Christmas Tree Cam!

Hey, dig this - Rockefeller Center Xmas tree web cam!! Live feed of the tree here in NYC. Can't beat a Christmas Tree. Ironically, Xmastime's childhood was spent with the same crappy, small artificial tree year after year. All the branches were short n stubby; approximately the length and thickness of a submarine sandwich. Ugh. And for some reason I was in charge of our manger scene, which was so old I think part of it was made from the original cross. Every year I somehow broke a piece - a lamb here, Mary there - by the time I left for college I'm sure I was just shoving groups of chalky dust around ("Look! wisemen! "). I dig that shit though - the decorating, the accompanying Xmas songs, Grandma coming in with her fuck-buddies nodding out on the smack. "Tis the Season Fuckface!" she'd always say. Sigh. We were always the last family I knew to set up our tree for some reason. Everyone else would have their shit up first week or so of December, meanwhile I guess my dad thought Santa himself was gonna set the fucking tree up at Chez Wilson. Ah well. And every Christmas morning we'd all line up in the hallway while our mother went to the living room to "see if Santa Claus came after all." She'd always come back saying yes, indeed he had come. Whew!!!! Some dolls for my sister, a Mickey Mouse record player for me, Wall Street Journal subscription for my brother etc etc. Now all I can think of is having children, if only to play that cruel joke: walk back in the hallway, shrug "oh well. he didn't come. go back to bed." and watch the little ones lose their minds. zzzzing!!

Paddy Mac!!!

Got to hang out some with my nephew, Patrick McKenna "PADDY MAC!" Wilson this weekend.
Boy, it's really amazing. Little ball of flesh that can't talk, farts constantly, can piss himself at any moment and can't see the tv screen, but man I wish we were hanging out right now. Being the uncle and not the father means that I am constantly wanting the little man to be awake so I can play with him; of course all Pops wants is for him to sleep. Naturally. I find myself when he's sleeping going back and forth between the ol' "stare at him and use a Jedi Mind trick" trick and "accidently" kicking his seat to jar him awake; both to elicit my own response "Heeeeeeyyyyy, looks who's up!!!" which, of course, really wakes him up for . . .Uncle Xmastime Time!!! :) Hahaha. Amazing to think that one day this guy is gonna be a feared linebacker, a grizzled farm hand, a powerful (Democratic!) Senator, but I'll always remember the first time I held his helpless, limp little body, and he immediately ripped one. Nice.

Unsportsmanlike Football Fans for Truth

I wanna link a buddy of mine's blog here - I usually don't agree with him because he's a right-wing, snake-handling Dubya strychnine-drinking nut job, but it's actually a great site and he throws a Bruce post on there now and again to keep me interested ;) ALSO, dig the first post, about teams from the Northern Neck District, the beloved sports district I played in in high school, NOT shaking hands after games. Where the hell was this when we were getting pounded 48-6 every game? Christ. And Miami??....

I'll Take Irene Morgan for $400, Please

A few weeks after we lay Rosa Parks to rest, this article was sent to me about Irene Morgan, a lady from only 25 miles outside of my hometown who also refused to move from her seat, and this was 11 years before the Rosa Parks' incident. Very interesting read about a woman I for one had never heard of, even while growing up,as I said, nearby. Thanks to Ryan Croxton for sending the article.

Also, this made me think of 2 things about Rosa Parks' funeral:

1) I was watching part of the service on CNN and Rev. Sharpton was speaking, and really working up a sweat, really gettin into it and taking me with him...and CNN decided to come in with a report on Nathalie Holloway. Hmm. Then it dawned on me hey, I bet BET will be showing it...click click click...naw. Too busy showing 50 Cent videos. Is that weird? Believe me, I've given up being ashamed of being white when we're held hostage for weeks by these "news stories" of white girls disappearing; but am I wrong to think that BET of all channels would want to show as much of the Rosa Parks' funeral as possible? I dunno. I can't say I know anything about BET, or black viewers, or black people for that matter since I'm white, but it seemed a lil weird to me, tho for all I know they showed plenty of it and I just didn't see it.

