State du Moi.

Me, 5 weeks ago: “Dammit that’s it, I’m finally getting a microwave so I can easily steam bags of vegetables and be much healthier. Enough eating pure crap!”

What I’ve cooked in it to date: popcorn.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

After watching and loving A League of Their Own for years I suddenly wonder why we were always ok with Marla Hooch ditching the team mid-season to marry a guy she met after her season had already started. 

State du Moi.

I own 4 belts and don't fucking like any of them.

Something You Should Know About Me.

I saw Andy Pettitte pitch at Yankee Stadium in three different decades.

Happy Halloween!

Xmastime Halloween moments thru the years!

Tragedy: girl in office everyone ignored  :(
Comedy: Count Jackula!
Classic: my "razor in an apple" riff!
On the run: the night my gang of street tuffs robbed a bodega
Winner: Poptop wins costume contest dressed as...me!
10 years ago: a Fort Greene Halloween!
Now I'm sad they're growing up: more of my Brooklyn Gang!
Review: Young Larroca's spine-tingling movie debut, Monster!

"This fucking blows - let's bounce, fellas!"

Uber du Jour

Don't even wanna know what happens if you don't give this fucker 5 stars.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

If racists wanna somehow make Jefferson Davis likable to non-racists maybe they should get it out there that the college he attended was called "Transylvania University."

Ideas. I Have Them.

Go around the office at 5pm today saying, "dammit, I spent all day thinking it was Sunday."

State du Moi.

If Young Me knew how little interest Old Me has in eating these he'd be very, very disappointed.

OFAH du Jour

Anyone who's read this blog for more than 10 minutes knows I'm totally obsessed with Only Fools and Horses. I discovered it in January 2015 and have posted about it oh, maybe 10,000 times. My first one came a few weeks into my fandom, HERE.

BUT.

Today I stumbled into a reference to it in a post of mine...IN 2011!!

I guess this post was my announcing I wanted to go to London by my 40th birthday, as it's a pictograph of all things great about London. "I wonder..." I thought as I squinted real hard at it and YEP!! there it is, Del Boy's famous three-wheeled van! :)

Too Many Birthday Plates

In 1996 I was living in Oxford, Mississippi. For a Mississippi town it was fairly progressive, but by any normal comparison was still pretty pumped to be white.

One day for my lunch hour I went to a restaurant in the local mall, Legends. Walking thru the restaurant to the back I passed a long table covered with birthday plates and balloons and other birthday paraphernalia. In the center was a black man with (presumably) his son. They were both beaming, excited about the birthday party to come. I was pumped for the kid myself, and continued walking to my booth in the back.

After eating a sensible meal of vegetables, super-foods and superduper-foods, I was walking back thru the restaurant to leave when I saw the table. I saw the father. And the kid.

And nobody else.

Nobody had come to the kid's damn birthday party.

I'll never forget their heartbroken faces. I barely made it out and into my car before some waterworks came out of my salty eyes. And yes, him being black and in Mississippi made it even worse.

20+ years later, it's happened again. To a white kid, but still heartbreaking.

Ugh.

I went home that day and wrote a song, Too Many Birthday Plates. It went on to become a show staple, I'm pretty sure my band played it at every show we did from 1999-2012. One day The Barber and I were sitting around 100 Metro and decided to cut a demo of it, which is below. Yes, our fretwork changed the way rock guitar was played. Yes, we challenged how someone could be transformed by music.

But I can still see that kid and his dad. And I can still feel it.

Thoughts. I Have Them.

Why do couples go on a honeymoon at the absolute greatest moment of their marriage - shouldn’t they save it for a few years later when their marriage really needs a boost? 🤔

Oh Great.

Now everyone at work knows I buy my dress shirts at Costco.

Yup.

Still a Good Question.

Announcement du Jour

This bag of microwave popcorn may officially declared to be well-popped.

Weekend, VI

Having three kids under 8 years old at a table that features a lazy Susan is basically a race to see who’s gonna get violently hauled off to a time-out first.

