bitter cold, and pelting the president with shoes

So, I went to bed last night, it was 50 degrees.
That's a "WTF?" all by itself, for mid december in Chicago.

But wait....

Woke up this morning, it was 9 degrees.
Temp dropped forty one degrees in four hours.

WTF????

bitter cold this morning, didn't care for it all.

Heard something when I got to work however, that warmed my heart.

President Bush ducks shoes in Baghdad.

Everyone was chuckling about it, talking about how he's got good reflexes, etc.

I attribute it to lots of practice.

He's been ducking all kinds of things, for most of his adult life.
Responsibility
consequences
the media
straight answers....

Oh, The People You'll meet!!!

Oh the people you'll meet!

Another Patrick Murray original.

Not written by Dr. Seuss, that's for sure.


Oh the people you'll meet!
As you venture down the stairs,
off of the street, and go underground.
Follow the shaking floors, and
the roaring sound

step, sniffing, through the el train door,
deciding to sit down if it doesn't smell like pee or ass
or something more.

Oh the people you'll meet!
sitting on the shiny train
trying not to make eye contact - it's all in vain
Crazy doesn't need to look you in the eyes
To be crazy.
It's always a surprise
The people that you meet.

Most are harmless, headed to work
or to catch a plane
Some are unwashed
a few are insane.

The troubled are the ones that stand out, 'tis true
As being different than me and you.
Oh the people you'll meet!
that serve to remind you that your life is sweet

Because you're not talking to yourself
or to someone I can't see
Or screaming at a wall
Or sitting in your pee

You're not preaching, preaching, all the time
about the evils of going to work
You're not panhandling for a dime
Or changing seats at every stop
or being harassed by a transit cop
Because you travel with nine trash bags full of things
not described in childrens songs
at least not any song that we sing

You're not a grown man who thinks he's a spy
talking into a toy wrist communicator with a
happy gleam in your eye

You're not a one-eyed screamer, demanding my seat
Because you're unstable, you yell
and then you prop up your feet
after I let you sit down, but I was too slow
So you continue to berate me as the train starts to go.

Oh the people you'll meet!
Oh the people you'll smell!
Oh the people you wish you could avoid
When you're riding on the El.

But I still wish them well.

five christmas cartoons of note.

#1 Merry Christmas, Charlie Brown.

not a huge fan of the dialog, liked the general plot idea ok. Loved the music, of course.
The thing about this, and some of the other peanut cartoons, that I really liked?
The quiet.

This was a slow, peaceful cartoon, with emphasis put on what was being said. screen time actually given to the characters simply walking from point A to point B.
For want of a better term, this cartoon is..... relaxing.


#2 The Tick vs. Santa Clause (AKA: The Tick Loves Santa)

A petty thief dressed as Santa gets electrocuted, and finds he can reproduce himself. He creates an army of criminal santas and goes on a crime spree in The City.
Only the Tick can stop his nefarious plans, but can't bring himself to hurt Santa Clause...
He discovers that a static electric shock causes the replicants to dissolve, when he rubs one of them on the head.

Yep. Noogies save christmas.

Hey, it's the Tick, for christ's sake. If you've never seen this animated series from the early 90's, you need to. It was brilliant.
The Tick - huge, strong, nearly indestructible, a little dim and child like.
Arthur - His doughy, accountant-turned-moth-man sidekick. Throw in some crazy supervillains with equally odd nefarious plans, and some secondary superhero characters, and it was entertaining as hell.

The Tick: Lowly wretch! This is the last time you make epic naughty in Santa threads!
The Tick: Like a great blue salmon of justice, the mighty Tick courses upstream to the very spawning grounds of Evil!


#3 How The Grinch Stole Christmas

duh. great direction, courtesy of Chuck Jones, and truly inspired casting of Boris Karloff as the voice of the Grinch, and the narrator.

A great adaptation of a teriffic book by Dr. Seuss. There are many good cartoon adaptations of his books, and not a single good live action adaptation.

Christmas day IS in your grasp, as long as you have hands to clasp.

# 4: Pinky and the Brain's Christmas special.

Pinky and the brain. One's a genius, the other's insane.

And that's the brilliance of this cartoon series. You get to decide who's which.

The christmas episode won an Emmy, by the way.

Pinky and the Brain travel to the north pole. Pinky wants to meet Santa, the Brain's created a toy that hypnotizes people, and wants Santa to (unknowningly) distribute the toy worldwide, so The Brain can hypnotize everyone, and finally achieve his goal of World Domination.

#5 is a combo, cuz you put 'em both together and you almost have one good cartoon.
Year without a Santa Claus
Ok. This was actually crap. As were all the Rankin Bass Stop-Action animation cartoons (Rudolph, Rudolph and Frosty's Christmas in July) It's probably un-american to say so, but - crap.
Visually interesting, as you don't see stop-action animation anymore. Storylines, etc.... dodgy. And big on sentimental.
The adult me doesn't like gooey sentimentalism in my entertainment choices.
And why was Mickey Rooney always doing one of the voices? There had to be a lot of actors looking for an easy paycheck when these were made. Did he own stock?

While they were all largely crap, a couple of them were partially redeemed by fun characters, or at least a fun song.

Heat Miser and Cold Miser were whiny, mama's boys. But I liked their songs.
Like 'em? They stick in my head like a deer tick on a camping trip.

You can take the rest of the cartoon: the two dim elves, the sickly baby reindeer, the whiny sniffly santa clause, the doe-eyed, buck toothed boy and stuff them in a stocking or something else suitably tied in with the holiday theme of this post.


