing to me. I like the stuff, but... ah, you know what I mean. Let's drop it.)

7 - Since I'm bald, I'm the first one to know when it's raining. Or when someone is spitting on me. On the other hand, I wasn't born a salamander, so there's that.

[A tiger salamander, which I am not, but the more I think of it, maybe I'd be better off.]

8 - It just now occurs to me that if I had spent as much time searching for your lost e-mails or letters as I'm spending in writing this tripe, I probably could have saved both of us some time and actually said a proper thanks to you. This thought probably occurred to you, too, but you were just oh-so-polite, in that way you are, and decided not to say anything, so you just let me go on and on and on making a fool of myself.

9 - My socks only have a few holes in them, and as long as I line them up to miss the holes in my shoes, it's not too bad when it rains.

10 - I've got to be honest here and tell you that it really cheeses me off the way you just sat there and let me continue making an ass of myself, OK? You could have stepped in at any time and said, "Jim, it's no trouble at all!", but instead I've been blathering for ten minutes without a single peep out of you. What the hell.

11 - My eyeballs aren't currently bleeding.

12 - You know, you've really got a nerve. Just because you mailed me a fruitcake, or played a few bars on a song I wrote, or sent me nude photos of yourself, you think I've got nothing better to do than thank you for making me fat and horny!

13 - Judas Iscariot on a rocket-powered skateboard! Yes, YOU made me fat and horny! It wasn't my fault! The crappy bass playing was my fault, I admit that, but a real friend would have told me how shitty I played and kept me from disgracing myself in public, you asswipe!

14 - Oh, really?!? Well, I'd like to see you try it, you sorry sack of shit! I didn't get to be this old and decrepit by letting half-witted dopes like you get the better of me!

15 - Warm fluffy kittens who cuddle with you on a cold winter night.

16 - ... and if you don't like it, you can shove it up your big fat ass! Like I need this crap. Just because I won't get down on bended knee, worshiping the ground you walk on, while spouting effusive gratitude for your favors, you think you can walk all over me? Well, let me tell you something, bub: It's a free country, I pay most of my taxes, and I don't have to take this shit from the likes of you!

17 - I'm even thankful for the folks who will have read only the first few lines of this, scrolled down to the end while thinking it was a straight-ahead post about being thankful for the mundane things in life, and who then left a comment along the lines of "Oh, how sweet! Your poops must be made of sunshine and rainbows!" They mean well, even if they're morons.

18 - So take your fruitcakes, guitar solos, nude photos, Thanksgiving Comes First blogs, letters to my Cousin Dorothy, well wishes for my softball teams, and congratulations on being published in a major metropolitan newspaper, and put them where the sun don't shine, you fu... you... uh...

19 - Well, now that I think of it, you have been pretty nice and I have been a slug. So, in conclusion, let me say thank you, and rest assured that I love my life, I love you, I love God, and I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth. My life couldn't possibly be more blessed!!!

Soon, with more better stuff.

The Best Day Of The Year

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 13:40:00 +0000

This, as long-time friends would soon know without aid of this silly preface, is a repeat. I always publish this one during my last time at work before taking Thanksgiving week off. If you've seen it before, feel free to skip to the end and leave a generic polite comment. If you do that, though, you'll miss the extremely slight re-writing I've done concerning the Detroit Lions.

I feel I should note that this will be the first holiday family gathering since My Grandma's passing. She was a large part of our Thanksgivings past and, even though she hadn't been able to physically attend the past couple, her not being at table this year will still feel a bit odd for us, I think.

In going over this piece looking for bits to tighten up, I found she was specifically mentioned once by name in a way that would have made it sound as though she was still with us bodily, which she isn't. It would have been awkwardly dishonest to leave her name there, so I excised it. Her spirit, however, will always remain, and the other spots wherein she appears (in a photo, and in the pleasant little story concerning a Dane and some turnip) remain, as they should.

OK, that's enough new material. On with the turkey rehash!

THE BEST DAY OF THE YEAR

fris‧son / Pronunciation [free-sohn; Fr. free-sawn]
a sudden, passing sensation of excitement; a shudder of emotion; thrill.
(Random House Unabridged Dictionary, 2006)

Let me tell you about the holiday I like best of all – Thanksgiving.

I like all holidays. Any day you get off from work, or during which people get together to celebrate, or when you get (or give) gifts? In my book, that’s a good day. Some days are more special than others, though.

Christmas used to be my favorite. When I was a kid, I went straight from one frisson to another during the week leading up to Christmas. The celebration of Christ’s birth was magical and there was no end to the ways that the world delighted me. As I’ve grown older, that magic has ebbed. I haven’t changed, though; it’s the world that has.

When I was a child, nearly every house in the neighborhood sported pastel lights of red, yellow, green, blue and orange, either as decoration outside or via a candle or two in the windows. The streets were bathed in an embracing warmth, a welcoming glow. Nowadays, the lights of choice are mostly cold; icicles and clear starbursts. I guess a lot of folks like them – otherwise, why would they have them? - but all they do for me is make the night streets too much like daytime. Those bright white lights don’t do anything but remind me of how cold it is in winter. The colorful lights of my childhood made me feel warm, even during the meanest of snowstorms.

(Photo from Photos From My Life. Isn't it a beautiful tree?)

I love Christmas music. I always have. I always looked forward to it beginning, sporadically, after Thanksgiving, and then building bit by bit until there was an entire glorious day and night of it from Christmas Eve through to Christmas Night. It played on the radio all day, but only all day on Christmas and most of the day before. In the morning, while opening presents with my Mom and Dad, we played the two or three vinyl Christmas records we had at home. It was special.

Now the trouble is in trying to avoid it. Even as of today, November 17th, there have been radio stations playing Christmas music 24 hours a day for the past couple of weeks. Seriously - and I mean this - if you like that sort of thing, God bless you. To me, though, Christmas music is like chocolate. A few pieces, rich and creamy, are delightful. Feed it to me non-stop for sixty days? All that is, is a sick stomach.

(My job, as good as it is, doesn’t help matters. I’m a voice-over guy, and I also do production work, but my actual job title is “Music Director”. Therefore, in the course of my duties, I sometimes have to use holiday music for background in pieces I complete for clients during September and October. I try to remain detached while doing so, but...)

