I’m going to be slammin’ work today, with a heap o’ writin’ to do — and a passel o’ letters to drop — before the weekend, so just move along, little to see here.

OK, one thing to see: Dead Celebrity Songs, featuring retooled lyrics to “Candle in the Wind” for most recently dead celebrities you could name. Like, oh…

Goodby Don Adams
Though Agent 99 knew you well
You had the grace to act a fool
Using your shoe phone we could tell
You crawled out of New York City
With a dream in your hand
Always had a job
Once the Love Boat set sail again

Which reminds me: The other day I was in the bank, and picked up a copy of The Economist. Like most Yanks, I assumed this magazine would be edited for a smarter class of folks than, oh, Time magazine. Flipped to a random page. Elton John is described as “the bespectacled pop star.”

Alan threatens to shoot all writers who use the word “bespectacled.”

Off to the keys. Wish me well.

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.

Curse you, Eric Zorn, and your competitive link-wrangling!

I don’t think anyone will top this, today: “Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer,” sung to the tune of “Folsom Prison Blues.”

Yes, there are more. But this is the best.

I found this column via Romenesko, and if you can’t open it (I think Philly requires registration), here’s the relevant passage:

I was a year out of college and working as a copy editor at a lackluster little newspaper in western Michigan. Because the paper was published in the afternoon, my shift began at an ungodly 4:45 a.m. My job was to clean up the copy of others – the best I could often hope for was to nudge the truly awful up to merely mediocre – and then put a headline on it.

I literally reeled backward. I stuttered and stumbled. “He what?” I asked, trying to process it. They all found this immensely amusing.

This is the second column I’ve read this month about a generational divide in newsrooms over Lennon’s death. I wasn’t working in Metro, nor in Entertainment, in 1980, so I can’t say what happened in my newsroom then.

But I do remember getting on the elevator at the paper with my friend Kirk, not long after another tragic rock-related event, this one in 1979. Eleven people had been crushed or trampled to death trying to get “festival seating” before a Who concert in Cincinnati. The doors opened, and we were joined by two old farts, both of whom were staring at us as though we had blood dripping from our hands. One of the OFs made some comment about the tragedy; I recall the words “killing their own kind, like animals.”

(Why do people always try to pin human crimes on animals? Most animals treat others of the same species pretty well.)

Anyway, I don’t know what I said; I’m sure it wasn’t profound or even interesting. But I remember how accusatory the OF was, as though I had to personally take responsibility for the actions of everyone closer to my age than his, and those looks — like we were a repulsive alien species that had somehow infiltrated the building.

Oh, well. Time is a great leveler. I’m sure at least one of those OFs, and perhaps both, have bit the big one by now. And who was it who chuckled over the hand-wringing over Kurt Cobain. Uh, that would be me.

OK, then. I hope I’m not blowing her cover, but Laura Lippman keeps a down-low blog called The Memory Project. She throws out a memory and asks for people to contribute their own. Sometimes I contribute, mostly I don’t, but today she set the hook deep: For research on her next book, contribute the smells of the ’70s. (If you were a teenage girl, that is.)

I hadn’t considered this in, like, forever, but since smell is the most evocative sense, it’s been hard to forget. (I had a colleague who wore the same cologne as an old boyfriend. I was always finding reasons to hang around his desk and sort of stick my nose near his neck.) Laura started the ball rolling with Noxema. It made me think of Herbal Essence, a smell I hadn’t even thought of in 20 years or more.

What’s your ’70s smell? Charlie? Emeraude? Or Ten-o-Six?

I first heard Richard Pryor about the time “That Nigger’s Crazy” came out. How old was I? High school, I guess. Lived in an all-white neighborhood, but I’d read Dick Gregory’s autobiography and was the usual desperately-seeking-hipness white suburban girl, so while I can’t say I was shocked, I will say that I laughed my ass off. Who wouldn’t? The guy was hilarious.

I found a strange backwater of Rotten.com with a Pryor bio that resurrected some of his routines from that era. This one is typical, with some dead-on commentary from an anonymous writer at Rotten.com:

Pryor’s racial observations were about as tame as dialogue written for Apu on The Simpsons — but his frenetic, sociologically-aware inflections gave his stories overarching comic weight. Pinched, uptight impersonations of white people were delivered with depressing believability, and always worth the price of admission. White folks do things a lot different than niggas. They eat quieter. Pass the potatoes, thank you darling, could I have a bit of that sauce. How are the kids coming along with their studies? Do you think we’ll be having sexual intercourse tonight? We’re not? Well, what the heck? The text alone is hardly funny if you’ve been contaminated by the contemporary recycling of it by the likes of Sinbad.

I remember him sketching out the downfall of Leon Spinks, knocking on his coke dealer’s door:

What you want, Leon?

A dollar-fiddy cent worth of cocaine.

