HAPPY MARGARITA DAY – 2012

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It’s Margarita Day! - It’s Margarita Day!
Hooray! - Hooray! – Hooray!
For Margarita Day!

Well, 2011 is in the books, and mostly . . .

It was a year for the birds
That went to the dogs
‘Cause the cats in Washington
Turned out to be rats
Who golfed and fished while
The Eagle flew the coop
Leaving We The People
To clean up the poop.

Or something like that. At any rate, that sentence is a reasonable facsimile of 2011.

Nope, it was not a banner year for anyone I personally know, and for some of them it was downright lousy.

Nevertheless, my Christmas was fairly good. Here’s a few photos of it:





Brother Nappy and I kept alive our “MAKE A WISH FOR TINY TIM” on Christmas Day tradition by driving to Park Central Deli near downtown Phoenix, tossing a couple quarters into the fish pond on the back patio and making wishes with the fishes that Tiny Tim will someday score a second Top 40 hit song.

While we were there to cast our wishes into the fish pond, I took a picture of my “Ron Paul For President” baseball cap to “cap”ture the moment:



My friend the Flying Aardvark sent me a couple things that really tickled me. One was a photo she had seen somewhere of two houses decorated for Christmas... somewhere. Talk about stealing someone else’s thunder, and with minimal lighting:



Also, on a Christmas gift the Aard had sent me, she had integrated into the wrapping a margarita Christmas tree ornament (she wraps beautifully, too!) I loved the ornament so much that I immediately removed it from the gift and hung it on my tree. It’s very appropriate that I am revealing this here on Margarita Day 2012:





The maggie ornament goes perfect next to my other ‘New Year’s Day’ Christmas tree ornament – a pink elephant holding a champagne glass, that I purchased in Westwood Village circa 1988:





And the margarita ornament segues beautifully into the real point of this January 1st blog bit: I want to wish y’all a . . .

HAPPY MARGARITA DAY!



“A Tradition Since 1986, Except For 1994.”

To those with less imagination, “Margarita Day” is known as “New Year’s Day”. On this day I always ring in the new year with a margarita or two; a tradition that my dear Pa (may he rest in peace) inadvertently started in ’86, and which we both somehow inexplicably forgot to maintain on New Year’s Day 1994, thus giving birth to what I think is a funny slogan.

I have one pretty hysterical Margarita Day story I could tell, but you’d need to get to know me “personally” rather than “virtually” to hear that one in detail because I’d be too embarrassed to reveal it publicly.

Now think about that for a second. After some of the shit stuffs I’ve written on my blogs, here is something too embarrassing to write! How embarrassing is THAT? Here’s just a snapshot of it and you can fill in the blanks with your imagination:

This was perhaps 1989 or 1990, when I overindulged my enthusiasm for the celebration a bit and Margarita Day turned into Irish Coffee Night at El Torito Mexican Restaurant/Bar in Marina Del Rey. Then, after setting what was almost certainly the all-time point total record on the video game PAPERBOY in a nearby arcade, I got on my “real” bicycle and attempted to ride home. Let’s just say “video games ain’t real life!” and leave it at that.

Anyway, feel free to join me by celebrating a new year with a margarita. Well, you’re only going to get ONE Margarita Day 2012 in your lifetime, so why not?...G’wahn and have two. What the hell! Besides, ya know, if there turns out to be any truth in all that Mayan Calendar end-of-the-world prophecy yakking, you’ll look back with regret that you... only had one maggie on Margarita Day.

You lucky folks living in L.A. can enjoy the BEST margaritas (as seen in the pictures above) by going to El Coyote Mexican Restaurant on Beverly Boulevard. Me, I’m going to have to settle for maggies here in Airheadzona.

Regardless, I raise my salt-rimmed glass and wish a Happy Margarita Day to you all! May we bless and be blessed in 2012.

Oh, and – psst! – don’t be a maroon by
forgetting to remember on election day . . .



~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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YOUR BULLDOG DRINKS CHAMPAGNE BUT CAN HE SURF? (Or, THE LORD OF DOGTOWN!)

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D-d-d-dog, dog, dog
D-d-dog is the word!

D-d-d-dog, dog, dog
D-d-dog is the word!

Do you know what “bulldogging” is?

Well, it’s an event you’d find in a rodeo but it does not involve bulls or dogs. (Google it.)

Do you know who “Bill Doggett” was?

He wasn’t a bulldogger, but he was damn good at what he did. (Google him.)

Do you know the song “Your Bulldog Drinks Champagne”? It’s extremely funny. (Google it, then get some champagne before New Year’s Eve arrives.)

Can you explain the term “hotdogging”?

It’s an old expression for someone who does a lot of fancy tricks while riding a surfboard.

Have you heard the instrumental “Surfdoggin’”?

It’s something Gary Hoey recorded for the surfing movie “Endless Summer II” in which I think he may have invented a new musical genre (a combination of surf guitar and country pickin’.)

Have you ever been to “Dogtown”?

