Sometimes kicking off the holiday season is a real Hasselhoff

The Hasselhoff clan enjoyed a fine start to the holiday season this weekend, David being rushed to the hospital for what most folks assume is another case of alcohol poisoning and his ex-wife arrested for a DUI.

Ahh, the sights and sounds of that most magical time of the year - it really takes me back to those days of yore growing up. What says Christmas more than the holiday colors of the ambulance and police siren lights in your driveway? Perhaps only the evergreen shade of Dad's vomit splattered on the yule log and his snow white stubble grown over the course of a five day bender.  Eggnog, anyone?

Ho-ho-ho!

That's as good a pratfall into this holiday season as any - thanks, David.  Perhaps someone ought to pick him up a casket on walmart.com for Christmas - might be a timely gift.  Whatever Santa brings you, I'm sure it'll be appropriate.

Seems even the perfect Tiger Woods was having a bit of a rocky domestic go of things this weekend as Black Friday bleeds into Cyber Monday.

Speaking of Cyber Monday, I've got a week of mad craziness at work before I take a break for a few days, and I'm expecting the asylum to be especially loony on a number of levels.   So I'm hanging up my blogging shoes for the next five days unless something truly significant compels me to post (even then, I may hold off until Friday).

So I'll finish off the evening in typically schizophrenic fashion, clicking incessantly between Frost/Nixon (the parallels between Hasselhoff and Nixon are eerie), Gladiator, Apocalypse Now, HBO's Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 25th Anniversary Concert and Animal House. Mostly the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame show.  Lou Reed and Metallica doing Sweet Jane!  That made my weekend.  And U2, Springsteen and Patti Smith doing Because the Night (Patti's version)!  Made my weekend twice.  Patti and Lou.  Is anything more New York?

Catch you on the other side.

Sesame Street? Give me the City Dump

Sesame Street turns 40 today, eh? So Google tells me, anyway. Is there no end to notable 40th anniversaries this year? Obviously, 1969 was a year of consequence, more than just the summer of Bryan Adams' first wet dream. I was 7 when Sesame Street rolled onto the scene and a bit too old to really get into it (by that point, I was more into superhero cartoons and just starting to grow out of my J.P. Patches phase). But who am I kidding? I never grew out of my love for the world of J.P. Patches, as god awful as it may have been. Awfully good, that is.

For those of you who didn't grow up in the Seattle/Puget Sound area in the 60's or 70's, you're not likely to be familiar with J.P Patches. Let me enlighten you.

J.P. was a tramp/clown played by Chris Wedes who presided as "Mayor of the City Dump," a world that was vaguely Sesame Street-like, in its own low-rent way. The show took place almost exclusively at the same, single-set location (appropriately made to look like the grimy corner of a city dump). J.P. held court there, showing us cartoons and interacting with the wacky gaggle of heroes ("The Swami of Pastrami"), villains ("Boris S. Wart!"), lovers (J.P.'s "girlfriend" Gertrude the Clown), and friends ("Ketchikan the Animal Man") who rounded out this alternate universe of magic and filth.

Except for J.P., virtually all of the characters on the show - whether they be male, female, human or otherwise - were played by Bob Newman wrapped in sundry cheesy, cheap costumes and bad vocal gymnastics. So of course, J.P. could only interact with one at a time since Mr. Newman didn't have a twin or clone and was thus bound by the laws of physics (and trapped in a time and with a budget that did not allow for even the most primitive of special effects).

Wedes and Newman, both now in their eighties, made an appearance last year to witness the unveiling of twin bronze statues of their alter egos on the 50th anniversary of the show's debut (that's them at the ceremony on the left). Of course, these two are still regulars at county fairs, supermarket grand openings and pretty much any other public gathering you can imagine, almost always in full costume (though Newman confines himself to playing just Gertrude these days). The end of the show on television merely meant that they were freed up to take the act on the road up and down the highways and byways of the Great Northwest.

