The last half-dozen or so newspaper Christmas parties I’ve been to have been about as fun as joint-replacement surgery, but once upon a time, you could always count on them to rock the house. Why? Because we spent our holiday season reporting, editing and slapping headlines on stories like this:
Newburgh — A Wal-Mart Santa Claus was arrested Monday for allegedly exposing himself to a 15-year-old boy and attempting to have the boy engage in oral sex with him at his home on Dec. 9, according to a City of Newburgh police press release.
Bad Santa. Bad, baaaad Santa.
My friend who passed this along added, And also in the fine city of Newburgh: The police chief is apologizing for two overzealous officers who took time out of crime-fighting to knock down a 6-foot snow penis, complete with snowballs, that was festooning a lawn in the city.
UPDATE: Actually, that story’s too good not to link, too. Doesn’t skimp on the snickers, either: The last two nights of freezing weather has made the snow too stiff to sculpt, said Sherer. There are many, many more.
Ho ho ho. Eggnog refill, please.
Actually, I have been drinking a bit of eggnog this month. I always buy a quart, use some of it to make French toast on Christmas morning and throw the rest of it out sometime in February. (Eggnog has an amazingly long shelf life.) But this year, I’ve been adding a little Myers’ rum and putting my feet up, allowing the warm glow of the season to penetrate my bones. One thing about spiked eggnog is, you never want a refill.
It has made me toy with the idea of making homemade eggnog, something I’ve never done before. I was also considering trying a buche de noel, too — what the hell, I have the time. Who doesn’t want to spend at least one December afternoon carving mushrooms out of marzipan and laboriously smudging them with faux-forest dirt made of cocoa?
These thoughts pass pretty quickly, though. I don’t think I was cut out to roll spongecake in a towel. And with my luck, I’d be halfway through the project when the salmonella poisoning from the raw eggs would kick in.
So, bloggage:
I guess having your favorite radio station ruined is a rite of adult passage. Still. All my adult life I’ve wanted to live in a city large enough to support a AAA-format radio station. Guess it was too good to last.
Why I love my NYT: The mysteries of the narwhal, explained.
I didn’t see “The 40-Year-Old Virgin.” (Other than, you know, paying attention to the John Roberts stuff. Snicker.) Now it’s out on DVD, and with 17 additional minutes of too-raunchy-for-R humor. I had no idea.
vince said on December 14, 2005 at 12:11 am
Radio: Yep. This is trend all over in public radio. And I’ll bet WDET had a great example to follow: Michigan Radio in nearby Ann Arbor. It wasn’t too many years ago that the U of Mich station played classical music. But in one swift move, it all disappeared, was replaced by news and despite a royal brouhaha, the ratings have skyrocketed ever since. Michigan Radio dominates. It has a huge audience and overlaps the listening area enough to provide WDET direct competition for those precious public radio members.
Virgins: Can’t say I’ve seen this movie either. But I have to confess, I found myself glued to a video today of a contest spawned by the DVD rollout. In Seattle, they had a “Hairiest Chest Waxing” contest. It makes you cringe, wince and want very desperately to close your eyes. But you can’t. And you can’t turn the speakers down either because their screams of pain are really so sadistically entertaining.
Here’s a link: http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_121305WABhairiestchestwaxingLJ.70fc238.html
Raw video of the contest there. Don’t bother trying to view it on an Apple though. Probably won’t play.
Ouch!
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Nance said on December 14, 2005 at 6:56 am
The thing I liked so much about public radio here was the variety — WDET played adult-album-alternative music/news, WUOM in Ann Arbor was all news, and the station in Ypsi had jazz. Now WDET is going head-to-head with WUOM, and it just seems like a lot of duplication. If my financial situation were a little stronger, I’d be a member of both staitons, but.
