Christmas can be a stressful time. Decorating, shopping, planning parties, gift wrapping, mailing Christmas cards, caroling, writing letters to Santa, shoveling Christmas cookies down the gullet like there's no tomorrow (or is that just me?). Around these parts, as a way to help diffuse holiday season tension, when something "goes wrong" I like to proclaim that - as a result - This is the worst Christmas ever!
One of the Christmas tree lights isn't working? This is the worst Christmas ever!
Mail order ships the wrong merchandise? This is the worst Christmas ever!
Fresh baked cookie only had four chocolate chips and not seven? This is the worst Christmas ever!
Mr and Mrs Incomparable Joe Wilhelm send yet another Christmas card featuring their mangy mutts? This is the worst Christmas ever!
Gets a laugh every time. Well, maybe not from Mary and Joseph Incomparable (who should be rightfully lauded for putting their own beaming visages on the Incomparable Family 2013 Christmas card, for a change, and not torturing me with their ill-behaved vicious attack dogs!).
It is with this Worst Christmas Ever spirit that I found myself having to blow up my original plans for this Christmas Week post. I was all set to borrow heavily from Mariah Carey's hit Christmas single "All I Want For Christmas Is You" and run with my Dear Santa letter in which I had planned to re-work the lyrics into "All I Want For Christmas Is Choo." However, news arrived this past weekend that Shin-Soo Choo signed an infinite-year/bazillion-dollar contract with Dubya's Texas Rangers and with that crushed the yuletide spirit out of Reds fans throughout Reds Country.
Consigning those original blog plans to the circular file, my attention turned to the weather. OK, I'm stretching here, but I need a segue into my recent photos. Humor me. Just go with it.
Any hope for a white Christmas at The Ranch in 2013 was quite literally washed away by the weekend-long torrential downpour that deluged Reily Township. In a matter of hours the acres of snow blanketing The Ranch melted away and I suddenly found myself the proud owner of ocean-front, rain forest property:
In the backyard, the scene was more astounding as The West 40 liquified before my very eyes:
It may be hard to discern from the Android-sourced photo above, but at center (above) the old well filled up and overflowed. [Until the late 1960s The Ranch was supplied only by a well, but that was before my lifetime.] If you look closely, you might see that leading away from the well, diagonally down and to the left corner of the photo, a never-before-seen stream appeared and served to drain excess rainwater out of the overflowing well. And if you re-examine the photo above, you might also observe that the lower right corner of the photo - depicting a small slope that runs downhill towards the viewer - is more water than grass/soil. I suppose that upon us all a little rain must fall, but this was getting ridiculous and it certainly doesn't put one in the Christmas spirit. For this, I had to find a remedy:
A drive through the Pyramid Hill Christmas lights!
That's more like it!
What's that you say? The photos are nice but you'd like something more? Well then, check out the video I shot with my R2 unit! How ya like me now?
After my Xmas Light drive-by, I went home and put up the ol' Holiday Evergreen Christmas Tree. First things first, I had to test the lights. I fired up the 8 million-watt sound system for some seasonal tunes such as this and this and, of course, this.
It took some effort, but finally I was in full Christmas mode!
Lights please?
And there were in the same country shepherds abiding in the field, keeping watch over their flock by night. And, Lo!, the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them and they were afraid. And the angel said unto them, Fear not; for behold I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.....
Merry Christmas!
This was the scene that greeted me one morning earlier this past week when I opened my bedroom drapes:
Absconding with a line from Meredith Wilson, It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.
Perusing the Wall Street Journal on-line over doughnuts and Fuze (the breakfast of champions!) I ran across an essay in the Life & Culture section from noted humorist and Miami University alum P.J. O'Rourke titled "The Boomer Bust," adapted from his forthcoming book The Baby Boom: How It Got That Way... And It Wasn't My Fault...And I'll Never Do It Again. Orders may be placed here. As of this writing I have not read The Baby Boom, ergo I cannot yet recommend it. However, if you are still groping about for last-minute Christmas gift ideas, permit me to suggest any of (or all) three of my favorite books authored by P.J. O'Rourke:
Holidays in Hell, first published in 1989.
Give War A Chance, first published in 1992.
On The Wealth Of Nations, first published in 2007.
People often axe me, Marty [credit: "The Cowboy" Jeff Brantley], "Mr Heavy Artillery [sic], you are a widely respected connoisseur of fine music. What does Christmas Day sound like at The Ranch?" Here's my secret recipe, should you be desirous of having cool background music as you annihilate Mom's delicate gift wrappings and slam down Grandma's bountiful snack tray offerings:
1) Fire up the twentieth century 8-million watt Sony STR-DE625 high fidelity stereo digital receiver. Reduce the volume from "8" down to "2.5" or "3."
2) Turn the receiver's speaker manettino to select all four floor-standing WHO tour tower-sized floor speakers.
3) Throw the power switch on the twentieth century Sony CDP-CE215 5-disc carousel. Insert the five following audio compact discs:
- Dean Martin Making Spirits Bright
- Christmas with the Rat Pack
- Vince Guaraldi Trio: A Charlie Brown Christmas
- Frank Sinatra & Bing Crosby Happy Holidays
- Rudolph, Frosty & Friends' Favorite Christmas Songs
4) Pound the "Shuffle All Discs" button on the disc player.