When I was a kid, J.P. was on for an hour and a half on weekday mornings before school and again for an hour in the afternoon. And he popped up for still more on Saturdays. Jeez, that's a lot of show! His morning time slot led up to the national Captain Kangaroo program, but I never got into the Captain all that much. Too polished for my taste, I'm guessing. J.P. was raw, the production values non-existent, with "acting" that would make Keanu Reeves proud. I mentioned that it was a lot of show? Well, it took a City Dump's worth of bullshit to fill up all that air time and the dynamic duo of Wedes and Newman could shovel it steaming and thick while still making you want for more.

Despite - or perhaps because of - all the cheese and really, really, really bad costumes, the world J.P. Patches and crew created seemed very real to me as a young boy. And actual honest-to-goodness people stopped by "The City Dump" nearly every episode to reinforce the suspension of disbelief: local scout troops, CBS Seattle affiliate news and weather personalities, local politicians, national celebrities that happened to be in town, etc. All were welcomed to the Dump by His Honor, that ultimate clown prince of bums. (With apologies to Chaplin, his Little Tramp wouldn't even rate a meal from J.P.'s trashcan, fuckin' silent English twit.)

So, it's not their anniversary or anything, but when I think of Sesame Street, my mind turns to J.P. Patches.

For those interested in more, and aren't satisfied by Wikipedia's entry, visit the J.P. Patches home page.

For those who are baffled by this post, well - ya hadda be there, I guess.

'And you've spent the last 10 years of your life in this Emergency!' - Stiff Little Fingers

Firefighter Johnny Gage. Firefighter Roy DeSoto. "Squad 51/Squad 51, overturned tanker truck at 512 Cornell Avenue, cross street Evans - Time Out 10:52." Nurse Dixie McCall, Dr. Kelly Brackett, Dr. Joe Early. Goofy Firefighter Chet Kelly. The Captain. Firehouse antics, the jovial kidding around with the ER staff, the medical back-and-forth on the state-of-the-art mobile communications equipment. I'm referring of course to Emergency!

This show was, as much as any other, the 1970s to me. More than disco, as much as Watergate. It was another show ripped from the headlines as the role of paramedic started to take hold in major cities across America. It was also a show ripped from the mind of Jack Webb and set in the same universe as his Adam 12 (in fact there was the occasional cross over of characters between the two). Adam 12 of course came from the loins of the granddaddy of the genre, Dragnet.

Emergency! shared the same unintentionally comical seriousness and staccato procedural dialog as Jack's other works but had some intentional humor as well. Webb was only one of many creators here and some of the others apparently did not have that same long stick up their ass that had long since severed Jack's funny bone.

Why bring this up? I caught Kevin Tighe (Roy DeSoto) in a bit part on some show last night (I think it was a Law and Order SVU) and it got me to thinking about how Emergency! affected me in my formative years. After the usual little kid cowboy/fireman/astronaut phase, I've only wanted to be three things growing up: veterinarian, paramedic and writer/journalist. Emergency! made me want to become a paramedic.

I can't exactly say what it was about paramedics that fascinated me. It could be that I was on the career dreams rebound, having just had my veterinarian aspirations crushed by the realization it would require eight years of college. My disdain for the hard sciences at the time and the lack of a family nest egg for higher education sort of drove a stake into that. But I was still intrigued by medicine and, gee, those guys didn't have to go to college and study biology but they got to do all kinds of cool doctor-like stuff. Plus they were out and about in the California sun and could hang at the firehouse but didn't have to run into burning buildings (at least not all that often).

And they always seemed to be having fun. More fun than I was having in the 70s anyway. Johnny Gage was hitting on the young Rampart nurses (and getting shot down). Roy was the family man. Yet we never saw their life outside of the firehouse, the field and Rampart General. And they only very briefly talked (or thought) about such things. Typical Jack Webb, all business. Yet lots of laughs and general feeling of happiness permeated the show, except when in the actual act of rescuing folks (sometimes even then).

Geez, they even had Hot Wheels Emergency vehicles and a board game, so you knew it was cool!

It was strangely both a microcosm of the 70s and yet completely out of phase with that decade. Running from 1972 - '77 with regular movies of the week through '79, it was filled with the clothes, hairstyles and technologies of the day, but the scripts themselves could be produced as is for a completely contemporary show come the 2009 fall season.

