12 September 2006

Merry Gregmas!



Oyez, oyez, oyez!

Faithful rise, be counted, and be of good cheer!

'Tis Gregmas, the Greggiest day of all Septembertide!




This would be totally appropriate attire for any Gregmas celebration.

Dear Multitude:

Even though Dear Gregory has been published since the dawn of the Jet Age, precious few Touchers of the Hem, Adherents to the Peanut Butter Diet, or Readers of This Blog realize that September 13th is the Feast of Gregmas. To wit, it is Greg's birthday, just as Christmas is the birthday of my friend Chris T, or Criticalmass is the birthday of J. Robert Oppenheimer. (J. Robert Oppenheimer, father of the atomic bomb, or in his words, "Shiva", once gave his teacher a poisoned apple. I shit you not, and neither does last week's New Yorker. Look it up. -Ed.)

I assume that you who are in the majority are now confounded and befuddled. On one hand, you have a whole new square on the calendar to devote to revelry - such a boon! Ut hoy! you cry, and reach for the hookah. But in a trice you realize that you spend every other weeknight practicing the hookah, and this holiday begs for both uniqueness and propriety. What to do?

Fuddle no longer. Below I have compiled a short list of Gregmas facts, customs and traditions. Most of the objects required for celebration (...and worship, if you're so inclined... -Ed.) can be found in the average home (...the exception being the tuba. -Ed.) Enjoy, revel, and Merry Gregmas!

TRADITIONS
Tradition The First: Immediately upon arising on the morning of September 13th, make a very strong pot of coffee (it should absorb 98% of the available light), fashion a sandwich from peanut butter, bananas and mayonnaise on Roman Meal bread, and grumble while eating your solitary breakfast over the kitchen sink.

Tradition The Second: Six to eight times during the day, seize your tuba with a great deal of ardor and play the piccolo part from "Stars and Stripes Forever".

Tradition The Third: Suffer from the ill-conceived notion that drinking an entire 8-pack of Little Kings Cream Ale won't get you drunk because "the bottles are so small". Re-think your original hypothesis later when you find yourself in an unrecognizable quarter of the Detroit megalopolis (specifically Hamtramck), surrounded by surly Poles demanding to know there whereabouts of their pierogis and their daughters.

FACTS
My brother Gregory Ives was born on September 13th, 1671. Try as they might, the folks went quite a stretch with no kids - that is until 1962 when I was born. That's why I was named after the patron saint of lost causes. But that's beside the point. The amazing fact about Greg is that although he is three hundred and thirty five years old, rare pharmeceuticals with uncanny moisturizing properties have preserved his ancient flesh. He doesn't look a day over 53.

Greg subsists entirely on peanut butter. "If it's good enough for the koala bear, it's good enough for me!" he has been known to shout.

Do not be misled by his sunken chest and chalky legs. He often crushes Volkswagens with his bare hands.

His favorite movie: Fitzcarraldo. Or is it Nosferatu? Can't remember. Maybe it's Nosfitzcarratu. Anyway, he has a huge poster from Aguirre: The Wrath of God which he can scarcely tear his gaze away from, and he often tries to emulate Klaus Kinski's evil leer, even going so far as to don a tin conquistador helmet at times to heighten the effect.

CUSTOMS
On Gregmas Day, it is customary to write The Gregory a letter, which he will respond to with silence by the bucketload. So sayeth the lore of Gregmas. Believe me, I've been writing to him for years, and I have yet to see one blot of ink on a shred of paper in reply to a single one of my epistles. On the other hand, he does call "all the gol-damn time" as they say in the red states. Anyhoo, if you like, you can write to him by posting a comment to this blog. (Clog. -Ed.)

It is also customary on Gregmas Day to spend a great deal of time in the bathtub. (That is after the sandwich and the tuba thing. You don't want to do either one of those in the bath. -Ed.) This is to re-enact the Miracle of Gregmas. After six to eight hours in the tub (something Greg does each and every day), your skin shall be verily furrowed with wrinkles from stem to stern, much as The Gregory's skin was once. Then one fateful day, he combined lanolin with turpentine and methyl-ethyl-ketone (MEK) and created the Burnishing Glaze of Brass Instruments and Eternal Youth. And lo, his smooth and youthful hide didst shine like the horn section of the Burbank Police Boy's Band during the Bataan Death March, and he aged no more. You can accomplish the same effect by rubbing yourself down with Mop-N-Glo. Give 'er a whirl. It's a holiday, after all.

And finally, it is customary to purchase several if not hundreds of items from The GregMart for your self, friends and family. Because hey, why give Jesus all your money?

10 September 2006

Squirrels The Size Of Rump Roast - OR - What I Did On My Summer Vacation


Grizzlies, hell! Watch out for this little bastard. He'll go straight
for your jugular. And he carries Bubonic Plague. Or so the guide
book I read ("Nature Wants To Fucking Kill You!: A Guide to the
Wildlife of the Canadian Rockies") tells me.

Greg:

Two weeks immersed in alpine splendor have completely robbed me of the power of speech. To get a gander at the splendor of which I speak, click on the picture of the tiny, tiny bear (above). I'll write more when my sprrch gerz bhurn drrr. Frr? Hack! Kaff! I'll write more when my speech crrrmss brrr.

Shmerr vrr brrrz,

-Thaddeus