Oral History Reveals Band Still @#$%ing Furious

Wanna Be THE ONION Headline

ORAL HISTORY GOES BEHIND THE SCENES OF THE 19-HOUR BRADY BUNCH SHOOT WHEN ROBERT REED HAD THE BRIEFCASE YIPS

Xmastime So Sayeth, So Sayeth Xmastime

Someone needs to do an oral history on the first two Sinbad HBO comedy specials. 

More Great News Guys!

To celebrate TIM WALZ IS FROM MINNESOTA, BITCHES! week here's the famous oral history of the Minneapolis scene from 2005:

Kevin Cole: All of the Replacements’ shows were newsworthy. There was that kind of buzz that would spread around town, just people talking about what happened: what were they wearing, what were they doing, what songs did they do, what were they able to finish? There was a lot of interaction with the audience, where with Hüsker Dü, it was much more stoic. The Hüskers were a machine and would rage through their music.

Grant Hart: People always ask about this so-called rivalry between Hüsker Dü and the Replacements. We were from the same town and sharing the same stages. In the press, any time we got a column inch, they got a column inch. Any time we would get a photo, they would get a photo. People were paranoid about paying too much attention to one band without giving attention to the other.

Bob Mould: I don’t remember a specific rivalry. Grant would say things that would stir the shit, and it was funny. When you stir the shit, it can draw attention to both people.

Greg Norton: There was always a little healthy rivalry between Hüsker Dü and the Replacements. We wanted them to be the second best band in town.

Paul Westerberg: It was a friendly competition. We wanted to see them fail. We wanted them to be the second best band in the city.

Peter Buck: I don’t think the two bands were in different camps as much as the fans, friends and followers were. I got the feeling that if you were going over to Mould’s house, you wouldn’t go over to Westerberg’s house, though the two of them didn’t feel that way.

Greg Norton: There are some obvious stylistic differences, but we were a pop band in the same sense that the Replacements were. The Replacements were like the Rolling Stones, and we were like the Beatles.

Peter Jesperson: The Hüskers were around first, so the Mats envied them in some ways, and I think the Soul Asylum guys looked up to them both. Then, of course, Soul Asylum got bigger than either, so that was a whole other kettle of fish.

Enjoy! And yes, you ARE welcome!

60 Years Ago Tonight

The Beatles played their first US concert, in Washington DC; 10 years ago the Post had a pretty good oral history on it:

Lynn: My father had run one ad in the paper, and the concert sold out. He was so stunned that a group he'd never heard of before sold out. It was such an unusual event and it was a windfall. He took the profit and used it to buy my mother a new Lincoln Continental convertible for her birthday. We came home from school and he said, "The Beatles concert bought that for your mother."

McCartney: I don't remember thinking we played particularly well. But looking back, time has been very kind to us. It was a cool gig.

Albert: The stage was in the middle of the arena and the band had to rotate around the stage.

McCartney: That was the first time we'd ever played in the round. How the hell are we doing to do that? "Well, just do a few numbers east then shuffle around north. Then do a few numbers north and shuffle around west." We said: "What's Ringo doing to do?" He had to shuffle the [drum] kit around himself. The idea that we had our backs and sides to three-fourths of the audience at any point of the show was awkward. We were used to getting them and holding them — paying attention to them and having them pay attention to us. There were a few things we did once with the Beatles, and playing in the round in Washington was one of them. I don't think I've done the in-the-round thing ever since.

“Roll Over Beethoven” — live at the Washington Coliseum, 60 years ago today.pic.twitter.com/GKtq5v4f0q

— A George Harrison Fan Page (@harrisonarchive) February 11, 2024

It's Time, People.

Of course I bawled my eyes out like everybody else when I first saw this but isn't it about time we got to read an oral history on it from the folks who were surprised at the pub by the whole thing, finding themselves at a private show hanging out with Paul McCartney??!?!?

The Royle Family

I’m delighted that people still watch it. I think it will get repeated and repeated like Only Fools and Horses. If there’s one thing we’re good at in this country, lad, and we don’t beat the drum enough about it, it’s comedy. - Ricky Tomlinson, Jim Royle in The Royle Family

The second this first aired, every single tv writer in England surely thought “a show about a regular lazy-ass broke family lounging around watching tv? WHY THE HELL DIDN’T I THINK OF THAT??” - XMASTIME

 I stumbled into this short oral history of the classic Britcom The Royle Family, a tv show that finally combined minimalism & realism and boiled it all down to what families really do: sit around watching tv & bitching. It was absolute genius, mostly thanks to Caroline Aherne:

The show was a heartfelt and affectionately mocking portrait of the Royles, a northern English working-class family who lived on a council estate in Wythenshawe. The action, such as it was, rarely left the living room, let alone the house. Conversations were gloriously mundane, constrained to a world of catalogue shopping and corned beef hash.