If you follow those steps, you will enjoy several hours-worth of hepcat audio holiday cheer that resembles something like this:
I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm
The Christmas Waltz
Skating
Christmas Time All Over The World
Holly Jolly Christmas
Let It Snow
Happy Holidays
Put One Foot In Front Of The Other
I Believe
Christmastime Is Here
Baby, It's Cold Outside
There's Always Tomorrow
The Christmas Song
Mistletoe And Holly
Greensleeves
Silent Night
White Christmas
Silver And Gold
Rudolph The Red-Nosed Reindeer
Linus And Lucy
As for a Christmas Day afternoon snack to pair with your musical interlude, may I suggest Hickory Farms turkey sausage, Hickory Farms garlic mozzarella cheese spread, some good old fashioned snowflake-shaped Ritz crackers and a Mexican-bottled Coca-Cola (with real cane sugar) to wash it all down.
You're welcome.
Waylaid by a flu bug which prevented me from attending the first day of RedsFest 2013 on Friday, December 6th, I rebounded full-force to hit the second and final day of this unparalleled annual event on Saturday, December 7th.
Here (above) I captured Lou and the Disney XD Girls in the season ticket holder-only line waiting eagerly for a rare and highly coveted Jack Hannahan autograph. Moments before, I photographed (below) the National League's 1988 Rookie of the Year, Spuds MacKenzie!
Whereas every other player/former player/broadcaster who may be signing autographs sits behind their designated table, creating an impenetrable barrier between demi-god and mortal, Chris Sabo was out in front and spent a minute or two talking with every fan who came through his autograph line. As I said to Lou, by way of explaining his contrary approach, "Sabo has always been different."
While Lou and the Disney XD Crew were in line for Jack Hanna-Barbera, I drifted over to the mainstage area grabbing a few minutes seat time and watched some outfit calling themselves Funky D or G or some other random letter of the alphabet butcher soul classics such as Kool and the Gang's "Get Down On It" and the Ray Beal classic "Word Up!" by Cameo. I was prepared to storm the stage one-man gang style and bring the curtain down on Funky Zzzz had they wrecked the Dazz Band's "Let It Whip." Lucky for Funky and the Flunkies, I became distracted by the agent for secret society world domination seated directly in front of me attempting to appear inconspicuous.
Somebody remind me next year to wear my International Order of Loyal Raccoons uniform to RedsFest 2014.
Exploring further afield, I caught glimpse of Dat Dude Wants Traded on the Wiffleball field.
RedsFest draws in luminaries from every field of endeavor in Cincinnati. Impeded by an overwhelming throng, I was unable to photograph Professional League of American Rules Football legend Elbert "Ickey" Woods. The throng was considerably less dense surrounding another PLARF legend, David "Full Rock" Fulcher.
Ultimately, I was shut out of autograph opportunities in my limited time at this year's RedsFest (and due strictly to my own disinterest in those players whom I would have had the opportunity... like Manny Parra). The photograph lines at RedsFest for retired players tend to be criminally brief and as a result I waited in line for less than 5 minutes to have my photograph taken with "Mr Perfect," Tom Browning.
Seeing how much fun I was having with Mr Perfect, reminiscing about bygone days, the Disney XD Gang stampeded the empty corral for their own photo with a living Reds legend.
If I weren't the incorrigible narcissist, this would be my 2013 Xmas picture. It was sweet that he took them by the hand. From what little I experienced of the event this year, RedsFest was again a smashing success. Credit to the Castellini's and everyone in the Reds organization as well as the sponsors, vendors and army of volunteers who were involved with the planning and execution. Particular congratulations directed at my two covert sources deep within the Reds organization, code named BOSS and CAMPBELL.
Hooray for the Cincinnati Reds!
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In November, the leading paleontologist of the western Carolina's vacated his secluded mountaintop retreat for a Thanksgiving visit to his bucolic boyhood homestead. Attended by His Girl Friday, the Belle of Rock Island (wait, that sounds like a steamship. Forget that...) Kristan aka "Dr. K." I escorted them on a quiet post-Thanksgiving Day dinner at an historic regional landmark which will go unidentified here.
Do not waste your time looking in the photograph above for clues as to where we dined that evening, and certainly you should disregard the sculpture of a golden lamb above the mantel. Behind us was a roaring fire and immediately outside the windows the city burghers were holding their annual Christmas Tree lighting. After our dinner, we briefly toured the establishment's upstairs hotel. I found Andy sitting rather uncomfortably upon a high-backed, narrow-benched, multi-hyphenated antique seat. I thought it presented an hilarious opportunity to have us photographed seated in grim-faced discomfort as all 19th century visitors must have similarly experienced when seated upon this objet d'woodworking torture. Andy worked a little sepia tone magic on his version and submitted it for publication here.
We kill us!
I have declassified this portion of his attached email:
Somehow I think it ends up being a great question for "which items in this picture are an example of anachronism?" but we don't have to go there. Congrats on having a better stern 18th century visage than I do.
American Golden Lamb Gothic, anyone?
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My trusty Android fails to capture with exacting detail the assorted atmospheric images I sometimes wish to record. A bright golden light along the horizon escaped dense winter cloud cover across a valley in the outlaw territory of our beloved old District.
The 'droid muted the colors and tonality but still, I think, it makes for an evocative photo of mid-century Middle West Pax Americana.
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Ending where we began, I seize upon every opportunity to avail myself of the old This Week in Baseball closing theme. In keeping with RedsFest and revered former Redlegs, please enjoy the following Sean Casey-intensive "This Week in MLB Network" clip from October 4th, 2013.
