nah pop, no style

Here’s your present from me. I’m kind of re-gifting, as someone else made these, then someone else found them and linked to them, and now I’m linking to them. That doesn’t mean I don’t think the world of you, though, blog-friends.

http://nl.youtube.com/user/StSanders

Santana, Slash, and Metallica are my favorites.

I was going to write a piece of journalistic fluff critiquing a piece of journalistic fluff that ran in the P-G last week (it was about Christmas specials, which I love, but it was awful) but now it’s been a week and it feels like old news. So instead, I’ll talk about Krishnas.

Today I was sort of approached downtown by a Krishna. She was small and Indian, which took me by surprise because the only Krishnas I’ve really encountered in real life have generally been gangly white folk. The best one was a tall guy who used to hang out and proselytize a good bit in Oakland and on the South Side; he accosted me once on Carson Street while I was flyering for some political something or another, and  he of course offered me the Gita and put it in my hand and started talking to me. He asked my major, and when he found out I was a writer, noted to me that the book in my hands was written by the greatest writer of all (GOD).

We talked and talked and, well, mostly he talked and I nodded my head, and at one point he actually signed the Gita himself, as if that was going to add to the value or something (Ebay gold, autographed by random Krishna from Pittsburgh!). Then of course he came around to asking for a donation, at which point I offered something like 75 cents, and he immediately jerked the book back out of my hands — the book he had earlier “given” me — and explained that he could only give that to me for a $20 donation, and if I was only giving 75 cents, he could give me some other book, which he did, and I took it and never read it.

Today’s Krishna was a bit less outgoing, but I appreciated her hook: she quietly approached and asked if I would like a “book about yoga.” Which, of course, it is — a major league book about yoga. But, given the increased Westernization of the practice of yoga, it’s a clever selling point; plenty of people who wouldn’t think twice about taking a religious tract from someone (especially someone who’s going to ask for a donation) might be interested in a book about yoga. Yoga is something that people who eat yogurt and granola and get up early in the morning and are happy and well-adjusted do!

Put us out of our misery, P-G! This comic hasn’t been funny in years, and this week even took to using the word “gnostic” where the word “agnostic” was appropriate. THESE ARE TWO VERY DIFFERENT THINGS, MIKE PETERS.

Okay, I’ll admit it: I dig a BK Veggie Burger now and then when on the run. I’m not too proud to tell you this. I like a quick bite, I like the fries that are probably tainted with chicken blood, I like the doing something that normal people who aren’t hippies and hipsters do. Go ahead, don your “Murder King” t-shirt and heckle me next time you see me. I can take it.

That having been said, I observed last night the following conversation between two old men who were sharing a meal at the Haymaker Village Burger King, where a gangly little teenaged Andy once manned the burger broiler and the Crestor Cres Cor* oven:

Cranky Old Man #1: My son sent me a Christmas card the other day. I was surprised.

(Note: at this point, I think the conversation is going to turn toward how thoughtful that was, and how his son really cares about him.)

Cranky Old Man #1: These days, it’s so expensive.

Cranky Old Man #2: Yeah, stamps are, what, 42 cents each?

Cranky Old Man #1: And the cards are like a dollar each. For what? You get it, you open it to see who the hell it’s from and you throw it away.

Cranky Old Man #2: I told people not to send me Christmas cards anymore.

So much for sentimentality!

* I definitely meant Cres Cor, as in the brand of oven in which we baked the crossainwiches, but in fact wrote Crestor — a Freudian typo if ever I saw one. If there’s one thing you should always have on hand at BK, it’s some Crestor.

Friday is the Torley St. Mixtape Potluck, a yearly tradition I helped found which carries on even as I have passed on into the next world borough. Basically, it’s a regular potluck except the added feature is that if you bring a mixtape (or CD), you can enter it in the random exchange and leave at the end of the night with someone else’s mix. Sometimes you end up with a totally precious, sweet mix; sometimes you end up with something somewhat careless. It’s not about receiving, though, it’s about pushing your own superior musical tastes on others! That’s what the holidays are all about, of course.

The Torleys, in fact, are garnering something of a reputation for mixtape escapades, having gotten a mixtape-related autograph message from none other than local celeb documentarian (and rumored occasional Pub Quiz attender) Rick Sebak! (Crazy autograph, Rick — does SEBAK stand for something? “Superbly Educated Bearer of All Knowledge?”)