Usually, when they change the lighting, people go off to their dressing rooms, but we used to just sit around on the sofa. We’d be roaring with laughter. It was one of the best jobs I’ve ever had, and a lot of that was down to Caroline. Her spirit. Her warmth.

 
The series was first broadcast 25 years ago and was an unexpected smash. Against the odds, it charted a new, more naturalistic course for TV, paving the way for The Office, Gavin & Stacey, Gogglebox and more. Two more series followed before the show seemingly ended as Aherne’s personal life became tumultuous. Suffocated by tabloid speculation, she moved to Australia and retreated from public view. After a long hiatus, The Royle Family was revived with a handful of beloved Christmas specials. The last aired in 2012, four years before Aherne died of lung cancer.

I can't recommend this show enough, get thee over to Amazon Prime now and treat yourself!

Conan

I generally like to label years as "_______ is the Year of Xmastime!!" but 2023 really has been the year of Conan O'Brien; I can still remember watching his first show while living at The Attic on Oak Street in FArmville, VA, I never loved Leno or Letterman so Conan was immediately my guy, particularly the more he showed off his silly-for-silly's sake brand of funny; now 30 years after his "wait, what?" show started here's an oral history in Vanity Fair, and this is fucking brilliant:

SMIGEL: I had sort of a “Let’s fuck with the old talk show setup and just have things happen at any time during the show.” One of my ideas was that I wanted to have fake guests come on in between two other guests.

One week, O’Brien announced economist Woodrow Thomas on Monday night’s show. Thomas was bumped Monday, but O’Brien promised that he’d be back very soon. He was then bumped Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. When he finally appeared on Friday, he went off on O’Brien and became unhinged. Only thing is, there was no such person as Woodrow Thomas. He was an actor.

O’BRIEN: In order to appreciate that joke, you’d need to watch all five nights. You have to be watching at 1:35 when we wrap up the show. This was a conceptual sketch that was meant for two people in America. And we didn’t care.

Late night tv needs much more of this and a lot less of "oh wow your flight to LA was whacky? Tell us the story! Let's watch a clip of your movie nobody gives a shit about including yourself!"

Oh yeah AND he gave longtime Xmastime buddies and one of the best bands ever, MARAH, their national tv debut!

Xmastime 15 Years Ago Today

I mean not for nothing but this blog post title is on fire 🔥

Sunday, December 14, 2008

John Wilkes Boot

I'm not surprised some dude threw a shoe at Bush today. But I am surprised he was able to throw a SECOND shoe. That's a rather sleepy security detail, no? I guess I always imagined that at the drop of a hat of any semblance of trouble, the secret service would swarm like locusts, with walls of steel coming outta the floor in front of the president. But in this case, they're like "...oh look, a show being hurled at the president...I should think about changing shampoos...maybe something fruity...hey, another shoe..."

If I'm on the fence re: wondering if I should go into the presidential assassination field, this video certainly gives me confidence and tips me over to the "YES" side. Well, if we didn't suck at assassinations so much these days.

Anyway, here's an oral history on the 15th anniversary of the guy throwing his shoes at Bush.

You're Not Hardcore Unless You Live Hardcore

Moi a few years ago:

I've always thought the greatest example of an actor being matched with a character was Jack Black in School of Rock. I honestly don't know why he doesn't just put out a new one every year.

This year's the 20th anniversary of the movie (OMG) and I don't know if it's a coincidence but for like 2 months School of Rock has been on Pluto TV constantly and it's impossible to tear yourself away without at least watching a little bit; today an oral history of the film has dropped on Rolling Stone:

Black: Part was written for me, didn’t have to audish. (UPDATE: this would be a hilarious sequel)

TREAT YOURSELF today by reading this oral history and the rewatching this great, great now-classic 🤗🎸 

Pavement Who Cares

As you people already know, 3 of my favorite things are:

1. incredibly strained attempts to connect things to the point of incredulity

2. The Beatles

3. Pavement's debut album, Slanted & Enchanted

So while I yawned about 3 minutes into this oral history of Pavement's swan song album, Terror Twilight, I did get a kick out of this intro:

It may be an overstatement to say Pavement were the Beatles of their generation, but they kinda were. What the Beatles were to ’60s pop, Pavement were to ’90s indie rock—the definitive, pace-setting act of the decade who underwent many surprising and substantial evolutions in a tidy 10-year lifespan. And upon closer inspection, their respective narratives run parallel to an uncanny extent: 1992’s epochal Slanted and Enchanted sparked the initial rush of Pavemania; 1994’s Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain was a Rubber Soul/Revolver-style step toward sophistication; 1995’s messterpiece Wowee Zowee was their ’67-’68 period of lawless experimentation; 1997’s Brighten the Corners was the band’s late-game Abbey Road-esque consolidation of strengths. Their mirror trajectories even extend to the streaming era, where both acts have their Spotify stats topped by songs that weren’t even released as proper singles back in the day.

And then there’s 1999’s Terror Twilight, which was Pavement’s Let It Be—and not just because it represents the finely chiseled tombstone to a brilliant career. Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: What began as a loose, live-off-the-floor affair gave way to a more laborious process overseen by a big-name producer (with Nigel Godrich in the Phil Spector role) who put his fancy fingerprints all over the finished product. The result was an album that tried to reconcile the elegant and eccentric extremities of Pavement’s sound into a pristine, next-level pop statement, but instead wound up heralding the band’s demise. And in its wake, Terror Twilight left behind a troubled legacy marked by competing track sequences, divisive reactions, trash talk, and hurt feelings.

I couldn't care less about Terror Twilight but Slanted & Enchanted is a ride or die album for me, and what I consider to be THE album of the first half of the 1990s, even as every Pavement song I ever heard afterwards never did a thing for me. Which makes sense, since I also never really fell under the spell of the tons of copycat slacker bands that tried to follow the Pavement formula, but without Slanted & Enchanted's unrelenting effortlessness. S&E's sloppy, earnest amateurism is charming and wonderful, the ensuing albums of "aren't we way too cool for school?" hipster irony - whether it was the band's fault or not - was neither charming nor wonderful, and certainly the music itself did nothing to transcend such labeling whether it was fair or not.

The weird thing about Slanted & Enchanted is that for months before it came out I'd heard about it throughout the alt-rock music press, which in 1991 was not easy to do for a 19 year-old in Farmville, VA. To this day, I still find it kind of curious how much pre-release attention the record got, which still doesn't make a lot of sense for a band nobody'd heard of: 

Pavement's debut album Slanted And Enchanted was an underground sensation even before its 1992 release: Much like Nirvana's Nevermind, which preceded it by just a few months, the album was copied, traded, and spoken of in hushed tones. It famously got a full-page rave in Spin before the then-fledgling Matador Records had even sent out promotional copies. And, like Nevermind on a more intimate scale, Slanted would prove to be a watershed record with a lasting impact.

Sounds a lot like the annoyingly-desperately-pined-for-before-it-was-even-written-by-an-unknown-author-manuscript that was to become Gone with the Wind. Grrr. GRRR!!

So instead of comparing them to The Beatles, this older article does a better job of comparing their debut to the band they should be compared to, Nirvana.  S&E has always reeked a bit more like Nevermind which rock historians want us to believe magically appeared in record stores one day & changed everything by word of mouth in some sort of noble, organic fashion when the reality is that the record company spent months on a quarter-million dollar marketing blitz for the record. Also they seemed to adopt grunge's annoying "oh no we just release massive records by huge record media companies to be played on MTV all hours of the day but oh no we don't want money or success in any way we're just humble artists waiting to be discovered after we die like Emily Dickinson" bullshit that grunge bands loved to bray about on the way to the bank. 

But I'll always remember exactly where I was when I heard Pavement's first album when it finally came out and to be fair, the band doesn't owe me anything more.

Happy 40th...

...to one of my all-time favorite baseball plays, George Brett's Pine Tar Incident (is there anything better than a single whacky baseball play getting its own Wikipedia page?) which happened on this day in 1983. 🤗

From a 2013 oral history to celebrate its 30th anniversary:

Brett: Every year in spring training, I talk to all the minor leaguers. It is just me and them, no coaches, no nothing, and I talk for about 40 minutes. Then we do a question-and-answer, and there’s always some new kid in the organization, some 18-year-old kid out of high school, “Hey, tell me about the Pine Tar Game.” And it’s hard for me to really imagine and remember that these kids weren’t even born yet.

