Ponderings and Musings

One of the things that I’ve noticed over the past couple of years is that there doesn’t seem to be in any “holiday spirit” amongst the shoppers that are doing their Christmas shopping. I don’t know if this is confined to this area, where people are generally surly to begin with, or if this is an epidemic that has taken over the country as a whole. Nevertheless, I find it all quite depressing.

First of all, I refuse to shop on “Black Friday”. I find these pre-dawn specials quite idiotic and I’ve heard too many horror stories. Super Wal*Mart (Always White Trash, Always) advertises laptop computers for $299.99 between 5:01 a.m. and 5:36 a.m. on Black Friday. People start milling about these 24hour behemoths around 3:00 a.m. or so, awaiting the magic time when a overworked, underpaid and uninsured Wal*Mart associate croaks over the loudspeaker, “Wal*Mart associates, it’s time to remove the paper”, referring to the brown paper that is wrapped around all these bargains for the “specials hour”. Now mind you, they’ve been shreaking in newspapers, on the radio and on the tube about how wonderful all these sales are going to be for the prior two weeks, so there’s probably a couple hundred or so people awaiting their chance to pick up a $299.99 computer. They’ve been dreaming, scheming and salivating over this opportunity to get this deep-discounted computer. They’ve been wandering the store for two hours in the middle of the night waiting for this Golden Opportunity, this one chance to get the computer their rug rat has been whining about since the middle of August. They’re tired, they’re cranky, but more importantly, they’re ready to join the other folks and get this computer.

Except there’s only six of them.

And one of them is damaged.

(And I won’t mention that they run Windows. Unpatched.)

Natually, all mayhem ensues, men are making fists, women are tripping others, people in wheelchairs are getting herded away from the “fun” by ambulatory people using shopping carts as battering rams, children are crying. I have to ask, is it really worth it?

How does the song go? Oh yes, “All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth.” Chance are you won’t have them if you go shopping on Black Friday. They’ve been knocked out by some holiday shopper, undoubtedly spreading holiday cheer, who saw you grab the laptop they had their eye on.

Earl worked late tonight so I took the opportunity to head over to my Mom’s house for supper and to fix her ailing computer. I hadn’t seen her in a while, so it was a little visit to look forward to, even if I did have to fix her Windows computer.

She recently when through some boxes of her stuff left over from when my parents separated a number of years ago, and came across a our family picture from December 1978. Since I’ve somehow become the unofficial family historian, she gave it to me. I haven’t seen this picture in a long while. I have to admit it brought a little lump to my throat since it reminded me of the rush of the holidays when I was a kid. I thought I’d share with the class.

I was 10 years old at the time.

The first day of December is marching right by. It’s starting to feel like winter with the overcast sky and the colder temperatures. It should be a lot more snowy up here in Central New York, but right now everything is a dull brownish green.

Earl and I took a drive last night through the really snobby sections of town to see their holiday decorations. It must be a little early in the season or something because there didn’t seem to be a lot of them up. Perhaps people are lazy. There were some decorations that were downright tacky. I was hoping that icicle lights fad had died down, but no such luck yet. I have yet to see a real icicle flash in unison with the other icicles along the roof. And such color! I was always taught not to eat yellow snow, why should I admire a yellow icicle?

What I find really depressing are these gigantic blow up characters people are putting on their lawns. First of all, they’re tacky. Very tacky. Secondly, they look absolutely awful when they’re deflated and lying all over the lawn like a bunch of discarded laundry. What’s even worse is driving to work at 6 a.m. and seeing these ugly things slowly deflate and fall down in a crumpled heap as you’re driving by. I don’t want to see Santa or Rudolph literally fall to pieces in front of my eyes. It makes the kid in me sad.

What happened to the days of some nice colorful Christmas lights wrapped around the poles holding up the porch roof? Maybe a lit up snowflake or two. Perhaps a wreath. It seems like people are trying to outdo the crash commercialism found in the mall decorations. “This baby Jesus brought to you by Wal*Mart.” And don’t get me started on mixing up Christmas symbols and themes. Newsflash: Mary did not get it on with Frosty and then give birth to Santa Claus. They shouldn’t all be standing in the same manger.

