Thursday, December 30, 2010

TOMBSTONE & BISBEE, AIRHEADZONA - NOVEMBER, 2010

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CONSARN IT ALL -- THAT DOES IT!!
This is the LAST thing I'm gonna post on this blog this year!
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It's December 31, 2010, I'm sitting here at this computer in Phoenix, Airheadzona, and outside it's colder than I can ever remember it being in the 15 awful years I've been living here.
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There is frost on my lawn and on all the rooftops in my neighborhood and yesterday I heard multiple reports of snowflakes falling in North and West Phoenix. Forget Tiny Tim having a second Top-40 hit song, if snowflakes in Phoenix isn't a sign of the End-Times I don't know what would be!
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Yeah, this may not sound much like "Winter Weather" to those of you in the Mid-West and back East, but believe me, for us Central Airheadzonans, this is freakin' bizarre! I've been going around saying, "But it's a DRY cold."
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So, with frost on my roof and The End Of The World just around the corner (well, a man can hope, can't he?), I've decided to post some photographs I took recently.
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One weekend late last month, my buddy DiscConnected (also known as DiscConnected) and I took a quick run down to Tombstone and Bisbee. I snapped a bunch of pictures along the way. Nothing "artistic", nuttin' fancifully or funkily framed - just snapshots to compile a photographic record of where we'd done been at. Here's a sample of stuffs I photography-ed:
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Between Tucson and Tombstone is an old Western movie set called Mescal. On our way to Tombstone, DiscConnected and I stopped long enough for me take a few pictures. Some of the many Western movies that have been filmed here include 'The Outlaw Josie Wales' starring Clint Eastwood, 'Tombstone' starring Val Kilmer, the original 'Monte Walsh' with Lee Marvin and Jack Palance (the story of my life), and the mindbogglingly bad 'The Quick And The Dead' starring Sharon Stone as Clint Eastwood:
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Later that day, DiscDude and I checked into the Larian Motel which boasts of "large clean rooms", "vacancies" and "lodgings". I didn't see any vacancies or lodgings, but the square we stayed in was medium-sized, clean, and definitely a room:
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When DiscDude and I checked in at the Larian, the female desk clerk asked us if we wanted one King size bed or two Queens. We both shouted simultaneously, "Two Queens!" It's kind of ironic when two guys shouting "Two Queens!" are in fact casting unmistakable, unequivocal votes for heterosexuality.
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Not that there's anything wrong with homosexuality . . . except, you know, like what The Bible says about it being an "abomination" an' all that.
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The next morning, DiscDude told me, "Your snoring has a good rhythm, you can dance to it."
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Of course, if you haven't been in The Bird Cage Theatre, then you haven't been in Tombstone. While Virginia City, Nevada, and Bodie, California, are my two favorite Old West towns, The Bird Cage Theatre is my single favorite Old West "artifact". It was opened in 1881 and it was closed and boarded up on Christmas Eve in 1889. Then one day in the Twentieth Century, the owner unboarded it, and simply opened it up to the public as the most authentic Old West museum possible. It looked just as it did the night it closed in 1889:
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This is the front bar area of The Bird Cage Theatre:
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An 1880s jukebox:
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The belly-dancer Fatima once performed on The Bird Cage stage and later donated a painting of herself to the theatre. Despite a bullet hole or two and a knife cut in it, the painting still hangs in the same place it did in the 1880s. You go, girl! Shake yo' money-maker! . . .
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An 1880s bullet hole in a post of the Bird Cage Bar:
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Inside the Theatre (they recreated it nearly identically in the movie 'Tombstone') . . .
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The Theatre's stage curtain boasts, "Tombstone: Pure water - Good Schools - Wonderful climate". No mention of the large clean rooms, the vacancies and lodgings:
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Below is a photograph looking down a creepy hallway that leads to the second story "Bird Cage" cribs overhanging the stage. It was while peering down this same hallway through a knothole in 1991 or so, that my then-girlfriend, the Countess, felt someone run their finger down the back of her calf. I was the only other person in the Theatre at the time, and I was on the opposite side of the stage. Weren't me! . . .
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In the basement of the Theatre, below the stage, there is a gambling room. It was here that the longest-running poker game took place. The game went on continuously - nonstop - night and day, for years. Various gamblers came and went but the game played on:
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DiscDude and I paused for a little liquid refreshment at The Crystal Palace Saloon. Oh, look! Someone left a glass of Grand Marnier on the rocks right in front of the spot where I'm sitting. I might as well drink it, I guess - would hate to see a glass of Gramar go to waste. (Don't you just love bartenders? You ask them for things and they bring them to you.) . . .
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Later that night, we went to Ringo's Place (I think that was the name of the Place), and I got to see my buddy karaoke. He sang Helen Reddy's 'I Am Woman', and boy could that dude "roar".
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OK, I better tell you the song DiscDude really sang or he will knock my block off the next time I see him. He did Bruce Springsteen's '10th Avenue Freeze-Out'. Sorry, no pictures. I'd post 'em if I had 'em.
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The next morning, just before getting out of Dodge . . . er, Tombstone, that is . . . DiscDude and I managed to remember to stroll by that place where those long gone gunmen did that thing that made this town world famous. Yup, here's The OK Corral, the place where they plugged 'em:
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Having had our fill of Tombstone, DiscDude and I drove down to Bisbee, a funky little town with skinny little streets that cling to the side of a mountain near the Mexico border:
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Below the Silver King Hotel is a bicycle shop. DiscDude went in and bought some part for his bicycle while I went next door to the "Art"sy-Fartsy store and purchased a new flea collar for Ariel O. O'Airedale, my dog of a girlfriend:
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Back in June of 2009, I read the cover story of the Phoenix New Times about some local artist named Rose Johnson who had gone to Bali, fallen in love with some guy (who looked more female than she did, if you ask me), married him and then disappeared. Murder it seems.
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Evidently Rose Johnson was very fond of posing sans clothes, and even the photograph used on the New Times cover for the story 'The Legacy Of Rose Johnson' by Kathleen Vanesian featured the "artiste" in her art studio and naked as an unpainted canvas:
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After reading the article and looking at samples of Rose Johnson's "art" and being very unimpressed, I couldn't resist taking my ballpoint pen and writing down her front leg: The "artist" is naked. The "artist" has no clothes on. Yeah, I'm clever that way. I should be made emperor!
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However, although Rose Johnson's "art" didn't really do anything for me, there was something about her mural painted on the side of the Jonquil Motel in Bisbee that did appeal to me; probably her choice and use of colors. So, I made up my mind that if I ever found myself in Bisbee again (I'd been there twice before), I would search for and photograph Johnson's Jonquil Motel mural.
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It's funny though - when DiscDude and I were there, I didn't have to search for the motel at all, it just kind of appeared in front of us on the hillside while we were looking for a gas station:
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"Federico Garcia Lorca"? I order his omelette everytime I eat at The Sidewalk Cafe in Venice Beach, California!
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Well, that pretty much covers it, my dear reader(s?) I have taken you from a Western movie set to a medium-sized clean room with vacancies and lodgings, to the bowels of the Bird Cage Theatre, to a glass of Gramar on the rocks in an old saloon, to the site of the most famous gunfight in history, to a bicycle shop in Bisbee, to a mural by a naked emper-- er, a naked "artist". What more could you ask for? I mean, at this price?
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And that concludes this broadcasting year for the blog 'STUFFS'. I hope you enjoyed 2010's blog bits as much as I didn't, and we'll Yak Later, Y'all.
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Stay safe tonight; remember that drunks like me will be out on the roads! And whatever you do - if you survive New Year's Eve - don't forget to have a Margarita or two tomorrow on Margarita Day - "A tradition since 1986 (except for 1994)".
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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Wednesday, December 29, 2010