Prior to the Pine Tar Game, July 24, 1983, and after the World Series in 1980, every city I went to I was the hemorrhoid guy. I heard every hemorrhoid joke in the world. My best response is, ‘My troubles are all behind me.’ But from October of 1980 to July 24, 1983, that’s what I heard. And from July 24 to 2013, now I’m the pine-tar guy, so it’s really the greatest thing that ever happened to me. Thank you, Billy Martin, thank you, Graig Nettles. I went from having an embarrassing thing that people remembered you for to something positive.

Rock n Roll High School

Longtime Xmastime buddy Rthur (YES, ladies, THAT Rrthur!) had a helluva day yesterday, working with all-time one-day only supergroup of punk legends, including:

Ivan Julian - recorded the drums for the classic Hayday album So Far, So Good, So What, oh yeah also was in Richard Hell & the Voidoids and OH YEAH played on a Clash record and oh ffs has a Clash song NAMED AFTER him!!!!! 😜

Glen Matlock - not only the bass player for the Sex Pistols but wrote all the music for their one album before getting kicked out on account of being surrounded by fucking idiots

Clem Burke - drummer for Blondie

Richard Lloyd - only one of the all-time guitar player's guitar players, went head to head with the recently dead Tom Verlaine in Television

And to top it off the photo was taken by legendary rock photographer Bob Gruen, whose work is so iconic it includes the John Lennon New York City t-shirt.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “why isn't Rrthur (YES, ladies, THAT Rrthur!) in the photo?"

Sigh. SOMEone's gotta actually do the work, people!!!

And it was covered by NY1 and you can read more about it here!! 🤗🎸

OH! And I forgot to mention legendary scenester, the Godfather of all scenesters Legs McNeil was there; co-founder of Punk magazine and author of the most definitive oral history of all time.

Some Derry Girls for You People

While we breathlessly wait for Derry Girls to awash back on our shores, since for some reason it's the Year 2022 and we still hafta wait a few months for British TV which is juuuuuuuuust great for someone like me who follows them on Twitter and have had to spend the last month endlessly scrolling through ecstatic Tweets from Ireland and England about the season premiere but I mean whatever, okay, here's an oral history, enjoy.

You're very welcome, Earth!

Seeso Says So

Like everybody who remembers the comedy streaming platform Seeso, my main memory is that it kinda came and went and I didn't think much about it. But based on this oral history of it, it looks like we all missed out on some great British comedy:

The Seeso thesis banked on viewers being attracted to its library: Universal-owned comedies like Fletch, late-night shows, SNL, Saved by the Bell, and every British comedy show you’ve (n)ever heard of. 

Shapiro had worked with Monty Python on a documentary for IFC in 2009 and, years later, was able to convince their reps to let Seeso digitize, remix, and remaster nearly all Python contentThe Python content available on Seeso included Flying Circus, The Holy Grail, Life of Brian, The Meaning of Life,and three specials: Parrot Sketch Not Included: 20 Years Of Monty Python; The Meaning of Monty Python; and Monty Python: The Meaning of Live. for online consumption for the first time. That acquisition was part of a larger strategy to attract fans of British comedies not widely available in the U.S. 

Jumping from Python, I went for all things Mighty Boosh. It just felt totally like those things are very similar to each other. So now, what shows have Noel Fielding and Julian Barratt and Rich Fulcher done? Why don’t we acquire these things?

 They had all of Alan Partridge, including super obscure stuff. They had a lot of British comedy that you can’t get anywhere.

Just looking at his whiteboard above, I see a few shows I love: Alan Partridge, The IT Crowd, Count Arthur Strong, Fawlty Towers, Flowers, Blackadder...been waiting years to be able to find Trollied...

PS - get thee NOW to watch the 6-part Monty Python doc the guy Shapiro worked on, it is stupendous!!!

YAAAASSSSSS!

An oral history for the 25th anniversary of the delightful, very re-watchable That Thing You Do!:

Later that year, as The Beatles embarked on a trip to Australia, Ringo Starr came down with tonsillitis. Instead of canceling the tour, manager Brian Epstein tapped English drummer Jimmie Nicol as a replacement for eight shows. For three decades, Hanks couldn’t get the story out of his head. “That had definitely stuck in my craw because I thought, ‘What was that guy’s life like for a while?’”

Ed Saxon (producer): Nobody’s in the “Say no to Tom Hanks” business who wants to keep working.

 From last year:

Someone who doesn’t know the thrill (and perhaps rebellion) of hearing their favorite song come on the radio could not have created the movie’s most ecstatic scene: the first time “That Thing You Do!” plays on the local radio station.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't this very thing happen to you?"

