Bing's Cherished Memories of Christmas

Good evening. I hope the snow wasn't too much. I just want... wait, what's that? Why, it's the sound of bobsleds jing-jing-a-jingling on a snowy mountain pass. And that singing? Why, that's the boys choir from St. Matthews on their annual caroling trip through town. That's right, Christmastime is upon us. Days filled to the brim with family and friends, good food and the many traditions that make this time of year so very precious.

Thank you for joining us for a Crosby family Christmas. I know that for our clan, Christmas just wouldn't be the same without the annual trip to Old Miller's Farm to chop down the perfect tree. Every year, when we find that one-of-a-kind spruce, green and full, we gather together as a family, shake off the cold and decorate its evergreen boughs with every type of shiny bulb and string of garland you could imagine. O tannenbaum, o tannenbaum. How lovely are your branches. That old German composer sure had it right.

But maybe my favorite part of that special tradition is looking at each ornament for the first time in a year, and remembering the stories each one of them holds. Some of the trinkets hung from our tree are as old as me, even older, but who's counting. If you don't mind, I'd like to share a few stories with you now about the magic and the memories of the Christmas season.

Ah, this one reminds me of how I got started in this wondrous craft so many moons ago. For my fifth birthday, my mother gave me her father's violin and told me to learn it. It was bent a bit and had lost its shine long before, but my dear mother never let me miss a lesson. In time, I grew to love music more and more, and soon my father would call on me to play for his friends. They would empty into our kitchenette after last call and hurl drunken epithets at me while I played them Chopin. Once, my father demanded I continue playing as he slapped my bare stomach with a frozen pork roast. Oh, how they laughed. It was later destroyed when my father mistook it for a walking cane and took a spill off the porch.

Oh, now look at this one. The two bells tied with one bow to symbolize the bond of matrimony. What a memory. I received this as a present from my son, Beau, for my fourth marriage. Jacqueline and I were wed in a humble ceremony in my Vermont chateau at the beginning of winter. I remember a blizzard had covered most of the eastern side of the mountain and our guests were forced to stay the night. Jackie and I did our best to accommodate them, using each and every of our blankets and pillows. It was later that night, after most everyone was asleep, that I found Jackie sucking off Johnny Carson in the chateau's hot tub. We divorced soon after and that's the story of how I lost my 53-foot yacht "Buh Buh Boo."

I'd like to stop here to tell one last tale of holiday joy. I know this simple gingerbread man ornament may not look like much but it's one of my most cherished keepsakes. My daughter, Lydia, made this holiday knickknack for me. She had just started grammar school at Holy Innocents Preparatory and was so full of gumption and raw potential. It wasn't long after I received this ornament that Lydia began to change. In a month's time, she refused to speak; answering her parents' questions and commands only with grunts and crude chirps. She soon developed an affinity for touching strangers' genitals and eating her own hair. After one gig at the Roxy in Cleveland, I found her alone in my dressing room with the lights off, wearing men's trouser and smearing her own feces on the vanity mirror. We had her sent off to some place where they deal with people like her. I don't really recall the details but I'm almost certain she's still alive. My wife knows more about it.

Well, I think I hear those St. Matthew's boys at my doorstep. They'll be thirsty for some hot cocoa, for sure. Good night friends, and have a very merry Christmas.

Journal of Potentially Racist Haiku

This evening's entry into the Journal of Potentially Racist Haiku is devoted to Shingo Yamamoto (pictured), gas station manager and perpetual contestant on "Ninja Warrior."

Shingo! Warrior!
Yamamoto! Exalted!
Stereotype?! HUH?!

Thank you for your time. This has been an entry into the Journal of Potentiall Racist Haiku.

Build Your Nautical Vocab No. 2

Barratry
-(pronounced/bear-a-tree)

definition: 1. An unlawful or fraudulent act, or very gross and culpable negligence, by the master or mariners of a vessel in violation of their duty as such, directly prejudicial to the owner or cargo, and without his consent. 2. Smuggling, trading with an enemy, casting away the ship, and plundering or destroying cargo are considered barratry. source: Rene de Kerchove, International Maritime Dictionary, 2nd. Ed., p.44.

Use it in a sentence:
At the tribunal, Ensign VanderHart was brought before Commandant LeSard on charges of barratry stemming from the attempted buggering of Rear Admiral Jordan in the ship's hold after it had rung seven bells.