The final nail in my Christmas coffin is driven in by the greedy merchants who just plain don't have the common decency to wait for Thanksgiving to be over before they start spewing forth their hideous advertisements. Every year, they start earlier and earlier. I rail against it every year, too. MY WIFE tells me to relax, that I can’t change it, that there really isn’t anything all that bad about it. I love MY WIFE dearly, but on this she’s dead wrong. I’ll go to my grave cursing those bastards for draining the innocent joy out of a lovely day. I try to ignore it, and I try to keep the spirit I believe in, but they keep throwing haymakers at me and a few do connect. I keep getting up off of the canvas, but it isn't easy.

I can’t even begin to imagine how hideous a time it must be for those who don’t share my faith. No wonder some of the atheists keep trying to run it out of town. The money-grubbing parasites, who see it only as a time to reel in a profit, have turned it into something even I want to partially get rid of.
Ho-Ho-freakin'-Ho.

Ah, I suppose that’s a bit over the top. The day still has charm. The real importance of it, for someone like me, is spiritual, and the sons of bitches can’t rip that out of me unless I let them. The people I share the day with, and with whom I eat good food and exchange lovely and loving gifts, are dear to me. They still make it a wonderful day, but that frisson I spoke of earlier, that I used to have in multiples during the season, hasn’t been felt in quite a while.

****************************************************************

The only holiday I can always count upon to deliver a frisson is Thanksgiving.

(I’m trying to set the world record for frisson mentions in one blog. Am I there yet?)

I have never had a bad Thanksgiving. Not one. As a matter of fact, not only have I not had a bad one; I’ve had nothing but good ones for as long as I can remember.

For every other holiday, I can dredge up at least one bummer. There have been New Years Eves with toothaches and New Years Days with hangovers, Washington’s Birthdays with flu, Memorial Days with sunburns, July Fourths with car accidents, Labor Days with the dread of returning to school, Halloweens with stolen candy, and even Christmases with “Dear John” letters thrown into the mix, but never a bad Thanksgiving.

(I’m hoping I’m not the victim of selective memory. Somewhere in the past there may have been one horrible incident I’ve tucked into a corner of my mind under lock and key. If so, and you know about it, don’t tell me. I’d rather be ignorant and happy.)

You know one of the reasons why it’s so easy to have a good Thanksgiving? Nobody’s trying to sell you anything. It’s just good company, some football, great food, and maybe a nap with your belt loosened. The biggest thing anyone can put up for sale is a bird. There are no bogus guilt trips laid on you by manufacturers trying to make you feel as though you haven’t done right by your loved ones. All you have to do, to do right by your loved ones on Thanksgiving, is show up.

Oh, the smells of Thanksgiving dinner cooking! There is no perfume in existence that matches the fragrance of turkey, stuffing, gravy, squash, turnip, sweet potatoes, hot rolls, pumpkin pie, and all of the other mouth-watering aromas that emanate from the kitchen on that day. It is the smell of pure love. The one doing the cooking isn’t doing it because he or she is guilt-ridden. It’s being done because the people who will eat the feast are near and dear; as simple and lovely as that.

MY WIFE and I have hosted Thanksgiving at our place for the past sixteen years. It is the most sublime pleasure of my year to plan that meal and then prepare it. I’m the luckiest man in my family. I get to enjoy those smells longer than anyone else. And I get the lion’s share of the leftovers, too.

I remember lovely, huge tables full of food at my grandparent’s apartment in Roslindale, the vegetables served in great green ceramic bowls and topped with big pats of yummy sweet butter. I remember other times of waking in my upstairs bedroom to the smell of a turkey roasting in my childhood home in Dorchester. Later, after my parent’s divorce, I ate TWO huge dinners every Thanksgiving – the first cooked by my father and the second served at my Grandma’s in Weymouth, where I would eat with my mother. It wasn’t easy, but I loved both of them too much to disappoint either one of them, so I did my duty. I even ate a couple of pieces of pie at both places, just so they’d have no doubt about how much I loved them.

I try to remember what the name of the holiday calls for – the giving of thanks. I look upon my preparation and sharing of food as a sacred rite of sorts. There’s no skimping on this meal. If money’s tight, it’s a way of showing my faith in the idea that God will bring better times. Always, it’s a time to be thankful for the good people who are sharing the table with me (even if some of them don't like their picture taken.)

There are lovely constants at Thanksgiving. For instance, every year the Detroit Lions play football. Well, at least they try, and they ought to get credit for that. And the same stories get told at the table. There's one that never fails to get mentioned, concerning turnip and a Danish friend of the family .

Seems that one year, when this Dane was a holiday guest, my grandmother was preparing the food and one of the vegetables was turnip. The fellow laughed and said, in his Danish accent, “Turnip! Ha-ha! Very funny!” and when he was asked why he was laughing, he said, “Ho-ho! Yes, the joke’s on me! That’s a very funny joke. OK, you can take it away now.” Seems that they only served turnip to pigs in his region of Denmark. He thought it was a joke for his benefit. When he found out that it was something we actually ate, and enjoyed, he became somewhat indignant, if not sick to his stomach. Every year, when I bring out the turnip, that story returns for it’s annual telling. And I love it. There is also usually a mention of turducken as though it were just invented the previous week.

When the meal is over – well, at least the part of the meal that doesn’t involve pie – my stepfather and I turn our attention to the end of the Lion’s game. Meanwhile, the other folks have good conversation, coffee, tea, and, yes, pie. If the Lions win, Bill and I have a piece of pie to celebrate their good fortune. Since this rarely happens, we console ourselves with a piece of pie if they lose. It’s all good.

(This year, for the first time in ages, the Lions actually seem to be a decent squad with a chance to win. Unfortunately, they'll be playing the Green Bay Packers, who may be the best team the league has seen in a decade, so the Lions will probably lose again. Oh, well. Pie!)

Soon, it gets to be late afternoon and folks start leaving. First, my Cousin Scott and his wife, Andrea, because they go visit some other relatives. Then my Uncle Rick. Finally, after all others have gone, Bill and My Mom hit the road, and then it’s just me and MY WIFE, all alone in the house. At that point, I do what any red-blooded American man would do. I take a couple of the leftover rolls, slice ‘em open, stuff them with turkey and dressing and gravy, and eat them while I watch the end of the Dallas game (and if they'd lose as often as the Lions, I'd be a happier man, but, once again, Pie!)