Good gravy, I’m just full of holiday spirit.

It’s Tuesday, November 29, 2005. As I look at my weather station on my desk, I notice that it is currently 67.8 degrees fahrenheit with a strong wind out of the west. 67.8 degrees. 67.8 DEGREES! It feels like spring here in Upstate N.Y.! Too bad it’s just a diversion from the winter weather that undoubtedly lies ahead.

I don’t care. I’m going to celebrate by driving back to work with all the windows down, the sunroof open and “La Vie Boheme” from the Rent soundtrack cranked. If the song ends before I’m at work, Madonna’s “Jump” from Confessions On A Dance Floor is next.

This morning I awoke at 4:00 a.m. wide awake and ready to take on the day. Not being a morning person, I was completely baffled by my body’s decision to become an early bird, so I tried moving from the bed to the futon to fall asleep.

That didn’t work either.

On the rare instances I wake up in the middle of the night, I usually jump on the computer and read some obscure trivia, like how old Phyllis Diller was when she became a comedian or something like that. (By the way, she was 37). However, I always get a headache from the shock to my eyes from the monitor so I decided to just close my eyes and see what thoughts drifted in and out of my head.

First of all, I had “Never Ending Story” by Limahl stuck in my head, playing over and over. Just the chorus including the “whoa oh oh whoa oh oh whoa oh oh”.

I think I was all nerved up because my pager has not gone off in the middle of the night during this entire run of on-call. That’s unheard of. There’s always some sort of telephone crisis in the middle of the night, but not this time, the on-call gods were kind to me and kept it easy.

Now if the paranoia gods would show me the same kindness, I’d be all set.

With this weekend being part of my on-call schedule, Earl and I have spent most of the day around the house. Well, actually the whole day, save for Earl going grocery shopping and a quick stop at Best Buy to buy a microphone for the PC in the basement. (Since my family has adopted MSN Messenger to chat with my sister in Russia and amongst themselves, I resurrected an old IBM computer in the basement so that I could be part of the fun.)

I wish I could say that we have been wildly productive today but in all honestly we haven’t done much except eat and fluff a load of clothes that had been sitting in the dryer for a couple of days. Actually I changed the thermostat in our bedroom in hopes of getting the heat to work in there but that didn’t do the trick. I guess we’re going to have to pay a furnace man. Here’s hoping he’s hot.

With the impending mad rush of the holidays, I really think Earl and I needed today to just sit around and do nothing. I’ve played around in the music studio a little bit, I’ve picked out a couple of cookie recipes to mess around with tomorrow and I’ve put the laundry in reasonable piles, destined for the washer and dryer tomorrow.

I thought about saddling up one of these dust bunnies and taking a spin around the dining room table, but that would have been too much work.

Tonight I decided to try something a little different with my beard. I shaved it off. Not to worry, I didn’t lose my mind completely, I kept the mustache.

I’m not liking it. I’m starting my new beard tomorrow.

I would not be a good spokesperson for the Gillette company. While I find the Mach III perfectly suited for my bald head, it does not maneuver well around my mustache.

It’s much easier to have a beard, so that’s what I’ll do.

Last night I dreamed that I was doing stand up comedy with Rosie O’Donnell. There we were, both on the stage together, hamming it up and telling the funniest jokes, one-liners and stories known to gay America. Unfortunately, I can’t remember a word I said, but I do remember the crowd roaring with laughter. Rosie found me quite humorous as well.

And it wasn’t even one of those naked dreams.

I like to think that I make people smile. Maybe chuckle. Even laugh out loud once in a while. It’s my contribution to the world.

I have no idea why I had that dream last night, but it’s kept a smile on my face all day today. I hope you have reason to smile as well.