That’s where I grew up in the 1970s. To be hyper-specific, Dogtown is that area of southern Santa Monica and northern Venice - pretty much where those two Los Angeles communities meet. I grew up right in the heart of it (in Santa Monica, two blocks from Venice) and there was a time when I used to ride my bicycle right down Rose Avenue to the beach, four or five days a week before work, just for the exercise. Ahh, those were golden days!

The Dogtown area was kind of symbolized by the abandoned, dilapidated (and now long gone) Pacific Ocean Park pier (or POP). As a teenager, I actually spent some nights guarding that pier from vandals while it was being dismantled.

In the mid-1970s, a group of young surfers in Dogtown - later known as The Z-Boys - started the whole skateboarding culture that eventually took the country by storm. My Brother and Sister went to school with one of them (Jay Adams) and my good friend Eric once shared a hospital room with one of them (Tony Alva), and Eric told me that the steady stream of hot girls coming to visit his roommate in that hospital was utterly unbelievable!

Several movies have been made about those dudeguys and the skateboarding craze that they started. One of those movies is titled “Lords Of Dogtown”.

This morning, my dear friend the Flying Aardvark sent me a link to a YouTube video that I absolutely love! I’ve watched it three times now and it has made me laugh every single time.

Maybe your bulldog drinks champagne, but can he surf? This video gives new meaning to the expression “Dogtown Surfer”. In fact, some commenter posted this:

Isn't this dog in ‘Lords of Dogtown’?

This might be the most entertaining video I’ve seen this year. My favorite parts are when the dog is on the skateboard. Watch him, he’s really groovin’ that board back and forth, he’s doin' some serious sidewalk surfin’! And his swaying on that skateboard is perfectly synchronized with the music.

So, I’m closing out 2011 at ‘STUFFS’ with a little gift for y’all: Some sun, sand ‘n’ surf on "a Winter’s day in a deep and dog December". This is where Simon & Garfunkel and The Beach Boys crash into each other, wipeout and meld.

Surfin´ Bulldog (Beach Boys - Surfin´ USA)



Link to the YouTube original:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cqxTUxzOceE

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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GREAT MOMENTS IN "REAL MAN" HISTORY!

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We'll call this one 'Great Moments In "Real Man" History' (Or, 'They Are Who We Thought They Were!')

What are the greatest moments in "Real Man" history? Well, there are plenty, and everyone will have their own favorite. If it were possible for a "Real Man" to slap a girl around and make my list of 'Great Moments In "Real Man" History', then I would surely be listing the time Senator Joseph McCarthy earned an Elgin watch "for combat...above and beyond the call of duty" by slapping Drew Pearson around in a cloakroom.

But I guess I'll just stick with the National Football League for now.

Less than two weeks ago, I posted a blog bit celebrating the fact that the Kansas City Chiefs, in a major and unpredictable upset, defeated the Green Bay Packers, ensuring that for at least one more year, the 1972 Miami Dolphins - the team I idolized in my boyhood - would remain the only unbeaten and untied team to win a Super Bowl. (Which is not, by any means, to say that I am conceding this year's championship to the Packers; I am not ready to "crown their asses".)

Two of my favorite "Real Man" moments are tied in with that 1972 Dolphins team.

ZONK! 

Throughout his career, [Larry] Csonka played fullback like a horse ploughs a field: doggedly, with a high pain threshold and with great determination.
~ John Doremus

My favorite player on that Dolphins team was Larry Csonka; I loved the way he ran through and over defenders, and I dreamed of being the next Csonka. But then I stopped growing, encountered more athletically gifted dudeguys than myself, and came to realize that I was never tough enough to be another Csonka anyway. (Besides, all that football playing would have damaged my fingers and interfered with my violin lessons.)

But this brief video below will give you a basic idea of why I loved "The Zonk" and wrote his number 39 on everything I owned:

Miami Dolphins Larry Csonka



Link to a mo' bigger screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5oa2meWsaOc&NR=1&feature=endscreen

Csonka makes my 'Greatest Moments In "Real Man" History' list by virtue of the fact that he is the only NFL ballcarrier to ever be flagged for "Unnecessary Roughness" against a tackler!  

Larry Csonka - Unnecessary roughness while running w/ the football



Link to a mo' bigger screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SF0RaXR4nI

However, in my book, 'The Greatest Moment In "Real Man" History' - not just in the NFL but anywhere ever - belongs to my second favorite player on that '72 Dolphins team: Manny Fernandez.

THE "MAN" IN MANNY! 

Manny Fernandez, in my opinion, is the only defensive lineman in the history of the National Football League that can get into a nest of alligators and come out with an alligator... unscathed! Where do you find people like that?
~ Larry Csonka

In my DVD set 'America's Game: The Super Bowl Champions - 1972/1973 Miami Dolphins' there is a segment showing that during his down time, Manny Fernandez liked to go out into the Florida Everglades and catch alligators.

On the DVD, we are treated to some footage of Manny and his Florida buddies doing exactly that. Manny reaches into a swampy spot and pulls an alligator out by its tail.

Is that "Real Man" enough for ya? (I sure as hell wouldn't try something like that, as alligator's can be hazardous to violin-playing fingers!)