2) Anyone else think it's funny that Rosa Parks - a real American society-changer, the human clarion call of equal rights in the "home of the free" - dies, and they immediately ship President Bush off to Argentina? Wow.

Stove Top Passing

The inventor of Stove Top stuffing passed away on Nov. 13; never mind that the media found it amusing to announce her death the day before Thanksgiving, of all days. Man, I loves me some Stove Top - if my brother was the Puddin' Boy growing up, I was the Stove Top Boy, as it was my job every Sunday to make the stuffing. I like mine slightly dry, and with more butter than water (surprise.) And since this is a post of mourning, I won't get into how I hate when people put crap like raisins/oysters/etc into the stuffing (my sister-in-law Pam adding sausage to the stuffing mix is the only addition I approve of...so far). So tomorrow when you're stuffing your face with one of America's all-time food inventions, take a second to thank Mrs. Ruth Siems. If you'd like, check out Stove Top's website and try some of their recipes to add a lil' flare to your Thanksgiving Trough.

Star Spangled Crap

At first it felt like a warm-hearted and genuinely nice thing to say: "Hey, whether or not you're for the war, seriously guys, we all should be so grateful for all the men and women serving in Iraq!" Pundit after pundit, guest after guest on tv/etc preface everything they said with this comment. And only recently have I started wondering, what the fuck - do we really need to say this? Has ANYONE come on tv and said "Hey, I'm against the war, and the troops can go fuck themselves?" No. And these twits like to act chagrined when they say this, like they're preaching to the millions and millions of Americans who are sitting around thinking about how much the troops suck. They'll throw out this patriotic cliché and we're supposed to get all teary, all "hey, what a great guy!" and throw them 4th of July parties whenever they come on tv again. They act like they just invented the sentiment. Gimme a fucking break. It's bad enough we gotta hear how "unpatriotic" being against the war is; but we also gotta get this shit - and if we're lucky, only one story about some sergeant overseas who somehow contacted Senator Fuckwad's office to report what it's like over there. Maybe what "patriotic" really means is not wanting those "precious, heroic troops!" in harm's way in the first place when 1/2 the country disagrees with the very war they're in. But I'm getting sidetracked - knock it off with your by-the-numbers tearjerker crap. You're not a hero for stating the obvious, you're just wasting mine and everybody else's time.

The Xmastime/Kennedy Phenomenon

As today is the 42nd anniversary of JFK's death, the inevitable Xmastime/Kennedy "unexplainable coincidences" chatter begins. Such as:

1) Kennedy went to Harvard. Xmastime went to Longwood, which a professor once snidely called "The Harvard on the Appomattox." hmm. pretty bad when professors are making fun of the very college they teach at. Yes, I chose to end that sentence with a preposition, Professor Fuckface.

2) Kennedy was a well known womanizer, using his movie-star looks and incredible wealth to bed a slew of ladies. Xmastime is a local legend with the ladies, using enough vodka to kill a bear and a strong back to bed a slew of ladies.

3) Kennedy wrote "Profiles in Courage" at the age of 38. Xmastime has publicly proclaimed that he hopes to make it to 38.

4) Kennedy and Xmastime, both Catholic. What are the odds of that???!!

5) Also, both white. I'm freaking out as I type this.

6) Kennedy was born in Massachusetts. Xmastime's parents were born in Massachusetts. That makes 3 people who: can't pronounce an "R", can't drive, and repeat themselves over and over when they talk. Great.

7) Kennedy's defining moment was the Cuban Missle Crisis. Xmastime once had a Cuban sandwich on Bedford Avenue with David Bielanko...who was on an album with Bruce Springsteen...who was in a movie with John Cusack...who once shit in Kevin Bacon's mouth.

8) Kennedy was Irish. Xmastime is blacked out right now.

Eerie, eerie stuff I know.