I love this holiday so much, I take the entire week off each year. That way, I can very leisurely clean the house and buy the food and decorate and do prep work for the feast, taking those chores completely off of the hands of MY WIFE, who deserves at least as much of a restful, enjoyable feast as I’m giving everyone else. I love every moment of that busy, yet still somehow slothful, week. And, since I only post from work, that’s why this is the last post until December 1st.

I wish you a Tremendously Happy Thanksgiving. Say your prayers, eat much, show love.

Soon, with more better stuffing.

Thanksgiving Comes First - The Last Round-Up

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 13:40:00 +0000

This past weekend, I threw a brick through my TV screen.

No, not really. But that's what I felt like doing, and often. Every time an ad came on that featured Christmas music, or touted some chintzy Christmas-themed sale, or tried to convince me to run down to some damn store to stand in line with red-and-green-clad troglodytes buying the latest cell phone (you know, the one that sings Beautiful while it scrubs your balls?)... well, if a brick had been handy, it would have been the end of my TV. Luckily for my home life (which would have been severely injured had I destroyed the TV, since MY WIFE considers television on par with food and water as an essential) two things enabled me to keep my sanity:

1 - The Remote Control

Whenever I heard the first notes of far-too-early Christmas music, or saw the beginning of another ad from a jeweler warning me to spend two months salary for a diamond because otherwise the woman who loves me won't love me, I changed the channel. It helped that it was the weekend and multiple football games were on the air at the same time. I was able to avoid all but a few seconds of pain.

2 - You

Whatever else may have been driving me around the bend, you wonderful people kept me from careening over a cliff. So many of you have written sterling pieces about Thanksgiving and contributed your voices to the annual fight against the Christmas Ho-Ho-Whores! Just thinking about those who, for instance, sent me the following cartoon...

... kept me smiling.

(I was sent this cartoon by eleven or twelve different people, and every one of them said, "See, Sully? You're not alone!" You have no idea how much that cheered me up. Thanks!)

So, the TV did not perish via blunt trauma and my sanity (such as it is) was saved. And you know what else? I think I have the will to do this again next year. And the year after. And the year after that, too, if need be. A couple of weeks ago, I wasn't so sure. I was thinking maybe it was time to give it up, put it to rest, admit it was a losing battle and just try to ignore as much of it as possible. Now? Target can kiss my ass. I refuse to let bastards like they are win.

(Why am I singling out Target? They're opening their Black Friday sale at Midnight on Thanksgiving itself. Even the worst offenders have usually waited until 5am or so on Friday. What this means is that everybody who works at Target will have to be at work by 10:00 or 11:00 on Thanksgiving night. And, in order to do that, most will have to get some sleep during Thanksgiving Day and miss family gatherings and dinner. So FUCK TARGET, the greedy sons of bitches.

If you'd like to join me in another effort of shoveling shit against the tide... excuse me, join me in signing a petition to try and get them to change this policy, go HERE.)

So, anyway, they can keep knocking me down, but I'm going to get up every time. And knowing there are so many of you who share that conviction (though perhaps with varying degrees of obscene venom) is what will keep me going.

And the least I can do, by way of repayment, is give a link to you folks who have written stuff.

(The most I could do is send each of you a check, but that's not happening.)

Following are the newest Thanksgiving Comes First entries.

Lisa McColgan

A Broad With A View (Part One)

A Broad With A View (Part Two)

Growing Up In Waldron

A-Bloggin :-D

Lindsay's List

Living By Heidi Metro

The Christmas Conspiracy

Messy Mimi

Indigo Girl

Here's something interesting: It's a website totally devoted to the idea of TCF (although it has a different title - TBT!)

Take Back Thanksgiving!

And here's a funny article, from the prestigious monthly magazine, The Atlantic, with the same title!

Take Back Thanksgiving!

And now, as is my custom, those who previously wrote articles and blogs this year, and who were mentioned here before, will again be listed. It pays to get on the bandwagon early!

As you might expect from someone with my ego, I'll blow my own horn first. I had an op-ed published in The Boston Herald. You can read it HERE.

The less-ego-driven (and probably more valuable because of it) souls, are:

Ivan Toblog

Long Hollow

The Surly Writer

Down Silly Rabbit's Hole

By God's Good Grace

Postcards From A Broad

Out & About In New York City

Spokalulu

Knucklehead

365

The Fifty Factor

Seeking Sanity

HOT Takes

The Smitten Image

Eternal Lizdom

Tilting At Windmills

The Best Of Times In A Moogie's World

Exile In Portales

TechnoBabe

Lime

Teacher's Pet

Uncle Skip

Messy Mimi

Tara Dharma

Matt Conlon

Down River Drivel

$12 A Day, And A Baby On The Way

Sick Bitch

Finally, as a special treat for you (if you've lasted long enough to get down to this remote section of the posting, you deserve a special treat...) here are some links to the very best writings I've ever seen concerning Thanksgiving and TCF.

One of the main joys of my undertaking this otherwise only-slightly-rewarding battle each year is that I am often privileged to be the first person to read heartfelt and beautiful pieces written by kindred spirits. I went back through the many postings from other years and selected my all-time favorites. Here they are. Every one of them is well worth whatever time it takes to read them. Trust me.

My wonderful friend, Thimbelle, wrote one of the best. As a bonus, it contains actual knowledge gleaned from having worked in retail.

Melinda hasn't blogged in quite some time (at least not at the blog to which I'm sending you) but her posting was, and is, one of those I have enjoyed re-visiting. She deserved many more readers than her lack of comments, overall, would indicate that she had. In any case, enjoy her words at From One London To Another.

One of my favorite semi-obscenity-laced rants of all time was done at Diaryland. Not for all tastes, I assume, but neither is some of my stuff (maybe including my Walmart rant above.) This makes me laugh out loud, anyway.

Janet, at Adventures In The 32-Aker Wood, is another of my favorite blog buddies. And she more than earns her keep with this wonderful reminiscence/tirade.