While quite beautiful, there is just something wrong with waking up by moonlight to start the day. There is something just out of whack with looking out when getting up and seeing the entire lawn bathed in moonlight. When I arise, I want the sun shining beautifully, birds singing their joyous song and gentle, warm breezes carressing my naked body lying on the bed.

Alas, we live in Upstate New York. The sun won’t be seen for days, the birds are vacationing down south and the gentle breezes are most likely the beginnings of a blizzard.

I recently added the last of the three Wonder Woman DVD box sets to our DVD collection, completing our collection of all things Wonder Woman. I am a huge Wonder Woman fan (especially the Lynda Carter TV series) and am one of the few people that actually taped the “Wonder Woman” movie from 1974 starring Cathy Lee Crosby as Wonder Woman when WTBS showed it in the mid 1980s. It’s painful to watch, but I still treasure that video tape to this day. I actually transferred it from a BetaMax tape to VHS in order to be able to keep on enjoying it! What gay man of my generation hasn’t spun himself around in the living room hoping to turn into some fabulous superhero, complete with flash, thunderclap and orchestral accompaniment.

While I am the rabid Wonder Woman fan, and a Xena worshipper as well, the superheroine I really dig is ISIS.

“Oh Zephyr Winds which blow on high, lift me now so I can fly!”

For those that are superhero impaired, a brief explanation is in order. In 1976, Saturday morning cartoons were accompanied by some live action shows. On ABC, you had “The Krofft Supershow” featuring Captain Kool and the Kongs and ElectraWoman (featuring Diedre Hall!) and DynaGirl. On CBS, it was the second season of “The Shazam / Isis Hour”. Shazam! featured the stories of young Billy Batson, roaming the streets and highways of southern California in a big white Winnebago with an older man named Mentor looking for those that needed help from falling rocks, stupid decisions, etc. Endowed with the powers of Soloman, Hercules, Atlas, Zeus, Achilles and Mercury, Billy would yell “Shazam!” and turn into Captain Marvel, played by an older and much more muscular man. It was kind of like Bill Bixby turning into Lou Ferrigno but without the green and nowhere near as menacing.

Anyways, after Shazam! came “The Secrets of Isis”, featuring Joanna Cameron as science teacher Andrea Thomas. Andrea was on an archeological dig in Egypt and came across an ancient amulet. After reading the scrolls enclosed, she found that she was a decscendent of the goddess Isis and was endowed with the ability to control the elements when she posessed that amulet. She would sneak off to a hidden place when someone was in trouble, pull out this amulet necklace and say “Oh Mighty Isis”. She then would be engulfed in smoke, a few ancient drawings would fly by, the glare of the sun and whoosh, there she was… Isis! Much like Wonder Woman’s Diana Price alter-ego, Andrea kept her hair in a ponytail and wore glasses. No one could tell that Andrea was actually Isis, including co-teacher Rick Mason or students Cindy Lee and Rennie Carroll.

Anyways, even though I lusted after Captain Marvel (especially the second one, John Davey, he was quite hot), I was absolutely mezmorized by Joanna Cameron as Isis. To this day I find that she has one of the most beautiful female voices I have ever heard in my life. It is so even, so calm, so soothing. Small wonder that she once held the Guinness Book of World Records for doing the most television commercials of any performer. And I always found her portrayal of Isis so endearing. Some student may have driven a car off a cliff after hitting a nail in the road or accidently shot a hole in a gas tank near a burning building with the gun he had borrowed from his father, but Isis just did her thing and brought the fool to safety. She usually was creative, using the rain to quench the flames of a menancing fire or the winds to bring a broken-down motor boat back to safety ahead of the typhoon. One of the cool things about Isis is that when she flew (like Captain Marvel or Superman did), her arms and hands were held behind and to her side, so ladylike, instead of in front her like the guys do. Kind of like the way Samantha always side-saddled the broomstick in Bewitched.

Here’s a couple of video clips from the show. They are in RealMedia format.
Andrea turning to Isis for the first time
Another clip of Andrea turning Into Isis
Isis Taking Flight