Happy Birthday, Jesus!

Here it is nearing holiday zero hour, only 3 days until that fat bastard tries to squeeze his ass down our non-existent chimney on Christmas eve. This year I think I'll try to convince my brother-in-law to sit up with me and drink beer until we see the fat man. And when we do...well, I'm not sure yet but I'm sure it will have something to do with shouting "Happy Birthday, Jesus!" and Santa getting arrested on a B&E (that's Breaking & Entering for you suburbanites).

Had an interesting little conversation with my wife the other day. If historical texts tell us anything reliable, it seems Jesus was born in the Spring sometime. Then why is it we celebrate his birth on December 25th? Please feel free to add a comment to this post if you have any insight on this.

So in honor of the Jesus' birthday, this is the week that folks slack off at work at a professional level. Everyone is apt to slack here and there, these are the amateur slackers. However, they quickly soar up the ranks of slackology when the week of Christmas comes around, especially when there is an impending week long vacation to follow the holiday...speaking from experience. So, in light of the holiday season slacking potential, I submit to you some good time wasters.

Go surf your local Library catalog for CDs, preferably their online catalog. You'd be god damn amazed what music your local library possesses. And the best part is it is all either free or available for a nominal $.50 fee. You get it for 3 weeks, too. (Details subject to change based on where the hell you live, of course.) So, I picked up an album I can honestly say I wouldn't go and buy -- which is the quintessential beauty of the library system, try things risk-free. It's an album called Aperitif for Destruction by a guy named Richard Cheese. Mr. Cheese is a straight up lounge act who remakes many top rock, hip-hop and alternative hits....leisure suit style. Check it out, I promise you'll laugh as he remakes Me So Horny and teams up with Stephen Hawking to remake The Girl Is Mine from Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson.

Side Note: You know how weird it is to think about that song now? It portrays Paul McCartney and Michael Jackson pseudo-arguing over a woman. Back in the day, it seemed mildly plausible. But when you hear it now, you have to wonder if they were talking about the same woman? Was Paul singing about some hot broad and Jacko singing about her 5 year old daughter? Makes you think, eh?

Something else you can do, go to Brain Bashers for your daily fill of puzzles, games and sudoku. There is so much stuff on this site, I can't even begin to do it justice. I particularly dig the sudoku puzzles. If you haven't tried them before, I highly recommend them if you like to think. So, I suggest you cook up a huge batch of meth and get ready to stay up for 5 days straight playing Brain Bashers games. Or at least plan on a 3 day bender so when you're nice and baked 3 days from now, you can really freak out when a fat guy in a red suit appears out of the ashes of your fireplace. You can merrily exclaim to him as he rides out of sight in terror, "Ride the snake, Santa, and to all a good night!"

Rudolph Revisited

My daughter is 2 and a half this Christmas. This is when the holiday season becomes magic again for me, but as a parent this time around. Everything is twice as exciting and cool as usual. I've always been a fan of Christmas time, but over the years it has lost some luster. I no longer get to relish every hour of December leading up until the big day. It seems in recent years I just fight to survive the holiday season and maybe take a few hours on Christmas Eve to partake in some revelry...which usually involves some Scotch or Bourbon.

So in the true spirit of the Christmas season, we watched for the Christmas specials to make their rounds on the networks. You know the ones, Frosty the Snowman, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, It's Called Kwanzaa Charlie Brown, etc. And then there is the pinnacle of Christmas shows...Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This Rankin-Bass classic of old school stop frame animation including questionable mouth-voice synchronization, weird sound effects, awkward puppets, man this thing has everything. This is one of those shows you swore was about 2 hours long as a kid. It seemed to go on forever. Come to find out around age 15, it is only 1 hour. What a jip!

Well, I sat down and watched Rudolph with my daughter. It was her first time ever seeing it. She was hooked. They had her at "Now you know dasher and dancer..." And thank you to DVRs, we have now seen it an amazing, magical 25 times since then. And this time around, something just didn't seem right. I started to notice a few differences between the original and the one aired recently. I was able to confirm with a co-worker that it did indeed change this year. (As a side note, said co-worker has seen Rudolph every year since he was a wee lad. Never misses it. So, he is my resident expert on the subject of reindeer with non-conformities of the nose.)