All I Want is a Freaking Paper, People

Ladies. For the love of Christ. HAVE YOUR FUCKING MONEY READY AT THE COUNTER!!!! Whenever I'm in line to buy anything, I frantically have my money counted out and in my hand, ready to present to the guy before the word "cents" has left his lips. I always assume that if I take more than .0004 seconds to produce payment, the line of people behind me will not even try to hide their loud, exasperated sighs or uttered curse words. Or, maybe some guy comes in from the back and chops my head off, I don’t know. But women are always slightly surprised that the cashier, at the end of said transaction, expects actual money from them. No matter how long they've been in line, they have not even considered getting the money ready. "$16.81" the cashier will say, then there's a slight pause, then the woman will say "oh!" and THEN start digging thru her purse. Christ. AND, to make matters worse, she'll spend another 5 minutes digging around for a penny/nickel whatever to make the change "easier." "$16.81?" oh, hold on, I've got a penny...." and the search begins, so that instead of getting 19 cents back and letting the rest of us actually get on with our fucking lives, we've gotta sit through her frantic search for a penny so that she can get 2 dimes back. Guys don’t do that. We'll throw whatever bills we got up there; whatever change we get back, we get back. But we ain't standing there for 20 minutes rifling through a weeks worth of receipts from Vera Cruz and parking tickets trying to find change, holding up the line. Christ. Drives me crazy, maybe even more so than how everytime I wanna quickly pop in to grab a paper, there's only one other guy ahead of me....but it's the construction guy buying 75 coffees for the crew. "That’s 40 with sugar, 30 with milk, blaaaaaaaaaaaahhhh..." I've got my 2 quarters hovering above the counter, desperately trying to catch the cashier's eye so I can drop them and get back to becoming a better citizen/saving lives on the outside, but my man won't turn around, he's slowly making a million coffees for this one dude while blood actually starts pumping out of my ears. Fucking A. See also: lone cashier who patiently attends to the old lady who wants him to walk her through her 50 fucking lotto scratch tickets while the rest of us in line join AARP.

To Terry

I bought Born in the USA when it came out; I was 11 years old and this seemed to me to be the only real 'rock n roll' record out there that I knew about at the time. I can still remember playing it over and over - I loved the bombast of the title track, and I LOVED the single 'Dancing in the Dark', - still do to this day. The track that still gets me choked up, and I can still picture where I was sitting when I first heard it, is 'Bobby Jean', Bruce's farewell to his departed friend Steven Van Zandt. Man. Funeral slice of funeral slices. But for some reason, in a move that did not fit in my later musical personality at all, it never really occurred to me to get Bruce's other records. I wore the HELL outta Born in the USA (still have the cassette, too), but it never occurred to me to pick up anything else. Many, many years later my buddy Op gave me a mix tape of Bruce cuts (remember mix tapes?). I remember riding the Dog down to Charlottesville and I had it in my walkman, kinda listening, not really paying attention etc and then a song called 'Livin On the Edge of the World' came on. Blew, blew blew me away. And just like that, I was in love. After all those years, I was in. Since then Springsteen has been the soundtrack to a lot of my life; particularly long nights with Op at the Turkey's Nest, when people would wanna kill us cause we'd play 15 Bruce cuts in a row on the juke. Fuck 'em, we'd say. There's Patty cutting us off before playing "My Love Will Not Let You Down" a fourth time ("Boys...knock it off"), there's us about to walk up to Greenpoint for a 'rumble', but delaying cause my boy Dave's cut of cuts "Dancing in the Dark" was on the jukebox. Of course meeting the man himself blows it all out of the water, but I remember those little moments too. Op walking outta the cabin to get married, and "Born to Run" comes up randomly on ipod shuffle??? What a sendoff. There's all the 3am last calls, lights coming on while "Land of Hope and Dreams" is rolling on. Anyways, enuff Bruce lovefest. Obviously with the 30-year anniversary Born to Run set just released, that's the album on my mind. I've always said the title track is THE greatest single of the last 30 years - shambolic Phil Spector sounds falling down the stairwell, with words that should mean everything to a small town boy like me. Why every band in the world hasn't tried to reproduce this sound is a mystery to me, but fuck em. The piano echo on "Backstreets", the anguished singing taking me back home, and "Jungleland" unfolding piece by piece until you're in the middle of the street in the middle of the night in the middle of who the fuck knows what. Overblown? Yes. Dramatic? Certainly. Over the top? Isn't fucking everything when you're young, when you're running free, when you've found something to believe in, like Bruce did with the actual power of rock n roll? And really, shouldn't it be? You got your whole fucking life to be bored to death; anyone can be boring at any moment. It'd sure be nice to reach for something so great and unattainable these days; its all we can seem to do to get thru the day while hoping we "get" the White Stripes coolness, or Modest Mouse's emo-ness, or Wilco's...well, whatever it is that makes people like Wilco. On Born to Run, Bruce threw it all the table - love, youth, hope, at least HOPING for excitement if nothing else. You can almost picture Bruce pickin you up in a '70 Chevelle and hittin the Dairy Queen, tryin to to talk to chicks, getting ignored, driving up and down the only road in town, no money, no friends, but fuck, there's gotta be something else out there better than this. I felt the same way back in high school, standin round in French's parking lot, sipping a Big Gulp while dudes 10 years older tried to get girls to take them to the prom. yeesh. Christ, look at me blathering bout Bruce. I don’t want no lovefest here, but hey, sit in your room tonight, turn all the lights off, and put on Born to Run. Born to Run will never, ever let you down.

