Archive for December 14th, 2009
2009 Christmas in Boystown
So, our friend Joe is visiting from Philadelphia next week. He hasn’t been to Chicago in ten years. We stayed with him a few times when we were campaigning first for Hillary Clinton in the primaries last year, and then for McCain/Palin in the last days before the general election. So, he’s coming to Buzzquarters for Christmas and we’re going to have many adventures, we’re sure.
We asked him if he had his Christmas costume and he texted, “What’s that?”.
We’ve lived in Chicago for so long we almost forgot other cities exist where people don’t wear holiday costumes like here in Boystown.
There are few different routes you can go with this stuff, too:
(1) The Ugly Sweater — find the absolute most hideous Christmas sweater you can find, something that when you were a child you would have been mortified to receive as a gift and would have thrown tantrums to keep from wearing in public. Now, as someone in your 20s or 30s, put that sucker on and hit the bars, guaranteeing yourself a free drink or two as people are so delighted by your sweater’s holiday infused ugliness that drinks will be on them. We swear this happens. Ragstock, just off Halsted at Belmont (in the alley to the side of Hollywood Mirror), has an enormous supply of Christmas sweaters in a wide range of ugly. There are actually some we remember our moms wearing in the 80s. It’s fun when a group of people get their ugly sweater mojo on, go out together, and spread that holiday spirit.
(2) Christmas tee shirts — Another fun option if you don’t want to do an ugly sweater is to find some fun holiday themed tee shirts. Threadless, on Broadway near Barry here in Chicago has GREAT, funny, snarky tees…with some fun Christmas ones. Also, on Clark north of Belmont, there are several great tee shirt shops with lots of holiday options. Wear them over a red or green henley and you’ll be warm, but rocking a Christmas tee, by yourself or in a group. Festive!
(3) Santa hats — De rigeur on holiday pub crawls this time of year, and can be bought just about anywhere, including CVS. For cooler hats, checkout Beatnik, Batteries Not Included, and Cupid’s Treasures on Halsted, for all sorts of sexy and crazy holiday themed hats. They have some that look like menorahs for Hannakhah, too…some that look like reindeer antlers…some that look like the Whos from The Grinch. In the bars this time of year, you’ll find lots of people rocking these holiday hats. Merry, mary.
(4) Full-on costumes — A lot of people dress up all in green with elf hats and ears, or all in red as various members of the Claus family. The sexier the better in Boystown…and the same costumes can be worn on July 25th for the summer’s Christmas in July party (a highlight leading up to Pride). We spotted a group of guys out last night wearing elf hats and white tee shirts — they personalized the shirts as different elf characters, like “Lumberjack Elf” or “Tipsy Elf”, and had the personalities to match. They just tied christmas bows to themselves in various places, and brought the looks in really cheaply. You can do sexy versions of Frosty, Rudolph, the Krampus, and all sorts of other holiday characters too. The go-go boys are rocking red and green speedos and jocks. The drag queens are be-tinsled, some dressed up like big green trees with lights and ornaments. Since there are actual strings of battery-operated holiday lights, you can even complete your look with strings of these lights lit up when you go out. We saw two guys do this the other night and it was a lot of fun.
Two of the holiday pub crawls have already happened, like “Santa Con” (Santa convention) and “Naughty Elves”, where people dressed up as santa or elves in the hundreds and assembled in different places to hop bar to bar. There’s no Santa Speedo Run in Chicago like there is in Boston, but that would be fun to start in the future…to raise money for charity like they do in Beantown.
On Halsted last night, a band was caroling, playing live Christmas music up and down the street. Rumor has it in the next few days there will be Victorian-costumed Christmas carolers walking Boystown too…with Miss Foozie herself (the unofficial mayor of Boystown), leading the singing.
It seems all the bars are decked out with great Christmas decorations, and each one’s doing something cool and inventive for holiday parties. Scarlet’s got a Christmas burlesque show tomorrow, starring Hot Toddy and his male revue. Lucky Horseshoe has Christmas strippers. Sidetracks has holiday music worked into its Showtunes playlist for tonight. Pie Hole has a Christmas Pizza (BBQ sauce, ham, sweet potatoes) that we’ll probably get for dinner tonight.