"Rampart, this is Squad 51. We have a male, early 20s, unconscious, pupils are fixed and dilated." "51, this is Rampart. Start an IV with D5W and transport stat." It was invariably D5W, regardless of the problem. I guess that was because it was an innocuous substance (essentially saline). Occasionally Lactated Ringer's (saline with a glass of milk). Can't trust these firefighters with administering anything stronger - sure they have this newfangled paramedic certificate but any bozo can get one of those. That's what I imagined was going through the minds of Doctors Brackett and Early during each communication with the boys out in the field. As Dixie McCall adjusted her starched nurse's cap in the background and shook her head, chuckling.

I never did become a paramedic (or a veterinarian or a print journalist, or a cowboy/astronaut/fireman for that matter).

Still, for a short time, thanks to this show, it seemed to be an honorable, fun and most of all, attainable profession.

I'm still waiting for the series about the lives of software developers in a large corporate setting. See the hapless bunch as they attempt to bend time, space, budgets and people while the Contractual Obligation clock ticks down to zero hour. How fast can this merry band of code slingers churn that software out? Okay, now how fast with sixteen tons of dead weight and six truckloads of red tape tied to their backs? How much will the resulting software suck? How expensive will it be to maintain going forward? Stay tuned - same bat time, same bat channel.

Ahh, yes. Hot Wheels action mobile mouse and board game coming for Christmas!

It was 40 years ago today, I was told to go outside and play (or to shut the hell up, you little shit - maybe both)

My thoughts are especially scattered and unfocused this week, not sure what might be causing it. Is it the fact that Nancy Botwin has packed her bags and flown south for the season? Or that age 47 is standing there waiting for me less than two days hence, the cold hand of death lurking in the shadows behind it?

Perhaps that's a touch dramatic, it's probably just the cold hand of an AARP representative lining up to welcome me to the fold. Perhaps the midlife crisis I thought I had averted has finally caught up with me?

Last night I had a dream Dr. G was chasing me around the office with her big rib separators, screaming "Time for your standard 'Y' incision, Stevie!" That's gotta mean something. Well, something besides the fact I watch way too much Discovery Health programming. Which in itself tells you a lot - I'm just prepping for my new demographic.

How the hell did September get here? Hell, it's late enough in the year that they might even be burying Michael Jackson soon. I hear tell its tomorrow, at Forest Lawn in a suitably creepy crypt beside Gable, Lombard and Harlow. Talk about rushing a guy into the ground - I guess his "Summer at Bernie's" is coming to a close. Time to take him down from out front of Joe Jackson's Used Furniture Shack, remove the "Blow Out Summer Sale" sign pinned to the back of his head, dust him off, hose him down and slide him in.

MJ gets a dignified send off and I get Dr. G hunting me down in my dreams like Freddie Krueger. Where's the justice in that?

Christ the time just flies by, what is it about this year in particular?

Maybe it's all these 40th anniversaries that have been popping up. Woodstock, Moon Landing, etc. Now we have Momar celebrating 40 years of repressing a people, terrorizing neighbors, all while looking fabulous. Seems like just yesterday he was Major al-Gaddafi with only one way to spell his name. Not sure how anyone could live like that.

Do you remember where you were when Colonel Khadafi took power? I was almost 7 but can't say where I was or what I was doing. I'm sure we celebrated as all patriotic Americans did. Lynn, you're the one with the photographic family memory - where were we when Quadafi claimed Libya as his? Say, wasn't that the time Dad got really drunk? No help? Doesn't narrow it down?

Hell, even Sesame Street turned 40 this year and I was too old to have ever watched the thing except as a goof. That's the definition of old.

Now it seems the Cookie Monster has fallen from on high. Strung out they say, freebasing Bakery-grade Chocolate-tar 'dough'. That's bad shit, flowing across our border thanks to an army of nefarious Amos Cartel cookie mules. But I have to say, it's what you get for hanging around with Amy Winehouse and Kate Moss. And Mrs. Fields. Act your age, man.