Redemption Song

"When I awoke, the Dire Wolf
six-hundred pounds of sin
was grinning at my window
all I said was 'Come on in.'"
- The Grateful Dead

Maybe it begins before dawn, in the frigid interior of a car that still smells of last night's cigarettes. Maybe you're in a stupor from a brief sleep and you sit there, dazed, listening to a song you remember from your childhood on a weak AM station.

It could be 60s Rock. It's probably an old folk hit.

It's filled with innuendo and metaphor, at any rate, but there's no missing the gist of the thing: Death. Murder.

It takes some effort of will to shift the Oldsmobile in reverse. You'd like to stay in the driveway like this most of the morning. You'd like to fall asleep as the sun rises; to call the AM station DJ and tell him to just keep on playing this fucking tune because, hey, this is it.

But you probably slip the gearshift down a notch, and begin idling backward out of the cracked driveway. You're not focused on what's behind you as much as looking at that small gray bungalow. A shitty little house, sure, but one that supervised some damned fine times.

"Fuck 'em" you might say to yourself, then throw her into drive and head west (or north), beginning that final commute.

Perhaps you become cognizant of the cell phone in your pocket, pressed against your right thigh, quiet. You think about all the people you should be calling: friends you've had since middle school, old flames, your parents.

A pang, then, if you're the type to suffer them. For the first time, a real sense of loss and fear. Regret.

But, probably, you're stubborn. This is do-it-yourself-business and they can sort it out amongst themselves once it's all over — assuming they find out and care. And with that, a new rush of warm purpose hits the old gut. You glance around to the back seat to make sure the necessary items — rope? a shovel? — are there, that they haven't fallen out or been left behind.

The slide guitar on the radio likely sounds steely and thin through the weakening signal and worn speakers. And maybe, too, the song is longer than your childhood recollections allowed. You'd been humming along, but a verse after that last bridge caught you unaware.

Uncharted musical territory, now, though familiar — still that cryptic tinge of grisly, black murder with every belabored lyric.

Comfort. Approval.

But, of a sudden, something new. The signal gives a momentary crack, and there, out of the aural ether, are gospel singers. A big black baptist choir from the sound of things; tearing throaty chunks out of the sweetest and most tremulous chords you think you've ever heard.

You've crossed into another station's territory here, no doubt — some unseen yet very real boundary on the now-sunny highway. These ebullient tones would certainly not have been on the original recording.

The gospel choristers are intruders, too; unwelcome since their refrains eliminate all that the folk classic had going for it. Gone are the visions of ugly, stabbing death. Each arpeggio — snugged in neatly, too neatly, against the former chantey's rhythms — brings only hope, a desire to get right with the world.

"Jesus gon' snatch me up." They hammer the words in unison, each elaborate syllable like a kick to the chest. "King gon' put me in his kingdom."

And beneath it, that song you once loved. The song, in fact, you probably now need.

You fiddle with the dial — a 16th of a rotation each way — but there's no improving the reception. It's all or nothing, so you go with it, straining to hear that familiar, welcome message over those triumphant harmonies.

You imagine the choir.

Berobed in some sweaty Alabama church, the swaying body is raising its hands to Jesus, mouths agape in praise — happy on the surface, certainly, but likely hateful and jealous on the inside. As the choir sways and sweats in your head, though, you're not so sure. Maybe these joyous harmonies actually communicate something real, not just artifice. It's something you've never considered.

As a kid, in fact, you'd taken it wholly as artifice. You'd seen those white faces smiling and gladhanding in your grandmother's stuffy church and saw it for what it was. Appearance, nothing more.

Here, though, with these glad tidings superimposed on a death march that's to your liking, nothing is certain. It's not that grandma was right, but this new aspect on things makes you suspect there's more out there then you've taken proper time to examine.

You've been hasty, you might realize listening to that macabre triumph. Too many assumptions when an open-mind would have sufficed. The acts you'd been so ready to perform moments ago seem distant, absurd, awful.

But, then, there's time to make everything right. That's important. You almost certainly chuckle there in the Oldsmobile, then drum your hands on the steering wheel and say something like "All right. All RIGHT." That's what someone on a television show would say when happening on a similar epiphany. And things, after all, are going to be all right.

Then the new, low-hanging sun catches the shovel blade in the backseat. The beam jumps off the rear view and into your eyes, magnified.