My Cousin David's piece is no longer available via his personal blog, but I did find it HERE. I'm still proud to have him as my family member.

Desmond Jones (who is actually Craig Desmond, but that's another story) wrote a wonderful piece concentrating on the Advent season (which is probably a more correct starting point for the "Christmas season" than Black Friday, but I figured getting retailers to actually acknowledge the religious aspects of the holiday was an even longer shot than getting them to hold off beating us over the head with their blasphemous ads until after Thanksgiving.)

(Craig will probably publish the piece again, later this year, and I think that would be great.)

Doctor Grumpy was (and, I assume, still is) magnificently twisted.

Oodles Of Funch gives with the righteous indignation and the family memories! A win-win!

Lime is among my most-visited and favorite bloggers year-round, but THIS made me love her all the more dearly.

Finally, I will once again send you to visit Cricket. His is my favorite piece of all. Find it HERE (and if you're finding it for the first time, I envy you. It is not only one of the best writings about Thanksgiving, it is one of the best writings on the 'net, ever, period.)

All of the above are tremendously good, so what follows below may be a lie. Still, it's tradition, and that's part of what Thanksgiving is about, so...

Soon, with more better stuff.

Thank You To A Gentle Man

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Fri, 11 Nov 2011 15:45:00 +0000

This is from last year on Veterans Day, but worth repeating.

I wasn't planning on writing anything special for Veteran's Day. I certainly know some vets, and am especially proud of some family members who served - My Dad (Navy), My Uncle Jim (Air Force), My Uncle Rick (Army) - but a couple of things I read yesterday changed my mind and prodded me to write this. I'll give you a quick bit of back-story and then send you to read about a fellow I admire.

My swell friend, Cricket, wrote about some vets he knew. It's a good piece - as is everything he writes - and worth a look. You can find it HERE. After having read his post, I decided to leave a comment.

Another comment, by another friend, Thimbelle, prompted me to say something concerning Bill MacDonald, my stepfather. Here's what I said about him, which, I'm sorry to say, included what seems to be a mistaken notion concerning his military service.

My Stepfather, Bill, received a bronze star for his World War II service - quite a high decoration - and he never ever speaks of what he did to earn it. When anyone asks him to do so, he specifically refuses. I know he was a prisoner of war, but that's as much as I know. I respect his wish to not speak about it, although some try to prod him to talk. He's a true gentleman - a gentle man - and someone pushing him to speak about his military career is one of the few things about which I've seen him get truly angered. I've just told him "Thanks" once or twice, and even that seems to be more than he would like to hear about it.

I admire that reticence to cast himself as a heroic figure, a lot. Doesn't mean he wasn't (or isn't, for that matter.)

Before I go any further, I need to let you know about my mistake. It seems Bill was NOT a prisoner of war. I guess I had heard someone else say that he was, and Bill, being who he is, just didn't want to talk about his service, period, so he never corrected that person. As a result, I had always harbored the notion that he had been. As I've since found out, that appears to not be his story. The actual story is, to my mind, much more interesting.

After leaving that comment, I decided to see if there might be anything about Bill, and his military service, on the web. I specifically wanted to see if there was a listing of Bronze Star recipients, and see whether or not Bill was on it.

Don't get the wrong idea; I had no doubt that Bill had received that medal. I just wanted to see if there was someplace where he was receiving some recognition for having done so, and perhaps I'd also have some light shed on what his actions were during his time of service. I've never pushed him to talk about it, but that doesn't mean I wasn't curious to find out.

Well, I put his name in Google, along with "Bronze Star", and I found something. It wasn't a listing of recipients of the award. It was a newspaper account of how My Mother had prodded him to try and get another medal he deserved - The Purple Heart.

The Purple Heart is awarded for being wounded in action.

While Bill does not seek the spotlight, My Mom is not one to sit idly by and let a person, especially her husband, not get credit where it is due. I have little doubt that Bill kept on saying it didn't matter whether he got the recognition, but My Mom, extremely gentle woman that she is, is like a pitbull when she feels that some wrong should be righted. She won't let go of it until it happens.

And now, please go to the link below, and read Bill's story. I'll finish my part of this by once again, on this Veteran's Day, saying "Thanks, Bill." The difference is, this time I know why I'm thanking him.

Bill's story.

Soon, with more better stuff.

[2011 update: Bill has still not received his Purple Heart. His scars, however, remain.]

Dorothy & The Ingrown Toenail

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 10 Nov 2011 13:25:00 +0000

I had another visit with Dorothy on Tuesday. I'll share a story she told me, in just a minute, but first let me update you on her condition.

Not much change, which is a good thing. She's holding steady, which is probably the best that can be hoped for considering her panoply of maladies. The cards and letters from you have most definitely had a cheering effect. She loves receiving them, and she is the hit of the nursing staff because of them. She tells me they fight with each other to bring them to her bedside and read them to her (as I've mentioned before, Dorothy does not have good vision, so she needs to have most of the writings read to her. She can see the drawings, photos, and other large visuals well enough, though.) She (and the staff) are continually amazed at the variety of places from which the mail has come - across the U.S., from Canada, from Europe, and this week Malaysia made the list.

Her spirits are high. I'd like to think she's that way all the time, and not just when I'm visiting, but she lights up so much when I walk in, I have to think she might not always be so bright and peppy.

(I'm not saying it's me, specifically, who makes her so cheerful. I think any visitor would do it. It has to get somewhat tiring just laying there in bed. That's why the cards and letters are having such a great effect. They break up the day.)

As for her physical condition? Her weight is alarmingly low, but she has always been thin. Hard to tell, visually, if she's lost any more weight. She has the translucent skin I've also been "blessed" with, so aside from skin and bones she is all veins, but she has been that way for most of the recent years, even before this hospitalization.

Anyway, I am blessed to have so many wonderful readers who have gone out of their way to drop her a line. I'll give the address again, in case anyone else wishes to join in. For further background on Dorothy, in case you have no idea who or what I'm talking about, go HERE and perhaps HERE. The address:

Dorothy Luff, Room 103
c/o Milford Care & Rehabilitation
10 Veterans Memorial Drive
Milford, MA 01757-2900

And now, here’s the story I promised you.

