There are an awful lot of new visitors to the Asylum this week. I welcome you, and hope you enjoy your visit. Feel free to read anything you want and to post anything you like. I usually don't answer my e-mail (unless it's really good), but the Asylum Elves are on strike (they want dental, you see) and so in my capacity as Management, it behooves me to take on the menial tasks that they used to do in the name of good customer service.
Q: Wow! You've been blogging for a long time now! How come I never saw this blog before?
A: Because you weren't looking for it, obviously. Then again, I wasn't sitting here trying to be noticed. I don't advertise, and frankly, when I started this crap seven years ago it was supposed to be therapy. I never really expected anyone to actually read it, so I didn't promote it. Really, I mean, some of the stuff I wrote back then is absolutely awful, but in my defense, if I wasn't drunk, then I was zonked on Xanax or Zoloft , or suffering from severe sleep deprivation. Promoting my blog -- with my mental distress pasted all over it -- wasn't exactly something I was out to achieve.
If you've found this blog in the past, it was completely by accident. If you've found it in the last week or so, it was pretty much under the same circumstances. I didn't expect to find my rantings on Twitter, or for the New York Times to come a'callin' with a request for an interview. Anyways, so long as you're here, you might as well get a drink and fasten your seat belts; it's a wild ride pretty much all the time.
Q: Why are you so angry?
A: This is NOT anger. Believe me, you wouldn't like me when I'm angry -- as it's not even half as funny. What some take for anger is simply me being at a point in my life where I simply do not give a shit about what anyone else thinks of me. Therefore, I pull no punches, and I say exactly what is on my mind. Some people are uncomfortable with this level of frankness, but as I said, I really don't give a shit what you might think about it. This is still America, and I can say whatever I goddamned please.
I don't expect everyone to agree with me, and I certainly expect that most won't. I'm also aware that this sort of blunt expression makes some people shake their heads and tsk-tsk, especially with the language that gets used here, but I'm sorry: I'm a native New Yorker and it's fucking genetic. Deal.
Q. Why do you hate Muslims/Christians/Women/Blacks/Poor People/Democrats so much?
A. If you seriously have to ask why anyone should hate Muslims, then I suggest you have your family sign that Do Not Resuscitate Order right fucking now. But if you must know, the story goes something like this:
I had a freakin' absolutely awesome life before 9/11. I had a bitchin' career. I had a ton of money. I was comfortable, and although I had to work hard, that never really bothered me any. Then 19 idiots who couldn't get the blond girls to chuck' em one decided that it would be a good idea to ram a couple of airliners into the tallest buildings in New York City in the name of their phony-baloney God. I was lucky --no one close to me was hurt or killed that day --but mostly because I had only left 1 WTC a minute or so before the first plane struck. But I did find myself directly underneath the first kamikaze, and if that, plus witnessing the murders of 3,000 other people, doesn't freak you out, there's something wrong with you. The resulting mental disorders cost me everything, and seven years of my life.
As for Christians, well, if one God would force 19 douchebags to kill themselves in order to get it's attention, then any God is likely to do the same. Besides, I get a chuckle out of people who tell me their God is all-powerful, all-knowing, knows what's in my heart, and is watching me 24-hours a day who can then turn around and tell you that Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny are pagan constructs that will lead the True Believer off the Righteous Path.
I don't know about you, but I can't remember the last time Peter Cottontail or Ol' St. Nick demanded the blood of innocents, flooded the planet because no one would listen to them, sanctioned war and slaughter,and threatened to return to lead the last great battle that will destroy the world. Apart from a little bit of good-natured breaking-and-entering (in which they actually leave stuff behind!), Kris Kringle and Peter Rabbit are actually far more amenable; the worst they ever did was to skip someone's house, or leave a lump of coal as a gentle reminder of the wages of sin; Yahweh tosses people into great big lakes of fire and brimstone to their eternal torment at the hands of a fallen angel that She created, but then couldn't control, either.
I don't hate women. I love women. I just hate the confused-by-feminism little girls hiding in a woman's body. Especially the ones that tell you "I don't need no man!", and then beg you to pay their rent, buy shit for them, and then solve all their problems brought about by their own stupidity for them, and then take out their unrequited revenge fantasies against the Ex Husband/Boyfriend that did them wrong on you. Sorry, but there's plenty of vaginas out there, and I prefer the ones without baggage and some common sense.
