Happy new year!

Fath?

1000!

What else could post 1000 for the year 2009 be but this lady and her layer cake?

Joy Page

Quick, who was the sexiest woman who was ever in a movie?

Nope!

It was Joy Page, who plays the young Bulgarian bride who might sleep with Claude Raines to get letters of transport in Casablanca! Duh!

Firstly, she was just out of high school when she played the part (17!). Second, she was Jack Warner's stepdaughter and STILL he wouldn't give her a contract, the prick.

Thirdly she died (at 83) on April 18, 2008. Exactly five months and three weeks before my (second) wedding!

There are no coincidences!

Pray for "Tonn" (sp?)

Met a really nice guy yesterday named "Tonn." He said "My name's Tonn..." and I did hear it that way, but just figured he was swallowing when he started to speak or some other odd occurence had smooshed his m. But no, it was indeed "Tonn." I mean, I guess that's how it's spelled. But what a pain in the ass, regardless! For him, I mean. If he wanted to spell it with one n, it would be ton, as in 2K lbs. But every time he calls the muffler shop, he's gotta go "No, not Tom...Tonn!!" and sound glad/excited about it. But he's likely a much more wise and patient man than your humbler chronciler. He was also wearing some sort of Eastern Orthodox crucifix, so he may have me rubbed out!

Plus he was from Florida. Pray for him.

The great migration

Moved 78 gigs of crap from old external hard drive to new mega-Xmas terabyte drive in, like, an hour and change!

EPIC!

Now I just need a back-up terabyte drive to act as backup for the backup of the backup of the backup. And a lead case!

Moving to D_____ and selling your piece-of-shit van?

Evidence in my neighborhood shows that the going rate for 25-to-thirty year old beater van is $650. Is that good or bad? Just didn't want anyone to get their hopes up, if they dream of moving here to intern for me and have a van to sell!

Been at least seven minutes since I mentioned the Clientele

Ooh, tour!

St Patrick's Day in Chicago!

Ooh!

And everything!

"I'm gonna kick your ass!...um..."

Man without legs drives to home, threatens man, police report. - DDN

The unhappiest pig

"Get this goddam sweater offen me!"

Plus, on Boxing Day, both sisters were a bit woozy from trop de 'nip on the big night. Tiny icebags were demanded!

Christmas 2009 - over and done!

An editor's yule

"Hey! This American/Basque friendship pin means SOMEONE ACTUALLY READS THIS BLOG! Maybe!"

One Christmas lesson we ALL learned: a quasi- gag gift Morrissey tee from Hot Topic will lead to lots of gratuitous chin/jaw rubbing in the style of one Mozzer in the bonus footage on that DVD of that Arthur Kane/New York Dolls documentary! Wha???

Allie: delighted and delightful!

I spent $2.07 (American) on Allie's Christmas present (a poster of three kittens with a disco ball). At first, she seemed less than into the innate shitness. But, no, she was actually entranced! There has since been chatter of an antique frame!

"Look at them! They're KITTENS!"

Gabe: gracious in loss

Gabe lost the annual beard-growing contest with his brother, because heretofore-unknown rules said it must be a full beard, as opposed to this Brooklyn-y monstrosity. Had he not hacked down to this to be funny, he coulda won!

A "rubric" is demanded for next year.

Mary, baffled by holy family coming out of a log

Po with cats who LIKE to touched

Write your own "handling p___y" joke...

The Vargas-Jacques stop!

Some kids! Gizmos, etc!

The future of indie rock eyewear is obvs in good hands!

Cheryl holds our soon-to-be third daughter Margo, aka TH' STANK! What a couple o' dishes!

"Yo, they just got my little cousin, ese!"

Bride Christmas

"Look! I'm Isabella Blow!"

"Hey! This lovely mini-seasonal affective disorder lamp should result in 71% less crying in the bathtub during the month of February!"

The Shitorialist

Not being the most overly tech bunch, the Bride and I got a digital camera LAST Christmas and didn't investigate it until, oh, May or so. But, now that I took a ton of pictures over the Christmas weekend, I am going to start using it all the time, so I can finally get all those shots which you don't even know you were missing, like the one at the adult store downtown that has a sign on its glass door that reads "50% OFF DENTAL DAMS". So, as you know, this blog is an ever-changing entity and this expansion should make for an exciting 2010 for all humanity!

Also, it means more posts, and done more easily. To paraphrase the liner notes to Peter Gabriel: Plays Live, the generic term for this process is cheating!

We will begin with a Xmas extravaganza!

Ouch

John Bonham drank 40 shots the day he died.

Could have guessed

And the would-be bomber himself?

The old Tommy Hilfiger green eyelet! Harumph.

New logo!

Very proud of this! Looks like a Larry Rivers!:

Worried

Reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union and really enjoying it! But I'm scared it will turn terrible. I think I read one too many Amazon reviews back when this came out. So - I must soldier on, and keep my fingers crossed that it doesn't turn all sucky.