THE TINY TIM WISHING POND - 2010

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Another Christmas Day has come and gone, and a few more Wishes for a Second Tiny Tim Top-Forty Hit Song have been sent into the universe to do their work.

Hopefully YOU are one of those good-hearted, fun-loving souls who joined my brother Napoleon and me in making a wish for Tiny Tim on December the 25th.
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If you ARE one of those good-hearted, fun-loving souls, I thank you for your assistance. And if you are NOT one of those type of persons and therefore you DID not make a wish for Tiny Tim, then I can only hope that someday you will rediscover your lost inner child and again find your "Sense Of Fun" (assuming you ever had one . . . which you probably didn't and so you can't find what hasn't been lost and your finding your lost Sense Of Fun is a lost cause and I have no idea why you are reading this blog which is so fun-filled when you ain't and was that a run-on sentence or two?)
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Below are some photos I took at "the body of water" that Brother Nappy and I have been using to make our Christmas Day Tiny Tim wishes for over a decade. This "Wishing Pond" is located on the back dining patio of the Park Central Deli located at the Park Central Mall located in the downtown Phoenix, Airheadzona, area. (Yeah, you know the place I'm yakkin' about.)
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The Park Central Deli and its pond is just west of The Good Egg restaurant . . .
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Uhm . . . I said just WEST of this place . . .
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OK, that's better.
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Yes, pictured above is the "Tiny Tim Wishing Pond" (although the employees at the Park Central Deli probably don't refer to it by that name).
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This year I made my tiny Tiny wish with a brand new, shiny 2010 penny . . .
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I tossed my penny in and now it sleeps with the fishes . . .
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[Will someone please explain to me how a "cartoon" fish got into that pond with all those REAL fishes? Look at that fishface staring up at the camera. That's freakin' CREEPY!]
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Here's another view of The Tiny Tim Wishing Pond . . .
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And lastly, here's a photo of a very satisfied frog relaxing on his very own island in The Tiny Tim Wishing Pond . . .
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Ahhh . . . It's a frog's life!
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Well, I hope your Christmas was satisfying if not relaxing. Again, I thank all of you who made tiny wishes for Tiny Tim. And to those of you who didn't: Thhppbbhhttt...! May the Dog Of Unhappiness mark your territory and chew up your TV remote!
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~ Stephen T. McCarthy
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Stephen T. McCarthy’s XMAS XTRAVAGANZA & YULETIDE YARD SALE

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["Merry Christmas" from my front door to your refrigerator door.]
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In the style of Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends’ “Sex, Tattoos & Violence R Us” series, I have decided to post my Christmas blog bit in one big, heterogeneous chunk; we’ll call it “A Christmas Conglomeration”. So here goes. Put on your Santa hat and don’t drink too much Christmas spirits or you won’t be able to keep up with the quick subject shifts:

WHAT I WANT FOR CHRISTMAS
All I want for Christmas is my . . . 15 minutes of fame.