We like to share what fun things are going on here so that you, wherever you are, might incorporate some of it into your own towns. There are so many grinches in this world. Boystown is not grinch-friendly, and is a place where we celebrate every holiday imaginable with bright lights, big smiles, tons of fun, and sparkle, sparkle, sparkle.
You kind of should too.
The Mineral City Coffee Club reviews “The Princess and the Frog” (which is surprisingly NOT the story of Jackie Kennedy’s courtship by Aristotle Onassis)
Dear HillBuzz,
My name is Patricia Melton (but you can call me Pattymelt, since I use that name on the Internets, when I am surfing that series of pipes and tubes avoiding the dumptrucks, as former Senator Ted Stevens so sagely warned us all), and I am the President-for-Life of the Mineral City Coffee Club, which is the foremost coffee club in Mineral City, Ohio (which itself is the foremost outpost of all civilization in Muppet-infested central Ohio…we are, as every guidebook notes proudly, “The Paris of Tuscawaras County”). I am writing you today because my son Robby asked me to review the new movie, “The Princess & the Frog”, which was made by Walt Disney (or, possibly, his popsicle ghost, still roaming the secret tunnels beneath his amusement park, the way I imagine Michael Jackson haunts Neverland…or, at the very least, the boys’ department at the Santa Monica Sears).
Read the rest of this entry »
The First Day of Obamamas
Everyone sing along!
On the First Day of Obamamas, ‘The Lightbringer” promised me:
- A unicorn in an ACORN tree
*******
For those of you who are too RAAACIST to know this, Obamamas is the new national holiday honoring our current president, Dr. Utopia, The Lightbringer. The motto of Obamamas is not only “Jesus Who?” but “Christmas is RAAACIST And so are all you People” (C.R.A.P. for short).
Obamamas is a total C.R.A.P. holiday – celebrated with a large aluminum Grievance Pole staged in the center of your living room. Upon it, you will display an empty suit honoring Dr. Utopia, the Lightbringer. You will perform various rituals around this pole every hour, on the hour, to prove how not-RAAACIST you all are. Al Sharpton, Henry Gates, and Jesse Jackson are watching, so you best get to it. Obamamas isn’t going to just Obamamas itself.
Anyone who can help photoshop some images to go along with the 12 Days of Obamamas, starting with “A Unicorn in an ACORN tree”, would be much appreciated.
Bad news: anti-Kennedy family series censored
Rumor has it the same actress who played Veruca Salt would have played HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy, since that actress had such experience playing that sort of role.
Here’s some very bad news: a TV series that was supposed to show all the bad things the Kennedy Family has been up to for the last, well, FOREVER, has been censored by The History Channel, which has picked up the series as its first scripted drama.
The show was pitched as a look into “the soiled and crooked steps” the Kennedys took in their mad, spider-like, take no prisoners lurch towards power. It was supposed to be made by a conservative behind 24 on FOX, which promised it would be an unvarnished look at the family most proud of its youngest male, a man who not only allowed a woman to drown in his Oldsmobile while he went back to a party for more drinks, but later in life was fond of making “waitress sandwiches” with fellow senator Chris Dodd and any female waiting tables within reach of his paws.
However, much like the remake of V on ABC, the network ordered changes to the show, including dumping the conservatives behind it and replacing them with committed liberals. This means instead of getting a real picture of the Kennedys, we’ll get more Camelot nonsense, and perhaps glossy fun-filled montages of HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy at Bergdorf Goodman’s, where she spends most of her time. Sort of like this:
The time Princess Caroline spends in the silk scarf department alone could fill hours.
ABC got nervous because the White House didn’t want V to have an anti-Utopian message, so rumor has it the network’s ordered a complete premise change: the creepy alien lizard people from space who appeared out of nowhere promising Hope and Change this time AREN’T going to turn out to be evil after all. They just came for the hugs, stayed for the smiles, and want to sit on the grass in the sun talking about their feelings while drinking delicious purple Kool-Aid with all of us. And, SCENE!