Sigh. YES, faithful readers, yes it did!

YES!

FINALLY, an oral history of the shoulda-been-a-classic flick Clifford:

Platt: The deliciousness of imagining what Marty would do with that felt like it added to the sinister nature of the kid in a comedic and fun kind of way. It was a way to really give a platform to Marty’s genius.

David Letterman (comedian, Clifford fan): If they’d had a child actor in that role, I’m not going to see that movie. But you put Martin Short in that role, and where do I get my tickets? I’m coming. I’ll be there.

Flaherty: “Look at me like a human boy. You can’t do it.” That’s improvised. That’s Grodin. That’s the moment from the movie that people remember. And then Marty doing that reaction face — his version of what a normal boy looks like, with that dumb look on his face. [Laughs.] So what you got there was the best of Grodin and the best of Marty right in that little moment.

I LOVE THIS MOVIE!

Shout-out to Charles Grodin, RIP.

"But Xmastime", you say in the voice of Craig “Ironhead” Heyward from those soap commercials (RIP), “didn't you and The Short Bus recreate a classic scene from Clifford years ago?"  

Sigh. Yes we did faithful readers, YES we did. You're welcome! 

Ah, The Food Network...

‪Food Network Show idea: celebrity chef whose catchphrase is, “yeah? Well guess what, you don’t hafta f*cking eat it do you???!!”  - XMASTIME

Every once in a while I get super-nostalgic for memories of that old-timey television channel that was the Food Network, back when it was about cooking and not just hot chicks showing cleavage. These things also occur because we equate times with our youth; my moving to NYC etc. While the Food Network may be dead to me, from what I've slowly gathered the same chefs are cranking out obscene amounts of content on YouTube every day, which is fantastic and endless rabbit holes.

Here's an oral history of the channel from a few years ago:

Ming Tsai, chef and host: Tsai operated Blue Ginger restaurant in Boston for nearly 20 years, and has made numerous television appearances. Emeril put Food Network on the map. He did exactly what I was trying to do: He demystified food. Julia Child would make a coulibiac, which is poached salmon with bulgur wheat and mushrooms and brioche dough. Classic, and it’s delicious, but anyone watching that — which was usually my parents — was like, That looks awesome, I could never make that. Emeril made meat loaf. Emeril says, “Who’s had bad meat loaf? Let me show you how a chef makes meat loaf.” He brought in a band. There was no cooking show with a band, so now he has a band and somehow coins “Bam!” Can you imagine? Three letters almost solidify the entire Food Network. It was just crazy.

Here's a list of some of the shows I remember enjoying:

Anything Emeril was on
Sara Moulton Live (was truly live - people would call in with questions; every show, Sarah would forget something and burn shit which was awesome)
Good Eats
East Meets West
Bobby Flay
A Cook's Tour with Anthony Bourdain
Food 911 with Tyler Florence
The Naked Chef
Man vs. Food
Melting Pot (highlight: Rocco Dispirito forever teaching me that is you don't use a loaf pan when cooking a meat loaf, you get more crispy, crunchy outer coverage. Thanks Rocco!)
Molto Mario
Tyler's Ultimate

I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch; there's noting that'll ever beat the 7-9pm nightly run of Molto Mario/Sara Moulton/Emeril Live.

And those are just shows on the actual Food Network - before those there were some I loved on PBS, such as:

Cucina Amore
Home Grown with Justin Wilson
Two Fat Ladies
Julia Child
The Galloping Gourmet (who made my "Wish I was Him" list)
America's Test Kitchen

And there's all the Gordon Ramsay stuff, whom I've met, no big deal to someone like me of course, which I first found on BBC America back in the day: Kitchen Nightmares with Gordon Ramsay (UK only, NOT THE US!!) and Gordon Ramsay's The F Word.

And of course my first love: Cookin' Cheap!

I bitch and moan about the Food Network sucking now (which I'm shocked to learn I've done as far back as freaking 2008), but thankfully there's still a million great food shows out there, between PBS & YouTube & Netflix and everywhere else, the content is endless. I truly miss the Golden Age of the Food Network, but everything's still out there if you look for it.

Coyote Ugly

 Xmastime, October 2009:

I am now watching part of Coyote Ugly for the third time in 24 hours. This is a new low, even for me. Wow.  

