KUNG PAO FOR CHRISTMAS?

No, this is NOT a post about Chinese food for westerners. This blogger tends to avoid concoctions like kung pao and general Tso's. They just aren't done very well in most places, and they vary considerably from restaurant to restaurant. Chinese food for white people is best exemplified by canned chowmein and berserk culinary concepts.


Add a drizzle of soy to the meatloaf, and presto! Chinese!

Tuna salad with sesame-chili aioli? Presto, Chinese!

Turkey dogs, pineapple. Presto, Chinese!


This blogger is not even going to the 24th. annual Kung Pao Kosher Comedy event (the dinner show is already sold out in any case) at the New Asia Garden on Pacific Avenue just below Stockton Street. Eating quasi-Cantonese food with a whole bunch of vibrant single Jews?
None of whom I have ever met before the feast?
That is very much not my thing.

Yeah, I'm single, and have nothing else planned for Christmas day.

But I am neither Jewish nor quasi-Cantonese.

I wish them a lot of fun.

But no.


The most Chinese-y thing I will do that day is likely have some dimsum by myself, assuming that the point-and-order places I like are open, smoke a pipe while wandering around Chinatown for an hour, then hunt up some milk-tea and a piggy bun, enjoy another bowl afterwards, and head on home. Where I will roast the turducken my landlords gave us.

My apartment mate won't have any of the turducken till later, as she will dutifully treck over to a relative's house for the usual holiday dinner with family. Where, one presumes, there will be some Chinese food. Because they are all Cantonese.


Not a Caucasian, Jew, or Japanese person in the bunch.

It's rather sad. Caucasian folks are a lot of fun.

I've never cooked a turducken. I suspect it's nothing like a goose. That, at least, I know how to cook.
Duck too. I do a good bird.

Roast Goose would be wonderful, especially Hong Kong style, but the only place in Chinatown that does goose is not where I want to be on Christmas. Going there for goose by myself on Christmas would seem like failure, and might provoke feelings sympathy among the wait-staff (or glee from the waiter who actively dislikes me).
Which would be misplaced; I have no intention of being miserable like other bachelors that day.

Instead, I shall be perky and chipper. And full of good cheer. Precisely like a groundhog.

Yeah. A groundhog.

You betcha.







Dim sum. Chuchai bao. Naai cha. Turducken.

A tin of aged Virginia tobacco.

And twinkly eyes.

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I AM SO GLAD WE COULD HAVE THIS CHAT

Christmas this year is going to be different. A lot has changed. Let me tell you ALL about it, Little Timmy. You see, Timmy, the governor of the North Pole is a Republican who got a proposal to drug-test all food stamp recipients there written into law. And, as you know, Santa runs a sweat-shop, where, because of the "pro-business" labour code, he gets to offer shockingly low wages AND not pay any overtime. Plus he qualifies as a charitable religious institution, and is therefore exempt from many of the minimal standards to which normal businesses must adhere.

Besides, he's the only game in town. If the elves want to earn any money, they work for him. While getting food stamps and aid to families with dependent minors, to survive.

Yeah, the taxpayers indirectly subsidize Santa.

It's a crooked game, Timmy.


This year Santa replaced the company medical plan with heroine and methamphetamine, which in addition to getting the little fellows to work harder than ever, is much cheaper than insurance OR decent working conditions.

Do you understand addiction, Timmy?

Do you know what urine samples are?

Yep, you got it. You're quite smart, Timmy. But what that meant was that NONE of Santa's employees passed the mandatory drug tests, and not a single one got any assistance or food stamps at all, except for the reindeer, who were all smug about it. By late November desperation was rampant, by the first week in December elves were starving. Little elf children were going to bed hungry at night, their wee stomachs and faces shriveled in misery. There was truly piteous weeping. Their parents were pulling double shifts at Santa's factories, wired and zonked, and still not making enough!

And through it all, those reindeer gloated.


Two days ago the elves snapped. It was all over the news. They burned down the factory, pillaged the governor's mansion and the state offices, and ate the reindeer. Who were sassy, and fat enough to feed a multitude!

So you see, Timmy, that fat bearded bastard ain't going anywhere this year. He's hiding for his life, and there is utter anarchy at the North Pole. Santa's Village has been largely destroyed, and members of the Claus family were last seen fleeing through deep snowdrifts on Santa Claus Lane.
They're probably frozen to death by now.
They were parasites, Timmy.
Don't feel sad.



Timmy, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but Christmas will probably be cancelled this year. And we'll have to return all the trees and pretty decorations, which are kind of pointless now anyway.

Keep a brave face for your parents, dear boy.
They haven't heard a blasted thing yet.
It is going to crush them.
Be strong.



Children's Services will visit you sometime after the new year to see how everyone's holding up at your house. There may be some dramatic changes in your living situation, especially if your parents fall to pieces.

They were SO counting on a new toaster!




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THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS

The Christmas Season has begun. And it struck me today that the most appropriate response to "Merry Christmas", uttered by someone you do not know well, is "burn in hell, you heretic". Reason being that they are almost certainly of a different Christian denomination than your own (if they WERE members of your church, surely you would know them), and thus cannot possibly have anything meaningful to add to the event.

It is furthermore a severe proscription to participate in the idolatrous rituals and religious ceremonies of heathens and wrong-believers -- such as the Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, Baptists, Lutherans, Methodists, Amish, Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, and other devil worshippers -- and in any way responding with real warmth and ecumenicism might create the entirely false impression that those people are not just loathsome pagans.

Who will manifestly go to the fiery pit.

As Christmas reminds us.


But if you do want to sound more friendly, tell them "burn in hell, heretic, after a good meal that I sincerely hope you enjoy, as this will be your last feast on earth". Smile sweetly when you say that, there is no reason to be unkind. They are only human. Fallible, depraved, capable of great evil and self-delusion. Hopelessly, intensely sinful.
Not among The Elect.