For anyone who is an expert on the show will know, the scene with Hermie and Rudolph singing the misfits song used to include them building a snowman that looked like the evil elf boss. Then, Hermie would punch the snowman in the nose. If you watched it this year, you saw that they neither build the snowman, nor punch it in the nose. Instead the snowman is already there and they walk over it without destroying it, mind you. So there was finally someone at CBS that said, "You know, maybe Rudolph is too violent. Let's cut the snowman punch." (And in case you were wondering the 'snowman punch' has nothing to do with the 'donkey punch.')

My resident expert and I both started thinking, what would be the next things to get cut? How about when Rudolph's mother wants to accompany his father, Donner, in finding their runaway son. Donner tells her she should stay in the cave because "this is man's work." Yeah that's the next thing to go, we're pretty sure.

Just a sign of the times, I guess. I'm surprised it has taken this long to edit such a classic piece of television. And it is clear I am officially outside of the age range that enjoys Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer on its own, but I've just entered the point in my life where I get to enjoy it with my daughter in a whole new way. Touching eh? Now, if I can just get her to give me the remote. Changing channels is man's work, after all.

Don We Now Our Gay Cowboy Movie?

In a struggling Hollywood plagued by huge budget box office flops and more remakes than a Rod Stewart album, there comes a fresh -- no, wait...a unique, well yeah it's unique but it's more...what's the word I'm looking for...oh yeah, ORIGINAL -- an original screenplay that is bound for controversy and probably lots of critical success.

Imagine if you will George W. Bush on his ranch. He's rustlin' cattle and eating meat and potatoes and being very macho (quite a vision, isn't it?). Now, also imagine Sam Elliott's character from The Big Lebowski that lives nearby. Two cowboys, tough and leathery watch the sunset by the fireside eating chuck wagon beans and getting hammered on whiskey. For a moment let's pretend they aren't eating beans, but enjoying some tube steak and a side of reach-around. W with his leathery lips wrapped around Sam's junk, they fall in love under the moonlight after a hot and heavy drunken sexual encounter.

Now, picture that story played out more completely on the movie screen. Ang Lee (Sense and Sensibility, 1995), a well respected Chinese born director, has recently finished post-production on his latest film Brokeback Mountain. It's a story of two cowboys that do all the stuff cowboys do, but they're gay. It makes me awkward just thinking about it.

I've seen some very awkward situations in movies before, but this raises the bar. When Hillary Swank showed up in that tiny Nebraska town in Boys Don't Cry you knew things would get bad -- although I still never expected the rape scene. Who knows what awaits these love struck penis wranglers in the 1960s Western U.S.? Not that there's anything wrong with that, of course.

Brokeback Mountain promises to break new ground and is said to be a masterfully directed piece of work. I intend to see it myself. These two cowboys, Jack (Jake Gyllenhaal) and Ennis (Heath Ledger), part ways after the initial rogering and move on with their lives -- their very heterosexual lives. However, every summer they have a tryst in the mountains while working at a ranch. I think the writer didn't have to stray far when casting Ledger and Gyllenhaal. I imagine the sex scenes were completely natural to the actors. They'd had intercourse with men before, undoubtedly.

Now that you've read this far, I feel compelled to tell you, or least tell you what Ang Lee told a reporter in a recent article, "It's not a gay movie." Instead, it is "a more realistic portrayal of the West that people outside of America, like myself, don't normally see."

On a side note: If only we could say the same thing ("It's not a gay movie.") prior to Leonard Part 6 hitting theaters back in 1987. Alas, if Bill Cosby would have said such a thing we could easily punch him in the throat and call him a liar, because it was a very gay movie.

Anyway Brokeback Mountain is coming to a theater near you on January 6, 2006. I encourage you to go see it, despite my nonchalant way of explaining it here. I am in no way opposed to films of this nature. I think it's Hollywood's job to present such stories to the public. Expand our minds and in turn, just maybe, you can show some right wing nut bag that being gay isn't a sin, but a lifestyle that should be accepted in our society. But that's another blog all together.