But what actually elevates that manly Manny act to GREATEST Moment In "Real Man" history is the fact that while Manny is capturing that alligator with his bare hands, he's wearing shades and he has a cigarette dangling from his lips! Ha! Yeah, it's no big deal to Manny - just another relaxing day in the swamp . . .
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["Don't you make me drop my cigarette, boy!"]



You can watch the cigarette-smokin' Manny pull an alligator out of the swamp by fast-forwarding to the 18:30 mark in the video below:

1972 Miami Dolphins



Link to a mo' bigger screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpdA9LSFNc0

And finally, here's a brief video with both "Real Men" - Manny & The Zonk! - reminiscing about what that undefeated 1972 Dolphins season meant (and still means) to them:

Miami Dolphins - Perfect Season



Link to a mo' bigger screen:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mC4Gnxt_2V4

Well, thanks for readin' 'n' watchin'.

I gotta go practice my violin lesson now or my teacher, she gonna rap me on the wrist with my bow, and that really hurts!

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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"THERE’S A SADNESS IN THE HEART OF THINGS"

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Doggs & Doggettes ~

Christmas 2011 ended here in Phoenix, Arizona, a little over an hour ago. For a number of reasons – which I could explain in excruciating detail, but which I’m sure you’re not the least bit interested in – Bobby Darin’s song ‘Christmas Auld Lang Syne’ makes me think of my dear departed Ma, who returned to her Creator in the Summer of 2005.

Darin recorded this song on August 18, 1960, exactly one year and ten days after my birth, and it did not do very well on the Billboard music charts. Nevertheless, it has become my custom to close every Christmas Day by listening to it.

For a number of years, it has also been a tradition of mine to remove all of my outdoor Christmas decorations on December 26th (my Brother’s birthday), to send the message that what I have been celebrating is not Happy Holidays or Winter Solstice or Winter Wonder or Season’s Greetings or Frosty’s Fruitopia or any other euphemism for “The Birth Of Jesus Christ”.

My lights and decorations were meant as a symbol of Christ’s birth. And after December 25th, the Birthday Party has come and gone, and my celebration has ended.



But, I fear I have gotten a bit sidetracked, as I often do.

What I really meant to say here is that Bobby Darin’s song, ‘Christmas Auld Lang Syne’, is a window into my soul. Not that anyone will or should care to know.

Every Christmas ends with me honoring my Mother by playing Darin’s Christmas song and acknowledging that, indeed, "there’s a sadness in the heart of things".

Bobby Darin - Christmas Auld Lang Syne
(lyrics and slideshow + good quality)
Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vfXYSb-KsSQ

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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THE WORLD’S SILLIEST CHRISTMAS TRADITION! (Won’t You Please Join Us?)

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Who cares about "shopping days"? What matters is "blogging days"! And two "blogging days" were lost to me due to a bug in the Blogspot system which prevented me from accessing my Dashboard. That means I was unable to approve, post, and respond to comments left for me; unable to post new blog bits; and unable to read YOUR blog bits.

Thanks to the same someone who saved my blog earlier this year, it seems I am back in the saddle sleigh again! But this particular blog bit shoulda been posted here the day before yesterday. DOH! Don'tcha hate it when that doesn't happen?

If you feel I have been ignoring your blog bits, please know that I have neglected you only because I WAS BUGGED-OUT! But I am determined to read the blogs that I “Follow” as soon as possible. In the meantime, there’s this wonderful opportunity I am making available to you:

I am a collector of quotations and I actually copy and store my favorites. I love all sorts of quotes, from the spiritual and religious (think: Yeshua, C.S. Lewis, and Joel Goldsmith), to the inspirational and patriotic (think: Booker T. Washington, Henry Thoreau, and Patrick Henry), to the humorous and super-silly (think: Mark Twain, Cheech Y Chong, and that Wino Woman on Venice Beach).

If I were asked to select what, to me, is the all-time most amusing quote, I believe I’d have to run with this:

“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
[Interviewed by Harold Ramis for
Playboy magazine, June, 1970]

If you don’t find that funny, then I guess you and I are just different. As in apples & oranges different, as in cats & dogs different. Different as in Laurel & Hardy, Jane Fonda & Ann Coulter, Karl Marx & George Mason.

George Mason? Uhm . . . well, don’t worry about it. Never mind - he really doesn’t matter much anymore.

Anyway, the Tiny Tim quote brings us to the purpose of this blog bit and my appeal to you to join what is almost certainly the silliest, long-running Christmas tradition "in the whole United States of Georgia!"



I’ll keep this short, and provide links at the bottom if anyone really wants to learn the history of this tradition and its preposterous details. But in a Tiny Nutshell, here’s what I’m asking you to do:

Sometime on Christmas Day (December 25th, in your time zone), please drop a coin, any coin (penny, nickel, dime, whatever) into a body of water and MAKE A WISH FOR TINY TIM. (Yes, Tiny Tim, the One-Hit Wonder who gave us the song Tip-Toe Thru The Tulips With Me back in 1968.)