THE CHRISTMAS CURSING
Newspaper journalist, Dave Walker, once wrote, "In countless homes around the world, the Christmas season doesn't officially start until Linus shuffles to center stage, raises a finger and says, ‘Lights, please’.”

That may be true, but for about 7 years prior to 2002, the Christmas season for me officially started when I cursed the man who had lived in my house prior to my moving in. You see, every year I would string the Christmas lights on the outside of my house along the same hooks that the former owner had installed. I had never met that guy, but I still cursed him.

I would be lying on my stomach on the roof and trying to attach the strands of Christmas lights onto the hooks that the former owner had inserted underneath the roof’s overhang. It was nearly impossible to see the hooks, all I could do was feel for them with my fingers underneath the roof.

But that son-of-a-gun, rather than installing the hooks so they were all facing one way, he had put them in facing two different directions. Sometimes it took me a full minute to “feel” which way the hook faced, before I could even begin the process of trying to attach the lights while I was lying upside down and hanging slightly off the roof.

So every year I’d find myself in that precarious position, feeling around for the hook and trying to determine which way it faced, and at some point I would always say something like, “Damn that guy who put these hooks in!”

And then one year it dawned on me how funny it was that, for me, the Christmas season “officially” began the moment I cursed the former owner of my house – whoever and wherever he was. I moved into my present home in 2002, and I haven’t cursed that poor guy since then. I wonder if he misses it.
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[A mysterious Christmas Tree near the center of Arizona, an elf's toss from Cordes Junction.]
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A CHRISTMAS GREETING FROM THE SO-CALLED "DEAD"
In an older blog bit here at ‘Stuffs’ titled “Home In Heaven But I Ain’t Got No Cigarettes”, I told y’all how my Pa, who passed away in 1996, has sometimes communicated or made contact with me from the “beyond”, and usually by way of Nat King Cole songs. Well, I’m not going to retell that whole story here, but if anyone wants to revisit it, I will provide a link to that old blog bit at the bottom of this one.

I’m just going to assume you know the story about my Pa (wherever he lives now) and our Nat King Cole connection and relate to you one of the communications I received one Christmas Day years ago. But first, I’ll give you a few examples of how this thing has worked in the past. These illustrations are taken from my old Spiritual Journal where I used to record my dreams and meditation experiences:

On February 17, 1997, I had gone to the meeting of a spiritual study group I was then a member of. On the way to the church, for some unknown reason, I felt compelled to change the radio station I had been listening to in my truck for at least three continuous months. I switched from KAHM (elevator “muzak” broadcasted from Prescott, Airheadzona) to KOY (a Phoenix station that plays old standards and big band music).

At the conclusion of our 'A Search For God' meeting, we all did our customary group meditation practice. While I was meditating, I suddenly saw very vividly in my mind a vision of me standing in one spot with some streams of very sparkling powdery substance shooting up around me and then falling softly and glitteringly down around and over me. I mentally asked myself, “What is this? What is this stuff?” And immediately I heard my inner voice answer the question: “Stardust”.

I had no idea what any of that meant – why I had seen it, why I had heard my voice call it “Stardust”. But the group meditation brought our meeting to an end and we all said our goodbyes for another week and then walked to our vehicles in the church parking lot. The moment the engine of my truck turned over – the truck that had actually belonged to my Pa before he passed away – the radio came on and a song was playing. I drove for a couple of blocks before it hit me like a ton of bricks: The song that was playing was “Stardust” and the singer was Nat King Cole!

Here’s another similar experience copied word-for-word from my Spiritual Journal:
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May 31, 1997Had another experience with Pa, involving the radio. I was in his truck and listening to something on the radio when I suddenly felt I would put on his old station KOY with the big band music. Just before I changed it, this popped into my mind: “If Nat King Cole is singing when I change this station then Pa is with me NOW!” And sure enough, I changed the station just in time to catch about the last minute or so of Nat King Cole singing “That Sunday, That Summer”.

OK, this next one was a bit different:
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Monday, February 26, 2001 – For 2 or 3 weeks I had intended to rent the movie, “The World According To Garp”, to see if I still hated it as much as I did when I saw it in the theater in 1982. [By the way, I did!]

But the day before, on Sunday, during my meditation session, I had suddenly heard a voice in my mind say loud and clear, “I will see you Monday”.

I had no idea WHO would see me Monday – the following day. I didn’t know what this meant at all, but due to the clarity and the confidence of the voice, I believed I was destined to have some mystical experience the next day, that I was perhaps going to have some sort of encounter with God.

For about the first two-thirds of the following day, I was paying close attention to everything that was occurring and being said around me, because I was “watching” for something strange, for something bizarre, for something unexplainable to happen. But gradually the cares and the business of the day overcame my attention to details and the “event” I was waiting for – whatever that “event” would turn out to be - just kind of slipped from my mind and I forgot all about it.

