Christmas Letter Two

GREETINGS, GREETINGS, GREETINGS,.............................................

Baby Ann Pica Corona Appleton was so-called born to cousin Elle Appleton on a day in June. She was apparently named after the type style and typewriter brand Elle was using during conception. Oh well, another year, another set of random moments encircled by the joy of submersing one's hands in a newly opened can of Crisco until you've lost one of the dog's favorite play toys.

"Tag, you're it."
"Dad, please speed up the tractor."
"Oh, you were talking to me, uhhhhh, no."
"That will be $3.21 at the first drive through window please."

These were a few of the many responses I received while asking girls out on dates this year. They say if you can hit over .300 lifetime you can make the hall of fame.  I'm on track to earn a seat next to Bob Ueker in the announcer's booth.

UPDATE

My cousin no longer works at Burger King.  He was fired for too many long debates about "milk versus cattle" with newly hired coworkers.  However, his IQ test came back negative.  He was very relieved.

My aunt no longer has spider mites burrowing under her skin.  After trying many techniques without success, she consulted an Eastern 'Good Humor Man' (yes, I know, strange Chinese to English translation).  He taught her to become a spider mite, much like modern day method actors.  She then became a spider mite, entered her own skin, infiltrated the spider mite population, then lured them out of the skin by convincing them they were missing Danny Glover's new Broadway extravaganza, "Me, Danny, Making Appealing Spider Mite Sounds".

OBSERVATIONS/IDEAS

I have found that most even numbered years work best for me as long I don't step within a normal trowel mark's length from any visible seams or cracks in concrete.
It's more enjoyable to be a social misfit if you are aware of it.
The amount of time you take using the ATM machine is in direct correlation to the number of jelly bellies you will be issued upon entrance to Heaven. (Faster is better, try the root beer, they are remarkable).

The year was actually pretty good for me.  I went a record 137 days in a row without getting stabbed with a corkscrew.  I ceased smoking.  While utilizing the patch system, I had only 2 or 3 heart attacks per day before returning to normal.  Unfortunately, a water balloon grew inside one of my finger joints.  I go under the knife this week in order to rectify the situation.  They say there is only a small chance that it is gang related.  I toured several pet stores and made a few discoveries.  Out of the eighty-three small poodles I measured, none would actually fit inside a tea cup.  This leads me to believe that someone like Paul Bunyon, or the inventor of trickle down economics came up with the name tea cup poodle.  Most large parrots will only bite as many fingers as you possess.  Finally, weekly gummy bear rentals are nearly unheard of in Missouri.

As many culinary aficionados like myself like to say on occasion, "My world seems to be simmering."  My ski jump clothes have not been properly altered and the chive population is on the downswing, so the important parts of life are sort of on hold.  1997 should be a fine year.  If there is another baseball strike, we will play baseball instead of watch it.  If there is a teamsters strike and fruit is undeliverable, we will grow our own fruit to eat.  If moths eat holes in our underwear, we will curse the moths.  We will prevail.  My only request is that 1997 move in slow like a drugged banshee viewed with Bionic Man style special effects.  No sudden movements please................................

As George Orwell once said, "What the Hell year is it anyway?"

More Love and an equal amount progress

Christmas Letter One

GREETINGS AND HOLIDAY CHEER!!!

So many things have happened in my life during the past year that I'm not sure where to start. One of my younger cousins got promoted to head fry cook at a local Burger King fast food restaurant. This was especially fun for me. I go to the restaurant and watch the cooks fry things. I get to stand pretty close without getting burnt. They gave me a visitor's pass after the first few times I watched. Now I'm legally liable for most things that could happen.

My aunt that lives in the city got what they thought was contagious from a spider mite someone let loose in the dressing room of the clothes store where she works.  I hadn't heard of spider mites before. My aunt told me about them on the phone this summer.  She also told me what socks would be in style.  Then she told me some other ways to bend my toes in order to make them more limber.  I think she's under the impression that I play piano with them.  Anyhow, apparently spider mites crawl under the skin and set up house keeping.

They like warm places near blood.  They mostly crawl under human skin.  They either think we deserve it more than other creatures, or that we will be less likely to figure out how to cause them to vacate the body.  It just so happens that one of my other aunts heard about the spider mites and dreamed of a way to get rid of them.  She decided to put seven or eight rubber bands on her left wrist approximately four inches up from the hand.  Then she wove 10 pound test mono-filament fishing line around each of her fingers.  She then tied the loose ends of the line around the wrist just above the rubber bands.  The rubber bands were used so the fishing line could not slide down towards the hand region.