If you’ve ever had an ingrown toenail, you know how painful that can be. I’ve never had one, myself, so I have no idea. I’ve been told it’s sort of like a toothache of the foot. If that’s true, I can imagine it quite well. I’ve had more than enough toothaches. But, before I start rambling on about my former teeth, this story isn’t about me. It’s about Dorothy. It takes place during the summer of 1940, when she was thirteen years old.

Dorothy, as you may have already guessed from the idiotic preface I’ve provided, had an ingrown toenail. It was on the big toe of her left foot. Having never had an ingrown toenail before, however, she didn’t know that she had one. All she knew was that her foot hurt.

She soldiered along for about a week, wobbling a bit here and there, until her older sister, Patty, saw her limping and grimacing. Patty asked Dorothy what was the matter. Dorothy said her foot hurt. Patty asked Dorothy to show her the foot. So, Dorothy did. She sat down on the edge of her bed and removed her shoes and socks.

What Patty saw was a big toe swollen to about twice its normal size, discolored almost to the point of being purple. Since Dorothy had the world famous translucent and very white skin that many in the Sullivan clan were favored with, this was even more pronounced a discoloration than it might have been on someone of a darker complexion. Patty became alarmed and called for their mother.

Anna, her mother – and she was the Sullivan side of their heritage, thus a woman who didn’t believe in sitting around when action could alleviate a problem - came into the room, took one look at the toe in question, and told Dorothy to put her shoes and socks back on. This wasn’t because she wanted the toe covered up (although she no doubt did) but because she had immediately decided a trip to the doctor was necessary. They dressed and went out to Hyde Park Avenue to catch the streetcar.

The streetcar came and they boarded. It was a warm summer afternoon in Boston. As she and her mother rode the slowly moving crowded streetcar, Dorothy began to feel a bit queasy. The prospect of going to the doctor, the hot streetcar swaying slightly on the tracks, the sweaty patrons filling the seats around her, and not least of all the toe itself, all added up to make Dorothy nauseous. Dorothy tried thinking cooler thoughts, but it didn’t help much.

Anna and Dorothy arrived at the doctor’s office and were checked in by a nurse. They were ushered into an examination room and told to wait for the doctor. In those days before widespread air conditioning, the close confines of the windowless exam room offered no respite from the heat. Dorothy was still nauseous.

After several minutes of warm waiting, the doctor arrived. He asked what was the matter. When he was told about the toe, he instructed Dorothy to hop up onto the examination table (as best she COULD hop, given the circumstances) and he then removed Dorothy’s shoe and sock.

There was the ugly toe, still swollen and purple. The doctor gingerly touched it. Even that little bit of pressure made Dorothy wince. She also felt slightly faint. She let her head drop a bit, and, in so doing, she found herself looking directly down at the doctor, who was kneeling in front of her as he examined the toe.

The doctor saw that the best immediate action would be to release some of the pressure on the toe. He reached into his pocket and took out a small scalpel. He lacerated the toe, releasing an arcing stream of yellowish and foul-smelling pus.

Dorothy vomited.

Voluminously, and with great color.

Right onto the doctor’s head.

One good thing: she immediately forgot about her toe hurting.

When she was done retching, Dorothy was mortified. Even BEFORE Dorothy was done retching, her mother was doubly so. The doctor, to his eternal credit, kept his calm. He told Dorothy not to worry. He straightened up, and left the room to change clothes (and possibly professions.)

There’s no kicker to this (Hah! Kicker! It’s a foot joke!) except to say that the doctor came back and excised the toenail from its painful position, trimmed it back, and then Dorothy was A-OK shortly thereafter.

You may be wondering, though, about how it came to pass that Dorothy told me this story. She didn’t just come up with it out of the blue. You see, she was telling me about how she had requested some scissors from the nursing staff at her residence, to trim her toenails, but that they wouldn’t give her any because they feel that some patients are so despondent they might use the scissors to do harm to themselves or another patient. So, Dorothy feared getting another ingrown nail, and she told me about what had transpired when she had her first one.

If I were on that nursing staff, I’d give her the scissors. Anything she does with them would, to my way of thinking, probably be preferable to what might happen if Dorothy did get an ingrown nail and they had to end up treating it. I’m just saying.

Soon, with more better stuff.

I'm Suldog, They're Dickens & Fenster.

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 13:45:00 +0000

I ran a contest here, about a millennium ago (OK, a week ago), and some of you have been waiting mighty patiently for the winner to be announced.

(If you wish to read the post that announced the contest, gave the rules, and then went on for about another 2,000 superfluous words, go HERE.)

The winner is...

Well, actually, the winners are Andy, Daryl, and Craig. Since they were the only three with the correct answer, I decided to be a sport and give all of them a prize.

And what do they win?

This...

I'm Dickens, He's Fenster!

I loved this show as a kid, and I'm all for getting as many folks as possible to watch it. I'm anxiously awaiting my own copy (which I won't get to watch until sometime in January, as MY WIFE is buying it for me as a Christmas gift.)

(I suppose I should make it clear that I am paying for the prizes. I have received no compensation from the producers of the DVD. That's just so you know what little integrity I have left has not been compromised.)

So, congrats to Craig, Daryl, and his other brother Daryl... no, I mean Andy. The DVD is scheduled to begin shipping on or around December 6th, so expect it soon thereafter.

Thank you to everyone for playing.

Soon, with more better stuff.

The Next Sound You Hear Will Be That Of Me Blowing My Own Horn

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 12:25:00 +0000

Toot.

On Friday, I was published in The Boston Herald. So, I got an ego boost. More important, though, is that what was published was my editorial concerning Thanksgiving being given full play before Christmas is shoved down our collective throats.

Read it HERE. Then go thou and do likewise.

Seriously. Maybe you won’t have an editorial published (unless you try for it, as I did, because some of you certainly have the talent) but you could consider sending off a letter to the editor. I’m willing to bet that your local newspapers will not be averse to running a concise and polite plea for having Thanksgiving come first.

If you need more inspiration, here are some writings by good folk who have joined the fray since my previous update.

I’ll lead off with my swell pal, Cricket. His piece is perfect. I mean that. Nothing I have ever read on the subject of Thanksgiving has captured the spirit of the holiday so fully and with such love. I would appreciate you reading all of the entries here, as they were all written from the heart and all deserve attention, but if you only have time for one...