Then later that night, I finally got around to renting “The World According To Garp” and was absolutely flabbergasted when in one scene, the Garp character (played by Robin Williams) turns on his automobile’s radio and the song that plays is "There Will Never Be Another You" sung by Nat King Cole.

Evidently my Pa knew, while I was meditating, that the next day – Monday – I was finally going to get around to renting that movie I had intended to watch for weeks, and he also knew that there was a Nat King Cole song used in the movie’s soundtrack, and so, in a sense, he was able to say to me, “I will see you Monday.”

And now we’ve reached the Christmas story:

On Christmas Day in 2004, brother Nappy and I took our usual Christmas drive. It is a tradition that our Pa started when Nappy and I were young. Pa would go on a meandering drive through his old boyhood neighborhood and we would all keep our eyes open to see how many kids on brand new bicycles we could spot. Although my Pa has been gone now for 15 years, Nappy and I keep this tradition alive. It started in Southern California, but it continues today in Phoenix, Arizona.

Well, for some perfectly vague reason, I had an overwhelming sense that Nappy and I were going to somehow be contacted by our Pa while we went on our Christmas Day Drive in 2004. I can’t explain why I felt this so strongly, but it’s just something that I “knew” at some deeply intuitive place in my mind, and I told it to my Brother. I said, “Nappy, mark my words – while we are out on this drive, Pa is going to contact us somehow. We are going to hear from him in some way before we get home from this drive.” Nappy was kind of skeptical, as he should have been. I mean, how in the world would I know this, right?

So, we went on our drive to and through the downtown Phoenix area and I had the radio on. I figured that some Nat King Cole song would play – most likely his famous rendition of “The Christmas Song” – which, of course, wouldn’t really mean it was a “contact” from our Pa on “the other side” since one can almost expect to hear Cole’s “The Christmas Song” played on the radio on any Christmas Day.

At any rate, I continued to insist that we were going to hear from Pa before we got home, even right up to the point where we were driving down our own street after the Christmas Drive of perhaps an hour.

I pulled up into our driveway, Nappy and I got out of the car and entered our house, and that's when Nappy said, “Well, I guess you were wrong.”
“Yeah,” I conceded. “I was wrong. That’s weird, because I was sure we were gonna hear from Pa. Oh well.”

I then went off to do something in the living room while Nappy casually picked up the newspaper from a table and pulled out the crossword puzzle section. At one time, Nappy used to do the newspaper crossword puzzles on a regular basis, but he had gradually lost interest in them and hadn’t worked a crossword puzzle for a couple of years. But now, all of a sudden, he inexplicably felt like he wanted to do a crossword puzzle.

Nappy wasn’t working on that puzzle for more than five minutes when I heard him make an exclamation of astonishment and then he hollered for me to come into the room he was occupying.
“What do you want?” I asked him.
Nappy thrust the newspaper’s crossword puzzle into my hand and said, “Sixty, DOWN.”
I looked at the clues. Number Sixty, DOWN: “Mona Lisa” singer.
The answer? “NAT”.
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I still have that December 25, 2004 crossword puzzle in my possession. I consider it “a Christmas card” from my Pa who is living on “the other side.”

“IT’S A WONDERFUL GAME” PLAYED MERELY FOR LIGHTHEARTED AMUSEMENT [YEAH, RIGHT!]
Every Christmas Eve our family forms teams (except Nappy usually has no partner) and we play the 'It's A Wonderful Life' Trivia Game. It's all in fun, and no one takes it too seriously. Here's a list of the past winners:

1998: Rick & Sher
1999: Rick & Sher
2000: Rick & Sher
2001: Rick & Sher
2002: Rick & Sher
2003: Stephen & Ty
2004: Stephen & Ty
2005: Stephen & Ty
2006: Stephen & Ty
2007: Nappy
2008: Rick & Sher
2009: Stephen & Ty

But, you know, like who's keepin' score? It's just a very relaxing way to spend some entertaining time together, enjoying each other's company. (And we've all learned that if one wears a red shirt on Christmas Eve, the blood stains don't show very much after the game is over.)
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We’re talkin' 'bout bragging rights for an entire year here, and the degree of intensity can often reach Super Bowl levels. But, you know, it’s all in fun. This time we’re going to have to play the ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ Trivia Game on Christmas Day, since I have to work Christmas Eve. And if I don’t win again this year, I’m gonna throw another major temper tantrum! (I’ve been practicing my foot-stomping and my weeping and gnashing of teeth for weeks, just in case things don’t go my way.)
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[A photo of the “Serial Killer Santa” Christmas card I received from Lonnie Millsap in 1988.]
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THE 365 DAYS OF CHRISTMAS
For decades it has been my belief that everyone ought to leave at least one Christmas related item out in plain view all year long, just to remind oneself of Christmas and the good times that are coming – even when Christmas seems so far away because it’s August and it's 112 degrees in Phoenix, Airheadzona, and Christmas seems like an impossibility.

I always leave out a beautiful pink glass vase filled with Christmas tree bulbs, which had belonged to my Aunts Marg and Helen. It was something that they too left on display throughout the year. And I also leave out a little pin that hangs above my monthly calendar. The pin is made of pewter and was formed to resemble a snowy hill scene with a church in the background, and in the foreground evergreen trees and a horse-drawn sleigh containing a man wearing a Santa hat and transporting a fresh-cut Christmas tree.