Foods Have I Loved

We all have certain meals we love love love, so I thought I'd list a few favorites (in no order).

1) LASAGNA - and by this I mean "Greg Lasagna": 2 lbs cheese, 5 lbs of ground beef/sausage, and a jar of Ragu. Don't gimme no damn ricotta or spinach crap, and don't turn your nose up at Ragu. I've tried many many many homemade sauces that people slave over. They're all very good, and I admire their efforts, but I have yet to desire anything more than Ragu. And now they got a million varieties anyway; I like the Italian Sausage & Cheese jar. This is funny, since I mix it with enough Italian sausage/cheese to give you instant gout. My new trick is to use some of the grease from the meat after browning it - hey, we're making Greg Lasagna here. It adds incredible flavor - you may drop dead at the end, but what a way to go. My favorite memory of this is a few years back I was house-sitting for Will & Gina and my buddy Op came over and I made this; I had so much meat stuffed in the fucker that to get the 3rd layer on top I had to practically sit on it like you would an overstuffed suitcase. Man. Can still taste. Accompany with bread, a gallon of milk and a 14-hour nap.

2) FRIED CHICKEN - everyone knows how much I blather about this anyways. Buttermilk soaked extra crispy deep-fried bird. To be honest, I think I like making fried chicken even more than actually eating it. I'm usually so emotionally drained afterwards anyways, sometimes I just like to look at it. I would like to be more daring with my breading; for instance, I'm fascinated by recipes using crushed potato chips for breading. I've never seen/eaten/actually known anyone who has done this, but the next time I'm looking for my heart to seize I'm definitely trying this. Lottsa things go great with fried chicken; I really like (of course) macaroni & cheese (note: I hate it when people chirp out 'mac n cheese'. "mac". ugh.) Lately I've been into Stove Top stuffing too: it's quick, easy, and an excuse to use another tub of butter. If you're ambitious try making biscuits, but they're tough to make. Add a gallon of milk, a coupla friends who will egg you on to deep fry everything in the house and you're off!