Anyway, I finished my mix last night, and NO I won’t tell you what’s on it, fool, but I will tell you that it is something of an impressionistic portrait of a winter day spent on one’s own? And it’s on tape, of course, despite the fact that taping is becoming more and more difficult, with tape decks falling into disrepair and new recorders hard to come by. I stand by the structural details that surround the cassette as mixing medium: the four points of tension (beginning, end of side 1, beginning of side 2, end), the time constraints, the equality of time spans between the sides. I don’t mean to sound like a romantic luddite; I honestly see structural advantages to the medium.

That’s right, this is my 500th blog post. Shower me with gifts and/or praise.

What’s up. Slow weekend here in truespies. I’ll try to help out a little, though I haven’t been up to a lot of exciting stuff this weekend. Mostly:

• Scrabble.
• Cleaning house.
• Mismanaging my time and missing some things I wanted to attend.
• Having the nephews (and their parents) over to watch Christmas specials. First, A Garfield Christmas — a lost wonder that IMDB claims was released in 1987 though the DVD I’m pretty sure said 1991. Regardless, this was the best of the era that also brought us Will Vinton’s Claymation Christmas, including the California Raisins skit. I would think with the Garfield craze of the past year or so, this might be brought back out on TV (this would be the 20th anniversary, maybe) but no dice, it would appear. After that, the original, animated, Boris Karloff version of How the Grinch Stole Christmas. I love Dr. Seuss for many reasons, the Star-Bellied Sneetches being chief among them, and this is a classic, of course.
• Making some brunch for Elainafriend and Elainafriend’s friend: a simple yet elegant presentation of tofu scrambler, Gimme Lean soysage, and rosemary roasted potatoes.
• Watching the Steelers lose pretty handily to the “unbeaten Patriots” (that sort of is a requisite modifier, like “Millionaire Adventurer Steve Fossett,” speaking of whom, did they ever find that guy?)
• More of substance soon, I promise.

It’s that time again: time for animated holiday specials. You longtime readers, both of you, know all about my love for these cultural phenomena. My depressing account of watching Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer last year managed to make the bigtime, meaning, the “overheard” blog excerpt feature of the newspaper where now, a year later, I work full-time.

Tonight is A Charlie Brown Christmas, my all-time favorite ever, on ABC. I have it on DVD, but I will likely watch it tonight anyhow, even though I’m not expecting fun company or anything, just because there’s something about watching it in the context of the year’s weird cultural context (Lexus commercials with big bows on cars; probably Desperate Housewives rerun spots, etc.) (I remember one special of some sort that we taped off the TV in like 1991, replete with a commercial for Rescue 911 that featured a reenactment of a toddler knocking a pot of boiling water off the stove and onto himself — I was terrified every time we watched it! It’s this coincidence I crave.) (Who the hell thought Rescue 911 was a good idea ever?) Also, the soundtrack to this one is unbeatable. It’s in my CD changer for the remainder of the month.

Tomorrow night is  Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, on CBS. I have many Rudolph-themed collectibles. These are my favorite Christmas-specific characters. The original Rankin-Bass Christmas production, and the best — all the rest would follow in its mold, essentially.

Maybe if I’m feeling smart, I’ll review these programs for you. Or something.

Dreams? Yes, I’ve had some lately.

• One in which I angered, then was physically attacked by, a very docile good friend.
• One in which I was with someone who was taming/fighting with snakes.
• One in which I MESSED UP THE DATE OF A SHOW IN THE PAPER AND WAS REMORSEFUL AND HOPED TO SOMEHOW REDEEM MYSELF (this was not unrealistic).
• One — the most interesting — in which I went, successively, through several different points of view with regard to an interpersonal situation: it started out that I was in my room and heard two guys outside talking, and assumed they were out running together. Then I was suddenly much closer to what was going on, and found that it was in fact a woman and a guy, and the woman was upset because her computer had been left outside by the guy (a roommate) and it was starting to rain. Mind you, this was a desktop computer. Then I was soon directly involved in this argument, but I can’t remember what role I played, exactly. I remember waking up with my mind blown by how I’d navigated so many points of view in this narrative. Weird.
• More that I can’t remember offhand — it’s seriously been a bountiful dream time lately.  In fact, it’s been a much more interesting dream time than real-life-time. Real life’s kinda been a bore.

Also, Jackie wins the Higgs/Rumi thing by default. I forgot to wrap that up. The answers were:

1. Rumi

2. Rumi

3. Higgs

4. Rumi

5. Higgs

6. Higgs

7. Rumi

8. Higgs

9. Higgs

10. Rumi

8 was kind of a trick in that Higgs takes on the lover/beloved theme, which is a big Rumi thing . . . GOTCHA! Also I thought 7 was very Higgs-sounding, but trust me, it’s from Rumi.

Thanks for not playing, suckers. EXCEPT JACKIE who’s not a sucker and will get a prize for her troubles.