I frequently shop at a place called Sprouts Farmer’s Market. Last year, when they took down their Christmas decorations at Sprouts, evidently someone forgot to remove the metallic mistletoe that had been placed on some weather vane type of article that hangs above the deli counter. All year, I have looked at that mistletoe – even in the dead of Summer – and wondered what the Sprouts employees will think when they go to decorate for Christmas 2010 and discover that the mistletoe had been up there all year long.

Well, I just came from Sprouts an hour ago, and the mistletoe now fits in perfectly with the rest of the store’s decorations. But I’m wondering if they will again forget to take it down after the New Year. Or, does someone at that store feel the way I do about “The 365 Days Of Christmas”, and was the mistletoe left up deliberately? And if so, will it again remain in place throughout another Airheadzona Summer? We shall see . . .
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["The Muddy Santa" - one of my favorite Christmas ornaments that hangs on my tree every year. Handmade by The Countess.]
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A GOLDEN MOMENT AT THE GOLDEN CORRAL (Or, BIG BOY'S BREAKFAST BREAK)
On Sunday, December 19, 2010, my Brother Nappy and I went to breakfast at the all-you-can-eat Golden Corral restaurant in Glendale, Airheadzona. While I was waiting to get to the scrambled eggs bucket, I noticed that at the front of the slow-moving line was a fat, round, old fella with white hair and a long, white beard. So, after I had loaded my plate, I sprinted to the front of the line, blocked the old fella's way, and said to the Santa Claus-wannabe, “Shouldn’t you be at the Workshop? Isn’t this your busy time of year?”
He just laughed and said, “No, no!”

Y’all think I’m kiddin’, don’tcha? Ya think this scenario didn’t really happen, don’tcha? Think AGAIN! Every word of it is true. Only the location has been changed to protect the innocent. Well, no, actually, come to think of it... even the location is accurate. No one is INNOCENT, and Bigboy should have been at the Workshop rather than the breakfast line. Does he understand how few days are remaining before Christmas? There will be plenty of time for him to feed his face later, but right now, he has worried children with empty stockings to think about! Selfish Santa!

LITTLE GIRL AND LITTLE BOY LOST
Toyland, Toyland
Little girl and boy land
While you dwell within it
You are ever happy there!
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Childhood Toyland
Mystical merry Toyland
Once you pass its borders
You can never return again

I’m guessing it was about five years ago that I created a multi-part guide for the Amazon.com website illustrating all of the funny flaws that occur in the famous TV Christmas specials like ‘A Charlie Brown Christmas’, ‘Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer’, ‘Santa Claus Is Coming To Town’, ‘Frosty The Snowman’ et al.

I thought the guide I had put together was so Full O’Fun that it was destined to become hugely popular. Well, guess what. It just sat there and was hardly noticed at all. I really scratched my head over that for a long time. I was slightly disappointed by the lack of reception that guide experienced, but I was even more puzzled than disappointed.

Then in late November of 2008, I edited my “Find Flaws In The Animated Christmas Classics” and posted it here at ‘Stuffs’ under the new title “Ho!-Ho!-Oh! Merry Christmus!” [See the link at the bottom of this blog bit.]

To my greater surprise, the blog bit STILL met with a very 'Ho-Hum' reaction. I have contemplated this situation periodically and have finally come to realize what is wrong here.

Actually, there is NOTHING wrong with the guide/blog bit. It is well put together with an inspired sense of fun. The problem is not the idea nor the way it was executed; the problem is with YOU, the people! It finally dawned on me that the reason no one is interested in an examination of the many fun flaws to be found in the Classic animated Christmas TV specials that most of us grew up with is that most of us “grew up”. Very few people from my generation still watch those programs every year like my brother Napoleon and I do.

That’s the answer, isn’t it? Y’all grew up and lost that little boy or little girl inside you. You left your little inner child back at the crossroads of adulthood and went on without it, didn't you? You all became – [GASP!] – I hate even to say it, but . . . you all became “adults!” This I find to be the saddest thing of all. I’m not disappointed in you, I just feel sad for you. Evidently you all “passed the borders of mystical, merry Toyland and now you can never return again.”

My heart breaks for you people. Your little girl or little boy got lost and you journeyed on without her or him. It makes me wanna cry. I’d be willing to bet that the only one of my friends who still watches all of the Classic animated TV specials every Christmastime, like Nappy and I do, is my old cartoonist friend, Lonnie Millsap. It’s plain to see that a cartoonist would still have the “little child” inside him. But the rest of you folks, you’re now “big people” and your ears got hard and now you can’t hear the laughter and the music emanating from Toyland. I’d stay here and try to make you feel better about this sorry situation but I’ve got a Christmas stocking to go hang up by my fireplace in the hope that Saint Nicholas soon will be here.
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ROCKIN’ AROUND THE CHRISTMAS TREE
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When I fall in love with a song the first time I hear it, that is the rare exception, not the rule. I generally need to hear a song a few times before I really pick up on all of its elements and come to wrap my mind around its melody and the nuances.

