Guest Blog - Courtesy of Mike Whitman
At last, I've figured out the Internet here at my hotel in San Diego. This week, since my various musical obligations prevented me from getting a blog in, please enjoy the following work of wonder from my fellow Writer and Doogie Howser copilot, Mike Whitman. For more of his rustic, honky-tonk bullshit, check out his Blazers Oriented Blog.
“The police have themselves an RV.”
This was the text I received the night of December 25th from my buddy and fellow ’80s cinemaphile. I stared at my phone for several minutes before slowly working my eyes upward to the inevitable, inescapable truth that beamed from my mother’s TV:
Jack Lalanne and his Power Juicer*.
*Mike has nothing against either Jack Lalanne or his Power Juicer. In fact, Mike owns that Power Juicer, and it is a fine piece of machinery. But watching that commercial for the 34th time, on Christmas of all days, was a little depressing.
I looked back at my phone and sent a half-hearted reply:
“It’s Christmas, Theo. It’s the time of miracles.”
Glancing at the Christmas tree that my former stepfather and tormentor had cut down presumably with his bare hands, I began to think about all the Christmases past and how much joy I used to take in the most magical of all the days I got to sit around and do nothing.*
*Mike typically sits around and does nothing. In fact, it is his favorite activity. But he prefers his laziness during the Christmas season because of the heavy ham consumption.
The bottom line, dear reader, is this: I didn’t watch Die Hard this year. Hell, I didn’t even watch Lethal Weapon.
In the past, no matter how horribly my Christmas turned out, I could always take consolation in the fact that Mr. Officer John McClane of the New York Police Department was there to save me from Hans Gruber and his band of exceptional thieves. This year was no exception, in that my Christmas has been relatively shitty. My car blew up on the drive down to Mom’s house, and while I’ve consumed large amounts of ham…this year, more than any other in my memory, just doesn’t feel like Christmas.
So when your lord and savior, Truman Capps, called me up and asked me to fill in, I said yes without thinking, assuming that I could be at least passably funny, regardless of my lack of holiday spirt.* But as I sat down to write this, I realized that a Christmas blog update without Christmas spirit is like a nativity scene without the baby Jesus.
*Mike was not Truman’s first choice for this job, and for good reason.
For those of you who gathered around a roaring fire with members of your loving families and sang carols deep into the night, good for you. But for those of you like me, who perhaps don’t have that option, don’t fret. Go to your local videomart, ask that pencil-necked geek behind the counter to point you toward the action section, and go grab yourself a copy of Die Hard.*
Mike will be following his own advice, since he forgot his copy in his apartment in Eugene.
You may not have a merry Christmas, but at least you can forget you’re having a crappy one for 131 minutes.
Plus, if you see people caroling, you can run at them in a dirty tank top and strangle them to death with a length of chain.
“The police have themselves an RV.”
This was the text I received the night of December 25th from my buddy and fellow ’80s cinemaphile. I stared at my phone for several minutes before slowly working my eyes upward to the inevitable, inescapable truth that beamed from my mother’s TV:
Jack Lalanne and his Power Juicer*.
*Mike has nothing against either Jack Lalanne or his Power Juicer. In fact, Mike owns that Power Juicer, and it is a fine piece of machinery. But watching that commercial for the 34th time, on Christmas of all days, was a little depressing.
I looked back at my phone and sent a half-hearted reply:
“It’s Christmas, Theo. It’s the time of miracles.”
Glancing at the Christmas tree that my former stepfather and tormentor had cut down presumably with his bare hands, I began to think about all the Christmases past and how much joy I used to take in the most magical of all the days I got to sit around and do nothing.*
*Mike typically sits around and does nothing. In fact, it is his favorite activity. But he prefers his laziness during the Christmas season because of the heavy ham consumption.
The bottom line, dear reader, is this: I didn’t watch Die Hard this year. Hell, I didn’t even watch Lethal Weapon.
In the past, no matter how horribly my Christmas turned out, I could always take consolation in the fact that Mr. Officer John McClane of the New York Police Department was there to save me from Hans Gruber and his band of exceptional thieves. This year was no exception, in that my Christmas has been relatively shitty. My car blew up on the drive down to Mom’s house, and while I’ve consumed large amounts of ham…this year, more than any other in my memory, just doesn’t feel like Christmas.
So when your lord and savior, Truman Capps, called me up and asked me to fill in, I said yes without thinking, assuming that I could be at least passably funny, regardless of my lack of holiday spirt.* But as I sat down to write this, I realized that a Christmas blog update without Christmas spirit is like a nativity scene without the baby Jesus.
*Mike was not Truman’s first choice for this job, and for good reason.
For those of you who gathered around a roaring fire with members of your loving families and sang carols deep into the night, good for you. But for those of you like me, who perhaps don’t have that option, don’t fret. Go to your local videomart, ask that pencil-necked geek behind the counter to point you toward the action section, and go grab yourself a copy of Die Hard.*
Mike will be following his own advice, since he forgot his copy in his apartment in Eugene.
You may not have a merry Christmas, but at least you can forget you’re having a crappy one for 131 minutes.
Plus, if you see people caroling, you can run at them in a dirty tank top and strangle them to death with a length of chain.