In the History Channel series, the Kennedys will be presented as perfect in every way, inventors of the first Oldsmobile-submarine, men with so much love in their hearts they had to share that love with anything in a skirt, women so comfortable around corruption and genuine evil they just stop caring about any of it after a while (but occasionally start to drink, anything and everything, including the Windex in efforts to get away, even briefly, from those spiders).
It’s a shame, because we would have been RIVETED by a series that took down the Kennedys week after week. We are finally at a juncture when this family can be driven from the public scene for keeps. HRH Princess Caroline of Kennedy created that opening last year, with her disastrous Senate power grab that not only made her a laughingstock, but proved how vulnerable the Kennedys really are.
This series could have finished them off, but alas it seems it’s going to be just more propaganda Camelot tripe.
Most popular Secret Santa and stocking stuffer in Boystown: Beatin' Barack Doll
Man alive, this is funny. Here in Boystown, we’ve been checking out all the different shops, where we’re friendly with the various store owners and clerks. We wanted to see what’s been selling really well, and if there has been a lot of holiday traffic (in a word, NO, sales are down about 15-20% in most places, while theft is up 10%, thanks largely to the Center on Halsted Gang, comprised largely of shoplifting black transvestites…only in Boystown).
One surprising bit of information is that the most popular Secret Santa gift — BY FAR — this year is a small wind-up doll of the current president masturbating. It’s called the Beatin’ Barack doll. You can find one here. Shops on Halsted are sold out of them, after a big Secret Santa rush this weekend (where it seems like many offices are doing their gift exchanges this week, as people go on their holiday vacations next week).
We’ve talked about this doll before, since it was the very first (and only, really) product we’ve seen lampooning Dr. Utopia here in Boystown. Some of you got offended we ran a picture of it last time, so we won’t include another uncensored one here…but you can see a photo on the original post if you want to.
It’s a plastic doll dressed in a suit, holding its member, with notes on the packaging talking about “stimulus” and implying this is what the current president does all day, instead of delivering all the unicorns and lemonade he promised everyone in the campaign last year.
It’s priced at about $9 or so most places we’ve seen it, which is why it’s great for those Secret Santa exchanges, where the price limits we’ve heard about are $10-15, $20 tops. Every time we have been in a store and people have spotted it, they shriek and howl with delight. “That is what he does all day!,” we heard a thirty-something woman chortle. The twenty-somethings, we’ve noticed, just sort of stare at it, not knowing what to do. There’s a fight going on in their brains. They WANT to think it’s funny, because things like this are funny to them, but they don’t want to sully their mental image of The Lightbringer. It would be like hungry Muslims finding a delicious sandwich panini-ed with Muhammad-looking grill marks all over it. “I want to eat this delicious sandwich, as I am so very hungy, but it has the image of The Prophet on it, so I must abstain”.
Screw that, we’ll eat your sandwich, and drink your milkshake too.
We’re also giving the Beatin’ Barack to everyone we know for Christmas. They are getting that and Hillary and Sarah christmas ornaments we craft at Buzzquarters on Arts & Crafts Day. Sorry if this spoils the surprise for any of you out there, but it’s the same thing you got last year from us, with the addition of the Beatin’ Barack, which was not available at the time.
To date, this is the only product we’ve seen for sale ANYWHERE that’s been a popular dig at Dr. Utopia. Here on Halsted, there’s a shop we love called GayMart that only carries pro-Utopia items, but is heavily stocked with dusty jabs at President Bush. GayMart has a few Dr. Utopia banks in its window, where a few spiders and flies have died and apparently been interned on the boxes. They do not seem to be in high demand…though they are very nicely made. The Liberals have the advantage of so many talented artists and designers in their ranks: the pro-Utopia propaganda items are vastly better crafted than anything anti-Utopia.