On one hand, I'd say this makes me no longer capable of being embarrassed. On the other, something tells me this will be considered "those heady, good ol' days" within 24 hours. Christ. Apparently I still have miles to go before I weep.

The Ringer has an oral history on the godawful Coyote Ugly which, incredibly, is 20 years old now:

The real Coyote Ugly was one of a wave of so-called “bra bars” that opened in New York in the ’90s. These were grimey city bars that felt like saloons, with female bartenders who spent as much time dancing on the bar as they did pouring shots. Gilbert worked there for a year after college alongside owner Liliana Lovell. 

Elizabeth Gilbert (author and former Coyote): I used to go to this dive bar called the Village Idiot in the East Village. It’s still the skankiest bar I have ever gone to in my life. The bartenders were all women and they used to light the bar on fire when men were getting too close. It had a wild, raucous energy. One night, in January 1993, I decided to go and it had been closed by the city (probably fairly). But there was a new bar across the street. As soon as I went in, I fell in love with it. It had the same energy, but not as skanky. That was Coyote Ugly. I started working there a week after it opened.

NOTE: The Village Idiot eventually reopened, and was still more raucous that the Ugly. One time when I was there a fight broke out and the bartender, wearing only electrical tape to barely cover her nipples, was in the middle of it waving a switchblade around. Also this was where Op and I went to celebrate following our court appearance, where I ended up spinning on the floor with my shirt off (at the Idiot, not court.) OMG YOU CAN READ ALL ABOUT WHY WE WERE IN COURT IN MY ALL-TIME BEST NO-SELLER, WILLIAMSBURG RATS!!!

Aaaaaaaand of course Rrthur (yes, ladies, THAT Rrthur!) back in 2006 posted the story of your hero Xmastime meeting Gwyneth Paltrow at Coyote Ugly and then, naturally, taking his clothes off:

at Coyote Ugly. think it was the '99 MLB playoffs. Op's birthday if memory serves me. we're all there watchin the Mets. Xmastime's in rare form, but its Coyote Ugly, EVERYTHING goes!!!. there's somebody with their head on the bar having shots poured into their mouth. SASSY BARTENDERS! "this is what rome was like!!!" blah blah blah ... 

but wait. there's a blond at the table behind us. HOLYSHIT!!! it's Gwyneth Paltrow. we're all abuzz, "is it??? no it's not! YES IT IS!!!", but everyone's too chicken shit to go up to her, ... everyone that is except ... Xmastime. 

Next thing we know, he's planted in that booth chatting it up with Ms. Thang. we all have to hang back & kick ourselves. 

now this is a bit of a non-sequitur, but of all the sudden I look up and realize Xmastime is no longer at GP's table. GP and her friend are alone & talking.

I look to find him. We've previously established the disappearance factor. Finally, in the back corner of the bar, through clouds of smoke I see Xmastime. He's removing the last piece of clothing wrapped around his foot. Buck naked. Alone. Just standing there. For no apparent reason other than taking some time off from the clothes. Then, out of nowhere, he poses for a split second like some '40s b-movie actress. Hands behind his head, hip stuck out. It lasts all of 3 seconds tops.

All of the sudden, one of the SASSY BARTENDERS shows up pleading with me to make him put his clothes back on. I'm thinking, "i'm with you SASSY BARTENDER, but this is Rome!!!" The fear in her eye was troubling and suddenly her slutty bustiere looked helpless and tragic. "XMASTIME, put yer friggin clothes on!" I shouted, "fear not SASSY BARTENDER! you can go back to work!"

he was dressed in moments. 

As is always the case, a price had to be paid. One cannot enjoy the decadence of life without a blood offering. And this was no different. As Ms. Rrthur approached the bar, she was informed she had been cut off, due to her friends disrobing. xmastime, however, was welcome to indulge. 

[this post was posted by Rrthur]

Ooooh, Happy Birfday ME!

On July 14 (cough cough) Kevin from The Office is coming out with a 12-part podcast about the origins of the show:

An Oral History Of The Office will find Baumgartner, also an executive producer of the podcast, interviewing a vast array of collaborators that includes Steve Carell, John Krasinski, Rainn Wilson, Jenna Fischer, and Angela Kinsey, as well as creator Greg Daniels, executive producer Ben Silverman, and other behind-the-scenes creatives. Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant of the U.K. original will also swing by, as will special guests that include noted Office superfan Billie Eilish. 

Per a press release, the 12-episode series will dig deep into the creation of “the most memorable storylines and major moments,” not to mention its journey across the pond and the process that went into building its ensemble.