busblog

i dont mind Christmas traditions

EVEN ONES THAT HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH I DONT KNOW

——–> JESUS CHRIST <——

leading up to and on his birthday.

but if theres one thing i hate it’s “traditions” that aren’t traditional

phony, consumer orientated, and/or just another lie to ruin the trust of our children.

and by “our” of course i mean “your”.

when i was a lad the lie was that big fat Santa slid down everyones chimneys and delivered toys

to all the good little boys and girls

EVEN THOSE LIKE US WHO DIDNT HAVE ANY DAMN CHIMNEYS.

somehow Rudolph, Frosty, and even Mrs. Claus worked their way into the grand sham

despite the fact that the original story of Jesus was pretty magical and fascinating enough.

But apparently virgin births of babies who have to high tail it outta town cuz the ruling king was gonna slaughter it wasn’t good enough for the modern world but i digress.

somewhere in the last 7-8 years this little Elf has made its way into the massive lie.

from what i gather you buy a cute little elf and put him into random places around your house

i dont know, to trick your kids into being good because somehow the elf watches to see that youre little angels arent snorting bath salts and trading arms for hostages.

each night the elf flies to the North Pole and rats out all the bad little kids and appears the next day in a new weird spot in your crib.

you name him. and tuck him away after Christmas. but has this fake crap backfired?

SOME SAY YES IT HAS!

one of my niece’s friends said, “I don’t believe in Santa anymore because I saw Merle, our Elf, this summer in a box in our closet.”

which made me laugh so hard i nearly choked on my Irish coffee.

so when did all of this become a thing? Fox News tells me: 2004. Figures.

Bottom photo by Susan, Robinwood Photography

A Christmas miracle

So sweet.

super busy with the niece and nephew
and moms new iPad to blog
so here’s a pile of stuff my nephew scored from Santa today

I hope you scored mightily today too

Me, I feel like I scored just by knowing you

I’m very grateful for my loca vida

And to be living in this fascinating time in history

where I can communicate with all of you via a “phone” in a truck stop

and have my well wishes transmitted around the globe instantly.

long live rock!

and the little ones at heart.

im the biggest sucker.

listened to Vince Guraldi’s Charlie Brown Christmas while wrapping gifts

ate little kid-made cookies after dinner

and now am watching (and loving) A Christmas Story on tv

i guess the only non traditional thing i did today was rock Motorhead and Insane Clown Posse

while me and my mom drove through neighborhoods looking at big houses and their lights.

whatevs.

Merry Christmas!

which is probably a smart thing for her parents to shield her from.

so yesterday as we were watching Da Bears beat the crud outta the Cardinals i was all do you know Ditka?

she said, Whats a Ditka?

so i pulled her on my lap and hugged her and asked ok, do you know the story of Goldilocks?

she said, No.

i was all so you don’t know about Papa Bear Halas then, probs.

she asked WHO?

so i said ok once upon a time this little girl was a lot like you (beautiful, a bit of a smarty pants, and a little cynical) and she was super dooper hungry so she broke and entered into what seemed to be a summer cottage in the woods.

and there she saw three pizzas.

one was deep dish and a little too cheesy. the other was too cardboard because it was frozen. but the other was JUST RIGHT cuz it was from Tony’s Pizzaria over by the river.

so she grubbed out and got sleepy.

my mom my sister my brother in law and my little nephew were all entranced with my tale – which is normal.

so i said little Goldilocks went upstairs to grab some z’s but one bed was a futon and way too hard.

the other was one of those hippie dippy feather beds and was omg too soft

but one was a waterbed and JUST RIGHT and she dove in and fell fast asleep

turned out this wasnt just some second house of some snowbirds currently soaking in the sunshine of Zona for the winter

THIS WAS THE HOME OF DA BEARS!

the first Bear who found her was the littlest one, his name was Lovey. he wanted to lick her cheek and hug her.

as he was about to do that, his older brother Ditka wanted to throw the Fridge at her

hearing all the commotion, Papa Bear, the oldest bear, saw the scene, blew his whistle

and all these Soldiers marched in and shipped her off to Green Bay

where all bad little boys and girls go in the winter

THE END!

and everyone breathed a sigh of relief cuz they thought, for some reason

that i was gonna say something dirty to my sweet little niece.

AS IF!

when i was done she was all, uh huh can i go now?

and i said, no, now tell us about your Christmas trees.

and she did:

got to see my niece, nephew, and my half brother.

why do i rarely talk about my bro? cuz hes in the xbi, duh. but like really.

i asked the niece what she wanted for Christmas. she thought about it for a while and said, “i’ll get back to you.”

the nephew wanted some Bears gear. i was like, even after that disappointing season? he was all, yup!

the niece said why dont you live here? i said i do. i protect you from way high above. but dont tell no one.

so she cut two huge pieces of homemade cake for me and was all, heres one for now and one for later.

and heres a beer i left out in the snow for ya!

earlier in the day my mom and i went to the mall where this 1 1/2 yr old kid was in a bungie and people were oohing and ahhhing

yes there was a store in the mall named Nirvana, playing Nirvana and my mom said wanna go in and i was like OH HELL NO

Santa was pretty busy. he waved at my ma. i said ma, everyone knows Santa’s black. don’t wave at that imposter.

we saw Lincoln which we both liked A LOT but then we saw the saddest thing: in a packed mall, ZERO kids were playing video games at the arcade. Nobama!!!!

before the movie started they had this little commercial trying to tell people to turn off their cell phones. so i did. right after i took this pic.

totally didn’t realize till yesterday that I have a short work week this week because I’m jetting off to Chicago for Christmas

actually it was my house sitter who reminded me. why people wanna spend time in this crazy house is beyond me. but there’s a line.

there’s still elements of magic here, despite what certain naysayers suggest. but there may be a time where I move out of the very safe sanctuary of this bachelor pad.

for over a year now there’s been no decorations on the walls. boxes with items I haven’t even looked at but for some reason can’t throw out.

they’ve been talking about mental illness this week. I’m certainly attached to stuff. stuff that leads to memories. maybe when it’s hard to retrieve memories naturally its easier to have other things trigger them?

and maybe I avoid other things because of the memories they’d inspire.

maybe I’m just cray.

either way it’ll be nice to be with my family, near Wrigley, and drinking the beer from Gods country.

figured hollywood deserved my money

saw a pink raiders cap for my niece.

saw a cool elephant for my nephew

noticed the colored fountains were going pretty good

this kid said can I have a buck? I said run in the water and you can

he was all no problem!

gave him his money and said don’t ever change

then I went upstairs

saw end of watch which was not as good as I hoped

wondered when we’d learn the truth about the most squandered real estate in LA

and then had a McRib with mick and keefe

its 3pm. i shouldnt be hungover, but i am. damn tree trimming parties.

but one way to shake the cobwebs outta my brain is more booze lovely songs of the season.

and nothing is more lovely than a soul brotha handlin his business.

hats off to this UPS driver for putting some holiday cheer into our youtubes.

travolta and newton-john are back again

just like they never should have been

this weird country song is as bad as whatever is on the top of travoltas head.

the entire thing insults america’s intelligence

and if i was Bill O’Reilly i’d consider it another volley in the ongoing

War on Christmas.

robin yount should take this video hunting and shoot it.