Go get some football.

Merry Christmas, movie theater! This is one of the seasons where the holiday sits around a weekend and the new year comes the weekend after, leaving a bridge to gap that feels like a real week but not like a week at all. It's a surreal week where it seems that the rest of the world is on hold and things can go forward at a normal speed next week. In fact, go ahead and be ready to speed things up next month and just fast forward through winter. That's the way it feels now, but winter (solstice today) has a firm, icy grip and demands attention. But we'll give the baby its bottle and find the hot spot somewhere else.

I confess that at times the Menagerie is about fourteen percent psychedelic weather report but the elemental conflicts that define the environment influence my true feelings. Wow, I just might mean that. Anyway, a dynamic front sweeps through the eastern half of the country and cool moisture hangs in the air that drifts up from the Gulf. I stand in the night rain for small bursts before standing back to listen. It's a form of satisfaction.

Not Yeti

Seasons greetings from the Menagerie, may all your rivers turn to bourbon, and all fish and ... corresponding life instantly adapt to a bourbon or sour mash lifestyle. Things are generally complicated. The weekend proved devastating for Atlanta sports; one of the worst Saturdays I can remember. Only the Braves stayed out of the news and didn't slash any more payroll, though ticket prices went up.

I went to a funeral home this evening and they had to turn on the air conditioning because of the temperatures in the '70s outside. December in Atlanta and they had to turn on the AC at six at night. When I grew up here, you needed a coat for the whole month and our fireplace burned almost every night. I'm happy, I like the warmth but something internal tells me this feels wrong. It's a weird feeling, like a kid telling the babysitter, "Actually, I'd like something besides ice cream."

Surf guitar on Pandora

So many weapons to choose

Now, Tora, Tora, Tora!

The poor can afford to lose

I've now amassed enormous amounts of character and will manifest my own density. There's more than one way to lick a frog. This is the season that champagne should wipe away the taste of any yearly defeat. Mmmm, champagne. I must have some.

Ethnic Kiss

The steely grip of December weakens in the new atmosphere. My tunnel is almost finished and I can get out of here, metaphorically. The Hawks didn't finish the west coast trip with the glory I'd hoped but I'll get behind this team. Random base elements conjoin and the future becomes a little more clear. Clarity can be damn frightening, though, and I wear my darkest shades by night. Surprises somehow find me at every turn, even though I seem to be sitting still and not turning at all. I just go with the flow.

I accept what may
Like most any day
Five minutes for paint
Cowboys lose to Saints
The movie finished
My strength diminished
The holiday pipe
Rekindles the hype
Five minutes a pop
Or pay me to stop
A few golden rings
To buy back my wings

Yes, speak to me holidays. Show me the colors of 1967 and a drafty house on Atlanta Road in Marietta. A convertible Falcon, white with white top, sits in the driveway. Today the spot can't support the memories. The best bridges are

built of stone, it would appear. So the witches walk among us and that's a fair trade. Some day I'll construct the map of my memory and spend eternity getting lost there, even if that sounds gay. Maybe I've already done that, minus the gay part. That's right ladies, pure West.

Collectin' Statues

Is Pony Boy still gold? Now I'll get some strange hits. This one guy at the bar where I play poker always calls me C. Thomas Howell. That's one I used to get when people still remembered who he was. When the people start to forget you then you run the danger of forgetting who you are yourself. (Your-Self Storage) There now, that wasn't so corny.

Other things besides dates live in infamy. Perhaps I will yet be remembered for having qualities of the infame. History shall decide. The Atlanta Hawks pulled out a gutty win in the mile-high city by night, coming from seventeen down in the third quarter to win by two, an amazing thing considering the altitude. They can recover in sunny LA today and take on the Lakers Friday night. The high flyin' Hawks came in to the Staples Center last February and took a win from the heavily favored home team. Maybe they won't overlook us this time. I shall deliver an unbiased report later. Thus concludes the sports segment, I guess.

I bought a canvas today that measures 24" by 48" so I'm ready to do a proper portrait. Determining the victim will be the trick, I think. All the tools have been assembled, the fire is at its highest, and my right hand is nimble. Let it be Romper Room to the Sistine Chapel. Go on, let it.

Spirit-U-alize Yerself!!!

That was some good booze, folks, as we raised several bottles to world renowned artist (and famous botanist), Joe Peery. This image came straight off the video camera and the video itself. Not bad.

Clearly, no authority was present.

A heavy wind presses the house now. Some day the house will be gone. The cold wind breaks my will and forces me to see as far as the house has days. That's one cold wind. It's warm inside and Ella Fitzgerald drips a velvet path to Sloppy Joe's. I feel small against the elements at this time and date and latitude. A night wind in December runs across the land with the intent to hurt. A few hours of sharp sunlight will drive it away.

But the sun goeth down. That's ok, in a few weeks the earth will reach the low point on the giant hammer throw around the sun and we'll start the path up to sunny golden warmth. I believe that. There are few constants upon which to oppose or rely. Tomorrow there are new tortures and heart swelling joys and that's the daily special.

I'll have a heapin' helpin'.