FREEDOM OF RELIGION

I firmly believe that all people in this world should adopt a Christian cover-denomination to channel their pettiness and hate. They will find it liberating, as well as educational and enjoyable, to be venomously intolerant for all the best Christian reasons.


Because several generations of my family were severe disapproving Calvinists (Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort, greater acceptance of the Psalter of Peter Datheen, while acknowledging that Marnix van Sint Aldegonde was more inspired), almost automatically I follow that path, when it suits me to disapprove of or sneer at any and all Christian denominations.
Which I only do when Christianity is brought up. Such as it almost always is during the Christmas Season.

Bah humbug.

If you are a Christian, I shall despise whatever it is you believe.

Remember, only specific adherence to the Apostles' Creed, Nicene Creed, Athanasian Creed, Belgic Confession, Heidelberg Catechism, Canons of Dort, and greater acceptance of the Psalter of Peter Datheen than that of Marnix van Sint Aldegonde, brings eternal salvation. This does NOT apply to seceders, either the 1857 schismatics OR the degenerates who split off ("lapsed") after the First or Second "great awakening".

Certainly not that bunch who moved to Michigan.

All of you must manifestly suffer with Satan.

Do NOT have a merry Christmas.

You will all be damned.

Soon, babies.



I am ambivalent about the holidays.




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HAPPILY ANTICIPATING THE DAY AFTER

Only six more days and we can put all of this hoopla behind us. Well, those of us who do not avail ourselves of the fabulous post-holiday sales. Such as myself. For others, the tension lasts a little longer.

Like several friends I shall be eating Chinese food on Christmas. Not because I am Jewish -- I'm not, if you were wondering -- but purely because I don't have a large warm family gathered around me driving me up the wall with their cheer and togetherness and incessant demands for dead bird and stuffing. If it were up to me, ALL holidays would be celebrated with Chinese food.


Purim: Chinese food.
Passover: Sweet and sour quinoa, matzo ball hot and sour soup, and lots of parsley.
Easter: Kung Pao Rabbit, and tea-eggs.
Saint Patricks Day: Five days of cabbagy fried noodles, leftover from the office party.
Independence Day: Ketchup on everything; ketchup was invented by the Chinese.
Labor Day: Microwave Chinese food.
Halloween: Late night muck in a carton.
Thanksgiving: Turkey jook and a yautiu.
Saint Nicholas Day: Deep fried Chinese something, in honour of the Netherlanders, for whom darn-well everything is deepfried.
Chanuka: Egg-rolls and sesame balls for eight days.
Christmas: Deep fried stuff again; that's all your kinfolks really want.
Plus heaps of Szechuan beef and ma po taufu. Then they'll curl up and sleep it off in front of the teevee.
New Years Eve: Long life noodles, saang choi and meatballs, and ho si faat choi, followed by enough cheap champagne to float a battleship.


The best place for Chinese food is, naturally, at a chainrestaurant in a mall, so that the shopaholics can start spending money immediately upon cleaning their plates. The rest of us will retire to the ball-pit to sleep it off. Perhaps with cigars, after chasing the little kiddies out.

The great thing about this plan is that those of us who are diet-conscious don't need to fret, and the rest of us get cigars.

Nothing says camaraderie quite like cigars and comatose inaction.
No plates, no tinsel, no leftovers, no sugar, no fuss.
No Jesus, and no dead birds.

Personally, I have always felt that Christmas should be mandatorily celebrated on the third Sunday in December, so that we can do New Years Eve on the fourth Sunday. That would be ever so much more convenient for everybody.


同埋一杯港式奶茶

So yes, on Christmas day I shall head over to Chinatown for early lunch, wander around a bit afterwards smoking strong Virginia tobacco out of several good briar pipes, then maybe hot milk-tea and a yummalicious snackipoo, before probably heading over to the Oxxy for another smoke, and a drink among all the other single male losers.

Nothing special. Maybe some chowfun, or little porky meatballs and hot sauce. Dimsummy items, and a bowl of jook. Charsiu sou, pei dan sou, lou po beng. Tong mai yat pui gongsik naaichaa.
I can't wait for the return of normalcy.

I'll probably open a tin of Best Brown Flake to celebrate the season.
That's gevaldig festive.


Six more days.



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POST-CHRISTMAS GRUMBLING

Whenever Devonshire and Cornwall are mentioned, the intelligent person naturally thinks of afternoon tea. This is a given, because the intelligent person has read Wind In The Willows as well as all of Beatrix Potter's books, and connects the dots of provincial comfort exemplified in those works with all the English literary references to summer days and pots of clotted cream. Plus scones, fruit preserves, and Dundee Cake.

[NOTE: Dundee Cake was first made commercially by James Keiller & Son, a manufacturer of Scottish marmalade, but rich fruit cakes studded with blanched almonds are a traditional and beloved Caledonian confection.]

I strongly suspect that the intelligent person also automatically associates such things with cups of Lapsang Souchong tea and a discreet tot of Scots Whisky.

Mr. Badger and his friends were probably not averse to a wee nip in late afternoon. Followed by a pipeful of aged Virginian tobacco out on the veranda. Or under the eaves, if it was rainy weather, which it often is in the British Isles.


BUT IT IS NOT SUMMER!

Here in San Francisco it is winter, the day after the Feast of Consumerite Excess, which every year falls or culminates on December twenty fifth.

Consequently it is frigid outside, and rain threatens. Instead of sitting in a cane chair outdoors, one vastly prefers to snuggle up under a warm comforter inside. Maybe with a nip of sherry.