I don't hate blacks, either. I just think it's easier to automatically assume that all black people are clueless, insensitive, loudmouthed, selfish. pigheaded, bigoted doofuses, because after a lifetime of ersatz "Reverends", Affirmative Action, and spending what seems like a year of my life in Diversity Training and monthly Diversity Meetings, that's what they seem to think of me, sans evidence. What's good for the goose, and all that. However, if a black person should happen to earn my respect (much like I expect to have to earn theirs), then we're cool.
As for the rest, what's to LIKE about welfare queens and democrats (sorry, that was redundant)?
Hope this answers some of your questions, Newcomers! Oh, and Merry Fuckin' Christmas.
Showing posts with label Merry Christmas. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Merry Christmas. Show all posts
Thursday, December 23, 2010
Friday, December 25, 2009
Merry Christmas!
I haven't had a chance to say this to you all, what with travel and stuffing my fat face.
Merry Christmas to all!
Merry Christmas to all!
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
The Feast of the Seven Fishes...
I must prepare for the time honored tradition of the Feast of the Seven Fishes, a day I enjoy more than Thanksgiving, Halloween and the Stanley Cup Finals rolled up in one.
What, pray, is the Feast of the Seven Fishes? Why, it's only the greatest Italian Christmas tradition...EVAH! Unfortunately, it's not actually, authentically Italian, more like an Italian-American thing (because we don't have purple feet!), but it's roots certainly do go back to the old country. My own family hails from Sicily (my father's side) and Naples (my mother's side), which are, traditionally, some of the poorest places in Italy. When the peasantry escaped their poverty in Italy to come to America, they brought the beginnings of this tradition with them, suitably modified for a new life (and new realities) in America.
See, for Italians, Christmas Eve is the really more important night. That's when The Vigil (La Vigillia) occurred; the actual waiting for Baby Jesus to arrive. For Italians, anticipation is usually better than the event, I guess? Anyways, it's almost a backhanded homage to the whole concept of childbirth. A commemoration of the greatest weapon in the arsenal of the Italian Mother; they torment their children their entire lives with "I spent hours, and hours, and hours in painful, awful, terrible, bloody, excruciating labor to give birth to you, you ungrateful wretch!" (You think Jewish mothers have a corner on the market on guilt trips?). Therefore, the emphasis placed on the labor rather than the actual birth...by women, anyways. So, I guess it's a (strangely masochistic) celebration of motherhood, and Christmas, and an excuse to get stupid fat, all rolled up into one. So, for some strange reason they never really made to clear to us during 10 years of a Catholic School education, Italians 'fast' for Christmas...by stuffing themselves with vast quantities of seafood.
It would break the heart of the most ardent tree-hugger to think of how badly we denude the oceans for a Christmas Feast! I actually snicker at that thought.
Anyways, there's the Feast. Now, depending upon which part of Italy your forebears supposedly came from, the tradition becomes slightly different, but the same motif about the number seven (a lucky number!) continues, each of the seven fishes represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, or the Seven Hills that Surround Rome, the Seven Sacraments of the Church, The Seven Days of Creation in Genesis. Perhaps it's because Italians are inveterate gamblers, or maybe that was the number of broads Frank Sinatra once bagged simultaneously. Who knows why it's seven; somehow, seven is supposed to be the greatest number of all, and every red-blooded Goombah always has a reverence for the number seven.
Anyhow...
The Feast itself usually begins at 3:00 in the afternoon; that's when the boiled shrimp gets served, cocktail style, a seafood salad (usually Scungilli Salad, conch), antipasti -- a variety of sliced meats, cheeses, and pickled vegetables --olives and olive-inspired canapes, fresh-roasted red peppers, hot Tusacn peppers in vinegar, and a host of hors d'oeuvres. We skip lunch so that we can partake of this pre-meal extravaganza. Wine gets passed around, too. Think of it as warm-up for the main event, which begins at 7:00. During this time, we sit around, stuff ourselves and reminisce about this, that and the other, and at some point it devolves into a round of good-natured ribbing that would appear vicious to the uninitiated, but if you're Italian you know what I mean. We laugh, we remember those who aren't here anymore, we talk about everything and anything, we tell the kids about 'the old days' before they get bored and go watch TV. It's Family Time.