At this point, with the hand stretched tight open and rendered unable to move, she placed a large amount of strong glue to the palm area of the hand.  She then placed the flat side of a ball end hammer to the glued area.  Once the glue hardened, she hit herself in the right forearm several times in the place where the spider mite may at some time in the future enter her.  She said she got this idea from a dream about meat tenderizing.  We don't know if the method works yet because the aunt with the spider mite is opposed to trying it.

In August we were still able to go swimming because it was still warm.

In September we stopped swimming due to cold weather.

A lot of other interesting things happened to me in 1995.

I was able to extend my record for having a single common cold to over three weeks.  The official record has not yet been posted since I still have the cold.  I'll send everyone a reminder after the first of the year.

I didn't go on vacation this year.  I heard they were out of style.  Gentleman's Quarterly said to just rent it on TV.

I continue to go to the local hospitals as a hobby and pass time.  There seem to be less people with tape worms this year.  I think it's because of the Republicans.  The repercussions are now far too serious.  Last year most people had more than one, but they were below average in size. This year people had only one but they were larger and much more wily.  So say the doctors.

I certainly hope this coming year is as fun as I can imagine it will be.  It will be an election year, an Olympic year, a leap year, and I will turn 30 at the end of it.  Some of my resolutions include: ceasing use of the word "it" when referring to objects instead of people, a slow down in the rapid and orderly fashion in which I change the lint screen in the clothes dryer, (what's so bad about lint when there are much more serious things to debate), and I'm going to start the year off by setting fewer things on fire, especially things constructed primarily of tobacco.

I hope you had a happy birthday this year

Love and Progress,

Bryan Harding

The Mystery Box

Every four years in early fall you can hear it said around water coolers, lunch break areas, and dinner tables in America, "Oh, they are both terrible, we only have a choice between the lesser of two evils."  Of course this is often followed by a hedonistic mauling of two dozen donuts and a bitch session on health care costs.  People, as it turns out are a fickle lot.  We will change policy and fiscal opinions at the drop of a Dolce and Gabbana hat, it is no wonder we are rarely happy.  We are a moving target of mutually exclusive wants, all demanding to be met at once.   We will decry debt one moment, then support tax cuts and unnecessary wars costing trillions the next, and how dare anyone ask us to pay the bill in real time.  As a collective, we are often the bad drunk at the end of the bar begging the bar keep to keep the credit line open for one more before pissing ourselves in the car on the way home.

We pine for the next golden child, the leader who will give us everything and ask for nothing in return.  George W. Bush had a masterful understanding of this, give the people what they want and that matches with personal ideology.  Do anything you want, even if requires reselling an obviously failed theory of trickle down economics, a lie about the threat to the US by Iraq, and the belief that high school graduates with a part time jobs should be encouraged to enter into loans for $150,000 homes.  Mitt Romney has upped the ante, his apparent theory is that one has to have no constant ideology or principles at all.  Just tell the people whatever you think they want to hear and hope they never realize others are being told the opposite the next day.  It may be the closest thing to pure political sociopathic behavior we may ever see.  It makes you wonder if each of Mitt's sons has been told in private they are the favorite.

Never answer a question on what Mitt's position is on regulation, taxation, social security, medicare, or abortion as you may well be proven wrong before the clock can strike midnight.  As maybe the most illustrative example, during the first presidential debate Mitt took both pro AND con positions on recent financial regulation legislation, saying it was a sweetheart deal for Wall Street as too soft AND that is was so overbearing that it is hurting banking businesses.  Huh?  I mean what the fucking HUH?  There is another path often, and probably more wisely taken.  Don't tell the people anything of real substance on an issue, just mention the good stuff.  This is the case with taxation.  I suppose it is meant to be a surprise, like Christmas morning.  Hey, maybe we will all get a dancing pony.  From what almost every economist that doesn't share economic ideology with Bob Jones University graduates informs us, we are much more likely to get the shit from a thousand dancing ponies owned by the super wealthy among Mitt's constituency.