In the white-purple blindness that follows, you see the choristers in that same sweltering church. Their mouths are twisted into obscene smiles, their teeth are shining, spokesman-white, out into the congregation.

And as you miss the curve and the Oldsmobile pops through that last guard rail before the cliff, you're smiling that same blessed smile.

"Jesus gon' snatch me up."

Why dirquez is the best, most-clever writer on this blog. Your move, boys.

I was lunching with Terwilliger at the Continental Club, when it occurred to me: Giraffes are just tall, black-tongued horses.

Had natives of the Dark Continent attained ship-building prowess and blood-lust before their prissier, pale-faced neighbors to the north, the Preakness might be more than just a race. It would be a show of both athletic machismo and spectacularly unnecessary spotted coats.

It all made flawless sense, just then.

Even as I watched my lunch companion munch his quiche and attempt to entertain me with ribald tales of his pudgy tart of a mistress, I was mapping out business strategies.

Commission a fleet of extra-tall military cargo ships. Round the beautiful bastards up by the thousands and ship them to a ranch in west Texas. It might take years, or decades, of breeding and an unforgiving use of the riding crop, but we'd tame them eventually.

Oh, the possibilities!

I wondered if Davis still had the number of Clint Eastwood's booking agent. Clint was no fool. He'd see the situation just as I had. There was money to be made in the sight of him, stern-faced, riding an absurdly proportioned beast into a ghost town, looking for the men who had stolen his little girl and shot his brother. Special troughs would have to be commissioned, of course, but this was the picture business. No price was too high where success and possible Oscar nods were concerned.

I'd only ever seen a giraffe once — in the National Zoo. Still, the memories I'd retained of their basic mechanics convinced me that these, the greatest of ungulate beasts, would be perfect for nearly any role ever given to a horse, dog, cat or parakeet.

How, for instance, might've the film "Beethoven" been received had Charles Grodin had to combat a rascally giraffe for his family's affections, not just a mundane, slobbery Bernard? Splendidly, was the obvious answer.

And what of "Willard," wherein the audience is expected to believe a man is not only able to train and communicate with rats, but also that they are capable of murder? How much more convincing and terrifying might that film have been if Willard's victims were slaughtered not by tiny, dull rodent teeth, but by the unforgiving hooves and bulbous horns of 30 or so full grown giraffes? Bone chilling, truly.

In fact, this wouldn't ultimately be about wealth at all, I decided. I'd been well-provisioned for, after all. What did 5 or 6 billion more really matter in the panoramic view of things? No, this would be a matter of civic enrichment; of using an overlooked yet majestic animal to foster feelings of amicability and brotherly love. I'd do things with my herd of docile genius-Giraffes that Dr. King had only "dreamed" of, the poor fool.

But then the bill came and I forgot the whole thing.

$8.50 for a goddamed Michelob? Jesus Henry Christ.

Dog Days

To Marie Beauregard, JD:

It was her shorts I noticed first.

More correctly, it was the outline of her underwear, immanently viewable through the back of those red jogging shorts — framing what must undoubtedly have been an event. An ass to write home to mother about, in other words. An ass to actually correspond with mother about, even. Real, back-and-forth dialogue.

The undergarments were fairly standard by the looks of things. Nothing overly lacy. No bows or strings. Perhaps part of a Hayne's three-pack grabbed en route to the grocery aisles. Something to stave off a run to the laundromat.

But a young man can't hope for much better on his afternoon drives, so I slowed to the speed limit, leering like a priest.

That this dark-haired beauty, most-likely a co-ed at the university, was stapling something to a telephone pole only became apparent when I had almost passed. It was a pink sheet of paper, and she had more of them.

"Sorority fund-raising season again," I chortled, already making plans to filthy my car in proper preparation for any bikini car washes that might crop up.

Undoubtedly, I'm a creep, but so is everyone. Ask Johnny Jesuscamp in your church group what he rubbed off to last night, sister. Chances are it wasn't wedding night missionary.

I lit a cigarette the instant my rear-views lost sight of her. Just driving and smoking and thinking about something warm and supple is a complete enough afternoon, where I'm concerned. We all find our own ways to cope.

But as I rounded the block, angling the Plymouth homeward, I noticed the pink fliers were plastered everywhere — stuck crudely to each lamppost, sticking out of mailboxes. This was a more earnest effort than those gum-smacking temptresses on Greek street were wont to pursue.