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Dorothy said on December 14, 2005 at 8:25 am
When I was a girl we had a Betty Crocker’s Boys and Girls ringbound cookbook. It had an easy recipe for homemade eggnog, and I remember making it frequently. (Milk, eggs, vanilla and sugar) We never got sick. Not once. I found the cookbook at a Barnes and Noble two years ago and bought it for nostalgic reasons. What fun to see those glossy color pictures again! Birthday cupcakes, pigs in a blanket, etc! My son about peed himself reading the so called quotes from the boy and girl chefs. They were beyond corny.
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Kevin Knuth said on December 14, 2005 at 9:51 am
My wife and I went to see 40 year old virgin a few weeks back.
The people next to us got up and left about 20 minutes into the movie- here is why-
it is MUCH raunchier than you would expect- so NOT suitable for kids under 25! 😉
But, if you aren an adult, and do not laugh out loud at this movie, then there is something wrong with you!
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kathy t said on December 14, 2005 at 10:12 am
Boo, WDET. Guess the days of “Evening Symphony – three hours of recorded classical music” with Lazslo Bohm, circa 1965, are now good and over.
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Danny said on December 14, 2005 at 11:26 am
Nance, you’re right baout the snow penis story. Too funny.
…the 6-foot tall, anatomically correct, finely detailed penis raised some questions Monday.
and
…Assuming the snow sculpture was more prank than nod to Christmas’ pagan roots, the police knocked it down. Beat it down with shovels, actually.
and
Biasotti worries the display might give others ideas. “Now we’re going to get snow penises popping up all over town,” he said.
Hilarious!
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joodyb said on December 14, 2005 at 12:04 pm
this will come as a shock, but I have refined scratch eggnog to a high art. so rich, you only need one cup. let’s not kid ourselves: it’s the holiday. we’re drinking.
and do the buche noel. very rewarding.
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Rich said on December 14, 2005 at 12:46 pm
Same in LA. Pasadena station KPCC dropped all of its long-running, quirky shows for all news a few years ago when merged with Minnesota Public Radio.
My advice to everyone: Get satellite radio. It is unbelivably good.
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Linda said on December 14, 2005 at 12:54 pm
How can it be? Fort Wayne has something Detroit and other bigger places don’t have! Yea for WBNI and WBOI. I love them both, but sometimes I get so caught up in the news and disccussions on NPR that I don’t get much else done or read. I still enjoy your writing, Nance, even though you left us!
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alex said on December 14, 2005 at 6:32 pm
True, Nance, your former home–this dowdy rustbelt provincial backwater where the dominant culture is anti-intellectual–has exactly what other cities should have in terms of public radio: No conflict between local music programming and NPR because they have their own channels.
WBOI. Hey, they could probably raise money selling off those call letters.
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brian stouder said on December 14, 2005 at 7:26 pm
An unusually entertaining and enlightening mix of links today! The narwhal article is the perfect bookend for the giant snow-penis bit.
Here in Fort Wayne, the news from one neighborhood went from very bad to utterly terrible – and to be honest, my wife and I have pretty much lost the Christmas spirit, at least for now.
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colleen said on December 14, 2005 at 11:16 pm
Hey alex, ya know how we chose those call letters? Alpabetically. Really. We had no clever idea for call letters when we were getting ready to file the paperwork, so O comes after N…..ta da.
Though in house, we do call it “the boy” sometimes.
If you live in the Fort and get one of those new fangled digital radios, you can choose…the BNI classical programming, BOI’s programming, or the 24 hour jazz service.
Programming is hard. I think lots of public radio programmers want to be cutting edge and unique and offer eclectic stuff. But it don’t feed the bulldog, which is bottom line. Personally, I go to bat for Ira Glass’ “This American Life” on a regular basis at our place, even though it gets no ratings or pledges.
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Linda said on December 15, 2005 at 8:18 pm
Re Colleen’s comment about This American Life. I have heard it and have heard the promos. I liked it, and the promos always sound very interesting. But I like things on PBS and WBNI at the SAME TIME. You just can’t watch/listen to everything.
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