Just say something along the lines of: “I wish Tiny Tim will score just one more hit song.”

That’s all there is to it.

From year to year, lots of people say they’re going to do this but, sadly, very few actually remember to. However, so far, seven people really have done it properly and have had their names added to ‘The Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team’ roster. [See the link below.]

In the past, there have been some minor misunderstandings and I want to clear those up right now, because unless you do it correctly, I am constrained from adding your name to the ‘Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team’ list - much as I'd like to. There are only 2 rules and they are very simple:

1) The wish must be made sometime (day or night) on Christmas Day, wherever you are. Not on Christmas Eve, not on the day after Christmas, not on any of the other 362 days in the year. It can only be made on Christmas Day, December 25th.

2) Also, you must drop a coin into a body of water when you make the wish. You can’t just say or think, “I wish Tiny Tim would have one more hit song”; you must simultaneously drop a coin in water while you are saying or thinking that wish. And I don’t care what sort of body of water you use - a wishing well, the ocean, a lake, your swimming pool, a puddle of rain water formed against the curb of Garden Grove Boulevard [that was for you, Karen!], a glass of tap water – It’z all good . . . provided it’z wet.

That’s all there is to it, friends. Make the wish, do it right, let me know you did it right, and I will immediately add your name to the 'Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team' honor roll.

Someday, when Tiny Tim “miraculously” scores that second hit single, we will all know that it was really us - ‘The Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team' - that made it happen for him!

Who will join The Team next? Who will be #8?
And then who will be #9... #9... #9... #9...?

C'mon, people, come out an' play with me!

Ukulelely Yours . . .

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

Related Links:

THE MAKERS OF ‘MOTHER CROAKER’S HEMORRHOID OINTMENT’ PRESENT . . .
[See the heading ‘Here’s The Gig’]

TINY TIM'S CHRISTMAS ALBUM [Join The Tiny Tim Wish Fulfillment Team!]

ORIGINAL 'TINY TIM WISHING SITE' [Photo Gallery]

MAKE A WISH FOR TINY TIM - The Early Years
[How And When It All Got Started]

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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"MANKIND SHOULD BE OUR BUSINESS, BUT WE SELDOM ATTEND TO IT"

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It was in December, probably 1987 or ’88. I was at work in one of the offices of UCLA’s Parking Department, when two of my best friends there, Lonnie and The Countess, broke out in song. They began singing . . .

Thank you very much, thank you very much! That’s the nicest thing that anyone’s ever done for me . . .

When the singing finally came to an end, I asked them, “Where did you hear that song?” Their mouths hung open for a minute or two and they looked at me as if I had lobsters crawling out of my ears.

And then at once they both shouted (as if I were hard of hearing because of the lobsters), “SCROOGE!”

And that’s how I first learned there was a 1970 movie musical called ‘SCROOGE’, based on Dickens’ famous ‘A Christmas Carol’.

Yes, SCROOGE is a musical.

Now look here, I’m a “dude”, as in, “guy”. If you don’t believe me, you can ask my friend The Flyin’ Aardvark. Exactly one week ago, after I had made a rude remark, she wrote this to me: Ahem. ... You are such a GUY! Ha!

I was on my high school’s sophomore football team. I was on my high school’s varsity wrestling team. I NEVER cry (where anyone else can see it) and I DO NOT like musicals!

Well, except for Roy Rogers oaters.

And ‘Singin’ In The Rain’.

And ‘My Fair Lady’.

(Alright, I also like 'Bells Are Ringing', 'Guys And Dolls', and ‘The Sound Of Music’, but so help me, if you ever tell that to anyone, I – will – hunt - you - down - and - KILL - you! Twice!)

Therefore, I was predisposed to dislike SCROOGE. But I saw it anyway. With The Countess. I told her, “If it’s a musical, I won’t like it.” And I was right because... I LOVE it! It is by far my favorite filmed version of 'A Christmas Carol'. And, yes, I've seen the vast majority of them.



How good is this movie? Well, ‘It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Scrooge’ are both on my Top Ten favorite movies list. No, NO, NO! I do not mean “Top Ten favorite Christmas movies list”. I mean Top Ten list PERIOD!

In fact, I’m not sure which of those Christmas movies I love most. It pretty much depends upon which one I’m watching at the moment.

SCROOGE stars Albert Finney and was filmed in England with an all Great Britain cast. For those who know anything at all about acting, that means the acting is way, Way, WAY friggin’ better than what you will find in most American movies!

The direction is fantabulous, the sets are spectacular, the cinematography is delicious, and the music is so addictive it should be considered a controlled substance. For such an old movie, even the special effects are still pretty good.

Two of my all-time favorite quotations come from the movie SCROOGE:

Mankind should be our business, but we seldom attend to it.
~ Jacob Marley

There is never enough time to do or say all the things that we would wish; the thing is to try to do as much as you can in the time that you have. Remember, …time is short, and suddenly you're not there anymore.
~ The Ghost Of Christmas Present

I have only one negative remark to make about SCROOGE: There is one song in the score, sung by Tiny Tim, that is so high-pitched, stepped-on-a-cat’s-tail awful that I fast-forward through it every other year.

