Cherry Bomb and GM

Since we're buddies people wanna go outta their way to make a big deal outta today being Cherry Bomb's birthday, which is ironic since I also just realized that a year ago on this very date General Motors filed for what would be the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history. I call this "ironic" since, like GM at that point, Chery Bomb has NO FUCKING MONEY!!  I mean, nothing!  The other day I was like "hey dawg, hit me up $20, I'll pay you back next week?" and she just looked at me, blabbering away about who knows the hell what. Then I asked for $10, then $5, nothing! Then I dig through her Little Unicorn change purse, and the shit was empty except for a dino mcnugget. I went through her room looking for an ATM card or something, but it turns out she doesn't even have a bank account!  Wtf? I thought I was a loser broke mf, but this girl literally doesn't have a dime to her name. Unreal. Sad, I guess.

 from May 2009

ALLLLLright!! Me & Cherry Bomb playing catch!!



Hmm. "This guy throws like a loser; I'm outta here."

HAPPY BIRFDAY CHERRY BOMB!

(orinally posted 2009)

Since we're buddies people wanna go outta their way to make a big deal outta today being Cherry Bomb's birthday, which is ironic since I also just realized that a year ago on this very date General Motors filed for what would be the fourth largest United States bankruptcy in history. I call this "ironic" since, like GM at that point, Chery Bomb has NO FUCKING MONEY!!  I mean, nothing!  The other day I was like "hey dawg, hit me up $20, I'll pay you back next week?" and she just looked at me, blabbering away about who knows the hell what. Then I asked for $10, then $5, nothing! Then I dig through her Little Unicorn change purse, and the shit was empty except for a dino mcnugget. I went through her room looking for an ATM card or something, but it turns out she doesn't even have a bank account!  Wtf? I thought I was a loser broke mf, but this girl literally doesn't have a dime to her name. Unreal. Sad, I guess.

ALLLLLright!! Me & Cherry Bomb playing catch!!



Hmm. "This guy throws like a loser; I'm outta here."

HAPPY BIRFDAY MAMALIZZA!!

Some of my favorite days as a Manny were field trips with Mamalizza bringing Big Bear & Cherry Bomb. Our days at the Staten Island Children's Museum will always be one of my favorites of all time:

February 2008

May 2009

From a scrappy little bestseller (in 0 countries worldwide), WILLIAMSBURG RATS:

         It was a rare treat whenever Luke and Bobby’s mothers, Liza and Donna, were free for the day; we’d take the boys to the Bronx Zoo, or Staten Island Museum, wherever - our favorite was the aquarium at Prospect Park because they had the best cafeteria, which we always made sure was our first (and longest) stop. The Holy Grail was any time Liza and Donna would bring the boys over to Chuck’s house, which was really just a thinly veiled excuse for us to eat a large pizza from Carmine’s and gossip as much as possible before the kids melted down. They’d gripe about their husbands and thoughtfully pretend to marvel how could I possibly still be single, we’d all threaten to challenge each other to a week-long liquid cleanse diet, and then each of us would try to convince the other two it was ourselves who was having the least amount of sex, with the two of them being polite enough to include themselves in the “debate.”

        “Hiiiiiiii!” Liza, Donna and I sang in unison, hugging each other hello and laughing our way into the living room. We called ourselves JUGS, “Just Us Girls,” and if you ran into the three of us you’d almost think you were looking at Charlie’s Angels. Donna was the tall blonde who always looked like she’d just gotten back from the beach, Liza was the radiant Irish beauty who always looked like she was about to play the greatest April Fool’s joke ever on someone, and I was with them.

Here she is pregnant with Cherry Bomb, then with Big Bear and then with Cherry Bomb! 🤗

HAPPY BIRFDAY TO ONE OF THE ALL-TIME GREATS!!! 🤗🕺

GrizzaDay!

GrizzaDay (n) - July 13, the day between Mamalizza and Xmastime's birfdays. Also: excuse to eat a whole ice cream cake guilt-free.



The First Annual GrizzaDay ice cream cake!

Who am I fucking kidding…me, with an ice cream cake handy? Could be any day of the year. Sigh.


Lil Bear, Husky and Short Bus watch my old home movies. “Acid wash jeans? How old IS this motherfucker??!?!!”


Husky at Defcon 2: someone has opened a bag of chips within 6 blocks.


Cherry Bomb and I doing our “act”: I do funny voices as if it’s her talking and she…


remains completely expressionless. A tough crowd. You should see our rehearsals: totally depressing.


