Getting Close To Season's End

On The Lighter Side...

Somewhere over the weekend, the holiday spirit hit me. I’m usually the kind of guy who really hates this time of the year. It’s dark, and it’s cold, and every place is way too crowded. Oh, and a lot of people are assholes too. All of the cheeriness gets to be a little too much to take as well. I figured I better take advantage of my mood before it faded. It’s only the first week of December. Who knows how I’ll feel this time next week? So, I got out some Christmas decorations. You know, those things that seem to breed every year while hiding out in your attic. I put on some Christmas television classics DVD’s and decorated a bit. I think it looks like Auguste Rodin’s Gates Of Hell, and depending on how you view such things, it just might be. One thing is for sure, if I start hating Christmas again, I can always throw things at it and knock it all down.

My Holiday Viewing So Far...

“Santa Claus Is Coming To Town” - The tale of a fascist dictator who won’t let any one in his country play with their toys. (Can you imagine such a thing?). And, the non-conformist rebel who breaks into people’s homes and brings them illegal toys. You’ve got to love a punk kid who does something like that.

“Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer” - The story of three misfits: A deer with a glowing nose, an elf who wants to be a dentist and a mountain man who I’ve always suspected of having a hot, hairy chest. The three of them are bound together by their nonconformity (do you see a pattern here?) and eventually find themselves on an island of misfit toys. And, anyway, I don’t want to give away the ending, but it has one of those underdog prevails kind of messages much like a Rush album.

“A Year With Out A Santa Claus” - In this one, that rebel punk kid (from the first one) is tired of touring. So, he asks everyone if he can have the year off. Then, his wife and these elves go to all this trouble talking to the Heat Miser and the Freeze Miser and Mother Nature trying to get it to snow in the south, and the dude still goes on tour anyway. (What a trooper!)

About Today...

Today, it started to snow for the first time this season. When I got home from work, my Marillion Christmas CD was there in the mailbox. It’s a fan club CD that they put out every year at this time with Christmas songs, rare tracks and mixes, and/or live tracks. This year’s CD has their usual loopy Christmas message and a live show from XM studios in Washington, DC from last June. I wasn’t there, but I did see them on the two nights before performing more of an acoustic show with just three of them, “Los Trios Marillos.”

On the Darker Side...

I got an early Christmas present. I ordered it online, and, unfortunately, when it got here it was broken. I could have sent it back, but the shipping was non refundable. To get a new one would have just cost too much in shipping. So, Bubala fixed it. He’s good at that.

And now ladies and gentlemen, she’s back to turn back time for all those who believe...



Only this time, the farewell tour isn’t for her. It’s for you!



I really have to make sure that my Zuni fetish doll's chain doesn’t fall off now that it’s out of the box. I really don’t think Max would like it too much if it came to life and started chasing him around the house while we’re both at work...