Good thing Cookie wasn't one of my heroes growing up, I'm already top heavy with self destructive role models. Hunter Thompson, Lester Bangs, Charles Bukowski, William Burroughs, F. Scott Fitzgerald. And that's just the first room in the literary wing of the Buzzard hall of fame. Most of my heroes are dead, done in by their own hand for the most part (directly or otherwise). Time to hitch my wagon to a new generation of degenerates.

Of course, Cookie was hardly the first of that lot to develop feet of clay (well, feet of felt, as the case may be). Gordon, the father figure of the neighborhood ended up decked out in purple plumage and backslapping sadism as Tyrone, Donna Beck's abusive Pimp on All My Children in the late 70s. And we all know the stories circling around Ernie and Bert, not that there's anything wrong with that. In fact, of all the characters, those two might be the most believable (other than the Snuffleupagus, of course). Speaking of Snuff, what the hell is the presence of this sort of character saying to kids? The horror.


Something wonderful and evil happened 40 years ago today - The first ATM opened for business in the US. Certainly the advent of the ATM opened up a world of convenience for folks who until then had go to the bank when in need of the paper stuff. But for those of us who have danced with the devil in the pale moonlight, ready access to cash at 1am on a Saturday - or a Wednesday for that matter - is usually not a good thing (well, not in the long term, anyway; it was a wonderful thing indeed 'in the moment').

We've started drawing to the end of the ATM era recently, I think - the register itself playing that role nowadays at most places. I don't carry cash much anymore. But it will be a very long, very slow death as there are still a great many places, people and things insistent on negotiating in hard currency. So happy birthday, you gloriously miserable piece of enabling technological convenience. And good riddance to bad rubbish.

Hey, Altamont is coming up on 40 in December, wonder what sort of magical reunions people have planned for that? Are the Angels going to show up there and nostalgically stab some folks?

Finally, though, I'll remember 1969 (in particular, its summer) as the inspiration for that insipid Bryan Adams song. If for no other reason than that, the year should have its calendar privileges revoked.

Wild Things, I think you moved me, but I want to know for sure

Where the Wild Things Are.

This was my favorite children's book as a very young boy and I see the Spike Jonze movie adaption comes out in the fall.

It looks promising. It's got a lot to live up to for me personally.

It was my first 'favorite' book.

Chester The Horse was my actual first book that had words I could read, but that story was a snoozer (sorry, Syd - but you'll be happy to know I own a copy of your equine opus this very day, for posterity).

Wild Things, though, was the shit.

My mom taught us to read at a pretty young age and books allowed me to escape from the Cirrhosis, Strokes, Smokes and Manic Depression that otherwise enveloped our (un)Pleasantville style home (sort of like the executioner giving you a blindfold and showing you how to tie it before signaling the firing squad to start shooting for the next 15 years).

'Cirrhosis, Strokes, Smokes and Manic Depression' - it's got a ring to it, eh? If I ever start a rock band, Mom & Dad, I've got the name and you'll be the inspiration ...

I was 3 or 4 when Chester arrived and a year or so older for Wild Things. Until I graduated to Dr. Doolittle, Encyclopedia Brown and The Phantom Tollbooth (which became my new best-est favorite), Max and his Monsters kicked ass.

So, Spike - this better be good. Ya made some wonderful flicks (Adapation and Being John Malkovich) but Charlie Kaufman didn't write this one and you've been uneven without Chuck at the pen. Do Maurice proud.

Looks to be a great cast of characters (Claire Fisher, Tony Soprano, Lola Heatherton, Charles Jefferson, Maxine Lund) but you've been fiddling with it for over a year, Spike, which worries me some. And there's talk the studio is influencing you to make it "more family oriented."

Stand your ground.

Fuck the family. This is for grown up kids. My childhood memories are depending on it.

Speaking of books that are the shit, I'm re-reading yet again Kirsten Bakis's wonderfully fantastic flight of canine 19th century Canadian rebellion and 21st century Manhattan society, 'Lives of the Monster Dogs.' If you ain't read it, I can't recommend it enough. Utterly original. Mops Hacker is dead - Long live Mops Hacker! Twelve years on and it's her only book but I hear tell she's working on a new one. I will be at the head of the line to read that one too.