[Note: I watch my four favorite Christmas movies only every other year, so they don’t cease delivering to me the emotional impact I watch them for. This year, it’s the “modern” classics – ‘Scrooge’ and ‘A Christmas Story’ – next year it will be the old school classics – “It’s A Wonderful Life’ and ‘Miracle On 34th Street’.]

But even that awful song by Tiny Tim has become a part of the Christmas tradition that I share with my brother, Nappy. Every other year, we TRADITIONALLY fast-forward through it!

There’s a part in SCROOGE where - in anticipation of the second ghost’s appearance, and temporarily feeling bold and brave – Ebenezer yells out, “I’m ready for you!”

Well, this year, just as Tiny Tim’s dreadful song was about to be sung, I raised the DVD gizmo, my finger on the fast-forward button, and I yelled out, “I’m ready for you, Tiny Tim!”

Nappy and I both laughed. Yeah, you can make a “Christmas tradition” out of just about anything.

If you’re having trouble finding “The Christmas Spirit” this year – as it seems many people are – then you need to watch SCROOGE.

Here’s a link to about ten minutes of this wonderful life movie! (This is a future Christmas, in which Ebenezer has died, and the people indebted to him are joyfully singing "Thank you very much!")

Scrooge the Musical (1970) Part 9
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6BF5ZcMgd0Q

[Note: In actuality, the movie’s visuals are not as dark as they appear in this video.]

Dog God bless us, every one!
~ TinyTim @Dyslexia.moc

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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THEY DON'T KNOW IT'S A DAMN SHOW; THEY THINK IT'S A DAMN FIGHT!

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For me, the most important Christmas gift on my Wish List came early this year.



The other day I sent an Email to my friend Sheboyganboy Six in which I said this:

The only thing I much care about [in the 2011 NFL football season] is seeing the Packers lose at least one game so they don’t do a ’72 Dolphins.

If you don’t already know, the 1972 Miami Dolphins are the only team in NFL history to win every single game in their schedule, from first regular season game through the Super Bowl. I was 11 & 12 years old when that happened, and it was the ’72 Dolphins that turned me into a football fan. Prior to that year I knew as much about football as I currently know about ballet and breeding show dogs.

My big hero was the Mack truck-like running back Larry Csonka, whose number, 39, I wrote on everything I owned.

Here’s a photo of my hero flippin’ the bird at y’all from an August '72 cover of Sports Illustrated magazine:



At 1:39 this morning, I sent the following to Sheboyganboy Six:

I’ve looked at Green Bay’s remaining regular season games, and there just ain’t nobody over the next 3 games who can beat them. I’d love to be proven wrong on that, but I sure don’t see it happening. I truly think it’s up to the Saints in the postseason.

He wrote back an hour ago [1:44 PM] and said:

As I write this, Kansas City is beating them. I cannot imagine that holding up... but we can hope.



See, the Kansas City Chiefs are a team so bad that earlier this week the owner fired its head coach and installed Romeo Crennel as the interim coach.

Here’s a photo of Romeo near the conclusion of his first game as the mastermind of the Chiefs:



And here’s a photo of the final score of his first game as head coach, a game against the (previously) undefeated Green Bay Packers:



[Cocky quarterback Aaron Rodgers, meet
WINNING quarterback Kyle Orton!]

To quote Yukon Cornelius: “WA-HOOO!”

Apparently the crappy Kansas City Chiefs didn’t know this was supposed to be “a damn show”; they thought it was “a damn fight!” The Rocky Balboas surprise the Apollo Creeds yet again! I loves that stuffs!

The Packers went DOWN! And my favorite football team, the 1972 Dolphins, remain (at least for one more year) the only squad to experience a completely undefeated NFL season. My pristine childhood memory remains intact and left alone!

Somewhere tonight, Csonka, Nick Buoniconti, Mercury Morris and some of the other ’72 Dolphin team members will raise a glass of champagne and toast their unblemished ’72 season – as they do every year when the last undefeated NFL team finally loses a game.

And tonight, I too will raise my glass of . . . I dunno, Guizhou Maotaizhen, maybe (if I can find something to mix with it to mask that awful taste), and toast the 1972 Dolphins and my “perfect” childhood.

Oh, in a heartbeat I would give away my car, my Playboy magazine collection, and the key to my liquor cabinet, and go back to relive those Orange County days . . . if it were possible.

Mention My Name In Sheboygan . . .

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

Link:
My Friend Went To China And All I Got Was This Lousy Transmission Fluid

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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THE DÉJÀ VU BLOGFEST

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I just learned about today’s ‘Déjà Vu Blogfest’ by visiting Julie Fedderson’s ‘Gypsy In My Soul’ blog. OK, I’ll play along – what the hell.

The basic idea seems to be this:

"This is your chance to do some major catching up, and re-post a favorite blog post of your own that NEEDS to see the light of day one more time."

Well, I’m not sure this “needs” to see the light of day one mo’ time, but I think it was possibly the most humorous blog bit I ever posted here at ‘STUFFS’ – at least to me it was.