Left to right: “Hahaah! This is fun!” “Peace!” “The last time I smiled was when FDR died.”


Me & Cherry Bomb gossiping; aka "shit-talking." I talk outta the corner of my mouth about people at the party while she stares at my amazing beard, wanting to ask "Xmas, did a sweater throw up on your face?"


Kdawggy gives her best "ewwww...I slept with that?" look. Oh, you KNOW I've gotten that look a lot from the womens!! Well. I would've. Sigh.


I would throw myself in front of a bus for Lil Bear. We know this. But I've spent the last 20 minutes staring at this picture, FURIOUS!!! thinking that was a Chicken McNugget in his hand - "this little shit shows up with McNuggets and doesn't fucking give me any?!!?!?! Fuck him! We are done, you are NO GODSON TO ME!!!" Crisis averted - it's a nacho. Shew.


Xmas, Cherry Bomb and Mamalizza. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaid back, stone cold C H I L L I N...


...until somebody cuts one. Jesus. Who brings boiled peanuts to a party???

More Happy Birfday Mamalizza!!

My favorite days as a Manny were field trips with Mamalizza bringing Big Bear & Cherry Bomb. Our days at the Staten Island Children's Museum will always be one of my favorites of all time:

February 2008

May 2009

From a scrappy little bestseller (in 0 countries worldwide), WILLIAMSBURG RATS:

         It was a rare treat whenever Luke and Bobby’s mothers, Liza and Donna, were free for the day; we’d take the boys to the Bronx Zoo, or Staten Island Museum, wherever - our favorite was the aquarium at Prospect Park because they had the best cafeteria, which we always made sure was our first (and longest) stop. The Holy Grail was any time Liza and Donna would bring the boys over to Chuck’s house, which was really just a thinly veiled excuse for us to eat a large pizza from Carmine’s and gossip as much as possible before the kids melted down. They’d gripe about their husbands and thoughtfully pretend to marvel how could I possibly still be single, we’d all threaten to challenge each other to a week-long liquid cleanse diet, and then each of us would try to convince the other two it was ourselves who was having the least amount of sex, with the two of them being polite enough to include themselves in the “debate.”

        “Hiiiiiiii!” Liza, Donna and I sang in unison, hugging each other hello and laughing our way into the living room. We called ourselves JUGS, “Just Us Girls,” and if you ran into the three of us you’d almost think you were looking at Charlie’s Angels. Donna was the tall blonde who always looked like she’d just gotten back from the beach, Liza was the radiant Irish beauty who always looked like she was about to play the greatest April Fool’s joke ever on someone, and I was with them.

Here she is pregnant with Cherry Bomb, then with Big Bear and then with Cherry Bomb! 🤗

Bad reputation, CCDIVVIIDCXXX

I don't begrudge Joan Jett anything, but in watching her on Letterman just now I gotta ask: has there ever been an artist with a more dramatic inverse ratio of Greatest Hits packages to actual songs written than Joan Jett? I mean, good lord.

And for some reason, I am amped up to see The Runaways movie, even tho  1) I've never really cared about the Runaways  2) there's no Mrs. Xmastimes in it  3) I don't go to movies.

Speaking of ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!!  here's the real Cherry Bomb, letting the world know that Xmastime's legacy WILL live on!  :)

Remember: if you don't tell them who's #1, they'll never know!

 

GrizzaDay Memories

Ch-ch-ch-ch-ch-CHERRY BOMB!  :)


Xmas, Cherry Bomb and Mamalizza. Laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaid back, stone cold C H I L L I N...


...until somebody cuts one. Jesus. Who brings boiled peanuts to a party???

Irish du Jour

 

Reminds me of Big Bear! :)

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)
Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to her school.

Happy Worlds Colliding!

Back in 2012 via HERE:

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to school.

Via Dick Mack's Instagram just now 🤣 🤣 🤣 🤣 

Watching Alvin & the Chipmunks with Big Bear & Cherry Bomb

Before the movie, I thought I'd warm up the crowd with some topical, observational stand-up comedy. They were, shall I say, less than impressed.

Cherry Bomb patiently explains the movie to me. "No, in real life chipmunks can't really talk, dumbass."

Worried I might have a shred of dignity left in my body, Big Bear decides he'd like me to have to smell his feet for the rest of the movie.

More Happy Birfday Big Bear

2 more classic bits. Enjoy!