Let me give you an example:
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I can’t recall the exact year I first heard Brenda Lee’s modern Christmas classic “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree”, but I’m going to say it was circa 1986. I was in Santa Monica, it was late morning and I had the radio on, listening to Christmas music while driving Eastbound on Ocean Park Boulevard. The first time I heard “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” I determined that it was absolutely the worst Christmas song ever recorded. I mean, I HATED it with a capital “H”.

Maybe two weeks later, I again heard it played on the radio, and I thought to myself: There’s that Christmas song again that I hate so much!

Another week passed before I encountered the song for a third time, and this time I thought: Well, maybe it’s not quite that bad.

The very next time I heard Brenda Lee’s “Rockin’ Around The Christmas Tree” I thought to myself: Dang! I gotta find out who does that song because I need to buy a copy of it!
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Shortly thereafter, at Penny Lane Records on Venice Beach, I bought the first of several Brenda Lee albums I would eventually own. In the very early 1990s, I even had the opportunity to see Brenda Lee perform live. It was one of the most memorable concerts I have ever attended.
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YULE-TIRED CAROLS
OK, now that I’ve discussed a Christmas song that I came to love, let me move on to some Christmas songs I never learned to enjoy.

In The Arizona Republic newspaper’s ‘Arizona Living’ section of the December 8, 2003 edition, there was an article by Barbara Yost titled “Yule-Tired Carols”. The topic of the article was “Our List Of 12 Worst Christmas Songs”. Twelve citizens and local celebrities were asked to name their most hated Christmas songs. I saved the article because I thought a few of the responses were funny. Below are some excerpts:

Pat George, reindeer rancher, owner of Grand Canyon Deer Farm near Flagstaff:
Jingle Bells, by the Singing Dogs.
“The barking dogs singing Jingle Bells. It scares the reindeer. They don’t like barking dogs. They go after them. It drives me crazy, too. That’s the problem – they play it over and over. I love dogs, but they’re not made to sing Christmas songs.”

Sterling Beeaff, composer, music director of Classical music station KBAQ (89.5 FM):
Mele Kalikimaka (Merry Christmas In Hawaiian), by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.
“There’s a song Bing Crosby sings, Mele Kalikimaka. That’s the height of Christmas kitsch. It’s corny. If you were a contemporary when that came out, I’m sure I’m alienating somebody. I’m a nut for Christmas. I like almost everything. I don’t like covers of Christmas songs. One of the worst I’ve heard is Neil Diamond singing Here Comes Santa Claus in this baritone. What’s the point?”

Jeani Garrett, owner of Arizona Covey in Phoenix; keeper of partridges, turtle doves, French hens and calling birds:
We Wish You A Merry Christmas, by Stu Goldberg.
“I like Twelve Days Of Christmas. It’s one of those songs that there’s no escaping at Christmas, so I put alternative words to it. I don’t like that one with figgy pudding. I despise that. It’s ridiculous in this day and age. We don’t even know what those things are. My Grandmother was English, and she said those things are disgusting.”

Charley Farley, karaoke jockey:
Frosty The Snowman, by Jimmy Durante.
“I’ve heard it done poorly (as karaoke) so many times. They think they know the song and then they forget the words. They try to keep up. It’s a fast song, and they’re half lit up and they try to do the thumpity-thump-thump.”

Lyda Mitchell, matriarch of Tim Mitchell Christmas Trees:
Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer, by Elmo And Patsy.
“One that seems to be the most awful, terrible, is that one about Grandma got run over by a reindeer. We don’t want Grandma to get run over. I’m the grandma!”

Santa Claus (aka Paul Raines who plays the part of Santa):
“Who ever thought up Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer? Never happened. I was there. Ho, ho, ho! She stepped out, but we avoided her. Ho, ho, ho!”

Other songs that got mentioned in the article were: ‘I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas’; ‘I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus’; ‘Jingle Bell Rock’; ‘The Twelve Days Of Christmas’; ‘Christmas Don’t Be Late (The Chipmunk Song)’; ‘Feliz Navidad’; and ‘Here Comes Santa Claus’.

The other day, I asked my friend The Flying Aardvark to name her most despised Christmas songs and the first one that came to her mind was ‘Jingle Bells’ by The Singing Dogs.

I don’t exactly hate The Singing Dogs, but hearing them bark ‘Jingle Bells’ once every three years or so would be plenty enough times to satisfy this boy. As for me, I really like most Christmas songs, but I greatly despise ‘Santa Baby’ by Eartha Kitt. Its cloying faux-sexuality and Eartha’s sex kitten affectation makes me ill. I just want that song to go away!

Another song I dislike almost as much as ‘Santa Baby’ is the aforementioned ‘Mele Kalikimaka’. Just say, “No!” to Mele Kalikimaka. And finally, there’s ‘Up On The Housetop’. It’s so sing-songy and nursery-rhymish that I find it nearly intolerable when sung by kids, and TOTALLY intolerable when an adult sings it.