I have run out of Lapsang Souchong tea. I wasn't thinking ahead. And it is far too early in the morning to indulge in sherry. Also, because my apartment mate is off work today, I cannot smoke indoors.
I shall have to hide out in Chinatown, either nibbling pastries with a cup of hot milk-tea, or wandering alleyways puffing on a briar by myself.

Precisely like snuggling under a warm comforter, the whole caboodle of pastries, milk-tea, and a pipeful of aged Virginia, are infinitely better with a similarly inclined person.
But there are none such. Particularly not in Chinatown.
The reason I hide out there is that I won't get clobbered by wheatgerm-snarfing earthmammas violently opposed to all manifestations of tobacco, or sensitive moondaddies who find the smell of cigars and pipes highly objectionable. Those people do not dominate in C'town.

My apartment mate spent all day yesterday in bed, suffering from a malady that strikes once a month. Which, when she briefly ventured into the teevee room, she described in uncompromising detail.

Lucky me.

I sometimes wish she would share that stuff with her on-again-off-again boyfriend, but he's a delicate soul, and there is no place for her to lie down and be miserable at his place.

Note that she is a non-smoker.

A minor flaw, yes?

But it is a characteristic that bedevils my own desire to hide from the world, or spend an entire day comfortably ensconced.
I cannot do that when she's around.
She would object vociferously to the aromas.
Wherefore I must flee.

I've often thought that I should find someone delightful who has fond associations of pipe tobacco and pipe-smokers -- either a male relative who smoked, or her own personal praedilections -- and together we could spend all day on the couch bundled up warmly in rugs, reading and drinking Lapsang Souchong. While twiddling our toes. All ten of them.
Perhaps sharing an ashtray.


But this is SF. It is never summer here and multiple obstacles abound.
Wheatgerm-snarfing earthmammas and sensitive moondaddies.
People who drink herbal tea and practise yoga.
Creative types, who do not smoke.
Ick poo, I say, ick poo.
Curses.


I dream of clotted cream and cake.
And warm summer rain.




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BAD TEMPERED OLD TOAD

Sometime around now last year, various people who could not find the Netherlands on a map if it were marked in big bold letters saying "THEY SPEAK CHEESE HERE" formed opinions about a cute little tradition of the Dutch, namely having people wear splendid mediaeval drag and caper around with their faces painted black, scaring little kiddies.
Now, of course I think it's a mighty fine tradition. Not because I'm a racist, but because I am biased against other people's nasty children.
The little shits need to be hounded, mercilessly.
Badly behaved monsters.

And, upon mature reflection, you will realize that this is indeed so. Your own precious loin-fruits, if they're still small are making your life 100% miserable, and if they're already grown-up they are driving you into the poorhouse, what with having to take remedial English and social basket weaving studies at Harvard, Yale, MIT, or whatever other damned tradeschool you've shipped them off to for eight years.

If anything, your children are racists. You know that they'll react badly to what would be a normal face except that it is a shiny neon-black, jumping out at them and screaming "boo".
If they didn't have all manner of praeconceptions -- praeconceptions that YOU inculcated in the little turds -- they would NOT react with shock, surprise, and crap in their trousers terror.

BOO, YOU LITTLE RASCAL, BOO!

[SOURCE: http://www.zwartepiet.nl/.]

And, speaking of racism, I am keenly desirous that some true-blue disapproving American type explain to me why Thanksgiving is not a horridly insensitive celebration.

As I understand it, we took corn, turkeys, and wide open spaces by the bucket load from the natives, and gave them smallpox, measles, and syphilis in exchange.

Yes, I know that getting the better part of the deal is more than sufficient reason to be filled with glee, and it does call for massive celebration.
But isn't it just a tiny bit nauseating? Should our schadenfreude at their getting royally shafted really be so bold, so blatant?

Can't we just discreetly withdraw to our various severe Protestant churches, lock the door for an hour or two, and quietly thank the good lord for the opportunity to screw over our little red brethren, without inviting them or any inconvenient witnesses in to observe our joy?


Now, tell me again why you think mediaeval finery and sooty facial colour is not quite cricket.

At least the sober Dutch promise the little terrors a good thrashing if they've misbehaved.

Whereas most mono-lingual English-speakers keep assuring them that an unshaven lard-ass pervert in a never-washed red bathrobe is going to give them Playstations and Videogames. All they have to do is sit on his lap, then he'll order his height-impaired indentured servants or illegal aliens to take care of everything, and they'll get candy, too!

Plus turkey in November, and in December.

Mustn't forget the damned turkey.

It's our best theft.

Boo.




No, I don't have any plans for Thanksgiving. Just gonna get my Scrooge on real early this year. I'm completely unattached, no kids or nearby kin, I can do that. Unless there's something nice wrapped in tasteful lingerie under the tree I don't intend to put up, I shall ignore Christmas also.
I'm not a celebratory kind of guy.




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SADLY, NO FRESH DONUTS THIS WEDNESDAY!

This blogger finds it very hard to get into the Christmas spirit. As well as, remarkably, the anti-Christmas spirit. For one thing, that narrative about the miraculous birth of a new deity, plus three wise guys, and a bunch of hysterical shepherds, does not resonate.
Neither does the folkloristic legend that there's a grossly overweight person flying around on a magic vehicle while chucking I-phones down chimneys. Who employs a whole bunch of leprechauns and super-mutant reindeer.


Time for a new story.


Once upon a time there was an old lady who decided to give every one of her relatives absolutely nothing in her will. Because all of her teeth had fallen out, her fridge was filled with tofu. As well as the freezer, and the ice chest in the den. Then in December, a tanker truck crashed into her suburban ranch-house and exploded. The result was that the neighborhood was covered in white muck from all the tofu, and she had to move in with her grandkids. They bought her a blender, so she never ate tofu again. This changed her life. To show her appreciation, she paid off their college loans, and everyone lived happily ever after.