Big Bear Already Understands How the World Works

Xmastime: you want some more chocolate milk?
Big Bear: yeah, but I wanna make it all by myself.
Xmastime: oh, okay.
Big Bear: you can be my assistant.
Xmastime: okay, cool.
Big Bear: now Mr. Assistant, would you please, open the milk (waves hand dramatically as if he were a magician)
Xmastime: Sure.
Big Bear: ....and, now would you please, pour the milk into the cup (waves hand dramatically as if he were a magician)
Xmastime: Yup.
Big Bear: Okay, and now Assistant would you please, take the top off of this (waves hand dramatically as if he were a magician, pushes can of Ovaltine to me)
Xmastime: Okay.
Big Bear: ...aaaaaaaaaaaand dump some of it in the milk (waves hand dramatically as if he were a magician)
Xmastime: You know, it seems like I'm the one doing all the work.
Big Bear: Well, that's because you're my assistant.
Xmastime: Ah. Gotcha.
Big Bear: And you'll tell my mom and dad I did it all myself, right?
Xmastime: Yes sir.

Conversations with a First Grader

Today was Big Bear's first day of first grade. He told me all they did all day was play, to which I replied "well, tomorrow they're gonna get serious about you learning stuff, you know", to wit:

Xmastime: They're gonna teach you how to read.
Big Bear: I already know how to read.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you how to write.
Big Bear: I already know how to write.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you math.
Big Bear: I already know math. 
Xmastime: Well. (long pause...) I guess there's no reason to go back, then.
Big Bear: Probably not.

Big Bear Memory du Jour

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to her school.

Boom!  :)

 Full Xmastime Big compendium HERE.

HAPPY BIRFDAY....

...to one of my all-time favorites, CHERRY BOMB! :) 🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂🎂

Cherry Bomb has just about had it with your bullshit!

Patiently explains Alvin & the Chipmunks to me. "No, in real life chipmunks can't really talk."

"Yo! 1994 called, it wants its...wait, 1994? That was a real year? Are you making that up?"

"Welcome to Bob's Big Boy!"

OFAH du Jour - SPECIAL BIG BEAR EDITION!!! 🤗🕺

Moi Say Moi back in 2010:

The highest-level English class I took in college as an English major was Literary Criticism, in which the professor would constantly tie in how, say, The Mimetic Theory, could be applied to The Muppet Movie. It sounds silly 15 years later, but at the time it was always like "...is this guy retarded? what the...oh, shit, look at that. He's right." Bizzare. "How would Aristotle or Pope have interpreted this particular passage from Frankenstein? Okay, let's go to the tape: here's Fozzie and Kermit coming to a fork in the road while driving and..." 

I thought of that just now when I saw this:

and of course the first thing that popped into my head was, "Is it...the fungus 2 Chinese researchers are charged with smuggling into the US?"

Which of course reminded me of this all-time Xmastimc Classic from my godson Big Bear back in 2010:

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to her school.

Which brings us to our Only Fools and Horses du Jour, tying all of these disparate parts together as one, YOU'RE WELCOME VERY MUCH!! 

Cherry Bomb

Via Mamalizza we see this:

"Suzy" must be under the impression that Dani can read.  Here's the funny thing: DANI CAN'T READ!!  Hahahah! Not a fucking word!!!!  I mean, what an idiot, right?  Hahahahaha!!!!  Look at that garbally-gook she was "writing" too!!!!  "gggggggggfffffyfffffggggggggg"!!  Hahahaha!

Oh yeah, and she's broke too.  What a loser!!!!!!  (wiping tears of laffter)

UPDATE: Ten minutes later - Turns out while Cherry Bomb can't read, her mother can; here she is ripping me to shreds after finding out what I wrote.  Yikes!

Kids: Nature's Unwitting Assholes

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to her school.

Boom!  :)

HAPPY 19th BIRFDAY......

.....to my godson Big Bear!!! :) Here he is, age 3, trying to rip a tree out of the ground with one hand…AND HE DID IT, PEOPLE! HE REALLY DID IT!

I can not believe the kid's 16 17 18 19 already...I have way too many great memories, a billion of which are in the blog over the last 19 years, so I'll just post this moment from when he was born:

Minutes after he was born, his dad brought him out to meet us all. Then the two of them got on an elevator to go downstairs. For something, I have no idea what. There were maybe 10 of us, and we're all just kinda standing there watching them get on the elevator, and a few minutes later we're all still standing there, chatting or whatever, and the elevator door opens. And standing there is some kid, looks to be about 10 or 12. Everybody's just kinda standing there looking at him, and finally I say "Jesus christ...how the hell long have we been standing here?"

