Oh Yes I’m Hot

The town I grew up in got cable when I was eight years old. It consisted of three channels: WTBS-Atlanta, WGN-Chicago, and USA. Plus you got a free month’s trial of HBO and I remember straining to listen through the family room door while my father watched Bo Derek in Ten, which was deemed inappropriate for my sister and I.

I still haven’t seen that movie. But I remember a bunch of the dialogue.

MTV hit the air in 1981 but we didn’t get that in my town. On Friday nights, if we could stay up late, we could catch some videos on USA’s Night Flight or WTBS’s Night Tracks.

We had the same three channels up until my parents got divorced and I moved to the “city” with my mom and my sister.

And then, holy crap: there was MTV.

Between the summer we moved and the summer my grandma died from cancer, she came to visit us at our new apartment. That was my eighth grade year, highlights of which included seven Jennifers in my class (none of whom would speak to me), my locker number (666), getting mono, and wearing out the grooves on Duran Duran’s Rio and Motley Crue’s Shout at the Devil. My sister and I introduced Grandma to MTV, and her favorite video, inexplicably, was Van Halen’s Hot For Teacher.

This was the first thing to ever indicate to me that old people could be cool. It’s one of the reasons I’m staring down the barrel of 40 with anticipation rather than trepidation.

CC has a theory that you can’t be depressed while listening to Van Halen (and by “Van Halen” I mean everything up to and including MCMLXXXIV and not anything after that). I’ve tested this theory numerous times over the years and it appears to be true. Also, I have found that you cannot drive the speed limit while listening to Van Halen, and it is compulsory to ~~scream~~ sing along.

Grandma loved Hot For Teacher’s itty-bitty Van Halens, the ridiculous four-man choreography performed by a band containing only one member who could actually dance, and even the stripping teachers, but most of all she loved Waldo. Waldo in all his nervous, nerdy glory.

I love Waldo too. I feel like Waldo inside probably more often than not.

Grandma just howled every time Hot For Teacher came on- which at the time was approximately every 22 minutes.

I guess I have an extra reason to not be depressed while listening to Van Halen.

Every time I’m driving by myself, listening to Van Halen, blowing my voice out and shaving twenty minutes off my commute, I think of my grandma.

Too Much Cuteness For One Post (not that it’s stopping me)

I was reading and commenting on some blogs this morning and I noticed one of the results of this work schedule I’m keeping right now: I’m not funny. I’m not feeling funny, I’m not making anybody laugh, and I am not amused.

Clearly, it’s time for puppy pictures.

We finished up at the shop last week and started loading the new show into the theater. I’m still at my old show at night for another week. It’s good to finally be in the door loading in, and we have a kick ass crew.

But I will miss the shop dogs, Gracie and Tucker.

They’re awesome.

And now for puggles.

It’s essential to note that I did not pose any puggles for these photos.

There. I feel better already.

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Why #5 Wants a Fake ID (a Christmas post with pictures)

CC and #1 got up early on Sunday, December 11 and drove up a mountain to a place where you can cut your own Christmas tree.

All around the Christmas tree farm are posted signs that read No pets allowed. We have all kinds of wildlife in New Jersey. This is the only place besides a zoo that I’ve ever seen a bear. Not to mention the Jersey Devil (in fact, I’ve never seen one of those in a zoo. Hey, there’s an X-Files episode about that). One might think ahead about these things and know that when going up a mountain to chainsaw down a tree, it may be a good idea to leave your pets at home.

Or not.

At the Christmas tree farm on top of the mountain, the SUV in front of CC and #1 stops at the caretaker.

Yuppies in SUV: Hey, we have our golden retriever. Is it okay if he comes with us?

Caretaker, rolling his eyes: Keep him on a short leash, look out for animals and don’t let him pee on the trees.

CC stops at the caretaker: So I brought my mountain lion. . .

They came back with a truly perfect Christmas tree and the house smells all good and piney and Christmasy. I bet you thought this was the part where I tell you about how the yuppies with the golden retriever got attacked by bears and carried off by the Jersey Devil. Yeah, that didn’t happen.

We go to work decorating.

#5 (running back from the tree to get another ornament): Hey. Can you get a job decorating Christmas Trees?

Me: You mean me, personally? Or do you mean you?

#5 (runs to tree with ornament): I mean me!

Me: When you’re older.

#5: Awwww. (runs back for another ornament) Hey.

Me: What.

#5: Can you get me a birth certificate that says I’m older so I can get a job decorating Christmas Trees?

Me: Dude. I am not getting you a fake ID so you can get a job decorating Christmas Trees.

#5 (runs to tree, places ornament, runs back for another): Well. When you put it like that, it does sound extremely illegal.

The tree looks fantastic when we’re done. And then, inexplicably, all the white lights go out. Not the colored ones. Just the four strands of white. I have to confess that troubleshooting Christmas lights is not high on my priority list. The reason for this is that I spent the past five Christmases doing exactly that. I kept all the stupid fuses and extra bulbs because I figure, hey, I’m technically an electrician and I should just fix these.

Except that they’re all made in China by little girls who are forced to work on their birthdays and don’t celebrate Christmas anyway and so they have the last laugh by making it, frankly, not that simple. So I don’t troubleshoot lights anymore. I buy new ones.

I was fully prepared to strip all the ornaments and non-working lights and reload the tree with working lights and redecorate it. But I went to four stores and nobody had any lights left. Well, no lights that I would use: seizure-inducing strobing color LED’s, gold lights on a gold cable, three five-foot strands of blue. I should have known the stores here would be cleaned out. This is suburban New Jersey and in my neighborhood, on Thanksgiving Day people replace their giant inflatable yard turkeys with giant inflatable santa-hatted penguins, and then wrap lights around their roofs, bushes, pillars, lamp posts and bomb shelter doors. All lights were gone by the time December 1 rolled around. Ah well.

I’d like to share some pictures with you.

Secaucus Junction, where I catch my train in to work, is a post unto itself. Suffice it to say for now that it is a great representation of corruption in my fair state, and one of the very unimportant results is that it has no electrical outlets. They decorate and can’t light anything up. They are afraid to pick a side in their decorating too, which is odd, because around here pretty much every town center throws up at bare minimum a Christmas tree and a Menorah. In Secaucus they have these:

Donuts? Spare tires?

Oh.

They’re so. . .~~festive~~ green. And red. And unlit. As if somehow by not lighting them, they become non-offensive. Also, they’re fake.

From one extreme to the other, here’s a house in my neighborhood.

Sorry it’s blurry, but there’s a damn lot of blinkity-blink happening here and I was trying not to look like a stalker standing on the street taking pictures. Though really, they’re asking for it.

Here’s the poor tastefully decorated house next to it: