BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

Okay, I admit it. I read Reuters Oddly Enough news… Actually, it’s not so much news as it is a mini blog that takes somewhat odd news stories and showcases them… Or, relatively normal stories and puts an odd spin on them… Whatever seems to work at the time, I suppose. Especially if it’s a slow news day. (You know, things just aren’t the same as they were back when I was studying Journalism, but that’s another story entirely…)

So, anyway, back to the lecherous, filthy elf… One of the “Oddly Enough” features on 12/10 was a list of links to odd holiday tales. As with many blogs, comments are allowed and beneath this one there were three, two of which lamented the fact that when they were kids, Christmas was about the Church and not Santa…

Well, I could wax prophetic all about how they are a bit misguided since Christmas is actually a hijacked holiday known as Yule, and that it really occurs on the Winter Solstice. That, and the fact that there is overwhelming evidence that Jesus – divinely conceived child of “God” or not, doesn’t really matter – wasn’t born on December 25th, and in fact wasn’t born anywhere near December at all. But, once again, all that goes to a different blog, which quite honestly has been beaten to death and there is no real reason for me to go into it other than the illustration above.

Now, I will concede that there was a valid point to the comments – that being the whole Santa thing. I mean, when you look at it historically – and worldwide for that matter – this whole Santa Claus legend/myth has several different avenues, turns, detours, and bizarre stories it takes – up to and including sidekicks such as “Black Pete” (I’ll have to tell you the story about my own personal confusion on the Black Pete mythos sometime… Let’s just say I had it correct all except for the name… Seems that in my twisted brain he became Black Bob, but again, another story for another time…)

Anywho, we are all pretty much aware – and if you aren’t you are about to get educated – that the present “American” incarnation of Santa Claus is the product of marketing by a soft drink company. Yeah, no kidding. Look it up.

But, as usual, I have digressed a bit.

You see, the thing that really got me about the comments on the Oddly Enough blog was that one of them referred to Santa Claus as, and I quote, “…an all-knowing, omnipresent, pedophiliac old man…”

Well, all knowing, yeah, I guess I can give you that. Omnipresent, well yeah, that too. I mean, according to the myth the fat bastard DOES manage to get around the entire globe in a single 24 hour period, all while making countless stops.

However… pedophiliac? Never mind the fact that we have a noun-adjective-noun combination there that just drives me insane (i.e. grammatically it should be pedophilic old man)… But, like I said, let’s ignore the creation of a new part of speech here, that being the nounective… or adjenoun… and just focus on what this person is attempting to say.

This “commentator” just called Santa Claus a child molester…

Now, I am not sure about the rest of you but there was no time in my life, as a child or as an adult, when I ever heard of Santa Claus molesting a kid. I never heard a single story about the Jolly Old Elf having any such interest in children. Hell, I never heard a single story about Santa even having an interest in his wife, much less kids.

Sure, now that I am an adult I have seen the “adult” cartoons that run about the net, featuring Santa mooning you, or getting laid, or what have you… But, not with kids, and I definitely didn’t see this stuff until I was an adult.

Sooooo… If the commentator above grew up believing that Santa Claus is a Pedophile, then you have to wonder what this person’s parents were telling her…Or, dare I say it? What happened to her as a child… It boggles the mind. Well, it boggles MY mind…

You know… Having read that particular comment actually made me a bit angry… You see, my Grandfather, Elvis Babb, used to play Santa at the local store back in the small town of Fulton, KY where I am from, and he was a hell of a guy. A hell of a Santa too.

For someone to say Santa is a Pedophile sullies the reputation of Santa’s everywhere, including the memory of my Grandfather… Shame on her.

More to come…

Murv

As always, while this blog is certainly an opinion piece, it is written tongue in cheek and intended to entertain.

In the 1986 Michael Mann film, Manhunter, based on Thomas Harris’ novel Red Dragon, there is a scene where a sting operation is being set up and one of the FBI agents says to Investigator Will Graham, “Let’s walk the route…” Basically, the idea was for them to walk the path Graham would be taking during the sting in order that he be familiar with it and hopefully not get himself killed.

Well, I walked the route last night… Not the route Will Graham (William Petersen) walked in the movie…No, I walked the route Special Agent Constance Mandalay walked in the last pages of The End Of Desire. I’ll try not to give away too much, as I know some readers of my blog have yet to get their hands on TEOD, and are hoping it will be in their Yule stocking (Good luck to you on that – I’m pulling for you!)… Suffice it to say, I “walked the route.”

The Saint Louis Zoo does in fact have a special light display every year at this time. It is called “Wild Lights”. And, each year as a family we go there, pay our modest admission, and wander around the zoo in the dark looking at all the wonderous displays. Hence, the reason (with some minor name changes) it was featured as part of the climax in The End Of Desire.

Anyway, last night was our annual pilgrimage, and it was the first time I had been back to the display since writing TEOD (naturally). So, I walked Mandalay’s route…There was a crowd of folks, as usual, enjoying hot chocolate and the various light displays…But, for me, it was like moving slowly through a dream. The fictional scene replayed in my head, projecting itself onto the canvas of reality before me. Non-existent players in this world were suddenly very tangible, if only to my eyes and no one else’s.

For a scant 30 minutes, fiction became reality in my own personal world.

It was, to say the least, an interesting experience… Of course, we know that my characters talk to me all the time, so I suppose I should have expected it.

Yeah, I’m pretty disturbed. But we already knew that, didn’t we? 

More to come…

Murv