Christmas post to Mike the Hairless Werewolf

                                                            Christmas - 2016

     The other day I got to thinking of what Santa Claus did for a living before he grew old, fat and bearded (no doubt inspired by John Prine’s song Jesus - The Missing Years). Also what kind of man dresses in a red and white, fur-trimmed suit? Throw in the global warming consequences of establishing a major manufacturing operation atop an ice field, his anally obsessive, judgmental list making and you’ve got yourself a man bordering on the mentally deranged. Also not too smart. So I did what any normal person would do, fired up the laptop and consulted Wikipedia, the God of All Knowledge (At the top of the page they asked for a donation, then had the gall to say ‘piss on that noise’ had no monetary value).

     There I found all kinds of references to a Polish bishop, the Norse god Odin and what hit me most, the Finnish Christmas figure of Joulupukki, also known as the Christmas Goat. And I thought Santa Claus was weird. Top that off with his outfit of “…tight red leather pants and a tight fur trimmed red leather coat….” I don’t know about you but there’s no way I’d let a goat dressed like a Fire Island hooker down my chimney. And get this; come Christmas Eve in Finland, good ole Joulupukki comes knocking on doors at random and asks, “Are there any well-behaved children here?” That kind of crap happens here in the good ole U.S. of A. and, goat or no goat, he ends up doing five to ten. 

     Sorry, I got sidetracked. You read stuff like that and the idea of Europe being at war, on and off for about three centuries, comes as no surprise. 

     So, what exactly did Santa do for a living before becoming Jolly old St. Nick? Near as I can figure, back in the days of yore he was some kind of mythological herdsman floating in the sky up there with the aurora borealis.  Years later he found employment as a Viking mercenary sailing the seas in his ship named, “I’ve got a Little Something for You.” (While searching fruitlessly for the Norwegian translation I came on this and couldn’t resist - “Luftputefartoyet mitt er fulltar al”- which translates as “My hovercraft is full of eels” - which is close enough for me.)

     In the late sixteenth century S. Claus could be found posing nude as a model for background cherubs in the heyday of the Italian Renaissance. Yup, those happy days put the jolly in old St. Nick. It was in Florence after an evening’s tryst that Santa’s red suit was born. A little mixup in the guest bedroom and Claus frolicked out the door in Cardinal Guanella’s cape.

     After a lover’s spat with Oscar Wilde in 1898, he took up acting and starred in Gilbert and Sullivan’s The Mikado as Yum-Yum with rave reviews. Santa moved to New York City in 1912, sailing aboard the Titanic as the Countess of Rothes. A spat with George M. Cohan over the lyrics to “Yankee Doodle Was a Dandy” got him blackballed on Broadway. For the next year he made a living standing outside Macy’s with a red bucket scoring spare change and waiting for Natalie Wood to show up. An opportunity in the mailroom at Coca Cola led to him posing for Haddon Sundblom and the modern image of Santa was born. No longer satisfied with the peanuts of posing and hustling envelopes, Santa moved into the advertising end of the business and for a while, ruthlessly ran Coca Cola Asia. It was he who first realized those tiny little fingers could work magic with any task set before them and do it for a bowl of rice and a bowl of opium a day. In Bangkok, Santa is still known as the Red Swine. Finally, in 1953 he fled to the North Pole where he now lives in exile with an old woman and the few remaining Munchkin’s from The Wizard of Oz. 

     Additional research is needed for the above.

                                        Merry Christmas from Uncle Emil

     

Bike Ride

     This morning there was a collision in my head. Seems global warming ran right into the original, movie version of Frankenstein. I don’t know how these things happen to me but they do. All the time. Not so much at the cabin where the roads I bike are sand and gravel. There, it’s hard to think straight when my lungs are sucking air like there’s no tomorrow. But pavement? Yeah.

     The question of why so many people in this country can’t see climate change as being even remotely possible has me puzzled. Phrases like “prepare for the worst, hope for the best,” come to mind. Also, the Bible and Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream. When times are good, prepare for when they’re bad. Simple, common sense.
     Then the movie Frankenstein popped into my head. Truth is I have a fair idea where such thoughts come from. Yup, I blame it on my Uncle Emil, the man who sees the sense behind the absurd.
     You see, there was this scientist. Cutting edge man of learning. Smart enough and talented enough to make himself a real, live man from spare body parts. How many people could do that? Also, how many people had the money and the stone castle necessary for such an  enterprise? Well, Herr Frankenstein did. And also had himself a new bride. If you’ve seen the movie you know what I mean. Yeah, she was hot (in a 1930s kind of way). Just the opposite of the mish-mash Victor had hidden down in the basement. There’s a moral in there for those willing to ferret one out.
     Anyhow, things happen, Adam (that being the monster’s name) runs off and throws a little girl in a lake just ’cause the two of them ran out of daisies. That sure wasn’t nice. Adam wanders on, finds himself a blind hermit, takes up smoking cigars and finds a liking for violin music. I can understand Adam’s fondness for tobacco but my ears have never been drawn to fiddle music (except in a Cajun band). Push comes to shove, the villagers develop an attitude ’cause of the little girl and the next thing you know the pitchforks and torches come out. Oddly enough they corner Adam in a windmill, fire up the place and the loss of local wind power blacks out half the village. Kind of ironic.
     So that’s what I see is behind our lack of serious action toward climate change. About half of us just don’t trust scientists and their research even though they’ve given us such life changing improvements like polyester double knits and graphite shafted golf clubs. Also, about ten million other things we literally can’t live without (a fair number of which have contributed to climate change. Ain’t that ironic?).
     Anyhow, the temperature was above normal on my ride this morning just like it has for the last couple of weeks or years for that matter.