I slowed to a curb and read:



"Lost Dog. Chocolate Lab, Golden mix. Answers to Pepper.
If found, please call 246-7844. Kaila"

Here, now, was an opportunity — the perfect chance to vault that oft-impenetrable wall between ogling motorist and lover. The game was afoot.

From the frequency of the fliers, I reasoned that Kaila lived nearby. So must have Pepper, until recently. The mutt might be lying in the cool of that next Oak or Rose bush for all I knew, contemplating the freedom of shitting where he pleased and chasing squirrels.

And while I quietly empathized with his situation, I knew I must capture Pepper. There was more at stake here than his continued liberty could justify. Ardently fulfilled lust with a chance of love was in my forecast. I needed to find the dog.

I cruised the shady streets and avenues at an idle for hours, burning through an entire pack of Camels and listening to Smooth Jamz 107.3 to keep the romantic mood flowing. At each turn, I expected to see Pepper, tongue-lolling, waiting for me. But the crafty fucker never showed.

I still haven't precisely isolated the impulse that made me call Kaila anyway. I guess it's that I'm stubborn. I had fully envisioned this day ending up with me, erect, in her Hello Kitty sheets, and a minor hitch like not finding the dog couldn't cancel that.

There were two rings before she answered.

"Hello?" said the voice I would live out the rest of my days with. It was girlish but raspy. communicating in an instant that this was a woman who liked to party, but also had a good head on her shoulders.

"Yes, Kaila? Hi. I think I might have found your dog. Pepper is it?"

She screamed, then sighed with delight. She told me how worried she'd been, what Pepper meant to her. She thanked me countless times in those dulcet tones.

We arranged for her to come by my house to pick up the dog. She'd be there in fifteen minutes, she said. She was "SO excited."

We both were.

I drove the Plymouth home, whistling one of the slow jamz from before. Again, I thought of that ass filling out her shorts. I wondered what color those panties were, but knew that that mystery would solve itself in a few short minutes.

The house was cool despite the day's sweltering heat. I mixed a dry martini and stripped out of my clothes.

I remember a drop from the sweating cocktail glass hit my naked chest and slithered its way down to my nether parts. I knew then I was experiencing existence as our maker intended.

Drinking, nude, awaiting love. True bliss.

The doorbell rang....

By now, Ms. Beauregard, you know the rest. As this is my sixteenth time attempting to contact you, I'm hoping a better understanding of my situation will convince you to finally respond.

Prison is a heartless place, Ms. Beauregard. Certainly no place for a lover like myself. Any assistance you might offer with my impending appeal would be appreciated.

Yours,

Dominic T. Haggerton
Clarence Correctional Facility
Pendleton, MN 68347

The Inner Monologue of a Black Bear, Newly Captive of Man and Disappointed in His Own Ability to Prowl a Suburan Backyard

Fuck. This.

Real good, Levi. Brilliant. Fucking masterstroke.

(Sigh)

Look at you. What do these fucking park rangers have me in? What is...is this an Airstream trailer? An Airstream? Ri-god-damn-diculous. Wendell and I once tore one of these apart in '99 after eating those fermented gooseberries in Yosemite.

And yes, fucking red-bearded park ranger Top Gun of the fucking woods prick that won't stop peeking inside this cage at me, I mauled the people inside. Two of them. I've fucking killed. Little secret, Ranger Rick: All bears kill people. Why? Cause we fucking love it. Especially me.

I'm 800 lbs. Ursa fucking major. MAJOR. Teeth of samauri steel. Claws of diamond-tip drill bit. And have you seen my dick? It's fucking huge! Bear cock, Red. Live it.

But noooooo, I said. Nooooo...I won't get caught drinking out of the Schotzenwald's bird bath. I've drank that tepid shit 54 times since the Great Winter Sleep. There's no possible way that Levi David Beartleman gets caught on trip 55. Not a fucking chance, I said.

(Sigh)

Fuck. Me.

Maybe Chandra's right. Maybe I can't get over the late 1990s when I'd stay out with those grizzlies, the ones who'd stay up until the great Night Sun would appear and catch those trout downstream of the papermill and ended up getting tranq'ed. Fuck do I miss Chandra...she's all I have.