Have you ever wanted to “knock me down, step on my face, slander my name all over the place”? Ever wanted to “step on my blue suede shoes”?

Well, you don’t need to, because I do it for you in my May 3rd, 2009, blog bit titled “DEAR DIARRHEA... (Or, JOURNAL NOTES ABOUT A CRAPPY LOVE AFFAIR)”.

In that blog bit, posted before I was including photos or videos and relying solely on my writing (not a smart idea, to be sure), I spoke of coming across a diary I had kept back in 1970. It was filled with “stuffs” about a schoolyard crush I had on a girl named Yolanda.

True to form, the blog bit was way, Way, WAY too long. All I can say for it is that I was being A-list snarky, I was dogging myself unmercifully, and it even made me laugh . . . at myself.

If anyone is interested in visiting or revisiting that exercise in self-flagellation, here’s a link to it:

“DEAR DIARRHEA... (Or, JOURNAL NOTES ABOUT A CRAPPY LOVE AFFAIR)”

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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MY FRIEND WENT TO CHINA AND ALL I GOT WAS THIS LOUSY TRANSMISSION FLUID!

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This blog bit could also have been appropriately titled “The Ultimate Chinese Torture Test”.

I have an American-Chinese friend named Gui Hong, and she recently returned from a trip to China that she had given herself as a Holiday gift. In Nanning, she has a number of extended family members whom she had not seen for a long time; some of them are getting quite old and Gui Hong wanted to see them again while she still had the opportunity.

Just before she returned to the U.S., one of her uncles – or some old goat related to her in some way – gave Gui Hong what he said was a bottle of highly prized and coveted Chinese wine. Since she does not drink alcohol at all, but she knows I’m “the town drunk”, my friend decided to pass the bottle of ‘Guizhou Maotaizhen’ on to me.

My first thought upon seeing it was:

Sheesh! It looks like a bottle of motor oil, power steering fluid, or transmission fluid – something one might pour into an automobile.



[Can you find the Chinese wine amongst these common household products?]

The box it came in was labeled almost entirely in Chinese and the only things that seemed understandable to me were “500ml” and “53% vol”. Naturally I took that 53% to be alcohol content, making this “wine” a whopping 106 proof! Hokey-Smoke! One could set himself on fire with that if he wasn’t careful.

Of course I thanked Gui Hong, and I opened the bottle to smell it. It had a very unusual, complex aroma; I could catch a hint of what seemed almost sake-like, sake being a Japanese rice wine (I loves me some sake!) but there were other scents too, something almost floral and sweet, and who knows what else. I could imagine this wine had the potential to be quite good OR quite bad; the aroma wasn't a good enough clue to the flavor.

Well, a couple nights later, I decided to try Maotaizhen for the first time. I put a couple ice cubes into my little silver cup that Althea gave me in 1959 to commemorate my birth (you know, what I have referred to on my blogs as my “GraMar cup”), and I poured the Maotai over the ice and let it chill for a bit.

Finally, I raised the cup to my lips and took a small sip.

Eventually my body stopped convulsing on the floor and my vision returned to me. I kid you not, that was perhaps the foulest taste my mouth had ever experienced. And that’s saying a hell of a lot, people – you don’t know where my mouth has been!

And then I quickly had this awful thought (and, no, I’m not kidding here and being snarky in an attempt at humor) . . .

Gui Hong speaks only very basic Chinese - having been born in the U.S., her vocabulary is rather limited. How can I be sure this stuffs is REALLY meant to be consumed by human beings? What if she misunderstood that old man who gave this to her and in fact it truly is Chinese transmission fluid? Or perhaps that "53% vol" meant it was 53-weight motor oil!

So, before taking another sip, I immediately went to the computer and started Googling the name of this supposed Chinese wine, and wondering if I had already, just by that one sip, poisoned myself to death.

To my surprise, I discovered that Guizhou Maotaizhen, or Maotai, as it’s more commonly referred to, truly is a Chinese wine. Not only that, but indeed it really is highly prized and admired in China.
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At http://www.cswxjl.com/en/product_info_2186.html  it is described this way:

Gather the spirit of mountains and rivers, accumulate the sun and the moon essence.

Open maotai-flavor liquor, the first tree model. Outstanding, quiet and tastefully laid out and delicate, very full-bodied, the aftertaste is long, the empty cup stay joss-stick lasting.

Successive crown of national alcohol comparison, as the national wine.

OK! OK! Color me Convinced. Yeah, it “stay joss-stick lasting” alright!

There was quite a bit of information about this stuffs on a Wikipedia page.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maotai

In part, Wiki sez:

Maotai has been used on official occasions in feasts with foreign heads of state and distinguished guests visiting China. It is the only alcoholic beverage presented as an official gift by Chinese embassies in foreign countries and regions.

It received additional exposure in China and abroad when Zhou Enlai used the liquor to entertain Richard Nixon during the state banquet for the U.S. presidential visit to China in 1972. It is one of China's official state banquet wines and claims to be one of the world's three best known liquors (together with whisky and cognac) and is therefore presented to all official guests of state.