By a certain age, most Americans can tell when a salesperson is being transparently dishonest.  For some it might be 18, for others it might be 58.  This election season Mitt Romney is offering a whole generation the opportunity to learn that lesson at their current age.  This is a clear choice, believe in President Obama's policies which are relatively straight forward and consistent, or oppose them and hope something in the mystery box turns out well for the country.  Basic logic tells us Mitt will win with certain one issue voters, those who want women getting abortions to be sent to prison, at least with his most current stance.  We know those who oppose the civil right of marriage equality will vote for him.  We know he will win with voters who have a strong bias against black people.  We know he will win with millionaires not affected by income tax policy either way.  We will have to wait a few more weeks to see how many of the remaining Americans will vote for the mystery box behind Mitt's curtain number 3, I mean 4, I mean 5, please don't quote me on the curtain number, Mitt might change that also.       

Wimpy and the trickle down theory

"I will gladly pay you next Tuesday for a hamburger today."  The words of Wimpy, the hamburger loving character from the Popeye cartoons, deployed twice in recent decades as economic theory by American Republican presidents.  The theory, so trumpeted today by the party it surely must have considered replacing the elephant with Wimpy as the party's mascot.  It would most certainly be an improvement from a public relations standpoint than a depiction of a smiling robber baron with one foot on the neck of a middle class American while simultaneously looting the pockets.

There are three things many Americans despise, national debt, unemployment, and for American Idol to be preempted.  Unfortunately, the amount of time spent thinking about each appears disproportionate.  Who wouldn't want to veg out in front of the tv after a long hard day's work instead of trying to determine which party's economic plan will figuratively skull fuck their kids out of their future?  The national debt rose 180% from 1981 through 1988.  The national debt rose 100% from 2001 through 2008.  What do these two periods have in common?  Wimpy economics, or as the half bright elitist George W. Bush's wiser father would call it, "Voodoo economics".  The beginning of the following two Democratic led administrations, in 1993 and 2009, also have something in common, each time after creating massive new debt, the Republican party leaders bellowed at them from the bottom of their robber beings, panicking America that if we stayed on course, blood thirsty foreign hounds would start showing up at American doorsteps demanding immediate debt repayment and to swallow each child's soul and turn them into socialist day laborers.

If Bernie Madoff were president, he most certainly would agree with party leadership, the easiest way for the wealthy to become more wealthy isn't hard work, innovation, or entrepreneurship, it's the easy buck scam.  The truly beautiful part is the framing of the game to the sucker, any competent scam artist knows the game has to be decided before it begins.  "If you go in debt trillions in tax cuts for the wealthy now, which you won't even notice, you will be provided a job Tuesday paying you enough to buy a luxury house and car with enough left over to gold plate your new super wealthy ego."  It's sellable, enough of the electorate salivated so uncontrollably, imagining the taste of victory after years of hard working struggle, they signed the nation up for the slick scheme again in 2001 thinking, "I know where the queen is this time, I'd bet our future on it."

And so it goes, another Democratic president handed a massive annual budget deficit, this time a cool trillion,  being asked what the fuck he did to make that happen.  They went so far this time as to threaten filibuster in the senate so as not to undo the scam.  "Fuck the debt, fuck the American people, have you seen my new yacht, it's much more spacious and as a bonus the guy who washes it will now work for half his prior wage, he's desperate."  There could be a fly in the ointment, it seems many Americans are waking up to the idea Wimpy economics might just be a scam, that President Obama was the victim of a scam the same way they were, that they will never pick the queen, that they may well end up struggling to stay or become employed at any job if we do this again, that Wimpy's Tuesday will never come.  Mitt Romney however, has the card table set up again, selling Wimpy economics, looking for another shellacking of the American people to provide one last big score for his bank account prior to riding off to heaven on his dancing horse.

Did I say that out loud?

It's 2012, if you want privacy I suggest taking the Howard Hughes route.  Draw the curtains, order in food, and by all means toss out those shoes and put on some Kleenex boxes.  Or make up your own weirdness, stop showering and stuff wads of fabric softener sheets under your clothes each morning.  Become known to neighbors as the lumpy, yet pleasant smelling recluse as you make your way to the mailbox each day.  Otherwise, live knowing you are part of a very public society and if you beat your kid in public, sport a mullet haircut, or drunkenly dry hump the fiber glass alligator at the mini golf course at two in the afternoon you could very well find yourself with two million viewers on Youtube or Facebook.