And that is why we kind of like 'white Christmasses', and we tend to be somewhat half-heartedly generous towards complete strangers around this time of year.

Tofu gently falling from the sky at night, and a lovely fire in the gated community, destroying eye-sore architecture. It's festive, and it scares away the vengeful leprechauns and mutant reindeer.

Who might be armed with assault rifles.

And that's a very good thing.

Aren't you thankful?



For a real taste of Christmas, put some sliced turkey and cooked sweet potato in a blender, whir till smooth. Dust with nutmeg, and sell it for $4.50 as "The Caffeine-free Holiday Frappucino".



Bah, whatever.



Only 60 hours until the big post-holiday sales begin.
Just think of all the savings!
Inspiring.



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FESTIVE SEASONAL THOUGHTS

Much as I try, it proves hard to convince others that this blogger is actually a sweet sensitive guy that you can trust around your rowdy brats or senescent old-folks. Not, please understand, that I really want to spend much time around rugrats or mentally spent fossils, but that seems to be the gold-standard of sweet sensitive guy.

And, of course, the reason for being accepted as a sweet sensitive guy is that it might get one a date sometime. On a slow evening. When the dance clubs are closed due to police raids. Or pest-control issues.
Apparently, dating is a good thing.
I've been told so.


The last time (several years ago) one of my friends bludgeoned me into baby-sitting, I apparently made quite an impression.

I told his little tyke the story about the three billy goats gruff.

Except that I couldn't remember what happened to the first two billy goats, so I shortened the tale considerably.


"This big bold shaggy billy goat was heading home. When he got to the bridge, a gruff and fearsome voice roared out from underneath. " I am the TROLL that owns this bridge! You must either pay me a toll or do as I say!" To which the big billy goat responded "I don't think so, screw you, dickwad!". Whereupon the troll rushed up to grab him, and the goat lowered his head and charged the troll, knocking him over and killing him. Then the billy goat ate the corpse. The end."


As it turns out, in that household goats are vegetarian souls, and trolls are lovable nature beings with fur. Gentle, but sometimes misguided.
Problems are not solved by violence.


My friend's wife has kept me away from little Johnny ever since.


I am, she avers, a horrendously bad influence.


Possibly insane or dangerous.


Stupid softie.


This blogger, you should know, is all about goat-empowerment, and resolutely opposed to the fascism of trolls. Their sense of entitlement has lasted too long, the time has come to reject the hegemony of supernatural Scandinavians in whatever field.

Down with all shaggy Nordic myths, the caprine classes have risen!

Besides, that bridge was supposed to have been paid off years ago.


Last I heard, she was telling the brat that Santa's elves lovingly craft gifts in a well-ventilated factory for a living wage under excellent working conditions, with full benefits, and that the best toys are sustainably green and socially responsible.

Which is just plain wrong.

The reason Santa operates a brutal sweat-shop with no heating and dangerous equipment so far away at the North Pole is that if he tried exploiting elves in the continental United States like that, we'd string his fat red hiney up and torch the warehouse.
Capitalism at its cruelest, several elves crippled each year.
The unions should be righteously outraged.
She's ruining Christmas!


If I were a Christian, I'd get back into her good graces, so that I could tell little Johnny the truth, and try to heal some of the damage her cotton-wool ideas are doing.


But I am not, and I don't really care if little Johnny doesn't 'get it'.


I'm not that fond of children anyway. Not hers.


Christmas shouldn't be about gifts.


Perhaps about goats.


Red goats




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ARE YOUR RELATIVES HAVING A BLACK ORGY?

Vast hordes of murderous shoppers descended growling on the mall, overwhelming the severely outnumbered security staff. Whom they ripped into tiny shreds with the spike-heels on their Manolo Blahniks. Like a swarm of fire ants they overran the place, leaving nothing but mayhem and despair in their wake.

Thus began the great Black Friday Zombie Orgy.

At least, that is how I fondly imagine the scene in Union Square and the various shopping centra of the Bay Area, at approximately half an hour after turkey this past Thursday evening. In this scenario, all of those places now resemble charnel houses, with twitching corpses ambulating glassy-eyed among the fabulous bargains, and scraps of flesh adhering to door jams, lintels, clothing racks, and battered shelving.

This blogger does not participate in shopping frenzies.

I've got better things to do than slash ferociously with my credit cards, disemboweling other women in my furious assault on the whimpering sales clerks.

I am a man, not a woman. I do not disembowel.
Men are gentle souls. Women aren't.
Not after Thanksgiving.


Right about now, at around nine o'clock on a Saturday evening, you are wondering where in hell your wife and daughters are. You also have other female relatives, like maiden aunties, and various in-laws, but you've given up on them; they're galumphing across the retail savanna in pursuit of terrified shmatte, blingities, and trinkets. But despite their cannibalistic tendencies, you still care bout your wife and daughters.
You are vested in them, as it were.
And their horrid habits.


If you are reading this, you are in the house alone. It is dark and oh so quiet, the television is off, and you're wondering if you should reheat some stuffing, or break off a piece of frozen three cheese pizza.
Which tastes perfectly fine dipped in Ranch Dressing.


Later, long after you have retired for the night, the women will return. Giddy from the hunt, as well as exhilarated from feeding on corpses, they will stumble in, waking the neighbors and making the dogs howl.
Blood-spattered, as if witnesses to a mid-winter sacrifice.
Torn clothing, glowing eyes, and red red talons.
They have won the war, huzzah.
More tomorrow.


Three more weeks!


AFTER WORD

In the past three decades I've worked both the retail and accounting side of the Holiday Season. Personally, I think most Americans are bonkers. Christmas carols are musical garbage, no one needs all that glittery crap, there's too much mediocre chocolate, and mob-shopping is an absolute drag.
Decide what you will give them all, whiz in, grab it and pay, get out.
Five minutes per gift. Even if you have a hundred greedy kinfolk,
that really should not take more than eight hours.
Less than two if you're efficient.