For a long time I’ve said that if I could spend a day speaking with any person in history, my first choice would be Jesus Christ, and my second would be Senator Joseph McCarthy.

I’m forced to make an adjustment. Who I would now most want to talk with is Richard Nixon, just to be able to say, “Tell me, Tricky Dick, what did you honestly think of the Maotai?”

I also found a pretty funny Internet exchange pertaining to Maotai between some wine connoiseurs [Whoa! I spelled it correctly!] at the Wine Berserkers site here:

http://wineberserkers.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=36568

Believe me, people, this Maotai stuffs will melt the enamel right off your teeth; it could be used to kill fleas on dogs, de-claw cats and execute laogai prisoners.



The real challenging thing for me now is try to come up with something I can use as a mixer for it.

What? - Huh? - Am I REALLY going to drink the rest of this stuffs?

Well, hell yes, I’m going to drink it! How could you even ask me that? What’s wrong with you? Did you not read above where I said Maotai is 106 proof?! Sheesh! You people are a bit slow in the head.

So, what can I use to dilute it and hide the awful taste of it? I’m thinking that first I will try Windex. According to Gus Portokalos in the movie 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding', Windex will fix anything.

If that doesn’t cut it, I’m thinking I’ll try the nubile blood of virgin sacrifices. Perhaps I can trade something for some of the leftovers from those nice folks at BOHEMIAN GROVE.

Failing that, as a last resort, I will simply drink straight shots of Maotai, followed by vodka and peppermint schnapps chasers.

You see, even at the height of my alcoholic haze dayz in my early and mid twenties, I never did like the taste of those two drinks. So, I’m figuring that using them as a chaser to wash down the Maotai, at the very least, I will finally learn to love vodka and peppermint schnapps after all these years.

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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SPIRITUAL SONGS SUNG FOR YOU . . . FROM THE SANDY SHORE OF MALIBU

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Caught a wave upon the ocean
Saw a way to life’s devotion



Have you ever heard of John Zambetti?

Neither had I.

Have you ever heard of Walter Egan?

Well, if you were a teenager or in your twenties in the late ‘70s then I know your answer to that second question is “Yes”.

Walter Egan, of course, is the One-Hit Wonder whose ballad ‘MAGNET AND STEEL’ (with Stevie Nicks doing background vocals) climbed to Billboard’s number 8 spot in 1978.

Walter Egan w/ Stevie Nicks - Magnet And Steel
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ar5GaTC440M

If you bought Egan’s ‘Not Shy’ album in the Summer of Seventy-Eight, like I did, you noticed a picture on the LP sleeve that showed Egan and his bandmates posing around a big ol’ American-made car. Egan and the bloke to his right were wearing T-shirts that said “The Malibooz” on them.

As gin-soaked as my memory is, I can still remember, back in '78, wondering who or what “The Malibooz” was.

Now I know. The Malibooz is a band that Walter Egan has been a part of for over 30 years.

Two or three years ago, I somehow became aware of an album by The Malibooz titled “LIVING WATER (The Surfer’s Mass)”. I’d never heard it - only knew that it was supposed to be a sort of prayerful, meditative collection of Surf Songs sort of correlated to the Catholic Mass. I’ve never been Catholic, but hell yeah “Heck” yeah, color me “intrigued”. But at that time, “Living Water” was hard to come by and expensive.

In the blog bits “Motel, Money, Murder, Madness” and “The Firefly In The Belly Of The Beast” I told you about a recent 3-day trip I made to Los Angeles. I had been planning that trip for a few months, and part of the plan was to visit the record stores Soundsations and Amoeba.

I determined that I would buy a few compact discs that were missing from my collection, but with the stipulation that what I bought should have some distinct Southern California association for me.

[For example: I bought Van Morrison’s “Moondance” which includes the song “Brand New Day”, the song that my screenplay “Billy ‘N’ Billie” – which I wrote in ’91, when I was an Angeleno – concludes with.]

One of three albums that I was absolutely determined to pick up while on this trip was “LIVING WATER (The Surfer’s Mass)” by The Malibooz. I’d heard some audio clips at the CD Baby website [a GREAT music source, by the way!] and I was sure I would enjoy the whole thing. ("LIVING WATER" was chosen one of the Top 5 Albums of 1999 by D.J. Johnson of C.D. Magazine.)

Malibu . . . my oldest friend, Eric, lived in Malibu when we were students at Santa Monica High School (Samohi). Some weekends I would stay at his house near Zuma Beach. He was living in that same Malibu house when he drove down to pick up me, my brother Nappy, and his best buddy, Mike, on our way to ‘Cal Jam 2’ in 1978.

[But Eric had forgotten to bring the tickets! They were still sitting on a coffee table in Malibu. While Eric drove all the way back to Malibu to get those pieces of paper, I walked up and down my street - Sunset Avenue - wearing boxing gloves, and beating the unliving sh#t out of every wooden post supporting a street sign that I could find. Nappy’s best friend, Mike, STILL talks about that!]

