Toss Responsibly...

Color enhanced photographic record of aftermath of irresponsible Christmas potato tossing. 

Date, location,  status of victims post incident, & final case disposition all unknown

Remember to always throw Christmas potatoes responsibly. A message from The National Potato Council Board of Govenors and members of The FreeState InterFaith Council nationwide.

What a wunnerful world...

Having just awakened from a horrible dream(repeatedly revisited recently causing me to speculate that, like Scrooge, are these images meant to provide a window into a possible future lest I change my ways and habits)I wished to check the current  time.

Time...an artificial construct agreed upon by the peoples of the world to control & track a fleeting unnecessary notion similar to our belief in a system that assigns value to arbitrary random items because of perceived levels of, "That rock shines am be pretty. Mongo want big." If we can agree on concepts such as time and wealth wouldn't ya think we could sneak in peace, equality, and a weasel based power grid?

So...I go from dreams of uncontrollable palsy,the inability to make myself understood when speaking, and an outward personal presentation indicating drunkenness, to...,"1:39, it's gotta be later than that.

An aside: normally I sleep wonderfully on a regular consistent basis. However, the first few days of the winter break from school sleep alludes me. I guess I'm in a big hurry to relax and not waste time.

1:39 a.m. After checking the time I find a photo enhanced message from Young Thomas delivered from the Crescent City.

Uptown New Orleans full-bore tater tossin' is on!

 To see the quinisential American city "tossed" is proof beyond Louis's raspy claims that despite it all, "what a wunnerful world!"

Christmas Potato Classic vs. New Christmas Potato

The video is just over 8 minutes of spudliness"

Link to Christmas Potato on YouTube 

Shortly before our 3rd year of throwing Christmas potatoes the biggest selling soft drink in the world decided to scrap the formula of their best selling carbonated beverage and replace it with a flavor more similar to another brands signature flavor.

Almost 30 years later it still doesn't make sense. Shortly afterwards they brought the old flavor back and labled it "Coke Classic"

Which leads me to the new version of the Christmas potato story. In this case it isn't a battle  of "new" vs "classic." It is just a minor update in the telling of the same story with a few very small changes newer artwork or re-imaginings.

For anyone that hates to break tradition here is a link to the "classic" telling of the story with all the original art from 1993 created with the first version of the color version of Kid Pix. 

Now the best of both worlds is available.

Merry Christmas

The Story of the Christmas Potato Classic

Joy to the World

...and what a joy!

In my mind and for my money one of the many pure joys in the world is listening to Roger McGuinn play his Rickenbacker 12 string. It doesn't get much better than that and as the self declared Listener Laureate of my generation I am uniquely qualified, able, and willing to make that very difficult call. 

As I checking around the net today I found this link to his solo Rickenback 12 string version of Joy to the World. That is all that needs to be said.

Please take me to the song you are bragging on...

The WORST best Christmas ever...

the WORST best Christmas ever...

Mix Song List 2014/1997

click for tunes

I've been making Christmas mix tapes/cds/playlists for ages. Some of my first ones were in Junior High using my Wards Airline cassette recorder with the mic taped in front of the stereo speakers. Lo-fi at its very best.

I kept meaning to get one done this year, but lacked sufficient motivation to actually get it done. I'm not really sure why. I think I feel at least a little bit Christmas-y, but I'm not sure. I've already gotten perfect gifts for some folks and even presented the new version of the story of spud tossing. Decorating the house produced many fewer arguments and much less shouting this year and the kids and Haidee all seem to be getting along. I just don't get it. Maybe I don't need the higher levels of excitation.

I don't want to beat a dead horse or sound like a rerun(sorry Mark) but to be honest as I'm getting closer to my golden years I think back to the activities of a Christmas 17 years ago. It was my worst Christmas ever.

I won't go into all the boring details or the repetitive rambling. I'll just go with, "that was the year I had my holiday quadruple bypass." They dropped the knowledge nugget on me about noon on the 23rd after an ever so exciting heart cath(my first in a series of over a dozen these many years later.) I shan't soon forget the sighte of  the four highly paid heart specialists pointing at a monitor as they huddled in a corner, shaking heads, looking over their glasses at me. Finally one of them comes over and tells me the news. Luckily one of them, Rez Khalafi, says let him have a Christmas, we can do it on Monday.

I wasn't that excited about having the surgery anyway. My dad only lasted not quite 3 days after his four years earlier and by gawd I didn't want to do it until we threw potatoes in Jacksboro.  Now 17 years later we are sill at it. I've had seven stents since, 2 bouts of roto rooter, done all sorts of wild and crazy treatments.

(I even followed the Dick Cheney program of biting the heads off of live  weasel babies one a day for 2 weeks. Actually when I heard him gloat about how he'd torture all over again and the senate report was just a bunch of hooey and full of cr&p, I thought loudly to myself, "Did we really waste a perfectly good 'human" heart on him when it could have gone to someone possibly  a little nicer and more caring?")

So...I think about the heart stuff at Christmas time. That year was the both the worst but also the BEST Christmas ever just because of everything that followed.

I got on the youtubes and put together a playlist of the songs I listened to in '97 and that I still love today.

When I get more time I might ramble some about each of them. Enjoy, Merry Christmas, and sorry about the advertising on some of them.

click for tunes

 

Merry Christmas Baby - Charles Brown
Buck Owens - Blue Christmas Lights
Rudolph & Hermie We're A Couple Of Misfits
The Haynes Sisters- Rosemary Clooney & Vera Ellen -Sisters
HANK THOMPSON - Gonna Wrap My Heart in Ribbons (1964)
Frank Sinatra - Jingle Bells
Dexter Gordon Quartet - "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas"
Lowell Fulson - Lonesome Christmas (Swing Time Records 1950)
Nat King Cole - This Christmas Song
BUCK OWENS - Santa Looked a Lot Like Daddy (1965)
The Staple Singers - Go Tell It On The Mountain - 1962
Steve Earle - Nothing But A Child
Charlie Parker - White Christmas (Live jazz, 1948)

Link to MP3 file of mix

 

Newest version of the tale....

Every couple of years I get a call, a letter, once even a rock through the window, from my old traveling companion and frequent fellow Luddite, Kinney. Most often it is a request for the temporary loan of funds for this or that best left unmentioned  business venture. I still consider my investment in the early beginnings of the weasel based electric grid a sound choice even if I've yet to begin profiteering.

Recently he claimed he wanted to "touch up" the tale of the Christmas potato. At first...there was hesitance on my part, yet when Kinney said it was already a done deal and ready for posting how could I argue with him. He assured me his buddies,  Eddie & Julian,  would see it was shared one way or the other. He reminded me that over the last almost 60 years there was ample material shared between the two of us that if released would make the Sony kerfuffle seem like children's playground gossip and intrigue.

So....for your enjoyment here is Kinney's new take on the old tale now after 30 years of retelling. The story is presented for audition purposes only. Kinney makes no claim of ownership over the material other than the obvious stuff that could only come from the wrinkled gray mass that is his imagination. His "assistant" (someone I've never met, who's description changes constantly as does his/her name) is responsible for the art and creative touches and who told Kinney, "If it is posted in the cyberspace I feel free to borrow as long as I never profit from it or claim it has my own work. Borrowage is the stuff that makes the world go round, the world go round."

Talk about some serious excitement...

Lights are coming on all over town and my favorite elf is making notes. Momentarily potatoes will be wrapped with messages affixed. To help you prepare I'm posting a PDF of the "message" making for easier duplication and new this year dotted lines to assist our friends and tossers who find themselves scissor-ly challenged.

PDF of notes for potatoes