Santa Clause is Coming To Town

See above rant about Rankin Bass cartoons. What saves this one? Burgermeister Meisterburger, of course.
and the catchy "Put one foot in front of the other".

It's a story about the origin of Santa, how a young Kris Kringle built toys as an act of civil disobedience, corrupting the town's children, in direct violation of the law, grew a beard to disguise his face, and then got old and fat.

Oh, and an evil winter warlock finds a few kernels of magic corn in his pockets, after a gift of a toy makes him the goodhearted winter warlock, feeds them to some deer, who in turn bust everyone out of jail.
Now you know the origin of the eight flying reindeer. They ate some "magic" corn, and then became accessories to several felonies.

Mrs Clause is explained as well. She's the hot, single, good hearted school teacher of course.
She has a thing for bad boys, apparently, and is smitten with the rebellious, toy-making rabble rouser. She quits her job, leaves her home, and goes off to live with him and his midget friends in the woods. And then got old and fat.
The End.
And damn if Mickey Rooney's not the voice of Santa Clause again.


Hey, I know 40 year old me is not the audience at which the Rankin / Bass cartoons were aimed.
I mock because I can.

Kids still love 'em, my daughter will doubtless enjoy them when she's a little older, and my wife still loves 'em; even though she'll joke along with me the whole time about their relative cheesiness.

And that's why they made my list, really.

five christmas movies

Was watching Elf over the weekend.
Will Farrell, like Jim Carrey, is a limited exposure kind of actor for me.
He plays arrogant and dumb at the same time, very well.
But the joke gets old.

When he tries his hand at something different, like he did in Stranger Than Fiction and Elf, however, he impresses the crap outta me.

As it's that time of year, I'll try to come up with my $0.02 worth of five best holiday movies in the whole world, ever.
In no particular order.

Keep in mind I'm not a very sentimental guy, and my humour runs dark. Also keep in mind that when I refer to them as the best holiday movies in the whole world, ever, it's possible I'm less than 100% serious.


Long Kiss Goodnight - Geena Davis, Samuel Jackson.
A heartwarming tale of an amnesiac professional killer, living the life of suburban housewife until. She has no idea who she was before she work up on a beach, three months pregnant, many years earlier.
Until she hits a deer, driving a drunk home from her christmas party. She gradually regains her memory and job skills, just in time to save (WAY) upstate New York from a fake terrorist attack.
The attack is orchestrated by a government agency looking to increase how much money it gets from the fed government, in the coming fiscal year. In the 2nd or third (but final) thrilling climax of this movie ( too many endings, a'la Speed), she flies through the air on a string of christmas lights, and kills the father of her daughter, then is saved by a ridiculously battered Sam Jackson, and they drive away as the tanker explodes behind them....
Nothing says Merry Christmas like an over-the-top violent amnesiac assassin movie.

The Ref - Denis Leary, Kevin Spacey, Judy Davis.

A cat burglar botches a job, and hi-jacks a car driven by a fighting couple on their way home from marriage counseling. The town goes on lock-down because of the botched job, so he hides out at the warring couples' house until the heat dies down, pretending to be their marriage counselor, as their dysfunctional family arrives for christmas eve dinner.

Mean, mean, mean movie. Laughed my ass off the first time I watched it. Leary's great as Gus, a down and out kinda guy who is constantly surprised by the level of animosity and venom on display within the family he's holding hostage. Kevin Spacey does snide well, Judy Davis does pretentious artsy-type well, and the in-laws are so over-the-top obnoxious...
A little too warm and fuzzy at the end, but starts so far away from warm and fuzzy that you know it's gotta end on a cuddly note.

Gus: Do you know what this family needs? A mute.


Scrooged - Bill Murray.
Any version of this story, where Karol Kane and David Johansen are two of the ghosts - gold, baby. Pure gold. And the scene at the end, with the big speech, is riveting. And pre-ghost scrooge as a heartless TV exec was a refreshing update to the old old money lender scrooge. As was a black, female Cratchett character.

ELF - Will Farrell.
Damn, he was fun to watch in this movie. Great supporting cast as well. And Zooey Daschnel (Sp?) is dreamy. Scenes where he confronts a dept. store Santa ("You sit on a throne of lies!!!!"), where he comes in contact with a midget children's' book author ("he's an angry elf"), and where he finds out who his father is, and that he's on the "naughty list" are particular standouts in a movie with no real weak scenes. Farrell's a fearless actor, and this movie worked only because he took the role seriously.

Scrooge - Albert Finney stars in this musical version of A Christmas Carol, released in 1970.
I can honestly say I'd never seen or even heard of this version, until my wife introduced me to it not too long into our relationship. And I was none to excited about watching it the first time, given that
a) it was yet ANOTHER adaptation of an overly adapted book.
b) it was a musical.

I'm a guy. I don't really enjoy musicals all that much. Something about my characters breaking into spontaneous song and complex dance routines makes it difficult for me to suspend disbelief and let myself be caught up in a story.

But Albert Finney's performance as both a young and old Scrooge is amazing. You can see how he became a truly miserly and loathsome creature over time. And while some of the songs make the narrative drag, "I Like Life" and "Thank You Very Much" are great fun.
The scene in Hell is suitably unpleasant, and a bit...psychedelic in nature. Almost.
Hey, it WAS released in 1970. And The Ghost of Christmas Present is a guy I'd really like to party with, ESPECIALLY if he's bringing the wine.


So, there you go. I'll probably think of three better ones the moment i post this.

Next up - five best christmas themed cartoons. exciting, isn't it?