With the way this president spends other people’s money like his wife at the “Ugly Dresses for Sale at Exorbitant Prices” store, it’s laughable someone made an “Obama Bank”, but man is the craftsmanship killer on this. And the artist, Beareo, captured the EXACT shade of smurf blood blue the campaign used all throughout 2008 (which feels like decades ago, doesn’t it?).
It would be great if conservatives could go to art school and make great Sarah Palin products like this. Hell, make some great Mitt Romney stuff if you want, though Mattel’s been basically doing that for years (and possibly made Romney himself, as well, though we’ve never checked the bottom of his foot for his “Made In” stamp).
There’s also a need for anti-Utopia magnets and stickers that are well-made and catchy. Most shops here in Boystown, like GayMart, carry only magnets with Bush wearing a dunce hat, Bush photoshopped to look like a chimp, etc. These don’t appear to sell very well, but are kept on the shelves because it seems no one knows what to do with them. With so few Deloreans on the road anymore, it’s not like they can just send them back to some distant point where they’d be relevant. If they could, they’d take that very nicely made bank back a year or so ago too, because no one wants to buy that now, if it’s become a spider mausoleum in the window in Boystown.
We’re sure someone out there in marketing and brand management could tell us more about the rise and fall of consumer goods…and how a brand’s selling power evaporates over time. We bet there’s a great article out there somewhere on political candidates and their merchandise sales. If you find it, we’d love to read it. From watching Kathy Griffin, we know merch sales are critical to celebrities…the more tee shirts they sell, the more popular they are, the more people are willing to “vote for them” by buying their CDs, going to their shows, and supporting them in general. We wonder if anyone’s studied the merch sales for candidates and elected officials.
Because if so many people want to give Beatin’ Barack this Christmas, and so few seem to be buying his idols of worship, there could be a very interesting point of study there.
******
UPDATE: You can also get a super-creepy Obama Zombie figure, based on the super-duper-creepy Shephard Fairey “Hope” poster. Get this for people you hate this Christmas, so they know how little you think of them and how much you hate them.
The bearding of America
Job...or no job...there is always a good and perfectly valid reason to run hot shots of Jakey-G.
Here’s something interesting we’re noticing in Boystown, which we don’t think is the latest hipster fad: there are many more young men with beards today than we have ever seen.
Not crazy people beards, either, like the guy who rides the #8 Halsted bus, Bible in hand, shouting, “We have a winner! And the winner is IRVING…IRVIN…ERWIN…EDWINA…” at the top of his lungs until the driver has to pull over and the police ask him to leave. “EDMUND…ERNESTINE…EGLESIA!” Go ahead and try to just sit there playing Tetris on your iPhone while that’s going on. Welcome to Boystown!
It’s been a beard-a-palooza here lately, and not the kind like Katie Holmes, Kelly Preston, or Amy Rule. We’re talking the beards guys (and some unfortunate women) grow. On their faces.
Most corporate jobs discourage men from having beards, though some don’t actually put that in writing (some places, however, do). Instead, in many offices, there’s just peer pressure for men to be clean-shaven and as Ken doll as possible. A lot of service jobs, like in hotels and restaurants, require baby smooth cheeks as well. On their faces.
It’s interesting to us to see so many beards out and about because we wonder how many of these guys are out of work, and have the opportunity for the first time in their lives to go without shaving. At Sidetracks, we notice guys striking up conversations with the bearded, getting shaving tips, comparing beard lines, etc. It’s a bonding experience we see playing out over beers, and perhaps more than a little commiseration.
Not that we eavesdrop, but we totally eavesdrop (and are pretty good at it). Out and about here in Boystown, you still hear jackasses going on and on about condos…and how much they are going to sell their condo for…or how much their next condo is going to cost…or what the condo board said at its last meeting about selling condos and what they will cost. But, now there are a lot of very dark stories being told, about people having to give up their dogs because they can’t afford them. “Yah, I always thought it took a bitter old queen to name a dog Princess, but the look on his face when he had to give that hideous little stinky dog away damn near broke my heart. If I hadn’t just gotten Botox, I would have totally been frowning, it was so sad.”