3) SUNDAY DINNER - boy, I miss a big Sunday dinner. Every Sunday growin up we'd have Sunday Dinner after mass, and the menu rarely changed: roast chicken, mashed potatoes, peas, Stove Top, bread, gallon of milk, and then homemade apple pie. Tuff to beat. Sometimes we'd mix it up with roast beef instead of chicken, and sometimes instead of pie we'd have chocolate pudding (my brother Edmund would always make the pudding; 20 years later I'm still trying to hang the nickname "Puddin Boy" on him. Stay tuned to see if it sticks). This meal always seemed to last for hours; after we scarfed up everything in sight my dad would regale us with stories from when he was in the Marines. I can't remember any of the actual stories, and I'm sure they were repeated ad nauseum but I reckon I'll listen to anything if you've just stuffed me full with a meal like that. I also remember that anytime I'd try to nab some food off my sister's plate, it was ice cold. Weird. My sister could take food off the hot stove, and 10 seconds later it'd be frozen. So either laws of heat and energy simply did not work in her presence, or she's the devil. Either one. A FEW NOTES ON MASHED POTATOES: Number 1 - don't try and be a fucking hero with the mashed potatoes. Let me lay it out for you: potatoes, milk, butter, salt n pepper. That’s it. Don't put in any fucking sour cream, don't put rosemary/parsley in it etc. I don't wanna look down at my mashed potatoes and see green. I don’t know what sliced almonds are for, but they are NOT for potatoes. You wanna show off fine, but leave the mashed potatoes alone. Number 2 - the last couple of years I've noticed more and more people cooing "ooooh, I want lumps in my mashed potatoes!" Christ. "more lumps"; I somehow get the vibe that these idiots somehow thinks that this makes them more rustic, more down-homey, more "real." Maybe it's because I've heard/overheard this from a million hipsters since I've come to Williamsburg. An accoutrement perhaps to the wearing-dirty-looking-clothes-that-cost-$600-and-John-Deere-trucker hats look, I suppose. And it seems to me like the richer they are, the more they gotta make sure you heard them, that they gotta have their precious fucking lumps. Rich man's guilt. 'Daddy bought me another car, I'd better not get creamy mashed potatoes.' Shut up. They're fucking potatoes, I like em lumpy, smooth, creamy, whatever. You popping a hammy jumping up to proclaim your love of lumps in your potatoes does not make you a hero to the working class. A final word on this: if one more person calls them "smashed potatoes" Im punching them in the fucking gullet (Rachel Ray, I'm looking at you).

4) MEAT LOAF - the perfect meal for a freezing cold night. Meat loaf, mashed potatoes, gravy. Freezing cold jug of milk. Man.

5) PB SAMMY - this is my Saturday afternoon in front of the tube joint. Jewish rye bread, Doritoes, and milk. Let the sandwich sit in your mouth, pour in some milk, there ya go. Sometimes I put the Doritos (nacho cheese!!!) IN the sandwich. Why I'm so alone is a mystery.

6) TACO NIGHT - I think I like tacos so much because to me, they're like a mini buffet. Spread out in front of you you got the meat, the cheese, the beans. Well, lettuce & tomato if there's a chick there and you wanna impress. Stuff the taco with so much meat that there's no way possible the taco can even pretend to hold together. Actually, scratch that, use lettuce & tomato - more filler for everyone else to use, leaving more meat/cheese for yourself! Makes me think of my high school girlfriend - we'd go to Pizza Hut, where we'd order breadsticks for an appetizer. I'd be Mr. Cool Guy and insist on letting her eat all the sticks she wanted (this was before PH came out with the good ones; back then they were like fucking pretzel sticks. ugh.) By the time the pizza comes, she's stuffed! All the pie I could eat, sitting there for me. Course the joke's on me -I gained 100 pounds, sleep with a teddy bear who's a right-wing fanatic while she's happily married. Ah well. Speaking of Pizza Hut, who's the fucking wizard that came up with that fucking dessert pizza I'd always see at the buffet? You gotta be kidding me. Every time I'd go up for seconds/thirds/nineteenths/ I'd hafta wait for the real pizzas to come out while this fucking thing sat there. There's no way they didn't just trot out the same one every week, too. "oooooh, pizza....hmmm...I'm thinking jam with cinnamon icing! yum!" fuck you. Is this really what the Chinese were thinkning of when they invented pizza? camon.

These are a few of my A++ meals. I'm sure I'll think of others - I'll keep you posted!

Jesse's Girl

Oh goody. I see Jesse Jackson has decided that he is needed to speak up for Terrell Owens. That’s funny. I guess all the problems of the poor, the displaced, the hungry are all gone, so now Jesse has time to speak for and defend a multi-millionaire. What a crock.

Respectfully, Mr. Jackson: shut the fuck up.