To really simplify things, just buy everyone a bottle of Tequila.
Even, most particularly, the teenagers and old people.
The young and decrepit have simple tastes.


Stocking up for the Holidays means lots of frozen convenience food, and several bags of high-sodium snacks. Perhaps a generator, and a hundred boxes of cartridges. Plus Ranch Dressing.
The living dead are out there.


Hello Kitty also figures into this, but I don't know how.
Maybe she is 'The Spirit of Christmas Feral'.



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THE QUIET AFTER CHRISTMAS

The week after Christmas is always enjoyable and quiet at work. Last year, after a few slow hours, I would head into Chinatown for lunch. Which is something I will do again this year.

Off on the twentysixth (probably at the office nevertheless), working half-days Tuesday through Friday.
Leave at two P.M. C'town by 2:20. Fed by 3.

Thinking in terms of wonton noodle soup at least once.
It's perfect coldweather food.

Of course, what I would far rather be doing is curling up on a couch with a hot beverage and another person, underneath a nice warm comforter.
Got the comforter.
Zero on person.
And no couch.

Perhaps I should just bring my comforter or a blanket down to the office and lie in front of the reception area teevee watching cartoons all afternoon.
With a nice hot beverage.
It will be very quiet.
Nobody's working more than two half-days between Xmas and New Year.
If it weren't for building security, the smoke detectors, and the sprinkler system, I could probably also get away with smoking my pipe.

Smoking outdoors in frigid weather is not entirely enjoyable.


Really, I don't know how Santa does it - in illustrations he's always pictured with a pipe. Perhaps he has on two sets of long underwear. Lots of insulation.
Happy nudity does not appear to be part of Santa's world, and the concept of a hot tub or steam room at the North Pole, with a mob of those bandy-legged elves unwinding, is not a pretty mental sight.
Their locker room probably smells nasty.
I bet all of them have scratchy red long johns.
Probably itchy rashes on their bottoms because of it.
No nice silken skin, warm and velvety, but dry and chapped.
Whoever came up with the idea of a whole bunch of unshaven height-impaired middle-aged gentlemen all bunking together with a large elderly (and eccentric!) fat dude in the frozen wastelands had a hyper-active imagination and a very, VERY sick mind.
There's something frightfully English about the whole thing.
Unpleasantly reminiscent of the public schools.
Foodwise, it's probably horrible too.
Reindeer sausages every day.
No vegetables, or seafood.
British digestive issues.
And boiled penguins.


Certainly puts my lack of a couch and another person in perspective. At least I'm not forced to associate with a bunch of short ugly men all the time.
And I get to eat wonton noodle soup in Chinatown.



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SELF-RIGHTEOUS GENTILE

There’s a video, produced by an Israeli comedy group, that has a funny take on Christians being slaughtered in the Muslim world.
No, I shall not direct you to it, as the humour is both juvenile and meanspirited.
Besides, like previous 'amusing' videos produced by that group it has probably already been sent to you by several well-intentioned friends.

I had the temerity to criticize that video on a mailing list.

Somehow the idea that anyone saw something amusing in Muslims killing Christians, and would use a song associated with a Christian holiday to poke fun at such murders, did not seem like very good Hasbara to me.
That they would then circulate their video to coincide with that very same Christian holiday seemed like an even worse idea.
That those comedians are beloved by the same people in Israel who play America and the Christian world for a bunch of freiers was bitter icing on the cake.

The point I tried to make was that the video could be taken the wrong way, especially by people who were relatively uninformed OR not already favourably inclined - not good for the cause, and potentially damaging to our side.
We should be aware that things will often be misinterpreted.
Perhaps that video should not have been made.

The reactions were odd.


DEAD PEOPLE ARE FUNNY!

According to one writer, I missed crucial distinctions in the video.

A second insisted that the comedian chiefly responsible was very talented, and had accurately expressed what Jihadis were planning for all Christmas-observant infidels.

Someone else privately averred that “humor has been as much a part of our Jewish heritage and survival as the TORAH, SHABBAT and G-D" (all of which are things I have no clue about, btw), and also that I had absolutely failed to understand the parody, and I truly missed the deepest point!
Every one else 'got it'.
She felt sorry for me.


A third contributor vehemently wishes the entire list to know that I had absolutely NO sense of humour, and that criticizing what was clearly hysterically funny satire was proof that it went over my head. My take on the video was so sick and hateful, indeed, that she half expected me to start screaming that the Jews killed Christ, she was horribly offended by what I had said - she then brought up the Crusades, the Inquisition, Pogroms, and the Holocaust.....


And further, in addition to being twisted and offensive, I am also a "self-righteous Gentile".

That last comment is a darn good phrase.

I think I'll keep it.


[Not only a "self righteous Gentile", but as per previous communications, "f***ed up, neurotic, dysfunctional, delusional", a "raving hypocrite", and 'sorely lacking neshomeh'. Evenso, I'll stick with 'Self-Righteous Gentile'. It truly says it all.]

-----ATBOTH, s.r.g.



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NOTE: Readers may contact me directly:
LETTER BOX.
All correspondence will be kept in confidence.
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FOX WAR ON CHRISTMAS!

Courtesy of an anonymous commenter on Dovbear's blog, we now know that FOX Broadcasting are a bunch of atheist, liberal, G-d-h-ting, Marxist, secular humanists.

Bill O'Reilly (the pope of FOX) insists that ONLY enemies of Christmas will wish people happy holidays and refer to the season as 'holiday' or 'the holidays' instead of calling a spade a spade.
In O'Reilly's world, bugger everyone who has different traditions, it's Christmas, guddammit.


