Listening to the Octogenarians

"Senior collision." -wrong

"Senior collation." -wrong

"Senior coalition." -right

Shoveling Shoveling Shoveling

shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling shoveling

Frosty Footsteps

I used to do this on the school bus all the time in the winter. Make feet prints using the side of my hand in a fist and then dot out the toes with each finger. Used to make the footsteps walk all over the windows.....

Have A Low Self-Esteem Christmas

I was digging thru Christmas whatnot and found this Christmas card made by my brother, I would assume in grade school.

Looks as though in his youth Chipmunks and Triceratops roamed the landscape. I do like the snowy foliage very much. Looks like a real storm is a brewing.

The inside reads, "Merry Christmas to dear Ma and pa
From the hopless kid Jerry" . I think he meant "hopeless". Geez.


And then on the back he just used the card later to write a note to my Mom.

Elfing My Selfing

Send your own ElfYourself eCards

The Weather Outside is Frightful.

More Up-Close-ness

Plant parts at work.

The Sky And Everything Else In The World Is Falling

I wasn't going to drink tonight. I usually don't on Sunday to be fresh for work on Monday and seeing I pretty much knocked back 3/4's of a bottle of the Makers Mark last night I should lay low. I felt relatively fresh this morning considering.  I spent 7 hours decorating the Christmas tree today.  Approximately 300 or so ornaments, many Shiny Brights Brand, collectible from the 40's, 50's, 60's. I finally finished and sat at the computer to catch up on email and suddenly I hear a Whoosh! and the FUCKING TREE fell down.  I had lifted it back up and was crawling around on my hands and knees scooping up the broken devastation and suddenly behind me "Ohhh! Whoa! Whoosh!" my DAD TAKES A HEADER into the Widescreen HDTV reaching for something on the floor. He is crumpled on the floor looking no better than the broken bulbs off the tree.  I got him back up and secured in a chair and went back to cleaning up the tree. Lost about 25 or 30 bulbs. Sad. I am now drinking as I write. See the devastation below. That fucker is tied to the wall with wire now. The tree not my Dad.... but he is next.  It is no fun decorating a tree for the second time or giving your father a major snuggy by grabbing him by his belt to get him off the floor.

Martians With Emotionally Dirty Faces

So this past weekend I found time to watch 1964's Santa Claus Conquers the Martians continuing my quest of watching the entire Pia Zadora catalog. I have read here and there about how horrible this movie is but I have to protest a bit that it wasn't so bad. In fact, sort of thrilling. My enthusiasm for the film may reflect some on what kind of weekend I was having with the Octogenarians. 

Even in DVD form it has very strange color, in the acid tones that were so prevalent in 1990's advertising. I suppose no one feels this small Christmas gem is worthy of a complete restoration. The color in fact then lends itself to a sort of semi-feverish quality the movie evokes, that of disturbing and scary. The Martians look uncomfortable in their green skins, short shorts, tights, and hellishly hot looking helmets. All the children have the look of deer in headlights. The stock military and nuclear missile silo footage are the stuff of childhood anxiety attacks and nightmares. A scary man in a polar bear costume. Well, OK, not so scary, but the idea of people in animal costumes causes me angst. I get flashbacks to that bear or hedgehog costumed thing blowing that man on the edge of the bed, spied on by Shelley Duvall in The Shining.  Mrs. Claus is a busy body naggy hag. The idea of being kidnapped and swept away to Mars right before Christmas is everything that Christmas is not: home, coziness and the familiar. Mars is depicted as an emotionless, severe, rocky, fiberglass web covered planet. This drives the narrative of the need for Santa and what he stands for. Santa is the steady Eddie of jovial happy thoughts of excess and merriment.  There is a lot of sadness to this film. Intentional or not.

 I did not find it dissimilar to Christmas on Mars just released by the Flaming Lips, having the same sort of search for joy and hope in a sort of dystopian realm. Even with advanced technology, Space, the final frontier, ain't everything it's cracked up to be. 

THE HOT GREEN MENACE!


PIA FIGHTS FOR HER LIFE! 

POLAR BEAR ATTACK!

CAUTIONARY WORDS!

DOLLAR TRAIN

BALL     DOLL

PRODUCTION OF POLITICALLY INCORRECT PLAYTHINGS ON AN ASBESTOS TILE FLOOR!



SANTA AND THE MELANCHOLY YET CARING MARTIAN DADDY

Scenes From My Home Town.