Sure, there’s your health.
And there’s the family and the food, and counting your blessings and all that happy horseshit.
Which is all very well and good.
But let me give you something to really be thankful for.
Go look in the MP3 library. I’ll wait.
That’s right! The Seasonal Favorites category is now online! Over 80 of the worst holiday tracks you will ever suffer through, and I’m so happy to make them available to you once again. I don’t want to oversell, but the Christmas music alone will make you wish you were Jewish.
So go ahead and burn a CD or two for your holiday dinner tomorrow, and I guarantee your evening with the family will be at least 30% shorter than usual. You can thank me later.
In other Thanksgiving news, longtime ex-listener Bob sends me this story about David Gest’s latest artistic endeavor.
It seems Liza’s ex has agreed to star in a new play, based on his life story. That alone would be enough to be thankful for, because there just isn’t anything cheesier than people who play themselves in dramatizations of their lives.
But it gets better.
It’s a musical.
And it’s called, David Gest Is Nuts – My Life as a Musical.
And Gloria Gaynor is in it.
It’s just an embarassment of riches, isn’t it?
The biggest question I have at this point is who is going to play Liza. I nominate David Hyde Pierce.
In other news, there’s been a lot of cake going on.
You may recall my post from the other day, about ordering a Thanksgiving cake for tomorrow. John picked it up today, and it’s pretty damned amazing.
That post prompted an ex-listener to send this photo I like to call, “Cake as a second language”.
It reminded me of a story I posted a few years ago, about a Father’s Day cake my mother attempted to order from a Korean bakery. It didn’t go well.
Basically, mom wanted a cake that said “Happy Father’s Day”. Not a reach, all things considered. But the clerk seemed to think that someone’s name should be on the cake, and this is where things got difficult. There is more than one father in my family; my brother in law and my niece’s husband also have kids. Mom didn’t want to leave anyone out, so she asked that the cake say Father’s Day only.
I also got a pretty stellar cake for John’s birthday party last weekend. That thing was awesome. I’ve never seen a frosted, two layer chesecake before. I only hope it isn’t the last time.
All this cake buying naturally means there’s also been a lot of cake eating. I don’t eat a lot of that sort of thing anymore, at least not with any regularity, because relinquishing control has serious consequences. Gaining even a few pounds is profoundly depressing for me, and triggers all kinds of bad memories.
Fortunately, John had the foresight to hide my scale, which means I can eat with impunity, at least until Friday. I may have to pay the piper, but even he has a three day weekend.
And finally, we’ve just about finished work on the Big Bear commercials. We have two more days of post production on Monday and Tuesday, and then the spots ship out to the television stations. They should start airing in Los Angeles and San Diego the frst week of December.
This is really exciting.
I just am so proud of these. They look great, they’re funny, and they really get the message across that there is plenty of snow in Big Bear all winter long.
Even though it’s just advertising, it really is kind of a big deal that Mick and I were able to snake the TV part of this account away from a very big agency. It’s just the two of us, and if I do say so myself, we knocked Ogilvy’s dick in the dirt.
Plus I got to keep the hat.
Clearly, I have a lot lot be thankful for this year.
38 responses so far ↓
1 jim // Nov 21, 2007 at 11:43 pm
ADS AHOY!
La ow, girl! You look so suave in that touque not to mention … saddle walloping Jehu, lady, are you aging in reverse? A whole BUNCH of us’d like in on that action – hell, put me on a 12 hour reality-infomercial: even if it gets dumped after 1/4-season I’ll look circa 22, & thus not give a hump. Don’t you dare say it’s mere Atkins either.
( actually “under neat that we will miss you” truly IS poetic, at least in Newspeakish terms)
2 Doug // Nov 22, 2007 at 12:24 am
SECOND!!
Shame they won’t air this week, April…I’m in Cali only until Saturday, then I fly back to Alabama. Maybe someone will Youtube the ‘mercials?
At least one can hope.
3 Brandex // Nov 22, 2007 at 1:21 am
I’ve always loved the phrase, “happy horseshit.” I even included it in a poem once. It was a bad poem.
4 Brandex // Nov 22, 2007 at 1:23 am
My girlfriend’s coworker had a birthday this summer so everyone pitched in to get a cake shaped like boobs. For some reason, the cake makers thought we only wanted one boob, so that’s what we got.
5 cmvbbay // Nov 22, 2007 at 2:21 am
Love that November cake. Similar situation in my office: me=14th, supervisor plus another co-worker=13th, plus another 3 – all in November. We had Costco cake which was tasty, but your cake looks fabulous!
6 nix // Nov 22, 2007 at 6:40 am
That cake as a second language hurt my brains.
You do look very nice in that hat.
7 Speedy Cerviche // Nov 22, 2007 at 7:13 am
Marvel and DC characters? Together? Just sitting there on a cake for all to see? Hangin’ out like old college roomies?