Of course Richard Pryor could say that because you know that at one time he was probably the one scratching at the man’s door with six quarters in his hand. You look at Pryor and you think, if he could be that funny when he was high (because, for years and years, he was always high), what could he have been sober?

I like to think he wouldn’t have made so many crappy movies. Although I liked him in “Lady Sings the Blues,” a movie Alan refused to watch earlier this year. (“Diana Ross as Billie Holiday?!?”)

Today Neil Steinberg reprinted a portion of a column he wrote five years ago, when Pryor’s hometown of Peoria, Ill., refused to name a street after him. I think he gets it exactly right:

Richard Pryor was raised in a whorehouse in Peoria. His grandma was a madam and his mom was a hooker.

If we think of culture as having a boundary, a line between the glittery, golden fake surface of artifice and the sweaty, compromised funk of reality, then Richard Pryor moved that line about six yards toward the muddy end of the field. Maybe you hate that. Maybe you hate that there are curse words in Newsweek, and that kids watch South Park and the Simpsons and all those black comedies on the WB. Tough, that’s life today, and Pryor helped bring us here.

MT has been down for a while. Narcissistic, self-indulgent posting to resume in the near future.

A postcard arrived in the mail today — an advertising image from the new Narnia movie on one side, at the top a question: “What if there were no Christmas?” On the back, an invitation to “worship and a Narnia adventure” at a local Grosse Pointe church.

And so it begins.

I’d been reading about this. The Disney Co., hoping to shake that Passion-of-the-Christ money tree a little, is pushing “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” via the churchy crowd. As one who liked the book, I hope we can get through the movie’s run without it becoming another bloody culture-war flag, because I am really, really not interested in that. Absolutely, positively…not interested.

Of course I recognize the Christian symbolism in the book. Kate, at 7, didn’t, but as she’s being raised in a non-religious home, I didn’t expect her to. I pointed it out to her; she did the 7-year-old version of, “huh,” and that was that. And that’s pretty much the way I’d like to leave it — fine story on one level, allegory on another. I fear, though, that someone’s going to screw it up:

In addition to the usual TV and newspaper ads and theatrical trailers, “The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe” is being promoted by the Barna Group, a marketing firm that specializes in generating buzz on the Christian scene, by making advanced screenings, study guides and block ticket sales available to churches. Right-wing groups like Focus on the Family have endorsed the film.

Oh, joy. I can’t wait to hear what gasbaggery issues from the hole beneath Michael Medved’s stupid porn-star mustache. And to think James Dobson may join in, in two-part harmony! It’s enough to send me to “Brokeback Mountain,” which I’d rather see first, but you know — 9-year-olds in the house, etc. Actually, I hope to see, and expect to like, both.

Big anniversary today, of which I was reminded by none other than the GPNews. The writer recalled just where she was when she heard the terrible news about John Lennon (in bed). She went to the big service in Central Park. She writes:

“I passed rocker Edgar Winter, arm-in-arm with four beautiful women, proving that rock stars don’t have to be good-looking to get babes.”

As if, until that moment, there may have been some doubt on that point.

Anyway, I remember something else about Lennon’s death — where my friend Mark West first heard about it. He was in California, on some whack new computer thing called Compuserve, swapping command-line interface chat with some guy who could see the front door of the Dakota in New York City. The guy said something seemed to be going on over there, huh, wonder what it is.

Mr. Watson, come here, I need you. What a difference 25 years makes.

I said, “Let it snow,” and behold, we’re in the process of getting a buttload. I heard the forecast and took inventory. Had: A case of beer, plenty of milk and kidfood, the makings for split-pea soup and biscuits, and what have we here? Sweet potatoes. So I made soup, and biscuits, and a pie. (Sweet-potato pie has lots of antioxidants. It’s, like, health food.) Nothing like watching the snow fly when you have plenty of beer in the house.

Finally, the bloggage: I can’t believe I used to work for this company:

The Akron Beacon Journal, a former Pulitzer Prize-winning paper now operating as a ‘zine for the geriatric set, is getting squeezed to comedic proportions by San Jose’s Knight Ridder, its parent company.

Executives recently asked employees to share pens and notepads with other departments, since no more office supplies will be purchased this year. The problem is that some departments have already run dry, including the photo department, which ran out of batteries and paper. “They did make an exception and ordered the photographers new batteries,” says reporter Paula Schleis.

Guess what KR’s overall profit margin was in 2004? Give up? OK: 19.3 percent, and you can look it up. Ask your local grocer if he could afford office supplies on that kind of margin.

Morning bloggage roundup coming up. I’m feeling a bit better today, although it still seems as though something is standing out on the stoop of my immune system’s house, trying to quietly open the door with a credit card. I guess I should go drink something with antioxidants, or maybe just a big glass of water.

In the meantime, some light reading:

I’ve been quiet on the war of late, for lots of reasons. I tell myself my energies are best expended elsewhere. I get enough venting out of babbling at Alan over the newspaper every morning: “Is he kidding? Are they kidding? How stupid does Dick Cheney think we are?!?”