What the anonymous commenter brought to light was this:

"HOLIDAY MUST HAVES FROM THE FOX SHOP!"http://shop.ecompanystore.com/foxnews/FOX_shop.asp


What?
The pope of FOX (Bill O'Reilly) is either a hypocrite or a dunce - his own church (pardon, "employer") has joined the WAR ON CHRISTMAS!

Fie! Fie! Fie!


[From WIKIPEDIA: "...the concept of a modern-day "War on Christmas" only became widely discussed in the United States and Canada during the first few years of the 2000s decade, often credited particularly to an exposure of the issue by American commentator Bill O'Reilly.
The claim among Brimelow, O'Reilly, and later a variety of prominent media figures and others was that any specific mention of the term "Christmas" or its religious aspects was being increasingly censored, avoided, or discouraged by a number of advertisers, retailers, government (prominently schools), and other public and secular organizations."
SOURCE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_Christmas]

Given that Bill O'Reilly is certainly NO poster boy for Christian values, being a narrow-minded hateful right-wing s.o.b. with a foul temper (oh wait, never mind......... ).......... !

Strike that. Different tack.


Look, Bill, I accept that you and your evil masters at FOX are spineless and ethically deprived. Really. We treasure you people for being folks we can comfortably feel much better than.
That counts for very much, and we're grateful.

BUT COULD YOU AT LEAST TRY TO BE CONSISTENT??!!??

For instance, if one week you're gonna advocate that all not-quite-humans be encouraged to have abortions, and the next week you praise anti-abortionists, you can't blame us if we don't quite understand what you're thinking.

As another less than hypothetical example, if one of you avers that the poor are getting rich by screwing the system, and another one of you follows that by screaming that the system is gonna impoverish us all it's the apocalypse run fer the hills maw, shouldn't we be a little confused?

What do you really mean?


So also with the War on Christmas.
Or the War on the War on Christmas.
Or even the War against the War on the War on Christmas.

If, because of greed and an understandable desire to join in the bleeding of suckers which is traditional around this time of year, you join in on the War on Christmas, and call it the 'holiday', or 'holidays', surely you are sending mixed messages?


You can't have it both ways. Either you are outraged, furiously outraged(!) at the mercantile exploitation of sweet little baby Jesus' very own special magic joy-joy time, OR you are guilty of buying into the whole midwinter Germano-Celtic pine tree and fatman feast, trying to squeeze every last drop of lucre out of all the non-sectarians who aren't going to church on Christmas Eve because they need to hide expensive stuff under a decorated fire hazard in their living room.
It's one or the other.

Show some backbone, Billy. Some gumption. Go down there Billy and burn the gift shop down! Damn them for speaking of "Holiday Must Haves", damn them all. Curse them and their children and their children's children, and cast them out into the cold. Pitchforks and torches, pitchforks and torches - it's a matter of principle! Expunge them, Billy, show them what real Christians think of their vile opportunism. Be foul tempered. Possibly violent.
We know you can do it.
They're besmirching the holy name of FOX and innocent wee floofy Jesus and all that is good.

Money changers in the temple, Billy. Money changers in the temple.

THE OBLIGATORY CHRISTMAS EVE POST

Now that the yuletide smarm has crested, and only the letdown is left (yes, I'm talking about the fact that many people did not get the pricy plastic crap for which they pined), I suppose I should mention what Christmas means to me.


Miserable weather.

Growing up in Valkenswaard (a small burg in the Dutch province of North-Brabant), the Christmas season was always marked by drear, fog, rain, gloom, mist, sleet, howling winds, and influenza.


And midnight mass.


We never went, but we could hear them. Our house was on the south-western corner of the market square, the Saint Nicholas church was diagonally opposite. Sometimes snow would muffle the sound, but more often not. The climate has changed, and the famous wintry vistas of the mediaeval masters have long ceased to be the dominant visual in the Netherlands.


Catholicism in the regions south of the three rivers has long been vestigial, a matter of pride and stubbornness more than anything else (except, of course, for pockets of verkramptheid such as produced that bitter anti-Semite former prime minister Andries van Agt).
Most Catholics remember that their parents and grandparents were more or less second class citizens, in practice barred from high position and public office, and with few avenues for education or advancement.
For two centuries after the eighty year war against Spain the church of Rome was banned, and services were held in secret. For that entire time, the Catholic hierarchy of the Netherlands was subject to Calvinist meddling and sabotage, except in nominally separate territories such as Ravenstein.
The regions of Brabant and Limburg were conquered territories (Generality Lands) administered directly from the Hague, not to be re-incorporated or granted rights until the remainder of both provinces had been freed. Which was not part of the program. Not until the nineteenth century did the Calvinists come to terms with the fact that over one third of the Dutch were, in fact, resolutely not Calvinist.

During that period, Catholicism survived. A stubborn and stunted folk-Catholicism, from the ground up rather than from the top down. Defensive, quiet, and hidden from official view.
Catholic faith flourished in the context of the Schutters Gilden - the militia guilds of the small towns and villages in the Meiery of Den Bosch. Most of the guilds were named after the patron saint of the community, and served as loan society, social safety net, and burial society, in the absence of other organizations. During the eighteenth and early nineteenth century, members invested generously in guild silver - plaques, beakers, and such like - both as a means of adding glory to their civitat, and to build capital. Many guilds consequently had impressive hoards of silver, the accumulation of generations.


Which, once the Catholic church was legal again, it energetically set about robbing.


The edifice of the church in Brabant and Limburg is founded upon priestly theft and official connivance.