Believe it or not, even the superstore Amoeba Records on Sunset Boulevard didn’t have “Living Water (The Surfer’s Mass)” by The Malibooz. So a few weeks after returning to Airheadzona, I got on the CD Baby website and ordered it.

OH . . . MY . . . GOD!

I wasn’t prepared for this! I was pretty sure I would like it but . . . this is the best new music [released in 1999] I have acquired in, like, ages!

Now think about this: Walter Egan is the “big name” in the band, and yet the relatively unknown John Zambetti is the lead singer and principal songwriter. In other words, Walter Egan is perfectly content to be more of a “background” member of this group simply because . . . it’s a TRUE LABOR OF LOVE!

[And think about the incredible talent – like John Zambetti - that is out there in “this world”, but which we rarely learn about because these artists refuse to compromise their vision and gift by kowtowing to “the talentless, suit-wearing system” that dictates who does and who does not have “It”. What a load of Bullshevik!]

“LIVING WATER (The Surfer’s Mass)” is one of those albums so good great that every time I listen to it in its entirety, I come away thinking that a different song is my favorite.

A few minutes ago, I was sure that “Caught A Wave” (not to be confused with the Beach Boys’ “Catch A Wave”) was my favorite track. Three hours ago, it was “Lamb Of God” [I challenge you to refrain from singing along with that “Ahhh-AHHH-Ahhh!”]. Five hours before that, I was certain it was the instrumental “Crest, Then Broken”.

Had you asked me late yesterday what my favorite song was, I would have told you the best song in the set is “Bitter Water” (which, according to CD Baby, ended 1999 as the #1 MP3 download at Indiespace.com), but earlier in that day it was “Holy, Holy”.

Oh, wait, track 6 is playing again – “Crest, Then Broken” – yeah. Yeah! Oh, yeah! Definitely the best . . . if it’s not “Caught A Wave”.

HOKEY-SMOKE AND HOLY GOD!

I’ve shut off my completely beloved traditional Christmas songs and have devoted my ears to The Malibooz’s “Living Water” – which works equally well for background music to decorate a Christmas Tree to or music to contemplate and forgive by. Or just stuffs to dig no matter what you’re doing or what you believe.

The first thing you will notice in listening to “Living Water (The Surfer’s Mass)” is that The Malibooz love and respect the great music of Brian Wilson and The Beach Boys; this is very Beach Boys-ish in style – with the wonderful, intricate, mellow harmonizing we’d expect from that Classic vocal group. But these songs are all spiritual in nature. Which is NOT to say that one must be spiritually-minded or dogmatically devoted to any particular religion in order to appreciate them.

Regardless of your spiritual beliefs (or lack thereof) this is simply breathtaking music that mostly ranges from the extremely pretty (“Bitter Water” and “Lamb Of God”) to the absolutely gorgeous (“Crest, Then Broken” and “Caught A Wave”).

[Who is playing that Classical guitar lead in “Crest, Then Broken”? It’s either Egan or Zambetti, but whichever of them it is, it breaks my heart into a Godzillion pieces! And how about that bass line in “Bitter Water”? Whoa! Du-uuu-de - gnarly!]

I’ve had “Living Water” for about a week, and my first time through the disc I thought it was very good, quite nice, but not necessarily “all that”. But by the 7th or 8th time through it, my mind had been shattered and blown away by it.

I like to tell myself that I’m a fairly good writer, and I’m seldom at a loss for words, but this record – all 33 minutes of it (33, that figures!) – I can hardly describe. The five reviewers at Amazon.com have probably said it better than I can. I suggest you read THESE reviews . . . but BUY the album at CD BABY.

Overall, this is extremely mellow – you’re not going to crank this up on the stereo when The League Of Soul Crusaders is coming over to drink beer and knock holes in the walls – but there are a few upbeat tracks. “Kyrie” and “Doxology/Amen” do rock, but not for long. And “Alleluia” sounds just like Dick Dale or The Surfaris trippin' on God, which, in fact, is quite cool (I wouldn’t even mind having an entire album in THAT style, too), but those three tracks - accounting for three minutes and thirty-seven seconds COMBINED - scarcely make a dent in the lushly layered, beautiful mood that the other songs set.

I know most people perceive us Southern California surfer-type dudes to be shiftless and dimwitted, but I’m here to prove those perceptions to be, like, mostly . . . pretty true. ...Nevertheless, these dudes – these musicians from ‘Surfrider Beach’ in Malibu – definitely dove deep and came back to the beach to tell us of the wonders they’ve found below the Spirit’s surface.

What a Christmas gift I gave myself! (Well, hell heck, I’ve been a “good boy” this year . . .  mostly.)

Malibooz Band Benediciti
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-_cDymVHZLc

Malibooz Band Summer Wind
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihmqraCx2a0&feature=endscreen&NR=1

Malibooz Band Caught A Wave
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTgXusqo5jM

Related Links:
The ‘Fat City Cigar Lounge’ Review
I’m “Not Shy” Now . . .

~ Stephen T. McCarthy

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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