How 'bout you? Any particular Christmas songs that, to your ears, are like fingernails on a chalkboard?
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PLEASE MAKE A WISH FOR TINY TIM
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Have a great Christmas season.
I'll try to remember to make a wish for Tiny Tim on Christmas morning.
~ Arlee Bird; December 17th, 2010

Are we dropping a coin for Tiny Tim this year?
~ Mr. Sheboyganboy Six; Dec. 17th, 2010

Oh, how I love my friends! They remember our tradition about making a wish for Tiny Tim and they mention it even before I do!

You guys are THE GREATEST! Thanks!

Yes, let’s all remember Tiny Tim again this year. For those of you who are unfamiliar with this Christmas Day tradition, HERE’S THE GIG:

“MOST OF ALL, I’D LOVE TO SEE CHRIST COME BACK TO CRUSH THE SPIRIT OF HATE AND MAKE MEN PUT DOWN THEIR GUNS. I’D ALSO LIKE JUST ONE MORE HIT SINGLE.”
~ Tiny Tim
[The singer of “Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips With Me” interviewed by Harold Ramis forPlayboy magazine, June, 1970]

We are going to help Tiny Tim get a second hit song so he will be posthumously removed from the One-Hit Wonder category. Are you aware that experiments have been conducted where large numbers of people have visualized the same result and that result has come to pass? All we need to do is get enough individuals to drop a coin into any body of water on Christmas Day (even just a penny in a glass of water will work) and wish for Tiny Tim to score another hit song, and it will happen. One way or another, it WILL happen! Popular music’s all-time greatest underdog, Tiny Tim, will have another hit song.

As far-fetched as all this seems, it IS going to happen. It was impossible that Tiny Tim would score a major hit song at all – especially with something as unlikely as “Tip-Toe.” But since the impossible has already occurred, the second hit should come even easier. After all, it’s not impossible anymore - we’ve seen it happen before.

“I believe in keeping the Christ in Christmas.”
~ Tiny Tim
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There’s still time for you to get in on the ground floor of this experiment. But if you don’t contribute a penny and your thoughts, think how you’re going to feel when Tiny gets Miracle Number 2 (a second hit song), and everyone’s yakkin’ about it, but you won’t be able to honestly say, “An’ I he’ped!”

“Do your best and pray for the rest.”
~ Tiny Tim

So far, seven good-hearted individuals have joined in on this new Christmas Day tradition by making a wish for a second Tiny Tim hit song. We’re waiting for our eighth participant. Why shouldn’t that be YOU?

Make a wish for Tiny Tim this Christmas Day and then tell me about it, and I will add your name to ‘The Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team’ roster. [Click this link: Join ‘The Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team’.]

“Never hit your grandma with a shovel –
it makes a bad impression on her mind.”
~ Tiny Tim

Merry Christmas, Y’all!

Ukulelely Yours,
~ Stephen T. McCarthy

Links:

Ho!-Ho!-Oh! Merry Christmus! [Find Flaws In The Classic Animated Christmas TV Specials]


“Home In Heaven But I Ain’t Got No Cigarettes”
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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Monday, December 20, 2010

PLAN DEAD FROM NINER SPACE

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Oh, sheesh! This blog is SOOOoooo dead. Zombiefied! Deader than a dead dog lying by the side of the road without a dog tag!
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I mean, seriously, when I can't even find enough enthusiasm to post something about Christmas - CHRISTMAS! - "The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year" - then you just know that you can stick a fork in me 'cause I'm done.
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Hell, I can't even find enough interest to answer most of my Email these days, let alone compose new blog bits.
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Yes, my friends, it's true, this blog (as well as my political blog, 'Ferret-Faced Fascist Friends') is on its last legs.
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I should have had a Christmas blog bit posted here a week or more ago, but I'll be honest with y'all: I just don't care anymore.
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As Bob Dylan sang:
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People are crazy and times are strange
I’m locked in tight, I’m out of range
I used to care, but things have changed
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I've been working on a Christmas blog bit to post here for days now, but I just can't seem to find the spirit, the enthusiasm necessary to write anything worth reading.
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Well, with a lot of luck, I will acquire the energy and the interest necessary to get something new for Christmas posted here tomorrow . . . or the next day . . . or the day after that.
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But just in case that doesn't happen, I'll wish y'all a "Merry Christmas" now, and remind y'all to make a wish for Tiny Tim - you know the gig! [If you really don't know the gig. . . then, well, I'm not surprised . . . and . . . just go on your merry way.]
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Let the zombies win - I'm just too tired and too disinterested to fight the fatigue any more.
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Go ahead, zombies, and take me to yer "leader" :
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~ Stephen T. Whatever
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YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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Sunday, December 5, 2010

WE DON’T NEED NO STINKING WASHCLOTHS!

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Q: What do skunks, snakes, octopi, vomit, talking toast, disembodied heads and stupid zombies have in common?

A: All are subjects of cartoons drawn by Lonnie J. Millsap III (L.J.M.3).

That may sound like the name of a pretentious White guy, but once upon a lifetime I worked with Lonnie J. Millsap the Third. I knew Lonnie J. Millsap the Third. Lonnie J. Millsap the Third was a friend of mine. Lonnie J. Millsap the Third is no pretentious White guy.

Yes, it’s true, Lonnie (J.) Millsap (the Third) was a co-worker of mine at a University far, far away. He and I supervised about 80 college students. Which means that mostly what we did was pitch pennies on top of parking structures for eight hours a day and play video games after “work”.