For the techno-geeks, I'm taking David Astel's Jolt Award winning TDD guide for another spin. Really well written and engaging (two things I don't tend to find in tech books not written by Martin Fowler). As fresh and relevant today as it was when he wrote it in 2003 as it will be in 2013. It teaches you how to develop all over again, step at a time. How not to get ahead of yourself and how to truly design through code. Great stuff.

The return of Eeyore

What ever happened to my childhood hero, Eeyore? Why hasn't there been a Pixar Eeyore movie? It's a sure-fire summer blockbuster waiting to happen. Maybe a live-action take on the character.

Instead of a donkey, Eeyore could be an American Staffordshire Terrier, Winnie the Pooh wouldn't be a bear - he'd instead be a larger, more vicious and hungry canine. Christopher Robin would be played, of course, by noted thespian and animal loving scamp Michael Vick.

Eeyore loses his tail! Pooh finds it for him! Just like the stories Mom used to read me!

But with a modern twist ...

Pooh would follow up the 'de-tailing' by ripping out Eeyore's right eye and sinking his fangs into the vicinity of his jugular, giving him something truly worth complaining about for the first time. Christopher and his many friends would gather round one of his many 'Pits O' Fun' and exchange laughter and money with the other woodland creatures. Eeoyore is no match for Pooh and alas, it just wasn't his night (shades of Terry Malloy).

And when it was all said and done and the Poo had prevailed, Christopher then would gently apply the electrodes to ol' Eeyore's gonads and out go the lights!

What a magical tale for the children!

Teach the kids the value of lowered expectations while they're young. Welcome back to the NFL, already in progress ...

Giant steps are what you take - Walking on the moon

I'm watching a "repeat" - the 40th anniversary re-broadcast of the moon mission on the History Channel. Nixon just got through talking to Neil and Buzz from the White house and his insincerity and general sliminess shines through as much today as it did in 1969.

From his disheveled appearance, Nixon must have rushed into the Oval Office just before placing the phone call - probably after doing a quick line with Kissinger in the blue room (I'm guessing, judging from the jittery speech pattern and dilated pupils).

He seems in especially high spirits chatting it up with the moonwalkers. Some might attribute the jovial mood to the occasion of our first walk on an alien world and beating the dirty commies to it but given the hour it's more likely that he had just finished his evening "constitutional" (which in his case usually meant a third world musical snuff film double feature with a shot of smack and a tub of buttered popcorn).

That always put him in a giddy frame of mind. Of course, that's just what I heard.

Tricky Dick is truly timeless, kind of like Jack the Ripper.

I was just shy of 7 years old when the moon walk was originally broadcast live but I don't remember it. I'm sure we were glued to the tube like everyone. I remember catching some of the later missions but not particularly that first one. Perhaps I knew even then that it was all staged on some backlot in Van Nuys.

Nothing Nixon was involved with, even indirectly, could possibly be genuine.

The moonshot was indeed real until he placed that congratulatory call and festered himself into what to that point had been a singular moment in history and after which became cheapened and suspect. In that Nixonian instant, the astronauts were teleported from the lunar surface to some sleazy sound stage in Porn Valley guarded by Liddy, Hunt, Colson and the rest of his plumbers and fixit boys. Phonying up the moon mission was merely a prelude to the CREEP activities to come. This was the minor leagues.

But maybe I'm being too hard on the guy. He did give me Watergate, after all, and I *do* remember watching and growing to love those hearings.

They interrupted the normal afterschool shows and I had no alternative options on the days when the weather made playing outdoors unpalatable (this was Seattle and it was pre-cable, children).

Those hearings instilled in me the political beliefs and principles that have stayed with me to this day. So I gotta say 'thanks' to Milhous for that. Were it not for him, I might have grown up to be a Republican.

Now, on to the weekly misadventures of Nancy Botwin (sweet Mary Louise) ... Alanis Morissette (who appeared memorably as God in Kevin Smith's Dogma) continues a guest run tonight as Nancy's baby doc. Weeds jumped the shark prior to first airing but I love it all the same.