In order to make the rest of your journeys easier, I’ll lay off the excess verbiage (which, since you know me, you know that’s not an easy thing for me to do. I love to hear myself type.) I’m going to list the blogs where you’ll find the writings. Read one, please, then pop back here and hit another link for more reading enjoyment!

Long Hollow

Spokalulu

Down Silly Rabbit's Hole

By God's Good Grace

Postcards From A Broad

The Surly Writer

Out & About In New York City

Knucklehead

365

Eternal Lizdom

Tilting At Windmills

$12 A Day, And A Baby On The Way

The Best Of Times In A Moogie's World

TechnoBabe

Lime

The following folks put the graphic on the sidebar or as a link:

Sick Bitch

Teacher's Pet.

Those were the newer writings. Since it should pay to get the word out early, here again are all of those bloggers to whom I previously gave links. If you didn’t visit them then, please do so now.

Uncle Skip

Messy Mimi

Ivan Toblog

The Fifty Factor

Seeking Sanity

Tara Dharma

Matt Conlon.

Down River Drivel

Exile In Portales.

HOT Takes

The Smitten Image

And that will do it for today. Please keep writing, whether on your blogs or to other areas of possible publication. Even if nothing else is accomplished, the fight for what you believe in will leave you feeling marvelously clean, something the folks who blast us with ads and such in October and November will likely never feel.

Soon, with more better stuff.

My Happiest Moment In The Subway (Part Two)

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 12:18:00 +0000

[This started yesterday, where I explained it was a re-run from 2005, while it is actually a story from 1974 or so. Confused? Welcome to the club!

Anyway, here's Part Two, which some of you will be happy to know is the final part. Back Monday with something relatively new and relatively exciting.]

******************************************************************

My Happiest Moment In The Subway (Part Two)

When last we left our hero, he had just had his life saved by the Malden police. However, he was oblivious and ungrateful, as usual. Return with us now to those golden days of yesteryear... Red The Head rides again!

That's how I was known to some of my friends, by the way - Red The Head. Y'see, I had red hair? And I smoked dope? Yup. Usually, everybody just called me "Red", except for the ones calling me "That Asshole Over There".

And, before we go any farther, if you're completely lost and don't have the slightest idea what this has to do with subways? You should read Part One, which you can find a link to somewhere over on the left. You still won't know what this has to do with subways, but at least you'll only be as confused as the other folks who already read that part.

So, to pick up the story kind of where I left off, we played some other gigs. Most of them were unmemorable except for their utter crapitude musically. I'll tell you about one more.

We had another high school dance to play. This one was at St. Francis's, which I think was in Everett. Now, Duane, whom you may remember as our "guitarist", was employed at Stuart's, which was a department store in Malden. It so happened that he was scheduled to work at Stuart's on the same evening as this dance. Naturally, one would assume (at least the rest of us in the band did) that Duane would ask for the night off so that he could play the dance. If you assumed that, then you don't know Duane. He decided that the money was better for working a four-hour shift as a stockboy than it would be for performing at this dance. Either that or his father told him to buckle the fuck down and do some real work instead of wasting his time seeing how many different ways he could make a Les Paul sound like an animal undergoing unneeded radical surgery. In any case, he wasn't going to make the gig. What to do? What to do?

Well, it was too late to cancel and it was too late to teach another guitarist our arrangements (such as they were) so the rest of us did what we figured was the best we could do under the circumstances. Our bass player at the time, Sean, was taking six-string guitar lessons, so he borrowed Duane's gear and became our guitar player for the night. Since we had two drummers, one of them was more-or-less expendable, so Mark, who had taken about three weeks of piano, moved out from behind his kit and took over on keyboards. Chuck, being the good drummer, stayed where he was. This left me.

If you recall, I was the vocalist and keyboards player. Since Mark was taking over the keyboards, that freed me up to be the bass player. It's important at this point to know something about me. I had never played the bass before in my life. Some folks might have seen that as an insurmountable obstacle to the success of this endeavor, but not me! I was the guy who called entire auditoriums full of drunken louts "cocksuckers" and figured I could get away with it. What was this compared to that? I assumed I could fake it enough to get by. And, if I couldn't play, I could certainly chew on the scenery.

Which is what I did. After a few hurried lessons from Sean, I played on just the E string for most of the night and I climbed all over the furniture, making an ass of myself and distracting a goodly portion of the crowd from my abysmal failings as a musician. At one point, providence stepped in and gave me a hand. Well, actually, providence stepped in and gave me a bloody nose.

I was standing on top of a cafeteria table, jumping up and down to the beat, when my nose started bleeding. I don't know why it did, but I made the most of it. Blood was steadily pouring from one nostril onto my shirt and onto Sean's bass. I kept on playing, knowing that this was about as cool as it could get. These were the days of Alice Cooper and Kiss and other practitioners of "glam" stage shows, a goodly part of which consisted of the use of stage blood. Hey, I just discovered I had a supply of the real thing at my disposal and I wasn't going to let it go to waste. I wiped my nose with one hand and smeared the blood all over my face and wiped the rest on my pants. The girls in the audience mostly gagged, but all of the guys were nodding their heads and mouthing, "Far out, man!"

(It helps if you read that as though either Cheech or Chong is saying it.)

The song ended and I had sense enough to sit down and throw my head back for a minute. Sean played a few power chords and leaned into the amp to produce some feedback, so that bought me some time while I snuffled up the yucky stuff in my nose. The bleeding stopped almost as quickly as it had begun. I probably popped a polyp or something; who knows? It was the highlight of the show, though.

As a coda to this episode (Notice how I slipped in an actual musical term here? Clever!) Duane finally showed up about 30 minutes from the end of our last set. Like a musical god from Olympus deigning to associate with some mere mortals, he strode in, grabbed the guitar from Sean, and assumed his rightful place as ***THE GUITAR PLAYER***. The rest of us mere crustaceans scuttled back to our respective support positions while he assaulted the audience with his own particular brand of aural defoliant. Some of them probably never had kids as a result. I wanted to make my nose bleed again, but I couldn't quite will it to happen.

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I should mention here that a couple of us did go on to become decent musicians.