This is blasphemy! This is madness!
8 Speedy Cerviche // Nov 22, 2007 at 7:39 am
9 Solonor // Nov 22, 2007 at 7:57 am
Happy Thanksgiving, baybeeee!
10 jim // Nov 22, 2007 at 10:22 am
Hey now, happy stat holiday too.
Uh, I’m probably late, eh?
I’m very American Thanksgivingy over those inpatient choir, Elvis-Sinatra-hybrid-guy, bubble-pack-core holiday soundfiles too, April.
For a truly sick individual like me, this stuff is fantastic – so good it actually makes me want to send you more ca$h! Hmm, wow, I may even HAVE some, too! Given what an outright screeching tightass I am, it’s like you putting a manned craft on Jupiter here.
Come on everybody, burn a CD & send it to someone with holiday depression (75% of ANYONE), & make the world a more beautiful place via indirect population control! SOYLENT NIGHT, HOLY NIGHT …
————-= BO Hugs & Ashtray Smooches
11 JohnnyBoy // Nov 22, 2007 at 6:09 pm
The only thing that’d beat John’s cake would be a Black Adam Blackout Cake !
12 Shannon // Nov 22, 2007 at 9:57 pm
Your cake takes the cake. There would be no more arguement on who gets a flower. Just tell me it is buttercream.
I would like to suggest a holiday party with April. To raise money for children whose parents are more into fucking, drugs and booze than they are with the fruit of their loins. Whatever.
We make April the goddess of all that is good, meet at some restaurant in the name of charity. What the fuck, everybody bring a toy too.
Then we will get to see what sad fucks we are and that we are not near as hot as we imagine. Here that Pal Jacky????? Cause I’m a thinkin’ he knows how to make a woman happy.
13 DavidinBerkeley // Nov 22, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Is the Amazon Gateway gone? I was gearing up to promote it for Black Friday and now it appears to have gone away.
Is this yet another thing I missed out on when it occurred, like the AW Yahoo Group disappearing?
14 pal Jacky // Nov 23, 2007 at 9:16 pm
what piss’t me off this year was the TV marathons. Instead of ‘twilight Zone ‘ we get fuckin’ ‘ghost hunters’. What’s the fuckin’ use of hiding away from the rest of the family in a deserted room just to watch those fuckin’ frauds on ‘ghost hunters’. It is not that I don’t believe there could be ghosts, I just don’t believe these asswipes could actually find one if david fuckin’ fukuto himself was standing in front of them in his ninja suit. The only thing worse are those ‘profilers’ on the court TV crime shows. All they say is ‘ a white man between 20 and 35′ for every serial killer they look for. This passes for real science as opposed to those ‘psychic detectives’ with their ‘he looka like a man’ bullshit.
15 pal Jacky // Nov 23, 2007 at 9:31 pm
When I was my twenties finding the clitoris was good enough. Now that I am in my fourties, The way I make a woman happy is to lock myself up in a dark room with only (shostakovich’s 13th/mahler’s das lied von der erda/ Beethoven’s late string quartets/Schubert’s posthumous piano sonatas/wagner’s ‘Parsifal’/ bartok’s chamber works ) and let her be on line with my credit card number. BTW Berg’s ‘lulu’ is only for after the break up. Along with me muttering ‘there are no good ones’. Also my 14 year old , 15 lb little bitch of a dog won’t let anyone near her master, so I haven’t had to do this recently.
16 pal Jacky // Nov 23, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Don’t worry too much. My 7-year old, one eyed, half crippled cancer survivor, dwarvan black male dog is one hell of a chick magnet. So though my ‘old lady’ is canine, there’s a good chance in a few, I’ll make up for lost time.
17 pal Jacky // Nov 23, 2007 at 10:13 pm
one more time, the more my 14 year slows down the more she ‘needy’ she becomes. If she was five, I would say ‘let her get use to someone else’ at her age, putting my love life on hold is the best solution for me, my dog and any potential girlfriend.
18 celery // Nov 23, 2007 at 11:51 pm
April,
Check out the Lane Cake recipe in this month’s O (Oprah) Magazine. We’re talking RICH — two sticks of butter,
8 eggs, three layers, pecans and fresh coconut. I’d never heard of it, but it’s described as a cake from a specific region in Alabama. I asked a friend of mine who grew up in Mobile, and indeed, he said his mom made this cake pretty frequently because, given that she was a hopeless alcoholic, she loved the fact that a key ingredient is WHISKEY. It’s a bit labor intensive but looks like it will worth it to make for Christmas dinner… PS LOVE THE HAT…
19 Speedy Cerviche // Nov 24, 2007 at 1:13 am
lol internet
20 Shannon // Nov 24, 2007 at 7:06 pm
Hey pal Jacky, can I be your girlfriend? I need some lumber, chicken wire, hardware and also gardening supplies. All of which can be ordered online.