ZERO LAUGHS!!! My greatest line ever, no laughs. ZERO!!!!

Still bugs me to this day....here's a great Big Bear moment: 

Today was Big Bear's first day of first grade. He told me all they did all day was play, to which I replied "well, tomorrow they're gonna get serious about you learning stuff, you know", to wit:

Xmastime: They're gonna teach you how to read.
Big Bear: I already know how to read.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you how to write.
Big Bear: I already know how to write.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you math.
Big Bear: I already know math. 
Xmastime: Well. (long pause...) I guess there's no reason to go back, then.
Big Bear: Probably not.

Back in 2012 via HERE:

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to school.

HAPPY BIRFDAY CHERRY BOMB!

One of my all-time favorite people ever 🤗❤️. I've posted stuff with her a million times before I left Brooklyn (including the day she was born) and far too rarely since 😢, but every minute since she was born that kid lights up a room with her charisma. A great kid who also gave the world the question, "how did Op have such a chatty kid?" 🤣🤣🤣🤣 Viva la Cherry Bomb!!

PS - the pic on the bottom left is the last one I ever took living in Brooklyn.

HAPPY 18TH BIRFDAY...

.....to my godson Big Bear!!! :) Here he is, age 3, trying to rip a tree out of the ground with one hand…AND HE DID IT, PEOPLE! HE REALLY DID IT!

I can not believe the kid's 16 17 18 already...I have way too many great memories, a billion of which are in the blog over the last 18 years, so I'll just post this moment from when he was born:

Minutes after he was born, his dad brought him out to meet us all. Then the two of them got on an elevator to go downstairs. For something, I have no idea what. There were maybe 10 of us, and we're all just kinda standing there watching them get on the elevator, and a few minutes later we're all still standing there, chatting or whatever, and the elevator door opens. And standing there is some kid, looks to be about 10 or 12. Everybody's just kinda standing there looking at him, and finally I say "Jesus christ...how the hell long have we been standing here?"

ZERO LAUGHS!!! My greatest line ever, no laughs. ZERO!!!!

Still bugs me to this day....here's a great Big Bear moment: 

Today was Big Bear's first day of first grade. He told me all they did all day was play, to which I replied "well, tomorrow they're gonna get serious about you learning stuff, you know", to wit:

Xmastime: They're gonna teach you how to read.
Big Bear: I already know how to read.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you how to write.
Big Bear: I already know how to write.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you math.
Big Bear: I already know math. 
Xmastime: Well. (long pause...) I guess there's no reason to go back, then.
Big Bear: Probably not.

Back in 2012 via HERE:

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to school.

HAPPY 17TH BIRFDAY...

......to my godson Big Bear!!! :) Here he is, age 3, trying to rip a tree out of the ground with one hand…AND HE DID IT, PEOPLE! HE REALLY DID IT!

I can not believe the kid's 16 17 already...I have way too many great memories, so I'll just post this moment from when he was born:

Minutes after he was born, his dad brought him out to meet us all. Then the two of them got on an elevator to go downstairs. For something, I have no idea what. There were maybe 10 of us, and we're all just kinda standing there watching them get on the elevator, and about 2 minutes later we're all still standing there, chatting or whatever, and the elevator door opens. And standing there is some kid, looks to be about 10 or 12. Everybody's just kinda standing there looking at him, and finally I say "Jesus christ...how the fuck long have we been standing here?"

ZERO LAUGHS!!! My greatest line ever, nuthin. ZERO!!!!

Still bugs me to this day....here's a great Big Bear moment: 

Today was Big Bear's first day of first grade. He told me all they did all day was play, to which I replied "well, tomorrow they're gonna get serious about you learning stuff, you know", to wit:

Xmastime: They're gonna teach you how to read.
Big Bear: I already know how to read.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you how to write.
Big Bear: I already know how to write.
Xmastime: Oh. Well, they're gonna teach you math.
Big Bear: I already know math. 
Xmastime: Well. (long pause...) I guess there's no reason to go back, then.
Big Bear: Probably not.

Back in 2012 via HERE:

(walking with Big Bear to pick Cherry Bomb up from school and trying to gauge if we could make it home before it started raining, or if I needed to call for a car service)

Xmastime: how long does it take to get from Cherry Bomb's school to home?
Big Bear: same as it does from home to school.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY!

CHERRY BOMB!  :)

Cherry Bomb patiently explains the movie to me. "No, in real life chipmunks can't really talk, dumbass."