Weekend, V

My goddaughter believes in ghosts and the supernatural but draws the line at the idea of them having goddam arms.

Chutzpah:

Found this morning in the Amtrak cafe car opening tip jar at 6am.

Sistatime! Memory du Jour

I Am A Health Nut

Ahh yes, the four major food groups: pasta, pasta, potatoes, potatoes.

First Ever Uber Ride!

My goddaughter and her sister's excitement was quickly squelched the moment they realized it was just a fucking car.

Weekend, IV

Thought: if you bring a chair to a girl’s soccer game and then don’t sit in it you’re probably an asshole.

Inspect Element du Jour

WTF du Jour

I love these Mickey Mantle stories but is this the oldest active website in the world?!?!?!?!

Weekend, III

Watching It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

Well, one of us is. #goddaughter

"GOOD GRIEF CHARLIE BROWN IT'S WORLD WAR I"

A curiously overlooked part of It’s the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown is they decided to throw in a side plot involving what at its time had been the most harrowing event in human history. 

My Weekend, I

Him: Wow I think (insert name of his 2 year-old son) may be a comedian.
Me: Oh yeah? Why?
Him: (tells me what the kid did)
Me: Yeah, so that’s not being a comedian. That’s just being a dick.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENT

Thanks to Amtrak getting rid of that terrible chew toy they used to call a bun their hot dog is now an A+.

On It!

State du Moi.

One thing you should know about Pinterest is that Pinterest really gets me.

WTF

Apparently somewhere inside my office right now is history’s greatest monster. 

Rare Xmastime Post on an American Sitcom

As you people know, I'm a huge fan of British sitcoms. And one thing I've noticed is that Brits love shows about old fuckers. There's Last of the Summer Wine, Dad's Army, Waiting for God, Hold the Sunrise, As Time Goes By, Fresh Fields, One Foot in the Grave, and on and on and on.

America? Not so much.

Thanks to this post by the great Ken Levine, I've been hipped to a new show on FOX about senior citizens in an old folks home, and the cast is staggering. I started watching and liked it and THEN discovered it was created & written by the amazing Charlie Day from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia!!

You can give it a try HERE.

Happy Birfdays!

One of these people changed the world forever with The Beatles, one changed the world forever by creating an all-time favorite BBC sitcom, one changed the world forever by giving birth to Xmastime, and one is Marley.

PBS The Great American Read

My Top 5:

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn
Great Expectations
Crime and Punishment
Grapes of Wrath
Pride & Prejudice.

Now you go vote too!

Some May Say Strange Women Lying in Ponds Distributing Swords is No Basis for a System of Government...

Hot Dogs; Costco's Not-so-Secret Weapon

As someone who loves getting a hot dog every time I'm at a Costco, this makes me happy:

$1.50. That's been the price of Costco's signature hot-dog-and-soda combo for more than three decades.

The humble $1.50 hot dog is a secret weapon for the big-box warehouse club. It's one of the perks that helps persuade shoppers to dish out $60 or $120 for a membership every year.

 

"I know it sounds crazy making a big deal about a hot dog, but we spend a lot of time on it," Costco co-founder Jim Sinegal told The Seattle Times in 2009. "We're known for that hot dog. That's something you don't mess with."

 

Costco makes little to no profit on its $1.50 dogs, and inflation makes the price seem more dated every year. But it's unlikely to change.

 

"It's somewhat sacrosanct," Richard Galanti, Costco's longtime chief financial officer, said in an interview.

Bolds are my own.

Aww, Peggy Sue

The real Peggy Sue of Buddy Holly song fame died today:

She married drummer Jerry Allison, from Holly's rock 'n' roll band The Crickets. Her son-in-law, Tom Stathos, on Monday reminisced and told KCBD-TV in Lubbock that the song "Peggy Sue" initially had a different name. "It was originally going to be Cindy Lou (Holly's niece) and that he (Allison) wanted to impress Peggy Sue so he got Buddy to change the name."