Wouldn’t you rather be with a broad who would order that than high heels and diamonds?
Oh, and chickens. I am buying chickens.
21 Shannon // Nov 24, 2007 at 7:06 pm
And I will name one for April.
22 Shannon // Nov 24, 2007 at 7:08 pm
There will be Henrietta, Gertrude, Maude, April. That’s four names.
No roosters.
23 Shannon // Nov 24, 2007 at 7:08 pm
But I am ordering 25 chickens. The whole naming thing is so I can test my brain everyday and see if I remember them.
24 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Shannon, you don’t have to get 25 if you don’t want, Murray McMurray and the like have minimum orders of 25, but there’s a site that lets you buy as few as three
I have the link somewhere, as soon as I find it, I’ll post it
Personally, I have 7 chickens, Buff Orphingtons, beautiful plumage …got them as peeps, and you’d think I’d ast least get 3-4 hens? NO ! 6 roosters and one henny penny.
25 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:28 pm
the site is mypetchicken.com
seriously
“chicken make lousy housepet”
Ching Chang (Dana Carvey)
26 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:28 pm
http://www.mypetchicken.com
27 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:30 pm
a word of warning….the shipping on small amounts of chickens is prohibitive,you’ll pay more for the shipping than for the chickens up to a point, so it may actually be better to get more chickens
28 pal Jacky // Nov 24, 2007 at 8:53 pm
Do chickens respond to their names? If not, how would one check to see if one remembered their names correctly. Of course, you are talking to a man whose dogs only react to three words. ‘walk’, ‘outside’, ‘hungry’. There was a kid right out of Vet school wanted to run all these newfangled hearing tests on my male because he didn’t respond to his name. . I told him to ask him if he was ‘HUNGRY’. No hearing trouble.
29 bozhawk // Nov 24, 2007 at 10:09 pm
Remember the “Green Acres” episode where the chickens laid square eggs? Damn, I love that show!
30 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 10:25 pm
I have seen no evidence of chickens responding to particular names. I used to have a chicken (McChicken) who was rather friendly and would come when called, but my calling was in the nature of “buck buck buck bgah buck buck “
31 JohnnyBoy // Nov 24, 2007 at 10:27 pm
I do have a habit of naming any animal I encounter, though……..even spiders, I tend to give them Germanic names for no good reason….Gunther, Sepp, Hans, etc
32 gary // Nov 25, 2007 at 12:23 am
See, April, what happens when you’re away for too long.
This place turns into a meat market.
Now can I get a side of hummus with my chicken?
Oh, and a salad. Hold the feta.
33 JohnnyBoy // Nov 25, 2007 at 5:04 am
all out of hummus
you get spanikopita instead
and no holding feta…..all salads come with feta
you don’t like it? tough
34 gary // Nov 25, 2007 at 11:55 am
Jeez, testy.
Alright then. I’ll have a Mythos as well
35 pal Jacky // Nov 25, 2007 at 6:13 pm
that’s funny, I yell at why dogs in german. Nein, nein . Even ‘ungriesch’ replaces ‘hungry’ pretty easily. Also my dogs ‘opera’ names (for when they start their funny wimpering sounds) berg’s opera’s ‘lulu’ and ‘wozzeck’. I hate sounding like a wimp here. but I’m the fourth master of my girl, two(including my mom) have died and her second master went through a bad divorce before he had to give her up. So she’s got some real abandonment issues with masters. My last girlfriend gave me an ultimatum. Kind of like the film ‘a boy and his dog’. The dog won.
36 Stretch // Nov 27, 2007 at 10:46 am
Woof!!!
37 JohnnyBoy // Nov 27, 2007 at 1:39 pm
Yeah, I sorta do that too, Kommen sie hier, Wir bist du, raus, schnell, halt mit der bumsen und ficken, Hast Du etwas Zeit fuer mich Dann singe ich ein Lied fuer Dich
it doesn’t matter, they don’t listen anyway
38 katzinoire // Nov 27, 2007 at 10:43 pm
You didn’t have “cake” as a tag! That said kudos for the undermining the corporate ad company! Seriously. Will you be able to have a video of your commercials available on your website soon? Since I live in boring ole New England, I doubt I would see them otherwise. And congrates lady (hee-see I read the other post too!) on all the recent activities you have been up to-the commercials, the photo shoot, finding the cake I mentioned in your myspace blog, but couldn’t find thanks now I know I am not nuts and imagined it, getting John the Best.Birthday Cake. Ever. My son was drooling and asked if you needed a 10 year old to do odd jobs over the next summer. He mentioned he walks dogs! He also said something about being interested in marrying you, however I explained you are John’s gal, so he sighed and said something about how all the good ones are taken or related. He’s 10-that’s scary. Where did you find that beauty and do they deliver? His birthday is in September, so I have time on that last question. Merry Chismakauh!