One can perhaps understand why when the Pope visited the Netherlands, security precautions had to be better than when Hirohito came. Historically, the natives have a bone to pick. Rome betrayed them in the fifteen hundreds, in the sixteen hundreds, in the eighteen hundreds, and in the nineteen hundreds. And denied that they existed during the seventeen hundreds.
There is a history there.


The guilds still flourish, and still serve as the focus of much civic life. They have again amassed silver. The pride in Outer en Heerd (altar and hearth - the two fundaments of small town identity) is stronger than ever. The men of the guilds, on the feast-days of their patron saint still march into THEIR church, with their antiquated weapons and their banners, to the rolling thunder of war drums. It is truly a stirring spectacle.

It might be the only time many of them have actually been there that year.

They dislike the priest, regard the church functionaries as leeches, and genuinely despise the entire foreign branch of the church as thieves, meddlers, and arrogant busybodies.

But on Christmas eve, as per ancient custom, they will once more go to church. And utterly diminish whatever message the padre chose to deliver with the glory of their singing.

THE CHRISTMAS LOBSTER IS A RACIST!

On Saturday night Savage Kitten and I retired shortly after dinner. We were both wide awake. Now, a normal person would probably be single-mindedly overjoyed to have an unclothed silky-skinned Cantonese-American female lying next to him...... young, fresh, inviting......
I, however, made the mistake of committing small talk. One of the things I mentioned was the blood-relation several generations ago who threw pork chops at his wife.

This novel information fascinated her. She promptly asked me for details that I did not have (even if I knew the details, I wasn't really interested in divulging them at that time, but no matter).


Were they cooked pork chops? Raw? What kind of chops, and what kind of pig? How large, and how fresh? Juicy? Well-marbled at least?
These seemed to be VERY IMPORTANT considerations to her.
Cantonese-American girls are passionate about food, by the way. Not the kind of passion I was looking for, but that was my mistake.

She wondered whether there was a message on, or in, the chops. Perhaps written on them, in protein-based ink, an endearing message like "I love you", "do me!", or "sauce". This would be starkly visible after cooking. And how did he throw them? Like a Frisbee? An underhand toss? A smart whip of the arm? A casually flick of the wrist?

"Perhaps it was his way of showing affection. No? Maybe a family tradition, or a regional custom?"

Well, no, I don't think it was a family tradition. Really, the person who could've answered all those questions would have been my late brother......

"What, you mean that Tobias was the only one who knew these crucial details? What kind of family doesn't ask about the customs of their own ancestors?!? There are traditions involved, for heaven's sakes!!!"

...

"Really, you should try to find out more about the pork chop thrower. The idea that he was a butcher with an excess of meat just doesn't cut it! What did his wife do in response?"

The information that the wife of porkchopman was a recluse who kept the shutters closed and the gaslight on all day drew a sneering speculation that pork chops hardly require darkness, and perhaps the woman went around the house gleefully reveling in lardy surfaces.
Savage Kitten made no bones about her opinion that there was a flaw in my character for not wanting to talk about all this at great length.


Early this morning she awoke me with a brilliant idea for a new family tradition. Probably to replace the lost pork chop flinging custom.



THE CHRISTMAS LOBSTER

As she explained it, the Christmas Lobster scuttles around on December 24th to reward good little children with his Generous Claw of Plenty, showering them with sweets and crustaceans. Obviously this is much much better than some fat old pervert in a red bekeshe visiting kinderlech in secret during the night - that merely makes them buy into the patriarchal value system, frightens the very young, and does nothing for people who are not wasps.
The Christmas Lobster, with his Generous Claw of Plenty, is perfect for Cantonese-Americans. Apparently he favours little Cantonese-American girls especially. He is non-threatening.


He also has the Dreadful Claw of Punishment. With which he snips off the heads of bad children.

"So there is a scary side to this after all?"

I guess I should've expected the answer I got to that question.

"Oh no, because all Cantonese little girls are sweet and good, and richly deserving of candies and seafood, and should get EVERYTHING they wish for. The only ones who have anything to fear are little boys. Especially nasty little white boys."

Frankly, I am appalled at the racism. I would've said something, but in the back of my head was the knowledge that if I objected in any way at all, she would use the special relationship that good Cantonese girls have with the Christmas Lobster against me.
There's this thing called the Dreadful Claw of Punishment..........
Santa Claus ain't got nuttin' on this.


Even his reindeer are a bunch of wimps.

SCHOOLGIRLS FOR CHRISTMAS!

Note: the following is a post which disappeared. Or so it seemed. Lets just say I put it in the wrong place. And feel somewhat foolish in consequence - not an unusual state of mind, I'm afraid. I re-discovered it by falling into the wrong hole. So I'm 'reposting' it here, with the original date, so that it is in the correct sequence.
------B.O.T.H. 01/10/2008

------------------------------

Yesterday, in case you weren't aware, was kretchmutch. So around the Toad and Savage Kitten household, life was calm and peaceful.

Instead of singing insipid carols, stuffing our gobs with sugary goodies, endlessly chewing dry bits of the stupidest bird in the world, and frantically hugging ugly relatives we see only once a year, or watching THE WORST TELEVISION PROGRAMMING EVER ...
[ ... have you SEEN the selection of "Christmas Movies" that are shown ad-nauseum? Lawz-sakes, enough to turn any one into a Christian-hating Christmas-bashing Church-burning Crèche-overturning violent pinko revolutionary - they really ought to tone done their shmaltz and saccharine broadcast-vomit, if only to keep civilized people from wanting to see every single broad-cast executive lynched........ ]

But I digress.

So anyhow, instead of indulging in practices appropriate to a Wasp-trailer park at this festive time, the Toad and the Savage Kitten read all day.

Finished the entire collection of Azu Manga Daioh.
[Azu Manga Daioh: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azumanga_Daioh It's a Japanese comic strip focusing on the lives of six Japanese high-school girls. Very funny, and quite charming.]