Maybe I should spend more time with the cubs. Michael's going to be seven seasons once the Great Winter Sleep hits and I barely spend enough time with him as it is--- LOOK IN HERE AGAIN, FUCKING FOREST COP!

I DARE YOU! I FUCKING DARE YOU! YES, I WILL BEAR SLAP AT THE GRATE! I! WILL! BEAR! SLAP! THIS! GRATE! I AM LEVI BEARTLEMAN AND I AM STRONG!

Oh, sure, that's right, Red. Load up that fucking tranq rifle. Load it again! It's your answer for everything.

Let's dance, you cocksucker! You think you're the fucking Grizzly Man, but you don't know SHIT! Remember what happened to him?!? He was mauled. MAULED. That movie is like bear porn to me and right now you're looking like Jenna Haze covered in berries and honey and salmon!

(Rifle discharges 300 cc's of diphenhydramine into Levi's coarse shank...Levi awakes four hours later in a meadow. It is dusk.)

Wha...What the FUCK just happened? Where...where the fuck am I? I don't know that rock. Fuck. The Night Sun's out. Where am I? Where's Chandra?

Fucking fuck me.

(Sigh)

(sits down on haunches staring at the impending sunset.)

Maybe I should talk to someone...

Halloween Fun Facts!

Greetings, children!

Do you feel that chilly snap along your nostrils? Do you smell the sweet aromas of candied apples, burning leaves and savory meat pies? Can you sense Mother Nature's slow decay toward Winter? Have you bought your costume, both sexually alluring and marketed for preteen girls?

I hope so.

That's right, October is upon us — days of apple orchards and piles of golden leaves and nights of untold, brutal horrors that make you cry into your mother's bosom the whole year through. It's in that festive spirit that throughout the month we'll explore all that is brilliantly macabre.

But before we delve into the truly unholy, let's take today to recap a few of my favorite Halloween factoids:

• Did you know the average person consumes more than 560 lbs. of candy corn in their lifetime? Wow! That's a sweet tooth!

• Did you know the first Halloween was celebrated in Judea when all the tribes of Israel joined together in 49 B.C. to celebrate the harvest and carve out the skulls of tax collectors with crude bronze-age tools? So that's where Jack O'Lanterns come from! Right on!

• Did you know the most popular costume pairing for couples is a naughty nurse and black 1970s porn star Dwayne "Thundersnake" Washington? Oh, kin-kee!

• Did you know the hit 1990s R&B group Boyz II Men once sacrificed an elderly Chinese women to the Celtic god Marlog on stage during a 1992 Halloween night concert in Detroit? Betcha didn't! Cool beans!

• Did you know that more children die each year from eating apples filled with razor blades than die from car accidents, leukemia, lupus, dick cancer and feline AIDS combined? Who knew! Not me!

I Disagree With The Post Below

Herewith, a listing of the six cartoon characters I wouldn't mind copulating with:

Cheetara (clearly)
Judy Jetson (FutureSex LoveSounds indeed)
Betty Rubble (but not that cocktease Wilma Flintstone)
Jessica Rabbit
Erin E. Surance
Princess Jasmine from "Aladdin"

Have any to add outside of that list? Well you're one sick fuck, then.

art or deviant smut? you be the judge

Tonight we call attention to a controversial and, perhaps, destructive trend that is growing in the online adult entertainment industry. In my nightly (and often morningly) perusal of said oriented sites, I've come across a phenomenon that is both a slap in the face of decency and an assault on my childlike sense of fancy.

I'm talking about cartoon porn. Yes, cartoon porn. As in cartoon characters doing it. Hardcore. In full view. With no shame.

The very existence of what some call "art" begs many a question. And I want answers!

Who takes satisfaction in a flash animation of Judy Jetson giving Cobra Commander a reach-around?

Or a 12-picture series of Sailor Moon being gang-banged by the Street Sharks?

Even our most beloved and treasured characters, the Disney Princesses (yes, even Sleeping Beauty), have been probed, fondled and deflowered by all matter of beast, from King Louie the orangutan to the Hunchback of Notre Dame to Steamboat Willie, all in the name of cheap, lustful thrills.

I can't even visit the Magic Kingdom without feeling nauseated.

Consider this an open letter to animators everywhere. Stop producing this smut lest we lose faith in all that is innocent in this world. I'd like to view extended clips of an interracial three-way without worrying whether Fred Flintstone will pop in for a quickie with She-Ra.

Enough is enough.