Since you've chosen to saddle up and ride with spoiled, filthy rich crybaby professional athletes, I don't wanna hear you say one single peep about the victims of Hurricane Katrina. I don’t wanna hear you marching in the streets for anyone's civil rights, I don't wanna hear you on tv speaking with outrage about minorities or poor people being screwed over. Sorry, but those days are over. I'm supposed to take you seriously after seeing you pounce on tv to cry "unfair! unjust!" about this absurd situation? Is that what Dr. King whispered to you while he "died in your arms"?..."Jesse...make sure the spoiled millionaires of the world aren't punished too severely...hey, loosen up your grip..." I know you have a desperate need to preen on any news channel that will have you, but is TO really the best cause you can come up with? Look, I'm gonna spell it out for you: get a grip. Step back, think about this, and get a hold of yourself. You've got pull, you've got power, you've got money at your disposal - at this stage of your long career, do you really want your legacy to be this? Come on. Scan the newspapers for something worthwhile of your time. and please - stay outta the sports pages and get back to the real world. Unbelievably, we could use you.

More reasons to hate actors

2 things drive me bananas about actors/actresses. #1: EVERY fucking time an actor talks about his/her audition, they all go "oh, it was terrible, I messed everything up, I walked out thinking I'd never get another part ever." and then voila, they get the job. EVERY FUCKING TIME!!!!!!!!!!! None of them ever say "Boy, I walked in and really knocked the thing outta the park. Bought a new coat on the way home, knew I'd be getting paid." We have to go thru their faux-humble crap. shut the fuck up. and #2: How many times we gotta hear about an actor loving to play a bad, evil role and saying "the role allows me to be a real creep, to be a complete jerk and mean, which is so different from real life." oh, cause in real life Im sure you're a fucking saint, douchebag. Just once I'd like to hear the opposite "what an experience playing a nice, normal guy. As you and the girls at Scores already know in real life Im an asshole, sleazy douchebag. Man. what a change for me!" Fuck you. And your movie sucks.

Shame on VA

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1126781,00.html?cnn=yes

2 questions:

1) how bad IS this dude's voice? and why would this be a detriment to his campaign - after all, isn’t it the red-staters who want someone "real", someone they'd wanna have a beer with such as one of their own down-home country folk? the Anti-Kennedy? wouldn’t they wrap their arms around someone SO down-homey, or has Virginia just decided to be ashamed of themselves for NOT sounding like the left-coast elitists? I'd be ashamed if I didnt already have so much to be ashamed myself.

2) since when did Baptists take Communion? or does "communion" here mean "handled snakes"?

Wally Joyner

I see Wally Joyner has come out and declared that yes, back in the day he tried steroids. He felt himself being passed by by the likes of steroid-chomping monsters like Canseco, Palmeiro et al, so little Wally was desperate and asked his (now dead) pal Ken Caminti to get him some 'roids, which he tried once or twice but quickly stopped. Oh, good for you Wally!!

What a load of crap. Do we really give a shit about Wally Joyner? This REEKS of one of two things: Wally misses the spotlight of the Bigs and this is his only way to get attention, or is looking to parlay his "coming out" into a book/movie/episode of "7th Heaven." What REALLY fucking burns my ass is as he tells his story, we're supposed to weep for Wally - getting surpassed by the awful, cheating monsters taking the drugs (I noticed on the ESPN piece he made sure to mention Canseco and Palmeiro as two of those players as opposed to just saying 'some players'; presumably this puts the picture of roid-inhaling thugs in our heads) while innocent, naive Wally stands by and trys to play the game fairly. So with much trepidation he approaches his buddy "Cammy" (seriously, can any mention of Ken Caminiti ever happen again without chortling? camon) who hooks him up with his roid guy. Now we have to sit there while Wally walks us through the days of him debating doing the steroids, not doing the steroids, but oh the game isn't fair anymore blah blah fucking blah. Of course he takes one or two, is racked with such guilt that he stops. And here is where we're supposed to applaud him, "wow Wally, what a guy! good for you!"

Fuck that. Who the fuck cares? This means nothing to anybody, and does nothing to help the fight against the steroid problem in MLB. Dude shooting up for years, artificially padding his stats, cheating America's Game?? - naw, it's Wally trying roids once or twice in the twilight of his so-what career, then stopping. Whats the point? Shut up! Now we gotta pat Wally on the ass while his chest puffs out and say "boy, he's one of the good ones!!" Maybe in his inevitable 60 Minutes interviews Wally World can work up a few tears for us, like the keyboard player from Journey on their Behind the Music when he turns on the waterworks re: some kid in the hospital that died and was their one non-gay fan.