Then the actual dinner starts, promptly at 7 P.M. (There's that number again!)
There's the fried shrimp, fried scrod, baked clams and mussels in tomato or Fra Diavlo sauce (a hot tomato sauce), Calamari (squid), lobster tails, scallops in the shell or in wine sauce -- all of which follows the traditional pasta course (usually lasagna, stuffed shells, manicotti or ravioli. Often more than one.). When my grandparents and great-aunts/uncles were still here, there was Baccala (salted cod, usually served in an olive oil and garlic sauce), but no one eats that anymore. It''s considered 'Old Timer' food. We weren't raised on it. And there is, as always, the freshest bread you've ever had in your life..
If that isn't enough for you, there's ham, and maybe even turkey. And these get served with your broccoli rabe (bitter broccoli, served with red pepper flakes...almost like Passover!), stuffed artichokes (blech!) and some sort of potatoes (never mashed!). By this time, you've been at the table for at least 3 hours, and have had two or three entire dinners.
There's a short rest for more wine and family chop-busting and camaraderie, the kids get to open (some) of their Christmas gifts, we take some photos...and then the desert trays come out.
There's cakes, pastries (connoli, Napoleon, pettit-fours), a selection of Italian cookies which always includes biscotti, pinioli (pine) nut cookies and anisette cookies (amongst others). Coffee time! There's fruits, nuts, candies, ice cream (always spumoni for the kids!), and any other desert you could possibly think of. Think of it as the Venetian Hour at your friend's wedding brought to your dining room table. Desert itself will last another laugh-filled 2 hours...at least.
By which time, you're ready for Midnight Mass. I don't go anymore, being an agnostic, and nowadays fewer in my family partake, but some still do. Those who don't, stay home and drink yet more wine and make sandwiches out of the leftovers.
Never was there a more disgusting, and yet thoroughly enjoyable, display of human gluttony! Nine hours at the table, broken up by endless ours of family conversation, celebration and fun. I'm not a big believer in the whole Christmas thing as celebration of the world's salvation, but I do believe that this one meal does more to cement families together than just about any other activity, save births, weddings and funerals.
This is, without a doubt, my favorite day of the year.
If you're not Italian, and you think you might like to try this wondrous tradition out next year (assuming we all have jobs and money, and that the Obama Administration hasn't begun that carefully-planned program of Street Executions against it's enemies, i.e. all of us) here's some background information to help you get started;
Seven Fishes Blog
Wikipedia
Italians R Us
Dream of Italy
Sicilian Culture.com
Merry Christmas to all!
What, pray, is the Feast of the Seven Fishes? Why, it's only the greatest Italian Christmas tradition...EVAH! Unfortunately, it's not actually, authentically Italian, more like an Italian-American thing (because we don't have purple feet!), but it's roots certainly do go back to the old country. My own family hails from Sicily (my father's side) and Naples (my mother's side), which are, traditionally, some of the poorest places in Italy. When the peasantry escaped their poverty in Italy to come to America, they brought the beginnings of this tradition with them, suitably modified for a new life (and new realities) in America.
See, for Italians, Christmas Eve is the really more important night. That's when The Vigil (La Vigillia) occurred; the actual waiting for Baby Jesus to arrive. For Italians, anticipation is usually better than the event, I guess? Anyways, it's almost a backhanded homage to the whole concept of childbirth. A commemoration of the greatest weapon in the arsenal of the Italian Mother; they torment their children their entire lives with "I spent hours, and hours, and hours in painful, awful, terrible, bloody, excruciating labor to give birth to you, you ungrateful wretch!" (You think Jewish mothers have a corner on the market on guilt trips?). Therefore, the emphasis placed on the labor rather than the actual birth...by women, anyways. So, I guess it's a (strangely masochistic) celebration of motherhood, and Christmas, and an excuse to get stupid fat, all rolled up into one. So, for some strange reason they never really made to clear to us during 10 years of a Catholic School education, Italians 'fast' for Christmas...by stuffing themselves with vast quantities of seafood.