I've always read that Allison kept fucking up during the recording until Buddy Holly threatened he'd change the name back to Cindy Lou. 

Always Look on the Bright Side of Life

I already have the autobiographies of three members of Monty Python and they’re exactly like you’d expect: John Cleese’s is pompous and maddeningly ends right before Monty Python begins, Michael Palin’s diary is thoughtful and earnest, and Graham Chapman’s makes absolutely no sense to the point of being unreadable. Now Eric Idle is releasing his, which I expect to be the funniest of the four since he’s the one responsible for one of the funniest off-the-cuff lines ever:

Following the success of Holy Grail, reporters asked for the title of the next Python film, despite the fact that the team had not even begun to consider a third one. Eventually, Idle once flippantly replied "Jesus Christ and His Lust for Glory", which became the group's stock answer once they realised that it shut reporters up.

68 Years Ago Today

Peanuts debuted! :)

My Top 10 Female BBC Sitcom Characters

With apologies to the great Olivia Colman, who's in a million shows but always plays it straight. Also, obviously Dawn French and Penelope Keith would be on this list had they not made the original list.

HONORABLE MENTIONS:

Patsy Stone (Joanna Lumley, Absolutely Fabulous)

Violet Crosby (Frances de la Tour, Vicious)

Sybil Fawlty (Prunella Scales, Fawlty Towers)

Barbara Good (Felicity Kendal, The Good Life)

Nessa (Ruth Jones, Gavin and Stacey)

Pam Shipman (Allison Steadman, Gavin & Stacey)

Pretty sure every single thing she said during the show’s run was funny, to say nothing that of course she’s the exact type of character who traps herself into pretending to be a vegetarian for her daughter in-law’s family (during which everyone knows she’s bullshitting.) She also had a way of stretching one-syllable words into multi-syllabic words, and had a perfect mix of cluelessness and sexual openness. Her going head to head with James Corden’s Smithy should be put in a time capsule. Which, I guess, tv really is.

Alice Tinker (Emma Chambers, The Vicar of Dibley)

Of course I can’t write this without being reminded of the sudden death of Emma Cambers earlier this year. Played as Dawn French’s daft sidekick, Chambers brought a lot of heart to the show, and it was her character who drove the series’ most compelling moment: when David Horton told his son that if he married “that idiot” Tinker he’d be cut out of his will, and his son telling him to stick it. Simultaneously funny, endearing, naive and brilliant, all while making everyone watching her slightly concerned she’d be okay in the end.

Fran Fitzenjammer (Tamsin Greig, Black Books)

The most non-surreal character in a very much surreal show (it was, after all, created by the awesome Graham Linehan), Fran was both the glue as well as voice of reason against two ridiculous characters, the misanthropic Bernard and well-meaning space cadet Manny. The show was built for laughs, not heart, and she delivered every time, whether it be “Fran as desperate/hopeless when it comes to men” or “Fran as why the hell does she waste her time on these two losers?!??!” Full disclosure: I have a mad crush on Tamsin Greig, also the star of great shows such as Episodes and Friday Night Dinner. :)

Marlene Boyce (Sue Holderness, Only Fools and Horses/The Green Green Grass)

Of course we first got to know her as Boycie’s daft wife on Only Fools and Horses, but it’s in that show’s spin-off The Green Green Grass that gave her more screen time. After decades of watching their relationship being defined by three things (“All the lads knew Marlene”, Boycie’s probably-not-okay-in-today’s-more-PC-world insults to her, and her desperation to have a child, which she eventually does), here we get to see her lie back and be the one to mock her husband trying to adjust to being a gentleman farmer, all while wondering how the hell she should fill up the hours of her day. Sure she’s a fish out of water, but she finds a way to acclimate and even thrive despite constantly having to roll her eyes at her husband’s unrelenting pompousness.