A Christmas Story for the Aged, er, Ages

Mom's in the rehab unit at my folks' old people community place. She's doing better, thanks! But we didn't want to leave Dad alone on Christmas, just randomly walking into corners like a stuck Roomba. So we took him to my in-laws.

Days before, Mom-in-law Joan said "What can I get your dad? He has to open something."

"Oh, man - no, he won't want anything and will insist that he needs nothing..."

But she insisted so I wracked my brain then called Don.

"What's the cereal you like?

"What?"

"WHAT'S THAT CEREAL YOU SAID YOU LIKED? THE OTHER DAY?"

"Let me go look..." [thirty seconds of shuffling/dead air]..."Kellogg's 'Red Berries.'"

So I dutifully reported this to Mom-in-law Joan.

WELL, let me just say that it may as well have been a PONY! One would have thought we made this in the basement, slaving all summer on it! Yay!

Plus it's Special K Red Berries, Don. Understandable how one could miss the K, though. (?)

Actually seen there:

Merry Christmas!

Locked up at Christmas?

Where to be-Ginn?

Come, come, nuclear bomb

Was at the rehab unit where my folks live yesterday and I heard someone referring to a baby to someone else:

Has she seen Gregon? [pronounced Greggin]

Gregon!?

If anyone has this,

digitize and send me a link:

Missed opportunity

That girl from Twilight is playing Joan Jett in the Runaways biopic:

Which is okay, so far as it goes. But shouldn't be playing Tim from Brainiac in their movie?

It could be hot, just Tim being played by a chick as a male, thus capturing the Taylor mystique and sex appeal...or something!

It beats my first idea of having Peter Dinklage play Tim in my Terror in a Tiny Town-style extravaganzer L'il Dayton.

Beaten to it

Bottega Calabria...

...take me away!

These crazy Italians make something called "Hot Pate," among other stuff - I also have a jar of the hot green pate in the pantry [sick!], made of chicory - and DLM has it. I first got some last year when it was in a remaindered cart for a buck. Oh, boy - it's hot, ground up peppers in oil. Smear it on anything. It also has some ancient Italian undertaste that sort of reminds me of the way our home movie screen smelled when I was a kid. You know?

No matter! Now the shit is 8.99 a jar, and here is where selfishness wins out (take heed, Ayn Rand fans). I budgeted a quantity of this shit into my Xmas spending allotment, because when I used up the last of the $1 jar, I had no memory of what it had been called and had no hope of ever seeing it again!

PLUS, they even have a website, put together by the management's eight grade son (apparently):

http://www.bottegacalabria.it/

Ramona the Badass

Okay, overly precious to talk about as a 40 year old man, but just remember that Ramona Quimby had a doll named Bendix ("which Ramona thought was the most beautiful name in the world") that she eventually melted in the oven just to be a shithead, AND that in Henry and Ribsy she starts eating a pound of butter ("with grimy hands") just for the fuck of it.

I don't know about any of that sensitive later shit, however.

Again, Trash!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nl2LTD_tu50

Trash!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXd9OIYL9xM

Send a Xmas halloo!

Hey! Say hi in the comments so I know you are alive, everyone!

[pic because I had meant to use it and have not til now and because it's tuff! And, no, there will be more posts tomorrow, alas...]

"Empire State of Mind"

This song is SICK. Love it. Also, nice that a song about New York goes out at Number One in a decade where New York did not have such an easy time of it. I like the "New York's still the place to be" vibe which is so 70's. Also, respect to Jay for sitting at Knicks games with weird Jarvis Cocker specs on.

Nick Eddy Regrets: Don Trachte

I had a post some time this year, maybe, about how shitty the comic strip Henry was and how poor Don Trachte (who drew it on Sundays) was a sad character because all his wiki bio had to say was that he had produced an exact copy of Norman Rockwell's breaking home ties - my supercilious assumption being that, y'know, so what?

Well, I found out recently that this was quite intriguing, in reality - his kids found the original stashed in a wall and the one that was on display was an exact copy that Trachte had forged, maybe to fend off lawyers in a divorce settlement. Or something like that - not even Don T's kids knew for sure, and they certainly never knew Pops could paint like that.

Original:

Forgery:

Crazy, right? So, anyway, I owe poor Don Trachte a mea culpa from Nick Eddy Relents and whoever wrote his misleading Wiki bio should have thumbscrews applied, etc.

Also, I tried my hand at a counterfeit of the counterfeit:

Salut!

This Cheap Star record is ace, as well - they're French, but the tow main Posies played on it or produced it or something.

Snow pig

I had one of the three side doors open this morning at about 6:50 am est - for all of, I dunno, thirty seconds? - and who was standing there already when I looked down on the step in the falling ice/pellety crap but Picci!

She was all "This is cool! It's like Lord of the Rangs!"

Is it, Picci? Is it?