Soon after the nosebleed gig, I took up the bass seriously and played in another 4 or 5 bands over the course of the late 70's and early 80's. Since the bass is much easier to transport than keyboards, I actually practiced daily. I still play, but just for fun. I haven't played an actual gig since 1989 or so.

Sean continued taking guitar lessons and today he is an extremely accomplished jazz player. He plays in Boston-based ensembles and occasionally tries to get the hard-core jazz guys to understand why he likes heavy rock.

Bruce, who replaced Sean and was our bass player at the time of the "cocksuckers" incident, lives in New Hampshire and still plays. He is quite good.

Duane and Mark both became cops. Whether this was because they had their lives saved by cops in Malden or because their dad was a cop, I don't know. I suspect the latter. I totally lost touch with them long ago. Or they totally lost touch with me on purpose, which is always a possibility. In any event, I don't know if they still play. And, Mark, if you're reading this? It's all in fun - you weren't a bad drummer. You just weren't the better of the two.

[2011 Update: I found Mark on Facebook recently. He's a good guy, always was, and after reading this he told me how much he fondly remembers those days. His brother, Duane, is a lawyer. I tried to open communications with him, but never heard from him. Maybe he's considering suing me for defamation of character. If so, he'll lose. I still have tapes from those rehearsals.]

As I mentioned near the beginning of this story, the other drummer, Chuck, has been dead for many years. He was a backseat passenger in a car that was totaled when a drunk driver ran a red light. He was 17. I'm sure I speak for every member of World's End when I say we still miss him.

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So, what in the name of the Amazing Kreskin does any of the foregoing have to do with the subway? Well, not one hell of a lot, but now I'm going to tell you the subway story and you'll see that it's not much and I really had to pad things out, so I did.

Mark and Duane, as I may have mentioned, lived in Everett. We were good friends outside of the band, so I occasionally hung out at their house. On Saturday or Sunday, I sometimes watched TV with them and their dad until 10 or 10:30, and then I'd start heading home.

Well, one Sunday evening in early 1975, it was as bitter cold as I ever remember it being and it was snowing. In order to get home to Dorchester, I had to catch a bus from near their house and take it to the Sullivan Square station on the Orange Line of the T, which at that time was an elevated line. I then would make a connection with the Red Line to Ashmont and, finally, take the trolley from there. It was a fairly long trip, especially on Sunday evening when trains and busses ran about once every hour.

I stood outside in the vicious cold and snow, with winds blowing at 20 or 25 mph, waiting for the bus to Sullivan Square. I waited and waited and waited some more. I was out there for a good 30 minutes and I was not dressed warmly. I was chilled to the marrow by the time the bus came, shivering and shaking and with wet feet. My nose was frozen and my eyes were watering. My ears hurt like hell, even with my long hair of the time covering them somewhat.

The bus came and I got on, but I discovered to my dismay that it wasn't much warmer. There was no wind or snow inside the bus, of course, but the heater wasn't working, either. I didn't warm up much on the 15-minute ride to Sullivan Square.

The bus pulled into the station, which was basically a huge wood-and-cement barn open on both ends, so the wind whipped through it making me entirely as miserable as I had been at the bus stop before. I heard a train. I reached into my pocket with frozen fingers to get some coins, paid my fare, and ran upstairs to the elevated platform just as my train pulled out towards downtown.

This was even worse than the bus stop. The elevated platform was completely open and perhaps 20 feet in the air. It stood alongside a section of I-93, so while you waited for the train, cars would go by at eye level. It also was very close to the Mystic River and there wasn't much of anything near that platform to cut the wind. It was perhaps the coldest spot in the entire city that night.

I stood there on the platform with the wind whipping and the snow blowing and my nose frozen and my feet wet and feeling very sorry for myself. Then, something caught my attention.

If you're a veteran of public transit, and perhaps subways in particular, you know that, at one time, many subway and elevated railway stations had waiting rooms. These were places where someone could get out of the elements for at least a short while while they waited for a train. At the time of this story, these waiting rooms were already pretty much a thing of the past. Too many winos used them as urinals or bedrooms, and the liability risks had become such that the T always kept the doors to them locked. This night, though, out of the corner of my eye, I saw that the lights were on in the waiting room at Sullivan Square.

Could it be? Might the doors actually be unlocked? Would I be able to go inside and get out of the bitter cold wind? I pretty much ran over there to check it out.

YES! YES! YES!!! Not only were the doors unlocked, but when I stepped inside the room it was as warm as Miami in July. Some wonderful, blessed angel employed by the T had turned the heater on full blast. My face began to melt. My nose, as it defrosted, dripped both inside and out, but snot was a small price to pay for such relief.

I should mention that, in those days when dinosaurs roamed the earth, it was perfectly legal to smoke in train stations. As a matter of fact, some people were still pissed about not being allowed to smoke in the cars themselves, as had been legal up until recently. So, to make my circle of happiness complete, I plopped down on a wooden bench and lit up a Kool, inhaling the menthol deeply. I had never been, nor have I ever been, more happy in the subway than I was at that moment. It smelled like piss, there were a few spiders crawling around, my clothes were still wet, and I had a post-nasal drip that wouldn't quit, but I was pretty much in heaven.

And that was my happiest moment in the subway. The End.

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(Note to aspiring writers: If you don't know what "allegory" is, you should. The weather and the bus and the subway are life, while that smelly dirty waiting room was the band. To an outsider, that waiting room was just a piss-ridden bug-infested pit. And the band was a catastrophe. But my happiness was immense, and very real, in both situations.)

Soon, with more better stuff.

My Happiest Moment In The Subway

noreply@blogger.com (Suldog) — Thu, 03 Nov 2011 12:50:00 +0000

[Truth in advertising: This is a re-run. As a matter of fact, it's a two-part re-run. Reasons? I don't feel like writing anything new for the rest of this week, I consider this one of my best pieces, and it originally ran in 2005 when I had about six readers. The likelihood is that you haven't read it before, but it's worth re-reading. Just like cheese, it gets better with age (or becomes crusty, smelly, moldy, and inedible, I forget which.)

If you did read it before, and hated it so much you never want to read it again, you could always enter the contest or write a TCF post to fill your time. In any case, I thank you for being here.

Here comes the old stuff!]