The video game contests we engaged in were pretty ferocious, pretty intense. You see Lonnie is Black and I’m the pretentious White guy. You’d have to travel back to the Civil War to match the Black and White intensity level of our video game contests. I won more video games than Lonnie did, but he won’t admit that. Just like he won’t admit that I drew better cartoons than he did.

Yeah, we were always competing at something, even to the point of drawing dueling cartoon characters on the chalkboard at work (when we weren’t busy pitching pennies or going to lunch).

Now I find that Lonnie J. Millsap III has published a book of Far Side-like cartoons titled ‘MY WASHCLOTH STINKS’. Well, we don’t need no stinking washcloths! But then again, we might WANT one. If not for ourselves then maybe to give as a Christmas present to that person who has a sense of humor and deserves a gift from us but not a gift that’s overly expensive, overly White, overly pretentious, or overly classy. ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ would be perfect for him or her.

What galls me is that decades ago, Lonnie and I took a ‘How To Start Your Own Greeting Card Company’ class together. I’m the student who stayed awake and took notes and yet Lonnie is the student who started his own greeting card company and published his own cartoon book. Don’tcha hate it when that happens?

He calls his enterprise “Rollyhead Publishing” – apparently based on all the disembodied cartoon heads he draws – but I remember when Lonnie wore a flattop haircut and used the name “Flattop Productions”. Well, the shape of the disembodied heads he draws may have changed, but what hasn’t changed is the black comedy nature of this Black cartoonist. You have to be a little demented, a little twisted, a little sick in the (rolly or flat) head to enjoy Lonnie’s comedy.

Fortunately, that describes me well, and a number of the cartoons in ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ made me Literally Laugh Out Loud (LLOL). Of course, in a blurb on the back cover of the book, one reader expressed a different opinion:

"Lame, lame, lame. What Black person draws cartoons like these?"
~ Ruby Millsap (Lonnie's Mother)

Well, I remember when all of Lonnie's cartoons really were lame. But, like the village idiot who claimed he had been turned into a newt by a witch in the movie 'Monty Python And The Holy Grail', Lonnie "got better".
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Who knew the guy had genuine talent that would lie doggo until he was jobless and destitute and FORCED to rely on it in order to scrounge up enough money for another Fatburger?

It would be easy to describe here some of the twisted and funny cartoons you will find in ‘My Washcloth Stinks’, but rather, I will illustrate Lonnie J. Millsap the Third’s sick sense of humor with a couple of personal anecdotes that will prepare you for the “style” you will encounter in his cartoon book:

I still have the original hand-drawn Christmas card that L.J.M.3 gave me in 1988. It shows Santa Claus on a rooftop, an open sack full of human skeletons lies at his feet, and Santa is thinking: ‘Damn, wrong bag!’ Below it reads: “Why Christmas came a few hours late in 1977.”
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Inside the card, L.J.M.3 wrote: “Stephen, you S.O.B., you crazy fool, retard. I bet you thought you’d never read this stuff on a Merry Christmas card!”

Can you believe the shi— er, the “stuffs” that guy would say to me? If it wasn’t for all the pennies I was winning from him 40 hours a week, I wouldn’t have hung around the dude.

Yeah, the card may not have exactly expressed the “traditional” Christmas greeting but, nevertheless, it’s one of the best Christmas cards I ever received. (But don’t tell Lonnie - it’ll go to his rolly head.)

And don’t be shocked by the language he used in that Christmas card he gave to me. If it weren’t for the word “Fool” and the initials “S.O.B.” we wouldn’t have known how to speak to each other.
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One time Millsap was on vacation and he sent me a post card. On the front was a photograph of a short pier, and on the back he wrote: Two words come to mind. Long walk. (That’s not a direct quote because although I know I’ve saved the post card, I was unable to locate it in my filing boxes. I looked under “L” for Lonnie and “M” for Millsap, but it wasn’t there. I’ve probably stored it under “F” for Fool or “S” for... well, you know.)

Another favorite tactic of ours back in the day was to sling racial epithets at each other while each of us accused the other guy of being a racist. Of course, I was only joking, but after reading L.J.M.3’s cartoon book, ‘My Washcloth Stinks’, I suspect this black comedy humorist might really be a racist after all. You see, I noticed only one White cartoon character in the entire book, and that was a drawing of Thomas Jefferson with a non-diversity-lovin’ world-view. (It was dang funny though!)

Lonnie J. Millsap III is going to need to draw a lot of albino zombie cartoon characters if he expects me to ever again accept the idea that he’s not a racist S.O.B.

In the meantime, buy his book. It’s cheap and the fool needs the money.

I would stay and tell you more but I have a buzz to catch.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy the First (I'm #1!)

Links:

Rollyhead Publishing
(There’s some some zany stuffs to surf on this site and you can buy ‘My Washcloth Stinks’ here, too.)

‘Dumb Is Everywhere’ (L.J.M.3’s blog)

YE OLDE COMMENT POLICY: All comments, pro and con, are welcome. However, ad hominem attacks and disrespectful epithets will not be tolerated (read: "posted"). After all, this isn’t Amazon.com, so I don’t have to put up with that kind of bovine excrement.
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