The Twelve Days of Christmas: Day Twelve(s)

On the twelfth day of Gheorghemas, Big Gheorghe gave to me

Twelve Lists of Twelve
Eleven Months of Magic

Top Ten Reasons to Read a Book

Nine More Questionable Predictions

Eight Amazing Quotes from Barbie (A Shlara Joint)
Seven Weeks of Sobriety*

Six Random Items

Five Golden Auctions

Four Teams for Bitching

Three Tiny Scrappers
Two books for your Gheorghemas wish list
And a doofus to lead this country

Okay, it's time. I've bemoaned before how much more difficult it is to come up with 12 of something I enjoy that need celebrating Gheorghe-style... or that I want to recommend... or that I can even think of... than it is to, say, think of two books to recommend. (Okay, well, it's nearly as difficult.) 

And yet I accept this mantle, fool that I must be. What a mantle piece I am.

Well, December came and went, as it did in 2022. Snow fell. Elves worked. People drank with the reckless abandon that comes with the vicious combo of holiday cheer and the knowledge that Dry January looms. (At least I did. Phew.) Santa came through. As did Hannukah Harry and other substitutes for hard religion. 

Gheorghemas... sat still at Day 11. Kudos to the gheorghies for fine work in Gmas 2023. Whatever mild mockery I took, more was deserved.

So here I sit, broken hearted. Or at least stumped for 12 things. Sorry!

Broadway Joe has your 12 right here

Nah, just kidding. F that. 

I've got 12... TWELVE... XII... lists of 12 things for Day 12! Just for you, gheorghies. 

Yes, it's true. 12 lists. Some will demonstrate considerate thought on the part of the author. Some will be... uh... slight. (Hey, Marls only had 9 predictions to list and more than one was a repeat of last year!)

Oh, all 12 will be here before you know it! Stay tuned.  Check back later today! They'll be here before Groundhog Eve or my name's not... whatever it is today. 

Weird-Ass Filler/Audience Participation

My wife headed to Pittsburgh today to visit her folks. Her father had a bit of a medical scare and didn't get to travel to us for Thanksgiving (all is well, thankfully), and he's getting on in years, so she felt it important to get to see them. Took my youngest to the airport this morning, so my oldest and I got to hang for most of the day. 

If you know my oldest, you'll be clued into the fact that they're wildly creative, a bit provocative, and a perpetual motion machine. They're recovering from a stress fracture to a big toe, so the usual physical outlets aren't available. Which has manifest itself in a manic artistic spree: short stories, poems, drawings, vocalizations that may or may not make one think they're in the presence of a lunatic.

Because I wanted to extend my time with my kid, I agreed to play along when they suggested we make art together. We drew for five minutes and then switched pages and drew for five more, and so on. Friends, I give you...shit, I don't know. But I enjoyed it.

The pencil work is mine. The ink, my kid's. Please don't try to psychoanalyze us.

Might or might not be a Muppet sex party

Jesus doing a kick-flip

In addition to our illustration, we dug up a poetry prompt website and did some speed poetry. In the interest of expanding your parameters, this is a call to y'all. Using the random prompt generator at robertpeake.com, I got the following:

Include as many of the following words (or variations on these words) as you like:

pore-wise, derived, neighbor's, petrified, deaf, bright, norden, orphant, lemmate, goddesses, kools, rain-beaten

Also:

Mention an aspect of agriculture or farming

Make up an unusual name for a person and include it in the poem

And I turned it into:

Pore-wise Lemmate Orphant

Rain-beaten by the norden windspray

Deaf to his neighbor’s petrified plea

Skin alive buoyed by goddesses

Kools from his pocket, bright

With sparks derived from fakeflint

Hoping reaping pleasure

Sown from hopeful flirtation

Now it's your turn, Gheorghies. Use the poetry prompt generator at the link above, write as fast as you can, and share your work in the comments. Flex those right brains, my friends. Embrace your inner lunatic. I'm glad I got to do that with my kid.

Mark. Your. Calendars.

I enjoy the musical stylings of Al Yankovic as much as the next guy. Which is to say I find them modestly amusing, and I like his persistent bursting of self-important bubbles. But I haven't given Weird Al much thought in decades.

That just changed:

Weird: The Al Yankovic story comes out on The Roku Channel on November 4. If you happen to be in Toronto a week from Friday, you can see it live at the Toronto International Film Festival. Judging by the trailer, and several reviews, Weird does for biopics/hagioraphies of musical personalities what its titular character did for pop music. Which is to say it's gonna be delightfully deranged.