Florence Johnson (Hilda Braid, Citizen Smith)

While smoothing the edges of her husband, an old-school hardass who hated the main character Wolfie Smith, she was hysterical for two reasons: her strange, raspy voice, and her thinking Wolfie’s name was “Foxy” (being John Sullivan’s first classic sitcom and antecedent to Only Fools and Horses, was this a precursor to Trigger calling Rodney “Dave”?) She had considerably less screen time than my other selections, but when she was on was an absolute delight.

(Sorry, there’s not a lot of Citizen Smith clips on YouTube)

Maggie Jacobs (Ashley Jensen, Extras)

Looking back over ten years later, I realize that Maggie was the heart and soul of Extras. Knowingly or unknowingly, she was always the moral compass for Andy, all while being funny without even meaning to. She absolutely makes the Christmas special, which is of course one of the greatest of all time. Just watching her try to live life makes each of us want to be a better person. As time goes by, her character somehow manages to loom larger and larger, which is no small feat for any character.

Denise Royle (Caroline Aherne, The Royle Family)

Denise Royle wasn’t born on third base and thinks she hit a triple, she was born nowhere near the diamond but thinks she somehow deserves to be on third base. Played by one of the creator/writers of the show, she turns selfish lack of self-awareness into an art form, complete with doing whatever it takes to make sure she doesn’t have to actually do any parenting after she becomes one. And yet as terrible a person as she was, she’s the only one who ever brought out a sense of humanity from her sorta-deadbeat dad. Her being in the muck while somehow breezing above it all is a pure delight to watch.

Jen Barber (Katherine Parkinson, The IT Crowd)

No character was ever more necessary based on their fellow characters than Jen Barber, whose job was to make Roy and Moss somewhat…well, human. The fact that she bullshitted her way into the job is an insight to who she is and what she’ll do to secure a life that expends a little effort as possible. Another Graham Linehan masterpiece, Jen is a female outsider inside a male world, and just watching her even with the sound off makes you start laughing.

Miranda (Miranda Hart, Miranda)

Miranda (I’m only now discovering her character has no last name listed) was truly one of tv’s bravest characters. While it’s become common place for smoking hot women to act goofy/clumsy etc onscreen, Miranda’s does the same while being not particularly attractive, kinda balding, six feet tall and who know how many pounds. She’s much more real and vulnerable, instantly making her more likable than her somewhat-buffoonish character should be.

Ah, Memories...

10 years ago, I got kicked out of New York Fashion Week. :)

State du Moi

I love crispy shredded lettuce but don't understand why people like leaves of lettuce. They get stringy, and immediately wilt if on a burger. Wtf.

Kavanaugh!

Here's a round-up of my Tweets during his testimony last week. Enjoy!

What time is Trump dropping his "She's only a 5" Tweet?

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

“I love coaching more than anything.” Wow, even more than assaulting women and then lying about it? Because that'd be impressive. #KavanaughFord

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

Who amongst us hasn't cried during a job interview while talking about how much we love beer?

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

On top of everything else Kavanaugh seems totally unhinged and an asshole, which I'm guessing are not may the best things for a judge to be.

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

I hope I'm forced to discuss my summer of '82 in front of the nation 'cause I hit .524 for the fucking Tigers that season, bro! #LittleLeagueHero

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

When you listen to the Kavanaugh testimony on the radio with no video, you really notice how fucking old these motherfuckers are. It feels like I’m listening to old-timey radio from the ‘40s. Jesus. #KavanaughFord

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

Kavanaugh says he’s been “to hell and more” neglects the fact that he’ll either sit on the highest court in the land or he’ll go back to a holding a position of power and influence before hitting the circuit to make millions in speeches/FOX news. 🤷‍♂️

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

In Kavanaugh's defense Georgetown/Louisville in 1982 was a helluva clash of titans.

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

Must say I'm surprised these guys have agreed to continue working so late in the day. #Kavanaugh https://t.co/hzw3jUHsLJ

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

Chuck Grassley hasn't enjoyed himself this much since the day FDR died. #Kavanaugh

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018

Chuck Grassley hasn't enjoyed himself this much since the day FDR died. #Kavanaugh

— XMASTIME (@XMASTIMEblog) September 27, 2018