The beards seem like a rebellion against bad economic times…either it’s the liberation of not working in a company anymore, or it’s maybe reasserting your manhood when you feel so downtrodden and emasculated. Having to give up your dog must be BRUTAL. That feeling of helplessness has to be soul-killing, especially here in Boystown, where people are used to everything being sunshine, lollipops, and bus rides with Lesley Gore.
Our friend Panda thinks the holidays are the cause for the beards. “When it is cold out, people eat. When it is Thanksgiving and Christmas, they eat. When they eat a lot, they get very fat, and if they get very fat, then they grow a beard so no one recognizes them. This is being ingenious. Then, instead of being fat, they are a Bear, and then they actually become skinny again because most Bears are very, very fat and if you are only very fat, then you are a skinny Bear.”
“Is that why you are growing your beard, Panda?”, Joaquin asked him.
“No, I’m doing it because I am still unemployed and don’t have to go shave until I have an interview, so to hell with that mess,” Panda said, though he admitted later it was a combination of the two (“Just don’t write that on the Internet”).
But, like we said, this could also just be the latest Boystown fad. Since we all moved here, we’ve seen the rise and fall of the Fauxhawk…the wearing of women’s skinny emo jeans…the Yassir Arafat scarves guys wore all last summer…and the MiniBar-induced return of suspenders to daily wardrobe. We still think some sort of goofy hat will be the next fad, like bowler hats, so guys can hold green apples in front of their faces and pretend they’re either in a Magritte painting or a GaGa video.
“That is SO GaGa, Brenden.”
“Uh, yah, I know it’s so GaGa, that’s totally why I did it.”
“Love the beard, too.”
“I’m a Recessionista.”
Claire McCaskill debates healthcare bill. "I'm a Senator," she tells astonished crowd.
With her staff distracted answering endless calls from angry constituents in Missouri, Claire McCaskill wandered away from her office yesterday, down several flights of marble stairs, until she found a large room with lots of portraits in it. Transfixed, she stared at the former Senators depicted there, convinced the eyes were following her and the lips were moving, trying to tell her something. Believing she could hear better if she was running around in concentric circles, Claire Bear worked up a sweat until she was interrupted by a band of wayward tourists, who mistook her for some sort of performance artist.
“I’m a Senator,” McCaskill told them. “Really, I am. Nobody believes me, but it’s true. People in Missouri sure are stupid. Are y’all from Missouri?”
The tourists shook their heads “no”, and McCaskill started shaking her head, too, back and forth, forth and back, for the remainder of the conversation.
“The lady who sits outside my door and keeps telling me not to touch stuff or make airplanes out of the papers folks send me says I’m supposed to be debating healthcare or something right now. I’m a master debater, and a cunning linguist too. Ask anyone down in St. Louis, they’ll tell you. But when people start talking about taking over so much of the economy and ruining healthcare so they can fix it, the pudding inside my skull starts hurting, and these pictures start whispering to me to RUN before anyone figures out I don’t belong here. I think I should tweet on Twitter about this, because it is important. I gotta do that before the lady finds me because she keeps saying, “Senator, don’t put that in your mouth, stop tweeting from the bathroom, that’s not a toy, you need to be serious, this is important, pay attention, blah blah blah”. I liked it better last year when all I did was fly around on an airplane serving coffee to Obama and asking people if they wanted more pillows and blankets. That sure was fun.”
The tourists informed McCaskill her office has released statements that say she won’t vote Yes to a Utopiacare bill unless it lowers costs, reduces the deficit, and preserves not only the Muppet sanctuaries of central Ohio but Missouri’s own unicorn forests.
“I like those unicorns, so I am glad I support them. Maybe I got to go now and do work and stuff or that lady will be mad at me and then I won’t get no sandwiches for lunch. Today’s sandwich is the good kind too, so I don’t want to get in trouble. Bye!”, McCaskill said, still shaking her head left to right, right to left, as she wandered back in the general direction of her office. Jane, one of her staff, found her and helped her back to her chair. “Thanks lady, I got confused again.”