One of the characters at the fictional high-school which all the main characters attend is Ayumu Kasuga (春日歩, Kasuga Ayumu), about whom you would do well to read up in Wikipedia, if only for the absolute gibberish that some non-English-speaking gormling pasted into the biography of the character.

It's worth quoting in full (especially as it may get corrected really soon, and then you wouldn't know what I non-sequitoured into).

"She's back in when nerds collide She discover the talking cat that was killed by flippy so he told osaka that the do not speak man henry hale is controling david chadwick's hearing in the voice of tom spango osaka finds the suitcase of this plane but the breafcase knocks osaka down chyio-chion found it osaka meets chiyo-chion from azumanga daioh she takes chingy's car and drives they come in the vilage by the real don't no not or Nothing fear They've got captured they decided their fate Henry sherrif hale (Bill Pullman) Rule that osaka and chiyo stay but they may never leave but suddenly mayaa bites off henry's neck mayaa joins osaka and chyio so they all escape the village they have been takend by the tripods."

[Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayumu_Kasuga]

It's sorta zen, isn't it? By which I mean baffling as all git-out. Can someone please explain it? Thanks.

For a good introduction to both the characters, and insane Japanese teeny-bopper girlie-band music, watch the opening credits to the anime here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gawNjcnVfIM&feature=related.
[Pay attention to the lyrics - they make especially little sense: "Every day, the fluffy temptation of wheat".]

Here's Osaka-san in the best 'girl with a cleaver' scene ever:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xv6IZHEIQwA&feature=related
[Osaka-san is given to periods of not being fully awake. She sleeps in class a lot - her dreams are often a basis for the humour of the show.]

And regarding everybody's favourite perverted high-school teacher, this compilation of the best of Kimura Sensei:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ftAMtTH6mKQ
["Why did you become a teacher?" ... "Cuz I like high-school girls and stuff!!!!!"]

In addition to Azumanga Daioh, Savage Kitten also read some novella about a disastrous marriage - one of the characters tells another that as far as divorce and adultery are concerned, there's a 'get-out-of-jail-free card' somewhere in Mathew. Savage Kitten asked me about that, and if I ever find my copy of the New Testament, she's welcome to read all of it to find where and if it mentions that subject. I cannot remember Mathew saying anything about it, but it's been quite a while since I delved into the Christian Subsequentia.

One of my friends had what was probably the perfect Christmas Eve. He attended midnight mass at Notre Dame Des Victoires (the French eglise near Chinatown). Not because he's religious, or wanted to feed the side of his personality that yearns for meaning especially at Christmas time. His reason was much more understandable and prosaic.

In one word: French school girls wearing uniforms

OVERWEIGHT PERVERT IN A RED BEKESHE!

During the last winter my parents spent in the US (1961), they finally gave in to the pressure from the neighbors to troll up the outside of the house for the season.

The entire street, nay, the entire neighborhood, had for years done up their houses with lights, glowing santas, electronic fir-trees, fake snow (because real snow seldom falls in the Los Angeles area), nativity scenes of varying degrees of ghast, balls, candles, holly, and similar expressions of fervor and fanaticism.

Let us not talk about bad taste.

So, in honour of the season, my parents placed a giant egg on the crest of the roof. With three brontosaurii heading towards it from the east.

Which, along with the dessicated wreath from several years earlier, were left up till we left for Europe in summer.

I do not decorate for Christmas.

We have a 'holiday tree' in the lobby of the office. I decided, probably for the best, that my collection of voodoo dolls would probably be inappropriate ornaments - even though we were told that we could decorate it however we wanted.

See, I am diplomatic, despite what some people say.

I've been telling every fellow-wasp who wishes me a merry Christmas to have a happy kwanzaa. It throws them for a loop to hear that from someone so white that he glows in the dark. You can hear the mental gears whirring for several minutes after. Exercise is good for them, especially at this time of year.

Given that I work in a Christmas-thriving industry (so economically Christmas-oriented, but not ideologically xmas dependent), you will just have to forgive me a certain level of bah-humbugitty. I've been totally yuled under since September. I have nothing good to say about that overweight pervert in the red bekeshe.

THE WAR ON CHRISTMAS - POSTSCRIPT

According to certain nameless dunces (Tom Wildmon, Bill O'Reilly, and Jerry Falwell, et al), some of us "secular liberal Soddom and Gomorrah loving atheists" have been waging a war on Christmas.

So they declared war on us.

Well, we had been nicely sleeping, but we woke up in time to see them lose that war like they're losing Iraq.

Christmas is a weapon of mass destruction.


I'm not quite sure, but I think some of us SLSGLAs spoke out against the nameless dunces (Tom Wildmon, Bill O'Reilly, and Jerry Falwell, et al).
Which was kinda waging war on the war against the war on Christmas.

The reason I'm not sure is 'cause the nameless dunces (Tom Wildmon, Bill O'Reilly, and Jerry Falwell, et al) kept shooting themselves in the foot, so it was hard to see if any of our potshots hit home.


Bless their hearts, as they say in the south. Bless their hearts.

I believe that usually means "don't bring that bitch into mah kitchen if ya wanna live, boy". Or something like that. Equally appropriate.


At this point, Christmas gives me bile. Christians give me bile. G-d mentioned on tv gives me bile. The phrase "happy holidays" gives me bile.

Sacharine sentiments about peace and love and forgiveness give me bile.


Heck, at this point, cute little puppies give me bile. Please kill them with an axe. Or wring their miserable little necks. And furry kittens too.

I'm not filled with hate. I'm filled with bile.

----- ----- -----

Read a shiur a while back that argued that hate was a good thing. It was very convincing. Cannot remember the name of the author.

Moses hated. Abraham hated. If Lot had hated, it would have been better for him.