Good Night

You think about "Once upon a times" when a new year pops up on the calendar. Once upon a time. For lots of people 1999 was a long time ago. That's the year our 15 year old high school kids were born. How did you get along way back then without your smart phone, your car gps or your email?

WARNING - this podcast ends on a strange note.

It's really here. And the "Kid" in all of us gets to pop out and say WOW!. There's the best version of The First Noel ever recorded on this podcast, and the end of the podcast is a story I told you last year...and you sent me lots of Merry Christmas comments about it. So...Merry Christmas...to all of us.

You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen. That's part of my book, Staying Happy, Healthy And Hot (available at Amazon.com...shameless plug.) And 5 years ago something wonderful happened in our family. Our little Princess Cecelia was born. She gives you her absolutely wonderful take on Christmas this time.

Pretty simple this time. Lots of Christmas stories you've sent, and a couple of mine. Plus, "Pick A Person." Pick somebody you know who won't get much attention this Christmas, and give him/her...a little attention. Not money. Maybe a couple of really warm smiles, or perhaps a Tootsie roll present. It'll give you a feeling you won't be able to give away...till next Christmas.

I tried to get you to do this last year with little success. Big Louie always says, "You can never tell when something wonderful is going to happen," so maybe I'll have better luck this year. Also, Pick A Person for Christmas is in here, and maybe the funniest Christmas story I've ever heard. It was such a belly laugher that for the first time in my life, I simply couldn't finish it.

It's Ho-Ho-Ho time again. And I think it would be neat if we'd pick a person who may not have much ho-ho-hoing going on in his/her life, and lay one on him. Not looking for money, just a little attention...and maybe a Tootsie Roll kind of a gift. It could be just a genuine smile, or a "Merry Christmas" like you really mean it. I'll bet there's someone you know...maybe just a little...who could use it.

I am now a newly minted Skype-scraper. A Skype-scraper is not a tall building with a TV antenna on top. A Skype-scraper is a guy who manages to scrape together enough equipment to use a computer video program called Skype. The new computers make it pretty simple I'm told, but my computer is approaching boat anchor status, meaning it's more than five years old, so there was lots of scraping going on for a camera, a compatible mic, adapters and stuff like that. It was really kind of neat and it was a lot of fun.

My friend Neal Braverman has a pretty good size group of folks who like folk music up in Boston, and I got to talk to them while I was sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room last Sunday night. I like folk music too, and I used to play a lot of it when I was a dj at a Boston radio station. So Neal invited me to talk to the group, since lots of them were part of my Boston radio huddle. I was on the air late at night, and I called my listeners my "huddle," as in when football players gather around to find out what the quarterback wants them to do next. I felt like the quarterback, calling the plays that would get all of us through the night. That was the goal... making it safely and comfortably all the way to dawn. There are lots of stories about that in my new book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot.

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, after having a born again experience earlier today. I remember when I was born the first time, it was such a surprise that my parents said I didn't talk for about a year and a half.

As I explained in my book Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, the Pimple People wouldn't have liked being born when I was born the first time. We had crew cuts in those days. We looked like a bunch of tennis balls walking around. There was no such thing as fluorescent Mohawk orange hair, giant Goth tattoos, and enough piercings that the combined metal could build a multi engine airplane.

We had the Bomb, the hula hoop, Elvis, the Beatles, The Stones, protests, walking on the moon, Woodstock and Watergate. We learned how to duck and cover to put our school desks between us and a thermonuclear bomb. Guys like Walter Cronkheit explained on black and white TV with rabbit ears on top, about how things we take for granted like voting work differently in places like Russia.

Walter told us basically that voting is an option in Russia, but if you do choose to vote, you go into the voting booth, pull the curtain, and when you open it again you're in Siberia.

I am sitting here in my big, manly, comfortable, black leather poppa chair in my living room, and I'm about to tell you about three little words that just came in over my phone that has made me wax philosophical. As I told you in my book, Staying Happy Healthy And Hot, I don't wax my philosophical too often, because I have found that friends tend to slip away from an over waxed philosopher.

I am a grandfather. The three words are from granddaughter Sarah. The title Grandfather is the Phd of parenthood.

The Pimple People think I am in the twilight of my years. And that's fine with me. Because twilight comes just before night, and night is when you get the best music, the best food and the best sex. Pimple People of the world, I am putting you on notice that although those of us who are members of the Louie Louie Generation no longer have rock hard abs and perky breasts like you people in the beer commercials, we have seen all the great bands, so "Ha." And "Ha" to you again if you think we are just left over chunks of luke warm meat. We know things that you haven't learned yet and maybe never will.

For example, you know you have been spending the first half of your lives rebelling against your parents, but what you probably don't know is that you will probably spend the second part of your lives rebelling against your kids.

I think I have discovered the true meaning of Halloween. Halloween features a squadron of little kids with hobgoblin masks, ghostly sheets, and little princess costumes coming to your front door, and threatening you with a trick if you don't drop some chocolate covered bribe into the swag bag. Kind of like the guys in Congress.

Some of the kids are dressed up like super heroes...Spider Man, Bat Man...we even had a kid with a Superman cape on here last year. I don't think he had really learned how to fly just yet, because it was obvious that he'd just recently learned to walk. So what's the true meaning of Halloween?

I've given it lots of thought, and I've come to the conclusion that Santa is behind the whole thing. He sends the tiny tricksters to scare us, so we'll stop messing around and start being good because Christmas is getting pretty close, and he wants us to know he's watching.