It would break the heart of the most ardent tree-hugger to think of how badly we denude the oceans for a Christmas Feast! I actually snicker at that thought.
Anyways, there's the Feast. Now, depending upon which part of Italy your forebears supposedly came from, the tradition becomes slightly different, but the same motif about the number seven (a lucky number!) continues, each of the seven fishes represents one of the Seven Deadly Sins, or the Seven Hills that Surround Rome, the Seven Sacraments of the Church, The Seven Days of Creation in Genesis. Perhaps it's because Italians are inveterate gamblers, or maybe that was the number of broads Frank Sinatra once bagged simultaneously. Who knows why it's seven; somehow, seven is supposed to be the greatest number of all, and every red-blooded Goombah always has a reverence for the number seven.
Anyhow...
The Feast itself usually begins at 3:00 in the afternoon; that's when the boiled shrimp gets served, cocktail style, a seafood salad (usually Scungilli Salad, conch), antipasti -- a variety of sliced meats, cheeses, and pickled vegetables --olives and olive-inspired canapes, fresh-roasted red peppers, hot Tusacn peppers in vinegar, and a host of hors d'oeuvres. We skip lunch so that we can partake of this pre-meal extravaganza. Wine gets passed around, too. Think of it as warm-up for the main event, which begins at 7:00. During this time, we sit around, stuff ourselves and reminisce about this, that and the other, and at some point it devolves into a round of good-natured ribbing that would appear vicious to the uninitiated, but if you're Italian you know what I mean. We laugh, we remember those who aren't here anymore, we talk about everything and anything, we tell the kids about 'the old days' before they get bored and go watch TV. It's Family Time.
Then the actual dinner starts, promptly at 7 P.M. (There's that number again!)
There's the fried shrimp, fried scrod, baked clams and mussels in tomato or Fra Diavlo sauce (a hot tomato sauce), Calamari (squid), lobster tails, scallops in the shell or in wine sauce -- all of which follows the traditional pasta course (usually lasagna, stuffed shells, manicotti or ravioli. Often more than one.). When my grandparents and great-aunts/uncles were still here, there was Baccala (salted cod, usually served in an olive oil and garlic sauce), but no one eats that anymore. It''s considered 'Old Timer' food. We weren't raised on it. And there is, as always, the freshest bread you've ever had in your life..
If that isn't enough for you, there's ham, and maybe even turkey. And these get served with your broccoli rabe (bitter broccoli, served with red pepper flakes...almost like Passover!), stuffed artichokes (blech!) and some sort of potatoes (never mashed!). By this time, you've been at the table for at least 3 hours, and have had two or three entire dinners.
There's a short rest for more wine and family chop-busting and camaraderie, the kids get to open (some) of their Christmas gifts, we take some photos...and then the desert trays come out.
There's cakes, pastries (connoli, Napoleon, pettit-fours), a selection of Italian cookies which always includes biscotti, pinioli (pine) nut cookies and anisette cookies (amongst others). Coffee time! There's fruits, nuts, candies, ice cream (always spumoni for the kids!), and any other desert you could possibly think of. Think of it as the Venetian Hour at your friend's wedding brought to your dining room table. Desert itself will last another laugh-filled 2 hours...at least.
By which time, you're ready for Midnight Mass. I don't go anymore, being an agnostic, and nowadays fewer in my family partake, but some still do. Those who don't, stay home and drink yet more wine and make sandwiches out of the leftovers.
Never was there a more disgusting, and yet thoroughly enjoyable, display of human gluttony! Nine hours at the table, broken up by endless ours of family conversation, celebration and fun. I'm not a big believer in the whole Christmas thing as celebration of the world's salvation, but I do believe that this one meal does more to cement families together than just about any other activity, save births, weddings and funerals.
This is, without a doubt, my favorite day of the year.
If you're not Italian, and you think you might like to try this wondrous tradition out next year (assuming we all have jobs and money, and that the Obama Administration hasn't begun that carefully-planned program of Street Executions against it's enemies, i.e. all of us) here's some background information to help you get started;
Seven Fishes Blog
Wikipedia
Italians R Us
Dream of Italy
Sicilian Culture.com
Merry Christmas to all!
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