My Happiest Moment In The Subway

(Note to aspiring writers: The first sentence of this piece is what is known as a "compelling lead". It promises excitement and adventure. It entices the reader to begin, assuring a superb return for his or her investment of time. You should always use something similar in your own stories.)

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This may turn out to be the most dreadfully boring thing ever written, but I'm going to write it anyway.

When I was 17, I was in a band. The name of the band was World's End, which should give you some idea of the type of music we played. Think Black Sabbath, but not quite as cheery. And when I say "music we played", that's a bit of poetic license. You might want to read that as "re-creation of the sound of a burlap bag full of cats being hit with a baseball bat which we inflicted upon the general public while calling it music".

The band had five members, two of whom were drummers. That's right - five guys and we had two drummers. Make that a burlap bag full of cats being hit with two baseball bats. The only guy in the band who could really play was one of these drummers. I'm not going to say which one, since the other drummer might be reading this and I wouldn't want to hurt his feelings. However, the good drummer died many years ago, so that sort of gives it away.

We thought we were THE NEXT BIG THING!, but we sucked harder than a Hoover factory. The guitarist had one asset - a wonderful cherry-red Gibson Les Paul. However, never in the history of music has such a beautiful instrument been made to produce such god-awful noise. This guitarist sometimes played with both a slide and a wah-wah pedal. When he did so, the result was... well, imagine a fire engine whose siren has had a potato jammed into it. The band included four different bass players during its run, and they encompassed the full range from competent to uninspired. And then there was me. I was the singer/keyboardist and I was the worst of the lot.

I'll give you some idea of how dedicated I was to my craft. We practiced once a week - if everybody wasn't doing something else important like going to a movie. Since I lived in Dorchester, and rehearsals were in Malden, and my keyboard weighed about 60 pounds, between rehearsals I usually left my keyboard at the house of the two guys who lived in Everett. This is why I am now a bass player.

The two guys who lived in Everett went to Malden Catholic High School, which was actually just a couple of blocks from their house. Somehow, they convinced the school to let us use one of the classrooms as our rehearsal space. We'd go there on Saturday morning, set up, and proceed to annoy the hell out of the neighbors for two or three hours. Then came the highlight of our rehearsals. That was the break, when we would smoke a bone and go to Papa Gino's to gorge ourselves on pizza.

(I am still amazed at how much food I was able to put away in those days, stoned or not. I'd order a large pizza for myself and accompany it with a plate of pasta with meat sauce. And bread and butter. And a couple of large Sprites. I weighed about 145 then. And I stayed that way well into my 20's. Now I weigh 190 or so and two slices makes me feel like I swallowed a small anvil. Whuhthefuh?!? However, I digress.)

After pizza, we'd go back to the school and listen to the tapes of what we'd practiced during the first part of rehearsal. This was so we could all yell at Duane, who was the guitarist. "For God's sakes, Duane, we've got two drummers but you can't hear anything except the guitar. You've got to turn it down a bit." To which Duane would reply, "Huh?"

We actually played quite a few gigs - high school dances and whatnot. How we got these gigs is still a mystery to me. I was never one for the business end of things. I was too busy believing I was a rock star. After all, I was the singer and I wrote the lyrics to our original tunes. Here's the first stanza of "World's End", from which we cleverly took the name of the band:

Now the time has come
World's become undone
Fire rains down and there is hell all around
Powers above black out the sun
Split into trillions of crystals
Heat rising from the core
Man is burning - Burnt away!
The Earth is no more!

I was full of all kinds of bright sunshiny thoughts in those days.

I can only recall two or three gigs where we didn't either get stuff thrown at us or otherwise hear the (righteous) wrath of the crowd. One was our first show ever, at Brookline High, April 26th, 1974. I've still got a ticket from that dance at home somewhere. It says, "Come Dance To The World's End!", which was also on the posters advertising our appearance. Amazingly enough, this blurb drew a crowd of 400 or so. This was the early 70's, though, and anybody heavy enough to contemplate death in their music was, like, profound, man!.

I know how we got that job. I was sleeping with the girl who booked the bands for dances. She fancied herself a singer. In exchange for booking us, she got to sing on one of our songs. That was fine. We were both using each other for our mutual benefit. I think the band got paid something like $60, split 5 ways. And four of us had to pitch in for Duane's gasoline, since we hauled all the equipment in his dad's station wagon.

We opened with an original tune called "Feed Your Head". Can you guess what that one was about? I bet you can! Aside from the originals, we did whole bunches of really bad covers. Mostly Clapton and Allman Brothers, for some reason. It didn't really matter who the songs were by, though, as they never sounded anything like the originals when we finished with them. If we didn't announce beforehand which song was coming up, for all anyone knew it was another one of our own compositions.

Despite the execrable nature of our performances, I truly believed that we'd get a recording contract. How we were going to get it, I don't know. Looking back, I think we would have had to have mugged a real band.

I vividly recall another night when we played at a high school in Malden. After the first band finished their set (yes, we were the headliners...) we took the stage. About halfway into our second song, a lit cigarette flew past my head. Then another one. Then a beer bottle hit Chuck's bass drum. I calmly took charge of the situation. I made motions to the guys to stop playing. I grabbed the mic and said, "Alright, you cocksuckers, that's enough. You want to fuck with me? I'll kick all your asses!"

That's what being (or thinking you are) a rock star will do to you. You weigh 150 or so soaking wet, but you truly insanely believe that you are the center of the universe and you can fight an auditorium full of drunken football players and gang members. Thankfully, there was a police detail on duty. As soon as the word "cocksuckers" was out of my mouth, the two officers had stepped in front of the stage and they then literally stopped the crowd from charging and killing us. They dispersed the angry mob and made us wait for close to three hours inside the auditorium before they thought it was safe enough for us to pack up our equipment into Duane's dad's car. Meanwhile, I fumed the whole time because my genius wasn't appreciated. I don't think I even said "Thanks!" to the cops. What a friggin' dope I was.

Hmmmmm. It doesn't appear that I'm getting anywhere close to the title of this piece, eh? Well, I will, but it will have to be later. I've got a buttload of work to do and I can't waste any more time reminiscing about my idiotic youth. See you soon!

Tomorrow: Part Two of my adventures in teenage wasteland.