Mitt Romney clearly doesn't understand the new rules, THERE IS NO PRIVATE conversation.  The fact Mitt doesn't understand this basic rule should probably disqualify him from consideration by anyone excluding drunken alligator humpers.  Mitt's brain appears to be one of those rare judgement free zones.  A sychophant in the purest sense, a lust for approval in the moment so intense phrases such as, "I was a severely conservative governor" escape to this very public world.  Repeal healthcare legislation based in large part on his own legislation, YES.  Declare war on Iran, YES.  Privatize social security and place the funds in the "low volatility" land known as Wall Street, YES.  Does the conservative base want it?  Well, if so then YES is the answer, unhealthy, broke, and dead middle class and poor citizens be damned.

Let's face it, there is an upside to this public world, especially when it comes to public policy and those who have chosen to ask us if they can drive it.  Oh, you believe not everyone is equal under the law?  Fuck you and your chicken sandwich.  You believe sin brought forth a hurricane where mostly good, but unfortunately poor people died?  Fuck you and your bastardization of common morality.  We are better aware of who the crazies are in 2012 AND we are better aware of HOW crazy.  One doesn't expect one of those crazies to be in the final two in this bizarre tournament known as presidential politics, but alas here we stand.  The 47%, retired Americans, students, the working poor, the economically struggling looking forward to opportunity and a better day, or as Mitt Romney would generalize by regarding as moochers.

Mitt is saying things out loud, lots of things.  Things unfortunately many Americans have a direct emotional response to without letting logic cause them to veer off course.  This isn't the first time I've heard a fellow citizen make equally ignorant, generalizing, and hateful remarks about the lazy 50%, often within earshot of a former welfare recipient turned taxpayer.  The majority of Americans?  Only time will answer that question.  Even Willy Bub, the slavery flag owning closet racist knows to call it "state's rights" in public and keep certain words in private, like minded company.  Does Mitt need a training course on hiding contempt, in his case for all but the upper class, maybe 15 minutes and a coffee with Willy Bub?  Unfortunately he has contempt for Willy Bub, so that probably won't happen.  Mitt, I think you may have fucked the alligator.

How to look desperate in one minute

Desperation sometimes shows itself in the human with sweaty hands, sweaty brows, and occasionally with verbal pleading.  Mitt Romney however is a different animal, he knows how the game is played on a superior level.  It seems he has years of training, one can figure it comes from never paying real consequences of being morally guilty of anything.  One can only imagine.  "Yeah we shaved the kid's head, fuck him he's a faggot, what's he going to do tell on me?"  "That asshole is mad about me firing him and running his company into bancrupty, fuck him and fight his unemployment claim."  Ah yes, and yesterday we saw Mitt "What position do you want me to take today?" Romney provide another example of what seems to have become a massive desperation of the likes only Richard Nixon could truly understand.

I get a vision of Mitt sitting on the campaign bus with mussed hair and clinging to a Book of Mormon so tight the blood has drained from his finger tips, rocking back and forth watching Fox News for anything he might be able to use for his next attack on the President of the United States.  And so it came, bingo, the big score, as if he himself suddenly had the power of Joseph Smith and now everything would be different.  Four Americans killed during an embassy attack in Libya.  Where's the talking point?.....Where's the opponent's weakness?....  Four dead, fuck 'em I was meant to be president.  There's a press release from the embassy, what's it say?  What did the president's socialist mouthpieces say?  They said to tone down the religious war, well that's unAmerican, America is Christian and the God hater in Chief said to tone down the religious war?  How soon can we get the cameras and microphone live?

And so it went, Mitt, at the microphone and barely able to hide his delight as he attacked the President of the United States for apologizing to infidel Islam.  Four dead, fuck 'em I was meant to be president.  Well, the American people were listening, including panic stricken GOP brass who even though have become used to Mitt's mouth running out of control dampening any chance of victory, simply couldn't believe how bad this was.  What?.....No focus on the dead, no message of solidarity as Americans when our embassy has just been attacked?  God Damn it, when will we have another Reagan, this Mormon prick is going to take us all down with him?  The gamblers on Intrade, the Irish gambling site were listening too.  Within hours the president's likelihood of re-election increased by more than a percentage point.

Before Mitt could even leave the stage, the fact checkers had began doing what they do, determine what really happened......and it was bad........very bad.  As it turns out, the embassy press release was prior to the attack, meant as a fig leaf for peace between blood thirsty Christian zealots and blood thirsty Islamic zealots.  Mitt will no doubt double down on his words and claim his message was meant as a plea for a national day of silence in honor of the fallen Americans......and tomorrow, he will do it all over again regardless of facts or consequences, because for him, there are no real consequences..........Four dead, fuck 'em I was meant to be president.