So I leave the heavy lifting to others. Richard Cohen hoists his share this morning:

If, as Samuel Johnson said, “patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel,” then “support our troops” is very close by. It is being used to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government in a coup by ideologues. In the lexicon of some, the only way to support our troops is to ensure that more of them die.

But if you want your politics in a lighter mood, I can’t recommend The Poor Man highly enough. Nominations are now open for his Wanker of the Year, the coveted Palme d’Hair.

The end of an era: The restaurant decor theme of crap-on-the-wall takes a long step toward the door.

Top-level sportswriters are the most unjustifiably pampered and coddled human beings on the planet. Detroit Super Bowl host committee officials kick off the kneepads tour.

Finally, an activity for Boxing Day: Taking Kate to the Hanukkah parade. Rolling menorahs on Hummer limos! What’s not to like?

I don’t know what’s worse about this picture — Condi’s dress or Bob’s facelift.

Boy, I remember when I thought Mel Gibson was about the yummiest piece of manflesh on the hoof. Now he looks like some sort of crazy Catholic/Mormon whack job who really should have listened to the advice about sunscreen. Yeah, I know he’s probably wearing all that facial hair for a movie. Still.

I ask you: What did we do for amusement before the internet? We had to wait for Spy magazine to point these things out to us.

Man, am I beat. My mouth feels as though it were coated in some sort of bacterial film. Think I’ll go drink some tea, get into my flannel jammies and pack it in early. Tomorrow we’ll catch up, eh?

I don’t generally talk about my assignments before they’re published, but I don’t think I’m giving any secrets away to say that some of them have touched on the Super Bowl. Super Bowl XL, of course.

Which, if you follow football, you know will be held in our fair city in February.

This is only the third SB to be held in a northern climate, and the question I keep hearing is, “But what if there’s snow?” As though snow is something so horrible, so incompatible with human gathering, that it must be feared and battled with incantations or, at the very least, flamethrowers aimed at the sky.

First. Trust me on this: Detroit is a city improved by snow. You simply cannot imagine what a dusting of powder does to spruce this joint up, especially in winter. (Needless to say, Ford Field is not an open-air stadium.)

Second. Winter, in general, is improved by snow. You want a depressing winter? Order up one where the temperature hovers in the mid-30s, and either it never snows or snows and melts and doesn’t stick. You want a sucking black hole of depression? That’s it, right there.

Finally. It has occurred to people putting on the Super Bowl that it could, theoretically, snow at this latitude during Super Bowl week. They are, in fact, prepared for it, and welcoming it. An adjacent downtown festival, the Motown Winter Blast, will benefit enormously from a healthy snowfall before and during Super Bowl week, and I hope they get it. Nothing like watching huskies pull sleds across slush to say, “It sure would be nice to have a little snow.”

So where did we get this snowphobia, this terror of a natural phenomenon? Certainly, snow presents short-term difficulties; it is a pain to drive in, and it’s a pain (sometimes literally) to remove. But when you’ve gotten where you’re going and shoveled the sidewalk, it’s all about the pretty. And that almost always lasts longer. Why fear this?

TV weatherpeople. That’s who I blame. They spread snow fear wherever they go. Send in the Blackhawk helicopters to bomb their Doppler weather centers. That would be the real war on terror.

Here in Michigan, it snowed the day before Thanksgiving. The forecasts started with 3-5 inches, then dwindled through the day until it matched with what we got — about an inch or two of mostly slush. It’s been a warm fall and the ground wasn’t cold enough for major stickage. But the accompanying TV-weather-reporting hysteria was enough to scare away my sister-in-law, who cancelled her Thanksgiving visit — there was a chance of an additional inch on the holiday, and that was enough to wave her off. (P.S. We had bright sunshine all day on Thanksgiving.) My friends John and Sam were elsewhere in Michigan that day, and Sam talked to a woman who didn’t want to “be out there traveling” in such horrible conditions.

Where did she have to travel? Sam asked.

About 15 miles. A lifelong Michigan resident, fearful of travelling 15 miles, through snowy conditions, in a car probably better-suited to snowy conditions than any she’s ever owned before. (Remember Delta 88s with rear-wheel drive? I do. Wheeee! That was a car that could spin.)

I now get my forecasts from weather.com. Alan favors the Lake St. Clair weather buoy. We’re much happier.

And I’m hoping for snow during Super Bowl week.

Oops, almost forgot:

As a piece of music, “My Humps” is a stunning assemblage of awful ideas. …The “humps” in question belong to Fergie, who brandishes her “lovely lady lumps” for the purpose of procuring various gifts from men who, one would assume, find the prospect of “lumps” very exciting�one lump begetting another lump, if you will.

While arguing with the pop music charts is like arguing with, well, TV weatherpeople, this is a pretty amusing takedown of a pretty awful hit.